Quote from: Ásgeirr on July 06, 2018, 11:05:19 AM

Quote from: Verbatim on July 05, 2018, 11:35:17 PM

Quote from: Ásgeirr on July 05, 2018, 09:30:38 PM

That guide really underestimates how bad vegan food tastes like.

i think you're overestimating how much it matters

vegan food could taste like literal, actual shit, and i wouldn't stop being a vegan or being an advocate

it helps that it actually doesn't taste that bad, though

For you.

Do you think being misinformed is why more people arent vegan?

Gonna go out on a limb here and say no. I'd imagine that many people are aware of what this might mean for the treatment of animals but continue eating meat because it's tasty, because switching to vegan can take a lot of effort and be more expensive and because they're just used to it.

Pretty much. Theres an objective ethical and moral high ground but youll need more than that when the average person isnt in direct contact with the animal product industry.

Quote from: Verbatim on July 06, 2018, 04:19:14 AM

Quote from: FatherlyNick on July 06, 2018, 03:56:38 AM

Is free-range farming a cow for milk / cheese okay?

nope, because that cow's milk is still not really for you to consume, and the cow itself still does not exist for you to exploit, even if you treat it as nicely as possible

i'd have to concede that it's much less shitty to do it that way (or at least, the idea of it is), but it's still highly unnecessary

how do you feel about free range chickens for eggs?

i feel like "free range" in general is a meme used to obfuscate what actually goes on, just to reassure people and make them feel like they're not actually doing anything unethical

good article on the subject that will be disregarded as biased and non-factual

Quote from: Eli on July 06, 2018, 06:06:40 AM

Quote from: Verbatim on July 06, 2018, 04:19:14 AM

Quote from: FatherlyNick on July 06, 2018, 03:56:38 AM

Is free-range farming a cow for milk / cheese okay?

nope, because that cow's milk is still not really for you to consume, and the cow itself still does not exist for you to exploit, even if you treat it as nicely as possible

i'd have to concede that it's much less shitty to do it that way (or at least, the idea of it is), but it's still highly unnecessary

how do you feel about free range chickens for eggs?

i feel like "free range" in general is a meme used to obfuscate what actually goes on, just to reassure people and make them feel like they're not actually doing anything unethical

good article on the subject that will be disregarded as biased and non-factual

okay then how do you feel about farmers that raise chickens like any other pet and sell the eggs

That doesn't seem to be very logically consistent.

sure it is

have i not said numerous times that i'd press a button that ends all life for the sake of ending all suffering before

there's no logical inconsistency here, these animals have no chance of leading any kind of purposeful life

The animals are there. They're alive and well regardless of whether they were bred to be a certain them. Killing millions of them off doesn't seem very humane or fair especially when they can lead pretty normal and "fulfilling" lives by the standards of animals like them.

it's more than humane—it would be the most heroic thing possible to do

describing these animals as alive is fair, but calling them "well" just shows a lack of education on the subject

please describe what is "fulfilling" to a cow for me, i need to hear a good joke

There's very few pets would be able to survive in the wild either, yet I doubt you advocate for a genocide of dogs, rabbits, birds, horses and so on for that reason.

i mean, i don't think that's a horrible idea either

a yearning for extinction has been a cornerstone of my general philosophy for a very long time—there is nothing more merciful than closing the book on life entirely, and i'm unaware of a better solution

while also letting their "materials" go to waste even though they could ease the suffering of heaps of poor and hungry people.

if this is what you think i'd want to happen, then you haven't been paying attention (for the past two or three years)

dead animals that are dead should probably be put to good use, yes

veganism is more about activism than it is about dietary choice—if everyone suddenly became a vegan, the next moral step would be to consume all the animal products that have already been made so that it doesn't go to waste, but only under the auspices that no more of it ever gets produced again

How do you feel about hunting in order to control the population? How about killing off and eating invasive species that are destroying the environment such as Florida's lionfish?

i've shifted my thoughts on this frequently, but i've come to the conclusion (i think) that population control is a fair cause for that sort of thing—but there are other (perhaps better) solutions, such as reintroduction, because the only reason we need to do such things in the first place is because of overhunting

the reason you might have a deer problem, for example, is because we hunted too many wolves—whose ecological function is to keep deer in check—so of course the deer population is going to rise

reintroducing more wolves into the wilderness would solve the issue, but i won't sit here and tell you that a deer being mauled to death by a wolf is a whole lot better than being shot by a human—it's a pretty fucked up game we have to play, when you think about it

that said, i'm not sure what preys on lionfish—sharks, maybe? not sure how that works

Verbatim never has any real solution apart from kill everybody and everything.

mainly because there is no other solution

You're ignoring that there is no magical button though.

It's nothing that couldn't be invented.

The logical inconsistency seems to lie in you basing all of this on respect for agency and an aversion of suffering, yet you seem to be perfectly fine with imposing (or ignoring) suffering and violating and killing untold amounts of animals because you're the superior creature who gets to decide how they're treated.

Of course—do you not think parents should have some degree of control over their children's behavior? Sometimes you have to override someone's agency for the greater good. Again, there is no inconsistency here. I'm not expressing anything I haven't expressed for years upon years.

Life is bad because it comes with suffering. You can reduce the suffering of billions of creatures by taking some control of their agency. But doing so and not respecting them is bad from a moral point of view. Since you're telling me they can't live a purposeful life (something you're deciding for that animal) you advocate killing them all which not only causes suffering but also violates their autonomy in the most significant way and goes directly against their deepest and most fundamental desire.

Their deepest and most fundamental desire is to copulate and reproduce, not to live. No animal wants to "live." They just don't want to die. They don't understand why they don't want to die (or why they'd be better off dead). They're just running a primitive biological script that tells them that dying is bad, survival is good. For what reason? There is no reason. So, we could pointlessly maintain their pitiful, pointless, joyless existences to make ourselves feel moral, but the reality is that most factory-bred animals wouldn't well appreciate it. A lot of them live in squalor, are missing body parts, are severely overweight, or have various other debilitating conditions. They may not want to die, but they certainly don't want to suffer, either. But they are suffering. And you want to maintain it for some reason, with bizarre pathos-based reasoning.

I'm also puzzled by what you imagine a purposeful life would be like for an animal.

That's what I'm asking you. So are you retracting this silly statement you made?

"Killing millions of them off doesn't seem very humane or fair especially when they can lead pretty normal and 'fulfilling' lives by the standards of animals like them."

There is no fulfilled life without purpose.

So what do we do with the ones that live now? Set them free, something which will likely cause more suffering than just treating them properly for the rest of their lives? Kill off healthy animals with years left to live, something which will violate them more gravely than anything else? Seems like no matter the choice, you're going against a core aspect of your philosophy.

But I'm not. A core aspect of my philosophy is that we're all better off dead. On a different timeline, I might have been a mad scientist working to create a doomsday button.

"Healthy animals with years left to live" to do WHAT, exactly? And they aren't healthy, by the way. Try doing some research. Hell, you don't even need research. Look up any factory farm, take a cursory glance at the animals and the conditions they're "living" in, and then think really hard about what a ridiculous statement you just made.

I guess that logical inconsistency I see is that you advocate killing them all (which violates, disrespects and harms the animals and their agency/autonomy)

No it doesn't.

because you think they can't have any sort of purposeful life anyways (which is kind of your own speciest argument where we get to do whatever we want and treat these creatures in any way because we're superior and get to decide what's worthwhile or right/wrong for them).

We're not the ones deciding what's right or wrong for them. You can't even decide that for yourself, because morality is objective. It's not a whim-based decision, it's a responsibility based on raw logic.

Reality sucks, therefore let's get the fuck out of here. Basic stuff.

It's not a meaningful example speciesism, because I'm trying to save the animals by delivering them from the shittiest world imaginable. If anything, that's speciesist against humans, because we'd still be here.

Otherwise, parenting children should be considered ageism to you now. Not only is it ageism, it is a meaningful example of ageism. Children should be able to run free with no guidance whatsoever, is what you're basically trying to say.

Killing them violates their autonomy and puts you in a position of superiority enforcing your views on the animal. Setting them free will cause mayhem and enormous amounts of pain, fear and suffering for millions of creatures. Perhaps letting them live on in humane conditions and continue being milked/shaved is both less of an invasion of their agency and overall causes them a lower amount of suffering.

Yes, yes, perhaps delaying the inevitable makes us look more moral without actually being so. Yes, yes. Quite.

Don't put them out of their misery now. Wait until after they've suffered intensely for a few more years in an utterly pointless, unfulfilling, and unhappy existence. Yes, very rational. Very fair. Very humane.

     I'm surprised that nobody brought this up yet, but veganism is not a perfect solution. Veganism saves animals at the cost of killing plants. Well, so what is the problem with this? The problem is that we showing preference for animals over plants. Reason why it`s acceptable is that plants are harder to extinquish than animals and we extinquished quite a lot of animals in the past, but that doesn`t mean that plants are impossible to extinquish and world is not set in stone. There might come time when we have to kill animals in order to save plants, which brings me to second point:

 Being vegan or not being vegan is fine as long as you don`t extinquish either animals or plants.

 We just happen to live in time when animals are closer to dying than plants.

Quote from: MarKhan on July 07, 2018, 01:23:31 PM

     I'm surprised that nobody brought this up yet, but veganism is not a perfect solution. Veganism saves animals at the cost of killing plants. Well, so what is the problem with this? The problem is that we showing preference for animals over plants. Reason why it`s acceptable is that plants are harder to extinquish than animals and we extinquished quite a lot of animals in the past, but that doesn`t mean that plants are impossible to extinquish and world is not set in stone. There might come time when we have to kill animals in order to save plants, which brings me to second point:

 Being vegan or not being vegan is fine as long as you don`t extinquish either animals or plants.

 We just happen to live in time when animals are closer to dying than plants.

How the hell are we gonna extinguish plants we literally grow them. Cows, pigs, and chickens are also nowhere near extinction.

Oh, thats not that hard if there will be much much more animals. In fact, some forests on our planet are already gone due to people cutting them to gain money for example and build there some stuff on it`s place.

It depends on what you define as killing off everything. If by that we mean to kill of every single person, animal or plant, we can just continuosly nuke same place over and over again until our nukes reach magnetic core of Earth and disrupt it, which cause magnetic field of Earth to dissapear and everything to die from radiation sooner or later, well almost everything. Some things will survive and adapt to new conditions. It`s however, a temporary solution, it probably be enough to put our planet down long enough until Sun explode or whatever happens to it.

Well, we might create a black hole, but it`s unreliable solution either, because no one knows how it works. I can only say that living or being in it, if it`s possible, will be different from your or any other human definition of word "living" or "being" so that accomplishes goal of destroying everything living.

Nukes/black holes are a little too violent and scary for my liking—my ideal apocalypse is quiet, peaceful, painless.

I see another logic inconsistency - you are proposing us veganism, main purpose of which is to save animals and the next thing you say is that it`s better to kill everything. Well, then I really don`t see any other reason for this thread to exist outside of "the sake of argument", "simulation purposes", where you try to attain higher moral ground over people who aren`t vegans and thats basically a hypocrisy.

I don't see how it's a hypocrisy, if you could explain that for me.

While I do believe that life is better off not existing, I still have to come to terms with the fact it does exist.

The best thing about life is that it is possible to change it for the better. So, while I'd prefer life not to exist at all, it can't be helped—the next best thing for me to try to do, then, is to do my part in spreading the word about all the things I believe will make the world a better place to live in.

Right now, I just have two rules—1.) Don't have kids, and 2.) Go vegan. Everything else is fairly self-explanatory. Be honest, treat people how you wanna be treated, obey the laws of your country, etc.

It's not hypocrisy, it's pragmatism. I realize I'm not going to get what I want out of this life, so I work with what I have.