this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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And just like the real world, as annoying as vegans are, they ultimately are ideologically right
about what?
The meat industry overall is bad for everyone, the amount of food it requires to feed the meat we eat is extremely wasteful. From an economic standpoint, meat is "bad", let alone the lobbying done by the meat industry.
Eating meat increases the chances of heart disease. Some protein is good, but we eat way too much. From a public health standpoint, meat is "bad"
In general, it's good to lessen harm. Factory slaughtering living things that grew up in what's effectively a prison is not lessening harm.
But, I do like the taste of meat unfortunately. Ill splurge on lab grown meat when it becomes available, but even though I'm a hypocrite for liking the taste of meat doesn't mean vegans are wrong because they're annoying to deal with
a lot of what we give livestock are parts of plants that people can't or won't eat. that's the opposite of wasteful.
Parts of plans that were specifically grown for livestock that we won’t eat, that is. At least a big part.
i'm talking about waste product from our crops, like cottonseed from the textile industry or soymeal leftover from making soybean oil or silage.
you can't know that. consequentialist ethics run into this all the time: you can't actually know what the future holds, and it may be that without the current agricultural system, even more harm would have been done.
I see your argument that thinking how a pig in a meat factory feels is just speculation, but there is a point where we have to think about the future and speculate what could be and how possible it is. If we have better options now, and, maybe not as a single human, but collectively can act to stop this harm with a great possibility, I think it's worth it to speculate. I don't no where you draw this line, but it is beyond mine, so I am willing to speculate that this is the better way.
that's not what i'm saying here. i'm saying that they could be experiencing an immense amount of suffering, but we can't know if that is saving the world from an even greater suffering sometime in the future.
And I would say that I am ready to speculate, that stopping this suffering does not conclude to more.
you can't really know, though. the model you presented for right behavior precludes you from ever knowing if you're doing the right thing.
Eh... both are questionable. Morally superior, maybe, but definitely not right.
Could you explain the difference?
Both aren't really sustainable. Open source doesn't pay live-able wages without some kind of proprietary component and going full vegan is very detrimental to the health and sometimes even the cause itself. I'm not a dictionary and english isn't my first language, but in my understanding, the "right" thing should at least be viable, without taking compromises from the other side.
To clarify, I'm not saying that open-source and veganism are bad or we shouldn't aim towards those. What I'm saying is that, while half-opensource like redhat and half-veganism (on supplements) is viable, so is all-meat diet and all-proprietary software, but not going full RMS opensource-only and getting rid of all animal-based products without causing even more damage to the ecosystem with the alternatives. Maybe we're missing some puzzle pieces (like properly implemented communism) or the end-goal is a bit off, or, maybe, going half-way is actually the "right" thing all along.