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Comment by jonmrodriguez | Hacker News Reader

Speaking as a vegan: The reason I am vegan is for utilitarian reasons. Neuroscientists agree that there is firm evidence that all animals (NOT PLANTS) are sentient to varying degrees. I believe that in the future it will be possible to quantify exactly how sentient each species is (e.g. a dog is 1/4 of a person or a cow is 1/5 of a person). Furthermore, through technology such as EEG, fMRI, and intravenous monitoring of hormone levels, it will be possible to quantify whether a given species is, on average, happy more than sad. Speaking as a living being, I believe that life is on the whole vastly more positive than negative. The balance only tips for the worse when factors such as slavery and torture come into play, which is why I choose not to consume products produced in factory farms, which are the modern implementation of slavery.

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How would you feel about raising (for example) cattle in a perfect, free range setting—giving them plenty of quality feed, as well as breeding opportunities—and then eventually slaughtering them painlessly in their sleep? So the cow would live what is presumably an excellent cow life, which would then, unbeknownst to it, be cut short. The alternative of course, without the farm, is that the cow would not have existed at all.

From a utilitarian perspective, ISTM such a situation could only be considered a net good for the cow, let alone the people who eat the meat. A good but truncated life has to be better than no life at all. The counter-argument would appear to be one of moral absolutism rather than utilitarianism—that killing a sentient being unnecessarily is simply wrong. Which isn't to say that that argument is necessarily flawed; I'm not sure there's even an argument to be had once you get to the level of disagreement on moral absolutes. But I do think the utilitarian aspect is interesting to consider.

Edit: As an aside, I recognize that the vast majority of farms (ie factory farms) are nothing like the idyllic farm described.

However good their life was before, you're still taking it against their will.

I’m also a vegan. There wasn’t any singular reason that led me to this resolution, but many factors. For instance, I probably wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for modern medicines use of animals. But that’s more of a survival issue than killing an animal because it’s protein is preferable to a plants. To an extent, I realized how little enjoyment I got out of eating meat compared to the suffering animals face. I read of the health benefits of going first vegetarian and ultimately vegan. Why eat cholesterol if I don’t have to eat it?

Having said that, there is often a benefit to plants from human cultivation - but it’s not an absolute benefit. Our love of fruit results in their trees/plants being cared for by humans. Many of the plant products we eat don’t result in the death of the plant. If those plants could speak I think they’d thankful of their caretakers. Sure we’re not planting most of their seeds, but they do have a maintained population.

I wish no animals ever suffered at the hands of humans. This world is full of beauty, and it’s awful that so much of human activity results in life’s death and extinction - including deforestation for crops.

> and it’s awful that so much of human activity results in life’s death and extinction

What you mean is nature not just humans. Life death cycle is natural thing.

World is full of beauty, but it is also full of suffering and pain, large portion of it not having to do anything with humans. Animals can starve in nature, get mutilated etc.

Nature is both sides of the coin, not just the pretty one.

As for what you eat, it’s very hard to scientifically prove what’s healthier for you. There are way too many outside factors that influence that. A lot of plants you buy in a shop are treated with chemicals in unhealthy way. Apple, carrots, tomatoes are all treated to ripe when they need to cos they are usually harvested before fully ripe.

And third thing, just cos you don’t need something doesn’t mean humans won’t do it, that’s, once again, in our nature.

It's so easy to convince ourselves that eating meat is completely fine. Maybe it wouldn't be that easy if every time you wanted to eat meat you had to go yourself to the slaughterhouse and see the horrors caused by those you pay to.

Second, is proven that growing vegetables is more sustainable that growing meat.

Typical Appeal to emotion nonsense

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion

"Appeal to emotion or argumentum ad passiones is a logical fallacy characterized by the manipulation of the recipient's emotions in order to win an argument, especially in the absence of factual evidence."

That you don't want to see it doesn't mean there is not factual evidence. Do you want evidence? Start caring about looking for it. You can start here [1].

[1] H.O.P.E. documentary: https://youtu.be/pDg7tlEJD64

And you repeat the same logical fallacy by linking that silly documentary HOPE

and no, i have zero problem to pay a visit to a slaughterhouse each time i want to eat a juicy steak.

Without making a claim against veganism/vegetarianism, you do realize that people have been killing their own animals and eating them for many years. I'd wager most of the people who work in factory farms still eat meat. You don't find a huge proportion of butchers going vegetarian/vegan. I don't think that evidence supports that seeing how your food is killed has any impact on most adults, although it can be traumatic for children. The meet your meat campaign was largely ineffective, whereas making vegetarianism/veganism easy to do has shown actual upticks in vegetarianism that seem to be self fulfilling cycles. People aren't generally monsters, but that doesn't mean they want to sacrifice if they don't have to. Make a product that competes with meat on price, taste, and texture and I think most people will choose the vegetarian option unless there's significant social pressure not to.

Personally, I'm not directly against the small farmer nor the local butchery. But I'm shocked by what the big meat industry is doing. And I didn't have a clue until when I woke up recently.

The bigger problem is that eating meat, even if from small butchers, helps promoting meat consumption which, in turns, helps big industry continue making big money out of animal abuse and at the expense of everybody's natural environment.

Here you have what some former butchers have to say: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDg7tlEJD64&t=4213

I slaughtered my own chicken when i was a kid cos i grew up partially in a village.

Based on the largest study currently available[0], there does not seem to be any evidence supporting a vegan or vegetarian diet having any protective effect on all cause mortality. There's a lot of pseudoscience in the health and wellness community so I would remain skeptical when reading about any alleged health benefits of a particular diet.

[0]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312055008_Vegetaria...

Literature supporting a whole foods, plant based diet has already been documented and discussed in the book “How not to die.”

You have ONE study, and a cohort one at that.

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