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Comment by CynicusRex | Hacker News Reader

Even if only 1% of Seaspiracy is true, or if the numbers are off by 99%, the fact remains that we can live perfectly healthily without animal based foodstuff. The only moral and simplest solution is for privileged Westerners to go vegan.

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Morality is relative; please don't inflict yours on others. Animal consumption can be made sustainable. The main offenders are beef, lamb, and mutton, and their associated dairy[1]. Cutting just those out would put us back in the ballpark of responsible agriculture. Between pork, poultry, fish & other aquatics, and insects, there's room for sustainable meat farming.

[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food

>Morality is relative, please don't inflict yours on others.

Suffering is not relative.

“It just isn't possible to mass produce meat without torturing animals. In fact, raising animals specifically for consumption, i.e., “humane slaughter” is an oxymoron.” —https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cynic.html

I'm sympathetic to your point of view - but suffering must be relative or you would be concerned about the worms in a construction site or the bacteria you kill with bleach. There must be a spectrum of consciousness and perhaps there is a line where suffering begins, and is that not anything but relative?

So why would you inflict your morality on others just because they belong to another species? With the impact of consumption by privileged people hitting the poorest and most vulnerable people the hardest, why would you inflict harm on those people by using morals that don’t help?

There’s always a “can be” for everything. The question is whether you’re willing to take personal responsibility in doing something while you can or not.

> So why would you inflict your morality on others just because they belong to another species?

I don't. I'm indifferent to any sort of value judgment in the matter. I simply acknowledge and accept that my biology requires the consumption of nutrients. Circle of life, and all that.

Organisms are the only sufficient source of nutrients I have access to. Unless you're here to enlighten me about how to cook rocks, I don't know what you're on about.

Cook rocks? With that sort of wording, I presume that you’re not aware of medicines or supplements or fortified foods...all of which are routinely consumed by many people around the world and most of which come from different sources, including synthetic sources or through bacterial synthesis.

> The only moral and simplest solution is for privileged Westerners to go vegan.

Or just have less kids, which they are pretty much doing right now without any effort and pretense of morality.

Hahahaha, yeah, simplest solution is for everyone to go vegan. Totally reasonable and achievable.

If the logistics of worldwide animal concentration camps is achievable, then simply not doing that is a piece of cake.

I don't think it's achievable, most people would rather not inconvenience themselves, but why is not a reasonable thing to consider? It's stupidly easy to be vegan in a first world country.

It's easy even in underdeveloped countries. For example, Ethiopian cuisine is quite vegan friendly.

> privileged Westerners

What about the folks that are poor? Those are the biggest group, and it's a little tone-deaf to call them privileged just because they were born in a place that contains folks that got rich.

I think they meant "those people who are Westerners who are also privileged" and not "all Westerners, who are all privileged".

If it's just the privileged few that go vegan, how would it be a solution to anything at all? That's why I assumed this person meant everyone.

There's a huge misconception that eating vegan is expensive. Vegan diet staples are dirt cheap. Legumes are absurdly inexpensive, especially when compared with meat. If governments ever get around to closing the loophole of externalizing costs (for instance, through a carbon tax), then the difference would grow even wider.

When you're poor, changing a habit in such a major way involves a ton of willpower. It's hard to have that willpower when there's a million things that absolutely must be solved (a lot of them involving money). Money is what buys you the ability to have luxuries such as making nonessential dietary changes.

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