Hacker News Reader

Comment by ilrwbwrkhv | Hacker News Reader

We will look back with astonishment at the sheer madness of killing animals and eating them.

There is not a single area in food production that future us won't look back with astonishment at the sheer madness. The amount of destruction and suffering that regular farming does with pesticides, herbicide, fertilizers, deforestation, water and air pollution is on a planet scale. It insane how much destruction we do just so a few people has the luxury to eat a few culturally selected fresh vegetables year round while still living in cities (and also throwing away most of the food). Most of the worlds biodiversity in insects are gone, as well as most of the world fresh water supplies and forests. Complete oceans, like the Baltic ocean, have been turned into a death trap for animals as a result of fertilizers, slowly killing fish and other animals through suffocation or starvation.

Here is hope that the future realize that the only ethical way to produce food is through methods that neither require land, fertilizers or fresh water. This is also the only way forward if the worlds populations will continue to increase.

Doesn't it make you want to go back in time to the moment that humans invented the concept of eating animal flesh and putting a stop to it?

No. Because our brains would never have evolved to their current state without meat, and the early animal meat was probably scavenged not hunted. At least wait until agriculture developed to start the ethical debate.

Humans didn't "invent" the concept of eating other animals. We evolved to do so, just like all the other carnivores & omnivores

As another poster has already said, becoming predators was an absolutely necessary stage for humans to become as intelligent as they are now, so we cannot regret it or wish that it has not happened.

Even many of the people who abhor the most to see the death of other animals cannot abstain to admire the beauty of the actions of top predators like tigers/jaguars or octopuses.

Nevertheless, now we are approaching quickly the moment when killing other animals in order to use their body for food or for producing various useful substances is no longer needed, so we should stop this as soon as it becomes possible.

Unfortunately we still need some technological developments for this to become feasible everywhere.

I would like to be completely vegan, but for now there still exist 2 food ingredients of animal origin that I consume, because any equivalent vegan alternatives for them are much more expensive than I can afford.

However, the bulk of the food, which provides most of the energy, can already be restricted to non-animal origins, for everyone, everywhere.

No, we definitely won't.

But we did finally realize that other races aren't inferior. And that women are equals. So I have hope, that some day we would stop taking their lives just for having a good time. Killing them isn't essential for our survival, or even health.

Who are you speaking on behalf of when you say "our"?

The species, obviously

Not to be overly argumentative, but what a small world view you seem to have. The world certainly doesn't realize that other races aren't inferior and that women are equals. Sorry =[

Why not? We'll move on to better things and eating corpses will be just gross.

It would be too gross even today for many people if there weren't any people with stronger stomachs around to prepare and partition corpses for them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com