Comment by ianai | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ianai | Hacker News Reader

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Vegan here, too. It’s totally duh-level obvious that nonhumans are plenty smart to feel emotions that we shouldn’t inflict.

I don’t have such optimism towards people. Look at how poorly we treat each other. If we actually had some strong empathetic tendencies as a species we wouldn’t kill each other. There are many species which don’t. Instead I’ve got a coworker who’s gladly told me about killing his cows calves in front of their mothers and all manner of other things. “Because I’m a vegan.” And he revels in those mother cows suffering. Something like around 1/100 of humans (or males?-googled) are psychopaths.

I don’t worry about a super intelligence spawning from AI and wiping out humanity. At best that’s just projection. I figure a super intellect is equally or more likely to be benevolent since nonzero sum games require cooperation (or something like this). If that’s wrong then at least I suspect a super intelligence would see cooperation as greater than decimation.

I'm sorry to hear you have to work with such a person. Most probably a psychopath and sadist.

Who takes joy in killing babies in front of their mothers? And then gloating about it. Only a seriously effed up mind.

What's the solution? Report to HR?

I wonder if a psychopaths would make better soldiers. I always thought that people are just different and their path (i.e serial climinal or great soldier or good manager) depends on the environment.

That being said slaughtering cows doesn't seem that bad. After all there are such jobs at slaugherhouses. Perhaps he was just teasing you making it more dramatic.

Several third person verified.

Yeah no people like you say that yet shelter children from seeing graphic images of where meat comes from. It’s it ain’t so bad then you’d think there would be more pride in it.

But animal cruelty is actually one of the weaker arguments for becoming vegan because it requires, as I said earlier, an a-ha realization that animals are aware, intelligent, feel pain and sadness, deserve more from us as the stewards of this world.

Like people can high five over loving bacon and what have you, but honestly the eating habits of most people are deplorable and selfish and they can numbly read about ecological devastation caused by industrialized animal farming and the rampant use of antibiotics which in turn is creating super bacteria immune to it (let us not forget covid came from a meat market as well as the seasonal avian and bovine “flus” which manifest constantly).. you guys can cry in carnivore all you want but the worst thing of the situation is that eating meat or drinking dairy is not necessary: it is all done for pleasure. It’s just pathetic that people can look at all that and reply “.. but cheese”.

>> Yeah no people like you say that yet shelter children from seeing graphic images of where meat comes from.

I don't buy that. People are sensitive to certain images. I can't stand to dental surgery videos either and definitely I don't think children would get any benefit from watching such material but that doesn't make dental surgery something people shouldn't do.

That being said as a child I've been exposed to animal slaugther on farms and I still eat beef, chicken and pork(very, very rarely). I don't think seeing how the animals are killed makes you vegan.

I don't enjoy watching animals being killed though but we are mortals and animals are mortals too so in the end it makes little difference if we kill or do not kill animals. We have the same end destination. I think this makes us less sensitive to killing animals and even our own. The difference between us and the animals is that they lack enough intelligence to produce anything meaningful(i.e technology, innovation etc) during their lifespan thus the reason why their scope in life is to become good food for us.

We should minimise the pain inflicted upon animals and create better living conditions. It's good for animals and it's good for the consumers as well. Legislation already exists in Europe and will only get stronger.

>> The difference between us and the animals is that they lack enough intelligence to produce anything meaningful(i.e technology, innovation etc) during their lifespan thus the reason why their scope in life is to become good food for us.

Same logic can be applied to children until a certain age, disabled, sick, old and/or mentally handicapped people. Kettle is easy to take advantage of, it's convenient and almost everything they "produce" can be sold (milk, meat, skin). Not showing enough compassion for sentient beings while having the ability and options to not have them as "a tasty meal" makes you a bad person in that regard. You can be social worker, a teacher, doctor or overall caring person, and have other great character traits, because nothing has to be black and white. Having superior intelligence and using that as an argument to justify exploitation of other living beings is a very sad way to look at all of this in my eyes.

I don't think you're a bad person.

> psychopaths would make better soldiers

No, not at all.

Soldiers work as part of a team, which is part of a larger team. You can't count on a psychopath to care about the team or the larger organization.

What (should) motivate a solider to kill is the same emotion as a sheep dog protecting the flock, or a mother bear protecting her cubs.

What motivates a psychopath to kill is harder to say, but it is not something which is generally recognized as morally good.

Makes sense. I was thinking being less emotional a psychopath could coupe better with dire situations.

I'm not so sure about "better soldiers", but they'll probably make very iconic war criminals if drafted into the military. the co-worker that revels in murdering babies in front of mothers will surely make headlines.

I wouldn't think these war-criminals come out of nowhere. they probably get their head start in torturing neighbourhood cats, gloating about how much they love meat and don't care about the torture, and how they personally love to bash heads in[1] and murder children in front of mothers.

[1] https://theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/19/millions-of-...

The future is vegan. While most people are still refusing it I can see the cultural attitudes changing. Your coworker is a dink for sure but most other people are just going with the flow or are misinformed. For every smirking edgelord there are loads of people who just aren’t ready to change because of nostalgia and weakness rather than malice.

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