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Comment by inportb | Hacker News Reader

You hate the cruelty of farming animals for food, but you support the cruelty of farming vegetables for food

Probably because they think one is worse than the other. I think flipping somebody off and hitting them in the face is both not very nice, but I think one of them is much more impolite. Moral judgements come in degrees. Is this novel information for you?

That said, maybe they're also trying to minimise the impact of the plant based foods they eat? I'm sure you don't, why go halfsies and all, so that thought probably never crossed your mind.

You believe that eating animals is morally wrong, but you want to pretend that you're eating animals, at the expense of non-animals?

No, they like the taste. They're not pretending to eat meat. People who drink diet coke don't pretend to drink non-diet coke. They're drinking another coke flavored beverage.

Your parent comment apparently thinks farmed animals don’t eat plants too

I find it fascinating how triggered people get, when they hear people making a personal choice out of conviction. Almost as if they are being attacked on their own choices, which they are not.

I suppose you think animals exist out of thin air, as opposed to the reality of their needing more plant-based calories, for the calories they provide you, than what you’d need if you cut out the middleman.

The reality is that plants don't exist out of thin air either. There's a cute observation that everything that a plant could want (water, carbon, nitrogen, etc) all come from the air. But a closer examination reveals that it's a cycle. Animals, fungi, and bacteria are part of that cycle. Minerals from the ground are required also. Everyone is a middleman. Who would you cut out?

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