The great lie of capitalism is pushing a theory of personal responsibility rather than legislating these problems away.
There are so many elements of my life that cause harm to other beings that addressing the harm could be a full time job.
Killing rodents, mosquitos, and ants is something most people will do without a second thought. I've sprayed a wasp nest with wasp killer and one writhed on the ground for 5 minutes and I felt awful about it, but there is practically a whole aisle of it at the local hardware store.
How many insects do you think have been harmed by industrial pesticides used in growing grains? What type of animal harm do you think pet ownership brings? How many wild birds do you think are killed in how many different ways? How many animals do you think are hit with cars? What do you think the effect the shipping industry has on sea life? What about trash? What about the smog? What about the chemicals dumped into the environment that are used to produce the hardware we are communicating with?
How much animal testing has been done by scientists on all types of animals to have what we have today?
My desire to pay as little as possible for coffee means the barista can't afford a home and likely will have their body harmed by the stress of not having enough money to operate in today's society. We send manufacturing off to poor countries were pollutants more directly harm their citizens than ours.
The wikipedia article states that poultry sex can be determined before hatching and that European countries have legislated that culling must stop, so it sounds like we are able to make progress. "Beyond" shows there is at least research going into lab grown/cruelty free meats.
Do I have a moral obligation to go live next to a pond feeding on what I can forage while living in a dwelling I built with my own hands or is it satisfying enough that I vote progressive and hope to make progress over time by regulating the more atrocious of our actions.
FWIW, I have tried vegetarianism and I did not enjoy it at all. I found it greatly limited my food choices. It felt ascetic and I felt miserable. So while it is easy for you, I did not find it easy.
I mean, I have low expectations (on HN) for anything involving vegetarians and vegans, but you've gone lower.
I'm not sure the rest could be considered an "attack."
If being vegetarian feels righteous, that's great, and I am happy for anyone who feels good about restricting their diet for ethical reasons. The rest of my post is stating that I don't think (ethical) vegetarians are better people, and the corollary, that I am not a bad person because I choose to spend my ethical attention on things other than avoiding chicken. There is clearly no shortage of ethical endeavors.
I am not even an ideological enemy. The post I was originally responding to was somebody who successfully made a website showcasing an emotional appeal to the amount of animal consumption in the US. I added the information of an emotional intensifier (male chicks getting macerated en masse) as something that would intensify the web page and something that causes me (someone who doesn't have a lot of qualms about meat consumption and its consequences) discomfort and cognitive dissonance.
When it's you vs me, that guarantees there will be conflict. When it's us vs the problem, there is a chance.
> You can "handle that" by no longer eating meat. It's that easy.
What do you think would have happened if the person had instead said "What prevents you from giving up eating chicken?"
Alternatively, what do you think would have happened if this person had instead said: "I saw something like that and was motivated enough to give giving up meat a go, I found it much easier than expected and haven't regretted my decision for two years." Same content, wildly different level of righteousness, conviction, and condescension.
> How much animal testing has been done by scientists on all types of animals to have what we have today?
Nothing compared to what we are doing to meat animals. We make these animals to eat like a machine. All these are to hide your guilt.
>>There are so many elements of my life that cause harm to other beings that addressing the harm could be a full time job.
The principles of a free society with private-property/contract rights do NOT exclude the right of the collective to prohibit actions that generate negative externalities, including pollution of the commons and depletion of scarce natural resources.
Like most anti-capitalist arguments, yours is based on ridiculous caricatures of what you're railing against.
A "natural world" argument will always be weak. The natural world also involves rape, infanticide, and a general lack of morality. A "feature" of humans is that we can reason about, assign morality to, and ultimately move beyond some things that occur in the natural world.
I would hope we are intelligent enough to avoid that. Meat eating is contributing to both.
And there's a lot of other things besides cow farts contributing to global warming, which can have a much bigger effect for much less effort than making the world vegetarian.
We can just cut out the middle man (cow)
It's pricier, but it's much higher quality and skips the industrial treatment of animals.
Likewise eating vegetarian is simple but to many, not easy.
Giving up cheese would be hard.
Then I realized I'd rather be a bad person than a miserable person; that it was wrong, but I'd do it anyway. This is what you're up against -- the sad but brutal reality of apathy and willful disregard.
Mea culpa.
However, if you take a meat centered dish and just remove the meat, or throw in a meat-like substitute (beyond burgers more than something like tofu or seitan), then yeah, it’s not going to be great. Vegetarian and vegan recipes are often really good precisely because they don’t attempt replace meat with anything. Instead I think they rely more on spice and flavor combinations.
You’re not going to find a replacement for a killer dry-aged ny strip steak that’s grilled to perfection. But you might find a fantastic curry, kimchi stew, roasted pepper, or black bean burger recipe that help to broaden your tastes and get comfortable eating less meat.
I find that really shortsighted. Slavery isn't bad because we as a society have decided it so. It always has been bad.