• nutbutterOP
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    2 days ago

    A gynaecologist “treats” the patient, benefitting the patient.

    Forcibly impregnating someone is also called rape.

      • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 day ago

        Artificial insemination without consent is rape. Natural insemination without consent is rape.

        Cows cannot give consent to humans. No animal can. Hell, even if we discovered another human-like species but couldn’t have meaningful communication with them, it’d still be rape.

        • remon@ani.social
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          You can get consent from the cows owner. Definitely don’t inseminate some else’s cow without asking.

          • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            Consent from the owner?

            And what if chattel slavery still existed? Would you be free to rape a black woman if her “owner” said yes?

                • remon@ani.social
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                  Same reason anything subjective “is” wrong, because it feels wrong. Just my opinion.

                  • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    1 day ago

                    Something that might feel wrong to you might feel good for someone else.

                    Is it right for a serial killer to kill humans because they get enjoyment out of it?

              • lalo
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                If owning humans were ok, nothing else would be stopping you from going into your slaves?

                • remon@ani.social
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                  I can’t really answer that because I’m apparently having different moral values in this hypothetical scenario.

                  • lalo
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                    So the only thing stopping you from raping your own slaves would be that you think owning humans is wrong. Otherwise you would be ok with raping your own slaves, is that correct?

      • _tasten_tiger@feddit.org
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        2 days ago

        If the recipient asked for it and the donor is giving it out of free will with the explicit intention then yes it is a medical treatment.

        • ryannathans@aussie.zone
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          Ah yes so when I give my dog antibiotics for an infection against his will it’s definitely not medical treatment

        • remon@ani.social
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          With humans yes, but in the case of non-human animals these decisions are up to the owner.

          edit: clarification for the ultra-dense.

            • Arcadeep@lemmy.world
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              The differentiation “human” is artificial and made up…

              Uh… So the differentiation between ‘cow’ and ‘chicken’ is also artificial and made up, as well as the differentiation between ‘rock’ and ‘jetplane.’

              What’s your point?

            • stickly@lemmy.world
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              The differentiation “human” is artificial and made up…

              You share 25% of your DNA with a tree, is it slavery to own four apple trees?

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          If the recipient asked for it and the donor is giving it out of free will

          …and it’s medically indicated

      • furry toaster@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 days ago

        it is not a needed treatment for the health and well being of the cow, it is a unecessary treatment forced upon the animal

          • Baŝto
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            2 days ago

            a) we don’t b) they can happily fuck on their own, it just makes it harder to exploit them for their body fluids. Nobody cares about the calves, they are just needed for the mothers to lactate

            • EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com
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              Wouldn’t it make more sense to simply induce lactation than go through the whole rigmarole of artificial insemination and then having to dispose of the unwanted calves?

              • Apparently not, otherwise that’s what farmers would do. Milk production is not an on-off thing either. There is milk for newborns (colostrum) for older babies, there is less fatty and more fatty milk, milk production is a wondrous thing that is regulated by the babies saliva, the moms hormones, how much milk got eaten, how the baby looks even. You can be breastfeeding two kids, if you consistently feed breast A to kid A and breast B to kid B the milk they produce will be different!

                And that’s what the farmer is taking away from the mom. Using prolactin to induce milk production is also very error prone and not reliable. At least in humans afaik but I don’t see why it should be that different for cows.

          • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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            You can find cows that fuck, no need to insert yourself into the reproductive cycle of cows.

        • Virtvirt588@lemmy.world
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          Exactly, this is basically finding excuses to justify these actions. A treatment treats a condition, yet what does this treat - an ego of an person apparently.

      • GreatWhite_Shark_EarthAndBeingsRightsPerson@piefed.social
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        2 days ago

        It is rape!

        Remember there have been at least one-doctor that did this to women, not in his offices to become pregnant (warning, SP?). A famous case was a doctor that raped/impregnanted (SP?) a lot of women looking to become mothers, with his own sperm. The obvious results/proof came after birth,

          • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            Arguing with vegans is like arguing with antivaxxers, they are positions based on emotions and they have their own version of reality they use to reinforce their believes. They often claim they have studies to back up their claims but the most shallow dive shows them to be bullshit.

            It’s literally evident as they try to reframe this as rape. Their need to lean on rhetoric shows they have a strong basis for their believes.

            • lalo
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              What do we call a sexual act with a being that did not consent?

              Does it matter if the being is human? And what if the being is a neanderthal?

              Or say we find a lady on the street and DNA test her, find out she’s technically not human. What would we call sexually acting upon her without her consent?

              If defining this action triggers you emotionally this much, that’s a reflection of your ability to have level-headed conversations. It’s not your interlocutor as much as you’d like to claim.

              • Jumi@lemmy.world
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                Neanderthals don’t exist anymore so your argumentation already falls apart. And also you’re moving the goalpost

                • lalo
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                  A: I’m a giving person. B: What would you do if you had a million dollars in your bank account? A: I don’t have a million dollars in my bank so your argumentation falls apart.

                  Was B unjustified in providing a hypothetical because A doesn’t have a million dollars in their account? How else would B understand the reasoning of A in a specific scenario without bringing hypotheticals?

                  And also you’re moving the goalpost

                  OP posted animals getting fisted without consent. I’m asking what we call a sexual act with a being that did not consent. Can’t get more on topic than that.

              • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                My criticism here isn’t about any specific group or topic. It’s about this aggravating debate pattern where rhetoric is used to paint the opponent’s argument into a morally charged form rather than addressing the actual claim being made.

                That style of engagement is not something that ever leads to meaningful discussions.

                A similar dynamic occurs in other highly polarized subjects where participants are more focused on signaling moral positions than resolving the underlying question.

                This sort of shit has been going on since at least the times of Artistole who championed logic over emotion.

        • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          That’s correct, yes.

          However, my dog is my property, and someone can only artificially inseminate my property with my permission.

            • bearboiblake@pawb.social
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              Anti-vegans will go to any depths of depravity in order to deal with their cognitive dissonance. Once, on Reddit, I got a commenter to agree that he would be fine if someone had a dog in a cage they tortured for entertainment, rather than agree that it’s kinda fucked up that we slaughter animals because their flesh tastes nice.

              • Senal@programming.dev
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                2 days ago

                Real question, what if there is no cognitive dissonance.

                Like someone who knows exactly what’s going on and says “fuck it, it’s delicious” ?

                • lalo
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                  “Feels good” is not a valid justification to harm others, imagine how that justification would apply in other cases and it’s pretty easy to see how it falls apart. You can’t be logically consistent with that justification to harm others. The same with apathy, also not a justification to needlessly exploit animals.

                  • Senal@programming.dev
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                    In reference to my other conversation regarding the comparison of products that use electronics vs meat consumption, I would ask if “convenience” was a valid justification.

                    Given the horrors of the electronics supply chain (slavery, horrific working conditions, cartels etc) im not sure why convenience electronics (phones, laptops, pc’s) use would be OK, but meat consumption would not.

                    Im not saying the horrors are equivalent and it’s not a dig at you, I’m genuinely trying to figure out why one kind of horror is OK, but another is not and how people make those calls.

                • bearboiblake@pawb.social
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                  I’d ask them to sit down and watch a documentary about the animal agriculture industry (such as Earthlings) to be sure they really do know the truth.

                  • Senal@programming.dev
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                    2 days ago

                    and then , once they acknowledge that ?

                    The reason i ask is that I’ve never heard an opinion from someone with the viewpoint it seems you hold talk about what they’d think in that situation.

                    and my follow up would be to ask why meat and not electronics (explained below) or textiles or megacorps ?


                    In general i struggle with why people place these ethical and moral rubicons in the places they do (i do mostly understand why the lines exist)

                    I mentioned in another comment about the horrific shit that goes in to basically all electronics (there are numerous documentaries and articles on the horrors of cobalt mining for instance) and it seems odd that people are ok with that but not the meat industry, or perhaps fine with both of those but draw the line at baby animals.

                    Again, i understand why the lines exist, it’s the seemingly arbitrary nature of where they are placed for different circumstances that eludes me.

                    I’m asking so i can gather opinions enough that hopefully i can understand, eventually


                  • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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                    watch a documentary

                    I love how vegans are literally always someone who fell for fake propaganda and never someone with real knowledge or experience of the agricultural industry.

                    My one friend was very publicly outspoken in high school about animal activism and veganism and ran a blog on it, then she started vet school, did some internships and saw first hand how the animal industry operates. The blog promptly transformed into debunking these documentaries and their misinformation and sensationalized lies.

              • FishFace@piefed.social
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                So let me get this straight, you were arguing with someone, tried to lead them to a contradiction, but they actually had a consistent view on it that you didn’t like, and your conclusion is that they have cognitive dissonance?

                My friend, I do not think that means what you think it means.

                • bearboiblake@pawb.social
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                  Most people agree that raping dogs is bad. Maybe they genuinely believe that raping dogs is okay, or maybe they’re just saying that to deal with their cognitive dissonance. I would prefer that it’s cognitive dissonance, but if they’re a dog rape apologist, then they’re a piece of shit anyways.

                  I hope it’s cognitive dissonance and not authentic approval of dog rape.

                  • FishFace@piefed.social
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                    But just to be clear, the evolution of your conversation did not show any evidence of an inconsistency in their beliefs that would amount to cognitive dissonance? Because otherwise you would have brought that up, I assume.

              • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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                “I lead someone who disagrees with me into saying something stupid once, therefore everyone who disagrees with me must have cognitive dissonance.”

                Lol

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            So you’re aware, that’s a really fucked up thing to think. Let alone say.

            But maybe we disagree only on terminology?

            What would you call the act of nonconsensually sticking your dick into your dog, and do you think it’s horrible?

            • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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              What would you call the act of nonconsensually sticking your dick into your dog, and do you think it’s horrible?

              Raping a dog is bad, yes.

              • Leon@pawb.social
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                Raping a dog is bad, yes.

                So a dog is someone and that’s what makes it rape? Where do you draw the line for someone? Is it the act of rape itself that’s bad, or is it the perpetrator getting sexual satisfaction from it? What if they don’t do it for that purpose, but some other more abstract reason? Is it okay then?

                • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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                  You thought you had me. Your argument is invalid and includes logical fallacies, because you’ve swapped the original situation, which was artificial insemination of livestock, for having sex with a pet. These are not comparable.

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence

                  Whether a dog is “someone” or not is irrelevant when discussing a completely different situation.

                  Forcibly impregnating someone is rape. Artificially inseminating livestock is not rape. Having sex with a pet animal is rape. Having sex with a consenting adult is not rape. Different things actually are, in fact, different.

                  • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    Pet animals and other animals are no different in and of themselves, objectively. A pet dog is no different than a stray dog. A pet cow is no different than a domesticated cow.

                    The difference you ascribe to these organisms is how much meaning they demonstrate for you, subjectively.

                    And since your morals and world view depend on subjectivity rather than objectivity, this opens so many doors into unethical situations that I’m not sure you wanted.

                    P.S. You’re giving off big psychopath vibes, I hope you know that.

                  • Leon@pawb.social
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                    So it is the societal and cultural context that dictates whether it is okay or not, and not something actually tangible and measurable? Then I hope we may shift that context a bit to perhaps treat animals a bit less like robots overall, and individual living creatures with their own emotional lives and complexities.

                    Tradition, and personal satisfaction is a poor excuse to continue something abusive.

          • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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            Idk there’s two schools of thought on this. One is that you can own another creature with a mind. I find this attitude leads to a lot of very unsettling situations and possibly weird shit.

            The other is that you treat them like a child that is in your custody where you can order them what to do and where to go and what to eat but society expects you to follow certain rules while they’re in your custody.

          • Senal@programming.dev
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            Ah the tried and tested “it’s ok if it’s my property” which historically(and currently) is a universal guideline for what is and isn’t ok.

          • lalo
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            If I own a human slave, me artificially inseminating them without consent isn’t rape?

            If I DNA test the slave from earlier and discover they aren’t human, inseminating them without consent wouldn’t be rape?

            • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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              If I own a human slave

              If I DNA test the slave from earlier and discover they aren’t human

              Uh… what are they, then?

              I don’t think these absurd hypotheticals are helping your argument.

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                They are a nonhuman animal that has sentience, property of mine. Let’s call them hooman.

                You know hypotheticals are used to test consistency in someone’s logic and answering these will end up in you admitting absurdities. If I wasn’t interested in the truth, I would avoid answering them as well.

                • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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                  They’re absurd because they’re a false equivalency, which is a logical fallacy. Animal livestock are not comparable to human slaves.

                  What’s it say when your logic does not work for real life scenarios, so you have to make up nonsense fantasy scenarios to attempt to force an inconsistency?

                  • lalo
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                    Pay attention and read what I’ve said once more, In no moment I equated nor compared animal livestock to human slaves (btw, even if I would have compared, a comparison is not an equivalency and therefore not false equivalency fallacy).

                    Now you claiming my logic does not work in real life scenarios is a modal fallacy. My hypotheticals are in the logical scope (true in a possible world), not the physical scope (true in our possible world). You clearly can’t answer my hypotheticals because they expose your flaw in reasoning.

                    Will you answer my questions now or keep avoiding them like fire so you don’t burn yourself?

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          no. different things are different.

          • bluefootedbooby@sopuli.xyz
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            Like, what a fucking stupid answer that can apply to anything and nothing at the same time.

            Animals are animals, and humans are animals. Kangaroos are not cows, but both are also animals - different things ARE different, but at the same time, in some aspects, they are not.

            • stickly@lemmy.world
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              Why doesn’t my dog have a right to vote? Why can a snake eat eggs but I can’t? Why is it OK for ants to farm aphids but not for humans to farm cows?

              Different things are, in fact, different. There are lots of dead simple and airtight arguments for veganism without counterproductive emotional appeals. Talk about economics or ecology or health and not about sad puppy dog eyes.

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                Hell yeah! Morals are just a suggestion, lions eat their young, but I can’t? That’s bullshit and we all know it. If you wanna argue against eating our young (just the disabled ones, of course), please keep that melodramatic stuff out of here.

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              I don’t mistreat animals. this is libelous.

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                paying someone to kill an animal so that you can consume its corpse is how you treat animals nicely, is it?

                • Senal@programming.dev
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                  OK, so if negative fucks were a thing, that would be how may fucks in general i give about the actual argument you are having.

                  That being said, to me it seems hypocritical to be throwing shade about intentional animal cruelty unless you are somehow posting these replies without using any electronics whatsoever.

                  Almost all electronics require materials sourced or processed off the back of rare earth minerals not even mentioning the supply chain and assembly.

                  As you said, people are animals too, slavery and workplace mutilation are animal abuse.

                  I’m not whattabouting your argument, both things are fucked up and one doesn’t cancel out the other and as i said, i’m not supporting either side.

                  but the stunning lack of awareness (or acknowledgement) of the hypocrisy of your argument is offensive.

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                  I’ve never done that. most people haven’t.

                  • bearboiblake@pawb.social
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                    You do it literally every time you purchase a meat product. Meat is made from the dead body of animals. When you buy it, you are retroactively paying for the slaughter of that animal.

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        If you believe that animals should have rights like humans do, then animals can be raped. If slavery was still legal, would you write “it’s pretty fucked up to equate slave husbandry with rape”? Just because we have historically done something, that doesn’t mean that what we’re doing is in any way moral.

        • stickly@lemmy.world
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          Animals can have rights and be protected from unnecessary cruelty without anthropomophizing them and granting full human rights. You’re equating full, sapient humans with a species specifically bred for a base purpose without higher levels of thought and expression.

          I don’t even think that statement is anthropocentric hubris. If ultra-advanced aliens showed up tomorrow and started domesticating humans for food or some other purpose, I would have the default expectation of them having the same or similar morals. Maybe we’d get access to decent healthcare and good libraries before we went to the slaughterhouse.

          Cows get more rights than trees or crops because they have an ability to express pain and convey emotion. They don’t have the same rights as humans because they could never give a passionate argument for suffrage to a jury.

          And to be clear: there are plenty of real, tangible reasons to end animal husbandry and make everyone vegan without even touching philosophy.

          • merdaverse@lemmy.zip
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            If ultra-advanced aliens showed up tomorrow and started domesticating humans for food or some other purpose, I would have the default expectation of them having the same or similar morals. Maybe we’d get access to decent healthcare and good libraries before we went to the slaughterhouse

            I can’t believe you said this with a straight face. This is the depths of depravity and mental gymnastics that a non vegan philosophical position leads to. I’m also sure that if this actually happened, you would throw your logic in the trash, where it belongs, and you would fight for the liberation of the slaughtered race.

            Do you want to extend the argument to a person who is in a permanent comatose state? By your definition, they are without “higher levels of thought and expression”. Is it cool to eat them?

            • stickly@lemmy.world
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              If the advanced aliens had the control over us that we exert over animals then I wouldn’t have a choice. And whether I fight or not isn’t relevant to their choice to farm me. If anything it’s in their best interest to keep me healthy and content until I’m harvested.

              Your coma example is laughable. They’re a human. A medical procedure (even if we don’t have the technology to perform it) could return them to normal function. Turning a cow into a human-like creature is a different discussion altogether, it would be a transformation at such a fundamental level that we might as well be discussing artificial personhood instead of the ethics of diet.

              If we invented a procedure that could make corn moo would it no longer be vegan?

              • merdaverse@lemmy.zip
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                If the advanced aliens had the control over us that we exert over animals then I wouldn’t have a choice. And whether I fight or not isn’t relevant to their choice to farm me. If anything it’s in their best interest to keep me healthy and content until I’m harvested.

                You keep avoiding the moral implications here because you know the argument is bs. If some groups of people mass bred and slaughtered monkeys or dogs on an industrial scale would you not care, because they don’t have a choice? It would be the same as your example, without the alien hypotheticals.

                A medical procedure could return them to normal function

                The disconnect between the logical, robotical analysis in the first case and the childish, optimistic look here really just highlights the compartmentalization you have to go through for a “coherent” position.

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                  18 hours ago

                  I don’t quite understand what you mean by moral implications. Would I be upset if aliens started eating people? Yeah, that would suck. Would it be morally defensible to fight back in the same way a cow might kick? Of course. But I can’t consider their view because they are defined as a higher tier of being in this scenario.

                  You’re imagining little green humans with forks when it may just as well be a hyper-developed cloud of space bacteria. In their view, every human gut biome is a slave pit where trillions can be massacred at will.

                  Using us as incubators and then harvesting the “human” collection of cell resources is a perfectly ethical thing to do. Who cares about the shrieking sound waves and fluid that spills out while humans melt, that might as well be the smell of fresh cut grass. It’s just a bunch of clones of one DNA sequence vs the plethora of diverse cells unleashed from the gut. Easy decision.

                  Keeping us happy and healthy is crucial for the health of the gut biome, no need to cause any undue stress because that would hurt the final product. But of course, through gene manipulation or artificial selection they can make us into a more durable and docile species.

                  …And at that point modern humans are effectively extinct. I don’t have to worry about the ethics of an incubation vat in the same way you don’t worry about our bizzarre and unnatural domesticated crops.


                  the childish, optimistic look here really just highlights the compartmentalization you have to go through for a “coherent” position.

                  I’m totally lost here. You’re saying a comatose human is actually not a human but it is an animal (and therefore gets human rights)? My “higher thought” point is that our measure of life is relative to human features and human ability. A comatose human is very obviously still a human. Hell, even a dead human is still a human until it decays away and is recycled into something else.

                  Instead of silly screaming corn: What if I bred creatures that couldn’t express pain in any measurable way? Just sacks of flesh that you could herd around and harvest when they’re big enough. Slice off some reproductive piece and stick it in a tube to grow the next batch. Basically a meat tree on legs.

                  Is that unethical? Just because it’s gross? It’s no different than a plant. What if I told you I made them from pig DNA [no harm was done to the pig btw] but I cut out all traces of sensory organs that might convey pain. They can sense just barely enough to stand upright and only have the barest parts of a brain needed to grow more mass.

                  At what point does the distasteful husbandry become acceptable gardening? When the creatures can’t move? When the red blood is sap? Does the flesh have to be green instead of pink? Do the insides need to taste like a mango instead of bacon? Does it need photosynthesis like a spotted salamander or a sea slug?

                  Your position is incoherent if you can’t tell me exactly where the line is crossed AND that line is solid for all vegans. When does that lifeform gain or lose rights?

                  If you can’t do that or admit there’s subjectivity in the judgment then why can’t that subjectivity hold for cultures that bred dogs for food? Dogs are clearly not humans, but they’re too close to my personal experience of pets for comfort. That clearly isn’t the case with all humans, so I can’t pass judgment on the mere fact that a dog is eaten.

          • bearboiblake@pawb.social
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            2 days ago

            Slaves can have rights and be protected from unnecessary cruelty without anthropomophizing them and granting full human rights. You’re equating full, sapient humans with a species specifically bred for a base purpose without higher levels of thought and expression.

            Your ancestors, probably

                  • Cork Oak@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                    1 day ago

                    You seem to have extremely poor reading comprehension.

                    The point is that slavers used racist pseudoscience to claim that enslaved people were a different, “lesser” species, to justify their enslavement. Not only was this incorrect, but even if it were true it would provide no justification. Speciesism is irrational and the human-invented line between species is completely irrelevant to the moral worth of individuals on either side of that line.

              • bearboiblake@pawb.social
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                2 days ago

                That’s exactly how people justified slavery in the past, and it is how the person I replied to justified their argument. That’s my entire point. It’s the same argument.

            • stickly@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              This is a ludicrous argument. If you truly believe that all animals have the same rights then the only internally consistent conclusion is the virtual extermination of the human species.

              Life is a zero sum game. Something lives by consuming something else or displacing it for access to limited resources. Optimizing for the minimum harm to earth’s ecosystem is always going to be the end of agriculture, housing, hunting, industry and basically everything other human institution. We’re the most insidious invasive species ever and the world would be healthier without us mucking around.

              So unless you’re stumping for that, don’t pretend to have the moral high ground. If you are, stop wasting your time shaming people and skip right to culling them.

              • EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com
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                2 days ago

                Something lives by consuming something else or displacing it for access to limited resources.

                True, but no one gives a shit when the consumed life is a plant.

                People say the “plants feel pain” thing rhetorically, but it isn’t a serious argument. And if they were somehow actually being serious, then this would actually strengthen the case to only consume plants due the efficiency of doing so vs consuming animal products.

                • stickly@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  Plants don’t have to feel pain to be a lynch pin in the ecosystem supporting the animals around them. One less native plant is one less place to shelter or feed an endangered animal, or one less set of roots preventing the erosion of a habitat at risk.

                  Eliminating animal products mitigates the problem but it in no way absolves you from our exponential consumption of finite resources, and in many ways it’s naive non-solution.

                  For example: culling and eating pest animals like deer is not vegan, but leaving them alone with no natural predators does exponentially more harm to all other animals that depend on the native plants decimated by an unchecked deer population. Eliminating the predators is a human-caused problem but washing our hands of the situation will kill far more.

                  • EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com
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                    2 days ago

                    Eliminating animal products mitigates the problem but it in no way absolves you from our exponential consumption of finite resources, and in many ways it’s naive non-solution.

                    Well, I have chosen to not reproduce. So at least my consumption has an expiration date. I’m sure this doesn’t absolve me either, but it’s what it is.

                    For example: culling and eating pest animals like deer is not vegan

                    There is something truly distasteful about bringing a sentient being into existence for the sole purpose of exploiting it. Although I don’t hunt (or fish), I don’t take issue with it so long as it is done in a responsible manner. I know “responsible” is subjective, but I’m not taking an extreme position on it.

              • ageedizzle@piefed.ca
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                2 days ago

                Bro would rather exterminate all humans than admit that he should just go vegan

                • stickly@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  Brother I am vegan (at least 95% in diet if you want to quibble over niche animal product additives). I’m just not going to shed tears over every single creature on earth like they’re my family pet while losing sight of the purpose of harm reduction. Why is the few grams of milk powder in your chips more important than mass deforestation supporting your avocados and coffee?

                  If most militant vegans actually examined their emotional arguments before they posted them people would take them way more seriously. Animals suffering and dying might make you deeply uncomfortable but that’s not a universal experience. You can’t browbeat people out of 15k years of animal husbandry just because you personally couldn’t stomach skinning a rabbit.

              • bearboiblake@pawb.social
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                2 days ago

                I advocate for humanity to live in harmony and balance with our environment, that is why I am anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist as well as vegan. Our history is plagued with exploitation, that can’t be denied, but I am trying to change it and you are arguing that it cannot be changed and that we shouldn’t even try.

                Humanity’s relationship with animals and nature has historically been exploitative but it doesn’t need to be that way.

                We have vastly increased our ability to produce food. There are ample resources available on the planet for all of us to share and live in abundance. Human greed and selfishness is rewarded by our society. That means our society needs to change.

                I reject your argument that life is a zero-sum game. My happiness does not need to come at the expense of another’s unhappiness. We can all work together to create a better future for all living things on our planet.

                • stickly@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  I reject your argument that life is a zero-sum game

                  Then you’re a fundamentally blind idealist or just lying to yourself. The absolute bare minimum, purely vegetarian footprint needed to support a human is about 0.2 acres (~800 m²). That’s 0.2 acres of precious arable land that could support dozens of species of plants, insects and animals purely dedicated to one human and their crops. A diverse and thriving array of life traded for one person and a handful of domesticated species.

                  From there you’re now looking at displacement and damage from housing, water usage, soil degradation, waste disposal, pest control and every other basic necessity. God forbid you get into modern niceties like health care, transportation, education, arts, sciences, etc…

                  Humans aren’t friendly little forest nymphs, we’re megafauna. Even the most benign and innocuous species of primates (such as lemurs and marmosets) peaked their populations in the high millions. Getting the human population down from 8.3 billion to a sustainable level is a 99%+ reduction. That’s a more complete eradication than any genocide in recorded history, let alone the sheer amount of death and scope of institutional collapse.

                  That’s just a flat fact of our reality. Either 99% of humans have no right to exist or humans are inherently a higher class of animal. Choose one.

                  We have vastly increased our ability to produce food. There are ample resources available on the planet for all of us to share and live in abundance.

                  Uh ooooooh… someone isn’t familiar with how dependent our agriculture is on pesticides, petrochemicals and heavy industry 😬

                  We (currently) have ample oil and topsoil. Not ample sustainable food. Don’t even get me started on out other niche limits, like our approach to peak mineral supply or pollinator collapse.

                  • ageedizzle@piefed.ca
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                    2 days ago

                    Not everything is black and white. You are painting a picture where we have two options: (1) cause as much harm as we please and not worry about the consequences, or (2) cause no harm at all by eradicating our species from the face of the Earth (which would actually cause a lot of harm to members of our species but we’ll sidestep that for now).

                    But this is of course a false dichotomy. Because there are degrees to this. A vegan diet is undoubtably less harmful, both in its carbon footprint and in the direct harm in causes to other species. So if someone wants to reduce the amount of harm they are causing it’s the way to go. So why try to diminish that with this ridiculous dichotomy between death to all humans or unmitigated animal torture? If someone wants to decrease of amount of harm they are causing shouldn’t we be encouraging this sort of prosocial mindset?

                • a1tsca13@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  We have vastly increased our ability to produce food.

                  And it has been largely the (petro)chemical industry responsible for this. The Haber-Bosch process transformed agriculture, but accounts for percent-level quantities of global energy consumption and carbon emissions. And it requires raw materials that are typically produced from hydrocarbons (although admittedly there are renewable options). And other nutrients typically come from mining (even organic options) - which displaces many species of all sorts. And this does not account for pesticides, etc., that others have mentioned.

                  Prior to the development of modern chemistry, our best sources of fertilizer were often animal manures - which require breeding, raising, and ultimately usually killing animals.

                  Sure, there is a lot we can do to minimize harm, and generally we should, and I try to myself as much as possible. But I’m not fooling myself into thinking that eating vegan or growing my food organically means nothing or no one suffered. Until we all go back to pre-agrarian societies, we will continue to cause large-scale destruction in some way. But of course this in itself would cause massive population decline and resultant suffering in humans.

                  • bearboiblake@pawb.social
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                    2 days ago

                    I’m not fooling myself into thinking that eating vegan or growing my food organically means nothing or no one suffered.

                    There isn’t any vegan out there who believes that. The point of veganism isn"t to be perfect, it’s to reduce harm as much as practically possible.

                    Of course I am in favor of sustainable farming practices and minimizing use of fossil fuel industry products, but even with all of that factored in, the social/environmental impact of a vegan diet is hugely reduced, compared to a meat-eater’s diet, and significantly healthier with massively reduced risk of heart disease and cancer among other conditions. That’s not really a solid reason to go vegan IMO, I think animal welfare is the only reason that matters, but it’s a nice bonus I guess.

        • goedel
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          2 days ago

          If you believe that animals should have rights like humans do

          no one believes that. not even vegans

        • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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          2 days ago

          Wow, comparing actual human slavery to cattle production. That’s certainly a take

          • bearboiblake@pawb.social
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            2 days ago

            I am, the comparison is extremely apt. An entire group of thinking, feeling, sentient, living creatures, exploited for profit. We look down on them as being beneath us, and a culture that normalizes beating, raping and killing them. Living beings, treated as property. They are slaves. Lots of people like to believe that if they had lived during slavery, they would have been against it. This is the modern equivelent.

            • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Dude we did not eat slaves the fuck. That’s quite possibly the second most disingenuous comparison I’ve read in a while. Bravo.