I’m aware that you disagree, that being the premise of the thread, but your argument does not engage with my reasoning, to a degree that makes me concerned that you were not looking for perspectives but targets. Consider:
Trees are not zero important, but people are more important. (I think most people would agree with this?)
While I would not go around gratuitously killing trees for trivial reasons, as long as no qualitative negative effect on the ecosystem or somebody’s property or something like that were on the line I would not hesitate to sacrifice arbitrary numbers of trees’ lives for even one human’s even non-mortal convenience. The trees don’t matter in the right way. I still think it would be bad to kill sixty billion trees, but not that bad.
I said “hopefully” because I agree that most people are not consciously or even implicitly finding a place on the QoL/animal suffering tradeoff curve, but just using defaults. I agree that they should not mindlessly use defaults in this way and that most people should probably use fewer animal products than they do. I disagree with the rest of your position as I understand it.
I’d like to hear the argument about why trees lives are worth antthing. Sure, they’re worth instrumental value, but thats not what we’re talking about. I’m arguing that trees are worth 0 and that animals are comparable to humans. Trees aren’t conscious. Many animals are.
I think if you want to have this conversation you should not start a thread by asking for “perspectives on veganism” from people who are not vegans. It would be more honest to announce “I’m a vegan and invite you to squabble with me!”
Being perfectly honest, I actually don’t understand what’s wrong with starting with those words. Maybe this is a failure of communication on my part. I do understand that I shouldn’t have said ‘so surprised’ and some of the other stuff, but what’s wrong with asking, “Can I get your guys’ perspectives on veganism?”
“I’m a vegan and invite you to squabble with me!”
I’d rather debate things coherently as that’s what rationalism is about. I think I’m done here at this point though because not much is getting through on either side. Some of the replies I’m getting are typical (plant, “natural,” comparing animals to rocks), even fallacious, which is probably why I give off an irritated vibe, which doesn’t help either party when trying to find the truth.
I’m aware that you disagree, that being the premise of the thread, but your argument does not engage with my reasoning, to a degree that makes me concerned that you were not looking for perspectives but targets. Consider:
Trees are not zero important, but people are more important. (I think most people would agree with this?)
While I would not go around gratuitously killing trees for trivial reasons, as long as no qualitative negative effect on the ecosystem or somebody’s property or something like that were on the line I would not hesitate to sacrifice arbitrary numbers of trees’ lives for even one human’s even non-mortal convenience. The trees don’t matter in the right way. I still think it would be bad to kill sixty billion trees, but not that bad.
I said “hopefully” because I agree that most people are not consciously or even implicitly finding a place on the QoL/animal suffering tradeoff curve, but just using defaults. I agree that they should not mindlessly use defaults in this way and that most people should probably use fewer animal products than they do. I disagree with the rest of your position as I understand it.
I’d like to hear the argument about why trees lives are worth antthing. Sure, they’re worth instrumental value, but thats not what we’re talking about. I’m arguing that trees are worth 0 and that animals are comparable to humans. Trees aren’t conscious. Many animals are.
I think if you want to have this conversation you should not start a thread by asking for “perspectives on veganism” from people who are not vegans. It would be more honest to announce “I’m a vegan and invite you to squabble with me!”
Being perfectly honest, I actually don’t understand what’s wrong with starting with those words. Maybe this is a failure of communication on my part. I do understand that I shouldn’t have said ‘so surprised’ and some of the other stuff, but what’s wrong with asking, “Can I get your guys’ perspectives on veganism?”
I’d rather debate things coherently as that’s what rationalism is about. I think I’m done here at this point though because not much is getting through on either side. Some of the replies I’m getting are typical (plant, “natural,” comparing animals to rocks), even fallacious, which is probably why I give off an irritated vibe, which doesn’t help either party when trying to find the truth.