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Comment by FullMtlAlcoholc | Hacker News Reader

I agree. Logically, it should be more acceptable to have animals as test subjects that can benefit all mankind vs being a tasty treat for an individual. But we all have are cognitive dissonances, without exception. Thats just a quirk of being human

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> we all have are cognitive dissonances

To be honest I haven't found a bigger cognitive dissonance than the love animals / eat animals one.

I think the dissonance is more pronounced in love animals / eat mistreated animals. Empathy developed presumably along with the enjoyment for taste of animal fats and protein

That dissonance can be resolved relatively easily by throwing money at the problem and eating non-mistreated animals. Love/eat is a harder moral problem IMO because there is no acceptable workaround, at least today. Someday there will be one: we'll be able to buy synthetic meat that's truly equivalent to animal meat (maybe grown with animal stem cells), and eventually the harvesting of real animals will end. But that won't mark any kind of moral evolution, only a newfound ability to not have to make a choice.

Most people "solve" it with love cute animals, eat animals I don't care about.

The real cognitive dissonance is testing on them or slaughtering them for food vs. pampering them and trying to save endangered species, etc. The testing is often worse since it may involve torture and/or mutilation.

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