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Comment by kylebyproxy | Hacker News Reader

Morality is relative; please don't inflict yours on others. Animal consumption can be made sustainable. The main offenders are beef, lamb, and mutton, and their associated dairy[1]. Cutting just those out would put us back in the ballpark of responsible agriculture. Between pork, poultry, fish & other aquatics, and insects, there's room for sustainable meat farming.

[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food

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>Morality is relative, please don't inflict yours on others.

Suffering is not relative.

“It just isn't possible to mass produce meat without torturing animals. In fact, raising animals specifically for consumption, i.e., “humane slaughter” is an oxymoron.” —https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cynic.html

I'm sympathetic to your point of view - but suffering must be relative or you would be concerned about the worms in a construction site or the bacteria you kill with bleach. There must be a spectrum of consciousness and perhaps there is a line where suffering begins, and is that not anything but relative?

So why would you inflict your morality on others just because they belong to another species? With the impact of consumption by privileged people hitting the poorest and most vulnerable people the hardest, why would you inflict harm on those people by using morals that don’t help?

There’s always a “can be” for everything. The question is whether you’re willing to take personal responsibility in doing something while you can or not.

> So why would you inflict your morality on others just because they belong to another species?

I don't. I'm indifferent to any sort of value judgment in the matter. I simply acknowledge and accept that my biology requires the consumption of nutrients. Circle of life, and all that.

Organisms are the only sufficient source of nutrients I have access to. Unless you're here to enlighten me about how to cook rocks, I don't know what you're on about.

Cook rocks? With that sort of wording, I presume that you’re not aware of medicines or supplements or fortified foods...all of which are routinely consumed by many people around the world and most of which come from different sources, including synthetic sources or through bacterial synthesis.

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