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Comment by crudolph | Hacker News Reader

Honestly we need to quit pretending that we, as humans, are something special as compared to other omnivorous or carnivorous mammals. OK we have more gray matter comparatively but really that means nothing.

Some cultures eat octopus, some eat dogs, some eat cats, some eat cows, and of course some eat humans. And some eat vegetation. Do you honestly think those cultures sit back and question what they are doing and if it is ok in order to survive?!

I'm laughing at the responses to this post - sentience, history of eating octopi, god told me, etc.. as an excuse for why humans shouldn't eat octopus. Who really fucking cares.

I can ramble on and debate all this until I'm blue. My goal is not necessarily to argue, but to light a spark.

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Is your point that the majority of people don't consider their own actions as moral agents so we shouldn't either? If you're browsing this website from a phone or computer you are beyond the clamber of mere survival. You have time for ethical reflection.

I think his claims is more like:

a) eating animals is justified because we are omnivorous/carnivorous by nature, and,

b) who fucking cares anyway.

I don’t think it is “we don’t need ethics out there” as some might frame it.

I’d say we all have this collective naive ethics that killing sentient animals leaves bad tastes in the mouth, and I’d love not having to feel or think about it, but that cannot immediately mean it is, like, can be proven logically wrong.

So just because we're omnivorous and capable of eating animals, that justifies it?

Most humans are also fully capable and arguably evolved to do things like steal and murder each other, are those also justified simply because we're capable? And on the second point, the existence of OPs article and the comments around this one indicate that some people do care.

The killing and eating of animals are not acts which belong to the category of acts needing justification. Stealing and murdering other people affects human society, so those require justification by the justice system. But many acts are not part of the human society, in that the acts don’t affect it. For example, if I sit backwards on a chair, that not a threat to human society, so it does not need justification. Some people like to imagine that such unconventional acts, which they deem “transgressions”, are somehow eroding society, and would like them to be abolished. The current trend in free societies is, however, to be more liberal in what they allow.

Kicking my dog would also not affect human society, does that mean I can kick my dog without justification? For fun?

My point here to be more clear is that we simply don't need to consume animals, and that the taste pleasure of eating them doesn't justify their death. Humans are animals too, and the success of our species doesn't require intense suffering of another.

> Kicking my dog would also not affect human society,

But it would. At least we have, as a society, decided that it would. But this is rather flexible, since in older times, as well as in some cultures, wanton animal cruelty is accepted. I guess that the argument for prohibiting cruelty to animals is that it is good to prohibit behavior which we believe to be detrimental to the person doing it. I.e. it’s not prohibited to protect the dog, it’s prohibited to protect you from becoming a cruel bastard and turning around and being toxic in human society. Whether this actually is a valid argument is, of course, subjective and debatable, which is why cultures differ on this point.

> but to light a spark.

Indeed it was a spark, but it vanished in an instant.

> Who really fucking cares.

I care, and if you don't, good riddance.

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