Does that not seem morally questionable to you?
But if what you're suggesting is that we should expend our effort exclusively on the larger of the two until it is fully addressed, then I can see how that has a certain logical appeal, but it isn't really how social movements work. Social movements are necessarily massively parallel, everyone pursues the causes they care about most, and adjacent causes support and are supported by one another.
Not only would it not be feasible to convince all the activists to pick one particular cause, it also would be less effective. It's sort of like the "packing" tactic in gerrymandering.
I have flown with Air France recently. They certainly do serve a lot of meat and cheese.
Pardon me, but it feels like you're engaging in a certain rhetorical tactic where you all-but make a conclusion - you say, I'm not taking any sides, I just want you to consider X, Y, and Z that would naturally lead you to a certain conclusion which I definitely haven't made myself. This serves to launder your conclusion through your audience, as if it were their idea all along. It shields your ideas from criticism and the hazard of taking a position that may be argued against.
And whether or not that is intentional, I'd ask you to stop. I have made specific claims which can be argued against - it's pretty unfair for you to respond in a way that, should I try to argue against it, just shifts around without really responding to what I am saying.
Speaking for myself, while I do eat some cheese, I haven't eaten meat in almost a decade, and I've found I genuinely prefer almond milk. I'm fully aware of the hazards and contradictions in my life. I don't really need you to point these things out to me for me to consider them. We live in a society where each of us is unable to fully live out their values. I'm positive that, if you applied the same scrutiny to your own life, you'd find similar problems. But of course that doesn't mean you don't believe in your values, only that you are a human being who is not omnipotent. It's pretty odd to try and turn that around on another person, right? Almost like criticizing them for breathing.
Not it is not a straw man argument. Non-human primate trials are the last stage before human testing. Eliminating non-human primate trials will increase the risk for human participants(unless they actually stop developing).
Our understanding of biology is nowhere near comprehensive enough to be able to simulate all these interactions and isn’t likely to be for maybe a century.
So if you eliminate non-primate human testing, your options are either to develop therapies at greater risk to humans, or to stop developing them.
Either of those options hurts humans. Thus, you are placing the well-being of non-human animals above the well-being of humans.
Industry would be happy to abuse animals until the end of time.
Framing this as a _preference_ for one kind of life or another is, in fact, a straw man. No such preference is necessary to accept this line of reasoning.
We absolutely should.
What do we do until such technology is developed?
The stuff is already here, it's just inertia that's keeping us from fully adopting it.
> some weirdo who would value my life equally to that of a monkey
Do you feel this over-values the monkey's life or devalues yours? Or is it something else?
Well my pet has EU passport unlike my friend from Macedonia.
The only true alternative to that is an act of self harm, and that is not free from egoism either, so I just don't think too much and enjoy my life, only following my own inner voice as to what choices would be ethical to make.
Do you feel this is a choice you are compelled to make? I don't mean to presume, but I'm going to proceed as if it were affirmative, because I don't anticipate a response, and this seems concerning.
That sounds perhaps like intrusive thoughts? I personally struggle with intrusive thoughts that are occasionally violent. They do not need to be acted upon though, and they don't reflect on who you are much more than a compression artifact in a video reflects on the cinematographer - it's line noise in your brain, it's incredibly complex and sometimes throws out signals that aren't useful.
If you feel this way and that it isn't within your control, I'd encourage you to speak with a professional.
That dark part is not serious - at least not in this context. That's just an extreme example, but the point is we do not exist without the karma of our body.