No. But maybe we can become a species smart enough to avoid the suffering of other beings just for the joy of eating something that tastes nice.
I will add that if it were not for consuming animal proteins (real meat), our species would not have survived as long as it has. Clearly, you know what is best for everyone, so while I sink my natural incisors into the steak, I will carefully consider your emotional, unscientific, and agenda-driven propaganda and petty attempt at control over the lives of others. Again, no promises.
This pretty clearly indicates some kind of sentience, meaning a feeling of subjectivity (all of this is solidly backed science-wise, by the way) and emotions. Now those animals might experience reality very differently from us, but that doesn’t even matter. What matters is that they experience some kind of subjective reality.
Is it really too foreign of a thought to try and minimise the number of animals that have to live in agony until they are killed, just for that tasty steak on your table?
I don’t want to control your life. I believe this is a logical conclusion thinking will eventually get anyone to, given the effort - and moral integrity.
When an animal had the right age and weight, it would be shot and slaughtered. The process would then start over. Both then and now, I eat meat with the greatest pleasure and will continue to do so. Sorry, your anthropomorphism issues don't affect me and most others.
> I don’t want to control your life. I believe this is a logical conclusion thinking will eventually get anyone to, given the effort - and moral integrity.
How nice it must feel to be so superior :) I hope this will be enough copeism for you, to handle that 90% of the world population will continue to eat meat. As people are lifted out of poverty, they want to eat meat no matter how much you preach.
It's astonishing to me how the mere idea that beings other than humans do experience a subjective existence is so foreign, some people will instantly disregard it as antromorphism. Accepting that other species are not automatons doesn't automatically ascribe them human traits.
Even more astonishing to me is the observation that it seems to enrage people like you a lot to simply advocate (ie, "preach") for less cruelty towards animals; and how those people always drag the issue down to a meaningless personal level. This isn't about me, or you, or "winning" anything. I simply think less existences should have to end just so privileged people's taste buds can go nuts, so that's what I argue for.
In contrary to lions, you have the brain to think about this, the alternatives to choose from, the digestive tract to handle plant-based food, and the moral capability to understand why killing living beings is bad.
Why is killing a plant better than an animal? Because their chemistry includes some sort of pain hormone? So do some plants.
This is not an argument either of us can win, because it’s a morality question to which there can be many answers.
I simply don’t see how eating only plants is more moral. For all we know free grazing animals that we eat are way more happy and stress free during their lives than in the wild. Just like humans spent most of their last 50k years on the verge of starvation and barely surviving. Our current state of abundance is about 60-70 years old (20 for third world)
That is an example of assuming the worst about someone else with whom you disagree. Taste is not a minor factor. It is a major part of life. Life rituals, commmunity are built around it. It gives life much of its diversity.
But I still have self control, I don't have do do anything that feels good. I just don't want something sentient to die for my dinner, that's all it is.
That is all completely tangential to this atrocious law from an actually fascist government however. Banning animal-less meat is stupid, backwards, does nothing to protect the meat industry, and they shouldn't be artificially protected anyway. If animal-free meat companies can sell me a tasty steak for slightly cheaper then I will 100% purchase it and enjoy it, but I will likely still not be in favor of banning animal farming.
There is a huge difference between going out and killing something yourself, and shredding millions of chiclets a day for chicken nuggets thrown away half eaten. But that's how the majority of people get their meat.
I'm with you on the second paragraph, though.
I still consider it desirable to reduce the amount of rape to 0, regardless of how important it might feel to rapists.
> Rape feels good and no amount of preaching is changing that. Has similarly been part of human culture for time immemorial.
> [Meat] is tasty and no amount of your religious preaching is going to change that.
There is no ambiguity here? A rapist doesn't regard the feelings of their victims. Someone who eats an animal doesn't regard the feelings of that animal. In both cases, it's clear who enjoys that situation and who suffers for it.