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Comment by monster_group | Hacker News Reader

Stark reminder of how precious and meaningful a life can be - of any creature, no matter how small. We should be nice to all creatures not just humans.

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From "Loving-Kindness (Metta) Sutta" of the Buddhist Pali Canon:

In gladness and in safety,

May all beings be at ease.

Whatever living beings there may be;

Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,

The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,

The seen and the unseen,

Those living near and far away,

Those born and to-be-born —

May all beings be at ease!

It's a really nice sentiment, but it makes me sad. We're barely even nice to humans, mostly

It's downright miraculous when we respect a non-human life enough to honor it like this

This rat will be remembered for longer than I will, that's for sure

There’s no point to be sad: even trees get remembered and honoured. Human’s humanity have no such "compassion contingent”: loving a new child doesn’t take the love out of the precedents.

Some antispeciesist (and others) argue that giving more compassion to animals is a step to develop one’s compassion to others being, hence being nicer to others humans. On the opposite: accepting an horrendous practices toward non-humans animals makes ones more prone to accept horrendous practice toward humans.

I agree. However, you get insane push back the second you start to mention veganism. And yes, that is a luxury and there large parts of the world where that's not an option, but if you're reading this comment you probably could survive without eating meat.

Yep. Another great example of this is any discussion where datacenter resource usage gets brought up. Mention how much water someone's ChatGPT queries takes and people will generally agree it's a problem. Mention how much water their burger takes and at best you'll get people hemming and hawing about protein or indigenous cultures or their cousin's friend who went vegan and got really sick.

Also, I personally think framing it as a binary or quasi religious decision is counterproductive.

I was vegetarian for some years, before ultimately deciding I just run better on an omnivore diet. But for environmental and ethical reasons I decided to make meat more of a side dish vs the center of the meal, and to mostly eat chicken vs more high environmental impact animal proteins like beef.

I think a lot of people that would never go full vegan can do well on this sort of less meat middle road.

Hot take: people get angry about veganism because they suspect, deep down, that vegans are right and feel guilty about eating meat. (Not taking the moral high ground here - I have put approximately zero effort into reducing meat intake at all.)

Vegas are objectively right. I eat mostly vegan but still eat other stuff from time to time. I look at those times as me being selfish. I am an imperfect person and the vegans are right.

I kinda feel like vegetarians are right but consuming animal derived products is fine.

So long as they're humanely harvested? Some argue that cows are mistreated when kept producing milk as much as they are, but I haven't looked into it because I'm selfish too.

Cows are mammals. They produce milk for their young for a period after giving birth then stop, just like a human woman. Which means that for us to take their milk we have to keep them constantly pregnant.

Ask a woman (or think about it if you are one) how they would like being forcefully impregnated then having their tits constantly milked, year after year. As a bonus, the born kids are separated into girls to be milked in the same cycle and boys to be killed and eaten.

Agree if the animals are treated well; but I have a very high bar for that. I would also accept eating animals which died of old age if it could be done safely. It's easier to just round this to "vegan."

You might enjoy this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExEHuNrC8yU

The real problem with veganism is that you are a social outcast around normies. That was the biggest problem that I had. Also, veganism is essentially a "fundamentalist" way of thinking -- all or nothing. Now, I advocate for people to experiment with eating less meat and animal products, not zero. Even if people cut the amount of meat they ate by 20%, it would have a huge environmental impact. Also, the type of meat you eat also has a large environmental impact: Consider beef vs chicken.

Agree. Everything else is easy: taste, nutrition, cheap shopping... but if you decide to exclude animal products, prepare to face ostracism and you'll need to learn to cope with that. A simple and effective way is to ignore the blames and regards, let them flow to the ground without catching them.

Some people will get angry at you because you tried to do something good to much:

   - not trying: that's ok, everybody is free to keep his life as-is
   - trying 0-90%: that's ok, everybody is free to try doing some good
   - trying 90-100%: you're a fundamentalist, you can't change the world

My advice: don't argue:

   - "that's extremist" / "that's not natural" / [...] => That's an opinion, you won't change it. Smile and route to another subject.
   - "why are you [an extremist/unnatural/priest/...]?" => Question. Don't try to rant the full manifesto, you won't change their opinion neither. But if you feel confortable you may clarify a few inches of incomprehension :
      - Have you heard of vegansociety's definition[0]? I don't consider myself as an extremist.
      - I find Tofu very tasty!
      - I won't try to change your habits, just doing thinks the way I like them better.

Golden rule: don't get upset. You're always free to not being confortable discussing your choices.

0: https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism

Hard disagree. People care about animals because they have faces that trigger their empathy. Plant life is still life. The destruction of plants to feed people is no more moral than the slaughter of an animal. The cutting of a redwood to make a desk is not moral. Many people also lack any kind of principle and make stuff up as they go. They get angry at killing a butterfly, but they don't care at all about killing a wasp. Likewise, people get upset about a pig, but they don't care about carrots. The carrots lack a face, and the wasp lacks pretty wings.

The carrot lacks a brain that can experience pain, fear and depression, that's why nobody cares about carrots.

I am not an expert in plant neurobiology, but:

https://nautil.us/plants-feel-pain-and-might-even-see-238257

I was recently at a wet lands were there were hundreds of thousands of snow geese making the lake white and blackening the sky, crazy to see and yeah we are blessed with the ability to change the entire Earth, the other guys are just along for the ride

Beaver dams change ecosystems. The Earth has oxygen due to cyanobacteria. Pedantically, all living beings change the Earth. But it certainly seems like we're the ones making the biggest changes at the moment.

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