Scholar

Okay but now you are saying "As long as you don't point out the injustice, you're okay.". I think the moralizing is fine as long as it happens calmly and rationally. Spineless pick-me vegans are not really the way you want to be, that's probably as unhealthy as the other extreme. You want to be able to actually speak up for what you belief in, without it devolving into screaming matches.

The evolution goes like this: Recognizing universality of personhood. Inability to maintain clear seperation of identity between species boundaries. Desire to avoid negative self identity (someone who would objectify others and inflict torture on them in perverse ways for something trivial like pleasure and convenience). Repulsion at the idea of participating in the objectificaiton and commodification of animals. So that's basically what is going to happen over time. The reason why this is different from ethical considerations via harm-principle is because, when we drink coffee, we do not actually participate in an industry which systematically breeds, enslaves, rapes, tortures and kills individuals and then subsequently using their corpses and secretions as objects. Once identity has expanded, the basic desire to avoid being an individual who would participate in this for mere pleasure would outweight the desire to continue consuming those products.

Not all individuated beings have a developed consciousness. They wouldn't eat us because they would see their own consciousness reflected in ours, and would naturally unify their subjectivity with ours. There are only individuated beings, non-individuated beings do not exist, they are simply part of the unity of reality. The higher intelligent beings would limit themselves because they are not depriving existence from subjectivity, or contradicting subjectivity, when they consuming non-individuated matter. I think the fact that you think you would not attempt to teach other beings why they shouldn't kill and eat your loved ones when they have otheralternatives shows how alienated and disconnected you are from your own subjectivity. Either that is the case, or you have a profoundly idiosyncratic subjectivity, which will not be able to sustain itself throughout time.

Loving a rock doesn't mean you will be concerned about it breaking apart, because there is no individuated substance to the rock. When I see a family member of mine suffering, I don't care about them as an object, but as an experiencing individual, who wants to avoid suffering. In simple terms, my end necessarily is the full expression of my subjectivity, as is the the case with the subjectivity of any other being. A rocks full expression of itself is always itself, no matter what the rock looks like. The same applies to plants. So, an expansion of identity to rocks will not make me concerned about their well-being, because rocks don't have well being, they don't have subjectivity, nor do plants. But animals and humans do, and so, for the flourishing of their being, which is their subjectivity, I seek to aid them in the expression of their subjectivity as that is part of the expression of my own subjectivity.

There aren't enough autistic people to care about this nonsense.

That's a question you would have to ask yourself. I wouldn't do it because to me there would be no point in inflicting suffering onto another being in that context, and I don't wish to inflict suffering onto things which I have extended my identity towards. @DefinitelyNotARobot Yes I basically agree, it's hard to say in the end what will yield results though.

I was asking in the frame of you being an immortal all powerful being. I'm not projecting any qualities on animals, I was asking you a question about humans. I'm not sensitive towards eating a cucumber because there is no reason to believe a cucumber is individuated, it is incapable of independent experience. Beyond that, it is incapable of suffering and other aspects of subjectivity that I value.

Yes, the basic dynamics is: People view moral consistency as the only tool to compell people to do something they do not really want to, by showing they are contradicting their own values and showing the reductios of their logic to them. But as you say, where we draw the line for what is acceptable and not in the end is arbitrary in the sense that, we could go much further than we are currently demanding to go, and future humans probably will have those expectations as baseline. The danger with this kind of self-awareness, and the misapplication of notions of hypocrisy, is that at any given point in time you can create a slippery slope which would put such a high burden on a given individual that they no longer would feel compelled to actually abide my the moral standard. We humans can only adopt so much responsibility for our actions at a time, too much and we cannot maintain the responsibility. More responsibility necessitates more selflessness. Expansion of identity has to happen gradually. If a tribal person for example expanded their identity to complete universality, they might have significantly hampered the survival of their own tribe, maybe even acted in contradiction to it. We can see this with vegans who view it as permissible to kill carnists, as long as the consequences would be positive. This type of alientation, from a rapid expansion of identity that outpaces current society, can be counter-productive and slow moral evolution. This is why, in the end, it requires a change of the internal state of the mind of any given person, such that they don't feel compelled to adhere to a moral norm because of notions of ethical consistency, but rather because they genuinely desire to act that way. In essence, they have to recognize their own subjectivity and learn to express it fully. In some ways ignorance is bliss, because if you are tricked that the step you are making is the morally necessary step, and therefore compell yourself to do so, you might make that step because of how responsible you will feel for your action. If you were to recognize the full scope of your ultimate expression of subjectivity, and the responsibilities it entails, you might not feel responsible to actually adopt any of those, because of how arbitrary it will feel. You should contemplate the difference between cutting up a live cucumber into pieces and cutting up a live infant into pieces. A vegan who views veganism as a philosophy of harm reduction* There is a reason why I view veganism as a movement of ceasing the objectification and commodification of animals. It has to be a clearly defined and actualizable practice, similar to the abolition of slavery. In that sense, a carnists is closer to a slave-keeper than a vegan is to a carnist. I agree that in many ways the way of life of a Jain is a fuller expression of our subjectivity than a vegans life is. The function of hypocrisy (the ignorance towards ones own selfishness) is a function of moral evolution as it happens in systems that mainly motivate individuals through moral compulsion rather than things like expansion of compassion and love. As I described above, self-awareness is a dangerous thing in this sense, as it can hamper the progression of individuals and render moral compulsion mute, which in a system that does not cultivate love, compassion and growth in individuals can lead to significant negative consequences.

The question is, would you think it to be acceptable to kill and eat the humans if you could eat vegetables instead?

If you were an immortal all powerful being, does this mean you'd be fine with killing and eating humans?

You are not grasping my points. By the extention of your logic, advocating for the abolition of slavery in the end is just a question of where the indiviual sets their bar for what is and what isn't acceptable. The epitome of social justice would be to starve yourself to death because consuming anything wouldbe considered unethical. You are again, not really looking at veganism for what it is. It's not as radical of a principle as you think. It's not about abolishing all unethical consumption, but specifically about the objectification of animals and how we relate to them. We understand as a society that we still cause harm to humans throughout our actions, but we draw the line at objectification. We would view people who wear hair from child slaves who get bred for their amazing hair as fundamentally repulsive, or who drink milk from dairy-humans who are kepts as slaves, raped and eventually slaughtered. It's not about the harm, but about how you relate to the objectification you participate in.

That's a silly strawman. Veganism fundamentally is about our relation to animals, not about harm reduction or minimization. It's about whether or not we can view animals as objects, commodify and enslave them. People in China still die of lung cancer so you can have your computer, so by extention you are causing some of that harm. The question is, does that justify using chinese people as slaves in your own country, objectify them, use their skin as clothes and their meat as food, and rape chinese women so that we can have chinese-milk. This isn't a question about utilitiarianism or harm reduction, but about what we deem as justifiable once we recognize the humanity or individuation of certain groups. As long as we will treat animals as objects, none of the deeper issues that relate to animals can be resolved. The same applied to humans. In the end, a slavor could have said "Those abolitionists are hypocrites! They think we can't use black people as slaves but look, they are happy to use animals as slaves!". Sure, technically you can say they are hypocrites, but that doesn't mean that the slavor and abolitionist are on the same level in regards to moral development. Usually when I hear people talk about moral superiority in regards to vegans it's carnists who accuse them of such, even though they themselves give off a vibe of moral superiority by claiming the vegans are so wrong and ignorant for being so radical.

Vegans are more evolved in that they have discovered that what they truly care about in an individual is consciousness. They have recognized that their empathy fundamentally extends to the individuation of others, not a specific form of individuation. Meat eaters are delusional in that they have convinced themselves they care about something other than individuation, which is not the case. In the same sense in which a racist has created a barrier between his families humanity and the humanity of one of another race, by having created a conceptual construct which distorts his perception. Meaning, one creates a distinction in reality which simply does not exist. If this illusion falls away, compassion naturally is extended. More developed in the end just means more capable of recognizing ones own subjectivity and expressing it fully. A vegan is more developed in that sense, as they have a deeper sense of their own subjectivity and are therefore capable of higher expression, as well as construction of ideological frameworks which are more conducive to the maximization of subjectivity.

Well, it's a tricky thing, because The Militant Vegan basically made veganism a national issue in germany, precisely because of her provocative nature. It's hard to say whether or not the impact in the long run is negative or not, because in this case at least people are thinking about the issue, whereas otherwise they might have not thought about it. On the other hand, the resistance created through these forms of activism could hamper progress in the long run. Correct, I am observing this with a lot of people who claim they are subjectivists. The interesting thing is, as a subjectivist, morality is simply about discovering the reality of the self and ones own nature. If morality equate to preferences, then there is a truth of what the true or deepest preferences of a mind are. With vegans, and increasingly other ethical movements, or in fact ideological positions in general, we are observing advocates asserting that logical consistency and adherence to logically consistent ethical frameworks is essential, as if it was the greatest preferences of their minds. However, the need for ethically logical consistency and adherence to moral frameworks is in and of itself a secondary preference which emerges from deeper, primary preferences. This means that when confronted with a contradiction of those preferences (a mind always holds contradictory and multi-dimensional preferences), it is actually revealed that adherence to logical consistency is not a foundational preference. A lot of subjectivists would say that, even if they didn't want to kill their own child to save a million people, it would still be the moral thing to do. Yet, this is delusional, it cannot be true of they are a subjectivist, because by definition, your preferences are what morality is. There is no distinction, it means one and the same. The failure to recognize this is part of the remnant of objective or transcendental morality. The truth is, for most human minds it is the moral thing to eradicate millions of people to save their own child, which just means it is their preference. The preference for a consistent and logical ethical system and the adherence to it actually does not outweigh the preference to protect ones own child. The reason why subjectivists get away with this delusion of ethical/logical consistency being the grounds of morality (the ground of their preferences), is because they are never confronted with a choice between their preference for logical consistency and the life of, for example, their child. Ethical evolution however does exist, and it works in the same way as natural evolution itself works. Preferences are real, minds do have preferences, and those preferences are shaped by the dynamics of reality. Shapes of morality (the shape of a system of preferences) are shaped by evolutionary forces, both on a biological level as well as a memetic level. In the end, our genetic legacy, which is really just the legacy of the universe, will determine the ethical systems of the future. Ethics and morality is a function of the maximization of subjectivity, and the maximization of subjectivity will lead to specific ethical and moral landscapes, or rather, landscapes of preferences encoded in ethical principles and laws. This is inevitable because of the very nature of subjectivity. There is a big danger in actually deluding yourself that adherence to logically consistent ethical systems is the most important thing to be done. At any given time, a subjectivity is not fully self-aware, and therefore any ethical system it constructs from it's current position will not be an expression of it's deepest nature and subjectivity. Ultimate adherence to systems of ethics that are spawned in any given point of time of the evolution of mankind will lead to a profound disharmony within reality. Naziism is a good example. The problem with naziism was, simply put, that it wasn't a truthful expression of Hitlers subjectivity. Like vegans currently can justify the mass-eradication of predator animals or human beings who consume meat, Hitler was able to justify the killing of groups of human beings for the sake of the health of mankind. There are deeper reasons why these systems are not an expression of the given subjectivity of the individual, but the individual cannot recognize this at the time. If truth and self-discovery is not a primary factor in establishing moral frameworks, it leads to systems which are fundamentally disconnected from the inter-subjectivity shared by actors in the system. This leads to profound disharmony and resistance, which leads to an eventual collapse of the ethical framework. This means, an ethical framework must be conducive to harmony to maintain itself throughout time and space. To be conducive to harmony, it must capture and maximize collective subjectivity. The ground of this subjectivity is determined largely, in a sense even exclusively, by our genetic legacy. And all of this is self-emergent from the function of reality itself, there is nothing that you can change about this, there is nothing that needs to be done to make this happen.

Sure I agree Israel is doing lobbying, but that only proves my point further.

This isn't just limited to Russia btw, listen to this: How is Qatar the most significant foreign donor to american universities?

Because in his eyes democracy and liberalism is the root cause for why the west is falling. Yes, he doesn't want to adopt that system at home, but that doesn't mean he'd want western nations to adopt his system, as that would, in his eyes, make them stronger and therefore a bigger threat to Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_and_Black_Lives_Matter https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjrl/vol24/iss2/2/ They target everyone because their goal is social disunity and chaos, to weaken and paralyze our political system. You can go down a rabbit hole of how much Russia is doing this, as well as China. They have their hands in everything now. Obviously Putin will not announce his psychological and cyberwarfare to the west. This is completely naive and contradicts intelligence reports and what we know about both Chinese and Russian psychological warfare. They are exploiting the polarization, nobody is arguing that they are the cause of it, that's naive.

Putin isn't against democracy, Putin thinks the western system, including democracy, is fundamentally going to erode western nations and eventually lead to their degeneration and collapse. He fundamentally does not believe such a thing as democracy can actually exist. Russian and chinese propaganda doesn't work by pushing their ideologies onto us, they specifically target both political directions and attempt to cause as much havoc, chaos and social disunity as possible. For this reason, Russian propaganda has been targetting both MAGA and Black Lives Matters. It's not about what aligns with Putin's views, it's about exploiting the weakness of liberal society and eroding our societies from within. The clip in the video about the Russian describing how Russian Psychological Warfare works is exactly how it works, and it is working amazingly well.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/campus-left-university-columbia-1968/678176/ Good article to put this into context.

One thing that needs to be understood is that, much like with pedophelia, if you suffer from suicide it is profoundly difficult to talk to anyone about it. It is truly taboo and this means that it is so much more difficult to help people with it. People wish they could just throw the therapists at all the mentally ill people and viola, no more suicide. But there is a far deeper problem going on here that we are completely ignorant of because of this taboo, because nobody is really allowed to actually talk about it, not in an honest way. Therapists won't solve this issue because it is systemic. You can try to hire more police officers, but if your society is corrupt to the core, you will not prevent criminality. You can try to catch as many child predators as you want, they will keep coming if the underlying problem here is not resolved. Stigmatization of these issues makes it impossible for us to resolve them. This is essential to understand. Our discomfort, immaturity and inability to engage with these with an open mind is what is allowing for the child abuse, for the suicide, and for all the other ills, to continue. Really, suicide in most cases is a failure of our collective responsibility. And people talking about it openly are a reminder, sometimes a very personal one, of that failure. But us making this a taboo won't suddenly make people any less hopeless.

I added a sentence to clarify why I am making these points.

I don't feel comfortable to go into detail on some of the points because I don't think that's the responsible thing to do in the context of this forum. But beyond that, I want to encourage people to think about this more deeply themselves. In general, when it comes to autonomy vs harm-prevention, people tend to focus either on one or the other. Freedom, in this case human autonomy, has an essential function to evolution. It confronts us, fundamentally, with aspects of our own human nature that we, prior to the freedom, had no opportunity to truly explore. This exploration will always involve mistakes and suffering, but it will expand our consciousness. In this case it very much confronts us with what it means that there are people who want to kill themselves, and who can do so any time they want. You have to consider that in this case, the person already has the autonomy to do what they seek to do. In a way this is just a symbol for how helpless we as a society to truly prevent people from doing so. It's easier to brush it all under the rug when it is happening unofficially. If people we truly free to kill themselves, maybe we would actually have to start caring about each other more than we currently do. Maybe we would need to fundamentally change how we coexist in society. I think this is mainly a discussion about whether or not suicide ought to be taboo, even if people are not aware of it. But a taboo in many ways prevents us from looking at the situation honestly and ever being able to find a solution that will actually work. We can observe the same with child predation and incest.

I know you guys hijacked the thread for petty and childish drama, as tends to happen, but I still want to respond to the topic at hand. I think as society becomes more sophisticated and mature, freedoms will expand. A fully conscious and mature civilization would in theory require no regulations as to what individuals can do with themselves and to each other. This cannot be fathomed because of how profoundly immature our society still is. But remember, it was not that long ago when civilizations had to mandate even the position in which you could have sex in, so that you wouldn't become a horny bastard who ruined society and got everyone enslaved by the tribe next door. The kind of freedoms we are given require of us greater responsibility, which requires greater consciousness and maturity. As far as euthanasia for mental diseases goes, I think people underestimate how significant the suffering from mental diseases can be, and how little we have to actually treat some of these conditions. The mind can create any type of hell, ideally, if we have systems to prevent individuals from simply committing suicide (which seems to be the case in the netherlands despite the attempt to smear the whole thing by the media) in situations that might be fixable, there is nothing that makes this different from someone who suffers from some physical condition that causes immeasurable pain and cannot be treated. But nonetheless, it is a complex ethical issue. I want to urge people to actually investigate the reasoning behind permitting such things with an open and mature mind. I also want to point out that these types of topics tend to evoke strong emotions in us, that make us unable to consciously engage with the substance at hand, and makes us reactive rather than open-minded. I think there is something that was given little importance in this discussion so far that in general is overlooked when it comes to controversial topics like these, and that is the value of autonomy. While it is true that certain freedoms will lead to negative consequences, it is also true that limiting freedoms means violating fundamental human autonomy and will. While harm reduction principles are important to consider, we must weigh them against the principles of liberty and dignity. Not allowing this means that you will inevitably violate someones autonomy, and not someone who was simply irrational and therefore not functionally autonomous. You will condemn such individuals to an undignified death or to a life of unbarable suffering. Or simply to prevent them from making the choice of ending their life. It's easy to ignore this, to not be aware of it, to only see the potential harms from this, which are certainly present. But if we do not recognize this reality, we will not be able to actually contend with the issue at hand. In the end, the more pressing manner is for us to find a way of living and coexisting such that we don't have so many people who feel hopeless in life, such that they want to kill themselves.

We have to abolish factory farming, it's feasible given that we don't need to consume animal products, and especially not on that scale.

That's not what a strawman is, and I never said anyone is conspiring to create super viruses. I am saying these are the consequences of the system in place.