AnimalsDream

In western civilization everything is low risk until we’ve come too far to avert calamity. Before the 2008 financial crisis, every institution that played a role would have you believe everything was great, right up until everything was falling apart.

With global warming we always had, and still struggle against entirely too many people, and lying institutional vested interests, downplaying or disbelieving how serious of a global catastrophe climate change is forming into.

The only reason h5n1 is “low risk” at the current time is because it’s not yet a human-to-human calamity that is already too far underway to put a stop to. We all saw how badly we all collectively handled covid.

We are now at mammal to mammal transmission, and humans are also mammals. The only actual difference between low risk, and full on pandemic, at this point, is patient zero.

You should really go back to the article and read the whole thing, as well as others that are linked to in it. Because in this one the WHO describes it as an enormous concern, because it is.

https://www.sciencealert.com/who-warns-growing-spread-of-bird-flu-to-humans-is-enormous-concern

Right, the difference in immune benefit is so crystal clear for everyone who makes the switch, not even considering the other myriad benefits like heart health, diabetes reversal/mitigation, weight loss, and mental health benefits.

Eating the flesh of an animal is not good for anyone. It’s not good for the animal who was abused their whole life and murdered. It’s not good for the environment. It’s not good for all the beings who get sick from pathogens because of it. And it’s not even good for the human animal who consumes the other animal’s flesh.

You keep comparing animals to inanimate objects. What exactly makes a chicken more like your car, and less like a person?

No, no it would not be beneficial. That would be the opposite of beneficial (unless it’s plant-based steak).

I would say that in their own way most animals can communicate their desires, and to at least some degree we can infer consent or non-consent from that. Chickens tend to be protective of their eggs, so it’s reasonable to conclude that they wouldn’t consent to us taking them. Same with bees and honey. And certainly the same with cows and the entire process of producing dairy. In addition to the sexual assault that people do to get cows pregnant, it’s well known that when baby cows are separated from their mothers, the mothers cry out loudly for their children for several days.

But again, I do agree that consent is not the only criteria. We should seek a point where our societies no longer see sentient living beings as products or commodities full stop. And I think that this commodification of thinking, living beings bleeds out and serves as the archetype of our commodification of each other, like in the way that the capitalist sees their “workers” as a form of “capital”.

I wouldn’t say that consent is the premise of my opposition, just one important component of it. I don’t remember this discussion so well anymore, but earlier you had pointed out that exploited workers often do consent to their exploitation - and I would agree that exploitation can occur even with consent.

No that was a good call, I do also refer back to the Vegan Society’s definition.

If anyone wants help going vegan, I’d be happy to help. Even if it’s infeasible to get enough people in the world to stop eating animals fast enough to avert the next pandemic, there is evidence that people who eat plant-based have better outcomes from getting sick, as well as just getting sick less in general. Not to mention getting animal products out of your homes reduces one of the vectors through which pathogens can spread. So at the very least you’d be giving yourself your own best chance (just keep in mind it’s no replacement for vaccinations!)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=047C-mMQpSE

I’m nearly as far from an expert on infectious diseases as it gets, but - and if anyone who knows about influenza reproduction can chime in - I remember reading that influenza has incredible abilities to mutate wildly and recombine. The analogy was like, if human reproduction is like taking two decks of cards and randomly shuffling half of each deck together, then influenza is like taking any number of decks, randomly chopping up and re-splicing portions of random individual cards together, as well as resorting all of them back together without any regard for whether the results are going to even produce anything that can live or not. But the reproductions and randomizations are so voluminous that it doesn’t matter - at least some of it will stick.

In other words, in addition to the wildly rapid mutation capabilities these viruses have - if you have animals that are carrying more than one strain of influenza simultaneously, those two or more strains can produce hybrids.

But again: citation needed.

Some Buddhists are okay with meat, but clearly Siddhartha Gautama himself was absolutely not.

That article quotes Marion Nestle, someone who has been interviewed on Plant Chompers before. Sorry, but you really just sound like a conspiracy theorist - the bottom line is that the full volume of evidence in nutritional science leans way more in favor of plant-dominant diets than anything else.

If you vote red, you are voting for cruelty. If you consume animals and their products, you are still voting red with your money, in addition to your own cruelty.

The wikipedia article on Buddhist vegetarianism covers everything here. You can see from some writings that Buddha had made some concessions of eating animal flesh for members of the sangha, but that was only because of their specific context, where they were operating outside the normal economy and relying on receiving alms. Another passage sets further restrictions on monastics:

“… meat should not be eaten under three circumstances: when it is seen or heard or suspected (that a living being has been purposely slaughtered for the eater); these, Jivaka, are the three circumstances in which meat should not be eaten, Jivaka! I declare there are three circumstances in which meat can be eaten: when it is not seen or heard or suspected (that a living being has been purposely slaughtered for the eater); Jivaka, I say these are the three circumstances in which meat can be eaten.”

Another text further declares that there are five type of livelihood that the lay follower should not engage in - one of them is the selling of animal flesh.

So to situate these requirements in a modern context, it would be like a person living a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle to the best of their ability - but also accepting whatever the food pantry has to offer, or possibly going dumpster diving and eating whatever they find. The point is to seek to do the best we can, as much as our circumstances allow.

In Mahayana the injunctions against consuming animals only gets more direct and unequivocal. And in general Buddhist ethics are naturally very aligned with at least the reduction of suffering side of vegan ethics.

The example in your video sounds like it was largely a socioeconomic matter - they do what they can, with what they have. Of course it could also be, at least to some extent, that they haven’t engaged with the matter enough to move away from oyster consumption. They might not have a central nervous system, but things are not so cut and dry.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianism

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zvE7W1l8wfY

I’m sorry, but if the insights of a respected and accomplished Standford scientist, who routinely contributes original science on the relevant subject matter, is spreading unscientific lunacy - then what exactly counts as good science to you?

I Adventist health studies are amazing.

I agree, those things would be desirable.

I wouldn’t say that I premise exploitation on consent. Afterall I’m being exploited at a minimum wage job, and that is something that I more or less consented to.

But in the case of animals, consent has to play a significant role, because a core part of their oppression is the complete absence of their bodily autonomy. There is a great deal of intersectionality between women’s rights and non-human animal’s rights.

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Sexual_Politics_of_Meat.html?id=aU28CgAAQBAJ

What is this technology?

When someone is intoxicated to the point that they can’t make informed consent to have relations with another person, does that give the other person the right to just declare that consent plays no role and is absurd? No, the correct response to someone being unable to consent, is that it’s an automatic no. The same should apply for non-human animals.

A chicken can’t consent to their eggs being taken, so they should be left alone. A cow can’t consent to being artificially inseminated, so they shouldn’t be forcibly impregnated just so their milk can be stolen (another thing they can’t consent to).

Oh and btw, I’m reticent to even mention this because it was only an appeal to authority in the first place, but the Vegan Society has materials on their site where they talk about why raising animals for their products is unethical - and the animals being unable to consent is part of that discussion.

Would you care to elaborate on these “strict buddhists”? Provide sources please.

The myth of people needing animal proteins has been so thoroughly debunked for so long now that anyone still making that claim should not be providing dietary advice without getting properly informed.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DMwf_9wqWY0&pp=ygUqZXZlcnl0aGluZyB5b3Uga25vdyBhYm91dCBwcm90ZWluIGlzIHdyb25n

Sounds like a good way to incentivise touching some grass.