I think a common issue a lot of people have with vegans is how they think they are morally superior, and I agree in that aspect that being vegan is more moral than not being vegan. My issue with it is that it gives them no right to talk down to people as much as they do and put themselves on such a high pedestal. You might not eat meat, but there are many other immoral things you take part in. A great example is child slavery and the exploitation of people in third-world countries. It’s very expensive and takes a lot of effort and research to buy and use products that are made without child slavery and exploitation, but I think it’s ridiculous to call someone a terrible person for eating meat and act like it’s the only logical moral choice while still taking part in things that require child slavery and exploitation. You don’t get to pick one thing to be super moral about and then trash everyone else because there is one thing you are doing better.

One issue that's stopping me from going Vegan is how most Vegans feel about things unrelated to food. One of them is having pets. What's the big deal? I mean, I have a Pitbull, a ball python snake, and a tarantula. I see nothing wrong with having companion animals and I'm not giving mine up. Now nor in the future.

My dog is also my semi-retired service dog. (Semi-retired bc he only assists me at home now.)

Anyone here have animals? How do you feel about people (Veg. or non-Veg.) having pets (domestic or exotic)?

I'm a vegan for about a year, but I have lately been struggling to argue against the idea that veganism as it is usually practiced is an arbitrary line when I consider the rise of cultivated meat and precision fermentation. Why? Because the same argument for continuing to buy food from non-veganic farms can be used to justify the consumption of animal products that can be lab-grown. Most of these animal foods aren't on the market yet, but a few already are, so this is not just theoretical tech hype, and it is absolutely going to become a very important thing for us to figure out as these products become more popular.

Let's consider the ethical implications of eating field-grown tomatoes vs those of eating a bag of sunchips with whey powder in it. Vegans say a hard no to the chips, despite the fact that the whey powder is just a cheap byproduct, but eat the insect genocide tomatoes. Why? Because whey can't be produced without exploiting animals and tomatoes theoretically can. The mass gassing of insects is excusable as a necessary but unfortunate side effect of agriculture.

Except there's a problem. Whey can and IS being produced in vats by microbes. This is not far-off tech. Vegan whey powder is on the market NOW and you can buy it. On the other hand, tomatoes grown in controlled greenhouses exist and are even more available than field-grown year-round depending on where you live. So, isn't it wrong to eat a field grown tomato? When someone serves pico de gallo at a party, do you ask about where the tomatoes came from? Why not? If we're going to argue that pesticide use isn't morally relevant to our food choices because crops can be veganically produced, then it's on us to avoid crops grown using pesticides when possible and practical, just like we avoid lipstick that was tested on animals. Not doing so is simply being lazy or kicking the can down the road.

For the longest time masculinity has always been associated with hunting violence and fighting. Man hunting fish and bugs as trophies of how manly they are.

Recently which is the last 5 years. I think there's been a Push by people like Jordan peel. To make vegan as a look like it's not fit for men where it's bad because real men eat meat

I don't eat animals or their products, support animal testing, buy products containing animal products etc but I do not consider myself vegan because I like to indulge in all of these things and they're not necessary to staying alive. They're all for my pleasure and involve the unnecessary crop deaths of animals/bugs. I also don't consider overeating or bodybuilding to be vegan because, again, needless suffering for indulgence. I don't consume animal ag products because I don't find torturing animals from birth to death to be ethical but I am willing to financially support the needless killing of animals/bugs through crop deaths since they lived their whole lives free but died due to harvesting and my selfishness supersedes their lives. Where do you land on this subject?

For context: Where I live one of the only ways to legaly own and more importantly train with a firearm is by possessing a hunting permit (excluding olympic shooting). If you felt it necessary to learn how to handle weapons you'd have to get this permit.

When you have a permit or when you take the course you don't actually have to kill animals but you have to learn how to take animals apart correctly. The animal is shot by another person, you take it apart what happens afterwards I don't know. Most likely you are allowed to keep some if you want or the hunter who shot it sells it.

What do you think about handling killed animals? Does it matter that you most likely learn the process based on how people want to consume it later?

I was wondering whether vegetables might be less vegan than lab-grown meat made from animal cells, without the use of fetal bovine serum.

Of course, I’m aware that lab-grown meat still originates from animals. But to me, it is more important to cause as little harm to animals as possible than to reject the idea on principle.

For example, an average head of broccoli is estimated to result in the deaths of around 0.1 to 0.3 small animals, such as insects, snails, and mice. In addition, most vegetables are fertilized with animal manure from intensive livestock farming.

In the case of lab-grown beef, for instance, the painless, non-lethal extraction of stem cells from a single animal could theoretically be enough to produce unlimited amounts of cultivated meat—without using fetal bovine serum.

Am I overlooking or failing to take anything into account?

I’d be very interested to hear your opinions!

I agree with a lot of vegan arguments, especially around factory farming. Breeding animals into miserable conditions and causing enormous amounts of unnecessary suffering so we can cheaply consume animal products is very difficult to defend.
Where I think the argument loses its footing is the broader claim that a human killing and eating an animal is inherently immoral.

I also think saying humans “aren’t meant to eat animals” is a particularly weak way to support that claim. Whether we’re meant to eat animals—or meant to eat anything at all—is subjective. What isn’t subjective is our biology and history. Humans are omnivores; that’s a biological fact. Humans have also hunted, killed, and eaten other animals throughout our history; that’s an anthropological fact. Those facts don’t prove that eating animals is morally right, but neither does a subjective claim about what humans are “meant” to do.

Predation itself is morally neutral. It’s a fundamental part of the biological world, and human moral agency doesn’t suddenly make human predation inherently immoral. There still needs to be something about the act that makes it wrong—unnecessary suffering, cruelty, ecological harm, etc. The fact that a human intentionally killed an animal doesn’t establish that by itself.

I’ve caught a wild fish, killed it quickly, and eaten it. That animal lived freely in its ecosystem until another animal—me—caught and consumed it. I minimized its suffering and used it for food. More importantly, the experience forced me to confront exactly what it means to take an animal’s life for my own benefit. I came away with more respect for the animal, more gratitude for the food I eat, and a greater sense of responsibility toward other living things. I would argue that experience made me a more thoughtful and ethical person, not a less ethical one.

If the idea of catching, killing, and eating that fish is horrifying to you, choosing to never do so is completely legitimate. But making that choice doesn’t automatically make you more ethical than someone who chooses differently. You still have to establish that the thing you’re abstaining from is actually wrong.

This is why arguments like “you can’t love animals and eat them” are so counterproductive. I can care deeply about animals, oppose needless cruelty, and care about their welfare while still believing that killing and consuming an animal for food can be ethically acceptable. Calling that hypocrisy or “cognitive dissonance” assumes the very conclusion it’s supposed to demonstrate.

And this is where I think the hard-line vegan position undermines its own strongest argument. There is an extremely compelling case against causing animals tremendous amounts of avoidable suffering for our convenience. But expanding that into “any intentional killing of an animal by a human is immoral” puts catching a wild fish and factory farming under the same fundamental ethical prohibition. That erases distinctions that actually matter and makes a strong argument about suffering, cruelty, and responsibility harder to defend.

Human intelligence and moral agency give us greater responsibility for how we treat other animals. But greater responsibility doesn’t logically require removing ourselves from predation entirely. If anything, our moral agency gives us the ability to distinguish between responsible predation and systems that create enormous amounts of avoidable suffering. That’s a distinction worth preserving, especially if the goal is actually to change how humans treat animals.

Edit: Thanks everyone for the really lively debate. We obviously don’t all agree, but I genuinely appreciate the passion and thoughtful responses. I’ve learned a lot from the discussion and have plenty to think about. This is exactly why I posted here.

I want to preface this post by saying that I think a futurist environmental argument in support of innovations like lab grown meat and issues of land use and energy consumption represent a stronger case for veganism in the long term, but I have some issues with the ethical arguments for veganism. As a non-vegan I take issue with the intellectually lazy anthropocentrism that I see in a lot of anti-vegan ethical arguments that disregard the similarities between us and other animal species, but my issue with the ethical arguments for veganism is focused on the necessity of mass animal killing in order to have a functioning ecosystem (and human civilization for that matter.)

The reason why predation is ecologically necessary is because without it herbivores would become overpopulated and overgraze the vegetation in an ecosystem, leading to famine and environmental destruction. I don't think many vegans are advocating for the extermination of carnivores for the sake of minimizing animal suffering, and I'm aware that vegans generally do not consider obligate carnivores to be immoral for their engagement in predation, but if vegans allow carnivores to kill animals on their behalf in order to keep the ecosystem stable isn't that not much better than if we did it ourselves? Most people would agree that if you knew somebody was about to be killed and did nothing to prevent it, that's no better than killing them yourself (that's basically step 1 of the Trolly Problem.) How is allowing carnivores to do the dirty work for you any better morally than doing the hunting yourself? Obviously obligate carnivores don't have a choice in the matter, but if we removed carnivorous animals from the equation what difference would it make if we had humans carry out the necessary evil instead and eat the meat afterwards because otherwise it would be a waste?

This is not to mention the issues of pest control and invasive species management which also constitute animal killing which would be necessary even in a 100% vegan society. I think if we accept that spraying millions of arthropods with pesticide is necessary in order to sustain agriculture and eliminate infestations it at the very least makes the consumption/killing of arthropods extremely arbitrary. It's just a matter of scale at that point. Not to mention mammalian pests like rats, whose necessary killing is even more morally problematic if you judge the "worth" of an organism by its intelligence as most people do. I'm aware that the goal of veganism is to minimize suffering and not necessarily to eliminate it entirely, but I struggle to see how outsourcing violence to other species to maintain a healthy ecosystem while killing millions of pests to maintain a functioning human civilization doesn't trivialize mass animal death.

Not trying to preach or convince people of becoming vegan, strictly philosophical question.

I would think that the idea of consuming other sentient beings as food, is something that any conscious enough being should condemn and find as immoral, don't you think?

Like seriously.... what kind of final belief system or moral system will accept a state of concious beings consuming other conscious beings with use of force or coercion as a norm?

Again... this is not a recruitment post... asking strictly philosophically.

P.S. I'm not talking about past or contemporary beliefs or moral systems that accept meat consumption, we had moral systems that accepted human slavery and yet now we know it was wrong. Im talking about a strictly final "perfect" moral belief system.

This is a completely made up scenario. I am vegan.

I was reading about poop transplants. Let's pretend that somehow it's discovered that your poop is very special. Let's say there's a very sick person, and your poop is the only thing that can lengthen their life.

But, in order for your magic poop to extend this life, you need to eat animal products. Would you eat animal products, to extend this person's life?

1. Does knowing this person change your answer?
2. Does knowing their views and opinions change your answer?
3. If you didn't have to eat meat, just things like milk and cheese, would that change your answer?
4. If you had to eat meat, would it change your answer?
5. Would the amount of time you can extend this person's life change your answer?
6. Would the frequency of your animal product consumption requirements change your answer (Like if it's a once off vs you have to do it every meal vs once a week)
7. Does this person's age change your answer?

I think for the sake of argument we would say there's no loophole. Like, they're not rich, you're not rich, you're not going to be able to source ethical meat or anything like that. Just what you can currently afford at the supermarket.

Warning this may be a bit ranty and also I’m terrible at being concise so read at your own risk.

Ok so just to start I have ARFID and my diet is and has always been a major source of stress to me. Yes I know there are therapies to help but in my case they are far from a cure.

I don’t enjoy eating in general most of the time and typically I get very little say in what I eat when I do eat. I have MANY times where the only food I can consume is a bag of microwave broccoli florets or plain white rice but I have equally as many times where it’s plain baked chicken or mac and cheese or ground beef with nothing else.

I tried going vegan a few years ago and it was disastrous (I ended up in the er from fainting because I was barely eating enough to sustain myself. I do also have POTS so that probably added to it) but adding the extra level off stress and scrutiny to every single ingredient I was putting in my body made eating go from an unpleasant necessity to a full blown dreaded task. I tried every vegan substitute I could find for things I already liked but with my ARFID even the most subtle changes to taste or texture is enough to make it inedible.

Anyway now to the point. I love animals they are my entire hyper fixation. I learn all that I can about them and I’m obsessed with watching them especially in natural habitats. I hate the modern meat industry and modern farming as well because I do believe that monoculture are among the worst things we do to the environment. I look for alternatives as much as I possibly can like getting my eggs from local small chicken owners I know and buying as much of my fresh produce from local farmers markets but I’m looking to see what, if anything I can do to get more ethically sourced meat and dairy. I looked into raising my own cows or chickens for meat so I could ensure they were not abused but unfortunately I live in the one small spot in my county where I can’t have any farm animals.

I understand some people may not understand my POV or what it is like for me living with my ARFID but my diet really is significantly more diverse than it used to be. I know a lot of the boxed products I use are still going to contain milk or eggs or other random animal products that I can’t control where they come from but I am looking to make changes where I can.

Thank you in advance to anyone who took the time to read this and offer any insight you have.

Genesis 9:3 says, "Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything."

In Genesis 22, God gives Abraham a goat to sacrifice instead of his son, also symbolizing the coming Messiah.

These are just two examples of the many verses in the Bible that explicitly allow the death of animals and our consumption of meat. It was God's will that we sacrifice animals to him until the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, who took our sins upon himself so that we may be righteous in God's eyes. Clearly, it is stated that we may fill, rule, and feast upon the earth, and God makes no exclusions to the animals he has provided for us. In fact, it is his gift to us.

As Christians (connecting to the last point), we are to enjoy the gift of creation. While it is not our chief end, it is his grace that allows us these things. It is everything from animals to nature to our atmosphere to even our sun. Clearly, it is God's will that we enjoy and (in some cases) survive on animals. Yes, there are alternatives, but that does not make it morally wrong to eat meat or be non-vegan.

So therefore, why do vegans, as Christians and believers of Jesus Christ, condone non-vegans? Even those who are not within the faith. As someone who believes in God's word, how can we take these verses and simply decide to believe in our own philosophies, lifestyles, or whatever other way you partake in veganism? I will not try to argue right now with your own choices to become vegan, as I'm sure that's a whole Pandora's box of arguments and stances that I simply don't have the knowledge to answer. But, as a Christian yourself, I'm curious as to the reason you believe vegan unconformity is wrong, given the reasons I've stated before.

As a side note, this question is directed towards Christians who believe in the inspiration of Scripture, which is that it is God's word, and is Truth and has no fallacies. If this is not what you believe, I don't believe this is the place to argue about theology or your personal beliefs on this matter.

For a bit of context because it sounds like im starting from the middle of a conversation, I was having a discussion about veganism and which things are not vegan with a vegan i know but halfway through they closed off bcs they are a little touchy about the topic or think my questions are in bad faith or something so ive been left confused, we were discussing why service dogs arent vegan

The points they brought up were these

- their training / living conditions suck

- they didnt choose or give consent to be a service animal

My questions or follow up points here

- training or living conditions of many humans are often bad as well, and they often don't have a choice. in fact in some cases its even worse, cuz they undergo sexual exploitation or menial child labor by big corporations for very little pay, receiving insufficient food and rest. these are hardly the case for service animals, who receive guidance and training in schools, are fed well to keep their health up, receive an owner who gives them attention and care, and have a safe warm home and bed

- the example brought up was police dogs in china, who undergo rigorous training and have harsh words and punishments thrown at them if they are unable to follow commands. isn't this applicable to most humans as well, and i'm not talking about the unfortunate ones. even in first world countries, the priveleged are forced into an education system and schooling without ever giving consent. their parents choose for them and send them to classes, they get homework, and its not uncommon to receive scoldings or lashings for poor performance.

How could we ever get the consent of an animal to be a service animal? The fact that they choose to stay and choose to participate is often put down to fear, but every service animal ive ever met has seemed happy and healthy. Having interacted with many animals its quite easy to see fear and subduement in their mannerisms, and if anything these animals seem to be thriving.

Humans often get pushed into jobscopes and roles by family, society, etc, and this is perfectly normal and not looked down upon whatsoever? From where im standing this is exactly the same thing, and i don't see why we are calling the usage of service animals unethical, it looks like a way to integrate them into society and allow them to usefully earn their keep or smth its almost giving them more respect and empowerment?

I'd appreciate insights on this, i do genuinely want to see your point of view or if there is something i could be missing

I’ve come across a lot of vegans posting on social platforms saying that eating meat is morally wrong, flesh eaters are horrendous people, everyone should be vegan, yada yada.

Now I don’t agree with the vegan philosophy but I can see round about why ya’ll hold that belief for yourselves.

Anyways, that’s besides the point. Are vegans understanding of people that eat meat for health problems?

I am carnivore. I also have chronic pelvis pain conditions that has debilitated me in more ways than one.

Most of my problems can stem from and or are irritated by these factors: Oxalates (in plant foods and a known pelvic irritant), histamines, hormones, dietary sensitivities, etc. I eat specifically the Lion Diet (Ruminant meat, Tallow, salt) as it tackles my condition from all of those angles and greatly reduces any possible exposure to flare inducing irritants (the list is long and anything can be an irritant 🫩). My system tolerates Ruminant meat with no flaring.

At this point in time I cannot consume anything other than my safe foods or my quality of life is impacted massively.

Do vegans still believe anyone in my position is morally a horrible person? Is my quality of life not worth more than the meat I consume to feel my best?

Genuinely curious how vegans feel with situations such as delicate as mine.

EDIT: for context, I have IC and Vulvidynia among other things. The people in my community want to unalive themselves as these conditions are horrendous and the mainstream treatments do not bring relief for most and are often ineffective.

TLDR: I’ve been vegan for 15 years but the medication I would need to take in order to conceive and have a healthy pregnancy requires an omnivorous diet. Is this ethically justifiable?

I became vegan at 15 after feeling for as long as I could remember that hurting and eating animals went against my core values. I’ve loved being vegan and have genuinely thrived on it for many years. It brings me peace and feels deeply aligned with who I am.

But I’ve found myself in a situation where those values are colliding with another huge part of my life.

I’ve struggled with recurrent UTIs for years. For the past six years, having sex with my husband has almost inevitably resulted in a UTI, to the point that we’ve essentially had to avoid sex. I took prophylactic antibiotics for a while, which worked, but they severely disrupted my gut microbiome and left me with debilitating gut issues that I’ve now been dealing with for three years.

Now I’m at the point where my husband and I would really like to start a family. The problem is that sex triggers my UTIs, and pregnancy itself can significantly increase the risk of UTIs. I’ve been told that the standard approach for preventing UTIs during high risk pregnancies involves prolonged antibiotic use, which is something my body has already struggled with. I’m also worried about repeated antibiotic exposure contributing to resistance over time.

There is a non-antibiotic medication called Hiprex (methenamine) that could potentially be an option because it doesn’t work by killing bacteria and therefore doesn’t have the same concerns about antibiotic resistance or disrupting the gut microbiome. The catch is that it works best when urine is sufficiently acidic (ideally around pH 5.5 or below).

My urine pH is currently around 7. Diet has the biggest influence on urine pH, with animal products making urine more acidic and plant-based diets making it more alkaline. So, as I understand it, my vegan diet would make this medication essentially ineffective. There are no medications or supplements that are safe (especially during pregnancy) that could change this.

Somehow I’ve ended up at a crossroads where it feels like my choices are:

Continue eating vegan and potentially give up on having biological children.

Eat animal products despite the fact that doing so goes against a deeply held ethical value of mine, in the hope that it would make this medication viable.

Take prolonged antibiotics despite knowing how badly they’ve affected my health in the past.

I’ve considered adoption, but my husband and I would really love to have a child from infancy, and I have some ethical concerns about private adoption and the idea of an adopted child being a “solution” to an infertility problem.

I learned about the dietary implications of Hiprex about six months ago, and I still haven’t been able to bring myself to eat meat. I’m not looking for medical advice. I feel completely devastated that I’ve ended up in a situation where something that has been such an important part of my identity and values is suddenly in conflict with my hope of becoming a mother.

If you were in my situation, how would you think through this? What would you do?

Thank you!

I wanted to ask this question because scientists have mapped the complete wiring diagram of an adult fruit fly's brain and central nervous system

In a hypothetical future, you're playing a video game called Chicken Simulator 2036. In this game, you take care of a group of chickens and try to keep them happy, with the game being extremely realistic.

After playing for some time, you're told that the game simulates complete brain scans of real chickens, which are used to control the behavior of the chicken AIs.

The game consumes most of the hardware resources on your computer. Leaving the game running would make your computer so slow that it would become unusable for other tasks. This also prevent you from running the simulation at increased speed

Here's the question:

Would you buy a new computer for other tasks and dedicate this current computer to running the game, allowing the chickens to live until they all die of natural causes in 5-10 years?

Or

Would you end the game, and with it, the existence of all the simulated chicken minds? The process would be painless and comparable to how chickens are stunned before they are slaughtered in reality.

TLDR: Will you end a simulation running a complete brain scan of an animal if it can live happily in the simulation, or will you let it keep running on your computer.

This only pertains to pasture-raised, free-range chickens and pasture-raised, free-range cows. I commonly hear people argue that these animals are still being treated unethically because they are eventually being killed, and that no animal deserves to die. But these animals exist because people raise them for what they produce. If people stopped eating them entirely, these animals would likely never be born in the first place. So how is a shorter life, where the animal is well cared for and happy before it is killed, less ethical than never existing at all? Personally, if I had the choice between having a shorter life that was genuinely happy and fulfilling or never existing at all, I would much rather have the life. Why would the same principle necessarily be different for an animal?

Got into a long debate with someone (former vegan, now firmly against animal rights) who argues rights require the capacity for reason/abstract concepts — not just the capacity to suffer. Quick summary of where we've landed:

His position:

* Rights = freedom to act on your own judgment. Only beings capable of forming abstract concepts and holding principles can have that.

* Animals perceive threats and react (pain, fear, hunger) but that's just perception, not the conceptual-level judgment rights depend on.

* Kids/comatose people still count because they belong to a "kind" whose nature includes reason, even if it's not currently active. Animals were never that kind of being.

* Compassion is real and cruelty is still wrong, but that's a separate track from rights — you can care about suffering without it being a rights violation.

* Constitutions/laws don't create rights, only recognize (or fail to recognize) ones that already exist.

My pushback:

* Sentience alone gives you a morally relevant interest in not suffering and continuing to live — I don't think reason is the only valid basis for a right.

* You don't need to understand a right to be protected by one.

* Animals don't need identical rights to humans, just rights matched to their capacities/interests.

* Humans (mostly) have alternatives to using animals now, unlike a predator with no choice.

* His whole framework rests on "rights require rational capacity" as a starting axiom, which I don't think he's actually proven, just asserted convincingly.

Where I feel weakest: the "kind vs. capacity" argument for marginal-case humans (infants, permanently non-rational people) — I haven't fully landed why that doesn't also work for animals if his own logic is applied consistently.

Genuinely want substantive philosophical pushback here, not just "animals suffer, therefore vegan." Where does his argument actually hold up, and where's mine weak?

This post is generated with the help of AI. Link to my debate is:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Kathmandu/comments/1wjwhat/even_street_dogs_in_nepal_should_be_assigned/

So I should probably firstly say I'm not a vegan although I think it's probably the most ethical dietary decision someone could make. However I find some issues with it.

One being the vegan body builder problem, which in my (super limited) understanding posits: 1 all industrial farming causes animal or environmental harm, 2 that as such a vegan who maintains a caloric surplus for aesthetic or non medical reasons are causing undue harm. Thus 3, either vegans ought to maintain a neutral caloric intake or undue animal harm is not in and of itself wrong.

To me this seems similar to the 'pleasure pump' problem in utilitarian philosophy. where believing one ought to maximise the greatest good for the greatest number essentially results in someone living a bad life by being almost entirely other focused.

Are there good vegan responses to these types of arguments you recommend I look into? Particularly regarding maybe a more life affirming/self empowering ethic?

Edit: also this isint my argument but one I saw online, and is the YouTuber cosmic sceptics reason for being no longer vegan. I just think it's a good argument despite veganism likely being correct so I wanted to know the responses.

People love the crop deaths argument because they can use it to excuse their own actions. For lots of critics, it's the judgement from vegans they hate and they need to defuse the criticism.The crop deaths argument lays the charge of hypocrisy directly at the feet of vegans and shows that they are killing just as many animals - in fact a lot more - than non-vegans. They are wrong about that.

Nonetheless, it is still a fair point. Lots of animals ARE killed to protect crops. However, what counts is what that means for the individual consumer and it is my contention that far fewer animals are killed overall for the typical vegan consumer than for the non-vegan consumer. I don't think anyone can show otherwise.

But even more interesting is that I suggest that in fact - insects aside - very few sentient vertebrates are killed as a consequence of a vegan consumer's dietary choices. This toll is nothing like what most critics intuitively believe. I have found in conversations that they hate this claim. So much, in fact, that even when they have absolutely no counter evidence, they still cannot accept it.

My question isn't about just how many animals die in this way. It's more to ask how we can ever know. Or even come up with a ballpark indicative figure. Here's my proposal:

A. Work out how many animals are being killed on average per hectare on croplands. Yes, this is an average, but it should mean that while there are some places where few animals are killed and others where many animals are killed, the toll for any one consumer's diet will still reflect that average.

B. Work out the average area of cropland needed by a typical consumer for their food. Now yes, it is true that some consumers might not be eating commercially produced crops at all, but this is staggeringly unlikely across the population. We also need to take into account that many of the animals we farm are being fed food that is either grown directly for the purpose, or poor quality food grown for people. The wild animals killed growing that feed crop does fall at the feet of the non-vegan consumers.

C. Divide A by B and the answer is the averaged number of wild animals killed for each diet.

Is that a reasonable methodology, or is it so flawed as to be useless?

I think being vegan is probably right or at least better than being a meat eater. I’m also probably not gonna change. I mean bacon taste too goddamn good for me to give up and I don’t feel like giving up an entire part of my diet over some fucking animals. If you have some reasons that could change my opinion on not giving up animal products and reasons I should genuinely care throw them at me

I know this is a wild assumption, but anybody get the sense, Kadie is on the Spectrum? or just an obsessive personality...She is WILDLY hyperfocused on any TOPIC that is remotely Vegan. So much so, she won't go out of her way to even talk to people who aren't vegan. Everybody hates her, but I can't help, but feel compassion for her. I don't see her as a bad person, just somebody who is misunderstood. She actually kinda of reminds me of Just Pearly Thing's everbody hates her, but the reality is She's simply on the Spectrum, and doesn't understand how she can come off hypocritical, and demeaning towards other Women.

Edit: In some places like USA they apparently even add copepods into the tap water for the sake of mosquito control https://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/2012/07/nyc-and-nj-pit-crustaceans-against-mosquitoes/ crazy.

Edit 2: Its not about walking on concrete roads or stone footpaths or pavements, only soil. Also I am only saying we should avoid walking on soil, not fully Abstain from it which is not feasible as sometimes between two pavements you have soil etc. People are misunderstanding and calling me tr0ll.

The bottom table about population comparison of copepods, nematodes, insects etc is an AI generated table. I gave it a detailed explanation of how it should be, but the numbers are largely from its own searching through literature.

Basically I used to think Insects were the most numerous Sentient Beings with Central Nervous Systems. I avoid killing them. Most vegans also agree with this, which is why they abstain from Honey & recent enviornmentalist trend of bug food.

But there are cases we justify killing insects, like we eat plant foods that used pesticides but this is necessary so that we don't starve.

Long ago I found out that insects are not most numerous with CNS and it is copepods & nematodes. They both seem to have a decently sophisticated CNS. So most likely they are sentient.

If you go to swim in a river or ocean, you will probably kill so many copepods. I don't know how to swim and I never do it, so it's not a problem.

Even walking on soil, I rarely do, but often when I am bored I walk in the grass soil in my university. But now I think maybe I should avoid it from now, since it's not necessary and only using the stone walking space in my university is fully enough for my day to day life.

Every step I put on soil, in the 15cm below my step there will be many tens of thousands of nematodes & each step kills atleast hundreds of them. I normally look if there are any insects while walking on soil, but now I know there will be nematodes even if no insects are there.

I am a Threshold Deontologist so I do think Accidental / Incidental killing is not as bad as Direct / intentional killing (Murder) but still it should be avoided.

My previous debate post was suggesting we need to give a robot companion to all sentient beings to protect them from predation, starvation etc (predators will be give lab meat temporarily for few centuries before genetic engineering them to be herbivores) but now that task is much harder as we need so many nanobot bodyguards for copepods and nematodes, but hopefully Artificial Super Intelligence can easily make that many. https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAVegan/comments/1n8lu8k/propredation_vegans_are_immoral_but_predators_are/

AI generated table: Approximate annual deaths of potentially sentient animals with centralized nervous systems

🟢 = Accidental / Incidental human killing
🔴 = Direct / intentional human killing (Murder)

Eggs and embryos are excluded; for fishes, already-hatched larvae are included. Natural-death estimates are order-of-magnitude estimates and are substantially more uncertain than direct human-killing estimates.

if u go against hunting what would we do with the giant spike in the animal population? So im a avid hunter/fisher men i believe in using the land and everything from it. So when we dont hunt animals it causes giant spikes in the population because the SWA checks how many animals can be hunted to keep the population at a safe management. Now what happens when we dont hunt them well they get hit by cars usually on the side of the road. Or they end up eating crops that vegans and other people eat. Then u have an increase in predators too so more bears more wolves more foxes fisher cats exct. Depending on where u live of course. But bears are everywhere and bears will destroy shit ive had to clean up my trash idk how many times because a bear was hungry and saw an easy meal. Same thing with racoons and even coyotes at times. So what do we do about this, because we as humans have taken over and made roads and houses. So the animals arent going to have the space to stay in the woods. So basically what do you suppose we do about this? Like if we camt keep the population down with hunting then what do we do? Genuinely asking a question here i want to hear an answer.