Um no, we infected and/or straight up slaughtered most of the N. American natives. Brazil has displaced 22,000 people (0.01% of its population).

That's one weak-ass externality of cheap food, Paul.

No, you're defending a position you know is bad. "Oh, it's okay it's only 22k people." And the US didn't just straight up slaughter it's native population. It also sent part of the population into reservations.

Your argument is weak.

I would think you guys would at least get the math questions right.

I was only talking about the fact that we eat meat.

Two more thoughts.

I don't think it is pure speculation as to how a future vegetarian society will judge us. It will probably be similar to how Americans judge societies that eat dogs. Which is to say badly but not nearly as badly as we should judge educated rich southerners who pretended to think it was OK to own black slaves.

Also if science determines that some of the animals we presently kill and eat have a much higher consciousness and thinking capacity than we presently assume, people who continue to eat those animals should in fact be judged almost as harshly by those who won't eat them as I say we should judge educated slaveholders.

This doesn't make sense.

I'm not sure that you are clear on my position and others as well.

People who eat meat now may be judged badly by the future even if there is no further evidence that animals are more self aware than we presently think.

People in this day and age who think enslaving blacks is OK are worse than educated southerners in 1800 who thought that.

But bringing up those two accurate points does nothing to change the fact that those educated southerners were scum. Less so than a modern white supremicist, but much more so than the present day meat eater.

My argument is that cheap food is the greatest development in human history, and that externalities should be evaluated in that context. Your counter-argument is random examples that ignore the core part of the argument.

No, it isn't ignoring the core part of that. You are ignoring that the negative externalities of cheap food is costly to the world and indigenous people. You are not weighing out the sum totality of your statement.

We already know that experience of suffering is not a higher brain function.

Yeah, so I don't know how long ago you guys think this stuff happened, but there are people alive in the US today whose parents might have owned slaves, were slaves or fought in the civil war. Quite possible that someone had a dad alive in 1826. Plenty of people had grandparents alive at that time.

Unless you are claiming to be born in like the 1930s, yeah, no.

Oh, and what about morbid obesity from cheap food? How you like higher healthcare costs?

We are talking about Thomas Jefferson, not George Jefferson.

I've no problem with that, except many here apparently actually do think the southerners from the 1800's were just as scummy as white supremacists who think enslaving blacks is okay today. Also, you seem to be giving Jefferson no credit for the work he did to change the system, helping lay the political groundwork for the eventual abolition of slavery, preferring instead to focus on the fact he didn't personally do enough himself.

I can't believe it, but I think this will eventually boil down to a similar argument we're having about calling someone a racist. I know he did scummy things, but I they weren't largely considered as scummy then as they are now, and he also did quite a lot to help change our system for the better. So I wouldn't call him pond scum. Will you at least admit he isn't as pond scummy as the other slave holders who fought against abolition? Maybe change your pejorative to something a bit nicer like "swan food," cause that would just fix everything

They are as scummy. They directly exploited humans for their own benefit. There had been thousands and thousands of years of slavery in human history before slavery in the US. The belief other races are inferiors and thus can be enslaved is scummy. It's not that hard, man.

This is all very fair in my view. Just a point that it was not only educated Confederates who engaged in historic slavery. Plenty of historic judgments to go around across many borders.

So pretty much everyone from the past was super scummy for not having the same morals as we do today, and we're all bound to be scummy to future generations. That's one way to look at it.

Which brings me to the practice or ability of temporarily suspending judgement for purposes of displaying or better understanding all sides of a discussion issue without bias from moral pre-disposition.

Valid practice or are the thinkers and philosophers who do this enabling villainy and scum?

The point is that its possible that everyone including you are being too confident if they're certain they would have behaved better in similar circumstances.

That doesn't make what they did OK on any way.

Nice strawman.

There were people in the period of US slavery who understood slavery was immoral. But lets not let facts and history stand in your way or anything.

Yes, but they beat their children. So scum right?

Again you are making strawmen arguments.

Are you going to make a real argument or ...?

Because...

A) Past and present child wearin' methods and slavery based on notions of racial inferiority are Apples and Oranges. You are attacking a position that isn't one being discussed.
B) You think present people cannot look down on past people based on past people being ignorant. Which isn't factual. There were people in the past who took issues with the moral nature of racism and slavery.

For a time white supremacist held considerable power with force of violence over people with better morals. They ruled the south with terror for decades after the civil war.

Being 'commando' got people killed back in the day and you could not do it from the comfort of a flowery meadow on a smartphone.

My wandering point is there a diverse range of elements to consider that have changed and changed some more when constructing what was going on in the historic minds of people.

It is very easy to point backwards and say scum. Harder to point back and say people. Nobody wants to be like scum.

One of those situations that gives the phrase 'uncomfortable truth' weight in meaning.

Seems like people are forgetting how morality is a social construct and that it's culturally relative.

As much as I'd like to broadly judge any slave owner 200 years ago as being equally immoral as a slave owner today, I just can't get myself to do so. Wasn't this the time of the Three-Fifths Compromise and when phrenology was well respected?