When i said
That is what i meant-"Given these assumptions"

This is that sort of problem. Once we've made some basic assumptions of an external world then we can accumulate evidence to support or disprove claims about this world. Isn't that what science does?

We feel bad when we see the suffering of others. I know I do. It appears others do too. They even tell me they do. It's evident in the way our laws are structured. We have whole systems of ethics based on the fundamental intuitive sense of right and wrong. People are trying to live in-tune with this sense. The race as a whole, or at least the majority, has foregone convenience in support of a more morally sound world on numerous occasion.

There is a preponderance of evidence to support the claim that animals are similar to humans in their capacity to suffer. If we are to remain consistent in our adherence to this basic morality then we can't kill animals.

Morality extends beyond an immediate crude "feeling" and into logic. Feelings only provide the foundation. We can think logically and look into the future to discern the best course of action for good feeling, not only for ourselves, but for the majority because we share similar mechanisms for feeling. We can pass up immediate personal pleasures to sustain long term wellness and stasis for the whole.

I could go around cheating and stealing without directly inflicting any major suffering or really feeling bad about it at all immediately. In fact, it would make my life a whole lot easier in the present! But I don't go around living that way. I have followed the logical progression of ideas and see that not only I, but WE could go around living that way. What kind of world would that be?

One day the world will come to realize for each monster serial killer in some high school there are hundreds more that silently step by step made it possible with their indifference, selfish choices and aggressive predatory behavior. Live to own it every single day now! Let it haunt us forever in all our choices in how we deal with others.

The world after all is what we make of it.

We still don't know that animals experience being food is a condition of their suffering.

However, we can know that people who experience control of their diet by other people do suffer from an imposition on their knowable independence.

Ah. Hmmm. Well we aren't, are we?

Animals could love being food so as bears the pain. Of course I have witnessed human child birth where the human giving birth chose no pain medicine. Still in awe to be honest. However bearing pain to give life is that observable.

So it's uncertain whether animals can love being food, but it is more certain that bearing pain to proliferate life is accountable for reason with sense.

So why feel guilt or shame for experience an observable feature of proliferating life?

I know those are words . . .

I Myself Fox, have questioned this very topic, seeing a cow cut up in pieces, is just fundamentally different (I want to eat those pieces) our gens over time have evolved to not only be the dominant species but to Love to eat other animals . . .


The end of the day it's the same in life Eat or be Eaten . . .

The best way to get Your mind straight on this topic is time, a Dolphin will never save earth, The sun will die in fact it's just a Giant clock counting down, the only way for Human Beings to survive is realize there is a actual clock ticking down on The Entire Planet earth is clicking down . . .

It seems like this haunting could be a form of suffering in and of itself. Along with the realization of shared responsibility needs to come a realization of imperfection and self forgiveness to avoid this suffering. Self forgiveness comes through better understanding of causation. Most of the time wrongdoings are accidental; that is to say they are unintentended. Sometimes they are intentional but caused by an error in thought process; that is to say they are mistakes. Once causation is made clear we’re freed from the burden of guilt and no longer haunted by our past accidents or mistakes.

Just to be clear, you are arguing that animals do not experience suffering as the result of becoming our food source? If you are, then we should dig further into that. I think there is sufficient evidence to prove otherwise and if you are unwilling to concede this point then I don’t mind citing studies to back up the claim.

What about the imposition on the knowable independence of the serial child rapist?

Of course this analogy is contingent upon the claim that animals do in fact suffer as a result of becoming our food source. And I know it is teetering on the edge of demagoguery but I think it does a good job of pointing out a glaring contradiction (?or paradox?).

The problem of unnecessary suffering.

Old as time itself.

The solution
IS
the problem.

No suffering, no good. Less suffering, less good. Less good, less suffering. No good, no suffering. Two sides; one coin.

Choose your range of comfort. Choose your level of courage. Choose your difficulty level. Choose.

I'll try to administer a pain scale chart on the cows, and then do talk therapy with them about their awareness of suffering, and get back to the thread.

"Moo" is my report.

Now the dog, he acts like he suffering when told very sternly and occasionally angrily "no". He's so good at, that he'll chew up the dish sponge and get into any open trash while we are away and then when we come up he'll lay in a suffering pose even before we can sense what he did.

Everyone sing along...........

dead puppies aren't much fun. do women understand that? i don't mean to generalize. do fur bearing women understand?

Depends what you include in 'getting away with it' but there's probably a good health reason for people to not eat people as it can concentrates things that accumulate during our lifetimes. Eat a person and you have your own accumulated dose plus you're taking in some of theirs. If they also ate people then ...

This may be the reason that we are evolved to principally eat vegetarians and things that live in the sea.

I think DS was asking a trick question. The middle bit was the entire question.

There's nothing wrong with anything unless the consequences bother you. I, for instance, don't bite the heads off of live hamsters purely because it doesn't sound like much fun as an activity (an expected consequence) and (as a backup) I'm pretty sure that I'd dislike the reaction of others if I did (a secondary expected consequence).

I'm pretty sure that eating vegetarians would be fine on all accounts unless they were also smelly hippies.

There are different types of consequences to consider. We commonly (and usefully) separate the empathy type consequences from the 'being put in prison' type ones. Health consequences may also be worth separating out - not sure if DS counts that as outside his 3 ifs

But yeah it's getting close to 'is there any good reason not to something beyond all the reasons not to do it'.

It is a limit problem. Sure, we have to draw a circle around the 0/0 point because it is undefined, but that is silly.

At some point of precision, broad strokes are called for. "This is unlikely to go well" is close enough when thinking about the broad direct- and indirect- and meta-consequences of eating your neighbor's child's left ear as a snack between proper meals.

Broad brush is for those who don't want to think about the fine detail and don't care how weak common sense is. I'd agree if we were discussing real life politics and were seriously considering eating people as a policy or social activity but this is SMP

I agree about ears. Make a proper hearty ear stew - don't snack on them.

Morality is just a feeling about something. There is a point at which adding complexity of thought reaches a dead end. Somewhere around the 3rd or 4th moment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_(mathematics)) it just gets silly to consider more before picking an emotion.

How much do you dislike the dislike of the dislike of the dislike of stubbing a toe?

Well I am glad that was quoted. Its ike I got to ask without having to ask.
That said...
Something or other about I enjoy describing the dislike, and if others catch on.. I enjoy describing it in further detail...

BTM. Really big mistake to think that very fine changes in input produce minimal changes in output.

Neural nets ain't that linear.

In small systems over a lifetime of small periods, it is a mistake to think that they don't. There ain't enough butterflies in the universe to change my mind on having sausage for lunch tomorrow.

Maybe* but then again millions of people in the Uk might not have died of BSE if we had had this thread 20 years ago

Plus I know you realise that this discussion spawned from DS's post has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what people eat. Now I'm off for some unexpected luncheon sausages.

* actually not maybe as very small systems can be highly sensitive to small changes in input. They can even be chaotic

Oh yes there are. All it takes is a random event that blocks you from eating tomorrow at that time because something major took place that was caused by a stupid sequence of events starting up from a person taking the picture of a butterfly that wasn't scared, delaying his family's leaving time from the garden area and blocking you at the wrong time in traffic light missing the yellow where you instantly saw a friend walking by that you would have missed if you hadn't stopped and now you are invited to their free lunch that has no sausages. I can take all kinds of other directions to this story that are terrible but i wont because i truly want the chaos to be friendly to you.

But yes it is indeed chaotic like that. It wont rise up to prevent one from eating of course at some point that day all that often but it will affect when, where and what they eat very often, in ways that only the greater universe witnesses in all their glory.

That very discussion likely influenced what one here in this forum eats/ate today i bet.

I so hope this women had explained at length that they definitely weren't having burgers for lunch. (24 second in)