I think religion is totally important here, if consciousness is something that occurs naturally within our universe then who cares if we create and destroy it at will. But if it's something special that comes from elsewhere then maybe it isn't right to bring it into a less than ideal existence.


I wasn't saying that animals don't suffer etc, I'm saying that we should be able to eat them without them suffering so it shouldn't factor into the argument. You mentioned hunting earlier, there's no reason that an animal that gets eaten should lead a different life to one out of captivity. Although if you look at milk/wool etc it gets more complicated ofc, you could drug them up and do it while they sleep

Anyway if you refrain from eating meat how are the powers to be supposed to know its because you don't like the way they're treated. Need to make a fuss about it as well otherwise there's plenty of reasons to not eat meat

I wish we replaced half of the animal protein with insect protein, and increase the living standards of animals raised for meat as well as improving the method used for killing them to be more humane.

This post was edited by Metalkon on Jul 1 2016 08:36am

I raise chickens and turkeys and they lead seemingly rich fulfilling lives. They grow up to become wings, fajitas, and fried golden goodness.

You've based your argument on the fact that animals suffer immensely, in which case it obviously isn't right to give them life but probably becomes ok to end it

But what if we make it so they don't suffer, we shouldn't kill them because it deprives them of experience? but we've given them those experience in the first place. When the death (even a premature one) becomes the reason for the life it all gets very blurry.

Lol, "well, if we didn't bring them into an existence of horrible suffering that often ends in a messy, terrible death, they wouldn't exist at all!" - someone who is definitely not trying too hard to justify liking cheeseburgers

right, except i specified without the horrible suffering several times...


Here's where I'm coming from with this, basically a religious idea that there's some sort of god who experiences everything that all life/consciousness goes through. In which case making life that wouldn't have existed would just give this entity more experiences to work with. Actually you could say that it might experience suffering differently to us and take it out of it, not such a negative just part of the variety. Although you could argue that an overabundance of mundane experiences wouldn't be in the entity's interest, but as it's god I like to think human reasoning like wouldn't be a factor.

This post was edited by dakariii on Jul 1 2016 09:04am

How about if we just take the meat without killing them, through noninvasive surgery, since we're fantasizing?

Your trying to be ironic but it seems like a valid point to me!

I wouldn't mind if meatballs were made from 50% ground up insects if they tasted alright and didn't cost more than normal meatballs. (insects are cheaper than meat so one would assume it would be cheaper)

yes, they are delicious