Seriously tho.
And I don't mean that in a dunking kind of way, I just genuinely think it's an interesting way to go about things.
I was a pescatarian until I recently made the jump to vegan. I don't think it's any stranger than vegetarianism- they're both compromises.
in defense of vegetarianism - it can be done in theory without ever causing an animal to die, which is a unique line to draw. most vegans are compromising in some aspects (eg animal testing, pets, not doing secondary boycotts) if you hold a purist anti-speciesist stance.
Well thats just incorrect. Vegetarianism does cause animals to die.
Cows need to be pregnant to make milk what do you think happens to the baby cows? Only female hens lay eggs, what do you think happens to the male chicks? That's right, they are killed. So are the female cows and chickens by the way, just as soon as milk or egg production drops off, and at a fraction of their normal lifespan.
in theory
i am aware of these things, but this is under capitalism. where in an ideal world we would be caring for these animals for their whole lifespan - except animal ownership is speciesist and so maybe we wouldnt even do that
I don't know if we can blame capitalism for this one. Animals have been killed when their usefulness to humans runs out under every system ever.
sure but that was not post-scarcity and under a different ethics system. the point i was making was it is possible to be vegetarian without the directly causing the death of animals - it's just almost impossible to do so in our current society
Under what real world ethics system would dairy cows who have stopped making milk, their calves, female chickens who have stopped laying, and their male counterparts, to live out their natural life spans (10-22 years), while also being a system under which milk and eggs are harvested?
People do this all the time with family animals. Many people I know keep chickens until they die, regardless if they are still laying eggs. Same with cows. I don't keep pets and avoid dairy/egg products but I don't think they're doing anything shameful.
I agree, but you can draw the line at murder vs exploitation consistently if you so choose. Most of the world seems fine with exploitation. I am not quite convinced yet that animal exploitation is worse than human exploitation, and my existence still relies on both happening despite how much I try to minimise it.
I'm aware. But it's impossible to live without consuming products that were created by exploiting humans and depending on your circumstances, the same goes for animals. It's easy for me to live without directly causing the death of either. I strive to minimise my harm to both. Are you intentionally avoiding the point I'm trying to make here?
i think its more common with people who are in it mostly for health reasons and/or think fish are dumb
I know, I just wanted an excuse to call fish "dumbass muthafuckas".
Damn, thought I had a riff for this, but I was thinking of Presbyterians.
We shall not be free until the last Presbyterarian chokes on the entrails of the last priest.
It's because all the theological catholic shit was written in latin, and when talking about 'don't eat meat on friday' they used the word 'carnes' which specifically means meat from land or sky animals. So fish weren't included, and over time that's also led to a weird 'fish =/= meat' divide in euro-derived cultures that persists into restaurants and shit even.
I mean some non-Catholic pescatarians probably don't feel so guilty about eating fish on the basis of being unable to empathize with them/feel like they would be fine with killing fish personally if the need arose.
edit: full disclosure I love fish and I went about a month eating mostly beans and fish a while ago and have seriously entertained pescatarianism so I am just projecting
I went pesca for about a year after finding vegetarianism a bit too restrictive. Felt like it was a lot easier to manage.
It's okay to eat fish 'cause they don't have any feelings.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YhR5UfaAzM
What if it was also a joke about how patently ridiculous that widely believed lie is? If it wasn't a very good joke, fine, but we're mostly on the same side here.
i mean fish can be environmentally sustainable. plus i definitely feel less bad for a fish then like a cow. i eat everything though. but i can kill a fish and have, i dont think theres anything wrong with fishing and eating it. i know a lot of people actually who are otherwise vegan but will eat what they sustainably kill. dont think i could kill a cow or at least id feel kinda sad doing it
I mean, its hard to give a shit about shrimp and crabs right? cephalapods are off the table tho for me dog
ok but at a certain point like, millions of shrimp are dying all the time, like its kinda hard to give a shit. life is pain
Oh absolutely. Did you know that almost every fishing stock is declining, and the UN has said the oceans will be mostly empty of fish by 2050!
That's sustainable baby!
Im not saying that its not damaging the environment, im saying that fish require less energy per kilogram of meat
I don't think that's a great metric to measure how good eating fish is. If you look at this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production Under "greenhouse gas emissions " you will see that making(or harvesting) fish produces more GHG emissions per gram of protein than anything except for sheep and beef.
Also way, way down at the bottom of that list you will find beans. As in the lowest GHG emitter per gram of protein. Just eat some beans.
