animals.md

animals

My initial motivation for starting this page is discussions in kanthaus about veganism and speciesism. There are some notes from the discussions here.

Also, in this document "animal" means "non-human animal" (yes, humans are animals, but not in this document)

(I am not vegan btw).

I tend to not like discussing the topic as it can get very emotional, and seems unlikely to come to a long term resolution.

I have a feeling my perspective could offend some vegans so I will hide it away here on my ponderings page, if you come to my ponderings page and are offended then that seems more reasonable than me invading your ears with my words.

I also am not sure I have a totally clear perspective on the topic, so will be hunting around here for things that I think I think. This is a bit of rambling train of thought here.

When you do something it seems to have 3 important types of impact:

1. physical consequences
2. changes to my own mental/emotional state
3. changes to the mental/emotional state of others

There are also other considerations:

• what needed to happen elsewhere such that I could do that something
• what needs to continue to happen elsewhere such that I can continue to do that something

If I (and I mean me specifically) buy a sausage in the supermarket, then go to the park and eat it, a few things might happen:

• I add 1 to the supermarket's sausage sales numbers that they might use for repurchasing decisions
• I increase the supermarket's bank balance by the price of the sausage
• I feel a little bit guilty as I try to avoid buying meat generally
• if I am with a vegan friend, then additionally the following might happen:
  • I feel a little bit more guilty/conflicted about it
  • they have a bad feeling
  • we have a discussion about animal products

In order for that sausage buying/eating episode to have taken place, there needed to have been a meat industry (which needs to continue to exist for me to continue being able to do that).

I think to continue from here I need to establish a few premises that the rest of my ponderings are based on, if you disagree with this premises then the rest might not make any sense to you.

Premises:

• there is an objective reality that exists independently of anybodies subjective experience
• morality/ethics are entirely subjective

Some morals/ethics/beliefs/rules can be satisfied individually (I personally do not want to fly, but do not place this demand/requirement on others) and some others must be applied universally to be satisfied (slavery is wrong does just mean you can't enslave me, but that you can't enslave anyone, anywhere).

Universalizing things are very tricky as they seem to be subjective things that have to be applied (sort of, almost) objectively. Unfortunately many important topics fall into this category, so it cannot be avoided, but seems useful to recognise this condition (aside: I can't help but feel some philosophers have philosophized this stuff much better than me, with better words, please tell me where to read about this oh wise readers of the book).

Ok, lets get back to animals again. Phew, I'm glad I'm not a philosopher, this stuff makes my head hurt.

There are many perspectives about animals and this seems very important to be clear on. I'm sort of familiar with four main strands of thought:

1. animals are conscious beings more-or-less morally equivalent to humans, and we have no right to just kill them (it's basically the same as killing a human, which is usually a big no-no)
2. the environmental impact of eating animals is enormous and it's one of the significant causes of climate change, plus numerous other issues (drought, disease, etc...)
3. it's possible to humanely kill an animal so that it doesn't suffer (at least much, or for long), and as long as for most of it's life we let it happily walk around in a pretty meadow with a nice view then all is well
4. animals eat animals all the time, it's normal, plus they taste sooo good

Depending on the perspective, different things could/need to be done (or nothing as for case 4).

The environmental issue (perspective 2) would be resolved by just eating fewer animals, such that the environmental impact is not so big. If the meat industry only ever produced one sausage once for me to eat in the park, then it would have no measurable environment impact. The issue is the scale of the operation

To solve the conscious-beings issue (perspective 1) would require the whole world to agree/enforce meat=murder point of view.

Big changes on the scale of the whole world are very hard to achieve, so the tasks need to be broken down a bit. It might actually be work that needs to be done over many-many generations (e.g. womans rights), and then need continuous maintenance to keep it up. So the two resolutions above are not things you can directly do.

What seems to be a great model of change is something like:

1. organise, discuss, protest, etc (with small groups of very motivated people)
2. small scale impact (prove the concept in small areas involving larger groups of moderately motivated people)
3. large scale impact (roll it out wider via law, culture, etc... normal people join in)

It seems like the animal-consciousness perspective (and maybe the environmental one) is at stage 1 of this model of change. The humane-killing perspective probably at stage 2 (Animals-eat-animals is more like the default rather than a "change", but I guess is stage 3 here).

Maybe another rambling idea to throw in here, is this idea about why people do things (forgot where I read it):

1. it's what they always did
2. it's what other people are doing
3. a personal emotional/rational decision

These sort-of seem to map (in reverse) to those stages of change:

• small groups of motivated people = a personal emotional/rational decision
• it's what other people are doing = larger groups of moderately motivated people
• it's what they always did = law, culture, normal people

Oh, where am I going with my ramble now, what is even the topic any more. Maybe I make some more coffee? Don't worry I can restructure it all in the future :)

I get the feeling I'm beating around the bush a bit.

Lets forget all my pseudo-intellectual layman philosophical crap above, and get more real again, hopefully we'll meet up again some paragraphs later.

My rational thought says that if vegans (of the animal-consciousness/suffering variety) really wanted to solve the problem, they would do whatever it takes to minimise animal suffering. To my logic, this would involve finding out how to be as persuasive as possible (to sway individuals), and/or impactful as possible on wider society/industry (business works by economics not emotions/morals).

If a vegan convinces someone else to be a vegan, they have doubled their impact. Actually a vegan might decrease overall meat consumption by starting to eat meat (on the basis they might be more persuasive by taking the compromise approach). To explore some of these ideas I made meatdays.

One of the findings from meatdays is that if everyone was vegan during the week, but ate meat at the weekend (including current vegans), then even in groups with 60% vegans, this would still result in lower meat consumption overall. I think this app could be improved to show more nuanced information, but I think it still makes a useful (perhaps somewhat provocative) point.

What I more frequently see is vegans wanting to segregate themselves into a world of veganism where they hang out with other people of the same mindset and don't encounter any animal products. I see/hear provocative/emotive statements about topics that are powerful to them.

There seems to be two benefits to this segregation approach:

1. helps people to feel internally coherent and whole/complete/at peace, not traumatized, disturbed, niggled, etc.
2. helps to form a coherent group that might be able to organise more effectively (step 1 of my model of change above, aha it's coming together now, maybe)

Both of those reasons seem important for individuals and society.

Another concept that is maybe useful here is absolutism. To me it feels like magnets, you are drawn to one pole or the other. The middle ground is not very well defined (well, maybe the exact middle is balanced, but anything is is just, meh...). Absolutes, are simple, pure, and maybe feel good. But in people/society they might not be (suspicion = almost never are) the most effective change strategy.

To me personally, absolutism/segregation is anti-persuasive (is that a word?), and leads me to an emotional reaction to do exactly the opposite (childish I know... but I value the freedom where I can be childish/irrational sometimes), although I think that doesn't impact much of my behaviour in reality.

The challenge I would like to put down is that by being purist/absolutist/emotional on this topic, it may actually lead to increased meat consumption (when compared to the rational approach I hint at above), is that ok? unavoidable? acceptable?

Another anti-absolutism idea: if I eat only a small amount of meat, then this level of consumption is not responsible for the the scale of the meat industry (this does not address the animal consciousness perspective).

I maybe didn't write so much about my personal perspective, so here goes:

• I am most concerned about the environmental aspect of animal consumption
• I do not get very emotional about animal suffering, although would like to minimise it
• I do not care much about animal sentience stuff, I distinguish humans from non-humans quite clearly
• I am probably a bit inconsistent (I like to make relationships with cats and dogs, and probably would not eat them)
• I would not be very interested to kill an animal in order to eat it (I am also not interested in building a train in order to ride it)
• I reject most purist/absolutist perspectives by default, on the basis that simple is often wrong (but not always...)
• I aim to keep my meat consumption at a level that would be environmentally sustainable if everyone in the world did the same
• I am not very persuadable (but feel free to try, ideally doing so being aware of all the stuff I wrote here, which I guess you are if you're reading this...)
• I prefer the "system" approach to change (laws, cultures, economics) not individual morality (I think most people will never care enough)

I am not entirely happy with this document yet, far too rambling a bit incoherant probably. But enough for now :)

Write thoughts/questions/comments/insults in the issues section!