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Originally Posted by maskedmelon
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The injun thing is actually an interesting point, because whether they believed the rock was alive or not, they'd still do it. They would just be thankful for its sacrifice, just as they were for that of the prey they hunted, very similar to Japanese in that regard, but no surprise really given that Shintoism holds similar beliefs that God is everywhere in everything.
I am kind of surprised though that consensus (lack of opposition suggesting there is none, or everyone has tired of the conversation ^^) appears to be that it would be perfectly acceptable to eat animals (even alive) if they didn't experience pain. It follows the vegan argument, it just surprises me that people would think its ok. Seems arbitrary. Gonna have to think on this more.
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is it really arbitrary to want to cause a minimum of suffering? being concerned with the subjective experience of other feeling beings seems like a prerequisite for seeking happiness as a human and not just living as a tortured sadist.
If an animal couldn't experience pain then causing it pain would not be an issue. It would be an "animal" in the sense that a bacterium is. It's not arbitrary at all. Would be like eating a plant (vegans are eating microscopic animalia as they do so, but bacteria can't experience reality subjectively so it doesn't matter).
I don't think you could guarantee an animal is not experiencing pain without shutting down its cognition completely though. GMO lobotomized animals may be a really fucking disgusting thought but it would never be more efficient to feed animals by IV than to just do what we're already doing until meat cultures. If we ever start breeding animals that are conscious and feed themselves but retarded such that they don't respond to pain stimulus as a "less-cruel" alternative I will immolate myself on the White House lawn in sheer horror (unless the entire nervous system is synthetic and built with just life support functions and programs for eating, but we will be beyond this petty argument when we can do that).