Good point, corrected.

What’s not in their jeans is probably in their genes.

Key word is “state mandated”, only the state of Victoria was locked down, I think COVID barely scratched the other states. I also lived in NZ at the time, and as you recall, we barely got COVID and I spent 2020 and 2021 skiing and partying. Thanks to clever leadership, not seen in the US at the time.

As for UK healthcare, I quickly researched where Australia stacked up in the world and by most metrics, the UK was overwhelmingly the best. Unlike the weirdly propagandized Americans, I don’t have to do weird mental gymnastics to try and force my country at the top. I can accept facts.

We keep up with the mortgage because the minimum wage here is $16USD.

The average Australian citizen pays $17,000 in taxes as opposed to $14,000 for seppos.

For that, I know myself and all my fellow Australians will never be crippled with medical debt, as going to the hospital is always free. We have the second best health care in the world, right next to the UK.

Us Aussies like to look out for each other, rather than you individualistic, seemingly selfish yanks.

Damn, 2026. I hope you CAN wait.

Please Litter Tsar, add tagging to your death penalty list.

“Who is it?”

Ah a few more classic meat eater points to rebut, I thought we had run out!

Your initial point is that “most people think eating meat is fine, so it’s fine”. I doubt that’s binding your morality, as if suddenly 50.1% of people were against eating meat, you wouldn’t then swap to veganism. You’re asserting that if the majority think something is morally permissible, then it should be. Which would make Hitler’s reign (who was very popular in Germany at the time) morally permissible. Also I’m not trying to legitimise slavers, and you know that, don’t strawman.

“People have been eating meat since before people were people”. That’s either an appeal to nature or an appeal to tradition. First, nature. Just because animals eat meat, doesn’t mean we should. Animals eat meat out of necessity, which makes it morally permissible. We do not need to do that. Furthermore, animals murder and rape, surely you don’t find this nature permissible? As for appealing to tradition, that argument could be used to justify any number of problematic issues. “Gas companies have been polluting since time immemorial!” “Men have been marrying 13 year Olds since the 40s!”, it’s a broken argument without validity.

You keep saying that I haven’t justified the assertion that it is wrong to cause harm to sentient beings for pleasure. Rather, it is your responsibility to assert that the harm IS justified. YOU’RE the one causing harm, YOU’RE the one who needs to justify it. Currently your justifications include “because we just do”, “because we always have” and “because it’s not wrong”. Those are extremely poor reasons to harm others.

A valid argument to kill and eat another sentient being could be “because it’s necessary for me to live”. That would be valid. “Because you haven’t convinced me not to” is not. You wouldn’t accept that excuse from a murderer.

When did we establish that it’s not about pain? I don’t want to cause animals pain. Vegetarianism DOES include death. Male chicks can’t produce eggs, so are ground up in a machine shortly after hatching. Male cows do not produce dairy, and must be killed as soon as financially possible. I say pain and death, because that’s what meat eating causes? Sorry I didn’t understand your paragraph on this one.

As for “respecting other cultures”, you wouldn’t accept that as reasoning for me to kill and eat people would you? If a culture/people require the killing and eating of animals for their own survival, it is permissible. But as for western culutures, it is not necessary, and thus is only done for pleasure. Which is not a valid reason for killing something (as we agreed upon in the dog stomping example).

Like I’ve said here, I’d love to not be vegan. I loved eating meat, I grew up on a farm in rural New Zealand. If you can come up with a good reason to kill and eat animals, I’d LOVE to hear it. But if the argument “you haven’t convinced me not to” doesn’t justify the murder of humans, why would it justify killing animals, who also feel pain, sadness, grief and fear?

deleted by creator

And there it is. “I don’t know why”, followed by an appeal to the majority (most people at one time believed slavery was ok, that doesn’t mean it was morally justified).

Your argument has come down to “I don’t know why, but it just is”.

I have said countless times why I believe eating animals is wrong. It is objectively wrong to cause something pain and death purely for taste pleasure.

If your argument has boiled down to “it is what it is”, then I suppose we can finish off this back and forth. It was a good chat, I enjoyed it! Thank you

So if I then ate the dog it would be okay? Why does eating it make it better? Because eating it is pleasurable? It’s not necessary for survival in the western world to eat meat, it’s just yummy.

Why - in my hypothetical - is your pleasure derived for eating the animals flesh, more significant than my pleasure from dog stomping?

You’re contributing to the needless subjugation and slaughter of sentient life, purely for ease and pleasure. That’s what’s nonsense.

Okay, if you and I were sitting on a park bench together, and we saw a dog walk past, and I went off to go stomp the dog to death - would you think that was morally wrong of me? Would you try stop me?

You’re right. If farm animals were sedated before being killed, it would certainly be preferable, but wouldn’t make it right.

We have no right to cause pain, fear or death to sentient beings, purely for ~15 minutes or pleasure. Doing so is immoral. There is no valid argument against this. Trust me, I did NOT want to be a vegan. I argued against it for four years trying not to become one. But there was and is no argument against it. Eating meat is immoral, bad for the planet, bad for the animals, bad for modern medicine, and in a typical western diet, bad for your health.

I repeat, there is no argument against veganism, and being vegan is objectively he correct moral choice.

Sentience means “the capacity to have feelings”, and it is widely understood by the scientific community that the vast majority of the animal kingdom has sentience.

Do you believe cows can experience pain? Because we’re right up close against rejecting scientific consensus just to justify immoral actions. And that typically is frowned upon historically.

Subjecting something that feels pain to experience pain for your pleasure is immoral.

Okay, I believe it is morally reprehensible to kill a sentient being - one that feels fear and does not want to die, solely for pleasure. Eating meat is immoral and in a just world, would be punishable.

Right, so the only thing stopping you from factory farming and consuming humans is risk of prion disease and taste? By which it could be understood that if those two issues were solved - no risk of disease, and the flavour enhanced, you would happily factory farm humans.

And vegans are the weird ones? Your priorities are cooked buddy.

That would be response to stimuli, which doesn’t indicate sentience. Interesting though.

So… If there were no risk of disease, you would consider cannibalism and “normal meat eating” to be basically equitable, and equally justifiable? If not, why not?

Sorry I’m just having a hard time getting some solid admissions here, nobody wants to just straight up answer.

Well, it doesn’t cause prion diseases, it just spreads them. It’s only transmissible by consumption of conspecifics (or often, as in mad cow disease, by eating similar species - when farmers were feeding cows dead chickens and cows).

So you’re saying the only thing stopping you from eating factory farmed human meat is the risk to your own safety?

Oh we’re talking about eating humans now, we’re well past dogs as it seems like a fair few people here would be okay with factory farming them.

Personally, my ethics are simple and easily define - if it displays sentience, I won’t eat it. It’s unethical to kill and eat something that feels pain. I’m more interested in your more nebulous ethics, where some species are okay to eat, some not

It sounds like you’re okay with eating dogs, which id argue is demonstrably disgusting, but in your opinion, is it okay to rear, kill and then eat humans?