I just finished listening to “how to be perfect” by michael schur. It could be a bit cringe at times but it was a really interesting listen (especially when confecting it to The Good Place)

Definitely got me to think a bit more about moral philosophy and my own choices day to day.

One personal philosophy I try to follow is that I really try hard to think the best of people…. Assume the best rather than the worst.

Most obvious example is when driving: if a driver is going too fast/too slow/not indicating/drifting/hogging the middle lane etc etc…… they probably aren’t trying to be assholes, maybe something in their life is distracting them, maybe just made an honest mistake and now feel bad about it all day because they realise they weren’t quick enough to wave a sorry in the window and so on.

To clarify, I have no problems with people who eat meat in general, especially if it’s for survival. I just don’t get the people who also claim to actually like animals, claim to care about animal rights, claim to care about whether the chicken they’d eat were raised in cruelty-free free-range farms, but also don’t see an issue with killing them.

Two of my four grandparents were raised and lived most of their lives in a small village, that didn’t even have electricity until they had kids going to school. Extremely poor with almost nothing of most of what is now common in western societies. So, try to imagine living in a place where absolutely nothing is considered waste. Whatever little objects, their houses, everything they used was made by people who knew how to work with some crude material, whether it was wood or some kind of metal. They relied on animals and small pieces of land to get through each year. Literally zero waste. Composting was not a trend, but a necessity.

Now try to imagine a woman, who had little (no plants, chickens don’t lay eggs in the heavy winter, goats don’t have young ones to feed, so no milk either, no fridges, let alone freezers) food to go through the winter and would rather eat a little less and feed wild birds than watch them freezing to death (most living animals need food to regulate body temperature, among other things). Same thing I would watch her do during all seasons. She would always leave fruit on the trees during spring and summer just so that birds would have something to eat near her house. Fruit that was essential to her nutrition, because it was extremely limited, but she did it anyway.

Now try to imagine this woman, butchering a rabbit or a chicken or a goat. Because she did. Feeling no remorse or any negative emotion. And was pretty good at it. The same person who would get furious if someone mistreated a living animal in her presence.

There is some order in life, which is lost on people who never had a chance to see anything except an urban environment. If you were to meet a person like that, who pretty much embodies the supposed conflict you think exists in this behavior, and you talked in the manner you wrote this comment, you probably wouldn’t even get a response. Maybe a smile, maybe a shake of a head.

If you actually want to get how both those actions (butchering and eating a living animal, and caring for all living animals -even the ones you know you are going to kill and eat at some point in their life) can be done by people in peace with their actions, if you really want to do that, to understand, probably the best way is to find people living like this and spend a month near them. Live and observe.

This comment is not meant to justify all the wrongs of how livestock is treated on large scales in pursuit of profit. Neither people eating more meat in a week than their ancestors probably ate in many months. I am not interested in debating this either. Just pointing out that this was the way of life of most people in the past. How long ago, depends on where you were born on this planet.

I hope I can offer some of my experience, if just for some flavor in the spectrum of how some people approach the lives of creatures which sustain some of us.

We raise ducks on our property - they’re wonderful for our gardens given our location, they help to sustain the pond ecosystems we have where we live, and due to the forestry industry in our area there aren’t many native nesting ducks to fulfill the roles they play. There are serious…population pressures… in duck society which makes some form of population control necessary for the health of the flock to continue. Rather than wild predatory action (which we protect against) taking a portion of them, we can manage the population in a way that keeps more of them living without suffering that can also help to feed our neighbors in town. Our goal is for them to be able to live the best life a duck could want, with one bad hour at the end.

I cannot express to you my sorrow any time any duck loses its life. There have been accidents as new mothers have reacted to the new lives around them, and injuries incompatible with life, which have been my responsibility to resolve with the least amount of suffering possible. It is heart-rending, and it crushes me.

We’re fortunate enough to have met other folks who have similar relationships and outlooks for the types of animals they raise. We’re even more fortunate that those people in our community can provide that food that comes from their management practices to us and our neighbors locally. There’s never been a better time for people to support the kinds of agriculture they agree with by connecting with farmers who share their values and are in their communities; I feel confident saying that we should all be doing that to the extent we can.

this is me and Mira, the duckling I raised after his mother kicked him out of the nest. He came everywhere with me - to landscaping gigs, to the neighbors, on shopping trips where I could get away with it, you name it. Attempts to reintegrate him to the rest of the flock ended with peeping (eventually hissing) and running behind me to hide. His life was cut short during an outbreak of avian influenza and I still get emotional about him years later, and I have that level of attachment to all of them.

I’d be interested to see conversations like this, possibly in it’s own animal rights community. There are many things related to this.

Ethical farming and ranching practices

What animals do you feel are ok to eat or get products from

Animal personhood

Attention for less popular or stereotypically cute animals

I feel our role is an omnivorous one. I love just about all animals but creepy and cuddly. But I also eat meat. I want to learn to eat less of it. I do hunt, and I feel less guilty of that than buying supermarket meat.

Nature I feel is beautiful, but also sometimes cruel and brutal. With human intellect, we have some ability to break some of the cycles of nature. We can choose what we eat and how we get it. We can farm and make food from nothing. We can convert foods to different foods or invent brand new things. We can be friendly with other species. Our food culture is evolving along with us, and conversations need to be had to progress.

This can be a tricky conversation in general, so it would have to be approached very carefully and deliberately to foster an actual conversation without triggering defensiveness. You might not get downvoted but also might not be able to get any engagement when your question is framed as an accusation. This is not to tone police you because you are of course free to express your own beliefs with all the passion which you carry for them. This is only offering a strategy if your aim is to get people to feel comfortable enough to honestly answer your question, where you may be able to challenge them and perhaps cause them to really consider their actions if they haven’t. This isn’t general advice of course, because as you stated however you frame something like this on reddit it’s going to drive antipathy. I think you could do it on this platform with some considerations. I know that there have been talks about a vegan community here, so it’s possible when that exists you would be able to ask this there without reservation with non-vegans who choose to go there to offer their perspectives.

Sure it makes sense. Chatting about how personal preferences differ is a casual thing which can even get people to try things they otherwise wouldn’t or see them with a new perspective. Attacking someone for something like this is completely childish and unfortunately very reddit. From what I’ve experienced here it seems far less likely that it would be as big of a risk to bring up here.

Have you thought about inviting people you know that like sports? Also, thank you for your effort in !sports ❤