copygirl

i think we dont have any moral obligation in the way we treat them

I think that way of thinking is problematic. Because you could easily swap “we have moral obligation only towards other humans” with “we have moral obligations only towards people of our own tribe / group”. You can freely swap out who is in the protected in-group, and what is okay to do to the out-group as a result.

And why can’t we treat animals similarly to how we would want to be treated?

Many animals show quite civilized behavior. Live and let live. Sometimes they cooperate cross-species. Where they don’t, it’s mostly due to evolutionary pressure and need for survival. We’ve gone beyond the need of consuming meat for survival. And more importantly, we can reason about if it’s good or not. Also, occasionally I question how “civilized” us humans really are.

I feel like you’re just saying that humans are better, more important and/or more special than animals, treating that as a fact, and somehow extrapolating from there that we somehow have the “right” to inflict harm on “lesser” beings purely because meat tastes good?

Also, thank you for being open.

Humans are animals, too.

You’re just one step away from de-humanizing other people and treating them like shit. (Or others doing the same to you.)

Recognize and reduce suffering where you can. Humans aren’t that special. We’re just lucky to have been the first on this planet to evolve to be smart enough to build societies and stuff.

There’s plenty of science fiction stories that explore this. Oh look at these puny humans. They haven’t even colonized other planets in their system. And they’re still fighting amongst themselves. [Insert plenty of other good reasons that we suck, here.] Clearly, they’re savages, and we can exploit them as we see fit. Oh, actually they taste really good, let’s make a human farm, breed and kill millions every month.

I don’t think you’ve thought this through. You should consider the possibility that you’re just rationalizing something that has become quite normal, but actually is kind of horrific if you think of the harm that it’s causing.

So you believe in rule of the mightiest?

Can you even call yourself a leftist?

Maybe you have a point to make but this isn’t it.

Engage with the person, not the mental image of what you think they are or represent.
To me it looked very much like you were talking past each other.

You don’t have to explain your stance to me, I understand it well enough.

Could you two three stop talking to the straw man you’ve built of the other side and actually engage with each other?