TranscendentalEmpire

To add to what the other two commenters mentioned, it's about intent too.

I don't actually think intent is really important to the moral equation. A species going extinct because of over hunting, and a species going extinct because of habitat destruction are pretty morally equivalent to me.

The animals that die in crop fields die regardless given that the corn harvested

Is that not the same reasoning people use to validate hunting?

then some - to feed other animals which you end up consuming. Thus, it's fewer animals dying overall.

This is getting closer to the ethical imperative question I asked. So it seems that the ethical dilemma is based on preserving as much life as possible?

If so, would it be more ethical to eat the insect as a protein source rather than the soy beans they are feeding upon? If the insects as you say are going to be destroyed during the harvest, would it not be morally justified to gather and eat the insects before or after?

My point isn't to be pedantic or actually implement anything we've talked about. I'm just pointing out the internal contradictions that occur in veganism. Not to try and sway anyone's life choices, but to allow for people to understand that it's logically imperfect, and to not let perfection be the enemy of good.

Accepting for the sake of discussion (but not generally) that hunting is "ethical", hunting is also a privilege. We obviously cannot all eat hunted meat for survival. You've no doubt seen the figures.

The sheer variety of produce we currently experience is also an unsustainable privilege.

Eating something with palm oil is also a privilege, one that destroys natural habitats and leads to excess carbon being released to the atmosphere.

I'm not trying to equivocate the two, but the moral justification is similar.

Here's our belief system: don't kill or hurt animals as much as is possible.

Right, but by what is the ethical delineation between say a krill and a mushroom?

What is the difference between lesser evolved animals and highly evolved plants or microbes?

It just shows a lack of empathy towards other living beings is the way I see it.

What's the moral basis of your ethical argument? Is it simply that all living beings deserve to live, or is it about preventing harm/pain?

The question is pretty simple when it's asked about something like a mammal, but less so when you ask about something like a krill. Why does a krill have the same ethical weight as a mammal, and why wouldn't that same moral imperative be applied to something like a mushroom?

Both are living beings, to our best knowledge both krill and mushrooms lack the ability to sensate pain as we understand it. Both can respond to stimuli in a way that tries to negate bodily harm.

I don't eat meat because of my own beliefs, but I often see vegans propose that veganism isnt based on a belief system, rather that it's logically conclusive. There are just too many internal contradictions for that to be true.

For example, as someone who grew up on farms..... I think everyone would be surprised to know how many animals are killed collecting something like corn. I've spent more time than I would like clearing thousands of dead frogs from screens of combine harvesters. In my experience if every life is ethically similar, than something like hunting causes a lot less harm than harvesting an acre of corn or wheat.

Because this user will delete comments they don't like. Not that I disagree with this particular statement.

However, I have responded to a specific question they had about the scientific understanding of animals and pain in a previous post, which they removed without responding to.

Yeah.... It kinda seems like he planned to amputate his penis before hand and was utilizing the shrooms as a diy analgesic.

I don't have any history of psychosis, but I have been dosed with too many shrooms before. In my experience, getting from under my blanket of fortitude would have required more mental acumen than what the mushrooms permitted.

I don't think I could have thought to apply a tourniquet, or remember to put my dismembered penis in a jar of ice unless I had prepped everything before the stuff kicked in.

My dude, nothing in that blog supports your claim.

First of all, it's talking about the metallurgy of the 16th century and after, which is after Japan had imported blast furnaces. Secondly, it ignores the amount of labour needed to actually produce refined steel from iron sands, which ultimately dictates the quality of the finished product.

This isnt a debatable topic, any steel made from iron sands before modern electromagnetic sorting contains a large amount of impurities when compared to steel made from rock ore.

Even during WW2 the Japanese had a hard time producing high quality steel even with the use of blast furnaces, because the iron sands contains a large amount of titanium.

This blog which falls over itself trying to engage in revisionist history, can only claim that the quality was "perfectly fine"....not good.

That's not true, no matter how many times you make that unsupported claim.

You are conflating the elemental molecule of iron with the finished product of an alloy of carbonized iron aka as steel.

Yes, there isn't a molecular difference between the iron found in sand vs the iron found in rock ore. However, the medium in which you harvest your iron and how you're able to heat that iron, dictates the quality not your final product.

Lol, my dude. No one is claiming that modern japanese steel is of poor quality.

Im speaking of the time period contemporary with the accusation. You know, how arguments typically work......

Do you think the guns Japanese Samurai used were made from steel refined from sand?

Just pointing out this one because it's funny. Yes, a lot of the early firearms made in Japan were still made from iron sand (Satetsu). Which was the main source of iron in Japan until the 16th century.

According to whom?

The reason why Japanese iron is inferior is because of the source of the iron itself, they utilized iron sand instead of rock ore. Rock ore can be made up to 90% ferrous material while the iron sand contains as little as 2%.

This means when you smelt your source material into blooms of iron and slag, the blooms made from sand iron were much smaller. Instead of utilizing a single bloom to make a sword, the Japanese had to work several blooms together. Which is much more labour intensive, and can lead to a lot of imperfections in the final product.

This is why katanas were made out of so little material, and had to be handled with care. They were much more fragile pieces than similar swords made in Korea and China at the time.

Plus, the Japanese developed their iron working much later than their mainland contemporaries, as they never independently invented furnace technology. The technology for furnaces was imported, most likely from the Korean peninsula.