The majority of people have had genuine empathy bred out of them and denied to the point that they have never felt it or even met anyone who has felt it. Yet, real empathy exists as a literal feeling of the feelings present in other beings. Those with real empathy understand that animals are 'people' with other bodies. For this and many other reasons it follows that balance is impossible while abusing them. Every single individual who stops abusing animals helps to bring balance.
Take veganism for example. It is a self-defeating ideology because the majority of those who employ it just end up alienating the people around them. This is what happens when one group tries to take the moral high-ground over another and make the argument, "Well if everyone did it the world would be a better place." It's a self-hobbling strategy. The cure will never spread in its current form.
This is a gross over simplification of a pattern that involves millions of people. Most people have never even come close to speaking, in depth, with even 1000 people - let alone multiple millions of people. Slack-jawed over simplification of complex problems is part of what got us into this epic scale mess. The reality for me is that the 'vegan issue' exposes some of the most evil and denied parts of the humans story and people hate having light reaching their denied aspects. Your logic is bizarre to me here, it is equivalent to saying "Being anti-rape is self defeating because it's a moral position that is based on saying 'well if everyone was anti rape, the world would be a better place".. Well, yeah.. it's a true statement. The only reason it would fail to achieve anything is that there are a lot of evil and selfish people.
The high levels of evil/selfishness and low levels of empathy won't be fixed by telling people what to do, that is correct. At the same time, doing nothing is also not a helpful approach. Ending death is in actuality the goal for me personally, it's a complicated topic and not one that I am going to cover here - it takes hundreds of pages to get started with. Suffice to say that ending involvement with death in all ways possible is step 1. To me, this includes stopping paying taxes since taxes go towards paying for war - just for starters. Balance does not involve giving your own power to others to do with as they please.
I don't really have time to do a full reply here - but I sill summarise by saying 'do everything possible to end suffering and to end death - intend healing, balancing and evolving. it's ok to make mistakes and to fail from time to time.. but keep going and change will manifest - there is no other way'. every vegan saves countless animals from a needless death every year - in truth only the psychopathically aligned would gloss over this.. unfortunately, psychopathy is an unrecognised spectrum and is rampant.
This documentary demonstrates animal/human telapathy and backs up some of what I am saying very well:
You don't realize that you are doing it as well.
This has always been, and always will be, a consensus issue.
So when you try to conflate eating meat with a high-level crime like rape...
It shows me you have become too rigid in this idealistic belief system.
Your theory does not mesh with actual reality.
Do you think you are doing everything possible to end suffering and to end death - intend healing, balancing and evolving? Again, life is not that simple. These are not the only priorities in life, and thus no one will ever be doing everything possible to achieve them. Also, anyone can claim they are doing everything possible, no matter how shitty they are. This is all I got. I'm trying my hardest. They can't all be winners.
You have not admitted one single time during this entire conversation that I have anything to offer when it comes to an actual solution or that I have made a single valid point. And yet I have made many valid points. You stand on a pedestal of zealotry and believe an inflexible ruleset on the fringe of society is the best way to make change in the real world. It's not. You are absolutely not doing everything you can to make real change in the real world. You've done a very good job in positioning yourself around an idealist mindset that puts you technically in the right within every single conversation. I bet it feels good, eh? Being right every single time and never having to bend for the actual reality of these situations. Must be nice. Perhaps one day I will join you and together nothing will get done. I've certainly been down that route before.
It's funny because we are barely in disagreement about any of these things.
But that's what happens when dealing with idealism, eh?
Any deviation from perfect is an unacceptable affront.
The simplicity of a living being with a will that feels and wants to live, either living as a result of adopting the intention to protect the sanctity of life or dying because of a failure to do so - is all the evidence needed to know that the adoption of the intention is valuable. You either value the life of others or you do not. It really is that cut and dry.
Hm, yes, if there's anything I've learned from this interchange it's that the entire issue can be simplified down to a single sentence. I challenge you to come up with one single issue that we actually disagree on. The list is very small, and rather than focus on the main points that I make it seems like you are just reading off of flash-cards you keep in your back pocket like I'm talking to a bot.
I'm absolutely convinced at this point that neither one of us has told the other something that they didn't already know.
If I tell you not to leverage moral superiority as a tactic to get other people on board with this movement, and then you say "Yes, but I am morally superior"... Tell me: who is the one that looks foolish?
We both made true statements, did we not?
But one of those true statements seems to have a certain implication, yeah? Inevitably some percentage of people are going to interpret the way you presented the information as a self-aggrandizing dismissal of the thing I literally just told you, without even directly addressing what I said. You seem to be very good at this, and I find it to be extremely manipulative and alarming.
This is how some are going to interpret your words.
Do you think that is a wise strategy?
Obvious rhetorical question is rhetorical.
Now I won't have to wait for an answer that I'll never get.
The reality here is that my Dad just died and I am in the process of arranging his funeral. I am also working 50+ hours a week. I don't have the time to put into the replies here that you would like.
I am simply highlighting the primary issue that I see, to save time. The issue that we disagree on and that I am trying to prompt you to address. Just as you say that I am not addressing your points, you are doing the same. I'm not here to have an argument, convince anyone or win anything - I am just highlighting something important to me. It happens to be something that the majority of people are in massive denial of.
Sorry to hear that. Sounds like a pretty rough time.
If I'm being honest, which I shouldn't, my knee-jerk reaction to this was:
But obviously that's a terrible thing to say, so I will say that I just need some time to adjust to your... shall we say... aura. I feel like at one point we were on a pretty similar wavelength, but something must have changed. Chalk it up to a 'me' problem.
Condolences. Truly. I feel bad. Just another indication that I need to get my shit together.
Or perhaps making it about me is part of the problem. Oh, what a world we live in.
Well, knee-jerk reactions can be replaced by considered responses - so thanks for that and thanks for being honest about your inner state, I do my best to never judge anyone or myself.
I have had conversations about veganism online easily over 1000 times with people who have some problem with veganism. As a result I am a bit tired of going over the same points every few days with different people. I appreciate that you probably agree with me on most things, but some of what you are saying comes from the same illogical thinking that many carnivores produce. In particular, the part about 'one person can't make a difference' and then deflecting away from the obvious untruthfulness of this statement.
It feels pretty shockingly dire tbh. If anything I feel a desire to help you but your demeanor is such that you neither want help nor have seemed to be able to step outside of the reptilian brain domination mode of wanting to win and conquer in an imagined war of intellect. I also feel that even saying that I want to help will be converted into a perceived attempt to self aggrandise and demean you as inferior. It's just a simple and innocent intent to want to help another.
For the record, I know now that all beings are literally one - whether they like it or not. We are individuated but we also share a oneness. In that light, any kind of competitiveness is born of delusion.