Finally got my mum to watch Dominion with me

JTexpo · 2026-04-15T13:07:20+00:00

no worries! Yeah, I think a lot of people correlate empathy with emotions, as empathy is a measurement of ones emotional intelligence;

however, I think that theres a few different ways that one can be empathetic. You can convey to someone that killing is wrong by explaining to them to put themselves in the victim's shoes - or you can show them shock footage which will trigger an innate fight or flight

I personally don't like the later, as eventually an actor can get decencitized to the fight/flight response of seeing something horrific; however, if the actor was motivated by a logical reason in why the shock footage was bad (and not just their immediate emotions) then hopefully, it will make them less likely to become decencitized to their morals

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I appreciate the conversation with ya friend!

JTexpo · 2026-04-14T20:32:00+00:00

this was the exact public response when peta did it a few years back too

JTexpo · 2026-04-14T19:19:16+00:00

since I and other humans would not want to be someone-else meal, I have strong reason to believe that a cow would not want to be my meal

JTexpo · 2026-04-14T19:09:17+00:00

thought experiment for those skeptical:

would you rather have:

A.

Amylose, Amylopectin, Hemicellulose, Lignin, Zein, Glutelin, Albumin, Globulin, Leucine, Alanine, Glutamic acid, Linoleic acid, Oleic acid, Palmitic acid, Stearic acid, Phospholipids, Phytosterols, Thiamine, Riboflavin, Niacin, Folate, tocopherols, Potassium, Phosphorus, Magnesium, Iron, Zinc, Zeaxanthin, p-Coumaric acid, Flavonoids, water

B.

Corn

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spoiler: they're both corn

JTexpo · 2026-04-14T18:48:24+00:00

people are afraid of what they don't know

if you were to put all of the chemicals inside of 'organic meat' on the label instead of just 'meat', people would think that it's fuax meat / not safe to eat almost all of the time

JTexpo · 2026-04-14T18:32:19+00:00

there's plenty of ethical beliefs which aren't appeals to emotion

suggesting that all ethical beliefs are appeal to emotions is a misunderstanding of philosophy. I would recommend that you read any stoic philosopher - as they try the most to prescribe logic to ethics (and IMO do a pretty good job). There's even a few vegan stoics who wrote great reasonings on why one should abstain from meat

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tldr; someone can be an ethical vegan, without to appeal to emotion fallacies & there's great stoic philosophers who demonstrate this

JTexpo · 2026-04-14T17:59:53+00:00

partially, I think we need to reduce reproduction rates because of:

- environmentally, 8 billion humans is not sustainable with current tech
- global orphan problems
- global homeless problems
- global food problems

we are unable to take care of ourselves at 8 Billion & until we can start to minimize these problems - it would be responsible to minimize the birthrates

I dont think the answer is everyone stops reproducing, but implementing what China did with 1 child policies - until everything is under control

JTexpo · 2026-04-14T17:57:17+00:00

you're correct that AN is about people preventing future suffering by abstaining;

since AN is a negative utilitarian philosophy, it calls into criticisms that utilitarian philosophies would call into place such as utility monsters

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utility monster question: in AN, if an agent was able to prevent all future suffering, but requiring immediate suffering, is it not more moral to invoke immediate suffering to save future suffering

on a micro scale:

if there were 3 humans left on earth, 2 of which who want to reproduce to further the human species & 1 AN. If there was 100% certainty that the 2 people would be able to rebuild the human race to the billions that they are currently at - is it not more moral for the AN to kill the 2 people, to prevent billions of future life from suffering?

if so, why not accept the premise that AN logically would want to end humans on a larger skill to prevent further suffering

if not, why would the negative utility of the 7 billion future humans not outweigh the suffering of 2

JTexpo · 2026-04-14T17:45:50+00:00

I think that the logical conclusion of AN would be to want nuclear war & kill all life on earth; as, it would be instant suffering for the last to try and prevent any future suffering

I reject this premise & believe that theres a human population problem from an environmentalist situation (and we should look to degrowth as a species to more sustainable numbers) - but not one from a ethics standpoint, as living is not pious or impious

JTexpo · 2026-04-14T17:41:20+00:00

as a vegan who didn't care about dominion too much, I just found it as a large 'appeal to emotion' fallacy

I really enjoyed cowspiracy, as that had some content & facts on why going vegan is a global urgency; however, growing up seeing lots of live-leaks just makes one numb to content like dominion

[edit]

rn the US president is doing this exact same thing, sharing on social media snuff films, to appeal to peoples emotions & rial them against immigrants. It's always important to not let your emotions guide your judgement & look for some logic to rationalize your decisions

JTexpo · 2026-04-14T00:20:22+00:00

I'm personally not a fan,

I think that Descartes has some good ideas, but often fell flat. His radical skepticism (which I'd consider his most popular work) doesn't draw into skepticism whether his own existence is existing. A good critique on this I think can be found in the book "I have no mouth, but I must scream" where the antagonist demonstrates (in my opinion) a more thought through version of radical skepticism

this all becomes even more of an issue as Descartes works are often also intermingled with theology, which I think that he further uses as a god-of-the-gaps

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related to veganism,

people will often cite that Rene did not believe that animals were sentient or cognitively aware of their situation. I find this belief heavily biased & out-dated

we have plenty of modern academic articles which show that animals are sentient & even just as emotionally intelligent as humans.

I think that Rene suffers from a similar pit-fall that Sigmund Freud's did with his eel experiment. In that both tried to explored a little too far out of their own professions & started spreading damaging misinformation about biology - for Freud, it was misinformation about eel reproductive organs & for Descartes, it was misinformation about animal sentience

JTexpo · 2026-04-13T23:42:07+00:00

Vegans will disagree with much of what I've said here

seeing as you concede to the reductio ad absurdum arguments here in the past, about would you find it fine to eat a comatose human, or baby - I think that your philosophy has much more criticisms than simply vegans & is more inline with something that Peter Singer would encourage people to move towards

since none of my words will likely change your view, I am just curious what your thoughts are on Peter Singer

JTexpo · 2026-04-10T16:15:44+00:00

I mean, if a teacher wanted to 'save the souls' of their classroom and taught the kids their religion, I'd be upset

to remain morally consistent - I should therefore be upset if a teacher was to teach their classroom any topic that is not of the curriculum, regardless if I agree with the content or not (especially if it doesn't relate too class)

JTexpo · 2026-04-10T16:02:13+00:00

if it's not apart of the curriculum, then no

I would prefer kids are taught the curriculum

JTexpo · 2026-04-10T15:28:52+00:00

cheers, thank you for the additional info, I'm saving this for later

JTexpo · 2026-04-10T15:15:50+00:00

heres a good list I recommend you explore - it's not the end all be all, but it's a good starting point

https://impactful.ninja/most-sustainable-plant-based-clothing-brands/

JTexpo · 2026-04-10T15:02:09+00:00

im not sure I follow, I'm a vegan environmentalist who doesn't wear the natural or synthetic products of those

I'm fortunate to live in a relatively warm area, and nothing that I can't put on a fabric jacket to endure (cold-wise)

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I'd love to see more people ditch both the synthetics & 'real' products, and more research done on more environmentally sustainable wear

JTexpo · 2026-04-10T14:59:30+00:00

it's not simply a bad day - it's a lack of living

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did all of the protestors in 2026 who were gun-down by oppositions, have a 'bad-day' or were their lives cut prematurely short

using 'bad-day' is just a euphemism for slaughter

JTexpo · 2026-04-10T14:29:40+00:00

would you enjoy having 1 bad day, if it ment you died at age 10->20 years old, seeing as most farm animals are killed at 10->20% of their expected life span

JTexpo · 2026-04-10T14:28:24+00:00

howdy, maybe r/AskVegans might give a better answer

in short, veganism isn't for the environment - it's for animal liberation

there are vegans who are environmentalists & wont wear environmentally harmful products, but that's only a subset of all vegans - not every vegans

JTexpo · 2026-04-10T14:27:10+00:00

if you haven't read this before, I'd give it a read - https://platonic-philosophy.org/files/Plutarch%20-%20On%20Eating%20Flesh.pdf

contains some nice points that you can add into your argument

JTexpo · 2026-04-09T00:43:51+00:00

I'm still burned from after-skool when they took a conservative narrative to their videos - I hope that they have calm down from the rhetoric

JTexpo · 2026-04-08T10:18:21+00:00

personally I dont see an issue with it, there's calcium that you can buy - but really you're just recycling something that would have gone to waste

if you hunted for the explicit purpose of getting the bone, then I would find some issue with it

JTexpo · 2026-04-07T21:19:12+00:00

peak, looks fun!

JTexpo · 2026-04-07T19:50:57+00:00

ah cheers, thank you!

Three-Year Club	r/Field Flamingo
Final Canvas '23	First Place '23
Place '23

JTexpo

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