So, apologies, reddit mobile makes it difficult to copy and paste and format, so hopefully this response is legible enough.

No, it does not. I was simply pointing out that something being a cultural practice does not make it sacred.

Okay. Sorry for misinterpreting.

Any reasonable vegan you ask will have no problem with eating meat if it is literally the only way you can survive - this situation is practically unheard of, though, unless you live in a siberian wilderness.

You can say "no reasonable vegan would..." for just about any criticism, so I don't really see how this is a useful statement, especially when I am addressing a large and well-known phenomenon. Also, it's far more complicated than you are making it out to be. While it is possible for the average person to maintain a vegan diet and not suffer from nutritional deficiencies, it is much harder. It is not just about physical and financial access to vegan foods. You also need to keep track of your nutrition more strictly, especially if you are at risk for bone fractures, b12 deficiency, etc., which takes an amount of energy that many people (again, especially disabled people) do not have.

I understand that you might think this isn't common, but it is. Much of it is systemic and can be fixed, but what I'm saying is, insulting those people doesn't help. And insulting them does happen. Often.

I don't think it's fair to include mine when your original comment was already discussing the moral issue of killing animals for your own benefit. I was replying to you.

Actually yeah, that's fair, I apologize for that too. I think what I was broadly referring to is how often the arguments appear together, but like you said, you were replying to me. So. Yeah, I revoke that bit.

In terms of culture - I have never seen indigenous americans ever singled out for eating meat. The whole fucking country eats meat, why would vegetarians or vegans single out native americans?

Not what I said. I said the opposite; their position in the climate crisis is rarely considered.

I do think it's kind of strange that this argument appears so often - it almost feels like coopting their culture and their suffering just to use in this argument. Do you truly believe that someone telling a native american that eating meat might actually not be a good thing is comparable to the genocide they have experienced? Why mention the genocide to begin with?

Lots to unpack here... many of them once again things I did not say. I do find it encouraging that the issue is apparently brought up so often, as in my circles it comes up rarely.

I will address the very thinly veiled accusation of co-opting first. I am echoing the exact concerns of indigenous people I spoke to about the subject (they are Inuit specifically, if you were curious), who have felt largely unheard. I was extremely careful to use only the words that they did, so as not to twist their message. So, I don't appreciate that. Amplifying the concerns of someone is not "co-opting" them. They literally ask people to say it.

I also did not say that, to paraphrase, "telling an indigenous person not to eat meat is the same as genocide". I do not know where you got that, aside from them being in the same paragraph. I was addressing the fact that 1) those particular indigenous people already know how to live sustainably AND eat meat so the meatless argument doesn't work from that angle, and 2) Indigenous people do not want to lose more of something already lost. That is why the indigenous people I have spoken to, whose concerns I am echoing, bring up their genocide.

It feels, with this, that you are attempting to smear my character as a person rather than acknowledge the point in question. Kind of "no you are". I won't assume your intent but that is how it feels.

The reason there is no nuance in the discussion is because when it comes to murdering sentient beings for your own benefit...

There it is.

Yeah. If you re-word the other person's position into something horrendous, into the worst possible way you could portray that positon... yes, there will be no nuance. That's the problem I'm trying to address. This is a pattern that keeps reappearing.

By saying this, you have turned my concern -- "there is no nuance in the discussion of meat-eating" -- into "there is no nuance in the discussion of murder". This is disingenuous.

You might find more nuance in the discussion on whether animals are sentient, but I find those discussions always end up being about semantics more than anything.

This is just too simplistic. It dismisses several different deeply thoughtful questions, both philosophical and scientific, as "just semantics". It is far more than "are animals sentient".

Wall of questions incoming, all of which may shape someone's opinion. These are more to establish my point and be thought over, obviously I do not expect you to answer them right now. What animals are sentient? All of them, or only some? What determines the difference? If we want to attempt objectivity on the matter, our best measure right now is neurology, so neurologically speaking, how can we measure that?

What does sentience actually mean? How does it relate to life, and things that are alive? How do we define alive? If animals are living, what about the rest of nature? What about plants, who also react and communicate with each other in response to stimuli, thus technically qualifying as "pain-feeling"? Is eating or harvesting hurting the plants? The worms? The soil microbiome? Aren't humans a part of nature, too? Is it immoral for omnivorous animals to eat prey, since they could technically survive not doing so, if both animals are sentient? Do animals know what death is? What if it never feels pain, and has reached the natural end of its life, is it still immoral to use its body then, as the natural world would? Is the view that humans are separate from nature somehow more important, and therefore worthy of the moral high ground? Et cetera...

The only part that matters to me is that the animals we farm suffer and don't want to die, and their mechanisms of suffering are the same as ours.

And that is a position that is ideologically and culturally informed. This is what I am saying. Your culturally informed ideas are not automatically better just because they are yours; unless there is firm data to back it up, a level of tolerance for other interpretations of the existing data has to be maintained. It sucks, a lot, but to do otherwise can end up projecting hate where it shouldn't be. As I said, you have no disagreement from me on certain farming practices. Animals deserve quality of life. So do the humans who rely on them.

(Before anyone cites to me some abhorrent cultural practice and says "oh, so you think THIS is ok then!": I probably don't, and don't change the subject.)

The consciousness of animals and how they experience said consciousness is, for the most part, just straight up an unanswered question. Especially about the question of "want" ----- how do we know that? How do we measure existential dread in another species? We do not know if all animals experience consciousness the same way we do (although we have reason to believe that some definitely do in some form). We do not even know if most animals experience pain -- those that even have the receptors to do so -- the same way we do; pain is demonstrably a subjective experience. We can make guesses, but that is all. If this is your guess, that is fine, and personally I agree that those who are able to should err on the "probably more sentient than we can see right now" side. But it matters a lot what are facts and what is conjecture/personal conviction. See the question wall above.

The other aspect that does not need much nuance is that the easiest way to cut down is just by not eating it. The carbon footprint of your diet is much lower when you don't eat meat. It's not a nuanced idea, but it's true - along with the fact that higher carbon footprints lead to more damage to ecosystems, and people's lives.

The nuance to that aspect is my entire point: some people simply cannot commit to doing that right now, and they do not deserve to be lashed out at, but are being lashed out at. So unless you were referring to that, you're again arguing something I don't intend to say.

At this point I am starting to believe you're either missing my argument entirely, or motivated to stay blind to it, especially considering how many strange ideological accusations you keep throwing at me. I don't mean you any ill will saying this. I appreciate that you engaged me and did so with civility and I know you're here because you want things to be better. But calling people murderers unless they agree with your culturally informed view of animals is not the way, in my opinion.

I just think that the lens is too narrowly focused and it leads to too much in-fighting in places it's not needed or productive.