Well Red, concerning the third question 'Is it better to be just book smart, or just street smart?': I think neither is best. As you said, a healthy mix of the two is needed so one's solid intellectual apology for veganism is put in easy-to-understand, engaging forms the typical carnist layperson will be persuaded by. Statistics: Posted by truthsearch — Wed May 08, 2024 12:02 pm ..read more

This is an expansion of the above section, Section: An Argument For The Existence Of The One Awareness/Great Mind That Creates Reality. I feel I have significantly strengthened the argument. Section: An Argument For The Existence Of The One Awareness/Great Mind That Creates Reality I would like to stress, I am not presenting proof of the existence of the one awareness. This is an argument. Solid verifiable proof seems impossible. Let's take the physics of a free-falling object. We can all agree that if you take a rock in your hand and then release it, it will fall to the ground. We can all a ..read more

Section: An Argument For The Existence Of The One Awareness/Great Mind That Creates Reality I would like to stress, I am not presenting proof of the existence of the one awareness. This is an argument. Solid verifiable proof seems impossible. Let's take the physics of a free-falling object. We can all agree that if you take a rock in your hand and then release it, it will fall to the ground. We can all agree this is "natural" behavior. This natural behavior can be modeled with a Newtonian mathematical equation, x = 0.5gt^2. x represents the vertical distance the object will fall when released ..read more

A new sub-section of a section I am working on. Section: My Thoughts, And Dreams, Thus Far On Attaining The Ability To Fly And Its Symbolic Meaning Can I fly? No. But I think about it often and I have dreamt it. If we can make ourselves immortal, then I don't see why we can't eventually fly. It is something I think we have to work on though. Here are my ponderings thus far. A scientific perspective A dream perspective A magic perspective A spiritual perspective A consciousness perspective Ignore the fact that you can "feel" your body. Let's focus strictly on "sight" for now. This is yo ..read more

It's certainly true that most people would choose to experience suffering for some perceived greater good, but to what extent can the rational mind be trusted when an agreement is made in ignorance of what it is actually like (as they are not experiencing it in that moment)? And even after the fact, there is no way for the mind to "replay" this exact experience -- we could use our memory and imagination to recreate it to the best of our ability, but the experience itself will be lost to us the moment it ends. If you're going down that road, why not the five minute hypothesis or solipsism? Pe ..read more

Not most humans, only hedonists at best. Most would choose to submit to pain and suffering to protect family, for instance. People can choose to suffer and die for others. In the moment of suffering, the brain's fight or flight response may kick in and make rational thought and decision making impossible, but that doesn't mean that suffering is infinite (or practically so) just because it breaks the rational mind. For instance, it's not uncommon for people to report pain so intense they wanted to die, but nonetheless after the fact and in the light of day (being able to reason again) those sa ..read more

but for larger animals where this is less of a danger (e.g. lions) it's in fact to their benefit to eat their prey alive, as any additional time spent killing it increases the risk of their catch being stolen. Being eaten is a pretty quick death for any animal that will bleed out. Though I think it would be a bit more likely that an animal that can no longer walk/fly/swim would be killed by a predator before it dies of dehydration/starvation. That was my main point. But in terms of dehydration, that's not a major risk for herbivores in all but very dry climates or climates with very dry pe ..read more

Predators, due to targeting weakness or disability, can function as mercy killers in an ecosystem. Regardless, death by dehydration or starvation is not inevitable even without them. Plenty of ecosystems have a surplus of food, the food just comes in lower qualities which reduces fertility for the less successful foragers. You seem to view ecology as kind of incompetent, but there are a lot of inputs and variables you're not considering. Most organisms regulate reproductions pretty successfully based on resource availability. Even in humans, when resources fall below a certain amount (with c ..read more

I think it's more about it being worse near the beginning and end of their lives. A large portion of wild animals are r-selected, meaning they have a lot of offspring and very few make it past infancy (think rodents, sea turtles) and typically when animals reach the end of their lives, they don't die quickly and painlessly, but rather their bodies will slowly degrade and make them easy targets for predators and scavengers, unless they can find a secure and isolated place to hide themselves. And even then death by dehydration/starvation is inevitable. Predators, due to targeting weakness or d ..read more

I've seen that argument go that, while animals in the wild on average don't have it anywhere near as bad, the fact that there are so many more wild animals than animals on factory farms results in more overall suffering, often due to predators. But there are a few issues with this line of reasoning. I think it's more about it being worse near the beginning and end of their lives. A large portion of wild animals are r-selected, meaning they have a lot of offspring and very few make it past infancy (think rodents, sea turtles) and typically when animals reach the end of their lives, they don't ..read more