animal_dude

> Animals violate the free agency of animals every single day when they eat them for food.

Animals also commit infanticide and lick their own buttholes. What we do to animals is not cooperation. It's a holocaust.

Except it isn't; culture doesn't affect our physiology and biochemistry, thus not relevant to discussions about natural diets.

> I wonder what proportion of animals would chose non-existence over existence if they could understand such concepts.

May I suggest you look at some footage from slaughterhouses to make that determination for yourself? Or, if you're particularly stoic, I dare you to watch Earthlings.

> That way you are not only doing something healthy for yourself and the animals, it's also supporting the local economy in a meaningful way.

There is nothing healthy about consuming animals. Not for humans, not for animals, not for this planet, not for anyone. And a similar "supporting the economy" justification was used in defense of slavery, which you're still supporting in another form.

> Do you truly consider this scenario oppressive?

Yes, because you have violated the free agency of animals and their own right to exist unmolested by humans. It's the treatment of sentient creatures as mere commodities, justifying the means for an end, that's the source of great calamity and suffering. Non-human persons aren't on this planet for the satisfaction of humans. To think so is to basically be stuck in Christian-inspired attitudes which are old and deprecated.

> No one needs plants to survive either

Completely wrong, and frankly a pretty stupid thing to say. Plants provide the basis for all life on this planet. Without plants, there would be no complete proteins, there would be no essential fatty acids, there would be no sustainable nutrition for humans nor any other being on this planet. What you're saying is straight up silly. Stop.

> Humans like all life are part of the food chain, and that's just the way things are on this planet.

This is not a scientifically tenable statement. It's just based on hearsay and various nonsense.

"In the global food web, we discover that humans are similar to anchovy or pigs and cannot be considered apex predators"

- http://www.pnas.org/content/110/51/20617.abstract

> The only way it will change is everyone buys organic or true free range. The costs are too expensive for me to buy all the time

Both of those terms are pretty meaningless, and their ineffectual enforcement makes them even less so. The solution isn't to humane-wash, it's to stop eating things that come out of chickens' anuses.

> Cows are treated pretty fairly until the end. They are usually grass feed and graze until they fatten them up for slaughter. They have miles and miles of fields to roam. You can find pigs that are treated fairly or are "free range".

This is a complete fabrication and utter logical fallacy.

> Are you suggesting that we let them die of starvation or simply eliminate them

A reasonable person might suggest we not purposefully birth 150 billion+ animals every year just so they can be killed. The "let them starve" argument is a strawman, since the whole world would not eschew animal products overnight, but rather as a gradual progress.

> He claims we aren't adapted for hunting meat, relying solely on physical features to back this claim and ignoring our mental capacity, specifically the capacity for organization and tool use.

Tools are a product of culture, not evolution, thus are not a reliable indicator of what our species' natural diet is. We're frugivorous apes, so the appropriate food is fruit.