this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2025
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The family of ants you ran over yesterday would like a word, their father and husband Steve, is a good soldier that supplies for the colony. This murder and or antslaughter must be punished with the highest degree of justice involved.
Just think if exterminators. The horror on a capitalist scale.
Look, I gave a short explanation of my views, but yeah, there are some grey areas that are complicated, exterminators being one of them.
My views on exterminators and really any other form of harm to others to serve your own purposes, is that you have to truly appreciate the fact that these other living creatures deserve to live and only under extreme circumstances should extreme approaches be taken.
If you have termites eating your house, yeah, you're gonna have to exterminate them. It's either them or your house and it's a form of self-defense in my opinion.
The problem is that people just go for the most extreme approach of extermination when there could be other solutions to pests.
Maybe consider that next time you have a pest problem. Are there other solutions that cause less harm that would still provide you with the resolution that you need?
A very simple example is when you find a bug at home, you can choose to try and capture it and release it outside safely instead of trying to kill it.
I know you think that it's a real gotcha moment and that you totally destroyed my views, But you forgot the meaning of murder.
You see, to murder is to knowingly and purposefully kill someone.
If I saw you walking on the sidewalk and decided to go over and run you over and I killed you, that would be murder. But if I was driving and was in a car crash and ended up killing you, that is not murder.
Similarly, if I accidentally, without intent, killed an animal, it was not murder.
And yeah, even ants deserve to live. I wouldn't kill ants purposely. Is it hard not to kill ants by accident because they're so small and you can accidentally step on them without seeing them? Yeah, but it doesn't mean that I would knowingly kill them.
I dont mind killing cows/chicken/similar for their meat, bones, skin, and others. But I might understand your views if we are talking about needlessly murdering animals. Torturing animals.
But just killing animals in general? I lost you there.
Define needlessly?
You see, you probably define it as a subjective catch all for anything that you are used to having in your life.
But if you really inspect that idea you can reach all kinds of extremes, like do you really need a home? You can live on the street, do you really need a car? You could walk technically, do you really need meat? You could live perfectly healthy without it technically, do you need a towel after a shower? You can just let yourself dry, what about chocolate? Just a nice snack, is that a necessity? And marshmallows? Bread? Flavoured drinks?
So the line is individual and non linear. One might say they can live without cars but not without a home, one would say the opposite, one would claim that chocolate is more important than having towels, etc. Some can also say that the joy they get from turturing an animal is more significant for their own happiness than chocolate, or towels or eating meat, these people are 100% with the parameters of your logic, yet you lable it as unnecessary.
You could redefine necessity as things that would cause you serious harm if taken, which is still subjective but a little clearer. Most people can agree that never eating chocolate again would suck but not cause any serious harm. Most can also probably agree that not having a home would cause you serious harm. And while you might not like to admit it, scientifically going vegan won't just not cause you harm, it would actually be healthy for you, and just like people who go on all kinds of diets, it sucks at first, but it does not cause any serious harm.
So ask yourself, what justification can you use to inflict serious harm on to others for the sake of simple pleasure to you?
I'm not trying to argue for veganism here. I'm just saying killing animals needlessly is bad. If you need the animal dead, kill it. For its resources.
If you think that going vegan is good, then do it. If you think eating meat is not the "min max meta" way of living, then you do you. But I think, as long as you don't mistreat the animals, its worth it.
If you still want more discussion about avoiding mistreating animals and why it matters even if we are going to kill them anyway, ask your friends.
I find it interesting that you consider killing not a mistreatment.
You say that killing them for their resources is worth it, but worth it to who? Obviously not the victim. Most horrible things are worth it to the ones committing them.
All I'm saying is, while we might have different moral opinions, at the very least provide logical, consistent arguments.
I see you haven't asked your friends, no matter though, I'm just some guy on the internet. You do you!