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Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: A random’s trepanation
« on: January 07, 2021, 06:05:45 pm »
altered said it better, but since I was typing this out at the same time I'll post it anyway. It'd be a shame to waste the most words I've written on this site in more than a year.
__________________________
To quote the OP: "If I see someone else doing something that I know won’t cause suffering, then I can’t possibly have a reason to try and stop them."
At what point do you draw the line? If they're using any sort of modern technology, there's a 99.99% chance that it was in part created by the exploitation of child labor.
Basically, anything that uses cobalt or lithium.
Same with mass-produced clothing - lotsa child labor there.
In fact, you can take just about any behavior, and if you look closely enough, suffering is included. Let's think for a second that American success (and European success, if I'm guessing you're not in North America) was built upon colonization and slavery. It's a safe bet to assume most of our lives have benefited from the suffering of others.
Not to mention, depending on your definition of "suffering", almost all agricultural products cause suffering to animals -- and not just meat production. Farming at a scale that can feed enough people destroys ecosystems and kills all sorts of animals as "pests". And if you don't draw the line at the suffering of animals, the process of agriculture damages the environment, depletes water supplies, engenders climate change, and causes all sorts of human suffering as a result.
So, yeah. There is no ethical consumption, and existence is suffering. Might as well become a Buddhist.
__________________________
To quote the OP: "If I see someone else doing something that I know won’t cause suffering, then I can’t possibly have a reason to try and stop them."
At what point do you draw the line? If they're using any sort of modern technology, there's a 99.99% chance that it was in part created by the exploitation of child labor.
Basically, anything that uses cobalt or lithium.
Same with mass-produced clothing - lotsa child labor there.
In fact, you can take just about any behavior, and if you look closely enough, suffering is included. Let's think for a second that American success (and European success, if I'm guessing you're not in North America) was built upon colonization and slavery. It's a safe bet to assume most of our lives have benefited from the suffering of others.
Not to mention, depending on your definition of "suffering", almost all agricultural products cause suffering to animals -- and not just meat production. Farming at a scale that can feed enough people destroys ecosystems and kills all sorts of animals as "pests". And if you don't draw the line at the suffering of animals, the process of agriculture damages the environment, depletes water supplies, engenders climate change, and causes all sorts of human suffering as a result.
So, yeah. There is no ethical consumption, and existence is suffering. Might as well become a Buddhist.
