The amazeing athiest finely replies

[TheVeganAtheist]

Edit: Another thing. At a certain point he said that he considers himself ecologically minded. Doesn't he see his own hypocrisy?
You can't call yourself ecologically minded if you support one of the most (if not the most) environmentally destructive industry, considering that you could live perfectly fine without doing so.

The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one.

[brimstoneSalad]

TJ replied to that video pretty quickly, I'm a bit surprised; I thought he'd ignore it.

That's good news, and he even retreated from some of his previous views and tried to make some arguments to defend his position.

I'd reply something like this:


First off, I'd like to congratulate TJ on his retreat from supporting factory farming - I hope this is a sign of him being open minded.
I'm glad that he is longer supporting factory farming, and only eating free-range grass-fed meat now, as the lesser of two evils. Unless he was lying about not supporting factory farming anymore, and is just a hypocrite- but since we have no way of knowing what he's actually eating and supporting in private, it seems fair to give him the benefit of the doubt on this point.

And of course I know that his style is provocative- insulting and making jokes is his thing, and that's not always a bad thing. Sometimes, ridicule is the only option available, when the other party will not listen to reason- such as may be the case in TJ's attacks on religion- and sometimes an insult can get through to people where a well framed rational argument can not.

But this is not one of those cases.

In response to the only argument TJ really made- something along the lines of the claim that humans have more moral value because they are more intelligent- there are only a couple potential conclusions to be drawn.

Does TJ believe that less intelligent humans have less moral value? And does TJ believe that it would be acceptable to farm less intelligent humans (for meat, or perhaps even for organs) in order to support the more intelligent?

If so, then TJ is at lease being consistent, so I have to hand it to him on that point.

Veganism is an argument mainly against irrational speciesism. If you accept the practice of owning, farming, and killing other humans who are either less intelligent, or even equally intelligent but disenfranchised in some other way, then you are being consistent.

It's a position I don't agree with, and with which the majority of humanity doesn't agree, but it's one that's much harder to present a compelling argument against (not impossible, but harder, and it goes more deeply into moral philosophy than TJ is probably familiar with).

If TJ believes less intelligent humans should be enslaved, farmed, and killed at the convenience of the more intelligent, we may have to agree to disagree. I don't like the position, and I think it is evil, but I can at least respect it for being consistent.

If, however, TJ rejects that kind of treatment of humans due to the mere accident of their DNA being compatible with our own for reproduction (regardless of any cognitive or social differences), and still accepts that kind of treatment of other species, he is being inconsistent.

And in this case, TJ may be the very image of the closed-minded dogmatist who needs to be ridiculed and insulted in order to break from that mindset.

Overwhelming scientific evidence supports the sentience of vertebrates, and even some invertebrates- denying that is a denial of evidence on the order of creationism. And this seems to be part of what TJ is trying to do.

Now, if he wanted to talk about Oysters and Jellyfish, there we may actually find some differences within the scientific community worth discussing - there, the evidence is much less clear, and those simpler animals may not be sentient - but those actual controversial matters, while relevant to strict veganism, are irrelevant to his bias against chickens, cows, and pigs, which are so closely related to us as to make his ignorance of cognitive and behavioral science (and even evolutionary biology) on the matter as jarring as a flat-Earther's ignorance of geophysics.


That's what I'd say, anyway.

[Kanade]

This should be pretty easy to debunk. It seems like TJ doesn't really take the discussion too serious so his arguments and reasoning are pretty simplistic.

[kamitis]

+1 @Kanade

@brimstoneSalad i can see your point but it seem AmazingAthiest is good example of person who see human very superior to other species on earth.
You seem use very aggressive arguments like:

Does TJ believe that less intelligent humans have less moral value? And does TJ believe that it would be acceptable to farm less intelligent humans (for meat, or perhaps even for organs) in order to support the more intelligent?

I can see if you use this argument opposite side will go with human superior/animal not being same as animals without good arguments or with very simplistic augments because it lot easier in this specisism society to gain support with likes/comments just jelling something at you what is supported by biggest society side in this case just giving answers like "we are different because x" or "animals can't do x but we can" what you already can hear from him in his first response video. I can see him giving anwser to your arguments similar to "humans are humans and whatever if they are less intelligent, i am not going to use them for meat because them understand meaning of life in different way then animals who just exist" or similar.

I would go more argument heavy giving reasons why specisism is illogical, not reasoned ect. additionally giving good reasons why animals is not that different then humans in lot different ways. It probably push and might lock him up to to give more calm reasoned arguments then his typical jellying to camera or very simplistic answers. I can see him going for humans being predators and comparing us with lions or similar animals, humans thinking in higher way, humans success in different things as his next arguments, so additionally attacking theses things before he can use it might be good idea.

p.s. English isn't my first language, sorry if there is any huge mistakes in my text.

[Taman Shud]

I find it a bit ironic, in that TJ uses, the argument or suggests at the very least, that humans are the apex of evolution and in being the brightest of the brightest that it somehow gives us the right to do whatever the fuck we want. The irony comes in, where I've heard plenty people in various religions espouse this same idea to justify humanities actions.

What I'd rather see is an understanding that humanity has reached a point that we have real and significant impact, on earth, that affect things, on a grand scale. As technology races forward we are creating benefits that are starting to create real world consequences and the speed at which we are gaining these benefits is starting to out-pace the solution to the consequences. I think it is important that we start shifting our role, on planet earth, from exploiter to steward. This has been traditionally hard to do (Though not impossible.) simply because we are like many other species that think short term and are really only concerned about what happens in our bubble of reality.

[Humane Hominid]

I've been having some debates with the commentariat on this video, and I am astonished by their general ignorance of biology and evolution, even at the level of common sense logic. The argument that cows and humans have similar cognitive capacities because of shared mammalian ancestry ought not be hard to grasp.

Yet, it never sinks in.

[TheVeganAtheist]

I've been having some debates with the commentariat on this video, and I am astonished by their general ignorance of biology and evolution, even at the level of common sense logic. The argument that cows and humans have similar cognitive capacities because of shared mammalian ancestry ought not be hard to grasp.

Yet, it never sinks in.

just like people with vested religious beliefs, they have a strong desire to continue to believe as they do, and deny any wrong doing.