So, I looked down the rabbit hole...

Jason

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  1. Vegan
And here I am.. With all you miserable folk... and your boring tasteless diet..

Just kidding ;D

Been Vegan about 4 years now and love it!

Went straight from full blown meat eater into Veganism after watching Food Inc! Those cute fluffy male baby chickens going to waste like that turned me veggie. And then Gary Yourofsky's speech on youtube got me to Vegan. Though I don't like calling myself a 'Vegan'.

Anyways, that's me.

Look forward to getting to know fellow Vegans.
 
Hello and welcome!

Yes I particularly agree with GY when he talks about speciesism as the root of all prejudice. He always likes to 'talk strong', which isn't a video diet I find palatable every day of the week, but the points are still sound - and some people do need to have their branches shaken a bit to wake up from their slumbers.

If you're interested to learn about animism, the opposite of speciesism, check out this post.

 
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I agree with him. I think we look at the world all wrong, we need a completely new perspective on everything. I try to explain to people that they only eat animals because they have been brought up that way. If they hadn't they would be appalled at eating them. I get told I don't have enough variety, this by someone eating a cheese sandwich and drinking a latte. I say you are having cow, cow and cow. It's good to see the realisation dawning on their face. You just have to keep trickling. I have sent this video to friends and family, then they might one day think these ideas are theirs.
 
Whatever is right or wrong in the world starts and ends in your mind. If you like your awareness is the funnel through which the universe is manifested. This is how we all manage to be right and wrong together.

Right is necessary, wrong is also. They work harmoniously together.

Getting obsessed about right and wrong is missing the bigger picture. There is actually no difference.

What you are talking about are standards, means, values and beliefs.

However we do need people like you to get natural balance back. We are currently operating somewhere between a parasite and a symbiont. Consider the planet as a host organism (which it is, it has intelligence beyond our understanding). This organism (Gaia) will wage war against parasites and reward its symbiont.
 
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I do believe that we have common rights and wrongs as a species. Even if you're the kind of person, as I am, who acknowledges every culture and refrains from the chorus of 'society'. Because every right or wrong has its own justification, and the very fact that there is justification suggests a common code or - rather - a series of common codes. Justification is the point of divergence from what the 'host' knows to be an established norm and their own actions and beliefs in reference to that norm. Justification is pervasive in every discourse.

If one person's wrong is another's right it does not mean that both are 'necessary' or 'harmonious' - it comes down to tolerance. And that tolerance is based upon the very commonality I have touched upon above. I would therefore say it is even more subtle than yin and yang, and also that we do have a way to measure the difference. GY isn't 'missing the bigger picture' he just has his 'belief' (that I share) which attempts a wider solution: instead of addressing each prejudice on its own, he believes in tackling all at the root he perceives. This is the very interconnectivity you establish is real, and we cannot deny outward perceptions. What we call it - whether we call it a belief or value - that is the redundant thing, just in the same way that creationists - for example - operate in response to science as a belief or value. But it also reaches a point where if you continue to follow this argument 'down the rabbit hole' and you leave back doors open at every turn and grey areas in the shadows then you leave yourself with no frame of reference at all, not even interconnectivity. So the philosopher, yes even the existentialists, will remind us of 'common sense' in this wake. There is no more destructive way to live alongside others than to be immersed in oneself alone.

What is 'common sense', how do we measure tolerance? The answers to these questions are many, but every single one will announce some form of difference and the fact that all do does not mean that the difference itself is not there - it simply means that it is elusive. And this, too, is one of the principles of Buddhism - a broad theosophy that is centred on the very simple tenet of common sentience. Which I believe is an apt way to end this post.
 
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I think anyone can justify any action if they want to. Some say individualism is right. Some that overriding the needs of the individual for the greater good is right. Or wrong. It's all down to the perspective of the person taking the action. But teaching children that they are permitted to torture, kill and eat any living thing that is perceived to be their inferior seems wrong from any perspective. But most of the world seems to think it not just okay, but beneficial.