RE: Is Eating Meat Philosophically Consistent with Non-violence?
is when a woman gives birth to a baby
Antinatalist, eh? You'd like this video on Arthur Schopenhauer by School of Life.
The circle of life is what it is. It cannot be changed by simply changing our diet.
Maybe. But couldn't one also argue we're beyond evolutionary pressures at this point and in many ways we can direct our own evolution? Could be a naturalistic fallacy to say "This is what's natural and what is natural is good and can not be changed."
En egg has no pain receptors. We'd have to get shared understanding of morality before this would make sense to me. My current moral framework involves not doing harm to others which implies they actually have the capacity to feel harm.
We also work to save many species, whether or not they provide advantages to the evolutionary stability of the ecosystem they exist in (again, seems we're beyond "natural" evolutionary forces).
But yes, I agree with much of what you said (although I'm not an antinatalist) and like the idea of always giving thanks.
No, I mean on a much deeper level.
Like Schroedinger's cat taken to the nth degree.
The effects on the planet are not computable by our current mathematics.
Imagine if Hitler wasn't born. (I know this isn't an accurate example, but it explains to most people) What the world might be like. The huge web of connection, of cause and effect spreading out from that single life.
Now, imagine that time literately changes when you add another piece to the puzzle. The entire framework of life on this planet is changed by one child being born. For each and every child. When each one is born, it multiplies the number of future possibilities. Nothing the person does during the rest of their life is as world changing as that.
I'm not sure I have a framework for evaluating that truth-claim. Many things people do in life (such as ending other lives) have more impact that one new human baby (IMO). But I get the spirit behind what you're saying.
A whole new way of defining Plato's cave.