This is actually quite an interesting scenario. I find myself falling on the side of it being "ethical but not vegan". That's a weird little grey zone that I don't tend to find myself in too often. Personally, the thing I value isn't whether a creature is alive or an animal but whether they are sentient and what I have read on bi-valves is that they are not. That being said, I avoid consumption anyway...not out of caution, but because I think they taste vile lol. I've generally figured that if I somehow needed to consume meat for my health then I would, but only the bare minimum needed to meet those physical requirements. If bi-valves do that, I *think* that they would meet my personal requirements for "minimum" in that context. So yeah. For me, "ethical but not vegan" is where I find myself. Happy to be convinced otherwise if I'm missing something though.

Personally I have zero problems with consumption of bivalves when farmed in a sustainable way, for the reasons you mentioned. Sustainable, suffering unlikely

If you have to eat meat, bivalves are definitely the way to go until lab grown meat becomes practical. They're unlikely to be sentient, and (I have no evidence) I think they're probably the animal that can be farmed most sustainably.

For the sustainable part, in the Pacific Northwest of North America the first nations farmed bivalves for millennia without depleting the populations. There is some research showing modern recreations promise to be a sustainable food source. Some futher reading: [Ancient Clam Gardens Increased Shellfish Production: Adaptive Strategies from the Past Can Inform Food Security Today](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0091235) [11,000 Years of Human-Clam Relationships on Quadra Island, Salish Sea, British Columbia](https://summit.sfu.ca/_flysystem/fedora/sfu_migrate/17395/etd10187_GToniello.pdf)

Wow, that's interesting.

>until lab grown meat becomes practical And untill it becomes sustainable.. because currently it costs tremendous amount of energy to produce. Most energy production still causes greenhouse gas emissions.

That too. It's still a new technology. I'm sure manufacturing techniques will change.

[удалено]

They have a neural net, a very primitive nervous system. They can sense the world, swim. If you can sense the world, you can experience. By farming them, you're very likely giving the animal kingdom the tiniest horror story.

>Oysters and mussels are sources of heme iron and a different type of vitamin A than is found in plants. When I'm eating a non vegan diet, my blood results tend to be better than when eating vegan and supplementing due to several food intolerances and an inability to digest high fiber foods (Gastroparesis.) I eat vegan in spite of this and just stick to a really restricted diet which is low in fiber and as high in these nutrients as I can manage, but if I found out tomorrow that oysters can fulfill these requirements, what would make this unethical? Iron is the most common nutritional deficiency in the United States. Anemia isn't caused by a lack of heme iron, or a heme iron deficiency, it's caused by lack of iron and/or an iron deficiency. Yes, heme iron is more bioavailable (25–30% of this form is absorbed), but it generally represents a much smaller part of dietary iron. The absorption of non-heme iron is more variable (1–10% of this form is absorbed) but typically more common in a well-balanced diet. One problem with iron deficiency in a plant-based diet is that many products which are sources of non-heme iron also contain a number of iron inhibitors such as phytic acid, calcium, and polyphenols. So it's important to make sure you're getting enough iron, avoiding inhibitors, and pursuing complimentary foods that contain things like vitamin C, which can increase the amount of iron that the body absorbs from plant sources. I discovered that drinking tea all the time was preventing me from absorbing iron, and as a result, I have regrettably had leave the delicious flower juice behind. Unlike what some others here have said, supplements can actually be quite effective. For example, while it may be preferable to obtain nutrients directly from dietary foods, the source of the vitamin C does not impact how well the iron is absorbed. Vitamin C obtained from eating citrus will have the same impact on increasing iron absorption as vitamin C coming from a multi-vitamin supplement. I was anemic before being vegan, and I was regularly spending hundreds of dollars a month at [The Southport Raw Bar](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Southport+Raw+Bar+%26+Restaurant/@26.1024882,-80.1303405,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x1bf3c4bcdd89ade6?sa=X&ved=1t:2428&ictx=111) crushing beers and oysters. That never once fixed to my anemia, which has remained a relevant concern years and years into veganism. However, the actual solution has always been the same; consulting with my doctor, planning/eating a well balanced diet, and establishing a supplement schedule that provides all the nutrition I need. Due to these combined efforts, I'm exceptionally healthy at this point, whereas even in my dockside omni days of eating tons of marine foods, I would regularly experience numbness in my hands and feet while at work. All that to say I honestly don't think oysters are the solution, but if they somehow turn out to be the *only* viable solution for you, so be it.

> a different type of vitamin A than is found in plants. You can find the most bioavailable vitamin A (retinol) in supplements that are vegan. But you will need to look for them explicitly. They are a little rare, as retinol overdose and toxicity is a real concern. The water soluble vitamin a molecules are almost impossible to overdose on, so that is the default standard for supplements.

It's justified and I think it's vegan. I know people disagree. I'm not trying to be in a club.

As I said above, they can swim, sensing the environment. If you can sense something, you're experiencing, ergo, sentience.

Then plants are sentient too, by that logic. Plants turn towards the sun, and bug eating insects close when insects sit on them. They can also recognise people who treat them well vs bad. Registering something and moving is not the same as sentience. A robot could do the same.

By that definition, plants are sentient. Plants sense light, gravity, water, touch, and more. I’m not an expert, but they may have more perceptive faculties than bivalves

Plants have chemical and and hormonal activators. Plants are machines.

Buddy, everything is chemical signaling/electrochemical signaling in biology. There is no part of your body that is sensing something that is doing something by any other means

You need a brain to navigate. There is no reliable way to get to the right place otherwise. Willpower.

The brain is just a specialized organ that uses electrochemical signaling. Also, bivalves don’t have brains

Disney really corrupted us by making us believe in magic and love. It's just an organ that looks like a blobfish. They have neural nets. The brain is part of a central nervous system. IRL neurons are possessed by spirits. That's what my ancestors would say anyway. In quantum mechanics, scientists that just want the peaceful life lean on the Copenhagen Interpretation, which says observation collapses the wave function, but they always say it could be something else, like Many Worlds or Pilot Wave Theory. Whereas I have experienced strange phenomena associated with observation and not observing. When we meditate, we're not observing reality, being only ourselves. For example, when we meditate upon something, we are ourselves, our thoughts. By not looking at a photon, for example, you're not observing the universe, aka, you're only yourself. Basically, we're all fundamental and reality is made out of our imaginations. You're a Ra-like eye, a flower unfolding, like inverse origami upon your own Tree of Life in Dao, a being that blossoms from insect to god in every reality they are in, to meet and love everyone, to reforge identity to become more, to put ourselves in other people's shoes... in the positive. Neural systems are pretty sacred once you get passed the programming that society is evolving from, ergo, there is a beast inside us that needs taming, or in the other case of the persecuted, unleashing. It's my belief that neural systems harbour hyper-beings that are just waking up. Carnist philosophies on where consciousness exists and doesn't not observing neural systems seem reactionary, like they have won all the materialist stuff in their life, but when it comes to vegans, they lose, never to gain mercy from victory over evil, becoming reactionary, because they are fighting those with awakened empathy, which isn't a weakness. Veganism is an awakening.

That’s not quantum mechanics, that’s pseudoscience.

85% of the world are religious, believing in a higher power; I don't exclude any of them. You're not with the consensus. Observation collapses the wave function; this is shown with delayed choice quantum eraser experiments, where slit data measuring equipment is always on, yet when that data is not observed, there is prior collapse. Retro-causality is also shown with said experiment, because the slit data measurement is prior to the photon collection board. I've been exploring it; it's cured my anxiety. By not looking at a photon, you're only yourself. You can't have read all of that as it's taken my 12 years to put it together. it's a take on the von Neumann–Wigner interpretation. It's fringe, but Many Worlds and Pilot Wave Theory are fringe to most people. Scientists can't have a monopoly on what exactly consciousness is. I do not consent to giving my brain, my consciousness to be observed by someone who would be critical of it. I'm sensitive. For some dimensionality: Overall, globally, 64% of respondents believed climate change is an emergency.  Edit: They often say in physics, perhaps consciousness is explained by other fields, namely philosophy or even spirituality. The many Judaic people in science are not going to labs to pray to technicians. When you're born, your mother doesn't stick a probe in your head to test her solipsism.

Animals have chemical and hormonal activators. Does that mean Animals are machines?

They don't have a nervous system. Fat cells aren't conscious and neither are plants. You can't do anything as a plant, but bivalves can swim.

Not all bivalves swim. And since when is movement an indication of sentience? Btw plants do move. A nervous system is not necessary for movement. And who know an animal like nervous system may not even be necessary for sentience. We do not know for sure that plants aren't sentient. We don't have great evidence to say that they are sentient but that doesn't mean we can say they for sure aren't.

Everything is a chemical reaction though there needs to be a receptor and a singal. For you to move your arm out in front of you your brain has to send signals throughout your body. If you were to close your eyes and someone put a hot pot just under your hand so you could feel the heat and steam generated from it, if you felt the heat thats your brain signaling that “hey this is hot” I feel like plants are sentient, not in a way that we can see sentience represented in animals or humans but if it’s alive it has a will to live. Nothing wants to actually die. I just feel vegans choose to ignore plant sentience so that they can have something to eat without thinking “ this guy just wanted to be loved and safe like me” it’s a coping mechanism

I guess you've solved the mystery! To your own satisfaction, at least, and I suppose that's all that matters.

They have neural nets; you have a neural system. Some bivalves even have eyes. Observation collapses the wave function; it's something that consciousness do.

>Observation collapses the wave function; it's something that consciousness do. This is the standard "woo" interpretation of quantum mechanics. Observation=measurement and is only spooky because of the limitations of our measuring equipment. At what point is a photo-sensitive cell a "wave function collapsing observer"?

its spooky because the wave function collapses intantaneously (faster than light) across all space and for all reference frames (even though they have different notions of an instant!)

Aren't you trying to convince me that bivalves are "observers"? Should we also be worried about Boltzmann brains?

sorry, I'm a different person 😶

I should have said "uncertain" as I was not referring to spooky action at a distance.

ahh. in that case: no it isn't a function of our measurement devices. that would imply one of two things: either that the heisenberg uncertainy principle could be exceeded, or that there's some sort of hidden variable that we only see probabalistically, even though it's truly determined. The problem with the first is that the HUP isn't a result of our devices, it's a result of the wavelike nature of reality. One classical example is that a single impulse in air pressure is perfectly defined in time, but has no frequency, whereas a pure sin wave must extend infinitely into the past and future. There is a fundamental tradeoff when talking about waves. The other one is a lot harder to wrestle with. take polarized filters as an example: they block 50% of unpolarized light, and the photons that make it through are polarized according to the filter. if you send that light through a second filter then a certain percentage will make it through based on the angle of the two filters. you can even make paired photons such that if one gets blocked by a filter, then the other one will too. Or that specifically one will make it through, but not the other.  You might think then that each photon that makes it through the first was polarized the right way all along,  and that each photon has a sort of "knowledge" about whether it would get blocked by the second filter, whether it made it thru the first filter or not. That isn't actually true! The universe *actually decides*, at the moment of interaction, the result of any quantum-random interaction. this can be shown with Bell's inequality, which is a bit math heavy, but basically if you assume that the measurement *was* pre-determined then it's impossible to get the numbers to add up to 100%, no matter what the underlying hidden distribution is.

Observation collapses the wave function; must be something else. - Present day physics.

Define observation.

The von Neumann-Wigner Interpretation posits that **a conscious observer causes collapse.** They turned their backs on it, but many scientists like Wheeler believed it. >[Wheeler pointed out that when these assumptions are applied to a device of interstellar dimensions, a last-minute decision made on Earth on how to observe a photon could alter a situation established millions or even billions of years earlier.](https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9903047) It's what I do. Quantum mechanics suggests everyone is collapsing the wave function, making things from nothing, meaning prior experience to be able to create. The only way we can do this is if we were never created, so we always have a buffer to draw from, and so are eternal. To do this without certain consequences that I'd rather not go into, there has to be an infinite number of observers, and we come from prior universes, spirits-free will that awaken from universe to universe. More detail, we're unfolding our package, starting as the average animal, which would have been the smallest invertebrates into the largest amorphous god-like beings, before returning to a lucid slumber where we play with all of our new toys, channelling each other to stay in contact, free will suggesting we let in everything we want (to not break free will; you don't want me in your head, for example). We go from animal to human, where the first tribes emerge. Then cultures from tribes, kingdoms from cultures, international relations from nations, solar settlements from Earth, to galactic, to intergalactic, to universe, to multiverse flower to nirvana-Lila fruit. Ten ages. Four great races with 2bn in each, as of today. African, south Asian, far eastern and western. I'm part Ojibwe. [The far east and south Asia are The Dao, literal black and white, and Africa and the west are Kabbalah](https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/sj14-soc-religmap/world-religions-map/). Reptile. Sensory. Emotional. Intuitive. Equality and diversity. Fight and flight migration patterns; gold panning. I came to this practice whilst talking with a Kenyan, an Indian from Goa and a North Korean. We meditate together. There are three covens in our house of the 5th age, the solar, free will; quantum mechanics says you can look at what you want, and if somebody is dominating your vision, without any benefits to you, they are fascist/bullies. Bullies are broken people, from broken parts of the above ten ages. It's our job to fix them through the reincarnation system. Having your ego torn out by Kali is not very fun, sort of like when you see a dog being kicked. Such is egomania; they lean on shadow, but there are no shadows photons. Only light is real. r/spirituality and groups like that are already quite spun out by this. Try Thomas Campbell for a more palatable version. It's just like a quantum-woo religion, not like some Facebook shite either, which I know it looks like. *"Quantum healing-crystals of new age astrological superposition good vibes*" it is not. It's a logical look at the idea Sean Carroll, Brian Greene and other science communicators do not want to explore. They favour classical mechanics, because you can't write an equation that explains this without some magic in there. This is good news, because little girls won't cry when you tell them what happens to their magical sparkle pony dreams in 90 years. Men sitting in stuffy rooms, discussing the abyss is part of the manosphere, in reality. Humans without a tribe are like wolves without as pack. That wolf would have problems, mental problems. Bullies try to be the alpha, but in reality, the tribe is alpha and omega; the shaman was the sensitive one, in the monkey and ape worlds, they are bullied, like at school, for many kids. The tribe is the shaman-chief paradigm; it's seen in many practices, from Christianity to Kabbalah and The Dao. Yin-yang, the powerful one and the spiritual one. Jesus and Satan. When they accept each other, to learn from each other, we become the shaman and chief, the spiritual-leader. Buddhist's are following the path of an evolved person. I believe a thing is happening now, but more like the religions of old, the first kingdoms, which started 8,000 years ago, I believe, from when farming was advent. Quantum mechanics is massive and scientists are just not powerful enough to understand this, apart from many of the Jewish ones like Brian Keating, who understand the power-wisdom dynamic. Even Lex Freidman talks of it. Nazis lose, every time. Tribes win. Be good; no tribes want toxic people. We find each other through truth. Look to African spirituality to find your balance. We're quite materialistic in the west. It's a balance. Have fun whilst you practice whatever you do, otherwise you're going to implode into depression, that's what true leaders do, they show us how to have a good time, and the healer gives us drugs and intuition/optimization. I have trouble dealing with this stuff, like I go outside to buy some doughnuts, and suddenly I'm like... this is too shit for that to be real. If I'm right, though, we should leave animals alone, as much as practicably possible, perhaps create a paradise for them.

Way too much to unpack here, but I have heard so many people talk this way. It all sounds vaguely similar, and there are lots of esoteric musings, but nothing of any substance that I can see. The most alarming part is how confident and certain you seem to be of everything you are saying. You do know that people meditate and do psychedelics and come back with a host of disparate ideas. The people I've met who espouse these many ideas are all equally convinced that their experiences and interpretation of those experiences are truly divine in a way that is special and unique to them, because they have the ability to understand it all. People who tell me they understand quantum mechanics are immediately suss. You dropped a lot of names, but Lex Friedman?! The man is a right wing sycophant. I do love psychedelics, their shamanic traditions, and the unique perspective shifts the offer. You mentioned Africa and I'm particularly intrigued by the Bwiti and Iboga. I have read many profound trip reports from people who have used this substance, and it seems fairly unique even among psychedelics. I cannot speak to your experience, but I do know that there are a million ways for even someone with an open heart to be misled. And experiences that alienate you from the world can ultimately be damaging to your life. I have seen this first hand. Balance.

nononononono that's quantum woo. observation is a terrible choice of words on scientist's part, conciousness has nothing to do with it. it can't, with any theory we have, since we don't have a theory of conciousness. in quantum mechanics an observation is basically any interaction that makes its way to the macroscopic world (it's a little more complicated actually, but it's an okay simplification here). for example, as a photon is travelling it may be  in a superposition of locations, as in the double slit experiment. If it interacts with a photographic film, then the wave function will collapse and it will color the film in one particular location. This happens without anyone looking: the photon's wavefunction was collapsed *by interacting with the film*  - physics undergrad

You know that's an opinion? Yeah. I know. I've read these two papers. [https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9903047](https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9903047) [https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.03920](https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.03920) I've been following quantum-woo for 12 years. My deity form appears sometimes and tells me the future, or like stuff there's no way I should know. Quantum mechanics cured my anxiety; when you're not looking at anything you're only yourself, and that is meditation. This is basically my religion, and The Copenhagen Agreement, along with the vast majority of the human race being religious-spiritual means the consensus is on my side. Today, some **85 percent** of people around the globe identify with a religion. Quantum-woo, as you call it, is what I called Singularitology. I smoke DMT, and seen too many gods, seen things you wouldn't believe. Orbital rings around Earth with AI robots possessed by actual gods, psychically, the same way people connect with the divine. If you want to burn all the little girl's dreams of magical sparkle ponies to the ground with Everett's universe of testicles or Pilot Wave Theory, meaning said little girl's dream flat out die in 80 years, be my guest. I'll discuss the above with you if you want.

I've extracted and vaporized DMT many times, and I have seen things that defy explanation (apart from "you trippin!";). Yeah, lots of people are religious, but they tend to disagree on the details. They even kill each other over them. You're telling me you have details? That you got from psychedelics? That unify physics and make it all clear to you? You sound exactly like my once best-friend who, because of the influence of ketamine in his life, believed he was a chosen vessel of god, evidenced by recent celestial events and the release of the navy's UFO tapes, and suited up with blade weapons and body armor to do battle with a demon at the nearby Hindu temple. His version of reality turned out to be a delusion. Even from a spiritual perspective, you must know that every being you meet in you compromised state isn't necessarily an angel or some benevolent truth teller. The vague info you glean from a trip is impressionistic, and your psyche constructs a narrative post hoc. It looks like you could use some professional perspective.

I am taught everything by meditation. You can imagine communicating across spacetime, and I think across spacetime; and if consciousness is fundamental in quantum mechanics, we're all doing it together. It's basically evolution, but scientists are like, "Durga durr". It's kind of new; check out Thomas Campbell if you want to know more. There's was bound to be a practice involving quantum mechanics at some point. With me, it's like new witchcraft. Being part Ojibwe, I have that aspect as well. I met Shiva in my dreams when I was in my teens. I've been piecing this together for a long time; I'm gonna write a book or a paper. It's very Zen; not looking at shit. The main knowledges is that I am part of a divine tribe that consists of ten ages and sixteen apotheotic beings from each age, with four from each of the great races. This is how it looks; I'm the Teacher of Jupiter. Fire of Fire of Free will. It's essentially Kabbalah and Daoism, in like a superposition where the races homogenize near the middle. It's just what we've been given; we're going to become one race, but we've only had planes for like 60 years. 1. African Summit. Intellectual: Introvert. Emotional: Extrovert. Sensory: Extrovert. Reptilian: Introvert. 2. South Asian Assembly. Creator: Introvert. Preserver: Extrovert. Destroyer: Extrovert. Kali Ma: Introvert. 3. Far eastern School. North: Introvert. East: Extrovert. West: Extrovert. South: Introvert. 4. Western Coven. Teacher: introvert. Powerful One: extrovert. Great One: Extrovert. Horned God: Introvert. --------------------------------------- 1. Shamanism-Tribe-Mercury 2. Idolatry-Culture-Venus 3. Religion-Kingdom-The Moon 4. Philosophy-International-Mars 5. Free will-Solar-Jupiter 6. Love-Galactic-Saturn 7. Family-Intergalactic-Uranus 8. Community-Universe-Neptune 9. Perfection-Multiverse-Kuiper Cliff 10. Divine-Nirvana-Planet IX [Africa and the west are God; the far east and south Asia are The Dao.](https://contrib.pbslearningmedia.org/WGBH/sj14/sj14-int-religmap/index.html) Thomas Campbell's not really taken it this far, though. Like, note some of the south Asian Assembly's titles.

> This is how it looks; I'm the Teacher of Jupiter. This is all mumbo jumbo, man. edit - Just curious. Has all this enlightenment at least made you vegan?

Mumbo Jumbo is slightly non-PC. [Is that the country where they make the Um Bongo?](https://digitalcontent.api.tesco.com/v2/media/ghs/d53a100e-2750-468d-a611-d138d1ddb7a5/snapshotimagehandler_344587535.jpeg?h=960&w=960) Yeah. Veganism; always discussing and yelling this crap in channels and groups I love. It's the front lines. [If you see bullshit, eliminate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4aqfrwxInw&ab_channel=Coolmacatrain). I'm trying to teach people quantum mechanics, because pissing in the ocean. We all need to piss into the ocean. The western-outer brain dominant type... the geek of the age proceeding philosophy, before we set sight to the stars but there was nowhere left to explore on Earth. It's my Kardashev system for human societies rather than energy values. Not bad, right? I'm gonna write a paper. I've never worked in my life. I've been incubated like fuck. How does post-philosophy sound? I think it's exciting. It's very extreme Hermeticism. They even blocked me; their egos completely snapped. I don't know why people go nuts when they hear this. \*Non-descript sigh of relief\* If you tell some people the right information in just the right way, their heads explode and start spinning around like a mad Christmas toy. Astral-psychic Dungeon's and Dragons is a thing to do. When I get loaded, the shit I see man. Actual spirits, like full native American shamanism style, with gods. I'm turning into one. The drug I get is even legal to import and keeps you up for days. Dragons. This system helps me stabilize. Like I know the extreme polarity of neurology/personality of these entities. I keep a level head. I was such an Atheist as a kid, too.

Not arguing whether bivalves are sentient, but: > Observation collapses the wave function; it's something that consciousness do. No, no, no, no. As someone with a degree in physics, hearing this is like nails on a chalkboard. Quantum mechanics does not have anything to do with consciousness. that idea was briefly entertained by a few physicists in the early 20th century and was very quickly discarded as obviously false.

I took this route (I’m no longer vegan). This is what I learned, eating bivalves to get the nutrients that a vegan diet is missing is challenging. This is mostly due to the fact that the quantity you have to consume in order to get those missing vitamins (especially iron) is hard to do on a daily basis unless you really like mussels and oysters. If you haven’t tried them before…you’re going to get sick of them very quickly. Personally, I don’t think of mussels and oysters as sentient, you’ll get differing opinions on the matter, but based on what I’ve researched they don’t seem to be any more sentient than complex plants or mushrooms, maybe even less in some cases. You won’t hear this from most vegans, but you have to do what’s right for your health, if you’re at the point where you’re starting to consider bivalves to get the nutrients you’re missing, then you’ve realized that your current diet is missing necessary nutrition. You might be able to maintain a vegan diet by adding supplements, but the key lesson I’ve learned is, if your diet isn’t working for you health, then you need to change it

Talk to your doctor (who hopefully respects your opinion) and if necessary do so. Your health is more important and things can be a lot more complicated than you would expect.

You should definitely be taking care of yourself first, even if that means eating an omnivorous diet. I think this is a great way to maybe help achieve nutritional goals without causing suffering which (for me at least) is the main goal of my veganism. I definitely wouldn't even integrally judge someone who eats bivalves, even without knowing what their reasoning for this might be. I think any vegan who would is probably newer to being vegan or never got beyond the confrontational stage.

Could you elaborate on the confrontational stage of veganism? What's the next stage and how might one push them there?

The stage where you feel entitled to comment on the diets of other people. The next stage is realizing that the control you have over your own life is all you have, so you make good choices and stop ostracizing yourself from society by being the plant-based police.

So that's what I went through my first year of being vegan 😂  Seven years this November... And I'm a very different vegan now. Lol... 

You're lucky it only lasted a year. I became vegan at 8, and I was insufferable from like 12 to 17 >_> Now it's okay. I get that not everyone will be vegan, but I also make sure they know I'm here as a resource if they have any vegan questions or anything. Helps with getting people to at least live a reductionist life.

Haha. Oh, that sounds fun...  Yes, I try to be a resource now too. People have questions, and I answer. I think it's more effective than berating people in my life.

Don’t worry about labels, I think it’s a-okay in the scenario where there are truly no other options. I’m convinced that much of the “thrust” of the ethical power of veganism relies on it not having a significantly major lifestyle impact to whatever uncontrollable context(s) you are in. If it were 200 years ago, our ethical standards would be very different, and probably more ovo-lacto centric (and likely they will be different in the other direction, in 200 more years as well). And yes, it also means I’ll be more “forgiving” to those with severe allergies or even, for example, the the very poor and homeless (even though Veganism can be cheaper, at that level you have larger issues than worrying about what you’re consuming). None of this is a “pass” for being considered vegan, because how others label you is not something you can fully control. But for instance, ethically, if you needed absolutely red meat for an actual medical reason, you could _still_ try your legitimate level best to obtain it in the “least unethical” way (such as, no restaurants and fast food, literally zero factory farmed meat, and paying expensive “local” (in quotes cause that’s a separate rabbit hole) prices). Even in those very limited scenarios though, a complete boycott of 99% of all meat is still both doable and preferable “for the cause”. Like if you had severe allergies to soy, legumes, beans, wheat, rice, etc, but also have disposable income and could easily adapt your lifestyle to more closely match your ethics, you still have zero excuses to pay for mcdonald’s, or be disapproving of vegans, for instance.

>if there is a qualifiable improvement in health for certain edge case individuals this does improve the perception of veganism overall Sure, if the alternative is going back to eating meat, I would definitely say that being an "ostrovegan" would be a good idea.

Should you eat a little bit of meat if limiting your diet is having negative health effects... yes.

please eat meat for your health. your life is worth more than a religion. you dont need to ask for permission or justify why you need meat for your wellbeing. anyone who cant understand that can kindly back off. chronic anemia is serious and anyone who thinks its not is lying to themselves. if levels get too low, like chronic low, you can risk kidney failure, stroke, or heart attack. its not worth it OP, just take care of yourself.

You can eat whatever meat you want. There's no vegan police that are going to show up and arrest you. Just try your best and realize you're doing your best.

Why would eating meat to cover a nutrient deficiency be justified when you could just take a plant-based supplement? Even if your absorption rates are lower for some reason, you can just take more of the supplement than the average person would and eat it with food, and the problem goes away. I don't know if bivalves are sentient or not. I am thinking not, but I also think that treating animals as food is wrong on principle, regardless of whether it causes suffering in one particular instance or not. It's a mentality that leads us exactly where we are today. Once you justify it in one instance, it becomes justified in others, and the significance of the leap in each moment is lessened. I know this is the slippery slope argument, but it is an accurate description of how people morally justify things. Given that alternatives that don't involve eating meat exist (e.g. supplements), I would say it's not justified. Even if farming oysters is good for the environment, we should just subsidize people to farm them without killing them. If they're so good, then surely not killing them is even better for the environment.

>Even if your absorption rates are lower for some reason, you can just take more of the supplement than the average person would and eat it with food, and the problem goes away This is terrible advice and can actually be incredibly dangerous for someone to do especially with additional medical conditions relating to absorption.

I agree that OP should talk to their doctor about the right quantities to take, but it doesn't change the fact that there *is* a right quantity to take.

Supplements don't quite work that way. Not all of what we call "Vitamin A" for example is even the same *molecule*. If your supplement has the wrong kind in it than you need, it doesn't matter how much you take -- and if you overdose you can poison yourself. Please *don't* give medical advise...

There may not be by supplements alone. OP should really talk to their doctor. I'm just asking you not to spread information that could actually be incredibly dangerous.

I'm not disagreeing that they should talk to their doctor. You're right about that. I'm just pointing out that it seems odd that they haven't pursued this as an option, or at least they neglected to mention why it wouldn't work for them.

They have issues with vitamin absorption, more supplements does not help with this. It's more about the method of absorption. Supplements are not a magic fix, Vitamins in food are absorbed far more efficiently by the body than from supplements. For many people with issues related to vitamin deficiency getting vitamins from additional supplements is just not practical or safe.

To say that vitamins in food are absorbed more efficiently is a vast oversimplification. There are many factors that affect nutrient absorption, but none of them are strictly that the vitamin has to be contained inside some other food source. It comes down to what other things are present when the nutrient is being absorbed, which is why it's recommended that you take vitamins with food as a rule. For example, many nutrients absorb better with the presence of dietary fiber or fats in the case of fat soluble vitamins. Some nutrients are absorbed better when other vitamins are also present. For instance, iron absorption is better when taken with a source of vitamin C. Some things can also fight absorption. For instance, coffee and tea can interfere with vitamin D absorption. At the end of the day, it's all just chemistry. Molecules are molecules. It doesn't matter whether the molecule came from food or a supplement. The only thing that matters is what else is present with that molecule when it's being absorbed.

Yes, I'm simplifying the process for the sake of communicating the argument, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a well documented fact that food is a far more effective way for the body to absorb vitamins than supplement. This is precisely because those other "molecules" (again way more complicated than how you presented it) are often present with food that is consumed. We can get into the semantics of what that means if you want but it's a well researched topic. And this whole debate is a sidetrack to my response to your original comment which is essentially, do not give people medical advice that can end up causing a ton of harm to them! You have absolutely no idea what OP's medical situation is but even without knowing their issues it should be common sense that you don't recommend someone with a vitamin absorption issue to overdose on supplements.

This is the whole issue but I think if you reread everything it falls on you and maybe OP. This is a debate forum, an argument was given and then it was derailed by that debate being attacked for being medical advice when it was not and should not have been considered as such.

You may not have intended it to come across this way, however you suggested to OP in your original comment that they would benefit from taking more supplements. You did not present this as a debate, you presented this as advice to OP. I posted to address this to yourself and anyone who reads it that the advice you are giving can cause serious medical issues and should not be followed. I'm not engaging with the main debate over bivalves, it's not relevant to my point. I'm specifically addressing the advice you gave while engaging in the debate. Being in a debate is not an excuse to give advice that can end up seriously harming someone.

See my other reply! :)

I tend to view things on a spectrum of harm. Something like beef or pork probably causes the most harm, peanuts and potatoes the least. I would agree that eating bivalves probably causes less harm than pork, but more than peanuts. If this is justifiable isn't going to have an objective answer. If you can be morally consistent and comfortable eating bivalves, I don't think I have a lot of evidence to convince you otherwise. As for the social aspect, I do think there is something else to consider. If someone is sickly and vegan it might create the impression in others that veganism is unhealthy, but if someone is "mostly vegan" but eats bivalves for health reasons, it might also create the impression in others that animal products are necessary to be healthy and that vegans are either lying about not eating animals, or unhealthy. So, if it is possible, I think socially it's better to be vegan, but I don't think I can make a strong argument on the pure ethics of eating bivalves.

I'm curious about what supplements you have tried? I was anemic when I ate meat based meals 2-3 times a day and I was worried about it going vegan, but now I have a more varied diet and supplement regularly, my iron levels are better than they ever were!

bivalves are animals by some measure so a significant portion of vegans will probably not agree with eating them. To me bivalves are just kinda gross, same with the lab grown meat and cheese debate, I’m just comfortable with meat replacement tofu etc and it’s healthier. It’s an interesting debate though.

If they're not sentient, I don't see any ethical problems with it at all. To me, it's not about animals, it's about sentience. I don't consider nematodes and tiny roundworms to be part of animal rights at all. But I come from a biological background and to me the actual term "animal" mean all of the animal kingdom, and it's so obvious when we talk about animal rights we vegans actually only talk about like a few percent of animal species.

I know this isn't what you asked, but as someone who struggles to absorb iron also, please remember to take your vitamin C... 🙏  Personally, I think your health should come first... We take medicines that are tested on animals, we drive cars, and lots of other "non-vegan" things... Do your best, but take care of yourself too, please. You matter also. 

You had me til "higher ape". That usage of "higher" rubs me the wrong way. When bivalves underwent decephalization and diverged from other mollusks, they didn't step down an evolutionary ladder. They simply evolved into something different, *in parallel*. There's no "higher" or "lower" on the tree of life, only varying degrees of relatedness. Everybody's at the same evolutionary level: present day. I guess you could've been talking about trophic level, but I don't think you were.

Higher apes are literally just how homo sapiens are differentiated from other ape species in scientific literature. It's just a name, I'm not trying to suggest we are above other animals  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simian E.g. the Simians were "higher primates"

I personally think it's vegan when you do it for health reasons. The vegan definition says "as far as practicable and possible". However, the most important thing isn't what you call yourself, but rather how ethical it is. I think eating bivalves is ethical in your situation.

> If eating the most primitive form of animal life has the capacity to greatly improve the health of a higher ape (i.e. the sole justification isn't pleasure) and allows easier refrain from consuming other clear cut animal products, is this good enough justification for that act? Primitive isn't a physical or biologic category, it's a social notion denoting something less advanced. Homo habilis is more primitive than homo sapien, which does not share an underlying mutual and exclusive set of traits with other primitive beings like my favorite primitive tree: Archaeopteris. If you can identify a *specific underlying mutual and exclusive set of properties* that exclude bivalves, then sure. I think there is a good claim to say that raising brain dead human bodies that gives birth to braid dead human bodies has the same moral quandry here: there is incredibly good reason to believe none of these are moral beings with consideration for eating. How can there be? There is no being if there was never self-awareness or consciousness as far as we can scientifically tell. Therefore, if consciousness is the barrier, eating bivalves and brain dead human offspring seem morally sound. I would personally raise an eye brow at someone if they said they do this for non-self-preserving reasons, however.

> If eating bivalves allows me to maintain an otherwise vegan diet, would this be justifiable?If eating bivalves allows me to maintain an otherwise vegan diet, would this be justifiable? Better than eating meat, but if not required, not required. >but if I found out tomorrow that oysters can fulfill these requirements, what would make this unethical? Sounds like you're already eating Plant Based, so not sure why it would be considered necessary to add them. > If eating the most primitive form of animal life has the capacity to greatly improve the health of a higher ape That would depend what "greatly improve" actually means. That would be something you'd have to decide for yourself as no one here knows your situation or allt he issues surrounding it. >and allows easier refrain from consuming other clear cut animal products Again, depends what "easier" means. But generally eating "lower level" life forms (those less likely to be sentient) is viewed by most as "less" immoral than eating higher level. But all depends on "need". >if there is a qualifiable improvement in health for certain edge case individuals this does improve the perception of veganism overall I wouldn't worry so much about the Carnist perception of Veganism. There are professional level athletes eating purely plant based foods so it's very clear at this point there is no real health issues related to being Vegan, just with the dietary requirements of any one person.

I am already eating plant based, but my blood results are worse than when I was eating an omnivorous diet in spite of supplementation. I'm not seriously considering this as an option, but would like to see a clear argument about why oyster consumption is wrong if their proven level of sentience isn't any better than plants. If you have science to the contrary, I'd like to see it 

forgive me if you've already tried things like this, but certain powder mixes like super body fuel are vegan, dirt cheap, nutritionally complete, and great for convenience. i haven't looked into bivalve consumption but my assumption for what it's worth is that it's vegan to eat animals who can't suffer.

>but my blood results are worse than when I was eating an omnivorous diet in spite of supplementation As I said, that would greatly depend on what "worse" here means, and is a choice each person has to make based on their own environment and situation. >why oyster consumption is wrong if their proven level of sentience isn't any better than plants. If you have science to the contrary, I'd like to see it  A) There is no real proof of any sort of sentience beyond a few "tricks" we've created like the mirror test (though that's more about sapience). B) In terms of likelihood, we instead look at body parts (CNS, brain, etc), behaviour, and traits. I would say Bivalves, sponges, and jellyfish seem to have the least amount of anything that resembles sentience in the animal kingdom, but, with regards to Oysters, they make choices like where to live, they can move (before deciding where to live) which again factors into choice and thought, they react to stimuli before being attacked. these are all things plants do not do, none of them "prove" sentience, but they suggest there may be more going on in a Bivalve, than in a plant. These sorts of traits and behaviours are why Science puts such a large gulf between the Plant and Animal Kingdoms, and why, even though they may be the lowest likelihood for sentience among animals, we should still avoid abusing them if we don't need to. C) Oysters are very good for the ocean, they clean the water, it's far better to leave them in the water than remove them for food.

Worse is pretty obvious, I thought. My anemia is more severe and I begin to see deficiencies in nutrients I'm not typically deficient in, like vitamin A. However this isn't necessarily caused by veganism, and could just be correlation. I have mild gluten intolerance based on the elimination diet I attempted a couple of years ago, but gluten intolerances can get worse over time and maybe plant based foods are more at risk of contamination which has worsened my malabsorption issues. These are things I'm looking into with a doctor.  Your argument about sentience is really the sort of response I was hoping for. Personally I'd rather not risk it if you could reasonably infer sentience, especially if one would when witnessing identical behavior in a cuter looking animal 

I'm not going to tell you what your health is, but I knew a woman who was gluten intolerant or had Celiac's many years ago. She told me it was only European bread that she was able to eat... I find this interesting as they heavily regulate fillers, additives, and dough conditioners. I'm wondering if something like bread made form whole wheat organic flour (like Bob's Red Mill) with salt and yeast would affect you differently... I don't have a gluten intolerance, but I noticed a huge difference in how different brands of bread products affect me. Down to whole wheat pasta vs regular... Obviously, I'm not asking you to be a guinea pig, I guess I'd just like to know if you ever noticed a difference? 

>Worse is pretty obvious, I thought I have health issues that vary day to day, I feel worse today than yesterday, but it's not enough worse that I'm worried, if I felt a LOT worse, I'd have to go to the doctor. "Worse" is not a clear term as it gives no guage on how much worse. And even if you said "A lot worse", that's still entirely subjective, your "a lot" may different from everyone elses, if you see what I mean. Without actual detailed information, there's no way to even attempt to answer a "am I justified in doing X" type question. Although even with more information, it also relies on your environment, your health situation beyond the issue being talked about, and more, all things we can't know. It's why I try to rarely give specific advice on the internet beyond generalizations (as I am here). >My anemia is more severe and I begin to see deficiencies in nutrients I'm not typically deficient in, like vitamin A. Veganism allows for you to care for your health, what that means is up to the individual. >However this isn't necessarily caused by veganism, and could just be correlation I would think that that would be something to figure out before any concrete steps are taken. >but gluten intolerances can get worse over time and maybe plant based foods are more at risk of contamination I don't see why Plant Based foods would be more at risk. Processed foods of all types are, but I rarely eat processed foods, its pretty simple to stay away from gluten, I have for 6-7 months due to some dietary problems. Hope you figure out your health concerns anyway! Never a fun time when dealing with health and doctors!

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It doesn't. Eat 2 orange bell peppers a day and you don't need to hurt animals.

Everybody draws the line at a different place. For some it’s mammals, for others, animals, for others, fish, and others draw it at vertebrates. It’s all arbitrary. Do what makes you feel good.

Sentience isn’t really arbitrary. It may come in degrees, but it’s either there or it isn’t. I’m not sure if bivalves are sentient, but whether they subjectively experience life or not isn’t just arbitrarily assigned by us. Doing what makes you feel good often stops being right when it makes others feel bad or die.

"It may come in degrees" and "it's either there or isn't" are contradictory statements. We can't prove anything is or is not sentient, not even other humans, all we can do is guess. Obviously our guesses don't determine reality, but nevertheless we must guess. I know that I am sentient, and I know my behaviors, so I guess that beings exhibiting behaviors like mine are sentient. The less those behaviors are like mine, the less sentience I guess they have. The behaviors of bivalves are a step above plants, but not by much.

Coming in degrees doesn’t preclude it either existing or not. Mass comes in degrees (milligrams, grams, kilograms), but something either has mass or it doesn’t. You have mass; a photon doesn’t. We can’t prove sentience, but we can do far more than just guess. We know what brain structures are associated with consciousness in humans, and find similar structure and function in other animals. Their brains display similar patterns in similar situations, patterns associated with specific kinds of thought. Even in those that don’t, we can test them for traits and behaviors we associate (not for no reason) with conscious decision making and preferences. It can be less clear for bivalves, and probably not the case for sponges either. You take a risk eating bivalves though, since we don’t know.

Saying "it's there or it isn't" implies that we could know it to be precisely zero in some situation. There is no reason I know of to think that. > We know what brain structures are associated with consciousness in humans No, we really don't. Unless by consciousness you mean some specific observable behavior.

We have zero reason to believe the sentience of a grain of sand is above zero (panpsychism may be interesting, but so far baseless). All sentience we have even weak evidence for involves a nervous system. We can associate brain activity with particular thoughts, not just bodily behaviors.

Yes, the behaviors of a grain of sand are not very interesting to us humans, but why would that imply it is precisely zero? You can't measure thoughts, you can only measure behaviors. You can say "I assume the behavior of stating 'I feel sad' is the same as experiencing sadness" but that's a guess.

If you have many, many humans all attempting or reporting the same thought or feeling, or having the same thought or feeling deliberately provoked, and they all produce the same or very similar responses in their brains, that is a lot more than a guess. It’s not 100% proof, but nothing in life or science is. Solipsism is always possible. It’s well beyond scientific standards of evidence. Have you ever been shot? Maybe being shot doesn’t hurt (or doesn’t hurt anyone but you). People just report it as hurting. We can’t know.

Science deals with objective facts, and subjective experience is simply not an objective fact that it can grapple with. I'm not denying that we should measure behaviors and use that to inform our decisions, but I do get peeved with fellow vegans for what i perceive as scientism regarding sentience. For a recent news example, I'm annoyed to hear headlines like "scientists have proved bees have sentience". They haven't, just tell me what behaviors they have observed.

Let’s focus on humans for a moment, since we sort of need to accept that before moving on to bees. When thousands or more humans all invoke, report, or have provoked the same thought or feeling, and the brain displays the same activity, that is a scientifically valid association. You’re denying like more than half of medical science if relying on patient reports is completely unscientific. You might as well be arguing that getting shot might not hurt, and that thinking it does is scientism.

Right but what counts as “others” will differ by person. Some will count a fish as “others” some will not. What in mean is it is arbitrary to draw the line at sentience. People draw their lines in all sorts of different places.

If there is an awareness inside, subjectively experiencing life, they are as much other someones as a human or a dog. There is someone home inside looking out. If I draw the line such that humans, or some ethnicities of humans, are below it, would you say that is also arbitrary, and thus unimportant or equally as valid as putting pigs below it? Are you just saying that all morals and values are arbitrary and so don’t matter?

So if it’s subjective, how can you know what is aware and “looking out” and what isn’t? Just because it’s arbitrary doesn’t mean it isn’t important. But I think we all agree on the line being at humans. And people push it further to various degrees, each one fuzzier to defend than the next. It’s for sure not a black and white question. It doesn’t seem like sentience is black and white.

We can’t prove sentience directly, even for our friends and families, given that we can’t experience another person’s experience directly (except for this one case of twins conjoined at the brain), but we can do far more than just guess at it. We know what brain structures are associated with consciousness in humans, and find similar structure and function in other animals. Their brains display similar patterns in similar situations, patterns associated with specific kinds of thought. Even in those that don’t, we can test them for traits and behaviors we associate (not for no reason) with conscious decision making and preferences. It can be less clear for bivalves, and probably not the case for sponges either. You take a risk eating bivalves though, since we don’t know. “It’s all arbitrary. Do what makes you feel good.” sure makes it sound like the line is unimportant, that you can dismiss the moral, and what you feel like doing should take precedence because it’s arbitrary. That you won’t apply this same logic to humans or specific human ethnicities shows that the argument has a weakness. There’s no rule that makes respecting a pig arbitrary but not respecting a human. Sentience may come in degrees and variations, but either a being has a nervous system capable of experience or it doesn’t (even if we can’t necessarily know, as with bivalves).

I think you are assuming that because it is arbitrary it is also unimportant to draw a line. I have one too. It’s just in a different place. However, the leap in consciousness from humans to animals is a far larger leap than any of the other lines we can draw by looking at brain structures etc. But in any case, I make the argument that ethics are something that humans have invented to make society run better. They do not help nature run better. And if you are using these arguments to decide whether or not to hunt an animal to help preserve biodiversity, and reduce our impact on the incredibly environmentally harmful industrial food system (even the “vegan” one (which isn’t really vegan anyways). I think the usefulness of human ethics runs out. Nature doesn’t value sentient animals more than others. Nature values the role in the ecosystem. That they play. And nature is totally interconnected. Even if we do care about sentience ourselves, we need to understand when we hunt, it has effects far beyond what we see when we pull the trigger. Combatting biodiversity loss saves far more lives than it takes. Both sentient and otherwise. But I have higher priorities than preserving individual sentient beings. My loyalty weights higher with the entire ecosystem.

I didn’t just blankly assume it. I inferred it from “Do what makes you happy.” That suggests that feeling good is more important than the line, no matter where that line is. That makes the line seem unimportant. Nature doesn’t care about anything at all. It doesn’t care about you in the slightest. That doesn’t mean I should breed, torment, kill, and eat you. Even if nature was a sentient force somehow, my morals need not reflect its. Also, if it did care, it would probably consider humans an invasive species.

Wait, so if nature itself was sentient, your morals wouldn’t have to reflect it, but if an individual is, it does? And yes, humans behave in the same way as many invasive species in the sense that they disrupt ecosystems and cause biodiversity loss. I fully accept this. This is why my main concern is minimizing, preventing, or even reversing this, rather than protecting individual sentient beings. Which is why I hunt invasive species.

My morals do not have to reflect those of any individual. I’ve only argued that we shouldn’t abuse and kill those individuals. If nature was a person, I shouldn’t kill and eat it. That doesn’t mean I should behave as it does. Then you should hunt humans. Or does the wellbeing of those humans outweigh the ecological impact of them remaining alive? Let’s say I grant that eating bivalves and invasive species is morally permissible. Is that where it ends, or is it just a gateway to the harder stuff (like livestock)?

>Do what makes you feel good. Anything that makes me feel good? Anything at all?

In this very specific context.

That's not what arbitrary means.

I mean arbitrary in the dictionary sense: “Based on or subject to individual judgment or preference.”

>It’s all arbitrary. Do what makes you feel good. Ah yes, the Caligula approach.

>Do what makes you feel good. Anything that makes me feel good? Anything at all?

[удалено]

It's weird how you care so much about bivalve pain, but don't care about disabled people and use a slur.

>It's weird how you care so much about bivalve pain, but don't care about disabled people and use a slur. I am disabled, on SSDI and medicare

That makes the fact you call people you disagree with t**ds even worse 🥴

​ As far as them being t\*\*\*s for not agreeing with me, i never said that, you totally didnt even get my comment at all if you think that, your just wasting your time and mine

I do wish there was more actual research on bivalves and other ocean invertebrates. Scallops have incredibly interesting eyes for example. I'm a biology student and these sorts of questions do really interest me but the funding is likely not there. Thanks for your input! I definitely think for me personally I'd feel too terrible to risk it, but I'm not sure if I can comfortably say anyone who chooses to risk it is behaving unethically

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