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Cheerful Pickle
 
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Default An ethical vegetarian what?

Hi, ,

Instead of doing the traditional showing of all or part of your post, I
merged the lists, alphabetized it and deleted the ones I chose not to
comment on. The ones I chose not to comment on I simply don't know enough
about them to make even the dumbest of comments :-) or have nothing
significant to say. If I am mistaken in any of my observations, please let
me know so that I can correct my thinking. Thanks.

Abrasives - I imagine that would depend on the abrasive involved.
For instance, diamonds, which come from a quarter billion year
old plants should not result in any animal deaths, at least not
for the last 250 million years when some tree fell crushing some
primitive frog.
Antifreeze - Really, everyone knows antifreeze will kill a dog.
Asphalt - I find it interesting that you would include asphalt but not
concrete, since, when poured, either will kill whatever is in the
soil beneath them
Auto and jet lubricants - like with a lot of the other products listed
in your lists, it would depend on what they were made of, I suppose.
Blood factors - definitely, but only if they came from animal blood. If
the factors came from blood drawn from blood banks, well that would
be different.
Bone Charcoal for High Grade Steel - obviously
Candles - while some candles are made from bee's wax (the taking of which
may or may not involve taking a bee's life, others are made strictly
from paraffin (made from petroleum) which should not kill anything.
Collagen - like with blood factors mentioned above
Crayon/Chalk - Most crayons are paraffin based (see candles above) and chalk
is a mineral made from animals that died thousands, if not millions of
years ago, how does that kill animals?
Fertilizer - Some fertilizers, definitely, such as those made from bone
meal or blood meal. With others it would depend on the specific
fertilizer and how it is applied. I would find it hard to believe
that a solution made from water with manure dissolved in it would kill
even insects in a field if sprinkled on.
Glass - the last I knew, glass is made primarily of silicon dioxide (quartz)
and other inorganic compounds
Hemostats - hemostats are made from steel. The last I heard, steel is
inorganic
Insecticides - duh, gee, that one is so obvious
Insulation - again, it would depend on the origin
Insulin - almost all insulin production today comes from genetically
engineered bacteria, and, according to biologists, bacteria are
not part of the animal kingdom
Paints - some paints have an entirely inorganic base, so it would then
depend solely on the origin of the pigments, whether they were animal
based, plant based or manmade.
Rubber - are you talking about natural or synthetic rubber, they are two
different things
Soaps - obviously those soaps still made from rendered animal fats are
killers, but are others made from synthetic products
Solvents - wait just one minute here, the most universally used solvent on
the planet is water
Syringes - if that is true (I don't know) then maybe we should go back to
the old reusable syringes that needed to be autoclaved between uses,
since there need be no animal deaths from the manufacture of glass
Textiles - Are you referring to animal based textiles (such as wool), plant
based textiles (such as cotton or linen) or synthetic textiles (such as
rayon)?
Upholstery - obviously leather based upholstery is a killer, but what about
synthetic based upholstery
Vitamin B-12 - someday there may be a technology developed to make synthetic
vitamin B-12 chemically identical to the natural vitamin

I suppose some people could get real silly and lament over the death of some
gnat that is dumb enough to choose to get too close to a vat of molten
steel in a steel mill. I hope no one would count that as any kind of
animal cruelty. Actually, I think some vegans can go to too much of an
extreme in this area. Imagine, for instance, that the whole would use
non-animal based substitutes for rendered fat for soaps, for blood-based or
bone-based fertilizers, for meat for consumption by people, dogs, cats and
zoo animals, and for all possible leather products. In that case, the laws
of economics would make animal based perfumes, etc. so expensive that
industry would be quick to find find vegan alternatives. After all, if you
had to kill a cow (from whose meat alone you got $2000 in income) and the
only thing that you found you could sell from that meat was an ounce of
some enzyme that normally sold for $25 an ounce then you would have to sell
that enzyme for over $2000 an ounce. That would give the users of that
enzyme a powerful economic incentive to find a less expensive substitute,
even if it cost $1000 an ounce.


--
Andy Rugg - The Cheerful Pickle
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