I think your phrasing is a bit off:
We create through synthesis.

If the suffering entailed by providing human food is not morally bad and plants suffer, then it shouldn't really matter what I eat, plants or animals since suffering entails in all cases. Put this way, ethical veganism sounds like the logical terminus of a reductio ad absurdum instead of a reasoned position — Txastopher

Except that, once again, you can't just say "some suffering is involved in my diet" and conclude that "therefore it doesn't matter how much suffering is involved in my diet."

That logical leap is the real reductio ad absurdum, and it's not the vegans making it.

Generally I agree. It's not helpful to tell people "you're horrible, I'm better than you" and hope they'll listen. (Though the church seems to have done fairly well using just that tactic.....)

However, I can't help if someone feels implicitly judged because I'm living my own life according to my own morals.
Or if someone feels judged in the face of a theoretical argument which is seeking to evaluate the right course of action such as this one.

I guess there is no logical reason to eat or not eat plants. You can eat them or not eat them. It really doesn't matter. Especially since we already eat animals and they feel pain, there shouldn't be a problem with eating plants if they feel pain — AppLeo

Two things:
Animals feel pain and plants don't.
We have to eat plants and we don't have to eat animals.

I'll explain to you through formal logic where your reasoning falls flat.

Your argument is:
If you have the potential to reason then you deserve rights.
Some humans have the potential to reason.
Therefore all humans deserve rights.

If your argument is valid, then we should be able to replace those terms with others.
The standard form looks like this:
If P then R.
Some H have P.
Therefore all H have R.

Let's see:
If you are a cat then you are a feline.
Some mammals are cats.
Therefore all mammals are felines.

Or:
If you are a thief then you are a criminal.
Some black people are thieves.
Therefore all black people are criminals.

With any luck, this should show you that you need to rethink your position/argument.

So you're not actually assigning worth on the basis of reason, but on the basis of the arbitrary distinction of species. Human chauvinism is what that's called.

So that means you're also against abortions in all cases.

Mentally disabled people don't have that either.

Those are people who are unable to reason. So on what basis do you assign them worth?

We throw people with severe mental disabilities in jail?
Zika babies all go to jail now?

they have adapted — Closed-openmindedness

What's conscious about it?
Evolution is a process of trial and error. Mutations happen by accident and some mutations happen to be helpful in procreation, while others are not. Someday a plant accidentally grew thorn-like things, it happened to survive because it didn't get eaten, and so it reproduced more, and so on.

Yes it is. Humans have the potential for reason and use reason. — AppLeo

Not all humans do though.
So either you need to assert that there is something besides reason to which we tie worth, or that we are allowed to eat those non-reasoning humans.

There's a difference between evaluating an action and passing judgement upon a person. I realize that 'to judge' and 'to evaluate' can be used as synonyms, but we have been talking about judging in relation to feelings of moral superiority, in which case they are clearly not the same, in my view. — Tzeentch

What if I say that I evaluate that veganism is morally superior to omnivorism?

They are using defense mechanisms to protect their existence, they do not have pain receptors to have them learn their environment but they are trying to send foul odors, poisonous toxins and developing spines to avoid us and nature. — Closed-openmindedness

They're not consciously doing any of that. You can't describe the chemical reactions of a plant, or the physical attributes thereof as a plant "trying" to do anything. Anymore than water "tries" to become ice with certain temperatures.

Judging people doesn't help them to be better persons, helping them does. — Tzeentch

This is a false dichotomy. I must judge their actions to be wrong before deciding to help them change.

If we follow your assumption that the more animals live the more plants die, then if you wanted to reduce the total sum of suffering over time you could kill all animals once and for all. Why don't you do that? Being a vegan makes little difference. — leo

You're misunderstanding the entire concept. We have to eat. Some things will have to die in order to fulfill that need. Veganism is the choice to reduce the suffering caused by that need.

Also, if we killed all animals, the ecosystem would go totally out of wack and we'd likely hurt such a great number of plants in the process so as to make the whole thing cause more suffering than just leaving it be.

What you don't get, is that "plants do not feel pain" is not a logical consequence of "an animal's apparent experience of pain is correlated with the detection with some instrument of some activity in some area of its brain" — leo

We can only act on the basis of things we know or can be relatively certain of. We KNOW that animals feel pain. We don't know that plants do, and we have no good evidence to suggest that they might.

Just like why I don't go to church on Sunday: I know I can spend that time productively elsewhere, and I'm pretty certain that church is a waste of time, even though I don't have hard evidence I won't be going to hell, the lack of evidence in favor of that conclusion is enough.

Why do you assume people who wonder whether plants feel pain are barbarians who enjoy slitting pig's throats? — leo

I don't. I do assume omnis who want to say "but plants though" really do just want to barbarically enjoy the result of slitting a pig's throat though.
It's a fun thought experiment, but it's fairly obvious that no one seriously thinks eating a carrot is the moral equivalent of beheading a kitten.

For your entertainment:
https://yourveganfallacyis.com/files/fallacy/media/tumblr_n7j4mxj7jj1tzue9go1_1280.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e9/a1/d0/e9a1d0e7ee88baa6ba7f18e149d34ea1.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/78/00/33/780033d484a24cc54cf24daa80ad9fce.jpg

Luckily that's satire.

Then the ability to reason is actually not your basis for assigning worth.

Okay, so eating a human infant is fine then?

How about the severely mentally disabled?

How about people in comas?

Or just anyone who is in deep sleep?

And does that mean smart people are more valuable than not so smart ones? Does that mean the Mensa people can cannibalize the rest of us now?

What basis of superiority are you using?

And THAT makes eating them more ethical? LOL! — gloaming

Obviously.

If you have to kill 100 innocent people or 50 innocent people, but you have to kill some, it's obvious to anyone with a brain that killing 50 is better.

You're missing the point.

Mild depressive states are evolutionarily advantageous because they help you problem-solve sans distractions.

Though, one must ask, what is even the point of judging others? I'd say it serves no other purpose than masturbation of the ego. — Tzeentch

OR to urge others to try and make the world a better place.
If we never judged others or tried to change the status quo, we'd still have slavery, Jim Crow, no female vote, women wouldn't be allowed to own property, gay people would be thrown in jail...etc.

Now, on the judging of others. I believe it is only fair that if one chastises another for showing up late at work, one had best always be on time themselves. — Tzeentch

What if you have a college who is late most of the time, and you yourself are only late on rare occasions when you had no other choice or at least a really darn good reason? Then you're not being a hypocrite.

the Stanford Prison experiment must've undoubtedly thought themselves of (at least) average moral fibre, yet were confronted with their own ability to do extremely immoral things and all it took was a scientist to give them a bat and tell them they were a guard. — Tzeentch

Actually, it was a whole lot more complicated than that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KND_bBDE8RQ

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/depressions-evolutionary/

Some people are of the opinion that the problem of depression is of the mind (internal) and others say its the circumstances (external) — TheMadFool

And some see it as often a complex combination of the two.

The college gets a cut, but most of the money goes towards paying grad students/post-docs and for research expenses like equipment and travel. — SophistiCat

I live in a location with numerous universities... they must be getting more than a pittance to be constructing new buildings just about every 3 1/2 minutes. One in particular is almost big enough to deserve its own zip code.

That's your opinion — Purple Pond

Well... yeah. But you're asking for our opinions, so.....

My question could be rehashed. How much unwanted suffering should humans endure before we, as a society, do something about it? Is that better? — Purple Pond

Yes, that makes more sense to me.

To a certain extent that will depend on the individual's ability to end, change, or cope with their own suffering.
Like laws to protect vulnerable persons, like minors. Laws to stop crime to protect innocent citizens. Universal healthcare.

Essentially, covering your basic human rights.

This would not cover mere inconveniences (like hangnails) or lacking luxuries (like the above-mentioned electronic gadgets).

It's not necessary when you get hurt getting shot by paintball gun, but it's okay. Your still having fun when you play paintball. That's just one counterexample. — Purple Pond

It's necessary to take the risk of the paintball caused suffering in order to have the fun of the game itself.

I mean over the threshold that no human being should ever experience. — Purple Pond

No human should ever experience any unnecessary, unwanted suffering...

I still think this is an oddly worded question, and I'm not sure what you're getting at specifically.

I want to live. It's just incredibly difficult to do so when I don't have a logical justification. — simmerdown

Your logical justification is that you want to. That's all there is to it. Life offers everything, the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly. Death offers you nothing. It's pointless and stupid.

If you're searching for some objective meaning to your life, there is none. It's what you make it mean to yourself and to others.

In the case that you have at least one single person (human or animal) who gives a darn about your existence, then you have the social obligation to live and not cause them the undue suffering of grieving over you.

This is kind of an oddly worded question...

No unnecessary amount of suffering is okay. Like, you'll survive me kicking you in the shin, and you won't carry any lasting harm from it, but unless I have a good reason, it's still not okay for me to do to you.

But even necessary suffering can be pitied. Like a chemo patient needs to do the chemo to live, but we can still pity the pain she's going through.

And then there is "suffering" which people invent. I think the phrase for it now is "first world problems." Like the other day I overheard a young man literally sobbing because his mother would not buy him the newest Iphone (to top it off, he was holding a rather large and fancy looking phone in his hands as he spoke).

But what do you mean by "too much"? Like too much to keep living? Or too much to...what?

From the point of view of the administration, mathematicians are better than scientists (or engineers), because they don't need all that expensive equipment and materials, field trips, etc. All they need is paper, pencils, and a waste bucket. And philosophers are even better: they don't even need the waste bucket. — SophistiCat

Except that science brings in the big buck investors, grants, and many more students than philosophy. So it makes up for expenditure many times over and much more so than philosophy (the latter still requiring salaries for professors, which they are loathe to pay out).

Does the quality of education differ substantially between universities? — Wallows

Depends what you're looking to get out of it.

Ivy Leagues and such will allow you to make more big name connections. It'll impress a certain type of people. You'll forever be able to drop lines like "when I was at Harvard..." or "during my studies at Yale we...." and thus annoy any and all of your friends/family/co-workers.

But if you're looking to get a high-quality education for your mind, you should go to a smaller school with small classrooms and more one-on-one time with professors.

The texts are the same. The professors will have the same degrees as the ivy league instructors (and you're less likely to get instruction just from TA's). It'll all be about what you decide to invest in the classes.

Don't forget that some of the greatest theories in the world were created using wax tablets and sticks to draw in the sand and just plain old conversation with other thoughtful persons.

Hormones are measurable: What hormones are chemically fluctuating (especially in males) that would account for depression? It seems like that would be the most easily detected cause of depression, but it doesn't seem to be (unless you are counting neurotransmitters as hormones). — Bitter Crank

I've read research suggesting that men also have hormonal fluctuations:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/82275/do-men-have-monthly-hormone-cycle
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180425131906.htm
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5057046/

Not a monthly thing, like women, but daily changes in testosterone, and seasonal ones as well occur in men. Additionally changes in activity can change one's hormonal balance. (As an aside, I think there should be more research into this, as men are more prone to suicide and it could be important to see if there is a link between these two things.)

Too many people are calling themselves depressed or are being diagnosed with depression and being given anti-depressants. — Bitter Crank

I totally agree. Though I see that as an over-medicalization of types of depression that might be more easily, safely, and effectively solved through other techniques (time, talk therapy, quality time with friends, a hot cocoa).

Frankly, I don't see any value whatsoever in conditions which depress normal functioning. The hallmarks of depression -- poor memory, perseveration, lack of concentration, sleep disturbance, irritability, dysphoria, etc. etc. -- don't seem like advantages for anything. — Bitter Crank

I think there are instances when depression is valuable.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/depressions-evolutionary/

This and other articles claim that it may be a beneficial evolutionary adaptive behavior:
"Analysis requires a lot of uninterrupted thought, and depression coordinates many changes in the body to help people analyze their problems without getting distracted. "

and
"The desire for social isolation, for instance, helps the depressed person avoid situations that would require thinking about other things. Similarly, the inability to derive pleasure from sex or other activities prevents the depressed person from engaging in activities that could distract him or her from the problem. Even the loss of appetite often seen in depression could be viewed as promoting analysis because chewing and other oral activity interferes with the brain’s ability to process information."

They need to get their lives straightened out. They need honest reality-based guidance (if they'll take it). They need debt relief. They need to get paid more for their work. They need better transit. They need better child care facilities while they are at work. They need ready access to consistent medical care. They need more affordable decent food. They need to stop drinking so much and using so many recreational drugs. — Bitter Crank

All very true statements.

Arguing from extreme cases now to justify killing any baby or anyone?

But you're just shifting the argument. You wanted an impossible amount of proof. And I showed that this demand is clearly ridiculous, because that would justify killing ANYONE.

There's also a few scientists who claim climate change isn't real. We shouldn't listen to the kooks when the consensus is that animal agriculture is destroying the planet. And it's an undisputable fact that animals die in animal agriculture. Also that more plants are used for it.

You're being absolutely ridiculous.

Show me all of this data for why I shouldn't just shoot the next baby I see. You can't? Oh well, guess killing anyone I want is a-okay!

The data we have shows that the suffering is greater. Right now and for the foreseeable future. The only non-humble person here is the one who refuses to give up eating carcasses despite all of that evidence.

Animal agriculture is known to harm animals. Uses more plants. Causes more damage to the environment. Is more harmful to workers. Is more harmful to the health of consumers....

It's not even remotely like the lottery. To assert that is just showing your willful blindness to the facts.

What if the best way to reduce suffering overall in the long term included using some animal products? — Isaac

It's not, though.

Is it arrogant to assume other animals have the same distaste to sadness, after all it is equally important to experience as happiness. — Xav

Soooo, you think causing sadness is okay? Causing suffering is okay? I can kick you in the shins now cause I have some esoteric and paternalistic notion that it'll be good for you?

I agree that its no reason to stop doing anything good, but not actively doing bad being the same as doing good is something I'm unsure on. I would be inclined to disagree. — Xav

I didn't say it's the same as doing something good. You're just doing less bad. Doing less bad is better than doing more bad, but that doesn't make it good.

Like, if these were numbers, negative numbers being bad, and positive numbers being good, we could put omnivorism at a -10. Then veganism would be like a -5 or a 0. And maybe saving hurt and/or homeless animals could be at a +5 or something.

Vegans take comfort in their choices because they haven't met a plant that can object to their actions. — gloaming

FEWER PLANTS DIE WHEN YOU AVOID ANIMAL PRODUCTS.

Jeez.