I’m sad for the future of humanity.
I would love to see a realization of Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future. I would love to live in that Star Trek world where poverty and hunger and most of the things that have plagued us since the dawn of our species are no more. In fact, I believe that the only thing that will guarantee the long term survival of life as we know it is space exploration. Brighter minds than mine have corroborated this idea. Stephen Hawking said, "I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space."
An extinction level event like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs would surely be the end of us. At this point there wouldn’t be a damn thing we could do about it. We are sequestered on this island earth and most folks bitch and complain about funding NASA as if nothing they do has any practical application. It does. And when crunch time comes, when the most important application becomes apparent, it will be too late. Unless we get our priorities in order now.
But the bigger issue may be that we’re not fit to be welcomed into a federation of planets. We are guilty of egregious speciesism. The atrocities we have committed against our own species are certainly bad enough. All the wars and genocides of recorded history total 619 million human deaths. A staggering statistic, no doubt, but we kill the same number of non-human animals every 5 days. Every 5 days. Is that as horrifying to you as it is to me? There are a plethora of ways human beings justify it. All those ways boil down to the idea that we are better than those non-human sentient beings. But are we? I would argue quite the opposite. We are the only animals on the planet who behave so abominably while we have evolved the capacity to know that it’s wrong.
Non-human animals kill for survival, but we kill for the most trivial reasons - taste, convenience, tradition, and most shocking of all: for fun. The last reason is the most baffling to me. How can anyone but a psychopath derive pleasure from murdering another sentient being? It’s no wonder that William Ralph Inge said, "We have enslaved the rest of animal creation and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form." And how could we fault them for it?
The single most important thing we can do towards making ourselves fit to venture forth into the cosmos is to adopt a vegan lifestyle. To show that we care about all sentient beings and not just our own kind. I regret that I didn’t come to this realization earlier in my life than I did. I’ve been a vegetarian for nearly two decades, a vegan for well over a year. And I’ve tried to spread the word that it’s a wonderful and easy lifestyle to adopt. But I don’t see that I’ve convinced anyone. And that’s what makes me sad. My closest friends are good, compassionate people, yet I haven’t convinced even one of them that veganism is important enough for them to actually adopt it. And if they remain unconvinced, what hope is there for others in the world who may not be the good, compassionate people my friends are?
I’m sure veganism would be a hard-sell if the food wasn’t delicious or if it was bad for your health, but neither of these propositions are true. In fact, many of the leading killers of human beings are diseases that could be all but eradicated with a plant-based diet. And taste is all about preparation. The things that you season meat with to make it palatable come from plants, so it should come as no surprise that there is a lot of delicious vegan food.
There are a world of vegan meals that I’m just beginning to explore, but I assure you that there is no dearth of great-tasting food in my life. And none of it involves the taking of other sentient life. I invite you to join me in this healthy and ethical lifestyle. The only reason that vegan food isn’t as convenient as the fare to which most of you have grown accustomed is that there are relatively few vegans. As our numbers increase, more convenient vegan food will become ubiquitous. When it becomes obvious that there is money to be made by producing vegan food, every greedy corporation in the world will jump on the bandwagon. I implore you to help me make that happen.
