Any vegetarians? Should I become one?

[The Grand Nudger]

Ok... Now you've just stated that eating soy is bad for animals, but why? To be precise, why is it worse than alternatives?

Because it -isn't- an alternative, it's just a different path to the same outcome. It isn't worse, it's just no better (and keep in mind I'm being a little loose as "worse" isn't really a term I would use). We have two options when it comes to sourcing ag inputs, presently. Petrochem or livestock. We use petrochem because from one very narrow POV it's more efficient (in the short term, specifically)...but that incurs mind boggling harm on just about every living thing on the planet. If we used livestock (but went vegetarian/vegan) we'd need more livestock..and then we'd need to figure out what to do with that livestock that didn't involve eating it - which would be more wasteful still...and that waste would harm animals directly and indirectly (and is additional to the harm already caused by ag -no matter how we choose to do it-). It's a rock and a hard place because we don't live in an ideal situation - so there's simply no ideal solution. Most of us aren't really capable of directly influencing how much harm is done in our names to feed us, even if we can choose which group of animals takes the brunt of it (and that's just talking the lucky first worlders among the multitudes....most people have literally no purchase in this whatsoever). All of this doesn't even address how shady this idea of harm is to begin with, or the economic considerations, or, really, any of the complicated relationships that form the various production systems available to us.