comparing other races to animals is what racists do. comparing women to animals is what misogynists do. their fight for their own rights isn't premised on their ability to feel pain, but the fact that they, too, are fully human.

You're getting a lot of pushback and I can see why, but I've actually been coming to similar conclusions in a different way. It's essentially species narcissism, just like we have racial narcissism, gender narcissism, physical narcissism, etc.

But we exist within this planet and evolved with it as well. Factory farming, monoculture, and industrial farm practices are harmful for the planet and us and is pretty bad for many reasons. Being a heterotroph is not something we have control over, however. We consume other species, plant and animal and microbes alike, to get nutrients as do many other species. Even some autotrophs will eat other species.

So it's important to not continue to engage species narcissism and thus remove ourselves as participants living with this world.

I never said they are lesser. you are fighting a strawman