>That's because I feel that it's a deliberate mischaracterization of reality

As I already said before and explained at length, it's a hypothetical example intended to illustrate a principle pertinent to the question of speciesm, in direct response to a comment that was about speciesm. I am not sure what "reality" you feel is being mischaracterized by directly speaking to an issue raised by the commenter. I honestly can't make heads or tails of what you are trying to say is being mischaracterized here.

>when the topic of harmful farming practices is the primary focus, why did we deflect to "well, what about if a building was on fire?" Where are you getting that?

There was no "deflection" from one topic to another. "The topic" was not one thing, but a couple of different things that are intertwined: farming that segued into a monolog on speciesm, and I was responding to the latter piece, although my response has implications for both. In direct response to that, I have put forward a hypothetical that illustrates a case that runs contrary to the idea of speciesm as being about creatures "deserving suffering". All I can say is that I am sorry that something that speaks directly to that question confuses you.

I'll repeat my question to you: how did you read "save humans from fire before mice" and take that to mean something along the lines of "therefore, disregard harms of farming practices?"

>your conflation of giving animals a higher moral value than humans; that still stands.

This is pretty incoherent to me. I would love to at least be able to understand and express a disagreement here, but I don't know what conflation you think has occurred.

So yeah, you haven't engaged with the point I've raised despite it being perfectly relevant, and you've expressed surprise, feeling that my point is off topic, which I feel is spurious. And you're saying a few things are being "mischaracterized" or "conflated" and I'm not sure what specifically you are talking about.

Again, I don't think your point was perfectly relevant. I believe that's why multiple people were picking on that particular nit.

I'm sorry I can't better help you understand which things I feel were mischaracterizations or conflated; it seems we're bound to be stuck at some lower levels of disagreement.

At least we can agree on not understanding each other! And, I suppose, that factory farms are a problem. Cheers!

And again, I'm sorry but I find that to be spurious, for reason's I've explained at length. You seem to feel there's too much conceptual distance between the hypothetical about speciesm and a comment about speciesm it was replying to.

So far as I can tell, what you are really objecting to is not my comment but to the idea of communicating through hypothetical examples.

Correct! Well, at least the hypothetical you provided for the reasons that I provided. Conceptual distance is a good way to put it, though!