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You've moved the goalposts away from my original point of contention which was the premise that plants are as conscious as animals.
Nevertheless, your new ethical logic has some flaws:
To a deontologist, intentionally slaughtering an animal is a deliberate wrong. Accidentally running over a field mouse with a harvester is a tragic, unintended side effect of producing food. We don't say 'since people die in car accidents anyway, murder is morally acceptable.' Intent matters, equating a freak farming accident with premeditated slaughter is a logical fallacy.
Even if we ignore intent and look strictly at the body count, livestock eat vast amounts of crops. By eating meat, one is responsible for the intentional death of the livestock plus the exponentially higher number of accidental field animal deaths caused by harvesting the crops to feed them.
Consequentialism doesn't require you to be a psychic who knows every future ripple effect; it requires you to make choices based on predictable outcomes. I don't need to know the fate of the universe to know that buying meat directly and predictably finances animal slaughter.
You're going to be hard pressed to find a professional philosopher who agrees with this claim.
I can't be responsible for something that somebody else did in the past.
The 'it already happened' defense ignores basic supply and demand. When you buy a piece of meat at the store, you are casting a financial vote to restock that empty space on the shelf. Your money directly funds the breeding and slaughter of the next animal.
If I buy stolen goods, I am funding and incentivising theft, even though someone else already stole them in the past. If I pay a hitman after a job is done, I can't stand in court and say, "I can't be responsible for something somebody else did in the past".
no, it doesn't. it funds the grocer, who can decide what to do with it since it's now their money. it's not mine.
no, i'm not.
Saying "no, I'm not" isn't an argument; it is just denial. You are arguing against the basic mechanics of retail inventory.
How exactly do you think grocery stores operate? Do you think store managers just randomly guess what to put on the shelves, completely ignoring what customers actually buy?
i think that there are an ungodly number of burgers and hotdogs stocked in every grocery store in america right now, and that's not reflective of how many were bought last week. they are all operating on speculation and guesses, interpreting past trends, but, ultimately, they will decide what to buy, and i don't make that decision for them.
Yes, supermarkets use speculative forecasting. They guess what you want, but they don't guess based on magic; they guess based on your past behavior and the behavior of millions of others like you. When you buy meat, you are not just a passive participant; you are the input data for their next forecast. You are the reason their 'speculation' becomes a reality.
this isn't analogous to how most people get meat. the person who did the killing is paid long before most people walk into a grocery store or restaurant. and so has everyone else along the supply chain.