This is an interesting argument to set up. Ok, the cognitive dissonance you speak of is very real and a very strange thing, but let's put that to one side.
To be clear, I would offer up that whilst vegan, I am a speciesist, clearly meaning if I run into the often spoke-of burning building and I can only save the child or the puppy, the child is saved 100% of the time.
But, I don't believe the argument you are establishing is attempting to necessarily parallel the human to animal life on a 1 to 1 basis (you'll inform me if I wrong in my assumption but I'm led to it by your mention of "millions of humans", "billions of animals".
I have a little problem with the word "evil" just because it is a very fuzzy word. But I'll view it in this context as an "extreme moral wrong"
I hope I'm being reasonably clear to this point. So, I guess what you are laying out is a question on whether carnism could be viewed as an even worse moral outrage than statism (and for simplicity's sake, considering only unnecessary deaths caused as the metric for comparison). It is a fascinating question, I mean what is the equivalence between a human life and cow life? Does the unnecessary death of 10,000 cows equal the unnecessary death of 1 human? Is that number 100? 1000? 1million? 10? infinite??? How does the farmer (who monetarily values his cows) feel about this equation? Is he willing to suffer the loss of 1000 head of cattle to save one human? Is his answer only based on economics??
Lots of interesting thoughts comes out of this...
Once again, thank you @danielshortell for always leaving thoughtful responses to my articles.
I, too, am a 'speciesist' in the sense of valuing human life more than animal life but, with that said, I believe our suffering is universal.
The best way to gauge the suffering of non-humans would be put ourselves in their shoes by imagining what would happen if a superior race of beings enslaved us for food. What we're going through is, in my opinion, nothing compared to the plight of farmed animals.
Also, although this is subjective, I believe the greatest amount of 'evil' is measured by the vulnerability of the victims, as I touched on at the end of the post: 'Have you ever wondered why it is that we universally detest those who harm children, the elderly and the disabled? It is because they are the most vulnerable members of society...'
No worries, happy to comment. I'm newish to veganism (1.5yrs) and I arrived for the health benefits...the moral and environmental benefits are added bonuses and I'm trying to refine my understanding of both, your articles are helpful to this end.
Your previous article about a superior race was quite poignant and had some fantastic points and thought challenges in it. I think you're spot on - empathy can and should apply to animals in order for people to achieve perspective.
I think you're way of expanding evil into a more applicable concept is quite concrete/instructive. I doubt you'd find many people that disagree with: an offense is particularly reprehensible (and cowardly) when targeted toward those with the fewest means of defense. It seems almost self-evident, now, the challenge is to get people to accept this idea across species perimeters.