Lemme just clarify something, as it may be necessary to do so.
Never have I ever thought “As long as I didn’t kill a cow myself, it is definitely okay for me to eat hamburgers.”
This thread was not started in order to (even implicitly) repudiate that view, because I never held that view.
Rather, what I have thought is “I never killed a cow, but still, eating meat is ethically complicated at least.”
And I do repudiate that view. I still think eating meat is ethically complicated, but I now think that I have killed a cow.
I find it hard to believe there aren’t a bunch of people out there like me who falsely believe they never killed a cow. Hence, I posted.