EPTIs anyone here a vegetarian? For those who aren't, what are your thoughts after watching that?
Vegetarianism
| Forum Index > General Forum |
|
BeautifulJudas
New Zealand33 Posts
Is anyone here a vegetarian? For those who aren't, what are your thoughts after watching that? | ||
|
ThePhan2m
Norway2750 Posts
The big question is rather, by buying meat you actually support this industry, is that something you agree with, is it right? without us buyers, it wouldnt exist. I think about that alot. | ||
|
InToTheWannaB
United States4770 Posts
| ||
GrandInquisitor
New York City13113 Posts
I still eat milk, eggs, and meat. But I'm not proud of it. | ||
|
Archaic
United States4024 Posts
| ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
Obviously you can't wait 10+ years for animals to die to run a business. To Phan, I think too many people get caught up in the fallacy that 'natural' = good. Many 'natural' things are horrible for your health, in fact, most things that are natural are. If most things natural were so good, then our early ancestors would have been much better off, sadly they weren't. | ||
|
King K. Rool
Canada4408 Posts
Of course I don't really care too much for animal welfare. Sure having animals (ie saving them from extinction, whatnot) are nice, but needs of humans > needs of animals. This video doesn't bother me at all. | ||
|
Ronald_McD
Canada807 Posts
| ||
|
BuGzlToOnl
United States5918 Posts
| ||
|
Reason
United Kingdom2770 Posts
The world is a cruel place, just watch some nature documentaries if you don't already realise the reality of life. Cute little seals murder and eat fish alive, oh noes~~ | ||
|
baal
10541 Posts
On May 29 2009 04:09 Aegraen wrote: Can't watch it right now, but we are on the top of the food chain. Doesn't matter how the animals were killed ultimately the question is, is the food of better use eaten, or letting to decompose when the animal dies? Obviously you can't wait 10+ years for animals to die to run a business. To Phan, I think too many people get caught up in the fallacy that 'natural' = good. Many 'natural' things are horrible for your health, in fact, most things that are natural are. If most things natural were so good, then our early ancestors would have been much better off, sadly they weren't. i want to throw up every time you type a post, your stupidity is so overwhelming im sure a great part of it its just for trolling purposes. Nobody is discussing the top of the foodchain, the fact we eat meat doesnt mean we have to make the annimal suffer for it entire life only to cut expenses, animals MUST be treated with dignity and minimizing pain. | ||
|
baal
10541 Posts
| ||
IntoTheWow
is awesome32277 Posts
On May 29 2009 04:09 Aegraen wrote: Can't watch it right now, but we are on the top of the food chain. Doesn't matter how the animals were killed ultimately the question is, is the food of better use eaten, or letting to decompose when the animal dies? ![[image loading]](http://www.mrarmageddon.com/awesome/learnedfromsimpsons/food_chain.jpg) | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 04:25 baal wrote: i want to throw up every time you type a post, your stupidity is so overwhelming im sure a great part of it its just for trolling purposes. Nobody is discussing the top of the foodchain, the fact we eat meat doesnt mean we have to make the annimal suffer for it entire life only to cut expenses, animals MUST be treated with dignity and minimizing pain. Do you realize the whole point of the animals existence is to die and for us to eat them? This is called nature. Food is, yes a business. Do I want to spend 1.50$ for that LB. of meat, or do I want to spend 1.35$ for that LB. of meat. Is it feasible for small businesses (farmers), to increase costs? Pets and wild animals that aren't being hunted should be treated fairly and justly. Animals bred to be food, or those that are hunted, are fair game for the rules of conducting business. | ||
|
Probe.
United States877 Posts
| ||
|
Cloud
Sexico5880 Posts
On May 29 2009 04:31 Aegraen wrote: Do you realize the whole point of the animals existence is to die and for us to eat them? This is called nature. This is a priceless demonstration of sheer stupidity. Congratulations. | ||
|
iSTime
1579 Posts
| ||
|
King K. Rool
Canada4408 Posts
On May 29 2009 04:31 Aegraen wrote: QFTDo you realize the whole point of the animals existence is to die and for us to eat them? This is called nature. Food is, yes a business. Do I want to spend 1.50$ for that LB. of meat, or do I want to spend 1.35$ for that LB. of meat. Is it feasible for small businesses (farmers), to increase costs? Pets and wild animals that aren't being hunted should be treated fairly and justly. Animals bred to be food, or those that are hunted, are fair game for the rules of conducting business. Especially the money part. Meat is expensive enough already. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 04:35 Cloud wrote: This is a priceless demonstration of sheer stupidity. Congratulations. ok, think about it this way. The increase of business is going to increase the cost to the consumer. Less fortunate people, and charitable entities costs will be increased. They will not be able to purchase as much food as they once could have. In effect, you put the lives of animals who are bred to be killed for food, above human consumption, hunger, and availability of food supply. Even if its 1/2 lb less food a week, its still less food that they could purchase. In the end its called nature. It all depends what you cherish more, animals or humanity. | ||
|
Wotans_Fire
United Kingdom294 Posts
| ||
|
MuR)Ernu
Finland768 Posts
I'd be more happy to eat my meat if i knew that the animals werent tortured over the top. I do think that it would be worth it to minimize the pain, i mean who wants to hurt animals? I like meat so i will continue to eat it. Plus i fucking hate alec baldwin. He sounds so "self important" and pretentious in whatever he does. Its like "wow look at my acting". argh | ||
suffeli
Finland772 Posts
IMHO it's really easy for me not to eat meat. If you have lived without meat for at least one year or so straight you learn to hate the fatty pork taste. I really admire vegan people since it requires a rigid mind and a dedicated ascetistic, balanced life style. Oh yeah... and when eating meat there is always the environmental issues. | ||
|
prOxi.Beater
Denmark626 Posts
You shouldn't needlessly mistreat animals, but optimizing production is fine with me, even if it means the animal might get worse living conditions. As another person said, it's really all a matter of priority; there are so many worse things to worry about in the world than the wellfare of animals in big business. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
And if you want you can eat just fish and white meat once in a while. It's healthier. And you can really make some choices there that also improve a lot in terms of animal suffering and sustainability/enviroment. And then if you want you can still eat whatever you want occasionally at a party or something. But modern western society is pretty much adjusted to handle vegetarians anyway. So it's also no longer a practical problem. There is absolutely no excuse. Animals existed long before humans ever did. It's like saying it rains because the plants and trees need water. Children's logic. | ||
|
baal
10541 Posts
On May 29 2009 04:31 Aegraen wrote: }Do you realize the whole point of the animals existence is to die and for us to eat them? This is called nature. Food is, yes a business. Do I want to spend 1.50$ for that LB. of meat, or do I want to spend 1.35$ for that LB. of meat. Is it feasible for small businesses (farmers), to increase costs? Pets and wild animals that aren't being hunted should be treated fairly and justly. Animals bred to be food, or those that are hunted, are fair game for the rules of conducting business. Last time i read the TL.net commandments stupidity was a bannable offense, how come this retard isnt banned? or its because he is the moron keeping discussions alive with his stupid posts? Seriously tlnet mods wtf are you doing. | ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 29 2009 04:31 Aegraen wrote: Do you realize the whole point of the animals existence is to die and for us to eat them? This is called nature. Food is, yes a business. Do I want to spend 1.50$ for that LB. of meat, or do I want to spend 1.35$ for that LB. of meat. Is it feasible for small businesses (farmers), to increase costs? Pets and wild animals that aren't being hunted should be treated fairly and justly. Animals bred to be food, or those that are hunted, are fair game for the rules of conducting business. Oh goody  I've been waiting for a vegetarian topic for a long time. I'm a vegan, so let me disect these arguments a little Alright, a couple of ways of coming at this argument: a) Animals were made by god for people to eat. This is a religious argument, so unless you're deeply religious (so religious that you take all the sciptures literally) it's VERY hard to justify eating meat or intensively farming animals for the purpose of profit. I'd rather not get into it here but I'll PM you it later if you're interested. b) We breed the animals to eat them. Therefore they fulfill their purpose. I don't see how this magically justifies it, as a paedophile could easily have a child and then abuse it, fulfilling the purpose of the child, and yet that doesn't seem to morally justify it. c) Animals don't know any different. Well, maybe, but any sentient being prefers not being in pain to being in pain. Even then, is it ok to keep a small child locked in a box for its entire life since it doesn't know any different? Since when is intensive farming called nature? Why is something that's natural causing so many health problems? Why is something that's natural so massively inefficient? Why is something being natural even remotely important? Want to have a look at your other statement. Is it better to buy meat for 15 cents cheaper...Well for a number of reasons I think this is a pretty horrific way of looking at things, but whatever. But lets have a quick look at this. Animals are a very inefficient way of eating. A cow produces I believe 1:52 the nutrition of it's feed (or what could comparatively been grown on the land that the feed was grown on). Meat is expensive. But this has a few knock on problems. In order to maximise the amount of profit the farmer must ensure that the animal grows as quickly as possible. They cut corners in their maintenence of the animals well being in order to increase profits. I take it almost everyone abhors battery farming and intensive farming. If you don't...well... But here is the problem. Because meat is so inefficient and because there are so many people in the world, if you want to continue eating meat these intensive farming methods must be utilised. Otherwise not enough can be produced. Because of this, I think it's pretty difficult to justify eating any kind of animal product. Obviously this is just scratching the surface of a huge debate, but any questions? | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 04:55 Piy wrote: Oh goody I've been waiting for a vegetarian topic for a long time. I'm a vegan, so let me disect these arguments a little Alright, a couple of ways of coming at this argument: a) Animals were made by god for people to eat. This is a religious argument, so unless you're deeply religious (so religious that you take all the sciptures literally) it's VERY hard to justify eating meat or intensively farming animals for the purpose of profit. I'd rather not get into it here but I'll PM you it later if you're interested. b) We breed the animals to eat them. Therefore they fulfill their purpose. I don't see how this magically justifies it, as a paedophile could easily have a child and then abuse it, fulfilling the purpose of the child, and yet that doesn't seem to morally justify it. c) Animals don't know any different. Well, maybe, but any sentient being prefers not being in pain to being in pain. Even then, is it ok to keep a small child locked in a box for its entire life since it doesn't know any different? Since when is intensive farming called nature? Why is something that's natural causing so many health problems? Why is something that's natural so massively inefficient? Why is something being natural even remotely important? Want to have a look at your other statement. Is it better to buy meat for 15 cents cheaper...Well for a number of reasons I think this is a pretty horrific way of looking at things, but whatever. But lets have a quick look at this. Animals are a very inefficient way of eating. A cow produces I believe 1:52 the nutrition of it's feed (or what could comparatively been grown on the land that the feed was grown on). Meat is expensive. But this has a few knock on problems. In order to maximise the amount of profit the farmer must ensure that the animal grows as quickly as possible. They cut corners in their maintenence of the animals well being in order to increase profits. I take it almost everyone abhors battery farming and intensive farming. If you don't...well... But here is the problem. Because meat is so inefficient and because there are so many people in the world, if you want to continue eating meat these intensive farming methods must be utilised. Otherwise not enough can be produced. Because of this, I think it's pretty difficult to justify eating any kind of animal product. Obviously this is just scratching the surface of a huge debate, but any questions? I hold humanity above animals. You hold humanity as level to animals. Therefore we can never come to any consensus. It's pointless to even argue. Edit: Not sure if you know this, but humans are omnivores. We require extensive amounts of protein to function. Anyways, demonize the opposing viewpoints. Never gets old.. | ||
|
Xusneb
Canada612 Posts
On May 29 2009 04:31 Aegraen wrote: Do you realize the whole point of the animals existence is to die and for us to eat them? This is called nature. Food is, yes a business. Do I want to spend 1.50$ for that LB. of meat, or do I want to spend 1.35$ for that LB. of meat. Is it feasible for small businesses (farmers), to increase costs? Pets and wild animals that aren't being hunted should be treated fairly and justly. Animals bred to be food, or those that are hunted, are fair game for the rules of conducting business. First line: Wow, I'm speechless. I never knew the sole purpose of an animal's existence was to feed us. Now I'm sure the slaughtered pig feels great for donating his body to the noble cause that is feeding us. Animals are living beings and the mammals we eat can suffer and feel a great deal of pain. If you believe humans transcend these animals then I suppose you can believe that we can do whatever the fuck we want with our food. However, I think living creatures deserve some mercy and should be spared the pain if possible. This egocentric view placing humans above everything else in nature is why we're facing overpopulation, famine, global warming, rainforest deforestation etc. etc. We keep this up and we're doomed so I sincerely hope the moral Zeitgeist of our time is changing. | ||
|
ProdT
United States170 Posts
In all seriousness, if lions were smart and could farm zebras, they would do it too. Why? Because its basic instinct to want to eat meat, and if there is an efficient way to get a steady supply of food, what kind of moron wouldn't take advantage of this? The world would be a different place if every time I wanted to eat something I'd have to go out and hunt wild animals (Who are seen being oh so happy at the end of the video, despite the end result being the same, death. (xcept im still hungry.)). | ||
|
Xusneb
Canada612 Posts
On May 29 2009 04:55 baal wrote: } Last time i read the TL.net commandments stupidity was a bannable offense, how come this retard isnt banned? or its because he is the moron keeping discussions alive with his stupid posts? Seriously tlnet mods wtf are you doing. Yes, I agree. Please ban him. There is absolutely nothing worthwhile coming from him. It's like he's purposely posting to incite a flame war. Even I, a lowly lurker, was tempted to enter it! | ||
|
UnitarySpace
United States61 Posts
On the other hand meat is extraordinarily efficient in terms of nutrition per unit of volume. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:06 Xusneb wrote: Yes, I agree. Please ban him. There is absolutely nothing worthwhile coming from him. It's like he's purposely posting to incite a flame war. Even I, a lowly lurker, was tempted to enter it! Fascism is alive and well in these here neck of the woods. If you don't like my viewpoints, then by all means ignore them, or not, I don't care. Suppression of expression (like that eh), is tantamount to fascism. | ||
|
Ido
Germany661 Posts
| ||
|
BloodyC0bbler
Canada7876 Posts
Not every country has standards that low to get away with, etc... For instance, they have cows lifted in the air and throats slit? wtf Common way (least i was taught in culinary) for cows dying was being forced to stand and then had an object thrust insanely quickly into their brain killing them instantly, so that there would be no pain. Blood is then drained from the animal, etc... Chickens/Turkeys are almost always treated that bad, ducks treated even worse. Pigs it depends on the government standards on how they are raised, pigs tend to get a rather diverse lifestyle. Also note, if you hate this style of meat, just eat freerange and the like meat, as it usually means they lived a decent life. | ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:06 ProdT wrote: Honestly animals only get this much attention because they can express pain and emotion, BUT WHO'S THINKING ABOUT THE PLANTS? Isn't farming them wrong too since they are living things? I don't see a PETP around defending their right to live. In all seriousness, if lions were smart and could farm zebras, they would do it too. Why? Because its basic instinct to want to eat meat, and if there is an efficient way to get a steady supply of food, what kind of moron wouldn't take advantage of this? The world would be a different place if every time I wanted to eat something I'd have to go out and hunt wild animals (Who are seen being oh so happy at the end of the video, despite the end result being the same, death. (xcept im still hungry.)). Eating meat isn't an efficient way to get a steady supply of food. It's massively inefficient. You've really just put forward a confused argument for vegetarianism. Is animals dieing eventually really a justification for farming them and killing them 20 years sooner than they need to die. And people always say "People are above animals" but then they cite arguments like, well Lions kill zebras, so that means we can kill animals too. Confused fuzzy logic that people build around themselves to make themselves feel better. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:05 Xusneb wrote: First line: Wow, I'm speechless. I never knew the sole purpose of an animal's existence was to feed us. Now I'm sure the slaughtered pig feels great for donating his body to the noble cause that is feeding us. Animals are living beings and the mammals we eat can suffer and feel a great deal of pain. If you believe humans transcend these animals then I suppose you can believe that we can do whatever the fuck we want with our food. However, I think living creatures deserve some mercy and should be spared the pain if possible. This egocentric view placing humans above everything else in nature is why we're facing overpopulation, famine, global warming, rainforest deforestation etc. etc. We keep this up and we're doomed so I sincerely hope the moral Zeitgeist of our time is changing. Do you realize that the costlier food is, the number of people starving increases? Whatever increases production, efficiency, and is generally called business practices, shouldn't be demonized unless of course you hold us as on equal grounds as the animals that populate the eco-systems around the globe. | ||
|
MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
a) Animals were made by god for people to eat. This is a religious argument, so unless you're deeply religious (so religious that you take all the sciptures literally) it's VERY hard to justify eating meat On the contrary, it is only due to the scriptures that the world has been inundated with a general sense of universal community- the dignity of human and to a lesser extent, animal life. To the Greeks and Romans, to both Plato and Aristotle, it was self-evident that a slave was of a lower dignity than a citizen, not to mention animal to man. In the medieval mental order, an animal occupied a station above the plant and below man on the order of being- vegetables being higher than inanimate matter by virtue of its vegetative soul, animals being superior to the plant because its soul is both vegetative and sensitive, whereas man is vegetative, sensitive and rational. Without religion, there would be properly speaking, no argument against eating meat, whereas certain religions may deter carnivorism. | ||
|
Infundibulum
United States2552 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:12 Aegraen wrote: Do you realize that the costlier food is, the number of people starving increases? Whatever increases production, efficiency, and is generally called business practices, shouldn't be demonized unless of course you hold us as on equal grounds as the animals that populate the eco-systems around the globe. Intensive cattle and meat farming uses up a lot of food - corn, for one - that could be used to feed people. It also occupies land area that could be used to grow other varieties of crops. Meat is only one kind of food and if it gets more expensive people will find their nutrition elsewhere. I don't think your economic argument is very well proposed at all. | ||
|
King K. Rool
Canada4408 Posts
a) Animals were made by god for people to eat. This is a religious argument, so unless you're deeply religious (so religious that you take all the sciptures literally) it's VERY hard to justify eating meat or intensively farming animals for the purpose of profit. I'd rather not get into it here but I'll PM you it later if you're interested. b) We breed the animals to eat them. Therefore they fulfill their purpose. I don't see how this magically justifies it, as a paedophile could easily have a child and then abuse it, fulfilling the purpose of the child, and yet that doesn't seem to morally justify it. But they're animals, and the kid is human. There's actual laws against that sort of stuff, so... unless there's laws I see no problems with intensive farming in order to produce food for humans.c) Animals don't know any different. Well, maybe, but any sentient being prefers not being in pain to being in pain. Even then, is it ok to keep a small child locked in a box for its entire life since it doesn't know any different? Again, humans and animals. I personally think pain should be minimalized, and there are some gratuitous things, but the point is this sort of intensive farming is needed to feed all these humans (or meat eaters if you prefer not to be lumped together with us).Since when is intensive farming called nature? Why is something that's natural causing so many health problems? Why is something that's natural so massively inefficient? Why is something being natural even remotely important? Want to have a look at your other statement. Is it better to buy meat for 15 cents cheaper...Well for a number of reasons I think this is a pretty horrific way of looking at things, but whatever. But lets have a quick look at this. Animals are a very inefficient way of eating. A cow produces I believe 1:52 the nutrition of it's feed (or what could comparatively been grown on the land that the feed was grown on). Meat is expensive. But the point is we want to eat meat, and this way is more efficient than whatever other ways there are (grazing?).But this has a few knock on problems. In order to maximise the amount of profit the farmer must ensure that the animal grows as quickly as possible. They cut corners in their maintenence of the animals well being in order to increase profits. I take it almost everyone abhors battery farming and intensive farming. If you don't...well... Bolded is exactly why I'm not swayed at all from your arguments. I like to eat meat hence I endorse these methods.But here is the problem. Because meat is so inefficient and because there are so many people in the world, if you want to continue eating meat these intensive farming methods must be utilised. Otherwise not enough can be produced. Because of this, I think it's pretty difficult to justify eating any kind of animal product. Obviously this is just scratching the surface of a huge debate, but any questions? | ||
|
ProdT
United States170 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:11 Piy wrote: Eating meat isn't an efficient way to get a steady supply of food. It's massively inefficient. You've really just put forward a confused argument for vegetarianism. Is animals dieing eventually really a justification for farming them and killing them 20 years sooner than they need to die. And people always say "People are above animals" but then they cite arguments like, well Lions kill zebras, so that means we can kill animals too. Confused fuzzy logic that people build around themselves to make themselves feel better. I'm not trying to make myself feel better, this is how my species has evolved over time and It doesn't bother me one bit when I look at these videos because I know these animals are going to feed another type of animal who has managed to create the arts, music, even go into space. Is this species superior? Sure. We have managed to fuck up the planet and all but we are still leagues above pigs in terms of complexity and potential to produce. I think vegans are the ones who feel self-righteous when they eat their tofu thinking they are making a difference when they never will. People are not going to stop eating meat because a select few decide to only eat plants, its impossible. Even if by some miracle a good fraction of people ate only plants there would still be people eating meat and thus, still animals being slaughtered etc. I think you guys need to get over it, your great ancestors ate meat, people around you eat meat, practically everyone eats meat and there has to be a way to feed everyone. I just think you guys should stop trying to fight against basic instinct because you see a few documentaries in third world countries where pigs get their throats slit. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:11 Piy wrote: Eating meat isn't an efficient way to get a steady supply of food. It's massively inefficient. You've really just put forward a confused argument for vegetarianism. Is animals dieing eventually really a justification for farming them and killing them 20 years sooner than they need to die. And people always say "People are above animals" but then they cite arguments like, well Lions kill zebras, so that means we can kill animals too. Confused fuzzy logic that people build around themselves to make themselves feel better. Meat is not massively inefficient. It is the best way to incorporate proteins, and many essential nutrients that your body needs. Cottage Cheese perhaps the best non meat product for protein lacks the nutrients that you obtain from eating meat. I'm not sure you know this, but meat costs money, and the production of said meat is a business and is relegated to all the same general business sense and rules as any others. | ||
|
PH
United States6173 Posts
I think above all, people have many, many internal issues as a species that should be addressed before worrying so deeply about animals. I don't think gratuitous maltreatment of animals should be acceptable, but I'm not going to go terribly out of my way and significantly inconvenience myself for the sake of an animal that's going to get eaten either way. In this vein, I have very little respect for moral vegetarians. I have no problem with people who avoid animal products for health reasons, but trying to justify it with a sense of morality that's obviously contingent and probably poorly constructed is dumb. | ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:12 Aegraen wrote: Do you realize that the costlier food is, the number of people starving increases? Whatever increases production, efficiency, and is generally called business practices, shouldn't be demonized unless of course you hold us as on equal grounds as the animals that populate the eco-systems around the globe. You really don't have to hold people on equal grounds to animals to think this is retarded. I'm pretty sure you're just trolling, but whatever, I guess this is some peoples opinion. So using your logic it's prefectly justifiable for me to buy a dog and kick it around because it's fun? Because you seem to place absolutely no worth on animal suffering whatsoever. I don't consider humanity equal with animals, but they're certainly close enough to be worthy of consideration. I just don't see any other way of looking at this argument rationally. | ||
|
Infundibulum
United States2552 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:17 King K. Rool wrote: Bolded is exactly why I'm not swayed at all from your arguments. I like to eat meat hence I endorse these methods. You can like to do something while not supporting the harmful effects of it, you know. Liking the way meat tastes does not justify animal cruelty and ecological degradation. | ||
|
King K. Rool
Canada4408 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:20 iNfuNdiBuLuM wrote: You can like to do something while not supporting the harmful effects of it, you know. Liking the way meat tastes does not justify animal cruelty and ecological degradation. Unless you can get me a better rate with a better method, I'll be supporting this. | ||
|
Meta
United States6225 Posts
I read somewhere that the main reason for the vegetarian movement is that death has been almost entirely removed from the everyday life of modern people. Nobody knows how to deal with death anymore, human or otherwise. Throughout history, however, people have had to deal with death in or around their homes all the time. It was a sacred thing back then, and everyone generally tried to avoid unnecessary suffering of their animals when sacrificing them for their meals. These days animals are processed in factories, and people have generally forgotten that there needs to be death for us to thrive. Unlike the rest of the world, the people that work in these factories become desensitized to death, and some of them (likely with bad backgrounds of abuse or something) push it over the edge and cause unnecessary suffering for some sick pleasure. Does that mean we should stop eating meat as a whole? In my opinion, hell no. Why let a few rotten apples spoil it for the whole bunch? | ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
King K - those were the only 3 rational ways of approaching his somewhat vague argument. I tried to present counter examples for each of them. And I just think you're appraoching the argument very poorly. You're only justification for eating meat is that you like it. What? How is that an argument for anything? Just because we want to do things doesn't mean that we should do them, especially when there are healthier, more efficient and less cruel methods of finding food. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:16 iNfuNdiBuLuM wrote: Intensive cattle and meat farming uses up a lot of food - corn, for one - that could be used to feed people. It also occupies land area that could be used to grow other varieties of crops. Meat is only one kind of food and if it gets more expensive people will find their nutrition elsewhere. I don't think your economic argument is very well proposed at all. Do you realize that your body needs the nutrients and minerals that are in meat to survive? So, where would you then propose to get your protein from and other essential fatty acids? Fish? Still meat and are farmed. Dairy Products? Raised for the same purposes and costs 'food' for upkeep. Secondly, you think that if we let these cows, pigs, etc. roam freely they don't eat anything? That suddenly you stop farming and the food expenditure for the animals survival is nulled? They'll still take up the same land. Do you propose we just wipe them all out? Isn't this antithesis to your 'moral' arguement that you're trying to make? I don't think you thought this out very well at all. | ||
|
rei
United States3594 Posts
just a reminder + Show Spoiler + http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=32696¤tpage=154 baal was just temp banned for 1 week by EvilTeletubby. That account was created on 2003-03-27 00:06:48 and had 10195 posts. Reason: On March 27 2009 13:42 TL.net Bot wrote: baal was just temp banned for 2 days by EvilTeletubby. That account was created on 2003-03-27 00:06:48 and had 10123 posts. Reason: C'mon baal. Can you please for once have a debate without calling people idiots and morons? On May 17 2009 06:55 baal wrote: God what a fucking cunt, you live in an apartment complex full of college students when the vast majority parties all the time and you want to spoil it for everyone just cuz you decided to live there? Move out dumbass, cant afford another place, suck it up. Cunt and dumbass also not acceptable. Should I make a larger list for you? HOLY SHIT SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH ME I BETTER CURSE AT THEM!!!!11 Seriously. Grow up. On May 29 2009 04:55 baal wrote: Last time i read the TL.net commandments stupidity was a bannable offense, how come this retard isnt banned? or its because he is the moron keeping discussions alive with his stupid posts? Seriously tlnet mods wtf are you doing. On May 29 2009 04:25 baal wrote: i want to throw up every time you type a post, your stupidity is so overwhelming im sure a great part of it its just for trolling purposes. Nobody is discussing the top of the foodchain, the fact we eat meat doesnt mean we have to make the annimal suffer for it entire life only to cut expenses, animals MUST be treated with dignity and minimizing pain. maybe you will get exactly what you asked for, the next one might be a month long too. "HOLY SHIT SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH ME I BETTER CURSE AT THEM!!!!11 Seriously. Grow up." -EvilTeletubby | ||
|
IntoTheWow
is awesome32277 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:14 MoltkeWarding wrote: On the contrary, it is only due to the scriptures that the world has been inundated with a general sense of universal community- the dignity of human and to a lesser extent, animal life. To the Greeks and Romans, to both Plato and Aristotle, it was self-evident that a slave was of a lower dignity than a citizen, not to mention animal to man. In the medieval mental order, an animal occupied a station above the plant and below man on the order of being- vegetables being higher than inanimate matter by virtue of its vegetative soul, animals being superior to the plant because its soul is both vegetative and sensitive, whereas man is vegetative, sensitive and rational. Without religion, there would be properly speaking, no argument against eating meat, whereas certain religions may deter carnivorism. There are reasons not to eat meat beyond religion. What the fuck are you saying? | ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:18 Aegraen wrote: Meat is not massively inefficient. It is the best way to incorporate proteins, and many essential nutrients that your body needs. Cottage Cheese perhaps the best non meat product for protein lacks the nutrients that you obtain from eating meat. I'm not sure you know this, but meat costs money, and the production of said meat is a business and is relegated to all the same general business sense and rules as any others. Just untrue. Science has conclusively proven that people do not need to eat animal products. We can produce Vitamin B12 from non-animal derived products and are, in these englightened times, capable of living fully vegan lifestyles that provide everything your body needs. You're just buying into fast food propaganda if you think that we need to eat meat. So I'm going to stop answer your obvious attempts at trolling from now on. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:18 Piy wrote: You really don't have to hold people on equal grounds to animals to think this is retarded. I'm pretty sure you're just trolling, but whatever, I guess this is some peoples opinion. So using your logic it's prefectly justifiable for me to buy a dog and kick it around because it's fun? Because you seem to place absolutely no worth on animal suffering whatsoever. I don't consider humanity equal with animals, but they're certainly close enough to be worthy of consideration. I just don't see any other way of looking at this argument rationally. Did you read my second post in this thread? I urge to go back and re-read it then come back with something relevant to try and sling at me. | ||
|
stet_tcl
Greece319 Posts
To answer the op I have been a vegetarian for almost 10 years. I have never had any health problems and I exercise regularly without getting tired faster than other people or anything. From my experience, except for the obvious fact that its healthier (unless you can grow your own animals or get them from someone who does), you may become a calmer person by not eating meat and your body becomes more sensitive - in a good way when it comes to food: When you lack protein you feel a strong urge to eat cheese or we and same goes for fruit etc. You also enjoy the tastes and smells better. All in all the nice people above have said pretty much all there is to be said against eating meat. Edit: nm | ||
|
Infundibulum
United States2552 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:23 Aegraen wrote: Do you realize that your body needs the nutrients and minerals that are in meat to survive? So, where would you then propose to get your protein from and other essential fatty acids? Fish? Still meat and are farmed. Dairy Products? Raised for the same purposes and costs 'food' for upkeep. Secondly, you think that if we let these cows, pigs, etc. roam freely they don't eat anything? That suddenly you stop farming and the food expenditure for the animals survival is nulled? They'll still take up the same land. Do you propose we just wipe them all out? Isn't this antithesis to your 'moral' arguement that you're trying to make? I don't think you thought this out very well at all. There are ways to get your protein and Omega-3's without eating meat. If you're curious you can google, i'm not going to waste my time looking things up for you. I like how you made up a proposal for me then pretended like it was something I actually said. Clever. | ||
|
niteReloaded
Croatia5282 Posts
Thanks for the video, I heard about the bad treatment of animals, but seeing it is a different thing. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:25 rei wrote: @baal just a reminder + Show Spoiler + http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=32696¤tpage=154 baal was just temp banned for 1 week by EvilTeletubby. That account was created on 2003-03-27 00:06:48 and had 10195 posts. Reason: On March 27 2009 13:42 TL.net Bot wrote: baal was just temp banned for 2 days by EvilTeletubby. That account was created on 2003-03-27 00:06:48 and had 10123 posts. Reason: C'mon baal. Can you please for once have a debate without calling people idiots and morons? On May 17 2009 06:55 baal wrote: God what a fucking cunt, you live in an apartment complex full of college students when the vast majority parties all the time and you want to spoil it for everyone just cuz you decided to live there? Move out dumbass, cant afford another place, suck it up. Cunt and dumbass also not acceptable. Should I make a larger list for you? HOLY SHIT SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH ME I BETTER CURSE AT THEM!!!!11 Seriously. Grow up. maybe you will get exactly what you asked for, the next one might be a month long too. "HOLY SHIT SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH ME I BETTER CURSE AT THEM!!!!11 Seriously. Grow up." -EvilTeletubby I got a chuckle out of this. To be honest, as a libertarian/conservative I'm so used to it, it doesn't effect me at all. | ||
|
Zooey
103 Posts
As for the video, it may be disgusting but I feel no remorse in buying and enjoying my delicious meat. Animals raised for food will always be thought of as food in my eyes. | ||
|
MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
| ||
|
Infundibulum
United States2552 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:22 King K. Rool wrote: Unless you can get me a better rate with a better method, I'll be supporting this. If you're honest about the fact that you don't give a shit where your food comes from as long as it's 'efficient,' then go ahead and keep eating it i guess? One might say such a view point is morally questionable, but you don't seem to care | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:25 Piy wrote: Just untrue. Science has conclusively proven that people do not need to eat animal products. We can produce Vitamin B12 from non-animal derived products and are, in these englightened times, capable of living fully vegan lifestyles that provide everything your body needs. You're just buying into fast food propaganda if you think that we need to eat meat. So I'm going to stop answer your obvious attempts at trolling from now on. I work out a lot, and bodybuild. My lifestyle requires vast protein consumption. The best source for this: meat. I'm all for having more options. Why should you tell me what I can and cannot eat? Edit: Of course, we won't all die, but rapid overpopulation of animal populations coupled with extremely limited diets, deficiencies in many nutritional/mineral needs and lack of N3 fatty acids, ultimately leads to a less healthy lifestyle. Then again, I enjoy eating food, and not multivitamins. | ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:26 Aegraen wrote: Did you read my second post in this thread? I urge to go back and re-read it then come back with something relevant to try and sling at me. K, fair enough I'll respond to this. You say that animals shouldn't be treated badly outside of food production? Well I think that you're being selective with your definition of suffering then. So we shouldn't treat animals poorly, but if we can treat them badly and make a profit thats fine. Wait, wut? What if I was to rent out my dog and allow other people to kick it? thats giving me a profit, shame about the dog though. But I can already see what you're thinking :p Thats not providing food for humanity. Of course I forgot we "need" to eat meat or we'll die of massive defficiencies. That explains how dead I am, and how dead my vegan friends are. Wait, wut? Since you seem to appreciate that animals can suffer and that we should try and prevent their suffering in most cases, how can you justify intensively farming/killing animals when we don't need to? That just seems counter intuitive and baffles me. | ||
|
baal
10541 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:25 rei wrote: @baal just a reminder + Show Spoiler + http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=32696¤tpage=154 baal was just temp banned for 1 week by EvilTeletubby. That account was created on 2003-03-27 00:06:48 and had 10195 posts. Reason: On March 27 2009 13:42 TL.net Bot wrote: baal was just temp banned for 2 days by EvilTeletubby. That account was created on 2003-03-27 00:06:48 and had 10123 posts. Reason: C'mon baal. Can you please for once have a debate without calling people idiots and morons? On May 17 2009 06:55 baal wrote: God what a fucking cunt, you live in an apartment complex full of college students when the vast majority parties all the time and you want to spoil it for everyone just cuz you decided to live there? Move out dumbass, cant afford another place, suck it up. Cunt and dumbass also not acceptable. Should I make a larger list for you? HOLY SHIT SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH ME I BETTER CURSE AT THEM!!!!11 Seriously. Grow up. maybe you will get exactly what you asked for, the next one might be a month long too. "HOLY SHIT SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH ME I BETTER CURSE AT THEM!!!!11 Seriously. Grow up." -EvilTeletubby Its not a different opinion, a different opinion is one from a vegetarian (me eating meat), a good discussion is the one im proposing saying that you can be for the better treatment of animals and support the cause and not being a vegetarian since the wrong here is animal suffering not consumption. Now thats a different opinion and a discussion, what this moron posts is not an intelligent different opinion, its just plain stupidity. It is a shame that i get banned for profuse swearing and this guy roams free tainting every discussion with his stupidity, it seems that in this forum political correctness is more important than actual substance. In the past that idiot would have been banned in his first 5 posts. | ||
|
suffeli
Finland772 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:29 niteReloaded wrote: If there is a way to go vegeterian without suffering from untasty food, losing health etc. I think I'll go for it. Thanks for the video, I heard about the bad treatment of animals, but seeing it is a different thing. I would try to gradually add more vegetarian products like lentils, beans, tofu to your daily meals (they will be your main source for proteins) and less meat... and you also need to learn yourself some new cooking skills since a proper tasty vegetarian dish requires a bit more work than pork ribs. But when you learn the basics its not that hard. | ||
|
IntoTheWow
is awesome32277 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:31 MoltkeWarding wrote: If we're talking capital R Religion, it's obvious that both Aristotle and Plato were non-Religious moral thinkers. However moral arguments must be anchored to a belief system. In that sense, appealing for sensitivity to animals is dependent on appealing to man's sensitivity to men. An argument may then made on the basis of relevant similarities between us and various animals, although appealing for all animals in the same breath may be casting too wide a net. I love cats, and could never see one of them harmed, but would praise St. Patrick's service to Ireland in the same breath. You can anchor your morals on logic. (don't use a scapegoat of "belief on your logical" on some shit like that). On May 29 2009 05:31 MoltkeWarding wrote: Without religion, there would be properly speaking, no argument against eating meat, whereas certain religions may deter carnivorism. Care to elaborate? | ||
|
Meta
United States6225 Posts
So my question to the vegetarians is, why don't you just eat organic meat? | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:31 iNfuNdiBuLuM wrote: If you're honest about the fact that you don't give a shit where your food comes from as long as it's 'efficient,' then go ahead and keep eating it i guess? One might say such a view point is morally questionable, but you don't seem to care As I said before, it's only 'morally' questionable in the eyes of those who see animals on the same plain as humanity. We are not equals. | ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:32 Aegraen wrote: I work out a lot, and bodybuild. My lifestyle requires vast protein consumption. The best source for this: meat. I'm all for having more options. Why should you tell me what I can and cannot eat? Edit: Of course, we won't all die, but rapid overpopulation of animal populations coupled with extremely limited diets, deficiencies in many nutritional/mineral needs and lack of N3 fatty acids, ultimately leads to a less healthy lifestyle. Then again, I enjoy eating food, and not multivitamins. I'm not really trying to tell you what you do, I'm just asking you to justify the way you live, which it looks as though you're having quite alot of trouble doing. Their are vegan/vegetarian bodybuilders btw. You can easily get more protein than you need from a bean diet if thats really important to you...It's a myth that people who require large amounts of protein need meat though, it's just that you're told from a young age that meat = protein when actually protein occurs in a huge number of different food stuffs. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:29 niteReloaded wrote: If there is a way to go vegeterian without suffering from untasty food, losing health etc. I think I'll go for it. Eating no red meat is healthier than eating red meat. Plus, almost all western people eat meat every day, which is already bad in itself. As for taste, most meat is given taste using vegetables and the like. Meat itself doesn't taste great. That's why. Only issue is probably the texture and how it's filling. But I guess if you just hate eating vegetables you just won't enjoy it. Because there are many people that do. But that's just an unhealthy thing to do regardless of being a vegetarian or not. So I think you should go for it. | ||
|
CharlieMurphy
United States22895 Posts
OP video is completely biased. Notice how all the footage is old and crappy? Because its not standard practice to abuse animals like that. A lot of that shit people went down for. And as far as the neck slicing and blood draining, that is the standard kosher (or jewish way) to kill animals. So blame the jews for that, lol. The more humane method is with things like a cattle prod which kills them instantly via electric shock. I've got nothing wrong with vegetarians in general, but when they try to convert people they are just as bad as any other group. Most of them are just as uninformed or disinformed as anyone else because they only see these out of context old videos and base everything on that. I am proud to eat meat, If suddenly the world died and reverted to the old hunter gatherer ways I would stay alive while you dumb vegetarians can turn pale-yellow and get more retarded from lack of proper nutrients in a human OMNIVORE diet. | ||
|
MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
For vegetarian religions: Hinduism, Buddhism | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:43 CharlieMurphy wrote: I am proud to eat meat, If suddenly the world died and reverted to the old hunter gatherer ways I would stay alive while you dumb vegetarians can turn pale-yellow and get more retarded from lack of proper nutrients in a human OMNIVORE diet. I would eat meat if I were a hunter gatherer. Fact you say this shows you don't understand the motivations of vegetarians. Yet you talk about uninformed. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:34 Piy wrote: K, fair enough I'll respond to this. You say that animals shouldn't be treated badly outside of food production? Well I think that you're being selective with your definition of suffering then. So we shouldn't treat animals poorly, but if we can treat them badly and make a profit thats fine. Wait, wut? What if I was to rent out my dog and allow other people to kick it? thats giving me a profit, shame about the dog though. But I can already see what you're thinking :p Thats not providing food for humanity. Of course I forgot we "need" to eat meat or we'll die of massive defficiencies. That explains how dead I am, and how dead my vegan friends are. Wait, wut? Since you seem to appreciate that animals can suffer and that we should try and prevent their suffering in most cases, how can you justify intensively farming/killing animals when we don't need to? That just seems counter intuitive and baffles me. Here, I'll explain this as simply as I can. Food production needs to be streamlined, cost efficient, and ultimately whatever drives down the price of meat, is a good thing for humanity. The cheaper it is, the more available it becomes to a greater sect of humanity. I'm not sure you know this, but charities also buy food. You also contradicted what I said in your first two paragraphs. You explicitly at least, in the first paragraph comprehended that I was talking about food production. Then in the next paragraph you somehow jump to dog kicking and profits, when I specifically laid out 'food production', IE not pets, nor wild animals that aren't being hunted. So, I'm confused if you understand what I'm saying or not. It is in the best interest of humanity, to make food cheaper. Do you agree? If you arbitrarily raise food prices by regulation, and cut off unfortunate people from food, they otherwise could have afforded, how in any sense of morality do you justify yourself over me. You see, I'll say this again. I put humanity above animals. If an animals death causes its suffering, yet, the end product being cheaper than if we were to, say, minimize their pain at death which would increase the price, but in the process that increase of food caused one person to starve to death somewhere in the world because of the increased costs to say The Red Cross so they couldn't purchase as much do you still feel morally justified? So, demonize me all you want. Feel superior. Fine and dandy. Whatever helps you sleep at night. To your last point. I don't place totalitarian restrictions on what people can, and cannot eat. If you want to do that, I would wager North Korea would be more suitable if you can wiggle your way into government? | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:46 Aegraen wrote: So, demonize me all you want. Feel superior. Fine and dandy. Whatever helps you sleep at night. rofl | ||
|
suffeli
Finland772 Posts
| ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:43 CharlieMurphy wrote: PETA are hypocritical terrorist supporters. I am not joking. OP video is completely biased. Notice how all the footage is old and crappy? Because its not standard practice to abuse animals like that. A lot of that shit people went down for. And as far as the neck slicing and blood draining, that is the standard kosher (or jewish way) to kill animals. So blame the jews for that, lol. The more humane method is with things like a cattle prod which kills them instantly via electric shock. I've got nothing wrong with vegetarians in general, but when they try to convert people they are just as bad as any other group. Most of them are just as uninformed or disinformed as anyone else because they only see these out of context old videos and base everything on that. I am proud to eat meat, If suddenly the world died and reverted to the old hunter gatherer ways I would stay alive while you dumb vegetarians can turn pale-yellow and get more retarded from lack of proper nutrients in a human OMNIVORE diet. Vegetarians just don't want to see people killing animals when theres no need to, especially when few meat eaters have actually thought it through properly. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:42 Piy wrote: I'm not really trying to tell you what you do, I'm just asking you to justify the way you live, which it looks as though you're having quite alot of trouble doing. Their are vegan/vegetarian bodybuilders btw. You can easily get more protein than you need from a bean diet if thats really important to you...It's a myth that people who require large amounts of protein need meat though, it's just that you're told from a young age that meat = protein when actually protein occurs in a huge number of different food stuffs. www.abcbodybuilding.com I'm quite versed in nutritional studies thank you. The caloric intake, and the quantity of beans > protein vice meat > protein prohibits such widespread consumption. Anyways, this is all besides the crux of the issue. I'm wondering, if you want people to not eat meat, you propose the free roam of animal populations. What do you propose once the populations exceed safe numbers? Kill them? Anyways, I'm not having any problems with the way I live. I don't have to justify it to anyone. I'm perfectly content and happy with who I am, and how I live. Are you? Do you feel you have to justify your existence? Questions to ponder over. | ||
|
CharlieMurphy
United States22895 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:45 Diomedes wrote: I would eat meat if I were a hunter gatherer. Fact you say this shows you don't understand the motivations of vegetarians. Yet you talk about uninformed. Vegetarians are the way they are for one of these reasons, some believe it is more healthy, some are just pro life, blah blah. The fact of the matter is some of you vegans produce biased videos like this in order to try and convert people to your side just like any other bullshit religion or whatever. On May 29 2009 05:42 Diomedes wrote: Eating no red meat is healthier than eating red meat. Plus, almost all western people eat meat every day, which is already bad in itself. As for taste, most meat is given taste using vegetables and the like. Meat itself doesn't taste great. That's why. Only issue is probably the texture and how it's filling. But I guess if you just hate eating vegetables you just won't enjoy it. Because there are many people that do. But that's just an unhealthy thing to do regardless of being a vegetarian or not. So I think you should go for it. You are a retard if you believe this. lol people only eat meat to fill and the texture? Lol meat is only given taste by vegetables? You think meat is unhealthy? This is exactly what I'm talking about, vegans trying to convince everyone that they are bad/wrong and need to convert to their cult. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
Vegetarians are the way they are for one of these reasons, some believe it is more healthy, some are just pro life, blah blah. I am not 'pro life'. Yet I am a vegetarian. Do you really thing that if you ask a vegetarian "If you were a tiger, what would you do?" they will mostly answer "starve." | ||
|
CoL_DarkstaR
Germany649 Posts
Like, people that ONLY eat meat? :D | ||
|
King K. Rool
Canada4408 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:31 iNfuNdiBuLuM wrote: Pretty much. I eat meat, hence I like it when meat is cheaper (of course there are quality standards to think about too). I don't find this morally questionable, since I don't hold the same opinion you do about animals.If you're honest about the fact that you don't give a shit where your food comes from as long as it's 'efficient,' then go ahead and keep eating it i guess? One might say such a view point is morally questionable, but you don't seem to care | ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:46 Aegraen wrote: Here, I'll explain this as simply as I can. Food production needs to be streamlined, cost efficient, and ultimately whatever drives down the price of meat, is a good thing for humanity. The cheaper it is, the more available it becomes to a greater sect of humanity. I'm not sure you know this, but charities also buy food. You also contradicted what I said in your first two paragraphs. You explicitly at least, in the first paragraph comprehended that I was talking about food production. Then in the next paragraph you somehow jump to dog kicking and profits, when I specifically laid out 'food production', IE not pets, nor wild animals that aren't being hunted. So, I'm confused if you understand what I'm saying or not. It is in the best interest of humanity, to make food cheaper. Do you agree? If you arbitrarily raise food prices by regulation, and cut off unfortunate people from food, they otherwise could have afforded, how in any sense of morality do you justify yourself over me. You see, I'll say this again. I put humanity above animals. If an animals death causes its suffering, yet, the end product being cheaper than if we were to, say, minimize their pain at death which would increase the price, but in the process that increase of food caused one person to starve to death somewhere in the world because of the increased costs to say The Red Cross so they couldn't purchase as much do you still feel morally justified? So, demonize me all you want. Feel superior. Fine and dandy. Whatever helps you sleep at night. To your last point. I don't place totalitarian restrictions on what people can, and cannot eat. If you want to do that, I would wager North Korea would be more suitable if you can wiggle your way into government? Heres the thing though. You talk about the need to streamline food production for the good of humanity, yet meat is such a massively ineffeicient type of food. Once again it looks as though you've presented an argument for not eating it. I really don't appreciate the attempt to bring charities in there either, since it has nothing to do with anything anyway. But I can agree with you on one point. Driving down the cost of food is a good thing. But a good way to do that would be to increase the price of meat. Then more of that land could be used to grow other crops that would be able to feed more people. So here's my problem spelled out more clearly: Meat is inefficient. If we don't eat it we can still be perfectly healthy. You tip-toe around this point by constantly talking about the meat industry as though it's necessary to the survival of mankind and there's no point in imagining it didn't exist. So I'd conclude that you just like eating meat and are trying to find a justification for doing so. | ||
|
MuR)Ernu
Finland768 Posts
I could easily go vegetarian just for the heck of it, but not if i cant eat any tasty food ;_; | ||
|
zizou21
United States3683 Posts
| ||
|
MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
| ||
|
HeadBangaa
United States6512 Posts
On May 29 2009 04:08 GrandInquisitor wrote: I still eat milk, eggs, and meat. But I'm not proud of it. this made me lol | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:53 Diomedes wrote: The average western human already eats way too much protein. I am not 'pro life'. Yet I am a vegetarian. Do you really thing that if you ask a vegetarian "If you were a tiger, what would you do?" they will mostly answer "starve." How much does the average western human eat per day in grams of protein? What is the average, or normal consumption amount of protein per day for a human? | ||
|
King K. Rool
Canada4408 Posts
| ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
| ||
|
Infundibulum
United States2552 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:39 Aegraen wrote: As I said before, it's only 'morally' questionable in the eyes of those who see animals on the same plain as humanity. We are not equals. Then this is where we fundamentally disagree. Humans behave differently than other animals, but I don't believe that this places us on some different 'level.' There is no arbitrary ladder of life with humans at the top. | ||
|
IntoTheWow
is awesome32277 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:44 MoltkeWarding wrote: Logic is not an anchor but a link. For vegetarian religions: Hinduism, Buddhism No i mean. Why do you suppose the only argument against eating meat could be religion? How is logic not an anchor. Stop claiming stuff like you are some sort of supreme being and prove stuff. | ||
|
King K. Rool
Canada4408 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:01 iNfuNdiBuLuM wrote: Argument over then I guess.Then this is where we fundamentally disagree. Humans behave differently than other animals, but I don't believe that this places us on some different 'level.' There is no arbitrary ladder of life with humans at the top. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:55 Piy wrote: Heres the thing though. You talk about the need to streamline food production for the good of humanity, yet meat is such a massively ineffeicient type of food. Once again it looks as though you've presented an argument for not eating it. I really don't appreciate the attempt to bring charities in there either, since it has nothing to do with anything anyway. But I can agree with you on one point. Driving down the cost of food is a good thing. But a good way to do that would be to increase the price of meat. Then more of that land could be used to grow other crops that would be able to feed more people. So here's my problem spelled out more clearly: Meat is inefficient. If we don't eat it we can still be perfectly healthy. You tip-toe around this point by constantly talking about the meat industry as though it's necessary to the survival of mankind and there's no point in imagining it didn't exist. So I'd conclude that you just like eating meat and are trying to find a justification for doing so. I'll let out a collective /sigh first, then explain. Meat is not inefficient. I'm wondering how you came to this conclusion. On what basis do you propose this? Cattle ranches are very, very, small in comparison to huge swaths of land for 'vegetable' production. A cow, which can feed huge quantities of people takes up the space that 15 or so potatoes does, or 10 or so heads of lettuce, etc. In actuality, crops are inefficient when you compare SQ. Milage per quantity of food produced. Have you ever lived in farmland? I'm from the South, I have. I've been on ranches, inside cow barns, small town dairy production facilities, etc. The land it takes up is extremely small compared to the corn crops. The price of food has everything to do with everything that goes along with food. Open your viewpoint. Do charities purchase food? Do food kitchens not serve meat? Does the Red Cross not transport food overseas? Is this food free? Do you think if the food was cheaper they could supply more? What ramifications does increase food prices have? Seriously, you need to think about all the possible angles. I need no justification for eating meat. I like the way it tastes, and it supplies much needed nutrients and minerals. That, and humanity, was born as omnivores. Anyways, it seems you need a justification for the way you eat. I don't. | ||
|
iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
I try and select the dairy I purchase based on the company.. in Oregon we have lots of options to buy from places that do not treat their animals like that. That is the extent of my activism on the matter though.. I do not condone what they do there but I am not "up-in-arms" about it either. I eat meat because it tastes delicious and provides healthy benefits. Sure I could get it from something else but I wouldn't be getting that taste. I don't eat a lot of meat, I don't seek it out really.. but I don't really want to limit my options either. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:59 Diomedes wrote: Aegraen, make a ghost account if you want to trick me into answering your questions. I'm not tricking you at all. If you propose that we eat too much, then you can tell us how much it is we need to eat. If you can't answer that, then why do you think we should believe what you say? Proof is in the pudding, no? | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:01 iNfuNdiBuLuM wrote: Then this is where we fundamentally disagree. Humans behave differently than other animals, but I don't believe that this places us on some different 'level.' There is no arbitrary ladder of life with humans at the top. Then I ask you. If you had to choose between a person living, or an animal living, where if you picked one or the other, the other would die. Which would you choose and why? | ||
|
EarthServant
United States106 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:43 CharlieMurphy wrote: PETA are hypocritical terrorist supporters. I am not joking. OP video is completely biased. Notice how all the footage is old and crappy? Because its not standard practice to abuse animals like that. A lot of that shit people went down for. And as far as the neck slicing and blood draining, that is the standard kosher (or jewish way) to kill animals. So blame the jews for that, lol. The more humane method is with things like a cattle prod which kills them instantly via electric shock. I've got nothing wrong with vegetarians in general, but when they try to convert people they are just as bad as any other group. Most of them are just as uninformed or disinformed as anyone else because they only see these out of context old videos and base everything on that. I am proud to eat meat, If suddenly the world died and reverted to the old hunter gatherer ways I would stay alive while you dumb vegetarians can turn pale-yellow and get more retarded from lack of proper nutrients in a human OMNIVORE diet. I wanted to respond to this in my own way. I've been a vegan for the last 5 years, and I'm not a fan of PETA in particular, but I'd first like to note that the video footage is normally crappy and old looking not because it is old video, but because it was taken with crappy surveillance cameras. These cameras are known for bad images. It's not as if one of these factories is going to let you in there or act as they normally do with a full sized news or movie quality camera. I also know that most of this treatment still occurs because I personally know people who have taken video like this at pig and chicken farms in the last several years. The way that we treat our food animals is horrific, and there are more than a few reasons that you should be concerned about this, and more than a few reasons that individuals work to convert others (I am not among these, I am definitely not active in the 'conversion' community, you could say). First, I might note that when treated badly, animals produce specific hormones that are not good for their body, and probably also not good for ours. It is unknown to what extent these travel into our bodies. Plus, their cramped existence promotes disease and antibiotic use. These actually create stronger bacterial infections and increase the risk to the human population in general. Further, the environmental impact of factory farming is huge. There was an excellent article on it a few years ago in the Rolling Stone. Pink sewage pits at the pig farm, friggin' disgusting. There are health reasons for it as well, but I tend to focus on the environmental (antibiotics and superstrains of bacteria I consider environmental). I could personally give a rats ass about someones health, it is generally accepted that less meat consumption is probably optimal for health. The environmental issue is enough for me in trying to encourage conversion by any means possible. Toss in that 75% of all grain production in the US goes to feeding livestock (and the return calorie wise of grain to meat is negative), and that uses up lots of water and oil (oil for transportation & fertilizer, add in that most water in the US is used for agriculture), you have a major issue on your hands and lots of good reason to change habits and encourage others to do so. The last and a very important reason to reduce meat consumption is the ethical one. I believe that it is important not to cause pain to other creatures - basically the golden rule, I don't want to experience pain, so I would do well to prevent causing pain to other beings. From what I understand of nervous systems, and biology in general, we are far more similar to animals than we are not, and therefore I find it necessary to include them as a subject of my ethical discussion. Of course, animals eat each other, but they do not have our mental capability, and lack the capacity toward logical, ethical discussion. Therefore, they have exemption. We, on the other hand, do not. Damn you, Peter Singer. | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
| ||
|
EarthServant
United States106 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:10 Aegraen wrote: Then I ask you. If you had to choose between a person living, or an animal living, where if you picked one or the other, the other would die. Which would you choose and why? I would choose the animal to live, simply due to environmental reasons. Animals generally support and are an important part of the environment, where as humans are generally detrimental to that environment. If I had a real choice, I would choose neither, or I would give my own life. | ||
|
rei
United States3594 Posts
I also wonder this: are the majority of vegetarians from wealthy country and a stable income who never have to worry about not enough food in their daily lives? So they have enough time to worry about if it is moral to eat animals. My hypothesis is yes. | ||
|
Frits
11782 Posts
On the other hand I did cook an incredible steak this week which was just soooo good, I would definately miss that since steak is probably my favorite food in the world by far. At least it was a brand that lets cows wander outside on the plains in Ireland somewhere so I suppose it could be worse. | ||
|
King K. Rool
Canada4408 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:15 EarthServant wrote: Honestly, I doubt you'd be able to take your own life over something like this.I would choose the animal to live, simply due to environmental reasons. Animals generally support and are an important part of the environment, where as humans are generally detrimental to that environment. If I had a real choice, I would choose neither, or I would give my own life. | ||
|
BeautifulJudas
New Zealand33 Posts
The majority of humans in the world, including almost all those in African, Asian and South American countries, consume no milk after weaning, are found to have stronger bone structures with almost no occurrence of osteoporosis compared to milk drinkers in industrialised nations. In addition, populations which follow plant-based diets have been found to have lower rates of hip fracture than those whose diets are based on animal products, in spite of their lower calcium intake. Human infants lose most of their ability to digest the lactose in milk by the age of four. This is a natural process for most mammals, indicating that nature never intended milk to continue as a food source after weaning. Humans are the only mammals, apart from those in human care, that continue to drink milk after weaning and drink the milk of other animals. The dairy industry has exploited the gentle and docile nature of the cow in its pursuit for maximum milk output. Contrary to popular belief, a cow must be pregnant in order to stimulate milk production, similar to that of a pregnant woman and her newborn infant. Continuous milking and pregnancy takes its toll on the animal. The stressful conditions encourage the onset of disease for both cow and calf. Most common in young calves are gastro-intestinal disturbances, respiratory infections and hypothermia. Common problems in cows are bloat, facial eczema, lameness and mastitis. One o the most barbaric mutilations inflicted on dairy cows is tail docking. Tail docking is the removal of part or all of the tail either by rubber ring or a heated scissor-like tool called a docking iron. It is argued tail docking is necessary to prevent risk of contamination in the milk and to workers, reduction in disease and risk of injury to workers being swatted in the face. However, scientific evidence strongly disputes most of these arguments and has revealed docked cows display abnormal characteristics and behaviours. The reason meat eating is such a profitable industry is because so many people still eat it. If more people became vegans, the demand for meat would decrease and thus the farmers would move into other less meat intensive industries. Every major change causes lost jobs. Yet most major changes create other work opportunities. A drift from "snail mail" to email has cost postal jobs but opened up a host of IT jobs. If we all become vegetarians (hardly an imminent event to cause you concern, but environmental pressures may eventually precipitate it), employment in the meat industry would disappear and the demand for heart specialists diminish. To compensate, the fruit and vegetable industry would expand and supernumerary heart specialists could devote their energies to other areas of health. Most employers and employees have to adjust, especially as technology forges ahead. There is no reason why the meat and dairy industries should be cocooned from change. If we were all vegetarians this would not ruin the economy but rather help it. As vegetarians and, even more so, vegans require far less medical attention, there would be a huge saving on state health budgets. More money for other needs. Whenever there is progress in social standards, there will be losses in jobs. Rather, we should say changes in jobs. Those who farm raised cattle or sheep for slaughter can change to raising vegetables. A fraction of the land area is required to produce the same amount of vegetable food as meat. That is a lot less environmental destruction, including that of trees as well as water quality from faeces pollution. Yes, I care about cattle and sheep farmers. And I am sure we both care about starvation in countries such as Bangladesh, India and Mozambique. If we were all vegetarians, we could look after both farmers and starvers. The same amount of land presently devoted to cattle feed would easily feed the world's human population. | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
i'm not sure why people ITT think that just because you are concerned about the humane treatment of farm animals you are equating them to humans I would choose the animal to live, simply due to environmental reasons. Animals generally support and are an important part of the environment, where as humans are generally detrimental to that environment. If I had a real choice, I would choose neither, or I would give my own life. heh, nevermind | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:08 Aegraen wrote: I'm not tricking you at all. If you propose that we eat too much, then you can tell us how much it is we need to eat. If you can't answer that, then why do you think we should believe what you say? Proof is in the pudding, no? Because you are Aegraen. You really expect people to respond constructively? | ||
|
FirstBorn
Romania3955 Posts
In Europe atleast, EU standards forbid producers to kill anymals without painkillers. Also, hygienical conditions in most farms are very good and animals are treated with a lot of care. I've been in a farm like this recently and never seen any of the bad treatments in the video. But even with these conditions we could consider ourselves cruel. We do raise animals solely for their meat/eggs/milk and just because we can't give up the luxury of having meat on our plates. I for one, am not affected by this perspective. I don't really have a problem with the concept of being a vegetarian, but with some of the people that preach it. Being a vegetarian is one thing and trying to impose your own choices is another. Some vegetarians are a tad radical and only seem to see the empty part of the glass. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:15 EarthServant wrote: I would choose the animal to live, simply due to environmental reasons. Animals generally support and are an important part of the environment, where as humans are generally detrimental to that environment. If I had a real choice, I would choose neither, or I would give my own life. At least you were honest. Hopefully if I'm in the wild one day hunting, and a bear happens upon me and you have the means to either kill it, or let it kill me, I hope you have a change of heart, for that matter, anyone that may encounter you in any situation where its a killed or be killed between human and animal. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:18 Diomedes wrote: Because you are Aegraen. You really expect people to respond constructively? Want to then provide the source for your assertion? Come on, this isn't hard. I'm genuinely intrigued, not going to let me down are you? | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
In Europe atleast, EU standards forbid producers to kill anymals without painkillers. You can't make halal meat when you use painkillers. Also, EU rules force meat/animals to be transported across Europe. And here there are some minor rules but they aren't even enforced. It's an issue in Europe. Maybe less than in other parts of the world. But it's not like things you would disprove off don't happen regularly. Aegraen, you are an idiot. Just get out. | ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
why? According to you and I there is no universal scripture with all Right and Wrong written down on there. So how can you tell me its morally Wrong? Which dogma are you following? | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:22 FieryBalrog wrote: For all you people saying we MUST treat animals with so much dignity and respect that we can't raise them for food like this, I just have one question: why? According to you and I there is no universal scripture with all Right and Wrong written down on there. So how can you tell me its morally Wrong? Which dogma are you following? why do you think people are incapable of making a moral decision independent of dogma? | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
For all you people saying we MUST treat animals with so much dignity and respect that we can't raise them for food like this, I just have one question: why? Animals don't conceive of dignity and respect. It's about suffering and stress when it comes to animal welfare. Animals in factory farms go through a lot of human-caused pain, suffering, stress, dysfunctional behavior. Then ethical principles dictate that if you were an animal you wouldn't want to be treated that way, you shouldn't do that to them yourself. | ||
|
FirstBorn
Romania3955 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:25 benjammin wrote: why do you think people are incapable of making a moral decision independent of dogma? usually dogmas impose their own moral codes | ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
"The last and a very important reason to reduce meat consumption is the ethical one. I believe that it is important not to cause pain to other creatures - basically the golden rule, I don't want to experience pain, so I would do well to prevent causing pain to other beings. From what I understand of nervous systems, and biology in general, we are far more similar to animals than we are not, and therefore I find it necessary to include them as a subject of my ethical discussion. Of course, animals eat each other, but they do not have our mental capability, and lack the capacity toward logical, ethical discussion. Therefore, they have exemption. We, on the other hand, do not." If you truly follow the Golden Rule and you think it applies to all living things than you should kill yourself, since by existing you cause pain to other creatures, whether you are vegetarian or not. Think about how much energy you consume and how much that energy could have alleviated the pain and suffering of hundreds of other creatures with lesser energy requirements. A great deal of animals starve because you snatch eat the grain that they could have feasted on, you cultivate the land that they could have lived on, you build cities and destroy their habitat, by existing you do take part in all these things. Therefore by killing yourself you will reduce the net pain in the world which according to your dogma is our supreme moral duty. | ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:25 benjammin wrote: why do you think people are incapable of making a moral decision independent of dogma? Your idea that animals deserve our respect and dignity such that we cannot cultivate them for food in the modern manner is a dogma. It is a belief system that has no rational basis. | ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:22 FieryBalrog wrote: For all you people saying we MUST treat animals with so much dignity and respect that we can't raise them for food like this, I just have one question: why? According to you and I there is no universal scripture with all Right and Wrong written down on there. So how can you tell me its morally Wrong? Which dogma are you following? I can field this. There is no universal scripture of right and wrong. This is true. But you must have an intrinsic feeling that suffering is worse than being happy. This is true of all forms of life. Most people also feel that trying to alleviate others suffering is important. So if you accept that animals can feel pain it seems logical to try and limit this suffering. And since we can live without eating any animal products at all, why not do that? | ||
|
FirstBorn
Romania3955 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:26 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: The anti-vegetarian argument really just boils down to THEY'RE JUST SO DAMN TASTY :d Anti-vegerarians don't need arguments. The industry won't just disappear because some people don't eat meat. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
If you truly follow the Golden Rule and you think it applies to all living things than you should kill yourself, since by existing you cause pain to other creatures, whether you are vegetarian or not. What? You expect others to kill themselves to reduce your suffering? The golden rule dictates so? WTF If you follow the golden rule everyone has to commit suicide? | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
[quote] Aegraen, you are an idiot. Just get out.[/QUOTE] Whats up with all the ad hominems, can't you provide your source when called out on it, on something as blatantly misrepresented as what your preaching? Nope, I'm the idiot. :laughs: | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
| ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:28 FirstBorn wrote: Anti-vegerarians don't need arguments. The industry won't just disappear because some people don't eat meat. Well I think it's pretty important to be able to justify everything you do rationally. I'm not a vegan because of any moral calling or desire to change the world or anything, more just because I can't think of any logical reason for doing not being one thats acceptable to me. So I think meat eaters do need arguments. I think thats something thats very important for them to consider. | ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:29 Diomedes wrote: What? You expect others to kill themselves to reduce your suffering? The golden rule dictates so? WTF If you follow the golden rule everyone has to commit suicide? Easy. By existing, especially our modern lifestyle, you cause great pain to other creatures. Do you agree or not? And if you do, is it not your duty to minimize that pain according to the Golden rule? Which option alleviates the most pain? You could also make an argument for living alone in the forest and self-subsisting, like an Indian sadhu. I'll accept that also. But in no way can you justify your current existence if you abide by the Golden Rule in all things. | ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:28 Piy wrote: I can field this. There is no universal scripture of right and wrong. This is true. But you must have an intrinsic feeling that suffering is worse than being happy. This is true of all forms of life. Most people also feel that trying to alleviate others suffering is important. So if you accept that animals can feel pain it seems logical to try and limit this suffering. And since we can live without eating any animal products at all, why not do that? But if you want to use this principle use it fully. Your house is infested with termites, Termites have nerve endings and are presumably able to experience a disruption of those nerve endings which is pain (after all, don't we condemn those who pluck the wings off of insects as cruel?) Why should you call an exterminator? | ||
|
Kaialynn
United States242 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:11 EarthServant wrote: First, I might note that when treated badly, animals produce specific hormones that are not good for their body, and probably also not good for ours. It is unknown to what extent these travel into our bodies. Plus, their cramped existence promotes disease and antibiotic use. These actually create stronger bacterial infections and increase the risk to the human population in general. Bacterial infections that increase in strength due to resistance built up by the bacteria to a dangerous level are not going to happen. You're mistaken here. The risk entails the strength of the antibiotic being transferred into the human body where it will wreak havoc (as all strong antibiotics do). This is countered by inspection of animals to prevent this from happening. Also, the rate of bacterial mutation, while fast, will not be one to pose a threat. You might as well say H5N1 (Avian Flu) is only a single mutation away from H1N1(Spanish/Swine Flu), which it is. But what the problem is here is that more than 99% of mutations (especially point mutations) are either negative or have no effect on the organism. To say that the problem will not only go on to effect animals (and humans) stronger than before is to say that H5N1 will mutate into H1N1 tomorrow. It's probably not going to happen. The last and a very important reason to reduce meat consumption is the ethical one. I believe that it is important not to cause pain to other creatures - basically the golden rule, I don't want to experience pain, so I would do well to prevent causing pain to other beings. From what I understand of nervous systems, and biology in general, we are far more similar to animals than we are not, and therefore I find it necessary to include them as a subject of my ethical discussion. Of course, animals eat each other, but they do not have our mental capability, and lack the capacity toward logical, ethical discussion. Therefore, they have exemption. We, on the other hand, do not. Damn you, Peter Singer. So, what you're saying is that Animals who share Similarities to the human race and therefore share the same cerebral functions (IE: The Cerebellum? [Sorry, i'm not an A&P major and haven't studied the brain much ;/]) are on different levels of reasoning and thinking? The urge is still there, and continues to remain there, you're arguing that humans are above the reasoning level to cause others pain, but other animals who share similar traits and cerebral functions are therefore exempt? What about Monkey's, whose DNA differ less than 5% of humans, who are also Omnivores? Are they exempt from this rule even though their reasoning is closest to the human race? I understand the point you're trying to make here, but moral reasoning does not relate to the bodies natural urges (To quote Freud and other psychologists: Sex, Death, Food, Water, and Shelter). Note: I personally avoid meat, and am not in anyway proclaiming one way is better than the other. I do, however, support the advances that have been made in science and simply wish to point out any errors that have been made. I do not wish to be labeled as a troll, either, because I am NOT trying to troll, merely pointing out facts. Thanks. Also, to those of you who are saying that humans HAVE to have meat, you are wrong. Meat is simply the most effecient way to get the essential nutrients the body needs. There are plenty of plants, plant oils, and other products that can give the body essential proteins without the need of slaughtering animals. They also do not have to be in a multivitaman. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
Maybe you expect others to commit suicide for your benefit. So you can only follow it by committing suicide yourself. But generally, people are more sane. And then they don't run into this problem. And no one has to justify their existence. We all exist. No one was ever asked if one wants to or not. It's not our choice. So how can we be responsible for our own existence? | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:28 FieryBalrog wrote: Your idea that animals deserve our respect and dignity such that we cannot cultivate them for food in the modern manner is a dogma. It is a belief system that has no rational basis. i never said we can't cultivate them for food, it's the "modern manner" that is immoral, unhealthy, and destructive what's wrong with wanting the animals treated better? look how good kobe-style beef is | ||
|
jonnyp
United States415 Posts
How is logic not an anchor. Stop claiming stuff like you are some sort of supreme being and prove stuff. Logic is NOT an anchor, logic is only a means to an end. In order to use logic you have to start someplace, with some basic unquestioned principles (assumptions, axioms, common notions etc). That is why we have the meat eaters trolling the vegans and the vegans trolling the meat eaters. They both hold different basic assumptions and cant see how anyone else could disagree (which no one could disagree if they held those same assumed beliefs). As I said before, it's only 'morally' questionable in the eyes of those who see animals on the same plain as humanity. We are not equals. These seem to be the two different starting points for the meat eaters and the vegans, both used logic well to prove their individual points but because they started in different places they ended up in different places. And it doesn't help much to try to resolve the differences between these axioms using logic, thanks to Kurt Gödel (and his incompleteness theorems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Gödel short version=best logician in the past 3000 years) not even the field of mathematics is immune to this. | ||
|
FirstBorn
Romania3955 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:32 Piy wrote: Well I think it's pretty important to be able to justify everything you do rationally. I'm not a vegan because of any moral calling or desire to change the world or anything, more just because I can't think of any logical reason for doing it thats acceptable to me. So I think meat eaters do need arguments. I think thats something thats very important for them to consider. In my case, there is no argument. I come from an environement where people eat meat. As simple as that. My family used to grow pigs for their meat. I've witnessed them being castrated and I've helped my had kill and slaugther them when the time came. It was just the cycle of life. Meat is one of the cheapest source of proteins and raising animals for meat is one of the easiest wasy to get it. Surely, that's not quite of a good argument. But the fact that I won't give up the luxury of eating meat is all the logic I need. I knowingly fall into ignorance to preserve that luxury. I'm more of a practical person than philosopher. I don't see the need to argue about the matter because my luxury will be preserved anyway. | ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:36 Diomedes wrote: FieryBalrog, I agree that my existence causes suffering to others. No one disputes that. But the golden rule explains exactly why this is acceptable. Then explain it to me. If by living you create a net increase in suffering, why should you live? On May 29 2009 06:36 Diomedes wrote: Yet you misunderstand it and think you can only follow the golden rule by killing yourself. No, I think there are other balancing factors. Morality is more complicated than "Thou shalt follow the Golden Rule". That is what I'm saying. In full, my position is that vegetarians and vegans also cause suffering to creatures and are unwilling to give that up for convenience's sake. The vegan simply says, "not eating meat or any animal related products is a reasonable sacrifice, but asking me to give up my diet which contains frivolous foods, other consumer products, my electricity and my gasoline and so on... that is too much." I simply say, "giving up eating meat is also too much." We both agree that there is such a thing as "too much moralizing". We are just disagreeing over where to draw the line. There is no qualitative moral difference on either side even though some might claim it. | ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:34 FieryBalrog wrote: But if you want to use this principle use it fully. Your house is infested with termites, Termites have nerve endings and are presumably able to experience a disruption of those nerve endings which is pain (after all, don't we condemn those who pluck the wings off of insects as cruel?) Why should you call an exterminator? Ok. Well, you should probably not call an exterminator, if you're going to follow this theory through. I'll accept that. I don't really think that that proves anything though. You can still clearly save animals by not eating their products. And saving some animals + killing the termites is probably better than killing alot of animals as well as killing the termites. I mean, I think the basic system is to try and inflict as little suffering as possible, but you're obviously going to have to be willing to do some things that conflict with the theory unless you're planning on living a vey restricted life. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:42 FirstBorn wrote: In my case, there is no argument. I come from an environement where people eat meat. As simple as that. My family used to grow pigs for their meat. I've witnessed them being castrated and I've helped my had kill and slaugther them when the time came. It was just the cycle of life. Meat is one of the cheapest source of proteins and raising animals for meat is one of the easiest wasy to get it. Surely, that's not quite of a good argument. But the fact that I won't give up the luxury of eating meat is all the logic I need. I knowingly fall into ignorance to preserve that luxury. I'm more of a practical person than philosopher. I don't see the need to argue about the matter because my luxury will be preserved anyway. You don't need to justify what you eat, when we've eaten the same foods since the dawn of our existence. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
But I can't. So I don't eat meat. You can do even that but you expect me to commit suicide? I don't get it. It's not about too much moralizing. It's about applying the golden rule. And the golden rule is not the end to morality. It is just about applying what morality you do have consistently, without being a hypocrite. | ||
|
Rev0lution
United States1805 Posts
On May 29 2009 04:42 Wotans_Fire wrote: In that case you should buy organic? I've seen research that links vegetarianism with b12 deficiency. Humans have forever been omnivores it is only today that people have the luxury to be vegetarians and I don't believe its the healthier solution. You are correct, I imagine a vegetarian would have to shell out a lot more money to feed himself than a person with a normal diet. While I try to eat more vegetables now that I am more health conscious it doesn't mean I should throw meat out of the equation. Plus, I consider vegetarianism a upper middle class fad, nothing more nothing less. Maybe it's my prejudice, who knows? | ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:37 benjammin wrote: what's wrong with wanting the animals treated better? look how good kobe-style beef is I would love to see animals treated better. I don't, however, agree that there is any moral claim in the matter. I have the ability to desire things without giving my desires the weight of moral judgment. Too many things today, especially small things, become the subject of this. e.g. We need to clean up this river. But no, now we MUST clean up this river or we are morally BANKRUPT. This excess of rhetoric and judgment is a symptom of moralism, the idea that all actions in life have moral weight. | ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:45 Piy wrote: Ok. Well, you should probably not call an exterminator, if you're going to follow this theory through. I'll accept that. I don't really think that that proves anything though. You can still clearly save animals by not eating their products. And saving some animals + killing the termites is probably better than killing alot of animals as well as killing the termites. But isn't it even better to "save the animals" + "not kill the termites"? On May 29 2009 06:45 Piy wrote: I mean, I think the basic system is to try and inflict as little suffering as possible, but you're obviously going to have to be willing to do some things that conflict with the theory unless you're planning on living a vey restricted life. Exactly. And restricted lives are inconvenient and unfulfilling. So clearly there are other things that matter and have very real value beyond "inflict as little suffering as possible." | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:47 FieryBalrog wrote: I have the ability to desire things without giving my desires the weight of moral judgment. ah. must be exhausting. | ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:45 Diomedes wrote: FieryBalrog , so you would be ok with being treated by humans the same way factory farm animals are treated right now, if you were one, yeah then you can follow the golden rule and still eat meat. You live in a house built on cleared land. By doing so you deprive creatures of their home. Would you be OK with people depriving you of your home? On May 29 2009 06:45 Diomedes wrote:I don't get it. It's not about too much moralizing. It's about applying the golden rule. And the golden rule is not the end to morality. It is just about applying what morality you do have consistently, without being a hypocrite. I think I addressed this here: On May 29 2009 06:42 FieryBalrog wrote: In full, my position is that vegetarians and vegans also cause suffering to creatures and are unwilling to give that up for convenience's sake. The vegan simply says, "not eating meat or any animal related products is a reasonable sacrifice, but asking me to give up my diet which contains frivolous foods, other consumer products, my electricity and my gasoline and so on... that is too much." I simply say, "giving up eating meat is also too much." We both agree that there is such a thing as "too much moralizing". We are just disagreeing over where to draw the line. There is no qualitative moral difference on either side even though some might claim it. | ||
|
ShmotZ
United States581 Posts
 poor cows T_T. I think ill watch what i eat from now on, and more veggies. We should be thankful for the animals that give there life for us to feed ourselves D: | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
If I were a mouse I would not expect humans to not build houses even if that causes the destruction of my territory. Apparently you would. But at the same time as a human you just see morality as something you think about but is just too much of a hassle to actually put into practice. | ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On May 29 2009 07:03 Diomedes wrote: FieryBalrog, you don't understand the golden rule. You believe fish to be immoral if they don't to jump into the frying pan because if humans have to exert themselves to catch them this causes needless suffering? That has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm saying. Do you or do you not live in a house which when built deprived and still deprives creatures of their home? Would you like someone to deprive you of your home? (golden rule) Why do you still live in a house? You still choose to. And I still choose to eat meat. On May 29 2009 07:03 Diomedes wrote: Apparently you would. But at the same time as a human you just see morality as something you think about but is just too much of a hassle to actually put into practice. I'm afraid you do just the same. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
| ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On May 29 2009 07:07 Diomedes wrote: FieryBalrog, ever heard of the golden rule? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."? I know exactly what the golden rule is. Why are you having this much trouble understanding this example? You are the one who asked me if I'd be OK with people treating me like a farm animal since I'm OK with the way people treat farm animals. You don't want people to deprive you of a home, yet you deprive other creatures of theirs. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
You just make that up. What you repeat just now proves you don't want to understand the golden rule. I accuse you of double think. | ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On May 29 2009 07:12 Diomedes wrote: I don't expect any creature to not build a home just to make sure they don't get in the way of anyone elses. And I don't expect creatures not to eat meat if meat is a natural part of their diet. Not to mention your house didn't just "get in the way", it destroyed some creatures homes. And the highways you drive on demolished habitats. Etc. I mean, I don't personally treat farm animals badly since I don't come into contact with them. So I'm doing unto others just fine, am I not? Yet you expect me to take responsibility because I buy meat. Well then, I expect you to take responsibility for the consequences for driving on a highway that was built and destroyed the habitat of thousands of creatures if not more. Etc. | ||
|
StorrZerg
United States13919 Posts
| ||
|
seppolevne
Canada1681 Posts
| ||
|
GabrielB
Brazil594 Posts
On May 29 2009 06:42 FieryBalrog wrote: We are just disagreeing over where to draw the line. There is no qualitative moral difference on either side even though some might claim it. I have been vegan long enough to know better than to read through discussions like this. I just read the first and last pages...  Anyway, I really like what you said here. That's my exact position on vegetarianism, I don't believe it has anything to do with being morally correct, or that it makes me better than someone else. It all comes to down to where we draw the line. Most people here won't eat dog/cat meat. There are cultures where that is pretty common. It doesn't make anyone any better than them. I just draw the line somewhere else. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
You are responsible for your own actions. Appy the golden rule. Of course you are responsible. How can you even act surprised at this. I don't drive highways and yes I do take responsible for my own actions. I don't break the golden rule by building a house, which I never did btw. I could someday and when I do I surely will think about what is the best way to construct a house and that will include the enviroment. And I can do so because of the golden rule. The golden rule is the answer to the problem you think it creates. Which proves you don't understand it. So you don't take any responsibility for your actions, yet accuse me that I don't and should. You admit you refuse to apply the golden rule. Yet you try to use it against me while I do follow it. | ||
|
ghermination
United States2851 Posts
| ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 29 2009 07:15 FieryBalrog wrote: And I don't expect creatures not to eat meat if meat is a natural part of their diet. Not to mention your house didn't just "get in the way", it destroyed some creatures homes. And the highways you drive on demolished habitats. Etc. I mean, I don't personally treat farm animals badly since I don't come into contact with them. So I'm doing unto others just fine, am I not? Yet you expect me to take responsibility because I buy meat. Well then, I expect you to take responsibility for the consequences for driving on a highway that was built and destroyed the habitat of thousands of creatures if not more. Etc. Driving on a highway doesn't directly harm anything. You should take responsibility if you buy meat, not to be preachy or anything, but if you're going to say it like that then I'm going to answer likewise. The highway exists because a while ago people did some bad stuff, but now it's here. Not driving on the highway won't do any good. Not buying meat in a supermarket on the other hand, would DIRECTLY affect an animal. You can say it's second hand and indirect or whatever but you're representing the consumer. And yes, I would say that if you have a chicken burger in the house, and it'll go off by tommorow and you're hungry and noone else can possibly eat the chicken burger, then you can eat the chicken burger without feeling any guilt. | ||
|
Wohmfg
United Kingdom1292 Posts
On May 29 2009 07:23 Piy wrote: Driving on a highway doesn't directly harm anything. You should take responsibility if you buy meat, not to be preachy or anything, but if you're going to say it like that then I'm going to answer likewise. The highway exists because a while ago people did some bad stuff, but now it's here. Not driving on the highway won't do any good. Not buying meat in a supermarket on the other hand, would DIRECTLY affect an animal. You can say it's second hand and indirect or whatever but you're representing the consumer. And yes, I would say that if you have a chicken burger in the house, and it'll go off by tommorow and you're hungry and noone else can possibly eat the chicken burger, then you can eat the chicken burger without feeling any guilt. Isn't road tax analogous to the cost of meat in this case? | ||
|
seppolevne
Canada1681 Posts
On May 29 2009 07:21 Diomedes wrote: It doesn't matter if you mistreat the animals personally or not. I'd even argue that generally they are never mistreated by a human, just by the system as a whole. You are responsible for your own actions. Appy the golden rule. Of course you are responsible. How can you even act surprised at this. I don't drive highways and yes I do take responsible for my own actions. I don't break the golden rule by building a house, which I never did btw. I could someday and when I do I surely will think about what is the best way to construct a house and that will include the enviroment. And I can do so because of the golden rule. The golden rule is the answer to the problem you think it creates. Which proves you don't understand it. So you don't take any responsibility for your actions, yet accuse me that I don't and should. You admit you refuse to apply the golden rule. Yet you try to use it against me while I do follow it. You say "It doesn't matter if you mistreat the animals personally or not." But then get defensive and say that you "personally" have never built a house so you are ok? What do you live in now? | ||
|
Wohmfg
United Kingdom1292 Posts
On May 29 2009 07:27 seppolevne wrote: You say "It doesn't matter if you mistreat the animals personally or not." But then get defensive and say that you "personally" have never built a house so you are ok? What do you live in now? Lol, just what I was about to point out. Anyway, isn't FieryBalrog saying that he doesn't live by the golden rule anyway? | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
It has nothing to do with me claiming I am not responsible for the consequences of 'consuming' this house. | ||
|
seppolevne
Canada1681 Posts
On May 29 2009 07:23 Piy wrote: Driving on a highway doesn't directly harm anything. You should take responsibility if you buy meat, not to be preachy or anything, but if you're going to say it like that then I'm going to answer likewise. The highway exists because a while ago people did some bad stuff, but now it's here. Not driving on the highway won't do any good. Not buying meat in a supermarket on the other hand, would DIRECTLY affect an animal. You can say it's second hand and indirect or whatever but you're representing the consumer. And yes, I would say that if you have a chicken burger in the house, and it'll go off by tommorow and you're hungry and noone else can possibly eat the chicken burger, then you can eat the chicken burger without feeling any guilt. But if no one drove on highways then we wouldn't need them! Then we could give the land back to the animals! | ||
|
Ethenielle
Norway1006 Posts
| ||
|
WeSt
Portugal918 Posts
| ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
On May 29 2009 07:32 WeSt wrote: The meat I eat doesn't come from slaugherhouses. Even if it did, I would still eat it. Humans can't live based on vegetables ONLY. What about fish? Why don't you vegetarians fight for the fish rights? Oh right, because they are even dumber than those mamals. Why do you think humans can't survive without eating meat? And you think vegetarians eat fish? What's that comment even about? | ||
|
Wohmfg
United Kingdom1292 Posts
On May 29 2009 07:28 Diomedes wrote: He claimed I build a house. I never did. It has nothing to do with me claiming I am not responsible for the consequences of 'consuming' this house. No, he said that you chose to live in a house that while being built, destroyed animals' homes. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
| ||
|
da_head
Canada3350 Posts
until all humans in the world live in a decent home, and have enough food/water to sustain themselves, i don't give a shit about pigs, cows, and chickens. i personally think people who do, are morons. | ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 29 2009 07:29 seppolevne wrote: But if no one drove on highways then we wouldn't need them! Then we could give the land back to the animals! We could, but then I'd argue that our use for highways is greater than an animals use for a patch of concrete. | ||
|
uNcontroLable
United States1180 Posts
| ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On May 29 2009 07:19 VioLat0R wrote: I have been vegan long enough to know better than to read through discussions like this. I just read the first and last pages... Anyway, I really like what you said here. That's my exact position on vegetarianism, I don't believe it has anything to do with being morally correct, or that it makes me better than someone else. It all comes to down to where we draw the line. Most people here won't eat dog/cat meat. There are cultures where that is pretty common. It doesn't make anyone any better than them. I just draw the line somewhere else. I'm glad we agree. I do in fact respect vegetarians and vegans and I come from India, where a LOT of people are vegetarian and the whole "ahimsa" (do no harm) principle is a basis for a lot of philosophy over there. On May 29 2009 07:21 Diomedes wrote: It doesn't matter if you mistreat the animals personally or not. I'd even argue that generally they are never mistreated by a human, just by the system as a whole. You are responsible for your own actions. Appy the golden rule. Of course you are responsible. How can you even act surprised at this. I don't drive highways and yes I do take responsible for my own actions. I don't break the golden rule by building a house, which I never did btw. Dear lord, there are so many systems in which you take part I don't believe you for a second when you say you take responsibility for your own actions. Whether transportation, or housing, or consumer products, all of it is produced at a COST to other creatures (including in many cases other humans). Do you know how many creatures are killed or driven out of their homes by the systems you take part in? Of course you are responsible. How can you even act surprised at this? Its really hard to have a discussion with you when you are so firmly convinced about how you take responsibility for your actions, apply the Golden Rule, etc. and the rest of us don't. You really need to face the fact that you're not that different from the rest of us just because you choose not to eat meat. | ||
|
Zato-1
Chile4253 Posts
| ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
You don't understand the golden rule. The golden rule explains why I am allowed to cause suffering while at the same time I can claim it is moral to try to reduce it to the minimum. I am 'allowed' to kill animals and destroy their homes. You don't seem to understand that. It's a perfectly moral thing to do under some circumstances. Wasn't it your argument that the only other solution is suicide? Then how do you solve this problem? Also, me taking part in certain systems isn't the same as me being responsible for them. You are really puzzling to me. You first give me the solution, then the problem and then keep hammering down that there isn't a solution to the problem. | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
| ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 08:13 benjammin wrote: also, why does anyone have to be completely consistent in their views across all aspects of their lives? if they don't want to kill animals but they kill termites, who cares? that line of argument is just impossibly dense It's called principles.../shrug. | ||
|
Loanshark
China3094 Posts
Seriously if the slaughterhouses took their time to give the animals painkillers and better places to live and more humane killing methods, the price of meat would suddenly go up really high. Then everyone would buy less meat, prompting the slaughterhouses to go back to their old methods in order to survive. | ||
|
jello_biafra
United Kingdom6638 Posts
On May 29 2009 07:42 da_head wrote: eh, video didn't effect me. i will continue happily eating meat. until all humans in the world live in a decent home, and have enough food/water to sustain themselves, i don't give a shit about pigs, cows, and chickens. i personally think people who do, are morons. I second this. | ||
|
SoulMarine
United States586 Posts
Odd isnt it. | ||
|
ShaperofDreams
Canada2492 Posts
From the ecological "better for the earth" view that's like saying cars should be banned and everyone should use mass transport because is is more efficient and ecologically friendly. From the moral "animals shouldn't suffer" viewpoint I say sorry but tough shit. It isn't as if other humans don't suffer for our benefit and i prefer myself than animals in terms of quality of life. I am not saying I eat a cow a day and I am minimizing my meat consumption (for health reasons, I think Americans/Canadians eat way too much meat). It's unhealthy to only eat vegetables, only a small amount of meat is required for the "perfect" diet. edit** I guess this sums up to SUSHI FTW!! | ||
|
cz
United States3249 Posts
On May 29 2009 08:35 ShaperofDreams wrote: The simple fact is that I eat meat products because I like them. If you want to be a vegetarian go ahead but saying a person is morally bound is bullshit. From the ecological "better for the earth" view that's like saying cars should be banned and everyone should use mass transport because is is more efficient and ecologically friendly. From the moral "animals shouldn't suffer" viewpoint I say sorry but tough shit. It isn't as if other humans don't suffer for our benefit and i prefer myself than animals in terms of quality of life. I am not saying I eat a cow a day and I am minimizing my meat consumption (for health reasons, I think Americans/Canadians eat way too much meat). It's unhealthy to only eat vegetables, only a small amount of meat is required for the "perfect" diet. edit** I guess this sums up to SUSHI FTW!! I don't think any vegetarians actually argue from the suffering viewpoint, because then they'd have to accept that meat eating is moral and acceptable if the animal is killed without suffering (which really isn't that hard to do, just sedate it painlessly beforehand). I think the main veggie argument is that animals, as living, sensory beings deserve certain respect and killing them violates that. That and the ecological arguments. The other arguments are contradictory because they run into problems with humans eating plants which also happen to be alive. | ||
|
VegeTerran
Sweden214 Posts
On May 29 2009 08:35 ShaperofDreams wrote: The simple fact is that I eat meat products because I like them. If you want to be a vegetarian go ahead but saying a person is morally bound is bullshit. From the ecological "better for the earth" view that's like saying cars should be banned and everyone should use mass transport because is is more efficient and ecologically friendly. From the moral "animals shouldn't suffer" viewpoint I say sorry but tough shit. It isn't as if other humans don't suffer for our benefit and i prefer myself than animals in terms of quality of life. I am not saying I eat a cow a day and I am minimizing my meat consumption (for health reasons, I think Americans/Canadians eat way too much meat). It's unhealthy to only eat vegetables, only a small amount of meat is required for the "perfect" diet. edit** I guess this sums up to SUSHI FTW!! I'll quote wikipedia for you: "Vegetarianism is considered a healthy, viable diet. The American Dietetic Association and the Dietitians of Canada have found a properly-planned vegetarian diet to satisfy the nutritional needs for all stages of life, and large-scale studies have shown vegetarianism to significantly lower risks of cancer, ischaemic heart disease, and other fatal diseases.[11][12][38] Necessary nutrients, proteins, and amino acids for the body's sustenance can be found in vegetables, grains, nuts, soymilk, eggs and dairy.[39]" | ||
Empyrean
17010 Posts
On May 29 2009 09:06 VegeTerran wrote: I'll quote wikipedia for you: "Vegetarianism is considered a healthy, viable diet. The American Dietetic Association and the Dietitians of Canada have found a properly-planned vegetarian diet to satisfy the nutritional needs for all stages of life, and large-scale studies have shown vegetarianism to significantly lower risks of cancer, ischaemic heart disease, and other fatal diseases.[11][12][38] Necessary nutrients, proteins, and amino acids for the body's sustenance can be found in vegetables, grains, nuts, soymilk, eggs and dairy.[39]" While this may be true, eating a truly vegetarian diet that provides all of the essential nutrients, etc., needed for healthy survival is out of the economic means for many people around the world. | ||
|
Chef
10810 Posts
| ||
|
VegeTerran
Sweden214 Posts
On May 29 2009 09:09 Empyrean wrote: While this may be true, eating a truly vegetarian diet that provides all of the essential nutrients, etc., needed for healthy survival is out of the economic means for many people around the world. A vegetarian diet is cheaper than a meat diet both in terms of the damage on the enviroment and efficiency of water and land resources. Western goverments subsidize meat production which makes cheaper than it should. The majority of the worlds popuplation already live on a vegeterian diet. From http://globalhunger.net/statement-of-principles + Show Spoiler + 1. Hunger is a global emergency. The problems of hunger and malnutrition will be solved by more efficient and equitable use of existing world food resources and by increased international support for the selfdetermined efforts of low-income food-deficit nations to redevelop sustainable agricultural operations. Neither of these aims will be met by the expansion of foreign-owned industrial animal agriculture operations into low-income food-deficit nations. 2. Actions taken to address hunger must be cost-effective so that they will feed the greatest number of people possible. Because industrial animal agriculture operations entail higher usage of land, plant, water and fuel resources per calorie or unit of protein than the cultivation of plant crops for human consumption, the expansion of such operations in low-income food-deficit nations would worsen rather than lessen the problems of hunger and malnutrition in those nations. In contrast, sustainable cultivation of plants for human consumption offers a cost-effective method of producing healthy food for hungry people. 3. Foods produced as a result of hunger relief efforts must be safe, healthy, and consistent with traditional diets. Hunger relief plans which elevate consumption of animal-based foods are culturally inappropriate and likely to increase the incidence of diseases which are known to be related to high levels of consumption of animal-based foods. Low-income nations would be left to bear the health care costs and lowered levels of productivity associated with these diseases 4. Pollution and depletion of natural resources also threaten human survival. The impending global water crisis is a particularly emergent problem. Demands upon and pollution of already depleted water resources by new industrial animal agriculture operations would worsen this growing worldwide crisis. Land degradation and desertification associated with intensive grazing would worsen the impact of cycles of drought and flooding, further threatening global water security. 5. Poverty eradication must be pursued in the context of self-determination. External corporate control of industrial animal agriculture operations in low-income food-deficit nations would lead to profit extraction from impoverished nations as well as diminished self-determination within the agricultural sectors of those nations 6. A reasonable measure of self-sufficiency is required for food security. Industrial animal agriculture operations are highly dependent on capital and technology. They require large amounts of bought-in feed inputs, energy, and water. Therefore, the expansion of such operations in low-income food-deficit nations would worsen, rather than lessen, food insecurity in those nations 7. The aim of agriculture is to feed people. Low-income nations must not be pressured to convert their agricultural sectors into profit-generating components of foreign-owned corporations or to place the demands of international markets above the needs of their own citizens. Conversion of agricultural resources now devoted to food for local and regional consumption into resources devoted to the production of commodities for foreign markets would increase vulnerability to market shocks and, hence, increase food insecurity 8. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations must act in the interests of low-income food-deficit nations and must also recognize the shared interest of the citizens of the world in the preservation of the environment. The FAO must not cede to the interests of private corporations by promoting practices which would ultimately further impoverish low-income food-deficit nations and further despoil the environment upon which we all depend 9. The Global Hunger Alliance calls upon FAO, food policy makers, and non-governmental organizations to rise above national interests and profit motives in order to implement genuine solutions that will feed the world while preserving the planet. | ||
|
Empyrean
17010 Posts
On May 29 2009 09:15 VegeTerran wrote: A vegetarian diet is cheaper than a meat diet both in terms of the damage on the enviroment and efficiency of water and land resources. Western goverments subsidize meat production which makes cheaper than it should. The majority of the worlds popuplation already live on a vegeterian diet. From http://globalhunger.net/statement-of-principles + Show Spoiler + 1. Hunger is a global emergency. The problems of hunger and malnutrition will be solved by more efficient and equitable use of existing world food resources and by increased international support for the selfdetermined efforts of low-income food-deficit nations to redevelop sustainable agricultural operations. Neither of these aims will be met by the expansion of foreign-owned industrial animal agriculture operations into low-income food-deficit nations. 2. Actions taken to address hunger must be cost-effective so that they will feed the greatest number of people possible. Because industrial animal agriculture operations entail higher usage of land, plant, water and fuel resources per calorie or unit of protein than the cultivation of plant crops for human consumption, the expansion of such operations in low-income food-deficit nations would worsen rather than lessen the problems of hunger and malnutrition in those nations. In contrast, sustainable cultivation of plants for human consumption offers a cost-effective method of producing healthy food for hungry people. 3. Foods produced as a result of hunger relief efforts must be safe, healthy, and consistent with traditional diets. Hunger relief plans which elevate consumption of animal-based foods are culturally inappropriate and likely to increase the incidence of diseases which are known to be related to high levels of consumption of animal-based foods. Low-income nations would be left to bear the health care costs and lowered levels of productivity associated with these diseases 4. Pollution and depletion of natural resources also threaten human survival. The impending global water crisis is a particularly emergent problem. Demands upon and pollution of already depleted water resources by new industrial animal agriculture operations would worsen this growing worldwide crisis. Land degradation and desertification associated with intensive grazing would worsen the impact of cycles of drought and flooding, further threatening global water security. 5. Poverty eradication must be pursued in the context of self-determination. External corporate control of industrial animal agriculture operations in low-income food-deficit nations would lead to profit extraction from impoverished nations as well as diminished self-determination within the agricultural sectors of those nations 6. A reasonable measure of self-sufficiency is required for food security. Industrial animal agriculture operations are highly dependent on capital and technology. They require large amounts of bought-in feed inputs, energy, and water. Therefore, the expansion of such operations in low-income food-deficit nations would worsen, rather than lessen, food insecurity in those nations 7. The aim of agriculture is to feed people. Low-income nations must not be pressured to convert their agricultural sectors into profit-generating components of foreign-owned corporations or to place the demands of international markets above the needs of their own citizens. Conversion of agricultural resources now devoted to food for local and regional consumption into resources devoted to the production of commodities for foreign markets would increase vulnerability to market shocks and, hence, increase food insecurity 8. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations must act in the interests of low-income food-deficit nations and must also recognize the shared interest of the citizens of the world in the preservation of the environment. The FAO must not cede to the interests of private corporations by promoting practices which would ultimately further impoverish low-income food-deficit nations and further despoil the environment upon which we all depend 9. The Global Hunger Alliance calls upon FAO, food policy makers, and non-governmental organizations to rise above national interests and profit motives in order to implement genuine solutions that will feed the world while preserving the planet. Oh yes, that is true. I'm very guilty of looking at things from an Ameri-centric point of view, I suppose... But the way things are, unless there's massive change with our food industry (and I doubt the meat industry will allow it...they'll probably lobby forever), for most less-well off Americans, there's no way they can sustain themselves on a purely vegetarian diet due to the prohibitive cost. You're right though, that a vegetarian diet costs less energy to grow than an omnivorous diet (energy loss to higher trophic levels needed to raise meat). I just don't see anything changing in the near future. | ||
|
airen
Sweden82 Posts
On May 29 2009 08:39 cz wrote: I think the main veggie argument is that animals, as living, sensory beings deserve certain respect and killing them violates that. That and the ecological arguments. The other arguments are contradictory because they run into problems with humans eating plants which also happen to be alive. I'd gladly minimize the amount of suffering that I infect on the world around me, animals and plants included. But first and foremost I must priorize my own life. Thus, in order to survive, I must eat either plants or animals or both. And thus no matter what I create "suffering". But the key point to understand here is the difference between creating any amount suffering, and minimizing the amount of suffering. If I wouldn't allow myself to create any amount of suffering what so ever, indeed, I would be doomed. But if focus on minimizing the suffering, then I can shift my food intake towards more vegetables, cause with every piece of meat I eat, much much more plants would need to be consumed then if I ate those plants directly myself. I'm a "soft" vegetarian. I'm OK with vegans but I fear that they scare people off too much. My personal experience has also been that vegans, more frequently then vegetarians, drop their diet completely and go back to the general meat-diet. I wish people weren't so extreme about the entire thing and tried to be more open and experimenting about it :/. | ||
|
VegeTerran
Sweden214 Posts
On May 29 2009 09:21 Empyrean wrote: Oh yes, that is true. I'm very guilty of looking at things from an Ameri-centric point of view, I suppose... But the way things are, unless there's massive change with our food industry (and I doubt the meat industry will allow it...they'll probably lobby forever), for most less-well off Americans, there's no way they can sustain themselves on a purely vegetarian diet due to the prohibitive cost. You're right though, that a vegetarian diet costs less energy to grow than an omnivorous diet (energy loss to higher trophic levels needed to raise meat). I just don't see anything changing in the near future. Well the Vegetarian movement in western countries is stronger than ever and it's growing, sure we're also eating more meat than ever in the west. But more and more people are opening their eyes every day. Sure the meat industry won't disappear overnight. But if the world doesn't go under(enviromental disaster, nuclear war etc), i think in the future (50-100 years) almost everyone may well be vegetarian. | ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On May 29 2009 08:13 benjammin wrote: also, why does anyone have to be completely consistent in their views across all aspects of their lives? if they don't want to kill animals but they kill termites, who cares? that line of argument is just impossibly dense So if I don't want to be an asshole to other humans but I want to eat meat, who cares? The whole point is that minimizing the suffering of creatures, especially non-human creatures, is not the only principle in life. Everyone violates the principle "do no harm" for convenience's sake and for the sake of living a free and fulfilling life. We all make compromises because other things are valuable too. | ||
|
ghrur
United States3786 Posts
On the other hand, I have no argument against vegetarianism. It seems sound in health and economics, and I believe that the only reason people aren't vegetarian is because of nurture. (I can't become vegetarian either because I love meat too much. :p) | ||
|
seppolevne
Canada1681 Posts
On May 29 2009 09:26 VegeTerran wrote: Well the Vegetarian movement in western countries is stronger than ever and it's growing, sure we're also eating more meat than ever in the west. But more and more people are opening their eyes every day. Sure the meat industry won't disappear overnight. But if the world doesn't go under(enviromental disaster, nuclear war etc), i think in the future (50-100 years) almost everyone may well be vegetarian. "opening their eyes"?... get off your high horse. | ||
|
VegeTerran
Sweden214 Posts
On May 29 2009 09:40 seppolevne wrote: "opening their eyes"?... get off your high horse. So what argument do you have for eating meat? | ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On May 29 2009 09:41 VegeTerran wrote: So what argument do you have for eating meat? Can't speak for seppolevne, but personally I enjoy it. Enjoyment has value. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 29 2009 09:41 VegeTerran wrote: So what argument do you have for eating meat? The most basic, it tastes good, and we came into existence as omnivores. | ||
|
Rev0lution
United States1805 Posts
On May 29 2009 09:41 VegeTerran wrote: So what argument do you have for eating meat? 1) taste good 2) taste better than vegetables 3) taste good 4) taste great 5)fuck veggies 6) While I am pulling this one out of my ass I believe vegetarianism is far more suitable for developed nations because the individual can afford to substitute meat for veggies. 7) For other under developed nations or developing nations, meat provides far more fat, carbs and protein on a gram per gram basis than veggies. | ||
|
seppolevne
Canada1681 Posts
On May 29 2009 09:41 VegeTerran wrote: So what argument do you have for eating meat? Tastes good. | ||
|
L
Canada4732 Posts
Large scale plantations are probably 10x times as damaging to the environment than pastured cows. The excess nitrogen put into the soil, the slash and burn growing cycle in meridian countries, the vast rerouting of water via widespread irrigation, the massive increase in river and lake phosporous... The question isn't which source of food is better; environmental changes and techniques will favor one over the other as new methods and technologies are introduced. | ||
|
Motiva
United States1774 Posts
But seriously -- what? Do you think people even considered being vegetarians when they had to kill their own meals? Vegetarianism is a mute point -- noone cares or listens... If they did we wouldn't have 100k+ cows dying constantly.. predators eat prey case closed... You'd have more luck funding and researching and inventing intravenous nutrient supply suits and passing them out to every citizen (and even then I'd take mine off to eat meat) than you will with a true vegetarian political movement. And I'm all for the proper treatment of animals before their unjust execution for only their flesh. lol... I enjoyed the documentary "Earthlings" more. heh. | ||
|
Artosis
United States2140 Posts
| ||
|
ChinaRestaurant
Austria324 Posts
On August 08 2008 20:31 Ghardo wrote: + Show Spoiler + Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world's tropical rain forests. Last week, the president of Brazil announced emergency measures to halt the burning and cutting of the rain forests for crop and grazing land. In the last five months alone, the government says, 1,250 square miles, or 320,000 hectares, were lost. The world's total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over that period. (In the developing world, it rose twice as fast, doubling in the past 20 years.) World meat consumption is expected to double again by 2050, a projection that one expert, Henning Steinfeld of the United Nations, said was resulting in a "relentless growth in livestock production." Americans eat about the same amount of meat daily as they have for some time, about 8 ounces, or 230 grams, roughly twice the global average. At about 5 percent of the world's population, Americans grow and kill nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of the world's total. + Show Spoiler + Growing meat uses so many resources that it is a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: An estimated 30 percent of the earth's ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world's greenhouse gases - more than transportation does. Though some 800 million people now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens. This is the case in spite of the inherent inefficiencies: About two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, according to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. It is as much as 10 times more in the case of grain-fed beef in the United States. The argument that meat provides useful protein makes sense if the quantities are small. But the claim that "you've got to eat meat" collapses at the national level, even if the amount of meat Americans ate were not harmful. Americans are downing close to 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita per year (dairy and eggs are separate, and hardly insignificant), an increase of 50 pounds per person from 50 years ago. Americans each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the U.S. government's recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein. It is likely that most Americans would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources. Perhaps the best hope for change lies in consumers' becoming aware of the true costs of industrial meat production. "When you look at environmental problems in the U.S.," Eshel said, "nearly all of them have their source in food production and in particular meat production. And factory farming is 'optimal' only as long as degrading waterways is free. If dumping this stuff becomes costly - even if it simply carries a non-zero price tag - the entire structure of food production will change dramatically." If price spikes do not change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals. + Show Spoiler + Rosegrant said he foresaw "a stronger public relations campaign in the reduction of meat consumption - one like that around cigarettes - emphasizing personal health, compassion for animals, and doing good for the poor and the planet." It would not surprise Eshel if all of this had a real impact. "The good of people's bodies and the good of the planet are more or less perfectly aligned," he said. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization, in its detailed 2006 study of the impact of meat consumption on the planet made a similar point. + Show Spoiler + "There are reasons for optimism that the conflicting demands for animal products and environmental services can be reconciled," it said. "Both demands are exerted by the same group of people, the relatively affluent, middle- to high-income class, which is no longer confined to industrialized countries. This group of consumers is probably ready to use its growing voice to exert pressure for change and may be willing to absorb the inevitable price increases." In fact, Americans are already buying more environmentally friendly products, choosing more sustainably produced meat, eggs and dairy. The number of farmers' markets has more than doubled in the last 10 years or so, and it has escaped no one's notice that the organic food market is growing fast. These all represent products that are more expensive but of higher quality. If those trends continue, meat may become a treat rather than a routine. It will not be uncommon, but just as surely as the SUV will yield to the hybrid, the half-pound-a-day meat era will end. + Show Spoiler + Mark Bittman, who writes the Minimalist column in The New York Times's Dining In and Dining Out sections, is the author of "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian," which was published last year. He is not a vegetarian. i find it very interesting that most of the ones so vehemently arguing pro meat consumption here are from north america. this is a cultural thing i guess. north americans never had a great strength for remorsefulness. kill off the natives, the land is ours. establish an unregulated market economy and proceed with it until the overupgraded supertank runs out of fuel. and i won't generalize. in america are enough smart persons who can critically think for themselves, just the ones like funchucks are immensely ignorant and selfish and all they want to do is preserving their (totally unnecessary) luxurious lifestyle. (yes compared to ppl in ethiopia we all live luxurious fatass lifes) why abandon slaves? they are so convenient and look, they are cheap labour (well one has to feed them unfortunately) which is a great help for our cotton industry! check your facts, i can mathematically prove that we absolutely need slaves. PEOPLE WOULD LOSE THEIR JOBS. the only thing you are doing is defending your comfortable situation, which is understandable, but shows yet again how boundless an economy and its participants are which is geared towards the ultimate fulfillment of pleasure. you are only rich because others are poor, keep that in mind. and cutting your living standards a bit wouldn't hurt you as gravely as you try to make it seem. *edit* on a sidenote: it's absolutely possible and not that hard to live without ANY animal products. as travis already said it depends on a proper diet. in the case of a vegan lifestyle more or less the only thing you have to do is see that you get enough vitamin b12 which is contained in various multi vitamin juices. proteins are just as easily acquired through nuts, tofu, beans etc. it's just a matter of you and your willingness to go without "the satisfaction of your bodily wants", as ghandi put it | ||
|
Empyrean
17010 Posts
On May 29 2009 09:41 VegeTerran wrote: So what argument do you have for eating meat? Well, evolutionarily, humans arose eating meat (although yes, mostly plant sources of food). Meat also provides high quality proteins and fat which are essential in our diet. Though granted, you -can- find them in food from plant sources, it's much easier to just get it from animal sources. Meat's also quite tasty. Personally, I try to limit my meat intake, though by no means do I find anything wrong with eating it. Most of my diet (if all goes according to plan, of course) comes from plant sources, such as vegetables, grains, vegetable products such as tofu, etc., but I'll also consume meat, fish, and animal-sourced products (eggs, cheese, etc.) fairly regularly. | ||
|
Mastermind
Canada7096 Posts
This is pretty much how I feel on the topic. | ||
|
D10
Brazil3409 Posts
If I reencarnated as a cow nowdays id like to die fairly quickly so I could continue my path to illumination faster. More animals being bred for eating = more souls getting illuminated therefore eating meat = spreading illumination thro the cosmos | ||
|
benjammin
United States2728 Posts
On May 29 2009 10:14 D10 wrote: Lets suppose that everything has a soul at one point, and that one day we were rocks. If I reencarnated as a cow nowdays id like to die fairly quickly so I could continue my path to illumination faster. More animals being bred for eating = more souls getting illuminated therefore eating meat = spreading illumination thro the cosmos wat | ||
|
D10
Brazil3409 Posts
| ||
|
Empyrean
17010 Posts
On May 29 2009 10:14 D10 wrote: Lets suppose that everything has a soul at one point, and that one day we were rocks. If I reencarnated as a cow nowdays id like to die fairly quickly so I could continue my path to illumination faster. More animals being bred for eating = more souls getting illuminated therefore eating meat = spreading illumination thro the cosmos Well if people were reincarnated as wheat, then combine harvesters must be pretty efficient soul illuminating machines. ... | ||
|
ssenwen
United States7 Posts
On May 29 2009 10:14 D10 wrote: Lets suppose that everything has a soul at one point, and that one day we were rocks. If I reencarnated as a cow nowdays id like to die fairly quickly so I could continue my path to illumination faster. More animals being bred for eating = more souls getting illuminated therefore eating meat = spreading illumination thro the cosmos ...wut? One day we were rocks? Isn't it necessary to live to reincarnate? Wth is getting illuminated? Confusing... Meat taste good...Meat good for body...so man eat meat :D | ||
|
Kentor
United States5784 Posts
| ||
|
D10
Brazil3409 Posts
On May 29 2009 10:22 Empyrean wrote: Well if people were reincarnated as wheat, then combine harvesters must be pretty efficient soul illuminating machines. ... They are vital parts of the system, the wheat doesnt want much more than to be harvested and feed people as tasty bread. | ||
|
koOl
Canada254 Posts
| ||
|
D10
Brazil3409 Posts
On May 29 2009 10:39 koOl wrote: i was veg for 2 years...ppl who are making the argument that its ok to eat meat because were smarter or human so we have the right....well thats rediculous. does that mean if an alien comes along that is wayy smarter then us, it has the right to harvest humans for meat? No because we are sentient beings. If something isnt rationally aware of his surroundings then hes asking to be labeled, and if hes tasty he will probably be labeled food. edit: Yea lol | ||
|
Empyrean
17010 Posts
On May 29 2009 10:39 koOl wrote: i was veg for 2 years...ppl who are making the argument that its ok to eat meat because were smarter or human so we have the right....well thats rediculous. does that mean if an alien comes along that is wayy smarter then us, it has the right to harvest humans for meat? Yes, of course. If the aliens are superior in a way that is analogous to the superiority humans have over animals in our sentience, then I wouldn't be opposed to it at all. EDIT: Haha, me and D10 posted pretty much the same thing at the same time XD | ||
|
Licmyobelisk
Philippines3682 Posts
On May 29 2009 10:46 Empyrean wrote: Yes, of course. If the aliens are superior in a way that is analogous to the superiority humans have over animals in our sentience, then I wouldn't be opposed to it at all. EDIT: Haha, me and D10 posted pretty much the same thing at the same time XD LOL at zerg-minded people | ||
|
koOl
Canada254 Posts
On May 29 2009 10:46 Empyrean wrote: Yes, of course. If the aliens are superior in a way that is analogous to the superiority humans have over animals in our sentience, then I wouldn't be opposed to it at all. EDIT: Haha, me and D10 posted pretty much the same thing at the same time XD yea sure...somehow i have a hard time beleiving that thats how u would act in that situation | ||
|
Empyrean
17010 Posts
On May 29 2009 10:54 koOl wrote: yea sure...somehow i have a hard time beleiving that thats how u would act in that situation If the aliens are more advanced than to such a sufficient degree rivaling our relationship with animals regarding the fact that we are sentient and they are not, then honestly, I wouldn't even care. I probably wouldn't even notice that we were being farmed for food. | ||
|
D10
Brazil3409 Posts
| ||
Carnac
Germany / USA16648 Posts
Technically humans are omnivores, but since we are humans and not animals we also have a choice. Obviously the easiest way to have a well balanced diet is to be omnivore and eat a good mix. Ovo-lacto-vegetarians still have it relatively easy and once you get to real full veganism it becomes almost impossible, at least without dietary supplements. Most people eat way too much meat. Personally I very little meat, but I do enjoy it when I do (and I also like fish & seafood). I dislike pretty much all sorts of cold cuts. Since I live alone and most of the time I don't feel like preparing meat for only myself, I often go weeks without eating any meat at all. I do eat quite a lot of eggs (like 6-10/week maybe? depends) and also some dairy products (no milk though), I'd hate not to be able to eat eggs, so I'd never be a vegan :p An ovo-(lacto)-vegetarian maybe, but I don't see a reason for it. I do care a lot about my food, more than many people I know. Not in an extreme way, but I want quality. I was shaped a lot by my mom in this regard. She's french and one hell of a cook, cooks every day for dinner and twice a day when she doesn't work (weekends etc), I went with her to a farmer's market every saturday as a kid (and now that I live alone do it pretty often myself), etc. Some things I buy organic, some I don't. I think I eat less processed food than many people and like no convenience food at all, there are a lot of "trends" in the food industry at which I can only laugh (either in disgust or because of the sheer uselessness). Also walking into McDonalds (or similar "restaurants") is a very effective way for me to lose my appetite just by looking at the food (I have eaten there exactly 3 times in my life, each time only fries...). Oh yeah, I don't own a microwave and if I did I'd prolly only use it to defrost stuff from my freezer. That being said I don't necessarily always eat very healthy either, like too much chocolate at times, etc :p Back to the topic of meat..., didn't watch much of the video myself, but I know my fair share of´videos like this. I'd like to recommend Unser täglich Brot (Our Daily Bread) to everyone interested in food. It's a German documentary about food production, all different food, veggies, meat, eggs, fish, etc. Nothing extremely disturbing in it, but pretty thought-provoking. It's also has no commentary or explanations at all, so it's a very different type of documentary. Really, everyone watch this I don't want the animals that provide the little meat I eat to suffer unnecessarily. Yes, their "main purpose" is to feed us, but that doesn't mean we have to impose all kind of shit on them. I'd gladly pay a little more for that and by the same way also get better quality meat (industrialized "meat production" my ass -.-). I also never buy eggs from battery chickens (although I know that probably all eggs in most prefabricated products like cookies etc come from battery chickes, so it's kind of inconsequent), but only free-range eggs. Whoever said that meat is already expensive I suggest looking over some figures of how expensive it used to be, especially compared to people's income, also how much of a household's budget used to be spent on food like 50 years ago compared to now. I want some Kobe beef btw | ||
|
Robinsa
Japan1333 Posts
| ||
|
Empyrean
17010 Posts
On May 29 2009 11:27 Robinsa wrote: Moraly there is no valid argument to eat meat. We don't need it, it's not cost efficent and we're hurting other living animals. Well shit, you might want to tell that to the thousands of bunnies, chipmunks and cute fuzzy animals who get viciously sliced and splayed open daily by industrial threshers harvesting wheat and other cereal crops. | ||
|
D10
Brazil3409 Posts
On May 29 2009 11:27 Robinsa wrote: Moraly there is no valid argument to eat meat. We don't need it, it's not cost efficent and we're hurting other living animals. Actually we dont need food at all, we should early on adapt our body to a realy light diet with pills and water mostly but we dont do it. Same reason why we put salt and suggar in our food, or drink caffeine etc... we are addicted to pleasure, and we dont really care about morals when people are talking about taking the luxuries you have for granted away. | ||
KizZBG
u gotta skate8152 Posts
| ||
|
Klive5ive
United Kingdom6056 Posts
Feeling sad for other people makes evolutionary sense, because if everyone looks out for one another we are all better off. We can project other peoples feelings on to ourselves, seeing someone sad, makes you sad. It brings us together and unites us. Projecting how animals feel onto ourselves is just that trait being incorrectly applied. You don't feel bad when you step on an ant, because it doesn't have a human-like face. Basically, not eating meat because of how animals are treated is ridiculous. If you feel bad watching the video... then don't watch it. It's as simple as that. | ||
|
OmgIRok
Taiwan2699 Posts
| ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
| ||
|
JohnColtrane
Australia4813 Posts
On May 29 2009 11:27 Robinsa wrote: Moraly there is no valid argument to eat meat. We don't need it, it's not cost efficent and we're hurting other living animals. morally fried chicken tastes great | ||
|
PH
United States6173 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:20 iNfuNdiBuLuM wrote: You can like to do something while not supporting the harmful effects of it, you know. Liking the way meat tastes does not justify animal cruelty and ecological degradation. Hmm...what if it does? I can't think of a possible non-contingent argument that would put the animal's lifestyle over my convenience and I daresay even luxury. | ||
|
PH
United States6173 Posts
On May 29 2009 11:27 Robinsa wrote: Moraly there is no valid argument to eat meat. We don't need it, it's not cost efficent and we're hurting other living animals. Morally there is no valid argument to NOT eat meat. I said this before, and I'll say it again...everyone fucking projects human characteristics onto cute furry animals and feels sorry for them. No one gives a shit about fish or cockroaches. I call hypocrisy. That's right. What now? | ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
They are just as morally culpable as anyone else. If I am morally culpable for buying meat even though I never have touched a farm animal in my life (and thus can't be accused of cruelty or any such thing), then everyone is culpable for using the roads, everyone is culpable for using electricity, etc. All of which destroys environments and habitats and hurts creatures through pollution, accidents, etc. At some point we all draw the line based on convenience and living an enjoyable life, and the suffering of non-human animals isn't worth very much at all. | ||
|
Lemonwalrus
United States5465 Posts
Although I do often wrestle with the vegetarianism in favor of sustainability argument in my head, and I have yet to find a sufficient response to it. I guess I am just weak and like steak too much to let it go. | ||
|
Empyrean
17010 Posts
On May 29 2009 11:59 OmgIRok wrote: Vegetarians get more biomass than non-vegetarians because plants are the primary producer, and Humans, naturally, are 3rd/4th level consumers. But vegetarians, because they eat only plants, then become 1st level consumers. Since only 10% of biomass/energy is passed on to the next higher level, non-vegetarians would get only .1%~.01% of what vegetarians get. I don't even know where to begin. Yes, only around 10% of the energy is passed on to the next trophic level. But saying that non-vegetarians get less "biomass" in their diet is just stupid. First of all, you're assuming non-vegetarians eat nothing except meat, and no primary-producer source food in their diet. That's just inane. Secondly, on average, both groups (vegetarians and non-vegetarians) consume the same equivalents of biomass. It just took more energy for the non-vegetarians to gain their equivalents of biomass in the diet, but it's the same amount (on a population average). Your argument doesn't even make logical sense. Vegetarians get more biomass than non-vegetarians? Let's say person A, a vegetarian, eats nothing but ten heads of lettuce a week. Now let's examine person B, who eats ten heads of lettuce a week and a steak. Are you honestly going to say that person A "gets more biomass" than person B? Holy shit. What I think you meant to say (and is correct), is that it takes more energy to produce a kg of non-vegetarian diet than it does to produce a kg of a vegetarian diet, on average. That statement is true. | ||
|
-fj.
Samoa462 Posts
I don't eat much meat and when I do I try to eat from animals that haven't been factory farmed simply for the reason that factory farms pollute like hell and the meat contains all kinds of growth hormones and antibiotics that I don't want to ingest. Most of the meat I eat my family kills ourselves. It is much more morally comfortable (at least in a conscious mind, can't say the same for subconscious) when you humanely kill the animal yourself instead of having it raised and killed somewhere over the horizon, and then see a video like that. I'm less on the vegan track I guess, and more on the "no packaged foods" track. We have a garden too ^_^ | ||
|
gameguard
Korea (South)2132 Posts
On May 29 2009 11:59 OmgIRok wrote: Vegetarians get more biomass than non-vegetarians because plants are the primary producer, and Humans, naturally, are 3rd/4th level consumers. But vegetarians, because they eat only plants, then become 1st level consumers. Since only 10% of biomass/energy is passed on to the next higher level, non-vegetarians would get only .1%~.01% of what vegetarians get. lol? You got the concept wrong dude. What you learned in school is that 10% of the potential energy is passed on to the next level. Its just a figure to show the inefficiency in metabolism. You are getting 1% or .1% or whatever of the biomass the cow ate in his lifetime, which is alot different from 1% of biomass of the cow itself. | ||
|
Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
| ||
Hot_Bid
Braavos36379 Posts
Kennigit I know you enjoy eating meat constantly (LOL) but don't hate on Artosis and the other vegetables please. | ||
|
KurtistheTurtle
United States1966 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + For every animal you don't eat, I'll eat two | ||
|
Infundibulum
United States2552 Posts
On May 29 2009 12:38 PH wrote: Hmm...what if it does? I can't think of a possible non-contingent argument that would put the animal's lifestyle over my convenience and I daresay even luxury. This thread is such a shitheap i don't know why i'm replying. ugh. In my opinion, liking the way something tastes isn't a justification for the method it was produced. There are many bad things involved in the making of mass produced meat. They have been discussed before, and include: cruelty, pollution (air and water), growth hormones in food, and deforestation (e.g. Brazil) which leads to a degraded landscape that is eventually unusable for any sort of agricultural production. These aren't some made up bullshit facts by environmentalists, this stuff has happened in the past and is happening in the present. When faced with these issues, his reaction (and yours and many others) was to say "but I like eating meat, so all of that doesn't matter." It's a completely disconnected thought process. If I like wearing Nike shoes, does that make it O.K. that they were made by children in scummy ass sweatshops in southeast asia? Now obviously someones response to that will assert that humans are superior to animals and therefore its perfectly acceptable to treat them any way we please. Again I would argue that this is not true. Completely ignoring the cruelty aspect for now - there are ways to get cruelty free meat - consider the host of environmental and ecological problems caused by mass meat production. Often these problems directly affect us and our quality of life: global warming from deforestation, lake, river, and sea eutrophication due to overfertilization; river pollution frrom animal shit off of farms, loss of biodiversity, hormones and antibiotics in meat that we eat. I think that all of these issues practically require that we rethink the way our meat is produced and where it comes from. These problems are a direct consequence of the treatment of our meat animals. "But I like it" is a selfish and shortsighted excuse. And FieryBalrog, the reason vegetarianism is such a big deal is that diet is one of the few parts of a lifestyle you have almost complete control over. Yes, the very act of living the western lifestyle is harmful to the environment and even to other people. However most of us didn't have control over where we were born and how we were raised, or choice in the matter that we have to drive to work to make money to eat and have shelter and clothe ourselves. If I had the means and necessary motiviation to become some agrarian hilldorf, I might do that. But I do not. Diet is one of the perhaps few places someone can make a conscious choice about his or her impact on the rest of the world. Some people choose to not eat meat and others do. That's essentially what it boils down to. The notion that one group is somehow "better" than the other is foolish. I say this shit and I'm not even a vegetarian. | ||
|
L
Canada4732 Posts
There are many bad things involved in the making of mass produced meat. They have been discussed before, and include: cruelty, pollution (air and water), growth hormones in food, and deforestation (e.g. Brazil) which leads to a degraded landscape that is eventually unusable for any sort of agricultural production. All of these including cruelty can be attributed to modern agribusinesses which produce non-cattle products. I suggest you look up how migrant farm hands are treated during harvest season and how monocrops are a prime source of damage to air, soil, water and genetic diversity.That's the problem: the issue shouldn't be Carnivore v Vegetarian. It should be Maximum production v. Sustainable production. | ||
|
GrandInquisitor
New York City13113 Posts
I'm not a vegetarian nor a beastialist, just curious how one reconciles the two. PS: The answer is not "you have to eat animals to survive", since you can survive without eating animals just like how you can survive without having sex with them. | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
1.) higher concentrations of nutrients per calories 2.) I don't like hurting animals, directly or indirectly. this said, I still eat some meat if served to me. | ||
|
Infundibulum
United States2552 Posts
On May 30 2009 02:22 L wrote: All of these including cruelty can be attributed to modern agribusinesses which produce non-cattle products. I suggest you look up how migrant farm hands are treated during harvest season and how monocrops are a prime source of damage to air, soil, water and genetic diversity. That's the problem: the issue shouldn't be Carnivore v Vegetarian. It should be Maximum production v. Sustainable production. I haven't read about this. Will check it out, thanks. | ||
|
Kaialynn
United States242 Posts
To those of you spewing the crap about humanity being evolutionarily carnivorous: You're wrong. Humanity evolved on the principle of 'If I get a chance at meat (IE: Once or twice a week) Then i'll take advantage of it!' They didn't evolve on 'OMG MEAT EVERYDAY.' The human body =/= carnivorous. Again, those of you arguing the historical aspect of carnivorism - It was a sign of power and wealth, not this crap of 'i'm evolutionarily adapted to eat tons of meat'. Now, to the people stating that vegetarianism is more effecient? You realize that if we were to go completely vegeterian, we would have to use even MORE deforestation and we would also have a huge problem on our hands? When you say sentient beings learn to make the decision of being vegetarian or not, you're applying the knowledge of 'i think it's more effecient to do it this way'. Which it is. In a small scale, highly developed country. In the mass production market, there is no way it would be more effecient. At least, not from the chart and graph predictions that I have seen. That said, I still don't eat a lot of meat. I really don't care what choice you make, as long as you're not trying to force it on me. *Cough*PETA*Cough* | ||
|
Fontong
United States6454 Posts
On May 30 2009 02:42 Kaialynn wrote: Now, to the people stating that vegetarianism is more effecient? You realize that if we were to go completely vegeterian, we would have to use even MORE deforestation and we would also have a huge problem on our hands? When you say sentient beings learn to make the decision of being vegetarian or not, you're applying the knowledge of 'i think it's more effecient to do it this way'. Which it is. In a small scale, highly developed country. In the mass production market, there is no way it would be more effecient. At least, not from the chart and graph predictions that I have seen. lol clearly if people eat less meat then we will need less livestock. since livestock dont consume any crops at all we will definitely need to cut down forests to grow more crops. fuck vegetarianism when we have cow and pigs and sheep that grow for free without even being fed!!!!! | ||
|
Dariush
Romania330 Posts
This video did not change my opnion. | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 30 2009 02:52 Dariush wrote: Honestly, i don't give a fuck about animals...humans own them, this is nature. This video did not change my opinion. go out into the wild and say we own them lol i could "own" you if i put my mind to it, that doesn't make it right | ||
|
Foucault
Sweden2826 Posts
On May 29 2009 04:26 baal wrote: By the way why is vegetarianism a solution for this? a person who fights for better treatment of animals is more effective than a vegetarian imo. But isn't it a bit ironic to be fighting for better treatment of animals and eating them at the same time? I mean, you're pretty much supporting the "industry" by playing along. Besides I don't see many of the people who say they'd like better treatment of animals actually do anything about it, myself included. I was hooked on straight edge some years back and was vegetarian for a while. I'm not anymore (actually this was like 10 years ago), but I still pretty much sympathize with a vegetarian lifestyle, mainly for the suffering and often barbaric treatment of animals. Then again, most of the time I don't really have the time to think about it because of the hassles of daily life and the constant stream of information bombarding us all. It's hard to focus on a single issue, no matter how important it is. I don't think humans are more important or better than animals and thinking that we are can be a bit dangerous imo. There's not necessarily a huge step to thinking that our culture are better than other cultures etc. It's a general thought pattern that isn't only about humans vs animals, but rather that some people are superior to others. I'm not sure what I'm aiming at because I haven't really thought about these matters in quite some while, but it just seems like a really bad thing to have any living being suffer at someone elses expense. | ||
|
Kaialynn
United States242 Posts
On May 30 2009 02:48 Fontong wrote: lol clearly if people eat less meat then we will need less livestock. since livestock dont consume any crops at all we will definitely need to cut down forests to grow more crops. fuck vegetarianism when we have cow and pigs and sheep that grow for free without even being fed!!!!! Yeah totally. You didn't even read my post at all. Pound for pound, yes, Meat is more ineffecient that vegetables/wheat/other crops. But do you really think that if everyone went vegeterian, we could feed the world (Or hell, a country) based on the crops alone and the buildings where cows are 'farmed'? Be serious. EDIT: Cows aren't grown :S | ||
|
L
Canada4732 Posts
On May 30 2009 02:55 Foucault wrote: But isn't it a bit ironic to be fighting for better treatment of animals and eating them at the same time? I mean, you're pretty much supporting the "industry" by playing along. Besides I don't see many of the people who say they'd like better treatment of animals actually do anything about it, myself included. I was hooked on straight edge some years back and was vegetarian for a while. I'm not anymore (actually this was like 10 years ago), but I still pretty much sympathize with a vegetarian lifestyle, mainly for the suffering and often barbaric treatment of animals. Then again, most of the time I don't really have the time to think about it because of the hassles of daily life and the constant stream of information bombarding us all. It's hard to focus on a single issue, no matter how important it is. No. | ||
|
Dariush
Romania330 Posts
On May 30 2009 02:54 travis wrote: go out into the wild and say we own them lol i could "own" you if i put my mind to it, that doesn't make it right I said our race owns them...not me personally...the fuck? | ||
|
Foucault
Sweden2826 Posts
Ok, thanks for elaborating. What I mean is that it seems more like something you'd think in order to have a better conscience, rather than actually caring about the animals. | ||
|
King K. Rool
Canada4408 Posts
On May 30 2009 03:00 Dariush wrote: I said our race owns them...not me personally...the fuck? With even a weekend of preparation a human can pretty much own any animals (okay, not counting those rare animals or undersea ones that we can't get to) | ||
|
L
Canada4732 Posts
On May 30 2009 03:01 Foucault wrote: Ok, thanks for elaborating. What I mean is that it seems more like something you'd think in order to have a better conscience, rather than actually caring about the animals. Why do I need to elaborate? It isn't ironic. Feel free to look up what ironic means. | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 30 2009 03:00 Dariush wrote: I said our race owns them...not me personally...the fuck? since when do u speak for our entire race? I am not part of that group of assholes that think they "own" animals | ||
|
Aylear
Norway3988 Posts
But mostly, vegetarians just piss me off. | ||
|
Dariush
Romania330 Posts
I don't know what's with this animal loving stuff lately...so much fucking attention to animals, instead of aiding poor countries, helping HUMANS. | ||
|
Klockan3
Sweden2866 Posts
On May 30 2009 03:21 Diomedes wrote: You realize that murdering 1 human to save 100 million ones is just as bad as just murdering 1 human. Lets say you had a helicopter hovering really high over some large city with millions of people in it. On the copter you have a nuke and a person. You are not there. You can push a button to drop the nuke on the city or you can let it blow up in the air saving most of the people in the city. Would you honestly save the person up on the copter? Trading life is a good deal when you don't have any other options, it is just that people see the consequences strangely. If I say: "Kill one person to save a million" many will hesitate since they feel that killing is bad, but if we instead say: "Kill a million to save one person" then everyone will agree that it is wrong, but in essence they are exactly the same thing, just reversed. As for meat, the energy requirement of a humans food intake is really really small compared to the energy requirement for an average humans lifestyle, eating meat or not barely makes a difference. The price on products correlate really well with how much those products drains the energy of the earth, so the best way to save the environment is to stop buying things, not having a car and live in a small apartment, but you will not do that since it would change your lifestyle too much but it would make a much bigger difference for the world than you stopping eating meat. Like, you don't spend your money on meat, then you spend it on other things which is hazardous for the environment. As for the ethical parts about it, I don't see the difference between that and humans exterminating rats for convenience. Of course when exterminating rats, hunting etc we have laws that it is forbidden to cause unnecessary pain, just like we have such laws for the livestock animals. If livestock are treated badly you should attack those who treats them badly, you got every right on your side doing that, however since we have those laws it is just natural for a meat eater to assume that those laws are followed. It is like, a Robber took a stereo system from someone and then sold it to a shop, should we blame the shop for accessory to robbing just because he helped the robber even though he had no idea of what happened? Most animals are treated decently, just because some aren't doesn't mean that we should condemn the whole industry. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
First off, if someone is trying to kill another person and the only way to stop him from doing that is to kill him then of course that is the only thing you can do. I also didn't say 1 is a bigger number than 100 million. If either one person has to die or 100 million and you have to make a decision then it's obvious what to pick. But murdering 1 person is that what it is, regardless of the excuse. If someone tells me to either murder 1 person or he will murder 100 million then I won't do it, obviously. If someone does, how is that less bad than any other murder? Extenuating circumstances, sure. But that doesn't take away your responsibility. Also all your other arguments against vegetarianism are trash. But it's more pointless to debate that than it is to debate with creationists. | ||
|
FirstBorn
Romania3955 Posts
On May 30 2009 04:10 Diomedes wrote: Klockan3, you don't understand. First off, if someone is trying to kill another person and the only way to stop him from doing that is to kill him then of course that is the only thing you can do. I also didn't say 1 is a bigger number than 100 million. If either one person has to die or 100 million and you have to make a decision then it's obvious what to pick. But murdering 1 person is that what it is, regardless of the excuse. If someone tells me to either murder 1 person or he will murder 100 million then I won't do it, obviously. If someone does, how is that less bad than any other murder? Extenuating circumstances, sure. But that doesn't take away your responsibility. Also all your other arguments against vegetarianism are trash. But it's more pointless to debate that than it is to debate with creationists. Man, you are so full of shit it hurts. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
There is pretty much reasonable consensus on it by those that have put thought into the issue. | ||
|
King K. Rool
Canada4408 Posts
On May 30 2009 04:10 Diomedes wrote: Klockan3, you don't understand. First off, if someone is trying to kill another person and the only way to stop him from doing that is to kill him then of course that is the only thing you can do. I also didn't say 1 is a bigger number than 100 million. If either one person has to die or 100 million and you have to make a decision then it's obvious what to pick. But murdering 1 person is that what it is, regardless of the excuse. If someone tells me to either murder 1 person or he will murder 100 million then I won't do it, obviously. If someone does, how is that less bad than any other murder? Extenuating circumstances, sure. But that doesn't take away your responsibility. Also all your other arguments against vegetarianism are trash. But it's more pointless to debate that than it is to debate with creationists. As for 1 vs 1 mil. Doesn't that make you a murderer of 100 million people then? | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
On May 30 2009 04:18 King K. Rool wrote: As for 1 vs 1 mil. Doesn't that make you a murderer of 100 million people then? Obviously not. Say I am an organ donor with a complete set of healthy organs. Say there are several people that die without a donor organ. You could you kill me, so that my organs can be used to save other people. If you don't, does that make you a murderer of those that would die without my organs? It's 1 life vs quite a few; heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, etc. | ||
|
FirstBorn
Romania3955 Posts
On May 30 2009 04:16 Diomedes wrote: FirstBorn, it's basic ethics. There is pretty much reasonable consensus on it by those that have put thought into the issue. That doesn't make you less full of shit. I do agree that the murder is murder no matter the context. If we cannot give life willingly, we should not take it. But going as far as saying you wouldn't kill someone that, if let alive will kill millions is bullshit. And millions is just a big number. Let's assume a serial killer will kill all the members of your family, all your friends, all the persons you are attached to. And if the only way to stop him were to kill him you bravely say you wouldn't. That makes you full of shit in my book. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
Learn to read. Also, funny that you think your argument is going to be stronger if a serial killer is to kill people I know rather than random people. Haha. | ||
|
Night[Mare
Mexico4793 Posts
On May 29 2009 05:39 Aegraen wrote: As I said before, it's only 'morally' questionable in the eyes of those who see animals on the same plain as humanity. We are not equals. so that gives the humanity the right to torture animals for consumption? you must be fucked in the brain to think that. We being 'superior' to the animals would mean we would treat them fairly, not abuse them for the sole purpose of consumption. actually i think you're just trolling if you cant feel a little empathy. I despise people who belive them superior to other beings. It's just the same shit the nazi did. Was not the arian race superior to everything? Would you be raising latin american people for food consumption because they're are inferior (just as an example of arian race being superior)? | ||
|
FirstBorn
Romania3955 Posts
| ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
Unless you really believe the lives of people that I happen to know are somehow more valuable than the lives of everyone else on this planet. [edit] lol you finally realized how bad you arguments are so you remove them. And then you edit in that? Shameful. | ||
|
Wohmfg
United Kingdom1292 Posts
On May 30 2009 04:20 Diomedes wrote: Obviously not. Say I am an organ donor with a complete set of healthy organs. Say there are several people that die without a donor organ. You could you kill me, so that my organs can be used to save other people. If you don't, does that make you a murderer of those that would die without my organs? It's 1 life vs quite a few; heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, etc. That's different because it's their fault they need an organ donor, you shouldn't have to give up your organs for someone else because their body is broken. The people who are having a bomb dropped on them have nothing relating them to having a bomb dropped on them, and neither does the person who is sacrificing their life. | ||
|
Fontong
United States6454 Posts
On May 30 2009 02:57 Kaialynn wrote: Yeah totally. You didn't even read my post at all. Pound for pound, yes, Meat is more ineffecient that vegetables/wheat/other crops. But do you really think that if everyone went vegeterian, we could feed the world (Or hell, a country) based on the crops alone and the buildings where cows are 'farmed'? Be serious. EDIT: Cows aren't grown :S I have really no idea what you are trying to argue here. Are you trying to say that if we try to grow all crops rather than growing all livestock we will not be able to feed everyone? | ||
|
King K. Rool
Canada4408 Posts
On May 30 2009 04:20 Diomedes wrote: Obviously not. Say I am an organ donor with a complete set of healthy organs. Say there are several people that die without a donor organ. You could you kill me, so that my organs can be used to save other people. If you don't, does that make you a murderer of those that would die without my organs? It's 1 life vs quite a few; heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, etc. Well once you die of natural causes you can still donate a good amount. On May 30 2009 04:26 Night[Mare wrote: Again the problem is we don't see animals in the same light as you, and again this is comparison between animals and humans, not humans and humans.so that gives the humanity the right to torture animals for consumption? you must be fucked in the brain to think that. We being 'superior' to the animals would mean we would treat them fairly, not abuse them for the sole purpose of consumption. actually i think you're just trolling if you cant feel a little empathy. I despise people who belive them superior to other beings. It's just the same shit the nazi did. Was not the arian race superior to everything? Would you be raising latin american people for food consumption because they're are inferior (just as an example of arian race being superior)? | ||
|
Klockan3
Sweden2866 Posts
On May 30 2009 04:26 Night[Mare wrote:so that gives the humanity the right to torture animals for consumption? Contrary to what vegans tell you it is illegal to torture animals, the end. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
On May 30 2009 04:35 Wohmfg wrote: That's different because it's their fault they need an organ donor, rofl! Anyway, even if this is true that doesn't mean they deserve to be murdered by not killing me for their benefit. you shouldn't have to give up your organs for someone else because their body is broken. That's why someone has to kill me. | ||
|
eMbrace
United States1300 Posts
| ||
|
Wohmfg
United Kingdom1292 Posts
On May 30 2009 05:20 Diomedes wrote: rofl! Anyway, even if this is true that doesn't mean they deserve to be murdered by not killing me for their benefit. That's why someone has to kill me. Wouldn't they be murdering the person they took the organ from? Especially seeing as the person with the healthy organ wasn't going to die in the first place whereas they were. And it is a fault in their body that causes their organ to fail or be unhealthy, so what's so "rofl!" about it? | ||
|
Night[Mare
Mexico4793 Posts
On May 30 2009 04:38 King K. Rool wrote: Again the problem is we don't see animals in the same light as you, and again this is comparison between animals and humans, not humans and humans. i wonder what your stance on the nazi party is then. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
On May 30 2009 05:47 Wohmfg wrote: Wouldn't they be murdering the person they took the organ from? A third person would. The one given the dilemma. That's how the dilemma is set up. And it isn't like it isn't realistic. Especially seeing as the person with the healthy organ wasn't going to die in the first place whereas they were So? Do you even understand the dilemma. You either kill one and save many. Or you kill many by not killing one. And it is a fault in their body that causes their organ to fail or be unhealthy, so what's so "rofl!" about it? How are they responsible for the disease they happen to have? That's so absurd. It's idiotic. Especially considering the consequences. Apparenty you had some atom bomb example in your mind. It's like saying the people that get killed by the atom bomb have only themselves to blame because they did out of their own free will choose to live in that place that is about to get nuked.. And because of that it's ok that they get nuked. It's their fault so we aren't going to save them by murdering one person. You don't understand the arguments at all. Read back and think more. It's not that there aren't any arguments against the reductio ad absurdum I am making. Actually, you can even argue it's not that absurd. This dilemma is a famous example for the whole ethical issue that is being debated. But still one can make arguments. Yet on one managed to make any good points. People, learn to read and learn to think before you post. | ||
|
Wohmfg
United Kingdom1292 Posts
On May 30 2009 06:13 Diomedes wrote: A third person would. The one given the dilemma. That's how the dilemma is set up. And it isn't like it isn't realistic. So? Do you even understand the dilemma. You either kill one and save many. Or you kill many by not killing one. How are they responsible for the disease they happen to have? That's so absurd. It's idiotic. Especially considering the consequences. Apparenty you had some atom bomb example in your mind. It's like saying the people that get killed by the atom bomb have only themselves to blame because they did out of their own free will choose to live in that place that is about to get nuked.. And because of that it's ok that they get nuked. It's their fault so we aren't going to save them by murdering one person. You don't understand the arguments at all. Read back and think more. It's not that there aren't any arguments against the reductio ad absurdum I am making. Actually, you can even argue it's not that absurd. This dilemma is a famous example for the whole ethical issue that is being debated. But still one can make arguments. Yet on one managed to make any good points. People, learn to read and learn to think before you post. A fault in their body. I didn't say responsible. The fault is what causes the organ to fail. A fault in their body. A fault. Another word for a failing or defect would be a fault. Do you understand? My whole point was to highlight the differences in the two examples of 1 vs 1 million and the faulty organs. They are different as the deaths of millions by whatever method is separate from the 1 million and one people involved. The people with the failing organs shouldn't have the privilege of someone killing another healthy person to get organs. The million people should have that privilege because they are all on level terms to begin with. That's why my gut instinct when I was first presented with this problem (a long time ago, I do understand the problem) was that I couldn't murder someone to harvest their organs for unwell people, but I would without hesitation kill one person to save millions. It's only when details are given that you can make up your mind because the situations are entirely different. | ||
|
D10
Brazil3409 Posts
| ||
|
foeffa
Belgium2115 Posts
The way some animals are treated is extremely inhumane, though. | ||
|
King K. Rool
Canada4408 Posts
On May 30 2009 05:51 Night[Mare wrote: i wonder what your stance on the nazi party is then. What about it? I think they're wrong, but if you're trying to draw an analogy between Nazis + humans and me + animals, then this analogy fails. | ||
|
Tsagacity
United States2124 Posts
On May 30 2009 04:26 Night[Mare wrote: so that gives the humanity the right to torture animals for consumption? you must be fucked in the brain to think that. We being 'superior' to the animals would mean we would treat them fairly, not abuse them for the sole purpose of consumption. actually i think you're just trolling if you cant feel a little empathy. I despise people who belive them superior to other beings. It's just the same shit the nazi did. Was not the arian race superior to everything? Would you be raising latin american people for food consumption because they're are inferior (just as an example of arian race being superior)?\ Did you just say that thinking we as humans are superior to animals is similar to the nazis thinking they were superior to other humans? Other races of humans are still humans. Animals are not humans. It's a biological thing >.< | ||
|
Osmoses
Sweden5302 Posts
And so am I. | ||
|
Whiplash
United States2928 Posts
![[image loading]](http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/images/bigpot6.jpg) I have this shirt. | ||
|
Frits
11782 Posts
HI THIS HAS BEEN POSTED ALREADY IN THIS THREAD AND EVERYONE ON THE INTERNET READ THIS ARTICLE LIKE 3 YEARS AGO ALREADY ANYWAY PLEASE STOP POSTING IT ITS NOT CLEVER ITS JUST ANNOYING THANK YOU | ||
|
DeathSpank
United States1029 Posts
| ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
Now you say it's their body's fault because it's a 'fault in their body'. Yeah, it's the same word. So? Do you understand words? Second, someone brought up the idea it would be ok to murder 100 chimps to save one human. I said that if you murder 1 person to save 100 million people it is as immoral as just killing 1 person for whatever other reason. Then people countered by bringing up that if you don't save 100 million by killing one you are killing 100 million. And if you are going to counter that, then try that. What you are doing now is silly. The millions are on 'level terms' and 'receive privileges' while the people requiring donor organs don't? I don't even understand what that can mean. Dude, this is just random stuff you made up. Address the actual issue. But you don't seem to understand it. Anyway, even if you have a valid point you can make it disappear by changing the dilemma. Then you can no longer ignore the dilemma like you do now and address the actual consequences of claiming not killing 1 to save many is to kill many. And yes, this is completely different from either saving 1 and letting many die, letting 1 die and save many. And no, you aren't killing some criminal or terrorist because then the moral point isn't addressed. No, you kill an innocent or a random person. Blackmail is a good setting for such an analogy. But you can also have different ones. Like you know someone is about the detonate an atom bomb, you people like that scenario for some reason, and you know his name is Dave and he has a red car. But you have a list of 10 people named 'Dave' that own red cars. So either you kill the terrorist, along with 9 people, or the bomb goes off. In the end if you have the position that every life is worth 1 point and killing one to save 2 or more is the moral thing to do, because otherwise you would murder those you refuse to save, then you have to go along with killing the guy whose organs are needed to kill more than 1. And I can see why you people like the atom bomb. It kills so many, you can appeal to emotion and try to ignore the morality behind it because of the large numbers. So let's go back to the Dave&bomb example. Let's say he has a normal bomb. Then you can input any number, or a probability distribution, for the casualties. Where do you draw the line if it's bad to kill 1 to save 4 in need of organs? Because then it would be bad to kill 10 Daves to save 40 deaths in the blast. Then 40 is not enough. So what is the math then? It's ok to kill 1 innocent to save 20? What's the price? I have this shirt. http://www.amazon.com/Three-T-Shirt-Available-Various-Sizes/dp/B000NZW3IY | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
Don't discuss societies actions. Discuss your actions. You are responsible for your self, not for society | ||
|
konadora
Singapore66355 Posts
It certainly makes me think twice about choosing to eat meat. If only they did the proper procedures then I wouldn't care, but abusing them like is just... The standard of which the animals are bred is definitely a no-go. No wonder all these 'swine flu' and 'bird flu' keep appearing. | ||
|
Skullz
Canada5 Posts
It certainly makes me think twice about choosing to eat meat. If only they did the proper procedures then I wouldn't care, but abusing them like is just... U seem to think that its the farmers that are forcing this upon us but its not, its us that forcing on them the demand for mass amounts of meat. if everyone decided to eat not as much meat then the "correct procedures" would be followed. But i love meat and can't go a a day without it so i guess i shouldnt be saying this, but i just wanna point it out ps. first post =) | ||
|
King K. Rool
Canada4408 Posts
This entire argument is way too philosophical for me to carry on with. | ||
|
Skullz
Canada5 Posts
| ||
|
DeathSpank
United States1029 Posts
On May 30 2009 09:40 konadora wrote: Wow that video.. wtf. It certainly makes me think twice about choosing to eat meat. If only they did the proper procedures then I wouldn't care, but abusing them like is just... The standard of which the animals are bred is definitely a no-go. No wonder all these 'swine flu' and 'bird flu' keep appearing. the majority of slaughterhouses etc... do follow proper procedure. PETA likes to find the worst possible situations and shoot it. | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 30 2009 10:22 Skullz wrote: U seem to think that its the farmers that are forcing this upon us but its not, its us that forcing on them the demand for mass amounts of meat. if everyone decided to eat not as much meat then the "correct procedures" would be followed. But i love meat and can't go a a day without it so i guess i shouldnt be saying this, but i just wanna point it out ps. first post =) forcing it on them? lol? since when is a company forced to make as much money as possible ? | ||
|
DeathSpank
United States1029 Posts
On May 30 2009 10:51 travis wrote: forcing it on them? lol? since when is a company forced to make as much money as possible ? since I ran it. | ||
|
seppolevne
Canada1681 Posts
On May 30 2009 10:22 Skullz wrote: U seem to think that its the farmers that are forcing this upon us but its not, its us that forcing on them the demand for mass amounts of meat. if everyone decided to eat not as much meat then the "correct procedures" would be followed. But i love meat and can't go a a day without it so i guess i shouldnt be saying this, but i just wanna point it out ps. first post =) If less meat was being bought then producers would have to cut corners to make similar profits, or to break even (as they are now selling less meat). This would lead to more accounts of mistreatment of animals (as long as "mistreating" them is cheaper I guess). | ||
|
Idle
Korea (South)124 Posts
On May 30 2009 10:42 DeathSpank wrote: the majority of slaughterhouses etc... do follow proper procedure. PETA likes to find the worst possible situations and shoot it. The majority of slaughterhouses in the US. However, its easy to move your slaughterhouse internationally and not be subject to the same regulations. This is where the swine flu originated. I'm not a vegetarian, but I've been eating less and less meat because its becoming hard to tell where it comes from. Its highly unlikely that I'd suffer any serious effects if I continued eating pork, but its also far healthier to just avoid it all together, and I've been trying to develop a taste for more vegetables and exotic foods in preparation for moving to korea. | ||
|
King K. Rool
Canada4408 Posts
On May 30 2009 10:27 Skullz wrote: yea but wat if u were that one person, how would u react to that? Dunno. I'd like to think I'm at least somewhat selfless enough to die quietly, but who knows how someone would act in a life/death situation like that. | ||
|
DeathSpank
United States1029 Posts
On May 30 2009 10:54 Idle wrote: The majority of slaughterhouses in the US. However, its easy to move your slaughterhouse internationally and not be subject to the same regulations. This is where the swine flu originated. I'm not a vegetarian, but I've been eating less and less meat because its becoming hard to tell where it comes from. Its highly unlikely that I'd suffer any serious effects if I continued eating pork, but its also far healthier to just avoid it all together, and I've been trying to develop a taste for more vegetables and exotic foods in preparation for moving to korea. hehe enjoy your mercury. | ||
|
Rev0lution
United States1805 Posts
On May 30 2009 10:54 Idle wrote: The majority of slaughterhouses in the US. However, its easy to move your slaughterhouse internationally and not be subject to the same regulations. This is where the swine flu originated. I'm not a vegetarian, but I've been eating less and less meat because its becoming hard to tell where it comes from. Its highly unlikely that I'd suffer any serious effects if I continued eating pork, but its also far healthier to just avoid it all together, and I've been trying to develop a taste for more vegetables and exotic foods in preparation for moving to korea. hahahah, you think you can get swine flu from eating pork? OMG, way to be uninformed and fooled by hippie propaganda. | ||
|
BeautifulJudas
New Zealand33 Posts
While their numbers are rapidly growing, vegetarians are still a minority, and it is not unusual to be confronted with a meat-eater who not only protects his own right to eat flesh, but argues aggressively that vegetarians should join him in his carnivorous diet. Carnivores may regard nonmeat-eaters as a strange lot who munch on "rabbit food," and whose diet doesn't have the substance to make them strong, productive human beings. The following presentation is designed to turn the tables on such discussions by showing the devastating effects of meat-eating both on individuals and on our planet. It is based on a richly informative poster entitled, "How to win an argument with a meat-eater," published by Earthsave, an organization based in Felton, California, giving facts from Pulitzer Prize nominee John Robbins' book Diet for a New America. Below are eight separate arguments against meat-eating and in favor of a vegetarian diet. 1. The Hunger Argument against meat-eating Much of the world's massive hunger problems could be solved by the reduction or elimination of meat-eating. The reasons: 1) livestock pasture needs cut drastically into land which could otherwise be used to grow food; 2) vast quantities of food which could feed humans is fed to livestock raised to produce meat. This year alone, twenty million people worldwide will die as a result of malnutrition. One child dies of malnutrition every 2.3 seconds. One hundred million people could be adequately fed using the land freed if Americans reduced their intake of meat by a mere 10%. Twenty percent of the corn grown in the U.S. is eaten by people. Eighty percent of the corn and 95% of the oats grown in the U.S. is eaten by livestock. The percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock is calculated by experts as 90%. One acre of land can produce 40,000 pounds of potatoes, or 250 pounds of beef. Fifty-six percent of all U.S. farmland is devoted to beef production, and to produce each pound of beef requires 16 pounds of edible grain and soybeans, which could be used to feed the hungry. 2. The Environmental Argument against meat-eating Many of the world's massive environmental problems could be solved by the reduction or elimination of meat-eating, including global warming, loss of topsoil, loss of rainforests and species extinction. The temperature of the earth is rising. This global warming, known as "the greenhouse effect," results primarily from carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas. Three times more fossil fuels must be burned to produce a meat-centered diet than for a meat-free diet. If people stopped eating meat, the threat of higher world temperatures would be vastly diminished. Trees, and especially the old-growth forests, are essential to the survival of the planet. Their destruction is a major cause of global warming and top soil loss. Both of these effects lead to diminished food production. Meat-eating is the number one driving force for the destruction of these forests. Two-hundred and sixty million acres of U.S. forestland has been cleared for cropland to produce the meat-centered diet. Fifty-five square feet of tropical rainforest is consumed to produce every quarter-pound of rainforest beef. An alarming 75% of all U.S. topsoil has been lost to date. Eighty-five percent of this loss is directly related to livestock raising. Another devastating result of deforestation is the loss of plant and animal species. Each year 1,000 species are eliminated due to destruction of tropical rainforests for meat grazing and other uses. The rate is growing yearly. To keep up with U.S. consumption, 300 million pounds of meat are imported annually from Central and South America. This economic incentive impels these nations to cut down their forests to make more pastureland. The short-term gain ignores the long-term, irreparable harm to the earth's ecosystem. In effect these countries are being drained of their resources to put meat on the table of Americans while 75% of all Central American children under the age of five are undernourished. 3. The Cancer Argument against meat-eating Those who eat flesh are far more likely to contract cancer than those following a vegetarian diet. The risk of contracting breast cancer is 3.8 times greater for women who eat meat daily compared to less than once a week; 2.8 times greater for women who eat eggs daily compared to once a week; and 3.25 greater for women who eat butter and cheese 2 to 4 times a week as compared to once a week. The risk of fatal ovarian cancer is three times greater for women who eat eggs 3 or more times a week as compared with less than once a week. The risk of fatal prostate cancer is 3.6 times greater for men who consume meat, cheese, eggs and milk daily as compared with sparingly or not at all. 4. The Cholesterol Argument against meat-eating Here are facts showing that: 1) U.S. physicians are not sufficiently trained in the importance of the relation of diet to health; 2) meat-eaters ingest excessive amounts of cholesterol, making them dangerously susceptible to heart attacks. It is strange, but true that U.S. physicians are as a rule ill-educated in the single most important factor of health, namely diet and nutrition. Of the 125 medical schools in the U.S., only 30 require their students to take a course in nutrition. The average nutrition training received by the average U.S. physician during four years in school is only 2.5 hours. Thus doctors in the U.S. are ill-equipped to advise their patients in minimizing foods, such as meat, that contain excessive amounts of cholesterol and are known causes of heart attack. Heart attack is the most common cause of death in the U.S., killing one person every 45 seconds. The male meat-eater's risk of death from heart attack is 50%. The risk to men who eats no meat is 15%. Reducing one's consumption of meat, dairy and eggs by 10% reduces the risk of heart attack by 10%. Completely eliminating these products from one's diet reduces the risk of heart attack by 90%. The average cholesterol consumption of a meat-centered diet is 210 milligrams per day. The chance of dying from heart disease if you are male and your blood cholesterol is 210 milligrams daily is greater than 50%. 5. The Natural Resources Argument against meat-eating The world's natural resources are being rapidly depleted as a result of meat-eating. Raising livestock for their meat is a very inefficient way of generating food. Pound for pound, far more resources must be expended to produce meat than to produce grains, fruits and vegetables. For example, more than half of all water used for all purposes in the U.S. is consumed in livestock production. The amount of water used in production of the average cow is sufficient to float a destroyer (a large naval ship). While 25 gallons of water are needed to produce a pound of wheat, 5,000 gallons are needed to produce a pound of California beef. That same 5,000 gallons of water can produce 200 pounds of wheat. If this water cost were not subsidized by the government, the cheapest hamburger meat would cost more than $35 per pound. Meat-eating is devouring oil reserves at an alarming rate. It takes nearly 78 calories of fossil fuel (oil, natural gas, etc.) energy to produce one calory of beef protein and only 2 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calory of soybean. If every human ate a meat-centered diet, the world's known oil reserves would last a mere 13 years. They would last 260 years if humans stopped eating meat altogether. That is 20 times longer, giving humanity ample time to develop alternative energy sources. Thirty-three percent of all raw materials (base products of farming, forestry and mining, including fossil fuels) consumed by the U.S. are devoted to the production of livestock, as compared with 2% to produce a complete vegetarian diet. 6. The Antibiotic Argument against meat-eating Here are facts showing the dangers of eating meat because of the large amounts of antibiotics fed to livestock to control staphylococci (commonly called staph infections), which are becoming immune to these drugs at an alarming rate. The animals that are being raised for meat in the United States are diseased. The livestock industry attempts to control this disease by feeding the animals antibiotics. Huge quantities of drugs go for this purpose. Of all antibiotics used in the U.S., 55% are fed to livestock. But this is only partially effective because the bacteria that cause disease are becoming immune to the antibiotics. The percentage of staphylococci infections resistant to penicillin, for example, has grown from 13% in 1960 to 91% in 1988. These antibiotics and-or the bacteria they are intended to destroy reside in the meat that goes to market. It is not healthy for humans to consume this meat. The response of the European Economic Community to the routine feeding of antibiotics to U.S. livestock was to ban the importation of U.S. meat. European buyers do not want to expose consumers to this serious health hazard. By comparison, U.S. meat and pharmaceutical industries gave their full and complete support to the routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock, turning a blind eye to the threat of disease to the consumer. 7. The Pesticide Argument against meat-eating Unknown to most meat-eaters, U.S.-produced meat contains dangerously high quantities of deadly pesticides. The common belief is that the U.S. Department of Agriculture protects consumers' health through regular and thorough meat inspection. In reality, fewer than one out of every 250,000 slaughtered animals is tested for toxic chemical residues. That these chemicals are indeed ingested by the meat-eater is proven by the following facts: * Ninety-nine percent of U.S. mother's milk contains significant levels of DDT. In stark contrast, only 8% of U.S. vegetarian mother's milk containing significant levels of DDT. This shows that the primary source of DDT is the meat ingested by the mothers. * Contamination of breast milk due to chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides in animal products found in meat-eating mothers versus nonmeat-eating mothers is 35 times higher. * The amount of the pesticide Dieldrin ingested by the average breast-fed American infant is 9 times the permissible level. 8. The Ethical Argument against meat-eating Many of those who have adopted a vegetarian diet have done so because of the ethical argument, either from reading about or personally experiencing what goes on daily at any one of the thousands of slaughterhouses in the U.S. and other countries, where animals suffer the cruel process of forced confinement, manipulation and violent death. Their pain and terror is beyond calculation. The slaughterhouse is the final stop for animals raised for their flesh. These ghastly places, while little known to most meat-eaters, process enormous numbers of animals each years. In the U.S. alone, 660,000 animals are killed for meat every hour. A surprising quantity of meat is consumed by the meat-eater. The average percapita consumption of meat in the U.S., Canada and Australia is 200 pounds per year! The average American consumes in a 72-year lifetime approximately 11 cattle, 3 lambs and sheep, 23 hogs, 45 turkeys, 1,100 chickens and 862 pounds of fish! Bon appetite! People who come in contact with slaughterhouses cannot help but be affected by what they see and hear. Those living nearby must daily experience the screams of terror and anger of the animals led to slaughter. Those working inside must also see and participate in the crimes of mayhem and murder. Most who choose this line of work are not on the job for long. Of all occupations in the U.S., slaughterhouse worker has the highest turnover rate. It also has the highest rate of on-the-job injury. | ||
|
BeautifulJudas
New Zealand33 Posts
In addition to having distinct personalities, cows are very intelligent animals who can remember things for a long time. Animal behaviorists have found that cows interact in complex ways, developing friendships over time, sometimes holding grudges against cows who treat them badly and choosing leaders based upon intelligence. They have complex emotions as well and even have the ability to worry about the future. Researchers have found that cows can not only figure out problems, they also enjoy the challenge and get excited when they find a solution. In one study, researchers challenged the animals with a task where they had to find how to open a door to get some food. The researchers then measured their brainwaves. Professor Broom said that ‘The brainwaves showed the cows excitement; their heartbeat went up and some even jumped into the air. We called it their Eureka moment,’ Cows can also learn how to push a lever to operate a drinking fountain when they’re thirty or press a button with their head to release food when they’re hungry. Like humans they quickly learn to avoid things that cause pain like electric fences. In fact if just one cow in the herd is shocked by an electric fence, the rest of the herd will learn from that and will avoid the fence in the future. Grandmother cows often help their daughters with mothering duties, but one cow named Olivia wanted no part of that. She never left her calf’s side, and she ignored her mother’s offers to help groom him. Offended, her mother finally marched off to another field to graze with her friends and never communicated to her daughter again. Cows can also remember and hold grudges against people who have hurt them or their family members Dairy cows are continually kept pregnant and lactating and their babies are sold off to the meat industry when they are only two days old. The life of a dairy cow is not as natural as you might think, especially considering that 80 percent of dairy cows are made pregnant through artificial insemination. The only way for a cow, like any other mammal, to produce milk is for the cow to have a baby. The milk produced by cows is naturally meant for baby calves; however, because people want to drink this milk, the baby calves are taken away from their mothers when they are only a few days old. Cows are extremely maternal animals and both the mother cow and the baby calf suffer terribly from being separated at such a young age. In fact, one cow missed her baby so much that she broke out of her paddock and trekked through 8 kilometers of paddocks and rivers to find her baby. On dairy farms, mother cows can be heard bellowing out wildly trying to find their babies as well as running after the cattle trucks that take their babies to seperate farms. The baby calves life is then decided by their gender. That’s right, not only is the dairy industry hell for the animals, the environment and your health, it is also an industry that decides an animal’s entire life based on whether they are male or female. If the calve is male then he is taken away to be raised and slaughtered for meat. Because of this the NZ dairy industry contributes to the death of more than 1 million male dairy cows every year. That’s one death every 20 seconds. In fact, 55 percent of all beef in New Zealand supermarkets comes directly from the dairy industry. These male calves are transported to separate meat farms where they will never see their mothers again. They suffer terribly on their journey to the meat farm. Transported as young as 4 days of age, they endure cold and hunger, without food for up to 30 hours, while struggling to maintain their footing in the cattle truck. However if the calf is female she is raised as a dairy cow, living in the same conditions as her mothers. She too will live in a cycle of pregnancy and lactation, being forced to give birth to a baby calf each year, only to have that baby torn away from her within a few days. In the wild cows can live to be up to 25 years old. But on dairy farms they are slaughtered when they are only 8-10 years old meaning that most dairy cows live less than half their natural life span. Because dairy cows are milked so excessively, NZ dairy cows have increased risks of teat diseases like mastitis. When a cow has mastitis her udder may become so inflamed that it is as hard as a stone, and blood bubbles into her milk, which becomes clotted and watery. Severe cases of mastitis can kill a cow in less than a day. Dairy is a very nutritional, healthy and natural food, if you’re a baby calf! Cow’s milk is designed to be healthy for calves, who have four stomachs, gain hundreds of pounds in a few months and can weigh up to 1000 pounds before they are two years old. Dairy products contain no complex carbohydrates or fiber but instead are packed full of saturated fats and cholesterol. Because of this, dairy products have been linked to asthma, allergies, heart disease, cancer and obesity. Dairy companies continually promote dairy products for calcium and bone health. However dairy products are actually quite low in calcium, compared to foods like soy milk, almonds, nuts, apricots, broccoli, figs, and tofu. In fact, one serving of sesame seeds has almost double the calcium as a glass of cow’s milk and one serving of soymilk has almost 100 milligrams more calcium then a serving of cow’s milk. Magnesium, Potassium, Vitamin C, and Vitamin K are all required for good bone health. These vitamins are all found in a vegan diet. The only mineral that vegans should look out for is Vitamin B12. Vegans should either take a B12 supplement or eat foods fortified with B12, such as marmite and soymilk There are dairy free cheeses, chocolates, milks, yogurts, pretty much any dairy food you can think of can be made vegan. For example try replacing dairy yogurt with soy yogurts like King lands, which is available at most supermarkets. Replace cheese with vegan cheeses like scheese and cheezley which you can buy at www.choosecruetlyfree.co.nz. There are rice, almond, oat and soymilks all available at supermarkets, just experiment with different types, flavors and brands until you find one that you like. Most people think that if they go vegan they will have to give up chocolate. This is simply not true. All of Whitakers dark chocolates are vegan, and you can get dairy free white chocolate at www.choosecrueltyfree.co.nz. Replace butter with dairy free margarine like Olivani, which can be found at most supermarkets. Literally anything can be made vegan. Nachos, pizza, pasta, casserole, stew, soup, burgers, hot chips, sausages, you name it there’s a vegan alternative. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 30 2009 11:26 BeautifulJudas wrote: I came across this article and thought it'd be worth reposting - good for our learning too: While their numbers are rapidly growing, vegetarians are still a minority, and it is not unusual to be confronted with a meat-eater who not only protects his own right to eat flesh, but argues aggressively that vegetarians should join him in his carnivorous diet. Carnivores may regard nonmeat-eaters as a strange lot who munch on "rabbit food," and whose diet doesn't have the substance to make them strong, productive human beings. The following presentation is designed to turn the tables on such discussions by showing the devastating effects of meat-eating both on individuals and on our planet. It is based on a richly informative poster entitled, "How to win an argument with a meat-eater," published by Earthsave, an organization based in Felton, California, giving facts from Pulitzer Prize nominee John Robbins' book Diet for a New America. Below are eight separate arguments against meat-eating and in favor of a vegetarian diet. 1. The Hunger Argument against meat-eating Much of the world's massive hunger problems could be solved by the reduction or elimination of meat-eating. The reasons: 1) livestock pasture needs cut drastically into land which could otherwise be used to grow food; 2) vast quantities of food which could feed humans is fed to livestock raised to produce meat. This year alone, twenty million people worldwide will die as a result of malnutrition. One child dies of malnutrition every 2.3 seconds. One hundred million people could be adequately fed using the land freed if Americans reduced their intake of meat by a mere 10%. Twenty percent of the corn grown in the U.S. is eaten by people. Eighty percent of the corn and 95% of the oats grown in the U.S. is eaten by livestock. The percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock is calculated by experts as 90%. One acre of land can produce 40,000 pounds of potatoes, or 250 pounds of beef. Fifty-six percent of all U.S. farmland is devoted to beef production, and to produce each pound of beef requires 16 pounds of edible grain and soybeans, which could be used to feed the hungry. 2. The Environmental Argument against meat-eating Many of the world's massive environmental problems could be solved by the reduction or elimination of meat-eating, including global warming, loss of topsoil, loss of rainforests and species extinction. The temperature of the earth is rising. This global warming, known as "the greenhouse effect," results primarily from carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas. Three times more fossil fuels must be burned to produce a meat-centered diet than for a meat-free diet. If people stopped eating meat, the threat of higher world temperatures would be vastly diminished. Trees, and especially the old-growth forests, are essential to the survival of the planet. Their destruction is a major cause of global warming and top soil loss. Both of these effects lead to diminished food production. Meat-eating is the number one driving force for the destruction of these forests. Two-hundred and sixty million acres of U.S. forestland has been cleared for cropland to produce the meat-centered diet. Fifty-five square feet of tropical rainforest is consumed to produce every quarter-pound of rainforest beef. An alarming 75% of all U.S. topsoil has been lost to date. Eighty-five percent of this loss is directly related to livestock raising. Another devastating result of deforestation is the loss of plant and animal species. Each year 1,000 species are eliminated due to destruction of tropical rainforests for meat grazing and other uses. The rate is growing yearly. To keep up with U.S. consumption, 300 million pounds of meat are imported annually from Central and South America. This economic incentive impels these nations to cut down their forests to make more pastureland. The short-term gain ignores the long-term, irreparable harm to the earth's ecosystem. In effect these countries are being drained of their resources to put meat on the table of Americans while 75% of all Central American children under the age of five are undernourished. 3. The Cancer Argument against meat-eating Those who eat flesh are far more likely to contract cancer than those following a vegetarian diet. The risk of contracting breast cancer is 3.8 times greater for women who eat meat daily compared to less than once a week; 2.8 times greater for women who eat eggs daily compared to once a week; and 3.25 greater for women who eat butter and cheese 2 to 4 times a week as compared to once a week. The risk of fatal ovarian cancer is three times greater for women who eat eggs 3 or more times a week as compared with less than once a week. The risk of fatal prostate cancer is 3.6 times greater for men who consume meat, cheese, eggs and milk daily as compared with sparingly or not at all. 4. The Cholesterol Argument against meat-eating Here are facts showing that: 1) U.S. physicians are not sufficiently trained in the importance of the relation of diet to health; 2) meat-eaters ingest excessive amounts of cholesterol, making them dangerously susceptible to heart attacks. It is strange, but true that U.S. physicians are as a rule ill-educated in the single most important factor of health, namely diet and nutrition. Of the 125 medical schools in the U.S., only 30 require their students to take a course in nutrition. The average nutrition training received by the average U.S. physician during four years in school is only 2.5 hours. Thus doctors in the U.S. are ill-equipped to advise their patients in minimizing foods, such as meat, that contain excessive amounts of cholesterol and are known causes of heart attack. Heart attack is the most common cause of death in the U.S., killing one person every 45 seconds. The male meat-eater's risk of death from heart attack is 50%. The risk to men who eats no meat is 15%. Reducing one's consumption of meat, dairy and eggs by 10% reduces the risk of heart attack by 10%. Completely eliminating these products from one's diet reduces the risk of heart attack by 90%. The average cholesterol consumption of a meat-centered diet is 210 milligrams per day. The chance of dying from heart disease if you are male and your blood cholesterol is 210 milligrams daily is greater than 50%. 5. The Natural Resources Argument against meat-eating The world's natural resources are being rapidly depleted as a result of meat-eating. Raising livestock for their meat is a very inefficient way of generating food. Pound for pound, far more resources must be expended to produce meat than to produce grains, fruits and vegetables. For example, more than half of all water used for all purposes in the U.S. is consumed in livestock production. The amount of water used in production of the average cow is sufficient to float a destroyer (a large naval ship). While 25 gallons of water are needed to produce a pound of wheat, 5,000 gallons are needed to produce a pound of California beef. That same 5,000 gallons of water can produce 200 pounds of wheat. If this water cost were not subsidized by the government, the cheapest hamburger meat would cost more than $35 per pound. Meat-eating is devouring oil reserves at an alarming rate. It takes nearly 78 calories of fossil fuel (oil, natural gas, etc.) energy to produce one calory of beef protein and only 2 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calory of soybean. If every human ate a meat-centered diet, the world's known oil reserves would last a mere 13 years. They would last 260 years if humans stopped eating meat altogether. That is 20 times longer, giving humanity ample time to develop alternative energy sources. Thirty-three percent of all raw materials (base products of farming, forestry and mining, including fossil fuels) consumed by the U.S. are devoted to the production of livestock, as compared with 2% to produce a complete vegetarian diet. 6. The Antibiotic Argument against meat-eating Here are facts showing the dangers of eating meat because of the large amounts of antibiotics fed to livestock to control staphylococci (commonly called staph infections), which are becoming immune to these drugs at an alarming rate. The animals that are being raised for meat in the United States are diseased. The livestock industry attempts to control this disease by feeding the animals antibiotics. Huge quantities of drugs go for this purpose. Of all antibiotics used in the U.S., 55% are fed to livestock. But this is only partially effective because the bacteria that cause disease are becoming immune to the antibiotics. The percentage of staphylococci infections resistant to penicillin, for example, has grown from 13% in 1960 to 91% in 1988. These antibiotics and-or the bacteria they are intended to destroy reside in the meat that goes to market. It is not healthy for humans to consume this meat. The response of the European Economic Community to the routine feeding of antibiotics to U.S. livestock was to ban the importation of U.S. meat. European buyers do not want to expose consumers to this serious health hazard. By comparison, U.S. meat and pharmaceutical industries gave their full and complete support to the routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock, turning a blind eye to the threat of disease to the consumer. 7. The Pesticide Argument against meat-eating Unknown to most meat-eaters, U.S.-produced meat contains dangerously high quantities of deadly pesticides. The common belief is that the U.S. Department of Agriculture protects consumers' health through regular and thorough meat inspection. In reality, fewer than one out of every 250,000 slaughtered animals is tested for toxic chemical residues. That these chemicals are indeed ingested by the meat-eater is proven by the following facts: * Ninety-nine percent of U.S. mother's milk contains significant levels of DDT. In stark contrast, only 8% of U.S. vegetarian mother's milk containing significant levels of DDT. This shows that the primary source of DDT is the meat ingested by the mothers. * Contamination of breast milk due to chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides in animal products found in meat-eating mothers versus nonmeat-eating mothers is 35 times higher. * The amount of the pesticide Dieldrin ingested by the average breast-fed American infant is 9 times the permissible level. 8. The Ethical Argument against meat-eating Many of those who have adopted a vegetarian diet have done so because of the ethical argument, either from reading about or personally experiencing what goes on daily at any one of the thousands of slaughterhouses in the U.S. and other countries, where animals suffer the cruel process of forced confinement, manipulation and violent death. Their pain and terror is beyond calculation. The slaughterhouse is the final stop for animals raised for their flesh. These ghastly places, while little known to most meat-eaters, process enormous numbers of animals each years. In the U.S. alone, 660,000 animals are killed for meat every hour. A surprising quantity of meat is consumed by the meat-eater. The average percapita consumption of meat in the U.S., Canada and Australia is 200 pounds per year! The average American consumes in a 72-year lifetime approximately 11 cattle, 3 lambs and sheep, 23 hogs, 45 turkeys, 1,100 chickens and 862 pounds of fish! Bon appetite! People who come in contact with slaughterhouses cannot help but be affected by what they see and hear. Those living nearby must daily experience the screams of terror and anger of the animals led to slaughter. Those working inside must also see and participate in the crimes of mayhem and murder. Most who choose this line of work are not on the job for long. Of all occupations in the U.S., slaughterhouse worker has the highest turnover rate. It also has the highest rate of on-the-job injury. Oh of course, if american's would reduce their intake of food by 10% that could also be adequate to feed 500 million people. 85% percent of statistics are made up on the spot. Again, its called choice. You trying to demonize me because I eat meat, and therefore kill children by starving them is absurd. Guess what, you aren't any better than I am because you don't eat meat. Lastly, killing animals to eat isn't murder. If you think this, then nature to you is murder. Are all carnivores murderers to you? PS: Ooooh, so ghastly! I mean, we were never omnivores, ever, we do it for the guilty pleasure of tasting flesh, nomnomnom. Who cares about all the nutritional benefits, and bodily needs. | ||
|
L
Canada4732 Posts
On May 30 2009 09:11 travis wrote: I think the question should be an individual one if we are to discuss the ethics of meat eating. Don't discuss societies actions. Discuss your actions. You are responsible for your self, not for society You are plenty responsible for society. The private is political. | ||
|
Tsagacity
United States2124 Posts
If you want to persuade someone to eat less meat, tell them about how they can benefit from it instead of telling them how some mistreated cow a thousand miles away can benefit from it. Edit: Although some of those aren't really direct arguments for the concept of eating meat, just arguments against how a lot of meat right now is processed/contains pesticides etc. And no, I'm not responsible for society. | ||
|
Probe.
United States877 Posts
On May 30 2009 11:26 BeautifulJudas wrote: I came across this article and thought it'd be worth reposting - good for our learning too: While their numbers are rapidly growing, vegetarians are still a minority, and it is not unusual to be confronted with a meat-eater who not only protects his own right to eat flesh, but argues aggressively that vegetarians should join him in his carnivorous diet. Carnivores may regard nonmeat-eaters as a strange lot who munch on "rabbit food," and whose diet doesn't have the substance to make them strong, productive human beings. The following presentation is designed to turn the tables on such discussions by showing the devastating effects of meat-eating both on individuals and on our planet. It is based on a richly informative poster entitled, "How to win an argument with a meat-eater," published by Earthsave, an organization based in Felton, California, giving facts from Pulitzer Prize nominee John Robbins' book Diet for a New America. Below are eight separate arguments against meat-eating and in favor of a vegetarian diet. 1. The Hunger Argument against meat-eating Much of the world's massive hunger problems could be solved by the reduction or elimination of meat-eating. The reasons: 1) livestock pasture needs cut drastically into land which could otherwise be used to grow food; 2) vast quantities of food which could feed humans is fed to livestock raised to produce meat. This year alone, twenty million people worldwide will die as a result of malnutrition. One child dies of malnutrition every 2.3 seconds. One hundred million people could be adequately fed using the land freed if Americans reduced their intake of meat by a mere 10%. Twenty percent of the corn grown in the U.S. is eaten by people. Eighty percent of the corn and 95% of the oats grown in the U.S. is eaten by livestock. The percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock is calculated by experts as 90%. One acre of land can produce 40,000 pounds of potatoes, or 250 pounds of beef. Fifty-six percent of all U.S. farmland is devoted to beef production, and to produce each pound of beef requires 16 pounds of edible grain and soybeans, which could be used to feed the hungry. 2. The Environmental Argument against meat-eating Many of the world's massive environmental problems could be solved by the reduction or elimination of meat-eating, including global warming, loss of topsoil, loss of rainforests and species extinction. The temperature of the earth is rising. This global warming, known as "the greenhouse effect," results primarily from carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas. Three times more fossil fuels must be burned to produce a meat-centered diet than for a meat-free diet. If people stopped eating meat, the threat of higher world temperatures would be vastly diminished. Trees, and especially the old-growth forests, are essential to the survival of the planet. Their destruction is a major cause of global warming and top soil loss. Both of these effects lead to diminished food production. Meat-eating is the number one driving force for the destruction of these forests. Two-hundred and sixty million acres of U.S. forestland has been cleared for cropland to produce the meat-centered diet. Fifty-five square feet of tropical rainforest is consumed to produce every quarter-pound of rainforest beef. An alarming 75% of all U.S. topsoil has been lost to date. Eighty-five percent of this loss is directly related to livestock raising. Another devastating result of deforestation is the loss of plant and animal species. Each year 1,000 species are eliminated due to destruction of tropical rainforests for meat grazing and other uses. The rate is growing yearly. To keep up with U.S. consumption, 300 million pounds of meat are imported annually from Central and South America. This economic incentive impels these nations to cut down their forests to make more pastureland. The short-term gain ignores the long-term, irreparable harm to the earth's ecosystem. In effect these countries are being drained of their resources to put meat on the table of Americans while 75% of all Central American children under the age of five are undernourished. 3. The Cancer Argument against meat-eating Those who eat flesh are far more likely to contract cancer than those following a vegetarian diet. The risk of contracting breast cancer is 3.8 times greater for women who eat meat daily compared to less than once a week; 2.8 times greater for women who eat eggs daily compared to once a week; and 3.25 greater for women who eat butter and cheese 2 to 4 times a week as compared to once a week. The risk of fatal ovarian cancer is three times greater for women who eat eggs 3 or more times a week as compared with less than once a week. The risk of fatal prostate cancer is 3.6 times greater for men who consume meat, cheese, eggs and milk daily as compared with sparingly or not at all. 4. The Cholesterol Argument against meat-eating Here are facts showing that: 1) U.S. physicians are not sufficiently trained in the importance of the relation of diet to health; 2) meat-eaters ingest excessive amounts of cholesterol, making them dangerously susceptible to heart attacks. It is strange, but true that U.S. physicians are as a rule ill-educated in the single most important factor of health, namely diet and nutrition. Of the 125 medical schools in the U.S., only 30 require their students to take a course in nutrition. The average nutrition training received by the average U.S. physician during four years in school is only 2.5 hours. Thus doctors in the U.S. are ill-equipped to advise their patients in minimizing foods, such as meat, that contain excessive amounts of cholesterol and are known causes of heart attack. Heart attack is the most common cause of death in the U.S., killing one person every 45 seconds. The male meat-eater's risk of death from heart attack is 50%. The risk to men who eats no meat is 15%. Reducing one's consumption of meat, dairy and eggs by 10% reduces the risk of heart attack by 10%. Completely eliminating these products from one's diet reduces the risk of heart attack by 90%. The average cholesterol consumption of a meat-centered diet is 210 milligrams per day. The chance of dying from heart disease if you are male and your blood cholesterol is 210 milligrams daily is greater than 50%. 5. The Natural Resources Argument against meat-eating The world's natural resources are being rapidly depleted as a result of meat-eating. Raising livestock for their meat is a very inefficient way of generating food. Pound for pound, far more resources must be expended to produce meat than to produce grains, fruits and vegetables. For example, more than half of all water used for all purposes in the U.S. is consumed in livestock production. The amount of water used in production of the average cow is sufficient to float a destroyer (a large naval ship). While 25 gallons of water are needed to produce a pound of wheat, 5,000 gallons are needed to produce a pound of California beef. That same 5,000 gallons of water can produce 200 pounds of wheat. If this water cost were not subsidized by the government, the cheapest hamburger meat would cost more than $35 per pound. Meat-eating is devouring oil reserves at an alarming rate. It takes nearly 78 calories of fossil fuel (oil, natural gas, etc.) energy to produce one calory of beef protein and only 2 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calory of soybean. If every human ate a meat-centered diet, the world's known oil reserves would last a mere 13 years. They would last 260 years if humans stopped eating meat altogether. That is 20 times longer, giving humanity ample time to develop alternative energy sources. Thirty-three percent of all raw materials (base products of farming, forestry and mining, including fossil fuels) consumed by the U.S. are devoted to the production of livestock, as compared with 2% to produce a complete vegetarian diet. 6. The Antibiotic Argument against meat-eating Here are facts showing the dangers of eating meat because of the large amounts of antibiotics fed to livestock to control staphylococci (commonly called staph infections), which are becoming immune to these drugs at an alarming rate. The animals that are being raised for meat in the United States are diseased. The livestock industry attempts to control this disease by feeding the animals antibiotics. Huge quantities of drugs go for this purpose. Of all antibiotics used in the U.S., 55% are fed to livestock. But this is only partially effective because the bacteria that cause disease are becoming immune to the antibiotics. The percentage of staphylococci infections resistant to penicillin, for example, has grown from 13% in 1960 to 91% in 1988. These antibiotics and-or the bacteria they are intended to destroy reside in the meat that goes to market. It is not healthy for humans to consume this meat. The response of the European Economic Community to the routine feeding of antibiotics to U.S. livestock was to ban the importation of U.S. meat. European buyers do not want to expose consumers to this serious health hazard. By comparison, U.S. meat and pharmaceutical industries gave their full and complete support to the routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock, turning a blind eye to the threat of disease to the consumer. 7. The Pesticide Argument against meat-eating Unknown to most meat-eaters, U.S.-produced meat contains dangerously high quantities of deadly pesticides. The common belief is that the U.S. Department of Agriculture protects consumers' health through regular and thorough meat inspection. In reality, fewer than one out of every 250,000 slaughtered animals is tested for toxic chemical residues. That these chemicals are indeed ingested by the meat-eater is proven by the following facts: * Ninety-nine percent of U.S. mother's milk contains significant levels of DDT. In stark contrast, only 8% of U.S. vegetarian mother's milk containing significant levels of DDT. This shows that the primary source of DDT is the meat ingested by the mothers. * Contamination of breast milk due to chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides in animal products found in meat-eating mothers versus nonmeat-eating mothers is 35 times higher. * The amount of the pesticide Dieldrin ingested by the average breast-fed American infant is 9 times the permissible level. 8. The Ethical Argument against meat-eating Many of those who have adopted a vegetarian diet have done so because of the ethical argument, either from reading about or personally experiencing what goes on daily at any one of the thousands of slaughterhouses in the U.S. and other countries, where animals suffer the cruel process of forced confinement, manipulation and violent death. Their pain and terror is beyond calculation. The slaughterhouse is the final stop for animals raised for their flesh. These ghastly places, while little known to most meat-eaters, process enormous numbers of animals each years. In the U.S. alone, 660,000 animals are killed for meat every hour. A surprising quantity of meat is consumed by the meat-eater. The average percapita consumption of meat in the U.S., Canada and Australia is 200 pounds per year! The average American consumes in a 72-year lifetime approximately 11 cattle, 3 lambs and sheep, 23 hogs, 45 turkeys, 1,100 chickens and 862 pounds of fish! Bon appetite! People who come in contact with slaughterhouses cannot help but be affected by what they see and hear. Those living nearby must daily experience the screams of terror and anger of the animals led to slaughter. Those working inside must also see and participate in the crimes of mayhem and murder. Most who choose this line of work are not on the job for long. Of all occupations in the U.S., slaughterhouse worker has the highest turnover rate. It also has the highest rate of on-the-job injury. Stop trying to act like you know stuff. Who knows if all these so called "facts" that you listed are even true or not. Were you there when the experiments were conducted if any? Teamliquid is hardly the place to try and argue if humanity should eat meat or not. If it's logical or not. By the way some of the points listed above saying if we stopped raising cattle and stopped eating meat then we wouldn't have to feed them as much and there would be more for the world. So what you think those animals magically disappear? That if we stop eating them they just somehow stop eating as much food as they normally do? Another point is that people argue that animals should be treated better, it's inhumane etc. But I'm sure if it was a skunk or an opossum or a fish or something we would consider ugly being mistreated then we wouldn't care as much. To anyone who is arguing for the animals and how they're treated you better be arguing for all animals not just the ones in slaughterhouses. Anyways i said it earlier in this post and I'll say it again. There are far worse problems in this world that need our attention. | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
howso? I consider no others to be responsible for my actions. Why am I responsible for the actions of others? I would think that one's level of involvement is a choice, not mandatory. The private is political. Could you explain what you mean by this? | ||
|
Tsagacity
United States2124 Posts
There are far worse problems in this world that need our attention. Haha, reminds me of an old news video I saw where someone was raising money to buy bullet-proof vests for police dogs. They were like $600 each >.< | ||
|
EsX_Raptor
United States2802 Posts
| ||
|
APurpleCow
United States1372 Posts
Oh of course, if american's would reduce their intake of food by 10% that could also be adequate to feed 500 million people. 85% percent of statistics are made up on the spot. Again, its called choice. You trying to demonize me because I eat meat, and therefore kill children by starving them is absurd. Guess what, you aren't any better than I am because you don't eat meat. Do you try to make EVERYTHING personal? Somebody provides a rational argument and you get all defensive? Lastly, killing animals to eat isn't murder. If you think this, then nature to you is murder. Are all carnivores murderers to you? 1) Everything is nature. 2) Carnivores "murder" out of necessity. If they didn't, they would die. I don't think you would die if you stopped eating meat. I think the only part of you that would suffer would be your tastebuds. By the way some of the points listed above saying if we stopped raising cattle and stopped eating meat then we wouldn't have to feed them as much and there would be more for the world. So what you think those animals magically disappear? That if we stop eating them they just somehow stop eating as much food as they normally do? These animals are raised to be eaten. Another point is that people argue that animals should be treated better, it's inhumane etc. But I'm sure if it was a skunk or an opossum or a fish or something we would consider ugly being mistreated then we wouldn't care as much. To anyone who is arguing for the animals and how they're treated you better be arguing for all animals not just the ones in slaughterhouses. What the hell kind of argument is this? Even if these people WERE hypocrites, who the fuck cares? "I know I'm wrong, but you're wrong too so it's okay." Right. That you stop eating them doesn't mean that the rest of the world will also. So you'll be the only one missing out on eating some smoked steak with potatoes on a Sunday afternoon. That's what everybody else is thinking too, and that's why that kind of logic doesn't work. | ||
|
PobTheCad
Australia893 Posts
On May 30 2009 11:26 BeautifulJudas wrote: 1. The Hunger Argument against meat-eating Much of the world's massive hunger problems could be solved by the reduction or elimination of meat-eating. The reasons: 1) livestock pasture needs cut drastically into land which could otherwise be used to grow food; 2) vast quantities of food which could feed humans is fed to livestock raised to Nope , these farmers SELL their grain to meat producers.If they sold their grain to 3rd world countries instead of meat producers how are the 3rd world people going to pay for it?.The problem of world hunger is simple , there is too many people in the world , especially in these 3rd world countries that cannot support their own population. 2. The Environmental Argument against meat-eating Many of the world's massive environmental problems could be solved by the reduction or elimination of meat-eating, including global warming, loss of topsoil, loss of rainforests and species extinction. The temperature of the earth is rising. This global warming, known as "the greenhouse effect," results primarily from carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas. Three times more fossil fuels must be burned to produce a meat-centered diet than for a meat-free diet. If people stopped eating meat, the threat of higher world temperatures would be vastly diminished. Trees, and especially the old-growth forests, are essential to the survival of the planet. Their destruction is a major cause of global warming and top soil loss. Both of these effects lead to diminished food production. Meat-eating is the number one driving force for the destruction of these forests. Two-hundred and sixty million acres of U.S. forestland has been cleared for cropland to produce the meat-centered diet. Fifty-five square feet of tropical rainforest is consumed to produce every quarter-pound of rainforest beef. An alarming 75% of all U.S. topsoil has been lost to date. Eighty-five percent of this loss is directly related to livestock raising. Another devastating result of deforestation is the loss of plant and animal species. Each year 1,000 species are eliminated due to destruction of tropical rainforests for meat grazing and other uses. The rate is growing yearly. To keep up with U.S. consumption, 300 million pounds of meat are imported annually from Central and South America. This economic incentive impels these nations to cut down their forests to make more pastureland. The short-term gain ignores the long-term, irreparable harm to the earth's ecosystem. In effect these countries are being drained of their resources to put meat on the table of Americans while 75% of all Central American children under the age of five are undernourished. again due to overpopulation and not any other specific problem. 3. The Cancer Argument against meat-eating Those who eat flesh are far more likely to contract cancer than those following a vegetarian diet. The risk of contracting breast cancer is 3.8 times greater for women who eat meat daily compared to less than once a week; 2.8 times greater for women who eat eggs daily compared to once a week; and 3.25 greater for women who eat butter and cheese 2 to 4 times a week as compared to once a week. The risk of fatal ovarian cancer is three times greater for women who eat eggs 3 or more times a week as compared with less than once a week. The risk of fatal prostate cancer is 3.6 times greater for men who consume meat, cheese, eggs and milk daily as compared with sparingly or not at all. these are junk facts because like most foods nowdays meat and milk are poor incarnations of their former selves.grain fed meat has around 3% omega 3 , grass fed meat has been found to have 10 times this amount.pasteurizing milk has been found to destroy many beneficial particles , minerals and organisms.the process also make milk indigestible for many people because it changes the proteins.finally and most importantly the study does not distinguish between healthy lean cuts of meat and poor quality salamis and processed meats like sausages.no-one is doubting processed meats cause cancers , healthy cuts of meat do not.look to the inuit people who lived on a diet of 95% meat & fat for examples. 4. The Cholesterol Argument against meat-eating Here are facts showing that: 1) U.S. physicians are not sufficiently trained in the importance of the relation of diet to health; 2) meat-eaters ingest excessive amounts of cholesterol, making them dangerously susceptible to heart attacks. It is strange, but true that U.S. physicians are as a rule ill-educated in the single most important factor of health, namely diet and nutrition. Of the 125 medical schools in the U.S., only 30 require their students to take a course in nutrition. The average nutrition training received by the average U.S. physician during four years in school is only 2.5 hours. Thus doctors in the U.S. are ill-equipped to advise their patients in minimizing foods, such as meat, that contain excessive amounts of cholesterol and are known causes of heart attack. article does not distinguish between processed and non processed meats again. 5. The Natural Resources Argument against meat-eating The world's natural resources are being rapidly depleted as a result of meat-eating. Raising livestock for their meat is a very inefficient way of generating food. Pound for pound, far more resources must be expended to produce meat than to produce grains, fruits and vegetables. For example, more than half of all water used for all purposes in the U.S. is consumed in livestock production. The amount of water used in production of the average cow is sufficient to float a destroyer (a large naval ship). While 25 gallons of water are needed to produce a pound of wheat, 5,000 gallons are needed to produce a pound of California beef. That same 5,000 gallons of water can produce 200 pounds of wheat. If this water cost were not subsidized by the government, the cheapest hamburger meat would cost more than $35 per pound. Meat-eating is devouring oil reserves at an alarming rate. It takes nearly 78 calories of fossil fuel (oil, natural gas, etc.) energy to produce one calory of beef protein and only 2 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calory of soybean. If every human ate a meat-centered diet, the world's known oil reserves would last a mere 13 years. They would last 260 years if humans stopped eating meat altogether. That is 20 times longer, giving humanity ample time to develop alternative energy sources. Thirty-three percent of all raw materials (base products of farming, forestry and mining, including fossil fuels) consumed by the U.S. are devoted to the production of livestock, as compared with 2% to produce a complete vegetarian diet. true i guess , but would you be against my home rearing of chickens/rabbits on food scraps? what would be the 'carbon footprint' of this? 6. The Antibiotic Argument against meat-eating Here are facts showing the dangers of eating meat because of the large amounts of antibiotics fed to livestock to control staphylococci (commonly called staph infections), which are becoming immune to these drugs at an alarming rate. The animals that are being raised for meat in the United States are diseased. The livestock industry attempts to control this disease by feeding the animals antibiotics. Huge quantities of drugs go for this purpose. Of all antibiotics used in the U.S., 55% are fed to livestock. But this is only partially effective because the bacteria that cause disease are becoming immune to the antibiotics. The percentage of staphylococci infections resistant to penicillin, for example, has grown from 13% in 1960 to 91% in 1988. These antibiotics and-or the bacteria they are intended to destroy reside in the meat that goes to market. It is not healthy for humans to consume this meat. The response of the European Economic Community to the routine feeding of antibiotics to U.S. livestock was to ban the importation of U.S. meat. European buyers do not want to expose consumers to this serious health hazard. By comparison, U.S. meat and pharmaceutical industries gave their full and complete support to the routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock, turning a blind eye to the threat of disease to the consumer. i dont live in the US so this doesnt affect me.i can still suggest just buying hormone free/organic meats if you live in the US? 7. The Pesticide Argument against meat-eating Unknown to most meat-eaters, U.S.-produced meat contains dangerously high quantities of deadly pesticides. The common belief is that the U.S. Department of Agriculture protects consumers' health through regular and thorough meat inspection. In reality, fewer than one out of every 250,000 slaughtered animals is tested for toxic chemical residues. That these chemicals are indeed ingested by the meat-eater is proven by the following facts: * Ninety-nine percent of U.S. mother's milk contains significant levels of DDT. In stark contrast, only 8% of U.S. vegetarian mother's milk containing significant levels of DDT. This shows that the primary source of DDT is the meat ingested by the mothers. * Contamination of breast milk due to chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides in animal products found in meat-eating mothers versus nonmeat-eating mothers is 35 times higher. * The amount of the pesticide Dieldrin ingested by the average breast-fed American infant is 9 times the permissible level. fruit , vegetables and grain also contains pesticide residue.should i stop eating these foods also? 8. The Ethical Argument against meat-eating Many of those who have adopted a vegetarian diet have done so because of the ethical argument, either from reading about or personally experiencing what goes on daily at any one of the thousands of slaughterhouses in the U.S. and other countries, where animals suffer the cruel process of forced confinement, manipulation and violent death. Their pain and terror is beyond calculation. The slaughterhouse is the final stop for animals raised for their flesh. These ghastly places, while little known to most meat-eaters, process enormous numbers of animals each years. In the U.S. alone, 660,000 animals are killed for meat every hour. A surprising quantity of meat is consumed by the meat-eater. The average percapita consumption of meat in the U.S., Canada and Australia is 200 pounds per year! The average American consumes in a 72-year lifetime approximately 11 cattle, 3 lambs and sheep, 23 hogs, 45 turkeys, 1,100 chickens and 862 pounds of fish! Bon appetite! People who come in contact with slaughterhouses cannot help but be affected by what they see and hear. Those living nearby must daily experience the screams of terror and anger of the animals led to slaughter. Those working inside must also see and participate in the crimes of mayhem and murder. Most who choose this line of work are not on the job for long. Of all occupations in the U.S., slaughterhouse worker has the highest turnover rate. It also has the highest rate of on-the-job injury. [/quote] society is too soft nowdays.do you feel sadness when a lion kills an antelope to survive? should he be eating celery instead? humans are omnivores that can digest both animals and plant foods.they developed this way through thousands of years of evolution.prehistoric man did not walk into the health food store and pick up some iron/b12 tablets. i believe the most unhealthiest foods at the supermarket are meat substitute products made out of soy (a phytoestrogen that causes cancer) and vegetable oils (from canola , a genetically modified version of the rapeseed plant which contains carcinogenics) | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
| ||
|
EscPlan9
United States2777 Posts
There are many problems in the world, and the world would be a better place if everyone did a little something to try to minimize these problems. So take your time and research the problems that interest you the most, and find out what you can do to take action to minimize the damage produced by them. Personally, I am a vegetarian for ethical reasons. | ||
|
no_comprender
Australia91 Posts
i know 2 guys who tried to go vegetarian and quit after a few months because they all lost muscle mass and had had couldn't get it up (no joke), they also report they generally felt weaker and hungrier. i don;t know how common things like that are but that'd be enough to scare me away | ||
|
Disregard
China10252 Posts
| ||
|
Probe.
United States877 Posts
On May 30 2009 12:47 EscPlan9 wrote: So many terrible arguments in here. One I see repeated a lot is "there are other problems we need to tend to", which is just a deflection. You are accepting that it is a problem how these animals entire existence is for our own use and are treated poorly. However, you then are saying it is impossible to not eat meat, while still helping out with other problems? News for you guys in denial: the food you eat does not take up such a huge portion of your life that you cannot help out in other ways. There are many problems in the world, and the world would be a better place if everyone did a little something to try to minimize these problems. So take your time and research the problems that interest you the most, and find out what you can do to take action to minimize the damage produced by them. Personally, I am a vegetarian for ethical reasons. Yeah it is a problem. And yes I am saying it's impossible to try and correct multiple problems at once. Change is way harder than it sounds. Honestly I don't have time to completely change my diet plan just because some people think it's wrong. Personally i don't really care that much about animals and i feel that any spare time i have can be used to helping less fortunate human beings and can't be wasted on if i think animals have emotions or not. It's fine if someone is a vegetarian but don't try to force it on people by using some random facts you found that show that everything about eating meat is wrong. | ||
|
Aegraen
United States1225 Posts
On May 30 2009 12:28 APurpleCow wrote: Do you try to make EVERYTHING personal? Somebody provides a rational argument and you get all defensive? 1) Everything is nature. 2) Carnivores "murder" out of necessity. If they didn't, they would die. I don't think you would die if you stopped eating meat. I think the only part of you that would suffer would be your tastebuds. These animals are raised to be eaten. What the hell kind of argument is this? Even if these people WERE hypocrites, who the fuck cares? "I know I'm wrong, but you're wrong too so it's okay." Right. That's what everybody else is thinking too, and that's why that kind of logic doesn't work. Carnivores kill, not murder. | ||
|
DeathSpank
United States1029 Posts
On May 30 2009 11:26 BeautifulJudas wrote: I came across this article and thought it'd be worth reposting - good for our learning too: While their numbers are rapidly growing, vegetarians are still a minority, and it is not unusual to be confronted with a meat-eater who not only protects his own right to eat flesh, but argues aggressively that vegetarians should join him in his carnivorous diet. Carnivores may regard nonmeat-eaters as a strange lot who munch on "rabbit food," and whose diet doesn't have the substance to make them strong, productive human beings. The following presentation is designed to turn the tables on such discussions by showing the devastating effects of meat-eating both on individuals and on our planet. It is based on a richly informative poster entitled, "How to win an argument with a meat-eater," published by Earthsave, an organization based in Felton, California, giving facts from Pulitzer Prize nominee John Robbins' book Diet for a New America. Below are eight separate arguments against meat-eating and in favor of a vegetarian diet. 1. The Hunger Argument against meat-eating Much of the world's massive hunger problems could be solved by the reduction or elimination of meat-eating. The reasons: 1) livestock pasture needs cut drastically into land which could otherwise be used to grow food; 2) vast quantities of food which could feed humans is fed to livestock raised to produce meat. This year alone, twenty million people worldwide will die as a result of malnutrition. One child dies of malnutrition every 2.3 seconds. One hundred million people could be adequately fed using the land freed if Americans reduced their intake of meat by a mere 10%. Twenty percent of the corn grown in the U.S. is eaten by people. Eighty percent of the corn and 95% of the oats grown in the U.S. is eaten by livestock. The percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock is calculated by experts as 90%. One acre of land can produce 40,000 pounds of potatoes, or 250 pounds of beef. Fifty-six percent of all U.S. farmland is devoted to beef production, and to produce each pound of beef requires 16 pounds of edible grain and soybeans, which could be used to feed the hungry. 2. The Environmental Argument against meat-eating Many of the world's massive environmental problems could be solved by the reduction or elimination of meat-eating, including global warming, loss of topsoil, loss of rainforests and species extinction. The temperature of the earth is rising. This global warming, known as "the greenhouse effect," results primarily from carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas. Three times more fossil fuels must be burned to produce a meat-centered diet than for a meat-free diet. If people stopped eating meat, the threat of higher world temperatures would be vastly diminished. Trees, and especially the old-growth forests, are essential to the survival of the planet. Their destruction is a major cause of global warming and top soil loss. Both of these effects lead to diminished food production. Meat-eating is the number one driving force for the destruction of these forests. Two-hundred and sixty million acres of U.S. forestland has been cleared for cropland to produce the meat-centered diet. Fifty-five square feet of tropical rainforest is consumed to produce every quarter-pound of rainforest beef. An alarming 75% of all U.S. topsoil has been lost to date. Eighty-five percent of this loss is directly related to livestock raising. Another devastating result of deforestation is the loss of plant and animal species. Each year 1,000 species are eliminated due to destruction of tropical rainforests for meat grazing and other uses. The rate is growing yearly. To keep up with U.S. consumption, 300 million pounds of meat are imported annually from Central and South America. This economic incentive impels these nations to cut down their forests to make more pastureland. The short-term gain ignores the long-term, irreparable harm to the earth's ecosystem. In effect these countries are being drained of their resources to put meat on the table of Americans while 75% of all Central American children under the age of five are undernourished. 3. The Cancer Argument against meat-eating Those who eat flesh are far more likely to contract cancer than those following a vegetarian diet. The risk of contracting breast cancer is 3.8 times greater for women who eat meat daily compared to less than once a week; 2.8 times greater for women who eat eggs daily compared to once a week; and 3.25 greater for women who eat butter and cheese 2 to 4 times a week as compared to once a week. The risk of fatal ovarian cancer is three times greater for women who eat eggs 3 or more times a week as compared with less than once a week. The risk of fatal prostate cancer is 3.6 times greater for men who consume meat, cheese, eggs and milk daily as compared with sparingly or not at all. 4. The Cholesterol Argument against meat-eating Here are facts showing that: 1) U.S. physicians are not sufficiently trained in the importance of the relation of diet to health; 2) meat-eaters ingest excessive amounts of cholesterol, making them dangerously susceptible to heart attacks. It is strange, but true that U.S. physicians are as a rule ill-educated in the single most important factor of health, namely diet and nutrition. Of the 125 medical schools in the U.S., only 30 require their students to take a course in nutrition. The average nutrition training received by the average U.S. physician during four years in school is only 2.5 hours. Thus doctors in the U.S. are ill-equipped to advise their patients in minimizing foods, such as meat, that contain excessive amounts of cholesterol and are known causes of heart attack. Heart attack is the most common cause of death in the U.S., killing one person every 45 seconds. The male meat-eater's risk of death from heart attack is 50%. The risk to men who eats no meat is 15%. Reducing one's consumption of meat, dairy and eggs by 10% reduces the risk of heart attack by 10%. Completely eliminating these products from one's diet reduces the risk of heart attack by 90%. The average cholesterol consumption of a meat-centered diet is 210 milligrams per day. The chance of dying from heart disease if you are male and your blood cholesterol is 210 milligrams daily is greater than 50%. 5. The Natural Resources Argument against meat-eating The world's natural resources are being rapidly depleted as a result of meat-eating. Raising livestock for their meat is a very inefficient way of generating food. Pound for pound, far more resources must be expended to produce meat than to produce grains, fruits and vegetables. For example, more than half of all water used for all purposes in the U.S. is consumed in livestock production. The amount of water used in production of the average cow is sufficient to float a destroyer (a large naval ship). While 25 gallons of water are needed to produce a pound of wheat, 5,000 gallons are needed to produce a pound of California beef. That same 5,000 gallons of water can produce 200 pounds of wheat. If this water cost were not subsidized by the government, the cheapest hamburger meat would cost more than $35 per pound. Meat-eating is devouring oil reserves at an alarming rate. It takes nearly 78 calories of fossil fuel (oil, natural gas, etc.) energy to produce one calory of beef protein and only 2 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calory of soybean. If every human ate a meat-centered diet, the world's known oil reserves would last a mere 13 years. They would last 260 years if humans stopped eating meat altogether. That is 20 times longer, giving humanity ample time to develop alternative energy sources. Thirty-three percent of all raw materials (base products of farming, forestry and mining, including fossil fuels) consumed by the U.S. are devoted to the production of livestock, as compared with 2% to produce a complete vegetarian diet. 6. The Antibiotic Argument against meat-eating Here are facts showing the dangers of eating meat because of the large amounts of antibiotics fed to livestock to control staphylococci (commonly called staph infections), which are becoming immune to these drugs at an alarming rate. The animals that are being raised for meat in the United States are diseased. The livestock industry attempts to control this disease by feeding the animals antibiotics. Huge quantities of drugs go for this purpose. Of all antibiotics used in the U.S., 55% are fed to livestock. But this is only partially effective because the bacteria that cause disease are becoming immune to the antibiotics. The percentage of staphylococci infections resistant to penicillin, for example, has grown from 13% in 1960 to 91% in 1988. These antibiotics and-or the bacteria they are intended to destroy reside in the meat that goes to market. It is not healthy for humans to consume this meat. The response of the European Economic Community to the routine feeding of antibiotics to U.S. livestock was to ban the importation of U.S. meat. European buyers do not want to expose consumers to this serious health hazard. By comparison, U.S. meat and pharmaceutical industries gave their full and complete support to the routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock, turning a blind eye to the threat of disease to the consumer. 7. The Pesticide Argument against meat-eating Unknown to most meat-eaters, U.S.-produced meat contains dangerously high quantities of deadly pesticides. The common belief is that the U.S. Department of Agriculture protects consumers' health through regular and thorough meat inspection. In reality, fewer than one out of every 250,000 slaughtered animals is tested for toxic chemical residues. That these chemicals are indeed ingested by the meat-eater is proven by the following facts: * Ninety-nine percent of U.S. mother's milk contains significant levels of DDT. In stark contrast, only 8% of U.S. vegetarian mother's milk containing significant levels of DDT. This shows that the primary source of DDT is the meat ingested by the mothers. * Contamination of breast milk due to chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides in animal products found in meat-eating mothers versus nonmeat-eating mothers is 35 times higher. * The amount of the pesticide Dieldrin ingested by the average breast-fed American infant is 9 times the permissible level. 8. The Ethical Argument against meat-eating Many of those who have adopted a vegetarian diet have done so because of the ethical argument, either from reading about or personally experiencing what goes on daily at any one of the thousands of slaughterhouses in the U.S. and other countries, where animals suffer the cruel process of forced confinement, manipulation and violent death. Their pain and terror is beyond calculation. The slaughterhouse is the final stop for animals raised for their flesh. These ghastly places, while little known to most meat-eaters, process enormous numbers of animals each years. In the U.S. alone, 660,000 animals are killed for meat every hour. A surprising quantity of meat is consumed by the meat-eater. The average percapita consumption of meat in the U.S., Canada and Australia is 200 pounds per year! The average American consumes in a 72-year lifetime approximately 11 cattle, 3 lambs and sheep, 23 hogs, 45 turkeys, 1,100 chickens and 862 pounds of fish! Bon appetite! People who come in contact with slaughterhouses cannot help but be affected by what they see and hear. Those living nearby must daily experience the screams of terror and anger of the animals led to slaughter. Those working inside must also see and participate in the crimes of mayhem and murder. Most who choose this line of work are not on the job for long. Of all occupations in the U.S., slaughterhouse worker has the highest turnover rate. It also has the highest rate of on-the-job injury. pssst meat is tasty. | ||
|
Infundibulum
United States2552 Posts
On May 30 2009 12:43 PobTheCad wrote: society is too soft nowdays.do you feel sadness when a lion kills an antelope to survive? should he be eating celery instead? humans are omnivores that can digest both animals and plant foods.they developed this way through thousands of years of evolution.prehistoric man did not walk into the health food store and pick up some iron/b12 tablets. 1. It doesn't matter what a lion eats to survive. Lions do not have the mental capacity do make the choice: to kill or not to kill? A person can make this conscious decision and is aware of the consequences of it (or at least he should be) - which is why the question of whether we should eat meat or not exists in the first place. 2. The paleolithic diet is far removed from the modern western diet. Here's a handy list of things that many of us currently eat that prehistoric man did not evolve eating: grains (bread, pasta, noodles, etc) Beans and peas Potatoes Dairy Sugar Salt By the way, prehistoric man didn't walk into any store and buy fucking anything because THERE WEREN'T ANY STORES. Maybe that was a joke but honestly i couldn't tell. I hope you were joking. These foods only became common in mans' diet during and after the agricultural revolution and the development of cooking. In the evolutionary timescale, this is pretty recent. The notion that man ate meat in the past justifies meat eating in the present doesn't make any sense, especially when meat is not even necessary in a healthy diet when you live in a developed country (and you probably do, considering you are on the internet). If you want to defend your position, learn to do it properly. | ||
|
DeathSpank
United States1029 Posts
On May 30 2009 13:22 iNfuNdiBuLuM wrote: 1. It doesn't matter what a lion eats to survive. Lions do not have the mental capacity do make the choice: to kill or not to kill? A person can make this conscious decision and is aware of the consequences of it (or at least he should be) - which is why the question of whether we should eat meat or not exists in the first place. ... If you want to defend your position, learn to do it properly. K i'm going to go eat some lions since they don't even have the mental capacity to decide what they eat. They won't mind. | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 30 2009 12:58 no_comprender wrote: that list is a joke, don't vegetarians realize they're only pissing people off by trying to convince others to change their ways. I don't care if people eat meat, but your argument is totally flawed. It generally pisses idiots off if you try to convince them to change anything. i know 2 guys who tried to go vegetarian and quit after a few months because they all lost muscle mass and had had couldn't get it up (no joke), they also report they generally felt weaker and hungrier. i don;t know how common things like that are but that'd be enough to scare me away maybe they shouldn't have tried to go vegetarian cold turkey like total morons? why wouldn't they research a major decision like that? | ||
|
Railxp
Hong Kong1313 Posts
To begin with, i would strike the cancer argument off the list immediately because i'm pretty sure those are correlation studies that do not prove causation. Sure, it could very well be that something in meat increases your chances of cancer, but it doesn't into details of which type of meat and what is the exact thing that is present in meat that causes cancer. i agree with the ethical argument for the most part, but i'm sure a middle ground could be found. Farmers of old still ate meat, they still slaughtered animals, only much less frequently. Killing animals is bad so you cant eat meat is a flawed argument because you are giving rights to all animals. By that application natural carnivores would also fit under that category and then you would be starving lions and killer whales and eagles. Pointing out the job dissatisfaction of working in a meat factory is also a flawed argument because those people chose to enter the industry in the first place. If they all decided to stand on "killing animals is wrong", we would run out of meat very fast. The environmental and resource argument seems entirly valid to me. As do the anti-bionics, and pesticide arguments. They are surefire reasons to cut down on meat consumption, but I still don't see the case for a switch into vegetarianism. Finally, i might not be able to dispute the cholesterol argument, but I am interested in the other health benefits of meat vs vegetarianism. Although lazy to do the work, I don't think it is an outlandish claim when I say that eating meat + vegetables is healthier than eating just vegetables. Note that this is only my uninformed opinion, and would be open to correction. | ||
|
D10
Brazil3409 Posts
I dont really think there are many vegans in Brazil I even found an interesting quote from a vegan activist here im gonna translate + Show Spoiler + And how was your transition from eggs and milk to complete vegan? Back in that time veganism wasant spread like it is today. Today people are becoming vegans because of the way the animals are raised, and their conditions. Back when I became a vegan, people adpted vegetarianism because of health reasons or spiritual reasons or respect for the animals. But it was about compassion and not about some specific disqualification on the breeding process, such as happens today. When I discovered this movement, that was born in England and has more than 50 years, I went to a vegan festival, that happened in California, and there I knew all this culture. And decided to adopt it as well. This was in 1994. | ||
|
DeathSpank
United States1029 Posts
| ||
|
PobTheCad
Australia893 Posts
On May 30 2009 13:22 iNfuNdiBuLuM wrote: 1. It doesn't matter what a lion eats to survive. Lions do not have the mental capacity do make the choice: to kill or not to kill? A person can make this conscious decision and is aware of the consequences of it (or at least he should be) - which is why the question of whether we should eat meat or not exists in the first place. 2. The paleolithic diet is far removed from the modern western diet. Here's a handy list of things that many of us currently eat that prehistoric man did not evolve eating: grains (bread, pasta, noodles, etc) Beans and peas Potatoes Dairy Sugar Salt By the way, prehistoric man didn't walk into any store and buy fucking anything because THERE WEREN'T ANY STORES. Maybe that was a joke but honestly i couldn't tell. I hope you were joking. These foods only became common in mans' diet during and after the agricultural revolution and the development of cooking. In the evolutionary timescale, this is pretty recent. The notion that man ate meat in the past justifies meat eating in the present doesn't make any sense, especially when meat is not even necessary in a healthy diet when you live in a developed country (and you probably do, considering you are on the internet). If you want to defend your position, learn to do it properly. ??.... the point was paleolithic man had to eat meat to survive because meat was the only place he could find vitamin B12.if our forefathers did not eat meat we would not be alive today. you are correct in that man has only eaten grains etc in the past 10,000 or so years.grains and carbohydrates are also the main reason DIABETES is so prevalent in society these days.meat does not cause a spike in blood glucose , unlike carbs. | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 30 2009 15:24 PobTheCad wrote: ??.... the point was paleolithic man had to eat meat to survive because meat was the only place he could find vitamin B12.if our forefathers did not eat meat we would not be alive today. you are correct in that man has only eaten grains etc in the past 10,000 or so years.grains and carbohydrates are also the main reason DIABETES is so prevalent in society these days.meat does not cause a spike in blood glucose , unlike carbs. well, u can get b12 from fish/shellfish and most don't classify them in the same category as more intelligent animals and LOL at u blaming diabetes on grains the primary reason diabetes is prevalent is because of the mass mass sugar we are consuming. and beyond that, whole grains do not spike blood glucose | ||
|
Savio
United States1850 Posts
On May 29 2009 04:11 King K. Rool wrote: Meat is delicious. The less you eat the more I have (theoretically). Of course I don't really care too much for animal welfare. Sure having animals (ie saving them from extinction, whatnot) are nice, but needs of humans > needs of animals. | ||
|
decafchicken
United States20068 Posts
We arrived at the restaurant at 11:07 for our 11:00 reservation. The place is desolate, save a few of the tables. The decor consists of dark carpeted floors, tasteful wooden furnishings, and a wooden ceiling complementing a warmly lit, capacious dining area. We are seated at our table, near the salad bard. Before I dive into the eating, let me explain how this place works. For 20$ lunch or 40$ dinner, you are entitled to an all you can eat, not-your-average salad bar complete with everything from little balls of mozzarella to soups with such complex names I don't care to spell them at this time, to artichoke hearts. This is then followed by the main course, a smattering for steaks, beefs, chickens, and more (15 in total). You have a token that says "No, thank you" on one side, and "Yes, please" on the other. When you are ready for meat, you flip the token to the Yes side. There are cycles of Brazilian men adorned in gaucho attire: loose, fancy black pants tucked into boots, topped by a loose white dress shirt. These cowboys then go from table to table with a saber of a given meat, which they will cut for you if you want some, which you then grab with your pair of tongs. Rinse and repeat till you explode. Now on to the juicy stuff: So I start off with the salad, crafting myself a classic caesar salad with romaine lettuce, caesar dressing, mozzarella cheese, and croûtons. I quickly inhale that scrumptious assortment of rabbit food and prepare myself for a man's meal. I start off conservatively, saving myself for my favorites: filet mignon, pork tenderloin, babyback ribs, and ribs. I soon learn this is a foolish error on my part for several reasons: I have the appetite of several grisly lumberjacks after a hard day's work, the servings are relatively small, and lastly you'd be a damned fool not to try every last one of these delectable slices of cooked muscle and fat. I believe I started off with some top and bottom sirloin. As these meats touched my palette, the anger of not being in Mexico momentarily left me. It was THAT good. I carefully ingested these fine pieces of meat, piece by piece, making them last. Soon the waitress brings a bowl of mashed potatoes. My kryptonite. I absolutely love a good helping of mashed potatoes. But these taters were crafted by no mere mortal. God himself poured a bit of his soul into this buttery, creamy concoction that melted my taste buds away. When mixed with my next round of meat, pork tenderloin topped with Parmesan cheese, my mouth had multiple orgasms. The explosion of juicy flavor combined with the smooth as silk mashed potatoes was almost too much to handle. Had there been no more, I could have cried, spit it out, and eaten it again just in hopes of experiencing it again. I realized I still had more meat and potatoes left, and simply repeated the eating. Next was Fillet Mignon wrapped in bacon. My favorite steak ever...wrapped in bacon. Oh lord, this will be good. As I slice the meat, blood pours out of this perfectly cooked piece of meat. I can hardly wait till the flavorful blood ravishes my tongue. Before my mouth even as the chance to envelop this meaty goodness, I can smell what is to come. I bite down into what can only be described as pure extacy. But that's not all. I keep chewing. And flavor keeps coming. I chew each piece for minutes, extracting every last bit of flavor. I'm scared to breathe, let alone open my mouth, for fear that some of this flavor might escape into undeserving air. I repeat this cycle over with more meats than I knew existed. Every single muscle of a cow or pig was available for my enjoyment. Over the next hour, my taste buds were assaulted with an assortment of the greatest meats ever cooked. Sadly, when it felt like every piece I ate was going to come back out, I knew it was time to let go. Quite possibly the most worth while 20 + tax/tip that I have ever spent, after the Starcraft Battle Chest. In summary, all I have to say is vegetarians are missing part of their soul. -my blog | ||
|
Savio
United States1850 Posts
End of story. | ||
|
PH
United States6173 Posts
On May 30 2009 16:08 travis wrote: well, u can get b12 from fish/shellfish and most don't classify them in the same category as more intelligent animals and LOL at u blaming diabetes on grains the primary reason diabetes is prevalent is because of the mass mass sugar we are consuming. and beyond that, whole grains do not spike blood glucose So it's not okay to eat cows and chickens, but fish are totally fine? | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 30 2009 16:55 PH wrote: So it's not okay to eat cows and chickens, but fish are totally fine? well that's certainly not what I said but if you want to take extra meaning from my words I don't mind | ||
|
DeathSpank
United States1029 Posts
On May 30 2009 16:55 PH wrote: So it's not okay to eat cows and chickens, but fish are totally fine? those fuckers don't even live on land! | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
I mean, there are plenty of people who absolutely don't eat any type of animal and still are perfectly healthy. | ||
|
LaSt)ChAnCe
United States2179 Posts
i watched half of the movie and got bored, sorry | ||
|
PH
United States6173 Posts
On May 30 2009 17:02 travis wrote: well that's certainly not what I said but if you want to take extra meaning from my words I don't mind I actually didn't assume you were supporting what you were saying...I have no idea if you're a moral vegetarian or not. The tone I got from your post was just that of someone bringing up an opposing viewpoint. Anyway...with that aside...I don't see how you could take any other meaning from that. Fish/shellfish are on a different level of intelligence than "more intelligent" animals...combining that with the previous sentence heavily implies that one can intake B12 from fish of whatever kind, but not a "more intelligent" animal, which I assume to be things like...cows and chickens. I don't get how you would expect me or anyone else to come to a different conclusion. | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 30 2009 17:15 PH wrote: I actually didn't assume you were supporting what you were saying...I have no idea if you're a moral vegetarian or not. The tone I got from your post was just that of someone bringing up an opposing viewpoint. Anyway...with that aside...I don't see how you could take any other meaning from that. Fish/shellfish are on a different level of intelligence than "more intelligent" animals...combining that with the previous sentence heavily implies that one can intake B12 from fish of whatever kind, but not a "more intelligent" animal, which I assume to be things like...cows and chickens. I don't get how you would expect me or anyone else to come to a different conclusion. my view is that is wrong to kill any living creature but it's more wrong to kill some creatures than other creatures I don't believe in black or white situations. | ||
|
no_comprender
Australia91 Posts
On May 30 2009 13:41 travis wrote: so? you'll RARELY convince anyone (not only idiots) to change after you've pissed them off by essentially beating them down in an argument. it'll promote a defensive reaction and resentment faaaar more often than them actually changing their mind. if vegetarians are legitimately trying to encourage more people to stop eating meat then this is the wrong way to go about it. when it comes to the argument for/against it, to me it seems the majority of vegetarians try to take the moral high ground in order to win an argument for themselves with no legit intention of furthering the cause (and associated morals) they claim to adhere to. and even if this isn't the case, it's the stereotype that vegetarians have no choice but to avoid perpetrating if they want to further their idealsI don't care if people eat meat, but your argument is totally flawed. It generally pisses idiots off if you try to convince them to change anything. maybe they shouldn't have tried to go vegetarian cold turkey like total morons? why wouldn't they research a major decision like that? about my friends: i believe they bought a few books and basically followed those while reading forums. they didn't just jump into it completely cold turkey. i think one of the things they thought might be the cause of the libido problems was the amount of some estrogen subtype in tofu or something like that, which is basically the staple of a huge number of vegetarians's diets. it's a big ask to put major effort into preparing what you want to eat without finding yourself even more constricted by individual variation in diet reactions. how much effort does it have to be? these aren't complete retards i'm talking about, they're both future lawyers and took vitamins with their diets. of course idk if the tofu thing is true, but diet science is disgustingly incomplete considering how far we've come in other areas, there's people who advocate a 100% meat diet as being amazing for health. it shows how little we really know about any of this stuff. the virtues of vegetarianism as a diet are hardly concrete even without worrying about what kind of vegetarianism you're going to do. imo some people can probably get by on no meat with no ill effects but others probably need the meaty goodness that only animal flesh can provide imo by far the strongest argument in favor of a vegetarian diet, and the one that would garner the most support, is the environmental impact of the meat industry. ie: methane emissions, land use sustainability etc etc. but all the pro-vege media i see on billboards is the same old harping on about 'meat is murder' type themes that try to guilt people into going vegetarian. i think they'd do much better if they spent more energy attacking the sustainability angle, theres a reason everyone hates PETA | ||
|
Eniram
Sudan3166 Posts
On May 30 2009 17:28 travis wrote: my view is that is wrong to kill any living creature but it's more wrong to kill some creatures than other creatures I don't believe in black or white situations. How are people going to survive if nothing is ever killed? | ||
|
Eniram
Sudan3166 Posts
On May 30 2009 17:10 LaSt)ChAnCe wrote: i ate a bratwurst earlier for breakfast, for lunch i ate half of my gf's cheeseburger, and now i think i'm going to go wrap some steak in bacon and fry it up and have myself a heart attack i watched half of the movie and got bored, sorry And then when your colon looks like a compacted garbage disposal your doctor will get bored on not check your xrays | ||
|
Ghardo
Germany1685 Posts
What I find really problematic (but that's a general problem of capitalism) is on which scale our meat production works: In the US alone (~300 million inhabitants) nearly 10 billion animals are grown and killed each year - so one nation manages to extinguish ~3.3 billion living beings more than our world population - in one year. I call that perverted. We don't need these huge amounts.. that's just sick in a way and shows the totally overdone abundance of our society. But that's the problem of capitalism: If there is demand for 230 grams (again example: US) meat per inhabitant the supply will be provided. Animal meat is then just viewed as a 'good' without considering what stands behind this. Who said that with animals not being sentient? Shoot your dog in the leg and see how emotionally incapable he is of pain. | ||
|
unknown.sam
Philippines2701 Posts
not gonna change the way i eat though (well not yet anyway) | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
On May 30 2009 17:07 travis wrote: TBH it hasn't been proven how much b12 people need, either. I mean, there are plenty of people who absolutely don't eat any type of animal and still are perfectly healthy. Theres B12 in dairy and eggs and you don't need much. Plus, it has been shown that monks in south asia who ate just vegetables and did have sufficient B12 levels got their B12 because the vegetables weren't totally washed clean like they are in our modern supermarkets. But there are people that have problems absorbing B12 in general. So they need to consume a lot more B12 than they will actually need. These people could run into B12 problems with a normal diet. Just be sure you know the symptoms when you stop eating meat. i know 2 guys who tried to go vegetarian and quit after a few months because they all lost muscle mass and had had couldn't get it up (no joke), they also report they generally felt weaker and hungrier. i don;t know how common things like that are but that'd be enough to scare me away I think you may very well feel hungrier and eat more food higher on carbs. But if you have discipline you won't eat too much. As for protein, if you are going to do body building then you exercize with the proper weights and you add whey protein shakes to your diet. My brother did some bodybuilding and I think he gained like 20 kg of muscle or something. He only added dairy protein to his diet. I bet I could easily gain even more muscle mass on a vegan diet if I wanted. Maybe these people did indeed lose muscle mass. But they shouldn't have. I know I didn't notice any difference either in muscle mass or in performance as I do endurance sports. Plus, the diets of both a bodybuilder and triathleth are a lot closer to the ideal vegetarian diet than to the average american diet by a huge margin. | ||
|
L
Canada4732 Posts
On May 30 2009 19:57 Ghardo wrote: I think deep within everyone who knows and understands the human principles and morals we developed also knows that what we do is wrong. It's just a natural reaction to oppose it because changing habits is uncomfortable. I bet there were many many people who (subconsciously) knew slavery was a bad thing but chose not to think and dwell on it any further because the consequence would mean changing their everyday life. What I find really problematic (but that's a general problem of capitalism) is on which scale our meat production works: In the US alone (~300 million inhabitants) nearly 10 billion animals are grown and killed each year - so one nation manages to extinguish ~3.3 billion living beings more than our world population - in one year. I call that perverted. We don't need these huge amounts.. that's just sick in a way and shows the totally overdone abundance of our society. But that's the problem of capitalism: If there is demand for 230 grams (again example: US) meat per inhabitant the supply will be provided. Animal meat is then just viewed as a 'good' without considering what stands behind this. Who said that with animals not being sentient? Shoot your dog in the leg and see how emotionally incapable he is of pain. No, the problem of capitalism would be that you can conjure up demand for anything if you have enough money to spend on marketing. In this instance an incredibly successful marketing campaign normalized meat as the centerpiece of dinner, thereby creating the massive demand for meat. There WAS no demand for 230g of meat until people were taught that meat should be eaten every day as the centerpiece of every meal, which was never the case in rural or urban lifestyle until fairly recently. Beef, Its what's for dinner. Pork, the other white meat. Etc. How did these marketing campaigns get started? With the advent of globalization and the need for agricultural marketing boards. Emerging mass media technologies developed concurrently and allowed them to strongly influence societal norms in north america. Just like stuff like Leave it to Beaver shaped the way people evaluated their home life, food marketing shaped the way they fed themselves. The result of this is being played out now. | ||
|
PobTheCad
Australia893 Posts
On May 30 2009 16:08 travis wrote: well, u can get b12 from fish/shellfish and most don't classify them in the same category as more intelligent animals and LOL at u blaming diabetes on grains the primary reason diabetes is prevalent is because of the mass mass sugar we are consuming. and beyond that, whole grains do not spike blood glucose i disagree white sugar is around 66 on the glycemic index , white bread is 100 , potato is anywhere from 55-100 depending on variety grains usually have other problems with gluten intolerance etc.other common intolerances include milk and eggs.alot less people are allergic to meats although fish and shellfish you listed are the most common meat allergy. | ||
|
JudgeMathis
Cuba1286 Posts
| ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
There is talk that some foodstuffs potentially contain B12, but even in those rare cases it cannot be absorbed by the human body, and is therefore useless. However I disagree that this has any standing in the debate. People argue that it "proves" that humans have evolved to eat meat or animal products - but that only applies if you believe in a divine creator anyway, otherwise you really lack the jusitification for thinking that there is an overall plan that we must adhere to. So really we could view veganism as a futher stage in our cultural evolution and use the "we are the most intelligent animals on the planet, why are we so cruel" argument. There was also an interesting point made about the role of capitalism in the vegetarian debate. Obviously this would derail the thread to discuss fully, but its a pretty important point in understanding why some people are so resistant to the idea. Due to attempts to move the meat industry into an enterprise geared towards pure profit has led to children being educated in schools about how meat is the only viable source of protein and if you were to not drink milk as well - well you'd be only 3/5 on those food charts they have, clearly that would be BAD! It's pretty obvious that alot of that propaganda has rubbed off on people. I mean there are groups of people that have never eaten any meat or animal products (or in neglible amounts) who have never suffered any of the symptoms of deficiency (although exactly why is still unclear). Kinda interesting to see the effects that that advertising is still having :p One thing though, it is important to plan vegan diets a little more thoroughly than a meat based one. Those people that lost all their muscle mass must have planned their diets terribly. | ||
|
Infundibulum
United States2552 Posts
On May 30 2009 15:24 PobTheCad wrote: ??.... the point was paleolithic man had to eat meat to survive because meat was the only place he could find vitamin B12.if our forefathers did not eat meat we would not be alive today. you are correct in that man has only eaten grains etc in the past 10,000 or so years.grains and carbohydrates are also the main reason DIABETES is so prevalent in society these days.meat does not cause a spike in blood glucose , unlike carbs. Ok i see what you were saying. Sorry for acting like a dick in that post btw, i think i was frustrated at this thread | ||
|
x89titan
Philippines1130 Posts
| ||
|
Idle
Korea (South)124 Posts
On May 30 2009 11:24 Rev0lution wrote: hahahah, you think you can get swine flu from eating pork? OMG, way to be uninformed and fooled by hippie propaganda. No, you dont' get swine flu from eating pork you idiot. the swine flu originated because of the disgusting conditions in hog confinement operations. The confinement operations are essentially a petri dish for diseases. Reading comprehension man, you managed to combine two completely separate thoughts and use it to put words in my mouth. | ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
These bacteria do not live in plants. There is some debate about some potential sources in fungi. But in the end you need animal products, yes. And many foods aimed at vegetarians/vegans are fortified with B12. So vegans do need B12 vitamin suppliments. But vegetarians generally don't. Humans evolution was certainly influenced by their diet. Many studies have been done on the role of humans leaving the trees and hunting on the savanne and the effect on the evolution of our brain. And it is almost a fundamental rule of evolution that to be intelligent a species needs to be a hunter. Herbivores are generally always less intelligent than carnivores because if they weren't the carnivores would go instinct. So if there is intelligent life on another planet we know that species must have evolved hunting prey. Even chimps eat meat. They hunt monkeys and eat them. Now maybe our common ancestor already did that or both evolved it independently while the common ancestor didn't. But all that doesn't really matter. Humans do have a choice on this issue. And our evolutionary heritage doesn't dictate what is right and wrong. Rape is a successful reproduction tactic. It must have been used many times by many of our direct ancestors. Without rape, be it in some basic mammel 40 million years ago or in a human within 1 million years ago, without it you wouldn't be here. But that doesn't make it right. | ||
|
sudo.era
United States300 Posts
For those who say you should ease yourself into it with less and less meat, I disagree. It doesn't have to be nearly that calculated. For the first few weeks of being a vegetarian, just eat something really unhealthy (yet not meat) once a day. If gaining weight is a concern, take a 10 minute jog every 2 days for that period of time. A common misconception about vegetarianism is that you have to eat healthy. Nobody ever said that. You can be a gluttonous slob of a vegetarian if you want to. Extra cheese pizza is probably my most guilty pleasure. I'm not a slob, though. I've been losing weight since about 3 months ago when I rethought my diet. As far as generally eating meat goes, I'm not one to get in peoples' faces and tell them what I think they're doing wrong. My view on the subject consists of these two points: --Eating meat isn't incorrect, but if you can live and enjoy a meal without the death of a thinking being, why not? --And even if you do decide to eat meat given it's not necessary and you can enjoy yourself without it, the way the industry is run is the main concern, not meat itself Expanding on the first point, should you decide to eat meat, you must come to terms with the fact that it is a decision made from lust and habit, not reason. The logical conclusion is it's not necessary to kill other animals en-masse for us to survive. In response to this, most people will ignore their empathy centers and side with instinct - make a quip or two about how tasty a live animal would be, etc. You should also come to terms with the fact that this kind of response is a defensive measure against cognitive dissonance. You simply don't want to encounter the subject logically because you're afraid of losing that emotionally unattached relationship with meat. I'm not saying everybody does this - it's just that I've encountered it so much I feel like I have to address it beforehand. Second point. The major qualm is with the way the industry is run, not meat itself. Every time somebody tries to start an argument with me (I never care to argue about it, myself), they focus only on the pros and cons of eating meat. Of which, you might be surprised, there are many. Yes, there are cons. Anyway, what I always say in return is that if somebody chooses to eat meat, that is their personal decision. But what should be agreed upon is that there's no reason that we can't give a little back to the animals from which we take so much. All industry thrives on aerodynamic business, so as long as people are okay with that sort of animal treatment, the meat industry will continue to allow it. The only way to take away from that and help move toward a more progressive meat industry is to not participate in it (as I did). It's not much, but I estimate that I've subtracted about $600 from my annual meat spending and put it into the vegetarian-friendly market. That's a $600 statement that, just like a vote, can only help with people in numbers doing the same thing. And as for B12, I get plenty as a vegetarian. I didn't really know about it until I did a little research, but I'm good in that respect. | ||
|
Klockan3
Sweden2866 Posts
| ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 30 2009 19:28 Eniram wrote: How are people going to survive if nothing is ever killed? I never said that, these are just my opinions. As I said, I don't believe in black and white situations. Some actions are worse than others. As human beings we do have to eat for survival. Eating a pig is certainly much worse than eating a fish, which is worse than eating a worm, which is worse than eating an apple. | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 30 2009 22:55 PobTheCad wrote: i disagree white sugar is around 66 on the glycemic index , white bread is 100 , potato is anywhere from 55-100 depending on variety grains usually have other problems with gluten intolerance etc.other common intolerances include milk and eggs.alot less people are allergic to meats although fish and shellfish you listed are the most common meat allergy. well for the last 10 years companies haven't been making food so much with white sugar, more with terrible shit like corn syrup but anyways, white rice and white bread and stuff like that is bad for u if consumed in mass quantities, yes. which people do, they consume way too much of it. lots of things are very unhealthy if you consume way too much of it. | ||
|
L
Canada4732 Posts
On May 31 2009 03:54 travis wrote: I never said that, these are just my opinions. As I said, I don't believe in black and white situations. Some actions are worse than others. As human beings we do have to eat for survival. Eating a pig is certainly much worse than eating a fish, which is worse than eating a worm, which is worse than eating an apple. So the moral culpability is tied to consuming the complexity of the organism ingested? Is it still morally culpable that you eat billions of single celled organisms regardless of what you eat and then subject them to a acidic purge? Is moral culpability still there when the same purge by acid occurs when you swallow saliva? Are people with more active salivary glands inherantly more culpable in that respect? There's a criteria that you're hinting at which you aren't stating. well for the last 10 years companies haven't been making food so much with white sugar, more with terrible shit like corn syrup Companies have been using high fructose corn syrup for a long time as a sugar proxy because sugarcane is expensive when compared to corn and the US market doesn't want to deal with products which come from Cuba. It isn't just the last 10 years, its been that way for closer to 70 years. Fructose has the lovely effect of bypassing a large majority of biochemical feedback loops, which has made quite a few scientists believe that obesity and diabetes rates in america skyrocketed because of this cheap sugar proxy instead of issues regarding how sedentary people are. That said no longterm studies have linked it causally to the issue. That's mostly because the issue is relatively new in biochemistry and the studies take a massive amount of time to complete. While its quite controversial at the moment, evidence is piling up in favor of the conclusion that its a horrendously dangerous cost cutting measure. | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 31 2009 00:27 Piy wrote: The point about B12 is very valid. It is the one problem with the vegan diet that everyone brings up. The truth of the matter is that it is impossible for vegans to get enough There is talk that some foodstuffs potentially contain B12, but even in those rare cases it cannot be absorbed by the human body, and is therefore useless. This is not necessarily true, and there are tons of healthy people who don't eat meat that are living proof. many of them don't even eat eggs or dairy, either. but if a person is worried about it, they can just take supplements or eat fortified cereal or something so in short, yes vegans can have problems with b12 deficiency, but it can easily be overcome. vegetarians, however, should have no problem. | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 31 2009 04:03 L wrote: So the moral culpability is tied to consuming the complexity of the organism ingested? Is it still morally culpable that you eat billions of single celled organisms regardless of what you eat and then subject them to a acidic purge? Is moral culpability still there when the same purge by acid occurs when you swallow saliva? Are people with more active salivary glands inherantly more culpable in that respect? There's a criteria that you're hinting at which you aren't stating. well it's personal, as I said this is just my opinion (even though I do believe it is a logical truth) my opinion is that the greater the understanding/awareness of the creature that dies for your food, the greater the moral reprehensibility in killing it. however there would be other factors specific to the exact situation, that I don't think we really need to get into | ||
|
L
Canada4732 Posts
On May 31 2009 04:08 travis wrote: well it's personal, as I said this is just my opinion (even though I do believe it is a logical truth) my opinion is that the greater the understanding/awareness of the creature that dies for your food, the greater the moral reprehensibility in killing it. however there would be other factors specific to the exact situation, that I don't think we really need to get into So, you're putting value on awareness? Why? Does the type of awareness matter? Is there a goal for the awareness? | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 31 2009 04:14 L wrote: So, you're putting value on awareness? Why? Does the type of awareness matter? Is there a goal for the awareness? Yes. Because awareness is the greatest indicator of one's capacity for "spiritual growth". There is only one type of awareness. Where the awareness is focused is irrelevant. The goal for the awareness is to gain understanding(the "spiritual growth"). kinda sidetracking here hehe hopefully no one minds | ||
|
FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On May 30 2009 01:50 iNfuNdiBuLuM wrote: In my opinion, liking the way something tastes isn't a justification for the method it was produced. There are many bad things involved in the making of mass produced meat. They have been discussed before, and include: cruelty, pollution (air and water), growth hormones in food, and deforestation (e.g. Brazil) which leads to a degraded landscape that is eventually unusable for any sort of agricultural production. These aren't some made up bullshit facts by environmentalists, this stuff has happened in the past and is happening in the present. When faced with these issues, his reaction (and yours and many others) was to say "but I like eating meat, so all of that doesn't matter." "But I like it" is a selfish and shortsighted excuse. But you like hot running water, paved roads, and other modern conveniences. To live in such a lifestyle, you had to develop wilderness and destroy animal habitats. Why can't you give that up and live a more ecological lifestyle, like an Indian holy man? Because you like the lifestyle you live. I don't think thats a "selfish and shortsighted excuse". On May 30 2009 01:50 iNfuNdiBuLuM wrote: And FieryBalrog, the reason vegetarianism is such a big deal is that diet is one of the few parts of a lifestyle you have almost complete control over. You have complete control over how you choose to live, given enough willpower. On May 30 2009 01:50 iNfuNdiBuLuM wrote: Yes, the very act of living the western lifestyle is harmful to the environment and even to other people. However most of us didn't have control over where we were born and how we were raised, or choice in the matter that we have to drive to work to make money to eat and have shelter and clothe ourselves. If I had the means and necessary motiviation to become some agrarian hilldorf, I might do that. You do have control over this, but like you say you lack the motivation. A lot of people enjoy meat and want to eat it, because they like it. That's a good reason to keep eating it since there isn't the motivation to change. On May 30 2009 01:50 iNfuNdiBuLuM wrote: But I do not. Diet is one of the perhaps few places someone can make a conscious choice about his or her impact on the rest of the world. Some people choose to not eat meat and others do. That's essentially what it boils down to. The notion that one group is somehow "better" than the other is foolish. Thats what I've been saying all along. There is no compunction to vegetarianism. I do agree that if people eat meat they shouldn't be gluttons, because gluttony is degrading. But thats about it. | ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 31 2009 00:58 Diomedes wrote: B12 is made by bacteria, not by animals or plants. These bacteria live in our bodies, but we can't get the B12 from them. These bacteria do not live in plants. There is some debate about some potential sources in fungi. But in the end you need animal products, yes. And many foods aimed at vegetarians/vegans are fortified with B12. So vegans do need B12 vitamin suppliments. But vegetarians generally don't. Humans evolution was certainly influenced by their diet. Many studies have been done on the role of humans leaving the trees and hunting on the savanne and the effect on the evolution of our brain. And it is almost a fundamental rule of evolution that to be intelligent a species needs to be a hunter. Herbivores are generally always less intelligent than carnivores because if they weren't the carnivores would go instinct. So if there is intelligent life on another planet we know that species must have evolved hunting prey. Even chimps eat meat. They hunt monkeys and eat them. Now maybe our common ancestor already did that or both evolved it independently while the common ancestor didn't. But all that doesn't really matter. Humans do have a choice on this issue. And our evolutionary heritage doesn't dictate what is right and wrong. Rape is a successful reproduction tactic. It must have been used many times by many of our direct ancestors. Without rape, be it in some basic mammel 40 million years ago or in a human within 1 million years ago, without it you wouldn't be here. But that doesn't make it right. The problem with being a vegetarian and getting all you're B12 from their is that all the moral and ethical arguments for vegetarianism work for veganism equally well, especially when you consider that the meat and animal product industry are self supporting The main reason I switched over. | ||
|
Klive5ive
United Kingdom6056 Posts
On May 30 2009 17:28 travis wrote: my view is that is wrong to kill any living creature but it's more wrong to kill some creatures than other creatures I don't believe in black or white situations. You just contradict yourself. "It is wrong to kill any living creature" That sounds pretty black and white to me. For a start it doesn't make sense. Is it wrong to kill a raging ape about to rip your genitals off? (see recent thread on ape attack). There is no definitive set of morals, so stating "it's morally wrong" is stupid. Everyone makes their own morals. I think you're coming from the wrong side. You need to start from the idea that we are all individuals looking out for ourselves. Now genetics found that hurting other humans was a bad idea, because they are equal to ourselves. Bad people are quickly removed from the group. Mutual trust among humans allows us to work together and prosper. Like most of our traits being kind is a trait that helps us (and those who share our genes) survive. It works in part by you taking on the feelings of others. When someone is sad... you feel sad. Now with animals you just get a backfiring of that emotion. You feel the pain of the animal as if it were you, that's why you don't like watching animals get hurt. It's not something magical, or a deep set feeling of a supernatural moral code... it's just backfiring genetics. Now if you want to argue that eating meat is a waste of resources, that's different and you might have a point. | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 31 2009 04:29 Klive5ive wrote: You just contradict yourself. "It is wrong to kill any living creature" That sounds pretty black and white to me. The stove is hot. The sun is more hot. No contradiction. Things can be both wrong and right at the same time. That's the fuzziness of it. An event can be wrong on one level, and right on another level. It's wrong to kill a murderer, but it's right to remove the danger from society. It's wrong to kill an animal, but it is right to feed your family. No real contradiction. For a start it doesn't make sense. Is it wrong to kill a raging ape about to rip your genitals off? (see recent thread on ape attack). yes it's wrong. but it's right to want to keep your ballz and defend yourself. we aren't really arguing about anything here. I agree with what you are saying, I just want to make sure that you understand what I am saying. There is no definitive set of morals, so stating "it's morally wrong" is stupid. Everyone makes their own morals. well morality is just a word, it's us that define it. but I think that logic exists and that in any situation there is more or less logical courses of action, depending upon your level of understanding and the thought you give to it. And as a person who's ultimate aim is selflessness, I consider objective logic to be the same as morality. | ||
|
L
Canada4732 Posts
Basically you've revealed that your assumption is that complex organisms have the potential for spiritual growth, and that spiritual growth is the ultimate aim for existance. If someone disagrees with these starting points, or comes to a different conclusion about how to maximize potential for spiritual growth then you'll find criticisms on those points. For instance: If someone believes that the most complex beings are those who have the most ability to grow spiritually, then his opinion might be that a sustainable system for the maximization of spiritual growth would 1) moral and 2) necessarily allow for consumption of organisms with less potential in order to maximize growth in the long term. If someone, by contrast, believes that the starting premises are false in their entirety, we find that they can come to an entire rainbow of conclusions about the moral character of consuming another animal. The maori, for instance, believed that beings contain a mystical force called mana, and that a prime aim of life was to consume mana by consuming those who had it. This led to cannibalization of enemy warriors and a culture centered around warfare. In such a society, eating HUMANS was not only moral, but honourable. Hinduism and Buddism operate on a similar assumptions to yours; the concept of karma and the existance of a system of reincarnation shaped their concept of consumption. The western experience is far different. The three monotheistic religions and the two dominant legal traditions consider animals as property, putting them under the purvey of capitalist thought and economics. Western thought, by its assumptions, considers animals as an appropriable resource that they must manage. The concept of agribusiness, the invention of genetically modified crops, the use of pesticides and fertilizer in order to increase output are all harmonious with those assumptions. | ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 31 2009 04:29 Klive5ive wrote: + Show Spoiler + You just contradict yourself. "It is wrong to kill any living creature" That sounds pretty black and white to me. For a start it doesn't make sense. Is it wrong to kill a raging ape about to rip your genitals off? (see recent thread on ape attack). There is no definitive set of morals, so stating "it's morally wrong" is stupid. Everyone makes their own morals. I think you're coming from the wrong side. You need to start from the idea that we are all individuals looking out for ourselves. Now genetics found that hurting other humans was a bad idea, because they are equal to ourselves. Bad people are quickly removed from the group. Mutual trust among humans allows us to work together and prosper. Like most of our traits being kind is a trait that helps us (and those who share our genes) survive. It works in part by you taking on the feelings of others. When someone is sad... you feel sad. Now with animals you just get a backfiring of that emotion. You feel the pain of the animal as if it were you, that's why you don't like watching animals get hurt. It's not something magical, or a deep set feeling of a supernatural moral code... it's just backfiring genetics. Now if you want to argue that eating meat is a waste of resources, that's different and you might have a point. Yeah, but everyone has an intrinsic sense of right and wrong. It's pretty difficult to justify meat eating, shy of the "I like it" argument. If you can genuinely find one that logically follows through and adheres to your principle of right and wrong that would be very interesting to me. Oh and you're argument about empathy towards animals being a genetic misfire is pretty flawed. Sure it might be, but then what does that prove anyway? Does that mean we should stop helping homeless people because it doesnt benefit us? | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 31 2009 04:41 L wrote: I don't think its sidetracking at all. Basically you've revealed that your assumption is that complex organisms have the potential for spiritual growth, and that spiritual growth is the ultimate aim for existance. If someone disagrees with these starting points, or comes to a different conclusion about how to maximize potential for spiritual growth then you'll find criticisms on those points. You are correct, but unless that is the direction people think the discussion should go, I would try to keep it to myself But I believe what I believe for logical reasons, there is a very deep chain of rationale that comes with my beliefs. If someone believes that the most complex beings are those who have the most ability to grow spiritually, then his opinion might be that a sustainable system for the maximization of spiritual growth would 1) moral and 2) necessarily allow for consumption of organisms with less potential in order to maximize growth in the long term. If someone, by contrast, believes that the starting premises are false in their entirety, we find that they can come to an entire rainbow of conclusions about the moral character of consuming another animal. The maori, for instance, believed that beings contain a mystical force called mana, and that a prime aim of life was to consume mana by consuming those who had it. This led to cannibalization of enemy warriors and a culture centered around warfare. In such a society, eating HUMANS was not only moral, but honourable. Hinduism and Buddism operate on a similar assumptions to yours; the concept of karma and the existance of a system of reincarnation shaped their concept of consumption. rebirth actually. not reincarnation http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=94085 anyways yes I agree with you. my opinion on the matter is shaped by beliefs I hold that I would expect the majority of people do not hold. but I have no problem with this. | ||
|
L
Canada4732 Posts
On May 31 2009 04:41 Piy wrote: Yeah, but everyone has an intrinsic sense of right and wrong. It's pretty difficult to justify meat eating, shy of the "I like it" argument. If you can genuinely find one that logically follows through and adheres to your principle of right and wrong that would be very interesting to me. Oh and you're argument about empathy towards animals being a genetic misfire is pretty flawed. Sure it might be, but then what does that prove anyway? Does that mean we should stop helping homeless people because it doesnt benefit us? We all have an Intrinsic sense of right and wrong? Either this statement is false, or you mean that we internalize consistent extrinsic forces upon our behavior which completely invalidates your point. | ||
|
L
Canada4732 Posts
On May 31 2009 04:45 travis wrote: You are correct, but unless that is the direction people think the discussion should go, I would try to keep it to myself But I believe what I believe for logical reasons, there is a very deep chain of rationale that comes with my beliefs. rebirth actually. not reincarnation http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=94085 anyways yes I agree with you. my opinion on the matter is shaped by beliefs I hold that I would expect the majority of people do not hold. but I have no problem with this. Its not so much a statement that your opinion is shaped by your beliefs, but that an argument which doesn't include those beliefs is ultimately futile unless it manages to change those underlying assumptions by exposing a logical inconsistency with the conclusion itself. Simply put; people are wasting a lot of time here :3. Also: the hindu tradition is heavily based on reincarnation, the buddist tradition on rebirth. The two systems are, however, nearly identical when viewed from outside their respective traditions, so I didn't see it necessary to distinguish between them. | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 31 2009 04:49 L wrote: Its not so much a statement that your opinion is shaped by your beliefs, but that an argument which doesn't include those beliefs is ultimately futile unless it manages to change those underlying assumption by exposing a logical inconsistency with the conclusion itself. Simply put; people are wasting a lot of time here :3. Also: the hindu tradition is heavily based on reincarnation, the buddist tradition on rebirth. The two systems are, however, nearly identical when viewed from outside their respective traditions, so I didn't see it necessary to distinguish between them. Well, when I come to these threads and debate, it is generally(but not necessarily) more for me than for other people. It's entertaining, it helps sharpen my analytical and communication skills, and it makes me go over my own beliefs. Plus good posters like you ask questions which make it go a little deeper. And if someone takes issue with my underlying beliefs they can certainly move the discussion in that direction. I never actually come to these threads expecting to change anyone's mind, though it certainly would be a nice outcome. | ||
|
Klive5ive
United Kingdom6056 Posts
On May 31 2009 04:41 Piy wrote: Yeah, but everyone has an intrinsic sense of right and wrong. It's pretty difficult to justify meat eating, shy of the "I like it" argument. If you can genuinely find one that logically follows through and adheres to your principle of right and wrong that would be very interesting to me. Oh and you're argument about empathy towards animals being a genetic misfire is pretty flawed. Sure it might be, but then what does that prove anyway? Does that mean we should stop helping homeless people because it doesnt benefit us? Helping the homeless does benefit you, it makes you feel good and it shows that you're a nice person... helping you even more in the future. Also you could one day be in that situation and maybe someone will repay the favor. A human is your equal so it makes sense. People don't have an intrinsic sense of right and wrong. Society has taught you what you should and should not do. We have emotions based upon taking the feeling of others onto ourselves. That's not the same thing. I can justify eating meat very easily. A fisherman's livelihood rests on the ability to sell fish. He trains in the ability to catch fish. If he offered me a fish and I was hungry I would buy and eat it. Making me feel good because fish is nice and he gets the money he needs to feed his family. Everyone wins... except the fish. But I genuinely don't care about the limited emotions of a fish. | ||
|
L
Canada4732 Posts
Anyways, that's all for my interlude. | ||
|
Klive5ive
United Kingdom6056 Posts
On May 31 2009 05:09 L wrote: Well, if people would work backwards from their beliefs and hit upon the basal assumptions that they hold, you'd find that a lot more conversations and arguments end in something other than two talking heads trying to headbutt each other into a corner. You change world views instead of stances. Anyways, that's all for my interlude. Yeah I think you've hit the nail on the head. In the end it appears something as seemingly simple as Vegetarianism can't be debated by people with different world views. This is because it's a matter of morals. As soon as you touch on that you start to reach people with belief in the supernatural. Logical there is no argument to disregard meat entirely. | ||
|
spkim1
Canada286 Posts
Human beings are biologically defined to be omnivorous, not herbivorous. That doesn't mean we're carnivorous, but it still means we eat meat. And there are suppliers just as there are consumers. I know where y'all going with all that sympathy for chicken and cows, but honestly... think about it: the cow/chicken you are referring to, whether we farm them or hunt them, are going to meet a traumatising end. Many of us humans too, meet traumatising ends. And many a times it's not the victim's fault. The world is just like that... might as well be a meat lover than torturing yourself against your omnivorous nature. Note: Ants have a far more efficient but cruel way of farming and eating other bugs. And they're famous for conducting a utopian, unachieved-by-humans society. So there, you can stop torturing yourselves, vegetarians, or herbivore-wannabes | ||
|
Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
On May 31 2009 05:09 L wrote: Well, if people would work backwards from their beliefs and hit upon the basal assumptions that they hold, you'd find that a lot more conversations and arguments end in something other than two talking heads trying to headbutt each other into a corner. You change world views instead of stances. Anyways, that's all for my interlude. Well I didn't think that was happening, at least not with me. I was just posting my opinion into the thread, I never expected to convince anyone who didn't agree with my root views of anything. | ||
|
Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
On May 31 2009 04:58 Klive5ive wrote: Helping the homeless does benefit you, it makes you feel good and it shows that you're a nice person... helping you even more in the future. Also you could one day be in that situation and maybe someone will repay the favor. A human is your equal so it makes sense. People don't have an intrinsic sense of right and wrong. Society has taught you what you should and should not do. We have emotions based upon taking the feeling of others onto ourselves. That's not the same thing. I can justify eating meat very easily. A fisherman's livelihood rests on the ability to sell fish. He trains in the ability to catch fish. If he offered me a fish and I was hungry I would buy and eat it. Making me feel good because fish is nice and he gets the money he needs to feed his family. Everyone wins... except the fish. But I genuinely don't care about the limited emotions of a fish. K, you're getting some things wrong here imo, or are massively overlooking them. The recognition of ones own pain and the understanding that others can feel the same occurs in children at a young age. Unless they have some psychological problem they recognise that inflicting pain on other people will have negative effects. Nobody needs society to teach them that inflicting pain is wrong. Your argument about helping the homeless is missing the point I was making anyways. From an evolutionary standpoint it makes no sense to help those less fortunate than yourself and yet we do it anyway. This occurs in nature as well (there are many examples of other intelligent creatures, such as dolphins and gorillas etc, helping injured people or members of their own group for no reason but compassion) and doesn't really seem to prove that we have any evolutionary reason to wish to kill animals just because they're inferior. So what I was trying to point out is that the cause of feeling sympathy for animals in pain has no relevance in this argument. And as far as what you say about helping the homeless - Do you actually subscribe to a doctrine of Individual Ethical Egoism or did you just make a mistake? Cause I don't see any way for you too say that all charitable actions make us feel good and are therefore selfish (or that that was the only reason we did them) otherwise... You're argument about a fishermans livelihood being at stake? wut? Thats just such a bad argument I don't even know where to start. He could find another job where he doesn't need to kill things and you could eat something that doesn't require something to die. I really don't see where you were going with this. | ||
|
sudo.era
United States300 Posts
On May 31 2009 05:22 spkim1 wrote: yeah look... I watched half a minute of the video and I just couldn't go on... OK here's the thing: if you had to look after a farm, the whole day long plowing away dirt, throwing in seeds, breaking your back carrying heavy masses of hay, earth, water and wood, feeding hundreds of chicken and cows, cleaning their droppings and dungs, either under burning sun or drenching, freezing rain, Yes, because every single farm houses every type of animal and crop plant known to mankind. Er... Also, given we should be past the fact that most farms focus on one crop or animal (and we're talking about the animal kind), you're painting an outdated country-home idea of farming. A man, his family, and some hired hands get up at the crack of dawn to sew the seeds that will feed everybody an ear of corn and a cold glass of milk at the end of the day... No. The vast majority of farming has become industrialized. You, as part of a corporate subsidization, do as little and spend as little as possible to keep your animals alive. With cows, you let them out during the day and put them in at night. You don't want to pick up their crap because that's natural fertilizer. Chicken farmers pile as many as possible into a single cage, throwing in feed and giving them water as needed. It's not back-breaking labor. Most subsidized chicken farmers clip the beaks off in order to keep them from pecking eachother to death (because of incredibly cramped space) - which I definitely don't see as being more difficult than doing generic programming code for 10 hours a day. I don't think you'd be bitching away at them like that, sitting there comfortably in a nice leisurely appartment. Honestly, it's sickening how people can be so self-centered. Besides, those farmers probably have not much of a career choice. "Self-centered"? First of all, criticizing and not participating in a specific market isn't self-centered - it's how capitalism works. If you don't like how the city bus system is run, regardless of how much bus drivers hate their jobs, it's your right to bring criticism to the local government's doorstep. You have no obligation to pay, or to like any type of service. Anyway, assuming all farmers work as hard as you described, a good example of "self-centeredness" in the meat market is a consumer complaining about the price of a T-bone steak. It's self-centered because the consumer doesn't know at all the work or markup involved in the sale, so assuming that the price should be lower is taking a self-centered leap in judgement. Farmers have the same qualifications as any manual labor; they could do anything in that vast pool of jobs they please. But again, this isn't the point of vegetarianism-for-market-denial. Vegetarians criticize farmers less, and the general market more. The blame is all-around, but they supplement eachother in a way I don't feel you understand. Think of an employee who works in an office. If the boss doesn't set yearly goals, weekly deadlines, and office/social boundaries, then the employee will slack off and possibly behave incorrectly in the office. If the boss only sets goals and no social boundaries, then the employee will work, but could still get away with harassing his co-workers. Animal farming is like an office where the boss doesn't have any social boundaries. If we, the consumers, made a strong statement about how we dislike the way the industry is run, they would change to pander to the consumers. That's that. That's the only reason businesses ever spend more money than is necessary to run the company - to please the consumers. In this Very important - changing the way animals are currently treated wouldn't be made more difficult for the workers. It would be as difficult or easier. The change would be in cost. Chickens would have to be given wider spaces to live in at all times (instead of being literally packed into cages), NOT have their beaks cut off (less work), not be boiled alive (as only some are), and only be killed by immediate/total brain trauma (as most die slowly after having the spine broken). Cows would NOT be injected with supplements that allow them eat cornmeal, ala McDonalds cows (less work), and killed with immediate and total brain trauma rather than being bled out for a full minute. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. Human beings are biologically defined to be omnivorous, not herbivorous. Before I go on to this, I'd like to state that this isn't what I care to argue about and isn't my focus. I'm a vegetarian because of industry, not biology. Now, that statement you made there isn't fact. You will be surprised to learn that this is debatable. First: Natural selection and evolution, working together, determine what foods you can process. So, skipping over the NE and Evo processes, what foods you eat are determined by your location on the Earth. If you are in a snow-covered tundra where only mammoths and predators live, you can only eat those things. You can't grow plants. Opposite situation, vice-versa. But this doesn't apply to us, because we can eat anything. Second: Our bodies point toward being much more adapted at plant-eating than meat-eating. Some people cite canines, which is honestly a very weak point to argue around. Humans have some of the wimpiest canines on Earth. Also, many species of apes have larger, more pronounced canines than humans, yet less than 1% of their diets are "flesh" (bugs). On that, before you get carried away, pretty much every animal has omnivore-like digestive abilities, but that does not define them as an omnivore. Our digestive tract is also that of an herbivore. You won't find a single meat-eater on the planet that has one like ours. Meat-eating animals have a straight intestinal tract, whereas plant-eating animals have curving ones. The reason for the meat-intestine being straight is so that meat can easily be passed through the body. Meat, after decomposing within the body, becomes thick and often tries to stick to the intestinal walls. That's why, with our tracts, we have a harder time digesting meat. Beef takes way, way too long to make it all the way out - and can become hazardous to your health if there's too much in your intestines at once. An omnivore is simply something which is not limited in any type of food resource, thus the body has adapted to allow all types. This does not mean you SHOULD eat any one type of resource, simply that you CAN. Third: Humans, being both sentient (unlike most other animals), and the most intelligent beings on the planet (unlike all other animals), we have the ability to decide our own diets. You are not bound by nature. That bears repeating. You are not bound by nature. You decide your own diet. This means that any intellectual conjecture on the subject is useless. You do not have to eat meat, though you can. You do not have to eat plants, though you can. Whether you decide to eat one or both is your own decision. It is not anybody else's fault that you're eating meat, so again, don't blame it on nature. It's all you. the cow/chicken you are referring to, whether we farm them or hunt them, are going to meet a traumatising end. Many of us humans too, meet traumatising ends. I don't think you thought out that analogy. When humans meet "traumatising ends", it is tragic. Is it also tragic, then, when a cow meets such an end? Not to you, it seems. And why is it tragic when a human being meets a "traumatising end"? Because it was preventable. All unnecessary traumas and deaths are preventable. So, then, are animal traumas. Preventable. How animals are treated in both life and death can be changed in order to prevent trauma, just like I mentioned in one of the paragraphs above. "Trauma" assumes that the animal has time to experience their own death, but they definitely, definitely don't have to. And it's not just the way they die that is traumatizing. It's the way they live (as exemplified in an above paragraph). They give you food. Do you not owe them a life free of horrible living circumstances and excruciating deaths? i.e., overall, your point didn't make sense And many a times it's not the victim's fault. Are... are you saying it's the animal's fault? Your analogy... has left the forum and is currently attempting to hang itself over the causeway. ... might as well be a meat lover than torturing yourself against your omnivorous nature. You give us too much credit. It's really not that hard. Also, and again, I decide my diet. Nature is my bitch. Note: Ants have a far more efficient but cruel way of farming and eating other bugs. You're not an ant. And they're famous for conducting a utopian, unachieved-by-humans society. So there, you can stop torturing yourselves, vegetarians, or herbivore-wannabes Utopian? You mean the part where all of them work all day and nobody gets to have sex? Ant colonies are totally, completely, 100%, indefinitely incomparable to human society. | ||
|
Jayme
United States5866 Posts
Honestly though? With the amount of rising population... the amount of fatties in general, becoming a vege due to boycotting the industry just doesn't seem that practical. Go for it if that's what you want but let's not pretend anyone is on a superior moral high ground. That is a general statement of course, but it is what bothers me most. | ||
|
Klive5ive
United Kingdom6056 Posts
On May 31 2009 07:20 Piy wrote: K, you're getting some things wrong here imo, or are massively overlooking them. The recognition of ones own pain and the understanding that others can feel the same occurs in children at a young age. Unless they have some psychological problem they recognise that inflicting pain on other people will have negative effects. Nobody needs society to teach them that inflicting pain is wrong. For a start you implied right and wrong in a wider sense. Regardless you haven't explained your point well, children are often cruel to each other and imitate the actions of their parents (which is society in a narrower sense). Your argument about helping the homeless is missing the point I was making anyways. From an evolutionary standpoint it makes no sense to help those less fortunate than yourself and yet we do it anyway. This occurs in nature as well (there are many examples of other intelligent creatures, such as dolphins and gorillas etc, helping injured people or members of their own group for no reason but compassion) and doesn't really seem to prove that we have any evolutionary reason to wish to kill animals just because they're inferior. So what I was trying to point out is that the cause of feeling sympathy for animals in pain has no relevance in this argument. There are byproducts of evolution that don't make sense by themselves but do make sense when applied to everything. We haven't always been in the position where we can choose what to eat and the majority of the world still can't. And as far as what you say about helping the homeless - Do you actually subscribe to a doctrine of Individual Ethical Egoism or did you just make a mistake? Cause I don't see any way for you too say that all charitable actions make us feel good and are therefore selfish (or that that was the only reason we did them) otherwise... No, I don't subscribe to any form of Egosim, I was merely answering the question. Don't say something you can't defend. Empathy backfiring is not a difficult evolutionary concept, I was just defending that. You're argument about a fishermans livelihood being at stake? wut? Thats just such a bad argument I don't even know where to start. He could find another job where he doesn't need to kill things and you could eat something that doesn't require something to die. I really don't see where you were going with this. Simply that there are easy examples where you can "justify" eating meat, not that you need to justify it. You can't just "find another job". I have to eat something and fish is nutritious and inexpensive. We both gain from the situation. If you believe in the supernatural or a spiritual moral code please tell me now so I don't need to reply next time. | ||
|
sudo.era
United States300 Posts
On May 31 2009 07:44 Jayme wrote: Fuddruckers is far too good to give up im afraid. Honestly though? With the amount of rising population... the amount of fatties in general, becoming a vege due to boycotting the industry just doesn't seem that practical. Go for it if that's what you want but let's not pretend anyone is on a superior moral high ground. That is a general statement of course, but it is what bothers me most. First paragraph doesn't make sense because even if the meat industry were totally shut down today, crops and any type of non-meat replacement could fill the spot and not one part of the country would go through a starvation period during the transition. Meat isn't essential. Ever. Anywhere. In any sense. I don't have a problem with someone deciding to eat meat, because that is their decision. Even if they're doing it despite cognitive dissonance, it's their decision. But you guys need to stop saying that it's necessary in some way. "Moral high ground": I don't believe in generalizing morals, but in the sense that you're talking about, it depends. "Moral high ground" is when two people have a similar moral; one behaves according to said moral and one doesn't. The person who behaves in accordance with the moral they both share is the one with the "moral high ground". I actually think that's the definition of the phrase. So it would depend. If you admit that you disagree with the current treatment of animals yet continue to eat meat, where I disagree with the treatment of animals and thus don't eat meat, that would give me the "moral high ground". BUT if you are of the opinion that animals don't deserve your empathy, then our morals aren't comparable. | ||
|
seppolevne
Canada1681 Posts
On May 31 2009 07:20 Piy wrote: From an evolutionary standpoint it makes no sense to help those less fortunate than yourself and yet we do it anyway. Survival of the species? | ||
|
Reason
United Kingdom2770 Posts
| ||
|
Diomedes
464 Posts
| ||
| ||
