Veganism

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by Mr. Mistoffelees

You're scrambling blonde. That dirty 90 year old military guide actually praises the value of plants.

It must have taken you hours to find something that uses the term "food value."

I own that book and before it praises plants, it praises meat more (see the continued sentence at the top. In the time between posts, I was sleeping. Most people sleep from 12-8 AM. GJ.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by zebrazebrazebraSHAFT

I took an ethics class a few years back and it dealt heavily with animal rights, since that class I've not been able to justify killing animals. So I'm basically a non-practicing vegan, I'd love to try it out but meat is just too damn tasty and convenient. If anyone has any solid arguments justifying the killing of animals I'd love to discuss it.

I've never taken an ethics class, but I think anybody who thinks on a regular basis eventually comes to this conclusion. Mine came in the form of this:

If at some point in the future, intelligent species are scanning the Universe for life, and they come across Earth, and it may seem like an "advanced" species, except that the majority of the species, despite their massive technological advances in agriculture and food processing, still regularly consume flesh of beings that owned complex organs such as eyes and brains weeks, if not days, or hours before.

Simplified and sci-fi for sure, but it had an effect on me. I think any advanced civilization will eventually grow out of eating animals for sustenance. The mere fact that we (in the West, anyways) look down on eating some animals (dogs, cats, rats) but are perfectly fine with consuming others is another point that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

[Der Fuhrer]

I'm not sure I understand your dilemma. In order for something to be mutually beneficial, both parties must benefit. They benefit by thriving as a species, expanding their niche, and surviving. We benefit through eating them. I justify this through the fact that cattle made this choice through centuries of evolutionary process. It's not really a self-defeating argument. It was a choice for survival. What purpose would cattle serve if we didn't eat them? What would be the point of our "agreement"? The animals we eat today are not, and never were on the verge of extinction, because of humans. However, they have non-domesticated counterparts, all of which are either completely extinct or on the verge of extinction.

[Mr. Blonde]

You're acting like cattle ever had a choice in the matter. We are the most devastating force this planet has ever seen. They didn't have a chance. I'm not a hardcore vegan or PETA guy, but I just can't see your logic. I could see it more in the case of dogs and cats, who are mostly "better off" (maybe?), but animals that we raise to have babies, then kill them, eat them, then do the same with their babies then eat them? That doesn't seem very mutually beneficial to me. It seems kinda monstrous.

[Ugly Bastard]

Beebs - I hold no delusions that I will maintain my current level of excitement regarding veganism. And I am still on an omnivore diet: vegan half the week, regular the other half (with a focused commitment on avoiding commercially processed meats and processed foods.

Blonde - I like your perspective on eating animals. But l would like to point out that your viewpoint ignores the possibility that advanced beings have no choice but to eat other creatures for survival. Obviously humans do not need meat, but it is conceivable that advanced beings on other planets don't have that luxury.

[Orgazmo]

Let's talk about the inverse. If it's not okay to kill an animal for consumption, when is it okay to kill an animal? Is it okay to kill the rabbit that's eating our garden? What about the mouse that's living in our garage? The mosquito that's annoying the shit out of us?

Of course it is. All of these things are okay. The reason is that we're much better than those things. We're humans. We run shit. We make roads and cars and buildings. If we want to kill something that isn't going to have a massive impact on other humans, then fuck it, let's do it. Sure, we probably shouldn't go kill a blue whale...but only because they're few in number and getting completely rid of them may have negative effects.

Why don't Westerners think it's okay to eat dogs and cats? Because we like dogs and cats...and we see no reason to kill something we like when we can kill something we don't give a shit about, like a cow. Or a chicken. Or a trout.

Sure, we could eat plants and supplements and leave the animals alone. We could also only live in tiny rooms in skyscrapers as to completely minimize our footprint into wooded areas. But, in the end, we don't want to do that. We want to have our own space, and we want to eat cows. So we do it. Because we win.

[Der Fuhrer]

Obviously they did have a choice. Of course, that choice wasn't made like the choices we humans make, because a cow is not a fucking human, and they don't have rational thoughts. I really don't see why this is so hard to understand. Through centuries of co-evolution, cows, as a species, evolved to form a mutually beneficial relationship with humans. They supply us with meat, we ensure their species' survival. If this relationship had not formed, cows would be extinct. The proof is quite obvious, how many wild cows have you seen? Do cattle enjoy being slaughtered? Clearly they do not, but the alternative is the demise of their species. I'm sure they prefer to exist rather than not, not that they have much comprehension of preferences anyways. If cows were not used for meat, what would be their fucking purpose? Who would feed them, raise them, and keep them alive? No one would. So in your opinions, we should let all the cattle roam free, where they would all certainly die much more inhumane deaths than what we humans do. Furthermore, do you see massive barb wire fences keeping cows from running away? No you don't, you see tiny wire or wooden fences that any cow could almost certainly escape from if it truly wanted to.

The problem here is that humans are so far removed from nature that they forget nature is brutal. And they are shocked and appalled when they witness its brutality in full force. In nature, death makes life possible. It's easy to forget that humans are part of nature with our highways, cities, apartments, and supermarkets (where you "hunt" for food with your shopping cart). Through this removal of humans from nature, a concern about the "feelings" of animals has gained much popularity. Movies with talking animals exemplify the personification of animals. I recall a PETA slogan once that read, "A cow is a pig is a dog is a boy". I'm not saying any of you are arguing this extreme example, but it is something to consider.

The bottom line is that meat tastes good, its good for you, and its good for cows. If you refuse to accept the way I feel that's fine, be wrong then. Man does not control nature. We cannot make an entire species of animal do what we want without some cooperation on their part. Humans simply possess technical effectiveness that leads to logistical efficiency, and that is how we have exploded our niche.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by Ugly Bastard

Blonde - I like your perspective on eating animals. But l would like to point out that your viewpoint ignores the possibility that advanced beings have no choice but to eat other creatures for survival. Obviously humans do not need meat, but it is conceivable that advanced beings on other planets don't have that luxury.

It does, but I guess i'm assuming that any civilization who has the technology to travel interstellar or intergalactic lengths can manipulate biology enough to basically create a non-violent food source. But that's a pretty big assumption -- most of these type are, obviously.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by Der Fuhrer

Who would feed them, raise them, and keep them alive? No one would.

Uh, how did they come to exist?

any cow could almost certainly escape from if it truly wanted to.

Artificial selection usually involves breeding for docility. They're only "cooperating" in your sense of the word because we made them. We coerced them by deciding who gets to fuck or not, and who gets shot in the fucking head and eaten.

There are and would probably be wild cattle worldwide were we not around. Species don't just die because they don't have humans to take care of them. Something we're clearly not good at, unless it's keeping them alive for food or pets.

[Der Fuhrer]

There you go with that holothetic logic again. Species die out because their niche collapses, or they are run out of it by another species.

Perhaps I should try a different approach. Many moons ago, cows were running around free and happy being eaten by wolves and humans alike (we were hunters back then, and nomadic). Then something terrible happens. The wild cows' niche begins to collapse, and they are dying off through starvation and other means, oh no! Some moons later, humans decide they're tired of running the fuck around for food, and they invent agriculture. As they begin to cultivate plants, they still have to hunt for meat sources. After awhile of this, humans begin thinking, why don't we cultivate meat in a similar manner to these plants? Except you can't grow meat out of the ground. Wild cows, who at this point are just getting ass fucked by a diminishing niche to fill, are like, "hey, we're getting butt fucked out here with no niche to fill, and it looks like you have a mighty fine niche that we could fill up just perfectly!" So they collaborate much like a snoop dogg and dr. dre track. Boom you have the domestication of cows. To say that humans caused the extinction of wild bovine is absurd.

Oh and wild cows do exists, their population is in the hundreds, and can only be found on one Continent.

[DJ FC]

Blonde doesn't appear to understand domestication - we didn't jump straight to genetic engineering of cows. It was a mutually beneficial relationship.

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by Ugly Bastard

I live in one of the fattest, least health-conscious cities in the world and have had no problem following a vegan diet. I would say it's substantially easier to be vegan in Chicago than in a place like, say, Middlebury. There probably aren't more than a roomful of people in all of Middlebury that are vegan whereas in Chicago it's thousands upon thousands of people which is certainly a market worth catering towards.

You've done this for what, a couple days a week for a handful of weeks? You can only eat so much vegan Indian food. The real test comes when you're out with your friends on a weekend at a restaurant and trying to find an item without eggs or refined sugar. In some places people don't understand what vegetarian is, let alone Vegan. In Paris, for example, if you order a vegetarian salad it will come with fish on top. Try explaining veganism to them.

It's easy to do this diet for a few days going to Whole Foods often and planning your meals ahead of time. But as a lifestyle change it's very hard if your city isn't cosmopolitain.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by DJ FC

Blonde doesn't appear to understand domestication - we didn't jump straight to genetic engineering of cows. It was a mutually beneficial relationship.

...for the cattle who didn't break free and/or kick the fuck out of humans. The docile ones. Not the angry, badass grizzly motherfucking bulls.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by Der Fuhrer

To say that humans caused the extinction of wild bovine is absurd.

What? I wouldn't say absurd. We've hunted tons of animals to extinction.

[Repugnant Abomination]

I love how fast this thread turned bitchy.

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

...for the cattle who didn't break free and/or kick the fuck out of humans. The docile ones. Not the angry, badass grizzly motherfucking bulls.

We didn't do it to just cows. We did it to dogs and cats too. And being a well-fed well-fucking cow that will die for human food is better than a starving cow that doesn't fuck in the wild.

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

Originally Posted by Repugnant Abomination

I love how fast this thread turned bitchy.

I can't imagine a thread about veganism without a bunch of bitches in it anyways.

[Mr. Blonde]

"Better" how? You guys really need to talk more in terms of how this is evolutionarily "better" in terms of gene propagation. I understand what you're saying to a degree, i'm clearly not a complete dunce when it comes to evolutionary theory, but i'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around this.

DH and FC's Assertion: Domesticated cattle, which are but a shadow of their former, wild selves, are "better off" evolutionarily because they have a guaranteed passing of their genes, an effort secured by human domestication. This is good because even though we're killing them for meat, and deciding FOR THEM who, when, and if they get to fuck, and because otherwise they would starve to death and go extinct without humans (because grass is really hard to come by).

What I can't wrap my head around, is how this is really "better" for the cattle, and by what universal standards? I see what you're saying in regard to passing your genes to future generations, but the fact that we are the ones controlling it and purposefully only letting the fattest, beefiest, laziest and least menacing creatures breed with each other. Real help we're doing for their gene pool i'm sure.


And what the fuck is "holothetic logic"? How come nobody's giving him shit for that? I can't find it on a dictionary anywhere. At least "food" and "value" are well-known words.

Originally Posted by DJ FC

We didn't do it to just cows. We did it to dogs and cats too. And being a well-fed well-fucking cow that will die for human food is better than a starving cow that doesn't fuck in the wild.

So you think that dogs and cats would be extinct without human interference? What about all the dogs and cats we don't let breed, or killed in the process of artificial selection, or the dogs and cats that we spay/neuter? How is this a good idea for them?

For the record, since I do know a bit more than I would wager to say all of you about raising cattle, most beef cattle are steers. That means they are castrated young and aren't permitted to pass on their genes. On an evolutionary scale (compared to humans, anyways), a very select few male cattle are permitted to turn into bulls and have their semen studded out.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by Der Fuhrer

There you go with that holothetic logic again. Species die out because their niche collapses, or they are run out of it by another species.

Like...humans? Because we have a tendency to "run them out of their niche"? (during the frontier settling of America, how much cattle grazing land did we take over?) Or because we hunted them nearly to extinction? (now, it wasn't SOLELY hunting but there are a lot of non-food animals who have survived just fine even with negative human interference. to infer that cattle would have gone extinct without humans to "keep them alive" is asinine.)

Many moons ago, cows were running around free and happy being eaten by wolves and humans alike (we were hunters back then, and nomadic). Then something terrible happens. The wild cows' niche begins to collapse, and they are dying off through starvation and other means, oh no!

What other means could you be thinking of? Like hunting? Hunting by humans?

To say that humans caused the extinction of wild bovine is absurd.

You sir, are a dumb fuck.

The time of me being a fucking idiot is mostly over. I'd appreciate if some of you assholes gave me a fucking bit of intellectual credit. Go fuck yourselves.

[Mr. Blonde]

>

[DJ FC]

Blonde the point is that humans weren't always castrating cows.

[Mr. Blonde]

I never said they always were, FC.

[zebrazebrazebraSHAFT]

This mutual benefit argument is a good explanation as to the success of domesticated species, but it really says nothing about the rights of animals. Its not much of an argument really, if you applied the same logic within the human species, the equivalent would be slavery. Ultimately the question is, how do you define morality and why don't you include animals in that definition?

[Dent]

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[Ugly Bastard]

FC, veganism would be tough in any city when you're going out to eat with your friends. Let's not act like anywhere you go in glorious London and mention the word vegan that a bunch of progressive, open-minded people are going to run out of the kitchen with vegetables to give to you. I'm sure it's no easier to do it there than in Chicago or Houston for that matter.