I'll throw in with the "many people are just pretentious, and vegetarianism/veganism give them a good outlet for that." Same way there are pretentious Mac owners or pretentious coffee drinkers.
As far as the whole "any body who says they won't try to covert you if you date them is a liar" thing...duh.
I never tried to convert my wife.
So while it is perhaps a prevalent trend, I wouldn't say it was an assumption that didn't make an ass out of you and Uma Thurman.
You and your damn dirty exceptions...begone!
But yeah, prevalent. If you're surprised when somebody tries to convert you, despite the fact that they pinky-swore that they wouldn't, you're not so bright.
Indeed.
For instance, Irond Will is in the process of converting his girlfriend into a meat eater.
My girlfriend never tried to convert me to vegetarianism but she did want me to eat healthier and convinced me with some book she sent me. It's even easier now that I can cook. But before all of that it wasn't a relationship breaker either.
One minute after the request. Pretty good considering I didn't know that this thread existed beforehand.
SE++ would have winkied that quote tree in ten seconds.
D&D is soft and weak.
There would have been 5 nyoron~'s, 10 :3s, and at least 27 winkies, with a dancingdong.gif thrown in for good measure. The original quote would then have been spammed in other unrelated threads for the next week and half.
According to a friend of mine, who is vegan, we aren't actually omnivores. Or rather, I guess we are technically, but while we can eat meat, we weren't meant to eat meat. Or animal products at all, really. Our teeth aren't really sharp enough to tear the meat like carnivores do, and our digestive tract has a lot of trouble processing meat. According to him, after 50 years we have something like several ounces (maybe a pound? I forget the exact amount) of little bits of meat hanging out in our small intestine. Or something.
I've never actually done the research on this because I don't care enough about it to stop eating meat. Mmmm, steak.
Edit: The book I was reading on this subject recently was concerned with Europe and the steppes of Asia.
Yeah, not true at all. The human diet during all eight of the recent ice ages was almost entirely based on meat. Earlier on this was mostly scavenging (you find a hippo in a pool by the Thames that's been there for a couple months...) and gradually shifted to more and more sophisticated forms of hunting.
Furthermore, human civilzation actually advanced quicker during the periods of glaciation and then signifigantly regressed during the warmer periods. This can be measured by things like the sophistication of tools, how many are living in the same area etc... Dense forest just cannot support very many large (mostly) carnivores (which is what early humans were) in one area.
Edit: One small tangent about this era that I find fascinating is that the skeletons of males and females show identical patterns of wear and similar levels of muscleature. These people led very rugged lives. Lots of breaks and fractures. But once they had advanced to the point where hunting was an option then everyone, male and female, were involved in it. The very small differences between the two in terms of size and strength (which today are mostly a result of social pressures) are insignifigant compared to the technology and skills used in hunting. If you ever hear an armchair anthropologist going on about how "men do such and soforth because in early times they were the hunters etc...." they are completely full of shit.
I hate, hate smug vegetarians...luckily, I haven't met many. (there was this ironic example of a fat kid who acted all smug over it...but he, oddly enough, ate like fucktons of greased-up fast food.)
Oh, and the crazy-assed health teacher who told my class about the HORRORS OF MEAT. Like, on fucking full-blown PETA scale campaign. I'm not sure if this makes any sense, but that pretty much made me go "...Hell no am I ever doing that"
Anyways, I like the reason one of my friends gave for being one...just because it's the most "out there" one I've heard. Just...she said she had a phobia of dead things, and didn't like the idea of eating them.
I was watching Bill Maher, and before he introduced his guests, he brought the president of PETA on in some kind of video teleconference thing.
Basically, all she did was say that eating meat was contributing the end of the world, and our society as we know it. From global warming, to irrational violent behavior, etc., Meat was the illness that sickens our little planet. She then went even further, saying that they had a mission to convince people to not eat meat any more, since it was dooming our planet. Of course, Bill Maher pretty much sucked her dick right there, agreeing enthusiastically with everything she had to say. I could only watch about 20 seconds of it, before I had to turn the channel.
I've never had much more disdain for PETA, and vegetarians right then and there.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
Having just gone down to Subway and ordered a double-stacked 6" turkey and ham sub with lettuce and mayo, I have learnt that if you have a lot of meat ni your sub you'd do well to make asure the vegetation is at an equal or greater amount. I now feel rather ill.
That said, the "Sandwich artist" put less lettuce in than usual.
The vast majority of animals raised for food are tortured for most of their lives.
Most people, including me, believe torturing animals for cheap and efficient food is absolutely immoral. There is also a shit-ton wrong with our industrial agriculture system from an environmental perspective.
As I understand it, these are the two biggest reasons for going vegetarian. I don't understand how someone forcefully making what seems to be a perfectly rational moral argument makes them a "smug asshole."
I find omnivores' hostility towards so-called preachy vegetarians much more annoying than any vegetarians I've met. I wish more people would think critically about the meals they put into their mouths, and what goes into them.
My wife is a strict ovolactovegetarian and has been since a young age, without exception. She doesn't care at all that I eat meat, she even tried to make it for me sometimes even though it grosses her out. She also gives the kids fish and foul and pork, though no red meat.
It is never a big deal in our house. We eat vegetarian meals all the time. We buy all kinds of fake meat products and vegetarian sloppy joe mix and whatever. A lot of that stuff is good as hell. But, just as often, she picks up some ground beef or a filet for me to cook in addition to what we're having. It all depends on the meal and the budget and what's available.
She is never preachy or pretentious to anyone. We've been in some tough spots with family and such where everything had meat in it and there wasn't anywhere nearby and she was basically trying to get by on bread and water, or when on vacation with a group and we were going to yet another steakhouse for dinner, but even then she basically just toughed it out and didn't let on that there was a problem. And i've learned to help avoid situations like that ealry on without making a deal out of it.
But at least two of her friends are the other kind. They have randomly shown up sometimes claiming to be "vegan" for whatever reasons, and then chastising my wife for eating "aborted chicken fetus" or something like that. Then, a month later, they are eating burgers and hot dogs and saying that they just like them too much or that they "had to for health reasons." Fury.
Seeing no evidence that animals used for consumption feel pain in the same way we do I don't see how the consumption of meat can be levelled with "torture" or "murder".
The vast majority of animals raised for food are tortured for most of their lives.
This is why many of us who eat meat in moderation but do try to "think critically" about what we eat generally try to avoid most "mass produced" meat. If you're willing to pay a bit more, you can avoid a lot of the more heinous animal cruelty associated with meat. Granted, you're still facilitating those who do eat mass produced meat (by reinforcing the meat-eating culture)...but hey, better than nothing.
I find omnivores' hostility towards so-called preachy vegetarians much more annoying than any vegetarians I've met.
Could that have anything to do with the fact that you agree with those preachy vegetarians?
I wish more people would think critically about the meals they put into their mouths, and what goes into them.
Why yes, it seems it does. Not that your viewpoint is necessarily wrong, but it's kinda like a missionary saying he finds pushy athiests so much more annoying than Evangelical Christians.
But at least two of her friends are the other kind. They have randomly shown up sometimes claiming to be "vegan" for whatever reasons, and then chastising my wife for eating "aborted chicken fetus" or something like that. Then, a month later, they are eating burgers and hot dogs and saying that they just like them too much or that they "had to for health reasons." Fury.
:roll:
Please, tell me you answered them with the scorn and derision they so richly deserved.
I wish more people would think critically about the meals they put into their mouths, and what goes into them.
Guess what - I have thought critically about the meals I put into my mouth. I just came to a better conclusion than you did!
Man, that's one argument I really hate to hear. "My opinions are obviously correct and anyone who thinks otherwise either hasn't given it real thought or is too stupid to do so."
I think that the internet has been for years on the path to creating what is essentially an electronic Necronomicon: A collection of blasphemous unrealities so perverse that to even glimpse at its contents, if but for a moment, is to irrevocably forfeit a portion of your sanity.
Xbox - PearlBlueS0ul, Steam
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
Seeing no evidence that animals used for consumption feel pain in the same way we do
Seriously?
What do you mean "in the same way we do"—you really don't think animals feel acute pain when they are sick, or intense emotional distress when they are confined to a small cage?
I don't see how the consumption of meat can be levelled with "torture" or "murder".
The word "murder" simply means "unlawful killing," so technically it's incorrect to call it murder, since killing animals for food is legal.
Torture, however, seems pretty apt in light of what we do to animals in industrial agriculture. Cutting off the beaks of chickens without anaesthetics, fattening cows on a diet (corn) which they have not evolved to digest and thus makes them so sick they require a steady stream of antibiotics to survive day to day, etc. I am not a vegetarian (yet) but I would be hard-pressed to believe that such treatments are morally justified in any way.
I blame Disney. Putting cute human faces with huge eyes into animals.
There is something that always intrigues me. Can we really "torture" an animal? I remember someone back at school asked this question, a kid torns out the leg of a grasshooper for instance, it will hurt of course, but can the grasshooper really be "tortured"? I think it requires a more advanced brain, because the torture doesn't come just from the physical pain, but from the acknowledgement of the consecuences, sometimes thats the really worst part of the torture with a human being. A grasshooper really won't get depressed or emotionally affected since it can even do that with its primitive brain. It gets into a more gray area with mammals and other superior species, but I really don't have problems about cows and pigs, I would have a little disgust if someone treated dolphins or elephants like cattle thought.
There is also the fact that some vegetarians forget that nature is absolutely cruel and unforgiven by itself without human intervention. When some people go to extremes like not eating honey because bees aren't treated "well" is simply absurd. Bee hives by themselves are terrible and by any human standard completely inmoral.
The vast majority of animals raised for food are tortured for most of their lives.
This is why many of us who eat meat in moderation but do try to "think critically" about what we eat generally try to avoid most "mass produced" meat. If you're willing to pay a bit more, you can avoid a lot of the more heinous animal cruelty associated with meat. Granted, you're still facilitating those who do eat mass produced meat (by reinforcing the meat-eating culture)...but hey, better than nothing.
I agree (I am one of those people). However, there is the argument that someone is not in a position to dispassionately assess the welfare of an animal if he or she is aiming to eat it.
Could that have anything to do with the fact that you agree with those preachy vegetarians?
I am not convinced that vegetarianism is necessary to prevent the torture of animals—you can buy eggs and chicken from sustainable farms that treat their animals pretty well.
Of course, even Peter Singer admits as such. The argument in Animal Liberation is against the infliction of suffering, not killing.
Meanwhile, I honestly see no moral or rational justification for the way industrial agriculture treats animals.
Why yes, it seems it does. Not that your viewpoint is necessarily wrong, but it's kinda like a missionary saying he finds pushy athiests so much more annoying than Evangelical Christians.
I'd reverse your analogy. Pushy vegetarians are like pushy atheists. They even use the same techniques (appeals to rationality and empathy). Offended religious people remind me of offended meat-eaters, who more often lash out at any perceived attacks on their lifestyle rather than rationally engage the arguments presented to them.
(Note: I am a pushy atheist)
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amateurhourOne day I'll be professionalhourThe woods somewhere in TennesseeRegistered Userregular
edited September 2007
::shrug:: If they could invent a pill I could take three times a day that would only cost me $30 a month on my insurance and keep me full, and healthy, giving me vitamins and nutrients, I would take it. Since it doesn't exist though I'm just not quite ready to go against natural evolution. I'm not saying the way meat is produced isn't cruel, it is... But I've still got the urge to hunt and gather and eat, and I'm not giving that up yet.
I blame Disney. Putting cute human faces with huge eyes into animals.
There is something that always intrigues me. Can we really "torture" an animal? I remember someone back at school asked this question, a kid torns out the leg of a grasshooper for instance, it will hurt of course, but can the grasshooper really be "tortured"? I think it requires a more advanced brain, because the torture doesn't come just from the physical pain, but from the acknowledgement of the consecuences, sometimes thats the really worst part of the torture with a human being.
So you believe that one cannot torture an infant or a mentally disabled person since they are unaware of the long-term consequences of such torture?
There is also the fact that some vegetarians forget that nature is absolutely cruel and unforgiven by itself without human intervention. When some people go to extremes like not eating honey because bees aren't treated "well" is simply absurd. Bee hives by themselves are terrible and by any human standard completely inmoral.
I also think this is going too far: invertebrate nervous systems are very different from ours and it is not clear that they experience pain the same way we do.
On the other hand, it is entirely clear that mammals and birds experience pain much the same as we do. Their nervous systems are largely identical to ours, they exhibit the same behavioral responses to pain (screaming, writhing), they exhibit the same behavioral responses to confinement (thrashing escape attempts followed by powerless resignment). Hell, the whole point of experimenting on animals is that it tells us something about ourselves.
Also: nature's cruelty is not really relevant to a discussion of how things ought to be treated, morally. At least not since Rousseau.
I have a lot of time thinkign about the food that goes into my mouth, and have even considered the possibility of going vegetarian myself. In the end I decided I wasn't fair to do that to my system as I've eaten meat all my life (plus, y'know, I really like a good burger). Now if I ever buy any meat I try to make sure it's not the cheap, processed stuff. That's my decision, I don't force it on others, ande I don't expect them to force their values upon me.
I'm quite happy for people to have their own beliefs and values, and that's fine. Right up until the point when they tell me what I'm doing is Wrong™ and try to force their beliefs on me. That goes for food preferences, political stances, religious beliefs, opinions about art... the lot.
Seeing no evidence that animals used for consumption feel pain in the same way we do
Seriously?
What do you mean "in the same way we do"—you really don't think animals feel acute pain when they are sick, or intense emotional distress when they are confined to a small cage?
Well, owning "free range" cattle of my own, and slaughtering them for my own consumption, yes, I have never seen outward displays of fear or emotional distress before the "end". Seriously. Same thing goes for my chickens, and all the deer, fish, pigs, etc., I've ever killed. The vast majority of animals do not percieve pain in the same manner as humans, thier brains aren't complex enough. The also have no concept of the anticipation of pain or what will result in death. Only instinct.
Have you ever seen a dog with a broken leg attempt to gnaw it off? I have.
Have you ever seen a human with a broken leg attempt to gnaw it off?
I don't see how the consumption of meat can be levelled with "torture" or "murder".
The word "murder" simply means "unlawful killing," so technically it's incorrect to call it murder, since killing animals for food is legal.
Torture, however, seems pretty apt in light of what we do to animals in industrial agriculture. Cutting off the beaks of chickens without anaesthetics, fattening cows on a diet (corn) which they have not evolved to digest and thus makes them so sick they require a steady stream of antibiotics to survive day to day, etc. I am not a vegetarian (yet) but I would be hard-pressed to believe that such treatments are morally justified in any way.
Industrial animal agriculture borders on a sickening mechanicality, I'll give you that. But likening it to torture is really pushing it in my book.
I was surprised to learn that strict vegans can't eat honey. It's produced by an animal after all.
Also I occasionally force meat eating on a vegan friend of mine... on accident. Like this:
Me: Wanna get some ice cream?
Vegan: Uh... no thanks. *looks at me funny*
Me: ... Oh shit, that's right.
Also vegetarian stuff needs to advertise itself better. I can't really tell the difference between textured vegetable protein and ground beef in a sauce... but TVP is an awful name for a food.
::shrug:: If they could invent a pill I could take three times a day that would only cost me $30 a month on my insurance and keep me full, and healthy, giving me vitamins and nutrients, I would take it. Since it doesn't exist though I'm just not quite ready to go against natural evolution. I'm not saying the way meat is produced isn't cruel, it is... But I've still got the urge to hunt and gather and eat, and I'm not giving that up yet.
I don't think this is a valid argument. First of all, humans (like chimps) evolved to eat meat as a non-essential supplement. You don't need meat to survive, and humans never have.
Secondly, even if you do have the natural urge to hunt, I don't think you'd agree that natural urges should determine moral guidelines. Many men have the natural urge to have sex with women on the street.
Oh god, before Shinto says it: You can have a perfectly balanced vegetarian diet. You do not need to eat meat. If you were raised up eating meat, it'll be probably harder to give up. You do not need to give up meat just because you can live on vegetables.
I have a lot of time thinkign about the food that goes into my mouth, and have even considered the possibility of going vegetarian myself. In the end I decided I wasn't fair to do that to my system as I've eaten meat all my life (plus, y'know, I really like a good burger). Now if I ever buy any meat I try to make sure it's not the cheap, processed stuff. That's my decision, I don't force it on others, ande I don't expect them to force their values upon me.
I'm quite happy for people to have their own beliefs and values, and that's fine. Right up until the point when they tell me what I'm doing is Wrongâ„¢ and try to force their beliefs on me. That goes for food preferences, political stances, religious beliefs, opinions about art... the lot.
Why do you have a problem with people telling you that you're wrong? You're in a Debate forum!
While I think there is a line of pushiness that can be crossed, I do believe that it's important for people to argue and defend issues—especially issues that are as important as agriculture and religion. I mean, my problem with evangelicals has never been that they're pushy—it's that they're wrong or dishonest.
A friend of mine is a vegetarian because he considers raising animals for consumption a waste of resources (land/grain required to feed cows etc) or something. I really have no problem eating meat in front of any vegetarian.
I have a lot of time thinkign about the food that goes into my mouth, and have even considered the possibility of going vegetarian myself. In the end I decided I wasn't fair to do that to my system as I've eaten meat all my life (plus, y'know, I really like a good burger). Now if I ever buy any meat I try to make sure it's not the cheap, processed stuff. That's my decision, I don't force it on others, ande I don't expect them to force their values upon me.
I'm quite happy for people to have their own beliefs and values, and that's fine. Right up until the point when they tell me what I'm doing is Wrong™ and try to force their beliefs on me. That goes for food preferences, political stances, religious beliefs, opinions about art... the lot.
Why do you have a problem with people telling you that you're wrong? You're in a Debate forum!
While I think there is a line of pushiness that can be crossed, I do believe that it's important for people to argue and defend issues—especially issues that are as important as agriculture and religion. I mean, my problem with evangelicals has never been that they're pushy—it's that they're wrong or dishonest.
If I'm under the impression that incorrect information is fact - say, for example, I thought Abe Lincoln was the first President of the United States, or that the sky is made from marshmallow - and someone tells me I'm wrong, I'm quite able to accept that I am wrong.
If someone tries to tell me that eating meat is wrong, or that my religious views are wrong, then that right there is unacceptable.
A friend of mine is a vegetarian because he considers raising animals for consumption a waste of resources (land/grain required to feed cows etc) or something. I really have no problem eating meat in front of any vegetarian.
But people do it anyway, so the meat he's not eating will just be eaten by someone else.
Well, owning "free range" cattle of my own, and slaughtering them for my own consumption, yes, I have never seen outward displays of fear or emotional distress before the "end". Seriously. Same thing goes for my chickens, and all the deer, fish, pigs, etc., I've ever killed.
This is not analogous at all to the situation I'm talking about in industrial agriculture. It sounds like the animals you raise live relatively happy lives until the moment of death.
The vast majority of animals do not percieve pain in the same manner as humans, thier brains aren't complex enough.
You're going to need to support this one. A human brain's added complexity does not increase our ability to feel pain. That ability exists in much less complex brains, certainly in all mammals and birds.
The also have no concept of the anticipation of pain or what will result in death. Only instinct.
Anticipation of pain or the consequences thereof is not required to feel pain.
Again, an infant or a mentally disabled person cannot anticipate pain. I am guessing that if someone locked a mentally disabled person in a cage barely bigger than his body and forcefed him food that made him physically ill—for 6 months—you would call it torture.
Have you ever seen a dog with a broken leg attempt to gnaw it off? I have.
Have you ever seen a human with a broken leg attempt to gnaw it off?
I don't see how this relates to the discussion. I had a dog and have a cat and it is patently obvious from their responses to harmful stimuli that they feel pain. Just because we are not capable of experiencing the interiority of animal consciousness does not mean we can't draw conclusions about their ability to feel things like pain and hunger and happiness, based on their outward behavioral responses.
Industrial animal agriculture borders on a sickening mechanicality, I'll give you that. But likening it to torture is really pushing it in my book.
It is inflicting egregious pain and emotional suffering on a sentient being for an extremely long period of time. Why is it pushing it? I'm guessing you think chimpanzees and infants and disabled people are capable of being tortured, correct? Where is the line?
According to a friend of mine, who is vegan, we aren't actually omnivores. Or rather, I guess we are technically, but while we can eat meat, we weren't meant to eat meat. Or animal products at all, really. Our teeth aren't really sharp enough to tear the meat like carnivores do, and our digestive tract has a lot of trouble processing meat. According to him, after 50 years we have something like several ounces (maybe a pound? I forget the exact amount) of little bits of meat hanging out in our small intestine. Or something.
Yeah, this line of reasoning fails on multiple levels.
First off, fewer animals are actually 100% herbivorous or 100% carnivorous than are popularly thought. Many animals are omnivorous, and fall on one side of the spectrum or the other. (Even "carnivores" like big cats and wild canines get a small amount of vegetable matter from the contents of their prey's stomachs.) Humans happen to fall between the middle and the herbivore side; we need to eat mostly vegetables but we need some meat. Actually, technically, primates tend to be opportunistic feeders, capable of adapting to a wide variety of foodstuffs.
Second, we do have sharp, tearing teeth. They're called canines and incisors. Herbivorous and nearly-herbivorous animals (like cows and horses) don't have sharp teeth like these.
Third, vitamin B12. It's necessarily for all mammalian life and it is not present in any biologically available form in any appreciable amount in vegetables. All herbivorous or nearly-herbivorous animals have some way of obtaining vitamin B12 from their diets. Rodents are coprophagic, meaning they will occasionally eat their own feces to obtain the B12 produced by their own intestinal flora. Ruminant animals like cows have B12-producing microbial flora in the first chamber of their multi-chambered stomachs.
Predators, on the other hand, have no endogenous way of producing B12 and must obtain it from the meat of animals that do. Primates in the wild supplement their diets with insects that provide B12. Some early agrarian societies got their B12 by fertilizing their crops with manure; the B12 from the manure would leech into the crops in sufficient quantities to satisfy their nutritional needs.
Fourth, our closest evolutionary ancestors eat meat. At the bare minimum, they eat insects. (Ever watch baboon grooming behavior?) If plant food is scare, gorillas and chimps will kill and eat other animals.
Note that none of this is an argument that we should eat meat. That would be a naturalistic fallacy. I'm just debunking the myth that humans are herbivores, because we're clearly not.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
If someone tries to tell me that eating meat is wrong, or that my religious views are wrong, then that right there is unacceptable.
If I told you "I think that stoning disobedient children to death is wrong," would you find that unacceptable?
Questions of morality are not exactly questions of historical fact. But if a practice—like stoning children to death or torturing animals for food—can be shown to contradict your own professed moral guidelines, why is it "unacceptable" to point out such a contradiction?
I blame Disney. Putting cute human faces with huge eyes into animals.
There is something that always intrigues me. Can we really "torture" an animal? I remember someone back at school asked this question, a kid torns out the leg of a grasshooper for instance, it will hurt of course, but can the grasshooper really be "tortured"? I think it requires a more advanced brain, because the torture doesn't come just from the physical pain, but from the acknowledgement of the consecuences, sometimes thats the really worst part of the torture with a human being.
So you believe that one cannot torture an infant or a mentally disabled person since they are unaware of the long-term consequences of such torture?
That is a complex discussion more fit for another thread, remember this argument is used by people who approve male circumsicion, and even female circumsicion.
The torture with animals for human comsuption is different, after all, what we are really doing is just making them really fat, and I'm sure the death they suffer is much more painless than the one they would have in the wild. I doubt they feel pain by having constant supply of food, the other problems are more diffcult to analyze, can they really be emotionally affected by being in a confined space for instance?
That is a complex discussion more fit for another thread, remember this argument is used by people who approve male circumsicion, and even female circumsicion.
Well, the point is that "brain complexity" is not a valid criteria for eligibility of torture is you concede that it is possible to torture infants and mentally disabled (i.e. beings who are capable of feeling pain but not long-term awareness). If you disagree then that is indeed another discussion, but I hope you'll at least concede that inflicting constant pain on newborns and mentally disabled is not necessarily morally acceptable.
The torture with animals for human comsuption is different, after all, what we are really doing is just making them really fat, and I'm sure the death they suffer is much more painless than the one they would have in the wild.
The problem with industrial agriculture is that the fattening process is extremely unhealthy and unnatural. Cows, for example, cannot digest corn, and they develop stomach ulcers. Antibiotics are routinely given to industrially raised animals because their conditions and diets are expected to make them sick all the time. (In contrast, naturally/sustainably raised animals do not need antibiotics)
I doubt they feel pain by having constant supply of food, the other problems are more diffcult to analyze, can they really be emotionally affected by being in a confined space for instance?
I think this is pretty demonstrable. Birds like parrots "go crazy" if you confine them for too long, pulling out all of their feathers, biting themselves. Most animals need a bare amount of space simply to groom themselves—veal calves, however, cannot even turn around or lay down in their stalls, and neither can some pigs. Chickens in the wild will establish dominance heirarchies, but when they are crammed in cages they go crazy and start pecking at each other—this is why poultry farmers cut off their beaks. The feet of egg-laying hens sometimes get twisted up in their cage bottoms so much that the flesh starts to grow around and encompass the cage mesh.
In general, the behavior of confined animals is so radically different than their observed behavior in the wild that it's very hard not to come to the conclusion that confining them leads to emotional suffering (to whatever extent an animal is capable of feeling emotions).
I don't think it's specifically because of vegetarianism, but I think any ideology that promotes a "one right way of life" appeals to a certain type of person (smug pretentious self-righteous etc).
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
edited September 2007
In most animal groups, carnivores obtain larger quantities of energy from smaller meals. A cougar may only eat a rabbit or two a week, while a cow will starve to death without several pounds of grain daily. If we're looking for efficiency, meat's where it's at.
However, a vegetarian's smugness and moral superiority is not unlike the Baptist or Sunni or any other psychotic extremist who feels that their own code is now the barometer from which all other acts will be judged. If they can say, "hey, you eat meat, I don't, that's cool," all power to them. But if not, they're just dicks.
Posts
Slow.
One minute after the request. Pretty good considering I didn't know that this thread existed beforehand.
SE++ would have winkied that quote tree in ten seconds.
D&D is soft and weak.
There would have been 5 nyoron~'s, 10 :3s, and at least 27 winkies, with a dancingdong.gif thrown in for good measure. The original quote would then have been spammed in other unrelated threads for the next week and half.
Oh SE++
Edit: The book I was reading on this subject recently was concerned with Europe and the steppes of Asia.
Yeah, not true at all. The human diet during all eight of the recent ice ages was almost entirely based on meat. Earlier on this was mostly scavenging (you find a hippo in a pool by the Thames that's been there for a couple months...) and gradually shifted to more and more sophisticated forms of hunting.
Furthermore, human civilzation actually advanced quicker during the periods of glaciation and then signifigantly regressed during the warmer periods. This can be measured by things like the sophistication of tools, how many are living in the same area etc... Dense forest just cannot support very many large (mostly) carnivores (which is what early humans were) in one area.
Edit: One small tangent about this era that I find fascinating is that the skeletons of males and females show identical patterns of wear and similar levels of muscleature. These people led very rugged lives. Lots of breaks and fractures. But once they had advanced to the point where hunting was an option then everyone, male and female, were involved in it. The very small differences between the two in terms of size and strength (which today are mostly a result of social pressures) are insignifigant compared to the technology and skills used in hunting. If you ever hear an armchair anthropologist going on about how "men do such and soforth because in early times they were the hunters etc...." they are completely full of shit.
Oh, and the crazy-assed health teacher who told my class about the HORRORS OF MEAT. Like, on fucking full-blown PETA scale campaign. I'm not sure if this makes any sense, but that pretty much made me go "...Hell no am I ever doing that"
Anyways, I like the reason one of my friends gave for being one...just because it's the most "out there" one I've heard. Just...she said she had a phobia of dead things, and didn't like the idea of eating them.
Basically, all she did was say that eating meat was contributing the end of the world, and our society as we know it. From global warming, to irrational violent behavior, etc., Meat was the illness that sickens our little planet. She then went even further, saying that they had a mission to convince people to not eat meat any more, since it was dooming our planet. Of course, Bill Maher pretty much sucked her dick right there, agreeing enthusiastically with everything she had to say. I could only watch about 20 seconds of it, before I had to turn the channel.
I've never had much more disdain for PETA, and vegetarians right then and there.
Like, not by a long shot.
That said, the "Sandwich artist" put less lettuce in than usual.
Most people, including me, believe torturing animals for cheap and efficient food is absolutely immoral. There is also a shit-ton wrong with our industrial agriculture system from an environmental perspective.
As I understand it, these are the two biggest reasons for going vegetarian. I don't understand how someone forcefully making what seems to be a perfectly rational moral argument makes them a "smug asshole."
I find omnivores' hostility towards so-called preachy vegetarians much more annoying than any vegetarians I've met. I wish more people would think critically about the meals they put into their mouths, and what goes into them.
It is never a big deal in our house. We eat vegetarian meals all the time. We buy all kinds of fake meat products and vegetarian sloppy joe mix and whatever. A lot of that stuff is good as hell. But, just as often, she picks up some ground beef or a filet for me to cook in addition to what we're having. It all depends on the meal and the budget and what's available.
She is never preachy or pretentious to anyone. We've been in some tough spots with family and such where everything had meat in it and there wasn't anywhere nearby and she was basically trying to get by on bread and water, or when on vacation with a group and we were going to yet another steakhouse for dinner, but even then she basically just toughed it out and didn't let on that there was a problem. And i've learned to help avoid situations like that ealry on without making a deal out of it.
But at least two of her friends are the other kind. They have randomly shown up sometimes claiming to be "vegan" for whatever reasons, and then chastising my wife for eating "aborted chicken fetus" or something like that. Then, a month later, they are eating burgers and hot dogs and saying that they just like them too much or that they "had to for health reasons." Fury.
This is why many of us who eat meat in moderation but do try to "think critically" about what we eat generally try to avoid most "mass produced" meat. If you're willing to pay a bit more, you can avoid a lot of the more heinous animal cruelty associated with meat. Granted, you're still facilitating those who do eat mass produced meat (by reinforcing the meat-eating culture)...but hey, better than nothing.
Could that have anything to do with the fact that you agree with those preachy vegetarians?
Why yes, it seems it does. Not that your viewpoint is necessarily wrong, but it's kinda like a missionary saying he finds pushy athiests so much more annoying than Evangelical Christians.
:roll:
Please, tell me you answered them with the scorn and derision they so richly deserved.
Guess what - I have thought critically about the meals I put into my mouth. I just came to a better conclusion than you did!
Man, that's one argument I really hate to hear. "My opinions are obviously correct and anyone who thinks otherwise either hasn't given it real thought or is too stupid to do so."
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
What do you mean "in the same way we do"—you really don't think animals feel acute pain when they are sick, or intense emotional distress when they are confined to a small cage?
The word "murder" simply means "unlawful killing," so technically it's incorrect to call it murder, since killing animals for food is legal.
Torture, however, seems pretty apt in light of what we do to animals in industrial agriculture. Cutting off the beaks of chickens without anaesthetics, fattening cows on a diet (corn) which they have not evolved to digest and thus makes them so sick they require a steady stream of antibiotics to survive day to day, etc. I am not a vegetarian (yet) but I would be hard-pressed to believe that such treatments are morally justified in any way.
There is something that always intrigues me. Can we really "torture" an animal? I remember someone back at school asked this question, a kid torns out the leg of a grasshooper for instance, it will hurt of course, but can the grasshooper really be "tortured"? I think it requires a more advanced brain, because the torture doesn't come just from the physical pain, but from the acknowledgement of the consecuences, sometimes thats the really worst part of the torture with a human being. A grasshooper really won't get depressed or emotionally affected since it can even do that with its primitive brain. It gets into a more gray area with mammals and other superior species, but I really don't have problems about cows and pigs, I would have a little disgust if someone treated dolphins or elephants like cattle thought.
There is also the fact that some vegetarians forget that nature is absolutely cruel and unforgiven by itself without human intervention. When some people go to extremes like not eating honey because bees aren't treated "well" is simply absurd. Bee hives by themselves are terrible and by any human standard completely inmoral.
I am not convinced that vegetarianism is necessary to prevent the torture of animals—you can buy eggs and chicken from sustainable farms that treat their animals pretty well.
Of course, even Peter Singer admits as such. The argument in Animal Liberation is against the infliction of suffering, not killing.
Meanwhile, I honestly see no moral or rational justification for the way industrial agriculture treats animals.
I'd reverse your analogy. Pushy vegetarians are like pushy atheists. They even use the same techniques (appeals to rationality and empathy). Offended religious people remind me of offended meat-eaters, who more often lash out at any perceived attacks on their lifestyle rather than rationally engage the arguments presented to them.
(Note: I am a pushy atheist)
I also think this is going too far: invertebrate nervous systems are very different from ours and it is not clear that they experience pain the same way we do.
On the other hand, it is entirely clear that mammals and birds experience pain much the same as we do. Their nervous systems are largely identical to ours, they exhibit the same behavioral responses to pain (screaming, writhing), they exhibit the same behavioral responses to confinement (thrashing escape attempts followed by powerless resignment). Hell, the whole point of experimenting on animals is that it tells us something about ourselves.
Also: nature's cruelty is not really relevant to a discussion of how things ought to be treated, morally. At least not since Rousseau.
I'm quite happy for people to have their own beliefs and values, and that's fine. Right up until the point when they tell me what I'm doing is Wrong™ and try to force their beliefs on me. That goes for food preferences, political stances, religious beliefs, opinions about art... the lot.
Well, owning "free range" cattle of my own, and slaughtering them for my own consumption, yes, I have never seen outward displays of fear or emotional distress before the "end". Seriously. Same thing goes for my chickens, and all the deer, fish, pigs, etc., I've ever killed. The vast majority of animals do not percieve pain in the same manner as humans, thier brains aren't complex enough. The also have no concept of the anticipation of pain or what will result in death. Only instinct.
Have you ever seen a dog with a broken leg attempt to gnaw it off? I have.
Have you ever seen a human with a broken leg attempt to gnaw it off?
Industrial animal agriculture borders on a sickening mechanicality, I'll give you that. But likening it to torture is really pushing it in my book.
Also I occasionally force meat eating on a vegan friend of mine... on accident. Like this:
Me: Wanna get some ice cream?
Vegan: Uh... no thanks. *looks at me funny*
Me: ... Oh shit, that's right.
Also vegetarian stuff needs to advertise itself better. I can't really tell the difference between textured vegetable protein and ground beef in a sauce... but TVP is an awful name for a food.
Secondly, even if you do have the natural urge to hunt, I don't think you'd agree that natural urges should determine moral guidelines. Many men have the natural urge to have sex with women on the street.
While I think there is a line of pushiness that can be crossed, I do believe that it's important for people to argue and defend issues—especially issues that are as important as agriculture and religion. I mean, my problem with evangelicals has never been that they're pushy—it's that they're wrong or dishonest.
If I'm under the impression that incorrect information is fact - say, for example, I thought Abe Lincoln was the first President of the United States, or that the sky is made from marshmallow - and someone tells me I'm wrong, I'm quite able to accept that I am wrong.
If someone tries to tell me that eating meat is wrong, or that my religious views are wrong, then that right there is unacceptable.
But people do it anyway, so the meat he's not eating will just be eaten by someone else.
You're going to need to support this one. A human brain's added complexity does not increase our ability to feel pain. That ability exists in much less complex brains, certainly in all mammals and birds.
Anticipation of pain or the consequences thereof is not required to feel pain.
Again, an infant or a mentally disabled person cannot anticipate pain. I am guessing that if someone locked a mentally disabled person in a cage barely bigger than his body and forcefed him food that made him physically ill—for 6 months—you would call it torture.
I don't see how this relates to the discussion. I had a dog and have a cat and it is patently obvious from their responses to harmful stimuli that they feel pain. Just because we are not capable of experiencing the interiority of animal consciousness does not mean we can't draw conclusions about their ability to feel things like pain and hunger and happiness, based on their outward behavioral responses.
It is inflicting egregious pain and emotional suffering on a sentient being for an extremely long period of time. Why is it pushing it? I'm guessing you think chimpanzees and infants and disabled people are capable of being tortured, correct? Where is the line?
Yeah, this line of reasoning fails on multiple levels.
First off, fewer animals are actually 100% herbivorous or 100% carnivorous than are popularly thought. Many animals are omnivorous, and fall on one side of the spectrum or the other. (Even "carnivores" like big cats and wild canines get a small amount of vegetable matter from the contents of their prey's stomachs.) Humans happen to fall between the middle and the herbivore side; we need to eat mostly vegetables but we need some meat. Actually, technically, primates tend to be opportunistic feeders, capable of adapting to a wide variety of foodstuffs.
Second, we do have sharp, tearing teeth. They're called canines and incisors. Herbivorous and nearly-herbivorous animals (like cows and horses) don't have sharp teeth like these.
Third, vitamin B12. It's necessarily for all mammalian life and it is not present in any biologically available form in any appreciable amount in vegetables. All herbivorous or nearly-herbivorous animals have some way of obtaining vitamin B12 from their diets. Rodents are coprophagic, meaning they will occasionally eat their own feces to obtain the B12 produced by their own intestinal flora. Ruminant animals like cows have B12-producing microbial flora in the first chamber of their multi-chambered stomachs.
Predators, on the other hand, have no endogenous way of producing B12 and must obtain it from the meat of animals that do. Primates in the wild supplement their diets with insects that provide B12. Some early agrarian societies got their B12 by fertilizing their crops with manure; the B12 from the manure would leech into the crops in sufficient quantities to satisfy their nutritional needs.
Fourth, our closest evolutionary ancestors eat meat. At the bare minimum, they eat insects. (Ever watch baboon grooming behavior?) If plant food is scare, gorillas and chimps will kill and eat other animals.
Note that none of this is an argument that we should eat meat. That would be a naturalistic fallacy. I'm just debunking the myth that humans are herbivores, because we're clearly not.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Questions of morality are not exactly questions of historical fact. But if a practice—like stoning children to death or torturing animals for food—can be shown to contradict your own professed moral guidelines, why is it "unacceptable" to point out such a contradiction?
That is a complex discussion more fit for another thread, remember this argument is used by people who approve male circumsicion, and even female circumsicion.
The torture with animals for human comsuption is different, after all, what we are really doing is just making them really fat, and I'm sure the death they suffer is much more painless than the one they would have in the wild. I doubt they feel pain by having constant supply of food, the other problems are more diffcult to analyze, can they really be emotionally affected by being in a confined space for instance?
The problem with industrial agriculture is that the fattening process is extremely unhealthy and unnatural. Cows, for example, cannot digest corn, and they develop stomach ulcers. Antibiotics are routinely given to industrially raised animals because their conditions and diets are expected to make them sick all the time. (In contrast, naturally/sustainably raised animals do not need antibiotics)
I think this is pretty demonstrable. Birds like parrots "go crazy" if you confine them for too long, pulling out all of their feathers, biting themselves. Most animals need a bare amount of space simply to groom themselves—veal calves, however, cannot even turn around or lay down in their stalls, and neither can some pigs. Chickens in the wild will establish dominance heirarchies, but when they are crammed in cages they go crazy and start pecking at each other—this is why poultry farmers cut off their beaks. The feet of egg-laying hens sometimes get twisted up in their cage bottoms so much that the flesh starts to grow around and encompass the cage mesh.
In general, the behavior of confined animals is so radically different than their observed behavior in the wild that it's very hard not to come to the conclusion that confining them leads to emotional suffering (to whatever extent an animal is capable of feeling emotions).
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However, a vegetarian's smugness and moral superiority is not unlike the Baptist or Sunni or any other psychotic extremist who feels that their own code is now the barometer from which all other acts will be judged. If they can say, "hey, you eat meat, I don't, that's cool," all power to them. But if not, they're just dicks.