Vegetarianism/confusion

[paul]

i appreciate how everyone appreciates everyone else's right to … whatever. you're right to do what you want to do ends when you take away the right of another to do same. and yes - that right belongs to ALL animals (not just the human ones). there is one truth to this whole mess: if you choose to add to the suffering and decline of our dirty blue marble when you don't have to … then the self-fulfilling seeds for Tomorrow's Harvest are being sown.

i apologize only that i am not apologetic on this one VERY important topic. i'm not a crazy emotional vegan hippie - i can sit and watch you eat your steak without saying a word. i will think you are selfish and if you say you want peace and love animals i will correct you that you only love "some" animals. but i won't make a scene or go into hysterics.

tell me more about how "your right" to eat meat only affects you - you have clearly never been to a pig or dairy farm when they separate the mothers from their babies. the screams will never leave you. i'm not even going into the health and environmental consequences. i appreciate the non-judgmental veg guy but its time to take a side: neutrality only helps the oppressor, never the oppressed (Elie Wiesel). this IS NOT a popularity contest. i don't want friends - i want justice, peace, and fairness for all.

i don't want to hear about plant's feelings or your canines. if you really need to hear why your canines and the feelings of plants are among the most insipid pro-meat arguments out there, then i will oblige, but i have been doing this for only 2+ decades and have debated all of these baseless arguments endlessly. don't want to hear how nicely your little family farm does it either. when they load that cow up the chute to get trucked to the slaughter house, it all goes down the same horrible way - from the most maligned animal to the ones who are grass-fed and massaged daily. i have the footage of the screaming, kicking, animals who are eviscerated alive hanging upside down going down the line. and if you do it yourself at your own farm or by your own hand - then congratulations, you are no less complicit in the unnecessary killing of an innocent being.

if we don't pay attention and realize that this is a huge part of the problem, then the ghost skyline will be ours all too soon. i understand my incredulous tone will set some off, but i'm just trying to slice through the subterfuge as i know the folks who frequent this place (meat or veg) are sharp. pretend for a second you don't care either way and are just watching this debate. if you see every point made for eating meat rationally dismantled then you might conclude that the case against meat is a solid one. it is true, i feel all sentient beings have rights, but even on a purely empirical/ rational level, sans rhetoric - if you want to feed 7 billion people and cure cancer do you honestly think the answer is steak?

since i know some will bite - for all the carnivores so genuinely worried about the feelings of plants - what the fuck do you think they feed the cows you call dinner?

and i support Scottish independence.

[jcnporter]

I eat meat, but something about it often seems unappealing. Sometimes I suddenly become aware that I'm eating meat and feel disgusted by the texture of it in my mouth and the thought that there was life sustaining blood in it in the very recent past. At other times the thought that I am a part of nature and simply doing a natural thing by eating meat disgusts me even more because it makes me question why in the hell nature is the way it is, and if there is anything inherently good about it when everything in it seems so destructive. Suffering is such an integral part of existence, and so much more powerful than simple joy-- compare the experience of the animal eating to the animal being eaten alive.

Giving in to nature might be natural, but it is also natural for us to go against it. We can empathize with suffering, other animals might not be as capable. Plants don't have a brain that allows them to feel pain the way we do, it's hard to empathize with a plant, and it's unknown if they register pain somehow or if they're even aware. To eat a plant is a lesser of two evils at worst, or a non argument at best if comparing to the plight of an animal which functions in much the same way as we do.

If it can be agreed upon that we are much more capable than our instincts (with empathy being a good indicator), then we are certainly capable of going without meat so long as empathy and ability win over 'nature'. Isn't that what separates us from the rest of the animals?

I am also a bit confused as to why many vegetarians eat fish-- there is something inherently dismissive about it. The science of whether or not fish feel pain is murky at best, but is also beside the point.

In response to the quote above, can we say that nature is inherently good? Nature just is, we're part of it. Destruction is an essential part of ecosystems.

On a more general point, if we can and therefore should, go against nature because of what we believe is right, this raises many questions.
We can rightly make moral judgements about human interactions with nature but does moral absolutism require that we then judge animals that kill and eat meat?
We will always have an impact on nature, so it is only ever a question of which of our actions has a lesser impact than others. The consequences of eating meat are certainly less removed and more direct than that of other human actions, but is eating meat is the biggest impact that we have on nature and the suffering of other beings?
Are we less culpable because the consequences of our actions are less direct, or happen further away, out of our sight? If not, then there are almost certainly bigger impacts on nature than eating meat and that are equally morally dubious, if we are to be consistent.
This raises another interesting question - is doing nothing when you know something bad is happening and can alter the consequences, morally neutral? Does it depend if the thing is happening right in front of you, or in an other country?

[jcnporter]

if you do it yourself at your own farm or by your own hand - then congratulations, you are no less complicit in the unnecessary killing of an innocent being.

Everyone with a first world lifestyle, vegan, vegetarian or not, is complicit in the unnecessary killing of innocent beings. So are some less complicit than others, or not?

[naicob]

In response to the quote above, can we say that nature is inherently good? Nature just is, we're part of it. Destruction is an essential part of ecosystems.

Destruction is obviously the way things simply are. I think many would, without much thinking, say that nature is good. To even suggest that it is inherently evil might very well arouse suspicions of mental disease, fundamental delusion or simple contrarianism. I can say that nature simply is, but because I suffer more than I enjoy in a never ending pursuit of happiness and satisfaction (which is always replaced by the default state of painful boredom), am able to empathize, and experience it from my perspective, I can just as well say nature simply is evil. Nature might not care about me, but I am naturally aware enough to care about it and my place in it, not to mention attributing something as inherently meaningless (from a hypothetical viewpoint of an uncaring Universe) as a human concept of good & evil.

On a more general point, if we can and therefore should, go against nature because of what we believe is right, this raises many questions.
We can rightly make moral judgements about human interactions with nature but does moral absolutism require that we then judge animals that kill and eat meat?

Going against nature is still inherently natural. We don't need to dive into the supernatural to empathize, unless of course our ability to do so is somehow supernatural. Animals might be capable of compassion and empathy on some level, but our ability to do so is much greater. The difference between today and a few thousand years ago is that many of us today can make a choice to not harm an animal by eating it and still live a normal and healthy life (minus the tasty meat)-- this doesn't apply to all people living today (circumstance, necessity), and it doesn't apply to any animals (ability, necessity) because as far as that animal is concerned, eating another animal is damn 'good'. This doesn't change the fact that the animal living the experience of being eaten alive isn't experiencing something 'bad'-- how do I know this? I can imagine myself being in that situation and it being a horrific experience. The animal might only want to survive and might not be aware at all of the suffering it will experience in the jaws of another, but that experience will be no less real or horrific than mine.

As we can see in this thread, or anywhere else in our daily lives, popular morality does not exist, let alone a universal one in a conceptual sense. Mutual intelligibility does, as does empathy, as does suffering.

What is good and right? And why?

I can attempt to do what I 'think' is good and right, and judge everything else in the same way.

All of it requires a decision, and every decision will be based on prior experience. Using my personal experience is the only way I can decide if what I am doing is good or right. If suffering is bad, I must decide on what causes it and why it happens, you might not feel as obligated and have every right not to be. Do onto others as they would do onto you is practical, but is entirely dependent on my experience and the experience of others, and requires past suffering.
My understanding of others is limited by my understanding of my own experience and only through it can I attempt to do good. If my experience is limited, my ability to do good will also be limited. If I have not suffered, I lack the proper experience/understanding to make 'good' decisions because I have nothing 'bad' to be used for rational comparison. But if suffering is required to be honest and skilled enough to decide on what is good, how much suffering is needed? Is there no other way? Can good be achieved with an instinctual understanding-- without prior experience? Maybe it can, but I don't have the benefit of a blank slate and neither does anyone else. I've been recording since before my birth and have been impacted by experience since before I can remember, and before I could ever attempt to make any sense of the experience. Maybe instinct alone would allow me to feel what is good, but I know nothing of what it is like to perceive and react with instinct alone nor do I know what instinct is in the first place, let alone where my thoughts are coming from and whether or not they are in any way different from what instinct actually is and if I am in any way responsible for them. The only thing I might be responsible for is what decisions I make once 'I' the decider has become aware of them. That decision maker decides with experience, or the recorded 'ego' that exists on top of or alongside an instinctual base. Whether or not the decision making ability is separate from the process of thought, is thought, or is an illusion is something I do not know.

Nothing is right, and nothing is good. Why? Because every single one of us has a distinct conceptualization of morality. Because at any given time the notion of what is good can change. Because what might be good for me, might not be good for you or anyone else. Because popular morality is not universal morality, and only if it was, could such a question be answered with anything other than 'nothing'. Because the universe probably doesn't give a damn. And finally, because I don't know, that's why.

The only way I can go forward is to completely dismiss the unknowable, universal, and natural-- focusing strictly on how I feel and perceive-- whatever that experience might be, it is the only one I have and the only one that should influence my delusions or decisions.

We will always have an impact on nature, so it is only ever a question of which of our actions has a lesser impact than others. The consequences of eating meat are certainly less removed and more direct than that of other human actions, but is eating meat is the biggest impact that we have on nature and the suffering of other beings?
Are we less culpable because the consequences of our actions are less direct, or happen further away, out of our sight? If not, then there are almost certainly bigger impacts on nature than eating meat and that are equally morally dubious, if we are to be consistent.
This raises another interesting question - is doing nothing when you know something bad is happening and can alter the consequences, morally neutral? Does it depend if the thing is happening right in front of you, or in an other country?

We will have as much an impact on nature as nature does on us, but this shouldn't be about our impact at all. It should simply be a question of what we feel and the decisions we make. It is natural for me to spread my seed-- would it not be natural to rape as many women as possible because it is in my nature to spread my seed? Would it not be natural to kill all my competitors?

Whether or not doing nothing when something dubious is happening is a question you can only attempt to answer yourself, to yourself. I could have a moral dilemma if I think suffering is bad, but humans are worse, and nature is evil. I don't want to have children for I do not want them to suffer-- I don't know if that makes me bad or good-- but at the very least, with making such a choice I spare that potential human being the problem which is at the core of morality and our existence-- none of us asked to exist, thus none of us are in any universal, societal, or philosophical sense responsible for anything but our own existence. By virtue of existence alone, you have the 'right' to do anything you want. Whether or not that excuses you from any personal responsibility to your own concept of 'good' is something in the realm of the world only you experience.

[paul]

Everyone with a first world lifestyle, vegan, vegetarian or not, is complicit in the unnecessary killing of innocent beings. So are some less complicit than others, or not?

yes, some are. the 'what's the use' philosophy (above) is self-self-defeating. vegans don't walk on water - thats not what this is about. i inadvertently might kill a bug while walking to a discussion about a plant-based lifestyle hoping to make life for less-fortunate people better. is this a contradiction? i mean i just killed a bug. might as well turn around and give up yeah? while i am at it, since - what's the difference - why not shove a 15-inch butcher's knife into the throat of a cow too right? this is absurd and so tired. its not a contest friends - its not veg vs. meat. this is about taking notice - if you don't think our way of life is harmful to ourselves and our planet then by all means, do nothing.

nature is not inherently 'good' or 'evil' - those are anthropocentric terms. however, i agree that nature "just is."

what about us - humans, are we not the end-all of creation? if we aren't, then we do not need laws or rules for life because we are no better than the beasts and have no need for a moral system. we can kill for fun, rape at will, and steal our neighbor's home if our muscles or club are larger than theirs. however, if we are different due to our intelligence, ability to rationalize and develop a system of morals, then we don't quite simply fit in the natural scheme - because you can choose where you fall on the moral spectrum.

destruction is a man-made term. change is more appropriate. the big changes like shifting plates, seamounts creating new land, etc. - thats out of our hands. the detrimental change that we are responsible for is not only unnecessary, but it is also not beneficial. in less than 200 years man has done more harm to the planet than we have in our entire history.

the meat and dairy industry's impact on nature is indeed significant (yes its an industry: its all about money - not your health). we must first dispense with the concept of sustainable development. its a crock-o-shit. you can't continue to develop sustainably in a finite space no matter how slow or how many decimal points you add. only thing we can hope to do is achieve equilibrium. no?

25 years in and i am STILL doing this: 1 acre for your burger OR 1 acre for 20 "plant-based" humans. meat cow requires enough water to float a destroyer, eats all the grain that could otherwise feed all those people, emits enough gas to keep that hole in the sky open, and requires all those pesky forests get chopped down to make room for more grass. you don't want your pretty forests chopped down? then lets go to poorer nation's forests and chop them down instead. you know - the rain forests containing all those secrets that we will never know since they are experiencing historically unparalleled extinction events ...

then lets truck that beef (that required all that food and water but left behind all that shit and gas) out of the farms to slaughter, then slice them up then send them out on still more trucks (but the ones with fridges to keep all that marbled meat fresh) to your grocer's freezer. once you drive your machine there to go get the goods, you bring them home and you gotta put them in your freezer to keep that decaying matter from becoming any more acidic than it has to be before you take it out of your freezer and fire up your oven to cook off all the deadly bacteria (but you won't kill the prions*) and finally ... at long-last you get to sit down to that meat on your plate that cost 6 calories of energy to create for every 1 you eat. there … if you total the energy cost of every step of the life-cycle analysis for that baby cow to get to your fork then, well, yes - it IS the biggest impact that we have on nature. if you go veg you can drive a fucking tank to work and still leave a smaller carbon footprint than your meat eating counterpart.

turning forests into pastures for meat - this is not natural, it is human. we are the only species that cycles food through food, even worse - we do it for profit. significant indeed.

ironically, its gonna kill us one way or another: *look up CJV - or human mad-cow disease (the industry is trying very hard to keep a lid on this but you can only sweep so much shit under the rug until you've come full-circle). so why not just do what we know is right and dispense with the excuses? for those who think vegans are a bunch of brainwashed whacks - how are the meat-eaters of the world any less devoted to their cause? read the above process - for fuck's sake, heroin addicts perpetrate less indignity to get their fix.

and this discussion of moral absolutism - if we should do the right thing in every instance whether here or there … it all comes down to resource: a euphemism for money. if they have more over there, we want it. thats why we are so concerned with helping the dear people of Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan - but not so much in Sudan and Darfur (sorry guys - you need to get some oil then we'll call). we want that oil. that oil is needed to get that forest chopped up, grass planted, baby cow fed, trucked around, cut up, preserved, cooked and finally on the end of your fork.

its also ALL a bunch of bullshit - why? because this is NOT an esoteric discussion: the unnecessary killing of anything that you don't have to kill is ALWAYS wrong. a child knows this, thats why if you put an apple and a bunny in a baby's crib and the baby plays with the apple and eats the bunny, - i will eat a fucking steak wrapped in bacon.

why is it that when someone asks for more compassion that there has to be a fucking disertation? nearly every decision you make has two outcomes: compassion or cruelty. why not just try to chose compassion when you can? its really that simple - and its good for everyone else.

[TaoTapeTao]

A lot of words

The unfortunate part is that at this point most people can't afford to choose between what they eat. Currently in western society at least affording to sustain oneself as a vegan/vegetarian is in a lot of ways a privilege.

[jcnporter]

Everyone with a first world lifestyle, vegan, vegetarian or not, is complicit in the unnecessary killing of innocent beings. So are some less complicit than others, or not?

yes, some are. the 'what's the use' philosophy (above) is self-self-defeating. vegans don't walk on water - thats not what this is about. i inadvertently might kill a bug while walking to a discussion about a plant-based lifestyle hoping to make life for less-fortunate people better. is this a contradiction? i mean i just killed a bug. might as well turn around and give up yeah? while i am at it, since - what's the difference - why not shove a 15-inch butcher's knife into the throat of a cow too right? this is absurd and so tired. its not a contest friends - its not veg vs. meat. this is about taking notice - if you don't think our way of life is harmful to ourselves and our planet then by all means, do nothing.

nature is not inherently 'good' or 'evil' - those are anthropocentric terms. however, i agree that nature "just is."

what about us - humans, are we not the end-all of creation? if we aren't, then we do not need laws or rules for life because we are no better than the beasts and have no need for a moral system. we can kill for fun, rape at will, and steal our neighbor's home if our muscles or club are larger than theirs. however, if we are different due to our intelligence, ability to rationalize and develop a system of morals, then we don't quite simply fit in the natural scheme - because you can choose where you fall on the moral spectrum.

destruction is a man-made term. change is more appropriate. the big changes like shifting plates, seamounts creating new land, etc. - thats out of our hands. the detrimental change that we are responsible for is not only unnecessary, but it is also not beneficial. in less than 200 years man has done more harm to the planet than we have in our entire history.

the meat and dairy industry's impact on nature is indeed significant (yes its an industry: its all about money - not your health). we must first dispense with the concept of sustainable development. its a crock-o-shit. you can't continue to develop sustainably in a finite space no matter how slow or how many decimal points you add. only thing we can hope to do is achieve equilibrium. no?

25 years in and i am STILL doing this: 1 acre for your burger OR 1 acre for 20 "plant-based" humans. meat cow requires enough water to float a destroyer, eats all the grain that could otherwise feed all those people, emits enough gas to keep that hole in the sky open, and requires all those pesky forests get chopped down to make room for more grass. you don't want your pretty forests chopped down? then lets go to poorer nation's forests and chop them down instead. you know - the rain forests containing all those secrets that we will never know since they are experiencing historically unparalleled extinction events ...

then lets truck that beef (that required all that food and water but left behind all that shit and gas) out of the farms to slaughter, then slice them up then send them out on still more trucks (but the ones with fridges to keep all that marbled meat fresh) to your grocer's freezer. once you drive your machine there to go get the goods, you bring them home and you gotta put them in your freezer to keep that decaying matter from becoming any more acidic than it has to be before you take it out of your freezer and fire up your oven to cook off all the deadly bacteria (but you won't kill the prions*) and finally ... at long-last you get to sit down to that meat on your plate that cost 6 calories of energy to create for every 1 you eat. there … if you total the energy cost of every step of the life-cycle analysis for that baby cow to get to your fork then, well, yes - it IS the biggest impact that we have on nature. if you go veg you can drive a fucking tank to work and still leave a smaller carbon footprint than your meat eating counterpart.

turning forests into pastures for meat - this is not natural, it is human. we are the only species that cycles food through food, even worse - we do it for profit. significant indeed.

ironically, its gonna kill us one way or another: *look up CJV - or human mad-cow disease (the industry is trying very hard to keep a lid on this but you can only sweep so much shit under the rug until you've come full-circle). so why not just do what we know is right and dispense with the excuses? for those who think vegans are a bunch of brainwashed whacks - how are the meat-eaters of the world any less devoted to their cause? read the above process - for fuck's sake, heroin addicts perpetrate less indignity to get their fix.

and this discussion of moral absolutism - if we should do the right thing in every instance whether here or there … it all comes down to resource: a euphemism for money. if they have more over there, we want it. thats why we are so concerned with helping the dear people of Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan - but not so much in Sudan and Darfur (sorry guys - you need to get some oil then we'll call). we want that oil. that oil is needed to get that forest chopped up, grass planted, baby cow fed, trucked around, cut up, preserved, cooked and finally on the end of your fork.

its also ALL a bunch of bullshit - why? because this is NOT an esoteric discussion: the unnecessary killing of anything that you don't have to kill is ALWAYS wrong. a child knows this, thats why if you put an apple and a bunny in a baby's crib and the baby plays with the apple and eats the bunny, - i will eat a fucking steak wrapped in bacon.

why is it that when someone asks for more compassion that there has to be a fucking disertation? nearly every decision you make has two outcomes: compassion or cruelty. why not just try to chose compassion when you can? its really that simple - and its good for everyone else.

I agree with a lot of what you say, however in the bit I quoted, you seemed to be saying that it is a binary issue - doesn't matter whether you treat or kill the animal 'humanely', you're still a killer.
My point is simple - If we agree that it's not black and white but a matter of degrees, then I'd be pretty confident in saying that your lifestyle still contributes to a lot of dead and suffering animals.
The meat eater who is self-sufficient and lives off-grid is responsible for less dead and suffering animals than the vegan who lives an otherwise normal western consumer lifestyle - your example is a poor one, less clear cut than you portray and says more about modern agriculture than anything else, which still destroys habitats(including rainforests) and uses huge amounts of water, energy and chemicals to provide plants for human consumption, many of which also need processed and cooked, while the corporations producing them are just as interested in profit over health and with as many vested interests as the meat industry. It doesn't do your argument any good to assume your reader doesn't know (or to try and divert them from) these obvious facts about food production and agribusiness.
I work in environmental conservation, live about a mile from where I work, the meat I eat is grass-fed, organic, reared and processed on a family farm about 10 miles away, organic vegetables from a family farm about 5 miles away. I generally don't eat grains and little dairy. I know about the industry and choices available. I also know vegetarians that are happy that their grains are GM and their vegetables are doused in chemicals and grown on the other side of the planet on land from cleared rainforests.
So perhaps we can move on to seeing that it's not really all about just meat vs plant consumption, but consumption and lifestyle as a whole - energy use, industrialised agriculture, pollution and so on.
On the health side, thankfully we're also starting to see the truth about the health consequences of mass consumption of grains come out.
I wholeheartedly agree that we should try to minimise cruelty and suffering caused by our choices, however we need to look at the whole picture when doing so.
If you even want to talk about hunting, there's plenty of cases that show the benefits to ecosystems and habitats of culls and gamekeeping.
These things are never the simple choice or opinion we'd like them to be.

[naicob]

A lot of words

The unfortunate part is that at this point most people can't afford to choose between what they eat. Currently in western society at least affording to sustain oneself as a vegan/vegetarian is in a lot of ways a privilege.

Nonsense. If you have a piece of land you can grow your own food. If you live in the city you can still leave it every now and then and buy from farmers just on the outskirts of the city willing to sell you their goods on the cheap. If westerners put just 1% of their effort into doing so, as opposed to gathering shit and making an impression, they would be more than capable. Capability and willingness are two entirely different things. On the other hand, that is an extremely difficult thing for most westerners to distinguish nowadays.

And just to use myself as an example-- I'm poor, I buy from farms, meat included. If I decided to eat purely organic food, sans meat, I could do it cheaper than buying from a supermarket. It all comes down to effort. Granted, a big motivator for me is simply the much higher quality of the food.

I go to an old lady who owns a bit of land and lives 100km from me. I buy 3 bushels of organic beets, carrots, and potatoes which last me for months and I spend $30 for all 3. I would spend the same amount on a couple of kg's worth of plastic in a supermarket and it would last me a couple of weeks. Considering the gas and time wasted, it still isn't even close.

[TaoTapeTao]

You're right in that end but you also need to consider the fact that most people are just not accurately educated on the whole process (at least Americans) and farming in a lot of ways has been alienated by the emphasis on production and consumption in such a society. And yes, farm-grown food is much higher quality.

And in a lot of ways there are populations that simply don't have access or the resources to find farm stands and buy this food, I don't think it's as simple as just going out there and doing it. I agree the whole thing is a mess and maybe right-ing it is pretty damn self-explanatory but at the same time I can't always blame people because in a lot of ways they don't have access to these ideas in the first place. I'm just saying I don't think the responsibility is so easily divisible.

But me personally, I don't consider the choice to eat meat in the slightest immoral. It's still an integral part to human nature and I also think the condescension that people may apply to people like me who choose to eat meat is unfair and really in a lot of ways the promotion of their ego. What I do think is immoral is factory farming and the way in which the animals are raised and killed and that whole deal. But I don't think choosing to eat meat is as big as a moral dilemma as people make it out to be. In a lot of ways it's essential.. it's just what it is.

And if anyone is to confront the issue, it should be with the massive corporate landscape and not those individuals who don't share the same principles or beliefs on eating meat. It's also ingrained in a lot of cultures, which is not so easily disregarded as one might say/think it is.

[paul]

jcnpoerter

is the off-grid meat eater really the problem? are you this Jeremiah Johnson that you defend? because if thats who you are, then yes, you/ they are not my primary concern. problem is, i don't think you make your own snowshoes out of tree limbs and i still don't think you read what i wrote: the vast majority of ALL the vegetable matter we grow on this planet is to feed your food. if you have an auto, an iPod, or wifi - AND you still hunt, then you are a part of the problem - or - humans are the only animals that hunt on full stomachs.

regarding culls and gamekeeping, the ONLY thing humans do as wildlife managers is MISmanage. nature is the only equalizer. if we back off, nature might sort out our mess and would benefit greatly only if we took the big game hunters - err i mean - wildlife managers and their helicopters … and auger them into a hillside.

working in conservation doesn't make one a conservationist. where i work (with my advanced degree in environmental science) we are supposedly trying to save fisheries yet we have a fish fry each year. a fucking fish fry. we celebrate our work to save our constituents - by eating them. it's utterly insane, and we are the help? my colleagues think recycling a plastic bottle is special. why are we still using plastic bottles at all? if you know the toll meat takes on the environment - no way in hell you can eat meat and call yourself an environmentalist. being on the green payroll is not being green.

health consequences of grains? if you are thinking Paleo - look at the dipshit who wrote that diet. his photo on the book is 20 years old. today he looks like he is at death's door. if you think USDA approved GMO foods are bad (they are), imagine what they feed your cows. did you know the grain they feed those animals is not fit for human consumption? it is laden with pesticides and chemicals but you aren't eating those grains. dirty loophole eh? where do the residuals bioaccumulated in the lipids of that steak on the end of your fork go? burgers taste delicious, but there are consequences, regardless of our discussion.

TaoTapeTao

yes, i wrote a lot of words - apologies (i did say this was REALLY important so i tend to run-on). but i kept them small and you didn't read them. you are still defending a detrimental lifestyle. if you just said "i am addicted to meat" i would nod my head and offer "i can't argue with honesty" ... but instead attempts at justification continue. eat your meat but stop with the distractions. nothing harder than arguing with an addict. i have offered up a sane argument for eating lower on the food chain and in the end, for people in denial, it is just a lot of words.

unfortunately this mentality is isolated from the reality of the rest of the world. MOST humans subsist on a diet consisting primarily of: rice and legumes. most can't choose BECAUSE they are poor - not privileged. they are poor because a few of us choose affluent lifestyles. ironically, this diet is killing our fat-asses because the only truth in what you have said is our first-world lifestyle is one of privilege. when 80% of the earth's resources are consumed by less than 20% of the population, that means beans and rice for the rest is pretty much their only choice. thanks to your choices. luckily they aren't dying of affluence, just starvation and dirty water. here we are dying of heart disease at epidemic levels, only heart disease is mostly avoidable.

to say eating meat isn't in the slightest bit immoral because we have to eat is like saying that rape isn't immoral because we are here to procreate. plus sex is sex right? what if you nicely rape someone - isn't that better than forceable rape? how about humane slavery? this is how psychotics rationalize socio-pathological behavior. "thats just the way it is" is exactly how some people justified their occupation as slave traders, luckily folks decided on compassion. we can do it again.

corporations - evil, yes. but they are the same assholes who sold you on your lifestyle. to say they are to blame is passing the buck. you can do something: hit them in the pocket, the only place they have any feeling. stop buying their stuff. and once again - just be compassionate. it works.

[TaoTapeTao]

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Excuse me? First of all I did read everything you wrote, you shouldn't assume things. I wrote "a lot of words" to cut out the impending wall of text that the quote box would generate. If I hadn't read it, how could I have responded in the first place… come on now let's use our logic and critical thinking skills.

Are you seriously calling me a fucking 'addict' right now? I'm trying to justify an 'addiction'? Seriously man, listen to yourself talk for fuck's sake. I'm trying to stomp out your condescension which only works to make people mad and regardless of the nature of your 'cause' will oppose it. Treat people decently and with respect or no one will ever give you the time of day.

And your argument for the beans and rice diet is irrelevant because your argument is aimed at those who do eat meat, more than likely aimed at western society and its perspective on eating meat and justification of it, otherwise I don't know who you're arguing against. So I was specifying to western society where literally people don't have the education or resources to eat anything besides shitty fast food in a lot of areas and in turn supporting the meat industry. They didn't elect their diet, they have no other choice. And I NEVER said that eating this stuff was okay, so stop assuming and begging the question. You're arguing with yourself and wasting your time. I never said the lifestyle of people in America or wherever is okay or tried to justify it, just saying the problem is not so fucking black and white.

And you really just compared eating meat to rape? Are you fucking kidding me? Honestly man, listen to yourself. And also, comparisons for the sake of argument are useless because they're only comparisons that you draw. It's not objective, it's opinion. It's not necessary to rape someone just like it's not necessary to kill and eat everything you see. Animals don't do it, we don't do it (actually no humans kinda suck and do that a lot). Again, you're begging the question which is a futility. And please don't call me socio-pathic or psychotic, that's disrespectful. Eating meat is really not a simple choice for everyone. You're oversimplifying it and not considering the issue at length.

Lastly, don't tell me who sold me what. You know very little about me. And they are to blame because the corporations are there before the people born into their world, yes you can fight back but you are full of shit if you can't understand that the source of the problem comes from the corporate landscape that defines the values of a consumerist society. I wasn't saying "it's not my fault" I was saying people don't know any better because it's what they were raised on. So you can't just run around pointing the finger at every single person who eats meat and call them an 'addict' because that's absolute lunacy. The problem is complex and multi-faceted… in a lot ways people are placed in a position where they can't know any better because their surrounding environment provides no alternative perspective. You need to step back and give yourself some perspective.

Also for your own sake you're doing yourself and your argument damage by condescending in response… it's just not necessary.

ALSO: There is no defined objective morality about killing a living thing for food. So that argument is dead because it's only predicated on opinion which different people have different ones. It's a selective argument for the sake of the arguer and it is literally the state of life itself that life feeds on life. Until the choice is one and the same for every human being on this planet and they all have the same exact understanding and opportunity, this is verbatim.

[jcnporter]

jcnpoerter
is the off-grid meat eater really the problem? are you this Jeremiah Johnson that you defend? because if thats who you are, then yes, you/ they are not my primary concern. problem is, i don't think you make your own snowshoes out of tree limbs and i still don't think you read what i wrote: the vast majority of ALL the vegetable matter we grow on this planet is to feed your food. if you have an auto, an iPod, or wifi - AND you still hunt, then you are a part of the problem - or - humans are the only animals that hunt on full stomachs.

No, you've missed the point, which wasn't about me. It's that it's a matter of degrees of impact of all the aspects of our lifestyles, not just what we eat. Even if that's irrelevant and its a simple matter of whether or not you're a killer, well then we are all killers to a degree and it's naive to believe otherwise.

regarding culls and gamekeeping, the ONLY thing humans do as wildlife managers is MISmanage. nature is the only equalizer. if we back off, nature might sort out our mess and would benefit greatly only if we took the big game hunters - err i mean - wildlife managers and their helicopters … and auger them into a hillside.

No, this is completely wrong. Humans have, for example, introduced, intentionally or not, species of plants or animals to closed habitats where they have no place, or no natural predators. Nature will not sort such situations out in anything other than the very long term. Of course you already know this.
I'll repeat this - I know of several places where gamekeeping or culls have hugely benefitted native wildlife diversity. This is simply a fact, whether we like it or not.
If you're going to point out that it was humans who introduced the environmental imbalances in the first place, then you'll get no argument from me.

working in conservation doesn't make one a conservationist. where i work (with my advanced degree in environmental science) we are supposedly trying to save fisheries yet we have a fish fry each year. a fucking fish fry. we celebrate our work to save our constituents - by eating them. it's utterly insane, and we are the help? my colleagues think recycling a plastic bottle is special. why are we still using plastic bottles at all? if you know the toll meat takes on the environment - no way in hell you can eat meat and call yourself an environmentalist. being on the green payroll is not being green.

I'll just repeat this bit -

"I work in environmental conservation, live about a mile from where I work, the meat I eat is grass-fed, organic, reared and processed on a family farm about 10 miles away, organic vegetables from a family farm about 5 miles away. I generally don't eat grains and little dairy. I know about the industry and choices available. I also know vegetarians that are happy that their grains are GM and their vegetables are doused in chemicals and grown on the other side of the planet on land from cleared rain forests."

The truth is more complex than your example of corporate production line meat processing. I'm quite happy calling myself a conservationist. You would have to know a lot more about me and what I do to make judgements.

health consequences of grains? if you are thinking Paleo - look at the dipshit who wrote that diet. his photo on the book is 20 years old. today he looks like he is at death's door. if you think USDA approved GMO foods are bad (they are), imagine what they feed your cows. did you know the grain they feed those animals is not fit for human consumption? it is laden with pesticides and chemicals but you aren't eating those grains. dirty loophole eh? where do the residuals bioaccumulated in the lipids of that steak on the end of your fork go? burgers taste delicious, but there are consequences, regardless of our discussion.

Yeah, except I did mention that I eat organic, grass-fed beef. I don't live in the US and farming (and conservation) is quite different here in Ireland, however not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
The health problems of grains (which require processing to eat) are well and widely known, no point in criticising one person, or one diet.
There are also plenty of anecdotals about regarding the negative impact of a vegan diet on some people's health. Of course this isn't evidence, but if we want to focus on individuals...
You seem to be of the opinion that your arguments are irrefutable, but actually I've heard many of them before and I still don't believe that whether we eat meat or not is the most important environmental or moral issue. You've made your choice and that's fine. You can conclude what you will about me from that, but I'm happy to end my part of the discussion here.

[paul]

[quote="TaoTapeTao"][/quote]


you aren't addicted to meat - do you eat it for your health? for the planet? to help the less-fortunate and to protect their respect and dignity? lets quit fucking around. i am not condescending you - i am being honest and you are becoming frustrated with the truth. instead of debating facts you are taking it personal - yet you wish to continue. since you read everything i wrote - why have you not responded to my more salient points? instead you'd rather argue extension of ego and condescension? do you really think this is about you and i? its not my movement - i'll repeat myself: this is not a popularity contest. i'm not having this discussion for fun - i am being brutally honest. this isn't a club - i don't want your membership. i'm not running for office - i don't want want your vote. i don't want your email, or your money and i haven't got shit to sell you. i am offering up 100% truth - information that some might not know about or just refuse to acknowledge. i tried math, science, logic, philosophy and i even asked you to just be nice. if you don't like the truth, don't be mad at me - i am at least arguing for a solution and not an excuse.

you request that i treat people with dignity and respect - think about that and what it is i'm proposing. i eat low on the food chain because i respect all and so there is enough for everyone. what i do is ALL about respect and dignity - compassion and justice, but for ALL ... not SOME - not just my family, my friends, and the animals i call "pets." ALL sentient beings. in doing so, the majority of all suffering is unnecessary.

the 1st world underprivileged/uneducated and poor are not the source of the problem - just a piece of the puzzle. a single inner-city mother of three would rather not pump frozen TV dinners into her kids than fresh produce, despite not knowing which essential animo acids are the building blocks of a complete protein or having access to fruit. while its not her fault, its something the meat and dairy industry has done by staking out those demographics. when people who have a choice support that industry, they ensure that the less fortunate don't have such choices. now i'm repeating myself. you defend those who might not be able to make the choice that we do, but you did say eating meat was morally okay - that was my biggest problem because your choices affect theirs (not to mention innocent beings). what are you doing to help those underprivileged people to a better tomorrow?

goddamn right i compared eating meat to rape. let me add slavery and murder. you think rape, enslavement, torture, and murder can only happen to humans? how about another species, how about an ecosystem, how about the fucking planet?

i love the taste of meat, but its not fair and it doesn't add up, so no more meat. i would call that objective. oversimplified? i offered up statistics, numbers, facts, and the truth. this is not simple - its very complex and important. my objective take and ability to impart perspective stem from the fact that i ate meat for almost 20 years. i did it for one reason (it wasn't doctor's orders): tastes good. from where does your perspective and objectivity come?

corporate power over the individual exists, but it becomes a scapegoat. things begin to change when individuals make different choices affecting corporate bottom-lines. thats why they spend so much tracking our consumption patterns. if veggieburgers outsold big macs don't you think those soulless bastards would be extolling the virtues of a vegan lifestyle and replacing big macs with the money-maker? corporations pressure consumerist lifestyle for the masses but again, the ignorance or irresponsibility of the masses makes them no less culpable for their decisions.

this is not a selective argument - its a growing problem: how are you going to feed 7 billion people - fairly? it is however, an unassailable truth that killing unnecessarily is immoral - always, because we have a choice. the choice to not accept or understand this is not without consequence. once more - this debate on morality is irrelevant. what happened to common sense? you haven't once addressed compassion. i thought the new album might provoke our discussion more on how we get out of this mess, not a defense of how we got into it.

[paul]

No, you've missed the point, which wasn't about me. It's that it's a matter of degrees of impact of all the aspects of our lifestyles, not just what we eat. Even if that's irrelevant and its a simple matter of whether or not you're a killer, well then we are all killers to a degree and it's naive to believe otherwise..

i have to disagree that eating an apple or a carrot is the equivalent of cutting the throat of a cow. for one you aren't killing the organism and again, i will not go into the weeds on comparing plant-life to that of a sentient being.

No, this is completely wrong. Humans have, for example, introduced, intentionally or not, species of plants or animals to closed habitats where they have no place, or no natural predators. Nature will not sort such situations out in anything other than the very long term. Of course you already know this.
I'll repeat this - I know of several places where gamekeeping or culls have hugely benefitted native wildlife diversity. This is simply a fact, whether we like it or not.
If you're going to point out that it was humans who introduced the environmental imbalances in the first place, then you'll get no argument from me..

its happening all around us - and yes we have a large hand in speeding up the process of introduced species but the point of nature finding it's equilibrium is a few steps beyond eradicating a pest. right now lion fish are decimating fish populations on the south east coast. they encourage tourists to spear them. this is the cure? in nature, when left alone, the predator comes in, has no competition, wipes out the local population, overbreeds then wipes itself out and now whats left of both populations will begin to coexist - its adaptation. we intervene and kill the predators - then there's too many pests, and so it cycles: kill too many, then not enough, then too many, then not enough. my point is, left alone, nature tends to take care of itself: something we don't seem appreciate or have the patience for because typically what is at stake is a "resource" which is a euphemism for money. we aren't really trying to protect baby grouper and snapper from lion fish in Florida - we are trying to protect sport fishing.
see what i'm getting at?

Yeah, except I did mention that I eat organic, grass-fed beef. I don't live in the US and farming (and conservation) is quite different here in Ireland, however not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
The health problems of grains (which require processing to eat) are well and widely known, no point in criticising one person, or one diet.
There are also plenty of anecdotals about regarding the negative impact of a vegan diet on some people's health. Of course this isn't evidence, but if we want to focus on individuals...
You seem to be of the opinion that your arguments are irrefutable, but actually I've heard many of them before and I still don't believe that whether we eat meat or not is the most important environmental or moral issue. You've made your choice and that's fine. You can conclude what you will about me from that, but I'm happy to end my part of the discussion here.

to spare you and others the repetition, i cover this in my previous post - but i have at least argued on both sides for almost equal time. regardless of how i feel about this (and yes, i feel strongly about it) - the math supports it. how i feel about you is irrelevant - i think you and TaoTapeTao have to be decent (since we are BOC fans right?) but this one thing is really becoming the issue of our generation since its linked to most all of our other problems. fair enough?

[TaoTapeTao]

Perhaps I did react/take it a bit more personally than necessary, my bad. And yes the underprivileged are not the source of the problem, I wasn't trying to suggest that. I was more saying that the choice isn't available for everyone but I understand your argument and I agree 100% that the industry should not be supported. I was never trying to justify that aspect and all the terribleness of the corporate landscape.

I also don't claim to be bettering the underprivileged but it was never asked of me in the first place and frankly I'm not about to elect a conscious decision to help people I don't know. Might sound shitty but it's the truth, I'm conveniently separated from a large body of mankind and will never know or see most people and to feign interest or connection to them is to me a bigger moral dilemma than to put myself above someone else for making different dietary choices than them. It's kind of logically absurd. I don't expect random people to do anything for me, it shouldn't be expected of me.

But aside from the industry I'm now focusing on the actual eating of meat, say, under more natural, farm-oriented context. I still believe there to be no question of morality here, I refuse to believe it's wrong. As long as the animals are raised in a well-conditioned and maintained environment and fed well and treated well then I don't see issue. I'm not sure all of the nutrients and amino acids or proteins or whatever can be substituted in other foods (I just don't know enough to say one way or the other) but I'm fairly confident that it's not so simple that everyone can easily sort that out themselves. But again your rape comparison is kinda fallible because animals and people don't rape everything they see just as they don't kill and eat everything they see (in considering the adjustment of factory farming industry) and in good conditions the treatment of the animals is far from slavery (the animals are content). And murder is done for no reason, killing the animals is done for the purpose of the act providing people with food. So not fair comparisons at all. And yes humans rape the ecosystem and the planet, no argument there. We fuck everything up. But in the right context, eating meat does not add to this, in fact it establishes equilibrium which is what the planet is founded on (global homeostasis). Look up ouroboros.

I don't particularly like the notion of death as it stands in the equation of eating, but regardless of what source, it's always involved. In plants, and animals, it's the same deal. The only distinction is defined by the argument which says animals have precedence over plants because they're obviously sentient. So what? That doesn't make a difference aside from the fact some people choose it to mean something. It sucks, but not everything can be done for the sake of what's nice. Balance requires life and death, and life cannot go on without compromise. It sets everything out of whack.

Ignoring the industrial and economical issues raised by eating meat produced by factory farming and in turn supporting the terrible industry and its negative impact, the actual act of eating meat is not morally unacceptable to me. It's the industry and the way all of it is done, yes, but hypothetically if it were in the context of farms where animals are well-fed and there wasn't such a complex socio-cultural and economic impact, I can't really conceive of an actual reason why it is so wrong.

[Betterthanyourkids]

Hi, i'm gonna enter this discussion, god help me. Nah but really, I think veganism/vegetarianism/meat eating is a important topic in today's world, as well as a unique one; How amazing is it that as a species we are so successful (for the most part) in surviving food-wise, that we now have the ability to choose whether or not to eat meat? That's huge on a evolutionary level, so let's not waste this opprotunity to make important desicions about the world while we have this power.
That being said....

I eat meat. And honestly, I like it a lot. Just 2 nights ago I was at a local steakhouse, and DAMN did I have a good time. However, lately I've been feeling just a bit more guilty about eating steak or a chicken burrito, as I think about things I've seen and heard. The great Documentary Food Inc., for example. We've been provided fucked up facts about the food industry for a long time now, and now I'm starting to think about these issue much more seriously. After thinking on it for a while, It's hard to say that I'll ever stop eating meat, but I'll always have nothing but respect for those who do choose to stop. The logical chain seems to be that eating meat ---> animals die = Not good. But it's hard to break a habit that literally goes back to our ancestors.

At this point, I've at the very least cut down on my meat consumption. There might have been a time when I said that animals lives must be sacrificed for the good of humans, but I think that's the old way of thinking; If humans want to exist in the future, we need to think a lot more about how we affect our planet. And due to our large population and higher standard of living (in 1st world countries anyway), we DEFINITELY affect animals through our consumption. And I think it's time we put an end to that.

[paul]

its all good. this is a hot topic, so the discussion gets heated. believe it or not i have many very close friends who still eat meat - they just don't invite to me to many BBQs.

while its not your purpose to help strangers, i guess what i support is helping them inadvertently by my lifestyle choice. its more of a by-product if you will.

as to the actual deed ... well, we have gone back and forth and (if anyone else is still reading) i think its fair to say we made our cases and can disagree on this one. yes, there are better conditions and better ways to go about it (i was part of the fight for bigger cages for battery chickens that will only be killed - but some modicum of comfort for those maligned beings is something). in the case of our discussion however, for myself - the means do not justify the end: its always murder. we will differ there, no need to belabor the point. some might agree with you - perhaps the majority, but some might find a new way of approaching the problem in what i have said as well, and i'll take that.

yes, we have to live and death is a fact of life. i simply do not wish to add to it where i don't have to.

Betterthanyourkids

room for everyone … you sound like me about 20 years ago. its is a growing topic but your 2nd paragraph starts out with some reality that i think no here will argue. steak is tasty- i actually preferred chicken. but yeah - at what cost?

speaking of our ancestors, the latest and greatest news in anthropology now suggests we weren't hunter-gatherers - gasp - well we were, but its backward. they are now trying to get people to say gatherer-hunters. while we did eat meat, it was often opportunistic, hunting was less successful than thought and of course - there wasn't but a handful of us cromags to feed. and once we figured out agriculture (even in the most crude sense) - it was game over, since carrots don't fight back.

while i obviously espouse a plant-based diet - i tell my meat-friends any effort makes a difference. some do a meatless day with me or alternate days or whatever. any effort now matter how small makes a difference.

ok all - never thought i'd be going on for pages about this on the BOC forum, but i am sure i have written a lot more about a lot less elsewhere, so thanks for this space.