Vegans and the morality of meat

[Molyneux]

If you drink a soft drink that has aspartame in, that came from a vat bred bacterium. That's the only one example.

As for animal suffering, in the UK, that is rare if existent in agriculture. Free range means animals up until slaughter are happy as clams and even slaughtering, while gruesome, is quick and painless. A bolt to the back of a bovine brain is better than, say, kosher methods.

Oh, really?

Free-range is well and good.
A bolt to the back of the head doesn't always get the job done on the first try.

Kosher methods are designed to be the MOST humane possible (given the technological limitations of when they were formulated). They cause notably LESS pain to the animal than a bolt to the head. (Or sledgehammer to the head, as was used before the innovation of the boltgun).

The knife a shohet uses must be completely free of nicks, and as sharp as possible. Otherwise it cannot be used. There are recorded instances of people accidentally cutting themselves while handling a shohet's knife and not noticing 'til they see the blood on themselves.

What the fuck is better about a bolt gun than kosher methods?



And so this topic is a bit more on-topic, even if causing suffering to animals is immoral, some suffering can be condoned for the greater good - as long as it is minimized. Perhaps that supposition should be restated to assign immorality to the causing of unnecessary pain.

[The Silence and I]

I have this whole mouth full of teeth intended for the devouring of meat... let noone tell me I shouldn't. It would be against my nature.

This is a poor argument at best. There are many things in our nature that we choose to override out of a sense of morality. From my point of view as an organism it is in my best interest to cheat at every opportunity because it gives me an advantage. If we all followed that philosophy society would be a bit different, eh?

From a biological point of view we are best suited to having many sexual partners, marriage as most of us know it is not natural. For that matter, the welfare system--in any incarnation--is extremely unnnatural. Supporting 'useless' people hurts the rest of us to some degree, so why do we do it if it unnatural?

Don't use the natural world as a reason we should do something, only as an explanation for why we do certain things.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Oh, really?

Free-range is well and good.
A bolt to the back of the head doesn't always get the job done on the first try.

Kosher methods are designed to be the MOST humane possible (given the technological limitations of when they were formulated). They cause notably LESS pain to the animal than a bolt to the head. (Or sledgehammer to the head, as was used before the innovation of the boltgun).

The knife a shohet uses must be completely free of nicks, and as sharp as possible. Otherwise it cannot be used. There are recorded instances of people accidentally cutting themselves while handling a shohet's knife and not noticing 'til they see the blood on themselves.

What the fuck is better about a bolt gun than kosher methods?

Fascinating. So bleeding to death over the course of at least 30 seconds with your larynx also severed by a knife is somehow less painful than essentially being shot in the head? What would you rather do to end your life? Slit your wrists or blow your brains out?

[Darth Wong]

Although I do feel guilty about eating pork, ever since I found out they were almost as smart or smarter then a dog.

I've heard this many times, but no one ever gives the source study. Do you know where this information comes from?

[Frank Hipper]

Oh, really?

Free-range is well and good.
A bolt to the back of the head doesn't always get the job done on the first try.

Kosher methods are designed to be the MOST humane possible (given the technological limitations of when they were formulated). They cause notably LESS pain to the animal than a bolt to the head. (Or sledgehammer to the head, as was used before the innovation of the boltgun).

The knife a shohet uses must be completely free of nicks, and as sharp as possible. Otherwise it cannot be used. There are recorded instances of people accidentally cutting themselves while handling a shohet's knife and not noticing 'til they see the blood on themselves.

What the fuck is better about a bolt gun than kosher methods?

Fascinating. So bleeding to death over the course of at least 30 seconds with your larynx also severed by a knife is somehow less painful than essentially being shot in the head? What would you rather do to end your life? Slit your wrists or blow your brains out?

Indeed.
I watched a film many years ago of a cow being slughtered in the Kosher fashion, and a ghastly thing it was; you saw the splatters of blood come out it's nose in time with it's heaving sides as it choked on it's own blood and died.

[CaptJodan]

Well, as I've stated a couple times here, I am a veggitarian, not a vegan.

I'm not a big fan of the more extreme view that we all shouldn't eat meat because it's cruel to animals. I was given the line of it being a healthier lifestyle, however.

Veganism and vegitarianism is slightly different, so I'm sure I get things from cheese and eggs that vegans can't get. But in terms of suppliments for myself, I really have never had to take any. I don't have any medical problems to speak of and have been a veggie for most of my life. Others in my family have as well. (My 86 year old grandmother still walks the perimeter the 150 acre farm in Illinois every day.)

The only observable deficiancy I may have is in perhaps protein. I'm a fairly thinly built individaul, and I do have trouble gaining muscle mass when I try. I figure this is probably due to not eating meat, but don't lose so much sleep over it.

I'm not one of those extreme people who want everyone to covert to my lifestyle, but I will say that it's pretty rediculous that people still believe you can't be healthy and survive without meat. It's just not true.

By the way, I intend to have a small amount of Turkey tomorrow myself. First time my house is frying the Turkey, and I heard that is good.

[The Silence and I]

Don't get too worried about your muscle mass, you might simply be an ectomorph--a body type that does not gain muscle mass easily regardless of what they eat or do.

About the turkey, are you accustomed to eating meat occassionally? A friend of mine is vegetarian (also not vegan) and because he so rarely eats meat of any kind he gets sick if he tries. Doesn't have the right enzymes in a usable quantity I'd guess.

[CaptJodan]

Don't get too worried about your muscle mass, you might simply be an ectomorph--a body type that does not gain muscle mass easily regardless of what they eat or do.

About the turkey, are you accustomed to eating meat occassionally? A friend of mine is vegetarian (also not vegan) and because he so rarely eats meat of any kind he gets sick if he tries. Doesn't have the right enzymes in a usable quantity I'd guess.

This is actually very true. I seem particularly suseptable to beef, especially if circumstances force me to eat McDonalds or whatnaught (haven't done so in years). Basically, I try to injest some meat every couple of months so as to make sure my system can still handle it. Usually this only invovles small amounts of what's called "Summer Sassage" added to something like a soup for flavoring, or fish if I'm feeling particularly adventurous. (generally, though, I save fish eating for the Florida Keys)

I discovered fairly early on...around 12 or 13 when my parents let me choose for myself to eat meat, that my system wasn't very tolerant of meat, and in particular, lower grades. It probably is one of the major reasons I gave up on the stuff.

[The Silence and I]

Good to hear you are aware of it and have presumably taken precautions. I wouldn't want to think you were set up for a miserable episode after the big dinner

[Akhlut]

So your argument is that something which was bred to be slaughtered has no feelings that matter? Why?

For what reason should its feelings matter? It isn't human, and its designated purpose by us is to be slaughtered and eaten. Humans are, after all, the only thing that can really provide purpose or meaning to anything by percieving it as such, so if a cow's designated purpose is to be my cheeseburger, what reason do I have to worry about it?

"For what reasons should a slave's feelings matter? It's not a white person and its designated purpose by us is to work for us until it dies. White people are, after all, the only thing that can really provide purpose or meaning to anything by percieving it as such, so, if a negro's designated purpose is to be my plow, what reason do I have to worry about it?"

See how absurd that arguement is? Most animals, while not having brains as capable as ours, do have the ability to assign purpose and meaning to things, in all likelihood. Sure, not as grandiose as our own, but they'd likely assign meaning and purpose to the things they interact with in their own lives. However, we know that animals assign high values to food, their mates, and their own children (much like, duh duh duh! humans). Hell, domesticated animals and animals in zoos have been known to assign values to unnatural things (dogs having attachments to certain toys, Koko the gorilla keeping kittens, etc.).

[Wyrm]

and meat is not a necessity

Our digestive tract, ability to see in color, and brain size seem to conflict with that view

And as noted before meat can provide us with nutrients plant life can't

Tell that to the strict vegitarians down at the Austin Friends Meeting, who were (last I checked) as healthy as I am. (For the record, I eat meat because I like the taste. I commune with my neighbor's sheep regularly, but I still eat of the lamb that she brings each year as thanks for letting those sheep graze on our land.)

There isn't a single nutrient that we need found in an animal that can't be found somewhere in a non-animal product found the supermarket shelf, and and you don't have to go to artificial supplements. Though maximum untilization of these nutrients takes some care, simply eating a wide variety of vegitarian foods is sufficient to adequately cover all your nutritional bases and keep you healthy.

Getting enough B-12 can be a problem for vegitarians, but truthfully, it can be a problem for meat-eaters too. B-12 is actually manufactured by bacteria and is found within animal and plant life, and if that bacteria is eliminated (which can happen if the veggies are treated with pesticides) then animals eating B-12-poor feed will themselves be B-12-poor, and anyone eating that B-12-poor animal may risk B-12 deficiency. Fortunately, you don't need very much intake of B-12 to keep you healthy, and if you eat organic food regularly, then you're in the pink.

As to why we have an omnivorous gut, we are opportunistic meat-eaters because although you can survive on only vegitables, meat is a more compact source of protien and fat, so our ancestors ate meat when we could get it, but it was never necessary.

[CoyoteNature]

"Darth Wong Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 7:41 pm Post subject:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CoyoteNature wrote:
Although I do feel guilty about eating pork, ever since I found out they were almost as smart or smarter then a dog.

I've heard this many times, but no one ever gives the source study. Do you know where this information comes from? "


"

Much of its anecdotal, i.e. people in France teaching pigs to search for truffles, but there is some scientific data to support.

Searching through all the Google crap, surprise, surprise I actually managed to come up with something non animal liberation bleating or non anecdotal, i.e. I have pig pet so it must be intelligent.

This one has more of a political stance, but does have some nice sources to look at in the reference section.

http://www.humboldt.edu/~essays/croney.html


This one is a bit more definitive, scroll down to Pig social, cognitive, etc. section.

http://www.asas.org/symposia/vol80/jas1707.pdf

[Darth Wong]

Much of its anecdotal, i.e. people in France teaching pigs to search for truffles, but there is some scientific data to support.

Searching through all the Google crap, surprise, surprise I actually managed to come up with something non animal liberation bleating or non anecdotal, i.e. I have pig pet so it must be intelligent.

This one has more of a political stance, but does have some nice sources to look at in the reference section.

http://www.humboldt.edu/~essays/croney.html

Unless there's some real evidence among those sources, the article itself really contains no evidence; it only makes vague reference to what it admits are "anecdotal and (some) scientific evidence" for smart pigs.

This one is a bit more definitive, scroll down to Pig social, cognitive, etc. section.

http://www.asas.org/symposia/vol80/jas1707.pdf

I have serious doubts about this study as evidence that pigs are smarter than dogs. For one thing, it does not make that claim, and in fact makes no attempt whatsoever to compare pigs and dogs; it focuses exclusively on pigs in isolation. For another, 100% of its tests of pig cognition involved food location, relocation, and foraging experiments. These are natural, instinctive skills for virtually all animals, and certainly nowhere near as complex as the kinds of jobs that dogs can be trained to perform.

To me, one litmus test of intelligence is that the acts used to establish this intelligence can not be duplicated by any random selected specimen. If they can, then they are arguably instinctive rather than learned, ie- they indicate high cognitive ability but not necessarily high intelligence. The thing about a lot of dog tricks and abilities is that they are not instinctive; you can't pull 50 dogs out of a pen and have them all doing this trick under experimental conditions; they had to be taught how to do it first. Only when that condition is satisfied does the complexity of the "trick" come into play; otherwise you don't know whether it indicates learning ability or simply high instinctive abilities which are useful for the trick.

[Lagmonster]

Pigs aren't smarter than dogs. They are probably equal in terms of cognitive awareness, and I've seen some pigs demonstrate creativity in the form of achieving goals (like escaping pens or finding food), but a) I've seen better instinctive cleverness from mice, and b) pigs are stubborn and self-important as shit.

I've known peers of my father (who worked closely with pigs both as a farmer, farm vet, and later as a researcher) who've taught pigs such commands as 'sit', 'stay', 'push', and 'roll over', but it's nowhere near like training a dog, takes twice as long, and if their tricks are not repeated often enough will simply forget everything they learned, or just stop obeying you (biting is a common hazard of pig training).

Dogs at least obey the pack leader, and will do what you say, but pigs display the kind of rediculous self-importance and general ignorance towards learning that cat owners mistake for "I'm smart, but I don't care to do tricks for you". In reality it's just, well, pig-headedness.

[CoyoteNature]

Ehhh I never made the claim they were, just said I heard they were.

Truth there isn't much real experiment on the subject, people don't seem to be as interested in whether what they eat is intelligent or not vs. dogs for example.

I suspect that people in China who do eat dogs don't give it much thought either, probably because otherwise they might find it disquieting.

And I really really looked for studies on the subject, as it was I was just scraping the bottom of the barrel, so SHRUGs, thats what you get.

[Darth Wong]

Ehhh I never made the claim they were, just said I heard they were.

Truth there isn't much real experiment on the subject, people don't seem to be as interested in whether what they eat is intelligent or not vs. dogs for example.

I suspect that people in China who do eat dogs don't give it much thought either, probably because otherwise they might find it disquieting.

And I really really looked for studies on the subject, as it was I was just scraping the bottom of the barrel, so SHRUGs, thats what you get.

You see, since there is so little evidence that pig intelligence is anywhere near dog intelligence, I suspect that this claim has been widely disseminated for political reasons rather than scientific ones, ie- it's been spread by vegetarians who are trying to make people feel bad about eating pork.

There's a reason that the dog is "Man's Best Friend"; for thousands of years, dogs have been at mankind's side, helping us and protecting us in many ways. Modern training techniques did not exist ten thousand years ago; the dogs were obviously very amenable to training even without formalized methods or a modern understanding of the way dogs learn. And the burden of proof is definitely upon anyone who would argue that some other animal is smarter than one which is so goddamned smart that you can train it to lead blind people around town.

[Molyneux]

Ehhh I never made the claim they were, just said I heard they were.

Truth there isn't much real experiment on the subject, people don't seem to be as interested in whether what they eat is intelligent or not vs. dogs for example.

I suspect that people in China who do eat dogs don't give it much thought either, probably because otherwise they might find it disquieting.

And I really really looked for studies on the subject, as it was I was just scraping the bottom of the barrel, so SHRUGs, thats what you get.

You see, since there is so little evidence that pig intelligence is anywhere near dog intelligence, I suspect that this claim has been widely disseminated for political reasons rather than scientific ones, ie- it's been spread by vegetarians who are trying to make people feel bad about eating pork.

There's a reason that the dog is "Man's Best Friend"; for thousands of years, dogs have been at mankind's side, helping us and protecting us in many ways. Modern training techniques did not exist ten thousand years ago; the dogs were obviously very amenable to training even without formalized methods or a modern understanding of the way dogs learn. And the burden of proof is definitely upon anyone who would argue that some other animal is smarter than one which is so goddamned smart that you can train it to lead blind people around town.

Personally, I don't eat pig because I find it disgusting. I've seen how they live - the possibility of me ever eating pork went out the window when I saw them eating out of a trough which one of them had shit in.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Personally, I don't eat pig because I find it disgusting. I've seen how they live - the possibility of me ever eating pork went out the window when I saw them eating out of a trough which one of them had shit in.

Pigs are very clean animals, actually. They eat just about anything and they eat it quickly (the same sort of nature that puppies have when in their litter since the runt inevitably gets the leftovers). A pig will roll in mud to cool itself if hot, I've seen them do it on friend's farms here in summer. They will always try and keep their living area clean and like most all animals will have a place they can unleash their excrement which isn't near their sleeping area. What they eat can't really justify dismissing them either. Bovine and sheep will eat meal that has had bird shit in it and been bogged down in rainwater for days. So long as nothing noxious that can pass through trophic levels to contaminate and concentrate in humans like DDT is present, there's nothing wrong.

It's when you feed your cattle etc. on sub-rate food such as what led to the BSE scare of the '80s and '90s that you then get problems, but that was down to illegal importing of feed that contained human and industrial waste contaminants that led to the PrPSc prion becoming a part of the food chain.

[LordShaithis]

My stance is that the suffering of animals is bad, but not as bad as the suffering of humans, and not even as bad as a lack of delicious meat. So I'll object to the pointless torture of animals, and prefer that livestock are slaughtered as painlessly as possible, but give me my steak please.

[Blackwing]

I have this whole mouth full of teeth intended for the devouring of meat... let noone tell me I shouldn't. It would be against my nature.

This is a poor argument at best. There are many things in our nature that we choose to override out of a sense of morality. From my point of view as an organism it is in my best interest to cheat at every opportunity because it gives me an advantage. If we all followed that philosophy society would be a bit different, eh?

From a biological point of view we are best suited to having many sexual partners, marriage as most of us know it is not natural. For that matter, the welfare system--in any incarnation--is extremely unnnatural. Supporting 'useless' people hurts the rest of us to some degree, so why do we do it if it unnatural?

Don't use the natural world as a reason we should do something, only as an explanation for why we do certain things.

Actually 'cheating' doesn't give you any advantage whatsoever, because the ratio of males to females is approximately 1:1, meaning that if you impregnated as many women as you could and every man did the same then within a few weeks the entire female population of the word would be pregnant.

And a welfare state makes perfect sense as a natural fact. After all, the first priority of survival is survival of the species, but the second priority is survival of the individual. Be ensuring that taking care of 'useless' members of the species is an established ritual for the 'herd (in other words: society as we know it)', we ensure that the herd will take care of us when we are 'useless'. Survival of the individual in this case does not conflict with survival of the species and therefore there is nothing unnatural about it.

But putting that aside, my point was that my entire body (not just my teeth, though I took those as an example) is geared towards eating meat. Thus it's not wrong for me to eat meat. If you tell me 'but what about the feelings of the animals?' Well guess what? They have none.
Centuries of selective breeding has turned the brains of chickens and cows into mush... they're about as viable in nature as humans are. If you introduce chickens into a habitat that has any kind of predator whatsoever capable of eating chickens you'll soon find the chickens extinct.

There's a difference between livestock and pets (and wild animals) though. Dogs especially are bred to be part of a family, they considder their owners to be part of the 'pack' and this is an instinct that we as a species planted into theirs. We owe it to them to treat them properly because a few thousand years ago we took away their independance and made them reliant on us and many thousands of years from now we'll be having conversations with them. (Considdering the fact that dogs are already able to learn to associate certain objects or even abstract concepts with spoken language, it wouldn't surprise me if dogs a few thousand years from now can actually interpret and respond to commands and questions the way small children can).

Livestock has been bred into stupidity (except for pigs it seems) and there's really not much they're good for other than getting eaten.

Besides if eating meat is ammoral because you kill animals to do it, considder how many birds are killed by flying into windows every day and how many insects get zapped, poisoned or otherwise expire each day. Of course noone care about bugs, because they're not mammals and they're not aestetically pleasing and there fore we don't really associate with them. Despite the possibility that the average mosquito might have deeper emotions than a chicken (has anyone ever bothered to check? I think not).

[DPDarkPrimus]

Despite the possibility that the average mosquito might have deeper emotions than a chicken (has anyone ever bothered to check? I think not).

Actually, it has been checked, when the complexity of a mosquito's organs were examined. It's nervous system is too simple for emotions, or even non-instinctual thought.

[Cyborg Stan]

Actually 'cheating' doesn't give you any advantage whatsoever, because the ratio of males to females is approximately 1:1, meaning that if you impregnated as many women as you could and every man did the same then within a few weeks the entire female population of the word would be pregnant.

'Cheating' can give a reproductive advantage provided that other people aren't. Come to think of it, it's hard to talk about an advantageous survival strategy if everyone has it.

And a welfare state makes perfect sense as a natural fact. After all, the first priority of survival is survival of the species, but the second priority is survival of the individual. Be ensuring that taking care of 'useless' members of the species is an established ritual for the 'herd (in other words: society as we know it)', we ensure that the herd will take care of us when we are 'useless'. Survival of the individual in this case does not conflict with survival of the species and therefore there is nothing unnatural about it.

It is the survival of the genes that is 'important', not so much the individual and even less so the species - the latter which can have very fuzzy boundaries. This is why ones own children are highly valued - they have 50% of your genes (discounting mitochrondia DNA and the differences in size between X and Y chromosomes) and you must have children to pass on your genes. It also makes sense why we might fight amounst ourselves, but band together against outsiders. (Who would likely have less of our DNA to share.)

Also note the harem nature of walruses - having a bunch of males fight each other makes little sense on a species scale, and having the losers still live to eat but not mate just takes up resources - it would make more sense for a species to have say, just a fixed ratio of 1 male to 10 females, with each male getting 10 females. And it's not just individual survival - an individual not fighting or raising young could have alot more resources to itself. But it makes sense from a genetic viewpoint - males are high risk, high reward in the genetic lottery, while females are low risk, (relatively) low rewards. Both the ratios turn out roughly equal though.

If there are too many males in a population, then having female offspring would almost guarntee grandchildren later. If there are too many females, having a male would be a good idea to take advantage of the fact that a single male can only have so big a harem, and thus have the possibilty of alot of grandchildren. In each case, promoting an imbalance would not get one's genes as far.

I note that walruses may also be considered 'cheaters' - despite all the males are would-be cheaters, there can still be examples for the better ones, and that would be the ones that count.

[Qwerty 42]

I have this whole mouth full of teeth intended for the devouring of meat... let noone tell me I shouldn't. It would be against my nature.

We've foregone natural mandates in the past for the greater good, we should be able to do that now. The biological angle isn't really relevant to the discussion outside of the fact that we must eat, one way or another. I personally think it's a shame we need to kill to eat, but that's just the thing- we need to.

[Qwerty 42]

edit: by "natural mandate" I don't mean the desire to eat, reproduce, etc.

[Elfdart]

You see, since there is so little evidence that pig intelligence is anywhere near dog intelligence, I suspect that this claim has been widely disseminated for political reasons rather than scientific ones, ie- it's been spread by vegetarians who are trying to make people feel bad about eating pork.

Stanley Curtis' study at Penn State found out that pigs are in fact not only smarter than dogs, but in some areas are smarter than chimpanzees:

http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/technol ... 02,00.html

There's a reason that the dog is "Man's Best Friend"; for thousands of years, dogs have been at mankind's side, helping us and protecting us in many ways. Modern training techniques did not exist ten thousand years ago; the dogs were obviously very amenable to training even without formalized methods or a modern understanding of the way dogs learn. And the burden of proof is definitely upon anyone who would argue that some other animal is smarter than one which is so goddamned smart that you can train it to lead blind people around town.

Bullshit. Living with human beings and being tamed by them shows a certain level of adaptability, but has fuckall to do with intelligence. Miniature horses have been used to guide the blind. Speaking of the equids, horses and donkeys have lived with humans for thousands of years, yet zebras and hemionids, members of the same genus, cannot be tamed and are almost uncontrollable once they reach maturity.

The dog family is an even better example. Cape hunting dogs, jackals, coyotes, dholes and most wolves range from difficult to impossible to tame or train. As it turns out, the wilder and more intractible the canine, the smarter it is -as people who have hunted them with packs of domestic dogs have found out for thousands of years. Domestic dogs are descended from the weakest, least intelligent wolves -the ones who had to settle for scraps from humans while their smarter and stronger kin hunted for themselves.

National Geographic had an interesting documentary about how domestic dogs are essentially inbred, retarded wolves. They also pointed out that dogs pick up on human body language better than wolves or chimpanzees, and do better at finding food hidden by humans. Yet nobody in his right mind would say a dog is smarter than either.

I'd like to know where the idea that people have more compassion for "smart" animals than "dumb" ones. People had no compunction about killing whales until they were almost made extinct and (more importantly) other sources of lamp oil were found. People only felt guilty about killing dolphins because of Sea World and TV shows like Flipper. Deer are considered dumb animals, yet some people (especially girls) don't want them hunted because they watched Bambi when they were kids and cried when his mother was shot. Being cute and/ or friendly has more to do with whether people want to kill and eat an animal than "intelligence".

Does the relatively high intelligence of pigs prevent me from killing and barbecuing them? Take a wild guess...