PETA's idea: Call fish 'Sea Kittens'

[Rye]

Plus there's all kinds of meat that people just won't eat for any variety of reasons; a sizable majority of people in westernized countries find dog or horse meat just as repulsive as eating humans.

That's more to do with psychology than with physiology.

So is cannibalism to be fair. That's why there are still tribes that eat people and have human-specialised arrows and the like.
our trib

Not to mention a severe diminishing return as far as nutrients go.

It's pretty rare for cannibals to only eat human meat. If you're on a small island say, and there's 2 tribes, eating members of the other tribe makes ecological sense, since it decreases the demand for resources on the island and puts some meat in your diet.

[Ryan Thunder]

My basic premise is that humans are special. Because humans are special, it is human suffering that is most important. Asking why humans are special is about as pointless an exercise as asking somebody to explain the concept of the colour blue using nothing but words.

Um... No. Are you from Alberta or something? The level of stupidity I read in your posts is something I would expect from an Albertan redneck... (not to insult everyone from alberta. I am sure there are some nice intelligent people there. But it is from what I hear the canadian version of texas...)

I grew up in, live, work, and attend my classes in Toronto, Ontario, thanks.

The premise "suffering is bad" is self-evidently true to anything that has...a nervous system. It is valid prima facia, or on its face. The only way you can viably challenge this premise is to go Solipsist on me, and claim that you (as opposed to me) are the only entity that really exists. It is a premise that is either implicit or explicit in pretty much all ethics. if you would like to challenge me on this, feel free.

Your premise is not a basic premise, it is in fact the conclusion of what must necessarily be a much larger argument. As I have already gone over, that humans are special is not valid on its face. There are serious problems with this premise relating to metaphysics and many many teleological arguments for why it is not true, not the least being that for it to be true, there essentially has to be a god. Otherwise we spawned from the same process everything else did, and thus cannot be special in the way your position requires.

Oh, fine then. Have it your way. We aren't special.

So, now that we've agreed on that; How should I go about formulating an "ethical" diet?

Is it ethical for my sister to keep goldfish?

Is it unethical for me to live in a house?

[Alyrium Denryle]

So, now that we've agreed on that; How should I go about formulating an "ethical" diet?

Eat more plants. Cut down meat intake. I would recommend eating lower on the intelligence scale. So farmed fish (despite its problems it is better than fishing the oceans clean of life), free range poultry. Cut out pork, and octopus. Venison is on the menu, cow is not. Why not cow? Because free range cattle screw up entire landscapes, and factory farming is no better. Also reduce dairy consumption. In the end you maximize utility for yourself because you will be healthier, and you reduce suffering for others.

Is it ethical for my sister to keep goldfish?

So long as she does a good job, sure. I keep several pets. Right now I have a very fat and happy frog named Unicron-Caligula, and a garter snake named Manfred. Soon, there will a razorback musk turtle named Tiberius. All captive bred but the bullfrog BTW, I raised him from a tadpole caught in the wild outside the bullfrogs native range.

Is it unethical for me to live in a house?

Depends on where the house is constructed. Older builds are fine. Town houses in an urban area are fine. New constructions are usually not. Why? Because new builds destroy habitat in their construction killing and displacing a lot of other organisms. Older houses did this a long time ago, but nothing is suffering for it now.

If you do live in a new construction, get rid of your lawn, and use natural landscaping so living things can recolonize your yard.

[Erik von Nein]

So farmed fish (despite its problems it is better than fishing the oceans clean of life),

I just wanted to address this.

Farming being better than wild-caught is incredibly dependent on the style of farming, the type of fish, the amount of work put into filtering and caring for the first (if you think chickens in cages are bad, farmed fish are usually just as bad) and so on. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has an excellent list of what common fish are good/safe/sustainable to eat and what are not. You can find more about it here: Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program

[Alyrium Denryle]

So farmed fish (despite its problems it is better than fishing the oceans clean of life),

I just wanted to address this.

Farming being better than wild-caught is incredibly dependent on the style of farming, the type of fish, the amount of work put into filtering and caring for the first (if you think chickens in cages are bad, farmed fish are usually just as bad) and so on. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has an excellent list of what common fish are good/safe/sustainable to eat and what are not. You can find more about it here: Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program

The Alyrium approves

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

I think some types of fish farmed are carnivorous, no? I read these farms can be misleading in the level of pressure the put on wild fisheries because we still need to trawl around to find meat for the fish. (edit) I guess if possible, it would be better to farm non-carnivorous varieties.

[Graeme Dice]

Eat more plants. Cut down meat intake. I would recommend eating lower on the intelligence scale. So farmed fish (despite its problems it is better than fishing the oceans clean of life), free range poultry. Cut out pork, and octopus. Venison is on the menu, cow is not. Why not cow? Because free range cattle screw up entire landscapes, and factory farming is no better. Also reduce dairy consumption. In the end you maximize utility for yourself because you will be healthier, and you reduce suffering for others.

Some of these statements don't mesh very well with farming conditions as I know them. Cattle in Canada are mostly raised on land that was turned into pasture at least eighty-ninety years ago. If it's okay to live in a house that's already built, then it must also be okay to continue to use farmland that has had its native vegetation removed. (Actually, pastures with a sufficiently low cattle density can be relatively pristine areas. They are certainly less disrupted than tilled farmland.) Farmed venison isn't much better than cattle at high density, and market hunting of deer is just as bad idea as market hunting of fish. Reducing dairy consumption is also not going to make you much healthier. A large portion of the population is adapted to consume dairy throughout their adult lives after all.

If you do live in a new construction, get rid of your lawn, and use natural landscaping so living things can recolonize your yard.

ie. Make sure that your yard is as hostile to children as possible so that you can ensure that they stay indoors at all times. Also make sure that your neighbours hate you because of the noxious weeds that spread from your yard. Go thistles!

In seriousness, plant your yard with plants that are native to the area so that you don't need to irrigate them. For much of the populated region of Canada, this means grasses, since that's what you find in the undergrowth of Boreal parkland, on the prairies, and pretty much everywhere that isn't bare rock. Don't plant grass in the Mojave desert.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

. A large portion of the population is adapted to consume dairy throughout their adult lives after all.

It's quite true that people can safely consume dairy, but the point is that people consume too much. You are adapted to eat meats too, but do you really think Americans eat a healthful amount of that? He means you will benefit by consuming a more restricted quantity. People consume a very large amount of dairy.

[Erik von Nein]

I think some types of fish farmed are carnivorous, no? I read these farms can be misleading in the level of pressure the put on wild fisheries because we still need to trawl around to find meat for the fish. (edit) I guess if possible, it would be better to farm non-carnivorous varieties.

Basically, yeah. That's one of the biggest problems with fish farming. As well as handling pollution from the farms, handling pressures on the fish, handling disease/parasites (a huge problem), and the fact that the fish are couped up really close together.

[Erik von Nein]

A large portion of the population is adapted to consume dairy throughout their adult lives after all.

Yes and no. The major reason for that is that your body doesn't always stop producing enzymes to digest milk, simply because you never really stop ingesting milk. If you did for any appreciable amount of time you'd stop producing those enzymes.

Africans are just more susceptible to lactose intolerance (oddly enough a "disorder" that's supposed to happen) only because they're exposed to far less milk intake than Europeans.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Some of these statements don't mesh very well with farming conditions as I know them. Cattle in Canada are mostly raised on land that was turned into pasture at least eighty-ninety years ago.

And most cattle in the US are grazed on public trust land that is supposedly set aside for wildlife.

Farmed venison isn't much better than cattle at high density, and market hunting of deer is just as bad idea as market hunting of fish.

I was referring to individual hunting of venison.

Reducing dairy consumption is also not going to make you much healthier. A large portion of the population is adapted to consume dairy throughout their adult lives after all.

No, they are "adapted" to handle lactose. Not the fats and cholesterol that dairy pumps into your diet. You dont have to cut it out of your diet. But a cut-back would lead to better health. Thanks to decades of lobbying from the dairy industry, at least in the US, we consume WAY the fuck too much milk and cheese.

ie. Make sure that your yard is as hostile to children as possible so that you can ensure that they stay indoors at all times. Also make sure that your neighbours hate you because of the noxious weeds that spread from your yard. Go thistles!

No. Not really. It is perfectly viable to plant native plants in your yard, when appropriate set up a garden pond, things of that nature. It certainly depends on where you are, but it is perfectly viable to use meadow landscaping in much of canada. Plant native rather than exotic grasses, native flowering plants, trees, etc. In the desert, use desert plants and teach your kids about native snakes

[Ryan Thunder]

venison

Any idea as to how easy it is to get that sort of meat at the grocery store? I'm a suburbanite, and I don't trust myself to use a firearm safely, so hunting deer is out. XD

Thanks to decades of lobbying from the dairy industry,

How does lobbying induce people to drink more milk than they would otherwise?

[Alyrium Denryle]

How does lobbying induce people to drink more milk than they would otherwise?

The dairy industry lobbied the USDA when it was initially creating its little food pyramid that you see in various places in the US, getting it to bump up the daily recommended serving of dairy products from MAYBE a glass of milk, to something like three or four. That food pyramid has been pervasive in the US for decades, being taught to little school children. Plus all the advertizing from the dairy industry telling people that they need to drink more milk to ensure healthy teeth and bones... I dont know if there are similar issues in Canada, but that is certainly a big one here.

Any idea as to how easy it is to get that sort of meat at the grocery store? I'm a suburbanite, and I don't trust myself to use a firearm safely, so hunting deer is out. XD

Do you have outdoorsy type friends that hunt?

[Ryan Thunder]

How does lobbying induce people to drink more milk than they would otherwise?

The dairy industry lobbied the USDA when it was initially creating its little food pyramid that you see in various places in the US, getting it to bump up the daily recommended serving of dairy products from MAYBE a glass of milk, to something like three or four. That food pyramid has been pervasive in the US for decades, being taught to little school children. Plus all the advertizing from the dairy industry telling people that they need to drink more milk to ensure healthy teeth and bones... I dont know if there are similar issues in Canada, but that is certainly a big one here.

You know, I seem to recall seeing those food pyramids, but I don't recall how much dairy they recommended. For myself, I'll usually have a glass of milk in a day. Perhaps two.

I'll admit that I eat way too much cheese, though. Can't really be helped though; I love cheddar.

Any idea as to how easy it is to get that sort of meat at the grocery store? I'm a suburbanite, and I don't trust myself to use a firearm safely, so hunting deer is out.

Do you have outdoorsy type friends that hunt?

They hunt squirrels and other nuisance animals, with slingshots, bows, and airsoft pistols.

So no, not really.

[Mayabird]

Wasn't just dairy. Meat, also. You don't actually need "2-3 servings" of both meat and dairy a day (although I'll note that the recommended serving size is significantly smaller than the amounts that people eat), just a certain amount of protein and nutrients plus a trace amount of Vitamin B12, which only comes from animals (Jains were able to survive for centuries on an entirely vegetarian diet, only getting B12 from insect contamination in their food; that's how trace I'm talking about). It's certainly easier to get the protein out of a hunk of meat, something to remember when dealing with growing kids, but I'm not a nine year old in the middle of a growth spurt packing on mass anymore and there's no reason I need meat at every meal.

I'll stop here before I start rambling even more.

[Knife]

Eat more plants. Cut down meat intake.

You start off so well, but I digress.

I would recommend eating lower on the intelligence scale.

Kill the stupid, I like where your head is.

So farmed fish (despite its problems it is better than fishing the oceans clean of life), free range poultry. Cut out pork, and octopus. Venison is on the menu, cow is not. Why not cow? Because free range cattle screw up entire landscapes, and factory farming is no better.

er...if enough people change over to venison instead of cow, due to huge populations of cow having bad effects, what is to stop a huge population of deer needed to feed more and more people from becoming as large a problem as huge populations of bovine?

Sounds like that ridiculous argument the survivalists and such put forth for the morons who take waste fry grease and make fuel out of it cheap. Well duh, but once enough people want to do it, McD's ain't going to be giving the fry grease away anymore, they'll want to make money off of it. Scale, I guess is where I'm going with that.

Also reduce dairy consumption. In the end you maximize utility for yourself because you will be healthier, and you reduce suffering for others.

lol, ok. BTW, any idea's what food source we should fortify with D?

Depends on where the house is constructed. Older builds are fine.

Why? By your following argument, it means that at one time they were indeed wrong. So, if a new build is wrong now, all I have to do is wait an obviously subjective amount of time and it's magically good.

Town houses in an urban area are fine. New constructions are usually not. Why? Because new builds destroy habitat in their construction killing and displacing a lot of other organisms. Older houses did this a long time ago, but nothing is suffering for it now.

So now it's unethical but to be ethical I need to be unethical for a set amount of time. Gotcha.

If you do live in a new construction, get rid of your lawn, and use natural landscaping so living things can recolonize your yard.

[/quote][/quote]

er...if you think indigenous critters are desirable to recolonize your yard that is.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

So now it's unethical but to be ethical I need to be unethical for a set amount of time. Gotcha.

Assuming you need to live somewhere, he's indicating that the suffering of the construction and displacement process already happened long ago; you can't undo it and it's done with. In comparison, to make a new lot and home, it requires additional displacement and construction, creating an entirely new situation of suffering by restarting the process.

It's not abstractly difficult to comprehend. Making a new product causes suffering just like making the old product, but in the hypothetical, making the new one ADDS to what has already been done by doing it again.

It seems a bit too simple, though. I would think it not as clear-cut. there could be conflicting goals or situations. It might be better to buy old for certain concerns, but not for others. It would probably avoid the suffering of new construction, but maybe it will have other problems, like energy inefficiency. It depends on if it can be fixed.

A lot of older homes have problems and are less energy efficient and less "green." It depends on the goal. If you want to reduce the carbon footprint, maybe it's better to make a "green" apartment complex if nothing is available. I am not sure what would be better; updating the old ones, using them or using them until nothing's left and then making a new, more efficient apartment, or just making the new apartment.

It also depends on if you can find an older place, obviously.

lol, ok. BTW, any idea's what food source we should fortify with D?

You probably could others, but why? You aren't eliminating dairy as per his suggestion, just reducing your consumption. Most people consume too much meat and dairy. You can get proper nutrition from it by consuming a much smaller portion than the average person does. Do you think that's a bad suggestion, because you "lol'ed?" as if it were. Maybe people wouldn't be as a fat as they are if they took that suggestion.

[Alyrium Denryle]

er...if enough people change over to venison instead of cow, due to huge populations of cow having bad effects, what is to stop a huge population of deer needed to feed more and more people from becoming as large a problem as huge populations of bovine?

Sounds like that ridiculous argument the survivalists and such put forth for the morons who take waste fry grease and make fuel out of it cheap. Well duh, but once enough people want to do it, McD's ain't going to be giving the fry grease away anymore, they'll want to make money off of it. Scale, I guess is where I'm going with that

The argument is predicated on the idea that for an individual trying to eat more ethically, going hunting once a year and bagging an elk or moose is better than eating cow. The industrialization is indeed the problem, not the cows themselves, so ideally the state should prevent the industrialization of venison.

lol, ok. BTW, any idea's what food source we should fortify with D?

Humans can synthesize D vitamins from sunlight if I remember correctly, and even if we cant, I did not say cut out dairy, I said reduce. We do not need the ridiculous quantities we get today.

Why? By your following argument, it means that at one time they were indeed wrong. So, if a new build is wrong now, all I have to do is wait an obviously subjective amount of time and it's magically good.

No. The damage is already done. Therefore utilizing the space (and in fact reusing it, as the old occupants have gone elsewhere) is a better option than buying a new house, which adds additional damage to the tally. Using an older house, relative to the alternative, is suffering neutral.

er...if you think indigenous critters are desirable to recolonize your yard that is.

And why not? Most are harmless, and the ones that are not are rendered harmless with education. I can see having someone come by to remove a venomous snake from your yard if you get those, but a lot of problems would be lessened if people didnt freak out when they see something with more or less than two legs. The garter snake cant hurt you. Neither can the Bull Snake, or even the Gila Monster if you dont put your hand in its mouth (yes, that is pretty much what you have to do get bitten by those) I can see not planting a wildflowers if you are allergic to bees as well. But barring that, there is no reason to find it undesirable for things like birds, squirrels, and toads to colonize your yard.

As for Tigerlilly's clarification, he is correct that there may be other concerns. But my suggestion implicitly assumes that all other things are equal. That may not be the case, naturally.

[Erik von Nein]

Humans can synthesize D vitamins from sunlight if I remember correctly, and even if we cant, I did not say cut out dairy, I said reduce. We do not need the ridiculous quantities we get today.

You are correct. People only need about 20 minutes of sun exposure to get the needed amount of vitamin D for the day. Milk is an entirely superfluous source of the stuff.

[Samuel]

Knife, think about it. It is wrong to genocide an entire group and take their land over their broken bodies while moving the survivors off into reservations, but it is not wrong to live on the land that our ancestors claimed using that method.

The action may be wrong, but enjoying the benefit when anyway to help those affected is gone isn't.

[Ariphaos]

$300 for a tiger-cub is black market prices in southeast asia or africa. Buying a tiger cub and getting it into the US would be far more costly, and highly illegal.

The owners of the tiger cub that bit me when I was 17 would disagree about it being illegal.

...would not have come to anything. I twisted my hand out of its mouth (I think it was just nervous) - and the stupid fuck (who graduated at fourteen) next to me chastised me for the way I got my hand out of its grip (the fuck!? it worked quite well) and proceeded to roughhouse with it. It roughhoused back.

I got free rabies shots out of the deal (and compressed veins in my hand). Which sucked, but being able to tell people for the next few years that they didn't need to worry if I bit them was worth it.

[Terralthra]

People only need about 20 minutes of sun exposure to get the needed amount of vitamin D for the day

Source?

[Alyrium Denryle]

People only need about 20 minutes of sun exposure to get the needed amount of vitamin D for the day

Source?

Besides the pesky little issue with the both of us being biologists and I know I took anatomy and physiology...

token sources

http://ibdcrohns.about.com/od/relatedco ... davitd.htm

http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/v ... /vitaminD/

[General Zod]

People only need about 20 minutes of sun exposure to get the needed amount of vitamin D for the day

Source?

It's sort of true, but not really an accurate claim.

People living north of Chicago can't get enough sun exposure to make Vitamin D in their skin from November through February, according to the National Institutes of Health's Office of Dietary Supplements. That's based on a calculation of the sun's zenith and the fact that the Earth is tilted. As a result, much less UV light reaches northern latitudes in the winter. People who live south of Los Angeles (34 degrees north) get enough UVB in sunlight to make D in their skin all year.

However, even in L.A., there's no simple way to figure out how much UV light exposure a person needs to synthesize a given amount of D. Air pollution, cloud cover, a person's skin color, his or her body mass, altitude above sea level, and how much clothing he or she wears all factor in. The NIH recommends 5 to 30 minutes of sun between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. at least twice a week on the face, arms, legs, or back without sunscreen, but that's clearly a guesstimate, since it doesn't factor in these many other variables.

The Norwegian Institute for Research has an online calculator to help you figure out if there's enough sunlight for you to start synthesizing Vitamin D at a particular location. Unfortunately, it doesn't include U.S. cities, but Rome is at the same latitude as Chicago (no wonder the pizza's so good there), and London is at the same latitude as Calgary. If I were in Rome today (October17) and it were nice and sunny, I would have nine hours in which the sun is strong enough for my skin to start synthesizing D. (Here's a link to the latitudes of major American cities.)

[Terralthra]

People only need about 20 minutes of sun exposure to get the needed amount of vitamin D for the day

Source?

Besides the pesky little issue with the both of us being biologists and I know I took anatomy and physiology...

token sources

http://ibdcrohns.about.com/od/relatedco ... davitd.htm

http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/v ... /vitaminD/

Neither of your token sources support the 20 minute assertion.