You make your attitude towards people who disagree with your opinion quite clear here; unfortunately you are clearly wrong in that billions of people throughout human history have not been nearly as stupid as you think they must be and did in fact manage to feed themselves. I once had an organic chemistry teacher who on day one of the class stated that he found the subject easy, and couldn’t understand why anyone else couldn’t. 50% of the students failed his class and he was the worst teacher I ever had. That you find something easy doesn’t mean others do. If you can’t comprehend that then there’s no point in further discussion.
My example was to counter the initial suggestion that modern chemical birth control was unnatural to humans by pointing out in easily citable ways that we have indeed been “controlling” birth in various forms for much longer than the past few decades. If you want to argue time scales then look no further than infanticide among various ape species. That should take you back a few million years.
To the point about commercial seal hunting being wasteful: I don’t know the exact mechanisms but there are laws against selling most parts of wild game, at least in Canada. There are exceptions for pelts of some species but in general not even natives are allowed to sell the meat from moose/deer/seals. I’ve always wanted to eat seal and it’s basically impossible unless I go up north and get an Inuit to offer me some free seal meat. This is in part to get around the illegal harvest of bear parts and so forth, as well as people making money off of what’s supposed to be a subsistence hunt. Even people who runs northern camps need to buy and import their meat since they can’t serve locally shot wild game in their for-profit businesses. So the waste is not completely intentional; it’s legally required in most cases. Butchering and packaging wild game to charitably give to needy people in remote areas is not really feasible on a large scale. If these hunts happened near commercial meat packing plants yes, but they don’t.
There’s a point been made that it’s morally ok to kill animals on a low-enough evolutionary level because they probably don’t suffer as much as higher animals. To me this is horribly immoral: “lesser animals aren’t as sophisticated as us therefore it’s fine to murder them and eat their corpses. They probably didn’t even realize what happened anyway”. Killing is killing isn’t it? I don’t kill as much as you, or I only kill dumb things so I’m morally superior to you. Not buying it. Is it ok to abuse mentally retarded people because they don’t quite have the same mental capacity as normal people and therefore probably don’t suffer quite as much?
Again to the point about in the modern world eating meat isn’t necesarry, therefore it’s immoral. Well, we’ve figured out how to not eat plants for millenia and basically survive on meat only; this is what the Inuit do. Are all non-Inuit or non-meat-only (forget the name of the diet right now) immoral because we eat plants which is not actually necessary?
And speaking of those natives and their meat eating and fur wearing: why do they get a pass? They don’t need to eat meat or wear furs: we can ship them non-meat food and synthetic clothing. They are humans right, not lower forms of life who have no choice but to live in the wild and eat local fauna? Maybe they could take half an hour to read up and see how their savage ways are silly and vegetarians are so much better; I’m sure they’d get it right away (they are smart enough to have fed themselves up until this point). If it’s too expensive to ship them stuff then bring them all closer to civilization, place them on reserves, and force them to accept our new moral ways which are superior to theirs. Indoctrinate them with our “better” ways of eating and living. Nothing bad could happen right? As we’ve all heard before, those who don’t learn from history are bound to repeat it’s mistakes.
Post #254
(I’m not sure how to only link the post without quoting from it)
Which completely concedes the point.
If gopher suffering is a bad thing, then the implication is that more animals suffering is worse. If it’s not bad, then why mention it?
Firstly while we were both just using the term “livestock”, which is often defined to not include poultry, there is no reason in this context to ignore how chickens are raised; of which some 99% live in battery farms.
When it comes to livestock, it’s true that cows have it a bit better, but still the majority (70.4% according to the 2017 USDA agricultural survey) are housed in “factory farms”; that is, indoors, in small pens, often in stocks…
My point has simply been that eating meat and dairy seems to rely upon unnecessary animal suffering, at least in the way that most farms operate. You’ve deflected on to this point about land-clearing and claiming an equivalnce.
While I did suggest that meat eaters likely also benefit from the same amount of agricultural land being cleared plus the unnecessary animal suffering, I take that back, since I don’t need to assert such a thing.
The burden of proof should be on you, the person that brought all this up, to show that a meat eater’s diet typically results in less land clearance (including land cleared for factory farms).
Also, you still didn’t respond to the point about levels of suffering in different organisms. I don’t believe that insects are capable of suffering anywhere near the same level as mammals or birds, if at all. Your point relies upon asserting that insect suffering is non-zero and comparable to livestock and chicken’s.
No, that’s clearly not true, because meat-eaters are responsible for just as much “pest” slaughter as non-meat-eaters, in modern developed societies. Because meat-eaters also eat lots of non-meat food and require the growing of crops to feed their livestock, both of which involve lots of “pest” slaughter.
Really, there’s no logical approach to this argument that doesn’t involve the meat-eaters being responsible for more total animal slaughter than non-meat-eaters. Trying to claim that there’s no conceivable moral difference between the two practices is clearly just a false equivalence.
And, to repeat myself yet again, as a non-vegetarian myself I’m not saying these things to try to shame or scold anyone for meat-eating. But if you start from the premise that causing unnecessary suffering to animals, especially animals that consciously experience suffering and distress, is morally wrong, then yeah, being a meat-eater in a modern developed society is morally wronger than being a non-meat-eater.
???
I just did. I said that meat (and dairy) eating requires unnecessary animal suffering, at least under the way that most farms operate.
It’s right there in the post that you are replying to.
Because that’s your argument, not mine. You are the one trying to suggest that many insects dying is equivalent to cows or chickens suffering (an assertion I disagree with, and you haven’t engaged at all with my counterargument to that) and furthermore that the number of insects killed for a typical meat eaters’ diet is significantly less than for a vegan’s diet. You asserted these things, you have to say where you plucked that data from.
I mean, you wouldn’t just baselessly assert something based on absolutely no data, right?
How many insects, birds and rodents have to die to equal one cow? Is the suffering any less because they arent small and cute?
See I worked on the family farm during summer as a kid. I know exactly what has to die to feed me, and I accept that.
I have killed chickens with my own hands.
To be fair, my Uncles, etc were always careful there was no needless suffering, but when it came time for a chicken dinner, a chicken or three had to die,
Of course, none of those would have ever been alive if they hadnt been raised on the farm.
That’s your question to answer because you are the one asserting equivalence and using that as a justification for meat eating.
Also, the quantity of insects and rodents killed must be necessarily greater than for a meat-eater’s diet for any of this to even potentially have any relevance. Not only have you failed to show that, but some of your premises have been shown to be false e.g. that most livestock live on open pasture.
No, it is for you to show that veggies cause less deaths.
Exactly what post proved that? Cattle mostly do, sheep do. Now if you are talking chickens, sure but you cant let chickens run free. At best they have to be in a yard, and they call that “free range”. But generally, when you say “livestock” to a farmer, he doesnt count his chickens.
That’s not how debates work. No-one was talking about land clearance before you, you started that tangent with a claim, you need to back it up. You don’t get to just make shit up and then tell everyone else they must go find some evidence to prove you wrong.
The post where I cited the 2017 USDA agricultural survey.
The report itself is pretty long, but this summary PDF by the USDA also concludes that “Most livestock are now fed in confined conditions” i.e. the exact opposite of your WAG
And yes “fed” doesn’t necessarily entail live entirely indoors (though that is how factory farms typically operate), but this is specifically against the claim of them grazing outdoors.
Also, it occurs to me that we haven’t even factored in animal feed to the reasons why your assertions about agricultural land use are flawed.
Sure, but as I just said, and you again didn’t deign to read, even if “livestock” doesn’t include poultry, there is absolutely no reason for us to ignore poultry, and only talk about livestock, within this thread, is there?
The vast majority of livestock animals in the US are fed using plants grown by agriculture. The mass-energy conversion of plant-to-cow-to-human is much less efficient than plant-to-human. For example, if all the grain that was fed US cows was used to feed to people directly, 800 million more people could be fed.
So therefore, at tyical US diet with animal products results in far more unintended or intended animal deaths from just growing and harvesting the plants involved without taking into account killing the animal end product. We farm way more plants than we would need to eat just to feed animals.
Hell, reducing or elliminating animal consumption would result in less deaths in people due to reduction in farming and livestock related accidents because we would not have to farm so much. This is in addition to the positive environmental and health benefits having more plants in the diet.
The only deficiency that a vegan would have that they really need to consider is vitamin B12. As long as they take a weekly or daily supplement of that (or get from fortified things), their diet is unlikely to be worse than the standard American diet, which is not exactly a healthy diet.
In fact, most Americans are deficient in many key nutrients. Going vegan often helps people to simply think about what they eat and plan their diet, something most Americans don’t do very much. This is why almost all major causes of death in America can be tied to poor diet.
Thus, planning and eating a healthy diet would require about the same amount effort, vegan or not, since most people’s diets are pretty bad.
It does account for those things. You can read the whole thing here. If you have a better source feel free to provide one.
Who is the “we” you are refferring? You can stop respondin at any point but I would appreciate you not talking for me.
The question is not whether plant agriculture kill animals. The question is if animal based agriculture increases or decreases animal deaths. If people reduced or eliminated the consumption of animal based products, the total amount of plants farmed would decrease significatly. This would result in much less anymals dying, including those not killed specifically for human consumption.
I appreciate the politeness, but I think you’re running away because you’re at a point where you’d actually have to challenge your own views.
Because the data seems to be contrary to your assertions, vs zero cites presented supporting anything you’ve said.
I have admitted that I was wrong on the Dope before. It wasn’t easy, but it was a good thing, and something we should see happen here more often.
I would respect you a lot if you considered the possibility that maybe your assertions were not correct after all.
