# Promoting vegetarianism or veganism is a lousy way to reduce animal cruelty **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 12, 2012, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245 "2012-01-12T02:01:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/61 "2012-01-13T18:46:00Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > Should I assume you would be in favor of a significant reduction in the breeding of animals that produce red meat, since iy has been proven that red meat is a big contributor to much of our society’s unhealthiness? It has not been so proven at all. But as I said, different thread. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/62 "2012-01-13T18:46:04Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Looking around… check the label… leaving. That was rude, you’re right. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/63 "2012-01-13T18:53:46Z")
Others have done a decent job of responding, and I don’t have much time, so I’ll try to sum up. > [@Stoid](#): > > Bad analogy: holding human beings in slavery is _inherently_ inhumane. > > Sexually abusing children is _inherently_ inhumane. Is it? How come you get to define what’s inherent and I don’t? > [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > You don’t believe that the way we treat animals is immoral, so you think the argument is nonsensical. But slavery and treating young girls as sexual property used to be just part of life. Most people in slave-holding societies or who had child-brides would not have agreed with you that there was anything inherently wrong about what they did. Right on. Furthermore, we don’t have to say they “would not have agreed with **Stoid** ” because there’s a _historical record_. Many, many slaveholders argued passionately that what they were doing was natural and moral, and they specifically objected most of all to the notion that it was _inherently_ wrong. I am sure some subset of the Internet is dedicated to similar arguments for certain practices regarding children, but I’m trying to be oblique from my work computer, ahem. > [@Stoid](#): > > Emphasis doesn’t equal anger to me. Eh. It walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck. > [@Stoid](#): > > As I’ve stated several times and several ways, I share the goal of reducing suffering. Passionately, actually. I have great difficulty believing this. If you were _truly passionate_ I can’t believe you would be a “committed carnivore,” whatever that means (did you sign something?). Even if you thought universal conversion to veganism was hopeless, you yourself wouldn’t kill for supper. Saying you’re passionate about reducing suffering, but a committed carnivore, is not unlike a child abuser lecturing me that he’s committed to abusing children but is passionate about their welfare – he wants them to have health plans or something. > [@Stoid](#): > > First, it is a tad disingenuous to say that stunning is done so they don’t thrash around, as though it doesn’t also render them unconscious and insensate, which it does. They don’t suffer. Ah, now we’re getting to the root of one misunderstanding. You asserted elsewhere that we cannot know what animals experience – when it was convenient to your argument. Now you assert that you DO in fact know they don’t suffer. Hell, you asserted we know what humans experience because they tell us. Well, animals have done a decent job of indicating pain and fear to observers. If the observers choose to believe some abstruse argument such as “_we can’t really be sure it’s pain_, it might just _mimic_ it,” then what prevents the same observers from concluding “we can’t really be sure that orphaned human boy feels pain, he could just be _saying_ it?” My opinion: bias – that’s the main reason they invent a possible reason why one observation is real and the other is not. > [@Stoid](#): > > This is so simple I doubt I’ll get much debate. Your opening in this way got my attention. Perhaps I have not sufficiently emphasized what I was trying to say in my first post. I am vegan. I have been somewhat active in various animal and vegan causes and I have been present at many, many, many discussions involving vegans, animal rescue people, dog people, food activists, and even stranger elements of the political fringe. I know something about this argument – BUT the people I talk to moist often despair of my getting up to speed on the topic, because an IMMENSE amount of ink and electrons have been expended in recent years discussing this sort of thing in mind-boggling detail. I’m not kidding. This question – which can be roughly labeled welfarism vs abolition – is THE single major argument in all the communities that discuss animal well-being and veganism. It’s huge and involved and ongoing and even in my little local corner I hear both sides going at it hammer and tongs almost every weekend. So your “This is so simple I doubt I’ll get much debate” opener establishes that you don’t really know what you’re talking about. People who have spent years reading everything on the topic professionally – as their jobs-- AND in their free time – as their obsession – still call each other uninformed, and the discussion does not appear close to resolution from my viewpoint. To do this topic justice, you _(and I)_ both have a lot of reading to do. A LOT. > [@Sattua](#): > > I’ve always thought that focusing on vegetarianism and veganism as a way to reduce animal cruelty is a lousy strategy because vegetarians and vegans still might eat the products of large-scale farming, which kills far more insects and rodents than the animal farming industry kills farmed animals. A person really concerned with reducing animal cruelty would support elimination of pesticides and inventions to clear out rabbits and rodents before fields are plowed (and also free-range conditions for farmed animals). This is an easy one. It always comes up, like clockwork, in these discussions. Modern industrial meat farming – which is so dominant in terms of numbers, political, and financial strength that it renders discussion of “humane” farming _utterly irrelevant_ – is totally dependent on grain feedlots. And cows only produce so many calories per unit of grain farmed – thermodynamics assures we get less ebnergy out of the second tier, meat. So cattle production involves **more** small animals dying in tilled grain fields than vegetarian food production does. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/64 "2012-01-13T18:57:34Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > So, why should it be fruitless to the cause of reducing animal cruelty to let it happen that fewer animals for slaughter exist in the first place? I’ve explained why a couple of times. The non-suffering of non-existent things doesn’t really matter. If it makes you feel better, that’s fine. But I make an issue of it because if you’re going to be concerned with suffering, and you are going to spend time and energy fighting it, it’s more important to me that you fight it happening to existing beings. Things that don’t exist dont’ matter, especially if it’s a _substitute_ for helping beings that _do_ exist, both now and in the future, which, if your efforts are focused on preventing the existence by reducing demand ( which again is so not going to work…) it is. We all only have so much time and money and energy. Is birth control an acceptable focus to solve the problems of children now living? Does birth control fix the schools, stop the abuse, feed and clothe them? Certainly it will reduce the number of kids who might be abused, who need an education, who need food…but if you only have so much time, money and resources, and you know people are going to keep making babies, do you want to focus on birth control as your strategy? Fortunately people problems get a lot more money, time and energy than animal problems so it’s easier to try and do both. But the number of people who are really interested in changing the fact of animal cruelty is a whole lot smaller than the problem, so I think they should do some triage on their strategies and commit to the ones that will do the most good. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/65 "2012-01-13T19:02:49Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Is it? How come you get to define what’s inherent and I don’t? I didn’t do the defining. > [@](#): > > I have great difficulty believing this. If you were _truly passionate_ I can’t believe you would be a “committed carnivore,” whatever that means (did you sign something?). Even if you thought universal conversion to veganism was hopeless, you yourself wouldn’t kill for supper. Saying you’re passionate about reducing suffering, but a committed carnivore, is not unlike a child abuser lecturing me that he’s committed to abusing children but is passionate about their welfare – he wants them to have health plans or something. You have missed my remarks regarding death and predation, evidently. > [@](#): > > Ah, now we’re getting to the root of one misunderstanding. You asserted elsewhere that we cannot know what animals experience – when it was convenient to your argument. Now you assert that you DO in fact know they don’t suffer. Where did I assert that we cannot know what animals experience? (Rest later… gotta go at the moment..) ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/66 "2012-01-13T19:03:28Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > I’ve explained why a couple of times. The non-suffering of non-existent things doesn’t really matter. I don’t know why you insist on using this bizarre phrasing. We’re talking about the number of living animals that are suffering, not about the condition of the ones that don’t exist. If you think animals shouldn’t suffer, it’s a given that you’re going to think it’s an improvement if fewer animals are suffering. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/67 "2012-01-13T19:03:50Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > I’ve explained why a couple of times. The non-suffering of non-existent things doesn’t really matter. It does if you plan to make them, and cause them suffering. A cult arises that practices human sacrifice–but only on children raised to be carefree to the age of five. You’re pretty sure you won’t be able to stop them from kiling their children, if they can have kids. You have the means to sterilize them now. Is your decision to sterilize them ethically affected in any way by their plans to murder their future children? If so, why? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/68 "2012-01-13T19:12:21Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I don’t know why you insist on using this bizarre phrasing. We’re talking about the number of living animals that are suffering, not about the condition of the ones that don’t exist. If you think animals shouldn’t suffer, it’s a given that you’re going to think it’s an improvement if fewer animals are suffering. I think I understand the phrasing. The idea seems to be that we can’t count a victory in stopping suffering if we adchieve that victory by stopping existence. It only counts as a victory if we reduce suffering among the entities that exist. I disagree with this idea, provisonally, but it’s a defensible idea. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/69 "2012-01-13T19:43:50Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > That’s your desire. I’m genuinely curious whether (and if so, why) you think that livestock would make that choice for themselves, if there were some way to give them the choice. That is, if you could ask them before their birth whether they’d prefer to exist for a short while and be killed for food, or not exist at all, is there any reason to suspect they’d prefer the latter choice? Yes, that’s my desire. Your question is so highly hypothetical that it doesn’t make much sense to me, although it’s a tricky one, because it ultimately contains the question if consciousness in animals exist, a big question I surely can’t answer, and at the same time you get me in the anthropocentric trap. The case is that I can’t answer this, because besides the absurdity of asking a creature before birth anything, I really don’t know if the mind of an animal is able to grasp such a question. But as a human, I’m arrogant enough to believe that the non-existence of an animal is better than a life of suffering. In the case of well kept livestock with an early death by slaughter, it’s just my personal ethical stand that lets me oppose it. OTOH, if you turn your question around, you’ll get the position that every possible existence, under what condition ever, should be enforced, and that doesn’t make much sense either. > [@](#): > > Keep in mind also that when you describe their “only purpose of being eaten,” that’s rather anthropocentric. Critters have their own desires completely apart from the desires of us predators, and those desires might reasonably be called purposes. What purpose for the animal itself could the life of a a badly treated animal of slaughter have, except to eat and shit while suffering? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/70 "2012-01-13T19:53:39Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > Yes, that’s my desire. Your question is so highly hypothetical that it doesn’t make much sense to me, although it’s a tricky one, because it ultimately contains the question if consciousness in animals exist, a big question I surely can’t answer, and at the same time you get me in the anthropocentric trap. The case is that I can’t answer this, because besides the absurdity of asking a creature before birth anything, I really don’t know if the mind of an animal is able to grasp such a question. But as a human, I’m arrogant enough to believe that the non-existence of an animal is better than a life of suffering. In the case of well kept livestock with an early death by slaughter, it’s just my personal ethical stand that lets me oppose it. > > OTOH, if you turn your question around, you’ll get the position that every possible existence, under what condition ever, should be enforced, and that doesn’t make much sense either. > > What purpose for the animal itself could the life of a a badly treated animal of slaughter have, except to eat and shit while suffering? We should be clear that nobody in this thread is advocating a life of suffering for animals. The debate in this thread is whether humanely-raised meat is inherently unethical. And yes, the question about existence is an ontological question (I think I’m using that word correctly), and it’s highly hypothetical. Nonetheless, I don’t see a way around that question. Ending meat production necessarily entails sending entire species into a state of near-extinction, or extinction if we don’t propose chicken zoos and cow sanctuaries operated by humans. We propose that nonexistence is a better fate for these future animals than a happy existence ended early through slaughter. The question is, why is the former superior to the latter? ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/71 "2012-01-13T21:10:28Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > We should be clear that nobody in this thread is advocating a life of suffering for animals. The debate in this thread is whether humanely-raised meat is inherently unethical. No, this thread is about **Stoid’s** thesis that “Promoting vegetarianism or veganism is a lousy way to reduce animal cruelty”, and this is what I was addressing in my first post. > [@](#): > > And yes, the question about existence is an ontological question (I think I’m using that word correctly), and it’s highly hypothetical. Nonetheless, I don’t see a way around that question. Ending meat production necessarily entails sending entire species into a state of near-extinction, or extinction if we don’t propose chicken zoos and cow sanctuaries operated by humans. We propose that nonexistence is a better fate for these future animals than a happy existence ended early through slaughter. The question is, why is the former superior to the latter? These are philosophical questions which are not the topic of this thread as well. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/72 "2012-01-13T22:34:25Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Hell, you asserted we know what humans experience because they tell us. Well, animals have done a decent job of indicating pain and fear to observers. I agree, as I was the first one to point this out. So, since we agree that animals are good at demonstrating their experience, it’s safe to say that animals raised for food that are given a good life of space to behave naturally demonstrate that this is not a form of suffering for them. Therefore the argument has to become, as it does, that killing them to eat is somehow a form of suffering, but no one has offered up any argument or evidence that this is true when done humanely. (And humane slaughter is actually preferable for the meat producers themselves, all considerations of the animal’s experience aside, since animals which are stressed and terrorized and badly butchered present many problems for the meat producers, which is why they are making more and better efforts to be as humane and efficient as possible.) Once more: all living things die. All living things are food for other living things. There’s no evil in that. You may not want to participate in it to the extent of eating animals, and I respect that choice and that reasoning for you personally, absolutely. But I don’t accept that the death of an animal is inhumane, since it is a foregone conclusion. So the question has to then become are some manners of death more cruel than others, and of course the answer is absolutely. So, since we are going to keep eating animals in the billions, let’s work on aking sure their lives are reasonably decent and their deaths are as free of pain and stress as possible. > [@](#): > > I’m not kidding. This question – which can be roughly labeled welfarism vs abolition – is THE single major argument in all the communities that discuss animal well-being and veganism. It’s huge and involved and ongoing and even in my little local corner I hear both sides going at it hammer and tongs almost every weekend. Interesting and good to know. I’m glad. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/73 "2012-01-13T23:10:53Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > So, since we agree that animals are good at demonstrating their experience, it’s safe to say that animals raised for food that are given a good life of space to behave naturally demonstrate that this is not a form of suffering for them. Therefore the argument has to become, as it does, that killing them to eat is somehow a form of suffering, No, the argument is not that. The argument is that killing them before they would otherwise die is contrary to their preferences, interests, and desires. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/74 "2012-01-13T23:14:14Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Once more: all living things die. All living things are food for other living things. There’s no evil in that. So, given that, what’s your argument against killing another human? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/75 "2012-01-13T23:17:51Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > So, given that, what’s your argument against killing another human? To be fair, I don’t think she’s ever said she’s opposed to killing and eating other people. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/76 "2012-01-13T23:32:13Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > And if we can infer all that, we may reasonably infer another point: **critters don’t want to be killed**. This should be fairly noncontroversial; indeed, slaughterhouse designers take care to shield animals from the evidence of the deaths of other animals as a way of keeping animals calm on their way to slaughter. There’s a whole lot of difference between instinctive, primal fear when confronted with the sights, sounds and smells of your pals dying and a conscious appreciation of what death even means, much less the ability to conceptualize one’s own death and have an opinion about it. Of course animals experience the former, if they didn’t the species would probably have died out a long time ago. But that in no way even suggests the latter, particularly on the part of cattle and chickens, which aren’t especially bright on the animal smarts continuum. I think it is more accurate to say that to the extent that critters have any “wants”, they don’t want to feel pain. I don’t think there is any reason to believe that outside of a few particularly bright species (canines and felines, cetaceans, crows, pigs, elephants and a few others) that animals have the remotest appreciation of what death means as it applies to themselves at all. (I’m not saying the smart ones do either, I’m just willing to believe that it’s possible among the smart ones, because they have demonstrated that they are capable of reasoning in remarkable ways) They don’t understand existance/non-existance, and they for sure don’t understand it sufficiently to be concerned about it. That’s one of the beautiful things about animals, they are very much in the now. This is exactly what I meant about projection, and it’s the same basic argument I have with people who obsess over no-kill shelters. As human beings with full understanding of what death is and plenty of fear of it as a result, they think the most important thing in the world is to keep as many animals (especially dogs) alive as long as possible, because to their own minds, death is just so terrible. Well, it’s not really and it’s definitely not to a dog, who is so bright that he is very much aware of the fact that he is rotting away in a cage surrounded by stressed out dogs and he has no bonds, no love, no stimulation and he’s miserable. I think it is insanely selfish and cruel to make death the boogeyman and put dogs through this over months and years, which many no-kills do. And it’s entirely about the people involved projecting their own perspectives and feelings on to the dogs. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/77 "2012-01-13T23:40:16Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > So, given that, what’s your argument against killing another human? > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > To be fair, I don’t think she’s ever said she’s opposed to killing and eating other people. True dat. I have no argument at all against cannibalism. Whatever floats your boat, we’re all just meat in the end. They say we tast like pork…isn’t human known as the “long pig”? But my argument against killing people is that they are my species and killing your own kind is bad for many reasons, but one of the biggest is that it is ultimately unhealthy for one’s self because it is destabilizing: we are very much a social species and depend on one another to thrive. Randomly killing one another would (and does, when it happens! Rwanda, anyone?) destroy the social structure upon which we all depend and ultimately make everyone’s lives a living hell. So it is to everyone’s benefit to not to do this. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/78 "2012-01-13T23:42:41Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > No, the argument is not that. The argument is that killing them before they would otherwise die is contrary to their preferences, interests, and desires. First you have to successfully argue that they have preferences, interests and desires at all (I agree they do, to varying degrees depending on the species), then you’d have to argue that they are what you think they are (I don’t agree with that, as I said in my previous post). ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/79 "2012-01-13T23:45:37Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > But my argument against killing people is that they are my species and killing your own kind is bad for many reasons… By the way, I do not hold with the idea that any human life is superior, more worthy, more important than any animal life. Not even close. I’d pick the animal over the person or people in lots and lots of situations. So it’s a good thing I’m not the Ruler of the Universe or a lot of human beings would be very sad indeed… ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245/80 "2012-01-13T23:47:34Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > eating meat is more than just a tasty convenience. Hehehe…reminds me of a line I saw that cracked me up: Meat is murder. Tasty, tasty murder. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/promoting-vegetarianism-or-veganism-is-a-lousy-way-to-reduce-animal-cruelty/609245.md?page=5)