Expert prognosis for the planet

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Spuds

I was just taking the straw man to the next step to provide an example. Given that I don't hold the same moral issue of killing animals for food as equivalent to killing a human. The guy in the video equates killing food animals to murder, dog fights, and genital mutilation.

I don't think you are representing what he is saying accurately. He didn't equate killing animals to murder, dog fights and genital mutilation. He was drawing analogies to show inconsistencies in logic. Someone could say it is moral to treat livestock cruelly because they are bread to be livestock, for which he replied, there are countries where it is legal to raise dogs to participate in dog fighting, so does that make it right? If the answer is not then someone is not being intellectually honest or consistent with their reasoning. Just because livestock is our food, doesn't make it moral for us to treat it inhumanly.

For instance, some people would not eat a dog, but they would eat a pig. Why the difference? Studies show pigs are just as intelligent, if not, more intelligent than a dog. Pigs can be just as domesticated to be pets as dogs. Pigs have been used as service animals. Most people would not treat the livestock they eat the way these animals are treated or treat their pets like how we treat livestock, but they are comfortable being ignorant or having someone else abuse the animals for them. Why is that?

Many vegans would prefer that no animals are killed cruelly, but given the choice of having everyone hunt and fish for their own food or factory farming of meat, they would gladly choose hunting. Why? Because a wild deer is a free-range animal in its natural habitat that is able to enjoy its life free of living in a small cage, free of standing in its own feces and that wasn't subjected to breeding techniques designed to make it grow faster than its legs could support it, but we don't live in that world. We live in this world, and I think if you are a person who watches a video like this with these "free range" birds and just shrugs their shoulders and reaches for their next piece of chicken then we have far different morals:

[soundman98]

looks like a cubicle working space.

humans are being bred for a space mcdonalds. we must have tasty legs.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Spuds

I was just taking the straw man to the next step to provide an example. Given that I don't hold the same moral issue of killing animals for food as equivalent to killing a human. The guy in the video equates killing food animals to murder, dog fights, and genital mutilation.

Yea, he lost me immediately with that. probably not a good place for him to start his talk if he is trying to convince anyone that doesn't already "believe".

The bottom line is human, like most mammals, are omnivores and we evolved to eat meat and vegetables. We could "choose" to live off one or the other but it is not in our nature to do so. Frankly, to me the whole drive to create "non-meat" meat just points to that fact. It's great that they've come up with some of this processed foods (and that is exactly what it is) and some of it is actually good, but it just seems disingenuous to me to say we should all be vegans but we really need this stuff that tastes like the backside of a cow to do that.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by soundman98

my great grandmother had a saying that is proving more and more true as time goes on.

"Everything in moderation"

That is a good message, but it is hard to watch the video above and think moderation will change those practices. Factory farming of meat is built to lower costs and maximize profits at the cost of the animals. They aren't going to grow the chickens slower. They aren't going to open up more land/pastures for grazing animals.

Most western countries are doing the opposite of moderation too. The average person in these countries already eats twice the amount of protein they need, and they are trying to eat more. The average person needs only 0.8 g/kg, and that recommendation was based on an upper tolerance level, meaning, if we consider the range of needs as a bell graph then 0.8 g/kg was in the top several standard deviations of the curve. Meaning, most people don't even need 0.8g/kg. Moreover, that number is more related to lean body mass, so a 100kg man who is 25% body fat needs less protein than a man who is 100kg and 10% body fat. There are 4 cal/g of protein, so 100g is 400 calories or 20% of a 2000 calorie diet. We only need half of that, so around 10%. Most people are sedentary, where only 10% of people get the minimum amount of recommended exercise a day, which is 30 minutes of a vigorous walk 6-7 days/week, so the vast majority of people are living a sedentary life, but eating protein like they are a body builder, but even body builders eat too much protein.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/w...o-we-need.html

Here are some vegan body builders, and here is Clarance Kennedy, a vegan weightlifter throwing around some huge weight, so getting enough protein isn't even a problem for athletes:

[Spuds]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

You should really finish the video because he addresses all arguments against veganism, which should be clear in the video title.

Plants don't have central nervous systems or pain receptors, so killing plants is not the same as killing animals, nor is the process of growing plants torturous like it is for animals.

Your second statement is obviously false. We can eat plants directly, or we can feed animals plants and then eat animals, which is eating plants indirectly. Which is more efficient? Which results in more plants being eaten? Like he said, 70-80% of soy (if I remember correctly) is used to feed livestock. If someone wanted to reduce the consumption of plants in the world then they would be vegan.

It's not going to convince me to go vegan, so why bother. I don't have any arguments against you or anyone else eating vegan. The whole 'holier than thou' attitude is the part I have arguments with.

Animals don't have higher thought processes like humans do, so killing animals is not the same as killing humans. Livestock doesn't think or have desires. They do not have the potential for intellectual growth like a human does. So why is it appropriate to equate killing a human to killing livestock?

We can feed plants to animals, or they are just going to eat plants anyway. What do you propose doing with all the animals if everyone were to go vegan? Set them free? Kill them all? They are going to need habitats and food in the former, and the latter goes against the ideal that was presented.

[Spuds]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

I don't think you are representing what he is saying accurately. He didn't equate killing animals to murder, dog fights and genital mutilation. He was drawing analogies to show inconsistencies in logic. Someone could say it is moral to treat livestock cruelly because they are bread to be livestock, for which he replied, there are countries where it is legal to raise dogs to participate in dog fighting, so does that make it right? If the answer is not then someone is not being intellectually honest or consistent with their reasoning. Just because livestock is our food, doesn't make it moral for us to treat it inhumanly.

For instance, some people would not eat a dog, but they would eat a pig. Why the difference? Studies show pigs are just as intelligent, if not, more intelligent than a dog. Pigs can be just as domesticated to be pets as dogs. Pigs have been used as service animals. Most people would not treat the livestock they eat the way these animals are treated or treat their pets like how we treat livestock, but they are comfortable being ignorant or having someone else abuse the animals for them. Why is that?

Many vegans would prefer that no animals are killed cruelly, but given the choice of having everyone hunt and fish for their own food or factory farming of meat, they would gladly choose hunting. Why? Because a wild deer is a free-range animal in its natural habitat that is able to enjoy its life free of living in a small cage, free of standing in its own feces and that wasn't subjected to breeding techniques designed to make it grow faster than its legs could support it, but we don't live in that world. We live in this world, and I think if you are a person who watches a video like this with these "free range" birds and just shrugs their shoulders and reaches for their next piece of chicken then we have far different morals:

That's what a straw man is. He is taking the argument as to whether it is appropriate to kill animals for food and completely changing the context to something that is easier for him to justify his position. It isn't an analogy to explain something in layman's terms, he is actively using the new context to try to convince people his earlier, and only tenuously related, statement is sound. It is not a cultural thing. It is simply about the diet of humans.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Yea, he lost me immediately with that. probably not a good place for him to start his talk if he is trying to convince anyone that doesn't already "believe".

The bottom line is human, like most mammals, are omnivores and we evolved to eat meat and vegetables. We could "choose" to live off one or the other but it is not in our nature to do so. Frankly, to me the whole drive to create "non-meat" meat just points to that fact. It's great that they've come up with some of this processed foods (and that is exactly what it is) and some of it is actually good, but it just seems disingenuous to me to say we should all be vegans but we really need this stuff that tastes like the backside of a cow to do that.

When you say most, do you mean by species or biomass? Terrestrial or marine? There might be many more species of a particular type like rodents, but there might be more biomass of another. In general, being omnivorous and opportunistic could be seen as evolutionarily favorable because it would lead to a better chance of survival, but many large terrestrial mammals are herbivores because plants are abundant and many marine mammals are carnivores because animals are abundant. Just because we were omnivores doesn't mean we need to stay omnivores. Many species evolved to change their diets including us. For instance, we know humans have evolved to be more tolerant of lactose since we began to source dairy products, but this is fairly recent in our evolutionary history, so by a similar line of logic, we shouldn't be eating dairy products since it wasn't part of our evolutionary history up until 12,000 years ago for a percentage of the human population. Our digestive tracts are more similar to herbivores than carnivores, especially herbivores that have been cooking food, which we have been doing for hundred of thousands to millions of years. If we compare modern human teeth to ancestors like ancient humans, neanderthals and other descendants, and if we compare wear patterns then we see that humans have more in common with other herbivores than carnivores or even than other omnivores like bears, which get 90% of their food from vegetables:

https://medium.com/four-pursuits-ven...s-6f492d78f605

I don't think it is that we need to eat these things. We have built culinary dishes and cultures around eating meat, so these vegan-meat alternatives are there for those that want to still eat meat, but many vegans have been vegans for life like maybe their parents were vegans, so it is all they know. For instance, the largest country with vegetarians is India with estimates around a quarter to a third or more being vegetarian, and their cuisine reflects a lot of choices that is vegetarian.

Regardless, we do many things that are unnatural or that differed from our past, so using a "natural" argument as to why we should continue to eat animals, especially when it means being cruel to animals and damaging the earth in the process actually seems more contrived.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Spuds

It's not going to convince me to go vegan, so why bother. I don't have any arguments against you or anyone else eating vegan. The whole 'holier than thou' attitude is the part I have arguments with.

Animals don't have higher thought processes like humans do, so killing animals is not the same as killing humans. Livestock doesn't think or have desires. They do not have the potential for intellectual growth like a human does. So why is it appropriate to equate killing a human to killing livestock?

We can feed plants to animals, or they are just going to eat plants anyway. What do you propose doing with all the animals if everyone were to go vegan? Set them free? Kill them all? They are going to need habitats and food in the former, and the latter goes against the ideal that was presented.

Again, equate implies equal or the same, which is different than suggesting there is intellectual consistency. If people wouldn't eat a dog or treat a dog like a pig or chicken in a factory farm because of moral reasons then don't treat a pig or chicken like the video I posted where they are being tortured. You seem to have a very low perspective of animal intelligence. Could you not tell the difference between an abused dog and a happy dog? Do you really think a pig, cow or chicken is incapable of pain and suffering?

Again, it is clear you didn't watch the video because you continue to regurgitate arguments that were discussed in the video. Like he mentions, the move to veganism isn't going to happen overnight, so as demand decreases, production of livestock decreases, so there won't be a need to suddenly release all the animals like you describe.

[soundman98]

I'm going to get some lunch. I'm thinking I'm going to get a real cheese burger

[Sapphireho]

Originally Posted by soundman98

I'm going to get some lunch. I'm thinking I'm going to get a real cheese burger

With bacon.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Spuds

That's what a straw man is. He is taking the argument as to whether it is appropriate to kill animals for food and completely changing the context to something that is easier for him to justify his position. It isn't an analogy to explain something in layman's terms, he is actively using the new context to try to convince people his earlier, and only tenuously related, statement is sound. It is not a cultural thing. It is simply about the diet of humans.

Again, he is trying to show intellectual consistency. Suffering is suffering no matter whether that happens to an animal or to a human. Humans may process intent or betrayal or other emotions, but the pain and torture is the same. Do you think a starving human feels that pain different than a starving animal? Do you think a suffocating human feels that pain different than a suffocating animal? If you do then you are sorely mistaken.

The videos I showed clearly depict animals that are suffering. You can't get around that fact. There is nothing to suggest this is necessary for our diets, but this is the byproduct of industrial meat production. The best someone could do if they weren't vegan is to try to source their meat and dairy from organic farms that provide adequate space for their animals, letting them grow/develop naturally and in humane conditions. Do you know you are doing that? It is either that or hunting.

Regardless, the scale of industrial meat production requires massively more use of land and water for feed than would be used to just feed humans directly. This destroys the planet, and it leads to increases in methane production and CO2 production. Meaning, by eating meat, those people are part of the problem, and moreover, they are doing so under the false pretense that it is necessary when it is not or that animal cruelty doesn't matter when it does.

[MuseChaser]

Live as you wish and do good as you see it. Allow others to do the same. Period.

[Irace86.2.0]

I was thinking about going to get a dog and cat burger later too.

Originally Posted by soundman98

I'm going to get some lunch. I'm thinking I'm going to get a real cheese burger

Originally Posted by Sapphireho

With bacon.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by MuseChaser

Live as you wish and do good as you see it. Allow others to do the same. Period.

What? I hope that isn't your moral philosophy for all things.

I think the golden rule is better, and it is something that is shared across species. Very few animals kill outside of necessity, and I don't know of many that willfully torture other species when they don't have to.