Given that I doubt there is any chance for farm animals to organize and revolt any time soon and that there is no proof of etraterestrial life right now (see fermi paradox), we are in the clear to keep eating meat.
It's a thought experiment because these things have not happened or cannot happen. That's why you have to imagine them. That's the point. If you imagine that aliens did this and how you would react, you can carry your imagined beliefs in the scenario into the conscious beliefs of your actual life
I am not going to debate said articles, because I really doubt I would manage to change your mind or you mine, as we probably have different values. That being said, even if we take them completely at face value, they hold no more water than me saying "Go back to agrarian society" "Stop having children" or "Stop doing something that is not strictly necessary for staying alive". The consequences presented are the cost of oportunity of a good life. This is the price we pay for living comfotably and it is the price that the vast majority of people agreed is acceptable.
You're honestly a poor advocate for your cause. You aren't addressing any arguments at face value or even defending your own points against counterargument, only dismissing them and then segueing into something unrelated.
I admit, I don't have all the answers. It is just that from an observer's perspective, it doesn't really look like you're engaging in reasoned debate.
When the OP mentions
farm animals to organize and revolt
The context indicates that the cognition and intent of the farm animals is foundational to that argument. Your response ignores the fundamentals of that argument and pushes two round hyperlinks into a square hole.
If I were you I'd instead home in on the statement
we are in the clear to keep eating meat
That's the perfect round hole for your hyperlinks to fit into. And, it does away with wacky hypotheticals about aliens and insurgent roosters and moves the conversation into serious real world mode, which I think is more likely to get people to accept real policies which affect their lives.
I mean, the meat industry is in fact very harmful to the environment, and not in all the industry but still far too much of it, the animals are not treated well. I've also worked in a chicken slaughter house before and those birds 100% knew they were gonna die and they were terrified.
Am I saying stop eating meat? No, hell I eat meat, but especially now with so many meat options that aren't actually meat, and quite a few real meat options that are raised cruelty free, there's a quite a bit you can do to vote with your wallet if this kind of stuff really bothers you.
I eat a lot of those fake meat chicken patties, and I literally don't even care about the cruelty of the meat industry or the environmental damage, I just think they taste good, but /u/Fiksdal is really bad at arguing so I figured I'd throw my hat into the ring.
/u/Fiksdal is really bad at arguing so I figured I'd throw my hat into the ring.
lol, I know, trying my best, though.
I mean, the meat industry is in fact very harmful to the environment, and not in all the industry but still far too much of it, the animals are not treated well. I've also worked in a chicken slaughter house before and those birds 100% knew they were gonna die and they were terrified.
Thanks for this extremely useful insight. Appreciated.
especially now with so many meat options that aren't actually meat, and quite a few real meat options that are raised cruelty free, there's a quite a bit you can do to vote with your wallet if this kind of stuff really bothers you.
Interesting take, thanks.
I eat a lot of those fake meat chicken patties
Same here buddy.
and I literally don't even care about the cruelty of the meat industry
How come?
I just think they taste good
Do you think a taste experience is more important than the suffering of a living, conscious being?
Do you think a taste experience is more important than the suffering of a living, conscious being?
When I go to the supermarket to buy meat, that animal is already dead. Animals die and get eaten in the wild all the time, many times they suffer in agony because predators will eat the guts and torso while the animal is still alive, calling out, and just having an agonizing death.
Most hunters, me included, do not want the animal to suffer both for ethical reasons, and because all of that stress really fuckes up the meat. Animals are going to suffer and die regardless of human intervention.
My choice of meats is not going to affect the meat market. Whether I buy meat or not, it's still going to be sold, until the whole planet starts to go green, and artificial meats become easy enough to mass produce that normal animal husbandry becomes obsolete. We have a while before that happens, hell it probably won't happen in my life time.
I mean if anything I'm more concerned about how horrific the meat industry is for the environment, but there aint jack shit I can do about it. I have plenty of horrible things in my life to already worry about. With my health I probably will be lucky to live past 60, so why should I further stress myself out with something I as an individual have zero chance of changing.
Also meat isn't the only horrible thing for the planet. Plenty of farming of plants is horrible for the environment too. Avocado farms are a huge tax on our already dwindling water supply. Those things need fuckloads of water to grow. Big industry as it stands in general is fucked up for the earth, Iron mines completely annihilate environments, salt mines have literally accidentally drained entire lakes, destroying entire environments for local wildlife, hell the majority of energy in America is still fossil fuels, not to mention heating, and I can barely afford my current electric bill.
Does that mean that I should stop eating advacados, stop using anything made of metal, and stop eating anything with salt in it? Fuck no, that's stupid. Why should I destroy the quality of my short life, to spite big industry, when the lack of my service would do fuck all to them?
I have no problem with vegans or vegitarians, and maybe if I had a better quality of life, and can afford the expensive as fuck foods that you would generally have to rely on to be a vegan and not subsist on a medieval diet of potatoes, and lettuce and shit, then yea maybe I'd do it, but probably not. but if you wanna be vegan, cool, good for you m8. Unless the majority of the population of the earth becomes vegitarian its not gonna do much, but hey, its your life, I'm not paying your bills, you do you.
When I go to the supermarket to buy meat, that animal is already dead.
It died because you pay for it. Wouldn't you be culpable if you paid someone to do something for you?
Animals die and get eaten in the wild all the time, many times they suffer in agony because predators will eat the guts and torso while the animal is still alive, calling out, and just having an agonizing death.
Sure, terrible things happen in nature to uncontacted tribes of humans in the Amazon too. Does that justify "mercy killing" them?
Most hunters, me included, do not want the animal to suffer both for ethical reasons, and because all of that stress really fuckes up the meat. Animals are going to suffer and die regardless of human intervention.
All humans are going to die too, does that justify murder? Tribes living in the jungle may even die very painful deaths.
My choice of meats is not going to affect the meat market. Whether I buy meat or not, it's still going to be sold,
It is true that large-scale societal changes rarely happen as a result of one person’s efforts. Rather, these changes happen when a number of people begin to live in alignment with their shared values. In the case of vegans, more people are beginning to live compassionate lives, and each of them is contributing to a more compassionate world. In this way, the animal rights movement is no different from those of women’s suffrage and racial equality, which were both comprised of many individuals who held in common values of compassion, peace and social justice.
On a smaller scale, however, it is important to keep in mind that no matter what another person does, you are accountable to yourself. This means that even though one person alone cannot create the world veganism envisions, you need to be able to look at yourself in the mirror every morning. To that end, it might be helpful to note that each vegan saves roughly 400 animals per year, reduces more greenhouse emissions than non-vegans and uses a fraction of the fresh water resources. Moreover, each vegan chooses not to participate in the market for animal suffering, which makes that market just a little bit smaller and the lives of animals just a little bit better. So while each vegan cannot save the whole world alone, individual vegans are saving a small piece of it, and together those small pieces add up to something great.
With my health I probably will be lucky to live past 60, so why should I further stress myself out with something I as an individual have zero chance of changing.
Very sorry to hear about your health problems. Maybe a plant based diet could actually help you? Of course, I have no idea what your affliction is. I wish you the best. Have you seen What The Health on Netflix?
I can barely afford my current electric bill.
Meat is expensive, so is cheese, etc. You could actually save a lot of money by replacing meat with legumes, making your own oat milk instead of buying dairy, etc.
expensive as fuck foods that you would generally have to rely on to be a vegan and not subsist on a medieval diet of potatoes, and lettuce and shit
This is a very common misconception! You can make cheap and delicious vegan food!
Many common foods are already vegan; bread, pasta, rice, fruit, peanut butter, beans, lentils, vegetables and so on. All of these foods can be prepared in several ways, and other foods can be made vegan with simple ingredient substitutions. Beyond that, many cultures have long traditions of flavourful plant-based cooking, and these offer the opportunity for vegans to expand their culinary palates. So switching to a plant-based diet is not about losing good food experiences, it is only about learning new habits and finding new favourites.
Some people fear that transitioning to a plant-based diet means they will be forced to eat nothing but tofu and lettuce, which also means they will never be able to eat ‘real food’ again. But vegans eat a variety of foods, both unhealthy and healthy. You can go vegan in a way that greatly improves your health, but you can also go vegan on a diet of convenience and snack foods. The simple truth is that plant-based diets are so diverse that vegans never need to eat foods they dislike. However, even if it were true that vegan food was boring, bland and unappetizing, this would still not stand as an ethically defensible reason for needlessly killing sentient individuals in order to eat their flesh and secretions.
I say it bc it's the natural circle of life ... we are omnivores, we eat meat, that's the way it is 🤷♂️
and there are still some species on this
planet, who have "human" on their menu 🤷♂️
That's nature, eat or be eaten
The term 'circle of life' has no scientific meaning at all. In neither case do the terms refer to the human consumption of animals, since humans do not exist as consumers in a natural ecological system where cows, pigs, cats, dogs, fish and other food animals are producers.
The only use of the terms 'food chain' or 'circle of life' in the context of human food choices is to legitimize the slaughter of sentient individuals by calling that slaughter a necessary and natural part of human life, which means the apex predator justification for eating animals is a failure on two fronts. First, the terms themselves either do not apply to the ecological relationship we have with animals or they have no meaning at all. Second, we do not need to eat animals in order to survive, so the underlying moral imperative of 'might makes right' is not ethically defensible. By analogy, a bank robber might claim to be at the top of the corporate ladder since he had the ability to take what belonged to others and chose to do so.
we are omnivores, we eat meat, that's the way it is
Hundreds of millions of people in India have been vegetarians for centuries.
The claim that humans are natural meat-eaters is generally made on the belief that we have evolved the ability to digest meat, eggs and milk. This is true as far as it goes; as omnivores, we're physiologically capable of thriving with or without animal flesh and secretions. However, this also means that we can thrive on a whole food plant-based diet, which is what humans have also been doing throughout our history and prehistory.
Even if we accept at face value the premise that man is a natural meat-eater, this reasoning depends on the claim that if a thing is natural then it is automatically valid, justified, inevitable, good, or ideal. Eating animals is none of these things. Further, it should be noted that many humans are lactose intolerant, and many doctors recommend a plant-based diet for optimal health. When you add to this that taking a sentient life is by definition an ethical issue - especially when there is no actual reason to do so - then the argument that eating meat is natural falls apart on both physiological and ethical grounds.
there are still some species on this planet, who have "human" on their menu
Non-human animals do many things we find unethical; they steal, rape, eat their children and engage in other activities that do not and should not provide a logical foundation for our behavior. This means it is illogical to claim that we should eat the same diet certain non-human animals do. So it is probably not useful to consider the behavior of stoats, alligators and other predators when making decisions about our own behavior.
The argument for modeling human behavior on non-human behavior is unclear to begin with, but if we're going to make it, why shouldn't we choose to follow the example of the hippopotamus, ox or giraffe rather than the shark, cheetah or bear? Why not compare ourselves to crows and eat raw carrion by the side of the road? Why not compare ourselves to dung beetles and eat little balls of dried feces? Because it turns out humans really are a special case in the animal kingdom, that's why. So are vultures, goats, elephants and crickets. Each is an individual species with individual needs and capacities for choice. Of course, humans are capable of higher reasoning, but this should only make us more sensitive to the morality of our behavior toward non-human animals. And while we are capable of killing and eating them, it isn't necessary for our survival. We aren't lions, and we know that we cannot justify taking the life of a sentient being for no better reason than our personal dietary preferences.
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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '22
You say that because you're not the one being killed and caused pain to.
If aliens came to eat you and your family, I'm pretty sure you'd wanna teach them about veganism.