meat is murder

Is killing animals for food ever justifiable?


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Matthew

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*something irrelevant about cavemen

oh yeah B-)

I have a serious question for vegans though, why do you not eat eggs? Chickens naturally lay unfertilized eggs almost every day. It doesn't really harm the chicken in any way, they are fine with it, and the egg was never alive in the first place so its not like you are killing anything. I am not trying to be offensive, it just seems odd perhaps I am missing out on some part of your argument, idk, I don't know a lot a vegans.
I know most vegans are vegans simply due to the fact of the poor conditions due to the food industry and how horrible the animals are treated. Upon asking my friend whether or not he would eat eggs of chickens they raised themselves they said absolutely, because he knew his chickens were (probably) treated well.

Though this isn't me speaking for all vegans!!
 
*something irrelevant about cavemen

oh yeah B-)

I have a serious question for vegans though, why do you not eat eggs? Chickens naturally lay unfertilized eggs almost every day. It doesn't really harm the chicken in any way, they are fine with it, and the egg was never alive in the first place so its not like you are killing anything. I am not trying to be offensive, it just seems odd perhaps I am missing out on some part of your argument, idk, I don't know a lot a vegans.
I eat eggs from the chicken across the road. (Well I did but it got run over by a car then used as a football by some kids. Inner city Manchester equivalent of being eaten by a fox.) I don't eat chicken eggs from supermarkets because of the conditions that farmed chickens are kept in in this country. Even a "free-range chicken" only needs two square meters of space to be defined as such, and even that for only a certain number of hours per day.

I definitely do not see unfertilised eggs as baby chickens or even foetuses. They're just large cells.

Also, generally, even genuinely free-range chicken farms are part of the same system that produces awful living conditions for other animals and I don't want to directly fund that.
 
Yeah I definitely think that that bingo board is taking things too far. There are some legitimate points on that square that, quite frankly, aren't even all that defensive. I don't know what it is with people and turning admirable accomplishments into springboards of criticism and judgment. Fighting stigma with negativity won't remove the stigma.
So your problem isn't that people are fighting a stigma, but that they're not being "nice enough" about it? In an offhanded snarky bingo card advertisement? Okay.


By the way, if anyone is interested in some additional reading material on the moral implications of eating meat, you can view this thread, which contains many of the same "fascinating" arguments from many of the same users making boisterous posts in this one!

One gem in particular:

2011 VonFiedler said:
Human being are omnivores, like bears. That's science son. We don't have a group of people running around claiming morale high-ground for not eating vegetables, and that's not because vegetables are any less alive than animals; it's because that would be retarded. When you think about it like that, you really shouldn't be so perplexed why so many people don't even consider vegetarianism.
A truly lucid and succinct summation of the issues at hand.

How I missed that thread.
 
Please don't twist my words. I don't have a problem with people making jokes. I have a problem with people putting ridiculous and not-so-ridiculous statements together and present that as a joke. "It's a joke" is an old, tired excuse for encouraging things that shouldn't be encouraged. Maybe it's not malicious on the part of the people who made it or the person who posted it here. However, there is such a thing as criticizing people in a non-hypocritical way.
 
Well I guess I just don't understand what your criticism is to begin with, capefeather.

You apparently think that some of the things on the bingo board are actually legitimate defenses of eating meat (wait, which ones?). If so, okay fine, I would understand why you have a problem with the board. It would be akin to having an anti-murder bingo board that jokingly lists terrible arguments people make in favor of murder-- except one of the squares would be "but what about self defense," which really is a legitimate argument in defense of killing people.

Or maybe you think that some of the things on the bingo board just "aren't defensive enough to be on the board." That would be silly, though. The joke is that "these are things that defensive meat-eaters often say," not that "literally all of the things listed here are inherently defensive no matter what." The board is an intentionally masturbatory sort of "hurrah" to all of of the people who have had terrible arguments with ignorant people who bring up things like canine teeth and starving children when aggressively defending their own meat-eating. The fact that someone might conceivably ask me "where do you get your protein" in a non-defensive context--while entirely true-- is an unrelated aside.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
every time kristoph posts i die a little

edit: ok as of a few minutes ago not everything he put in this thread was snarky one-liners so i recant my statement

also people misusing the word omnivore makes me kind of want to hang myself; just because you choose not to eat meat doesn't make you biologically not an omnivore. your body /can/ eat meat, therefore you are an omnivore
 
Pwnemon, if you're looking for long and well-reasoned arguments from me (instead of... short and well-reasoned? Wait, what's your complaint again?) on this subject, you can take a look at the old vegetarianism thread. It features me from before I was a vegetarian. Scandalous!

It also features users like Chou Toshio and VonFiedler being incredibly silly. I would be tearing up with nostalgia if not for the fact that that's precisely what they are continuing to do here today.
 

vonFiedler

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Like Kristoph, I assure everyone that I too have made well reasoned arguments in the past and that my opponents were just being silly billys. So I don't need to articulate or anything NOW. What is this a debate thread?

EDIT: Kristoph you are being silly right now.

EDIT2: Man I know not all of my old posts were gold but going back and reading that old thread I am thinking that linking was an all around really bad idea for you... the thread where you used copious strawman arguments to in your words "educate the ignorant masses". Whoops!

EDIT3: You've made it very clear you don't actually want to address our ignorant points, so it'd just be catty of me to respond with a whole post.

EDIT4 cause it's hard to carry on conversations like this:

edit: very impressive, vonFiedler. You have picked a fight and backed away from it all in the exact same post. Similar to the traditional hunting practice of shooting at a deer and then missing and then going back home and then eating canned soup.
Clearly I've been making fun of you for having already backed away from the fight. When you want to respond like Myzozoa has and not just act like a self-obsessed dickhead then I will respond back.
 
I think what both threads have taught us is that people in general are both incredibly defensive and somewhat pushy about their eating habits.
 
Do go on. I'd love to achieve some closure in our epic 16-month struggle. This has been festering inside me like some sort of organic fleshy material.

edit: very impressive, vonFiedler. You have picked a fight and backed away from it all in the exact same post. Similar to the traditional hunting practice of shooting at a deer and then missing and then going back home and then eating canned soup.
 
All right. Just about all of this depends on some unmentioned context because you have to wonder what the righteous vegan told the evil carnist to get the latter to respond in this way. Or maybe the carnist actually was a jackass.

"Begins to wax sentimental over some variety of meat they could never give up." / "Explains how they tried vegetarianism once and it didn't work out."

Pretty much the same situation. I'm actually rather surprised that junk food has never been brought up in this thread. I don't know how I feel about that, considering where this thread has gone. Still, if someone is saying this then he/she is probably at least willing to eat meat in moderation, if not doing so already. That's the thing, this particular condemnation applies to people who are trying. Apparently trying isn't good enough, you have to go the whole hog to gain "respect". Hell, I'm finding it hard to imagine a "defensive carnist" even going to this argument instead of the other ones.

"Argues that humans are different from other animals, and therefore eating them is morally justified."

Not sure how this would ever be brought up unless one of the parties was being a jackass. Still, there is somewhat of a legitimate philosophical issue here. After all, this is talking about eating animals, not torturing them.

"Expresses a completely unrelated concern for starving children somewhere."

I mentioned this before. I'm not saying that vegetarianism isn't important. However, if anyone in this thread or elsewhere would mock others because of what they're eating, well, we're all guilty of essentially contributing to numerous atrocities in the world, and it would be pretty much impossible to avoid all that. We can all try, though.

Still, I'm pretty sure the intended context of this is similar to

"Describes some extremely unlikely hypothetical scenario in which you'd be forced to eat meat to survive."

so maybe that can be counted as one of the funny ones.
 

Aldaron

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I will say one more thing: forcing yourself to be vegetarian (while not eating out all the time obviously) make you a much, much better cook.

My close friends on irc know I gave up cow products (not cause indian lol, more horrified at what cattle grazing is doing to world / slaughterhouses), but over the summer I also gave up all poultry / pig products / fish for a month...and learned to appreciate many ingredients I would never have tried before.

So even if you're adamantly against vegetarianism, I'd recommend forcing yourself to try it for a small time period just to make yourself a better cook in general (appreciating more vegetables, spices, herbs, etc.).
 

Myzozoa

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You can call it whatever you want, bro, naturalistic fallacy is what it is. Let me explain: Just because humans can eat meat naturally, or are scientifically omnivores, says absolutely nothing about the ethical implications of eating meat. Or the economical implications. Or even the health implications. You threw up a strawman, vonFiedler, and so I gave you a strawman response.

Your response about the boycott was another strawman too, or at least invalid because many vegetarians would eat meat if the industry treated animals better. I have no fucking clue where you come up with this. It makes no sense to say that a vegetarian wouldn't consume meat products ever, when many vegetarians (in this very thread) would in fact consume meat if the standards of animal treatment were higher. If companies would like these people's money, they would change their practices, right? There is infact a not so insignificant market for ethically raised and slaughtered animals catering to exactly such individuals. Please review the poll, in which I voted yes, and not no. See if I voted no, then your comment might actually make sense.

@capefeather. I guess you just don't know how often I hear every single one of those trite phrases, not every single one on th bingo board, just all the ones you mentioned. And I find your contextualization of those phrases disingenuous at best.
 

vonFiedler

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I don't think you know what a strawman argument is. And if you would eat meat if conditions were better, then you could be eating meat now. There are cruelty free sources. I have 40 pounds of beef in my fridge right now from a farmer I personally know and trust.

I've said before it's not a naturalistic fallacy because it is still best to eat a small amount of meat. Not as much as most people eat. But an amount. This is according to my doctor, my nutritionalist, my personal trainer, and various wide google searches I have attempted on the matter. I wish I could find a "scientific consensus" but from my research it seems like you'd have to have a pretty hefty case of confirmation bias to believe that meat isn't as good for you as vegetarianism is.
 
I will say one more thing: forcing yourself to be vegetarian (while not eating out all the time obviously) make you a much, much better cook.

My close friends on irc know I gave up cow products (not cause indian lol, more horrified at what cattle grazing is doing to world / slaughterhouses), but over the summer I also gave up all poultry / pig products / fish for a month...and learned to appreciate many ingredients I would never have tried before.

So even if you're adamantly against vegetarianism, I'd recommend forcing yourself to try it for a small time period just to make yourself a better cook in general (appreciating more vegetables, spices, herbs, etc.).
Heh yeah, I can attest to that. Another side benefit is becoming far more aware of your diet. When you are constantly scouring through lists of ingredients trying to figure out whether X contains Y animal product or not, you tend to pick up a stronger sense of your true calorie/vitamin/mineral intakes.

I became vegetarian because I didn't need to eat meat to survive, and didn't want to kill in order to sustain what is, to me, simply a luxury. I am considering veganism, as a dependence on any animal product tends to result in the slaughter of most of the "useless" male counterparts which cannot produce milk/lay eggs. But for now, I'm still researching how best to approach a vegan diet and whether or not it'd be healthy for me.

I don't really miss the taste of meat much at all, even bacon. The major obstacle for me is social awkwardness, such as when a friend invites you round for dinner, or when you explain to a restaurant manager that what he is advertising as vegetarian actually isn't (parmesan cheese is the main culprit, to my knowledge it is never vegetarian).
 

Lee

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I've said before it's not a naturalistic fallacy because it is still best to eat a small amount of meat. Not as much as most people eat. But an amount. This is according to my doctor, my nutritionalist, my personal trainer, and various wide google searches I have attempted on the matter. I wish I could find a "scientific consensus" but from my research it seems like you'd have to have a pretty hefty case of confirmation bias to believe that meat isn't as good for you as vegetarianism is.
I'm intrigued - I've listed a lot of reasons why I believe a meat-free diet is better so it'd be cool if you could explain why I'm completely wrong rather than just stating the opposite as fact with nothing but hearsay and uncited google searches as evidence.
 

vonFiedler

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No, the prescriptions of trained professionals are not hearsay.

For instance, my doctor also has me on an antibiotic right now. A kind of medicine with really bad side effects when used improperly. There's no logical fallacy in taking this medication, but maybe I could find a second opinion. I have not two but three that advise me to eat lean meat. Now it would become hearsay if you turned around and said that I said something some doctors had said, so all I can really say is talk to a few medical nutritionists about the subject, I really think you'll end up having to cherry pick results that fit your existing views.

You listed a source that measured amino acid digestibility, which is not really the most important factor even before you consider that beef has a perfectly reasonable rating. The only non-animal products listed as higher are soy, a product that was never consumed in asia nearly as much as we eat meat today and really shouldn't be, and mycoproteins which are reported to have extreme side effects in a portion of the population. Sure, meat in excess leads to a 1% higher risk in heart disease. But it is also a great source of B12 and Iron.

When it comes to thing like nuts and beans, it is a lot harder to overeat but much easier to not get enough protein, and the amount of calories for the protein you get is not very good either. Beef and fish are really something of a superfood if people would only eat a small amount. I'm not gonna say that I ever tried to be a vegetarian, but I once did try to rely quite a bit more on alternate protein sources. Trying to get the right amount was fucking ridiculous, when all I needed to do was eat a small amount of meat per day.
 

mattj

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I'm intrigued - I've listed a lot of reasons why I believe a meat-free diet is better so it'd be cool if you could explain why I'm completely wrong rather than just stating the opposite as fact with nothing but hearsay and uncited google searches as evidence.
iirc you never listed any reasons why a "meat-free" diet is better. Unless I missed something.
 
You are right vonFiedler, I apologize. Addressing your straightforward (and not intentionally obfuscated or misleading) argument is indeed a valid use of my time.

Take, for instance, your claim that "You are an omnivore. This is not a life choice, it is not naturalism. It is a scientific fact," and the fact that you have undeniably used that as the core of your entire argument--not only now, but also roughly 18 months in the past in the exact same debate with the exact same people.

I thought the way you handled criticism of that line of argument to be extremely forthcoming, personally: specifically, when members such as Blame Game and Myzozoa wrongly pointed it out as a textbook case of the Naturalistic Fallacy, which is exactly 100% what you were totally not doing when you transparently presented basic scientific facts as having some sort of moral implication on whether or not humans should eat meat, it was incredibly "in good faith" of you (in stark opposition to "bad" faith) to point out that their extremely obvious and correct observation was in fact a complete strawman; after all, never in your possibly-dozens of invocations of the known fact that humans are omnivorous did you ever say, imply, or use as the entire basis of your entire position that that had any bearing on whether humans should embrace meat-eating as a valid and moral aspect of society.

No. Even though the entire point of both vegetarianism threads has been to discuss the moral implications of eating meat, your repeated appeal to the fact that humans are omnivores has nothing to do with that. It's merely an unrelated exercise in innocent scientific curiosity. We were wrong to suggest otherwise.

I thank you for standing up to our underhanded strawman (did you hear me? Strawman. Not a thorough summation of your presence in this thread). I thank you, too, for having the brazen intellectual candor to completely change your argument at the last second into some completely different thing about how your doctors told you it was healthier to eat meat or something.
 
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