Most people love to share outrage over abuse of conventional pets or bizarre and seemingly psychotic behaviour of eating dogs yet feel nothing to the slaughter of a pig. It is my opinion that most people ignore and switch “off” at these discussions as a way to maintain plausible deniability. Like people get mad at PETA showing videos on the street of slaughterhouses in a “how dare you” sort of way but really I’m of the attitude of how dare they.
Cows are very intelligent, have long term memories, and feel desolation when their calves are taken away from them. Cats as well. The whole cats vs dogs argument is just mega weird to me and like you say really emphasizes the cognitive dissonance at play in most people who consider themselves kind to animals yet eat meat.
The only people who don't think animals feel pain are people who don't spend time with animals. Every farmer since the neolithic has known that animals feel pain and are to some degree or another intelligent (we intentionally bred some of the intelligence out of many.) That has no bearing on whether someone eats meat or not. You have assumptions that most of the world do not share with you.
I feel bad if I see a fly slowly dying, but I'll still kill all houseflies that bother me. There's no contradiction in that. Death isn't suffering; quite the opposite.
I wish there was a halfway decent documentary that took a more balanced approach, because if your goal is "better animal welfare" rather than "the abolition of meat eating on moral grounds" then there's actually a lot to criticize and improve on. e.g. I thought "Food Inc" was a lot more even-handed, even though it still fell into some of the usual traps.
I’d argue that industrialized slaughter is just never going to look good regardless of what facility it is. Lab grown meat is something I would support but as it stands today the meat industry is an abject horror and deserves to be exposed.
An example: there's this classic image you see all the time of the cow strung up by its hindquarters, kicking and flailing as it's moved along the assembly line. The problem is that this narrative is literally fraudulent. That cow is already dead, its brain has been destroyed by a bolt gun, and the reason it's "kicking" is because its 100% dead carcass is being shocked with electricity to induce rigor mortis. It's actually illegal to slaughter a cow any other way in a slaughterhouse.
For me at least the reason I hunt is because I love the personal connection I get to what I eat. Being responsible for my food is incredibly satisfying. Lab grown meat to me seems like the opposite of that.
Have you ever met cows in the farm/paddock? Most cows I've come across are huge assholes, like the kind of person that hangs around a bar trying to start fights. In my mind they deserve to be eaten.
I think it's difficult to untangle their benevolence from their self-protection. But I did see several signs of curiosity and inter-species care between cows.
You also have to consider that we're the assholes :)
(Note: In that case, no, I don't think we should be killed, just improve)
There is a spectrum of characters - even among the animal kingdom - including us humans.
Here is a counter argument: https://love.heavenofanimals.com/2021/11/17/man-demonstrates...
I don’t have such optimism towards people. Look at how poorly we treat each other. If we actually had some strong empathetic tendencies as a species we wouldn’t kill each other. There are many species which don’t. Instead I’ve got a coworker who’s gladly told me about killing his cows calves in front of their mothers and all manner of other things. “Because I’m a vegan.” And he revels in those mother cows suffering. Something like around 1/100 of humans (or males?-googled) are psychopaths.
I don’t worry about a super intelligence spawning from AI and wiping out humanity. At best that’s just projection. I figure a super intellect is equally or more likely to be benevolent since nonzero sum games require cooperation (or something like this). If that’s wrong then at least I suspect a super intelligence would see cooperation as greater than decimation.
Who takes joy in killing babies in front of their mothers? And then gloating about it. Only a seriously effed up mind.
What's the solution? Report to HR?
That being said slaughtering cows doesn't seem that bad. After all there are such jobs at slaugherhouses. Perhaps he was just teasing you making it more dramatic.
I wouldn't think these war-criminals come out of nowhere. they probably get their head start in torturing neighbourhood cats, gloating about how much they love meat and don't care about the torture, and how they personally love to bash heads in[1] and murder children in front of mothers.
[1] https://theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/19/millions-of-...
But animal cruelty is actually one of the weaker arguments for becoming vegan because it requires, as I said earlier, an a-ha realization that animals are aware, intelligent, feel pain and sadness, deserve more from us as the stewards of this world.
Like people can high five over loving bacon and what have you, but honestly the eating habits of most people are deplorable and selfish and they can numbly read about ecological devastation caused by industrialized animal farming and the rampant use of antibiotics which in turn is creating super bacteria immune to it (let us not forget covid came from a meat market as well as the seasonal avian and bovine “flus” which manifest constantly).. you guys can cry in carnivore all you want but the worst thing of the situation is that eating meat or drinking dairy is not necessary: it is all done for pleasure. It’s just pathetic that people can look at all that and reply “.. but cheese”.
I don't buy that. People are sensitive to certain images. I can't stand to dental surgery videos either and definitely I don't think children would get any benefit from watching such material but that doesn't make dental surgery something people shouldn't do.
That being said as a child I've been exposed to animal slaugther on farms and I still eat beef, chicken and pork(very, very rarely). I don't think seeing how the animals are killed makes you vegan.
I don't enjoy watching animals being killed though but we are mortals and animals are mortals too so in the end it makes little difference if we kill or do not kill animals. We have the same end destination. I think this makes us less sensitive to killing animals and even our own. The difference between us and the animals is that they lack enough intelligence to produce anything meaningful(i.e technology, innovation etc) during their lifespan thus the reason why their scope in life is to become good food for us.
We should minimise the pain inflicted upon animals and create better living conditions. It's good for animals and it's good for the consumers as well. Legislation already exists in Europe and will only get stronger.
Same logic can be applied to children until a certain age, disabled, sick, old and/or mentally handicapped people. Kettle is easy to take advantage of, it's convenient and almost everything they "produce" can be sold (milk, meat, skin). Not showing enough compassion for sentient beings while having the ability and options to not have them as "a tasty meal" makes you a bad person in that regard. You can be social worker, a teacher, doctor or overall caring person, and have other great character traits, because nothing has to be black and white. Having superior intelligence and using that as an argument to justify exploitation of other living beings is a very sad way to look at all of this in my eyes.
No, not at all.
Soldiers work as part of a team, which is part of a larger team. You can't count on a psychopath to care about the team or the larger organization.
What (should) motivate a solider to kill is the same emotion as a sheep dog protecting the flock, or a mother bear protecting her cubs.
What motivates a psychopath to kill is harder to say, but it is not something which is generally recognized as morally good.
Predators exist, and humans whether we like it or not are scavenger omnivorous predators. There aren't vegan bears or indigenous vegan human tribes for a reason.
Vegan bears and native tribes are irrelevant, you live in a modern world/society and both are poor attempts at deflection that don't hold up under even the slightest scrutiny.
Even if you refuse to consider the argument for veganism, the way we treat the animals we eat is an abject horror, modern animal farming is indefensible.
Any suggested reading for someone like me?
If 200/2500 really is the goal then I'm not sure you can do it without meat, or at least without lots of protein powder supplements. The highest protein/calorie ratio for normal food I can think of is from soy milk or lentils, which are both roughly the same at around 1g/protein per 11-13 calories, and you'd have to eat those exclusively.
I’d start with Eating Animals. The author started the book to explore how his food ends up on his plate, but the book becomes about his gradual transition to veganism as he learns about animal agriculture.
A Plea for the Animals should be the second one. Written by a neurologist/monk who eloquently makes the argument that there is nothing in our biology which justifies subjugating animal.
Then Animal Liberation if you’re looking for a classic. It’s older, a bit more esoteric, but decent.
assessment of intelligence is often based on comparing animal intelligence to human intelligence. Dogs are adept at communicating in ways that humans understand. Cats, on the other hand, have an unhuman mind, and don't seek empathy the way dogs do. They do it in a cat way. To understand the intelligence of animals, truly, we should let go of our notions of human intelligence, and seek to enter animal perception as it is; not to correlate our perceptions with theirs, which would limit our understanding.
A cat sees its master do the same things, and says "How my master loves me! I must be God."
Also, consider the possibility that plant life also has sensation and subjective experience, that is wildly different from anything we could actually understand as such. Wouldn't it be equally as immoral to take that life, if we presume that it is morally repugnant to merely eat meat in and of itself, due to taking the life of a conscious, potentially sentient being? Life is life, right?
Also, consider that not everyone can actually eat vegetables. I find the majority of vegetables to be instantly and extremely repugnant. As in, the only time that elapses is the time for the signals to make their way from my tongue and nose to my brain. This is not by choice, as when I was smaller I would happily eat most vegetables. This was something that changed in me at some point for which I have no explanation as to why. Perhaps the Ritalin I took for a few years affected me in an unexpected way? I have no idea.
Not sure about that, lot of people are completely fine with human being killed for several reasons (punishment for robbery just to give you an example).
Life survives on life. Something died so that you could live today. I think about that often, and I think that growing up confronting the reality of surviving as a person by eating food that was once alive in a very immediate way helps me not take food for granted and to always be grateful for the daily sacrifices that are made so that I can live.
In my will, I have outlined that I want my body to be put into a burlap sack with no embalming fluid and be returned to earth as soon as possible after my death so that I can be part of the same chain of life for other living things. Life lives by the death of other living things. We cannot change that, but we can at least be grateful and present with that reality.
Saying a prayer doesn’t change anything. You didn’t give the animal the best life you could. You gave it the best life until you decide you wanted to consume it for your pleasure. Not survival, pleasure.
And vegans are well aware that life consumes life. Vegans consume living things. They just don’t consume living things which are capable of terror or depression and suffering.
Say a prayer all you want, but harming an animal when you don’t need to is the act of abusing an animal for pleasure. I can say a prayer and be remorseful and thank a dog for its sacrifice after I put it in a dog fight and it got ripped apart, but that’s still animal abuse. It’s still wrong. And like eating animals in the developed world, it’s for pleasure.
We were not wealthy and did not have a store close enough to run to every day for fresh produce. We took care of our animals because we relied on them for our survival. We did not take that for granted, and we did not do it for pleasure.
I understand that in an urban environment, surrounded by bountiful food (most of which is raised in other countries and is only available, out of local season, because of a complex web of global trade) the idea of killing and eating an animal can seem cruel or unnecessary. But your lack of experience of true poverty and lack of access to that sort of bounteous and constant source of non-animal products does not make all meat eaters inhumane and uncaring.
I find your broad, general statements of moral superiority because of your vegan lifestyle to be ignorant and a result of having grown up in opulence and wealth, surrounded by bounty and options, with little reflection or concern for those who did not grow up in those circumstances, or consideration as to whether they could still be moral and respectful in their desperation and struggles to survive.
There is no moral obligation in a situation with a lack of choice. However, the VAST majority of people are not in situations where animal products must be eaten to survive.
But are you in that situation now? Do you need to eat animals to survive? If not, why do you do it?
We are called to walk the Royal Path, and for those in the workaday world, that includes eating meat sometimes, and not eating meat sometimes. Regardless of what we are eating, however, we offer prayers of gratitude and thanksgiving and sorrow for living by the death of other living things.
If I were an Orthodox Christian monk, I would follow the restrictions I listed above all the time because those foods are known to enflame the passions, but are more necessary when one is working for a living and raising a family. I would spend much more time in prayer than my current schedule allows, however, but that is not my path at this time.
That said I think it's important to remember that eating meat is not about you or me, it's about the animals we are (not) eating. The animal doesn't care about our reasons. If you imprisoned a cat and some days you tortured it and some days you left it alone, the cat would not care why. It could not even understand why and causing it pain for one's own spiritual growth seems, respectfully, prideful to me. There is no ethical middle path between sometimes torturing a cat and sometimes not. Probably if you told your priest about an imprisoned cat you were sometimes torturing he would tell you to release it immediately.
I'm sorry that I compared what you feel to be a religious necessity to eat meat to torturing a cat. That was disrespectful. Discussions on eating meat should be less all-or-nothing. For example there is a tremendous amount of food wasted in the U.S., including animal products: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22890292/food-waste-meat-.... Reducing food waste is something I think everyone can support.
I also agree that the "all or nothing" kind of tone that many people who advocate against eating meat takes is a hard line to sell. A "try a plant-based meal once a week" would be a much easier sell.
If I'm interpreting this correctly, you're saying you eat meat for 2 reasons. The first is that not doing so would make you too prideful, and the second is because it's in the "Royal Path", which we are called to.
I think the pigs, sheep, chickens, etc. would prefer you feel a little prideful, compared to what happens to them when you eat to them [1]. As for the "Royal Path" can you elaborate? Why does the Royal Path condone violence against non-humans?
It seems unfair to me that sentient animals need to die in your very personal battle with pride. Do you not see that as unfair?
Also, are you prideful when you abstain from eating baboon? Or when you abstain from eating hippopotamus, or giant squid? Why is it that pridefulness comes from abstaining from pig and chicken, but not any other animals you already don't eat?
I don't think this will make sense to you, and I understand why it wouldn't, but I trust the traditions of my faith, and the teachings of the Church Fathers in my tradition, more than I trust my own judgement.
The "higher path" in Orthodoxy is the monastic life, which includes not eating meat, dairy, eggs, (and only rarely eating olive oil and wine), but I am not a monk. And the "lower path" in Orthodoxy is to live in the world and to fast from those things for more days during the year than not. I follow the liturgical calendar, and I follow the teachings of my faith because I trust the accumulated wisdom of my faith more than I trust my own judgement, because I lack discernment and spiritual maturity. May God have mercy on us all. Please forgive me for not having a clearer or more satisfying answer for you.
Cats are worse at communication as they evolved to be more solitary.
They are not as well domesticated as dogs, so humans cannot read them as well as they can dogs without training themselves in cat communication. Domestication has altered the dog on the physiological level to communicate with humans. Among other things, dogs have extra eye muscles that allow them to emote in ways humans instinctually understand.
Cats will shit on your pillow if they are unhappy with the environment for some reason. That's particularly disturbing.
I have a cat and three dogs as pets and it's interesting to see how they all interact with us and with the world differently. Even the three dogs are unique. They are all different breeds and very different in size, so it's interesting to see what they have in common and what is unique to the individual dog.
That's a territorial insecurity thing, though, right? It's not a protest or revenge.
It is definitely naturally disturbing to humans, though.
I do not think that it is really a serious cognitive dissonance.
It is not my intention to harm the bees, ants, etc outside (nor is it my intention to harm the trees). If they get inside then sometimes I might need to get them outside if they would be harmful inside here (to me, them, or both), and sometimes you can step on something and will accidentally kill them if it is small, without being intentional. And we should all need the right of self defense, including both human and non-human animal must self defense from each other and anyone else (whether it is humans vs humans or not); however, not go near them is also a possible way to avoid being harmed, so that is what I do, too, outside. (Unfortunately sometimes the path is narrow.)
Even if there are spiders in my house, it is not usually my intention to harm them (although I will want them to not get in my way of a book, etc; unfortunately sometimes it does). What I read somewhere is that some kind of spider they are supposed to be in this house; at first I did not know that but they mention that it make sense so now I can know, it is good to know.
I am not going to eat all of the animals and plants outside, so, I do not need to harm them probably. But, other than that, everyone will eat everyone because that is how you will live, but nevertheless is it not a excuse to be treated badly (unfortunately they do treat some animal badly too much; well, humans are treated badly too, and also other stuff too). Some kind of animals is herbivores and some is carnivores, and humans is omnivores. And anyways, humans is also a kind of animals, too.
At school, in a science class, it was a discussion of testing drugs and other things by mice and other animals. While many students argued against such thing, I also argued against animal testing but my argument was different from the others. Most people (including the teacher) did not agree with my argument, but much more recently, I had heard on the CBC radio the similar argument than mine (made by actual scientists, unlike myself), so I know that I am not alone on this argument.
> That said, I've found many dog folks are super dismissive of the idea of cats being smart and I'm not sure why that is.
Possibly because that is their experience; they do not experience everything, so you will only know the things that you do have the experience of.
However, that isn't the only thing that it is. Another comment (31748192) mentions the other reasons why some people understand dogs better, so it isn't really as simple as I mentioned above.
> Most people love to share outrage over abuse of conventional pets or bizarre and seemingly psychotic behaviour of eating dogs yet feel nothing to the slaughter of a pig.
Dog and pig can be eaten, so at least to me that is not my outrage but I do think that they should not be treated badly.
> Do fish feel pain? Do insects experience fear? It is very difficult to to empathize with a spider or imagine that a scorpion could feel contentment
I do not know if fish feel pain or if insects experience fear, but it is possible to be harmed even if you cannot feel it at the time. However, such questions of if a fish can feel pain may be figured out in future by some scientists, possibly. I do not believe it is difficult to empathize with a spider or imagine that a scorpion could feel contentment, although perhaps it is difficult to know the details.
> I hear how it is 'dangerous' to anthropomorphize animals by people like Joe Rogan constantly. Can you explain what is 'dangerous' about it? Or why we have to be 'careful' doing so?
Well, what I think is that not everything is same; there are differences. You must be aware of the differences as well as the similarities, if you are to do it properly. Yet, some things will be unknown (so you must compensate for that, too).
If people readily accepted the intelligence of many mammals, much less other animals, they would have to confront some very serious cognitive dissonance and moral dilemmas.
That said, I've found many dog folks are super dismissive of the idea of cats being smart and I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps part of the problem is the sheer stubbornness of cats, you can't force them to do anything if they decide they don't want to do it.