Why kill animals unnecessarily?

reply to post by schuyler
"Plant racist" is a clever term. I do value animals more than plants, but I respect both. I suppose an omnivore who is not a cannibal would be both a "plant racist" and an "animal racist" in comparison with his/her opinion of humans. What I really value is consciousness, which animals have more of than plants.

I don't believe plants have consciousness of the same quality as animals with nervous systems have. I would be interested in reading a scientifically peer-reviewed article which states that plants feel pain as intensely as animals.

If you cut a head of lettuce off a plant, you are harming the plant, but I don't believe it would feel the same kind of pain someone would feel if someone cut his/her head off. (And if you value plants, you don't harm one unnecessarily, anyway.)

You say vegetarianism is a political movement designed to allow its adherents to feel superior. All political movements do this--communists feel superior to capitalists, and vice-versa--but the real point of a political movement is to point the way toward the best solution to a problem.

Vegetarians do benefit from non-vegetarians. Likewise non-vegetarians are linked in the social structure with vegetarians. Criminals and law-abiding citizens share an economy and benefit from each other. I guess I don't quite understand your point.

meat is another antidepressant the zombies need to keep moving.

reply to post by Jumbles


And there lies the catch 22.

You need the resources to find a new way of farming/distribution that would allow the whole world to go veggie only. But, to get the neccessary resources you would have to take away from some where else. In the example you have stated, take it from raising livestock.

Well, now we have a problem. What do we do in the interm? After resources have been taken from the ranchers (less meat/eggs/milk to go around) and while we wait for the rebuilt/redesigned farming system (has not achieved the increased production levels), there would be large scale increase in food costs (as supplies become even more scarce) and an increase in global starvation.

If you want an example of how that would work in real life try Brazil. And look at what happened when farmers made less "food" to produce biofuel (other "food").

It's a nice theory, but there is no good way to implement it unless humanity was already at a level where there was a large abundance of food.

Also, it still doesn't change the fact that animal husbandry is an excellent way to creat food "now" for later use. Animals don't go bad while they are alive, where as vegetables, without proper treatment, will go bad quite quickly. Add into that, that in a local farming scenario, a cow can produce milk for many years before it becomes a steak. If you compare localised, small scale husbandry, it is not nearly as inefficient as the current husbandry system we use (mass prodcution).

I think it would be better to get people to follow the actual reccomended levels for sustinance. From personal experience, my meat consumption has dropped by at least 60% since I started to follow the Canadian Food Guide. Who knew 10 ozs steaks 4 times a week was bad for you . That being said, it would greatly diminish the amount of meat required, and taking meat from animals is the most wasteful part. Collecting milk, eggs, animal by products, is actuall a very efficient system.

reply to post by peck420
Perhaps vegetarianism/veganism can't be brought to the world overnight with today's technology. But we could work toward this goal by developing alternative farming and distribution methods without causing starvation in the process. Animal husbandry could be phased out gradually. We already have enough food to feed the world--what we lack is the political will and the distribution systems to do it.

As for animals being the best way to store food for later use--that's an interesting point I hadn't considered. Other food storage methods such as canning and freeze-drying exist, and new methods could be invented. Some plants (for instance, fruit trees) produce food longer than most animals live.

My primary concern is less about animal by-products such as dairy and eggs (as long as they are collected humanely), but more about animal suffering such as occurs in factory farms and slaughterhouses.

Originally posted by Jumbles
Our goal on earth is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.

According to whom? Where in the Bible or anywhere else are we instructed to maximize pleasure and minimize pain?

In Nature, pleasure and pain are simply survival sensations, not objectives.

In Nature, the unwritten law of the jungle is Eat or be Eaten, plain and simple. Who are we as mere bipedal mammals to deliberately defy Nature?

No, it is our faulty human logic that tells us that pain is unnecessary, that killing is unnecessary. This defies the basic laws of survival in Nature.

Nature knows the secret of survival is not defying Nature. As soon as we defied Nature, tried to harness and control Nature, humans began destroying Nature.

— Zesko Whirligan

reply to post by Zesko Whirligan
Perhaps my opening statement about our goal being to maximize pleasure and minimize pain was overstated. Each individual creature tries to maximize pleasure and minimize pain for himself/herself, but it does not necessarily follow that everyone desires this goal for everyone else. I will amend it to "Many people's goal is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain for all creatures."

I'm curious, though--can you tell me a loftier goal than wishing the best for all creatures that have nervous systems?

We defy nature constantly: we build skyscrapers, we brush our teeth. Mankind's goal should be to attempt to move beyond nature's inherent cruelty and indifference, as far as possible.

reply to post by Jumbles


Ironically there are some very good foods for long term storage that are natural produced...and most don't even know they exist. One even happens to be easier (and less energy consuming) to farm than wheat or corn. Requires far less water and zero pesticides (in my area).

Quinoa

Even with all the benefits it took me over a year to get my own household to use this stuff for food in lieu of rice for dinner and lunch, and in lieu of oats for breakfast. We still don't use it all the time, but it is a start. I have even started growing a bit in my back yard for fun.

There are other solution that I am probably not aware of.

Yet, all of these solutions take time and the will power to change.

Keep chasing the goal and one day it will come true.

Part of this problem is also overcrowding. Even if most of Americans and people from other countries cut back on meat intake and animal products, it would still be quite a hit to the animal population.

Best thing we can do right now is cut back on babies and on eating sweet animal flesh.

reply to post by ScarletNyx
I agree that the earth is overpopulated by humans. My vision for the world includes birth control for both people and animal populations, but I don't know how to make that happen with today's technology and politics. Maybe birth control for animals is unworkable, but we'll never know until we fully research all possibilities.

However, while reducing the consumption of animal products might mean smaller livestock and game populations at first, these populations would have a better quality of life and would eventually rebound to reasonable levels (whatever that might be... a gray area indeed--who knows the "best" number of cows the earth should have?).

reply to post by Jumbles


CERTAIN animals need to be controlled. Cattle most of all - other animals need to be allowed to flourish, no matter how ugly or "harmful" us humans see them. Wolves and coyotes have only now come back to my state of NC after generations hunted out of our lands - and we're seeing the benefits already! More coyotes = less deer. Less deer = less deer on the roads to be hit by people in cars. Which equal to less deaths of people.

It's all a carefully balanced circle folks, lets not forget that!

reply to post by ScarletNyx
It is hard to say what the population of each animal should be. The circle may be carefully balanced, but human activity currently causes imbalance.

I don't know if a complete ecosystem engineered to optimum (planned) populations has ever been tried. Maybe we can improve on the circle currently found in nature.