Humberto
Callooh! Callay!
This is true. They have mammalian, instincts.
Bye bye MEAT! How will the post-meat future look?
- Thread starter MrCurry
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This is true. They have mammalian, instincts.
JimW
支那暗杀团
The AP in on the act now too: Eating less meat would be good for the Earth. Small nudges can change behavior
Part of a wider series on how to tackle protein provision in a fragile environment, not read all of that but some interesting bits in what I have, such as the one of learning from traditional herders: Can we feed the world without starving the planet? | The Protein Problem
Part of a wider series on how to tackle protein provision in a fragile environment, not read all of that but some interesting bits in what I have, such as the one of learning from traditional herders: Can we feed the world without starving the planet? | The Protein Problem
Well, you’re not succeeding. If you want to talk about a “will to be our friends”, you’ve got a lot of work to do to discuss what “will to be our friends” even means in the context of animals. Posting oversentimentalised clips of animals exhibiting emotional behaviours doesn’t get you anywhere near. And even if you can somehow pin down what “will” and “friends” means when applying those concepts to an animal, you’re still not making any argument about why that provides a moral imperative to not eat meat. In a pair of words, so what?
Instead, you’re spamming the thread with eyeroll-inducing pap of about as much relevance as picking the latest meme at random.
bcuster
Well-Known Member
If you feel that way, I’ll attempt a different approach. Lots of articles have been posted about the environmental concerns regarding flesh consumption.
In my area, the money cost of meat has skyrocketed. This also has been well covered here. My idea is to raise humanitarian and ethical awareness regarding flesh consumption. We live in an era where it makes sense to consume Less Meat for many reasons
This is literally the debate you keep derailing with your inane cutesy videos. Do you read as well as spam?
Yes it has. And so it should. Ethical animal farming is not cheap and should not be done on the cheap. I see nothing wrong with meat being well-produced, costing what that takes and eaten sparingly as a consequence
Then make those arguments rather than posting a link to a story in which the Australian government has chosen to cull wild horses for environmental reasons, which is nothing to do with meat production at all, let alone any of the things you mention.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Living things have a 'will to live'. That's almost definitional of life. All life, from bacteria onwards.
Some animals like being around people. Others really don't. Is that the metric to use when measuring their worth?
I still don't see how headless Mike fits in with this story. By a massive fluke he had his head chopped off in such a way that just enough of his brain stem was left to regulate basic bodily functions and keep him alive for a bit. But whatever conscious experience he previously had was gone. He no longer exhibited effective, purposeful behaviour.
urbanspaceman
Well-Known Member
I would be happy to switch to synthetic, or vat-grown meat, if it tastes OK, on the grounds of animal welfare. But I do wonder, and this is a genuine puzzle I can't figure out, is it better for say a pig to be born, grow and be slaughtered, or to have never existed at all ?
Surely, the key to answering that question is the quality of life lived? After all, we all die in the end. We hope that the bounded nature of life doesn’t make it worthless. An animal has needs that, if met, allow it to be content. A content animal is existing in a way that is congruent to its existence having value, if any existence has value. Animals whose needs are not being met, on the other hand, lives in perpetual torture that they cannot make sense of. Such a life is not worth living.
Here are some pigs that were reared around the corner from me. I passed them every day on my walk and gathered acorns to feed them, which they loved. They had a great time of it, playing under the trees, rooting around and lying in the sun with each other. They’ve now gone to slaughter. I would say their lives were worth it.
bcuster
Well-Known Member
I appreciate the kindness you showed to those friendly, intelligent creatures. The pigs did too, certainly. I cannot agree that they did not know and did not fear what was happening to them at their end
We all know and fear what happens to us at the end. Spend some time in an end-of-life ward. The end is rarely happy. That’s particularly true for wild creatures, by the way. Being prey, or being wounded, or starving. This is where sentimentalisation hurts you. Thinking that all of life can be cuddles and cowslips, and anything else is somehow not worth living.
bcuster
Well-Known Member
You don’t think that the chicken was expressing a manifest will to survive? And , also that it’s owner felt bad about he or she had done and quite rightly showed the animal kindness until it died?
“Expressing”? What — “flap once for ’I want to live’ and flap twice for ‘I don’t’?”
I think that the blow was insufficient to kill the chicken, owing to the relatively rudimentary nature of a chicken’s nervous system. I don’t think it had some kind of “can-do” mindset that allowed it to keep running in circles.
urbanspaceman
Well-Known Member
So perhaps a plausible outcome would be to greatly improve animal welfare standards, and to ensure that the moment of slaughter is unexpected and instantaneous. Good lives, as enjoyed by those pigs, will be expensive, and so the price of "natural" meat will increase a lot. One can imagine say 90% of meat being replaced with synthetic versions, with burgers, mince and sausages going first, and an expensive high-welfare 10% share persisting for special occasions.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
As I said, a bacterium expresses a manifest will to survive (more so than Headless Mike really - Mike was no longer able to direct his behaviour in a useful way so didn't really have that much of a will of any kind once his head was gone). Mike's owner saw an opportunity to make money and took the thing on a freak show tour (hence both you and I know about it). He didn't suddenly repent and become a vegan.
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editor
hiraethified
What percentage of the millions of pigs reared to be slaughtered every year do you think live such an idyllic life?
I would agree, except that I don’t know why we need the synthetic meat at all. Only about 10-20% of my meals involve red or white meat — I don’t feel any need to have an artificial version to replace it.
I have a lot of seafood (mussels, prawns) and fish. (I’m not claiming that the fish is an ethical high spot, just that it’s something I would find a lot harder to give up, and there’s no artificial version of salmon, say). And about half my meals are straight vegetarian/vegan. No need for meat substitute there
What relevance does that have to anything I’m saying?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Mussels and oysters are a very good ethical choice for high-quality, nutritious, protein - both from a welfare and an environmental viewpoint. I'd also be happy if we were to greatly expand our insect-eating habits.
editor
hiraethified
You've literally just been going on about the 'quality of life lived' for animals so it's hard to make it any more relevant. Care to answer the question now?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
That's a bit of a false distinction, though. Burgers, mince and sausages will be made from the less-desirable cuts rather than specifically from lower-welfare animals. Also, you have dairy cows that might live high-welfare lives then end those lives as rather low-quality meat.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
If you're trying to play a gotcha, you should really ask what percentage of the meat kabbes eats comes from animals like that.
These kinds of individual gotchas are kind of boring, though. They first rely on people having set themselves up as exemplary consumers rather than flawed people who don't always do the best thing, which is what most of us are. And they second totally ignore the collective, systemic, societal aspects of food production.
ETA:
I would have thought the point here is that some meat production passes the ethical test for those of us who don't see killing animals in order to eat them as inherently wrong. As I've said before, a lot of British lamb passes that test for me, for example.
You have consistently made this debate all about personal choice. As in, individuals should make the personal choice not to eat meat. And then, when I point out that you can also make the personal choice to only eat ethically-reared animals, you now shift the goalposts and want to know instead what proportion of animals are already reared that way? What’s that got to do with the personal choice that an individual can make? What is the relevance to my personal choice, what other people already choose to do? Indeed, maybe if I encourage others to make the personal choice to reject factory-farmed meat, the result will be to increase the proportion that actually ARE reared ethically instead. Either way, I am certainly not contributing to the prevalence of factory farming by my choices.
Precisely. This is precisely the point. I was responding to a suggestion that eating meat is just inherently wrong because cute piggies. My point is that I care about the life the animal has lived, not the sanctity of life itself.
editor
hiraethified
The kind of meat that posters here claim to eat is utterly irrelevant to the fact that the vast majority of meat consumed comes from shitty factory farms and whether a handful of posh folks buy hand grazed artisanal cutlets doesn't make a fucking tot of difference to the devastating impact of meat production on climate change.
People need to eat a shit load less meat and eat more plant based food. Full stop. And that's not just my opinion. It's the opinion of multiple experts and international bodies across the world.
apnews.com
People need to eat a shit load less meat and eat more plant based food. Full stop. And that's not just my opinion. It's the opinion of multiple experts and international bodies across the world.
Eating less meat would be good for the Earth. Small nudges can change behavior
One of the thorniest problems of the 21st century is how to get people to eat less meat. A new poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that most U.S. adults said they eat meat at least several times a week.
apnews.com
OK, I’m done with the claims of bad faith and aggressive antagonism. I’m putting you on ignore, along with a very small handful of others that act that way. I wouldn’t normally announce it, but since you’re the owner of the site and a moderator, I don’t want it misunderstood that my reason for not responding to you ever again is that I’m just not seeing it.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Problem with appeals to authority is that someone else can then appeal to a different authority who says something different, as Funky Monks has done on this thread, and we end up with an argument over whose authority is the bestest authority rather than discussing the actual issues. Anyone attempting to engage with the issues directly is just shouted down.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
You should apologise for this. Fucking shit to accuse others of bad faith like that. If someone did it to you, you'd be fucking furious.
(But I think you have me on ignore, so hey ho. Carry on being a dick.)
bcuster
Well-Known Member
I don't know that I am happy about all the rancor here lately. I'll be happy if awareness is raised to the concerns about ethical treatment of animals and whether it is at all necessary to consume (as much) flesh given that is bad for the environment, unhealthy, exorbitantly expensive and other choices are plentifully available.
urbanspaceman
Well-Known Member
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