Would you like to be eaten?
Martin Willett
from eating meat?
There seems to be a common bit of vegetarian propaganda that goes
something like “if you eat animals how can you expect intelligent aliens
not to eat you?”
Let's think about this for a moment. We detect the sin of hypocrisy,
which for our species seems to be the ultimate sin. Eating animals and
yet asking not to be eaten ourselves on the grounds that we are sentient
animals strikes us as in some way a form of hypocrisy. It probably is.
So what? Is hypocrisy the ultimate sin recognized by all sentient
lifeforms everywhere? If if it then surely acting like hypocrites would
make us less attractive dinner table fare, wouldn't it? We would be less
likely to eat a “sinful” species that ate dung and its own young than
one that just ate grass, hung around in fields and went moo. Acting like
hypocrites would make us appear less tasty and nutritious. Acting like
hypocrites is probably a good survival strategy. Do we eat “wicked”
weasels, hyaenas, snakes and tapeworms in preference to “noble” animals
like deer and salmon?
Which species do we refuse to eat on moral grounds?
Do we avoid eating all peaceful herbivores? Hardly! In fact if we can
see any patterns at all here it is that the more animals an animal eats
the less likely it is we will want to eat it ourselves. The only
carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are fish, animals
that some people who call themselves vegetarians even try to redefine as
some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies, haddock are animals
that eat other animals, being cold bloodied, small-eyed and ugly doesn't
change anything, fish are not vegetables. If you eat fish you cannot be
a vegetarian.
We prefer to eat peaceful herbivores, we actively give preference to
those animals that eat a 100% pure vegetarian diet of grass. Why do we
assume that aliens will prefer to eat old, evil, bitter, twisted and
hypocritical animals like us rather than the nice innocent tender baa
lambs that we like to eat? It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.
Why don't we eat carnivorous animals?
There is no reason why we don't eat carnivorous animals apart from the
fact that they are too expensive to farm economically. When dogs are
raised to be eaten they are not fed on meat, they are given the cheapest
food that will do the job, usually grain, vegetables and kitchen scraps,
just like pigs.
I read in a newspaper recently (or was it The Sun?) about a man who
regularly dines off roadkill. He made no distinction between herbivore
or carnivore and enjoyed stoats and weasels quite as much as squirrels
and badgers. His finest meal was roast labrador, which apparently tastes
just like lamb.
The only problem with eating carnivores is you have to avoid their
livers, which can contain dangerously high concentrations of vitamin A.
The higher an animal (and yes fish are animals) is up the food chain the
higher the concentration of poisons such as heavy metals the flesh may
contain. Certain chemicals such as DDT and PCBs also build up in bodies
and accumulate as you go up the food chain, the most effective way of
riding them from the body is to breastfeed...
If aliens did have a desire to eat people which people would they want
to eat?
It really doesn't take a rocket scientist to work it out. Or a fully
qualified butcher. The best cuts would come from young people raised on
a pure Vegan diet, especially if they could be certified as Organic.
Aliens would give preference to young hippie and Goth chicks raised on
beansprouts, lentils and tofu not McDonalds and KFC. Card-carrying
members of PETA would fetch a premium price.
If you really want to avoid being eaten by aliens the best thing you can
do to ensure they don't fancy the idea of eating you is to eat meat,
ideally the meat and offal of diseased, evil, old, poor and hypocritical
aliens. Or failing that, sausages.
Being a vegetarian is as effective a remedy against hungry aliens as is
being a conscientious objector in the face of hordes of Nazis.
What does this aliens eating hypocrites argument remind you of? God?
Yes, we seem to be very good at inventing fictional entities which can
make the evil ones among us feel bad if only we can get them to swallow
a line of bull.
Are aliens likely to be able to eat us?
There is a fair chance that we will actually be poisonous to aliens, and
they could be poisonous to us. Elements that are rare on our planet tend
to be poisonous to us, for example heavy metals such as lead, uranium,
arsenic, cadmium, mercury and so on. They are poisonous largely because
we have not evolved to cope with them. There is a reasonable chance that
to aliens we will contain unacceptably high levels of elements that they
are not able to cope with even if they find our alien proteins and fats
attractive. We may be protected by traces of selenium, copper, chromium
or zinc which could be absent from their biological systems and so be
poisonous to them. Likewise they may have a biological system that
requires an element that we cannot tolerate such as arsenic or lead as a
nutrient. Perhaps alien children are told to eat up their vegetables
because they contain lots of healthy cadmium (essential for healthy
tentacles) while they would look on a Whooper, Big Mac or indeed a
McHuman with Cheese as loaded with quite deadly levels of poisonous
calcium and zinc and enough sodium to kill the Bugblatter Beast of Traal.
First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
posted by the author
--
Martin Willett
ant and dec
>
> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
> posted by the author
>
A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of
meat.
A troll.
Martin Willett
How do you make that out? It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
to the points I made.
I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely one
of them. What was incorrect?
Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to be
eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance? Do you think I *couldn't*
find evidence of such an argument being deployed if I could be arsed to
do so?
Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and deer
than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?
In what way did I justify the consumption of meat? I didn't. I simply
took apart one of the arguments sometimes used against meat eating and
showed it to be rather farcical.
I posted this here because I was looking to see if anybody could come up
with any good case against me. Of course the original piece was designed
to be humorous (do veg*ns do humour?) and was not intended to win any
debate. I run a website that tackles dozens of issues, I don't have a
single-issue agenda. I've been doing this kind of stuff for six years
now and I've never been hounded out of any newsgroup and neither has any
newsgroup ever disbanded because they've been blown away by the power of
my analysis and rapier-like wit (with the possible exception of
alt.religion.christian.amish, but I think they had a few philosophical
difficulties before I showed up). I am here to stimulate a conversation,
not a conversion. I haven't insulted you so I'd appreciate it if you
didn't insult me. If you don't want to engage with me then fine, don't
do it. But please don't do other people's thinking for them by hanging a
ready-made hate label round my neck.
I've just re-read your post. Is "A Troll" your usual signature? I
apologize if I misinterpreted the nature of your post.
Dutch
"ant and dec" <a...@dec.itv.com> wrote
> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>>
>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>> posted by the author
>>
>
> A factually incorrect
You mean the part about the aliens? <LOL>
> diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of meat.
Eating meat doesn't demand justification.
> A troll.
You didn't actually take it seriously did you??
Dave
Martin Willett wrote:
> ant and dec wrote:
> > Martin Willett wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
> >> posted by the author
> >>
> >
> > A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of
> > meat.
> >
> > A troll.
>
> How do you make that out? It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
> to the points I made.
>
> I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely one
> of them. What was incorrect?
>
> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to be
> eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance? Do you think I *couldn't*
> find evidence of such an argument being deployed if I could be arsed to
> do so?
You probably could but "I don't eat meat in case it causes me to be
eaten
by an alien" is a misrepresentation of the argument.
Martin Willett
> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>>ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>>Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>posted by the author
>>>>
>>>
>>>A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of
>>>meat.
>>>
>>>A troll.
>>
>>How do you make that out? It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
>>to the points I made.
>>
>>I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely one
>>of them. What was incorrect?
>>
>>Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to be
>>eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance? Do you think I *couldn't*
>>find evidence of such an argument being deployed if I could be arsed to
>>do so?
>
>
> You probably could but "I don't eat meat in case it causes me to be
> eaten
> by an alien" is a misrepresentation of the argument.
I would say it was an instructive re-interpretation of the argument that
shows how truly fatuous the idea is. Veg*ns will often use the "how
would you like it if somebody ate you?" line of reasoning (well, they
think it's reasoning) without going on to flesh out the ramifications of
the argument. It is an argument by ellipses. You float the idea half
finished, let it trail in the air, and hope the other person will flesh
it out in a way that convinces them that you had a point.
Sorry about all the flesh in that paragraph, I can be such a meathead at
times.
So what does the argument actually mean? It is clearly not a recipe to
avoid being eaten by aliens as I have shown. Any carnivore would prefer
to eat a vegetarian rather than a carnivore if there was any preference
at all, and if they were the sort of sickos that got off on the idea of
eating sentient and intelligent beings they would probably prefer to eat
the upstanding morally superior vegan rather than the hypocrite who eats
bacon and tries not to think about pigs. I can conceive of no possible
scenario in which the alien would eat carnivorous people and invite
vegans around for an after dinner game of backgammon and a chat about
the moral superiority of not exploiting animals.
So if it is isn't about a defence mechanism against consumption by
aliens what is it? An invitation to eat your way to moral superiority?
"I can out-smug you, but you could join me on this high horse". Come on,
come clean.
First alien: This roast man is delicious. A vegan, I can tell. I love
the stuffing.
Second alien: Stuffing?
First alien: Yes, the nut stuffing, really tangy. What did you use to
stuff it? Nuts, mushrooms, onions a little garlic I think. I can see
sweetcorn, what else?
Second alien: I didn't have to stuff it. It wasn't empty.
ant and dec
> ant and dec wrote:
>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>> posted by the author
>>>
>>
>> A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption
>> of meat.
>>
>> A troll.
>
> How do you make that out?
It was wrong. It is a diatribe. Humour is often used as a mollifying
device for mental conflict, perhaps caused by your recognition of your
own hypocrisy.
>>
It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
> to the points I made.
Does a diatribe have a point?
>
> I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely one
> of them. What was incorrect?
Salmon, as *one* example is a carnivorous species that we eat as a
common food.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon
>
> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to be
> eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance?
What higher moral stance? Different morals perhaps. Why do you feel they
claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your perception of
your own morality.
>Do you think I *couldn't*
> find evidence of such an argument being deployed if I could be arsed to
> do so?
It is used by some.
>
> Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and deer
> than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?
More people eat salmon than tapeworms, none are more "noble" or "nasty"
than each other.
>
> In what way did I justify the consumption of meat? I didn't. I simply
> took apart one of the arguments sometimes used against meat eating and
> showed it to be rather farcical.
You've recognised your own hypocrisy, and have attempted to make joke
out of it.
>
> I posted this here because I was looking to see if anybody could come up
> with any good case against me. Of course the original piece was designed
> to be humorous (do veg*ns do humour?) and was not intended to win any
> debate. I run a website that tackles dozens of issues, I don't have a
> single-issue agenda. I've been doing this kind of stuff for six years
> now and I've never been hounded out of any newsgroup and neither has any
> newsgroup ever disbanded because they've been blown away by the power of
> my analysis and rapier-like wit (with the possible exception of
> alt.religion.christian.amish, but I think they had a few philosophical
> difficulties before I showed up). I am here to stimulate a conversation,
> not a conversion. I haven't insulted you so I'd appreciate it if you
> didn't insult me. If you don't want to engage with me then fine, don't
> do it. But please don't do other people's thinking for them by hanging a
> ready-made hate label round my neck.
I don't hate you. From what I can see you seem a quite a nice guy!
>
> I've just re-read your post. Is "A Troll" your usual signature? I
> apologize if I misinterpreted the nature of your post.
If you were looking for a good case against you, perhaps you should have
written something for that purpose.
Your response has made me reconsider your troll status!
>
ant and dec
> "ant and dec" <a...@dec.itv.com> wrote
>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>
>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>> posted by the author
>>>
>> A factually incorrect
>
> You mean the part about the aliens? <LOL>
No.
>
>> diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of meat.
>
> Eating meat doesn't demand justification.
I never said it did. I read it that he was attempting albeit in a light
hearted way, to give an adequate reason or grounds for (in other words
justify) his decision to eat meat.
Anybody can be asked to show adequate an reason or grounds for a decision.
>
>
>> A troll.
>
> You didn't actually take it seriously did you??
He expected a serious comment. Should I have just written <LOL> "What a
wag."?
>
>
Martin Willett
> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>> ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>> posted by the author
>>>>
>>>
>>> A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption
>>> of meat.
>>>
>>> A troll.
>>
>>
>> How do you make that out?
>
>
> It was wrong. It is a diatribe. Humour is often used as a mollifying
> device for mental conflict, perhaps caused by your recognition of your
> own hypocrisy.
>
>
I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat anything
smarter than a pig, unless I really have to. Fortunately that rule
doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
intelligence of pigs. Chimp chops? No thanks!
> >>
> It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
>
>> to the points I made.
>
>
> Does a diatribe have a point?
Why restrict yourself to one?
>
>>
>> I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely
>> one of them. What was incorrect?
>
>
> Salmon, as *one* example is a carnivorous species that we eat as a
> common food.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon
How is this a contradiction?
"The only carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are fish,
animals that some people who call themselves vegetarians even try to
redefine as some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies, haddock
are animals that eat other animals, being cold bloodied, small-eyed and
ugly doesn't change anything, fish are not vegetables. If you eat fish
you cannot be a vegetarian."
>
>>
>> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to be
>> eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance?
>
>
> What higher moral stance? Different morals perhaps. Why do you feel they
> claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your perception of
> your own morality.
Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like Christians
and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion, like slugs. Of
course they make a point of not *claiming* moral superiority while doing
all they can to ensure that other people get the message loud and clear.
Their entire bearing says "we're not claiming to be superior to you, oh
no, that would be rude and arrogant and not *nice*, but you do know that
you are inferior to us, don't you? You don't? Here, take a pamphlet,
it's all in there."
>
>
>> Do you think I *couldn't* find evidence of such an argument being
>> deployed if I could be arsed to do so?
>
>
> It is used by some.
Quite. If the cap fits, wear it.
>
>>
>> Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and
>> deer than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?
>
>
> More people eat salmon than tapeworms, none are more "noble" or "nasty"
> than each other.
People do not eat nasty animals. At least they don't like to think that
they do. Muslims for example are taught to vilify pigs as well as not to
eat them. I am not suggesting that species are objectively noble or
nasty, that isn't the point, but the perceptions vary. We don't eat rats
and cockroaches but we do eat prawns, which in turn eat marine carrion
and excrement, but we put that image from our minds, even to the point
of calling the alimentary canal of a prawn "just a vein", when in fact
it clearly is scum sucker shit.
>
>>
>> In what way did I justify the consumption of meat? I didn't. I simply
>> took apart one of the arguments sometimes used against meat eating and
>> showed it to be rather farcical.
>
>
> You've recognised your own hypocrisy, and have attempted to make joke
> out of it.
I endeavour to make a joke out of most things.
Sometimes I even succeed.
>
>>
>> I posted this here because I was looking to see if anybody could come
>> up with any good case against me. Of course the original piece was
>> designed to be humorous (do veg*ns do humour?) and was not intended to
>> win any debate. I run a website that tackles dozens of issues, I don't
>> have a single-issue agenda. I've been doing this kind of stuff for six
>> years now and I've never been hounded out of any newsgroup and neither
>> has any newsgroup ever disbanded because they've been blown away by
>> the power of my analysis and rapier-like wit (with the possible
>> exception of alt.religion.christian.amish, but I think they had a few
>> philosophical difficulties before I showed up). I am here to stimulate
>> a conversation, not a conversion. I haven't insulted you so I'd
>> appreciate it if you didn't insult me. If you don't want to engage
>> with me then fine, don't do it. But please don't do other people's
>> thinking for them by hanging a ready-made hate label round my neck.
>
>
> I don't hate you. From what I can see you seem a quite a nice guy!
Thanks, but it does annoy me when people are so quick to hang the
ready-made labels around people's necks. "He's just a troll." I am much
more than that.
>
>
>>
>> I've just re-read your post. Is "A Troll" your usual signature? I
>> apologize if I misinterpreted the nature of your post.
>
>
> If you were looking for a good case against you, perhaps you should have
> written something for that purpose.
>
> Your response has made me reconsider your troll status!
>
Good. My troll status is something I am very proud of. I am not your
common or garden troll. http://www.mwillett.org/troll.htm
ant and dec
> ant and dec wrote:
>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>
>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>
>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>> posted by the author
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption
>>>> of meat.
>>>>
>>>> A troll.
>>>
>>>
>>> How do you make that out?
>>
>>
>> It was wrong. It is a diatribe. Humour is often used as a mollifying
>> device for mental conflict, perhaps caused by your recognition of your
>> own hypocrisy.
>>
>>
>
> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat anything
> smarter than a pig,
How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you drawn
this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
unless I really have to. Fortunately that rule
> doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
> intelligence of pigs.
But not much respect for the pig?
>Chimp chops? No thanks!
>
>> >>
>> It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
>>
>>> to the points I made.
>>
>>
>> Does a diatribe have a point?
>
> Why restrict yourself to one?
We can move on, as the points are coming out.
>
>>
>>>
>>> I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely
>>> one of them. What was incorrect?
>>
>>
>> Salmon, as *one* example is a carnivorous species that we eat as a
>> common food.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon
>
> How is this a contradiction?
>
> "The only carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are fish,
> animals that some people who call themselves vegetarians even try to
> redefine as some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies, haddock
> are animals that eat other animals, being cold bloodied, small-eyed and
> ugly doesn't change anything, fish are not vegetables. If you eat fish
> you cannot be a vegetarian."
Sorry I missed that caveat. The article focused on not eating
carnivores, we eat carnivorous fish (and other things to a lesser
extent)what stops these hypothetical aliens 'fishing' for carnivorous
humans?
>
>>
>>>
>>> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to
>>> be eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance?
>>
>>
>> What higher moral stance? Different morals perhaps. Why do you feel
>> they claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your perception
>> of your own morality.
>
> Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like Christians
> and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion, like slugs.
I think this is a problem of your perception. Do you think I ooze moral
superiority like a slug, and why? Can you could give some examples of
personal experience as evidence?
> Of
> course they make a point of not *claiming* moral superiority while doing
> all they can to ensure that other people get the message loud and clear.
They don't claim it, because most don't feel (in my experience) or have
a higher moral position.
> Their entire bearing says "we're not claiming to be superior to you, oh
> no, that would be rude and arrogant and not *nice*, but you do know that
> you are inferior to us, don't you? You don't? Here, take a pamphlet,
> it's all in there."
Again this is your misguided (self?) perception.
>
>>
>>
>>> Do you think I *couldn't* find evidence of such an argument being
>>> deployed if I could be arsed to do so?
>>
>>
>> It is used by some.
>
> Quite. If the cap fits, wear it.
There's nothing wrong with asking that particular hypothetical question.
What "cap"?
>
>>
>>>
>>> Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and
>>> deer than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?
>>
>>
>> More people eat salmon than tapeworms, none are more "noble" or
>> "nasty" than each other.
>
> People do not eat nasty animals. At least they don't like to think that
> they do. Muslims for example are taught to vilify pigs as well as not to
> eat them. I am not suggesting that species are objectively noble or
> nasty, that isn't the point, but the perceptions vary. We don't eat rats
> and cockroaches but we do eat prawns, which in turn eat marine carrion
> and excrement, but we put that image from our minds, even to the point
> of calling the alimentary canal of a prawn "just a vein", when in fact
> it clearly is scum sucker shit.
I'm sure an alien wouldn't mind cleaning your "vein".
Agreed.
>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> I've just re-read your post. Is "A Troll" your usual signature? I
>>> apologize if I misinterpreted the nature of your post.
>>
>>
>> If you were looking for a good case against you, perhaps you should
>> have written something for that purpose.
>>
>> Your response has made me reconsider your troll status!
>>
>
> Good. My troll status is something I am very proud of. I am not your
> common or garden troll. http://www.mwillett.org/troll.htm
Perhaps a positive novelty troll?
PS. I may be away for a day or two. - Apparently there's a Christian
(traditionally meat centric) festival going on that I'm expected to take
part in!
>
>
rick
"ant and dec" <a...@dec.itv.com> wrote in message
news:415akaF...@individual.net...
> Dutch wrote:
>> "ant and dec" <a...@dec.itv.com> wrote
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>> First published on
>>>> http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>> posted by the author
>>>>
>>> A factually incorrect
>>
>> You mean the part about the aliens? <LOL>
>
> No.
>
>>
>>> diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of meat.
>>
>> Eating meat doesn't demand justification.
>
> I never said it did. I read it that he was attempting albeit in
> a light hearted way, to give an adequate reason or grounds for
> (in other words justify) his decision to eat meat.
And, his reasons are just as viable as the reasons usenet vegans
give for not eating meat. Usenet vegan reasons are just as much
fantasy and delusion, eh?
Dutch
"ant and dec" <a...@dec.itv.com> wrote in message
news:415akaF...@individual.net...
> Dutch wrote:
>> "ant and dec" <a...@dec.itv.com> wrote
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>> posted by the author
>>>>
>>> A factually incorrect
>>
>> You mean the part about the aliens? <LOL>
>
> No.
Which part did you find to be "factually incorrect"?
>>> diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of meat.
>>
>> Eating meat doesn't demand justification.
>
> I never said it did. I read it that he was attempting albeit in a light
> hearted way, to give an adequate reason or grounds for (in other words
> justify) his decision to eat meat.
>
> Anybody can be asked to show adequate an reason or grounds for a decision.
I didn't interpret it that way. He was attempting to make light of the
emotional 'To Serve Mankind' argument contained in the admonishment "How
would you feel if aliens came to earth and saw *you* as food?"
>>> A troll.
>>
>> You didn't actually take it seriously did you??
>
>
> He expected a serious comment. Should I have just written <LOL> "What a
> wag."?
I didn't consider simply asserting that it was "factually incorrect" to be a
serious comment.
Dutch
[..]
>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat anything
>> smarter than a pig,
>
> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you drawn
> this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
It's not arbitrary, he gave the criterion, intelligence.
> unless I really have to. Fortunately that rule
>> doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
>> intelligence of pigs.
>
> But not much respect for the pig?
That doesn't follow.
[..]
>> Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like Christians
>> and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion, like slugs.
>
> I think this is a problem of your perception.
Oh, puleeeze!
Martin Willett
> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>> ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>>> posted by the author
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the
>>>>> consumption of meat.
>>>>>
>>>>> A troll.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> How do you make that out?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It was wrong. It is a diatribe. Humour is often used as a mollifying
>>> device for mental conflict, perhaps caused by your recognition of
>>> your own hypocrisy.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat
>> anything smarter than a pig,
>
>
> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you drawn
> this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
>
> unless I really have to. Fortunately that rule
>
>> doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
>> intelligence of pigs.
>
>
> But not much respect for the pig?
If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
than not to.
Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there,
so don't bother pointing it out.
Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
>
>
>> Chimp chops? No thanks!
>>
>>> >>
>>> It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
>>>
>>>> to the points I made.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Does a diatribe have a point?
>>
>>
>> Why restrict yourself to one?
>
>
> We can move on, as the points are coming out.
>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely
>>>> one of them. What was incorrect?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Salmon, as *one* example is a carnivorous species that we eat as a
>>> common food.
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon
>>
>>
>> How is this a contradiction?
>>
>> "The only carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are fish,
>> animals that some people who call themselves vegetarians even try to
>> redefine as some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies, haddock
>> are animals that eat other animals, being cold bloodied, small-eyed
>> and ugly doesn't change anything, fish are not vegetables. If you eat
>> fish you cannot be a vegetarian."
>
>
> Sorry I missed that caveat. The article focused on not eating
> carnivores, we eat carnivorous fish (and other things to a lesser
> extent)what stops these hypothetical aliens 'fishing' for carnivorous
> humans?
Nothing at all. Except that with billions of us to choose from thinking
purely as a connoisseur of meat I wouldn't be eating a 42 year old
overweight male omnivore when I could have a teenage vegan instead. I'd
be fit only for sausages or pies. My granddad was a farmer. He knew what
to eat, food was his life. He always went for local grass-fed heifer
beef. I think aliens would think the same way.
>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to
>>>> be eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> What higher moral stance? Different morals perhaps. Why do you feel
>>> they claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your
>>> perception of your own morality.
>>
>>
>> Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like
>> Christians and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion,
>> like slugs.
>
>
> I think this is a problem of your perception. Do you think I ooze moral
> superiority like a slug, and why? Can you could give some examples of
> personal experience as evidence?
They're too good at smugging it up to do much that you can put your
finger on. But you can tell, just like you don't have to see a man
engaged in sodomy to get a pretty good idea of whether or not he's gay,
but your observations would be easily taken apart by any competent
defence lawyer. It's obvious, but it wouldn't hold up in court.
>
>> Of course they make a point of not *claiming* moral superiority while
>> doing all they can to ensure that other people get the message loud
>> and clear.
>
>
> They don't claim it, because most don't feel (in my experience) or have
> a higher moral position.
How many times have you sat with somebody eating a salad who points out
that they also eat meat?
>
>> Their entire bearing says "we're not claiming to be superior to you,
>> oh no, that would be rude and arrogant and not *nice*, but you do know
>> that you are inferior to us, don't you? You don't? Here, take a
>> pamphlet, it's all in there."
>
>
> Again this is your misguided (self?) perception.
Carnivores don't wear badges and t shirts proclaiming their status for
the same reason that people don't wear "I didn't give money to charity"
badges. It is totally disingenuous to make out that vegetarians and
vegans do not want people to think they are morally superior because of
their diet, in exactly the same way that Christians do. People who
expect recognition for their moral probity make a point of not asking
for it but that doesn't mean they do not expect to get it and are hurt
when they don't get it.
>
>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Do you think I *couldn't* find evidence of such an argument being
>>>> deployed if I could be arsed to do so?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It is used by some.
>>
>>
>> Quite. If the cap fits, wear it.
>
>
> There's nothing wrong with asking that particular hypothetical question.
>
> What "cap"?
What? Are you unfamilar with that usage? You admitted that some vegans
and vegetarians use that line of argument, therefore my points are
addressed at such people. If you are one it is addressed at you, and I
leave it with you to decide if you qualify.
>>>>
>>>> Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and
>>>> deer than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> More people eat salmon than tapeworms, none are more "noble" or
>>> "nasty" than each other.
>>
>>
>> People do not eat nasty animals. At least they don't like to think
>> that they do. Muslims for example are taught to vilify pigs as well as
>> not to eat them. I am not suggesting that species are objectively
>> noble or nasty, that isn't the point, but the perceptions vary. We
>> don't eat rats and cockroaches but we do eat prawns, which in turn eat
>> marine carrion and excrement, but we put that image from our minds,
>> even to the point of calling the alimentary canal of a prawn "just a
>> vein", when in fact it clearly is scum sucker shit.
>
>
> I'm sure an alien wouldn't mind cleaning your "vein".
>
But he'd probably prefer yours.
Me and my two atheist children will be celebrating it tomorrow too. My
Christian wife is out babysitting while some Jewish friends go out for a
Christmas drink. It's a funny old world, isn't it?
Meat is often the centrepiece of feasts because it is sharing food.
Herbivores don't share food and don't have much in the way of society,
they just use each other as bovine shields or the equivilent. If mankind
was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and socially
cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or not meat was
a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was doesn't make
an ought.
dh
[...]
>We detect the sin of hypocrisy,
>which for our species seems to be the ultimate sin.
· Since the animals we raise for food would not be alive
if we didn't raise them for that purpose, it's a distortion of
reality not to take that fact into consideration whenever
we think about the fact that the animals are going to be
killed. The animals are not being cheated out of any part
of their life by being raised for food, but instead they are
experiencing whatever life they get as a result of it. ·
>Eating animals and
>yet asking not to be eaten ourselves on the grounds that we are sentient
>animals strikes us as in some way a form of hypocrisy. It probably is.
>So what? Is hypocrisy the ultimate sin recognized by all sentient
>lifeforms everywhere? If if it then surely acting like hypocrites would
>make us less attractive dinner table fare, wouldn't it? We would be less
>likely to eat a “sinful” species that ate dung and its own young than
>one that just ate grass, hung around in fields and went moo. Acting like
>hypocrites would make us appear less tasty and nutritious.
Maybe they'd kill us as vermin.
>Acting like
>hypocrites is probably a good survival strategy. Do we eat “wicked”
>weasels, hyaenas, snakes and tapeworms in preference to “noble” animals
>like deer and salmon?
>Which species do we refuse to eat on moral grounds?
Human.
>Do we avoid eating all peaceful herbivores? Hardly! In fact if we can
>see any patterns at all here it is that the more animals an animal eats
>the less likely it is we will want to eat it ourselves. The only
>carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are fish, animals
>that some people who call themselves vegetarians even try to redefine as
>some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies, haddock are animals
>that eat other animals, being cold bloodied, small-eyed and ugly doesn't
>change anything, fish are not vegetables. If you eat fish you cannot be
>a vegetarian.
>
>We prefer to eat peaceful herbivores, we actively give preference to
>those animals that eat a 100% pure vegetarian diet of grass. Why do we
>assume that aliens will prefer to eat old, evil, bitter, twisted and
>hypocritical animals like us rather than the nice innocent tender baa
>lambs that we like to eat? It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.
>
>Why don't we eat carnivorous animals?
>
>There is no reason why we don't eat carnivorous animals apart from the
>fact that they are too expensive to farm economically. When dogs are
>raised to be eaten they are not fed on meat, they are given the cheapest
>food that will do the job, usually grain, vegetables and kitchen scraps,
>just like pigs.
Pigs are omnivores. I'm not even sure if they can digest celulose,
but I doubt it. Chickens are omnivores. And it's the omnivores like
chicken, turkey and pork that can really screw you up if you eat it
undercooked. I'm guessing because of similarity in digestive systems
or something like that, but never have heard anyone say anything
about it.
[...]
>What does this aliens eating hypocrites argument remind you of? God?
>Yes, we seem to be very good at inventing fictional entities which can
>make the evil ones among us feel bad if only we can get them to swallow
>a line of bull.
It's impossible to know if God does not exist. It doesn't matter if
he does not exist either...it only matters if he does. Merry Christmas.
>Are aliens likely to be able to eat us?
>
>There is a fair chance that we will actually be poisonous to aliens, and
>they could be poisonous to us.
How about rishathra?
>Elements that are rare on our planet tend
>to be poisonous to us, for example heavy metals such as lead, uranium,
>arsenic, cadmium, mercury and so on. They are poisonous largely because
>we have not evolved to cope with them. There is a reasonable chance that
>to aliens we will contain unacceptably high levels of elements that they
>are not able to cope with even if they find our alien proteins and fats
>attractive. We may be protected by traces of selenium, copper, chromium
>or zinc which could be absent from their biological systems and so be
>poisonous to them. Likewise they may have a biological system that
>requires an element that we cannot tolerate such as arsenic or lead as a
>nutrient. Perhaps alien children are told to eat up their vegetables
>because they contain lots of healthy cadmium (essential for healthy
>tentacles) while they would look on a Whooper, Big Mac or indeed a
>McHuman with Cheese as loaded with quite deadly levels of poisonous
>calcium and zinc and enough sodium to kill the Bugblatter Beast of Traal.
>
>
>First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>posted by the author
I would expect beings with such technology to be able to produce
pretty much whatever kind of food they want without having to grow
it, or if not quite to that extent at least be able to produce food they
can live and thrive on that way. So far I can't help but think they
would treat us pretty much as a curiosity or something, unless they
wanted to exterminate us in which case I don't believe they would
have much trouble. It's not like we could do anything to defend
ourselves from much of an attack from space. All they have to do
is stand back and throw a few rocks at us, or put something between
us and Sol.
dh
>If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
>of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
>than not to.
One "ARA" amusingly pasted the fact that:
_________________________________________________________
From: "Dutch" <n...@email.com>
Message-ID: <tl6u464...@news.supernews.com>
The method of husbandry determines whether or not the life
has positive or negative value to the animal.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
as if he were able to understand the fact, but later revealed that
he can not:
_________________________________________________________
From: "Dutch" <n...@email.com>
Message-ID: <11ml08i...@news.supernews.com>
some mystical "value to the animals"
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
_________________________________________________________
From: "Dutch" <n...@email.com>
Message-ID: <11mious...@news.supernews.com>
Any "positive experiences" that livestock may have, whatever that means, may
not and should not be used as an argument for raising them.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
I find that the truth is often both sad and hilarious at the same time
with these people. It's incredible really. This for example: why did
Dutch paste something that they don't understand much less agree
with? I've asked him many times, but he refuses to say why.
>Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there,
>so don't bother pointing it out.
The desperation of "ARAs" is made obvious by Dutch's hero Goo,
who proclaims to the world that:
_________________________________________________________
From: "Rudy Canoza" <notg...@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1110311850.7...@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>
No zygotes, animals, people, or any other living thing benefits from
coming into existence. No farm animals benefit from farming.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
_________________________________________________________
From: Rudy Canoza <som...@ph.con>
Message-ID: <OPZ_d.15548$qf2....@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net>
Life is not a benefit for farm animals.
[...]
Life is not a benefit for farm
animals
[...]
Life is not a benefit for farm animals.
[...]
Life is not a benefit for farm animals.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
_________________________________________________________
From: Rudy Canoza <som...@ph.con>
Message-ID: <3nn%d.1833$Vi3....@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net>
An entity's life _per se_ is not a benefit to it.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
etc, etc... Again it's sadly amusing to find "ARAs" are so desperate
for people to feel that no livestock benefit from farming, that they
insist life could never be a benefit for anything including themselves.
>Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
>could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
>loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
The "ARAs" even have an "AR" pig fantasy which they believe
somehow refutes the fact that some farm animals benefit from farming.
I'll include what I believe they humorously consider to be the "refutation":
_________________________________________________________
From: "Dutch" <n...@email.com>
Message-ID: <108m9om...@news.supernews.com>
Speak for yourself please fuckwit. Here's your quote, Henry S. Salt speaks
for the pig here, you ought to listen.
[...]
"For mark, I pray
thee, that in my entry into the world my own predilection was in no wise
considered, nor did I purchase life on condition of my own butchery. If,
then, thou art firm set on pork, so be it, for pork I am: but though thou
hast not spared my life, at least spare me thy sophistry. It is not for
his sake, but for thine, that in his life the Pig is filthily housed and
fed, and at the end barbarously butchered."
Hear that fuckwit? The pig says, if you are set on killing me for my flesh,
then so be it, just spare me the self-serving bullshit.
Spare all of us, fuckwit. We don't need it, nobody needs it.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
A talking pig who knows he will be killed--and btw made into ham and
sausages, etc...there are about 20 or so odd subfantasies in their talking
pig fantasy--is certainly an anthropomorphic distortion of reality if not
sophistry. And it is *most!!!* certainly bullshit, making me wonder how it
could possibly be self-serving for anyone other than "ARAs". (Dutch and
Goo hilariously insist they are "AR" opponents, though neither are capable
of providing any example(s) of their opposition, nor can anyone else afaik.)
[...]
>Carnivores don't wear badges and t shirts proclaiming their status for
>the same reason that people don't wear "I didn't give money to charity"
>badges. It is totally disingenuous to make out that vegetarians and
>vegans do not want people to think they are morally superior because of
>their diet, in exactly the same way that Christians do. People who
>expect recognition for their moral probity make a point of not asking
>for it but that doesn't mean they do not expect to get it and are hurt
>when they don't get it.
Which is why there are people like Dutch and Goo who maniacally
oppose people considering that some farm animals benefit from farming,
because it suggests that some thing(s) could be ethically equivalent
or superior to veganism. Just the suggestion causes incredible cognitive
dissonance for them, so they desperately/amusingly try to make it go away.
Anyone interested in observing cognitive dissonance inspired reactions
can get fine examples by pointing out to "ARAs" that some farm animals
benefit from farming. I encourage you to give it a try. Dutch would be a
good subject, and so would Goo who recently is posting as--and probably
considers himself to be--Leif Erikson and S. Maizlich, along with however
many others I'm not aware of.
Dutch
"Martin Willett" <mwille...@invalid.invalid> wrote
> ant and dec wrote:
>> But not much respect for the pig?
>
> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
> of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
> than not to.
>
> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there, so
> don't bother pointing it out.
I really like your posts Martin, I agree with everything you have said up to
now, but that is a fallacy. You cannot compare living and dying to *not*
living, since never being born, never existing is not a real state. This is
called "The Logic of the Larder" and there is one fruitcake here who has
already replied to you who makes it his life's work to promote this idea.
http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.pdf
There, in brief, is the key to the whole matter.
The fallacy lies in the confusion of thought which attempts to
compare existence with non-existence. A person who is already in existence
may feel that he
would rather have lived than not, but he must first have the terra firma of
existence to argue
from; the moment he begins to argue as if from the abyss of the
non-existent, he talks
nonsense, by predicating good or evil, happiness or unhappiness, of that of
which we can
predicate nothing.
When, therefore, we talk of "bringing a being," as we vaguely express it,
"into the world," we
cannot claim from that being any gratitude for our action, or drive a
bargain with him, and a
very shabby one, on that account; nor can our duties to him be evaded by any
such quibble, in
which the wish is so obviously father to the thought. Nor, in this
connection, is it necessary to
enter on the question of ante-natal existence, because, if such existence
there be, we have no
reason for assuming that it is less happy than the present existence; and
thus equally the
argument falls to the ground. It is absurd to compare a supposed
preexistence, or non-
existence, with actual individual life as known to us here. All reasoning
based on such
comparison must necessarily be false, and will lead to grotesque
conclusions.
Jeff Caird
> How about rishathra?
>
Is that from Ringworld?
Feffer
Martin Willett
Do you start your reasoning from first principles and work upwards to
conclusions and lifestyle choices that might come as a surprise you or
do you work backwards from the practical policy stances you are most
comfortable with and in the process discover what your principles "must
have been"?
Do you regard lying to yourself as a form of sin?
dh
>
>"Martin Willett" <mwille...@invalid.invalid> wrote
>> ant and dec wrote:
>
>>> But not much respect for the pig?
>>
>> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
>> of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
>> than not to.
>>
>> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there, so
>> don't bother pointing it out.
>
>I really like your posts Martin, I agree with everything you have said up to
>now, but
Now he has suggested that something could be ethically equivalent
or superior to the elimination of domestic animals, so of course YOU/"ARAs"
are getting another dose of cognitive dissonance.
>that is a fallacy. You cannot compare living and dying to *not*
>living, since never being born, never existing is not a real state. This is
>called "The Logic of the Larder"
Other than YOU/"ARAs", who else calls considering farm animals' lives
The Logic of the Larder? Of course when I see Logic of the Larder, I
understand what you're really referring to is your hero Salt's Logic of the
Fantastic "AR" Talking Pig, and nothing else. I also understand that there
are no such pigs, and most likely never will be. There are billions of farm
animals' lives to consider however, for those of us able to consider them.
>and there is one fruitcake here who has
>already replied to you who makes it his life's work to promote this idea.
It's just something I've been doing because I hate the mental restrictions
YOU/"ARAs" would impose on everyone if you could, but I doubt that
I've made even half as many posts promoting consideration of the
animals' lives as YOU/"ARAs" have made opposing the suggestion.
Goo alone has probably made far more than twice as many posts
opposing the suggestion as I've made encouraging it.
>http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.pdf
>There, in brief, is the key to the whole matter.
>The fallacy lies in the confusion of thought which attempts to
>compare existence with non-existence. A person who is already in existence
>may feel that he
>would rather have lived than not, but he must first have the terra firma of
>existence to argue
>from; the moment he begins to argue as if from the abyss of the
>non-existent, he talks
>nonsense,
You pasted the fact that:
_________________________________________________________
From: "Dutch" <n...@email.com>
Message-ID: <tl6u464...@news.supernews.com>
The method of husbandry determines whether or not the life
has positive or negative value to the animal.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
even though you continue to prove it's something you can't
understand.
>by predicating good or evil, happiness or unhappiness, of that of
>which we can
>predicate nothing.
>
>When, therefore, we talk of "bringing a being," as we vaguely express it,
>"into the world," we
Could consider Christmas...well...some of us can and others can
not.
>cannot claim from that being any gratitude for our action, or drive a
>bargain with him,
_________________________________________________________
From: "Dutch" <n...@email.com>
Message-ID: <108m9om...@news.supernews.com>
Hear that fuckwit? The pig says . . .
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
>and a very shabby one,
I've been asking for years what YOU/"ARAs" have to offer that
is better, and what it would be better for. So far the best you've been
able to say is that it would be or could be better for mice, frogs and
ground hogs if we eliminate all livestock. Is it really my fault if I can't
see any ethical superiority in that because YOU/"ARAs" are totally
incapable of explaining it? The superiority is not obvious, which even
you should be able to understand if only because of your complete
inability to explain how it would be. What YOU/"ARAs" need to
explain is why it would be superior to make the huge CHANGE of
eliminating ALL livestock for the supposed benefit of mice, frogs and
ground hogs, and whatever else is dinging around inside your hollow
skull.
>on that account; nor can our duties to him be evaded by any
>such quibble, in
>which the wish is so obviously father to the thought. Nor, in this
>connection, is it necessary to
>enter on the question of ante-natal existence, because, if such existence
>there be, we have no
>reason for assuming that it is less happy than the present existence;
Which always brings us back to wondering why you pasted the fact
that life could have positive value to animals, when you obviously can't
understand the fact much less consider it to be signifant in regards to
human influence on animals. And also brings up the question of why
you pasted this when you obviously can't consider it to be signifant in
regards to human influence on animals.
_________________________________________________________
From: "apostate" <n...@email.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 03:04:25 GMT
Wild animals on average suffer more than farm animals, I think that's
obvious.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
>and
>thus equally the
>argument falls to the ground. It is absurd to compare a supposed
>preexistence, or non-
>existence, with actual individual life as known to us here. All reasoning
>based on such
>comparison must necessarily be false, and will lead to grotesque
>conclusions.
YOU/"ARAs" promote grotesque ideas imo, like:
_________________________________________________________
From: "Dutch" <n...@email.com>
Message-ID: <11kod4e...@news.supernews.com>
Life does not justify death
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
_________________________________________________________
From: "Dutch" <n...@email.com>
Message-ID: <11j3bmc...@news.supernews.com>
Taking moral credit for a livestock animal's very existence is analagous to
taking moral credit for the life of a daughter you sell onto the streets.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
You <108m9om...@news.supernews.com>
"Hear that fuckwit? The pig says, if you are set on killing me for my flesh,
then so be it, just spare me the self-serving bullshit."
The pig doesn't know, and you couldn't explain anything to him
about it if you tried. That dishonest grotesquery is self serving
to YOU/"ARAs" apparently, and it is most obviously bullshit.
dh
Yes. I wondered if anyone was familiar with that. I just
found out yesterday they were going to make a movie
a few years ago, but it didn't work out for some reason
dammit.
ant and dec
> ant and dec wrote:
>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>
>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>
>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>>>> posted by the author
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the
>>>>>> consumption of meat.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A troll.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> How do you make that out?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It was wrong. It is a diatribe. Humour is often used as a mollifying
>>>> device for mental conflict, perhaps caused by your recognition of
>>>> your own hypocrisy.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat
>>> anything smarter than a pig,
>>
>>
>> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you
>> drawn this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
I'd like you to answer this point.
>>
>> unless I really have to. Fortunately that rule
>>
>>> doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
>>> intelligence of pigs.
>>
>>
>> But not much respect for the pig?
>
> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
> of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
> than not to.
>
> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there,
> so don't bother pointing it out.
>
> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
> could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
> loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
This line of thinking is very often pulled apart as being complete BS.
by both camps. I see some have already pointed this out.
I think you're blurring the realms of hypothesis and reality under the
pretense of a "joke".
>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to
>>>>> be eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What higher moral stance? Different morals perhaps. Why do you feel
>>>> they claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your
>>>> perception of your own morality.
>>>
>>>
>>> Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like
>>> Christians and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion,
>>> like slugs.
>>
>>
>> I think this is a problem of your perception. Do you think I ooze
>> moral superiority like a slug, and why? Can you could give some
>> examples of personal experience as evidence?
>
> They're too good at smugging it up to do much that you can put your
> finger on. But you can tell, just like you don't have to see a man
> engaged in sodomy to get a pretty good idea of whether or not he's gay,
> but your observations would be easily taken apart by any competent
> defence lawyer. It's obvious, but it wouldn't hold up in court.
You claim to observe this moral superiority, yet you can't give any
examples? I think it's a figment of your imagination.
>
>>
>>> Of course they make a point of not *claiming* moral superiority while
>>> doing all they can to ensure that other people get the message loud
>>> and clear.
>>
>>
>> They don't claim it, because most don't feel (in my experience) or
>> have a higher moral position.
>
> How many times have you sat with somebody eating a salad who points out
> that they also eat meat?
Occasionally. This reminds me of when I sat next to someone in a
restaurant, who said they were vegetarian, then went on to order the
duck! - Perhaps this is a meat eater trying to claim this mythical
"moral high ground", that doesn't really exist.
>
>>
>>> Their entire bearing says "we're not claiming to be superior to you,
>>> oh no, that would be rude and arrogant and not *nice*, but you do
>>> know that you are inferior to us, don't you? You don't? Here, take a
>>> pamphlet, it's all in there."
>>
>>
>> Again this is your misguided (self?) perception.
>
> Carnivores don't wear badges and t shirts proclaiming their status for
> the same reason that people don't wear "I didn't give money to charity"
Of course they do! What about "hunting pink" as just one example.
> badges. It is totally disingenuous to make out that vegetarians and
> vegans do not want people to think they are morally superior because of
> their diet, in exactly the same way that Christians do. People who
> expect recognition for their moral probity make a point of not asking
> for it but that doesn't mean they do not expect to get it and are hurt
> when they don't get it.
Unless you can give some evidence that this applies to the general
ve*gan population, I must consider this as a figment of your imagination.
There are irritating vegan zealots just as there are irritating
Christians, but they are few and far between, as you would get on the
"ends" of a normal population distribution.
>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Do you think I *couldn't* find evidence of such an argument being
>>>>> deployed if I could be arsed to do so?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It is used by some.
>>>
>>>
>>> Quite. If the cap fits, wear it.
>>
>>
>> There's nothing wrong with asking that particular hypothetical question.
>>
>> What "cap"?
>
> What? Are you unfamilar with that usage? You admitted that some vegans
> and vegetarians use that line of argument, therefore my points are
> addressed at such people. If you are one it is addressed at you, and I
> leave it with you to decide if you qualify.
I just wondered if the "cap" embraced a much wider scope than just that
of the usage. In this case it is a cap I have worn, but probably would
not again.
>
>
>>>>>
>>>>> Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and
>>>>> deer than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> More people eat salmon than tapeworms, none are more "noble" or
>>>> "nasty" than each other.
>>>
>>>
>>> People do not eat nasty animals. At least they don't like to think
>>> that they do. Muslims for example are taught to vilify pigs as well
>>> as not to eat them. I am not suggesting that species are objectively
>>> noble or nasty, that isn't the point, but the perceptions vary. We
>>> don't eat rats and cockroaches but we do eat prawns, which in turn
>>> eat marine carrion and excrement, but we put that image from our
>>> minds, even to the point of calling the alimentary canal of a prawn
>>> "just a vein", when in fact it clearly is scum sucker shit.
>>
>>
>> I'm sure an alien wouldn't mind cleaning your "vein".
>>
>
> But he'd probably prefer yours.
I don't think they'll be that picky, more likely to go after the one
that ate all the pies! The prize porker! ;-)
Yep.
>
> Meat is often the centrepiece of feasts because it is sharing food.
> Herbivores don't share food and don't have much in the way of society,
> they just use each other as bovine shields or the equivilent.
I think you've lost the plot here. Perhaps you've seen too many "turkey
on the table" movies.
If mankind
> was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and socially
> cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or not meat was
> a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was doesn't make
> an ought.
I agree meat was an important part of out human evolution. You and I are
fortunate to have a choice of what we eat. Perhaps more should think
about their choices, in particular what impact those choices have,
rather than blindly follow customs and practice.
>
>
pearl
> Martin Willett wrote:
<..>
> If mankind
> > was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and socially
> > cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or not meat was
> > a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was doesn't make
> > an ought.
>
> I agree meat was an important part of out human evolution.
'It has long been held that big game hunting is THE key development
in human evolutionary history, facilitating the appearance of patterns
in reproduction, social organization, and life history fundamental to
the modern human condition. Though this view has been challenged
strongly in recent years, it persists as the conventional wisdom, largely
for lack of a plausible alternative. Recent research on women's time
allocation and food sharing among tropical hunter-gatherers now
provides the basis for such an alternative.
The problem with big game hunting
The appeal of big game hunting as an important evolutionary force
lies in the common assumption that hunting and related paternal
provisioning are essential to child rearing among human foragers:
mother is seen as unable to bear, feed and raise children on her
own; hence relies on husband/father for critical nutritional support,
especially in the form of meat. This makes dating the first appearance
of this pattern the fundamental problem in human origins research.
The common association between stone tools and the bones of
large animals at sites of Pleistocene age suggests to many that it
may be quite old, possibly originating with Homo erectus nearly
two million years ago (e.g. Gowlett 1993).
Despite its widespread acceptance, there are good reasons to be
skeptical about the underlying assumption. Most important is the
observation that big game hunting is actually a poor way to support
a family. Among the Tanzanian Hadza, for example, men armed
with bows and poisoned arrows operating in a game-rich habitat
acquire large animal prey only about once every thirty hunter-days,
not nearly often enough to feed their children effectively. They
could do better as provisioners by taking small game or plant foods,
yet choose not to, which suggests that big game hunting serves some
other purpose unrelated to offspring survivorship (Hawkes et al. 1991).
Whatever it is, reliable support for children must come from elsewhere.
The importance of women's foraging and food sharing
Recent research on Hadza time allocation and foraging returns
shows that at least among these low latitude foragers, women's
gathering is the source (Hawkes et al. 1997). The most difficult time
of the year for the Hadza is the dry season, when foods younger
children can procure for themselves are unavailable. Mothers respond
by provisioning youngsters with foods they themselves can procure
daily and at relatively high rates, but that their children cannot, largely
because of handling requirements. Tubers, which require substantial
upper body strength and endurance to collect and the ability to
control fire in processing, are a good example.
Provisioning of this sort has at least two important implications:
1) it allows the Hadza to operate in times and places where they
otherwise could not if, as among other primates, weaned offspring
were responsible for feeding themselves; 2) it lets another adult
assist in the process allowing mother to turn her attention to the
next pregnancy that much sooner. Quantitative data on time
allocation, foraging returns, and changes in children's nutritional
status indicate that, among the Hadza, that other adult is typically
grandmother. Senior Hadza women forage long hours every day,
enjoy high returns for effort, and provision their grandchildren
effectively, especially when their daughters are nursing new infants
(Hawkes et al. 1989, 1997). Their support is crucial to both
daughters' fecundity and grandchildren's survivorship, with
important implications for grandmothers' own fitness.
...
http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http://www.cast.uark.edu/local/icaes/conferences/wburg/posters/oconnell/oconnell.html
'Ethnographic parallels with modern hunter-gatherer communities have
been taken to show that the colder the climate, the greater the reliance
on meat. There are sound biological and economic reasons for this, not
least in the ready availability of large amounts of fat in arctic mammals.
From this, it has been deduced that the humans of the glacial periods
were primarily hunters, while plant foods were more important during
the interglacials. '
http://www.phancocks.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/naturalhistory/devensian.htm
'Anthropologically speaking, humans were high consumers of calcium
until the onset of the Agricultural Age, 10,000 years ago. Current
calcium intake is one-quarter to one-third that of our evolutionary diet
and, if we are genetically identical to the Late Paleolithic Homo sapiens,
we may be consuming a calcium-deficient diet our bodies cannot adjust
to by physiologic mechanisms.
The anthropological approach says, with the exception of a few small
changes related to genetic blood diseases, that humans are basically
identical biologically and medically to the hunter-gatherers of the late
Paleolithic Era.17 During this period, calcium content of the diet was
much higher than it is currently. Depending on the ratio of animal to
plant foods, calcium intake could have exceeded 2000 mg per day.17
Calcium was largely derived from wild plants, which had a very high
calcium content; animal protein played a small role, and the use of dairy
products did not come into play until the Agricultural Age 10,000 years
ago. Compared to the current intake of approximately 500 mg per day
for women age 20 and over in the United States,18 hunter-gatherers had
a significantly higher calcium intake and apparently much stronger bones.
As late as 12,000 years ago, Stone Age hunters had an average of
17-percent more bone density (as measured by humeral cortical
thickness). Bone density also appeared to be stable over time with
an apparent absence of osteoporosis.17
High levels of calcium excretion via renal losses are seen with both
high salt and high protein diets, in each case at levels common in the
United States.10,11
..
The only hunter-gatherers that seemed to fall prey to bone loss
were the aboriginal Inuit (Eskimos). Although their physical
activity level was high, their osteoporosis incidence exceeded
even present-day levels in the United States. The Inuit diet was
high in phosphorus and protein and low in calcium.20
..'
http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/fulltext/calcium4-2.html
"..... Man appears to be formed to nourish himself chiefly on roots,
fruits and the succulent parts of vegetables. His hands make it easy
for him to gather them; the shortness and moderate strength of his
jaws, the equal length of his canine teeth with the others, and the
tubular character of his molars, permit him neither to graze, nor to
devour flesh, unless such food is first prepared by cooking."
-- Cuvier, Regne Animal, Vol 1, p73
After a careful and exhaustive study into comparative anatomy,
European scientist, Dr. Richard Lehne came to the conclusion,
"Quite apart from the physiological findings of nutritional science,
which perpetually alter and are always in an unsettled form,
comparative anatomy proves - and is supported by the millions-
of-years-old documents of palaeozoology - that human teeth in
their ideal form have a purely frugivorous character."
..'
http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020132sinclair/asthma.htm
Dutch
"Martin Willett" <mwille...@invalid.invalid> wrote
I think it's probably a combination, but that does not quite capture the
essence of my argument here. In the current context you said about
livestock, "it must surely better to live and die than not to". "Not to"
implies the existence a state of *unborness*, that's where the fallacy lies.
If such a state exists, then in order to call it inferior to "living and
dying" we must know something about it, and I submit that we don't. If it
doesn't exist then the statement cannot logically be made. As the author
above says, we make such statements with "the terra firma of existence to
argue from", and a very pleasant existence at that. I think that we *can*
say something quite similar to your statement to summarize the morality of
breeding livestock, and that is, *if* we breed animals to be food for us,
and we ensure that their lives are happy and content, then no person can
fairly accuse us of wrongdoing. Can you see what I am getting at? It is the
"ensuring that their lives are happy and content" that contains the valid
moral principle here.
> Do you regard lying to yourself as a form of sin?
I would have to say most likely yes, because such dishonesty would
inevitably lead to unjust behaviour towards others.
I would also like to add that it has been a very, very long time since
someone new of your caliber has come to these groups to address these
issues, I hope you decide to stay a while and share your insights.
Dutch
<dh@.> wrote
> On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 01:38:45 GMT, "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Martin Willett" <mwille...@invalid.invalid> wrote
>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>>> But not much respect for the pig?
>>>
>>> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
>>> of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
>>> than not to.
>>>
>>> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there,
>>> so
>>> don't bother pointing it out.
>>
>>I really like your posts Martin, I agree with everything you have said up
>>to
>>now, but
>
> Now he has suggested that something could be ethically equivalent
> or superior to the elimination of domestic animals,
That's got nothing to do with it dipshit. I don't dispute that *using animal
products* is "ethically equivalent or superior to the elimination of
domestic animals" to use your awkward wording. My argument is simply
examining the logic of the premise "If we didn't eat the pigs they would
never exist at all..."
S. Maizlich
No, that's illogical thinking. When you compare two
things, the things must exist in order for the
comparison to make sense. It is patently absurd to say
that existing (no matter what the quality of life) is
better than never existing.
What does it mean for something to be "better" for some
entity? It means that the entity either must perceive
itself to be, or objectively seen by others as being,
better off THAN IT WAS BEFORE. That is, the entity's
welfare must have *improved* from what it was before.
But prior to existing, there was no entity, and so
there was no welfare of the entity. Thus, we see that
is is plainly absurd to talk about existence, per se,
making the entity "better off". Existence is what
establishes an entity's welfare; it does *not* improve it.
This false belief that it is better to exist than never
to exist leads to an infamous bit of illogic called the
Logic of the Larder, taken from the title of a famous
essay on this very topic. It leads someone to conclude
that he is doing a domestic animal he kills and eats
some kind of "favor" by causing it to exist. But the
person who wishes to eat meat cannot justify his meat
eating by saying he made the animal better off by
having caused it to exist. It is obvious that a person
who attempts to engage in this illogic harbors some
kind of doubts over the ethical justice of eating meat,
and is frantically trying to rationalize his diet by
making some aspect of it seem "other-directed". But
it's a dead end.
> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there,
> so don't bother pointing it out.
No, the qualifier is irrelevant. It is the *entire*
concept that is flawed.
>
> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
> could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
> loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
And therein lies the *correct* justification for eating
meat: there is nothing inherently wrong with killing
an animal. Predators do it all the time, and there is
no moral dimension to their doing it. As long as one
isn't intentionally inflicting needless suffering on
animals, no rationale for the basic act of killing them
to eat them is needed.
Leif Erikson
> On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 01:38:45 GMT, "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote:
>
>
>>"Martin Willett" <mwille...@invalid.invalid> wrote
>>
>>>ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>>>But not much respect for the pig?
>>>
>>>If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
>>>of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
>>>than not to.
>>>
>>>Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there, so
>>>don't bother pointing it out.
>>
>>I really like your posts Martin, I agree with everything you have said up to
>>now, but
>
>
> Now he has suggested that something could be ethically equivalent
> or superior to the elimination of domestic animals,
No. There is no moral credit to be taken for causing
domestic animals to exist. The animals are in no way
"better off" for having come into existence.
>
>>that is a fallacy. You cannot compare living and dying to *not*
>>living, since never being born, never existing is not a real state. This is
>>called "The Logic of the Larder"
>
>
> Other than YOU/"ARAs", who else calls considering farm animals' lives
> The Logic of the Larder?
Everyone who thinks about it seriously and correctly.
>>and there is one fruitcake here who has
>>already replied to you who makes it his life's work to promote this idea.
>
>
> It's just something I've been doing because
Because you stupidly subscribe to the Illogic of the
Larder.
Leif Erikson
Right. There is only one long-term participant in this
or related newsgroups who subscribes to the bullshit
Illogic of the Larder: a 47-year-old Atlanta (Georgia)
area fuckwit and homosexual named David Harrison who is
better known by most of the other regular participants
here as Fuckwit. Fuckwit believes that coming into
existence -per se- is a good thing for the entity that
comes into existence
Dutch
>>>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat
>>>> anything smarter than a pig,
>>>
>>>
>>> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you drawn
>>> this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
>
> I'd like you to answer this point.
We all draw the line somewhere. Why do you believe that it is all right to
destroy animal populations in order to grow vegetables, fruit, grain,
cotton..?
[..]
>> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig could
>> face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their loving
>> families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
>
> This line of thinking is very often pulled apart as being complete BS. by
> both camps. I see some have already pointed this out.
Why is it complete BS? When animals die in crop fields they are often
cruelly dismembered or else are poisoned and die slowly of internal
hemorrhaging. Why is that all right and a bolt through the brain is not?
[..]
> I think you're blurring the realms of hypothesis and reality under the
> pretense of a "joke".
I think you are blurring human rights and our relationship with the rest of
the animal kingdom under the pretense of "morality".
[..]
> You claim to observe this moral superiority, yet you can't give any
> examples? I think it's a figment of your imagination.
You are in denial. Every time a veg*n announces that they don't eat meat,
wrinkle their nose sanctimoniously at a piece of meat, agonize rudely about
some microscopic bit of animal cells in some condiment, refer to statements
like "Meat is Murder", or bring up issues like "slaughterhouses" or "factory
farming" in discussion, they are implicitly setting themselves up as moral
paragons. In fact another way vegans describe themselves is "Ethical
Vegetarians". If you are "ethical" then what am I?
[..]
> If mankind
>> was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and socially
>> cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or not meat was
>> a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was doesn't make
>> an ought.
>
> I agree meat was an important part of out human evolution. You and I are
> fortunate to have a choice of what we eat. Perhaps more should think about
> their choices, in particular what impact those choices have, rather than
> blindly follow customs and practice.
The practise of abstaining from all animal products in food is no less
blindly following custom than any other choice. Perhaps vegetarians should
spend more time look closely at the impact of their own food choices instead
of just peering self-righteously at the choices others make.
Jeff Caird
> On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 04:29:05 -0000, Jeff Caird <profes...@knox.edu> wrote:
>
>>On 2005-12-25, dh@. <dh@> wrote:
>>> How about rishathra?
>>>
>>
>>Is that from Ringworld?
>>
>>Feffer
>
> Yes. I wondered if anyone was familiar with that. I just
> found out yesterday they were going to make a movie
> a few years ago, but it didn't work out for some reason
> dammit.
Just as well. Did you see what they did with Riverworld?
Feffy
Martin Willett
From my own personal experience I know that it is possible to raise
animals for meat and they have a good life. I have seen it in action, I
have seen animals being cared for by my mother and by her father. I know
that farming is not by its fundamental nature cruel. It can become cruel
if the drive to keep down food prices is allowed to reduce the standards
of husbandry to unacceptible levels. It is the banks and supermarket
buyers that are determining how cruel farming is.
I see no reason to give up eating meat entirely for ever just because
some animals have been kept in poor conditions. I think drink driving is
a terrible thing but I don't see how going teetotal myself and whingeing
on about it to anybody who will listen (while making out that I'm not
trying to portray myself as morally superior) is the best way to prevent it.
If there is an issue with the welfare of farm animals there is an issue
with the welfare of farm animals and I say it should be addressed
directly and I will have no problem in paying more for food as a
consequence.
>> Do you regard lying to yourself as a form of sin?
>
>
> I would have to say most likely yes, because such dishonesty would
> inevitably lead to unjust behaviour towards others.
>
> I would also like to add that it has been a very, very long time
> since someone new of your caliber has come to these groups to address
> these issues, I hope you decide to stay a while and share your
> insights.
>
>
>
I like the cut of your jib.
(In case you're not familiar with that phrase I'm sure the origin is
nautical and has nothing to do with butchery.)
I think I have just worked out a new moral principle that is better than
the not eating anything smarter than a pig principle but also has the
same virtue of not making me change my ways and not painting me as a
hypocrite in the front of ravenous aliens: I'll not kill or contribute
to the death of any animal for food purposes /if that animal is clearly
capable of making a moral choice/, unless they have given me explicit
permission.
ant and dec
Do you buy your food from the supermarket? Do you know or particularly
care where it comes from?
>
>
>>> Do you regard lying to yourself as a form of sin?
>>
>>
>> I would have to say most likely yes, because such dishonesty would
>> inevitably lead to unjust behaviour towards others.
>>
>> I would also like to add that it has been a very, very long time
>> since someone new of your caliber has come to these groups to address
>> these issues, I hope you decide to stay a while and share your
>> insights.
>>
>>
>>
>
> I like the cut of your jib.
>
> (In case you're not familiar with that phrase I'm sure the origin is
> nautical and has nothing to do with butchery.)
>
> I think I have just worked out a new moral principle that is better than
> the not eating anything smarter than a pig principle but also has the
> same virtue of not making me change my ways and not painting me as a
> hypocrite in the front of ravenous aliens: I'll not kill or contribute
> to the death of any animal for food purposes /if that animal is clearly
> capable of making a moral choice/, unless they have given me explicit
> permission.
>
What prompted this rethink?
Your lack of response in other threads in interesting. - Perhaps you're
more suited to 'debating' with a sycophant.
What difference does the ability to make a moral choice have on your
want to kill and eat a species?
Do you *know* that a pig can not differentiate between right and wrong?
ant and dec
> "ant and dec" <a...@dec.itv.com> wrote
>> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>>>>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat
>>>>> anything smarter than a pig,
>>>>
>>>> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you drawn
>>>> this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
>> I'd like you to answer this point.
>
> We all draw the line somewhere. Why do you believe that it is all right to
> destroy animal populations in order to grow vegetables, fruit, grain,
> cotton..?
>
> [..]
>
>>> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig could
>>> face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their loving
>>> families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
>> This line of thinking is very often pulled apart as being complete BS. by
>> both camps. I see some have already pointed this out.
>
> Why is it complete BS?
You've already stated why.
>When animals die in crop fields they are often
> cruelly dismembered or else are poisoned and die slowly of internal
> hemorrhaging. Why is that all right and a bolt through the brain is not?
Animals are dismembered, but there is no one deriving any pleasure
(being cruel) from it. One is easily avoided.
>
> [..]
>
>
>> I think you're blurring the realms of hypothesis and reality under the
>> pretense of a "joke".
>
> I think you are blurring human rights and our relationship with the rest of
> the animal kingdom under the pretense of "morality".
Yes we have a moral responsibility to the rest of the animal kingdom.
>
> [..]
>
>> You claim to observe this moral superiority, yet you can't give any
>> examples? I think it's a figment of your imagination.
>
> You are in denial. Every time a veg*n announces that they don't eat meat,
> wrinkle their nose sanctimoniously at a piece of meat,
"wrinkle their nose sanctimoniously"!
>agonize rudely about
> some microscopic bit of animal cells in some condiment,
"agonize rudely"!
>refer to statements
> like "Meat is Murder", or bring up issues like "slaughterhouses" or "factory
> farming" in discussion,
What's wrong with bring-up issues like "slaughterhouses" or "factory
farming" in a discussion?
>they are implicitly setting themselves up as moral
> paragons. In fact another way vegans describe themselves is "Ethical
> Vegetarians". If you are "ethical" then what am I?
We have different ethics. "If you are "ethical" then what am I?"
>
> [..]
>
>> If mankind
>>> was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and socially
>>> cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or not meat was
>>> a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was doesn't make
>>> an ought.
>> I agree meat was an important part of out human evolution. You and I are
>> fortunate to have a choice of what we eat. Perhaps more should think about
>> their choices, in particular what impact those choices have, rather than
>> blindly follow customs and practice.
>
> The practise of abstaining from all animal products in food is no less
> blindly following custom than any other choice. Perhaps vegetarians should
> spend more time look closely at the impact of their own food choices instead
> of just peering self-righteously at the choices others make.
"peering self-righteously"!
I was all inclusive in my statement, yet you have misread it; possibly
purposly to pull out a dietary sub-set of vegetarians.
>
>
This post typifies your modus operandi.
You seem to have labeled me as a ve*gan, and have then go on to
seemingly purposely misinterpret my posts adding inflammatory words of
no value except to demonstrate your dislike.
From what I've seen so far your posts rarely add value.
ant and dec
Thanks for that. Very interesting; of particular personal interest was
the anthropological articles on calcium and osteoporosis.
:-)
The theory I was thinking of was the "brain food theory":
Brain food
Because meat is rich in calories and nutrients, easy-to-digest food,
early Homo lost the need for big intestines like apes and earlier
hominids had. This freed up energy for use by other organs. This surplus
of energy seems to have been diverted to one organ in particular - the
brain. But scavenging meat from under the noses of big cats is a risky
business, so good scavengers needed to be smart. At this stage in our
evolution, a big brain was associated with greater intellect. Big brains
require lots of energy to operate: the human brain uses 20% of the
body's total energy production. But the massive calorific hit provided
by meat kick-started an increase in the brain size of early humans.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/human/human_evolution/food_for_thought1.shtml
Mind you, this was written by Robert Winston who's has sold himself to
the food industry.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/lords/comment/0,9236,1560223,00.html
http://www.omega3.co.uk/omega3/pages/omega_3.php
>
rick
Like you, I have no idea where the fruits and veggies I eat come
from specifically. I know that much of it is imported, very
little is actually local, and that it requires lots of processing
and transportation. Now, as to the beef I eat, I know exactly
where it comes from. Not more than a few miles away. Is
completely grass-fed, never goes to a feedlot or fed any grains,
never given any hormones, and is not given anti-biotics as a
standard practice. It goes to a local slaughter house, and then
to my freezer. The whole process occurs completely without
minutes of my house.
========================
What a coincidence, neither can usenet vegans....
>
rick
"ant and dec" <a...@dec.itv.com> wrote in message
news:41a3nbF...@individual.net...
Your pleasure means nothing, hypocrite. the animals are still
dead, and they are dead at your behest, killer. tell us how you
propse to do the avoidance progeam of yours, fool.
>
>>
>> [..]
>>
>>
>>> I think you're blurring the realms of hypothesis and reality
>>> under the pretense of a "joke".
>>
>> I think you are blurring human rights and our relationship
>> with the rest of the animal kingdom under the pretense of
>> "morality".
>
> Yes we have a moral responsibility to the rest of the animal
> kingdom.
>
>>
>> [..]
>>
>>> You claim to observe this moral superiority, yet you can't
>>> give any examples? I think it's a figment of your
>>> imagination.
>>
>> You are in denial. Every time a veg*n announces that they
>> don't eat meat, wrinkle their nose sanctimoniously at a piece
>> of meat,
>
> "wrinkle their nose sanctimoniously"!
=====================
Exactly. glad you agree, killer...
>
>>agonize rudely about some microscopic bit of animal cells in
>>some condiment,
>
> "agonize rudely"!
==================
Yes, completely, glad you agree, killer...
>
>>refer to statements like "Meat is Murder", or bring up issues
>>like "slaughterhouses" or "factory farming" in discussion,
>
> What's wrong with bring-up issues like "slaughterhouses" or
> "factory farming" in a discussion?
========================
Nothing, if you also bring up the massive death and suffering
from factory-famed crops, hypocrite. the problem is that it is
always glossed over by hypocrites like you. Also, usenet vegans
like to pretend that all meat comes from some imaginary process
of wanton abuse, cruelty and brutality. Your problem is that
you've watched and listened to too many propaganda spews.
>
>>they are implicitly setting themselves up as moral paragons. In
>>fact another way vegans describe themselves is "Ethical
>>Vegetarians". If you are "ethical" then what am I?
>
> We have different ethics. "If you are "ethical" then what am
> I?"
=====================
Hypocritical. You do nothing to follow your supposed ethics,
except the false and simple rule for your simple mind, 'eat no
meat.'
>
>>
>> [..]
>>
>>> If mankind
>>>> was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and
>>>> socially
>>>> cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or
>>>> not meat was
>>>> a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was
>>>> doesn't make an ought.
>>> I agree meat was an important part of out human evolution.
>>> You and I are fortunate to have a choice of what we eat.
>>> Perhaps more should think about their choices, in particular
>>> what impact those choices have, rather than blindly follow
>>> customs and practice.
>>
>> The practise of abstaining from all animal products in food is
>> no less blindly following custom than any other choice.
>> Perhaps vegetarians should spend more time look closely at the
>> impact of their own food choices instead of just peering
>> self-righteously at the choices others make.
>
> "peering self-righteously"!
=====================
Exactly, glad you agree, killer...
>
> I was all inclusive in my statement, yet you have misread it;
> possibly purposly to pull out a dietary sub-set of vegetarians.
>
>>
>>
>
> This post typifies your modus operandi.
>
> You seem to have labeled me as a ve*gan, and have then go on to
> seemingly purposely misinterpret my posts adding inflammatory
> words of no value except to demonstrate your dislike.
>
> From what I've seen so far your posts rarely add value.
=============================
And your never do, fool...
>
>
pearl
> pearl wrote:
<..>
>
> Thanks for that. Very interesting; of particular personal interest was
> the anthropological articles on calcium and osteoporosis.
You're welcome.
> :-)
>
>
>
> The theory I was thinking of was the "brain food theory":
>
>
> Brain food
>
> Because meat is rich in calories and nutrients, easy-to-digest food,
> early Homo lost the need for big intestines like apes and earlier
> hominids had. This freed up energy for use by other organs. This surplus
> of energy seems to have been diverted to one organ in particular - the
> brain. But scavenging meat from under the noses of big cats is a risky
> business, so good scavengers needed to be smart. At this stage in our
> evolution, a big brain was associated with greater intellect. Big brains
> require lots of energy to operate: the human brain uses 20% of the
> body's total energy production. But the massive calorific hit provided
> by meat kick-started an increase in the brain size of early humans.
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/human/human_evolution/food_for_thought1.shtml
If that were the case, carnivores should have massive brains!
> Mind you, this was written by Robert Winston who's has sold himself to
> the food industry.
>
> http://politics.guardian.co.uk/lords/comment/0,9236,1560223,00.html
> http://www.omega3.co.uk/omega3/pages/omega_3.php
:)
Proc Biol Sci. 1998 Oct 22;265(1409):1933-7.
Visual specialization and brain evolution in primates.
Barton RA.
Department of Anthropology, University of Durham, UK.
Several theories have been proposed to explain the evolution of
species differences in brain size, but no consensus has emerged.
One unresolved question is whether brain size differences are a
result of neural specializations or of biological constraints
affecting the whole brain. Here I show that, among primates,
brain size variation is associated with visual specialization.
Primates with large brains for their body size have relatively
expanded visual brain areas, including the primary visual cortex
and lateral geniculate nucleus. Within the visual system, it is, in
particular, one functionally specialized pathway upon which
selection has acted: evolutionary changes in the number of
neurons in parvocellular, but not magnocellular, layers of the
lateral geniculate nucleus are correlated with changes in both
brain size and ecological variables (diet and social group size).
Given the known functions of the parvocellular pathway, these
results suggest that the relatively large brains of frugivorous
species are products of selection on the ability to perceive
and select fruits using specific visual cues such as colour.
The separate correlation between group size and visual brain
evolution, on the other hand, may indicate the visual basis of
social information processing in the primate brain.
PMID: 9821360 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9821360&dopt=Abstract
Dave
Martin Willett wrote:
> Dave wrote:
> > Martin Willett wrote:
> >
> >>ant and dec wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
> >>>>posted by the author
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of
> >>>meat.
> >>>
> >>>A troll.
> >>
> >>to the points I made.
> >>
> >>of them. What was incorrect?
> >>
> >>find evidence of such an argument being deployed if I could be arsed to
> >>do so?
> >
> >
> > eaten
> > by an alien" is a misrepresentation of the argument.
>
> I would say it was an instructive re-interpretation of the argument that
> shows how truly fatuous the idea is. Veg*ns will often use the "how
> would you like it if somebody ate you?" line of reasoning (well, they
> think it's reasoning) without going on to flesh out the ramifications of
> the argument. It is an argument by ellipses. You float the idea half
> finished, let it trail in the air, and hope the other person will flesh
> it out in a way that convinces them that you had a point.
>
> Sorry about all the flesh in that paragraph, I can be such a meathead at
> times.
>
> So what does the argument actually mean? It is clearly not a recipe to
> avoid being eaten by aliens as I have shown.
Yes. You have shown that the argument is not a recipe for avoiding
something it was never intended to avoid in the first place. Well done.
:-)
> Any carnivore would prefer
> to eat a vegetarian rather than a carnivore if there was any preference
> at all, and if they were the sort of sickos that got off on the idea of
> eating sentient and intelligent beings they would probably prefer to eat
> the upstanding morally superior vegan rather than the hypocrite who eats
> bacon and tries not to think about pigs. I can conceive of no possible
> scenario in which the alien would eat carnivorous people and invite
> vegans around for an after dinner game of backgammon and a chat about
> the moral superiority of not exploiting animals.
>
> So if it is isn't about a defence mechanism against consumption by
> aliens what is it? An invitation to eat your way to moral superiority?
> "I can out-smug you, but you could join me on this high horse". Come on,
> come clean.
>
> First alien: This roast man is delicious. A vegan, I can tell. I love
> the stuffing.
>
> Second alien: Stuffing?
>
> First alien: Yes, the nut stuffing, really tangy. What did you use to
> stuff it? Nuts, mushrooms, onions a little garlic I think. I can see
> sweetcorn, what else?
>
> Second alien: I didn't have to stuff it. It wasn't empty.
Dave
Martin Willett wrote:
> ant and dec wrote:
> > Martin Willett wrote:
> >
> >> ant and dec wrote:
> >>
> >>> Martin Willett wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
> >>>> posted by the author
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption
> >>> of meat.
> >>>
> >>> A troll.
> >>
> >>
> >> How do you make that out?
> >
> >
> > device for mental conflict, perhaps caused by your recognition of your
> > own hypocrisy.
> >
> >
>
> doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
>
> > >>
> > It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
> >
> >> to the points I made.
> >
> >
>
> Why restrict yourself to one?
>
> >
> >>
> >> one of them. What was incorrect?
> >
> >
> > common food.
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon
>
> How is this a contradiction?
>
> "The only carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are fish,
> animals that some people who call themselves vegetarians even try to
> redefine as some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies, haddock
> are animals that eat other animals, being cold bloodied, small-eyed and
> ugly doesn't change anything, fish are not vegetables. If you eat fish
> you cannot be a vegetarian."
>
> >
> >>
> >> eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance?
> >
> >
> > claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your perception of
> > your own morality.
If people decide to avoid animal source food products for perceived
ethical reasons as the vast majority of vegans do then it follows
they must consider this to be a higher moral stance.
> Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like Christians
> and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion, like slugs. Of
> course they make a point of not *claiming* moral superiority while doing
> all they can to ensure that other people get the message loud and clear.
> Their entire bearing says "we're not claiming to be superior to you, oh
> no, that would be rude and arrogant and not *nice*, but you do know that
> you are inferior to us, don't you? You don't? Here, take a pamphlet,
> it's all in there."
Since you obviously have a problem with it perhaps you might like to
give
veg*ns some advice. Should they avoid acting in what they consider to
be the morally superior fashion in case it makes other people feel
uncomfortable? Show they avoid trying to educate people whom they
believe have similar moral values but eat animal products out of
ignorance?
How would you act if you agreed with their views about the raising or
killing of animals?
> >> Do you think I *couldn't* find evidence of such an argument being
> >> deployed if I could be arsed to do so?
> >
> >
> > It is used by some.
>
> Quite. If the cap fits, wear it.
>
> >
> >>
> >> Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and
> >> deer than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?
> >
> >
> > More people eat salmon than tapeworms, none are more "noble" or "nasty"
> > than each other.
>
> People do not eat nasty animals. At least they don't like to think that
> they do. Muslims for example are taught to vilify pigs as well as not to
> eat them. I am not suggesting that species are objectively noble or
> nasty, that isn't the point, but the perceptions vary. We don't eat rats
> and cockroaches but we do eat prawns, which in turn eat marine carrion
> and excrement, but we put that image from our minds, even to the point
> of calling the alimentary canal of a prawn "just a vein", when in fact
> it clearly is scum sucker shit.
>
> >
> >>
> >> In what way did I justify the consumption of meat? I didn't. I simply
> >> took apart one of the arguments sometimes used against meat eating and
> >> showed it to be rather farcical.
> >
> >
> > You've recognised your own hypocrisy, and have attempted to make joke
> > out of it.
>
> I endeavour to make a joke out of most things.
>
> Sometimes I even succeed.
>
> >
> >>
> >> I posted this here because I was looking to see if anybody could come
> >> up with any good case against me. Of course the original piece was
> >> designed to be humorous (do veg*ns do humour?) and was not intended to
> >> win any debate. I run a website that tackles dozens of issues, I don't
> >> have a single-issue agenda. I've been doing this kind of stuff for six
> >> years now and I've never been hounded out of any newsgroup and neither
> >> has any newsgroup ever disbanded because they've been blown away by
> >> the power of my analysis and rapier-like wit (with the possible
> >> exception of alt.religion.christian.amish, but I think they had a few
> >> philosophical difficulties before I showed up). I am here to stimulate
> >> a conversation, not a conversion. I haven't insulted you so I'd
> >> appreciate it if you didn't insult me. If you don't want to engage
> >> with me then fine, don't do it. But please don't do other people's
> >> thinking for them by hanging a ready-made hate label round my neck.
> >
> >
> > I don't hate you. From what I can see you seem a quite a nice guy!
>
> Thanks, but it does annoy me when people are so quick to hang the
> ready-made labels around people's necks. "He's just a troll." I am much
> more than that.
>
> >
> >
> >>
> >> I've just re-read your post. Is "A Troll" your usual signature? I
> >> apologize if I misinterpreted the nature of your post.
> >
> >
> > If you were looking for a good case against you, perhaps you should have
> > written something for that purpose.
> >
> > Your response has made me reconsider your troll status!
> >
>
> Good. My troll status is something I am very proud of. I am not your
> common or garden troll. http://www.mwillett.org/troll.htm
>
>
ant and dec
Thanks again.
I have moved my position on whether meat had a major part to play in
human evolution. I will read more, but on balance there seems little
evidence to support that it did.
>
>
Martin Willett
Does this mean nobody will ever use the "what would you think if
something tried to eat you?" line again? I doubt it somehow.
Leif Erikson
No, the ultimate responsibility for the conditions
animals are raised in lies squarely with the consumer.
If consumers demanded - and were willing to pay the
extra cost for - free range chickens and grass fed beef
and pork from hogs raised in velvet-lined stalls,
that's what would be produced. Most consumers, at
least in America, just want the food to be cheap and
reasonably healthful (Americans don't particularly care
about flavor); they are oblivious to the conditions in
which the animals are raised and transported and
slaughtered, because they just don't care.
It is indeed possible to raise animals that have a good
life, at least good as we conceive of it for them, but
that *still* doesn't mean that it's better for animals
raised humanely to have existed rather than never
existing. There is NO moral meaning, to the animal,
from "getting to exist".
So you permit yourself to eat human infants, as well as
adults who have suffered major head trauma or who
suffer from severe mental illness?
Leif Erikson
Your question doesn't seem a reasonable response to the
excerpt from The Logic of the Larder that Dutch posted.
>
> Do you regard lying to yourself as a form of sin?
How about you?
S. Maizlich
It is UNDISPUTED by evolutionary biologists that meat
played an indispensable role in human evolution.
Meat's role was both direct and indirect. The direct
role was in providing the massive amount of protein
needed for brain development. The indirect role is as
an organizing principle of human activity.
Martin Willett
> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>> ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>>>>> posted by the author
>>>>
>>>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat
>>>> anything smarter than a pig,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you
>>> drawn this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
>
>
> I'd like you to answer this point.
>
I think you know the answer to that as clearly as I do: pigs are (by
quite a distance) the smartest animal I regularly eat, the only thing
that comes close is pigeons and since I gave away my shotgun I haven't
felt the need to eat any of them.
>>>
>>> unless I really have to. Fortunately that rule
>>>
>>>> doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
>>>> intelligence of pigs.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> But not much respect for the pig?
>>
>>
>> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as
>> most of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live
>> and die than not to.
>>
>> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it
>> there, so don't bother pointing it out.
>>
>> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
>> could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
>> loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
>
>
> This line of thinking is very often pulled apart as being complete BS.
> by both camps. I see some have already pointed this out.
>
I see. Which part of the argument? The porcine hospices? Have you got
any photographs?
>>>
>>>> Chimp chops? No thanks!
>>>>
>>>>> >>
>>>>> It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
>>>>>
>>>>>> to the points I made.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Does a diatribe have a point?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Why restrict yourself to one?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> We can move on, as the points are coming out.
>>>
>>>>
Like a wet t shirt competition in a stiff easterly breeze.
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is
>>>>>> rarely one of them. What was incorrect?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Salmon, as *one* example is a carnivorous species that we eat as a
>>>>> common food.
>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> How is this a contradiction?
>>>>
>>>> "The only carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are
>>>> fish, animals that some people who call themselves vegetarians even
>>>> try to redefine as some sort of vegetable. I've news for you
>>>> veggies, haddock are animals that eat other animals, being cold
>>>> bloodied, small-eyed and ugly doesn't change anything, fish are not
>>>> vegetables. If you eat fish you cannot be a vegetarian."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Sorry I missed that caveat. The article focused on not eating
>>> carnivores, we eat carnivorous fish (and other things to a lesser
>>> extent)what stops these hypothetical aliens 'fishing' for carnivorous
>>> humans?
>>
>>
>> Nothing at all. Except that with billions of us to choose from
>> thinking purely as a connoisseur of meat I wouldn't be eating a 42
>> year old overweight male omnivore when I could have a teenage vegan
>> instead. I'd be fit only for sausages or pies. My granddad was a
>> farmer. He knew what to eat, food was his life. He always went for
>> local grass-fed heifer beef. I think aliens would think the same way.
>
>
> I think you're blurring the realms of hypothesis and reality under the
> pretense of a "joke".
This evening I'll be blurring the realms of reality with absinthe. But
jokes are good too.
>>>>>> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting
>>>>>> to be eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> What higher moral stance? Different morals perhaps. Why do you feel
>>>>> they claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your
>>>>> perception of your own morality.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like
>>>> Christians and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion,
>>>> like slugs.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I think this is a problem of your perception. Do you think I ooze
>>> moral superiority like a slug, and why? Can you could give some
>>> examples of personal experience as evidence?
>>
>>
>> They're too good at smugging it up to do much that you can put your
>> finger on. But you can tell, just like you don't have to see a man
>> engaged in sodomy to get a pretty good idea of whether or not he's gay,
>> but your observations would be easily taken apart by any competent
>> defence lawyer. It's obvious, but it wouldn't hold up in court.
>
>
> You claim to observe this moral superiority, yet you can't give any
> examples? I think it's a figment of your imagination.
>
And I think you're being deliberately dense because it suits your cause.
Of course vegetarians want and expect to be seen as morally superior,
but without asking for it specifically. Can you imagine anybody ever
answering the question "did you do that to be seen as morally superior?"
in the affirmative? If so please tell me what colour the sky is on your
home planet. Of course people do things in order to be seen as better
people but equally obviously they will always vehemently deny it. We
don't have to believe them.
It is a part of human nature. That is why poppies and paper lifeboats
exist and why people make stickers that say "My mummy gave blood today".
But if you ever ask them whether they did something to appear to be
morally superior they instantly make up a lot of lame excuses.
Vegetarians and vegans do not realistically expect the world to turn
vegetarian but they keep promoting vegetarianism because it allows them
*to be seen* as vegetarians. If nobody ate meat they wouldn't have
anybody to feel superior to so they'd have to give up something else or
actually do something worthy in and of itself.
If vegetarians were not regarded as morally superior and vegetarianism
was not seen as evidence of moral fibre then the Nazis wouldn't have
made so much of Hitler's spurious diet choices.
My best advice to you would be carry on. Your propaganda isn't working,
so don't change it. The world will never go vegan. You're quite safe.
You will always have access to the moral high ground by simply not
eating certain foods. Just think, other people had to charge down
machine gun nests armed with a swagger stick, get beaten up by the Ku
Klux Klan or expel the infidels from Jerusalem to get what you get, all
you have to do is pretend to enjoy mung beans and tofu.
>>>
>>>> Of course they make a point of not *claiming* moral superiority
>>>> while doing all they can to ensure that other people get the message
>>>> loud and clear.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> They don't claim it, because most don't feel (in my experience) or
>>> have a higher moral position.
>>
>>
>> How many times have you sat with somebody eating a salad who points out
>> that they also eat meat?
>
>
> Occasionally.
Really? "I'm eating a salad but I'd like to point out to you that I'm
not a limp-wristed carrot-muncher I also eat meat"
What kind of leaves were in your salad? Where do you pick your mushrooms?
> This reminds me of when I sat next to someone in a
> restaurant, who said they were vegetarian, then went on to order the
> duck! - Perhaps this is a meat eater trying to claim this mythical
> "moral high ground", that doesn't really exist.
>
There is a technical term for people who do that: ignorant twats.
>>
>>>
>>>> Their entire bearing says "we're not claiming to be superior to you,
>>>> oh no, that would be rude and arrogant and not *nice*, but you do
>>>> know that you are inferior to us, don't you? You don't? Here, take a
>>>> pamphlet, it's all in there."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Again this is your misguided (self?) perception.
>>
>>
>> Carnivores don't wear badges and t shirts proclaiming their status for
>> the same reason that people don't wear "I didn't give money to charity"
>
>
> Of course they do! What about "hunting pink" as just one example.
Tell me, when was the last time you saw
a) a huntsman eat a fox
and
b) somebody wear hunting pink outside of a hunt organized event where
they knew they were not likely to be surrounded or outnumbered by oiks
>
>> badges. It is totally disingenuous to make out that vegetarians and
>> vegans do not want people to think they are morally superior because of
>> their diet, in exactly the same way that Christians do. People who
>> expect recognition for their moral probity make a point of not asking
>> for it but that doesn't mean they do not expect to get it and are hurt
>> when they don't get it.
>
>
> Unless you can give some evidence that this applies to the general
> ve*gan population, I must consider this as a figment of your imagination.
No, you mustn't. You may choose to, you may want to, but there is no
compulsion on you.
I have already explained why I can't prove it. But neither can anybody
prove that there is or isn't a god. Just because something can't be
proved it doesn't follow that it isn't so. I can't *prove* Elvis isn't
running a whelk stall on Venus either.
>
> There are irritating vegan zealots just as there are irritating
> Christians, but they are few and far between, as you would get on the
> "ends" of a normal population distribution.
>
I suppose this is the only form of normality vegans ever achieve:
statistical.
<snip>
>>
>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and
>>>>>> deer than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> More people eat salmon than tapeworms, none are more "noble" or
>>>>> "nasty" than each other.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> People do not eat nasty animals. At least they don't like to think
>>>> that they do. Muslims for example are taught to vilify pigs as well
>>>> as not to eat them. I am not suggesting that species are objectively
>>>> noble or nasty, that isn't the point, but the perceptions vary. We
>>>> don't eat rats and cockroaches but we do eat prawns, which in turn
>>>> eat marine carrion and excrement, but we put that image from our
>>>> minds, even to the point of calling the alimentary canal of a prawn
>>>> "just a vein", when in fact it clearly is scum sucker shit.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm sure an alien wouldn't mind cleaning your "vein".
>>>
>>
>> But he'd probably prefer yours.
>
>
> I don't think they'll be that picky, more likely to go after the one
> that ate all the pies! The prize porker! ;-)
You're obviously well out of the loop as far as meat eating goes. The
only thing that might interest an interstellar gormet about me would
perhaps be my liver.
<snip>
>>>
>>> PS. I may be away for a day or two. - Apparently there's a Christian
>>> (traditionally meat centric) festival going on that I'm expected to
>>> take part in!
>>
>>
>> Me and my two atheist children will be celebrating it tomorrow too. My
>> Christian wife is out babysitting while some Jewish friends go out for a
>> Christmas drink. It's a funny old world, isn't it?
>
>
> Yep.
>
>>
>> Meat is often the centrepiece of feasts because it is sharing food.
>> Herbivores don't share food and don't have much in the way of society,
>> they just use each other as bovine shields or the equivilent.
>
>
> I think you've lost the plot here. Perhaps you've seen too many "turkey
> on the table" movies.
No herbivorous species shares food. If you want to ingratiate yourself
with a gorilla you eat alongside them, or pretend to. You don't offer
them food. Pretty much the only food herbivores ever give away is milk.
But things are very different with meat, especially meat that is gained
via cooperative hunting. The complexity of social organization in a wolf
pack is orders of magnitude greater than in a flock of sheep.
Chimpanzees have their most interesting social behaviours when they are
cooperating on a hunt or sharing out the meat.
Collecting vegetable based material is mind numbing drudgery, gaining
meat usually requires sharp thinking and often social cooperation. It
doesn't take much in the way of IQ to outsmart a dandelion but you have
to have your wits about you to bring home the bacon. Because collecting
vegetable based food is a drudge sharing doesn't arise. The simplest way
of ensuring a fair distribution of vegetable based food is quite simply
to eat what you gather and never give any to anybody else ever, while
not deliberately getting in their way or shitting where they're grazing.
That is the recipe for vegetarian cooperation, with the only additions
being follow the herd and try and stay in the middle away from predators
and don't mate with your mother if there's another option available. No
vegetarian species is ever going to produce an intellectual titan or
ever get past the first step on the road to language because they don't
ever have anything worth saying beyond "get out of my way that female's
mine". The most intelligent herbivorous species is the elephant, I am
fairly certain that its intelligence is partly an offshoot of expanding
the brain to cope with the challenge of operating a prehensile trunk.
(They also have a prehensile penis but a penis never requires much
intelligence to operate, especially a big one) The rhino is clear
evidence that you can get by quite easily by being being a big
vegetarian as long as you're thick skinned and aggressive, intellectual
ability is a luxury that evolution has decided most herbivores can't afford.
Vegetarian hominids are a bit of an evolutionary dead end. Huge jaws,
small brains. Given the option of adding a few more grams of body weight
to the bauplan of the herbivorous hominid evolutionary forces are likely
to go for extra thickness on the skull, bigger threatening canine teeth
or bigger testes, not more grey matter.
>
>> If mankind
>> was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and socially
>> cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or not meat was
>> a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was doesn't
>> make an ought.
>
>
> I agree meat was an important part of out human evolution. You and I are
> fortunate to have a choice of what we eat. Perhaps more should think
> about their choices, in particular what impact those choices have,
> rather than blindly follow customs and practice.
>
While you refuse to eat meat a Welsh sheep farmer sucks on his shotgun
because he can't pay the bills while another farmer far away takes the
money he made from selling you the beans you pretend to enjoy he goes
off and buys a chicken. But don't worry, people will think better of you
for making your stand and being so moral. It does help you score with
the appropriate (to your choice) sex doesn't it?
Martin Willett
> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>> ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>>>>> posted by the author
>>>>>>>>
Thanks. I can digest that steak pie in peace now.
It doesn't matter if the animal lives or doesn't, and if it lives it
will die no matter whether it was caused to live or just happened to
live. What matters is whether it lives or dies in avoidable suffering.
As long as human animal husbandry does not impose more stress or
suffering on an animal than it would be expected to experience in a life
unaffected by humanity then we have done nothing to be ashamed of. I am
quite confident that good animal husbandry can and often does meet that
test.
Leif Erikson
The part that says it is "better" for the pigs or other
domestic animals to "get to experience life" rather
than never doing so. That part. It has been
thoroughly discredited.
I tried that stuff once. There wasn't enough left in
my friend's bottle to get to any realm-blurring.
>
>>>>>>> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting
>>>>>>> to be eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What higher moral stance? Different morals perhaps. Why do you
>>>>>> feel they claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your
>>>>>> perception of your own morality.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like
>>>>> Christians and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion,
>>>>> like slugs.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think this is a problem of your perception. Do you think I ooze
>>>> moral superiority like a slug, and why? Can you could give some
>>>> examples of personal experience as evidence?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> They're too good at smugging it up to do much that you can put your
>>> finger on. But you can tell, just like you don't have to see a man
>>> engaged in sodomy to get a pretty good idea of whether or not he's gay,
>>> but your observations would be easily taken apart by any competent
>>> defence lawyer. It's obvious, but it wouldn't hold up in court.
>>
>>
>>
>> You claim to observe this moral superiority, yet you can't give any
>> examples? I think it's a figment of your imagination.
>>
>
> And I think you're being deliberately dense because it suits your cause.
> Of course vegetarians want and expect to be seen as morally superior,
Not vegetarians; "vegans", also known as (so-called)
"ethical" vegetarians. Lots of people are vegetarian
for reasons other than ethics.
If restricted to "vegans", your observation is correct:
a wish to be seen as morally superior underlies the
belief system. The wish doesn't by itself entirely
invalidate the belief system, but it certainly gets it
off on shaky footing, and it never recovers.
S. Maizlich
Right. But it's especially important to understand
that rationalizing one's meat consumption on the basis
that "at least" the animal got to live is a nasty
sophistry. Not only that, it's needless: no such
rationalization is necessary. To me, the biggest
problem with such rationalization and sophistry is it's
attempting to play the "vegans'" game on their terms,
and as their entire ethical motivation for playing the
game in the first place is morally disgusting, it puts
one in an ethical swamp where one needn't have gone in
the first place. The Logic of the Larder when advanced
by meat eaters as a rationale for their meat eating
always has an unserious quality to it; as if those who
advance it really are just trying to pull a rhetorical
trick, a fast one, on their "vegan" opponents.
> and if it lives it
> will die no matter whether it was caused to live or just happened to
> live. What matters is whether it lives or dies in avoidable suffering.
> As long as human animal husbandry does not impose more stress or
> suffering on an animal than it would be expected to experience in a life
> unaffected by humanity then we have done nothing to be ashamed of.
I'm not even sure this last is a requirement, simply
because the animals we raise domestically for our
consumption never *would* exist unaffected by humanity.
All that's needed is good-faith effort to keep the
amount of suffering low, and always to be seeking ways
to reduce it further.
> I am quite confident that good animal husbandry can and often does
> meet that test.
Of course it does.
Martin Willett
> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>>ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>>Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>ant and dec wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>>>posted by the author
>>>
>>>What higher moral stance? Different morals perhaps. Why do you feel they
>>>claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your perception of
>>>your own morality.
>
>
> If people decide to avoid animal source food products for perceived
> ethical reasons as the vast majority of vegans do then it follows
> they must consider this to be a higher moral stance.
>
Quite. To say otherwise is simply being obtuse.
>>Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like Christians
>>and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion, like slugs. Of
>>course they make a point of not *claiming* moral superiority while doing
>>all they can to ensure that other people get the message loud and clear.
>>Their entire bearing says "we're not claiming to be superior to you, oh
>>no, that would be rude and arrogant and not *nice*, but you do know that
>>you are inferior to us, don't you? You don't? Here, take a pamphlet,
>>it's all in there."
>
>
> Since you obviously have a problem with it perhaps you might like to
> give
> veg*ns some advice. Should they avoid acting in what they consider to
> be the morally superior fashion in case it makes other people feel
> uncomfortable? Show they avoid trying to educate people whom they
> believe have similar moral values but eat animal products out of
> ignorance?
If veg*ns want to carry on getting cheap moral superiority without
having to do anything really worthy they should carry on exactly as they
are doing. Veg*nism will never be an opportunity for moral superiority
if it is universal, so the struggle must go on for ever and must never
be allowed to succeed. Ensuring that they never make a united and
coherent front, that there are always several contradictory sets of
ideas on display and that they are seen to also endorse a variety of
alternative and counter-cultural causes. I especially commend the use of
the "it's all the same struggle comrade" approach whenever possible to
ensure that veg*nism is always associated with the kind of militant
animal rights people who torture the pets of laboratory workers to show
how bloody serious they are and associating veg*nism with drugs,
homosexuality, torching McDonalds and overturning BMWs is always a good
idea.
What about holding a march on Trafalgar Square under the banner of
"Vegans: kick a pigeon if you think meat is murder" and carry banners
that say "Vegans fart louder" or "Vegans: spit or swallow?"
> How would you act if you agreed with their views about the raising or
> killing of animals?
>
Badly. I'd be a bloody dangerous person if ever I was infected by
religion or moral absolutism. I know my capacity for bloody-mindedness
and it scares me.
Seriously, I can't do it. It would be like trying to imagine what I'd
think if I was a bat.
If I agreed with those views I wouldn't be me and I wouldn't have my
thoughts or my memories.
No, I didn't say vegans were all batty.
<snip>
Leif Erikson
Right. At a minimum, it is a "better" (higher) moral
position than what they believe they would be on if
they, themselves, were not "vegan". But one doesn't
have to look too hard or deep to find that the
comparison is not between themselves as "vegans" vs.
their hypothetical selves as omnivores; one quickly
finds that instrinsic to "veganism" is a repulsive
comparison with non-"vegans".
>>Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like Christians
>>and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion, like slugs. Of
>>course they make a point of not *claiming* moral superiority while doing
>>all they can to ensure that other people get the message loud and clear.
>>Their entire bearing says "we're not claiming to be superior to you, oh
>>no, that would be rude and arrogant and not *nice*, but you do know that
>>you are inferior to us, don't you? You don't? Here, take a pamphlet,
>>it's all in there."
>
>
> Since you obviously have a problem with it perhaps you might like to
> give
> veg*ns some advice. Should they avoid acting in what they consider to
> be the morally superior fashion in case it makes other people feel
> uncomfortable? Show they avoid trying to educate people whom they
> believe have similar moral values but eat animal products out of
> ignorance?
> How would you act if you agreed with their views about the raising or
> killing of animals?
As "veganism", both as a philosophy and as a practice,
is fatally flawed, I think the only reasonable advice
to give "vegans" is to discard "veganism". If they've
been away from eating meat for so long that they no
longer find it palatable, then I wouldn't encourage
them to eat meat; I'd simply say to continue with their
diet, and if asked why they're vegetarian (but no
longer "vegan"), simply to say that it's a habit and
it's what they like to eat. No philosophical
justification for it is necessary.
Leif Erikson
This is absolutely right, and it ties back to an
observation I made a long time ago concerning self
marginalization. "vegans" suffer from what can only be
called a form of mental illness, in which they derive a
perverse and pathological sense of well being from
being alienated from the larger society. For most
people, a feeling of alienation is unpleasant, and
mentally healthy people attempt to elminate it or
overcome it. Some people suffering from mental
pathology, however, come to embrace their feelings of
alienation, and seek to augment them. The consious
embrace of a marginalizing diet and belief system is a
pretty good way at achieving greater alienation. If
the entire world embraced "veganism", today's "vegans"
would no longer feel alienated based on that one
dimension. They don't *want* the world to "go 'vegan'".
> Ensuring that they never make a united and
> coherent front, that there are always several contradictory sets of
> ideas on display and that they are seen to also endorse a variety of
> alternative and counter-cultural causes. I especially commend the use of
> the "it's all the same struggle comrade" approach whenever possible to
> ensure that veg*nism is always associated with the kind of militant
> animal rights people who torture the pets of laboratory workers to show
> how bloody serious they are and associating veg*nism with drugs,
> homosexuality, torching McDonalds and overturning BMWs is always a good
> idea.
"veganism" *is* the dietary expression of "animal
rights" adherents.
ant and dec
> ant and dec wrote:
>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>
>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>
>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>>>>>> posted by the author
> <snips>
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat
>>>>> anything smarter than a pig,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you
>>>> drawn this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
>>
>>
>> I'd like you to answer this point.
>>
>
> I think you know the answer to that as clearly as I do: pigs are (by
> quite a distance) the smartest animal I regularly eat, the only thing
> that comes close is pigeons and since I gave away my shotgun I haven't
> felt the need to eat any of them.
I did think that "I'll draw the line just above what I normally eat" was
the answer. I just thought that you may have another more convincing
argument, but never mind.
>
>>>>
>>>> unless I really have to. Fortunately that rule
>>>>
>>>>> doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
>>>>> intelligence of pigs.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> But not much respect for the pig?
>>>
>>>
>>> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as
>>> most of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live
>>> and die than not to.
>>>
>>> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it
>>> there, so don't bother pointing it out.
>>>
>>> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
>>> could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
>>> loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
>>
>>
>> This line of thinking is very often pulled apart as being complete BS.
>> by both camps. I see some have already pointed this out.
>>
>
> I see. Which part of the argument?
The BS part.
The porcine hospices? Have you got
> any photographs?
Ah I see another joke. Ha.....Ha...
>
>>>>
>>>>> Chimp chops? No thanks!
>>>>>
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> to the points I made.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Does a diatribe have a point?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Why restrict yourself to one?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> We can move on, as the points are coming out.
>>>>
>>>>>
>
> Like a wet t shirt competition in a stiff easterly breeze.
I did laugh (really!)
Ah I see another joke. Ha.....Ha...
It was implicit that you made observations, yet you can't give any examples.
>
> It is a part of human nature. That is why poppies and paper lifeboats
> exist and why people make stickers that say "My mummy gave blood today".
> But if you ever ask them whether they did something to appear to be
> morally superior they instantly make up a lot of lame excuses.
>
> Vegetarians and vegans do not realistically expect the world to turn
> vegetarian but they keep promoting vegetarianism because it allows them
> *to be seen* as vegetarians. If nobody ate meat they wouldn't have
> anybody to feel superior to so they'd have to give up something else or
> actually do something worthy in and of itself.
What utter crap. This is ALL in your mind, please provide SOME evidence
for these conclusions. You don't get it do you, it's YOUR mis perception
of vegetarians.
>
> If vegetarians were not regarded as morally superior and vegetarianism
> was not seen as evidence of moral fibre then the Nazis wouldn't have
> made so much of Hitler's spurious diet choices.
More crap.
>
> My best advice to you would be carry on. Your propaganda isn't working,
What propaganda of mine?
> so don't change it. The world will never go vegan.
Vegan / vegetarian. I've never asked anybody to choose any diet.
>You're quite safe.
> You will always have access to the moral high ground by simply not
> eating certain foods. Just think, other people had to charge down
> machine gun nests armed with a swagger stick, get beaten up by the Ku
> Klux Klan or expel the infidels from Jerusalem to get what you get, all
> you have to do is pretend to enjoy mung beans and tofu.
Are you drunk, or was that a another joke. Ha.....Ha...? BTW I don't eat
or even pretend to eat mung beans or tofu.
>
>>>>
>>>>> Of course they make a point of not *claiming* moral superiority
>>>>> while doing all they can to ensure that other people get the
>>>>> message loud and clear.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> They don't claim it, because most don't feel (in my experience) or
>>>> have a higher moral position.
>>>
>>>
>>> How many times have you sat with somebody eating a salad who points out
>>> that they also eat meat?
>>
>>
>> Occasionally.
>
>
> Really? "I'm eating a salad but I'd like to point out to you that I'm
> not a limp-wristed carrot-muncher I also eat meat"
I think you've got a problem with vegetarians! The common pattern of
events includes *others* pointing out my dietary choices, then the rest
of the table stating what they couldn't do without or can't understand
my choices, etc.
>
> What kind of leaves were in your salad? Where do you pick your mushrooms?
Ah I see another joke. Ha.....Ha...
>
>> This reminds me of when I sat next to someone in a restaurant, who
>> said they were vegetarian, then went on to order the duck! - Perhaps
>> this is a meat eater trying to claim this mythical "moral high
>> ground", that doesn't really exist.
>>
>
> There is a technical term for people who do that: ignorant twats.
Agreed.
>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Their entire bearing says "we're not claiming to be superior to
>>>>> you, oh no, that would be rude and arrogant and not *nice*, but you
>>>>> do know that you are inferior to us, don't you? You don't? Here,
>>>>> take a pamphlet, it's all in there."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Again this is your misguided (self?) perception.
>>>
>>>
>>> Carnivores don't wear badges and t shirts proclaiming their status for
>>> the same reason that people don't wear "I didn't give money to charity"
>>
>>
>> Of course they do! What about "hunting pink" as just one example.
>
> Tell me, when was the last time you saw
>
> a) a huntsman eat a fox
Who said anything about a fox? Hunting pink is used in other hunts.
Anyway it's a clear a badge of "I eat meat" than any words on a tee shirt.
>
> and
>
> b) somebody wear hunting pink outside of a hunt organized event where
> they knew they were not likely to be surrounded or outnumbered by oiks
>
I've never seen that, but I don't see that's got any bearing, as I've
never seen a "Meat is murder" tee shirt either.
The fact remains that some carnivores do wear badges proclaiming their
status, just as some vegans do.
>
>
>>
>>> badges. It is totally disingenuous to make out that vegetarians and
>>> vegans do not want people to think they are morally superior because of
>>> their diet, in exactly the same way that Christians do. People who
>>> expect recognition for their moral probity make a point of not asking
>>> for it but that doesn't mean they do not expect to get it and are hurt
>>> when they don't get it.
>>
>>
>> Unless you can give some evidence that this applies to the general
>> ve*gan population, I must consider this as a figment of your imagination.
>
> No, you mustn't. You may choose to, you may want to, but there is no
> compulsion on you.
There is no other option.
>
> I have already explained why I can't prove it. But neither can anybody
> prove that there is or isn't a god. Just because something can't be
> proved it doesn't follow that it isn't so. I can't *prove* Elvis isn't
> running a whelk stall on Venus either.
No, it was implicit in your response that the observation could be made.
Surely if you observe these vegetarians being smug, you can give any
examples; can't you?
>
>>
>> There are irritating vegan zealots just as there are irritating
>> Christians, but they are few and far between, as you would get on the
>> "ends" of a normal population distribution.
>>
>
> I suppose this is the only form of normality vegans ever achieve:
> statistical.
Meaningless. Or was that another joke; Ha.....Ha...?
>
> <snip>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon
>>>>>>> and deer than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> More people eat salmon than tapeworms, none are more "noble" or
>>>>>> "nasty" than each other.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> People do not eat nasty animals. At least they don't like to think
>>>>> that they do. Muslims for example are taught to vilify pigs as well
>>>>> as not to eat them. I am not suggesting that species are
>>>>> objectively noble or nasty, that isn't the point, but the
>>>>> perceptions vary. We don't eat rats and cockroaches but we do eat
>>>>> prawns, which in turn eat marine carrion and excrement, but we put
>>>>> that image from our minds, even to the point of calling the
>>>>> alimentary canal of a prawn "just a vein", when in fact it clearly
>>>>> is scum sucker shit.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I'm sure an alien wouldn't mind cleaning your "vein".
>>>>
>>>
>>> But he'd probably prefer yours.
>>
>>
>> I don't think they'll be that picky, more likely to go after the one
>> that ate all the pies! The prize porker! ;-)
>
> You're obviously well out of the loop as far as meat eating goes. The
> only thing that might interest an interstellar gormet about me would
> perhaps be my liver.
Pate de foie gras? Perhaps a bit too gras?
>
> <snip>
>>>>
>>>> PS. I may be away for a day or two. - Apparently there's a Christian
>>>> (traditionally meat centric) festival going on that I'm expected to
>>>> take part in!
>>>
>>>
>>> Me and my two atheist children will be celebrating it tomorrow too. My
>>> Christian wife is out babysitting while some Jewish friends go out for a
>>> Christmas drink. It's a funny old world, isn't it?
>>
>>
>> Yep.
>>
>>>
>>> Meat is often the centrepiece of feasts because it is sharing food.
>>> Herbivores don't share food and don't have much in the way of society,
>>> they just use each other as bovine shields or the equivilent.
>>
>>
>> I think you've lost the plot here. Perhaps you've seen too many
>> "turkey on the table" movies.
>
> No herbivorous species shares food. If you want to ingratiate yourself
> with a gorilla you eat alongside them, or pretend to. You don't offer
> them food. Pretty much the only food herbivores ever give away is milk.
> But things are very different with meat, especially meat that is gained
> via cooperative hunting. The complexity of social organization in a wolf
> pack is orders of magnitude greater than in a flock of sheep.
> Chimpanzees have their most interesting social behaviours when they are
> cooperating on a hunt or sharing out the meat.
Life at Sainsburys will never be the same!
Now pull yourself back to the REAL World for just one moment. I said
you'd lost the plot because you juxtaposed a meat centerpiece with a
herbivorous diet. I share meals just as any most other families do.
Traditionally meat is a the center of the a feast for no other reason
than custom and practice. All this stuff about herbivores is just plain
crap.
More crap following on from the earlier (lost) point.
>
>>
>>> If mankind
>>> was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and socially
>>> cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or not meat was
>>> a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was doesn't
>>> make an ought.
>>
>>
>> I agree meat was an important part of out human evolution. You and I
>> are fortunate to have a choice of what we eat. Perhaps more should
>> think about their choices, in particular what impact those choices
>> have, rather than blindly follow customs and practice.
>>
>
> While you refuse to eat meat a Welsh sheep farmer sucks on his shotgun
> because he can't pay the bills while another farmer far away takes the
> money he made from selling you the beans you pretend to enjoy he goes
> off and buys a chicken. But don't worry, people will think better of you
> for making your stand and being so moral. It does help you score with
> the appropriate (to your choice) sex doesn't it?
Now I'm responsible for a Welsh sheep farmers suicide? Or was that
another joke; Ha.....Ha...? The impact on any Welsh sheep farmer of my
choices has been insignificant, if that was the point you were alluding to.
The farmer's just as likely to go out of business because possibly you
but certainly most others don't give a shit where their meat comes from.
Why don't you answer the points I DID make rather than ones you like to
pontificate about?
>
Dutch
"Dave" <prp...@hotmail.com> wrote
>
> Martin Willett wrote:
[..]
>> >> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to be
>> >> eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance?
>> >
>> >
>> > What higher moral stance? Different morals perhaps. Why do you feel
>> > they
>> > claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your perception of
>> > your own morality.
>
> If people decide to avoid animal source food products for perceived
> ethical reasons as the vast majority of vegans do then it follows
> they must consider this to be a higher moral stance.
You would think it to be self-evident wouldn't you? Yet vegans consistently
deny it when confronted by it.
>> Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like Christians
>> and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion, like slugs. Of
>> course they make a point of not *claiming* moral superiority while doing
>> all they can to ensure that other people get the message loud and clear.
>> Their entire bearing says "we're not claiming to be superior to you, oh
>> no, that would be rude and arrogant and not *nice*, but you do know that
>> you are inferior to us, don't you? You don't? Here, take a pamphlet,
>> it's all in there."
>
> Since you obviously have a problem with it perhaps you might like to
> give
> veg*ns some advice.
Futile.
> Should they avoid acting in what they consider to
> be the morally superior fashion in case it makes other people feel
> uncomfortable?
The discomfort of others translates into comfort for the vegan.
> Show they avoid trying to educate people whom they
> believe have similar moral values but eat animal products out of
> ignorance?
> How would you act if you agreed with their views about the raising or
> killing of animals?
The only hope for vegans is to sacrifice the comforting feeling they get by
making others uncomfortable while they subject their views to a criticial
assessment. It's not a likely scenario, how many people can give up a sure
sense of moral superiority for a mere hope of intellectual integrity?
Dutch
"Martin Willett" <mwille...@invalid.invalid> wrote
> Dutch wrote:
> From my own personal experience I know that it is possible to raise
> animals for meat and they have a good life. I have seen it in action, I
> have seen animals being cared for by my mother and by her father. I know
> that farming is not by its fundamental nature cruel.
I agree.
> It can become cruel if the drive to keep down food prices is allowed to
> reduce the standards of husbandry to unacceptible levels. It is the banks
> and supermarket buyers that are determining how cruel farming is.
As consumers I say we share that burden through our complacency.
[..]
>> I would also like to add that it has been a very, very long time
>> since someone new of your caliber has come to these groups to address
>> these issues, I hope you decide to stay a while and share your
>> insights.
>>
>>
>>
>
> I like the cut of your jib.
Likewise skipper, you have given me quite a few belly laughs.
Dutch
"ant and dec" <a...@dec.itv.com> wrote
> Dutch wrote:
>> "ant and dec" <a...@dec.itv.com> wrote
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>
>>>>>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat
>>>>>> anything smarter than a pig,
>>>>>
>>>>> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you
>>>>> drawn this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
>>> I'd like you to answer this point.
>>
>> We all draw the line somewhere. Why do you believe that it is all right
>> to destroy animal populations in order to grow vegetables, fruit, grain,
>> cotton..?
Where is the response to this reply?
>> [..]
>>
>>>> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
>>>> could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
>>>> loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing
>>>> pain-killers.
>>> This line of thinking is very often pulled apart as being complete BS.
>>> by both camps. I see some have already pointed this out.
>>
>> Why is it complete BS?
>
> You've already stated why.
Where's the content in that reply?
>>When animals die in crop fields they are often cruelly dismembered or else
>>are poisoned and die slowly of internal hemorrhaging. Why is that all
>>right and a bolt through the brain is not?
>
> Animals are dismembered, but there is no one deriving any pleasure (being
> cruel) from it.
Are you claiming that death and suffering to animals is acceptable as long
as no cruelty is involved? Most slaughterhouse deaths are not cruel.
> One is easily avoided.
Are you saying that morality hinges on "ease"?
[..]
>>
>>
>>> I think you're blurring the realms of hypothesis and reality under the
>>> pretense of a "joke".
>>
>> I think you are blurring human rights and our relationship with the rest
>> of the animal kingdom under the pretense of "morality".
>
> Yes we have a moral responsibility to the rest of the animal kingdom.
That is not the same as blurring human rights and our relationship with the
rest of the animal kingdom under the pretense of "morality".
[..]
>>
>>> You claim to observe this moral superiority, yet you can't give any
>>> examples? I think it's a figment of your imagination.
>>
>> You are in denial. Every time a veg*n announces that they don't eat meat,
>> wrinkle their nose sanctimoniously at a piece of meat,
>
> "wrinkle their nose sanctimoniously"!
Echo
>>agonize rudely about some microscopic bit of animal cells in some
>>condiment,
>
> "agonize rudely"!
Echo
>>refer to statements like "Meat is Murder", or bring up issues like
>>"slaughterhouses" or "factory farming" in discussion,
>
> What's wrong with bring-up issues like "slaughterhouses" or "factory
> farming" in a discussion?
It comes down to the motives. Veg*ns derive satisfaction from the discomfort
of others.
>>they are implicitly setting themselves up as moral paragons. In fact
>>another way vegans describe themselves is "Ethical Vegetarians". If you
>>are "ethical" then what am I?
>
> We have different ethics. "If you are "ethical" then what am I?"
Echo
>> [..]
>>
>>> If mankind
>>>> was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and socially
>>>> cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or not meat was
>>>> a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was doesn't
>>>> make an ought.
>>> I agree meat was an important part of out human evolution. You and I are
>>> fortunate to have a choice of what we eat. Perhaps more should think
>>> about their choices, in particular what impact those choices have,
>>> rather than blindly follow customs and practice.
>>
>> The practise of abstaining from all animal products in food is no less
>> blindly following custom than any other choice. Perhaps vegetarians
>> should spend more time look closely at the impact of their own food
>> choices instead of just peering self-righteously at the choices others
>> make.
>
> "peering self-righteously"!
Echo
> I was all inclusive in my statement, yet you have misread it; possibly
> purposly to pull out a dietary sub-set of vegetarians.
>
>>
>>
>
> This post typifies your modus operandi.
>
> You seem to have labeled me as a ve*gan, and have then go on to seemingly
> purposely misinterpret my posts adding inflammatory words of no value
> except to demonstrate your dislike.
>
> From what I've seen so far your posts rarely add value.
And your non-responses and parroting of my remarks adds value?
ant and dec
I need to investigate more. The reference above seems to give a strong
case for a "visual specialization" evolution and it states that "no
consensus has emerged", but I'm happy learn and admit my ignorance on
brain evolution theories.
Leif Erikson
Most of the explicit examples of it I've seen are by
former "vegans" who have renounced at least that aspect
of their vegetarianism. Here's one such:
http://www.thevegetariansite.com/ed_nolonger.htm
Most of the rest is exhibited implicitly in the
comments of participants in these newsgroups, among others.
Leif Erikson
What is not in dispute is that the earliest hominids
and their pre-hominid ancestors *all* naturally ate
meat. To say then that meat played no role in their
evolution is just factually wrong.
ant and dec
> ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>
>> It was implicit that you made observations, yet you can't give any
>> examples.
>
> Most of the explicit examples of it I've seen are by former "vegans" who
> have renounced at least that aspect of their vegetarianism. Here's one
> such: http://www.thevegetariansite.com/ed_nolonger.htm
An interesting link. - Best to learn from others mistakes!
>
> Most of the rest is exhibited implicitly in the comments of participants
> in these newsgroups, among others.
This has been an interesting excursion into this group.
There appears to be the odd village idiot, and some accusing me of
things that they have absolutely no basis for doing so; but I'm
recognising them and will dismiss their posts where appropriate.
>
>
snip
Martin Willett
> On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 10:09:59 +0000, Martin Willett <mwille...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>We detect the sin of hypocrisy,
>>which for our species seems to be the ultimate sin.
>
>
> · Since the animals we raise for food would not be alive
> if we didn't raise them for that purpose, it's a distortion of
> reality not to take that fact into consideration whenever
> we think about the fact that the animals are going to be
> killed. The animals are not being cheated out of any part
> of their life by being raised for food, but instead they are
> experiencing whatever life they get as a result of it. ·
>
>
>>Eating animals and
>>yet asking not to be eaten ourselves on the grounds that we are sentient
>>animals strikes us as in some way a form of hypocrisy. It probably is.
>>So what? Is hypocrisy the ultimate sin recognized by all sentient
>>lifeforms everywhere? If if it then surely acting like hypocrites would
>>make us less attractive dinner table fare, wouldn't it? We would be less
>>likely to eat a “sinful” species that ate dung and its own young than
>>one that just ate grass, hung around in fields and went moo. Acting like
>>hypocrites would make us appear less tasty and nutritious.
>
>
> Maybe they'd kill us as vermin.
>
>
>>Acting like
>>hypocrites is probably a good survival strategy. Do we eat “wicked”
>>weasels, hyaenas, snakes and tapeworms in preference to “noble” animals
>>like deer and salmon?
>>Which species do we refuse to eat on moral grounds?
>
>
> Human.
>
Unless we really need to.
>
>>Do we avoid eating all peaceful herbivores? Hardly! In fact if we can
>>see any patterns at all here it is that the more animals an animal eats
>>the less likely it is we will want to eat it ourselves. The only
>>carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are fish, animals
>>that some people who call themselves vegetarians even try to redefine as
>>some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies, haddock are animals
>>that eat other animals, being cold bloodied, small-eyed and ugly doesn't
>>change anything, fish are not vegetables. If you eat fish you cannot be
>>a vegetarian.
>>
>>We prefer to eat peaceful herbivores, we actively give preference to
>>those animals that eat a 100% pure vegetarian diet of grass. Why do we
>>assume that aliens will prefer to eat old, evil, bitter, twisted and
>>hypocritical animals like us rather than the nice innocent tender baa
>>lambs that we like to eat? It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.
>>
>>Why don't we eat carnivorous animals?
>>
>>There is no reason why we don't eat carnivorous animals apart from the
>>fact that they are too expensive to farm economically. When dogs are
>>raised to be eaten they are not fed on meat, they are given the cheapest
>>food that will do the job, usually grain, vegetables and kitchen scraps,
>>just like pigs.
>
>
> Pigs are omnivores. I'm not even sure if they can digest celulose,
> but I doubt it. Chickens are omnivores. And it's the omnivores like
> chicken, turkey and pork that can really screw you up if you eat it
> undercooked. I'm guessing because of similarity in digestive systems
> or something like that, but never have heard anyone say anything
> about it.
Cows can't digest cellulose either. That seems to be rather good proof
that if there is a god he's probably not the smartest god he could
possibly be.
Leif Erikson
> dh@. wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 10:09:59 +0000, Martin Willett
>> <mwille...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> We detect the sin of hypocrisy, which for our species seems to be the
>>> ultimate sin.
>>
>>
>>
>> · Since the animals we raise for food would not be alive
>> if we didn't raise them for that purpose, it's a distortion of
>> reality not to take that fact into consideration whenever
>> we think about the fact that the animals are going to be
>> killed. The animals are not being cheated out of any part of their
>> life by being raised for food, but instead they are experiencing
>> whatever life they get as a result of it. ·
This is Fuckwit's own unique and turgid restatement of
the (Il)Logic of the Larder, a nonsense to which he
subscribes.
>>
>>
>>> Eating animals and yet asking not to be eaten ourselves on the
>>> grounds that we are sentient animals strikes us as in some way a form
>>> of hypocrisy. It probably is. So what? Is hypocrisy the ultimate sin
>>> recognized by all sentient lifeforms everywhere? If if it then surely
>>> acting like hypocrites would make us less attractive dinner table
>>> fare, wouldn't it? We would be less likely to eat a “sinful” species
>>> that ate dung and its own young than one that just ate grass, hung
>>> around in fields and went moo. Acting like hypocrites would make us
>>> appear less tasty and nutritious.
>>
>>
>>
>> Maybe they'd kill us as vermin.
>>
>>
>>> Acting like hypocrites is probably a good survival strategy. Do we
>>> eat “wicked” weasels, hyaenas, snakes and tapeworms in preference to
>>> “noble” animals like deer and salmon?
>>> Which species do we refuse to eat on moral grounds?
>>
>>
>>
>> Human.
>>
>
> Unless we really need to.
In western civilization, there is a strong repulsion to
eating human corpses, even when necessary to survive.
However, no western society condones *killing* humans
for food even for survival.
Martin Willett
>
> It is UNDISPUTED by evolutionary biologists that meat played an
> indispensable role in human evolution. Meat's role was both direct and
> indirect. The direct role was in providing the massive amount of
> protein needed for brain development. The indirect role is as an
> organizing principle of human activity.
The organizational role is absolutely critical. There is no reason for a
vegetarian species to develop sophisticated communication because they
don't have anything sophisticated to communicate. Fruits and tubers
don't require teamwork or sophisticated tools to subdue, but our
ancestors brought down mammoths, give them some respect.
Belittling the role of meat and hunting in evolution is as much
pseudo-science as creationism is. The collection of snippets of research
here and there that seem to offer some suggestion of support for a pre
decided stance is the antithesis of the scientific method.
Human evolution required meat eating and hunting. That is not to say
that man was ever exclusively carnivorous, the only largely carnivorous
hominid was /Homo neanderthalensis/, who was almost as carnivorous as a
polar bear. But as far as anybody can tell all our direct ancestors were
omnivorous but more carnivorous than modern chimpanzees and that change
in diet was significant for the development of larger brains both in
allowing expansion and requiring it.
ant and dec
> Martin Willett wrote:
>>
>> I like the cut of your jib.
>>
>> (In case you're not familiar with that phrase I'm sure the origin is
>> nautical and has nothing to do with butchery.)
>>
>> I think I have just worked out a new moral principle that is better
>> than the not eating anything smarter than a pig principle but also has
>> the same virtue of not making me change my ways and not painting me as
>> a hypocrite in the front of ravenous aliens: I'll not kill or
>> contribute to the death of any animal for food purposes /if that
>> animal is clearly capable of making a moral choice/, unless they have
>> given me explicit permission.
>>
>
> What prompted this rethink?
>
> Your lack of response in other threads in interesting. - Perhaps you're
> more suited to 'debating' with a sycophant.
You do have a right to remain silent, but that does leave people to
draw their own conclusions.
>
> What difference does the ability to make a moral choice have on your
> want to kill and eat a species?
>
> Do you *know* that a pig can not differentiate between right and wrong?
>
pearl
> ant and dec wrote:
>
> > S. Maizlich wrote:
> >
> >> ant and dec wrote:
> >>
> >>> pearl wrote:
My pleasure. Thanks for bringing it up. The "Christmas
Lecture" on Ch5 is frankly driving me up the wall. grrr.
> >>> I have moved my position on whether meat had a major part to play in
> >>> human evolution. I will read more, but on balance there seems little
> >>> evidence to support that it did.
Apart from helping humans survive times of scarcity, ..no.
'The historical role of meat in human diets has probably varied
significantly, as Jared Diamond, who is an authority on human
evolution, points out:
.... while early humans ate some meat, we do not know how
much meat they ate, nor whether they got the meat by hunting
or scavenging. It is not until much later, around 100,000 years
ago, that we have good evidence about human hunting skills,
and it is clear that humans then were still very ineffective
big-game hunters. Human hunters of 500,000 years ago and
earlier must have been more ineffective.
....
Western male writers and anthropologists are not the only men
with an exaggerated view of hunting. In New Guinea I have lived
with real hunters, men who recently emerged from the stone age.
.... To listen to my New Guinea friends, you would think that
they eat fresh kangaroo for dinner every night and do little each
day except hunt. In fact, when pressed for details, most New
Guinea hunters admit that they have bagged only a few
kangaroos in their whole life.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpazee, Jared Diamond, 1991,
pp.33-34
In The Origin of Humankind, Richard Leakey mentions Lewis
Binford, who suggested that systematic hunting of any kind
began to appear only when modern humans evolved, giving
dates of 45,000 to 38,000 years ago.
(We now know that modern humans were roaming
Africa at least around 195,000 years ago. / 'pearl')
What is obvious is that a mother and her infant cannot engage
in hunting, or any other arduous food gathering activity. Of all
the primate foods, fruits are the most easily gathered. They may
be obtained without the use of digging or cracking tools, climbing,
and digested with no need for hind-gut fermentation, such as is
the case with foliage. Most significantly, it is the feeding limitations
of the nursing mother which determine what foods she, and her
offspring will have continually available.
..
Given a plentiful supply of fruits the mother does not have to
risk expending much of her effort obtaining difficult to get foods
like raw animal flesh, insects, nuts and roots. Furthermore, fruits
contain abundant supplies of sugars which the brain solely uses
for energy. The mother who's genes better dispose her for an
easy life on fruits would have an advantage of those who do not,
and similarly, the fruit species which is the best food for mother
and child nutrition, would tend to be selected for. There is now
little doubt amongst distinguished biologists that fruit has been
the most significant dietary constituent in the evolution of humans.
...'
http://tinyurl.com/dahps
> >> It is UNDISPUTED by evolutionary biologists that meat played an
> >> indispensable role in human evolution. Meat's role was both direct and
> >> indirect. The direct role was in providing the massive amount of
> >> protein needed for brain development. The indirect role is as an
> >> organizing principle of human activity.
'What are the essential biochemical properties of human metabolism
which distinguish us from our non-human primate relatives? One, at
least, is our uniquely low protein requirement as described by Olav
T. Oftedal who says:
"Human milk has the lowest protein concentration (about 7% of energy)
of any primate milk that has been studied. In general, it appears that
primates produce small daily amounts of a relatively dilute milk (Oftedal
1984). Thus the protein and energy demands of lactation are probably
low for primates by comparison to the demands experienced by many
other mammals."
The nutritional consequences of foraging in primates:
the relationship of nutrient intakes to nutrient requirements, p.161
Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences vol 334, 159-295,
No. 1270
One might imagine that given our comparatively 'low protein' milk,
we would not be able to grow very fast. In fact, as the image on the
right shows, human infants show very rapid growth, especially of
the brain, during the first year of life. Human infants are born a full
year earlier than they would be projected to, based on comparisons
with other animals. This is because of the large size their brains reach.
A human infant grows at the rate of 9 kg/year at birth, falling to
3.5 kg/year a year later. Thereafter its growth rate is about half that
of a chimpanzees at 2 kg/year vs. about 4.5 kg/year. Humans are
relatively half as bulky as the other great apes, thus allowing nutrients
to be directed at brain development and the diet to be less demanding.
The advantages of such an undemanding metabolism are clear.
Humans delay their growth because they 'catch up' later, during
puberty as seen on the graph. Even so, the growth rate never reaches
that of a newborn infant who grows best by only eating breast milk.
...
According to Exequiel M. Patiño and Juan T. Borda 'Primate milks
contain on the average 13% solids, of which 6.5% is lactose, 3.8%
lipids, 2.4% proteins, and 0.2% ash. Lactose is the largest component
of the solids, and protein is a lesser one'. They also say that 'milks of
humans and Old World monkeys have the highest percentages of
sugar (an average of 6.9%)' and when comparing human and non
human primate milks, they have similar proportions of solids, but
human milks has more sugar and fat whereas the non human primate
milks have much more protein. They continue 'In fact, human milk
has the lowest concentration of proteins (1.0%) of all the species
of primates.' Patiño and Borda present their research in order to
allow other primatologists to construct artificial milks as a substitute
for the real thing for captive primates. It is to be expected that these
will have similar disasterous consequences as the feeding of artificial
bovine, and other false milks, has had on human infants.
Patiño and Borda also present a table which compares primate milks.
This table is shown below and identifies the distinctive lower protein
requirements of humans. [see link]
Undoubtedly these gross metabolic differences between humans
and other mammals must have system wide implications for our
metabolism. They allow us to feed heavily on fruits, and may
restrict other species from choosing them. Never the less, many
nutritional authorities suggest that adult humans need nearly double
(12% of calorific value) their breast milk levels of protein, although
it is accepted that infant protein requirements for growth are triple
those of adults. The use of calorific values might also confuse the
issue since human milk is highly dilute (1% protein), and clearly
eating foods that might be 25 times this concentration, such as
meat, are massive excesses if constantly ingested. Certainly the
body might manage to deal with this excess without suffering
immediate problems, but this is not proof of any beneficial
adaptation. It also needs to be pointed out that berries, such as
raspberries, may yield up to 21% of their calorific value from
protein, but are not regarded as 'good sources' of protein by
nutritional authorites. There are millions of fruits available to
wild animals, and blanked generalisations about the qualities
of certain food groups, need to be examined carefully, due to
some misconceptions arising from the limited commercial fruits
which we experience in the domestic state.
The weaning of a fruigivorous primate would clearly demand
the supply of a food with nutritional characteristics similar to
those of the mothers milk. We must realise that supportive
breast feeding may continue for up to 9 or 10 years in some
'primitive' peoples, and this is more likely to be representative
of our evolutionary history than the 6 month limit often found
in modern cultures. This premature weaning should strike any
aware naturalist as being a disasterous activity, inflicting untold
damage. However, what we do know of the consequences is
that it reduces the IQ and disease resistance of the child, and
that the substitute of unnatural substances, like wheat and
dairy products, is pathogenic.
Finally we need to compare some food group compositions
with human milk in order to establish if any statistical similarity
exists. This would demonstrate that modern humans have
inherited their ancient fruigivourous metabolism. This data is
examined below in the final sections of the article.
....'
http://tinyurl.com/dahps
> > I need to investigate more. The reference above seems to give a strong
> > case for a "visual specialization" evolution and it states that "no
> > consensus has emerged", but I'm happy learn and admit my ignorance on
> > brain evolution theories.
'There is a popular notion that anthropology can offer useful
insights for forming the basis of a dietary philosophy.
Anthropology is a science which is only just starting to mature,
previously having been little more that a systematic, but lose,
body of "say-so" information which attempted to explain our
species history and origins. With advances in dating methods,
including DNA analysis and more fossil finds, the science is
now embarking on its integration with biology. Previously,
anthropology was a pseudo-scientific marriage of traditional
views attempting to link the findings of robust sciences, such
as geology, palaeontology and archaeology. However, even
though anthropologists like Richard Leakey are aware that
their 'science' is often "based on unspoken assumptions"
(The Making of Mankind, p. 82, R. Leakey), they show that
they will persist in making them.
Anthropologies 'Man The Hunter' concept is still used as a
reason for justifying the consumption of animal flesh as food.
This has even extended as far as suggesting that animal foods
have enabled or caused human brain enlargement. Allegedly
this is because of the greater availability of certain kinds of fats
and the sharing behaviour associated with eating raw animal
food. The reality is that through natural selection, the
environmental factors our species have been exposed to
selected for greater brain development, long before raw animal
flesh became a significant part of our ancient ancestors diet.
The elephant has also developed a larger brain than the human
brain, on a diet primarily consisting of fermented foliage and
fruits. It is my hypothesis that it is eating fruits and perhaps
blossoms, that has, if anything, contributed the most in allowing
humans to develop relatively larger brains than other species.
The ability of humans to develop normal brains with a dietary
absence of animal products is also noted.
...'
http://tinyurl.com/dahps
> What is not in dispute is that the earliest hominids
> and their pre-hominid ancestors *all* naturally ate
> meat. To say then that meat played no role in their
> evolution is just factually wrong.
You cannot support your *claims* with evidence, ball.
pearl
"It is highly probable that plant foods were indeed the major part
of the early hominid economy, and unequivocal evidence for hunting
as against scavenging carrion does not appear until relatively late in
the fossil record, probably not earlier than half-a-million years ago."
Leakey, The Making of Mankind
Frugivory is an intellectually demanding feeding behaviour demanding
the development of strategic planning, whereas the folivores feeding
behavior engages relatively simple tactics. According to Caroline E. G.
Tutin et al. 'Allometric analyses suggest a relation between brain size
(relative to body mass) and diet, with frugivores having relatively larger
brains . . . Maintaining a frugivorous diet presents huge intellectual
challenges of memory and spatial mapping compared with the relative
ease of harvesting abundant foliage foods.' Tutin et al. also say that:
"Studies of frugivorous communities elsewhere suggest that dietary
divergence is highest when preferred food (succulent fruit) is scarce,
and that niche separation is clear only at such times (Gautier-Hion &
Gautier 1979: Terborgh 1983). "
Foraging profiles of sympatric lowland gorillas and chimpanzees in
the Lopé Reserve, Gabon, p.179, Philosophical Transactions:
Biological Sciences vol 334, 159-295, No. 1270
Leif Erikson
No one cares, whore.
>>>>>I have moved my position on whether meat had a major part to play in
>>>>>human evolution. I will read more, but on balance there seems little
>>>>>evidence to support that it did.
>
>
> Apart from helping humans survive times of scarcity, ..no.
False. Humans evolved as a meat-eating species from
the outset.
>
>>>>It is UNDISPUTED by evolutionary biologists that meat played an
>>>>indispensable role in human evolution. Meat's role was both direct and
>>>>indirect. The direct role was in providing the massive amount of
>>>>protein needed for brain development. The indirect role is as an
>>>>organizing principle of human activity.
>
> [...crap...]
>
>>>I need to investigate more. The reference above seems to give a strong
>>>case for a "visual specialization" evolution and it states that "no
>>>consensus has emerged", but I'm happy learn and admit my ignorance on
>>>brain evolution theories.
>
>
> 'There is a popular notion that anthropology can offer useful
> insights for forming the basis of a dietary philosophy.
It's what *you* do with your fuckwitted "frugivory"
bullshit.
>
>>What is not in dispute is that the earliest hominids
>>and their pre-hominid ancestors *all* naturally ate
>>meat. To say then that meat played no role in their
>>evolution is just factually wrong.
>
>
> You cannot support your *claims* with evidence
Been there, done it.
Leif Erikson
Humans hunted from the beginning. Chimpanzees have
*always* hunted as well.
> Frugivory is an intellectually demanding feeding behaviour
Bullshit.
pearl
>
pearl wrote
<..>
> > "It is highly probable that plant foods were indeed the major part
> > of the early hominid economy, and unequivocal evidence for hunting
> > as against scavenging carrion does not appear until relatively late in
> > the fossil record, probably not earlier than half-a-million years ago."
>
> Humans hunted from the beginning.
'... while early humans ate some meat, we do not know how
much meat they ate, nor whether they got the meat by hunting
or scavenging. It is not until much later, around 100,000 years
ago, that we have good evidence about human hunting skills,
and it is clear that humans then were still very ineffective
big-game hunters. Human hunters of 500,000 years ago and
earlier must have been more ineffective.
..
> Chimpanzees have *always* hunted as well.
'According to Tuttle, the first substantive information on chimp diets
was provided by Nissen in 1931 (p.75). In 1930 Nissen spent 75
days of a 3-month period tracking and observing chimps. He made
direct unquantified observations and examined fecal deposits and
leftovers at feeding sites. He also found "no evidence that they ate
honey, eggs or animal prey" - this observation may have been too
limited due to seasonal variations in the chimp diet.
In Reynolds and Reynolds (1965), Tuttle says that a 300 hour
study of Budongo Forest chimps over an 8-month period revealed
"no evidence for avian eggs, termites or vertebrates", although
they thought that insects formed 1% of their diet (p.81).
In another study of Budongo Forest chimps from 1966 to 1967,
Sugiyama did not observe "meat-eating or deliberate captures
of arthropods", although he reported that "the chimpanzees
did ingest small insects that infested figs" (p.82).
Tuttle says that later observations at Budongo by Suzuki revealed
meat eating. Where the earlier observations wrong, or incomplete,
or maybe an accurate reflection of their diet at the time? Did the
chimps change their diet later? We do not know. Chimps sometimes
change their diets on a monthly basis. A study of chimps at the
Kabogo Point region from 1961 to 1962 by Azuma and Toyoshima,
revealed that they witnessed "only one instance of chimpanzees
ingesting animal food, vis. termites or beetles from rotten wood."
(p.87).
From 1963 to 1964, similar observations were found in Kasakati
Basin by a Kyoto University team, and when Izawa and Itani published
in 1966 they reported "no chimpanzees eating insects, vertebrates,
avian eggs, soil or tree leaves and found no trace in the 14 stools
that they inspected " (p.86). In contrast Kawabe and Suzuki found
the Kasakati chimps hunting in the same year (p.88), although only
14 of 174 fecal samples contained traces of insects and other animal
foods. So perhaps these differing observations are due to seasonal
variation, or even local differences (cultural variation) in feeding
preferences - Tuttle does not reveal which. Maybe some of the chimps
groups are 'vegetarian', while other are not. But see the Kortlandt
observations below before believing that all chimps are meat-eaters.
Far less is known about bonobo feeding habits than about the
common chimpanzee. Like chimps, the bonobo is also known
to eat insects and carrion, although unlike chimps it has not been
observed to hunt. Kano and Mulavwa provided the most detailed
account of the feeding behaviour of Wamba bonobos based on
a 4-month study. Tuttle reports that their diet was 80% fruit pulp,
15% fibrous foods and 5% seeds, and that "Animal foods
constituted a minute part of their fare" (p.95).
The best evidence, if there is any, of a "vegetarian" ape is the
gorilla. As with the other apes, there is great variation in what
gorillas eat based on their locality, and season. A 15-month
study of gorillas at Campo by Calvert, is reported by Tuttle
(p.100), in which he says that out of 280 stools, 1 example of
stomach contents and 1400 feeding sites, plus direct
observations, there was "no evidence" that "Campo gorillas
ingested animal matter." Similarly, Casimir and Butenandt
followed a group about 20 gorillas at Kahuzi during 15 months
in 1971 to 1972 (Tuttle, ibid., p.102). They collected 43 fecal
samples at fairly regular intervals but none "contained remains
of vertebrates or invertebrates". In addition, the gorillas did
not disturb active birds and honeybee nests that were clearly
visible near their own nests. Nor did they unearth bee nests.
Goodall also noted that Kahuzi gorillas ignored eggs and
fledglings and did not invade bees nests (Tuttle, ibid., p.105),
and that none of the many fecal samples he found contained
animal remnants. Tuttle also reports that the "most detailed"
study of 10 groups of Zairean Virunga mountain gorillas by
Schaller in 13 months from 1956 to 1960, including fecal
samples and 466 direct hours of observation, found "no
evidence that they raided apian nests, which were common
at Kabara, ingested animal foods, or drank water." (p.107)
In 1959, a 64-day study by Kawai and Mizuhara of gorillas
at Mts. Muhavura and Gahinga also found "no evidence for
animal foods in the gorillas' fare." (p.108)
The story for gorillas is by no means a clear one, as findings
seem to vary from one study to another. You can pick them
to suit your agenda. For example, Adriaan Kortlandt says in
'Food Acquisition And Processing In Primates', page 133-135,
that "Gorillas have never been observed to eat honey, eggs,
insects or meat, not even when they were sitting or nesting
almost on top of honeycomb or a bird's nest, except for
one single case of honey-eating reported by Sabater-Pi (1960)"
He adds however, that Fossey (1974) reports that slugs, larvae
and worms were found to constitute 1% of the food item
observations recorded. Kortlandt adds that "No animal remains
have been found in gorilla dung, except for one case presumably
indicating cannibalism (Fossey, 1981)."
..
Kortlandt states that predation by chimpanzees on vertebrates is
undoubtedly a rather rare phenomenon among rainforest-dwelling
populations of chimpanzees. Kortlandt lists the reasons given below
in his evidence.
# the absence (or virtual absence) of animal matter in the digestive
systems of hundreds of hunted, dissected or otherwise investigated cases
# the rarity of parasites indicating carnivorous habits
# rarity of pertinent field observations
# the responses when he placed live as well as dead potential prey
animals along the chimpanzee paths at Beni (in the poorer environments
of the savanna landscape however, predation on vertebrates appears to
be much more common)
Kortlandt concludes this section on primate diets by saying that
the wealth of flora and insect fauna in the rain-forest provides
both chimpanzees and orang-utans with a dietary spectrum that seems
wide enough to meet their nutritional requirements, without hunting
and killing of vertebrates being necessary. It is in the poorer
nutritional environments, where plant sources may be scarce or of
low quality where carnivorous behaviour arises. Even then he says
that the meat obtained are minimal and perhaps insufficient to meet
basic needs. Finally he adds "The same conclusion applies, of course,
to hominids . . . it is strange that most palaeoanthropologists have
never been willing to accept the elementary facts on this matter
that have emerged from both nutritional science and primate research."
..'
http://tinyurl.com/d8aqw
pearl
Faking quotes, forged posts, lies, filth, harassment.
http://www.iol.ie/~creature/boiled%20ball.html
The Socialised Psychopath or Sociopath
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/serial.htm#Sociopath
Leif Erikson
> "Leif Erikson" <pi...@thedismalscience.net> wrote in message news:JEdsf.1022$M%4....@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>
> pearl wrote
> <..>
>
>>>"It is highly probable that plant foods were indeed the major part
>>>of the early hominid economy, and unequivocal evidence for hunting
>>>as against scavenging carrion does not appear until relatively late in
>>>the fossil record, probably not earlier than half-a-million years ago."
>>
>>Humans hunted from the beginning.
>
>
> '... while early humans ate some meat
They ate meat. Period.
e.
> ..
> http://tinyurl.com/dahps
John Coleman's site is ideological crap. "The Obligate
Fruigivore" is a ridiculous proposition, a nonsense.
There is no essential nutritent found *only* in fruit.
Cats are obligate carnivores; there is no such thing
as an "obligate frugivore". Coleman is not a
scientist, he's a polemicist, and so are you.
>>Chimpanzees have *always* hunted as well.
>
>
> 'According to Tuttle,
Chimpanzees have *always* hunted.
Leif Erikson
> "Leif Erikson" <pi...@thedismalscience.net>
>
> Faking quotes
Faking nothing, you fucking whore. You're a whore - a
lying, diseased whore.
pearl
--
"All truth passes through 3 stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer
"Leif Erikson" <pi...@thedismalscience.net> wrote in message news:y7esf.10698$nm....@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> pearl wrote:
>
> > "Leif Erikson" <pi...@thedismalscience.net> wrote in message news:JEdsf.1022$M%4....@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> >
> > pearl wrote
> > <..>
> >
> >>>"It is highly probable that plant foods were indeed the major part
> >>>of the early hominid economy, and unequivocal evidence for hunting
> >>>as against scavenging carrion does not appear until relatively late in
> >>>the fossil record, probably not earlier than half-a-million years ago."
> >>
> >>Humans hunted from the beginning.
> >
> >
> > '... while early humans ate some meat we do not know how
much meat they ate, nor whether they got the meat by hunting
or scavenging. It is not until much later, around 100,000 years
ago, that we have good evidence about human hunting skills,
and it is clear that humans then were still very ineffective
big-game hunters. Human hunters of 500,000 years ago and
earlier must have been more ineffective.
..
http://tinyurl.com/dahps
> They ate meat. Period.
Some did, at times.
'In The Origin of Humankind, Richard Leakey mentions Lewis
Binford, who suggested that systematic hunting of any kind
began to appear only when modern humans evolved, giving
dates of 45,000 to 38,000 years ago.
.. We now know that modern humans were roaming
Africa at least around 195,000 years ago.
> > ..
> > http://tinyurl.com/dahps
>
> Jo
Ad hominem.
pearl
S. Maizlich
> "Leif Erikson" <pi...@thedismalscience.net>
>
> Faking quotes,
Faking nothing, you fucking whore. You're a whore - a
lying, diseased whore.
Leif Erikson
> "All truth passes through 3 stages...
You wouldn't know. Nothing you've written is truthful.
Fucking whore.
pearl
pearl
Martin Willett
Yes, as I said, the collection and circulation of snippets of
information which support the stance decided upon independently of any
evidence, a stance that needs no support, is the antithesis of the
scientific method.
The copy and paste of chapter and verse citation is absolutely typical
of the Creationist, another species of mass debater which uses
scientific research like a drunk uses a lamppost: more for support than
illumination.
Normally when I come across copy and paste citations in Creationist
rants I copy a section of the text, including the citation, and see how
many times it comes up.
"that niche separation is clear only at such times (Gautier-Hion" 9
hits for Google, 12 for Google Groups. It goes up to 18 if I leave out
the citation. This makes me just a tad suspicious about the quotation. I
wonder if pearl can tell me what the next chapter says? In creationist
circles quotations from scientists that can be interpreted (or
misinterpreted) as supporting their cause, however obliquely, are traded
avidly like relics of the saints and posted by people who haven't a clue
about science but know what they believe.
Our ancestors of course ate fruit for millions of years. This fruit
eating is written all over our bodies, especially in our binocular
vision and excellent colour discrimination. I don't know of any
evolutionary biologists that do not think we evolved from fruit eaters.
Of course we evolved from monkeys, and fruit-eating monkeys are smarter
than animals that eat leaves, who wouldn't expect a monkey to outwit a
sheep? But we left fruit eating behind to become omnivores. Armed with
excellent vision, grasping hands and an agile brain but lacking
offensive or defensive weaponry of any kinds a change in habitat that
led to a reduction in forests (and therefore fruit) and an increase in
open grasslands gave us a push in a new direction. We took to eating
tubers, digging them up with sticks as well as hands, we scavenged
carrion and we killed what we could catch. Over time what we could catch
got bigger, until it encompassed everything we decided we wanted to catch.
You cannot live as a fruit-eater outside of tropical forests for the
simple reason that there are no fruits available for months at a time in
most other environments. There are no fruit-dependent species of mammal
of any kind living in Europe. Temperate zone fruits do get eaten, but
not by fruit-eating specialists like monkeys, which are confined to the
tropics. As modern humans were living well outside the tropics over
100,000 years ago you can conclude that they must have had an omnivorous
diet of some kind, unless you believe breatharians are not charlatans.
They were not big game hunters but they were not vegans or fruitarians
either.
Social cooperation could only have developed through hunting and
meat-sharing. Gathering tubers is no more conducive to cooperation than
collecting fruit, unless you're a naked mole-rat, it is an activity in
which rewards follow efforts quite linearly. In contrast hunting is far
more hit and miss, an excellent hunter can have a bad day not through
idleness but through dumb luck. Cooperation begins to make a lot more
sense. If you bring down an animal too big for you to eat alone you
share it, and convert the calories you couldn't eat into social debts
and obligations. That kind of society makes sense but it requires a
further boost in brains and social skills. Meat helped us to become
sharers and carers. Without meat we would never have become human. Of
course that does not mean we ate a lot of meat or ate more meat than
vegetable-derived calories or even protein, only that meat eating was a
vitally important part of our behaviour.
pearl
The information is based on evidence.
> The copy and paste of chapter and verse citation is absolutely typical
> of the Creationist, another species of mass debater which uses
> scientific research like a drunk uses a lamppost: more for support than
> illumination.
>
> Normally when I come across copy and paste citations in Creationist
> rants I copy a section of the text, including the citation, and see how
> many times it comes up.
Waffle.
> "that niche separation is clear only at such times (Gautier-Hion" 9
> hits for Google, 12 for Google Groups. It goes up to 18 if I leave out
> the citation. This makes me just a tad suspicious about the quotation. I
> wonder if pearl can tell me what the next chapter says? In creationist
> circles quotations from scientists that can be interpreted (or
> misinterpreted) as supporting their cause, however obliquely, are traded
> avidly like relics of the saints and posted by people who haven't a clue
> about science but know what they believe.
>
> Our ancestors of course ate fruit for millions of years. This fruit
> eating is written all over our bodies, especially in our binocular
> vision and excellent colour discrimination. I don't know of any
> evolutionary biologists that do not think we evolved from fruit eaters.
> Of course we evolved from monkeys, and fruit-eating monkeys are smarter
> than animals that eat leaves, who wouldn't expect a monkey to outwit a
> sheep? But we left fruit eating behind to become omnivores. Armed with
> excellent vision, grasping hands and an agile brain but lacking
> offensive or defensive weaponry of any kinds a change in habitat that
> led to a reduction in forests (and therefore fruit) and an increase in
> open grasslands gave us a push in a new direction. We took to eating
> tubers, digging them up with sticks as well as hands, we scavenged
> carrion and we killed what we could catch. Over time what we could catch
> got bigger, until it encompassed everything we decided we wanted to catch.
'Ethnographic parallels with modern hunter-gatherer communities have
been taken to show that the colder the climate, the greater the reliance
on meat. There are sound biological and economic reasons for this, not
least in the ready availability of large amounts of fat in arctic mammals.
From this, it has been deduced that the humans of the glacial periods
were primarily hunters, while plant foods were more important during
the interglacials. '
http://www.phancocks.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/naturalhistory/devensian.htm
'Anthropologically speaking, humans were high consumers of calcium
until the onset of the Agricultural Age, 10,000 years ago. Current
calcium intake is one-quarter to one-third that of our evolutionary diet
and, if we are genetically identical to the Late Paleolithic Homo sapiens,
we may be consuming a calcium-deficient diet our bodies cannot adjust
to by physiologic mechanisms.
The anthropological approach says, with the exception of a few small
changes related to genetic blood diseases, that humans are basically
identical biologically and medically to the hunter-gatherers of the late
Paleolithic Era.17 During this period, calcium content of the diet was
much higher than it is currently. Depending on the ratio of animal to
plant foods, calcium intake could have exceeded 2000 mg per day.17
Calcium was largely derived from wild plants, which had a very high
calcium content; animal protein played a small role, and the use of dairy
products did not come into play until the Agricultural Age 10,000 years
ago. Compared to the current intake of approximately 500 mg per day
for women age 20 and over in the United States,18 hunter-gatherers had
a significantly higher calcium intake and apparently much stronger bones.
As late as 12,000 years ago, Stone Age hunters had an average of
17-percent more bone density (as measured by humeral cortical
thickness). Bone density also appeared to be stable over time with
an apparent absence of osteoporosis.17
High levels of calcium excretion via renal losses are seen with both
high salt and high protein diets, in each case at levels common in the
United States.10,11
..
The only hunter-gatherers that seemed to fall prey to bone loss
were the aboriginal Inuit (Eskimos). Although their physical
activity level was high, their osteoporosis incidence exceeded
even present-day levels in the United States. The Inuit diet was
high in phosphorus and protein and low in calcium.20
...'
http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/fulltext/calcium4-2.html
> You cannot live as a fruit-eater outside of tropical forests for the
> simple reason that there are no fruits available for months at a time in
> most other environments. There are no fruit-dependent species of mammal
> of any kind living in Europe. Temperate zone fruits do get eaten, but
> not by fruit-eating specialists like monkeys, which are confined to the
> tropics. As modern humans were living well outside the tropics over
> 100,000 years ago you can conclude that they must have had an omnivorous
> diet of some kind, unless you believe breatharians are not charlatans.
> They were not big game hunters but they were not vegans or fruitarians
> either.
These days there's nothing to prevent most people being vegan.
> Social cooperation could only have developed through hunting and
> meat-sharing. Gathering tubers is no more conducive to cooperation than
> collecting fruit, unless you're a naked mole-rat, it is an activity in
> which rewards follow efforts quite linearly. In contrast hunting is far
> more hit and miss, an excellent hunter can have a bad day not through
> idleness but through dumb luck.
How is that cooperating with those who are left to actually
provide for the urgent needs of dependants - the women?
Sounds like a way of getting out of the real work to me.
> Cooperation begins to make a lot more
> sense. If you bring down an animal too big for you to eat alone you
> share it, and convert the calories you couldn't eat into social debts
> and obligations.
One large animal every thirty hunter days between everyone won't go far.
> That kind of society makes sense but it requires a
> further boost in brains and social skills. Meat helped us to become
> sharers and carers. Without meat we would never have become human.
You're wrong. Compassion is supposedly a human trait. Where's yours?
> Of course that does not mean we ate a lot of meat or ate more meat than
> vegetable-derived calories or even protein, only that meat eating was a
> vitally important part of our behaviour.
I helped us survive in times of need. Be grateful.
Leif Erikson
> "Leif Erikson" <jack...@phs.con>
>
> Faking quotes,
Faking nothing, you goddamned lying whore. You are a chronic liar.
ant and dec
I've been looking for more evidence of brain development and came across
this article "Evolution of the brainstem orofacial motor system in
primates: a comparative study of trigeminal, facial, and hypoglossal
nuclei" from the Journal of Human Evolution.
It's currently free on the following link.
It looks at brain stem development in terms of volume and grey level
index etc, and comparing these to the function of oral-facial muscles.
As a lay person it would seem to support the theory that brain
development in hominids is related to visual development, in this case
visual communication.
Conclusions
The results of this study reveal a mosaic of conservative and derived
traits in the orofacial motor nuclei of primates. In general, the volume
and neuropil space in these nuclei were closely correlated with overall
size variables, a finding that emphasizes the important role of
developmental constraint in determination of the volume and
cytoarchitecture of these brainstem nuclei. We tested several hypotheses
relating the structure of the orofacial motor nuclei to functional and
phylogenetic specializations. For the most part, however, variation in
these motor nuclei was not clearly associated with such adaptations.
After controlling for phylogenetic bias, there was no apparent
relationship between the neuroanatomic organization of these nuclei with
socioecological variables, such as social group size or the percentage
of leaves in the diet. In addition, despite phylogenetic variation in
the masticatory system as evident by mandibular symphysis fusion in
anthropoids, the scaling of Vmo did not differ between primate
suborders. Our analyses also did not find evidence to support the
hypothesis that the human hypoglossal motor system is uniquely
reorganized to facilitate articulate speech. In fact, orang-utans
displayed relatively larger hypoglossal nucleus volumes than humans.
Nonetheless, we found several instances where taxa exhibited significant
departures from conservative allometric scaling patterns. A grade shift
was observed in the scaling of XII volume such that the strepsirrhine
regression line had a higher elevation than the haplorhine line. In
addition, VII volume scaled with a steeper slope in haplorhines compared
to strepsirrhines, perhaps reflecting a difference between these
phylogenetic groups in the developmental mechanisms that regulate VII
motoneuron proliferation and subsequent elimination. Hominids,
furthermore, were found to have significantly larger VII volumes than
predicted for nonhominid haplorhines of their medulla volume. Taken
together, these phylogenetic specializations of VII may be related to
variation in facial muscle differentiation and increased descending
inputs from neocortical areas. These modifications may constitute a
neuroanatomic substrate for the evolution of fine motor control to the
facial muscles of expression in these taxa in association with increased
emphasis on gestural modes of communication utilizing the visual channel.
pearl
> the unethical foot-rubbing whore Lesley of Cork, Ireland lied:
>
> > "Leif Erikson" <jack...@phs.con>
> >
> > Faking quotes,
Faking quotes, forged posts, lies, filth, harassment.
http://www.iol.ie/~creature/boiled%20ball.html
Profile of a Sociopath
http://home.datawest.net/esn-recovery/artcls/socio.htm
> Faking nothing, you goddamned lying whore. You are a chronic liar.
'Avoiding acceptance of responsibility - denial, counterattack and
feigning victimhood
The serial bully is an adult on the outside but a child on the inside;
he or she is like a child who has never grown up. One suspects
that the bully is emotionally retarded and has a level of emotional
development equivalent to a five-year-old, or less. The bully wants
to enjoy the benefits of living in the adult world, but is unable and
unwilling to accept the responsibilities that go with enjoying the
benefits of the adult world. In short, the bully has never learnt to
accept responsibility for their behaviour.
When called to account for the way they have chosen to behave,
the bully instinctively exhibits this recognisable behavioural response:
a) Denial: the bully denies everything. Variations include Trivialization
..
b) Retaliation: the bully counterattacks. The bully quickly and seamlessly
follows the denial with an aggressive counter-attack of counter-criticism
or counter-allegation, often based on distortion or fabrication. Lying,
deception, duplicity, hypocrisy and blame are the hallmarks of this stage.
..
Both a) and b) are delivered with aggression in the guise of assertiveness;
in fact there is no assertiveness (which is about recognising and respecting
the rights of oneself and others) at all. ...
...'
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/serial.htm#Denial
pearl
>
> I've been looking for more evidence of brain development and came across
> this article "Evolution of the brainstem orofacial motor system in
> primates: a comparative study of trigeminal, facial, and hypoglossal
> nuclei" from the Journal of Human Evolution.
>
> It's currently free on the following link.
>
> It looks at brain stem development in terms of volume and grey level
> index etc, and comparing these to the function of oral-facial muscles.
>
> As a lay person it would seem to support the theory that brain
> development in hominids is related to visual development, in this case
> visual communication.
>
> http://tinyurl.com/ckxq9
Yes. Very interesting. Thank you.
Leif Erikson
Ireland lied:
> "Leif Erikson" <notgen...@yahoo.com> lied in message news:1135722479.1...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
>>the unethical foot-rubbing whore Lesley of Cork, Ireland lied:
>>
>>
>>>"Leif Erikson" <jack...@phs.con>
>>>
>>>Faking quotes,
>
>
> Faking quotes,
Faking nothing, you goddamned lying whore. You are a
chronic liar.
> 'Avoiding acceptance of responsibility
What you fail to accept is that we KNOW you are not an
expert in any of the fields in which you pretend to
have expertise. You are an ideologue, not a scientist.
For some reason, you have bought into a food
ideology, and you mistakenly believe that your ardent
"true believer" status translates to expertise. It
doesn't.
pearl
Faking quotes, forged posts, lies, filth, harassment.
http://www.iol.ie/~creature/boiled%20ball.html
Profile of a Sociopath
..
when faced with accountability or unwelcome attention
which might lead to others discerning the sociopath's
true nature, responds with repeated and escalating
attempts to control, manipulate and punish
..'
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/serial.htm#Sociopath
'- may pursue a vindictive vendetta against anyone who dares
to held them accountable, perhaps using others' resources
and contemptuous of the damage caused to other people
and organisations in pursuance of the vendetta
- is also quick to belittle, undermine, denigrate and discredit
anyone who calls, attempts to call, or might call the bully to
account
- gains gratification from denying people what they are entitled to
......'
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/serial.htm
http://www.reflexology-research.com/updatedresearch.htm.
I've better things to do than parley with you, sick ball.
Leif Erikson
> "Leif Erikson" pi...@thedismalscience.net
>
> Faking quotes,
Faking nothing, you filthy lying skanky whore.
dh
>On 2005-12-25, dh@. <dh@> wrote:
>> On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 04:29:05 -0000, Jeff Caird <profes...@knox.edu> wrote:
>>
>>>On 2005-12-25, dh@. <dh@> wrote:
>>>> How about rishathra?
>>>>
>>>
>>>Is that from Ringworld?
>>>
>>>Feffer
>>
>> Yes. I wondered if anyone was familiar with that. I just
>> found out yesterday they were going to make a movie
>> a few years ago, but it didn't work out for some reason
>> dammit.
>
>Just as well. Did you see what they did with Riverworld?
>
>Feffy
I'm not familiar with that at all. Not even with the concept.
It would probably be a better use of time to spend less of
it arguing with people in these ngs and reading something
else instead. What little reading I've done lately has been
Niven, since he's my favorite sci fi author. I'm reading
Ringworld's Children now, about 10 pages per month. That
would make a hell of a movie! I think the Integral Trees could
be awesome too.
dh
>This false belief that it is better to exist than never
>to exist leads to an infamous bit of illogic called the
>Logic of the Larder, taken from the title of a famous
>essay on this very topic.
You're referring to an "ARA's" fantasy about what
HE/YOU/"ARAs" feel a pig would say if it could, and
if it knew it was raised by humans, and that humans
would kill it, and butcher it, and eat it, and it even knew
about ham and sausages Goo. It's amusing that anyone
could truly consider that anthropomorphic "AR" talking
pig fantasy, to somehow refute the fact that some farm
animals benefit from farming. Let's examine what must
be the part that YOU/"ARAs" think refutes the facts:
"For mark, I pray thee, that in my entry into the world my
own predilection was in no wise considered, nor did I
purchase life on condition of my own butchery. If, then,
thou art firm set on pork, so be it, for pork I am: but though
thou hast not spared my life, at least spare me thy sophistry.
It is not for his sake, but for thine, that in his life the Pig is
filthily housed and fed, and at the end barbarously
butchered."
In order for your fantasy to be any more than pathetic
dishonesty, pigs would HAVE to know all that Goo.
And in addition to that, the same thing could be said
in regards to "ARAs" and their objective when the pig
instead says:
'it is not for their sake but for thine, that you would
rather prevent their lives than see them deliberately
provided with decent lives and humane deaths.'
>It leads someone to conclude
>that he is doing a domestic animal he kills and eats
>some kind of "favor" by causing it to exist. But the
>person who wishes to eat meat cannot justify his meat
>eating by saying he made the animal better off by
>having caused it to exist. It is obvious that a person
>who attempts to engage in this illogic harbors some
>kind of doubts over the ethical justice of eating meat,
That's all YOU/"ARAs" can imagine it to mean Goo,
because you can't understand how farm animals could
possibly have lives of positive value. Some are and some
are not, but they are all the same to YOU/"ARAs".
>and is frantically trying to rationalize his diet by
>making some aspect of it seem "other-directed". But
>it's a dead end.
>
>
>> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there,
>> so don't bother pointing it out.
>
>No, the qualifier is irrelevant. It is the *entire*
>concept that is flawed.
>
>
>>
>> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
>> could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
>> loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
>
>And therein lies the *correct* justification for eating
>meat: there is nothing inherently wrong with killing
>an animal.
This is you explaining how you want everyone to feel about it:
_________________________________________________________
From: Jonathan Ball <jon...@whitehouse.not>
Message-ID: <a6K%b.10491$yZ1....@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>
the "getting to experience
life" deserves NO moral consideration, and is given
none; the deliberate killing of animals for use by
humans DOES deserve moral consideration, and gets it.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
_________________________________________________________
From: Rudy Canoza <som...@ph.con>
Message-ID: <Q4RKd.2867$Ix....@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net>
"giving them life" does NOT mitigate the wrongness of
their deaths
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
_________________________________________________________
From: "Rudy Canoza" <notg...@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1106953288....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>
Fact: IF it is wrong to kill animals deliberately for food, then
having deliberately caused them to live in the first place does not
mitigate the wrong in any way.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
_________________________________________________________
From: Rudy Canoza <som...@ph.con>
Message-ID: <Mnj_d.6837$qW....@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net>
You consider that it "got to experience life" to be
some kind of mitigation of the evil of killing it.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
_________________________________________________________
From: "Rudy Canoza" <notg...@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1110916574.0...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
people who consume animals justify the harm they inflict
on the animals by believing that "giving" life to the animals
somehow mitigates the harm.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
_________________________________________________________
From: "Rudy Canoza" <notg...@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1109786836.0...@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>
Humans could change it. They could change it by ending it.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
_________________________________________________________
From: Rudy Canoza <som...@ph.con>
Message-ID: <5r5Ud.7831$Ba3....@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net>
There is no "selfishness" involved in wanting farm
animals not to exist as a step towards creating a more
just world.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
dh
>dh@. wrote:
>> On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 10:09:59 +0000, Martin Willett <mwille...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>>We detect the sin of hypocrisy,
>>>which for our species seems to be the ultimate sin.
>>
>>
>> · Since the animals we raise for food would not be alive
>> if we didn't raise them for that purpose, it's a distortion of
>> reality not to take that fact into consideration whenever
>> we think about the fact that the animals are going to be
>> killed. The animals are not being cheated out of any part
>> of their life by being raised for food, but instead they are
>> experiencing whatever life they get as a result of it. ·
>>
>>
>>>Eating animals and
>>>yet asking not to be eaten ourselves on the grounds that we are sentient
>>>animals strikes us as in some way a form of hypocrisy. It probably is.
>>>So what? Is hypocrisy the ultimate sin recognized by all sentient
>>>lifeforms everywhere? If if it then surely acting like hypocrites would
>>>make us less attractive dinner table fare, wouldn't it? We would be less
>>>likely to eat a “sinful” species that ate dung and its own young than
>>>one that just ate grass, hung around in fields and went moo. Acting like
>>>hypocrites would make us appear less tasty and nutritious.
>>
>>
>> Maybe they'd kill us as vermin.
>>
>>
>>>Acting like
>>>hypocrites is probably a good survival strategy. Do we eat “wicked”
>>>weasels, hyaenas, snakes and tapeworms in preference to “noble” animals
>>>like deer and salmon?
>>>Which species do we refuse to eat on moral grounds?
>>
>>
>> Human.
>>
>
>Unless we really need to.
Or change the rules of morality.
>>>Do we avoid eating all peaceful herbivores? Hardly! In fact if we can
>>>see any patterns at all here it is that the more animals an animal eats
>>>the less likely it is we will want to eat it ourselves. The only
>>>carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are fish, animals
>>>that some people who call themselves vegetarians even try to redefine as
>>>some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies, haddock are animals
>>>that eat other animals, being cold bloodied, small-eyed and ugly doesn't
>>>change anything, fish are not vegetables. If you eat fish you cannot be
>>>a vegetarian.
>>>
>>>We prefer to eat peaceful herbivores, we actively give preference to
>>>those animals that eat a 100% pure vegetarian diet of grass. Why do we
>>>assume that aliens will prefer to eat old, evil, bitter, twisted and
>>>hypocritical animals like us rather than the nice innocent tender baa
>>>lambs that we like to eat? It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.
>>>
>>>Why don't we eat carnivorous animals?
>>>
>>>There is no reason why we don't eat carnivorous animals apart from the
>>>fact that they are too expensive to farm economically. When dogs are
>>>raised to be eaten they are not fed on meat, they are given the cheapest
>>>food that will do the job, usually grain, vegetables and kitchen scraps,
>>>just like pigs.
>>
>>
>> Pigs are omnivores. I'm not even sure if they can digest celulose,
>> but I doubt it. Chickens are omnivores. And it's the omnivores like
>> chicken, turkey and pork that can really screw you up if you eat it
>> undercooked. I'm guessing because of similarity in digestive systems
>> or something like that, but never have heard anyone say anything
>> about it.
>
>Cows can't digest cellulose either.
Yeah all right, and neither can termites...but they can still live off it. And I
still don't know about pigs.
>That seems to be rather good proof
>that if there is a god he's probably not the smartest god he could
>possibly be.
How do you think it could have been done smarter? Don't forget
it is as it is whether God had anything to do with it or not, so you
will have to explain how a God could have made things turn out your
smarter way instead of the way they did.
dh
>
><dh@.> wrote
>> On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 01:38:45 GMT, "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>"Martin Willett" <mwille...@invalid.invalid> wrote
>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>
>>>>> But not much respect for the pig?
>>>>
>>>> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
>>>> of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
>>>> than not to.
>>>>
>>>> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there,
>>>> so
>>>> don't bother pointing it out.
>>>
>>>I really like your posts Martin, I agree with everything you have said up
>>>to
>>>now, but
>>
>> Now he has suggested that something could be ethically equivalent
>> or superior to the elimination of domestic animals,
>
>That's got nothing to do with it dipshit.
Bullshit.
>I don't dispute that *using animal
>products* is "ethically equivalent or superior to the elimination of
>domestic animals" to use your awkward wording.
Try to do better.
>My argument is simply
>examining the logic of the premise "If we didn't eat the pigs they would
>never exist at all..."
LOL! In what magical way do you think they might exist if we didn't
raise them for food? And don't tell me some stupid crap about wild pigs.
You might just as well mention that ANY other animal might exist, because
NO other animal has anything to do with the fact that if we didn't raise the
animals we raise to eat they would never exist...not wild pigs, not wild goats,
and not even your wild mice, frogs and groundhogs.
In an earlier post, didn't you give us permission to consider the lives of
animals when they are terrible, but not those that have positive value to
the animals? Since you refuse to make a list, a person is forced to guess
what you allow and what you don't. So far my guess is that you would
allow us to consider the lives of wild animals, and the lives of livestock
only if they are terrible. If there are other things you would allow or forbid,
let's you set it straight right now or I'll know my guess was correct.
dh
>dh@. wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 01:38:45 GMT, "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"Martin Willett" <mwille...@invalid.invalid> wrote
>>>
>>>>ant and dec wrote:
>>>
>>>>>But not much respect for the pig?
>>>>
>>>>If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
>>>>of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
>>>>than not to.
>>>>
>>>>Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there, so
>>>>don't bother pointing it out.
>>>
>>>I really like your posts Martin, I agree with everything you have said up to
>>>now, but
>>
>>
>> Now he has suggested that something could be ethically equivalent
>> or superior to the elimination of domestic animals,
>
>No. There is no moral credit to be taken for causing
>domestic animals to exist. The animals are in no way
>"better off" for having come into existence.
Explain how lives of positive value are not as good as or better than
nothing.
Leif Erikson
No, Fuckwit - YOU must demonstrate that getting to live is better than
not getting to live. "Positive values" has nothing to do with it.
Get busy, you chickenshit cocksucking punk.
dh
>Martin Willett wrote:
>
>> S. Maizlich wrote:
>>
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>>>>>>> posted by the author
>>>>>>>>>>
>> <snips>
>>
>>>>
>>>> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as
>>>> most of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live
>>>> and die than not to.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> No, that's illogical thinking. When you compare two things, the
>>> things must exist in order for the comparison to make sense. It is
>>> patently absurd to say that existing (no matter what the quality of
>>> life) is better than never existing.
>>>
>>> What does it mean for something to be "better" for some entity? It
>>> means that the entity either must perceive itself to be, or
>>> objectively seen by others as being, better off THAN IT WAS BEFORE.
>>> That is, the entity's welfare must have *improved* from what it was
>>> before. But prior to existing, there was no entity, and so there was
>>> no welfare of the entity. Thus, we see that is is plainly absurd to
>>> talk about existence, per se, making the entity "better off".
>>> Existence is what establishes an entity's welfare; it does *not*
>>> improve it.
>>>
>>> This false belief that it is better to exist than never to exist leads
>>> to an infamous bit of illogic called the Logic of the Larder, taken
>>> from the title of a famous essay on this very topic. It leads someone
>>> to conclude that he is doing a domestic animal he kills and eats some
>>> kind of "favor" by causing it to exist. But the person who wishes to
>>> eat meat cannot justify his meat eating by saying he made the animal
>>> better off by having caused it to exist. It is obvious that a person
>>> who attempts to engage in this illogic harbors some kind of doubts
>>> over the ethical justice of eating meat, and is frantically trying to
>>> rationalize his diet by making some aspect of it seem
>>> "other-directed". But it's a dead end.
>>>
>>>
>>>> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it
>>>> there, so don't bother pointing it out.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> No, the qualifier is irrelevant. It is the *entire* concept that is
>>> flawed.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
>>>> could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
>>>> loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> And therein lies the *correct* justification for eating meat: there
>>> is nothing inherently wrong with killing an animal. Predators do it
>>> all the time, and there is no moral dimension to their doing it. As
>>> long as one isn't intentionally inflicting needless suffering on
>>> animals, no rationale for the basic act of killing them to eat them is
>>> needed.
>>
>>
>> Thanks. I can digest that steak pie in peace now.
>>
>> It doesn't matter if the animal lives or doesn't,
>
>Right.
It matters to YOU/"ARAs" quite a lot:
_________________________________________________________
From: Jonathan Ball <jon...@earthlink.NS.net>
"vegans" are interested in their influence on animals,
Fuckwit. They want everyone to be "vegan", which would
mean no animals raised for food and other products.
That's an influence, whether you like it or not.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
_________________________________________________________
From: jonb...@altavista.com (Jonathan Ball)
Message-ID: <e435dead.02041...@posting.google.com>
People who don't want them to exist should be "vegans". "Vegans"
aren't interested in contributing to lives of any quality for farm
animals: they don't want there to be farm animals.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
_________________________________________________________
From: Jonathan Ball <jonb...@earthlink.NS.net>
Message-ID: <3BA61201...@earthlink.NS.net>
"Veg*nism" certainly doesn't harm any living farm
animals. And if everyone adopted "veg*nism", no farm
animals would live in bad conditions.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
so why shouldn't people who promote decent lives for them have
as much interest in whether they live or not as YOU/"ARAs" have?
>But it's especially important to understand
>that rationalizing one's meat consumption on the basis
>that "at least" the animal got to live is a nasty
>sophistry.
No, it's a fact Goo. A fact which YOU/"ARAs" very
obviously hate for what I consider to be a very obvious
reason, but it's still a fact regardless of your hatred of it.
Saying the fact is sophistry is a lie Goo. The act of saying
the fact is sophistry is YOU/"ARAs" committing sophistry.
>Not only that, it's needless: no such
>rationalization is necessary. To me, the biggest
>problem with such rationalization and sophistry is it's
>attempting to play the "vegans'" game on their terms,
>and as their entire ethical motivation for playing the
>game in the first place is morally disgusting, it puts
>one in an ethical swamp where one needn't have gone in
>the first place.
No. What you hate about it is that it considers providing
farm animals with decent lives could be ethically equivalent
or superior to their elimination. That is what YOU/"ARAs"
hate about the fact which you so maniacally and amusingly
attempt to refute.
>The Logic of the Larder when advanced
>by meat eaters as a rationale for their meat eating
>always has an unserious quality to it; as if those who
>advance it really are just trying to pull a rhetorical
>trick, a fast one, on their "vegan" opponents.
LOL! Oh Goober, this is classic. Now you're saying that
pointing out the lives of billions of animals is trying to pull
a trick on vegans. But you say it's okay to consider their
deaths, just not their lives.
_________________________________________________________
From: Jonathan Ball <jon...@whitehouse.not>
Message-ID: <a6K%b.10491$yZ1....@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>
the "getting to experience
life" deserves NO moral consideration, and is given
none; the deliberate killing of animals for use by
humans DOES deserve moral consideration, and gets it.
ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ
YOU/"ARAs" are hilarious sometimes.
>> and if it lives it
>> will die no matter whether it was caused to live or just happened to
>> live. What matters is whether it lives or dies in avoidable suffering.
>> As long as human animal husbandry does not impose more stress or
>> suffering on an animal than it would be expected to experience in a life
>> unaffected by humanity then we have done nothing to be ashamed of.
>
>I'm not even sure this last is a requirement, simply
>because the animals we raise domestically for our
>consumption never *would* exist unaffected by humanity.
> All that's needed is good-faith effort to keep the
>amount of suffering low, and always to be seeking ways
>to reduce it further.
>
>
>> I am quite confident that good animal husbandry can and often does
>> meet that test.
>
>Of course it does.
But you insist we're not allowed to think about that Goo. Or can we
consider their lives in comparison to some imaginary wild life they never
would have anyway, just not in comparison to nothing which is the only
real option? And of course why would anyone accept whatever specific
and idiotic restrictions you would so very much love to impose???
Especially considering that as yet you haven't even been able to explain
exactly what they are. Which lives are we allowed to consider Goober,
and which ones are we not allowed to consider?
Leif Erikson
No.
I'm not an "ara". But you already knew that.
> >But it's especially important to understand
> >that rationalizing one's meat consumption on the basis
> >that "at least" the animal got to live is a nasty
> >sophistry.
>
> No, it's a fact
It's a fact that it's a nasty sophistry, and that's all it is.
> >Not only that, it's needless: no such
> >rationalization is necessary. To me, the biggest
> >problem with such rationalization and sophistry is it's
> >attempting to play the "vegans'" game on their terms,
> >and as their entire ethical motivation for playing the
> >game in the first place is morally disgusting, it puts
> >one in an ethical swamp where one needn't have gone in
> >the first place.
>
> No
Yes. That's EXACTLY what it is, Fuckwit. There are two things wrong
with it. First, the game is wrong in the first place. Secondly, you
are INCOMPETENT to do it.
> >The Logic of the Larder when advanced
> >by meat eaters as a rationale for their meat eating
> >always has an unserious quality to it; as if those who
> >advance it really are just trying to pull a rhetorical
> >trick, a fast one, on their "vegan" opponents.
>
> LOL! this is classic. Now you're saying that
> pointing out the lives of billions of animals is trying to pull
> a trick on vegans.
That *is* all it is, Fuckwit.
> >> and if it lives it
> >> will die no matter whether it was caused to live or just happened to
> >> live. What matters is whether it lives or dies in avoidable suffering.
> >> As long as human animal husbandry does not impose more stress or
> >> suffering on an animal than it would be expected to experience in a life
> >> unaffected by humanity then we have done nothing to be ashamed of.
> >
> >I'm not even sure this last is a requirement, simply
> >because the animals we raise domestically for our
> >consumption never *would* exist unaffected by humanity.
> > All that's needed is good-faith effort to keep the
> >amount of suffering low, and always to be seeking ways
> >to reduce it further.
> >
> >
> >> I am quite confident that good animal husbandry can and often does
> >> meet that test.
> >
> >Of course it does.
>
> But you insist we're not allowed to think about that
No, I don't. Stop lying, Fuckwit, you gutless chickenshit punk.
Leif Erikson
> On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 20:19:11 GMT, "S. Maizlich" <s.e.ma...@hertzburgh.eduu> wrote:
>
>
> >This false belief that it is better to exist than never
> >to exist leads to an infamous bit of illogic called the
> >Logic of the Larder, taken from the title of a famous
> >essay on this very topic.
>
> You're referring to
I'm referring to Henry Salt's concise, persuasive essay called The
Logic of the Larder, it which he eloquently demolishes the idea that
causing animals to live can be a rationale for killing and eating them.
> >It leads someone to conclude
> >that he is doing a domestic animal he kills and eats
> >some kind of "favor" by causing it to exist. But the
> >person who wishes to eat meat cannot justify his meat
> >eating by saying he made the animal better off by
> >having caused it to exist. It is obvious that a person
> >who attempts to engage in this illogic harbors some
> >kind of doubts over the ethical justice of eating meat,
>
> That's all YOU/"ARAs"
I'm not an "ara".
Leif Erikson
> "S. Maizlich" <s.e.ma...@utaa.eduu>
>
> Faking quotes,
Faking nothing, you fucking whore. You're a whore - a lying, diseased
whore.
dh
>> This false belief that it is better to exist than never to exist leads
>> to an infamous bit of illogic called the Logic of the Larder, taken from
>> the title of a famous essay on this very topic. It leads someone to
>> conclude that he is doing a domestic animal he kills and eats some kind
>> of "favor" by causing it to exist. But the person who wishes to eat
>> meat cannot justify his meat eating by saying he made the animal better
>> off by having caused it to exist. It is obvious that a person who
>> attempts to engage in this illogic harbors some kind of doubts over the
>> ethical justice of eating meat, and is frantically trying to rationalize
>> his diet by making some aspect of it seem "other-directed". But it's a
>> dead end.
>>
>>
>>> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it
>>> there, so don't bother pointing it out.
>>
>>
>> No, the qualifier is irrelevant. It is the *entire* concept that is
>> flawed.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
>>> could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
>>> loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
>>
>>
>> And therein lies the *correct* justification for eating meat: there is
>> nothing inherently wrong with killing an animal. Predators do it all
>> the time, and there is no moral dimension to their doing it. As long as
>> one isn't intentionally inflicting needless suffering on animals, no
>> rationale for the basic act of killing them to eat them is needed.
>
>Thanks. I can digest that steak pie in peace now.
>
>It doesn't matter if the animal lives or doesn't,
It matters if they do live, but not if they don't. So far no "ARAs"
have been able to give a good reason why we should not give
the animals' lives as much or more consideration than their deaths.
There is the obvious reason that "ARAs" don't want the animals
to exist--which is their whole objective--but it's a rare thing to see
an "ARA" give even that much of a reason. They just insist that
we don't, and maybe wag their Logic of the Imaginary Talking
"AR" Pig fantasy around a bit. Well...they don't often quote the
stupid thing for fear someone might laugh at it, but they refer to
it as if it were more than just a fantasy about a talking pig. It's
pretty much the same as it would be if they referred to Charlotte's
Web, or Chicken Run.
>and if it lives it
>will die no matter whether it was caused to live or just happened to
>live.
They don't get shorter lives because we raise them for food,
as veg*ns like people to feel that they do. It's another dishonest
impression they would like to create in people that animals somehow
have less life because we raise them to eat, when the truth is that
it's the "ARAs" who want to prevent them from having any.
>What matters is whether it lives or dies in avoidable suffering.
>As long as human animal husbandry does not impose more stress or
>suffering on an animal than it would be expected to experience in a life
>unaffected by humanity then we have done nothing to be ashamed of. I am
>quite confident that good animal husbandry can and often does meet that
>test.
So far none of them have given me any reason to feel any
differently about livestock than about any other animals. The
quality of their life determines whether it has positive or
negative value for the individual, and that can and often does
change throughout their lives.
"AR" appears to be very largely based on restricting what
people would allow us to believe, as far as I can tell. Consideration
for the lives of the animals is where they place some huge restriction
as I'm sure you've noticed...or at least you should have noticed. It's
one of the things they haven't made completely clear yet, and
maybe never will. They would allow us to consider the lives of
potential future wildlife, but not those of existing livestock, for
example. And why only wildlife, but not livestock? Why do they
insist we consider the animals' deaths, but also insist we do not
consider their lives as well? And above all that, why would anyone
restrict himself in the way these people insist that we must?
Leif Erikson
No. Ethically, it doesn't matter in the least if an animal "gets to
experience life". The animal isn't better off for the experience, and
ethically, neither are we. *Materially*, humans can be better off, but
not ethically.
> >and if it lives it
> >will die no matter whether it was caused to live or just happened to
> >live.
>
> They don't get shorter lives because we raise them for food
They get shorter lives than they would get if they were bred into
existence and then allowed to live out their natural lifespan.
"Getting to live" in the first place is not of any value to animals.
> >What matters is whether it lives or dies in avoidable suffering.
> >As long as human animal husbandry does not impose more stress or
> >suffering on an animal than it would be expected to experience in a life
> >unaffected by humanity then we have done nothing to be ashamed of. I am
> >quite confident that good animal husbandry can and often does meet that
> >test.
>
> So far none of them have given me any reason to feel any
> differently about livestock than about any other animals.
WHY are you so obsessed with livestock existing, Fuckwit? I mean,
apart from your greedy with to eat them?
Martin Willett
a post unworthy of a response.
Martin Willett
>>>>>>>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>>>>>>> posted by the author
>>>>
>>>> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as
>>>> most of their life is happy and content it must surely better to
>>>> live and die than not to.
>>>>
>>>> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it
>>>> there, so don't bother pointing it out.
>>>>
>>>> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
>>>> could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
>>>> loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing
>>>> pain-killers.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> This line of thinking is very often pulled apart as being complete
>>> BS. by both camps. I see some have already pointed this out.
>>>
>>
>> I see. Which part of the argument?
>
>
> The part that says it is "better" for the pigs or other domestic animals
> to "get to experience life" rather than never doing so. That part. It
> has been thoroughly discredited.
>
I am always wary of arguments that have apparently been thoroughly
discredited, to the point that people will not even bother to explain
how they were discredited and why that argument was accepted and why
"everybody" now accepts the argument is over.
>>
>>
>>
>> This evening I'll be blurring the realms of reality with absinthe. But
>> jokes are good too.
>
>
> I tried that stuff once. There wasn't enough left in my friend's bottle
> to get to any realm-blurring.
>
>>>
>>> You claim to observe this moral superiority, yet you can't give any
>>> examples? I think it's a figment of your imagination.
>>>
>>
>> And I think you're being deliberately dense because it suits your
>> cause. Of course vegetarians want and expect to be seen as morally
>> superior,
>
>
> Not vegetarians; "vegans", also known as (so-called) "ethical"
> vegetarians. Lots of people are vegetarian for reasons other than ethics.
Yes, often out of vanity or health concerns, such as Hitler's idea that
it would cure his flatulence. I can't say *lack of* flatulence is
something I associate with a vegetarian diet.
Some people also go vegetarian ostensibly on moral grounds but only as a
ruse to justify being different, as a form of self-publicity and
self-worship or a smokescreen to draw attention away from an eating
disorder. For some vegetarian men their body is a temple, for many
vegetarian women their body is meant to be an object of worship.
In find people who disguise vanity and self-obsession as a form of care
for dumb animals (especially when it seems confined to animals with
eyelashes) to be particularly nauseating.
<snip>