7 ms·

Good article. I'm not a vegetarian, but I suspect that a hundred years from now humans will look back on our times as barbarous in their treatment of animals.

20after4 11y ago
We can't even seem to treat each-other decently. Animals have no chance.
- leeoniya 11y ago
  not sure that this logic follows. I would say that humanization is a prerequisite for treating anything humanely (and the inverse is true as well, see: dehumanization). IMO, the primary reason animals do not have a chance is because they are not universally (or sufficiently) humanized. This could be in large part due to our grossly insufficient or oversimplified understanding rather than intentional malice. The fact that we don't treat actual humans humanely is an orthogonal issue.
  - fixermark 11y ago
    The fact that we don't treat actual humans humanely may very well be on a continuum with the fact that we don't treat animals as having human-level rights. Ultimately, it may not be that things that are sentient have inviolable rights; it may be that we simply draw a moral circle around ourselves and if you're close enough in the circle, you're protected; if not, you're not. There may be a good historical reason for that; there's anthropological evidence that our early ancestors shared the planet with creatures who were a lot closer to them in both look and behavior than anything living today and that were competing fiercely and in a zero-sum style for overlapping resources. It's not a large leap to imagine that our developed morality therefore accounts for creatures with every bit the cognitive capacity of your own that you cannot coexist peaceably with for risk that they'll end you and your entire bloodline by out-competing you. Whether that's the way we should approach the world (in a modern era where our species dominates the planet's resource allocation and is threatened by functionally zero complex organisms) is a reasonable question; it may very well still be a framework that describes morality for a great deal of the planet's population.
    - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
      The basic question of morality is not, "Are we two similar?", it's "Can we two coexist in a community, and to what extent?" People are going to, quite sensibly, reject attempts at "ethical" argumentation in which we are instructed to dismantle human life for the sake of nonhuman life. If it comes to two groups in zero-sum conflict, morality has already broken down and you've gone into the domain of war. So there's not much point to saying we should treat animals humanely by driving humans extinct.
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      Interesting. I'd note that Neanderthals (if that's whom you are hinting at) actually hunted one another for food when stressed. So no reason for their extinction to be blamed on Homo Sapiens. They were just less efficient at creating large social organizations, so eventually died out.
      - fixermark 11y ago
        Died out and interbred with early migrating humans, if I understand the research correctly? https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/neanderthal/ https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/neanderthal/
- nkoren 11y ago
  I don't think the two are comparable. Humans kill approximately half a million of eah other every year -- and about 2 billion other animals per week. We're unlikely to ever treat other animals as well as we treat each other, but a five orders of magnitude discrepancy is too much. We can do better than that.
  - golergka 11y ago
    Do you include insects smaller than the naked eye can see in this number? If you didn't, why not?
    - nkoren 11y ago
      No, because there is a level of cognition which mammals and birds etc. obviously have, and which gnats and mites etc. equally obviously do not. Also because I am not an irritating pedant. Here's a more detailed breakdown for you: http://www.adaptt.org/killcounter.html http://www.adaptt.org/killcounter.html
      - baakss 11y ago
        My issue with it is the arbitrary way you've decided what 'level of cognition' is worthy of your protection. Also, is there a definition of 'level of cognition' that you can give which encompasses fish, rats, birds, etc. (everything on the link you provided), and does not include ants?
        noondip 11y ago
        > Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose. https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism The key is - "as far as is possible and practicable". It's entirely reasonable and quite easy to adhere to a plant-based diet, whereas avoiding stepping on ants is an impractical goal which detracts actual steps you could do to reduce harm. Of course, there's no reason for veganism and your concern for ants to be mutually exclusive. Take Jain monks as an example. > Jain monks and nuns represent the ideal of Jainism. These men and women try to separate themselves from the everyday world. They are not allowed to kill any living creature. They carry brooms to sweep all surfaces to avoid crushing insects accidentally. Monks may not own any property except a broom, simple robes, bowls for food, and walking sticks. http://www.shaufi.com/b22/b22_9.htm http://www.shaufi.com/b22/b22_9.htm
karmacondon 11y ago
Many animals would happily eat us. So if animals can think, does that mean that they've made a conscious decision to eat other animals? And if so, why are we wrong for making that some decision?
- shawndumas 11y ago
  Benjamin Franklin became a vegetarian at the age of 16 but gave it up when he was on a boat and someone was frying fish and it smelled delicious. When the fish was cut open Franklin could see smaller fish inside: "…when the Fish were opened, I saw smaller Fish taken out of their Stomachs: Then thought I, if you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you. So I din’d upon Cod very heartily and continu’d to eat with other People...”
  - shasta 11y ago
    The way I heard it, old Ben saw the little fishes inside the stomach of the big fish and decided it should be OK to kill and eat the fisherman.
  - SilasX 11y ago
    And so when intelligent aliens come to the earth, they can use similar justifications to eat us. (Or more realistically, enslave or take our stuff.)
- ggreer 11y ago
  That argument proves too much. It justifies eating cannibals, which nobody considers as acceptable as eating animals.
- saiko-chriskun 11y ago
  This might apply to old-fashioned hunter-gatherer tribes. This in no way applies to modern day animal agriculture.
- rosser 11y ago
  I don't think the comparison is particularly valid; other animals don't exactly subject one another to industrial-scale murder. I would be much more inclined to agree with you if every animal that a human ate, it killed, cleaned, and prepared itself.
jsz0 11y ago
I don't think so. The treatment of animals today isn't any worse than it was 100 years ago. In most ways our treatment of animals is dramatically better including things like animal cruelty laws, protection of endangered species, owners providing basic health care for pets, etc. Even in regards to industrial farming it would be hard to argue conditions were better in the past. Turn of the century pig farms were horrors that make modern day industrial farming look good by comparison.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  You've identified a trend. Why do you expect this trend will halt or reverse, rather than continue as GP expects?
  - pvaldes 11y ago
    Because is unsustainable when you cross some point. Other possible and realistic scenery could be "I suspect that a hundred years from now humans will look back on the vegan ideas as barbarous in their treatment of plants, overgrazing and human gut flora". Is not a fact, is an idea that casually gives social cookies when is repeated, so is popular currently.
- drumdance 11y ago
  > Turn of the century pig farms were horrors that make modern day industrial farming look good by comparison. Really? I grew up in the country and I had friends who raised pigs and cows. Those animals had it way better than the typical factory farm.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    It's easy to think of the past as being more primitive than it was. Maybe there were things analogous to modern factory farms in 1900 as well, and those things were worse than modern equivalents.
- maxxxxx 11y ago
  Have you been to industrial farming facilities? The only thing they are doing really well is to keep the animals alive as long as needed. They are a total nightmare without any regards to the well being of animals. I have trouble thinking about ways of treating them worse. I hope that with progress on synthetic meat this whole industry will go away.

20after4 11y ago

We can't even seem to treat each-other decently. Animals have no chance.

leeoniya 11y ago
not sure that this logic follows. I would say that humanization is a prerequisite for treating anything humanely (and the inverse is true as well, see: dehumanization). IMO, the primary reason animals do not have a chance is because they are not universally (or sufficiently) humanized. This could be in large part due to our grossly insufficient or oversimplified understanding rather than intentional malice. The fact that we don't treat actual humans humanely is an orthogonal issue.
- fixermark 11y ago
  The fact that we don't treat actual humans humanely may very well be on a continuum with the fact that we don't treat animals as having human-level rights. Ultimately, it may not be that things that are sentient have inviolable rights; it may be that we simply draw a moral circle around ourselves and if you're close enough in the circle, you're protected; if not, you're not. There may be a good historical reason for that; there's anthropological evidence that our early ancestors shared the planet with creatures who were a lot closer to them in both look and behavior than anything living today and that were competing fiercely and in a zero-sum style for overlapping resources. It's not a large leap to imagine that our developed morality therefore accounts for creatures with every bit the cognitive capacity of your own that you cannot coexist peaceably with for risk that they'll end you and your entire bloodline by out-competing you. Whether that's the way we should approach the world (in a modern era where our species dominates the planet's resource allocation and is threatened by functionally zero complex organisms) is a reasonable question; it may very well still be a framework that describes morality for a great deal of the planet's population.
  - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
    The basic question of morality is not, "Are we two similar?", it's "Can we two coexist in a community, and to what extent?" People are going to, quite sensibly, reject attempts at "ethical" argumentation in which we are instructed to dismantle human life for the sake of nonhuman life. If it comes to two groups in zero-sum conflict, morality has already broken down and you've gone into the domain of war. So there's not much point to saying we should treat animals humanely by driving humans extinct.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Interesting. I'd note that Neanderthals (if that's whom you are hinting at) actually hunted one another for food when stressed. So no reason for their extinction to be blamed on Homo Sapiens. They were just less efficient at creating large social organizations, so eventually died out.
    - fixermark 11y ago
      Died out and interbred with early migrating humans, if I understand the research correctly? https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/neanderthal/ https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/neanderthal/
nkoren 11y ago
I don't think the two are comparable. Humans kill approximately half a million of eah other every year -- and about 2 billion other animals per week. We're unlikely to ever treat other animals as well as we treat each other, but a five orders of magnitude discrepancy is too much. We can do better than that.
- golergka 11y ago
  Do you include insects smaller than the naked eye can see in this number? If you didn't, why not?
  - nkoren 11y ago
    No, because there is a level of cognition which mammals and birds etc. obviously have, and which gnats and mites etc. equally obviously do not. Also because I am not an irritating pedant. Here's a more detailed breakdown for you: http://www.adaptt.org/killcounter.html http://www.adaptt.org/killcounter.html
    - baakss 11y ago
      My issue with it is the arbitrary way you've decided what 'level of cognition' is worthy of your protection. Also, is there a definition of 'level of cognition' that you can give which encompasses fish, rats, birds, etc. (everything on the link you provided), and does not include ants?
      - noondip 11y ago
        > Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose. https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism The key is - "as far as is possible and practicable". It's entirely reasonable and quite easy to adhere to a plant-based diet, whereas avoiding stepping on ants is an impractical goal which detracts actual steps you could do to reduce harm. Of course, there's no reason for veganism and your concern for ants to be mutually exclusive. Take Jain monks as an example. > Jain monks and nuns represent the ideal of Jainism. These men and women try to separate themselves from the everyday world. They are not allowed to kill any living creature. They carry brooms to sweep all surfaces to avoid crushing insects accidentally. Monks may not own any property except a broom, simple robes, bowls for food, and walking sticks. http://www.shaufi.com/b22/b22_9.htm http://www.shaufi.com/b22/b22_9.htm

karmacondon 11y ago

Many animals would happily eat us. So if animals can think, does that mean that they've made a conscious decision to eat other animals? And if so, why are we wrong for making that some decision?

shawndumas 11y ago
Benjamin Franklin became a vegetarian at the age of 16 but gave it up when he was on a boat and someone was frying fish and it smelled delicious. When the fish was cut open Franklin could see smaller fish inside: "…when the Fish were opened, I saw smaller Fish taken out of their Stomachs: Then thought I, if you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you. So I din’d upon Cod very heartily and continu’d to eat with other People...”
- shasta 11y ago
  The way I heard it, old Ben saw the little fishes inside the stomach of the big fish and decided it should be OK to kill and eat the fisherman.
- SilasX 11y ago
  And so when intelligent aliens come to the earth, they can use similar justifications to eat us. (Or more realistically, enslave or take our stuff.)
ggreer 11y ago
That argument proves too much. It justifies eating cannibals, which nobody considers as acceptable as eating animals.
saiko-chriskun 11y ago
This might apply to old-fashioned hunter-gatherer tribes. This in no way applies to modern day animal agriculture.
rosser 11y ago
I don't think the comparison is particularly valid; other animals don't exactly subject one another to industrial-scale murder. I would be much more inclined to agree with you if every animal that a human ate, it killed, cleaned, and prepared itself.

jsz0 11y ago

I don't think so. The treatment of animals today isn't any worse than it was 100 years ago. In most ways our treatment of animals is dramatically better including things like animal cruelty laws, protection of endangered species, owners providing basic health care for pets, etc. Even in regards to industrial farming it would be hard to argue conditions were better in the past. Turn of the century pig farms were horrors that make modern day industrial farming look good by comparison.

jessaustin 11y ago
You've identified a trend. Why do you expect this trend will halt or reverse, rather than continue as GP expects?
- pvaldes 11y ago
  Because is unsustainable when you cross some point. Other possible and realistic scenery could be "I suspect that a hundred years from now humans will look back on the vegan ideas as barbarous in their treatment of plants, overgrazing and human gut flora". Is not a fact, is an idea that casually gives social cookies when is repeated, so is popular currently.
drumdance 11y ago
> Turn of the century pig farms were horrors that make modern day industrial farming look good by comparison. Really? I grew up in the country and I had friends who raised pigs and cows. Those animals had it way better than the typical factory farm.
- nitrogen 11y ago
  It's easy to think of the past as being more primitive than it was. Maybe there were things analogous to modern factory farms in 1900 as well, and those things were worse than modern equivalents.
maxxxxx 11y ago
Have you been to industrial farming facilities? The only thing they are doing really well is to keep the animals alive as long as needed. They are a total nightmare without any regards to the well being of animals. I have trouble thinking about ways of treating them worse. I hope that with progress on synthetic meat this whole industry will go away.