4 ms·

Can't speak for the OP but for many people the billions of animals killed every year for food, clothing and fun is a major moral crime which will be looked back

by dave2000 10y ago

Can't speak for the OP but for many people the billions of animals killed every year for food, clothing and fun is a major moral crime which will be looked back on in the future - both the activities and the almost total lack of consideration given that it's even a problem - as completely unbelievable, just like women being unable to vote, black slavery and so on.

oblio 10y ago
Think about it this way: the Prohibition backfired badly. And alcohol is not as entrenched in modern society as meat consumption. Those billions of animals will keep dying until we can manufacture synthetic meat that is exactly as safe and tasty as natural meat.
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  I'm morally fine with meat-eating as a concept, but we need to treat those animals a lot better than we do, while they're alive.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    I am also for meat-eating, but I am against animal killing. The two positions are very hard to reconcile, let me tell you that.
1123581321 10y ago
The future you imagine will have very few animals in it. I love animals, so I am glad they serve so many useful purposes, since otherwise the cost of feeding, sheltering and caring for them would be enormous. Raising a token number in preserves is not an equitable substitute.
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  > The future you imagine will have very few animals in it. It would have just as many wild animals in it. Keeping those alive in the face of human expansion and industry is, of course, a whole different problem than animal rights. > I love animals, so I am glad they serve so many useful purposes, since otherwise the cost of feeding, sheltering and caring for them would be enormous. I'm a meat-eater and that still doesn't make sense to me. It sounds like what you love isn't animals, but biomass.
  - 1123581321 10y ago
    You're imagining that an animal lover has unlimited resources. I'm saying that since caring for animals (on an individual and species/ecological level) takes a lot of time and money, I'm glad animals are useful during and after their life, because otherwise it's difficult or impossible to sustain caring for animals in significant numbers. Note that I'm not defending the typical Westerner loading up a grocery cart with chicken breasts. There are a lot of things wrong with the meat industry on the supply and the demand side.
- TaylorAlexander 10y ago
  What you say is true only if you assume we will continue to ignore and extingush the natural world in favor of human habitats. There are efforts to make space for Earth's non human animals to live in the wild. See, for example, E.O. Wilson's work: http://eowilsonfoundation.org/e-o-wilson-on-saving-half-the-earth/ http://eowilsonfoundation.org/e-o-wilson-on-saving-half-the-... Also, only a small number of species are bred for food or other resources. I think there's less than 20 types of animals bred for farming. Re-wilding 50% of the earth meanwhile would provide food and shelter to all animal species.
  - 1123581321 10y ago
    Two thoughts: I certainly hope that technology and space colonization can expand the definition of animal preserve. However, Wilson's proposals are fantastic and don't factor the benefits animals gain from symbiotic living with humans. And I believe there are several problems with overly specialized diets, not just that we're willing to preserve only a few species in significant numbers. It would be very good for world hunger if the west began to eat more kinds of meat again.
- mrob 10y ago
  The vast majority of animal suffering happens to wild animals. If your reason for supporting animal rights is to reduce suffering (not the only possible reason) then eliminating wild animals is not a bad thing: http://foundational-research.org/the-importance-of-wild-animal-suffering/ http://foundational-research.org/the-importance-of-wild-anim...
  - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
    Reading that article was a serious WTF. The basic argument is that most animals are insects, small fish etc. which live lives so short that they do not have the time to experience enough pleasure to compensate for the pain of death. I believe this is the worst kind of bike shedding, as it detracts from the very important discussion on actual human influences on actual animal welfare.
    - mrob 10y ago
      Preventing wild animal suffering is much more difficult than preventing suffering in captive animals. We don't understand nature well enough to make major changes without risk of making things worse. Therefore it's a reasonable choice to focus on captive animals. I don't see how awareness of a difficult problem prevents work on the easier one.
      - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
        The point I was trying to make is: do we really believe insect suffering is a larger problem than mammal suffering? The author of the article linked above implements some moral calculus where insect suffering is weighted lower, but since there is such a huge number of insects, they still end up concluding that insect suffering is a huge problem. My claim is that instead it's correct to give zero weight to insect suffering, since it's not a "difficult problem", it's a literally unsolvable problem. Well, the only way to solve it would be to exterminate all insects in order to end their cycle of suffering, and that would entail so much destruction and ecosystem collapse it would literally render the entire earth barren and lifeless. TL;DR: when someone claims we have a big problem where the only possible solution is killing all living organisms on planet Earth, I say they're wrong: that what they claim is a problem is, in fact, not a problem.
PerfectElement 10y ago
I think that's inevitable. You just have to look at Gary Yourofsky and how he alone made 8% of Israel go vegan[0] with his popular Youtube speech[1]. [0] http://metro.co.uk/2015/09/28/how-animal-rights-activist-gary-yourofsky-turned-8-of-israels-population-vegan-after-comparing-slaughterhouses-to-the-holocaust-5361205/ http://metro.co.uk/2015/09/28/how-animal-rights-activist-gar... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es6U00LMmC4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es6U00LMmC4
justsaysmthng 10y ago
> is a major moral crime And spiritual too. I believe the proverbial "forbidden fruit" in the Bible is actually animal flesh. That's what transformed Heaven, were humans an animals cohabited peacefully, into not-Heaven - Earth. Consequently, at least in theory - not eating animal flesh would transform Earth back into Heaven. And that is the grand challenge for us as a species. As long as there are slaughterhouses there will be battlefields (Leo Tolstoy). Overcoming the meat addiction requires a higher level of spiritual awareness, which also leads to non-violence towards other humans - or Peace.
- phd514 10y ago
  Make your case for not eating meat, but you can't do it from that passage in the Bible. The Bible's forbidden fruit was unambiguously fruit from a tree, not animal flesh. Adam and Eve's taking of it was direct rebellion against God. Turning Earth back into heaven requires atonement for that rebellion against God. It has absolutely nothing to do with eating meat. In fact, one of the very first things that God does in Genesis 3:21 after Adam and Eve take the forbidden fruit is provide animal skins as clothing for them, partially to foreshadow the system of animal sacrifices that would be instituted by God in the book of Exodus for the nation of Israel.
- vacri 10y ago
  Isn't it interesting how there's always a passage in the bible somewhere that supports a point of view, as long as you 'interpret' it 'correctly'?
- venomsnake 10y ago
  If meat eating was the reason for being exiled out of heaven - the only thing I would say is - it was worth it. As a person that spent summers in the rural area while young - killing an animal is no big deal.
Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago
You do know that agriculture also kills animals, both from pesticides and (at the very minimum) from destroying their habitat, right? Whole species are now extinct due to agriculture. I don't think it is possible for us to be on Earth without causing the death of animals, be it in a direct or indirect way. Or at least, it won't be until we get a technology to produce food out of inorganic matter.
- eutectic 10y ago
  Degree matters.

oblio 10y ago

Think about it this way: the Prohibition backfired badly. And alcohol is not as entrenched in modern society as meat consumption. Those billions of animals will keep dying until we can manufacture synthetic meat that is exactly as safe and tasty as natural meat.

PhasmaFelis 10y ago
I'm morally fine with meat-eating as a concept, but we need to treat those animals a lot better than we do, while they're alive.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  I am also for meat-eating, but I am against animal killing. The two positions are very hard to reconcile, let me tell you that.

1123581321 10y ago

The future you imagine will have very few animals in it. I love animals, so I am glad they serve so many useful purposes, since otherwise the cost of feeding, sheltering and caring for them would be enormous. Raising a token number in preserves is not an equitable substitute.

PhasmaFelis 10y ago
> The future you imagine will have very few animals in it. It would have just as many wild animals in it. Keeping those alive in the face of human expansion and industry is, of course, a whole different problem than animal rights. > I love animals, so I am glad they serve so many useful purposes, since otherwise the cost of feeding, sheltering and caring for them would be enormous. I'm a meat-eater and that still doesn't make sense to me. It sounds like what you love isn't animals, but biomass.
- 1123581321 10y ago
  You're imagining that an animal lover has unlimited resources. I'm saying that since caring for animals (on an individual and species/ecological level) takes a lot of time and money, I'm glad animals are useful during and after their life, because otherwise it's difficult or impossible to sustain caring for animals in significant numbers. Note that I'm not defending the typical Westerner loading up a grocery cart with chicken breasts. There are a lot of things wrong with the meat industry on the supply and the demand side.
TaylorAlexander 10y ago
What you say is true only if you assume we will continue to ignore and extingush the natural world in favor of human habitats. There are efforts to make space for Earth's non human animals to live in the wild. See, for example, E.O. Wilson's work: http://eowilsonfoundation.org/e-o-wilson-on-saving-half-the-earth/ http://eowilsonfoundation.org/e-o-wilson-on-saving-half-the-... Also, only a small number of species are bred for food or other resources. I think there's less than 20 types of animals bred for farming. Re-wilding 50% of the earth meanwhile would provide food and shelter to all animal species.
- 1123581321 10y ago
  Two thoughts: I certainly hope that technology and space colonization can expand the definition of animal preserve. However, Wilson's proposals are fantastic and don't factor the benefits animals gain from symbiotic living with humans. And I believe there are several problems with overly specialized diets, not just that we're willing to preserve only a few species in significant numbers. It would be very good for world hunger if the west began to eat more kinds of meat again.
mrob 10y ago
The vast majority of animal suffering happens to wild animals. If your reason for supporting animal rights is to reduce suffering (not the only possible reason) then eliminating wild animals is not a bad thing: http://foundational-research.org/the-importance-of-wild-animal-suffering/ http://foundational-research.org/the-importance-of-wild-anim...
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  Reading that article was a serious WTF. The basic argument is that most animals are insects, small fish etc. which live lives so short that they do not have the time to experience enough pleasure to compensate for the pain of death. I believe this is the worst kind of bike shedding, as it detracts from the very important discussion on actual human influences on actual animal welfare.
  - mrob 10y ago
    Preventing wild animal suffering is much more difficult than preventing suffering in captive animals. We don't understand nature well enough to make major changes without risk of making things worse. Therefore it's a reasonable choice to focus on captive animals. I don't see how awareness of a difficult problem prevents work on the easier one.
    - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
      The point I was trying to make is: do we really believe insect suffering is a larger problem than mammal suffering? The author of the article linked above implements some moral calculus where insect suffering is weighted lower, but since there is such a huge number of insects, they still end up concluding that insect suffering is a huge problem. My claim is that instead it's correct to give zero weight to insect suffering, since it's not a "difficult problem", it's a literally unsolvable problem. Well, the only way to solve it would be to exterminate all insects in order to end their cycle of suffering, and that would entail so much destruction and ecosystem collapse it would literally render the entire earth barren and lifeless. TL;DR: when someone claims we have a big problem where the only possible solution is killing all living organisms on planet Earth, I say they're wrong: that what they claim is a problem is, in fact, not a problem.

PerfectElement 10y ago

I think that's inevitable. You just have to look at Gary Yourofsky and how he alone made 8% of Israel go vegan[0] with his popular Youtube speech[1]. [0] http://metro.co.uk/2015/09/28/how-animal-rights-activist-gary-yourofsky-turned-8-of-israels-population-vegan-after-comparing-slaughterhouses-to-the-holocaust-5361205/ http://metro.co.uk/2015/09/28/how-animal-rights-activist-gar... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es6U00LMmC4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es6U00LMmC4

justsaysmthng 10y ago

> is a major moral crime And spiritual too. I believe the proverbial "forbidden fruit" in the Bible is actually animal flesh. That's what transformed Heaven, were humans an animals cohabited peacefully, into not-Heaven - Earth. Consequently, at least in theory - not eating animal flesh would transform Earth back into Heaven. And that is the grand challenge for us as a species. As long as there are slaughterhouses there will be battlefields (Leo Tolstoy). Overcoming the meat addiction requires a higher level of spiritual awareness, which also leads to non-violence towards other humans - or Peace.

phd514 10y ago
Make your case for not eating meat, but you can't do it from that passage in the Bible. The Bible's forbidden fruit was unambiguously fruit from a tree, not animal flesh. Adam and Eve's taking of it was direct rebellion against God. Turning Earth back into heaven requires atonement for that rebellion against God. It has absolutely nothing to do with eating meat. In fact, one of the very first things that God does in Genesis 3:21 after Adam and Eve take the forbidden fruit is provide animal skins as clothing for them, partially to foreshadow the system of animal sacrifices that would be instituted by God in the book of Exodus for the nation of Israel.
vacri 10y ago
Isn't it interesting how there's always a passage in the bible somewhere that supports a point of view, as long as you 'interpret' it 'correctly'?
venomsnake 10y ago
If meat eating was the reason for being exiled out of heaven - the only thing I would say is - it was worth it. As a person that spent summers in the rural area while young - killing an animal is no big deal.

Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago

You do know that agriculture also kills animals, both from pesticides and (at the very minimum) from destroying their habitat, right? Whole species are now extinct due to agriculture. I don't think it is possible for us to be on Earth without causing the death of animals, be it in a direct or indirect way. Or at least, it won't be until we get a technology to produce food out of inorganic matter.

eutectic 10y ago
Degree matters.