6 ms·

Killing animals for food is ethically justifiable. Humans like all life are part of the food chain, and that's just the way things are on this planet. Keeping

by ams6110 10y ago

Killing animals for food is ethically justifiable. Humans like all life are part of the food chain, and that's just the way things are on this planet. Keeping an animal "jailed" purely for entertainment -- "worse." Nobody needs to see dolphins doing tricks in order to survive.

tuna-piano 10y ago
Nobody needs meat in order to survive either(in 2017 America/Canada). Meat is eaten purely for pleasure. In fact, there's some good arguments (potentially debatable) that eating animal products actually shortens lifespan! The exact opposite of needing meat to survive...
- undersuit 10y ago
  No one needs plants to survive either, we could just eat a nutrient rich prokaryotic soup. >Meat is eaten purely for pleasure. So are plants. Do you know how delicious this apple is I'm eating right now?
  - zanny 10y ago
    This is a strawman. We care about animals because animals have nervous systems and a pain response. Plants have no analog - they cannot feel pain, and have no neurological system to indicate intelligence. Nothing feels pain when you cut off a tree branch. Something feels pain when you break off a lobsters claw or hit a dog. Additionally, the plants we do eat often evolved to produce food for us. Apple trees and other fruiting plants all evolved to be eaten, so the consumer distributes the seeds in stool. That apple is delicious because the tree had an evolutionary bias to make it delicious so you would eat it. We eat plenty of plants like herbs and cabbages not for that purpose (albeit we did breed cabbages to be mutant and tasty) but an apple is a terrible example of a plant we hurt by eating it.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - tremon 10y ago
      > Nothing feels pain when you cut off a tree branch We don't actually know that for certain. We only know that it does not communicate that pain in a method discernable to us.
      - zanny 10y ago
        We define pain as a neurological response. Since plants don't have nerves, they cannot feel pain. They cannot feel. You argue the semantics in problem domains we don't fully understand. Feelings and sensations only get wishy-washy when you have a developed nervous system, because we cannot accurately predict how said system behaves due to its complexity. But we do know what is actually ascribed to that system, what behaviors it propagates as, and that things without it don't experience it. We have vernacular in place to express how plants react to stimuli. Sensation, pain, and feeling are not in that vocabulary, because they describe an essential aspect of the animal kingdom, not the plant one.
  - animal_dude 10y ago
    > No one needs plants to survive either Completely wrong, and frankly a pretty stupid thing to say. Plants provide the basis for all life on this planet. Without plants, there would be no complete proteins, there would be no essential fatty acids, there would be no sustainable nutrition for humans nor any other being on this planet. What you're saying is straight up silly. Stop.
self_assembly 10y ago
Animals are just simply "killed for food". They are raised in absolutely deplorable conditions. This isn't meant to be accusatory, but in honest question. Do you think it is justified to raise animals in torturous conditions from birth to slaughter?
animal_dude 10y ago
> Humans like all life are part of the food chain, and that's just the way things are on this planet. This is not a scientifically tenable statement. It's just based on hearsay and various nonsense. "In the global food web, we discover that humans are similar to anchovy or pigs and cannot be considered apex predators" - http://www.pnas.org/content/110/51/20617.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/110/51/20617.abstract

by ams6110 10y ago

tuna-piano 10y ago

Nobody needs meat in order to survive either(in 2017 America/Canada). Meat is eaten purely for pleasure. In fact, there's some good arguments (potentially debatable) that eating animal products actually shortens lifespan! The exact opposite of needing meat to survive...

undersuit 10y ago
No one needs plants to survive either, we could just eat a nutrient rich prokaryotic soup. >Meat is eaten purely for pleasure. So are plants. Do you know how delicious this apple is I'm eating right now?
- zanny 10y ago
  This is a strawman. We care about animals because animals have nervous systems and a pain response. Plants have no analog - they cannot feel pain, and have no neurological system to indicate intelligence. Nothing feels pain when you cut off a tree branch. Something feels pain when you break off a lobsters claw or hit a dog. Additionally, the plants we do eat often evolved to produce food for us. Apple trees and other fruiting plants all evolved to be eaten, so the consumer distributes the seeds in stool. That apple is delicious because the tree had an evolutionary bias to make it delicious so you would eat it. We eat plenty of plants like herbs and cabbages not for that purpose (albeit we did breed cabbages to be mutant and tasty) but an apple is a terrible example of a plant we hurt by eating it.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - tremon 10y ago
    > Nothing feels pain when you cut off a tree branch We don't actually know that for certain. We only know that it does not communicate that pain in a method discernable to us.
    - zanny 10y ago
      We define pain as a neurological response. Since plants don't have nerves, they cannot feel pain. They cannot feel. You argue the semantics in problem domains we don't fully understand. Feelings and sensations only get wishy-washy when you have a developed nervous system, because we cannot accurately predict how said system behaves due to its complexity. But we do know what is actually ascribed to that system, what behaviors it propagates as, and that things without it don't experience it. We have vernacular in place to express how plants react to stimuli. Sensation, pain, and feeling are not in that vocabulary, because they describe an essential aspect of the animal kingdom, not the plant one.
- animal_dude 10y ago
  > No one needs plants to survive either Completely wrong, and frankly a pretty stupid thing to say. Plants provide the basis for all life on this planet. Without plants, there would be no complete proteins, there would be no essential fatty acids, there would be no sustainable nutrition for humans nor any other being on this planet. What you're saying is straight up silly. Stop.

self_assembly 10y ago

Animals are just simply "killed for food". They are raised in absolutely deplorable conditions. This isn't meant to be accusatory, but in honest question. Do you think it is justified to raise animals in torturous conditions from birth to slaughter?

animal_dude 10y ago

> Humans like all life are part of the food chain, and that's just the way things are on this planet. This is not a scientifically tenable statement. It's just based on hearsay and various nonsense. "In the global food web, we discover that humans are similar to anchovy or pigs and cannot be considered apex predators" - http://www.pnas.org/content/110/51/20617.abstract http://www.pnas.org/content/110/51/20617.abstract