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To forgive the tautology, intelligent creatures are intelligent. Which also means that love is possible. I mean... every person who's ever had a pet (of any sor

To forgive the tautology, intelligent creatures are intelligent. Which also means that love is possible. I mean... every person who's ever had a pet (of any sort) understands this (as I stare at the photo of my recently-deceased and very-charismatic cat). It may not fit into any naturalistic model that clearly separates humans from these other intelligent creatures (and ascribes all perception of humanlike feeling to "anthropomorphism"), but nevertheless, that is how I believe it is. They play, they feel pain, they get bored, they get hungry, they get (ahem) horny, they get excited/happy, they love (perhaps dimmer versions than the ones we're familiar with, but anyway). Sometimes my cat would make sounds in the dark of night that sounded like... ennui. If anything actually separates us from the animals, it's not these things- it's things like music appreciation or creativity. All the other experiential things we're familiar with seem to be shared with them. (And yet... I continue to eat bacon. sigh. I've met pigs that were clearly happy to see a friendly face of any species... haunts me, actually.)

uhtred 8y ago
How can you continue to eat other animals if you feel the way you do about other animals?
- shashwatak 8y ago
  Because they're delicious :(
  - uhtred 8y ago
    So a brief moment of taste pleasure is worth the suffering and killing of another creature that feels physical and emotional pain?
    - perfmode 8y ago
      I oscillate between reason and impulse. We are creatures of habit and the environment in which we act is full of nudges toward omnivorous decisions.
    - ndiscussion 8y ago
      Obviously yes for most people, since vegans are a tiny minority. Bit of a high horse you're on there.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
        I think most people who are in this predicament consciously choose not to think about it in order to avoid the cognitive dissonance. Destroying your philosophical model of reality and remaking it is not exactly a pleasant process. Something you find out when you go vegetarian or vegan is that if that gets brought up, which usually happens in the context of rejecting an offer of food or being questioned about why your plate only has crackers at a potluck, many meat eaters will suddenly feel the need to explain why they think it is ok to eat meat. Perhaps that's just preemptive and a result of encountering more militant vegetarians in the past, but I think it is more likely to be a result of being reminded of their cognitive dissonance. Who are they trying to convince? I didn't ask for an explanation of their dietary choices and don't feel any particular need to explain mine.
        abugheratwork 8y ago
        They're being jerks, but why is an interesting question. I don't think it's a cognitive dissonance thing, at least where I've seen that picture. I think it's an us/them thing. Specifically, the kind where one group gets the idea that another is out to get them. (That "militant vegetarian" you mention is someone I have heard about my whole life yet never met.) If they don't have a lot of vegetarian friends, you may be their first chance to have a conversation about it, and that's probably the only one they rehearsed. It may not be as crystallized as other areas, yet, but I think this is also one more field for cultural proxy wars, as we all get drafted into us/them camps. Again, at the individual level, you might notice the person doing the attacking always thinks they're defending. Complicated big picture stuff at play.
        pathseeker 8y ago
        > encountering more militant vegetarians in the past, but I think it is more likely to be a result of being reminded of their cognitive dissonance. Don't project onto people you clearly don't understand. Creating mental models of people you disagree with that involves making them stupid or living in dissonance does a disservice to yourself (by making you ignorant), to them (by you spreading your ignorance), and to wider political debates in general (it's very difficult to come to an understanding when people are incapable of understanding the other side).
    - deagle50 8y ago
      What if someone else is doing the killing and I'm doing the eating? Not being facetious, I struggle with this and I don't fully buy into the "guilt by association" angle. If I stopped eating meat today, animals would still be killed at exactly the same scale as before. So what would have I accomplished besides depriving myself of nutrients? If we could all do it together I'd be on board. Maybe we can start with "meat credits" or some other kind of demand reduction? That really helped curb climate change.... I think portion control would be a more effective approach. A little meat goes a long way. I think you'll get further convincing the public with a moderation message than a black and while moral argument.
      - uhtred 8y ago
        If you stopped eating meat and replaced it with a balanced vegan diet you wouldn't be depriving yourself of anything other than heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes etc. You'd be the winner. Also, you'd be doing your part in reducing the demand for all those animals to be raised and slaughtered. If everyone had the opinion of "well what's the point unless everyone does it" no good change would ever happen.
        quantum_magpie 8y ago
        I do agree that there are a lot of people eating too much meat, but the diseases you mention are all caused by overeating in general, and are just as easy to get on a vegan diet.
        uhtred 8y ago
        No. I said a balanced vegan diet. Even over eating whole grains, vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds and legumes whilst not eating foods that have cholesterol (meat, eggs, dairy - literally any animal products) plus the evidence of red meat and processed meat causing cancer, means I do have much less chance of having any of those diseases I mentioned.
        deagle50 8y ago
        But it is pointless unless everyone does it, at least until a large percentage of the population does it. You're ignoring opportunity cost, this isn't like recycling where I have nothing to lose by doing it. Until we reach critical mass, the early adopters would have essentially "subsidized" everyone else. A few ounces of meat/fish a day aren't going to cause any of those diseases and are packed with nutrients that a vegan diet has a very hard time providing at a similar cost, especially in poor countries. The Gates foundation isn't betting on chicken on a whim. I still think moderation is the way to go. If everyone cut their intake by 50% we'd have a healthier population, animal slaughter would be cut in half, and we wouldn't have to reinvent meat.
    - lapnitnelav 8y ago
      Not to detract from your point but Nature itself is brutal. There's no mercy kill when a predator catch a prey. Case in point : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpQmJ7UUNFQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpQmJ7UUNFQ >> Warning, this is not for the faint of heart. << I've worked in a slaughterhouse, doing the night shift cleaning up the mess before a new day begins, I know what's it's like. Overcrowded boxes full of chicken shitting themselves, getting hanged by their legs on a factory line before getting their throat sliced by a fast spinning blade. Not a pretty sight for sure and a sad way to go. It's very unfortunate how the mass consumption of meat creates terrible living conditions for the various animals we breed for that purpose. But if we measure the scale of suffering, I think we're doing a bit better than nature. And yes, by going vegan you do not contribute to that, I get it. I have huge amount of respect for people that live by their moral standards and stick to it. Yet this doesn't mean that the wilderness is some Disney fantasy and yes, for all intent and purpose, most animals out there in the wild are bound to have a gruesome end. I'm not implying that we're doing animals a favour by sending them to a slaughterhouse, simply that this is the natural order of things. If you feel strongly about that and choose to not consume meat and such, great. As for me, despite what I've seen, there's nothing wrong with eating meat. The only thing I wish is a more humane breeding, and I'm happy to pay more for that. I'm aware that it's slightly hypocritical because would there be an alien specie doing the same to us, I'd probably would have a different perspective on that. As it stands, I enjoy being an apex predator. May it last forever.
      - uhtred 8y ago
        There's nothing natural about factory farms, you can pretend that they are no different to a lion eating a gazelle, but they are. We eat way more meat than we naturally should. Ever seen a fat lion dying from heart disease? And what about responsibility that comes with the power humans have over other animals. Lions are just being Lions, they don't understand what death really means, it's just a meal. They also are carnivores, humans are not. They also don't have grocery stores.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- agumonkey 8y ago
  Our species manage to get away from running after food. Animals do, every life form takes from the environment. The issue is how easy it is to us to breed, slaughter, bag and cook living forms nowaday. But if you were 100000 years ago, you'd have no second thoughts about eating animals.
  - uhtred 8y ago
    100000 years ago humans had significantly less empathy than we do now. And they didn't have a grocery store with more varieties of vegetables, whole grains, beans, lentils, fruits, seeds, nuts, tofu, tempeh, seitan, cashew cheese, veggie burgers, vegan sausages, vegan pizza, vegan chikn, plant based milks... than one could possibly imagine, a short drive or walk from their home.
    - agumonkey 8y ago
      Are you sure it's empathy ? 10000 years ago someone killing an animal knew it was taking a life. I've read once that jewish religion did create kosher rituals because of that (maybe other religions too I didn't dig further). Today it feels more like depression based morality caused by the chaos of the last decades and the glooming collapse than empathy. At least that's how I feel when I see people talking about the subject (but tbh I don't see a lot of that group, mostly some known figure in mainstream medias.. probably not the best speakers). Again, long ago, you had to survive, it was fair game. My cat doesn't refrain from stabbing a mice at night, a cat is highly skilled and potent compared to a mouse.. yet nature balances things out, mice hide, they live their existence. You know if you make it too comfy, a species will diverge and probably harm itself. Stress is part of life. And as humans, even when violently hunting.. I think we knew (pulling that out of my own theorizing arse) that it was a sad but needed act. Now we're in an era where technology, knowledge will remove all these requirements from our lives (say we get synthetic food, etc etc) so we're shifting toward a purer existence. Something where you don't impact nature as much. But it's still early days in a way.
      - LyndsySimon 8y ago
        Interesting that you chose cats as your example, as they are a predator animal that kills for sport. My cats have killed many mice, but I've never seen them consume one - they much prefer their food bowls. Cats are instinctively driven to hunt and kill, even when they have no need or desire for sustenance. They enjoy it.
- joejerryronnie 8y ago
  I love animals. I also love to eat animals. I don’t have any trouble reconciling these two things.
  - uhtred 8y ago
    Then you don't love animals. Or, you are happy for living creatures you love to be killed and to eat them, which is scary.
    - pathseeker 8y ago
      I love plants. The fact that I eat them too does not change that at all.
      - fnovd 8y ago
        It's a bit silly to compare killing a plant to killing something with a central nervous system. Plants don't think or feel. Birds and mammals certainly do.
        vitorgrs 8y ago
        "However, there is evidence that plants react to damage by emitting chemicals or gases that communicate discomfort or stress and that they somehow adapt to minimize this discomfort."
        fnovd 8y ago
        Plants don't have a central nervous system that can experience discomfort or stress. The terms are used as an analogy. My laptops emits heat when it is "stressed" as well.
        SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
        I'm a backyard beekeeper and I just love bees. They're very intelligent. But you should see how commercial beekeepers treat them in the production of all this "vegan" food.
- airstrike 8y ago
  Because at the end of the day I have to eat and meat is a fantastic source of nutrients, many of which aren't found in a vegan diet like heme-iron.
  - pmarreck 8y ago
    Regarding the heme thing... https://impossiblefoods.com/ https://impossiblefoods.com/ is onto that
    - airstrike 8y ago
      Thanks for linking that. An amazing goal and I wish them the best of luck, but we'll still have numerous other nutrients to engineer after we're done fixing this one issue. Not to mention all the ingredients we'll have to engineer out of a vegan diet like the excess phytic acid (again just naming one example)
  - pmarreck 8y ago
    FWIW I tried their Impossible Burger and it was amazingly spot-on, flavor and looks and texturewise. But you are correct about the other criticisms/concerns about vegan diets in your child comment (I responded to this one because HN apparently limits you to 4 or so levels' deep commenting) EDIT: Now the ability to reply to that one has returned. Not sure why that happened, but whatever... leaving this here
    - erikig 8y ago
      Wait till you try Impossible Burger 2.0...OMG
      - pmarreck 8y ago
        holy shit, this is literally hot off the presses as of 2 days ago. Thanks for the heads-up!! https://medium.com/impossible-foods/how-we-know-youll-like-very-much-the-new-impossible-burger-3d841683cec1 https://medium.com/impossible-foods/how-we-know-youll-like-v...
- pmarreck 8y ago
  Thank you for calling me out on this (admitted) bit of bullshit in me. ;) I guess I am comfortable with my cognitive dissonance in this area. FOR NOW. (But seemingly no other areas. I memorized just about all the informal fallacies mostly so I can Correct People's Bad Thinking On The Internet, sigh...) I'm also waiting for companies like https://impossiblefoods.com/ https://impossiblefoods.com/ to do their thing. I tried their impossible burger, and it was amazingly indistinguishable from the real thing. If they come up with impossible bacon and impossible chicken, I'd definitely be able to pull off vegetarianism or pescatarianism. In the meantime, I unfortunately love my chicken and eggs, milk, cheese, ice cream (all in moderation). Also, although I do eat eggs, I check this site to make sure they're ethically obtained: https://www.cornucopia.org/scorecard/eggs/ https://www.cornucopia.org/scorecard/eggs/ And I ONLY buy eggs from the highly-ranked producers. I pay extra for this, of course. Also I think fish/clams/oysters/shellfish are sort of the exception for most people, all signs point to them being only dimly conscious with extremely tiny brains. Given their nutritional value, it's arguably ethical to kill them for food (but not unsustainably to the point of drastic population decrease, which I think we're currently doing with bluefin tuna...) This doesn't include octopi and whales/dolphins and other obviously-intelligent creatures, of course. What is your position on humane painless animal death after living a full life? (given that every being has to die, anyway)? What about lab-grown muscle fiber? Again, I honestly appreciate the fact that you have a low tolerance for hypocrisy/cognitive-dissonance (at least in this area), and I fully admit this is a dissonance I am actively maintaining. I'm... trying to get out of it. Self-honesty turns out to be the most difficult honesty...
  - fnovd 8y ago
    Unfortunately there is a part of our brain that just wants to eat the stuff we're used to eating. It's really hard to change your diet, whether that's to lose weight, to mitigate a disease like diabetes, or to eat with your ethics. From my experience, the most successful way to cut out animal products from your diet is to have a passion for cooking. Trying out a new vegan recipe every week or so will start to build up your repertoire to the point where you're hankering for a dish that just happens to be vegan instead of consciously fighting against your desires.
  - uhtred 8y ago
kkhire 8y ago
it took me like 6-7 months to go vegan, it was hard for me to give up omelettes and cheese. but one day, I woke up and just didn't want to eat it anymore. Start to have vegan meals once a day. then 3x a week. slowly your taste buds change and then you don't want it anymore
- lapnitnelav 8y ago
  I could forgo meat although not easily, but cheese -as a French, that's a really tall order.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    Cheese and eggs can be produced far more ethically than meat. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
- pmarreck 8y ago
  I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t have my morning poached eggs: I only buy from ethical egg producers though
foxyv 8y ago
What is love? ...and other interesting philosophical questions. Also: Baby don't hurt me! Baby don't hurt me, no more!
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
> perhaps dimmer versions than the ones we're familiar with No, I think that's our subconscious desire to believe we are separate from the world around us speaking. They may experience and express feelings differently than we do, but that doesn't mean that experience is less meaningful.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  I use the video game analogy for this. animals may be 8 bits, we're 32 bits. Still whatever bits games are running on, they use the same basic formulas (in the metaphor, these are our senses, emotions and abstractions). It's indeed evident that we share a lot with animals. Even if they may not think as much, and can't communicate like us. I also believe that most important times in our human lives, are quite animal... holding a baby, holding your SO hand, eating, pissing, sleeping well. Doesn't need to know about curved topologies.. and I'm sure most of us would be content with the list I just wrote. And to go back to the analogy, we spend time thinking about problems and whatever, but going back to 8 bits often leads to interesting use of our existences. Like helping someone simply can brighten your life much more than financial success.
  - pweissbrod 8y ago
    I like this analogy. To take it further I'm equally as fine with me eating an 8-bit animal as I am with a 64-bit being coming into my house and eating 32-bit me :)
    - agumonkey 8y ago
      256-bit cyborgs are coming
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      Easy to say when you don't know any 64-bit beings. Which is to say that it is easy to see the food chain as moral justification when you're at the top of it.
sam0x17 8y ago
Think of it this way. If you suddenly lost the ability to speak and didn't have fingers or arms and all you could do was swim, bump around, and bite things, you'd probably act a lot like a fish, but you'd still love and feel emotions like a human, we'd just have no way of knowing. We are extremely arrogant (and oddly so, in my opinion) in our assumption that "lesser" species don't have consciousness or that they have a dramatically lesser or reduced phenomenological experience of the world. I think animals think and have many of the same emotions we have, and we're just huge assholes. In the very least it makes sense for that to be the default assumption, rather than to assume by default that animals are unfeeling automatons and to literally disembowel dogs like Descartes did to be like "see, here it isn't experiencing pain -- it's just a meat machine that reacts in a preset way!"
- pmarreck 8y ago
  wait... Descartes disemboweled live dogs?!?!
  - knight17 8y ago
    It appears so. What a filthy guy. Don't read if you don't have the stomach for it https://blog.timesunion.com/animalrights/descartes-and-animal-rights/4114/ https://blog.timesunion.com/animalrights/descartes-and-anima... Gary Francione (Introduction to Animal Rights): “Descartes and his followers performed experiments in which they nailed animals by their paws onto boards and cut them open to reveal their beating hearts. They burned, scalded, and mutilated animals in every conceivable manner. When the animals reacted as though they were suffering pain, Descartes dismissed the reaction as no different from the sound of a machine that was functioning improperly. A crying dog, Descartes maintained, is no different from a whining gear that needs oil.”
    - pmarreck 8y ago
      Curses omitted from this comment. If you would believe some materialists, we're ALL just biological machines with illusory feelings, though...
zackmorris 8y ago
Ya I'm troubled by this too. I'm really into bodybuilding but the human body simply can't recover unless it eats beef/salmon/eggs/chicken/etc at least one or more times per week, especially after the minor injuries that inevitably come with lifting weights. As a general rule, I never eat mammals that are omnivores or carnivores, so pigs and anything higher in the food chain are out. Veganism is a little unrealistic IMHO, but you can certainly eat these in the following order from most to least and try to stay vegetarian as much as possible: * diary products - eggs, milk, cheese * shellfish - clams, shrimp * fish - tuna, salmon * foul - chicken, turkey * beef If you look at beef as sacred (as many cultures do), then the death of one cow can feed countless people. In terms of deaths vs nutrition, it's probably the best meat source. Unfortunately it has environmental consequences, for example the desertification in the west is due to cow and sheep ranching. Usually my only serving of meat each day is a turkey sandwich. Then a cheeseburger once a week for recovery. And I weigh 260 pounds, coming up on a 300/400/500 bench/squat/deadlift so if I can eat meat sparingly, anyone can.
- fnovd 8y ago
  >I'm really into bodybuilding but the human body simply can't recover unless it eats beef/salmon/eggs/chicken/etc at least one or more times per week, especially after the minor injuries that inevitably come with lifting weights. Is that so? How would you explain bodybuilders like these? https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a19535559/vegan-bodybuilders-instagram/ https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a19535559/vegan-bodybuild...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    I don't know about these guys specifically but a lot of "vegan bodybuilders" are recent converts jumping on the bandwagon. That said I know longstanding / lifetime vegans and vegetarians who are into weightlifting and they get on just fine.
- pathseeker 8y ago
caconym_ 8y ago
I think many humans are guilty of over-anthropomorphizing themselves.
trendoid 8y ago
Evolutionary speaking, all the animals that care for their young or form bonds with other animals (same species) for cooperation have a higher likelihood of feeling emotions that you mentioned in your comments. Pain might be universal but things like "love", "play", "excitement", "boredom" etc. are highly unlikely in crustaceans or even fish. So it's very clear that eating mammals and birds is ethically not okay but apart from the environmental reasons, eating sea food is probably not as bad as eating mammals/birds.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
> And yet... I continue to eat bacon. sigh. I've met pigs that were clearly happy to see a friendly face of any species... haunts me, actually. I've raised pigs, and eaten those pigs. They're a lot like dogs - very loyal and intelligent. I suppose that makes me a monster in this thread full of vegans.
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  I had a pet pig, Habeas Corpus we called him. Smart as could be. Loved to hang around us, play tug with a knotted t-shirt, run around the yard chasing/being chased. Gentle as could be. We had a wire fence ring with a tree in it, that's where he stayed on summer nights. Hated going back into his pen at night when he was a piglet, became really hard to get close to around dusk, would just keep his distance casually without being offensive about it. One evening I sat on the grass by the fence, just chilling, and he came over to root around, just being companionable. When he was busy with something in the grass I picked up the wire, gently moved it over him and set it down again - now he was inside the ring. A moment later he looks up, does a double-take, figures out he's in the pen again, and starts to scream bloody murder. Pigs can really scream! Took him a while to forgive me.
  - pmarreck 8y ago
    I think pigs are the next animal I will give up eating. The last thing to be given up will be bacon, of course. I could switch to turkey bacon of course. Funny name, btw!

uhtred 8y ago

How can you continue to eat other animals if you feel the way you do about other animals?

shashwatak 8y ago
Because they're delicious :(
- uhtred 8y ago
  So a brief moment of taste pleasure is worth the suffering and killing of another creature that feels physical and emotional pain?
  - perfmode 8y ago
    I oscillate between reason and impulse. We are creatures of habit and the environment in which we act is full of nudges toward omnivorous decisions.
  - ndiscussion 8y ago
    Obviously yes for most people, since vegans are a tiny minority. Bit of a high horse you're on there.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      I think most people who are in this predicament consciously choose not to think about it in order to avoid the cognitive dissonance. Destroying your philosophical model of reality and remaking it is not exactly a pleasant process. Something you find out when you go vegetarian or vegan is that if that gets brought up, which usually happens in the context of rejecting an offer of food or being questioned about why your plate only has crackers at a potluck, many meat eaters will suddenly feel the need to explain why they think it is ok to eat meat. Perhaps that's just preemptive and a result of encountering more militant vegetarians in the past, but I think it is more likely to be a result of being reminded of their cognitive dissonance. Who are they trying to convince? I didn't ask for an explanation of their dietary choices and don't feel any particular need to explain mine.
      - abugheratwork 8y ago
        They're being jerks, but why is an interesting question. I don't think it's a cognitive dissonance thing, at least where I've seen that picture. I think it's an us/them thing. Specifically, the kind where one group gets the idea that another is out to get them. (That "militant vegetarian" you mention is someone I have heard about my whole life yet never met.) If they don't have a lot of vegetarian friends, you may be their first chance to have a conversation about it, and that's probably the only one they rehearsed. It may not be as crystallized as other areas, yet, but I think this is also one more field for cultural proxy wars, as we all get drafted into us/them camps. Again, at the individual level, you might notice the person doing the attacking always thinks they're defending. Complicated big picture stuff at play.
      - pathseeker 8y ago
        > encountering more militant vegetarians in the past, but I think it is more likely to be a result of being reminded of their cognitive dissonance. Don't project onto people you clearly don't understand. Creating mental models of people you disagree with that involves making them stupid or living in dissonance does a disservice to yourself (by making you ignorant), to them (by you spreading your ignorance), and to wider political debates in general (it's very difficult to come to an understanding when people are incapable of understanding the other side).
  - deagle50 8y ago
    What if someone else is doing the killing and I'm doing the eating? Not being facetious, I struggle with this and I don't fully buy into the "guilt by association" angle. If I stopped eating meat today, animals would still be killed at exactly the same scale as before. So what would have I accomplished besides depriving myself of nutrients? If we could all do it together I'd be on board. Maybe we can start with "meat credits" or some other kind of demand reduction? That really helped curb climate change.... I think portion control would be a more effective approach. A little meat goes a long way. I think you'll get further convincing the public with a moderation message than a black and while moral argument.
    - uhtred 8y ago
      If you stopped eating meat and replaced it with a balanced vegan diet you wouldn't be depriving yourself of anything other than heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes etc. You'd be the winner. Also, you'd be doing your part in reducing the demand for all those animals to be raised and slaughtered. If everyone had the opinion of "well what's the point unless everyone does it" no good change would ever happen.
      - quantum_magpie 8y ago
        I do agree that there are a lot of people eating too much meat, but the diseases you mention are all caused by overeating in general, and are just as easy to get on a vegan diet.
        uhtred 8y ago
        No. I said a balanced vegan diet. Even over eating whole grains, vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds and legumes whilst not eating foods that have cholesterol (meat, eggs, dairy - literally any animal products) plus the evidence of red meat and processed meat causing cancer, means I do have much less chance of having any of those diseases I mentioned.
      - deagle50 8y ago
        But it is pointless unless everyone does it, at least until a large percentage of the population does it. You're ignoring opportunity cost, this isn't like recycling where I have nothing to lose by doing it. Until we reach critical mass, the early adopters would have essentially "subsidized" everyone else. A few ounces of meat/fish a day aren't going to cause any of those diseases and are packed with nutrients that a vegan diet has a very hard time providing at a similar cost, especially in poor countries. The Gates foundation isn't betting on chicken on a whim. I still think moderation is the way to go. If everyone cut their intake by 50% we'd have a healthier population, animal slaughter would be cut in half, and we wouldn't have to reinvent meat.
  - lapnitnelav 8y ago
    Not to detract from your point but Nature itself is brutal. There's no mercy kill when a predator catch a prey. Case in point : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpQmJ7UUNFQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpQmJ7UUNFQ >> Warning, this is not for the faint of heart. << I've worked in a slaughterhouse, doing the night shift cleaning up the mess before a new day begins, I know what's it's like. Overcrowded boxes full of chicken shitting themselves, getting hanged by their legs on a factory line before getting their throat sliced by a fast spinning blade. Not a pretty sight for sure and a sad way to go. It's very unfortunate how the mass consumption of meat creates terrible living conditions for the various animals we breed for that purpose. But if we measure the scale of suffering, I think we're doing a bit better than nature. And yes, by going vegan you do not contribute to that, I get it. I have huge amount of respect for people that live by their moral standards and stick to it. Yet this doesn't mean that the wilderness is some Disney fantasy and yes, for all intent and purpose, most animals out there in the wild are bound to have a gruesome end. I'm not implying that we're doing animals a favour by sending them to a slaughterhouse, simply that this is the natural order of things. If you feel strongly about that and choose to not consume meat and such, great. As for me, despite what I've seen, there's nothing wrong with eating meat. The only thing I wish is a more humane breeding, and I'm happy to pay more for that. I'm aware that it's slightly hypocritical because would there be an alien specie doing the same to us, I'd probably would have a different perspective on that. As it stands, I enjoy being an apex predator. May it last forever.
    - uhtred 8y ago
      There's nothing natural about factory farms, you can pretend that they are no different to a lion eating a gazelle, but they are. We eat way more meat than we naturally should. Ever seen a fat lion dying from heart disease? And what about responsibility that comes with the power humans have over other animals. Lions are just being Lions, they don't understand what death really means, it's just a meal. They also are carnivores, humans are not. They also don't have grocery stores.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
agumonkey 8y ago
Our species manage to get away from running after food. Animals do, every life form takes from the environment. The issue is how easy it is to us to breed, slaughter, bag and cook living forms nowaday. But if you were 100000 years ago, you'd have no second thoughts about eating animals.
- uhtred 8y ago
  100000 years ago humans had significantly less empathy than we do now. And they didn't have a grocery store with more varieties of vegetables, whole grains, beans, lentils, fruits, seeds, nuts, tofu, tempeh, seitan, cashew cheese, veggie burgers, vegan sausages, vegan pizza, vegan chikn, plant based milks... than one could possibly imagine, a short drive or walk from their home.
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    Are you sure it's empathy ? 10000 years ago someone killing an animal knew it was taking a life. I've read once that jewish religion did create kosher rituals because of that (maybe other religions too I didn't dig further). Today it feels more like depression based morality caused by the chaos of the last decades and the glooming collapse than empathy. At least that's how I feel when I see people talking about the subject (but tbh I don't see a lot of that group, mostly some known figure in mainstream medias.. probably not the best speakers). Again, long ago, you had to survive, it was fair game. My cat doesn't refrain from stabbing a mice at night, a cat is highly skilled and potent compared to a mouse.. yet nature balances things out, mice hide, they live their existence. You know if you make it too comfy, a species will diverge and probably harm itself. Stress is part of life. And as humans, even when violently hunting.. I think we knew (pulling that out of my own theorizing arse) that it was a sad but needed act. Now we're in an era where technology, knowledge will remove all these requirements from our lives (say we get synthetic food, etc etc) so we're shifting toward a purer existence. Something where you don't impact nature as much. But it's still early days in a way.
    - LyndsySimon 8y ago
      Interesting that you chose cats as your example, as they are a predator animal that kills for sport. My cats have killed many mice, but I've never seen them consume one - they much prefer their food bowls. Cats are instinctively driven to hunt and kill, even when they have no need or desire for sustenance. They enjoy it.
joejerryronnie 8y ago
I love animals. I also love to eat animals. I don’t have any trouble reconciling these two things.
- uhtred 8y ago
  Then you don't love animals. Or, you are happy for living creatures you love to be killed and to eat them, which is scary.
  - pathseeker 8y ago
    I love plants. The fact that I eat them too does not change that at all.
    - fnovd 8y ago
      It's a bit silly to compare killing a plant to killing something with a central nervous system. Plants don't think or feel. Birds and mammals certainly do.
      - vitorgrs 8y ago
        "However, there is evidence that plants react to damage by emitting chemicals or gases that communicate discomfort or stress and that they somehow adapt to minimize this discomfort."
        fnovd 8y ago
        Plants don't have a central nervous system that can experience discomfort or stress. The terms are used as an analogy. My laptops emits heat when it is "stressed" as well.
        SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
        I'm a backyard beekeeper and I just love bees. They're very intelligent. But you should see how commercial beekeepers treat them in the production of all this "vegan" food.
airstrike 8y ago
Because at the end of the day I have to eat and meat is a fantastic source of nutrients, many of which aren't found in a vegan diet like heme-iron.
- pmarreck 8y ago
  Regarding the heme thing... https://impossiblefoods.com/ https://impossiblefoods.com/ is onto that
  - airstrike 8y ago
    Thanks for linking that. An amazing goal and I wish them the best of luck, but we'll still have numerous other nutrients to engineer after we're done fixing this one issue. Not to mention all the ingredients we'll have to engineer out of a vegan diet like the excess phytic acid (again just naming one example)
- pmarreck 8y ago
  FWIW I tried their Impossible Burger and it was amazingly spot-on, flavor and looks and texturewise. But you are correct about the other criticisms/concerns about vegan diets in your child comment (I responded to this one because HN apparently limits you to 4 or so levels' deep commenting) EDIT: Now the ability to reply to that one has returned. Not sure why that happened, but whatever... leaving this here
  - erikig 8y ago
    Wait till you try Impossible Burger 2.0...OMG
    - pmarreck 8y ago
      holy shit, this is literally hot off the presses as of 2 days ago. Thanks for the heads-up!! https://medium.com/impossible-foods/how-we-know-youll-like-very-much-the-new-impossible-burger-3d841683cec1 https://medium.com/impossible-foods/how-we-know-youll-like-v...
pmarreck 8y ago
Thank you for calling me out on this (admitted) bit of bullshit in me. ;) I guess I am comfortable with my cognitive dissonance in this area. FOR NOW. (But seemingly no other areas. I memorized just about all the informal fallacies mostly so I can Correct People's Bad Thinking On The Internet, sigh...) I'm also waiting for companies like https://impossiblefoods.com/ https://impossiblefoods.com/ to do their thing. I tried their impossible burger, and it was amazingly indistinguishable from the real thing. If they come up with impossible bacon and impossible chicken, I'd definitely be able to pull off vegetarianism or pescatarianism. In the meantime, I unfortunately love my chicken and eggs, milk, cheese, ice cream (all in moderation). Also, although I do eat eggs, I check this site to make sure they're ethically obtained: https://www.cornucopia.org/scorecard/eggs/ https://www.cornucopia.org/scorecard/eggs/ And I ONLY buy eggs from the highly-ranked producers. I pay extra for this, of course. Also I think fish/clams/oysters/shellfish are sort of the exception for most people, all signs point to them being only dimly conscious with extremely tiny brains. Given their nutritional value, it's arguably ethical to kill them for food (but not unsustainably to the point of drastic population decrease, which I think we're currently doing with bluefin tuna...) This doesn't include octopi and whales/dolphins and other obviously-intelligent creatures, of course. What is your position on humane painless animal death after living a full life? (given that every being has to die, anyway)? What about lab-grown muscle fiber? Again, I honestly appreciate the fact that you have a low tolerance for hypocrisy/cognitive-dissonance (at least in this area), and I fully admit this is a dissonance I am actively maintaining. I'm... trying to get out of it. Self-honesty turns out to be the most difficult honesty...
- fnovd 8y ago
  Unfortunately there is a part of our brain that just wants to eat the stuff we're used to eating. It's really hard to change your diet, whether that's to lose weight, to mitigate a disease like diabetes, or to eat with your ethics. From my experience, the most successful way to cut out animal products from your diet is to have a passion for cooking. Trying out a new vegan recipe every week or so will start to build up your repertoire to the point where you're hankering for a dish that just happens to be vegan instead of consciously fighting against your desires.
- uhtred 8y ago

kkhire 8y ago

it took me like 6-7 months to go vegan, it was hard for me to give up omelettes and cheese. but one day, I woke up and just didn't want to eat it anymore. Start to have vegan meals once a day. then 3x a week. slowly your taste buds change and then you don't want it anymore

lapnitnelav 8y ago
I could forgo meat although not easily, but cheese -as a French, that's a really tall order.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  Cheese and eggs can be produced far more ethically than meat. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
pmarreck 8y ago
I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t have my morning poached eggs: I only buy from ethical egg producers though

foxyv 8y ago

What is love? ...and other interesting philosophical questions. Also: Baby don't hurt me! Baby don't hurt me, no more!

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

> perhaps dimmer versions than the ones we're familiar with No, I think that's our subconscious desire to believe we are separate from the world around us speaking. They may experience and express feelings differently than we do, but that doesn't mean that experience is less meaningful.

agumonkey 8y ago
I use the video game analogy for this. animals may be 8 bits, we're 32 bits. Still whatever bits games are running on, they use the same basic formulas (in the metaphor, these are our senses, emotions and abstractions). It's indeed evident that we share a lot with animals. Even if they may not think as much, and can't communicate like us. I also believe that most important times in our human lives, are quite animal... holding a baby, holding your SO hand, eating, pissing, sleeping well. Doesn't need to know about curved topologies.. and I'm sure most of us would be content with the list I just wrote. And to go back to the analogy, we spend time thinking about problems and whatever, but going back to 8 bits often leads to interesting use of our existences. Like helping someone simply can brighten your life much more than financial success.
- pweissbrod 8y ago
  I like this analogy. To take it further I'm equally as fine with me eating an 8-bit animal as I am with a 64-bit being coming into my house and eating 32-bit me :)
  - agumonkey 8y ago
    256-bit cyborgs are coming
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    Easy to say when you don't know any 64-bit beings. Which is to say that it is easy to see the food chain as moral justification when you're at the top of it.

sam0x17 8y ago

Think of it this way. If you suddenly lost the ability to speak and didn't have fingers or arms and all you could do was swim, bump around, and bite things, you'd probably act a lot like a fish, but you'd still love and feel emotions like a human, we'd just have no way of knowing. We are extremely arrogant (and oddly so, in my opinion) in our assumption that "lesser" species don't have consciousness or that they have a dramatically lesser or reduced phenomenological experience of the world. I think animals think and have many of the same emotions we have, and we're just huge assholes. In the very least it makes sense for that to be the default assumption, rather than to assume by default that animals are unfeeling automatons and to literally disembowel dogs like Descartes did to be like "see, here it isn't experiencing pain -- it's just a meat machine that reacts in a preset way!"

pmarreck 8y ago
wait... Descartes disemboweled live dogs?!?!
- knight17 8y ago
  It appears so. What a filthy guy. Don't read if you don't have the stomach for it https://blog.timesunion.com/animalrights/descartes-and-animal-rights/4114/ https://blog.timesunion.com/animalrights/descartes-and-anima... Gary Francione (Introduction to Animal Rights): “Descartes and his followers performed experiments in which they nailed animals by their paws onto boards and cut them open to reveal their beating hearts. They burned, scalded, and mutilated animals in every conceivable manner. When the animals reacted as though they were suffering pain, Descartes dismissed the reaction as no different from the sound of a machine that was functioning improperly. A crying dog, Descartes maintained, is no different from a whining gear that needs oil.”
  - pmarreck 8y ago
    Curses omitted from this comment. If you would believe some materialists, we're ALL just biological machines with illusory feelings, though...

zackmorris 8y ago

Ya I'm troubled by this too. I'm really into bodybuilding but the human body simply can't recover unless it eats beef/salmon/eggs/chicken/etc at least one or more times per week, especially after the minor injuries that inevitably come with lifting weights. As a general rule, I never eat mammals that are omnivores or carnivores, so pigs and anything higher in the food chain are out. Veganism is a little unrealistic IMHO, but you can certainly eat these in the following order from most to least and try to stay vegetarian as much as possible: * diary products - eggs, milk, cheese * shellfish - clams, shrimp * fish - tuna, salmon * foul - chicken, turkey * beef If you look at beef as sacred (as many cultures do), then the death of one cow can feed countless people. In terms of deaths vs nutrition, it's probably the best meat source. Unfortunately it has environmental consequences, for example the desertification in the west is due to cow and sheep ranching. Usually my only serving of meat each day is a turkey sandwich. Then a cheeseburger once a week for recovery. And I weigh 260 pounds, coming up on a 300/400/500 bench/squat/deadlift so if I can eat meat sparingly, anyone can.

fnovd 8y ago
>I'm really into bodybuilding but the human body simply can't recover unless it eats beef/salmon/eggs/chicken/etc at least one or more times per week, especially after the minor injuries that inevitably come with lifting weights. Is that so? How would you explain bodybuilders like these? https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a19535559/vegan-bodybuilders-instagram/ https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a19535559/vegan-bodybuild...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  I don't know about these guys specifically but a lot of "vegan bodybuilders" are recent converts jumping on the bandwagon. That said I know longstanding / lifetime vegans and vegetarians who are into weightlifting and they get on just fine.
pathseeker 8y ago

caconym_ 8y ago

I think many humans are guilty of over-anthropomorphizing themselves.

trendoid 8y ago

Evolutionary speaking, all the animals that care for their young or form bonds with other animals (same species) for cooperation have a higher likelihood of feeling emotions that you mentioned in your comments. Pain might be universal but things like "love", "play", "excitement", "boredom" etc. are highly unlikely in crustaceans or even fish. So it's very clear that eating mammals and birds is ethically not okay but apart from the environmental reasons, eating sea food is probably not as bad as eating mammals/birds.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

> And yet... I continue to eat bacon. sigh. I've met pigs that were clearly happy to see a friendly face of any species... haunts me, actually. I've raised pigs, and eaten those pigs. They're a lot like dogs - very loyal and intelligent. I suppose that makes me a monster in this thread full of vegans.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
I had a pet pig, Habeas Corpus we called him. Smart as could be. Loved to hang around us, play tug with a knotted t-shirt, run around the yard chasing/being chased. Gentle as could be. We had a wire fence ring with a tree in it, that's where he stayed on summer nights. Hated going back into his pen at night when he was a piglet, became really hard to get close to around dusk, would just keep his distance casually without being offensive about it. One evening I sat on the grass by the fence, just chilling, and he came over to root around, just being companionable. When he was busy with something in the grass I picked up the wire, gently moved it over him and set it down again - now he was inside the ring. A moment later he looks up, does a double-take, figures out he's in the pen again, and starts to scream bloody murder. Pigs can really scream! Took him a while to forgive me.
- pmarreck 8y ago
  I think pigs are the next animal I will give up eating. The last thing to be given up will be bacon, of course. I could switch to turkey bacon of course. Funny name, btw!