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I'll be downvoted into oblivion for saying this but there are lots of ways that the average vegetarian or vegan every day supports killing animals for their own

by _3u10 16y ago

I'll be downvoted into oblivion for saying this but there are lots of ways that the average vegetarian or vegan every day supports killing animals for their own personal benefit. Animals are killed every day so that we can live a better life. It's not a big deal. Get over it or get off the grid. I hope you don't drive on roads, or use anything produced by the petrochemical industry. Hell, somewhere between your computer and HN a switch, server or piece of critical infrastructure is powered by burning dead animals. Or perhaps, it's just the plastic sheath on your ethernet cable that was made from petrochemicals. I hope you're seriously considering refraining from using the internet because of the animals that were killed to make it. Also, have you EVER considered how many field animals die to produce vegetables? You think a combine cares if there is a mouse in the way? Now, lets say you rely on a good shipped by trucking, train or ship, well then odds are somewhere along the line something was diesel powered, as we all know most diesel comes from oil fields, oil to the best of our knowledge contains dead animals. If you're living you're consuming dead animals. Stop feeling bad about it and start enjoying the taste of meat. They died so you can live. It's the way of life, you think a tiger ponders the morality of eating a human? Not eating meat is basically the sorriest excuse for making a difference I've seen, it's basically on par with believing recycling makes a difference. It's a small step to take with the aim of moralizing to everyone else how big of a difference you're making. Also, how many animals had to die because of habitat loss to make that nice house you're living in? Meat may be murder, but so what? Pay soldiers to kill the animals then they are just casualties and it's no longer murder. We can now say the animal died in combat.

pyre 16y ago
> I hope you don't drive on roads, or use anything produced by the > petrochemical industry. I've yet to hear that humans have successfully produced crude oil from livestock. Do you have a source of this? > Also, have you EVER considered how many field animals die to produce > vegetables? 1. You're creating a false dichotomy. Either a person eliminates all things in their life that affect animals, or they eliminate none. In the real world there are shades of grey. 2. Who are you to decide whether or not a person should care whether or not gelatin (or chicken broth or whatever) is in their food? You're coming from the opposite side and reacting against the idea that I'm trying to tell you what to do, but your response is just to tell me what to do. Seems a little ironic to me. 3. This entire post comes across as, "Yea! I really stuck it to that vegan guy! I win!" > Not eating meat is basically the sorriest excuse for making a > difference I've seen, it's basically on par with believing recycling > makes a difference. It's a small step to take with the aim of > moralizing to everyone else how big of a difference you're making. > Also, how many animals had to die because of habitat loss to make > that nice house you're living in?P This is a very defeatist attitude. It borders on the, "I'm only one person. I can't make a difference. Why should I bother to vote," argument. Secondly, who said anything anywhere about 'making a difference?' I certainly didn't. I've only talked about living according to my own moral code. Is living my own life according to my own moral code a 'small step to take with the aim of moralizing to everyone else?'
- fleitz 16y ago
  Regarding producing oil from livestock, you'll want to look into http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization I believe that ConAgra has a plant for doing this to left over bits of turkey. More to the point as far as we know oil deposits are created by thermal depolymerization of plants and animals on geologic timescales. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum#Formation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum#Formation Therefor anything produced from petroleum very likely contains dead animals. 1. There are definitely shades of grey, but I tend to think that putting animals in your tank and on your plate are largely the same. If you think that eating dead animals is wrong, then why would consuming any product of which a component was dead animals be any different? Would it be ok to just kill an animal for no reason and not consume it? 2. I'm primarily attempting to point out that your actions and your moral code are hypocritical and thus you should be ignored as someone who advocates a standard for which they are unable or unwilling to meet themselves. 3. I don't really care how it comes across, if it effectively communicates to anyone else that the lifestyle choice and moral code of people who practice veganism or vegetarianism for moral reasons are hypocritical, then it has served it's purpose. If people who are not vegans or vegetarians for moral reasons laugh at the hypocrisy then it's also effective. Sometimes you have to make Modest Proposals in order to communicate effectively. 4. I think that voting is largely ineffective and that the electoral system produces results that are far more influenced by lobbying and money than by casting votes. 5. The entire point of the post was to convince you and others that don't eat meat for moral reasons that you are NOT living your life according to your own moral code. Or that your moral code contains arbitrary exceptions for the consumption of animals for whenever you find it convenient.
  - abeppu 16y ago
    I think you're attacking a straw man who you want to represent all vegetarians and vegans. Different people make the choice to give up meat for different reasons, they define veganism and vegetarianism with differing boundaries, and they practice with various levels of consistency. There's no one vegan or vegetarian moral code for you to find hypocritical, or one set of goals that vegans and vegetarians are all trying to achieve. But in point #1 above, I think you drifted off course; the problem from my perspective isn't dead animals but rather killing animals needlessly. An animal which was dead eons before I was born is not my moral responsibility. It is my responsibility if an animal dies so that I can eat steak, if I could have just as easily had beans.
abeppu 16y ago
If I'm following, your reasoning is that because (a) it's effectively impossible to live in the modern world without benefiting from the deaths of animals that (b) any attempt to limit the number of animals we kill to support our daily lives, or the kind of animals, or how they lived or died, must be pointless. I find that jump from (a) to (b) is unfounded. There's a qualitative difference between (i) a mouse killed accidentally by a combine, (ii) a lab rat killed by a drug company, (iii) a pig raised and killed to be eaten, (iv) a mink killed for its fur and (v) an endangered mountain gorilla killed so a collector can stuff its head and hands. Different people draw their moral lines at different places. A lot of people might have a problem with (v) but be okay with (i) through (iv). I can personally live with (i) and (ii), but have a problem with (iii) especially given the messed up fact that while almost a billion people on the planet are malnourished, the US has enough excess to give the majority of its soy and corn crops over to feeding livestock. As in, we're literally choosing to feed the pigs, cows and chickens we're going to kill before we feed the poor. I know of people who will accept (ii) if the research is for a compelling medical cause, but not if it's for something like cosmetics. I know plenty of people who can live with leather, but won't accept fur based on the crazy cruel stuff that happens on fur farms. This stuff isn't black and white. You can't just equate animals that died millions of years ago that turned into oil with animals that we raise to kill; not all animal deaths are equal. The ethical and moral questions get complicated, and there's a lot of grey areas encountered when balancing human needs and desires against the potential suffering of creatures whose subjective experience we can't understand. And then there are health arguments and environmental arguments, and it never ends. Given that it's complicated, please have a little respect. You write as though you expect that vegetarians and vegans must not be aware of natural predators or animals killed unintentionally by humans for reasons other than meat, or the weird, myriad ways we use highly processed animal products in the modern world -- and that if we had been aware we should obviously have come to the same conclusions you did. That presumption, that vegetarians and vegans must have made their life decisions out of simple ignorance of the facts, is a bit offensive. I'm not saying you should believe anything different about eating meat. But please don't flippantly talk down to people who have chosen to draw their moral distinctions in different places than yours.
- ckuehne 16y ago
Xodarap 16y ago
Statement one: "It's impossible to be a perfect programmer, so it's stupid to even try." Statement two: "It's impossible to never harm someone, so it's stupid to even try." Surely you don't agree with statement one? So why does the argument hold for statement two?

by _3u10 16y ago

pyre 16y ago

> I hope you don't drive on roads, or use anything produced by the > petrochemical industry. I've yet to hear that humans have successfully produced crude oil from livestock. Do you have a source of this? > Also, have you EVER considered how many field animals die to produce > vegetables? 1. You're creating a false dichotomy. Either a person eliminates all things in their life that affect animals, or they eliminate none. In the real world there are shades of grey. 2. Who are you to decide whether or not a person should care whether or not gelatin (or chicken broth or whatever) is in their food? You're coming from the opposite side and reacting against the idea that I'm trying to tell you what to do, but your response is just to tell me what to do. Seems a little ironic to me. 3. This entire post comes across as, "Yea! I really stuck it to that vegan guy! I win!" > Not eating meat is basically the sorriest excuse for making a > difference I've seen, it's basically on par with believing recycling > makes a difference. It's a small step to take with the aim of > moralizing to everyone else how big of a difference you're making. > Also, how many animals had to die because of habitat loss to make > that nice house you're living in?P This is a very defeatist attitude. It borders on the, "I'm only one person. I can't make a difference. Why should I bother to vote," argument. Secondly, who said anything anywhere about 'making a difference?' I certainly didn't. I've only talked about living according to my own moral code. Is living my own life according to my own moral code a 'small step to take with the aim of moralizing to everyone else?'

fleitz 16y ago
Regarding producing oil from livestock, you'll want to look into http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization I believe that ConAgra has a plant for doing this to left over bits of turkey. More to the point as far as we know oil deposits are created by thermal depolymerization of plants and animals on geologic timescales. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum#Formation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum#Formation Therefor anything produced from petroleum very likely contains dead animals. 1. There are definitely shades of grey, but I tend to think that putting animals in your tank and on your plate are largely the same. If you think that eating dead animals is wrong, then why would consuming any product of which a component was dead animals be any different? Would it be ok to just kill an animal for no reason and not consume it? 2. I'm primarily attempting to point out that your actions and your moral code are hypocritical and thus you should be ignored as someone who advocates a standard for which they are unable or unwilling to meet themselves. 3. I don't really care how it comes across, if it effectively communicates to anyone else that the lifestyle choice and moral code of people who practice veganism or vegetarianism for moral reasons are hypocritical, then it has served it's purpose. If people who are not vegans or vegetarians for moral reasons laugh at the hypocrisy then it's also effective. Sometimes you have to make Modest Proposals in order to communicate effectively. 4. I think that voting is largely ineffective and that the electoral system produces results that are far more influenced by lobbying and money than by casting votes. 5. The entire point of the post was to convince you and others that don't eat meat for moral reasons that you are NOT living your life according to your own moral code. Or that your moral code contains arbitrary exceptions for the consumption of animals for whenever you find it convenient.
- abeppu 16y ago
  I think you're attacking a straw man who you want to represent all vegetarians and vegans. Different people make the choice to give up meat for different reasons, they define veganism and vegetarianism with differing boundaries, and they practice with various levels of consistency. There's no one vegan or vegetarian moral code for you to find hypocritical, or one set of goals that vegans and vegetarians are all trying to achieve. But in point #1 above, I think you drifted off course; the problem from my perspective isn't dead animals but rather killing animals needlessly. An animal which was dead eons before I was born is not my moral responsibility. It is my responsibility if an animal dies so that I can eat steak, if I could have just as easily had beans.

abeppu 16y ago

If I'm following, your reasoning is that because (a) it's effectively impossible to live in the modern world without benefiting from the deaths of animals that (b) any attempt to limit the number of animals we kill to support our daily lives, or the kind of animals, or how they lived or died, must be pointless. I find that jump from (a) to (b) is unfounded. There's a qualitative difference between (i) a mouse killed accidentally by a combine, (ii) a lab rat killed by a drug company, (iii) a pig raised and killed to be eaten, (iv) a mink killed for its fur and (v) an endangered mountain gorilla killed so a collector can stuff its head and hands. Different people draw their moral lines at different places. A lot of people might have a problem with (v) but be okay with (i) through (iv). I can personally live with (i) and (ii), but have a problem with (iii) especially given the messed up fact that while almost a billion people on the planet are malnourished, the US has enough excess to give the majority of its soy and corn crops over to feeding livestock. As in, we're literally choosing to feed the pigs, cows and chickens we're going to kill before we feed the poor. I know of people who will accept (ii) if the research is for a compelling medical cause, but not if it's for something like cosmetics. I know plenty of people who can live with leather, but won't accept fur based on the crazy cruel stuff that happens on fur farms. This stuff isn't black and white. You can't just equate animals that died millions of years ago that turned into oil with animals that we raise to kill; not all animal deaths are equal. The ethical and moral questions get complicated, and there's a lot of grey areas encountered when balancing human needs and desires against the potential suffering of creatures whose subjective experience we can't understand. And then there are health arguments and environmental arguments, and it never ends. Given that it's complicated, please have a little respect. You write as though you expect that vegetarians and vegans must not be aware of natural predators or animals killed unintentionally by humans for reasons other than meat, or the weird, myriad ways we use highly processed animal products in the modern world -- and that if we had been aware we should obviously have come to the same conclusions you did. That presumption, that vegetarians and vegans must have made their life decisions out of simple ignorance of the facts, is a bit offensive. I'm not saying you should believe anything different about eating meat. But please don't flippantly talk down to people who have chosen to draw their moral distinctions in different places than yours.

ckuehne 16y ago

Xodarap 16y ago

Statement one: "It's impossible to be a perfect programmer, so it's stupid to even try." Statement two: "It's impossible to never harm someone, so it's stupid to even try." Surely you don't agree with statement one? So why does the argument hold for statement two?