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I am an ethical meat eater. I would rather eat grass fed beef and lamb than see the additional suffering of hundreds/thousands of rodents (let alone the tens of
by danieltillett 6y ago
I am an ethical meat eater. I would rather eat grass fed beef and lamb than see the additional suffering of hundreds/thousands of rodents (let alone the tens of millions of insects) that me adopting a vegetarian diet would induce. Being poisoned or shredded in a harvester is not a cruelty-free way to die.
On a more philosophical note, I think it is better to have lived and died than to not have ever existed. Given very few cattle and sheep would be born if it wasn’t for meat/dairy production then a case can be made that meat eating is the more ethical option. I do admit that this view is incompatible with my first opinion as there would be many more animals born if I adopted a vegetarian diet.
- saila 6y agoMassive amounts of grain are fed to livestock, and vast acreage is cleared for grazing livestock. If everyone went vegetarian, I'm fairly certain the amount of crops grown and land we use for agriculture would be significantly less. Turning grain into meat is highly inefficient.
- wolco2 6y agoWhy does everyone have to become vegetarian? When everyone stops eating meat and turns to "healthy" meals like corn based vegetarian burgers I think we are all worse off. Variety, locally grown produce, locally raised animals is the best way to keep diversity and quality. The vegetarian food available now is good because it's not as mass produced.
- rhn_mk1 6y agoThe point of ethical vegetarianism is not keeping diversity and quality of foods, it's preventing bad life of animals. It's also not the point of ecological vegetarianism: it's preserving the diversity of natural ecosystems, as opposed to food farms.
- danieltillett 6y agoGrass fed cattle and sheep have a pretty good life. What you are arguing against is intensive feedlots.
- rhn_mk1 6y agoThere's a third aspect to that. Or maybe it's another ecology problem. While I don't have the numbers, I strongly suspect there's not enough grass to feed all the humans the amount of meat they would like to eat right now. At least based on observing the prices of intensive vs grass fed, or watching the numbers for intensive production alone. So if we want grass fed as the new normal, we're either going to have to intensify it back again, or we'll end up eating respectively less meat. That's near-vegetarianism or bust.
- danieltillett 6y agoYes this is true - there is not enough grasslands to feed the current demand for meat - actually there is not enough feedlots to feed the demand for meat on a global scale. Many poor people around the world would eat more meat if it was cheaper. The solutions to let the market solve the problem - if there was only grass fed meat available the cost would be very high and meat would become a luxury again.
- jkmcf 6y agoWhat do you think happens to all the animals no longer used as a food source in a capitalistic society?
- heptathorp 6y agoAssuming this is an honest question and not a lame attempt at a gotcha: as more people switch to a vegan diet we will gradually stop breeding them in the first place, so there are no animals for something to "happen to."
- 6y ago
- danieltillett 6y agoI see you missed my point about grass fed.
- corobo 6y agoYou're allowed to just say you like eating meat mate, haha
- danieltillett 6y agoI certainly do like eating meat and I don’t think there is any ethical problem with eating meat. The problem with trying to use ethics to justify a position is there is little agreement on what is ethical or not.
- xupybd 6y agoSome people are not comfortable killing an animal to eat it. To them it's not an ethical choice. I have no problem killing an animal for food. I also have no problem with someone else finding it unethical. Each person has their own beliefs that govern their ethics. As long as we all find a way to live peacefully together there is nothing wrong with that.
- danieltillett 6y agoI am in 100% agreement with this sentiment, what I am not in agreement with is that vegetarians are somehow more ethical than meat eaters.
- jimdavenport 6y agoThis is a new and surprising take.
- jgwil2 6y agoThis incredibly stupid take is actually pretty common on HN whenever vegetarianism comes up. I don't know whether they're simply mocking the serious thought many people have put into the ethics of eating animals or what, but it's manifestly false and patently ridiculous to claim that eating plants kills more animals than eating animals.
- nefitty 6y agoSome people have a hard time engaging with ideas that might cast them in a negative, ethical light. I’ve had people abruptly stop me from explaining ethical vegetarianism, even though they initiated the conversation haha
- danieltillett 6y agoSome people don’t think there is any ethical problem with eating meat and rather than get into an argument with a vegetarian prefer to end the conversation. I am not one of these people.
- minot 6y agoOn a side note, I never followed the project very closely but I was really hopeful for soylent. What happened? Is the technology just not there? Do we not know enough about human physiology? What is missing to take the soylent idea — which I understood as automate most (boring) meals — and make it a reality? I saw a quora answer which says we simply don’t know enough about the science behind food but to me it implies that maybe some day our knowledge will get there? People laugh but the idea of “bachelor chow” from futurama makes sense to me. I don’t know enough about the topic of ethical vegetarianism to criticize it. I eat meat. In fact, I had fish for dinner last night. I just don’t think about the ethics of it. Now I may sound hypocritical when I say this because I’m against policy action through taxation (make taxes as simple as possible by eliminating all income tax credits and deductions). However, I know I’ll continue to eat meat (including milk, eggs, chicken, pork) unless it is either too impractical or too expensive. I want to believe that if push comes to shove I’ll be able to adjust my eating habits and that my current eating habits are not a part of my identity. I don’t really have a point to make here except that something like soylent would go a long way toward making me vegetarian at least for the meals I eat alone.
- ivalm 6y agoCattle eat more plant calories than the resultant meat. All those plant calories include the “vegetarian suffering.” Purely grass fed meats with no farming will be too inefficient to provide meat to everyone.
- danieltillett 6y agoSure meat might become more of a luxury than it is now, but in a calorie to calorie trade off grains have a higher animal kill rate than grass fed meat. I don’t many people are aware how many rodents are killed harvesting and storing grain.
- trianglem 6y agoI like meat too and won’t give it up unless decent lab grown meat comes around but this comment is the most dissembling nonsense I have heard in a while.
- danieltillett 6y agoIt is no more nonsense that the OP’s argument. If you do an analysis on animals killed per calorie, grains kill many more animals than say grass fed cattle. I think many people are unaware how many rodents are killed every year growing and harvesting grains. I don’t think this is a very good reason to eat or not eat meat.
- jgwil2 6y agoCitation?
- danieltillett 6y agohttps://grdc.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/207321/mousemgtsep1120fact20sheet.pdf https://grdc.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/207321/mouse...
- jgwil2 6y agoThis PDF is a flyer on pest control, presumably targeted at growers of grain. Nowhere does it contain anything resembling the "analysis on animals killed per calorie" you referred to.
- chrisdirkis 6y ago> On a more philosophical note, I think it is better to have lived and died than to not have ever existed. Would that not lead to a desire to create as many "lives" as possible? I don't think I've met many people optimising for that, although I won't rule it out.
- danieltillett 6y agoI would not be surprised if there was some religion out there that espoused such a doctrine, likely one that believed in reincarnation.