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>And as a predatory animal, the fact that something "needs to die" for me to feed doesn't factor into the equation. I'm having a hard time following this... ar

>And as a predatory animal, the fact that something "needs to die" for me to feed doesn't factor into the equation. I'm having a hard time following this... are you saying that you don't think about the reality of killing animals for food because of some biological mechanism outside of your control?

fastball 5y ago
My interpretation was more: nature doesn't have morality, animals don't have morality, other animals aren't worried about killing each other, the only reason we are worried about it is because we are projecting the horror of death that comes from being a cognizant being onto animals that are unlikely to even have a concept of "death", so it's not a moral conundrum for an animal that has evolved to eat meat (humans) to eat meat. Or, said another way: if animals being killed to be eaten is inherently bad, should we not be trying to replace the diet of all lions on earth with BeyondMeat too?
- King-Aaron 5y ago
  This is kind of it. I also find it a frustrating American-centric/urban-centric point of view that 'killing animals is bad', when I (among others) have grown up in areas where it's a basic part of life to farm/hunt meat for survival.
  - agogdog 5y ago
    Are you saying that it's privileged to be able to avoid killing animals while others must do it to avoid starvation? I think you could be a vegetarian while recognizing that you'd 100% kill an animal if you would starve otherwise. I haven't met anyone who thinks people should die at the expense of an animal.
  - ecshafer 5y ago
    >I also find it a frustrating American-centric/urban-centric point of view that 'killing animals is bad' This isn't really even an American centric view. It might be a silicon valley centric view or Upper class suburbs of America centric view. But the fact of the matter in most of America, the working class areas, the rural areas, etc. There are absolutely no moral qualms about hunting, or killing animals or eating meat.
  - mapme 5y ago
    I think that’s because the American urban centric view looks at where the meat comes from in the US and it’s not equivalent to hunting on a farm. It comes from factory farms that are pretty sickening when you see videos and pictures. Sure maybe some folks in rural areas or hunters are similar to what you described but 95% is factory farms in US supermarkets. Also part of the point is that in this culture it’s not for survival. If you need it to survive that’s a different story and not what most people dislike. However US consumers have a choice, so why not make the best of it. Choose meat from sustainable farms or just avoid it.
  - Jack000 5y ago
    I grew up in an area with "traditional" slaughter techniques. Basically a hog is tied down and its throat is slit, while alive, the animal's heart pumps the blood out into a bucket. This ensures the blood doesn't remain in the meat, which makes it taste gamey. The screaming and thrashing of the pig will haunt you for days but the meat definitely tastes better. Anyways, I dislike the utilitarian/primitist argument because you can justify any number of cruelties with an appeal to nature. Cats play with their food all the time so why can't we torture animals for fun? Humans should ponder the morality of killing animals because we have the will and ability to do so.
    - King-Aaron 5y ago
      We certainly are lucky to live in a society of plenty where we can make the moral decision on how or what we eat. I don't have any negative thoughts against people who completely opt out of eating meat for that reason. But just to comment on your first point, we would never let an animal suffer like that when we grew up. A quick shot to the temple to switch it off immediately, and then cut and hang the meat to bleed out worked just as well for us. Don't get me wrong, we were always taught to minimise any suffering and to give our livestock the best/healthiest/least stressful lives possible, and to treat them with dignity when you needed them for food.
      - Jack000 5y ago
        My first point is that this type of cruelty is just a basic part of life and survival for the people who practice it. You would condemn it as cruel just as some would condemn you for killing an animal with a gun. I'm just saying it's a rather arbitrary line to draw. How much cruelty is too much and for what purpose? Why would you draw a neat line around your actions and call it moral, then say that anything outside that line is overly cruel? Note that in my story I did eat the meat - I may have understated how delicious it tasted. Freshly butchered pork made this way is unlike anything I've had in North America. Is killing for sustenance more moral than killing for sport, or for taste? I don't pass judgement on people who hunt or slaughter animals this way, but I don't buy the idea that killing animals is simply a part of life and above moral consideration - or for that matter GP's argument, that it's perfectly moral to kill animals for food because it's as nature intended.
- spicymaki 5y ago
  No! Lions eat to survive and do not have choices due to evolution. Humans on the other hand can choose how to source their nutrients. I don’t believe that animals eating animals in an abstract sense is wrong. The problem for me is necessity and scale. We don’t need animal protein to survive and the scale of the death and environmental harm is too much to ignore.
  - fastball 5y ago
    How is any of that true for lions and not true for humans? I eat to survive as well – if I did not eat, I would die. I have also evolved to eat meat, as lions have. Environmental concerns I think should be excluded from this offshoot of the conversation, which is spawned from ethical concerns about killing animals, not environmental concerns.
    - spicymaki 5y ago
      > How is any of that true for lions and not true for humans? I eat to survive as well – if I did not eat, I would die. I have also evolved to eat meat, as lions have. The difference is that humans can process plant materials into what is needed whereas lions cannot. The humans/lions analogy breaks down because most of us do not live in the Serengeti fighting for survival. The ethical dilemma is: are you eating to live or living to eat? In the past we needed to eat animals to survive, so there was a purpose for animal farming. Now that we don't need animal sourced proteins we are consuming mainly for ignorance or human pleasure. As we improve the technology and the fidelity of plant based and/or synthetic products improve it will be more clear that we don't need to keep killing animals to satisfy our taste buds.
      - daddylongstroke 5y ago
        Do you understand that the vast majority of humans are eating to live? No, most humans could not afford to be vegetarians or vegans. Most humans, although not in the Serengeti as you put it, are in fact, fighting for survival. Most humans choose meat, because it's nutritionally dense and depending on how it was raised, provides a 'full protein' unlike plants. Nevermind the obvious health issues involved with eating "process'ed plant materials" that your body is not at all designed to eat.
tablespoon 5y ago
> I'm having a hard time following this... are you saying that you don't think about the reality of killing animals for food because of some biological mechanism outside of your control? Pretty much everyone needs to kill things to live, even vegetarians (thousands of baby plants were killed to make every loaf of bread). Theoretically there are fruitarians who don't, but my understanding is that is not a sustainable diet and many famous frutarians regularly cheated.
- rbg246 5y ago
  But you should be mindful about it and try and minimize your impact.
slovette 5y ago
Yes. It’s the cycle of life. Biologically, I am a carnivorous animal, so are you. We simply possess the faculties to choose not to be in a reasonable way, but it doesn’t stop the fact that nature/universe/god/whatever made you to eat the life out of other animals. Doesn’t bother me either. Side note: This is beyond the convo of the merit in how we do this today. Whole different convo.

fastball 5y ago

My interpretation was more: nature doesn't have morality, animals don't have morality, other animals aren't worried about killing each other, the only reason we are worried about it is because we are projecting the horror of death that comes from being a cognizant being onto animals that are unlikely to even have a concept of "death", so it's not a moral conundrum for an animal that has evolved to eat meat (humans) to eat meat. Or, said another way: if animals being killed to be eaten is inherently bad, should we not be trying to replace the diet of all lions on earth with BeyondMeat too?

King-Aaron 5y ago
This is kind of it. I also find it a frustrating American-centric/urban-centric point of view that 'killing animals is bad', when I (among others) have grown up in areas where it's a basic part of life to farm/hunt meat for survival.
- agogdog 5y ago
  Are you saying that it's privileged to be able to avoid killing animals while others must do it to avoid starvation? I think you could be a vegetarian while recognizing that you'd 100% kill an animal if you would starve otherwise. I haven't met anyone who thinks people should die at the expense of an animal.
- ecshafer 5y ago
  >I also find it a frustrating American-centric/urban-centric point of view that 'killing animals is bad' This isn't really even an American centric view. It might be a silicon valley centric view or Upper class suburbs of America centric view. But the fact of the matter in most of America, the working class areas, the rural areas, etc. There are absolutely no moral qualms about hunting, or killing animals or eating meat.
- mapme 5y ago
  I think that’s because the American urban centric view looks at where the meat comes from in the US and it’s not equivalent to hunting on a farm. It comes from factory farms that are pretty sickening when you see videos and pictures. Sure maybe some folks in rural areas or hunters are similar to what you described but 95% is factory farms in US supermarkets. Also part of the point is that in this culture it’s not for survival. If you need it to survive that’s a different story and not what most people dislike. However US consumers have a choice, so why not make the best of it. Choose meat from sustainable farms or just avoid it.
- Jack000 5y ago
  I grew up in an area with "traditional" slaughter techniques. Basically a hog is tied down and its throat is slit, while alive, the animal's heart pumps the blood out into a bucket. This ensures the blood doesn't remain in the meat, which makes it taste gamey. The screaming and thrashing of the pig will haunt you for days but the meat definitely tastes better. Anyways, I dislike the utilitarian/primitist argument because you can justify any number of cruelties with an appeal to nature. Cats play with their food all the time so why can't we torture animals for fun? Humans should ponder the morality of killing animals because we have the will and ability to do so.
  - King-Aaron 5y ago
    We certainly are lucky to live in a society of plenty where we can make the moral decision on how or what we eat. I don't have any negative thoughts against people who completely opt out of eating meat for that reason. But just to comment on your first point, we would never let an animal suffer like that when we grew up. A quick shot to the temple to switch it off immediately, and then cut and hang the meat to bleed out worked just as well for us. Don't get me wrong, we were always taught to minimise any suffering and to give our livestock the best/healthiest/least stressful lives possible, and to treat them with dignity when you needed them for food.
    - Jack000 5y ago
      My first point is that this type of cruelty is just a basic part of life and survival for the people who practice it. You would condemn it as cruel just as some would condemn you for killing an animal with a gun. I'm just saying it's a rather arbitrary line to draw. How much cruelty is too much and for what purpose? Why would you draw a neat line around your actions and call it moral, then say that anything outside that line is overly cruel? Note that in my story I did eat the meat - I may have understated how delicious it tasted. Freshly butchered pork made this way is unlike anything I've had in North America. Is killing for sustenance more moral than killing for sport, or for taste? I don't pass judgement on people who hunt or slaughter animals this way, but I don't buy the idea that killing animals is simply a part of life and above moral consideration - or for that matter GP's argument, that it's perfectly moral to kill animals for food because it's as nature intended.
spicymaki 5y ago
No! Lions eat to survive and do not have choices due to evolution. Humans on the other hand can choose how to source their nutrients. I don’t believe that animals eating animals in an abstract sense is wrong. The problem for me is necessity and scale. We don’t need animal protein to survive and the scale of the death and environmental harm is too much to ignore.
- fastball 5y ago
  How is any of that true for lions and not true for humans? I eat to survive as well – if I did not eat, I would die. I have also evolved to eat meat, as lions have. Environmental concerns I think should be excluded from this offshoot of the conversation, which is spawned from ethical concerns about killing animals, not environmental concerns.
  - spicymaki 5y ago
    > How is any of that true for lions and not true for humans? I eat to survive as well – if I did not eat, I would die. I have also evolved to eat meat, as lions have. The difference is that humans can process plant materials into what is needed whereas lions cannot. The humans/lions analogy breaks down because most of us do not live in the Serengeti fighting for survival. The ethical dilemma is: are you eating to live or living to eat? In the past we needed to eat animals to survive, so there was a purpose for animal farming. Now that we don't need animal sourced proteins we are consuming mainly for ignorance or human pleasure. As we improve the technology and the fidelity of plant based and/or synthetic products improve it will be more clear that we don't need to keep killing animals to satisfy our taste buds.
    - daddylongstroke 5y ago
      Do you understand that the vast majority of humans are eating to live? No, most humans could not afford to be vegetarians or vegans. Most humans, although not in the Serengeti as you put it, are in fact, fighting for survival. Most humans choose meat, because it's nutritionally dense and depending on how it was raised, provides a 'full protein' unlike plants. Nevermind the obvious health issues involved with eating "process'ed plant materials" that your body is not at all designed to eat.

tablespoon 5y ago

> I'm having a hard time following this... are you saying that you don't think about the reality of killing animals for food because of some biological mechanism outside of your control? Pretty much everyone needs to kill things to live, even vegetarians (thousands of baby plants were killed to make every loaf of bread). Theoretically there are fruitarians who don't, but my understanding is that is not a sustainable diet and many famous frutarians regularly cheated.

rbg246 5y ago
But you should be mindful about it and try and minimize your impact.

slovette 5y ago

Yes. It’s the cycle of life. Biologically, I am a carnivorous animal, so are you. We simply possess the faculties to choose not to be in a reasonable way, but it doesn’t stop the fact that nature/universe/god/whatever made you to eat the life out of other animals. Doesn’t bother me either. Side note: This is beyond the convo of the merit in how we do this today. Whole different convo.