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Pollan has a tendency to talk himself into pretty weird conclusions, namely that because we can treat an animal well and give it a good life, killing it and con

Pollan has a tendency to talk himself into pretty weird conclusions, namely that because we can treat an animal well and give it a good life, killing it and consuming it before it naturally dies is somehow good. There is this made up notion that the animal is almost a sacrifice for us: in exchange for a peaceful safe life, it gives us its blood and flesh. But remember, never willingly. It never wants to die. It can never agree to that trade. Killing an animal that does not want to die when we don’t need to do it to survive is always wrong, whether or not you gave it safe a life. I can’t raise my puppy up as a loving family member and then one day bludgeon it to death once I’m ready to consume (as is often done to pigs. See: “thumping”). Pollan get so much right and the article is worth a read, but let’s be clear about two things: killing an animal that doesn’t want to die when we don’t need to do it to survive is always wrong, and ridding this planet of factory farms and replacing them with the idyllic farms he mentions towards the end still requires a MASSIVE cultural shift away from the amount of animal products we consume. We can’t meet current demand for animals products with those idyllic farms, so step one is massively reducing how many animals we consume. All vegans are saying is that we may as well shoot for as close to 0 as we can.

Asooka 5y ago
I don't see how you can string together such a consistent argument and still be so incredibly wrong. Killing animals for food is not wrong and never was. Killing for the love of killing is wrong, but killing e.g. a pig is as moral as plucking an apple from a tree. You bring up a curious point about dogs - eating dogs is not usually practiced, though there are existing cultures who do it and we have records of past cultures who did it. Western society has decided that the dog is a beloved companion, but a person who did not grow up indoctrinated to think that way would have no qualms about eating one, save for the fact that you get a lot less meat out of one than what you put in, plus the fact it can probably serve you better alive. You can see a similar parallel in people's attitudes to eating rats - some may be revolted at eating such a dirty animal (similar to how some cultures feel about pigs), some would be aghast at eating a beloved pet (similar to how you feel about dogs), and some wouldn't really mind it. At the end of the day, every living thing on this planet - every tree, every plant, every mushroom, every fish, every insect and every mammal dies and is eaten. I absolutely agree with you on the factory farms though - humanity should strive to not cause other creatures to suffer.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  > At the end of the day, every living thing on this planet - every tree, every plant, every mushroom, every fish, every insect and every mammal dies and is eaten. Except humans. Humans cremate their corpses. While we might get into a debate about whether some forms of life somewhere on Earth technically consume your scattered ashes, it's quite the distance from hitting you on the head until you die and then chewing on your flesh.
  - cercatrova 5y ago
    Cremation is relatively recent in human history (oldest record dating to 17,000 years ago), the vast majority of which we buried our dead who then decomposed/were eaten.
  - meristohm 5y ago
    I prefer for my body to be eaten by other living things, big or small, and ideally in a way that doesn’t pollute the land and water too much (I accept the heavy metals and other toxins I have built up over the years will leech one way or another). I have no problem separating the dead body from the previously-living being, and I hope more people can adopt this view. This doesn’t mean I will stop handling dead bodies respectfully, at least as far as I see it. When I kill a fly or an ant I own the act, matter-of-fact without performative solemnity, and put the body in the compost to fuel further life. When I ask the vet to kill my dog I will be sad as this family member dies in my hands, and eventually the dominant emotion will be love and joy at all the good times we had together.
    - shuntress 5y ago
      I would assume based on your comment that you're already aware of these [0] but if not, consider reading up on "Towers of Silence". It may interest you. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Silence
  - cheese_goddess 5y ago
    Some cultures (some nations) cremate their dead. Others bury them. Some bury them in the soil, where they are eaten by soil organisms, some bury them in the sea where they are eaten by fish and some bury them in the air, where they are consumed by scavenging birds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Silence Relatedly, animals still kill many humans every year: > Philadelphia, February 28, 2018 -- A new study released in the latest issue of Wilderness & Environmental Medicine shows that animal encounters remain a considerable cause of human harm and death. Researchers analyzed fatalities in the United States from venomous and nonvenomous animals from 2008-2015. They found that while many deaths from animal encounters are potentially avoidable, mortality rates did not decrease from 2008-2015. The animals most commonly responsible for human fatalities are farm animals, insects (hornets, wasps, and bees), and dogs. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180228112528.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180228112528.h... Though most of the humans killed this way are not even eaten, which is arguably a waste. One reason is that many of the killer animals are herbivores, particularly cows: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cows-officially-most-deadly-large-animals-britain-a6727266.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cows-officia...
jbotz 5y ago
It's not so simple as all that. We raise chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese completely free range. Our homestead doesn't really even have fence on all sides and most of it is virgin forest. All these sepecies can survive on their own in the forest here, although not in the same population density that they have on our homestead. We feed them, we take care of them when they are sick, and we provide some protection from predators... we also have dogs, and the dogs presence alone helps quite a bit with that. We also take some of their eggs, and sometimes we kill some of them. The birds know all of this, yet they stay, because life is better here than in the forest. Actually, some of the ducks (Moscovy ducks, they are fully native here) do leave, but they do so mostly when there are too many males and they end up fighting a lot. The bottom line to me is this... we keep the birds for eggs and fertilizer (and because we like them), we really eat very little meat, but we have to manage the population. When we let it get too big they suffer more, there's more disease, more fighting, etc. In fact, sometimes when the population has gotten rather dense, there has been murder and infanticide among them! They can't solve the population problem non-violently on their own, but they do like the benefits of food and safety, so we have to solve the population problem for them. I'm not rationalizing, I love these animals and don't like killing them, and I have gone long stretches of time without eating any meat and don't mind that. But I kill them, because when the time comes it's the right thing to do, and after I kill some I eat them because that's also the right thing to do, not because I want to eat meat. So you might say: well then don't keep animals! Maybe, but keeping them is the most ecological way to maintain the soil fertility around our homestead (poor tropical soils) and the food we can produce because of this reduces our overall ecological footprint. I think it's a win-win for us, the animals, and the planet.
- sweetheart 5y ago
  You’re talking about justifying killing these animals to solve problems that are caused by farming the animals to begin with, which you even say yourself. I can’t say anything about maintaining soil fertility because I know nothing about it, but what is about chickens that preserves the soil, and why can it only come from those chickens? Something about nutrients in the soil I imagine, right?
  - 5y ago
cheese_goddess 5y ago
> But remember, never willingly. It never wants to die. In what context does an animal die when it wants to die? When do animals want to die? And how would you know what an animal wants? Btw, I remember your username. The last time I communicated with your account, a person behind it threatened me with violence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27534682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27534682 I will give your account the benefit of the doubt that this will not be repeated.
- sweetheart 5y ago
  You can’t even concede that animals don’t want to be slaughtered? You are consistently completely unwilling to admit anything in our discussions. And no, my use of a common figure of speech is not a physical threat.

Asooka 5y ago

I don't see how you can string together such a consistent argument and still be so incredibly wrong. Killing animals for food is not wrong and never was. Killing for the love of killing is wrong, but killing e.g. a pig is as moral as plucking an apple from a tree. You bring up a curious point about dogs - eating dogs is not usually practiced, though there are existing cultures who do it and we have records of past cultures who did it. Western society has decided that the dog is a beloved companion, but a person who did not grow up indoctrinated to think that way would have no qualms about eating one, save for the fact that you get a lot less meat out of one than what you put in, plus the fact it can probably serve you better alive. You can see a similar parallel in people's attitudes to eating rats - some may be revolted at eating such a dirty animal (similar to how some cultures feel about pigs), some would be aghast at eating a beloved pet (similar to how you feel about dogs), and some wouldn't really mind it. At the end of the day, every living thing on this planet - every tree, every plant, every mushroom, every fish, every insect and every mammal dies and is eaten. I absolutely agree with you on the factory farms though - humanity should strive to not cause other creatures to suffer.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
> At the end of the day, every living thing on this planet - every tree, every plant, every mushroom, every fish, every insect and every mammal dies and is eaten. Except humans. Humans cremate their corpses. While we might get into a debate about whether some forms of life somewhere on Earth technically consume your scattered ashes, it's quite the distance from hitting you on the head until you die and then chewing on your flesh.
- cercatrova 5y ago
  Cremation is relatively recent in human history (oldest record dating to 17,000 years ago), the vast majority of which we buried our dead who then decomposed/were eaten.
- meristohm 5y ago
  I prefer for my body to be eaten by other living things, big or small, and ideally in a way that doesn’t pollute the land and water too much (I accept the heavy metals and other toxins I have built up over the years will leech one way or another). I have no problem separating the dead body from the previously-living being, and I hope more people can adopt this view. This doesn’t mean I will stop handling dead bodies respectfully, at least as far as I see it. When I kill a fly or an ant I own the act, matter-of-fact without performative solemnity, and put the body in the compost to fuel further life. When I ask the vet to kill my dog I will be sad as this family member dies in my hands, and eventually the dominant emotion will be love and joy at all the good times we had together.
  - shuntress 5y ago
    I would assume based on your comment that you're already aware of these [0] but if not, consider reading up on "Towers of Silence". It may interest you. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Silence
- cheese_goddess 5y ago
  Some cultures (some nations) cremate their dead. Others bury them. Some bury them in the soil, where they are eaten by soil organisms, some bury them in the sea where they are eaten by fish and some bury them in the air, where they are consumed by scavenging birds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Silence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Silence Relatedly, animals still kill many humans every year: > Philadelphia, February 28, 2018 -- A new study released in the latest issue of Wilderness & Environmental Medicine shows that animal encounters remain a considerable cause of human harm and death. Researchers analyzed fatalities in the United States from venomous and nonvenomous animals from 2008-2015. They found that while many deaths from animal encounters are potentially avoidable, mortality rates did not decrease from 2008-2015. The animals most commonly responsible for human fatalities are farm animals, insects (hornets, wasps, and bees), and dogs. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180228112528.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180228112528.h... Though most of the humans killed this way are not even eaten, which is arguably a waste. One reason is that many of the killer animals are herbivores, particularly cows: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cows-officially-most-deadly-large-animals-britain-a6727266.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cows-officia...

jbotz 5y ago

It's not so simple as all that. We raise chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese completely free range. Our homestead doesn't really even have fence on all sides and most of it is virgin forest. All these sepecies can survive on their own in the forest here, although not in the same population density that they have on our homestead. We feed them, we take care of them when they are sick, and we provide some protection from predators... we also have dogs, and the dogs presence alone helps quite a bit with that. We also take some of their eggs, and sometimes we kill some of them. The birds know all of this, yet they stay, because life is better here than in the forest. Actually, some of the ducks (Moscovy ducks, they are fully native here) do leave, but they do so mostly when there are too many males and they end up fighting a lot. The bottom line to me is this... we keep the birds for eggs and fertilizer (and because we like them), we really eat very little meat, but we have to manage the population. When we let it get too big they suffer more, there's more disease, more fighting, etc. In fact, sometimes when the population has gotten rather dense, there has been murder and infanticide among them! They can't solve the population problem non-violently on their own, but they do like the benefits of food and safety, so we have to solve the population problem for them. I'm not rationalizing, I love these animals and don't like killing them, and I have gone long stretches of time without eating any meat and don't mind that. But I kill them, because when the time comes it's the right thing to do, and after I kill some I eat them because that's also the right thing to do, not because I want to eat meat. So you might say: well then don't keep animals! Maybe, but keeping them is the most ecological way to maintain the soil fertility around our homestead (poor tropical soils) and the food we can produce because of this reduces our overall ecological footprint. I think it's a win-win for us, the animals, and the planet.

sweetheart 5y ago
You’re talking about justifying killing these animals to solve problems that are caused by farming the animals to begin with, which you even say yourself. I can’t say anything about maintaining soil fertility because I know nothing about it, but what is about chickens that preserves the soil, and why can it only come from those chickens? Something about nutrients in the soil I imagine, right?
- 5y ago

cheese_goddess 5y ago

> But remember, never willingly. It never wants to die. In what context does an animal die when it wants to die? When do animals want to die? And how would you know what an animal wants? Btw, I remember your username. The last time I communicated with your account, a person behind it threatened me with violence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27534682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27534682 I will give your account the benefit of the doubt that this will not be repeated.

sweetheart 5y ago
You can’t even concede that animals don’t want to be slaughtered? You are consistently completely unwilling to admit anything in our discussions. And no, my use of a common figure of speech is not a physical threat.