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I've recently taken up hunting, mostly because my rural family prioritizes it. The natural world is full of unimaginable cruelty. Wolves will take down young d

I've recently taken up hunting, mostly because my rural family prioritizes it. The natural world is full of unimaginable cruelty. Wolves will take down young deer and eat them alive while parents watch. Bears will pin down whatever they can catch and who cares if it is alive. On and on, the amount of bloodshed required to support an omnivore/carnivore is simply bananas. Killer whales are hyper-intelligent aquatic nightmares, imho, that thankfully have not decided to eat humans. We, humans, made the following bargain with nature, at least until recently: We will drive away the predators that keep you in constant alert and savage your children, and in exchange we will determine how and when you die (quickly, but perhaps also fearfully). I agree - we can carefully manage the wilderness for our own benefit, and that may take away the randomized killings. But there is _no_ version of a carnivore or meat-eating omnivore that does not involve killing and savagery and disregard for the life that has been reduced to just a link in the grass-to-meat or plankton-to-meat foodchain. I've come to terms with that and continue to eat meat.

Cpoll 2y ago
> We will drive away the predators that keep you in constant alert and savage your children, and in exchange we will determine how and when you die (quickly, but perhaps also fearfully). Maybe once in the past, or in places that still graze their animals. I don't think the average factory farm situation can be framed as mutually beneficial for the animals.
- quickthrowman 2y ago
  I interpreted that as being about deer more so than livestock. If humans didn’t harvest deer to manage the population, there would be mass starvation deaths every winter.
  - jvanderbot 2y ago
    And wasting disease - that's not a pretty way to go.
AnonHP 2y ago
> But there is _no_ version of a carnivore or meat-eating omnivore that does not involve killing and savagery Absolute statements are not useful in this context. Vultures are obligate scavengers who eat the flesh of already dead animals as a practice. The dead animal could be due to death from natural causes (diseases, old age, injury, poisoning, starvation) or hunting by other animals. So there are some versions. Also, as a couple of examples, the animal world is not one that has consent to sexual intercourse or empathy in killing an offspring who’s not their own. So your (or our) morals cannot be absolute for one purpose (killing an animal to eat the flesh) while being considerate for other aspects. In other words, we don’t gain much by pointing to the non-human world as a justification or excuse for our actions.
- j_bum 2y ago
  Great counterpoint, re: vultures. But, life on earth evolved with predators in the mix. I’d be curious to know what life would look like without the presence of predators during evolution. Or, which set of life would be more evolutionarily successful: creatures from evolution w/ predators vs. creatures evolution w/o predators. Sounds like a great topic for Primer [0]. Last, to push back, I don’t think the parent comment was using the brutality of nature as an excuse for their actions. They said it helped them understand/come to terms with their hunting behavior, of which is totally natural. [0] https://youtube.com/@primerblobs?si=-bsFlBllNDvEfY-g https://youtube.com/@primerblobs?si=-bsFlBllNDvEfY-g
- ASalazarMX 2y ago
  Focusing on edge cases doesn't change the overall tendency of nature being savage and cruel. Even herbivores like cows or horses will sometimes eat small animals given the chance. Even the humble mold, fungus, and bacteria will happily eat you alive given the chance. Surviving in nature is outcompeting others, regardless of how fair it seems to our current culture.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > empathy in killing an offspring who’s not their own As well as their own: "numerous studies support the correlation between postpartum depression (PPD) and lack of social support or indicators of possible infant health and development problems. PPD may be an adaptation that informs mothers that they are suffering or have suffered a fitness cost, which motivates them to reduce or eliminate investment in offspring under certain circumstances, and that may help them negotiate greater levels of investment from other [1]. More broadly, "the analytical rumination (AR) hypothesis proposes that depression is an adaptation that evolved as a response to complex problems and whose function is to minimize disruption of rumination and sustain analysis of complex problems" [2]. [1] https://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/documents/316/Hagen_1999_The_functions_of_postpartum_depression_s6Qmvjo.pdf https://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/documents/316/Hagen_1999_Th... [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2734449/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2734449/
tomcam 2y ago
Cats and raccoons, at the very least, frequently kill just for fun. We chicken owners, for some mysterious reason, get very attached to those silly little dinosaurs and it is not unusual at all for a raccoon to come in and just bat the heads off the chickens without eating anything.

Cpoll 2y ago

> We will drive away the predators that keep you in constant alert and savage your children, and in exchange we will determine how and when you die (quickly, but perhaps also fearfully). Maybe once in the past, or in places that still graze their animals. I don't think the average factory farm situation can be framed as mutually beneficial for the animals.

quickthrowman 2y ago
I interpreted that as being about deer more so than livestock. If humans didn’t harvest deer to manage the population, there would be mass starvation deaths every winter.
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  And wasting disease - that's not a pretty way to go.

AnonHP 2y ago

> But there is _no_ version of a carnivore or meat-eating omnivore that does not involve killing and savagery Absolute statements are not useful in this context. Vultures are obligate scavengers who eat the flesh of already dead animals as a practice. The dead animal could be due to death from natural causes (diseases, old age, injury, poisoning, starvation) or hunting by other animals. So there are some versions. Also, as a couple of examples, the animal world is not one that has consent to sexual intercourse or empathy in killing an offspring who’s not their own. So your (or our) morals cannot be absolute for one purpose (killing an animal to eat the flesh) while being considerate for other aspects. In other words, we don’t gain much by pointing to the non-human world as a justification or excuse for our actions.

j_bum 2y ago
Great counterpoint, re: vultures. But, life on earth evolved with predators in the mix. I’d be curious to know what life would look like without the presence of predators during evolution. Or, which set of life would be more evolutionarily successful: creatures from evolution w/ predators vs. creatures evolution w/o predators. Sounds like a great topic for Primer [0]. Last, to push back, I don’t think the parent comment was using the brutality of nature as an excuse for their actions. They said it helped them understand/come to terms with their hunting behavior, of which is totally natural. [0] https://youtube.com/@primerblobs?si=-bsFlBllNDvEfY-g https://youtube.com/@primerblobs?si=-bsFlBllNDvEfY-g
ASalazarMX 2y ago
Focusing on edge cases doesn't change the overall tendency of nature being savage and cruel. Even herbivores like cows or horses will sometimes eat small animals given the chance. Even the humble mold, fungus, and bacteria will happily eat you alive given the chance. Surviving in nature is outcompeting others, regardless of how fair it seems to our current culture.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> empathy in killing an offspring who’s not their own As well as their own: "numerous studies support the correlation between postpartum depression (PPD) and lack of social support or indicators of possible infant health and development problems. PPD may be an adaptation that informs mothers that they are suffering or have suffered a fitness cost, which motivates them to reduce or eliminate investment in offspring under certain circumstances, and that may help them negotiate greater levels of investment from other [1]. More broadly, "the analytical rumination (AR) hypothesis proposes that depression is an adaptation that evolved as a response to complex problems and whose function is to minimize disruption of rumination and sustain analysis of complex problems" [2]. [1] https://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/documents/316/Hagen_1999_The_functions_of_postpartum_depression_s6Qmvjo.pdf https://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/documents/316/Hagen_1999_Th... [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2734449/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2734449/

tomcam 2y ago

Cats and raccoons, at the very least, frequently kill just for fun. We chicken owners, for some mysterious reason, get very attached to those silly little dinosaurs and it is not unusual at all for a raccoon to come in and just bat the heads off the chickens without eating anything.