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I think this is the same ethical questions of veganism and our use/abuse of biological systems. This is an excerpt from "The Pig that Wants to be Eaten" by Juli
by philips 5mo ago
I think this is the same ethical questions of veganism and our use/abuse of biological systems. This is an excerpt from "The Pig that Wants to be Eaten" by Julian Baggini
> After forty years of vegetarianism, Max Berger was about to sit down to a feast of pork sausages, crispy bacon and pan-fried chicken breast. Max had always missed the taste of meat, but his principles were stronger than his culinary cravings. But now he was able to eat meat with a clear conscience.
> The sausages and bacon had come from a pig called Priscilla he had met the week before. The pig had been genetically engineered to be able to speak and, more importantly, to want to be eaten. Ending up on a human’s table was Priscilla’s lifetime ambition and she woke up on the day of her slaughter with a keen sense of anticipation. She had told all this to Max just before rushing off to the comfortable and humane slaughterhouse. Having heard her story, Max thought it would be disrespectful not to eat her.
> The chicken had come from a genetically modified bird which had been ‘decerebrated’. In other words, it lived the life of a vegetable, with no awareness of self, environment, pain or pleasure. Killing it was therefore no more barbarous than uprooting a carrot.
> Yet as the plate was placed before him, Max felt a twinge of nausea. Was this just a reflex reaction, caused by a lifetime of vegetarianism? Or was it the physical sign of a justifiable psychic distress? Collecting himself, he picked up his knife and fork . . .
> Source: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams (Pan Books, 1980)
- Centigonal 5mo agois this from Baggini or Adams?
- philips 5mo agoBaggini is the source of the quote he just references the concept was from Adams at the end. I copy/pasted this from the book.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- dasyatidprime 5mo agoWhat is the source line at the end representing there? I've read The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and while it definitely contains (and I see it as a major cultural anchor for) animals bred to desire being eaten and be able to say so, it doesn't contain that particular scene (at least in the version I read). Is that line Baggini noting that his scene was inspired by the Adams book?
- philips 5mo agoBaggini is the source of the quote he just references the concept was from Adams at the end. I copy/pasted this from the book.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- mrsvanwinkle 5mo agoThis is the third time in the same week I observed an HHGG quote going whoosh in an age where reading books is long dead as the tech industry twitches to dying anytime soon from the moment Jeff sold godelescherbach online
- DennisP 5mo agoIronically, it seems you may not have read past the first sentence of your GP comment.
- boogieknite 5mo agoas an unintentional and perhaps unethical vegetarian of many years who hasn't read this book: eating dead things gives me the creeps because it makes me consider my own death and consumption which is unappetizing
- cassianoleal 5mo agoSo you only eat living things?
- boogieknite 5mo agoonly eat live pikmin
- cassianoleal 5mo agoHow do feel about the live pikmin dying as it reaches your stomach? I'm assuming you swallow them whole rather than killing them with your teeth.
- Groxx 5mo agoNone of their natural predators seem to have teeth for chewing. So, yes, I think swallowing them whole is the most natural thing to do.
- fhn 5mo agoplants have cells and they are alive!
- DoctorOetker 5mo agoand genetically related to us
- taneq 5mo agoAs a fellow ‘unethical’ vegetarian, eating dead animals just seems yucky. I imagine it’s a similar feeling to what most non-vegetarians feel when contemplating eating dog or cat meat.
- vjvjvjvjghv 5mo agoDid Priscilla also want to be living in absolute misery every single day of her life? The way animals are treated while they are alive is my main objection to our farming practices and the reason why i don’t eat meat.
- JK-Swizzle 5mo agoI believe you are missing the forest for the trees. It is bringing up the question of what defines self will. It is unrelated to veganism in all but text. An easy example is dogs. We have bred dogs for centuries to love doing work for us. If they hated doing the work, it would be easy to call it cruel. If they loved it by nature, it would be easy to call it kind. But since we created them into a thing that loves the work we need them for, where do the ethics fall? Should we prevent them from doing what brings them joy? Should we make use of this win-win situation? If it is the latter, we are quickly approaching the ability to morph every species into something that gets joy from doing our work. Dogs we changed by accident. The next one will not be an accident. Is it still a beings free will if the game was rigged from the start?
- the_af 5mo ago> Dogs we changed by accident (I know your point wasn't about dogs either, it just reminded me of something). I love Neil de Grasse Tyson's line in Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey: "This wolf has discovered what a branch of its ancestors figured out some 15.000 years ago... an excellent survival strategy: the domestication of humans."
- oooyay 5mo agoThere's also another animal/dog documentary that I've watched recently that puts a finer point on this realization. The secret to survival and evolution is cooperation. For instance, not all dogs evolved the same way in this documentary. Some were more nuturing, some were more problem solving. For the focus of the documentary the challenge was to match the dog with a human that had a need they could address. I think somewhat egotistically humans underappreciate how we have also been goaded by our "pets" into our own evolutionary journey. Most of the subjects of that documentary would not be alive if it were not for those dogs.
- ANTHONY6632 5mo ago[dead]
- kjkjadksj 5mo agoAt the end of the day vegans play the same game as meat eaters where some line is drawn. For meat eaters it is with livestock meats and for pescatarians that is no go, but fish are alright. And for vegans that is all off limits. Except of course the life we deem base enough to not care it is being eaten alive. Slaughter all the lettuce you want. There are no lettuce advocates. All this to say the moral arguments are sort of silly and illogical. Unfortunately for us all, we exist where we do in the food chain, having to consume life to live, unable to secure our resources from the sun and inorganic resources which would be more morally righteous by all measures. Things could be better but they also could be worse. At least much of our prey receives veterinary care and is killed via airgun vs having to rough it and be eaten alive.
- 0dayz 5mo agoAFAIK vegans base their argument on the degree of consciousness a living being had and compromise on the least evil. Most meat eaters base it on closeness to said living thing. It'll be interesting to see if the veganism movement survives lab grown meat that is ethically produced.
- adamsmark 5mo agoIt wouldn't continue in any real form. Maybe cholesterol conscious and devout buddhists will still try to adhere, but beyond that I don't see what the point would be. It would be like how Ozempic lead to a mysterious quieting of Body Positivity/Health at Every Size advocates. They were a vocal minority, there was much "debate" and cri de couer from many sides and now its all evaporated without a farewell or explicit winding down.
- asklfjnasfas 5mo ago[dead]
- virgildotcodes 5mo agoThere is already massive industry lobbying against lab grown meat, resulting in bans in states like Florida[0] accompanied with propaganda about "processed" vs "natural" food. Were lab grown meat to be available today at a cost lower than regular meat, it is apparent that there would still be huge amounts of animal ag dollars spent on lobbying against and demonizing these things, and millions of people who would fall for the propaganda. You can compare this to renewables now, even though they may be far cheaper per kwH, and the Trump admin's push to halt all renewable projects and do everything they can to prop up the viability of fossil fuels. This means the vegan movement would need to continue to exist as does the environmental movement. [0] https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/federal-appeals-court-upholds-floridas-ban-on-lab-grown-meat-protecting-states-real-food-law/ https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/federal-appeals-court-uph...
- mrsvanwinkle 5mo agoI was almost too sure I had never heard of Julian Baggini and I almost celebrated the first in history when neither the Onion nor the Simpsons nor Idiocracy predicted the future by assumed funniness of assumed impossibility of unfathomable human stupidity AND that it still was kinda funny instead of depressing discovery of frontier Authentic Idiocy (TM) I believe this is one of many scenes in HHGG where I super shy in public tried to suppress convolutions of my soul and contortions of face and bone only to fail audibly and visibly