In Canada, "the Crown" is ostensibly the federal government given how very little the monarchy and governor/lieutenant generals can actually do (they're glorified "yes" men at this point). AFAIK the crown retains a select few emergency powers that act as protections against tyrannical ministers, gridlocked parliaments, and undemocratic or unethical legislation. The queen's generals have the right to veto Canadian legislation, but actually doing so is risky business. If the Queen's representatives really started to exercise influence that was in any way not in the interest of the Canadian people, they would be painting a massive reform target over any formal vestiges of monarchic authority that remains.

And this what what I was really getting at: should the Crown fail the Canadian people in any significant way, in sanguine but bloodless fashion we would legislate the monarchy out of our hearts and constitution. With great pith and sorry, we would graduate to a new level of cultural and constitutional identity. I think it would take an extremely brazen governor general acting on behalf of the monarch themselves to piss us off enough for this to come to pass, and the generals themselves are already on notice.

From Wiki:

In 2013, the Supreme Court refused to hear the request of former Lieutenant Governor of Quebec Lise Thibault to have charges against her dropped. She was being prosecuted for misappropriation of public funds but invoked royal immunity on the basis that "the Queen can do no wrong". As per convention, the court did not disclose its motives for doing so. She later petitioned a court in Quebec for the same motives. Judge Carol St-Cyr again rejected her demand, noting that constitutional law does not grant a lieutenant-governor the same benefits as the Queen and that royal immunity would only apply to actions involving official state functions, not personal ones.[14] She was sentenced to 18 months in jail but was granted conditional release after six months. — wiki

We might not hold individual royals accountable for their criminal actions, but we could and would hold the monarchy itself accountable, and do away with it like a bad relationship in extreme circumstances. It would chart well with Canada's somewhat slow progress towards self-governance, though I'm sure it would be a nightmare for actual legislators to pull off.

In my view the British monarchy has to walk on eggshells to avoid scandal of any kind which could threaten to end their formal status even within the UK. Conversely, Trump seems completely immune from scandal but vulnerable to criminal prosecution (and showing signs of weakness of late with his renewed talk of self-pardons)...

The Queen is immune from prosecution (and arrest). — Michael

Ah, yes, but not the monarchy itself! (ask the French)

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

I really cannot imagine the supreme court falling on the wrong side of this question.

For one, wheat, corn, meat, and milk products are subsidized by the government and that is why those products are cheap. Most people could not afford meat, and definitely not much of it, if that weren't the case. I thought everyone knew that by now. — NKBJ

Vegetable produce is inherently more expensive than grains and legumes. We rely on grains so heavily because they are easy to grow, are light weight, high in protein and calories, can be stored at room temperature, and can be dried/processed into long lasting foodstuffs. Vegetables require more care to harvest, yield less per acre, need refrigerated transportation, have shorter shelf lives, and are less easily preserved/processed into long lasting foodstuffs. The US agricultural strategy as a nation is or was geared toward ensuring national food security and affordable food prices, and this is why their subsidies lean towards grains and legumes.

The agricultural system is massively complex and interconnected in so many ways that making simplistic assessments about why things are the way they are such as "bread is cheap and tomatoes expensive because of subsidies" just doesn't persuasively cut the cake. Nobody knew agriculture could be so complicated...

Read this article if you have time.

And not only can you grow all sorts of foods on the exact same land used for animal feed, you need a lot less land to do so. It's pretty obvious to anyone who's grown even a single tomato plant before. — NKBJ

I think you must be confused. Different soil and climate profiles benefit and hinder different sorts of plants (which is why we see the bulk of the field corn in the US being grown in a coherent cluster). To be profitable, farmers choose crops by weighing out the costs/market value of the crops they plant along with the risk of crop failure. Furthermore we get more servings AND calories from an acre of grains than we do tomatoes or any other vegetable.

That sounds more like you, actually. They used science to counter science. You're claiming, without any proof whatsoever, that they are biased. Just because YOU don't like THEIR conclusions. — NKBJ

Well I quoted both articles directly to show and explain why their main criticism is inaccurate. I've been making specific points that require address. Until you actually step up and do so you won't be able to defend your argument or a rebuke to mine. "They used science to counter science" is not an argument and doesn't address the topic.

P.S:I only bothered to call them biased (a secondary point) because they had the nerve to do so themselves in their own paper with reference to the authors of the article I cited (which shows their hand completely; such an attack has no place in the peer review process).

How convenient of an answer for you. Claim that factory farming is immoral, but refuse to answer whether or not you are continually contributing to it. I think you see your own hypocrisy here. — chatterbears

This is not exactly relevant to the discussion we're having, is it? Appealing to presumed hypocrisy in my actions doesn't establish your argument about ethics, nor does it address my own ethical justifications for eating meat which I've volunteered and detailed at length.

I avoid factory farmed meat, though if someone else has bought or prepared it for me I think turning it down is a waste. I eat some meat, chicken and a very occasional steak mostly. In-province farmed eggs too. Here's why I'm not a hypocrite:

If it made sense from a health perspective, I would be a vegan, but the dietary volume and expense that is required to satisfy my personal nutritional needs is beyond my ability to manage. By not over-consuming meat and by avoiding factory farmed animal products, I am not contributing to unnecessary animal suffering.

And if we all had the where-with-all to plan vegan diets and the time and money to pursue them, we would still have to face the increased cost as a society, which would be a detriment to the poorest classes and nations.

Couldn't it be that the internet facilitated a pendulum swing that was going to happen anyway? Or no, the technology exacerbated an underlying feature of the culture. — frank

Whether it magnified or amplified, distilled or quickened, concealed or revealed, the contemporary result is the same: a new wave of white nationalism flowing mainly through the cultural canal of the internet. The internet represents a change in the landscape and transportation of ideas and culture, and for various reasons extreme ideologies are finding niches to fill within the new landscape.

White nationalism as you might hear it bandied today was reborn in one of the internet's many facets.

BTW, your history of the American Civil War isn't exactly right. The real sequence of events was ten times more bizarre than that. — frank

Well I did elect to leave a few things out, heh, but did I get any of my dates or major points wrong? I was pulling rather quickly from memory so do let me know if I've bungled something up terribly.

Long ago, only white Europeans were allowed to immigrate to America, and only white land owning males could vote...

Fast forward to 1830, the rising populist Andrew Jackson rabble roused his way to the white house by promising suffrage for all white males...

Fast forward to 1860-61, A nascent Kansas is being settled and becomes a state politically allied with the northern states, which gave the north a majority in the electoral college, which causes southern states to attempt succession. Out of necessity during the civil war, the great emancipator (notably a racist himself) "freed" the slaves of the south (told them to revolt), and at some point afterward we all decided that the civil war was fought over slavery alone, and not to maintain the union.

The KKK formed as a reaction to all the newly free blacks following the civil war (within a potpourri of resentment, racism, and fear directed at catholics, blacks, jews, and foreigners of all stripes) ...

Fast forward 50 years and the KKK has spread to harness the full magnitude of prejudice in the U.S, and in some states its popularity could function as a barometer for racism and human rights abuses.

Meanwhile, in Europe...

German civilian pilots soar gracefully above the national discontent below, and as the ire of one particular malcontent comes to a head, the cultural and political climate of fear and resentment present in the nation allow him to slowly but surely rise to power. The old European anti-semetic meme was revitalized along with a new idea that one specific ethnic group of people are the superior ethnicity, and that a nation should be founded by and for this superior ethnicity to protect it's traditions, culture, legacy, and genetic superiority. Graceful German pilots become graceful German killers under a banner of white supremacy and nationalism.

By 1950, the idea is well out there. Though the nazi party were defeated (an ironic end for the white nationalists among them), bad ideas often behave like cancer, and this particular bad idea has been singularly immortalized by the second world war. Scientology also springs to mind for some reason...

During the 60's, our societies were becoming more and more diversified. Immigration reforms coincided with equal rights movements, and overtime the segregationist and supremacist elements of western political culture were marginalized and defeated.

By the 90's, white supremacy was highly frowned upon, and so naturally it had a small but dedicated following consisting of young misanthropic skinheads as recruits being lead by the old-guard white supremacist ideologues of the 50's-80's. At this point they were a mere counterculture in the mainstream of new political correctness that sought to civilize and bring an end to the emotionally charged and prejudiced rhetoric of the past. Bona fide racism saw a massive decline in the west between the 60's and the turn of the millennium, but just as we were about to turn an important corner of intellectual maturation, the internet happened. The recruitment and organizational capacity of social media, in my opinion, saved the white nationalist "movement", along with saving and birthing many other emotionally founded movements which function as mutual fuel for each other's bonfires. The easiest way to recruit someone into white nationalism is by exposing them to the radical rhetoric of their diametric opposition, white guilt.

As they exist today, the "alt-right" ethno-nationalists are a conglomeration of this inglorious history. They're awash in a mix of pseudoscience, fear, historical misreading, and general dissatisfaction. And to boot they've managed to build raison d'etres within the delusion that the white race is presently being genocided and requires saving. Wikipedia gives a decent summary:

White nationalism is a type of nationalism or pan-nationalism which holds the belief that white people are a race and seeks to develop and maintain a white national identity. Its proponents identify with and are attached to the concept of a white nation. White nationalists say they seek to ensure the survival of the white race, and the cultures of historically white states. They hold that white people should maintain their majority in majority-white countries, maintain their political and economic dominance, and that their cultures should be foremost. Many white nationalists believe that miscegenation, multiculturalism, immigration of nonwhites and low birth rates among whites are threatening the white race, and some argue that it amounts to white genocide.

White nationalism is sometimes described as a euphemism for, or subset of, white supremacy, and the two have been used interchangeably by journalists and other analysts. White nationalist groups espouse white separatism and white supremacy. White separatism is the pursuit of a "white-only state"; supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to nonwhites, taking ideas from social Darwinism and Nazism.] White nationalists generally avoid the term "supremacy" because it has negative connotations.

The burden of proof rests on you--there is nothing to suggest that the arable land used for animal feed is not equally usable for human food. — NKBJ

Trying to grow crops which require warmer weather or more water or better quality soil runs the risk of crop failure, which is why farmers are very careful about what they choose to plant; they're already somewhat limited. The study did in-fact account for tillable land which could be used for vegetables but it turns out pastureland is obviously unsuitable for growing crops (this should be obvious, and I've previously cited an article explaining this). The rebuttal essay you linked does not acknowledge this whatsoever, it merely assumes that market forces alone would force farmers to come up with adequate variety of plants without stopping to wonder how feasible it might be for them to do so. Furthermore, growing vegetables is more expensive than growing wheat or field corn for flour or animal feed/processing into syrup. If you don't believe me, just go to the grocery store and compare the price of processed foods to whole foods. Healthy diets are more expensive because healthy foods tend to be harder to grow in the same volume and for the same cost. If we even could get our farms to produce the right variety of nutrition at the required societal yield with zero animal husbandry, it would certainly be more expensive than if we continued to grow field corn for syrup and graze animals on otherwise un-farmable pastureland.

Their whole paper explains how the other authors are wrong, by the way, works for --which substantiates their claim of bias. You, however, merely claim they are biased on the basis of being a non-profit lobbying group....the operative word being "non-profit." To claim they are biased on that basis alone is like accusing MADD of being biased against drunk driving. Having a preference for or against something is not the same as a bias. — NKBJ

No, the operative word being lobby group. The sole purpose for their existence is to argue against the consumption of meat.

The paper you linked and have failed to cite or paraphrase properly makes unfounded accusations and counter-assumptions of its own which are baseless.

The opening line of its conclusion states "By keeping crop production static, they neglect market pressures that would transform farmland in the US in the absence of animals", which is very clearly a misrepresentation given that their models did not "keep crop production static". In their models the non-animals agricultural system increased its production of many plants markedly, and examining what might increase, by how much, and why, was in part the object of the study itself. to quote them"The total domestic nutrient supply changes substantially when animal-derived foods are removed from the system; human-edible feeds that were previously used by livestock (25) are routed for human consumption, and tillable land is converted to producing food for people" White & Hall assumed that human-edible plants currently used to feed animals would be routed for human consumption, they didn't say Americans are going to begin consuming feed corn directly and leave everything else static.

By the bye, the authors of the article you posted work for the VT Department of Animal and Poultry Science and the US Dairy Forage Research Center respectively--which on the basis of your definition of bias would make them biased as well. But I will settle for the fact that their paper is just wrong and poorly researched/written. — NKBJ

A government institute mandated to conduct scientific research isn't the same as a run of the mill lobby group. You will note that in the article I cited, they actually carefully amassed and treated data, constructed models and tested conditions to try and learn about outcomes. The paper you linked comes from a group of people who didn't like their conclusions, and therefore wrote what they could to discredit it.

Point by point rebuttal of your article. — NKBJ

It's customary to make some attempt to cite or paraphrase, otherwise we're just hurling links at one another.

Its main criticism is based on the fact that the study I cited presumed that land used for producing animal feed would be used for legume and grain counterparts of similar nutritional makeup (i.e: human-edible corn). But this main criticism seems to be in part misinterpretation of the original study's assumptions (they even say that the study suggests humans would actually be eating animal feed, which was not a conclusion or assumption it actually made and was not relevant to its total nutritional estimates). It does not cite any evidence showing that a variety of more nutritional foods can in fact be grown on the lower quality land currently used for animal feed production, and it does not address the reasons the original study cites for making the specific assumption under criticism. Very high quality land is generally already being used for fruit and vegetable production which require it; the human-edible foodstuffs we could grow on land currently used for animal feed would likely be of similar nutritional yield for these reasons.

To assume that an equivalent amount of nutriment could be passed directly to humans as is currently passed to to animals from livestock feed is indeed an assumption that merits further testing and modeling, but it might turn out that most of the pasture/forage and animal feed farmland is simply not suitable for nutritional plant-based production.

The Good Food Institute is a non-profit lobby group, and while it's amply clear their hearts are in the noblest of places, they outright accuse the authors of showing bias towards animal agriculture and fail to substantiate their reasons. Very clearly the Good Food Institute is biased to begin with. If I've misread or misrepresented either the study I referenced or the document you linked, please point out how.

Do you still eat meat? If so, then saying something is immoral is irrelevant if you are going to continue contributing to the industry that you claim is immoral. Talk is cheap. — chatterbears

Whether or not I eat meat is irrelevant to the argument at hand, in point of fact

Your animal utopia scenario would be vastly better by an inconceivable margin. But the treatment of these animals is only one piece of the puzzle. They would still lose the right to life. It's the concept of being killed for exploitation, which is immoral. I'd assume if you had the choice to live in an animal utopia, where you're guaranteed to die at the hand of another, depending on when your owner feels hungry and ready to kill you, or the choice to live how you do now, which would you choose? In your current life, you can make decisions that will allow you to live longer, or maybe live shorter. In the animal utopia farm, there's no decision any animal could make that would allow them to live longer. They would all die whenever they become useless to the person exploiting them for food. Such as, a hen that can not longer lay eggs. That hen becomes useless, so off she goes to get her throat slit. — chatterbears

Farm animals living as I do now is not an option for them. Left un-cared for ("freedom") they would die in agony, and without the return we get from harvesting animals, we cannot afford to have them exist at all. So once again, the dilemma is not between torture and freedom, as it stands the dilemma is between non-existence/painful death and a life worth living that will one day end at the hands of a human, as humanely as possible.

It's a scriptural situation: "As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly." Proverbs 26:11. It's such a visceral scriptural quote. So from this we can derive two insights: 1) For millennia dogs have been throwing up on the floor and then perusing the disgusting pile with interest. 2) Fools have been returning to their folly for about the same length of time. — Bitter Crank

This is pricelessly apt.

I read straight through a new english version of the old testament when I was quite young, so this simile has been fermenting in the gut for well over a decade :) (though I cannot not recall reading it)

Normally in this situation I would try for some comedic or ironic commentary at the expense of religion, but I really like this proverb. It's timeless and visceral as you say (we've all seen dogs do this), and its main insight is instructive even if untrue in the general sense. True folly is in the repetition of it.

Fortunately, neither this scripture nor the insights refers to present company. — Bitter Crank

Indeed! :heart:

But don't hold it against me when you catch me perusing my own piles. It's a matter of scientific rigor, not folly!

The meaning is that arriving at the 'truth' is like a kafka-trial periled with being aware of all the logical fallacies there are in existence. It's a hopeless task, I suppose where one is forever guilty of being fallacious and has no hope of exoneration. — Posty McPostface

Destination truth, ultimate verity, will likely never be reached, but as we rid ourselves of our fallacious reasoning and fill in our knowledge gaps we may approach certainty with greater and greater confidence. Recognizing inequity in our own epistemic courts and improving our ability to pass judgment within them, provisional truths, is then the next best thing to strive for.

When our perceptions, measurements, and models are more accurate (less fallacious) we get better predictive power and understanding over the things they describe, but a truth can always be more descriptive, or include a longer set of prior causes, or enable an accurate prediction farther and farther into the future.

Many of us expect never to gain perfect or complete knowledge and understanding, but we do expect for good reason that as we gain predictive power through more comprehensive and precise understanding, certain provisional truths which we do have are better and better approximating and corresponding to ultimate truth.

Once we've realized that we're indeed in an epistemic kafka-trial, we can begin to raise our standards to improve outcomes rather than retaining false hope in some ultimate or eternal attribute of the truths we produce. Getting closer is quite achievable, and can be more than adequate, whereas getting there is to approach infinity and might be without reward.

Can you be more inaccurate? The percentage of factory farms that hold to these standards, are probably less than 1%. You know very well I was referring to the overwhelming majority of 99%, in which factory farms operate. Until factory farms operate in this so-called utopia of living comfortably and being handled by compassionate keepers, buying meat is contributing to the torture of these animals. So you want to talk about false dichotomies, you're portrayal of the current reality is way far off compared to mine. — chatterbears

I've stated that factory farming standards are immoral in one my earliest posts in this thread...

But just to clarify, if I ethically raise chickens and goats in my animal utopia where they are handled with compassion, would you object to me consuming them? Unless I consume or sell these animals (which have not been tortured at all or suffered unnecessarily) the whole operation will have to cease. Do you argue that I would be morally obligated to do so?

As people's awareness grows, the whole factory farm system will simply be phased out. — NKBJ

Not if the population keeps growing and we don't come up with a new way to meet our food and nutrition requirements.

Two things:1) factory farms raise 99.9 percent of chickens for meat, 97 percent of laying hens, 99 percent of turkeys, 95 percent of pigs, and 78 percent of cattle currently sold in the United States. So the conditions of factory farming are of utmost importance to this discussion. 2) A cow who enjoys her life still would like not to be murdered--you consistently seem to think that a good life, or an adequate one somehow means it's okay to harm someone. It does not. — NKBJ

You were making the argument that breeding farm animals is necessarily immoral because of their inevitable death at our hands, but I'm sugesting that these can be lives worth living, death included, which cannot otherwise be had. If you want your argument to apply to all farm animals, you need to account for ethically raised and humanely slaughtered farm animals too. Given my position on over-consuming meat, the immorality of factory farming, and the inefficiency of over-farming animals I would expect you to be primarily addressing the position I actually hold.

Sigh.
The costs of producing meat versus plants have been thoroughly discussed in this thread numerous times. For the details, please go back, read, and inform yourself. Long story short: a vegan diet requires much much much fewer resources than an omnivorous one. — NKBJ

A diet with less meat would be cheaper, but a societal diet with no meat or animal husbandry would not save us resources if we aimed for our current levels of nutrition. The extra variety and volume of plants that we would need to grow to ensure rounded nutrition for everyone would be immense. Losing the fertilizer system we typically use would strain our existing crops as it is. Oil based fertilizer is getting more expensive and those 56 million acres of sub-par farm-land are going to require fertilization if we plan to grow nutrient rich vegetables on them.

I'm not crazy, I'm not just ignorant of the science either. Animals who recycle waste and harvest grass/hay fields which otherwise we could not monetize are an economic gain for us. They produce densely packed nutrients of fat and protein, fertilizer which cheapens the rest of our crops, and a slew of by-products. Losing these things will inevitably cost us money or nutrition.

If you look at the issue comprehensively you will find that there is quite a lot to consider for our society to go full vegan. Land used for high quality feed could be converted to human-edible alternatives, and we would get the calories we need, but overall we would be at a nutritional deficit. It's possible to have a very well crafted plants only diet and not need constant supplements, but the variety just wouldn't be there for all of us to do so at once.

None of the discussions or studies linked in this thread address the net economic and nutritional costs of western societies such as America removing animals from agriculture overall. Studies which do examine comprehensively the ramifications of eliminating animals from agriculture find that there would not be sufficient availability of variety to provide adequate nutrition for the entire population. As I've alluded to before, there wouldn't be enough well-planned diets on the shelves; not enough kale.

Here's a study that examines the ramifications of removing animals from agriculture entirely with interest in greenhouse gas emissions and the nutritional requirements and impacts of and on populations

http://www.pnas.org/content/114/48/E10301

It considers what sorts of foods can be grown on the land currently used for animals and projects what our basic diets would look like in a plants only system compared to one which includes animals. It concludes that a plants-only agricultural system would increase deficiencies in certain nutriments while over-providing in calories and bio-mass.Nobody has presented me with any kind of economic or nutritional feasibility study such as this yet. You do claim to need scientific evidence for belief right?

Nobody said anything about surviving indefinitely. Let me give you two scenarios.

1. Live in a confined area 99% of your life. That area is where you urinate, defecate and also eat from. You're handled aggressively from birth, with constant pain and discomfort. You're also tortured from time to time, and then abruptly hauled off to get your throat slit or put into a gas chamber.

2. Live out in the wild with a right to life and liberty. You're free from oppressive restrictions imposed by an external authority. You still must live with the dangers of predators and/or disease, but you may do so freely.

To say you'd rather live "safe", free from predators, in which the 1st situation would be more appealing, is absurdly dishonest. If anybody had a choice between those two scenarios, they would only pick #1 if they were masochistic and did not desire a life of liberty. The 2nd scenario has a probability of death from predators and/or disease, but it is not 100% guaranteed. And while you live out that probability, you are not completely oppressed without the ability to exercise your free-will.

What we do to animals is absolutely disgusting and ridiculous, just to get taste pleasure from a hamburger. Animals constantly get eaten by other predators all the time out in the wild, but I can guarantee they [and you] would prefer a life in the wild, than life as a factory farmed animal. — chatterbears

This is such a silly false dichotomy, or else extraordinarily ill-passioned...

Would you rather

1. Live a longer life in a protected habitat free from predators, which is large enough to live in comfortably, has food provided, where you are handled by compassionate keepers, live happily, but must one day be humanely slaughtered.

Or

2. Life a shorter life out in the wild with only the pains of cold, hunger, and the fear of constant danger keeping you alive for the moment, until statistically you fall prey to the elements or a predator, and will endure suffering of the most unimaginable cruelty (slow starvation or slow disembowelment via predation or slow death by parasite or disease).

A sane person could only ever choose option 1, to disagree would be psychotic.

Nothing would make me happier to take the cleverness credit for referring to "kafka-trapping" with hidden meaning, but I honestly just thought it sounded cool! (and somehow could fit with the other fallacies I named).

What's the reference though? Curiosity is killing me! (But I have a few lives left!) :)

But then again, perhaps not. — Bitter Crank

So, maybe? — Posty McPostface

I'd like to addend my thoughts:

Logical fallacy refers to any argument which does not persuade using sound reasoning.

A persuasive argument which lacks logical merit can be used to persuade people of arbitrary conclusions, hence the philosopher's trepidation when such arguments are encountered.

I suspect it would be much better to have the skill of identifying fallacies when encountered than to memorize an ever growing list of formal and informal examples.

Being able to appraise the logical merit of an argument in the first place seems like the place to start (question the premises, review the evidence, examine the conclusion and its relationship to the evidence), and when you identify an argument as unsound, find out what idea or false logic it appeals to and give it a name (or just explain the gaps in logic it plainly to your readers or interlocutors).

Some commonly employed fallacies are really quite tricky though, so being aware of them more so helps you to avoid bad ideas than pull you towards good ones. If everyone understood the gambler's fallacy then Vegas might be a lot less lucrative than it is now! (I've had to explain it to friends many times in casinos).

Being familiar with common fallacies is indeed useful, but it's not going to directly reveal truth, it will just help you identify bad arguments (and maybe some falsity). If good arguments are light bulbs, then the 1000 fallacies are important examples of how not to construct them.



This list is much too long to be practical, but wouldn't it sound cool to suddenly accuse someone of if-by-whiskey pit-tu-quoque-spike kafka-trapping?

I read the list and now feel ashamed... But not too ashamed... This must be what it's like when dogs eat from garbage bins, spontaneously regurgitate its humors soaked contents onto the floor, and then feel compelled to re-consume it.

:chin:

It tastes alright.

You're just all sorts of confused. I have not advocated for killing animals--you have. I'm advocating for not putting them in this world if all we're gonna do is cause them suffering and murder them anyway. And I'm advocating for letting the existing animals live in peace. — NKBJ

Letting existing farm animals live in peace would mean letting them die horribly (the farmer kind of has to tend to them, shelter them, winter them, feed them, protect them from predators and their own stupidity (i.e: a ravine) etc...). We cannot afford that many animal sanctuaries, so euthanize them we must.

Furthermore, you continuously presume without justification that the lives of all farm animals contain nothing but suffering and death. It is easy to demonstrate that farm conditions are not all equal, and in some examples farm animals might actually enjoy their existence. Would you disagree?

Adopting a global vegan diet would require fewer resources than the meat-intensive ones that are currently wide-spread. — NKBJ

Reducing the rate of meat consumption and therefore meat-agriculture in some western countries would save us money, but going full vegan would cost us too much money. As I've pointed out earlier, the pastureland and farmland used for cattle feed isn't exactly fit for growing squash and eggplant. Having a herd of cattle that can extract energy from un-farmed fields is a great economic bonus, the manure means fertilizer (making plant farms cheaper), and many other by-products are put to use.

Over eating meat and over farming animals is unhealthy and inefficient, but I have not seen a study that demonstrates the health benefits of eating no meat as opposed to reasonable amounts of it as a part of a well-planned diet, or which identifies possible economic gains from eliminating animal husbandry from human agriculture completely.

Argue for your anecdote all you want--as you point out, all it can do is have any meaning to you--but it has no meaning to me or anyone with whom you are trying to engage in a philosophical conversation. You simply don't have any solid evidence to back you up, thus I have no reason to believe you. — NKBJ

I'm satisfied to have raised the possibility that going vegan entails health risks for me, which is a part of the moral justification I give for why I eat meat. Calling me anecdotal and demanding scientific evidence of my personal dietary observations is a bit much don't you think?

And how does it make any sense to argue that the value of life outweighs the tragedy of death, therefore murder is acceptable? Again, you can't go up to someone on the street and kill them with that logic...that would just be insane. — NKBJ

The logic of slaughtering an animal we've raised is that it's an established means of acquiring nourishment and sustenance and is thermodynamically necessary for the collectives of farm animals to exist in the first place. We cannot slaughter other humans because A) humans can fight back, B) we don't want to live in a world where we're under threat of slaughter, and C) we empathize with other humans very strongly.

If you wish to consider a fair parallel with humans, consider the following dilemma: your wife (or you?) is/are 7 months pregnant, and genetic testing reveals that your unborn child has a genetic disease which will manifest symptoms around 7-8 years of age and is universally terminal before 10 years of age. You also know that the genetic disease will cause great and prolonged suffering after it manifests such that a medically induced coma and eventual euthanasia are the most humane medical responses.

Would you be morally justified in going through with the pregnancy knowing beforehand what the outcome must be?

Why? You then rattle on about the general requirements needed by others (not yourself). Why can you not yet afford to? — chatterbears

Because I'm too thin, have difficulty gaining weight, and I cannot afford professional assessments or expensive foods. It's a combination of risk and expense.

Also, do we let our current pets, such as dogs & cats die of natural causes out of charity? To say you will let something live naturally out of charity, is slightly psychopathic. — chatterbears

If we consumed our pets as standard practice then letting them die of natural causes would be charity because we slaughter our living chattel before it becomes unhealthy. It's not psychotic to realize that chickens and sheep and cows cannot survive indefinitely in the wild. Chickens will die off rather quickly, the sheep might not last a season un-sheared, and the cows will eventually be taken by coyotes, wolves, disease, and the elements.

It's psychotic to think that turning farm animals loose is somehow doing them a favor and not condemning most of them to imminent death and the rest to prolonged hardship in nature.

If it is not our fault, who's fault is it? It doesn't matter if something is a significant part of a society. If it is more detrimental than beneficial, we should change it. We can't even get people to acknowledge that it is detrimental, let alone even glance at the idea that we should change it. — chatterbears

Actually animal rights groups have been fomenting for quite some time. If you ask around most of us who are aware of factory farming and it's effects are against it. More and more people are realizing that over-consuming meat has no health benefits and that diet in general has a lot to do with health (something we've somewhat neglected in the 20th century).

I'm not saying we should not change, I'm saying that this change is expensive and can only occur at a certain rate. Our understanding of dietary health still does need improving, as does our technological and economic capacity for improved plant-based agriculture.

You might save yourself some time and catch more inaccuracies. Being generally aware of common and informal fallacies does help dearly in the writing of sound philosophy.

Would I be any closer to the correct apprehension of reality/truth? — Posty McPostface

Perhaps...

I didn't say that question was nonsense. I said comparing existence to non-existence is nonsense. I said the question of whether life is worth living is besides the point, because you're trying to find a way to justify harming and killing them. — NKBJ

Well I've explained why their death at our hands is made necessary by thermodynamics alone, else they cannot exist, and you don't seem to be offering rebuke to that, so the question I'm asking is from the perspective of the extant farm animal: is life worth living even though I'm destined for death? (we should note that this question, as it is phrased, applies equally to humans and is indeed worthy of inquiry)

If as you say asking this question prior to their existence is nonsensical (though it isn't, we have a very good idea of what kind of creature farm animals will be, and how content they are likely to be with their arrangements), then you will have no objection to me ethically breeding farm animals because they don't exist yet and therefore have no preference (animals can breed on their own; all you gotta do is feed them).

Once they're alive, as you say, the dilemma then begins.

So, I could euthanize Bovina and Child on the spot because I cannot afford to keep them alive, and starvation is torture, OR, we could strike some sort of deal.

I agree to feed and care for the them, and to euthanize them much later in life, if they agree to let me consume their flesh once I have euthanized them. They get relatively long and happy lives out of the deal and I get a thermodynamic return on my investment. This euthanasia is necessary for domesticated farm animals to begin with, so all I'm really doing is extending their lives, which are quite possibly worth living.

For an already existing being, yes, life is worth living and thus you have the obligation to let them live and thus you ought not to kill them. — NKBJ

Moral obligation can be evaporated by circumstance. Delivering adequate nutrition to humans across the planet is one such fiery circumstance.

What magnitude of delay to human progress should we accept by suddenly and simultaneously ceasing the consumption and harvesting of animals? I don't think you're aware of the initial and long term costs of turning every grocery isle into an organic produce section. To do so, I reckon we would need to give up certain activities altogether to afford it without impacting medicine education and security (which seems impossible). Hard to say what we would be giving up though (a little bit of everything probably), let's just guess and say sports and space travel...

Maybe if we gave up space travel as a species and divested all its energy into going organic we could do the goats a solid and stop consuming them. But maybe by sacrificing space-faring sciences we will miss opportunities which could have changed our thermodynamic landscape entirely (i.e, growing burgers and tomatoes fueled by carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen harvested in space) and will thereby prolong the suffering of animals at the hands of humans still living within nature (tribesman, third world), etc...). I'm no fan of sports and honestly wouldn't miss it, but a lot of people would. Perhaps living agrarian lives of gardening and goat-sanctuary building would fulfill our many sports-fans, or perhaps they would funnel that competitive spirit into patriotism for their nation or in-group, and as plants would more or less become a massive part of the new economy, competition over access to the best farmland could become existentially grave.

A slippery slope to be sure (yes it's a fallacy, no it's not my argument; it's a hypothetical depicting possible costs). I cannot say what the true costs will be, but it should be very clear that such radical change does come with cost. To be honest I'm hopeful that science will offer us a solution soon. If we can get abundant energy and can afford to start farming sans animals or even synthesizing nutriments directly then the western world could go plant-based in short order.

We're not there yet though...

If farm animals are to continue existing, individually and generationally, then we're thermodynamically obligated to kill and consume them.

For a creature who is living in pure agony because we have fattened her up so much her legs break beneath her, and she never sees sunlight, and she can hardly breathe because there are so many of her kind stuffed in a barn, and she will never get the chance to raise her babies, or enjoy a fresh breeze.... that's not a life you should condemn any creature to, but it is what we do to billions of farm animals every year. — NKBJ

Do all farm animals live this way?

Let's euthanize them all then shall we?

I didn't say that. I said let them live--I mentioned animal sanctuaries-- if you want to put them in this world, you have the obligation to make sure they are safe, and healthy, and as happy as possibly until the end of their natural lifespan. — NKBJ

They have evolved to be taken care of on a farm. Farms are their natural environment.

We cannot afford to give every chicken a helmet and body-armor or jump through whatever hoops are required to release them into the wild. And if we DO manage to create a large enough habitat which they can survive in, then they'll just start breeding, and we will have to manage the habitat indefinitely (and probably start culling them or else indefinitely expand the habitat).

And if we sterilize everything and establish animal Ritz across the country to wait for them to die of natural causes, the expense would create financial deficit and possibly global food shortages in the 5-10 year term. Obviously this is unfeasible, hence, like PETA we're reduced to euthanasia.

I didn't say it's morally praiseworthy. Abstaining from meat eating is not about doing a positive thing as much as it is about avoiding doing or participating in a negative one. Similarly, I do not join or support the KKK--that doesn't mean I'm doing anything praiseworthy, it just means I avoid doing something condemnable. — NKBJ

Yes, but by advocating for the genocide of all farmed animals in the name of moral progress, you're advocating for something similar to what Hitler advocated for. I don't know if that's relevant or means anything or constitutes an argument, but I felt that I should just point it out.

Causing something to exist and providing it with a worthwhile existence at the expense of one day consuming it is the moral trade in question. If I'm arguing for the enslavement of animals, then you're calling for their extermination, but these facetious kind of lines wont advance our discussion.

Strangely, you keep referring to eating meat directly (and the intention to do so) as the immoral behavior instead of the suffering that eating meat possibly causes (which is a strange point of focus). Obviously if you focused mainly on the suffering, then happy farm animals who are slaughtered humanely avoid your condemnation. You've thrown up resistance to the fact that immediate euthanasia would be the only choice if we aren't allowed to eat the meat but I hope you can realize the logistics of animal sanctuaries are beyond our means.

If we must focus on eating meat, then let it be known that eating meat can also contribute to the existence and happiness of farm animals. Does that count for nothing? Not all farms are inhumane...

Just like you do not get to go up to someone, stab them to death, steal their wallet, and tell them "you've lived a good enough life to outweigh this little thing", so too you ought not kill animals for your own gain no matter how well you've treated them. — NKBJ

If I treated animals like I treated humans then your point would stand, but I cannot yet afford to. Humanity at large cannot yet afford to. We've been expanding our spheres of moral consideration to more people and more animals for quite some time, and we still have a ways to go. Forcing immediate and maximal moral consideration of animals would mean reducing moral consideration toward other humans by means of cost alone. when every child is vaccinated and has a well planned, supplement included plant-based diet, then we can afford to let our farm animals die of natural causes out of charity, and perhaps even establish sanctuaries to keep their species around.

There are yet hard thermodynamic requirements for the earth's 7.6 billion humans, and it's not our fault that we have not yet freed ourselves from the food-chains of evolution. Animal husbandry is still too significant a part of even first world agricultural food production to do away with it over-night.

Yes, it still is fallacious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence

Sorry, but just as it wouldn't matter in a philosophical argument about gods or ghosts or unicorns that you personally testified to seeing any of these things with your own eyes, it doesn't matter here that you claim to suffer when abstaining from meat. Even if I believe that you did everything nutritionally correct, the placebo effect is real as well as strong, not to mention coincidental other factors of illnesses or stressors or hormonal fluctuations could all account for your experience. Without controlled experiments or strong statistical evidence, all your personal experience tells me is that it is possible that we might want to do some studies in the case that perhaps there are a couple of exceptions to the general rule. — NKBJ

Anecdotal evidence can be fallacious for a number of reasons (subjective testimony, irreproducibility, etc...), but my testimony about myself would not be considered anecdotal when it comes to establishing the truth about me, because my own experiences are by definition representative of me (whereas normally anecdotes can amount to hasty generalizations, reporting observed facts about myself is specific, does not generalize about anyone else, and is therefore not fallacious).

Claiming to have seen a unicorn is not a form of argument at all, it's a claim. Using it as a premise for the existence of unicorns would not be anecdotal either because actually observing a unicorn would be sufficient proof for its existence. Anecdotes prove anecdotes

An example of a fallacious argument using anecdotal evidence would be "I've seen someone incorrectly attempt a vegan diet and fail before, and you've failed at a vegan diet therefore you must have attempted it incorrectly.".

It's true that I've attempted plant-based diets, it's true that I lost weight while attempting them, it's true that losing weight is a health concern for me, therefore it's true that attempting plant-based diets in the future comes with some degree of risk.

Do you call everything you simply can't counter a strawperson? Because I very directly was addressing your argument that it is better to live and suffer than never to have lived. Which is nonsense. — NKBJ

Are farm animal lives worth living? This is the question; it's not nonsense. You have no excuse to keep saying this is nonsense.

You let them live the rest of their natural lives in peace--is being kind really so unfathomable to you? — NKBJ

So release my chickens into the wild where they will be swiftly set upon by starvation and predation? Nonsense.

They will live shorter lives of greater suffering if released; farm animals cannot fend for themselves.

It seems like releasing them is immoral compared to euthanasia.

Easy solution: don't cause them to exist. Non-existent entities also do not care about existing--you can't harm anyone by choosing not to cause their existence. That would be nonsensical (as explained previously). — NKBJ

Things that do not exist likewise do not get to enjoy life. It may not be morally reproachable to not cause something to exist but it's not morally praiseworthy to not cause something to exist either.

So we're back to the question of whether or not the lives of farm animals are worth living.

I think in many cases they are. The pleasures and joy of life can outweigh the pain.

Do you disagree?

"Nonsensical" is the only way to describe something that makes no sense. Talking about what is better or worse for non-existing entities makes no sense — NKBJ

While I can relate to your pedantic attitude, calling the straw-man version of my question nonsense and dodging the actual question by saying "that's not really the question" is quite unsatisfying. In any case, the question was meant for the OP who basically declared that the life of a farm animal is not worth living.

As I have previously indicated, thermodynamically speaking, we need to justify expending the resources to breed and raise farm animals.

The resources we dispense in the raising of the animals must be recuperated, else we cannot affords to raise the animals. You've already tacitly agreed that farm animal lives are worth living even if at some point they must be consumed, so we could either not breed farm animals whose lives are worth living in order to avoid having to kill them, or we could continue breeding them and ethically raise and slaughter them.

If I've decided killing animals to eat their meat is wrong, what must I do with my hypothetical chickens?

I might not be able to afford to keep them, so should I turn them loose (so the cats and coyotes can devour them like so many tendies) or do I euthanize them?

What's the difference between euthanasia + cremation and euthanasia + consumption?

anecdotal — NKBJ

Well I AM the anecdote, so it's not quite fallacious. If I was trying to establish that we all needed meat for optimal health you would have a point, but what I've reported is that if I do not eat meat, I lose weight. I can honestly and reliably report that I've tried to put on weight since adolescence and it really doesn't come easy for me. I don't know why...

Nonsensical is a bit strong don't you think?

Is life worth living? Might be a better way to put it.

You may have done research, but did you do the proper research that would allow you to get the adequate vitamins and levels you need to be healthy? Have you tried to become Vegan for a month or two and then initiated a blood test to check your levels to see if you have any deficiencies? Have you then corrected those deficiencies by eating more of what you need to correct them? Or possibly tried taking supplements? — chatterbears

I've tried eating little to no meat, and I lost weight. I tried eating a variety of nuts and beans, as I indicated, but it wasn't enough. I'm not presently willing to experiment further. As I have indicated, I'm skinny enough and losing weight is a health concern of mine.

I am not in a position to hire a team of doctors and dieticians.

And regarding crops, using land to grow crops for animals is vastly inefficient. It takes almost 20 times less land to feed someone on a plant-based (vegan) diet than it does to feed a meat-eater since the crops are consumed directly instead of being used to feed animals. According to the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification, it takes up to 10 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of meat, and in the United States alone, 56 million acres of land are used to grow feed for animals, while only 4 million acres are producing plants for humans to eat. — chatterbears

Those 56 million acres aren't suitable for growing vegetables, you're aware of that right?

Livestock turn un-farmable pastureland and low quality fields into nutrient dense meat and milk. This is how farms tend to work where I live: we feed our cows hay in the winter and graze them in the summer.

They're not actually taking food out of our mouths, they're putting food into them.

So, the efficiency with which we can capitalize on low quality land by either by cheaply growing feed on it (which can grow where things like corn and tomatoes cannot) or grazing animals on it actually nets us more food in the long run. The fertilizer and other animal by-products we get from them are additional economic boons.

Granted, America consumes too much beef, I'm not denying that. The fact that they have to mass farm cattle feed to sustain their ultra-massive cattle farms is a waste of water at the extreme end. But it would be a waste of water not to graze animals on pastureland. The delusion that this 56 million acres suddenly start producing veg is silly to anyone who understands how farms work.

Here's an article that touches on some of the facts: http://www.cast-science.org/download.cfm?PublicationID=278268&File=1e30d1bf7a7156ce24b3154cc313b587d97bTR

a few quotes from the abstract:

• Global animal agriculture provides safe, affordable, nutrient-dense foodstuffs that support human health and well-being as part of a balanced diet in addition to manifold by-products that have significant contributions to society. These include but are not limited to edible and inedible components, medicines, lubricants, manufactured goods, and other industrial uses. By-product utilization also enhances sustainable practices while lowering the industry’s environmental footprint.
  
• Livestock production is important in the economic and social sustainability of developed and developing countries, and it supplies considerable draft power within smallholder operations that make up the majority of global food production.
  
• Large areas of land are incapable of supporting the production of human food crops. Terrain, soil type, and climate render the majority of land currently used for grazing unsuitable for cultivation for the production of vegetable-based foods for human consumption, yet forages can be sustainably converted by ruminant animals into meat and milk products.
  
• The gains made by “recycling” safe, yet otherwise valueless, by-products from human food and fiber production lessen competition between humans and animals for crops that can equally be used for feed or food, maximize land use efficiency, and decrease the environmental impact of food production.
  
• Improved communication is required between livestock production stakeholders and the consumer to further a better understanding of the economic, environmental, nutritional, and social advantages conferred by animal agriculture on a regional and global basis.

There's a reason animal husbandry is a part of our agricultural traditions, and it's not just because we like the taste of meat. Free range chickens lead happy lives eating insects and such; they give us eggs, meat, and nitrogen rich fertilizer ingredient. Free range cows lead happy lives chewing grass, and they give us quite a bit of milk and meat along with more fertilizer ingredient. Pigs basically turn waste into meat, and while I personally would not farm pigs to eat them, on certain kinds of farms they can be useful (Permaculture).

Having too many animals just for extra meat is inefficient. Having no animals is also quite inefficient though, and I don't think we can afford it.

Most of the research is in my Google Doc, which I already linked you in my past response. Feel free to do your own research, because it is out there, just as the evidence for evolution is out there. — chatterbears

Of the articles which address the issue in question, they all seem to openly state that eliminating animal products altogether carries the risk of certain nutritional deficiencies.

Vegans tend to be thinner, have lower serum cholesterol, and lower blood pressure, reducing their risk of heart disease. However, eliminating all animal products from the diet increases the risk of certain nutritional deficiencies. Micronutrients of special concern for the vegan include vitamins B-12 and D, calcium, and long-chain n-3 (omega-3) fatty acids. Unless vegans regularly consume foods that are fortified with these nutrients, appropriate supplements should be consumed. In some cases, iron and zinc status of vegans may also be of concern because of the limited bioavailability of these minerals. — Winston J Craig

I've been very open with you from the get go about my own health concerns. "Thinner" for me would mean "unhealthier". I would consider for moral reasons not eating any meat if it didn't seem so risky, and the societal/global economics of not eating meat altogether is another story (a very complicated one).

There are clearly benefits to our society increasing the amount of fruit and vegetables it consumes, but eliminating animal products entirely is seldom the object of dietary study (they tend to look at the benefits of increasing plant consumption or reducing meat consumption, not eliminating animal products entirely).

Thank you for leading by example though, and for doing this experimentation on yourself. I say un-facetiously that it's akin to the poison squad. When the results are in and I can be reliably told what will work for me, I may become a vegan.

The Hippo and Gorilla have incisors/fangs. Does this make them meat eaters? No, because they are Herbivores. — chatterbears

Hippos occasionally nibble on dead flesh, but they have elongated canines for show. While it's true almost all mammals have canines, (and eating meat at some point during our evolutionary past does not make us omnivores today automatically), humans have functional canines which aren't for show. They're sharp and great for tearing meat. Every other primate has longer incisors than humans, which makes me speculate that having them such as they are in humans is somehow useful (speaking and chewing).

Meat isn't some magical pill that fixes people who are malnourished. Again, look up the studies yourself, or you can refer to the ones I have posted for you. — chatterbears

I'm talking about starvation. A pound of meat is far more fat, protein, and energy rich than any vegetable. My point here applies to the third world and many developing countries with hungry children.

Yes please[[i]provide sources[/i]]. — chatterbears

Before we do get into the article scavenger hunt, we should come to specific agreement about what it is we're disagreeing about.

a) I'm contending that going completely animal free will be expensive, which will either translate into less nourishment for children or less investment elsewhere (even in the first world).

My second point of contention, which applies to me and people like me, is that for whatever reason b) my biology is ill-suited to going completely meat free. I do know that different people can do better or worse on different kinds of diets. It may very well be the case that the presence or absence of digestive/metabolizing enzymes or other bacteria in my gut are in fact oriented toward omnivorous diets (or something equally obscure and unknown to me). I don't know why I do so poorly without meat, but until something changes in me or our knowledge of individual nutritional needs, I won't risk it.

You're free to name me ignorant and refer me to an army of dieticians who will happily prescribe and proscribe according to their understanding, I just happen to already know the success rate isn't where they want it to be.

As I said before, all diets (including omnivorous ones) need to be well-planned. And saying there isn't enough kale for all of us, is completely irrelevant and inaccurate. — chatterbears

It makes me wonder if studies contrasting vegetarians and omnivores can properly control for the fact that vegetarians are generally concerned with having well-planned diets in the first place. It may be that whatever nutritional benefits animal products can provide do not outweigh the health implications of well rounded plant consumption, and so if omnivores started eating better varieties of vegetables they would see these same health benefits. Perhaps a well planned diet that does include some animal products with good nutrients (fats, calcium, b12) and an adequate variety of vegetables is actually superior?

It's not "fine", but it is better. Would you rather suffer from a disease (that is possibly curable), or have someone factory farm you, torture you, and then slit your throat? — chatterbears

So you're telling me that it is better to be born into torture and slaughter, than to not be born at all? That's just ridiculous, and you fundamentally know it. If you were given the choice to live again after this life, and the choice was to live as a factory farmed animal or not live at all, to say you would choose the factory farmed animal life is dishonest and absurd. — chatterbears

This is irrelevant. I am referring to causing unnecessary pain. We are all going to die some day by something, but in the meantime, it would be best to avoid causing each other (and other animals) unnecessary harm. Such as, going around and raping people. By your logic, we are all going to die any way, so should we all be okay with rape? — chatterbears

This is really something. I've already made it clear that factory farming is wrong, torture is wrong, and causing unnecessary harm to animals is wrong.

Somehow you've managed to draw moral equivalence between raising a free-range chicken and rape.
If my life as a farmed animal contained some moments of joy and contentment in addition to the torture (so, pleasure in addition to pain) then yes I would choose to be born as a farm animal over non-existence.

Let me ask you in return, would you rather exist as a free-range pig or goat or cow or cease to exist?

The ending of a farm animal's life, if done humanely, is itself the only "unnecessary" suffering that a healthy and ethically raised farm animal endures. And for us to afford to bring these animals into existence in the first place, we must inevitably take this action. The animal gets to live a life and our life gets to continue. Win win in my opinion.

I'm not saying just because we are all going to die: anything goes. This is a ramification of the way you equate the life and existence of an ethically raised farm animal to being endlessly tortured and raped. It's not endless torture and rape. Ever see a happy cow? Here's a small group of cows returning to the field after a winter of being pent up in a barn (gif).



I'm pretty sure these cows might be on the "grass is half green side of the fence" about life. (Famous cow expressions).

If merely dying one day (at the hands of someone or something else) makes life not worth living for an ethically raised farm animal, then what makes life worth living for humans?

I'll say it again, it's better to exist and have suffered than to never have existed at all.

Sometimes the songs become more accurate descriptions of reality though. They bring us insight, understanding, power, and affluence. Nothing is a complete picture with absolute resolution (except the universe itself), but some pictures are more resolved and more accurate than others, and boy that's something!

If we manage to create general AI imagine what cultural songs they will sing to one another. To us it might seem like the sparring of celestial deities, incomprehensible and magnificent.

So be it. Our songs are for us and Professor Spolsky sings a fine ditty, one that actually touches upon the issue of facing all factors. Perhaps it's not to your taste, but I guarantee its quality should you commit to watching the series!

Based on what standard. Have you done the necessary research? Have you talked to a dietician? Have you asked for help from Vegans who have lived healthy for years? — chatterbears

I've done research, I've tried various diets, and I've known plenty of successful and failed vegans. If you're going to just refer me to a dietician I'm not sure we can have a discussion.

We can live healthier [for ourselves and the environment] if we adopt a plant-based diet. Whether or not the world is willing to give up a tradition or societal norm, is irrelevant to the facts. — chatterbears

I know vegans who are less healthy than they were on an omnivorous diet. Are they just doing it wrong?

We may consume too much meat, but converting all that pastureland into farmland (and then somehow fertilizing it without cow-shit) is actually likely more expensive than the vegan dieticians let on.

We could shop around for articles about nutrition and the economics of agriculture I suppose. I'm game for this but are you sure the scientific community has concluded in in these matters?

Yet you are not in the position of an indigenous tribesman, so there's no need to compare yourself to them. Some Indigenous groups may have to eat meat because it is necessary for survival, but they also lack the education/awareness of animal replacements. You are not in that position, this is an irrelevant point. — chatterbears

My secondary point in bringing up indigenous tribesman is to point out that from an evolutionary perspective, eating meat is a part of who I am. I'm a part of the food chain; it's why I have incisors. Changing my diet radically is a risk you might not be able to convince me to take and is one evolution has perhaps scarcely prepared me for.

Are you in a third world country? Probably not. But even so, most places "meat" is considered a luxury. Corn, rice, soy, grains, fruits, vegetables are much more accessible than animal products. — chatterbears

So, because vegetables are more ubiquitous in third world countries, they should not eat any meat? If I was under-nourished, meat would indeed be a luxury, one that would improve my health.

Again, as I intially stated. Have you consulted with a professional? Talked to other Vegans who have been healthy for years? Talked to Vegans who have a similar condition as you do in regards to metabolism? Talked to a dietician? — chatterbears

Yes I have, but are you a dietician? Otherwise citing sources is your best bet

I've done research and the claims I make paraphrase the main points which I've seen the evidence for.

I would be happy to offer sources if you expect them.

This is a complete dismissal of the current scientific consensus. We know as much about plant-based diets than we do about evolution by natural selection, or whether or not the earth is flat. I'll post some scientific journals for you in my Google Doc, since you seem to be unaware of the scientific research. — chatterbears

No. We know the earth is an oblate spheroid with mammoth certainty. We also that natural selection is a feature of nature with mammoth certainty, but we don't know all the details of our evolutionary past. We know with mammoth certainty that diet affects health, but we don't know all the details about which diet is best and for whom (hence the last 50 years of gimmick diets, FDA 180's on nutrition, disparity in international standards, and continuous scientific investigation). What's good for you might not be good for me.

And it stands to reason that if my ancestors spent the last 2000 years eating meat on a regular basis, my individual biology is more adapted to a diet that includes some meat.

The staples of most early humans included beans wheat and starchy tubers, some kind of plant, but they didn't dis-include fish and mammals, especially where seasonal periods of reduced vegetation made that impossible. Plant-based diets can yield long-term health benefits but only when they're very well planned, and there isn't enough kale for all of us (the economics of which is a major barrier toward societal/global veganism). Furthermore, being a naturally thin person (maybe that comes with my unique genetic territory), not eating meat could put me at risk of protein/fat deficiency, and gorging myself on beans and peanuts to keep weight might have health detriments of its own.

Here: https://www.veganoutreach.org/enewsletter/matheny.html

Look up Gaverick Matheny's reponse to Steven Davis in the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. This idea was refuted back in 2003.

Also. We would stop breeding animals into existence, while selling the majority [that are left over] for food, and keeping the rest in an animal sanctuary. — chatterbears

This does not address the point I made. A pity-sanctuary to keep a few specimens on hand isn't a refutation of the fact that the animals we breed and raise on farms otherwise would not exist. My point about suffering is that in the wild animals suffer too. Is natural suffering fine because it's natural? A cow raised on a farm can lead a much happier life with much better odds than just about anything that can be found in the wild. How we treat them is a matter of concern to me, but I would wager that it would be better to be born, live, and suffer, than to have never been born at all. The position you've taken borders on anti-natialism which could be applied to humans as well. Is that a position you wield?

Killing deer in the wild is not comparable to breeding animals into existence, torturing them and then slaughtering them. Such as how they do it in factory farms. — chatterbears

Torture is wrong, and it tends to spoil the meat anyway. The indoor KFC stacked farming model is bad in every way, and not many people would disagree.

Breeding something into existence that would otherwise never exist seems like a positive to me. That we can only afford to do so if it eventually feeds us is unfortunate.

But apparently we aren't foolish when we make the effective decision to use our power to breed animals into existence and torture them and kill them by the billions? Not to mention all the harm we do to sea life as well. — chatterbears

Life has suffering in it, but there need not be torture. All humans will eventually be killed by something, and we have the exquisite torture of knowing, so should we stop breeding?

Also, polluting the oceans is a bad thing. Fish DO have feelings.

The underlying issue is determinism, isnt it? — frank

Yep...

But broadly it's about the myriad of causes, be they biological, external, experiential, "natural", coercive, "unnatural", whatever, that underpin our existence, decisions, and behavior.

It's not exactly cut and dried whether nature or nurture takes the causative cake. Environmental circumstances can cause developmental changes in an individual organism or in a species overtime, which can then lead to changes in environment, which can in turn lead to changes in biological development, both genetic (over generations) and epigenetic (in an individual). For example, taller people men seem to be inherently more respected in some way, which seems to build their confidence while leading to more opportunities being extended to them, things like getting into better schools or being offered promotions. Geneticists once mistook a gene heavily associated with height for the intelligence gene because it correlated so well with success in life, which we expected was decided by intelligence.

At the same time, a very short man born into the right family or lucky enough to make the right discovery might be far more successful in the end with biology having very little to do with it.

To boot, different types of people in theory do much better in environments which are suited to their strengths and weaknesses (a short person in a dense jungle, a tall person on the plains).

I've recommended this lecture series here before, and it dives straight into the inquisitive thrust of this thread (the lecturer is a fairly renowned biologist):

I could restate most of my above position as the following:

When the existence of two beings are at odds with one another (such as in the case of predator and prey), there can be no moral agreement between them due to circumstance alone. Thus what I like to call "a breakdown of morality" occurs, and competition ensues.

Until predator and prey have the means to escape the circumstances that define them as such, their moral justification is basic health and survival.

I'm a bit late to this party, but what the heck!

I eat animals.

I don't think I could maintain my health if I did not eat meat...

I have a very VERY low level of body-fat, and if I spend any amount of time under-nourished then it could have serious repercussions for my health.

Here's where someone says "But V, you can get all the nourishment you need from beans and vegetables!".

Mmmmmm, I don't know about that. Gaining fat and weight from beans and greens is extraordinarily difficult, especially for me. I have the metabolism of a humming-bird and almost everything I eat is mysteriously burned away.

Many of my ancestors had to figure out how to survive harsh winters. It was impossible to store enough vegetation to survive a northern winter, and so my ancestors had only the choice of putting on fat and storing meat to make it through the winter. My omnivorous evolutionary past may have caused my gastric system to expect animal fat as a staple (eating a surplus of meat is the only way I've ever been able gain weight and even then it seems impossible to maintain)

"So what if you need to eat more apples and oranges! Your health isn't worth the life of another being"

Isn't it?

We got where we are by exploiting animals (cooking and eating animal meat is likely what permitted some of the evolutionarily recent improvements to homo-sapien brains) and globally we're not quite ready to give them up. We're the dominant crab in the bucket, but we're not over the edge yet. We can step off the lesser crabs but we'll remain trapped in the bucket for longer.

Anyone living an aboriginal way of life eats meat out of necessity; plants don't have the energy/protein density of meat and it's hard as fuck to survive as an indigenous vegan (they all died). There is no argument to be made against meat eating in a traditional way of life....

We also have third world countries who have been dispossessed of their natural environments (with expanded populations generally) and now rely on modern forms of agriculture to feed themselves.

If these third world countries did not utilize animal husbandry they would almost certainly be unable to produce a bountiful and diverse enough vegetable diet to keep their already under-nourished populations healthy. There is a good argument to be made against animal cruelty in the third world, but not against the necessity of meat consumption. Suggesting they spend more money or the same amount of money to have the same amount of nutrition or less nutrition means infant mortality rate, among other things, would rise.

"V, nobody is talking about starving Africans, you know damn well that you can get an adequate vegan diet in Canada". Maybe I could, but it would be at great expense to me and if I'm honest I worry such a radical change to my diet could lead to a radical change in my health.

I didn't actually choose to be a meat eater, I was born with canines, and asking me to change smacks of sacrifice. Unnecessary cruelty to animals is definitely something we need to mitigate in the first world but we just don't know enough about diet and nutrition to eliminate meat from all of our diets. Vegans are guinea pigs.

Furthermore, abstaining from hunting and consuming animals, or raising them, either leads to animal suffering anyway, or animal genocide. Human hunting is a natural part of a balanced ecosystem, and while over-hunting is bad, under-hunting can be just as bad or worse in destroying bio-diversity. Without farms that pay for themselves we must euthanize all those species (cows, pigs, chickens) which can no longer take care of themselves in a natural environment.

All life is locked in competition for energy, and on earth it's a zero sum game. Plants crowd out and kill one-another by seeking the light more greedily (although if they manage to starve everything else, the overall ecosystem becomes less diverse and less robust, cue: the predator), just like animals compete with one another over the consumption of plants, and likewise animals higher up the food chain over the consumption of those lower down.

Without this hierarchy that aggregates solar energy into the consumable meat packages that animals are, humans would not exist. Someone will always be left with or on the short end of the thermodynamic plate. The presence of the deer might mean the vegetation cannot mature, which might bereave other animals of their home (i.e, a rabbit or field mouse). No wabbits means no fox, no coyote, no Tasmanian devil. Killing the deer saves the mouse and gives purpose to the wolf.

But we're not exactly the shepherds of all nature are we? We should try to keep things balanced for our own sake, if anything, but it is not yet our normative duty to ensure the survival of all other forms of life for their own sake (because we're not fit to lead in that respect). Just as the deer competes to the best of their ability, so to should we. It's what keep us healthy and what keeps us thriving. One day if we become masters of biology and technology and can grow hamburgers in a petri dish we can stop eating animals. And then if we ever master the understanding of complex ecosystems and biodiversity, we might gain some normative obligation to make decisions on behalf of all other life on earth about what gets to survive.

TL;DR: nutrition and expense deficits caused by the switch to veganism make it presently too risky. Humans aren't yet obligated to abstain from killing animals, but maybe one day we will be when we can actually pull it off. We would be foolish to think that we have effective decision making power when it comes to what's best for nature; nature destroys and remakes herself constantly, and if we want to continue existing, and to continue thriving, it needs to make room for us. We should leave room for it, but it's not an off-limits resource, it's our hard won inheritance. Also, unnecessary cruelty to living creatures is bad and we should minimize it...

It's almost as if some of Trump's magic pixie dust has rubbed off onto Guilianni.

Nothing can drag you down when you can fly to neverland at any moment on the power of bullshit alone.

You are an amazing person to take the time to write about us! Thank you for being you! I do hope to get to know you better ~
Tiffers — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I revel in the creative exercise (I do need it), and if anyone can get kicks or catharsis out of it then that's a bonus.

See you on the slopes!

Well V, if you put it that way I might try to consider you as reasonable. Not awesome yet because you will have to prove your awesomeness. :wink: — Sir2u

How long does the probation last?

:D

But please don't make any more comments about eloping, things like that give me the shivers. And not the nice ones either. — Sir2u

I'll do my best man, but I make no vows. If you look hard enough almost everything can be interpreted as innuendo or double entendre. I will try and keep it light as always, but it's better to risk colorful metaphor than to take no risks at all!

If some people here are bottoms, you're a top! Which you should take as high praise — Bitter Crank

You always know just what to say to make me swoon :blush:

These lyrics are interesting to actually read. Hearing them sung aloud doesn't allow for their full voluptuous meaning to be appreciated.

And at times anachronistic: "You are cellophane" :lol:

If I don't know who you are then you cannot be awesome, therefore you are wrong. :cool: — Sir2u

Ah but I AM awesome, therefore you must know me! We've grazed one-another in the past if I recall correctly. We both seem to post at a slower rate than many others, so it's not that surprising we've never eloped. Let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V!

That
was
awesome!
:heart: — frank

I'm very pleased to know you enjoyed it! These things always sound great in my head, which always worries me slightly :)

An awesome member who is never wrong?

:chin:

certain AWESOME members are never wrong — Sir2u

Finally I get recognition.

I don't know what else to say. Have at it. Rip this post apart with your sharp and cunning reasoning lyrical skills! — Posty McPostface

Absolutely my good man!







Keep it light!

The internet and social media are not the original sources of our present misfortunes, though as has been made clear they have likely amplified them (in perception and effect). But when does the digital medium become the message?

In the world before social media "incels" surely existed, such as they are, but perhaps they did not have access to a digital environment which would encourage and reinforce resentment and instead would have generally resigned to work on themselves. This is a microcosm of one of the hidden features of the internet: it has something for everyone.

If the medium embeds itself in the message as McLuhan suggests, then online social media is the rat-king of all media, or rather, it creates them. The internet is great for anonymous complaining, and don't we all like to have our complaints validated? There's an emotionally validating community for everyone in this circus, and the niches continue to grow in number and diverge in intensity. It's not that the internet leads to incels, it's just aggregates them into one community (a community which has it's own demonstrable effects, such as in this case the breeding of resentment and vilification of others).

McLuhan didn't mean it literally when he said "the medium is the message", he meant that the medium warps and transforms the message; it creates an environment of it's own. When he followed that up with "And the content must be the audience", he anticipated online social media with prophetic accuracy and unfortunate understatement.

It's flabbergasting how similar the core-sample you've extracted from a random incel forum reads and feels to the style (and ideological contents) of the other groups I've mentioned.

There's a peculiar feeling that many of the headlines and bylines give rise to (I don't know if there's an english word for it). It happens when you see a claim or argument that you can immediately recognize is politically or emotionally controversial and that you know is specious, but because of its context or phrasing, actually addressing or responding to it would require a literary (literal?) mountain of ground-work. "Even 1 YEAR OLDS AVOID unattractive people" is a good example in the context of incels. It's a combination of revulsion at the tedious difficulty of offering a rebuke and anxiety over the chilling effect you know might occur if you do not (or if you fail).

Though for some, it must be like looking at hieroglyphics. "Giga Chad", "bluepilled, "deformitybaiting"... Giga Chad is an especially obscure symbol as far as I know (I could explain it but it's actually more absurd than the alt-right's stance on pornography which I revealed earlier). Their new language can sometimes be fun in context (example: referring to Putin as a "Chadlet": (Chad + Manlet)) but it also has the function of gate-keeping the communities. Generally only children of the internet wind up making it to these obscure destinations, and their journeys through various social media circles equip them with the underlying vernacular and facts that aggregate in the larger niche destinations, and function as language.

For instance, before Jordan Peterson unambiguously disavowed the alt-right, every alt-righter used Peterson's concepts, metaphors, and memes in their ideological nest building, and so unless you are yourself familiar with them, a chat-room full of alt-righters will erupt into derisive laughter when suddenly you're asked about whether Prozac will can help lobsters clean their room and not know how to respond (only if he's already already slain the Sea-Dragon of chaos) where failure to answer likewise loses you any chance of persuasion (because you would be uninformed. "Have you even read Siege?"). When Peterson finally did directly disparage the alt-right, (to be fair it was still coalescing into its contemporary form, so he was largely unaware of it), over-night those who sided with Peterson were gone from alt-right destinations and Peterson became a negative appeal instead of a positive one (though his vernacular remained).

In truth these-communities are deeply fractured and inconsistent, individuals with individual problems, and they are united mostly by shared emotions (emotions of discontent usually). They're somewhat fragile because of this and as evidenced by the many schisms prevalent in online social communities, which brings me back to the earlier point: without the cover and insulation that a niche corner of the internet can provide, a lot of these bad ideas would be disinfected by natural sunlight.

Don't sweat it!

Sometimes we get too far into it but this place would be insufferable if all we ever did was blow sweet nothings up each-other's rears. (Just pretend we're fictional characters in a daily soap opera :) )

But when a fight does break out, (especially if you're in it), focus on the ideas and not the people wielding them and almost no matter what you will come out of it without regret: I've had many emotionally barbed exchanges with posters here, but I honestly cannot remember with whom save one or two notable nemeses (it wasn't them I envisioned as my opponent, it was their ideas). Shit-festivals though they may have been, I take great pride in my ability to stay on topic and attempt meaningful contribution while also engaging in those emotional games we play. It's a necessary part of human psyche and motivation for us to call bull shit

Sometimes the catharsis of a good emotional ass-kicking is what people are after as well though, or at least it's what they need.

And even if everyone around you starts catching hurt feelings and declaring their dislike of you, don't sweat that either! You don't know them and they don't know you, so allow your conception of them to evaporate along with their emotions; deal in ideas. But if you absolutely must, playing the insult game has strict etiquette on a philosophy forum:

Ad-hominems cannot be the premise of an argument (fallacious), they must therefore be the conclusions.

Appealing to the person is directly is almost never O.K, you MUST appeal to the ideas, actions and statements of your interlocutors, not their ego or alter-ego. Apply your insulting conclusions to their statements and argument, not to them, and they may be thusly suaded in the long run.

If you follow the above two rules then heated discussions can actually be quite fun and entertaining. It's when certain lines get crossed (generally when hatred or some variant is directed at a poster).

We're all mostly human though, and we're imperfect. Forgiveness is premium.

Such irony. You show your opposition to the "culture war" by demonstrating your scorn for the "warriors" on the other side. Then you tell us how to set them on the right path with your condescending pontificating. — T Clark

I don't see the irony. Is that the irony?

We are living in a time of political polarization, and I've briefly summarized several of the more silly extremes. Yes it's condescending (to people who belong to the groups I've characterized) because I've tied them all together as ignorant, insular, and absurd.

Failed philosophy often reads like pontification, so please point out where I've failed that I may alter my understanding or approach.

I've seen this kind of thing before. People feel contempt for others who demonstrate weaknesses they fear in themselves. I think this is a major source of misanthropy that many men in our society feel. — T Clark

I'm not in fact projecting my own fears onto other people and groups...

Ironic condescension aside, the misanthropy of these emerging groups is in part a symptom of the ideological isolation and emotional reinforcement that social media can facilitate. My point is that it is the mutual emotional reinforcement and radicalizing effect that an online community can provide to like minded individuals, combined with how it insulates them from mainstream and even common-sense ideas (it out-competes other sources of information), which makes ideological polarization and stratification an inevitability.

Thoughts?

P.S: The quotation you plucked is a slight modification of an Orwell quote "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength". I modified it for my own use, which is to say that there's something very wrong with being motivated in battle by one's scorn for the other side alone, as scorn is a terrible source for justification. In a backwards mind, in a backwards land, scorn is pity and the righteous bloody.