this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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I believe in nature, humans are regarded as persistence hunters. Which is to say we have incredible stamina and perseverance while hunting. Other creatures can run faster than us, but only for short stints, relatively speaking, as long as we can keep track of them, we can continue to pursue prey for hours or days without significant external assistance (food, water, rest, help from others, etc).
So regardless of what we may be trying to kill, if we continue to keep our focus on it, we can absolutely find and kill it, given a long enough timeframe.
This also explains marathons, quite frankly. I don't see too many animals just running for dozens of kilometers without a reason to do so. Many can't run that far, and those that could, generally never would... Unless they're running from us, I suppose.
Something like the cheetah, is very very fast in short duration, but after a few minutes of running at full speed, it's thermal regulation tends to fail and it is biologically required to stop or it will overheat and die.
Add to that our intellectual capacity for planning, the creation of tools to assist us, strategy, teamwork, and all the things that are associated with intelligence and we're basically a killing machine, if we choose to be....
Amazingly, we're also the only species that we know to exist that feels bad about eating our prey. I've never seen a lion have an existential breakdown after killing off a gazelle so it can eat, yet there's entire subcultures of people who refuse to cause any harm to their food. Have you people not understood the "circle of life"? Did you not watch the lion king?
Whatever. Go live your life. Weirdo.
The problem with eating meat is not the eating meat. I don't give a fuck if someone eats meat from an animal that hasn't suffered, that was free and in its natural habitat. I don't know if I would myself because after 15 years of not eating meat I don't think I'd still like it, but it's not unethical. The problem is the untold amount of widespread suffering and cruelty of beings with emotions and sentience and attachments and capacity for both physical and emotional pain that is industrial livestock farming.
The climate costs of feeding animals for us to eat do make eating meat inherently harmful to the planet.
The land requirements for our current animal agricultural production is the same size as North American. That's not sustainable. I say that as someone whose never gone a day without eating meat.
I understand not everyone can shift their diet, but I am curious, if you know it is unsustainable, why do you partake in the industry? Or is your food acquired more sustainably? I'm not trying to lay any sort of judgement or whatever, I am genuinely curious. A lot of people I know that eat meat that are aware of the issues with the industry will at least avoid eating meat at times.
I guess it's the same way the US founding father's can write about all men being created equal while still owning slaves themselves.
I've come to the realization that eating meat is wrong, but since I was born into a world where a mostly meat diet is 'normal' shifting away from it is difficult.
It's like trying to quit smoking, an easy decision to make but hard to follow through.
You don't need to quit, cutting down is fine. Even just trying a replacement (bean chilli instead of beef) one time is great too. If you like it you can replace more often, if not try something else.
Someday I have a dream that the ADA relaxes its guidelines for certification that need everything to be so industrialized and monitored. And then, we could start selling meat of the "problem animals" that we have way too many of, like deer and boars. As long as they can stop people from breeding them (Hanoi Rat Massacre problems all over again) hunting could be a somewhat lucrative activity, and we wouldn't be contributing to global production problems by eating meat.
Of course, we'd need people to be aware that someday once those populations are under control, we'd have to change habits. And we know how people react to change...
I think you meant the FDA? The Americans with Disabilities Act doesn't really regulate farms.
Yes, sorry, I didn’t bother to check I had the right acronym.
So, we used to allow selling deer meat. It resulted in people almost hunting deer in north America to extinction.
The ban is about animal conservation, not food safety.
Your second paragraph already happened, and we're living in the long tail maintenance cycle that follows.
The current system of deer hunting essentially sets a quota for how many can be killed, and there's essentially never a problem hitting that number.
In the majority of cases the deer is processed, typically by a certified processor to ensure food safety and reporting of any observed disease, and consumed.
If you don't want the meat, some processors will process it for you and donate it and give you a discount on the trophy parts. At the least there's a process for getting donations to people.
I've never heard of someone wasting the meat. Not for any moral reasons specifically, although there are those, but just based on appreciation for seasonal treat. It's getting to the season where I'll probably be gifted 5-10 pounds of venison, so I'm looking forward to it.
In Alabama that quota for unantlered deer is 1 a day during the season. I'm not moving to Alabama any time soon though.
Michigan is 12 per season on public land maximum, and I think it's unlimited on your own land.
I would visit Michigan! I'll keep that in mind.
For a moment there I was thinking you were about to advocate for cannibalism... (sadly, prions are terrifying.)
To my understanding (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) transmissions of prions disease is primarily through two methods, eating of brain matter, something most never do, even eating animals brain matter, or undercooked flesh (and/or bodily fluids - like blood, which ties into undercooked flesh).
So it should be safe in theory, as long as we properly cook the meat and don't eat the brain. Since we do the same for all of the meat we ingest, it should be fine....
Not that I'm going to go advocating for anyone eating human meat. I'm just saying, to my understanding, if we follow standard handling and cooking, we shouldn't really have any risk factors for prions disease. Personally, I'll stick to beef, chicken, turkey, lamb and pork. If it's all the same to everyone else.... And obviously some delicious veggies and fruits.
Related: prions disease can result from other sources, such as genetics or "sporadically"... According to the wiki article on it, but I'm strictly speaking about transmission of the disease.
The Americans with Disabilities Act? I wouldn't consider people with disabilities livestock lol
Yeah, my last few statements were hyperbole. Sorry that didn't come across to you. I'm also about as weird as they come, so "weirdo" really isn't a jab, it's just a statement of fact, we're all different and weird from eachother.
The point, and fact remains that we're the only species on the planet that can rationalize rejecting meat due to ethical concerns. Give a cat some factory farm meat and it won't even think twice about eating it.... rinse and repeat with pretty much any animal on earth other than humans.
Regardless of that point, I'm not about to tell anyone how to live, eat what you want. What you eat doesn't affect or inform what I eat. I also want you to have options, so I don't have any protest to the creation of things like veggie burgers or tofurkey or whatever. The only time I would have a problem with vegetarians/vegans is if their choices affect my ability to make a choice. eg. I can no longer get beef because there's now a vegan law that forbids it (type of thing). It's extreme to think about, but it's along the same lines of laws forbidding LGBTQ+ people from getting married or something, or women getting abortions. Sally joe's abortion doesn't really cause any damage to your life, why do you care? if Jim and John want to get married, why do you care? It doesn't stop anyone else from refusing to get an abortion, or refusing to get gay married, they're just discriminatory laws that restrict people's action based on other peoples wants.... historically, vegetarians and vegans haven't even tried to cross that line, and I don't think that will change, which is good. The religious fanatics however, cross that line continually. I just want to live and be free to marry who I want and eat what I want and live where I want and how I want, with the understanding that those wants shouldn't impact other people's ability to do the same. On the same note, I want that freedom for mankind. Where everyone can do anything they want, as long as it does not impact others ability to do the same. If you take a look at most laws, that's how they're written, to prevent individuals from impacting others in a negative way; about the safety of the society as a whole. Don't drive your car at excessive speeds, which may cause you to lose control and potentially crash, possibly into someone else, which will injure/kill them, which impacts that persons ability to pursue their own goals (etc).
I am a humanist above all else. I couldn't give any fewer craps about who you are as a person (race, color, religion, creed, lifestyle, sexual identity, sexual preference, etc), as long as you're not negatively affecting others to live their lives how they want, then by all means, do the things, be happy.
Autonomy and choice is important, do you think less intelligent humans also deserve a right to autonomy? What about less intelligent animals? If you answered differently to these two questions, why?
Humans generally understand restricting choice is a good thing if the choice in question is committing harm. We don't let people choose to rape, murder, etc. We don't let people farm mentally disabled humans for their skin and meat. We don't let people farm dogs and cats for their skin and meat. We do let people farm cows and pigs for their skin and meat.
Vegans have rectified this inconsistency, non-vegans haven't. If you told me that you were fine with farming disabled humans, dogs, cats, etc. I'd at least applaud your consistency, but I have yet to meet a single non-vegan who is this consistent.
I understand your point and frankly, if anyone is okay with farming Hunan meat, regardless, then admitting to it, especially in a public forum would be social suicide.
There's a nontrivial population on earth that don't see any issue with killing and eating what most residents of first world countries would consider to be pets. But it's all aside from the point that you're making.
I understand you're trying to provoke deep consideration on the matter, something most people won't even consider doing, and I'll tell you that I've come to terms with the decisions I've made, and justified them with deep dives into the logic of the scenario. There are social constructs of what is acceptable that I reject but don't violate because of the social backlash that would ensue. There's also the matter of preference, just as some people may like beets and others don't, not all meat products are made equal either. Venison doesn't have the same taste and consistency as beef, chicken or fish.
There's also the matter of preferring what you know you like apart from trying something you've never had, eg, I haven't really ever eaten shrimp and I have no desire to start. There's many reasons for this that I'm just not going to get into as they're not relevant to the point. Fact is, I can go buy shrimp at any time and have some and I choose not to. I've never had it and have no reason to avoid it, but I still won't all the same.
The morality of handling the dead, specifically dead humans, by humans, is taboo pretty much regardless of who you are or what you do in life, and the dead are usually treated with a certain reverence and respect. So even if you're not morally opposed to eating human meat, it's likely you're opposed to how it's "farmed". This is echoed in the film Soylent green. Fact is, we wouldn't be okay with feeding or loved ones to the masses for nourishment, and most people can't imagine anyone else would be okay with it, which is the critical point of the film. IMO, that a social construct and I further feel that it's disengenous to the point. There's very few creatures that engage in direct cannibalism. Even animals, with few exceptions, don't do it.
So let's put to bed the idea that humans, as a whole, would every be morally or socially okay with the idea of eating human meat. Same as so many other animals on the planet.
So we, as humans, omnivores, can choose to either participate in eating flesh of animals or not, that's a personal decision, not one that should be mandated by any law. Human meat is off the table, and simply mentioning it speaks more about you than it does about the listener, that you would go to the length of comparing eating beef or chicken, to cannibalism. It's a weak argument at best but has the virtue of having a lot of shock value.
For me, aside from cannibalism, I'm pretty okay with anything dying for my continued survival. Same as any meat eating predator on the planet. I hold no animosity to the animals I eat, I don't want to eradicate them nor cause them suffering; simply, my desire to live is more potent than my empathy for their continued life. Fact is, as humans, we are not the majority of animal biomass on the planet, so carving out a small number of other animals so I can live is, in my opinion, fine. Their numbers will hardly vary and I get to live with all the benefits that the meat of their dead, provide. That enables me to continue to have stupid conversations like this, and help my fellow man.
I recognise animals as having intelligence, but as a human, I'll always consider humanity as governed by a different set of rules. There's no jail for a rabid animal that slaughters it's own kind, only that their fellow animals fight it and kill it. Humans are held to different standards for crimes against humanity, since we at least consider ourselves to be more civilized. No single person acts as judge, jury and executioner. Even when there is a fatal shooting performed by law enforcement (or anyone else, for that matter), there's still a trial to determine if the action was just, as we have agreed must be done as a society. Turning that idea on it's head, we posthumously hold the dead person accountable for their final acts and whether killing them was a reasonable response to their actions and any immediate danger to life that they may have posed. We hold ourselves responsible for our actions in the court of law regardless if you died or not. This is exclusive to actions by humans against humans. We hold ourselves to a different standard. We always have and as far as I can see, we always will.
Tribes of wild cats can shift their loyalty on which Alpha Male can fight the best, they have their own laws that govern who lives and who dies, and what actions must be taken towards any winners or losers in their own system of law, same as us. The punishment can vary from disenfranchisement to death. Bears also have this same sort of law structure, etc. Most animals have some way of dealing with their own kind, and regard their own laws separate from other species. It's not like a goat is going to rule over a pride of Lions or anything. In the same way, the laws of goats have no bearing on how lions rule their respective kingdoms. Once you step away from any specific animal and their kingdom, the rules that govern that animal don't have any bearing on the social and law structure of another animal. We are the same way. Everything behaves this way on the planet. Humans are no exception.
When it comes to food, every other carnivorous animal on the planet cares not about the social structure or ongoing survival of the animals that they kill, and for centuries, humans were the same. Now that we have an understanding of nutrition and sufficient agriculture to sustain it, humans can now make a decision if they want to continue to eat the animals that historically were our prey. Some have chosen not to, and that's fine.
Trying to guilt me into making that choice by falsely leading me to think that eating animals is akin to cannibalism is insane and to me, invalidates you as a trusted speaker. You're free to say what you wish, you have the freedom of speech, but bluntly, your opinion of me for my choices is not valid because of what you've said, and tried to imply or draw comparisons to regarding my choices.
Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences.
Good day to you.
This is gish-galloping, to properly address your points, every paragraph would require 3ish paragraphs, so I'd have to spend the better part of 2 hours responding, which is totally unreasonable to expect in a forum like this with a stranger you have no personal attachment to.
From what I gather, your main issues are social ostracization and false equivalencies. Using social norms to drive your moral decisions is obviously problematic, you can think of a ton of atrocities committed by humans when those atrocities were socially normalized. People aren't born evil, with an intent to cause harm. They're taught to be ambivalent, and can perpetuate atrocities through apathy.
As for the idea that there's some false equivalence, you're misunderstanding the thought experiment. Yes, eating humans is more dangerous than eating chickens or dogs, but that's a happenstance of nature. It's possible we could figure out a way to eliminate prion diseases and other harmful effects of cannibalism, and then farming disabled humans who process information at the same level of a cow would be morally permissible to a logically consistent non-vegan.
Of course, essentially no carnists are logically consistent. They use emotion and preference towards certain species to guide their decision instead of rationally considering when it's okay to harm something (taste pleasure isn't a high enough bar to inflict pain and death, obviously).
Just out of curiosity, how would you feel about laws that make beef more expensive? (because of lower subsidies, stricter animal welfare regulations, or maybe higher taxes to cover climate impact)
Everything is more expensive. It continues to be more expensive all the time. So I'm not sure of your point, nor why the cost of beef would affect my willingness to eat it.
Laws that specifically make beef much more expensive could be seen as a milder way of banning beef (extreme example: if it costs as much as you make in a month, it's basically banned), so I was curious where you draw the line of "their choices affecting my ability to make a choice".
I suppose it mostly depends on by how much. If it's an unreasonable amount, I'm sure that many will have something to say about it. Of course that raises the question of what would be considered to be a reasonable amount. 30 years ago, an increase of a few dollars for an average cut of beef would have people up in arms, but now, a $3 increase of the same would hardly be noticed.
I've also heard theories that our empathy is actually a hunting tool. If we were to lose our prey, say in the brush around a water source, we could put ourselves in its mind. From there, we could empathize and predict their actions, and so follow them, even without tracks. From the prey's perspective, they finally lost us and escaped, they are exhausted and overheating, but alive. Suddenly the predictor re-emerges, and the chase is back on.
Vegetarianism being a fairly unique human trait suddenly makes sense, from this perspective. A lion doesn't really need to get into the mind of their prey, and so empathising with them is actually a negative. For humans it was a critical tool. It's only secondary that we turned it on each other, allowing for super-tribes to function.
i mean that's more down to us being intelligent and social while also liking to eat meat, if elephants hunted they'd probably face similar moral quandries
dolphins are psychos though
I don't know if your second to last paragraph is a meme, but all humans reject immoral behaviors that occur in the wild, not just vegans. Lions also commit infanticide so their genetics carry on and competing male lions don't, it makes sense biologically. Yet humans don't commit this behavior because we know it's wrong. Dolphins rape other dolphins, which again for the furthering of your own genetics makes sense. You should implant your seed in as many helpless victims as you can, and yet again, humans don't do this because we know it's wrong.
Pretending like vegans are the weird ones because we're simply consistent about our morality is wild. Non-vegans even get upset at the idea of eating dogs or cats, so it's not even like they're universally in favor of torturing and slaughtering helpless animals, only the ones that have been objectified by whatever culture they live in.
Weird and wrong. These are extremely subjective.... Same with good or bad.
I'm sure the gazelle thinks it's bad to be killed and eaten, I'm sure they think it's wrong. The Lions who hunted it down and ate it think it's good and the right thing to do.
This is entirely subjective. The universe doesn't have an absolute of good, bad, right, wrong, weird, or normal. It simply is. Anything that is good/bad or right/wrong is a matter of opinion and perspective.
Only humans attribute their system of right and wrong to animals that may be entirely okay with the matters at hand. We don't impose our laws and values into animals just as they cannot impose their morals and values on us. To judge them for the actions that they take without being able to understand their thoughts and feelings on those matters is juvenile.
You simply cannot transpose human notions of right and wrong into situations where humans have no say, no context, and no understanding of the social constructs of those species.
I'm sorry that you don't like it, but I promise that the animals you're referring to, see it differently than you.
We don't understand it, and maybe we never will. Let them do their thing and if there's ever a time where we can adequately communicate with those animals and ask them how they feel about what's happening, then at that point, maybe we can take action for or against it as appropriate.
Until then, let them live the way they choose to live. Let them sort out their own problems as we have been trying to do for humanity.
Normative truths are just as foundational as descriptive truths. You use the same logic to get there. I hope you're intelligent enough to be an epistemological nihilist, so hopefully you know the basis for all scientific and descriptive understanding of the universe is self-evident axioms. The same is true for moral truths. Harm is axiomatically bad in the same way that our senses are accurately able to translate information of an external universe into our brains.
If you disagree with the former, we can't have moral discussions, and if you disagree with the latter we can't have scientific discussions. This is how the whole of epistemology functions.
You're also strawmanning me. Ought implies can, so an animal without an ability to act morally obviously has no moral obligations. I hope you somehow just severely misunderstand the vegan position, and you're not intentionally spreading misinformation.
Factory farms aren't us allowing them to sort out their own problems. We spawn billions of sentient creatures into torture boxes every year just to slaughter them when they're a few months old in brutal and terrifically painful ways.
If you think that's awesome, keep buying meat, more power to you, you're just probably a psychopath (though I obviously can't give you an official diagnosis).
Least obvious phillosophy major.
Human hunters also have the distinct advantage of being able to carry water with them.
And (usually) the intelligence to do so.
To your last point, I think it's a natural progression of our species. We realize that we were stupid animals like them at one point, and look at us now? Technically they are just earlier in their evolutionary chain (some of them, some species due to the way evolution played out will never be a fully intelligent species like humans, but we know some of them are already well on their way) so are we really just eating what would just be babies in terms of intelligence?
Where does the line get drawn, how intelligent does something have to be before it seems like just as much of a crime as eating a human child? We already know there are species, that we currently eat, that have the intellgence and capacity to learn similar to that of Human toddlers! Is that not something that gives you at least pause? Do you not at least have the thought that: "This animal I'm about to eat scientifically seems like they are just as capable of cognitive thinking and complex emotions and attachments as a toddler, am I okay with this?" What's your answer to that question? For me, it's not black and white, it's not a simple yes or no answer, and I feel like most people who believe what they say about the intelligence of these creatures must be similar.
Then to top it off, through animal and plant husbandry, factory farming, and automation of food production we are rapidly approaching a point where we might not need to eat these intelligent species to survive, due to our ability to grow our own food, even meat now! One day in the future, we realistically can envision a world where everything we eat is grown in some capacity. When we reach that point, shouldn't we ask that question again? When the needs of our species can be met through technology, what is our responsibility to the lives of these creatures at this point? When does it become pointless killing of living beings? It's a genuine question.
Me personally, I don't think we are quite at the evolutionary point where we can sustain our society without the products of agriculture as they currently stand, so I think it's unrealistic to try to force everyone to stop eating animal meat in the short term. I think it's a great philosophical question we should keep asking and keep revisiting, because I think one day in the future the answer will eventually change to a world where we might change the way we view animals. And in the meantime, I'm all for legislation to try to make the process of cultivating animal products as ethical and harmless to them as possible, I feel like that's the least I can do for the species while we use them as a battery to fuel human evolution.
There is very little evidence for the idea of persistence hunting ever beeing a thing.
https://undark.org/2019/10/03/persistent-myth-persistence-hunting/
Nice, I like you. You stick to the point. So many of these comments are just people getting butthurt about hunting in general.
I do apologize that I haven't done enough research on the topic and I can't really engage in the conversation further. I hope you have a wonderful day.
We are pack hunters. That's what makes the difference. Cooperation and communication. No amount of running far will ever come close to compete with the power of making plans and communicating them to others.
Though most modern humans would probably get eaten by the cheetah.
Not by a cheetah. They are easily scared and will run away even from smaller opponents.
Well yes, many of us are to slow and fat to run away or fight adequately not to die.
We did that to ourselves though.