are vegetarians more ethical by not eating meat?

[The Grand Nudger]

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No, those plants are seeds, the plant doesn't have to die to harvest them. If we really need a discussion about the entire plants-feel-pain debate, which I would find fascinating, then I propose we do that in a different thread.

I mentioned this awhile back, we refer to what happens "here" and ignore what happens "there". When you eat -anything- you are taking lives in an unprecedented way. A way so massive in scale and so total in scope that no species on this planet - be it flora or fauna - human or not, has escaped it's boot. Producing food requires resources, resources are not distributed evenly, and the allocation of those resources is a lethal endeavor. The only organisms on this planet that have any claim to a dietary moral high ground are autotrophs - and they don't seem to be interested in claiming it. On the sliding scale or more or less parasitic organisms - more or less damaging organisms, more or less lethal organisms - human beings are right up at the top - regardless of whether they order the chicken or the tofu...and for precisely the same reasons in either case. To stress this again, I'm not telling you that you're being immoral for eating -whatever it is you eat- but trying to express the futility of trying to determine which dietary decision is the more moral one on these grounds.

I don't think you would defend the holocaust because they chose to use relatively painless means of mass-execution. If you're not free and you can't speak, you're the perfect victim. Do you think it is likely that any profit-oriented industry with a competition will ever have great concern for the pain and suffering of the "product" that goes through it?

While I'm a bit of a connoisseur of a good godwin, I'm afraid that I can't give this one any better than a 1/10. Poor opportunity, lazy delivery.

But lets pretend it was so, even if those animals had great lifes, then death is usually a messy thing, there is no way to guarantee that there won't be incredible suffering in that slaughtering process. But lets even imagine that it will be completely pain free:

We don't have to pretend, arranging a good life for livestock is fairly simple , the economics of it just aren't there yet (I'd say that this is due to our ignoring costs conveniently hidden from our view). Death being messy and death being painful or filled with suffering aren't interchangeable notions. If you suffocated me I'd feel a sense of euphoria, one last massive and glorious erection...then I'd empty my bowls all over the place. No guarantee? Are there many guarantees in your life? I think that this is an unreasonable metric. I'd say that we should do our best to ensure ethical treatment of livestock (really the ethical production of anything at all). If some asshole wants to hit a cow over the head with a hammer that's his business (and people hit each other over the head with hammers as well). We don't have to make it our business by purchasing his product - and if his method doesn't comply with regulations - he doesn't get to run his business.

How on earth can we deal out death, the greatest punishment our legal system allows for terrible crimes, how can we deal out death in such a massive scale if it is the one thing we ourselfs are most afraid of?

I don't personally like the idea of death as punishment. Seems counter-intuitive to me. In any case, are you afraid of heights? Perhaps we should stop putting up comms towers then. I jest, I jest. We "deal out death" because we have to. We had no choice in where we found ourselves in this cosmos. Had we opened our eyes one day on No Entropia - where endless founts of resources (of every variety) burst out of magical springs - then this objection would have some weight. We could probably deal out a bit less, with better planning. I don't think we're quite there yet, or even approaching the vicinity of "there" yet.

Call me a new-age, tree-hugging, fairy-kissing son of a stupid person, but I believe, yes, believe, without being able to back that one up with conscious reason or much evidence, that that will creep back into our psyche and it will come back to haunt us. Of course that won't convince you, and thats very good for you, you don't buy something just because someone tells you, kudos! I'm just saying.

The only thing that exists in my mental landscape that I love more than reason is compassion. But, you're right, that's just not an argument, so I'm now officially out of arguments

I've been called a few of those things myself. Again, I'm not begrudging you your choice in the matter. I think it's great that you've thought about what you eat, and if you feel that something is unconscionable and have decided not to take part in that - more power to you. I'm just offering some points that may have escaped consideration. I'm not immune to compassion and if the choice offered was limited to doing something reasonable or doing something compassionate -no other options- I'd probably defer to compassion myself. My advocacy for ethical livestock production - for example- arises out of compassion. We have to eat, and at the same time it's important to (at least some of) us what befalls those organisms that contribute to that process. The cast in this particular play is probably larger than you might normally imagine. Essentially, you're focusing on your favorite actors. I would do the same, of course - but both of us would be doing disservice to the discussion if we didn't at least tip our hats to the bit parts, eh?



A book you may enjoy, that's approachable and a good read - helped along by the publicity and familiarity of the author, is

http://www.amazon.com/The-Omnivores-Dile...1594132054

LOL, feel like such a shill as often as I pimp his books, but the man is a competent author, which I think is probably pretty important when making book recommendations.

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To make a very long story short - if the goal is to minimize suffering in some way through our dietary decisions, it's difficult to ignore how useful livestock production would be in achieving that goal. By tying livestock and ag into an artificial loop we might be able to reduce our reliance on "external" inputs (largely, at present, petrochem - and all the suffering that this entails). We know that -biology works-, so it would seem to be a good idea to look to biology to solve our biology related problems, like what to eat and how to get it. It would also seem counterintuitive - in trying to achieve that goal, if we took something off the table because of an emotional response to a specific method. Really think about that for a moment. Our emotions are such conflicting things that some of us may not be able to satisfy our own internal emotional requirements because of conflicting emotional requirements - even though it's the very same emotion in both cases. "My compassion says that I must, but also that I cannot".