'Meat paradox' and moral decision making

[Charge me Doctor]

Actually, both are normal and natural. It's kinda how we survived winters more easily.
Even though I agree in todays age that it's immoral to do so doesn't make it any less natural or normal to do.

Emotions and views doesn't change what's natural. Then again discussing "natural" stuff is kinda redundant since it's just another way to say "this is how I feel it should be" 90% of the time.

Which is fair point, since we don't need furs to survive cold winters, thanks to industrial progress and science (and abuse of cheap labor of our own species), we don't have "fur farms". The only thing that keeps THIS industry afloat is marketing and human need to feel exclusive one way or another

[naeblis495]

i don't see how that work.

it's not as if i was the one who killed the animal, i just bought bit of it's corpse. he would be dead either way.

therefore it's not my fault.

[Yaersulf]

Not have the time to develop too much but : Killing an animal to eat it is normal, natural. Killing an animal for sport or to not eat it (fur, etc) is asshole as fuck. Eating only meat is stupid and unhealty, vegetable are needed to be healthy in a good/greater portion than meat in our everyday food. This is my PoV.

"yeah but you can eat withouth killing animals now", yeah, and you're not aware how if everyone were to eat vegetable "humanly eatable" vegetable, how much water and surface you would need for that. Hypocritically calling to not murder animal by massacring them and malkking them dying by destroying their habitat is not a good thing to do. Well, it's also because we are becoming more and more close to human surpopulation. Worldwide birth control will be required at a point. If not, it will be WW3 for water, food and energy.

I'm going to have to call bunkum on the argument that eating more vegetables would use more land, meat farming actually takes up far more area for the amount of food it produces, and modern meat farming uses ridiculous amounts of polluting fertilisers.

[Charge me Doctor]

I'm going to have to call bunkum on the argument that eating more vegetables would use more land, meat farming actually takes up far more area for the amount of food it produces, and modern meat farming uses ridiculous amounts of polluting fertilisers.

Using land only to grow vegetables puts huge fatigue on land, you kinda have to either fertilize it or swap them in place with animal farms. I'm not sure that big industries do this (there are workarounds for it, multiple and various), but in all our local villages it's a common practice. Removing one element from "circle of life" completely seriously fucks up quality of food.

[Nigel Tufnel]

Flip this on its head. Could you give me an example of something truly enjoyable that doesn't result in cognitive dissonance?

Ergo; anything pleasurable is, in fact, wrong.

[Charge me Doctor]

Flip this on its head. Could you give me an example of something truly enjoyable that doesn't result in cognitive dissonance?

Ergo; anything pleasurable is, in fact, wrong.

Masturbation

[Calfredd]

Interestingly enough, there's actually a pet food startup that's trying to create vegan cat food (as in no animals being killed) using lab-grown meat from animals cats would hunt in their wild ranges like rodents.

"Vegan" and "Lab-grown meat" don't exactly get along though.

[AcidicSyn]

"Moral Response" I think is a sort of false ideology.

If we had a 'moral response' for everything that demands one, we'd all have killed ourselves long ago out of grief, or something. There are horrible things going on all over the world. Constantly. Not a minute goes by that something horrible isn't happening. What should I do about that? Nothing, really. I do things that make a difference nearby, within my bounds. If I can't afford to donate a ton of money, I don't, If I don't have food or bandages or time to give to people, I don't.

Just the same, what am I supposed to do about meat? If I stop eating meat, will that make a difference? No. (And the whole 'but if everyone did that it would' is also a false statement).

At the end of the day, I don't have time, desire, or the demand, to worry about how animals are treated. Is it another horrible thing? Yes. Is there any merit to me worrying about that? Outside of self-flagellation, no.

It's certainly not a false statement, it's an obective truth. It would make a difference. It's also an incredibly far fetched and unreasonable request for anyone to ask frankly. Though despite how silly the request is, it does not make it any less true that it would in fact make a difference.

Without invoking such extreme and frankly fantasy level requests of people though? The only real thing those who do choose to eat meat can do right now is, I suppose, avoid purchasing meat from distributors who perpetuate the factory farming conditions; or at minimum; the worst offenders.

Would it matter short term? Of course not. "Voting with your wallet" has never been an overnight process, but it does work.

[Immitis]

Carnivore diet is the healthiest diet, vegan propaganda is bs, all the anti meat studies are funded by lancet which is headed by a nuts animal rights activist. independent studies show that vegan diets are shit and meat is good for you.

weve been eating animal fat and flesh for millions of years, meanwhile 90% of the shit in your grocery produce department either wasnt even a part of our diet a few hundred years ago or are so changed from their original forms that theyre so full of sugar they rot animals teeth at zoos.

you dont need fiber, you dont need carbs.

eat liver once a week, get plenty of sun, drink water, eat more meat. boom you'll be the healthiest youve ever been.

[Techno-Druid]

"Vegan" and "Lab-grown meat" don't exactly get along though.

Depends. For ethical or environmental vegans it would be less of an issue, especially with newer formulas moving away from using fetal bovine serum to stimulate the various animal cells into growth.

[Sughs]

Eating meat is not morally wrong. What's wrong it's the way some animals are killed and how they are fed. I am all for trying to improve those two things but guess what? It will never happen. I will change into in vitro meat as soon as it's mass produced and proven safe, until then I will keep eating normal meat.

[Caerule]

Not have the time to develop too much but : Killing an animal to eat it is normal, natural. Killing an animal for sport or to not eat it (fur, etc) is asshole as fuck. Eating only meat is stupid and unhealty, vegetable are needed to be healthy in a good/greater portion than meat in our everyday food. This is my PoV.

"yeah but you can eat withouth killing animals now", yeah, and you're not aware how if everyone were to eat vegetable "humanly eatable" vegetable, how much water and surface you would need for that. Hypocritically calling to not murder animal by massacring them and malkking them dying by destroying their habitat is not a good thing to do. Well, it's also because we are becoming more and more close to human surpopulation. Worldwide birth control will be required at a point. If not, it will be WW3 for water, food and energy.

I believe you actually have that backwards. It takes more land to eat non-vegetarian. The animals you grow also require food. Lots of food. It would take far less land to feed you vegetables, then it takes to feed all the cows, chickens and pigs that you would otherwise eat. I think you accidentally switched the two around in your head. I had to google if I had it right first as well, just to be sure. If you had been right, you would have a very good argument though.

As for your other arguments, those I consider less strong. Normal and Natural are logical fallacies. What is normal is changed all the time. We once held slaves, and hung homosexuals. That was normal. What was normal in the past tends not to be the thing that ultimately shapes the future. What we currently decide is acceptable or desirable does that. If we stuck to what's normal, we would still be living in small tribes, competing with neighbouring tribes.

And appeals to nature are rarely good. We've gone well beyond our natural circumstances and constraints, living in circumstances largely defined by ourselves, not the limits we faced previously. Needing to kill animals to survive is another such limit we are beginning to cross. So it's not a useless question to ask ourselves if we should continue doing it, now that we no longer have to. We never had the freedom to extend much empathy to the things we eat, but we do have the capacity to do so. Now we have the freedom to start doing so, and considering how much this matters to us. If it outweighs the costs yet. Saying it is natural is just denying yourself the choice because it is a hard one.

Also we put tons of things into our mouths that are in no way our natural diet, because we decide if we want to or not. Why should this be different?

[Calfredd]

Depends. For ethical or environmental vegans it would be less of an issue, especially with newer formulas moving away from using fetal bovine serum to stimulate the various animal cells into growth.

I was thinking more of the fact that a vegan cat food (as in, no meat or animal by-products) is going to use lab-grown meat.

[Goldielocks]

I don’t agree that it’s a paradox. I think it’s an evolutionary effect. As humans we can exhibit empathy but we’ve also been forced to kill other animals for food over the eons. It makes sense to assume that we as humans have a repressed response to the suffering of other animals.

When we take their suffering into our conscious mind we don’t like it but when it fades into our subconscious it gets suppressed. It seems like a paradox but again it’s just the effect of evolution making it less difficult to kill other species for food.

[chazus]

Would it matter short term? Of course not. "Voting with your wallet" has never been an overnight process, but it does work.

It does, and doens't. Mostly doesn't, though.

If I don't do X thing, one person will not make a difference. Furthermore, the act of me not doing so, will not cause anyone else to not do so. Voting with your wallet only applies if other people are discussing it, and acting on it together. If you just don't do it, it has zero consequence to the seller. This is why 'voting with your wallet' usually doesn't work, because it's not an organized system.

[Spectral]

I don't suffer from this paradox. I used to do animal research and personally killed many, many animals, often in fashions much more unpleasant than how the cows that supply my beef die. My wife and I are happy to hunt and fish when feasible and have butchered our own meat and fish. At some point I'd be interested in taking a class on butchering beef - I find the cuts interesting and like the feel of doing something for yourself.

I have no desire to be cruel to animals for cruelty's sake and think deriving pleasure from inflicting harm is surely the sign of a sick mind, but I also don't have any moral compunction about killing animals for reasons that actually benefit humans. There is simply is no utilitarian calculation for me where animals are going to be counted as having some percentage of human worth or rights. I'm not exactly a deontologist, but cows are for eating.

[chazus]

Of course it would make a difference. Meat eaters consume about 7.000 animals in a lifetime. Choosing not to partake in the consumption, means thousands of animals less consumed. If you don't eat them, less animals will be bred, grown and killed for you in the bio-industry. That's a lot less suffering you could be causing if you made that choice. Thousands of animals is a difference. Not one that you may consider worth it. But certainly not so little you can claim there is "No." difference.

Mmmm false. While the facts might be true, you're ignoring a lot of stuff. A LOT of stuff. It's nice on paper but has no relevance in actual practice. 7000 animals in a lifetime? Any change to the industry (since I've already gone through about half my animals already) needed to be done a decade ago, and won't have any significant impact until likely the time I stop eating animals. Which means me stopping eating animals will have no effect on me. Which means I probably shouldn't.

If I stop going to the grocery store for meat today, will I see any change in the industry any time soon? Will I save any animals? Even a single one? Nope. The same amount will still be made, and used. My impact is so small, it won't change anything. Not only that, but my impact will not coerce anyone to do the same. And even if my impact DID do something, it won't do something any time soon. Or to any degree that anyone would be able to detect, track, or record.

[AcidicSyn]

What about animals like cats? Cats HAVE to eat meat to survive, they are obligate carnivores and cannot survive without it.

What about them? There's nothing wrong with feed meat to a cat or to yourself. The only difference is for you its not needed to live healthy. For someone who is feeling bad about the animals that die so that their pet cat can eat and stay healthy; the first step is going to have to be making peace with the fact that your pet is an obligate-carnivore and needs the meat to survive and thus by choosing to keep a cat as a pet you're going to need to contribute to other animals dying in order for your cat to live.

To assuage some (or all in the case where the cat owner has accepted this) of that guilt, cat owners can choose to forgo the popular brand name kibble foods (which aren't the healthiest anyway) and research brands (and speak to their vet for recommendations) that source their animal protein from human sources rather than factory farms. Cat owners with more disposable income may even consider placing their cat on a raw diet and acquiring the meat directly from farms or butchers they can confirm do not engage in these practices for themselves (The cat will love the shit out of you for this one too; so bonus)

[Caerule]

That's not true, we are way too far from reaching this point, we won't be able to support current society using only lab grown meat simply because of production costs.

Ah, sorry. I was referring to vegetarianism, not switching over our current industry overnight to lab-grown meat. That, and the impact it would have, is an interesting subject, but I should probably not get into it much here, as it might take away from the main subjects. In short, I do support this becoming a thing, but I suspect the conversion of the meat industry to be slow and incomplete. There will always be at least 35% of the population that'll still eat "natural" meat. And at least 10% that'll eat that exclusively. And even those are numbers that are both optimistic and would take time to reach, I believe.

The difficult challenge of moving away from meat consumption currently is about going vegetarian. It's possible, but definitely also has drawbacks.

[AcidicSyn]

"How can I be a psychologist and accept money to ask nonsense like this when people are starving?" is another good question.

3-4 years of university, some books, an office, and very low moral standards.