A what if question to everyone?
Offline It has been postulated in psychology. A national magazine article, Time or Newsweek, I forget which it was, postulated the following and of course I am paraphrasing. I want to expound on this example with something more long term as far as our species's future.
The article was not postulating a right or wrong answer but speculating what personality types would do what?
The example was if there was a train out of control barreling down the track and the passengers were sure to die, but the only way you could save them was to push a fat man off the bridge above to derail it to stop it from hitting another train, sure to kill more than the one person you shoved off the bridge? Would you do it?
Now, while I thought Bush was an asshole of a President, I myself, if it had been possible to do at the time, WOULD have given the order to shoot down the passenger liners on 9/11 to prevent them from hitting their targets.
NOW, that is just me, and the article never claimed right or wrong either way.
TO EXPOUND on this example.
Lets say as far as the future of humanity as an example.
If you knew the only way to save the species as a whole was to submit it to the likes of Kim Jong Ill, or have the entire species obliterated by a nuclear war, would you surrender?
Now, I am NOT postulating the permanent existence of such tyranny as a result of surrender. Just the thought that if it gave a future possibility for our species survival short term, would you surrender if it meant long term saving the species?
PLEASE PEOPLE, do not make this about labels or nationality. I am strictly talking about human psychology. You can replace Kim Jong Ill with Darth Vader, it is just a "what if" example.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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I wasn't talking about going to the farmers market. I was talking about directly going to the farm and negotiating a deal with the farmer. You would have to get bulk, for example I purchased a bushel of corn this year (56 pounds) and got a great deal.
The milk is kind of a dig at Brian who hates Walmart and was complaining about how expensive milk was which we were discussing on another thread. It was the generic brand and was on "managers special" because it was approaching its expiration date. I usually pay around $3 and I don't pay extra for the organic because it didn't pass the blind taste test with me.
@ Mellestad
In general I agree with you, although much of what is labeled as "organic" tends to be from more local farms and therefore fresher. It depends on the store you are in and exactly what the product is. My test is to see if I can consistently tell a difference while blindfolded. Some fruits and vegetables there is a big difference in others it seems they came from the same shipment and a quarter of them randomly got an "organic" tag. But if your eating it to save the animals....well true organic food causes more habitat destruction than food farmed using modern chemicals and farming techniques due to lower crop yields per acre.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Forget eating them, send me some of those hides. Kangaroo makes an awesome leather (leather working is one of my winter hobbies).
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
It depends on what you're talking about when you discuss things like environmental damage. I would just say it is an extremely complicated equation, and so caution anyone reading that 'organic' doesn't mean much.
For example, if you're talking about locally grown organic artisan tomatoes from a small family outfit vs. imported tomatoes from a megacorp, the local produce probably has less of a footprint. For something like bread, the non-organic stuff probably has a smaller footprint regardless, just because you get shitty yields without conventional farming methods.
So I agree, complicated. And as I'm sure you know, organic, as defined by the USDA, is a pretty meaningless term anyway.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Agreed. And tomatoes is one of those things that makes a huge difference in taste and is worth the extra dough. I was actually accosted by an old lady while I was purchasing a heirloom tomato. She gasped, grabbed it out of my hand and said "Do you realize how much that costs? These are a lot cheaper." I was quite bewildered and could only stare at her in disbelief before saying "Then I guess I will just have to make more money" and grabbing several more. She went off in a huff.
"God doesn't exist
Beer is good
and people are crazy"
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Wow Beyond Saving, you're quite a Survivalist! Buying bulk, conserving and making leather... I'd love to learn a thing or two from you, I may need it someday! And I'd like to be even more autonomous.
Atheistextremist, I never tasted kangaroo... I wonder how it tastes.
Vegetables are really more cheap at Wallmart?! Not here... Local market here sells at about the same price as the cheapest supermarket... sometimes even more cheaper. People won't go much there because of convinience... At the supermarket there is a parking lot and a lot of products, not just vegetables.
If you are concerned about environmental damage then you should probably consider the amount of fuel per pound of food rather than the distance food travels. When you go to the grocery store (if you drove) you're using significantly more fuel per pound of food than the trucks that delivered the food to the store because they are shipping 20 tons at once. Your local farmer's market is probably much farther from your home than the grocery store and the farmer is only shipping a few hundred pounds. It's just not possible in most cases for local farmers to match the efficiency of industrial distribution.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
Yeah, it is mostly thanks to having crazy parents and growing up in rural Wisconsin. My mom is allergic to refined sugar and corn syrup so she can't eat 95% of what is in the grocery store. Now she has a 2 acre "garden" (I call it a farm), makes her own flour (pumpkin, acorn) and everything from scratch, it is pretty much all she does now that she is mostly retired. My father was always an avid hunter and outdoorsman so our trips to the grocery store growing up were pretty much limited to buying milk and butter. For some odd reason my parents haven't decided to buy a cow for milk yet. Maybe I should get them one for Christmas with a neat bow and call her Holly
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Sandycane,
I envy you those pecan trees- so lucky!
If you buy off the internet, you need to buy in serious bulk to make it worth it. i.e. no boxes that you can't fit in
Usually you can find a supplier that sells several things, and get them all in the same huge box (many do free shipping as a promotion on large orders).
Like Beyond Saving said, these things can usually keep for a long time- you can get a six month or year's supply of legumes and such at once.
I can't argue about the cost efficiency of hunting- but, of course, not everybody could do that.
And so do the people managing the feed stockpiles and the feed lots for the cows and chickens and pigs- it takes quite a bit more stockpiled grain to even finish them than it does to outright feed somebody directly.
By removing the middle-man, you're reducing the total amount of agriculture required to support yourself (with the exception of hunting- as deer and the like sustain themselves in the wild without harvesters and the like).
It's possible that eating *wild* deer might kill fewer insects than eating grain (provided those deer weren't fed grain). Of course, at the same time, it certainly *does* kill more deer, and that kind of thing isn't sustainable for the mass population either.
Imagining the same 1:1 ratio of killing for vegetable foods and meats isn't realistic. It's about not doing more than necessary, and a vegetable based diet (until we invent something like human photosynthesis
Since we might step on an ant, we might as well go on a killing spree and shoot everybody we see- since killing is a foregone conclusion?
You're missing a profound difference in magnitude, as well as a difference in type (which I have formerly expressed).
Like sandy said- basically depends on where you set the bar.
Well, culling kangaroos isn't a solution to the problem rather than a band-aid, but if they would go to waste anyway (and there's nothing you can do to prevent that), then I'd say use them to feed the male cats first (who generally need to eat some meat), and then see if there's enough left over for something else.
Eating meat that would go to waste is freeganism, and is morally equivalent, but only if one makes sure one isn't displacing some other options that would eliminate suffering elsewhere.
There are a few metrics you could use.
1. Societal sustainability
The most obvious is asking yourself the question:
If everybody did this, would humanity at large survive, or would most people starve and die horribly of various diseases following the collapse of a society which promotes things that we (society) do need like modern farming (which is arguably the only thing capable of feeding everybody) and medicine (which keeps us from dropping dead of the plague and other maladies).
If you can't expect society at large to be capable of (even gradually) adopting the strategy, then you can't very well expect it of yourself (even if it may technically be possible for a single person to do).
Everybody going vegetarian? Well, that would conserve many resources, and generally would not result in the downfall of society if animal agriculture were phased out and the products gradually replaced.
Everybody going off to live like hermits- is there even enough viable land on Earth where people could do that without forcing each other into extinction?
You can make the argument that humans shouldn't have reproduced so damn much to begin with, but we can't undo what we have done.
As moral agents, the most we could advocate for others is the minimum viable harm- and while that doesn't include the bulk of animal agriculture, it still does include modern farming of staples, killing of agricultural pests, using some transportation to maintain the world economy, among some other key points of infrastructure that we may be critical of, but still do need.
That is what we could advocate for others- and what we would be obliged to follow ourselves in so doing- if one were to choose to go above and beyond by oneself, beyond what one advocated to others, the degree to which one did so would be arbitrary- and quite crucially, one would be forced to advise others *not* to follow in ones footsteps because there is a limit to the viability of how many people can do that- which might arguably make one a hypocrite of another kind
Sure, a few of us can be bums and live as parasites at the edge of a thriving society, but that's an exceptional case that should not be promoted, and in so doing, we're saying, "Don't do what I'm doing right now, this isn't good for society".
Have you ever heard the phrase "be the change you wish to see in the world"? Yeah- that- simply behaving only as everybody aught to, and not in a way that isn't socially sustainable.
This could be carefully calculated by those who know substantially more about agriculture and economy than I do
2. Absolute limits of sanity/will to live - i.e. do your best
Taken on its own, this one isn't as practical as the former, because it probably does include your straw hut scenario (and as I mentioned formerly, wouldn't be sustainable for society because it goes too far). But taken with the former goal (societal sustainability), which can get as close to that ideal of sustainability as possible for us.
This would be doing the absolute most that you could without literally having a nervous breakdown.
There are legitimate limits to human ability. Sometimes there are things we aren't physically or emotionally capable of doing. More often than not the "I can't do it" is used as an excuse, though, so being honest with oneself regarding what one really can or can not do can be pretty difficult.
If one uses this arbitrarily as a rationalization, rather than legitimately, then it is certainly hypocritical.
As the motivational posters say "If you think you can not, or you think you can, either way you are right"
Well, except the element of reality they miss- that there are some legitimate limits. Those limits tend to be pretty extreme, though.
If you find yourself genuinely considering suicide, this might apply. Realistically, nobody is going to commit suicide because they can't eat a steak. Somebody might if they're socially isolated in the middle of the jungle living in a mound-hut made of feces and eating nothing but starchy roots that they spend all day digging up.
Doing the best you can do is not arbitrary- if you are really doing your best. The caveat here is mediocrity, and pretending for the sake of laziness that what you're currently doing is genuinely the best you can do. A more objective approach of determining one's limits might be called for; but lacking that, one can only really depend on one's peers to call one on any bullshitting.
3. Practicality of social influence
This isn't an argument that I usually make (it's not my argument), because I don't feel it needs to be made- I feel #1 is perfectly practical, and in fact that without #1 this one leads to the same extreme over time- but I'll put it out there for the sake of being as thorough as possible in covering all of the arguments made-
We aren't islands; while the only ones we can fully control are ourselves, and we aren't strictly responsible for the actions of any other people, in fact, a living example can be much more productive to the ends than a social hermit.
Vegetarianism and veganism are socially acceptable, and make a pretty big impact by themselves, foaming at the mouth if somebody swats a fly is not, and doesn't do much in either case. As fond as I am at mouth foaming (good clean fun, that is), it isn't very productive.
While every trivial action may do a *little bit* in one person's particular case, social perception and the change it can do is much larger than any one person.
If all we can influence is our own actions, then we should do that as we would- but if there's a chance of encouraging far more people to positive change with a practical example, then doing anything else would be "penny smart, pound foolish"
PETA (love em or hate em) actually endorses this one in a big way:
http://www.peta.org/living/vegetarian-living/accidentally-vegan.aspx
Note the disclaimer at the bottom.
Few of those things are completely vegan- they have a micro-gram of this obscure animal biproduct, a nano-gram of that (all usually inherited from a complicated series of manufacturing and distribution bureaucracies, despite being unnecessary to produce the product)
See here for a more extensive explanation:
http://www.peta.org/living/vegetarian-living/tiny-amount-of-animal-products-in-food.aspx
So, somebody who believes in doing more, might actually do less... because it does more (socially, anyway).
Sounds strange, but that's the way of things.
This one is more of an option one can take or leave at whim, though, since we aren't exactly responsible for the actions of others- or obligated to change them. It's just a matter of how altruistic one feels.
Personally, I'm not terribly social (though being more so might be beneficial), but even to the small extent that I am social, this in itself (even not considering the first point) is reason enough not to be a hermit in the woods, for moral purposes.
My point is that one does draw a kind of line- but it doesn't have to be an arbitrary one. There are rational reasons for not being a hermit in the woods.
It's not *that* shitty.
FYI, there are hermit communities that do this- they just hang out gardening by hand [mostly] and living in mud huts like a 24/7/365 camping trip.
What happens if they get sick, though? They have to go into society (without having contributed) and end up as parasites.
What would happen if everybody did this? Social collapse in a big way.
It's not something that is *morally* advisable- if they want to play hermit, they can not claim the moral high ground there, because it really only amounts to some kind of philosophical masturbation.
I'm a big proponent of technology, if you didn't guess.
Not too worried about offending the hard core ones, since they don't internet much, and are mostly crazy anyway.
Altruism is a matter of acceptable inconvenience, but these arguments I've presented don't amount to that:
The first point has not much to do with acceptable inconvenience. It's a rational argument that as members of society we *shouldn't* take things to the extremes of hermit-in-the-woods mentality- it would even be hypocritical to do so.
The second does, in a sense- but it is an ultimate rather than an arbitrary cutoff- not "acceptable" inconvenience, but legitimately necessary convenience. This one probably does put most people in the woods without the first argument, but it can't push one over the edge.
The third has nothing to do with personal inconvenience, but an optional kind of altruism. Going above and beyond, to do more for animals, simultaneously relieving yourself of some moral responsibility (an odd sort of win-win that is). It almost seems 'too good to be true', so I'd be skeptical if I didn't know it was practical- I know more 'casual' social vegans who have done much more good on the large scale than some strict ones who act like hermits in the woods (who do nothing beyond satisfying themselves).
To summarize-
We all probably run into tiny alcoves of hypocrisy in our lives- acceptable personal convenience may ultimately make fools and hypocrites of all of us from time to time. But we can do our best to hold each other accountable, and if not to live lives completely free from hypocrisy, at least to minimize it and correct it where it is brought to our attentions.
I don't think you should go on a killing spree, but I also don't think you are necessarily doing more killing by eating farm animals. Cows and sheep can eat grass their entire lives, they don't have to eat grain, and it's sustainable for the mass population. People choose the kind of killing they like best so what.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
@Blake: Doesn't your argument against being a hermit boil down to a slippery slope argument? Your argument about overpopulation seems to have a similar flaw, "There are too many people for us all to live a rational moral life, so that absolves my responsibility to live a rational moral life." how would that argument not apply to anything....like, animals are going to be eaten by society no matter what I do, so that absolves my responsibility to avoid eating animals?
I appreciate what you are saying, and the time it take to say it, but I'm still not sure I could convince myself I was doing all I could. The appeal to work within, 'the system' seems like an appeal to some objective greater good, but, lets be honest, why would I care about an objective greater good in this case except for the possibility of getting a warm fuzzy feeling? Convincing myself that I was doing the 'best I could' seems like, well, convincing myself.
I'm at the point now where I genuinely can't tell if I'm rationalizing dissonance and refusing the merit of your arguments, or being objective. So who knows.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
No, why would it? There are measurable and calculable sociological aspects- there would indeed be an 'ideal' behavior for any given situation which exceeding the liberties of would be unethical. Just because that 'ideal' is technically very difficult to calculate accurately, doesn't mean it doesn't exist- an approximation of that ideal is what stops it from being any kind of slippery slope.
In any of the cases I presented there are strict limits to the permissibility provided.
I think you missed the foundation of that argument.
Lets forget "you"- the individual- entirely.
Lets just look at the global society.
Now, assume you get to proscribe a series of rules that everybody on Earth has to follow.
If those series of rules result in global famine, you screwed up. Throwing out all of modern agriculture would arguably do so. Therefore, at least some elements of modern agriculture are necessary.
So, lets examine what we can and can not eliminate- and particularly, what is harmful.
Growing wheat, soybeans, corn, rice, etc. These things are a little harmful in general- modern agriculture is harsh. Many, many insects and rodents are killed in the process (as pest control). Some people even die in agricultural accidents along in the process.
There are people who proscribe switching entirely to hand grown organic farming around the world- and this is a fine *ideal*- but these people re criticized for being ignorant of agricultural yields.
I've actually seen people argue that yield per square meter would approach infinity as you integrated more species of plants in the field- yes, some people actually argue that. They think you have have enough species of plant working together (complimenting each other), yeild just keeps on increasing beyond the bounds of thermodynamics.
This is not realistic- if the proscribed this, people would die of starvation, then disease as infrastructure broke down-- many, many people would die.
Now, look at animal agriculture- this is inherently harmful to the animals involved, and also harmful in general (clearing pastures for cattle, harvesting grain to fatten them up (with all of the same implications of the above)- and the most sustainable operations have the same pitfalls of organic farming; they couldn't keep up with demand.
Yeah, it's big business, but the majority of people on Earth don't eat very much meat, and in those countries where they do enough vegetables and grains are regularly wasted to feed those people several times over- not to mention the wastes of gluttony involved.
If human society stopped farming animals, nobody would starve as a result, and the massive tracts of land used to grow corn, soy, sorghum, and other feed stocks for animal agriculture (which are disproportionately huge due to the trophic levels involved) would probably be left largely fallow, freeing up more water resources (including the massive amount that is wasted drinking the animals), natural habitats, and in some places (though not all) viable farm land for human crops.
Lets not even get into all of the methane produced by livestock- but suffice it to say, this is a huge point of advocacy for ecological activists and those who are concerned with human population growth.
One of these can be proscribed (even to beneficial result)- one can not.
Review any harmful practice that human engage in, and it can be analyzed in such a way to determine what humanity as a whole stands to gain or lose in terms of actual need.
A "rational" moral life takes into account actual need. There are never too many people to live a rational moral life- the number of people just have an affect on the qualities of what that rational moral life turns out to be.
We can't abandon society, but we can engage in a constant dialogue of change that makes it better one, and our children after us, for every moral generation into the foreseeable future.
It's not an appeal to an objective greater good- it's recognition that self preservation always trumps empathy (when it's actual self preservation based on valid needs, rather than mere wants), and appeal to the rational principles of game theory.
Assume that everybody acts, or attempts to act, as you do- this will tell you if it is a proper action to engage in (or encourage engagement in).
Not eating meat? There are plenty of arguments that society not to that. Not farming staple crops? Well, I can't think of one that isn't either misinformed or an attempt to wipe humans off the face of the planet.
If somebody develops superior farming practices or storage means that work and eliminate the need to use poisons to kill pests, I might be morally obligated to be behind that when it presents itself to the extent I am capable, because it then becomes the least necessary harm.
If you are actively trying to convince yourself, you're doing it wrong
Convincing yourself isn't really the goal, it's aspiring to do the right thing, with respect to your own sense of morality.
If you're actually trying your best, instead of just trying your best to convince yourself, you'll find that you're never fully convinced (if you were, that would amount to faith of some kind)- but you try anyway. It's quite a bit like science- it's a process of discovery, and to an extent even peer review- one of learning and becoming a better person by your own account, and with the help of others keeping you honest, as you work out what to do, and what your real limits are. That's my way of the ninja
To somebody who mentioned this earlier, but that I missed replying to,
Somebody asked what happens to all of the animals when we stop eating them- simple, we simultaneously stop breeding them. There's not a surplus animal problem, it's very basic economics.
Any large change like that is liable to happen more gradually (over at least a couple years), so the population would taper off, and any remainder would end up as pets or in sanctuaries (given surplus pasture land, this would not be difficult to secure for the duration of their natural lives).
If a law was suddenly passed tomorrow that made animal agriculture illegal, of course there would be a problem- one that would need to be addressed in legislation (and which wouldn't be overly difficult to do)- the assumption that nobody has ever thought of this is... at the very best bizarre, at at worst quite insane. It's not unlike a Christian addressing the argument that there's no proof of his or her god by asking, "Haven't you ever heard of the Bible? Duh." Yes, yes we have- that might have been a consideration in the assertion.
this is a very good point. this is exactly right.
i've actually thought about this before. but i think about war mainly. say, if you had to drop a bomb on the enemy (whoever it is at the time), and you know it would also kill children and innocent people, yet doing so would save the majority from tyranny and enslavement (think Nazi, Muslim....along that line), would you drop the bomb? my rational side would say "absolutely", but emotionally it would be harder to do. however i believe it would be the right thing to do. especially in war, certain things must be done for the good of the majority. that's what it's all about.
about karma and fate.....it's simply cause and effect.
"Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand."
Bertrand Russell
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On what basis do you forget the "you"? It seems apparent to me that people won't and shouldn't all do the same thing. For example, suppose we extend our morality to consider what type of labor people should or should not perform. Obviously, everyone in the world could not be a professional football player because we would run out of food. But even if you consider the idea of everyone producing food you are missing doctors, all modern technology so your farming amish style etc. I doubt society would survive with its current population.
Now if we tie that into the subject at hand, as a hunter I recognize that if everyone in the country decided to do the same thing I do game populations would be decimated and on the verge of extinction. But the reality is, Sandy is never going to pick up a gun and go shoot bambi. When I go shoot a deer there is no question it is causing less environmental damage while decreasing demand modern agriculture. I always mess with the heads of the crazy anti-hunters by pointing out the largest crop destroying the Amazon rainforest is soybeans shortly after cooking them some tofu because they refused my beautiful venison steak
. So my individual actions are beneficial because I am lowering demand for beef or soybeans or whatever else I would eat instead of venison, while causing no significant damage to the deer population or environment. I would argue that my actions are beneficial to society from the aspect that I cause less pollution and habitat destruction and tax the system less than the average human, therefore making it capable of supporting more humans. It seems to me that a rational approach to morality would require you to take this dynamic into account. It might be harmful if EVERYONE did x, but might be beneficial if SOME people did x. The question of whether or not you should do x might be based on how many people are already doing it.
The same argument can go for organic farming. Obviously, we cannot support the entire world on it but if someone has an organic garden on land that would otherwise be unused, they can feed themselves and maybe some family or friends, they are helping the environment. Again, by lowering demand on mass production agriculture while having a limited environmental impact themselves.
So when you
You are making an assumption that is neither possible nor desirable.
I'll be so far in the sticks I won't have internet connection for the weekend but I'll look up your answer when I get back, this thread is fun.
[edit]
By the way Blake, I do not include you with the "crazy anti-hunters" you are by far the most rational person I have ever had this type of discussion with just don't want you to think I'm getting all ad hom on you
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
If we each get a tray lunch, we get the same thing, but it's perfectly acceptable for me to give you my muffin, and you to give me your rice (assuming there aren't any other consequences to the trade), because the same kind of balance is achieved. That is what a free economy does- it establishes its own balance (by way of professions, and the likes).
Assuming there should be recreation, then some people could fully specialize in that while others became fully specialized as doctors. If there ended up not being enough doctors and too many football players, however, the latter might be a bit of a stigma (or should be), because it seems many of those people would be better tasked elsewhere.
And in this case, you would recognize this source of meat, and figure out how much of that each person would strictly entitled to prevent imbalance. Provided each person didn't use more than his or her share, unless he or she exchanged that share (muffin for rice) with another, there aren't any issues that violate that consideration.
Currently, the Fish and Game authorities administrate and grant those shares- based a little on the market, and a little more on 'first come first serve'- however they are delegated, it maintains the balance.
So, sure, we could establish a government body that said "hey, X people can be wild-shit-hut men: who wants a raffle ticket?"; or we could distribute the social consciousness of whatever that practice embodies among everybody for a little less extreme a result- like doing as much 'soft' organic farming as we can (subsidized by government so that it's economically viable) without resulting in anybody going hungry. *OR* instead of distinguishing between commercial farming and the subsidized organic farming, we could pass regulations that inch commercial farming as close as it can come to that organic ideal without resulting in anybody going hungry.
But anyway, back to your argument- which essentially boils down to "there's a resource of meat there that isn't so destructive- we should use what's there"
Well, in that case we look at whatever moral standard is to be established, and the cost and benefit relationship.
Does hunting deer save enough insects and mice to balance with the life of the deer, nutrition for nutrition?
If the life of the deer is less than the X number of mice and insects killed for the soybeans that constitute the same protein, then the argument is that we should continue hunting until a more friendly approach to modern agriculture is established, because it is justifiable as a minimum necessary harm (in this hypothetical, even less than soybeans). The argument would extend to suggesting vegetarians eat venison instead of soybeans if there was enough hunting land to feed everybody (which there isn't), but lacking sufficient land, that everybody would be entitled to a certain amount of venison from that hunted source, which they might trade the permits for among themselves (or be licensed).
Of course, the opposite case is if the life of the deer is more than the X number of mice and insects killed for the soybeans that constitute the same protein, then it isn't a viable moral option to continue the practice of hunting.
Maybe we can calculate this and run the numbers- it would be interesting to figure out how many insects and mice a deer equals. Are you up for trolling the internet for sources for this with me?
I have to run, more tomorrow...
HAHAHAHA!
"Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand."
Bertrand Russell
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@Blake: This has turned in to a very interesting discussion. I think the main thing I've learned is I'm unwilling to engage in a rational moral system, because it would curtail my selfish enjoyment of life and the amusements I've grown accustomed to.
Which isn't exactly a noble result, but you've helped me learn a little bit about myself at least!
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
To continue from yesterday...
Right you are, and I do.
It may be beneficial if some people did X, or if each person had a moderated amount of X.
My ultimate point comes down to, distributed among the mass of society, there is a certain prescription for how much X everybody is responsible for-- whether that be hunting (if the deer comparison panned out) or being a hermit (one could assume this is via special wilderness survival camping trips if one wants).
One can choose to hold oneself to a higher standard than he or she holds the rest of society to- and that's awesome- but it isn't strictly necessary to avoid the critical inconsistencies in question.
You can do better, but you *must* do at least as well- and that responsibility of 'at least as well' is what's critical here.
So, that may bear out as being a responsibility to eat a certain percentage of organic food (that percentage which would be socially viable), or take a trip to a organic farming commune for X days every Y years.
Doing more is fine, but the extent to which one exceeds that basic responsibility is arbitrary personal preference (that's why I equated it to philosophical masturbation).
Thanks.
You should see some of the arguments I have with other vegetarians about hunting, animal testing, and genetic engineering.
I'm usually accused of being a fed, working for Monsanto, and being an undercover meat-eater within five minutes. Apparently I live a very busy life.
Note the emphasis. Don't pretend it would make your life less enjoyable
Any habit of pleasure is very much like a drug addiction- it alters the baseline from which you perceive the world.
If you eat very sweet foods, fruits don't taste very exciting, and grains are bland. The same for very salty, meaty, etc.
Living in excess dulls your senses to the little things; it makes you expect more, but doesn't give you *more* pleasure out of life- that increase in pleasure only lasts for a short while until you adapt to it, and it becomes more of the same.
Bought a bigger house? That's going to be awesome for all of a couple weeks. Won a lifetimes supply of cake? Likewise, you'll enjoy it for a few weeks until it becomes the new normal.
There is a certain threshold of creature comfort under which we are objectively more miserable, but past a certain point of basic needs, it's all relative (and research has actually borne out this same conclusion by way of income and happiness).
Just as 'increasing' your stimulation gives you a short boost, 'decreasing' it only sucks for a little while as you adjust. Cut out all sweet foods for a while, with some difficulty, and give yourself a carrot now and then and it'll taste like f*cking candy (seriously). Eat any actual candy, and you screw up your baseline again and carrots taste like wet cardboard (well, not quite that bad, but almost for some people).
For people who have never drastically changed their diets, sometimes that's hard to imagine- we get a sense of things having an objective taste value about them, and we worry what we'd miss, but that's just not how it works.
*ehem* Coping mechanism: on.
Heh, I think I was pretty clear about that point myself. If I'm willing to break down my morality based on convenience I might as well break it down on a line that makes me happy. I just don't get to shoot my mouth off as much on Internet forums!
Edit: Put another way, I'm not willing to enormously disrupt my currently happy lifestyle for a, to me, academic point of morality. I don't have any reason to change that isn't cerebral. Does it make my a hypocrite? Yes. Inconsistent? Yes. But it saves me from spending the next 60-80 yeas of my life worrying over the impact my every action has on animal life when I just don't care that much about it. It would be like having a time consuming and nerve wracking hobby I was apathetic about and being stuck with it until I died.
Like I said, at least now I know.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
I have a bumper sticker: 'Live Simply So Others May Simply Live'. There are other motto's like, Everything in moderation, etc... I try to abide by that.
ps: I had to kill a sick chicken yesterday. I started to post about it at least 5 different times but, ended up deleting them all. I'm still trying to sort out why I can kill an animal to end it's suffering but, won't kill one to eat...but, will eat one that's been killed by someone else.
'Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.' A. Einstein
I estimate that Blake has never handled (diametrically opposed) opinions all that well, and if you hang around long enough, you may see him bonking his head on the wall about it.
(Or misconstruing what comes out of the keyboards of others he militantly disagrees with.)
Wow! Go get 'em tiger!
It's a shame, because by all other standards, he really is a smart guy. You, on the other hand...
...must either live in the middle of nowhere, or you live close to Appalachia, which is nearly the same thing. For those who don't know, Appalachia and/or "Hills Country" of the Eastern United States is essentially the 'Siberia' of America -it's a cultural deadzone, even with the Indian Rezzes.
It's basically home to about 100+ years worth of coal-miner's settlements, so it understandably attracts a few armies of simpletons.
Back on the subject, though, rural/"off-the-main-road" areas in the south tend to be some of the most bass-ackwards places on Earth.
I took a leave of absence because the noob posts + uninteresting atheist-related stuff I really have no opinion of (nor can give any insight on) + Cygo's immature crap* was starting to bore me to tears.
While it's fun to
at you with pointless generalizations about old people (older than 50-something, in fact) and watch you get driven up into a stir by it, I decided to move on. (It's amusing because I'm very likely to be one of those old farts some day.)
Being sedentary, (extremely) introverted, and generally worthless, I assure you I haven't gone far.
*On the note of bothering you with old people remarks, they say say everyone goes through a second childhood before they die.
PS; Blake seems easily irritated by nonsequitur and/or 'intellectual laziness' in response to his posts... I may have to try that out on a rainy day.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
If I had to guess, I'd say the overwhelming majority of the human race takes this approach towards life. Some do not, but I believe this speaks more about them than it does about everyone else who is apathetic towards their 'superior morality'.
"Creatures of comfort" (If hammy didn't come up with that on his own, I'm going to be sorely disappointed) applies to the human race on multiple levels, and it applies to those who adopt the pretense of lofty aims and a "greater cause". A person still acts on morality because of comfort level, with "right" and "wrong" being little else besides a smokescreen of the most basic human culture and instinctual social psychology itself. Some of it is learned, though, or so I conclude.
A person can justify their sacrifice based on "righteousness"; they could never justify it solely based on "it leaves me with a bad feeling in my stomach", either to themselves or anyone else. It's one of the most basic skills of interacting with others learned just a few years after learning how to speak.
edit; Apparently hammy didn't. Oh well...
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
You be a very good writer Kapkao. I enjoy reading you dispite your sense of superiority
Very often introverted people ace in writing delivering all that they are.
Well at least this subject on animal rights made me think on my own hipocrisis and that's always a good thing. I will not stop eating meat for reasons explained in post #175 but I will pay more attention to the meat I eat and what I eat.
It's obvious we are creatures of comfort in may areas... still I would love to see you discussing this theme with Blake... you are very good with reasoning too.
Blake and I have come to an understanding, of sorts. I doubt there is any hope for you though.
'Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.' A. Einstein
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No, not really. I do a good job of imitating those that are, however.
My 'sense of superiority' comes from people here at RRS that are, in fact, quite intelligent but come out with knee-jerk responses left and right. A few of these individuals gripe about the "emotional" antics of others and then immediately display a hefty amount of emotionally-addled and heavily impassioned rubbish entirely of their own making.
In days now long gone, the bleeding hearts ("hippies", in the words of TDS) were almost exclusively theistic. Apparently, they realized that organized religion fails the common good of the species FAR more often than it lends actual assistance.
Hmph... a possibility I desperately try to hide. It's much more entertaining to convince others I'm irrational, watch them resort to juvenile cheapshots before I make a general remark of 'fail' once they do so.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
I asked if there was anything I didn't address.
Your suggestion that we treat every living thing in accordance to what intelligence it *could* have is flawed.
1. The suffering and pain that empathy relates to are not far off hypotheticals, but those that occur in the now. Any distant future possible intelligence is irrelevant.
2. The deviation in intelligence within a breed (such as in dogs), and between breeds (within a species) is extreme. Individuals have intelligence- species as a whole have a massive range; it is irrational to treat an individual in accordance with the nature of others that you may falsely imagine are similar- that is bad inductive reasoning.
3. The potential intelligence, as you put it, even if down to the individuals precise genetic nature, is also a flawed notion because for even one individual, the potential has a great range due to environment. This person may ultimately end up with brain damage, and end up a 'vegetable'- so was that the potential? This lab rat might be injected with hormones and brain stem cells, increasing the IQ to a fifth grade level- so was that the potential?
Nothing is natural or unnatural here- our world is one of statistical happenstance.
You are making the flaw of speciesism, which is fully inconsistent and irrational with regards to the actual metrics at hand in empathy, and the broad range of ability within a group, broadened even more (and less predictably) by natural happenstance which cannot be discounted.
If you're going to be realistic, you can't ignore reality.
I addressed your concern regarding domesticated animals formerly- it is a matter of economics; their numbers are not set in stone. If people stop forcefully breeding these animals to make more of them to eat, there won't be any problem.
I never said anything about pets, and that doesn't really have anything to do with meat eating unless you're killing and eating your 'pets'.
The modern fad of the 'Paleolithic' diet isn't based on evidence; it's based on some popular writer's assumptions and pop-culture.
A vegetarian or vegan diet is perfectly healthy if you mind actual nutritional science, which well demonstrates what kinds of nutrients we need.
Don't make the health argument unless you plan to back it up with nutritional science.
And again, I have addressed your domesticated animals issue.
This is not only wrong, but amounts to spiteful slander. All for the sake of a red herring- "worse things happen and they don't care, therefore I can do bad things" is not only illogical, it's flat out wrong that they don't care, and disrespectful to even those people who are in hunger.
Did you know that many people become vegetarian because of those people who suffer from hunger? A meat based diet is wasteful of food and resources, and contributes profoundly to global warming; a matter which disproportionally affects people in the third world.
Saying vegetarians don't care about these people dying of famine? Very much uncalled for. For shame, Teralek... you should be above remarks like that.
If you have any more questions or lingering concerns, I'm happy to address them, but please don't accuse others you don't know of that kind of apathy.
I'll go with crickets and assume that their nutritional value is similar to other bugs. Crickets are approximately 35 calories per ounce with about 3.6 grams of protein venison has 43 calories per ounce with 8.6 grams of protein. There are about 28 crickets in an ounce. An average deer is 125 pounds depending on your butchery skill from a 125 pound deer you could expect 40-50 pounds of meat not counting any organs or nutrition you can get from the bones. So if we say 45 pounds of meat per deer that is 720 ounces, one deer equals 20,160 crickets to get equal weight in meat. To get the same protein you would need 1,720 ounces of crickets or 48,160 of the things.
There is approximately 30 grams of protein in an average American field mouse (I got this from information on mice being used for reptile food).
Now soybeans have 10.4 grams of protein per ounce. So one deer equals 595 ounces of soybeans for similar protein yield. Soybean yield per acre is very hard to predict and varies widely based on weather and soil quality. It can be anywhere from 24 to 45 bushels per acre. Let us assume that one could produce 40 bushels per acre on average, that would be 2400 pounds of soybeans per acre. I looked all over to find out the actual edible yield (after removing the shell and drying) and could only find one site that claimed 80% is edible, sounds good to me so I'll go with it. So you have 1920 edible pounds of soybean per acre or 30720 ounces. So once acre of soybeans provides the protein value of 51 deer give or take.
In summary,
one deer equals 6192 grams of protein
one acre of soybeans equals 319,488 grams of protein
one cricket 0.128 grams of protein
one mouse equals 30 grams of protein
So I'm pretty sure you can continue eating your soybeans without much guilt because I doubt one acre of soybeans kills thousands of mice or the equivalent protein value in insects. Of course if you take into account that if you do not kill the deer it will continue consuming protein itself... but don't worry, I will stop it.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Couldn't agree more, and I am a huge fan of free markets and don't see why it shouldn't be extended to food as well. As you pointed out, hunting is generally managed by government and the cost of the license is loosely based on supply and demand (loosely because government isn't very good at changing quickly) I can go shoot a deer for $20 where an Elk will cost more. Many African countries have adopted the trophy fee system where you pay only after shooting an animal and the cost is based on the population. A high population animal will cost a couple hundred bucks and low population animals will cost thousands. It makes you think when your pulling the trigger when you know your bullet is going to cost you $1000. Such systems allow necessary game controls while preventing over hunting.
Now from a moral consideration eating domesticated animals is downright cruel and environmentally damaging. I don't really care about the pain but I can see an argument that causing excessive environmental damage is immoral. As you pointed out, we actively breed them and intentionally overpopulate them which causes fairly significant environmental damage even when you don't consider the supposed global warming. The only real reason is that it is tasty and pleasurable. So at the very least, I promise that when I eat a hamburger or steak that causes environmental damage I will make sure I really enjoy it.
Hunting wild game on the other hand simply puts us in the cycle of nature. As long as it is regulated to prevent over hunting the only environmental effect it has is limiting the natural upswings and downswings that occur with overpopulation of a species. If well regulated hunting prevents overpopulation I don't see how it can be anything other than beneficial to the environment. Especially since we are basically taking the place of the predators that we overkilled a couple hundred years ago.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Haha... I think you misread my comparison.
I meant to compare the protein in a deer vs. the number of crickets killed in a comparable plot of soybeans x the hypothetical value of cricket life.
So the question becomes, how many crickets/mice die from farming an acre of soybeans? Divide then by 51.
1 Deer v.s. X crickets/mice as a cost of growing the soybeans (I didn't meant *eating* the crickets/mice)
Right, but the protein value isn't going to be the "moral value". That logic would put cows well above humans, strong people above weak people, etc.
The tricky part of the calculation is not harvest yield or protein content of the subjects, but in the number of insects/rodents killed in farming- which would be very difficult to find data on given that it's not very relevant to the economics.
Google to the rescue, though:
http://www.animalvisuals.org/data/1mc/
This looks to be exactly what I was looking for.
Grains, 1.65 animals killed in harvest per million calories, according to this site.
Now, what animals are they counting, and are the numbers at all reliable? It seems a little on the low side from what I was expecting.
Ah- methodology starts about half way down. Search "To produce fruits" to jump to it.
The study with the field mice with radio collars sounds interesting- although a much larger study would be needed for it to really be very statistically significant (1 out of only 33 mice fitted was killed by a harvester). Statistical studies of animal density are probably more reliable given the small number in that sample.
Anyway, given the deer information you provided, it looks like one would need to eat three deer a year to fulfill protein needs (I'll assume the deer's fat would cover caloric needs, although that might not be the case)
a million calories of grain a year are more than 2k a day, and it doesn't take that much (from reasonably mixed sources) to account for daily protein.
3 deer vs. 1.65 "animals" killed in harvesting as per that particular series of estimations is a crude ballpark.
Doesn't take into account poisoning during storage (although that depends on how modern facilities are), and I'm dubious as to whether it takes into account small insects- Seeing how grasshoppers flee lawn mowers, though, it *might* be.
It's probably reasonable to say that killing deer for food kills more vertebrates than harvesting grain, though- insects just remain the lingering question where numbers are concerned.
Doesn't that miss the whole point that our enjoyment is trivial and amounts to elective harm for pleasure? I'm not sure the amount of pleasure it relevant- the steak could be giving you a blow job and I still don't think that would pose any relevance to the negative points.
Right, hunting is replacing natural predators with man- so it's not harmful to the environment if managed properly... well, short of the beer cans and cigarette butts and plastic wrappers some less conscientious hunters scatter around.
From an environmental standpoint, there's not much argument against it.
From a "kill the fewest animals" standpoint, I'd say there still is- particularly because herbivore populations can be managed by dispensing fertility reduction drugs in feeding stations in the appropriate measures (that is, hunting isn't strictly *needed*- if it were necessary, then that would be a moral argument for hunting which could serve to nullify the killing argument).
Yeah, the 1.65 number sounds low, especially if you account for habitat destruction. Of course, you also have to allow for the balancing force that while farming kills some animals, it also provides habitat and food for others. Many animals feed off of the scraps left by harvesters. While it might not be important in warmer climates, in colder climates like northern Minnesota it allows the habitat to support larger populations than it would otherwise through a harsh winter.If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
You develop a standard metric based on some expressed aspect related to the root of compassion- namely something to do with either the ability to feel pain, physical and emotional, or the capacity to return empathy.
It may or may not; there's quite a bit that needs to be taken into account. Most people, though, do not consider insects equivalent to mammals- due to lower intelligence, less pronounced consciousness, less intense experience of pain, etc.
Any metric needs to be consistent, but beyond that it is subjective- like I mentioned before, if somebody considers dogs to be worth protecting, they might be forced to likewise consider pigs, but may be free to not consider some fish.
Where a person draws the line is up to him or her, so long as that line- or gradation- is founded on some more objective and consistent principles.
Along this line, you could even consider whales.
If one were to consider insects and whales to be equally valuable, the argument could possibly be made. Very few people so consider those values to be equal, however.
Using an objective and consistent metric with subjectively placed thresholds (or gradients) of moral consideration.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1327703/Steaks-lamb-chops-calm-stressed-men-bringing-caveman-instincts.html
Maybe when you are dealing with someone particularly irrational you just need a good steak.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
I hope I don't have to explain why that study, as explained in the article, doesn't merit that general conclusion.
No you don't. It was just one of those stupid BS things I heard on the radio and I thought of you. Got to love the news media, one scientist does one study and suggests an interesting result and it is reported as undisputed fact. No wonder theists have the impression that science is always wrong.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Haha, okay, good to know.
I didn't just mean the study as a whole not being verified or repeated- I'm willing enough to trust the results of the actual study- the problem is that it doesn't suggest the result they say is suggests. It's more that the idea of causation wasn't tested to find out what it was and they drew superfluous conclusions (like the media always does from such studies)- could just be images of tasty food in general, or something very different.
A subconscious "I'm pissed off... oh, you're going to share that food? Ok, I'll chill out now" *maybe*. Naturally, being pissed off isn't a good way to get somebody to share food with you, so it would make sense that people would chill out given the subconscious prospect of getting to share in any kind of desired meal.
Or even a subconscious "Oh, these people like to eat meat- if I don't STFU maybe they'll decide to eat me"- there are many categories of images the meat might not have exclusive effect relative to, and many potential causes behind the results.
Their idea that from this study, it is implied that meat has some associations with family and safety, so the viewer feels less threatened... WTF? That has to be the worst reasoned conclusion I've seen in years.
I don't have a problem with media reporting the actual results of studies- it's the researchers who are to blame here. When the media probes for answers and the researchers present their half-baked theories, the media takes those as explanations and expresses them as fact (because the reporters are ignorant, and the researchers presented them as their favored explanations without making it clear that they don't know). The Scientists just need to either STFU to the media unless they actually do know the cause, *or* present multiple interesting theories so the media will report on all of them and make it clear that they don't know which is correct (I've seen the media do this- it works; all the more to flesh out a story)- when the researchers just present their favourite theory, they're as good as guaranteeing that the media will present that as holy writ, and there's no way to prevent that without giving every reporter a few years of proper science education (which I'd even say should be legally mandated for anybody who presents news of any kind on public television).