
The Price We Pay for Cheap Meat - jjxavier
http://www.rollingstone.com/feature/belly-beast-meat-factory-farms-animal-activists
======
grecy
A couple of years ago I moved to the Yukon and had the opportunity to go Moose
hunting. I really didn't know if I'd be OK with killing such a large animal
and "getting down to it" and have found to experience to be quite powerful.

There is a lot of respect for the animal and we treat every square centimeter
of edible meat with the utmost care. It's quite a strange sensation to be
working so hard (it's extremely heavy and time consuming to field dress such a
large animal) but have this feeling that it's the right thing to be doing.
Somehow, I know my ancestors have been doing this for tens of thousands of
years.

When I cook at home I make certain that every plate is eaten or saved for
leftovers. I would never let someone simply scrape that into the trash, as I
might have done when buying shrink wrapped meat from Safeway.

It's a highly rewarding and enlightening process which I highly, highly
recommend to anyone that eats meat.

UPDATE: I've been putting the finishing touches on a blog entry about this
experience and photos from my first moose hunting trip.... I'll try to have it
done later today, the post will be at the top of
[http://theroadchoseme.com](http://theroadchoseme.com) when it's done.

~~~
danpat
This has been my experience almost exactly (s/Yukon/Alberta/). I now hunt
yearly and basically don't any meat that I didn't kill myself. One deer is
enough for a couple for a year.

I found the experience it very self-illuminating, the hypocrisy of will-not-
kill-but-will-eat-from-store became much more focused.

The experience of hunting wildly varies. I've had one or two gut-wrenching bad
shots, hitting the animal in the leg then having to track it down and end it.
Most of the time, the animal is dead before the sound of the shot reaches
them, before which they were blissfully grazing.

Regardless of the experience, you reflect on what you've just done _far_ more
than when you buy meat on a shelf.

~~~
tspiteri
If it works for you, fine. But I object to you calling people who eat what
they do not kill hypocrites. If someone takes part in a protest against meat
products because of animal suffering, and then eats meat or wears leather,
they are hypocrites. But if they cannot bring themselves to kill the animal
themselves but still eat meat, they are not hypocrites. If they were, people
who are queasy when they see blood, but would want a surgeon to care for them
or their friends when they are in an accident, would be will-not-doctor-but-
will-be-doctored hypocrites.

I think the main problem here is that when some people have an experience they
find illuminating, their reaction is to look down on other people who do not
share the newly acquired viewpoint.

~~~
jtreminio
> If someone takes part in a protest against meat products because of animal
> suffering, and then eats meat or wears leather, they are hypocrites.

I highly disagree.

Why would wearing a leather jacket make me a hypocrite? It's very much
possible to raise and butcher an animal humanely, and still enjoy its meat and
leather.

~~~
tspiteri
I was not specific enough. I should have said if someone takes part in a
protest against _all_ meat products. You are right: it is not hypocritical to
campaign against inhumane treatment of animals but not against humane
butchering.

------
randyrand
Its hard for me to seriously consider changing my opinion from an article that
shows its biases so clearly. You show me the worst case scenario, but what is
the _average_ case? Also, what are the alternatives to these techniques? If
you don't like cattle prodding, what do you suggest instead? Not eating meat
or drinking milk is not going to be an acceptable answer.

Edit: Not going to be acceptable as an alternative to animal cruelty to the
American public. I think that is pretty objective in terms of what is actually
feasible through legislation/cultural change.

~~~
mseebach
Pay more for your meat. Eat less meat to pay for it if you must. Research the
premium brands available in your supermarket - the words "free range" or
"organic" on their own are pretty meaningless. Find out what delivery services
are available in your area, research them. Buy from a provider you trust.

~~~
Zoomla
This is a useless advice as there is no accountability/testing for these
claims.... you cannot even be sure what kind of fish that you are buying
nowadays (organic is even harder to prove). DNA testing would solve that, but
the FDA apparently don't have the budget. For example:
[https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/one-third-
fish...](https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/one-third-fish-isn-
article-1.1270792) .

~~~
mseebach
That's where the "research" bit comes in. Take that report to your fish-
monger[1] and ask him about it. If he has a strong opinion about it he's
probably a keeper. If not, ditch him and get your fish from somewhere else.
Again, check online vendors.

1: Here's a direct link to the actual report so you don't come off as someone
who gets his information from tabloid newspapers:
[http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/Fishy_Business_updated...](http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/Fishy_Business_updated.pdf)

------
nimble
I think its unfortunate that opposition to torturing animals is often lumped
in with opposition to merely killing animals.

~~~
asciimo
If we have the right to kill, why don't we have the right to torture?

~~~
epochwolf
The very act of torture requires a level of emotional depravity that merely
killing does not.

~~~
asciimo
You presuppose that torture is always willful. In the context of human-scale
meat production, it seems unavoidable. Yet we accept this, as it is necessary
for consumer demands. The employees of factory farm facilities may very well
suffer "emotional depravity;" not as a prerequisite for their duties, but as a
result.

The nature of torture aside, taking the life of a sentient being is the
ultimate violation of its rights. I don't see how any act less than killing
can be considered morally worse than killing.

~~~
epochwolf
Animals are not sentient. Higher animals have some form of emotion and a great
capacity to suffer but as far as we can tell today, they do not have self-
aware and self-reasoning intelligence.

~~~
nimble
Sentience doesn't mean what you think it does:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience)

~~~
epochwolf
Okay, I used the wrong word. My point remains unchanged. Animals, in their
various are not capable of enough intelligence or self-reasoning to be
considered thinking beings requiring equal protection with people. It is not
morally wrong for a human to hunt animals, farm animals, use animals for
labor, or keep animals as pets.

This does not make it right for a human to deliberately cause harm to an
animal for pleasure or entertainment. I also would consider trophy hunting to
be immoral if one leaves the body to rot.

~~~
nimble
I agree with you. My point was: you used the wrong word. :)

------
twoodfin
Infotainment!

I know it's considered a failing of hn that commenters tend to attack the
style rather than the content, but here the style is aggressively designed to
provoke a particular reaction. I find that pretty insulting to the readers:
"Don't bother to make up your own mind, let the sounds of dripping shit do it
for you!"

It's the multimedia equivalent of Taibbi's expletive-laced purple prose.

~~~
judk
s/meat/NodeJS/g and it is a rather standard front-page article.

~~~
jessaustin
I can't help but think that "NodeJS" is a more appropriate HN topic than
"meat".

------
bane
How do you know there are vegans on HN? Post anything about eating critters or
dietary subjects.

I'm about 1 more story from just flagging these from HN because the discourse
on these subjects is as predictable and brain dead as a Daring Fireball
discussion.

~~~
strict9
Flag a view you disagree with? How original and insightful. Well researched
long form journalism is something HN discussion desperately needs more of.

Whatever your opinion on eating animals is, where our food comes from is a
discussion that needs to be had. We need less of Stallman and Bitcoin.

~~~
bane
It's not the article I object to, it's the vegans crawling out of the woodwork
throwing heresay, poorly researched studies, outright lies and moral
browbeating around that I find endlessly tiresome.

~~~
aaren
Then _engage_.

This is an issue that people feel strongly about, in both directions. Both
sides make all kinds of strange claims sometimes but there is good stuff there
too.

I think the widely varying level of argument shows that this is an infant
discussion that needs to mature. It is only going to do that if we keep
talking about it.

~~~
bane
You'll see that I have here. While doing so I came across some new bizarre
claims by vegan publications I hadn't seen before like "omnivores are _also_
b12 deficient!" and other absolutely unbelievable garbage. It's amazing to me
that anybody who claims to be a thinking animal can fall for what are
essentially outright lies needed to justify an extreme life-style.

------
Roelven
I'm surprised and happy to see a big outlet like the Rolling Stone doing such
an extensive feature on the meat topic. Yes, they present it completely biased
and it's clear what the motivations of the publisher here are, but I think
it's important to finally get visibility on what meat consumption actually
means.

It's fascinating to see that people who want to eat meat are okay with the
fact that we're so detached from what it actually is. The objectification of
everything in this world is definitely playing a part in this, we just remove
the moral context of the products we buy so we don't have to think about it,
problem solved.

I eat meat, but I am struggling with where I buy it, what I pay for it and how
much I eat it.

I recommend reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Saffran Foer, where he leaves
the decision up to you but is providing you with interesting thought
experiments (why not eat dog meat?) and information so you can make up your
own mind. It is unfortunately written about the American meat industry, I'd
love to see exposure like that on European countries as well.

------
codex_irl
ugh...this is the reason I have not eaten poultry for the last 10 years,
except when I am back in Ireland where I can buy organic, free-range chicken
from a farmer....it might cost $27 a pop, but as my grandma says....it tastes
& has the texture of what chicken used to be like.

I used to love bacon / pork, but cannot eat that stuff anymore after reading
about how toxins are formed / retained in the meat.

The only beef I eat is grass-fed pasture raised - no hormones or antibiotics.

My opinion is that you pay for your health one way or the other, either in
preventing illness or after you become ill, there is no escaping the high cost
of staying healthy in western, urban centers.

~~~
MartinCron
You _can_ get good poultry in the US if you go out of your way for it and are
willing to pay for it. Even if you leave ethics out of it, the taste and
texture difference between a $17 chicken and an $8 chicken is pretty huge.

------
rooster8
I've never seen a more compelling reason to become a vegetarian.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Meat in the USA is made in the Farm Industrial Complex, sure. But so is all
the mass market food; becoming a vegetarian doesn't change that. And I am a
vegetarian.

~~~
mc32
Meat in a wold with 6-billion+ will come from the FIC, in the USA or
elsewhere. Heard about the horsemeat swap in the EU, or the tainted (with
industrial chemicals and or cardboard) meat in China?

It's not a US or EU or CN thing. It's a feeding 6-billion+ people on-the-cheap
thing.

~~~
adamb_
Meat persists not because it's "cheap", but because it's an ingrained part of
society. Consider the feed conversion ratio. [1] There's an high cost to
feeding livestock in the form of wasted food calories that could be avoided if
humans consumed that "feed" directly.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio)

~~~
mc32
Right, but to ignore that as people have more purchasing power they tend to
buy more meats is to ignore a large part of the issue. It's really beside the
point. People want meat and they want it cheaply. If you could steer (no pun)
them away from meats, that'd help a lot, but in the mean time, there is a
demand. Given the large demand, the only way to satisfy it is the FIC.

If the world consisted of 100 million people, and everyone one wanted to eat
half a kilo of meat per day, there would be little problem satisfying that
need without a FIC.

------
iambateman
"If you’re a broiler chicken... you weigh at least double what you would in
the wild, but lack the muscle even to waddle, let alone fly."

So...yeah chickens don't fly.

Otherwise this article is good. There's a lot to be said for responsible
consumption.

~~~
colanderman
From Wikipedia:

 _Domestic chickens are not capable of long distance flight, although lighter
birds are generally capable of flying for short distances, such as over fences
or into trees (where they would naturally roost). Chickens may occasionally
fly briefly to explore their surroundings, but generally do so only to flee
perceived danger._

So…yeah chickens _do_ fly short distances, unless they weigh too much.

~~~
jessaustin
The flight of chickens is much like that of wild turkeys, which they resemble
somewhat. A turkey flies when it roosts at night and whenever it sees or hears
a predator, which may not happen every day.

The point is, since these two similar species have similar flight habits, and
one of them is not domesticated, it's misleading for the editors to say "
_domestic_ chickens are not capable..." as if there were some ancient ancestor
chicken that soared with the eagles.

------
hawkharris
Stories like this one make me even more excited about the possibility of
producing meat in a lab on a larger scale.

------
vjvj
I tried to eat only expensive meat to reduce the chances that the animals it
comes from are bred in conditions such as those described in the article. The
idea was that naturally this would reduce the amount of meat I ate as the cost
of the meal went up.

Found it wasn't possible.

\- There were no expensive ready meal options at my local supermarket \-
Labeling contains no information about what kind of environment animals are
brought up in

Solution: \- Enforce labeling about environment animals are kept in \- More
NGOs need to take initiative to make it easier to access information - e.g.
packaging should tell me name of factory meat was made in. I should be able to
go online and view (ideally) live webcams for welfare and if not at least
periodic photos of all areas where animals are 'processed'

Ultimately I wish I had the will power to turn fully vegetarian but my issue
isn't with eating meat as such - more that I don't want to be a part of any
operation that kills animals en masse and I hate words like 'processed' being
associated with my food and live animals.

Working post, feel free to build on it.

~~~
vlod
>There were no expensive ready meal options at my local supermarket - Labeling
contains no information about what kind of environment animals are brought up
in

I think you know why. :)

>Ultimately I wish I had the will power to turn fully vegetarian

The way I started (I'm a veggie now) is not to fully eliminate meat completely
for your diet, but just 1 day a week.

The way to look at it is not that you're missing out on meat for 1 day, but as
an opportunity to try out non-meat options.

Here's some suggestions: go to a middle eastern place and order falafel wraps,
or tofu next time you go to a Chinese place. Also there's lots of Indian food
that's veggie friendly. i.e. Indulge your palette in food that you generally
wouldn't try. You might like it!

~~~
vjvj
Thanks for the tips Vlod. I do actually eat veggie quite a lot and enjoy
actively trying out the vegetarian stuff that I wouldn't without the mindset
that I have now.

My issue is that when you're traveling or you just come across a really tasty
meat dish, that's when I lack the willpower to be 100% vegetarian.

So all in all, I eat far less meat than the average person and I have cut down
intentionally but I am not vegetarian all of the time.

------
wiredfool
-1 for the autoplaying audio, even in a background tab.

------
api
Nature is full of similar cruelty:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRPzPjOR9lc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRPzPjOR9lc)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantula_hawk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantula_hawk)

------
ra3
Too bad its on Rollingstone. Can't visit that site after they glorified the
boston bomber on their cover.

------
conductr
What do we know about these mega-meat companies? 1) they do all this crap for
the money 2) they will do whatever it takes to protect that cash flow

If you believe those statements, it stands to reason, the only thing these
companies will ever respond to is competition. I think PETA, HSUS, and the
over activists need to stop focusing on trying to get these companies to do
the right thing because they never will when profit is their motivator.

We also know the demand for meat is going to remain high in perpetuity. What
the activists need to focus on is a model which can compete and is humane
enough for their standards. Yes, the activists need to turn into farmers or at
least partner with farmers willing and able to scale up to the size of these
meat companies. They need to put them out of business; or make consumers not
want to do business with them, by giving consumers another option (trying to
expose them, and shame consumers for eating meat will never scale).

So, start a farm. Innovate on every process so that it's humane and cost
effective. Focus on scale, without scale you can never compete or put a
meaningful dent in their market share. Maybe it is never as cheap as the other
guys, but it's better - and you can sell that. It will be a slow difficult
battle, but I think the activists are used to that. Over time, you can create
a "PETA approved" meat stamp, market that to consumers, and much like the
"organic" movement - a great deal of people will be willing to pay for what is
better.

------
robomartin
Cruelty is, of course, despicable and should be stopped. The vast majority of
growers are decent and moral. It's easy for activists to find and focus on bad
apples and make it seem like all meat suppliers are criminal monsters. This is
simply not true. This would be like meat eating activists finding bad actors
in the farming industry to then acuse the entirety of that industry with
criminal behaviour. Ridiculous.

As for vegan vs. meat. Well, few things in life have more evidence than the
support provided by millions of years and thousands of species who would not
have survived had they not used other species' meat for food, for energy and
nutrition. The species that did evolve to survive on plants (cows, for
example) have radically different anatomy and mechanisms evolved over millions
of years of adaptation to that diet.

We are meat eaters. More accurately, we are omnivores. The only reason one
could even consider going vegan is that we've industrialized food production
and distribution.

Drop two people on an island. One of them is constrained to eating plants
while the other is able to eat anything, including any animal, plant and even
his left foot. Over time the vegan will either get horribly sick and maybe
even die. In addition to that, he would have to devote huge chuncks of the day
to finding vegan food. The omnivore could easily ingest all the energy and
nutrients needed to function at a high level of exertion for a full day during
one meal. One could focus most of his time trying to get off the island while
the other has to focus on eating constantly.

Here's another way to look at it. Veganism can be hypocritical in that one's
ability to choose this approach would not exist without millions of years of
eating meat. You are who you are and you exist because our ancestors,
including your parents, grandparents, etc. killed and ate meat. A vegan is
only possible because of millions of years of eating meat. Our species would
not exist without eating meat.

Yet another view is that millions of meat eaters make veganism possible.

The vast majority of the people in a vegan's food supply chain are almost
guaranteed to be meat eaters. How much of a hypocrite does someone have to be
to rationalize eating vegan when tens of thousands of meat eaters --killing
and eating hundreds of thousands of animals-- are quite literally feeding them
their vegan diet. A vegan who makes sure their entire food supply chain is
vegan is, of course, being absolutely honest in support of their choice.

~~~
vlod
> The vast majority of growers are decent and moral.

Really? I think a lot of these decent/moral farmers are getting replaced by
huge corporations that are only interested in profit.

>Drop two people on an island.

 _Sigh_ This point is taking it to an extreme. Yes, I'm a veggie/vegan becz of
the environment I'm in. Put people on an island and most likely everyone will
turn into a raving beast (aka Lord of the Flies).

>The omnivore could easily ingest all the energy and nutrients needed to
function

Are you some crazy survivalist? I would guess not. Also most of the (let's say
US) population couldn't survive. _Most_ people get their meat from fast food
restaurants or else packaged in a supermarket.

Scenario, you land on a desert island. You don't have a gun or a knife. You
think the mass population could trap and kill a wild pig? You need training to
do something like that. Even something smaller like a wild bird or some sort
of rodent is not easy.

Then there's the question of having to cook it. Do you think most of the
population can start a fire without matches?

~~~
robomartin
It's hypothetical. Don't over-think it.

Still, both people would be handicapped in different respects. How many vegans
can climb trees and identify the various edible species of plant life on an
island. I'll tell you one thing, the idea of having to live off plants in the
wild scares me. Unless you happen to come upon something like an apple,
orange, fig or other recognizable tree you are screwed. The guy in the
Survivorman show makes it look easy, but he has an army of consultants
preparing him before each trip. That's how he knows that a specific grass is
edible and that the root of a given plant is good food. Without that most city
dwellers would not know what to do with most vegetation on an island. You
could easily kill yourself if you eat the wrong plant.

In that sense meat is easy. So long as the animal doesn't kill you first and
you clean and cook it you are generally pretty safe.

An omnivore can eat anything, ants, grubs, bugs of all kinds, worms, snakes,
lizards, crabs, rabbits, rats, etc. You just have to be smart enough to make a
trap and a fire. Find a reasonably flat rock, heat it up and use it to cook. I
think most people who have watched a little television can figure out how to
do that, particularly when coupled with the intense need to survive. Making
fire isn't easy. I've done it. I failed miserably a bunch of times before I
got it. My hands were shredded, but I did it. If you are not injured and
persevere it isn't impossible. It can be painfully hard, but not impossible.

------
genofon
humans are animals, nothing more, nothing less. I'm not against improving
animal's conditions, but I have the impression that most of the activist don't
have much contact with nature and they feel that we are superior, so we don't
follow nature's rule.

the reality is that a lot of people still struggle to survive like other
animals, and it can be brutal.

------
ThreeFinger
The real price are cancer, diabetes, strokes, heart attacks, obesity and a
dirty world.

~~~
Zikes
Vegan propagandism; meat is not inherently unhealthy so as to cause those
issues when consumed in moderation and as part of a balanced diet.

------
WalterSear
The opinions on this topic around here are so depressing given how easy, cheap
and healthy it is to live without meat, or dairy, for that matter.

~~~
bane
> how easy, cheap and healthy it is to live without meat, or dairy, for that
> matter.

Given the volume and nature of advice in the vegan community for how not to
hurt yourself eating as a vegan, I would say that "easy" or "healthy" is not a
word that could be reasonably associated with a sustained, long-term vegan
diet.

Even long-term vegans have difficulty in getting complete nutrition on their
diet which is offered almost by default in a basic omnivorous diet.

~~~
vlod
>Even long-term vegans have difficulty in getting complete nutrition on their
diet which is offered almost by default in a basic omnivorous diet.

You over estimate the difficult, yes it's a _little_ more work.

Heck you can say the same thing about the current US omnivorous diet. Most
omnivores have problem getting sufficient nutrition (in the form of fruits,
veg and Vit.D) in their diet. It's not that they can't get it, it's just that
they are a little lazy.

Tip to Vegans: for B12 put nutritional yeast on your popcorn... kinda tastes
like cheese and super nutritious and delicious!

~~~
bane
> Heck you can say the same thing about the current US omnivorous diet. Most
> omnivores have problem getting sufficient nutrition (in the form of fruits,
> veg and Vit.D) in their diet. It's not that they can't get it, it's just
> that they are a little lazy.

Pretty much agree, but the kinds of nutrition omnivores lack are absurdly easy
to get even by accident.

But then again, you had to put a nutritional tip in your post which is a
perfect exemplar of what I was talking about. Considering how small a percent
of the population Vegans are (1-3% I believe), the amount of nutritional
advice available and needed by the _average_ vegan to sustain such a diet
is...voluminous to put it mildly.

Socially, it's also highly irritating to be around. Since most Vegans are
converts to the life-style, it's like any other recent convert to a chosen
life-style (religion, fitness, chosen computer platform, etc.), endlessly
inserting it into every conversation and constant moral chastisement to self-
justify the difficulties of their chosen life-style to those that honestly
don't care in the least and have better things to do with their time.

~~~
WalterSear
>Socially, it's also highly irritating to be around. Since most Vegans are
converts to the life-style, it's like any other recent convert to a chosen
life-style (religion, fitness, chosen computer platform, etc.), endlessly
inserting it into every conversation and constant moral chastisement to self-
justify the difficulties of their chosen life-style to those that honestly
don't care in the least and have better things to do with their time.

It's more complex than that.

Every time I sit down to eat in a social situation, everyone around me is
fishing for small talk to make. So, they comment what I order, and want to
hear all about it. Since I've had this conversation a thousand times before
(at least), I'm sick of it, but also well versed in any responding to anything
they say.

It's also stressful, because many times I've had to play this game, people
will say patently offensive things - sometimes obliviously so, and sometimes
because they genuine assholes. Either way, it slowly sticks to your psyche

So, I'm making small talk, on a topic, which makes me feel bad, that bored me
to tears long, long ago, and has marked me as a permanent outsider in more
than one situation. And this is while my erstwhile friends sit around chewing
on a steaming piece of something that I could have easily made friends with
too.

So, I'm not at my best.

~~~
bane
I upvoted you for putting me into your shoes. I don't have much sympathy for
people who get upset because their chosen life-style is difficult or
inconvenient or socially awkward, but I'll definitely try to make better small
talk to my vegan friends in the future.

~~~
WalterSear
Yeah, I'm definitely not blaming people for making small talk or being
interested in me. If anything, it's on me to steer the conversation towards
other things - something I'm actively working on doing.

------
contextual
If the suffering of animals matters, then eating meat is morally wrong.
Animals are non-human persons who are aware of their own existence and who
feel a wide range of emotions, just like we do.

Killing animals may still be acceptable in western society, but it's wrong.
It's wrong just as slavery in the United States in the 18th and 19th century
was once acceptable but wrong. Just as hanging, drawing and quartering to an
audience of thousands in Europe was acceptable but wrong.

To disregard the pain and suffering of animal persons without regard for their
interests - just because they're not human, _is a form of racism._ Peter
Singer[1] calls it 'speciesism'.

We don't need technological advances in this society as much as we need
advances in morality.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer)

~~~
chollida1
> Killing animals may still be acceptable in western society, but it's wrong.
> It's wrong just as slavery in the United States in the 18th and 19th century
> was once acceptable but wrong. Just as hanging, drawing and quartering to an
> audience of thousands in Europe was acceptable but wrong.

Wow, wait until you watch an animal kingdom video. Your mind is about to be
blown but the amount of animal on animal violence you'll see.

I mean blue whales will eat litterally 10 of thousands of shrimp in one meal.

Lions will attack and pick on the weakest of the gazelles. nature must have
really gotten it wrong.

Look, you just can't come out and state that eating meat is wrong without
providing some sort of rational around it. Just claiming its morally wrong
doesn't really make an impressive argument at all.

The biggest problem you make is to lump together the poor treatment of animals
and the eating of meat. Many farms treat animals in ways that are considered
by the vast majority of people to be fair and proper.

Many people who eat meat have educated themselves and consider you to be wrong
about the ethics of eating meat.

TD/DR, you just can't take your own beliefs, state them as fact and then state
that they are the correct moral thing to do and any one who dares disagree
with your narrow beliefs is just wrong.

~~~
swombat
Nature is not morally right. In fact, nature is amoral. Pointing to nature and
saying "nature does it so it's ok" is a bit like pointing at a landslide and
saying "nature does it so it's ok to build my house like this". It's
meaningless.

Unlike most animals (as far as we know) we are in the unique position of being
moral creatures. We created this morality idea, which was not present in
nature before us.

Killing any kind of sentient creature whose death could have been avoided is
immoral (whether legal or not). That some countries still apply the barbarous
death penalty doesn't make it less immoral. We don't know exactly the level of
sentience of the animals we kill and eat, but they are at the very least self-
conscious to some extent. Pigs, squids, dolphins, dogs, cats, etc, are all
clearly human-like in some ways. Killing such animals is not that far off from
killing sentient beings.

I think it's a fair statement to say that killing animals is _wrong_.

That being said...

The issue is complex. There is a lot of historical baggage that we have to
deal with here. And it could be argued that many of those species only exist
because we eat them (or at least that most of their numbers exist only because
we eat them). Endless such arguments can be contrived. None of them make it
right, but they explain why this is not a simple "X is wrong, let's stop doing
X" situation.

I say all this above as a meat eater, btw. I eat (a lot of) meat. That I do so
while knowing that it's morally wrong is, I guess, just one of those
"contradictions" that we humans get to live with.

~~~
chollida1
> Nature is not morally right. In fact, nature is amoral. Pointing to nature
> and saying "nature does it so it's ok" is a bit like pointing at a landslide
> and saying "nature does it so it's ok to build my house like this". It's
> meaningless.

Completely agree here, luckily I never made that argument:) I basically made a
tongue in check throw away remark

> Killing any kind of sentient creature whose death could have been avoided is
> immoral (whether legal or not)

Here we disagree if by sentient creature you included animals, which I'm
assuming you do or you'd just say humans:)

Look I recognize your name on this site now and I respect a lot of what you
say but you just can't make this statement and assume its a fact that isn't
debatable. Because its very much debatable.

Look we just disagree on this point, which is fine as its all opinion based
and no right or wrong here.

~~~
swombat
Everything's debatable! But there are pretty strong arguments for "killing
sentient beings is wrong".

Most morality stems from the Golden Rule (treat others as you'd want to be
treated). If we take that as a given (a reasonable non-controversial starting
point imho), then we can easily agree that breeding and killing other humans
for food is immoral.

The Golden Rule is generally applied to a small subset of sentient beings, of
course. However, one thing is observable throughout history, which is that the
group of beings included in the Golden Rule has generally gone up with time.
It used to be only a subset of humans, and has progressively grown to include
most (and yet still not all) humans in most (still not all) cases. But it
continues to grow. And already some types of treatment are considered
abhorrent even when applied to non-humans.

For example, we may debate eating pigs, but we would presumably all agree that
deliberately torturing a pig for your own personal satisfaction is immoral
(hence all the laws against cruelty to animals).

This progress of history seems pretty constant - it may be the only progress
we can measure as far as the question "are we getting more civilised" goes.
Our measure of progress is, how many more groups do we include under the
shield of this Golden Rule.

It's pretty reasonable to predict that, unless things go very badly for
humanity, eventually many animals that we currently breed and kill for food
will come join us on the safe side of the Golden Rule. We may start with the
more inspiring or cuddly ones like Dolphins or Whales, but can you doubt that
humanity from 500 years in the future will consider eating a dolphin as
abhorrent as we would consider, say, eating someone's pet labrador?

Did eating someone's pet become less moral over time, or has it always been
immoral, but before it was tolerated? What about eating other humans? What
about other applications of the Golden Rule?

Obviously you can respond that morality is a moving target... and you're
right. But then you're still agreeing that the topic we're discussing is
something that could easily be conceived as immoral in the future (unlike,
say, petting a cat or painting a nice painting, which are unlikely to ever be
considered immoral as far as we can predict without resorting to extreme
scenarios).

I take the view that something which will be immoral in 500 years is already
immoral, we're just too undeveloped to realise it yet, much in the same way
that I'd say that death penalty or torture were always immoral, but people
weren't civilised enough to realise it in the past.

~~~
bane
> It's pretty reasonable to predict that, unless things go very badly for
> humanity, eventually many animals that we currently breed and kill for food
> will come join us on the safe side of the Golden Rule. We may start with the
> more inspiring or cuddly ones like Dolphins or Whales, but can you doubt
> that humanity from 500 years in the future will consider eating a dolphin as
> abhorrent as we would consider, say, eating someone's pet labrador?

Interestingly, humans rarely live as a solo species. Most concentrations of
humans are part of a larger menagerie of symbiotic utility and pest animals
that rely on human existence and activity and despite the constant presence,
it's rare that those animals ever enter even the most carnivorous human diet
outside of very specific cases.

