I wonder what it will take to convince people to separate their core identity from meat consumption. At this point pretty much everyone knows what’s going on in these horrible farms, and knows the climate impact. At this point there are also lots of plant based proteins available in many forms and flavors. Yet people still seem to get viscerally offended if you suggest that eating meat is an inherently evil act, and I don’t foresee throwing more charts at them ever changing their mind.
I think you’re conflating two things that are different: factory farming, which is run by huge agribusiness companies, and eating meat. Small farmers can also raise animals for meat consumption, and they can probably do it on a smaller scale, with less environmental impact and less pollution than Cargill, Sysco, Tyson, and the rest of the cabal. There used to be rules controlling how much farmers could produce, and this kept meat prices higher, and benefited small farmers. But big ag got those controls removed in the 1970s, leading to lower prices paid to farmers, forcing them to get bigger to survive, or driving many of them into bankruptcy. Bigger farms require more chemicals and more pollution.
The problem is not meat production per se, but rather a distortion of the system by powerful large corporations.
>Small farmers can also raise animals for meat consumption, and they can probably do it on a smaller scale, with less environmental impact and less pollution than ...
>But big ag got those controls removed in the 1970s, leading to lower prices paid to farmers, forcing them to get bigger to survive, or driving many of them into bankruptcy.
And a lot of suicide, sadly.
>The problem is not meat production per se, but rather a distortion of the system by powerful large corporations.
I'm not sure when the US lost its will to keep large corporations at bay, but it's been hurting us ever since. Ever see a M&A the federal government didn't like?
Everyone knows what it will take: cheap vegetable alternatives to meat that can be made at a small factory level or at home, don't have an unfortunate association with xenoestrogens, provide the right macros/amino balance/B vitamin supplementation, and are easy to cook.
I'm not convinced eating meat is an inherently evil act. Possibly most factory farmed meat from the US might be evil (depending on how you feel about chicken barns), but the assertion that raising and slaughtering your own animals is evil relies on the unproven assertion that animal deaths are inherently wrong even after a good life. That's not a universal belief and it's certainly not supported by these charts about industrial scale factory farming.
What xenoestrogen rich foods are you speaking of specifically? Soy has xenoestrogens but there isn't really much evidence to indicate dietary soy has a measurable negative outcome on health.
The public association of soy with xenoestrogens is what I was talking about, not actual consumption. Soy's a good dietary staple but it's hampered by the (probably incorrect) perception that it's going to feminise men.
Soy also has negative associations on the subcontinent. To the point where I have to overcome a bit of an ick reflex to eat soy, similar to eating ham (being from a Muslim country). My mom thinks soy causes cancer.
I have never heard this - the local ISKCON temple serves soy nuggets at their Sunday dinners without any outcry and the Pakistani Shan masala boxes I use often call for soya leaves.
> but the assertion that raising and slaughtering your own animals is evil relies on the unproven assertion that animal deaths are inherently wrong even after a good life.
Anyone who ever owned a pet, or witnessed young foals or calves actually growing up naturally, will have noticed these animals to dream, to be joyful, frustrated, gleeful, or moody. They play, they enjoy learning stuff and have personalities - in short, they are sentient beings with a subjective experience, even if that experience is very different from ours - there is no way to know.
We do not let people kill elderly humans, even if they lived a good life. What is the fundamental difference between a human and an animal, if both experience their existence, both can suffer, and both really want to stay alive?
We don’t eat other humans for sustenance (most of us, at least).
Death is natural. Entire ecosystems are based on animals killing and eating each other. Are they evil? I don’t believe so. Our conscience allows us to take a higher moral ground, but eliminating meat consumption entirely is not necessarily the end goal.
I think your question is going to have a different answer for everyone, but for me:
A) The average human fears and understands death even at several removes, and in particular would understand they were being raised for slaughter. I don't believe this to be the case for most farm animals. I don't believe chickens suffer from expectation in the same way humans would, and I wouldn't eat e.g. great apes because of the possibility that they might.
B) It is unacceptable to allow the killing of humans and the desecration and consumption of human remains except in some extreme cases, because doing so would harm our social fabric and make still-living humans feel awful. This protects even humans who wouldn't be able to understand abstract future harms.
C) Also, it feels wrong, and killing a chicken doesn't. I know this answer is likely dissatisfying to you because you feel that killing a chicken is also wrong, but we're all making choices by gut feeling to some extent.
I think generally I agree with you. Though I'd argue proving anything about morality is practically impossible. Let's take an example of something that was for thousands of years across many cultures and to some degree is still seen as acceptable or morally justifiable behavior, slavery. While I personally believe it is reprehensible, I would be hard pressed to "prove" this in a way that doesn't rely on value judgements along the chain of reasoning.
I can't prove or disprove that industrial scale exploitation of mammals is morally wrong. As a society we see this as morally acceptable, what if we are wrong?
>At this point pretty much everyone knows what’s going on in these horrible farms...
>Yet people still seem to get viscerally offended if you suggest that eating meat is an inherently evil act...
If you are eating meat that you raise yourself or where you are buying directly from small-scale producers, do you have this same view of meat? If so, why?
This is a reasonable question and I agree that the two points don't line up -- factory farms being good or bad does not mean all meat eating is good or bad.
Yeah... it seems to me like the main arguments are: ethics, environmental, and nutrition, in that order. If you agree that it is acceptable to eat meat, you might still be concerned about the environment impact. As I look at the data, it seems to me like raising animals outside our factory production system is not nearly the environmental catastrophe as some would like to project. In fact, I'm inclined to believe that there may even be a net positive, depending on the practices. The problem is, those practices don't yield cheap meat, so they often get discarded as impractical.
I think I might be one of the people you describe, but I don’t think you understand the reason that people get offended.
I am not offended by the facts about factory farming, or that meat production releases methane. I am offended by the implication that someone will forcefully take away my ability to consume foods that I want to eat, and will use morality to justify it. Removing the freedom to eat meat is still taking away freedom no matter how you justify it and people will resent it.
If your goal is to improve the quality of life for livestock or reduce emissions from livestock, perhaps by changing the diet that animals are fed: nobody will have a problem.
As soon as you imply that someone’s way of life is immoral and their diet must be forcefully changed, you will encounter huge resistance.
Personally, it’s wild to me to think that the ‘freedom’ to eat meat is ever in question. It’d take such a ridiculously over-the-top totalitarian move to make something like that happen. I just don’t see it as possible, it’d be like banning smartphones.
On the other hand, I do see a world where regulations increase the cost of meat (by making these factory farms do things which improve the livelihoods of the animals, but cost $). But..that’s not taking away freedom, that’s just any other tragedy of the commons regulation that prices in the negative externalities to the action that causes them. (Think: climate change emissions here, not morality)
Are you willing to entertain the idea that your way of life might be immoral? How would someone go about proving so, how would you go about disproving it?
For some people, an industrial farm has the same moral implications as a labor camp. Implying, that you as a beneficiary from said labor camp would be open to talk about improving the food options in the camp, might seem quite beside the point to them. They oppose the mere existence of the camp.
>How would someone go about proving so, how would you go about disproving it?
Morality, boiled down to its essence, is an opinion. You can't prove or disprove an opinion of course, and you certainly don't have to entertain them if you don't want to.
I'm always desperate to understand the mechanisms around this, so thank you for the insights.
Regarding the opening line of your last paragraph, are you in disagreement with the idea that eating meat is immoral, or are you just saying it is offensive for someone to tell you what you're doing is immoral full stop (whatever the topic)?
I ask because at the start you say you arent offended by the facts about factory farming and climate impacts - so it sounds like you realise the immoralness? But your key issue is with someone judging you for that immoral action, and for suggesting you should change? Or have I misinterpreted?
Of course, thank you for the understanding response!
I don't think that eating meat is immoral, animals eat each other every day, and I think that most people are okay with this.
But I can recognize that the conditions in factory farms are not okay, the misery that the animals experience is not ethical, and I think if you show any carnivore a video of the inside of a factory farm they will agree. Working to improve the lives of farm animals will encounter very little resistance from even the most vocal carnivore.
I also don't deny that meat production releases methane, and that is not good for the planet. Most carnivores will not have a problem with trying to use technology and new techniques to lower the carbon footprint of farming. For example feeding cows seaweed instead of traditional feed is supposed to cause a net reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
But as soon as you start actively trying to take away my ability to eat meat or my ability to feed my family with meat, then that is where I take offense. i.e. you can show me the facts and let me come to my own conclusion. You can raise awareness, you can put in place regulations for humane treatment of animals, you can implement new technologies to reduce emissions. But if you try to forcibly change my diet, or even _imply_ that someone should forcibly change my diet, that is where I take offense.
Would your opinion be different in the case where your ability to consume meat is hampered by making the price of meat higher so that the negative externalities (i.e the many environmental impacts, treatment of the animals) of its production are truly accounted for?
>I am offended by the implication that someone will forcefully take away
I have heard this sentiment many times and I still find it baffling. Who has actually threatened to take anything away? Some senators I don’t know about? Some director of a government agency that I’ve missed statements from? Who would be in charge of creating and enforcing such a ban? This “those OTHER people are coming for our way of life, and they’re going to take it away” gives me the same impression as the unhinged “white replacement theory” people that just invent an enemy in their heads to get wound up about.
> As soon as you imply that someone’s way of life is immoral and their diet must be forcefully changed, you will encounter huge resistance.
I think this is just due to a lack of understanding or acceptance, because the nature of the problem makes it difficult/impossible to prove (X will lead to Y on date Z). I'm sure there are people who on principle hold personal freedoms above all else, but I think most people could change because they agree with the line of reasoning:
1. My consumption of meat contributes to demand for cows
2. Cows produce methane, which is a potent GHG
3. GHGs are causing global warming
4. Increased global warming is bad for future generations
They just question or fundamentally disagree with one or more of the premises.
Good point. Are you saying that one can agree with all the premises and conclude it will cause hardship to future generations but ultimately don't change behavior because it's part of their core identity?
I'm saying that in the country with the most cows generating GHG very few of those cows would be removed if more people chose to not eat meat.
The real question is (for some reason not framed this way): how many ruminants us humans want to keep around and where? If less than now how fast we need to kill those animals?
Tomorrow we could have 100% of grassland completely devoid of ruminants and other grazing animals, wild or not.
What will really happen to ecosystems and climate if we do this? Do we have a previous point in history where that was the case? Are our models good enough to say it will be 100% positive as we expect?
And I you looks at methane emissions globally ruminants are far from the leading emitters, why not go more intensely after other sources incluing the fossil fuel industry (leaks & all) that are fully man made, non renewable and useless, rather than trying to convince India people to slaughter all their sacred cows instantly?
Wetlands are a large source of methane emissions, should we dry those lands? Same question about ecosystems and full climate impact.
I understand vegan use this as a talking point, but when you look at the big picture there seem to be more reasonable choices and compromises based on data than ruminant extermination.
> At this point pretty much everyone knows what’s going on in these horrible farms, and knows the climate impact.
At this point the effects of this "knowledge" are neutralized by lack of trust in the sources of information and in one's ability to have any impact on the global issues.
It's not that people identify too much as meat-eaters, it's just that they don't trust the numbers or the solutions that are being sold to them, and so we become apathetic.
> At this point there are also lots of plant based proteins available in many forms and flavors.
Which are highly processed and laden with chemicals.
> Yet people still seem to get viscerally offended if you suggest that eating meat is an inherently evil act
How can it be “evil” when we evolved to eat meat and our closest evolutionary relatives regularly eat meat? And what about chicken, which are dinosaurs and would eat you if they could?
It’s far more reasonable to conclude that “life” doesn’t have the intrinsic value you assume it does.
I don't feel like I can go into any random restaurant and get the same calorie per dollar food from a vegan entre as you would a meat entre. It's almost always paying more for less, and sides-only. There is a supply-side problem that the morality argument isn't addressing.
There's no clear connection between the two parts of your statement here. If the problem is factory farming and climate impact, then eating meat is not inherently evil. If it's inherently evil, then factory farming and climate impact don't matter. Ten dudes throwing spears at a mammoth 15,000 years ago were just as evil.
That, I think, would be the source of the disconnect. Food is not just a core component of regional cultures and histories, it's a core identifier of all life. Species are known, in large part, by what they eat. Thankfully, for humans, because we populated the entire globe and have omnivore guts, that can be just about anything, but in many cases, particular animals, particular cuts, and particular methods of preparation, cooking, and flavoring are deeply intertwined with an entire group of people and their history. If you're telling people eating meat is inherently evil, you're well, one, telling them they're evil, so it shouldn't be a huge surprise they find that offensive. But you're also telling them their family is evil, their friends are evil, their ancestors and entire culture is evil.
Does it really not make sense that the reception to this may not be great?
For what it's worth, I don't even know that I disagree that eating meat in most circumstances, given the way it's being produced, is a morally worse option than other ways to feed yourself, and I've greatly reduced but not totally eliminated my own meat consumption, but there's also the element of "no ethical consumption under capitalism" going on here. Wheat harvests utterly obliterate small fauna. Your clothes and probably sewn together in sweat shops by child labor. The batteries in your electric car are strip mined in some poor victim of colonialism country where the land is owned by foreigners. Nonetheless, you have to consume something. People need food, clothes, transportation, housing, and it can be overwhelming to consider every step of every supply chain to think of all the ways in which evil may creep into the system. Historically speaking, we've mostly relied on governments to curb that kind of thing, not individual consumer choice. Rather than expecting every person downstream to know that their Nutella* has palm oil in it that decimates rainforests with soil-depleting monoculture, destroying the most diverse ecosystem in existence and also one of the world's great carbon sinks, and then opting to eat something else, we hope that national governments and international treaties prevent manufacturers from doing the worst things in the first place.
* Yes, Nutella the company claims it is sustainably produced and doesn't destroy rainforests, but are you personally confirming that?
You can't justify your neoliberal capitalism on free consumer choice then just take that away as you please.
I suggest reorganizing society because there simply isn't another option. If meat were too expensive to eat, people would eat less of it, but it's not too expensive because capitalists can just outsource the cost of their destruction. This is fundamental to capitalism, which people forget is literally defined as an economic system that prioritizes the right of individuals to exercise their existing capital to accumulate more of it, above everything else.
This doesn't make grazing land unsuitable for cropping. As an example, a lot of dairy farming is done on fertile volcanic soil that would also be suitable for root vegetables.
"Cropland ... Includes: All land from which crops were harvested or hay was cut. All land in orchards, citrus groves, vineyards and nursery and greenhouse crops. Land in rotational pasture and grazing land that could have been used for crops without additional improvements. Land used for cover crops, legumes, and soil improvement grasses, but not harvested and not pastured. Land on which crops failed. Land in cultivated summer fallow."
By definition cropland is where you could grow crops, the rest is grassland.
I think "grazing land that could have been used for crops without additional improvements" (emphasis mine) doesn't include e.g. established pasture which could be easily but not trivially used as cropland, right? I would have assumed it was a catch-all for dual purpose crops etc.
I don't hold opinions on this but I just watched this and I'm wondering what your (and others) thoughts on this is. Only 7 minutes, gives some interesting arguments.
Interesting arguments like being an ad for Meat sticks?
Come on. Of course some kind of Animal husbandry or hunting can be beneficial for the environment. But your parent comment talks about the effects of factory farming, not grass-fed bisons or game.
I meant the nutrients arguments for real vs plant-based or maybe even the ethical arguments he gave. While it may be an ad it seems like an innovative beef stick!
