Saw...

DopeMasterJFlow wrote:This is an interesting debate. It is also worth noting that there are no vegetarians in this debate. Kyle and Jesse are both pescetarians. This fact I think weakens both of your arguments. It is difficult to argue against the meat industry on grounds that the animals suffer when the seafood industry is equally as bad as the meat industry. Clearly, fish and crustaceans have nervous systems and feel pain. So when they are trolled up into nets and kept in tanks with low oxygen and zero space to move is that okay? Not to mention the excessive overfishing of our oceans. How are you able to justify seafood while opposing land based farm meat?

you can't defeat the anti-meat industry argument with logic because it is made out empathy, there is no logical reason not to make other things suffer. the only logical reason for kindness towards anything is fear of retaliation, and obviously we don't have to worry about that from animals. so its really just a question of which animals you empathize with.

we will never have a meat industry centered around these creatures because this is what you'd see when you're about to eat it:




so they're probably pescatarians because its harder to have any sympathy for this:




i'm not saying these are bad reasons for crusading against the abuse of some animals and not others, actually i'd say they're the best and the only reasons. i think you can literally see a thing's soul in its physical manifestation, not only its face, but the way it behaves. i think we've historically domesticated and eaten certain types of animals not just because they're delicious, but also because we just typically don't have as much sympathy or respect for them. i do see a reason to have sympathy and respect for pigs, cows, and ehhhhh... hard to say with chickens, i think they seem dumb as dirt and no nervous system jargon is gonna convince me that they have real fleshed out emotions, i would just have to literally hang out with some chickens for a while and see.

i'm basically with mike on this. i am disgusted by the meat industry and i hope it changes, i hope (and believe) we will find ways to get everyone their meat without having to continue with the repulsive system that we currently have in place, not just out of empathy, but also just necessity--the current system isn't just fucked up morally. but i honestly don't feel that its my battle to fight. people who think that they're making headway in converting the world to vegetarianism one person at a time are completely deluded. meat is DEEPLY ingrained into every culture around the world, it would be the equivalent to deciding that the use of paint is immoral and crusading against art everywhere (and please don't try to compare it to slavery again, because i don't want to have to try to explain how different slavery is from the meat industry, i have to believe that that argument was disingenuous.) i know the analogy between meat-eating and art-making doesn't go very far, but the point is just to get you to meditate on just how deeply ingrained meat is culturally, just think about every meal that people are having around the world and the type of emotional satisfaction that they get from that and how it runs through every fucking day of their lives. so many people literally live for that satisfaction. you can't say that about slavery.

everyone who is a vegetarian has very very good reasons imo, but they are personal. if i were to stop eating meat it would be because i am personally appalled by it, not because of some abstract notion that i'm the drop in the bucket that is going to cause the sea-change. if you are deeply, earnestly concerned with the transformation of the meat industry, you buy meat from local farmers, or if you still wouldn't eat that meat, then you take political and cultural steps to change things in that direction. that would be far more effective than just not eating meat at all because it is fostering a system that could conceivably eventually (a very long eventually) replace the current one.

so why aren't i a vegetarian, despite empathizing with some of the creatures we eat and acknowledging the industry is fucked up? just because i don't feel strongly enough about it. i don't feel that its my battle to fight. and most of the time i feel that i'm already behaving in a way that will do my part in influencing the culture at large to move in a positive direction. i communicate through all the means of expression and action that have moved me personally and i hope to become more and more successful at it. that is my project and i put all my energy into it with the blind faith that it is causing net good in the world; but the ~idea~ of creating good in the world isn't why i do it, its because something in the core of me moves me to do so. if something in the core of you moves you to become a vegetarian i seriously respect that, but i'm willing to bet that the cultural changes that brought about that sensitivity in the first place had nothing directly to do with thinking about the meat industry itself, it came from existing in a psycho-social environment created out of thoughtful and empathetic communication, which is what i'm more fascinated by and involved in that the specific politics of the meat industry.

and that, Nick, is how you eloquently defend not giving a fuck.

KCLU wrote:and that, Nick, is how you eloquently defend not giving a fuck.

lol, but i do give a fuck! just not enough of a fuck, i suppose.

Karl wrote:

KCLU wrote:and that, Nick, is how you eloquently defend not giving a fuck.

lol, but i do give a fuck! just not enough of a fuck, i suppose.

I think you give the biggest fuck of all.

i am disgusted by the meat industry and i hope it changes, i hope (and believe) we will find ways to get everyone their meat without having to continue with the repulsive system that we currently have in place

You later point to meat from local farms and this was going to be my next point. I think that there are ways of defending vegetarianism on economic and environmental grounds in that the huge slaughterhouses have a huge impact on the environment and economy. If you have the luxury of purchasing meat which was raised on a local farm you can then support small scale farming and your local economy. And I think this has reflection on a national scale.

Newmantopia wrote:

Karl wrote:

KCLU wrote:and that, Nick, is how you eloquently defend not giving a fuck.

lol, but i do give a fuck! just not enough of a fuck, i suppose.

I think you give the biggest fuck of all.

that is what she said.

DopeMasterJFlow wrote:

i am disgusted by the meat industry and i hope it changes, i hope (and believe) we will find ways to get everyone their meat without having to continue with the repulsive system that we currently have in place

You later point to meat from local farms and this was going to be my next point. I think that there are ways of defending vegetarianism on economic and environmental grounds in that the huge slaughterhouses have a huge impact on the environment and economy. If you have the luxury of purchasing meat which was raised on a local farm you can then support small scale farming and your local economy. And I think this has reflection on a national scale.

yeah, i should've said you can't defeat the vegetarianism argument with logic b/c its an argument from empathy. there are definitely purely logical reasons why our current meat industry needs to change.

I thought me saying "I just don't give a fuck" was a pretty good defense for not giving a fuck.

Karl wrote:

Newmantopia wrote:

Karl wrote:

KCLU wrote:and that, Nick, is how you eloquently defend not giving a fuck.

lol, but i do give a fuck! just not enough of a fuck, i suppose.

I think you give the biggest fuck of all.

that is what she said.

I have to give this a big LOL

I wonder if T-Rex woulda felt bad about its dietary habits if it had evolved to become intelligent enough 2 sympathize with other animals.

For the record, I am considering a vegetarian or vegan diet. My roommate is vegan which has resulted in a lot of experimentation with alternatives.

Matt, you've voiced the perspective of many, many Americans in an extremely knowledgeable, considerate, and imaginative way.

However;

We are all abundantly aware that the world is changing more rapidly than ever. We are now able to share social media with each other in a blink. Pretty soon the ways we are able to communicate will be unrecognizable in their extraordinary developments. Ideas will spread like wildfire. We will no longer be raised in the isolated social and cultural environments of today and it's more than plausible that we'll be gaining FAR more expansive influences from around the world.

If you have a hard time believing this, imagine the cultural/social changes due to emerging communication technologies of the past 60 years (virtually unthinkable at any time BEFORE the 1950's) (includes: acceptance of pre-marital sex, widespread use of recreational drugs, feminism, desegregation, globalization) and imagine to the best of your ability the exponential rate of development that is likely in the NEXT 60 years.

Given the adoption of dietary behaviors occurs at an early age, it is really not all that hard to imagine the market demand changing incredibly in one to three generations from now. In the not-so-distant future, there may very well be a vegetarian or vegan every home (figuratively).

So we may change, but why in this direction?

Firstly, have you noticed how heightened this debate is becoming? In New York, there are vegetarian options EVERYWHERE. At my Apple Store, 2/5ths of the 350 employees sport a vegetarian lifestyle (no hipster jokes, please). People debate this topic pretty furiously and typically the more heated a topic gets, the further it enters the public sphere, the greater the chance of a serious widespread change in the matter.

And if I have one reason to still believe that, in spite of how ingrained animal-slaughter currently is to every culture, that we will get along without it, it's that if there is ONE meaningful direction in which societies have continually demonstrated a will for change, it is in favor of empathy- in the form of granting equality to others who are not like "us".

you're right dude, there is no other foreseeable future. All humans will come to appreciate and respect all forms of life unanimously. Society will be fluid, uniform and function as a hive mind without any trace of individuality. For this is the future. Consumption of meat is so prehistoric and inferior.

Ideas already spread like wildfire... I don't think that people are looking for vegan ideals in ways that they're not already finding through present use of communication & technology.

DopeMasterJFlow wrote:you're right dude, there is no other foreseeable future. All humans will come to appreciate and respect all forms of life unanimously. Society will be fluid, uniform and function as a hive mind without any trace of individuality. For this is the future. Consumption of meat is so prehistoric and inferior.

Amen.

it does sound poetic somehow once you go 'n' quote him like that

Karl wrote:

you can't defeat the anti-meat industry argument with logic because it is made out empathy, there is no logical reason not to make other things suffer. the only logical reason for kindness towards anything is fear of retaliation, and obviously we don't have to worry about that from animals. so its really just a question of which animals you empathize with.

we will never have a meat industry centered around these creatures because this is what you'd see when you're about to eat it

You mean, like man's-best-friend meat?

Karl wrote:

people who think that they're making headway in converting the world to vegetarianism one person at a time are completely deluded.

...

if i were to stop eating meat it would be because i am personally appalled by it, not because of some abstract notion that i'm the drop in the bucket that is going to cause the sea-change.

Now that's just unequivocal pessimism. Any single person who is convinced that something is worth fighting for is a potential founder of a massive movement. Word of mouth has proved tremendously powerful- a big rule in business and advertising.

Karl wrote:

everyone who is a vegetarian has very very good reasons imo, but they are personal.

Really? Everyone?

Karl wrote:

...and most of the time i feel that i'm already behaving in a way that will do my part in influencing the culture at large to move in a positive direction.

...

i communicate through all the means of expression and action that have moved me personally and i hope to become more and more successful at it. that is my project and i put all my energy into it with the blind faith that it is causing net good in the world; but the ~idea~ of creating good in the world isn't why i do it, its because something in the core of me moves me to do so.

I hope so, Matt.

Karl wrote:

if something in the core of you moves you to become a vegetarian i seriously respect that, but i'm willing to bet that the cultural changes that brought about that sensitivity in the first place had nothing directly to do with thinking about the meat industry itself, it came from existing in a psycho-social environment created out of thoughtful and empathetic communication, which is what i'm more fascinated by and involved in that the specific politics of the meat industry.

wtf is that, now? If you're not just trivializing the genuine effort I'm putting into to doing something right by dispersing it into a long generic abstract phrase, that is.

you get a bunch of straight up attacks on your posts from other people and then you start picking me apart? how does that work?

I didn't really take the other comments seriously. And I re-read your post.

instead of quoting and taking unnecessary space i'll just address each of your points in order.

1. the dog thing: people in different parts of the world have different attitudes towards different animals--WHAT A SHOCKER. and there isn't a thriving international mass dog meat industry. i can't believe you actually chose this point to try to argue about b/c its so incredibly irrelevant to your argument. i mean, what offends you about the idea that empathy is the basis for animals rights? are you on nick's side now or something???

2. nice job cherry-picking quotes and placing them next to each other to attempt to twist my tone into "unequivocal pessimism". i'm holding my tongue on what i think about that, but i'll just say it makes you look foolish.

3. "really, everyone?" i don't even know what this is about. no, i guess you're right man, i'm sure a lot of people have terrible reasons for being a vegetarian. O_o

4. "I hope so, Matt." do you think this makes you sound wise or something? it makes you look like a [holding my tongue again].

5. again, i can't imagine why you would take issue with this last bit, i'm not arguing against campaigning for animal rights or the transformation of the food industry, i'm arguing that focusing your energy elsewhere can also make huge cultural changes that indirectly effect tons of aspects of people's behavior in a positive way. how the hell can you take issue with this?

overall, it just blows me away that you can go out of your way to find so much negativity. i wasn't criticizing anything that you or kyle are doing, you asked me for my opinion on "these matters" so i told you--i was just explaining my take. you seem so irritated and i don't get where its coming from. i have to assume that you really misread my tone.

I just read a little excerpt from the site where I got that dog-meat photo, and thought it was interesting:


"We will need to keep large numbers of bitches in a state of near perpetual pregnancy. To keep costs low, we will want to cram as many of these mother dogs into as small a space as possible. They don’t need to turn around or even move really. As long as we supply them with a cheap source of food (i.e. ground-up waste product from the slaughter house floor—theirs will truly be a “dog eat dog world”), water, and heavy doses of antibiotics, they will remain fertile enough to yield substantial numbers of pups and healthy enough to eat later.

Given their intellect, the dogs will probably suffer similar mental disturbances as pigs do in such confined quarters, which means they will become dangerously aggressive and a threat to themselves and others. Hence we will need to remove their teeth. Anesthetizing them would create an unnecessary expense, so we will simply put them in restraints, yank out their choppers, and cauterize them to stop the bleeding and prevent infection.

If our dogs (male and female alike) suffer wounds in their miniscule holding pens whilst they await their turn to fill our stomachs, we won’t waste time or money tending to them. Pigs suffer through the loss of body parts, broken legs, and ulcerated wounds, so there’s no reason to increase our costs by tending to the injured. A certain percentage of our stock will die, but they will provide fodder for the survivors. The stench emanating from the cankerous sores, feces, urine, and rotting corpses will be immense, but like their brethren pigs who also have highly developed senses of smell, the dogs will simply need to live with the fetid air and pneumonia they develop. As human beings, our desires for meat and profit preclude the possibility of ending the unnecessary suffering we inflict upon sentient creatures.

Once a dog has been appropriately aged and fattened to maximize taste and profit, we will load it onto a ventilated truck packed with as many dogs as possible without causing significant numbers of deaths by trampling or asphyxiation. Handlers will be trained to beat uncooperative dogs into submission with heavy steel rods. Or for those workers who have “bleeding hearts,” they can humanely stick electric cattle prods into the dogs’ rectums.

Upon arrival at the slaughter facility, the dogs who haven’t frozen to death or died of heat exhaustion, thirst, or suffocation will be man-handled off the truck (so as to keep them submissive) and forced to the kill floor. “Downers” (dogs too injured or sick to walk) will be dragged to their deaths. Euthanizing dying dogs will be out of the question because then we could not legally sell their flesh for consumption."



Nothing you probably haven't already read about to some degree, but it's hard to fathom how you can say that there is no "logical" argument against this kind of thing.

Karl wrote:
the only logical reason for kindness towards anything is fear of retaliation, and obviously we don't have to worry about that from animals.

If logic can be based in fear, then why not empathy?

why do you think the argument has to be based purely out of logic to be effective? emotion and empathy are premises in pretty much all of our logic. i don't think you're getting my tone when i'm talking about empathy. i APPROVE of the argument based in empathy. wtf is so hard to get about that?

yeah, there is no LOGICAL reason not to cause massive animal suffering, but when you consider the emotional sickness that grows out of despair, then the LOGICAL thing to do is not cause the suffering.

Karl wrote:
yeah, there is no LOGICAL reason not to cause massive animal suffering, but when you consider the emotional sickness that grows out of despair, then the LOGICAL thing to do is not cause the suffering.

why matt, you bring up an interesting point there, if it is logical not to cause suffering b/c it breeds despair, then why is the meat industry still so successful?

that's because the suffering is hidden.

what about before the mass production? what about when the whole family knew they were eating Betsy for dinner?

well, i guess that's where the joy and satisfaction of the meal outweighs the despair. people have a thirst for excitement, violence and sex are pretty exciting.

would it be better if we humans could outgrow our thirst for violence, though?

better how?

well, there'd be no more kiling.

there will always be killing and dying.

i suppose so, matt.

there will always be some despair.

i suppose.

in fact, there is a certain pleasure in melancholy.

pleasure in pain?

yes, humans are quite fascinating creatures...

Karl wrote:

Karl wrote:
yeah, there is no LOGICAL reason not to cause massive animal suffering, but when you consider the emotional sickness that grows out of despair, then the LOGICAL thing to do is not cause the suffering.

why matt, you bring up an interesting point there, if it is logical not to cause suffering b/c it breeds despair, then why is the meat industry still so successful?

that's because the suffering is hidden.

what about before the mass production? what about when the whole family knew they were eating Betsy for dinner?

well, i guess that's where the joy and satisfaction of the meal outweighs the despair. people have a thirst for excitement, violence and sex are pretty exciting.

would it be better if we humans could outgrow our thirst for violence, though?

better how?

well, there'd be no more kiling.

there will always be killing and dying.

i suppose so, matt.

there will always be some despair.

i suppose.

in fact, there is a certain pleasure in melancholy.

pleasure in pain?

yes, humans are quite fascinating creatures...

That post was pretty sick. Bravo.