Enlightened Vegetarianism (and more)

[Wezil]

TORONTO - A beaming but emaciated James Loney thanked God, supporters and British troops yesterday for ending his "terrifying" four months of captivity in Iraq, as elated family and friends welcomed the peace activist back to Canada.

"To the British soldiers who risked their lives to rescue us, to the Government of Canada who sent a team to Baghdad to help secure our release, for all those who thought about and prayed for us, for all those who spoke for us when we had no voice, I am forever and truly grateful. It's great to be alive," Mr. Loney told a throng of news media an hour after touching down in Toronto.

The rescued hostage said he can barely believe he is free, is eager to tell the story of his ordeal and is deeply saddened by the slaying of Tom Fox, a fellow hostage and co-member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams.

"During my captivity, I sometimes entertained myself by imagining this day. Sometimes I despaired of ever seeing it, always I ached for it," Mr. Loney read from a handwritten statement.

"For 118 days, I disappeared into a black hole and somehow, by God's grace, I was spit out again ... It was a terrifying, profound, powerful, transformative and excruciatingly boring experience."

A team of British and U.S. soldiers freed Mr. Loney, 41, fellow Canadian Harmeet Singh Sooden, 33, and 74-year-old Norman Kember, an Englishman, in a mission on Thursday that was weeks in the planning and remains shrouded in secrecy.

Mr. Fox and his fellow Peacemakers had been planning to meet Sunni leaders last Nov. 26 as part of efforts to oppose what they call the U.S. occupation of Iraq, when they were kidnapped by masked members of the shadowy Brigades of the Swords of Righteousness.

The hostage-takers said they would kill the men unless Western forces released all Iraqi prisoners. Mr. Fox, an American, was shot to death, his body discovered two weeks ago.

Canadian government and intelligence officials, as well as some of this country's elite JTF2 commandos, also reportedly had a hand in the rescue mission.

British military officials earlier voiced consternation that the freed hostages had shown little gratitude for their rescue, while many Britons have suggested the activists were irresponsible to endanger both their own lives and those of potential rescuers. The Iraqi embassy in Ottawa said the men were not anti-war, but "dupes for jihadism and fascism."

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=a8d04b3e-67b9-4397-b549-b88b26edc1d5

So much for that theory.

[Dinner]

I'm currently making a very nice pork loin roast with sliced apple, onion, and potatoes. It came fully marinaded and ready to cook. :yum

[Wezil]

I agree with what LS said earlier. By eating meat we give meaning to animals worthless lives.

Your pig is becoming a delicious dinner. It's good to see the rotten swine has served a worthy purpose.

[David Floyd]

Rather than get into a point by point debate, let me put it this way.

Let's say that the Nazis or Soviets or Khmer Rouge, or a very similar group, ruled India. Would pacifistic, non-violent resistance have succeeded, or would the Gestapo/KGB/whomever just killed the protestors and moved on?

The point is, your assumption that non-violent resistance always works except in the case of hired assassins or insane people fails. There are numerous examples that are very easy to make. Let's see, Tiananmen Square, for example. Also, can anyone see Islamic fundamentalists throughout history, or the Christians during the Crusades, for instance, changing their behavior based on the level of armed resistance? How about a somewhat more benign group, like the Romans?

No, the answer is that while non-violent resistance, or acceptance of oppression and hostility may be the easy way out at times, it is rarely effective.

Let's take another scenario. Let's say that you carry a handgun, and you get mugged at knife point. You have the opportunity to pull out your gun, but you know that if you pull out your gun the mugger will rush you and try to stab you, and you'll have to shoot him. Should you pull out your gun and end up killing him, or give him your wallet?

To me, the answer is obvious. You pull out your gun and HOPE he gives you a reason to shoot him, thus ridding the world of a violent offender, who will more than likely continue mugging people in the future. The mugger's future criminal history will probably be even more assured by the negative reinforcement involved in just rolling over and letting him win, so you don't have to kill him for "only" stealing your wallet.

I can continue to cite examples and scenarios, but we seem to be digressing from the main point, which is vegetarianism. It's perfectly acceptable to me for you to be a vegetarian. But to assume you are on a higher moral plane because you are a vegetarian is ludicrous. Basic physiology, biology, evolution, etc., dictates that we are natural omnivores. Absent technological innovation (diet supplement pills, etc.), and absent a modern, mobile society where choices such as vegetarianism are easy to make due to the quick availability of nutritious food, vegetarianism isn't really healthy at all, not to mention the fact that large scale vegetarianism as recently as two hundred years ago likely would have led to large scale starvation. Were all of these people morally deficient?

Now, I know, I know. Your point is that they ate meat because they had to, and that now that we have an option, we shouldn't. But I'm gonna go back to the point YOU made, about it being OK to eat humans if the humans being eaten agree that doing so is for the greater good. If we are to assign animals any type of moral equivalency with humans, even if the ratio is 4 to 1 rather than 1 to 1, don't we owe them that same choice? And even if it is necessary to eat them, if they don't consent, isn't it, by your own argument, wrong to do so?

Additionally, taking your view, the argument could easily be made that all of humanity starving to death would be pretty beneficial to the animal kingdom as a whole, not to mention the planet. So how could killing animals for food ever be for the greater good?

Unless, of course, you meant for the greater good of humans, in which case you seem to be agreeing that humans are morally superior to the rest of the animal kingdom, to the point where if we are going to die without eating meat, then at that point the wishes and needs of the animals become irrelevent. We might make noises about only taking what we need, and not killing for sport, and not wasting anything we kill, but when it comes right down to it, we all make the very valid, very basic assumption, that animals are not anywhere NEAR our level, so far below us that they don't, after all, deserve a choice in the matter, EVEN IF they were capable of making or expressing one.

[aneeshm]

Re: "Meat"

Originally posted by Blake

I could slit the throat of an animal - or a human for that matter, hey, even a human child, and chop them up. That wouldn't bother me in the least, if it were the right thing to do. Watch it, do it, both fine.

And you design the Civ AI.....

[Blake]

Taking a detached perspective is a useful thing.

I am one part of the whole, the whole contains every creature.

I want for every creature in the whole, to live a fulfilling life. That includes me, of course.

I don't particularly care what happens at the end of a life, the best kind of death is a relatively painless one. It doesn't matter at what time that death comes along, I don't see any inherit tragedy in anyone or anything dying young, I don't mind dying tomorrow, I don't mind dying in 75 years, it wont change my fulfillment up to the moment.

We have this whole, the objective now, is to maximize fulfillment.

However, the only control we have over the whole, is the "Self", so the actions of the self, must be towards maximizing fulfillment.

To be honest, it is a juggling act, and our perspective of the whole, is very limited. We aren't going to find the perfect path which really does maximize fulfillment - for that, we'd have to be a God, who can read the fulfillment level of every being and know the actions required to fulfill them. BUT, we can make a good faith effort.

We can daresay, that a pig which lives in a pen too small for it to turn around in, does not live a fulfilling life. Or a debeaked chicken living in a very cramped cage. We probably know what fulfilled pigs and chickens look like - you're probably some kind of STUPID if you think an animal in a constrictive cage and treated as an unfeeling eating machine is living a fulfilled life. That's about as nasty as it gets.

I'd also be inclined to say, that the people who enable the animals to "live" as eating machines, do not live particularly fulfilled lives, they probably begrudge their job. Likely, the animals begrudge their dependence on humans, and the humans begrudge the animal's dependence on humans. It's not like say, a human-pet relationship.

It is an interesting exercise to use "plant metrics"

There's something to understand about plants. They live ****ty lives, a plant doesn't have freedom of movement and it doesn't know love - I mean, it doesn't get to know it's parents or it's offspring, a plant is at the mercy of the fates.

We should probably be very sympathetic towards plants, they have a rather thankless role. But of course, plants to need animals like animals need plants. So the plants, aren't really going to begrudge having some of their leaves nibbled off, if that herbivore also leaves some dung and later eats a berry and poops the seeds out somewhere...

NOW,
We do want every being to live a fulfilled life, the question is; how to live a life which is as fulfilled as possible, without impeding the fulfillment of others more than is necessary?

If we use plant metrics, then eating slave-animals which were forced to eat slave-plants and all managed by slave-humans, impairs the fulfillment of a great many living things. Realistically speaking, we'll probably need some slave-plants, but plants are used to that fate - and in any case, we need to enslave far fewer plants to eat vegetarian, than required to eat meat.

One of the smartest things I've ever heard a PETA type say is:
"No animal should be forced to live in a way which is not in it's own best interests"

That is an ideal which is unobtainable, realistically speaking. All ideals are unobtainable.

But I do find it good guidance. A pet, is generally acting in it's own best interests, it doesn't want to leave. We can say that keeping pets, is fine.

Also, up until the moment it is killed, a wild deer has tended to do things in it's own best interests. And dying may not be in it's own best interests, buy dying isn't living, so no big deal. I tend to say that wild meat is okay - if it's sustainable - does not impair the health of the system as a whole.

If anything, the cognitive capacities of humans give them more responsibility rather than less. Not only should a human act in their own best interests, they have the mental capacity to act in the interests of others as well - cases where the interests of the self and others align, should be favored.

I do honestly think that this morality is the most morally defensible, possible. And... I'd say "But that's not why I adopt it", but in troof, that's subjective. I mean, I like being very comfortable with the way I live.

[David Floyd]

Not only should a human act in their own best interests, they have the mental capacity to act in the interests of others as well - cases where the interests of the self and others align, should be favored.

But when those interests do not align - which is often - why should the humans take precedence? That's what I'm getting at. Saying that humans shouldn't mistreat animals is, on the face of it, hardly unreasonable. On the other hand, it's easy to envision many situations in which breeding, storing, and butchering animals in the most efficient way possible leads to the greatest possible good for the greatest number of humans.

You don't seem to argue with the premise that we should act in our own best interest (humans as a whole), even at the expense of animals. What I'm asking you to tell me is why that is, when much of your philosophy seems to focus on the point that we aren't, in fact, intrinsically any better than the rest of the animal kingdom.

[Whoha]

I'd kill a bunch of lions to save someone else's life, well unless I was the one that fed them to the lions in the first place.

[Dinner]

The problem with the first Crusade, which was the big bloody one, was that it was run even the nobles were fairly uneducated. I mean most of the people who the Crusaders killed in the First Crusade were Greek Orthodoxed Christians but Priests had told them that once they crossed into Asia Minor that they'd be in the land of the Saracens so they just started chopping and burning their way towards Jerusalem. "Opps, we killed a couple hundred thousand other Christians."

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Rather than get into a point by point debate, let me put it this way.

Let's say that the Nazis or Soviets or Khmer Rouge, or a very similar group, ruled India. Would pacifistic, non-violent resistance have succeeded, or would the Gestapo/KGB/whomever just killed the protestors and moved on?

The point is, your assumption that non-violent resistance always works except in the case of hired assassins or insane people fails. There are numerous examples that are very easy to make.

I swear to God that I'm shocked. It wasn't that many years ago, and I don't think I'm exaggerating here, that David was a pacifist that drove me crazy.
Sonofa***** has grown up and sees the world for what it is, not what it should or could be.

[Imran Siddiqui]

David Floyd was never a pacifist. I'm not sure what you are smoking, Sloww.

[Blake]

Originally posted by David Floyd


But when those interests do not align - which is often - why should the humans take precedence? That's what I'm getting at. Saying that humans shouldn't mistreat animals is, on the face of it, hardly unreasonable. On the other hand, it's easy to envision many situations in which breeding, storing, and butchering animals in the most efficient way possible leads to the greatest possible good for the greatest number of humans.

You are laboring under the delusion that an omnimore diet is better than a vegetarian diet. It is not.

The digestive system optimizes, it optimizes best for a pure vegetarian or pure meat diet. It's not really able to optimize for an omni diet. The meat rots in the digestive track and/or the veges are not properly digested.

The pure vegetarian diet tends to be healthier and MUCH lower impact on the environment than a pure meat diet. (meaning, either more humans supported / humans supported more well, or more land for other purposes).

Often the argument is made that some 'marginal' land is unsuitable for growing crops but is suitable for grazing, and that with organic farming it's sometimes optimal to include feed crops as part of the crop rotation.
This is actually fair. But much land is used for meat and diary, which could be used for crops.

I am under no delusion, that everyone will stop eating meat. As such, demand for meat will remain high.
Demand for meat is already high enough that rainforest IS being destroyed to make new grazing land - that is a true tragedy, taking a place where a whole lot of life thrives.

It would be nice to first reduce demand for meat enough that the rainforest decimation is halted.
And it'd be nice to reduce demand for meat enough that the downright inhumane practices end.
It would be even nicer, if some of that "marginal" land could eventually be restored to the forest which was there before it got cut down.
And as for the crop rotation? That to me, is almost acceptable, so long as the animals are treated as kindly as possible. But there's no way I'm going to start eating that "kosher" meat while the decidably unkosher meats are still on the market...
New Zealand is a country which practices mostly humane farming - not humane enough for my likings, but there are far worse practices in other places. Reduced demand for meat in NZ, means that more is exported.

Demand for meat is globally ramping up, which probably means MORE inhumane practices. It is very morally justifiable to reduce/reverse this trend.

You don't seem to argue with the premise that we should act in our own best interest (humans as a whole), even at the expense of animals. What I'm asking you to tell me is why that is, when much of your philosophy seems to focus on the point that we aren't, in fact, intrinsically any better than the rest of the animal kingdom.

I just did argue that point! We SHOULD let animals act in their own best interests.
I'm willing to compromise on plants, because plants don't really have much of a concept of "best interests", they grow where they are planted (by man, animal, gravity, wind or water), if the conditions are unpleasant, they can't move somewhere better. They are at the mercy of anything which comes along to eat them. Plants can't be freed, they'll just stay where they are and continue doing what they were doing.

When I compromise on animals, it's only when killing the animals improves the health of the system rather than damaging it. It's entirely possible for a pest specie to drive out nearly every other competing specie and due to a lack of predators, overpopulate so much that they then cause their own kind to suffer greatly, from things like starvation and disease. When humans have introduced such unbalance, it is fair to restore balance.

Also using animals in a way which IS in their best interests, is completely fine.

[Dinner]

My best interest is to have a juicy steak. Cow be damned.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Oerdin
My best interest is to have a juicy steak. Cow be damned.

I concur. Studies in mice seem to indicate that an extremely low-calorie diet (i.e. just shy of starving) will vastly increase longevity, far more than even a vegetarian diet. It's a question of balancing quality vs. quantity of life, and I say a porterhouse every now and then suits me just fine.

[Dinner]

Porterhouse. :drool: