Mirroring this, I have ADHD and experienced a lot of harsh judgment as a kid for my behavior at home, and in school. And the resulting shame from that judgement stuck with me for a long time, I was even diagnosed early but didn't accept the label until adulthood, and didn't work through the reality of my differences, and remedy the shame until recently. The label of ADHD helped me immensely, to connect with others and to understand and be sympathetic to myself.
If labels make you uncomfortable maybe that aversion itself is something worth holding and looking at.
I’ve been wondering if the whole Chinese Weather Balloon saga from last week was just to set the foundation for the tic-tacs being some worldwide network of spy balloons.
Are you suggesting we should measure how 'evolved' a species is by the mutation rate in their lineage, or by 'successful' adaption through mutation?
I'm not sure but I think the above poster was making the point that saying 'more' or 'less' evolved implies the possibility of a generalised qualitative measuring of mutations.
He didn't even mention mutations or measurements, so you might be reading a bit too much into it there. But yeah, I guess one (or a whole army of scientists) could think up a measurement scheme like that, starting from the last common ancestor. Meanwhile, I propose we continue using words like "evolved" in an informal way since they might turn out to have more meat to them than initially apparent.
No he’s pretty much right. I wasn’t talking about mutations specifically but there’s no objective “more” or “less” when it comes to evolution. Just “different.”
Why not though? To me it sounds dogmatic to make such pronouncements without any evidence. Just because nobody has come up with a formula for something doesn't make it unreal. Phenomena exist outside of our small rationally circumscribed model of the world. Homo sapiens has adapted to a incredible variety of environments, we've pushed ourselves way outside our comfort zone and accumulated and enormous amount of changes in a short period of time. It makes sense that we've accumulated more "genetic experience" this way, that we've grown further than other species. This is how most people use the word "evolved", seems fair enough to me.
> Why not though? To me it sounds dogmatic to make such pronouncements without any evidence.
The onus is in you to prove one path is objectively “more evolved” than another. All other animals have undergone the same amount of time evolving as humans.
What evidence do you present that we accumulated more genetic changes than any other organisms? Did you catalogue and count the changes?
Nope, the onus is on you to provide evidence if you're going to go against common sense. And all you have is that flimsy "it's the same time stretch" argument. Do you also protest when people call someone immature for their age: "that's impossible, age is the only objectively measurable factor in this equation"? That's not a very convincing argument, even if some people are convinced. Maybe they just feel threatened by the idea.
I didn’t talk about time, I pointed out your measure isn’t evidence because you never actually measured it. Unless you can back up your statement, you’re the one falling back to a subjective measure (public opinion, that you also never proved) to make an objective statement of “fact.”
All you have is a completely unrelated analogy that misrepresents what I said. What does maturity and age have to do with this discussion?
At risk of getting tedious here, the even-more accurate comparison would be "I'm gonna limit paying someone else to kick a dog from Tuesday to Sunday".
Since there actually exists real-life animal abuse in the case of paying for meat or any animal product ( including dairy ).
I would think that's still not as accurate as the above examples. That implies a form of intended malice and wish to do harm at no personal gain. If the factory in which my car is manufactured happens to employ children that doesn't mean I'm paying for child labor - I'm paying for a car regardless of how it's produced. The attempt to shift the blame to the consumer here fallacious.
Do they actually live 25 years in the wild on average? My understanding was that wild animals have dramatically shorter lives than the same animals in captivity, as a general rule. The exact difference varies from species to species but typically the lifespan would be around half.
We generally don't kill animals "unnecessarily". We kill them to eat them. If we could eat them without killing them, we wouldn't kill them.
We also don't kill them "prematurely". We kill them when it's time to eat them, or else to relieve them of pain.
Also, since we're onto wolves, wolves will kill animals and not eat them (see "surplus killing" article on wikipedia). Conversely, wolves will often eat animals without killing them first. Humans at the very least kill our food before we eat it most of the time.
I don't know. Is it necessary to shower if you can sustain yourself without it?
I'm asking because your comment is about the meaning of the word "necessary" but the same meaning should apply to every other human activity, not just food. But the discussion about necessity crops up about food, in particular.
Also, I understand that the comparison to showers might sound irrelevant to the discussion about the ethics of eating meat, but it turns out it is anything but. I don't want to preempt your opinion, so I'll leave it at that, but I'm not just making a glib riposte to your comment. Despite appearances, this is an important question: how necessary is it to shower?
When we say that it is unnecessary to eat animals, we mean it is unnecessary in order to survive and be healthy.
So then using that same metric to answer your question about showers, I think it’s fair to say that showers are absolutely not necessary. Nice, sure. Perhaps necessary according to social norms, probably. Required for a normal life span with average levels of health? Nah.
cheese_goddess, if I ever get you to see the validity of veganism, or at least cede a point, I’ll die a happy person. I don’t see that ever happening though. You are my HN veganism white whale.
> cheese_goddess, if I ever get you to see the validity of veganism, or at least cede a point, I’ll die a happy person. I don’t see that ever happening though. You are my HN veganism white whale.
Perhaps not under your preferred moral system. But yours is not the only moral system. It should be obvious that there are plenty of moral systems where counterfactuals do indeed affect the morality of actions (e.g. any utilitarian system or compound system with a utilitarian component).
I think you're reading me more broadly than I meant you to. As I mentioned in my comment, at a minimum, any utilitarian system would consider an action's morality in light of what would happen in the absence of that action. Yes, people absolutely do subscribe to utilitarian systems, at least as a component of their overall moral stance.
There are also of course many moral systems that do not value the welfare of other species as highly as that of humans.
The general rule was my own synthesis from what little I know of this subject. This study is one of the main sources I used to drive my current understanding. You can also try this search term: "do wild animals die of old age?"
It’s not an issue to the animals. They aren’t made aware of their impending death and made to ponder what more of a life they could have lived. From their perspective they are alive and then suddenly, not.
a more equal comparison would be an adolescence to mature human... So 12-18 years? Food, shelter & protection provided? Blissfully unaware of my predetermined fate?
And if they don't eat me, I never exist in the first place?
I'd opt to be eaten.
Just seems like the aliens would be better off eating cows...
I’m not a vegetarian and I still really hate that “if I wasn’t farmed I wouldn’t exist at all” argument because it’s really just an excuse to be shitty to other life forms.
The fact is if you didn’t exist then you wouldn’t care either way, so it’s a moot argument. The fact that you do exist changes that, not excuses it. Or in other words: we are not doing other species a favour by eating them.
It’s also worth noting that many of the species we far isn’t the natural evolution of that animal. They’ve been bread to be fatter, or more docile etc. Many of the species suffer from health issues due to breeding that their natural cousins do not. The reason a lot of these animals seem suited to farming is because man has bread them that way. This isn’t doing these animals a favour either. It’s purely for man’s own benefit.
If farming result in the existence of happy animals then the process definitely favors them. If it results in their unhappy existence then it does not favor them.
The argument around doing them the favor of providing them existence relies on them having a nice life, until the day we eat them. It sounds like you are opposed to them coming into existence because it means they exist in existential agony.
Also that physical agony is a near certainty, by your last paragraph. But that does not seem to be the core of your objection.
> It sounds like you are opposed to them coming into existence because it means they exist in existential agony.
No, I’m opposed to stupid arguments where you justify being a carnivore because you’re somehow doing these creatures a favour by farming them. You’re not. If you’re going to eat meat, and I have zero issues with being a carnivore, then you have to reconcile the fact that what you’re doing is immoral for the animals but you’re doing it for your own personal survival. At least call a spade a spade rather than creating these stupid mental paradoxes where you’re the hero for breeding docile animals and then cooking their flesh.
It’s all about taking responsibility for your actions and respecting the consequences they have.
But as I pointed out, it's not a stupid argument if the animals are provided with a nice life until they serve their delicious end. It's a win-win if they are treated with care.
When done responsibly, it's pretty clear ranch cattle are in the same or less physical agony as their counter parts. Where I live, it's not uncommon to see wild elk, antelope and sometimes even bison grazing alongside cattle. The wild ones must fend off predators and often starve during the winters. Cattle do not.
The same cannot be said for industrial scale ranching. In fact, I think the production of dairy is typically far more more inhumane than that of beef.
>a more equal comparison would be an adolescence to mature human... So 12-18 years? Food, shelter & protection provided? Blissfully unaware of my predetermined fate?
So basically the plot of the Never Let Me Go. Except you can't really get the blissfully unaware of my predetermined fate thing if the organisms are intelligent.
Is your point that the majority of people don't consider their own actions as moral agents so we shouldn't either? If you're browsing this website from a phone or computer you are beyond the clamber of mere survival. You have time for ethical reflection.
a) eating animals is justified because we are omnivorous/carnivorous by nature, and,
b) who fucking cares anyway.
I don’t think it is “we don’t need ethics out there” as some might frame it.
I’d say we all have this collective naive ethics that killing sentient animals leaves bad tastes in the mouth, and I’d love not having to feel or think about it, but that cannot immediately mean it is, like, can be proven logically wrong.
So just because we're omnivorous and capable of eating animals, that justifies it?
Most humans are also fully capable and arguably evolved to do things like steal and murder each other, are those also justified simply because we're capable? And on the second point, the existence of OPs article and the comments around this one indicate that some people do care.
The killing and eating of animals are not acts which belong to the category of acts needing justification. Stealing and murdering other people affects human society, so those require justification by the justice system. But many acts are not part of the human society, in that the acts don’t affect it. For example, if I sit backwards on a chair, that not a threat to human society, so it does not need justification. Some people like to imagine that such unconventional acts, which they deem “transgressions”, are somehow eroding society, and would like them to be abolished. The current trend in free societies is, however, to be more liberal in what they allow.
Kicking my dog would also not affect human society, does that mean I can kick my dog without justification? For fun?
My point here to be more clear is that we simply don't need to consume animals, and that the taste pleasure of eating them doesn't justify their death. Humans are animals too, and the success of our species doesn't require intense suffering of another.
> Kicking my dog would also not affect human society,
But it would. At least we have, as a society, decided that it would. But this is rather flexible, since in older times, as well as in some cultures, wanton animal cruelty is accepted. I guess that the argument for prohibiting cruelty to animals is that it is good to prohibit behavior which we believe to be detrimental to the person doing it. I.e. it’s not prohibited to protect the dog, it’s prohibited to protect you from becoming a cruel bastard and turning around and being toxic in human society. Whether this actually is a valid argument is, of course, subjective and debatable, which is why cultures differ on this point.
My take is that they're related because a being's ability to experience sentience, and especially suffering are ethical grounds to not breed them and inflict unnecessary suffering through harsh captivity and slaughter.
So for you, is that something that extends to all farmed animals then?
Its not possible for me to tell if thats been your stance on everything like farming chickens and salmon, or if you were one of the people that just found out Octopus' are smart and made a line there, or another group or individual with a unique opinion
there are some observations and personal dietary choices I can be sympathetic towards, I just don't know which one I'm hearing at the time and when it comes to Octopus or the animal-of-the-month I find people not being able to articulate their new opinion at all, but being shocked that the listener (me) isn't automatically on board or making a line at sentience.
If you're asking a personal question like I think you are: for me the courtesy of non-violence extends to all beings capable of suffering and with a preference to live.
For a good read on the ethics of eating animals I'd recommend Peter Singer's 'Animal Liberation'
If labels make you uncomfortable maybe that aversion itself is something worth holding and looking at.