Are you totally fine with the moral consequences of enforced veganism on the entire human population? I’m asking this because you must also understand that there are going to be seriously detrimental and inescapable outcomes associated with that as well. Life only comes from death. You can fundamentally dislike the arrangement, but as far as we are aware that is a necessary input-output relationship. Choosing which deaths you are okay with is simply trading one Faustian bargain for another.
we show that plant-based replacements for each of the major animal categories in the United States (beef, pork, dairy, poultry, and eggs) can produce twofold to 20-fold more nutritionally similar food per unit cropland. Replacing all animal-based items with plant-based replacement diets can add enough food to feed 350 million additional people, more than the expected benefits of eliminating all supply chain food loss.
To produce 1 kg of protein from kidney beans required approximately eighteen times less land, ten times less water, nine times less fuel, twelve times less fertilizer and ten times less pesticide in comparison to producing 1 kg of protein from beef
The diet containing more animal products required an additional 10 252 litres of water, 9910 kJ of energy, 186 g of fertilizer and 6 g of pesticides per week in comparison to the diet containing less animal products
Data for the production of alfalfa( Reference Mathews, Canevari and Frate 51 , Reference Vargas, Mueller and Frate 52 ) and maize( Reference Vargas, Frate and Mathews 53 , Reference Brittan, Muiner and Klonsky 54 ) used for animal feed were obtained from CRS and were added to the direct water used by the animals using a net feed consumption rate of 5·62 kg maize/kg beef and 2·66 kg alfalfa/kg beef. A feed conversion efficiency of 7·0 was assumed( Reference Horrigan, Lawrence and Walker 10 ). Soya in the feed formulations for beef and poultry was excluded.
since most beef cattle graze for the first year, where they put on the majority of their weight, then why would you attribute all the meat production to feedlots? shouldn’t it be halved at least?
I think you’re reaching there a bit, because no one said anything about forced veganism.
You can eat meat and be against the horrors of (the vast majority of) the meat industry.
(If I read your reply wrong, let me know and I will delete this)
I was using that as an extreme hypothetical. You can call that disingenuous if you like. I just don’t see how you can remove “animal suffering” from the equation without enforcing that measure. Otherwise all you are doing is drawing a subjective line around what suffering is acceptable and what isn’t. I’m personally fine with trying to make that determination in the least arbitrary way possible with the best technology possible so we can progress society forward, but let’s not act like there still won’t be people who see that cost as unacceptable.
No? The recombination of genetic material results in complex life forms. That’s why we have multicellular organisms. Heck, in fact mitochondrial DNA proves that humans have a symbiotic relationship with microbes. So I guess I’d say the quoted text above is an unqualified statement.
Besides all that, humans are the only living organism that we know of capable of probing the nature of reality and existence. So simply put, it’s okay for us to hold ourselves to higher standard than the “reptile” or “monkey” brain.
Imagine if there was a life form stronger or smarter than humans, what would you want to say to it? “Life only comes from death so eat me or abuse me”. We can and should do better.
Imagine if there was a life form stronger or smarter than humans, what would you want to say to it? “Life only comes from death so eat me or abuse me”. We can and should do better.
As far as we know the propagation of life requires the consumption of other life as inputs, or in other words every single living thing on this planet must consume material from other organic life to subsist.
Therefore, in your hypothetical I would expect that any life form that required the domestication and industrial consumption of sentient life-forms or their byproducts as a matter of survival to absolutely do so regardless of the ethical implications. If it was a matter of survival, we would become an input. Absolutely zero question about it.
You can be the first input in such situation then, but I prefer that humans can show they’re capable of better discourse than “eat or be eaten”. That’s kinda limited and trite in light of our more developed cognitive abilities, honestly. Also, the universe is literally limitless, so we don’t need to think in terms of zero sum games or resource limitations 🤷♀️
Regarding inputs: Eating fruits and seeds doesn’t kill anything, in fact plants evolved tasty fruits so that they’d be eaten and propagate. Vegetables and fungi can be eaten without killing the organism. You can consume eggs and milk without abusing or killing the animal
Regarding your first paragraph: I was operating based on a very loose hypothetical question that you posed. So, I think you’re unintentionally strawmanning me here a little bit…
As far as the second paragraph is concerned I see your point. However, I specifically said life had to consume other organic material to survive, but not necessarily kill in the process. At some level of the food chain it does ultimately become a necessity though, and I do not see that as an ethical dilemma per se.
If it was a matter of survival, we would become an input.
I was responding to this for the second para
As far as we know the propagation of life requires the consumption of other life as inputs
The point being there are many ways to survive without consuming life. Fruits and seeds are not living things. Anyway, I think the main point I’d like to highlight is that there’s no need to think we’re constrained to a singular way of being for anything we do
Are you totally fine with the moral consequences of enforced veganism on the entire human population? I’m asking this because you must also understand that there are going to be seriously detrimental and inescapable outcomes associated with that as well. Life only comes from death. You can fundamentally dislike the arrangement, but as far as we are aware that is a necessary input-output relationship. Choosing which deaths you are okay with is simply trading one Faustian bargain for another.
If you have concerns about plant agriculture, they are only magnified by animal agriculture which uses a lot more of it for animal feed
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211912416300013
Or in environmental terms:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1713820115
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25374332/
or for overall diets
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/public-health-nutrition/article/comparing-the-water-energy-pesticide-and-fertilizer-usage-for-the-production-of-foods-consumed-by-different-dietary-types-in-california/14283C0D55AB613D11E098A7D9B546EA
since most beef cattle graze for the first year, where they put on the majority of their weight, then why would you attribute all the meat production to feedlots? shouldn’t it be halved at least?
I think you’re reaching there a bit, because no one said anything about forced veganism. You can eat meat and be against the horrors of (the vast majority of) the meat industry.
(If I read your reply wrong, let me know and I will delete this)
I was using that as an extreme hypothetical. You can call that disingenuous if you like. I just don’t see how you can remove “animal suffering” from the equation without enforcing that measure. Otherwise all you are doing is drawing a subjective line around what suffering is acceptable and what isn’t. I’m personally fine with trying to make that determination in the least arbitrary way possible with the best technology possible so we can progress society forward, but let’s not act like there still won’t be people who see that cost as unacceptable.
No? The recombination of genetic material results in complex life forms. That’s why we have multicellular organisms. Heck, in fact mitochondrial DNA proves that humans have a symbiotic relationship with microbes. So I guess I’d say the quoted text above is an unqualified statement.
Besides all that, humans are the only living organism that we know of capable of probing the nature of reality and existence. So simply put, it’s okay for us to hold ourselves to higher standard than the “reptile” or “monkey” brain.
Imagine if there was a life form stronger or smarter than humans, what would you want to say to it? “Life only comes from death so eat me or abuse me”. We can and should do better.
As far as we know the propagation of life requires the consumption of other life as inputs, or in other words every single living thing on this planet must consume material from other organic life to subsist.
Therefore, in your hypothetical I would expect that any life form that required the domestication and industrial consumption of sentient life-forms or their byproducts as a matter of survival to absolutely do so regardless of the ethical implications. If it was a matter of survival, we would become an input. Absolutely zero question about it.
You can be the first input in such situation then, but I prefer that humans can show they’re capable of better discourse than “eat or be eaten”. That’s kinda limited and trite in light of our more developed cognitive abilities, honestly. Also, the universe is literally limitless, so we don’t need to think in terms of zero sum games or resource limitations 🤷♀️
Regarding inputs: Eating fruits and seeds doesn’t kill anything, in fact plants evolved tasty fruits so that they’d be eaten and propagate. Vegetables and fungi can be eaten without killing the organism. You can consume eggs and milk without abusing or killing the animal
Regarding your first paragraph: I was operating based on a very loose hypothetical question that you posed. So, I think you’re unintentionally strawmanning me here a little bit…
As far as the second paragraph is concerned I see your point. However, I specifically said life had to consume other organic material to survive, but not necessarily kill in the process. At some level of the food chain it does ultimately become a necessity though, and I do not see that as an ethical dilemma per se.
For the first para, I was responding to this
I was responding to this for the second para
The point being there are many ways to survive without consuming life. Fruits and seeds are not living things. Anyway, I think the main point I’d like to highlight is that there’s no need to think we’re constrained to a singular way of being for anything we do
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If it is a matter of survival, sure. But if it is a luxury, like it is for many of the people who consume the most?
I feel like there’s probably something in between pure veganism and torturing animals to death after a life of confinement in teeny spaces.