OK, everyone who has written to me to tell me about Walter Palmer, Minnesota dentist and butcher of wildlife, 5½ million people live in this state. Don’t know him, never met him, and if he were my dentist, I’d be dropping him instantly.
Walter Palmer, a trophy hunter who operates River Bluffs Dental in Bloomington, is believed to have paid about $55,000 to bribe wildlife guards July 1 at Hwange National Park, reported The Telegraph.
The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force confirmed that Palmer — who has been previously fined for illegal hunts — spotted Cecil the lion at night and tied a dead animal to his vehicle to lure the famed cat out of the park.
That tactic is known as “baiting” and is used by big-game hunters to justify their killings as legal.
You may be happy to know his office is closed, and his web pages are overrun with indignation. The death threats should stop, though: there’s no excuse for that.
You might also be happy to know that Palmer is very, very sorry. Well, sort of.
“I hired several professional guides, and they secured all proper permits,” the statement read. “To my knowledge, everything about this trip was legal and properly handled and conducted.
“I had no idea that the lion I took was a known, local favorite, was collared and part of a study until the end of the hunt. I relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt.”
Palmer, who has on his record a conviction for poaching a bear in Wisconsin several years ago, said he has not been contacted by any authorities in Zimbabwe or the U.S. about his killing the lion, but added he will cooperate with investigators. The public relations firm that worked with Palmer on the statement said he was in the Twin Cities on Tuesday.
“Again, I deeply regret that my pursuit of an activity I love and practice responsibly and legally resulted in the taking of this lion,” the statement concluded.
See? He’s apologizing for loving to slaughter wild animals responsibly and legally. That makes it all alright. Except…what about the illegal luring? The $50K+ bribe? We don’t usually use the word “bribe” for ethical activities. “I’m going to the grocery store to bribe the clerk for a gallon of milk!”
Oh, and there’s some icing on this cake.
Trouble also has found Palmer away from his hunting expeditions. In 2009, he and the Minnesota Board of Dentistry agreed to a settlement involving allegations that he sexually harassed a receptionist. She alleged that Palmer made comments about her breasts, buttocks and genitalia.
Without admitting guilt, Palmer settled and paid $127,500 to the woman, who also was his patient. The settlement included references to his bear-hunting conviction and “substandard record keeping.”
His behavior clearly doesn’t interfere with his dental practice, though. Just imagine having so much money that you can drop tens of thousands of dollars on an African animal slaughter spree, or hundreds of thousand dollars to be able to lasciviously comment on your colleagues’ and customers’ sexy bits. The life of a Bloomington dentist is a carefree and profligate life.
Until everyone in the world notices what you do for fun, that is.
It’s for people like this that I wish there was such a place as hell where he could be consigned to experiencing all the pain and suffering he imposed on the animals he killed. If there is any justice, maybe one of the animals he is hunting will rise up and eviscerate him, leaving him to bleed out next to the creature. I’d call him an animal but that places on the same level as his victims. He is beneath contempt.
Am I the only one who pictured him as Steve Martin?
His dental website mentions he likes to photograph wildlife. He omitted the part about photographing wildlife after he killed them.
I thought we weren’t supposed to believe in dentists anymore?
I hate trophy hunting. There should be nothing fun about taking a life.
I look at the swift and powerful condemnation of this death and join others in wondering why we’re more protective of lions than of people. Where is the fury over police brutality, which is practically hunting for sport because police can? It’s latent victim blaming—we know the animals are innocent but think maybe the people had some hand in their own deaths.
“Well, if Cecil the lion wouldn’t have crossed over into private property for that game, he wouldn’t have been shot.”
I think he and his pals should be allowed to hunt lions and bears. Drop them in carnivore habitat in their Depend® underwear, armed only with their wits. I’m sure manly resourceful blokes like them would do just fine.
Back when I had a Ferrari shop, one of my customers was an orthodontist. He said then that if you were an orthodontist and weren’t making at least $250,000/yr. you were doing it wrong. That was over 30 years ago. These folks make a ton of money.
To me the poaching a bear thing especially makes me suspect he’s pretty much everything his critics are saying.
I never understood the appeal of a canned or semi-canned hunt (this sounds like what I’d call semi-canned). Hunting with a bow is harder certainly, but if your hunt and kill are on some poor schmuck of an animal who’s been lured to your position what possible satisfaction can you derive from it? The sexual harassment issue is similar, and not in some dumb evo-psych men are hunters way. It’s just that it’s a pattern, of someone wanting/needing shortcuts in activities for which the journey really is a huge part of the fun. (The oft too twee show Northern Exposure had a great episode with a great speech about the appeal of hunting; I’d think a blog post by this dentist would consist of “idgi”.)
reminds me of the days near the final of college when we would speculate about what profession to enter. Some said, “Look in your neighborhood. See every house with a Mercedes out front? {nodding} yup, Dentist. whatcha gonna do? *nudge*nudge* Not just your neighborhood, _every_ neighborhood, anywhere. betcha”
Walter Palmer used his privilege and wealth to dance across the globe and personally crush the joy and pride of a people. What an ugly, ignorant act, and the man is unrepentant. He should never sit comfortably in the presence of another human.
Loathsome asshole with too much money. Poor lion.
I wonder how his practice will fare after this, or how long it will take to blow over.
@6
I would try not to be so cruel as to put him naked in the presence of predators not like xians to the lions. In that spirit I would allow them to wear what the locals wear and carry a roman short sward.
I hope that Zimbabwe uses all of tools they have available to pursue this fool and those that helped him.
uncle frogy
Ah.
I see that he’s already thrown the Designated Scapegoats under the bus.
–
I assume he is a good Christian dentist therefore it would be entirely appropriate to feed him to the lions.
“The 13-year-old big cat was known to the park’s visitors and seemingly enjoyed human contact, according to reports.”
That’ll teach these stupid lions to trust human beings.
Re: anthrosciguy @ #7…
Apparently, in this case, a crossbow. You know…aim it and pull the trigger. No particular skill needed. Pretty good odds that his “guides” were armed with rifles in case his aim was not as good as he thought.
whheydt, according to reports I saw a few days ago his arrow didn’t kill the lion and it had to be tracked down and finally shot sometime the next day, though one report claims it took 40 hours to find the animal. Also the reports mention a bow and arrow and this tends to be confirmed in pictures of him taken at other hunts showing him with a compound bow rather than a crossbow as well as friends claiming he is expert with a bow. The Zimbabwean hunt organiser and the farmer whose land abuts the national park and where it happened are due in court on criminal charges with the possibility of 2 to 5 years in jail. If the dentist deigned to return he could also be charged with the same poaching offence.
Obviously dentists charge too much and make too much money. He could have used that $55,000 to pay off a student’s student loans. Where is Dick Cheney when you need him?
I think they should drop him in the middle of the preserve and let Cecil’s buddies decide his fate.
What a little hero!
Bribe…or encouragement fee of $55,000 .
Luring the lion out of his protective preserve at night,
Shooting with bow and arrow so that he apparently suffered for 40 hours before finally being shot, skinned, and beheaded.
The potential death of Cecil’s cubs as other lions take over the pride.
This little hero choked back the tears and explained that the big boys made him do it and it is all their fault.
He did not know the Lion was famous…
He did not know the lion was collared with an electronic tag,
He did not, presumable, know that luring animals outside of a protected area was illegal…
He did not know hunting at night was prohibited…
He left the country in double quick time after discovering to his horror that the Lion was a research animal wearing a radio collar…
He did not report the ‘accident’ to authorities after finding out while he beheaded the animal,
He has apparently killed bison. Rhinoceros and bears previously, so not exactly a novice, …been busted for similar dubious and cowardly practices in relation to the bears…
This is not a man doing his bit for conservation, but a coward, an inadequate cretin, a liar, a rich man with far to much time on his hands, a sadistic and murderous little shit…
A fine catch for any woman shallow enough to want to get in his bed…or maybe that is his problem as in the lack of…money cannot not buy everything…like HUMANITY and being a responsible and caring grown up.
But as long as it buys animals to slaughter with a bow and arrow who fuckin’ cares..,amirite…?
Dude was on an illegal hunt…and he fuckin’ knows it…cos he paid for it.
I suppose it’s too much to hope that he’s thrown to the lions with nothing but a flint knife…
Claiming to hunt a powerful predator with a bow ‘responsibly’ is the equivalent of a priest claiming only to fuck choir boys responsibly. Yes, I have shot birds and small game in the past, using a suitable firearm to expect a sudden kill. I can’t properly express my contempt for any person who does what this guy did. I understand his details have been released on line. If he spends the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, I can’t feel any sympathy for him.
Apparently one of the ‘advantages’ of hunting with a bow and arrow is not really getting in close…a half decent guide can get you there, and a decent camera can shoot just as quietly and far more impressively..but the fact that the bow and arrow is a silent weapon…it simply does not alert the authorities.
This sad sack of sick shit is just another sadistic little coward with disposable income…a failed and ugly example of a cretin posing as a man and one of the worst role model that his children could possibly have…and I am not so sure his wife who sometimes accompanies him on his murderous rampages.
“I had no idea that the lion I took was a known, local favorite, was collared and part of a study until the end of the hunt. I relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt.”
Yet another clueless dickhead who doesn’t get the fucking point.
The problem is not whether it was legal or illegal; the problem is whether it was moral or not. It wasn’t. And I imagine he’s in a bit of a legal grey area as well, considering he deliberately lured the lion out of the protected park in order to shoot it; but that is not the point, it merely gives me hope that the fucker might get prosecuted.
Nor is it the point that the lion was well known and had a fucking name. It probably would have resulted in less of a noise if it had been some random lion, but from a moral perspective it’s irrelevant. Shooting any lion under the same circumstances would be immoral. He’s not going to eat it or do anything with the remains; he just shot it for fun. And while they may not be endangered, they are listed as vulnerable.
Fuck this guy. I hope his practice tanks.
#stillranting
What? You “love” hunting, which means you love shooting animals, but you’re sad that you shot a lion? Oh, no, you’re sad you shot this lion. Because this lion is famous, and people noticed. So really, you’re sorry you got caught.
Arsehole.
I’m assuming everyone here condemning this man for taking the life of an innocent lion is vegan, especially the first commenter that said the hunter should go to hell and suffer what he has made the animals he killed suffer. I’m pleasantly surprised considering this blog does not usually cover these sort of issues.
Well, I certainly don’t eat anything endangered.
The most wonderful statement was this guys initial response through a PR company – ‘it *might* have been me that killed Cecil’ – so he wasnt entirely sure, could you just jog his memory?
Ok – it was a lion shot with a compound bow, severely injured but not killed that then survived for 40 hours whilst you tracked it in a panic, shot it in the head, decapitated it, skinned it, tried to bury the carcass, dumped the head elsewhere, took the electronic collar, tried to smash it, failed, dumped that, then ran to the airport and left without reporting it…that *might* have been you…
Drawing a moral line between killing for food and killing for pleasure is just so/i> logically inconsistent, isn’t it?
And , messenger of Tpyos, strikes again!
Fuck it, I’m just gonna stop typing, since I apparently can’t.
auraboy @ 27
This comment need to be repeated and loudly…
Ok – it was a lion shot with a compound bow, severely injured but not killed that then survived for 40 hours whilst you tracked it in a panic, shot it in the head, decapitated it, skinned it, tried to bury the carcass, dumped the head elsewhere, took the electronic collar, tried to smash it, failed, dumped that, then ran to the airport and left without reporting it
If that alone, without the ‘bribery’ and the pomposity when tracked down himself, is not enough to charge him, try him, and convict him, preferably in Zimbabwe, then it would be a crime in itself.
Bozo has a track record…did the same trick with a bear…lured it out of a protected area and then lied to the authorities…dude has form…fucker needs to be caged for a long time, he is a serious danger to animals and the world.
Marcello S @25:
You would be assuming wrongly. I am not vegan or even vegetarian. I eat meat most days in some form or another. However, what this asshole did is beyond reprehensible. He gave no consideration to anything other than his desire to stroke his own ego. I would be supremely satisfied to see him dropped off on Ted Nugent’s ranch and have Ted bow-hunt him. (Disclaimer: my opinion is that Ted is a raging asshole also!)
We met a rich American so-called “hunter” In Mongolia some years ago, on his way home after killing ibex. This was at Dalanzadgad airport. He reckoned you could shoot whatever you wanted, all over the world, and regardless of rarity or protected status, as long as you went right to the top and were prepared to pay enough. “Yeah, I got me a polar bear,” and so on. The other passengers didn’t think much of him. After a while he was moved from the departures area to the VIP lounge. I’d like to think it was for his own protection, but it’s more likely that he paid for the privilege. I rate him the most loathsome specimen of humanity I have ever met face to face. In fact, I’m tempted to rate him subhuman. And now there’s another one like him in the news. It’s depressing.
Oops, my bribe accidentally fell into the guides’ hands. What can you do?
So, all the jokes about how we hope he gets eaten by lion or something like that…..can we not? Thanks.
Imagine if he treated patients the same way he treats animals.
Yeah, he wanted an anonymous trophy, he was *shocked* the trophy he acquired was a local star, that people loved and petted. He just wanted to shoot a random, not assassinate a star. “It was an accident, my guides pointed me at This lion. Blame them, not me. I relied on Them, to show me an anonymous target, yet they pointed me at this Famous One. ~sob~”
cry me another one
I don’t know whether this guy was technically on the right side of the law (I hope not), but as far as I’m concerned he’s a poacher. And what kind of person even wants to hunt lions in this day & time, anyway? That’s so 19th-Century macho.
Georgia Sam, considering that tens of thousands of dollars in bribes were involved, I doubt the law was on his side. And PZ also noted the baiting, in order to get the lion out of the park to “legally” kill it. The luring itself is illegal at least, and he has a history of doing this, so hopefully that will be factored in. But I guess the problem is that Palmer himself didn’t do the luring:
Who knows whether Palmer will actually see justice for this, but the hunt is acknowledged as “illegal” so it is possible.
I’m not hearing enough about the racism of this illegal hunt from my fellow Americans. A white man went to Zimbabwe, flaunted their laws, and killed an irreplaceable national treasure. Then he fled, claimed ignorance, and blamed locals. The geopolitical symbolism of this action is a recapitulation of colonialism.
After 9/11, the popular question was, as if this was some great mystery. It’s not that hard to understand. Our wealthy and powerful elite trod all over people half a world away, and we’re too ignorant or insensitive to even sympathize with the victims.
Hey I know this is wrong but….
There are 7 billion humans. And only a handful of Lions comparatively. So yeah, fuck this guy. I hope he dies in a fire. (hyperbole…maybe).
AP
Marcello S @ 25:
Do you really not see any moral differences between killing a lion and eating an egg?
Killing Cecil:
• Illegal hunting (at night, no permit, a collared animal, in an illegal area, with bribe money)
• Robbing a country of a beloved animal and lucrative tourist attraction
• Killing a member of a vulnerable species
• Taking the animal for trophy instead of out of need for food
• Using a weapon that was inadequate for the job, resulting in suffering
Eating an egg:
• Buying from a regulated industry
• Eating a product of a common agricultural species
• (Since I prefer local, free range eggs) Eating a product of humanely treated animals that are offered food and protection in exchange for eggs.
But since my family also hunted for our meat, I’ll throw in this comparison:
Hunting wild game:
• Legal
• Effective population control that reduces numbers of animal deaths that include suffering (e.g. mass starvation, disease)
• Adequate weapons are used for a quick kill to preserve quality of meat
• High-quality food for the poor (wild game is an affordable source of healthy protein; culled deer are sent to local food banks)
Wow. When you put it like that, it’s almost poetic; in a horrible sort of way.
In a darkly humorous vein.
–
Okay this says it better than I was trying to say, without the hyperbole.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LzXpE1mjqA
I teared up over the Cecil story as well…not because of that particular animal, but because this shit happens every day, day in and day out and it’s just so senseless.
There’s already more than enough cruelty to go around…war…police brutality…religious stupidity…it’s hard to not be desensitized. The animal stuff always puts me over the edge for some reason.
AP
I am very angry. Dr. Palmer wouldn’t like to see me angry. The things I am liable to do to when I am like this are . . . okay, enough said.
On a lighter note, does Zimbabwe have an extradition agreement with the USA? I dearly hope so. The rest of the world routinely sends us their citizens if they’ve broken an American law (look at FIFA or Islamic terrorists), so why not the other way around? Oh, how delicious it would be to see Palmer put on trial in Zimbabwe. I know that U. S. prisons are mostly hell-holes and we’re the bestest, most compassionate country on earth (that’s a laugh line folks). Just imagine what they must be like in a third world paradise like Zimbabwe.
Bob Foster, there’s an article about the ability to extradite him over at Slate. Summary: U.S. does have an extradition treaty with Zimbabwe. It applies to acts that are illegal in both countries. In this case, bribery would be the charge that might qualify Palmer for extradition. The same charge could also get him tried in the U.S.
Killing animals for food is killing them for pleasure when there is an abundance of non-animal food. You are all delusional idiots, especially the guy who thinks chickens suffer less in their lives than cecil did. The lion’s death is only treated as a tragedy because he had a name and charisma.
Marcello S #48
Bless your heart.
Jimmy Kimmel cried on his show about the killing of Cecil. I need to get off the internet. This is absurd. I will leave all you cheese burger eating enlightened progressives to mourn the passing of brave, beautiful Cecil.
Can we tie HIM to a vehicle and drive around a nature reserve? Pretty please?
You ask rhetorically what the difference between eating a chicken and killing big game for sport. Well, I ask rhetorically what is similar? So far as I can tell the only two things these have in common is that a human being killed an animal. And that simply is *not* enough in common to make any comparison. I might as well equate the family of an elderly patient with a terminal and painful disease signing a do not resuscitate form with the dumping of an eight year olds corpse in the woods. They are both cases of a person willfully causing the death of another. Other than that they are not in the least bit the same.
I couldn’t help myself. Here i am to explain the obvious. The hunter killed an animal for fun. By eating a chicken you are responsible for the torture and killing of an animal because you like how it tastes. Both are cases of killing an animal for trivial reasons that don’t even come close to justifying the act. Think about that next time you order your burger and milkshake.
ONLY IN YOUR DELUSIONAL MIND.
Think of what you do the next time you post non-sequiturs. And don’t do it.
Tell me, Nerd, why do you eat chicken?
I practice traditional archery which involves shooting at targets under simulated battle conditions. It is a bit like paintball with bow and arrow except it requires more skill. Some of my training involves conventional target archery and if I ever used a bow and arrow in real combat I would be quite lethal. I have never hunted animals and have no intention of doing so but I know people who use bow and arrow to hunt feral animals. This requires more skill in stalking an animal as you need to get up close to shoot. Just as in using a rifle it depends on how good your shot is how quickly an animal dies. With a bow and arrow a well placed shot kills just as quickly as a rifle bullet. If the lion this guy shot took 40 hours to die he is not only a lousy human being, he is a lousy archer.
Different animals. Different circumstances. Different reasons. Different environments. Different consequences. Different impact. Different degrees of involvement. Different responsibilities. Different infrastructures. Different marginal costs. Different marginal savings. Different global perspective. Different personal perspective. Different everything.
I realize it’s easy and tempting to ask what’s the difference but, seriously, what’s the same? Almost nothing. Believe it or not, differences actually make a difference.
Ain’t it a crazy, colorful world we live in, woozy? Now can you tell me what the relevant differences are?
If you are still here, Nerd, take a look at woozy’s comment at #57. This is what a non-sequitur looks like.
Marcello
Dude, just stop. Your diet is your business. Our diets are not. Keep yer eyes on yer own plate, please.
Nope, but yours is always. You want to win? Try another blog…..
Kitty, why is what this poor dentist does on his free time any of your business?
But, Nerd, I thought this is where all the free thinking rational people went to be outraged at things. I consider myself a free thinking rational person myself and am quite disappointed with the stupidity being displayed in this comments section. The original post by PZ isn’t even so bad aside from the snark, but you guys are straight up delusional and the calls for violence against the poor guy scare me.
I think it is a valid point that the outrage about this one specific lion is misplaced — we ought to be concerned about the general practice of trophy hunting, and the bizarre privilege of extremely rich people spending lots of money to kill exotic animals. The death threats to the dentist are also completely wrong.
But, Marcello, your remark that tells me you’re mainly here to stir up shit. Knock it off now.
And Nerd, back off. You get into these tedious jags of constant repetition, and everyone knows exactly what you are going to say, so you don’t need to say it a dozen times.
Try to make your point once, with some substance behind it, and then try not to say it again two comments later.
I believe the outrage about hunting in general is misplaced considering eating animal products and hunting are both done for trivial reasons as i said in an earlier comment and everyone commenting here i have come to learn probably eat animal products. I’m not here to stir up shit, but to point out the logical inconsistency in the moral arguments being given here. I thought you and your readers would appreciate this.
In what universe is a battery chicken an endangered species of top predator and an important part of the local ecosystem?
Did the dentist hunt the lion in order to gain nourishment from it? No, he did it out of some misguided he-man doodlyness. Pretending to be brave by injuring it with a thoroughly modern arrow. Hacking its head off as a trophy to his doodlyness. Does a chicken process worker have a wall covered in the thousands of beaks of the chickens they’ve dispatched? I doubt it.
Battery chickens are not endangered species because we breed them at an industrial level to satisfy the gluttony of meat eaters everywhere. That is obvious. The outrage about the killing of cecil cannot be explained by the effect it has on the local ecosystem alone. No one is crying over that. Eating meat has disastrous consequences for ecosystems everywhere. The waste created by farming and the massive deforestation that takes place in the Amazon for example is far worse than the ecological consequences of hunting lions.
So you are outraged by the dentist because he kinda seems like a douche. Are you also outraged by the existence of Justin Bieber? Why aren’t there more posts on this blog about Justin Bieber?
PZ Myers, who happens to be a biologist, posts on what he considers of interest to him. I’m sure there are many blogs dedicated to Bieber’s awfulness you can go and troll on if you need some balance in your manufactured outrage.
Everyone is outraged by the pointless destruction of a rare wild animal for the vanity of a dentist.
You, Marcello, are outraged because other people are horrified at the pointless destruction of a rare wild animal.
I think I know which outrage is more appropriate.
Also, you are being repetitive. You’ve made your point. You can shut up now until you have something new to say.
I don’t mind Bieber. He’s just a rich kid doing silly rich kid things like the dentist is just a rich dude doing silly rich dude things.
Oh, brother. You are completely missing my point, but i will be going now. I’ve accomplished nothing here. I need to get a life.
Is this a Dear Muslima… Dear Bieblima? The shark is thoroughly jumped.
It’s clear, and it’s fairer to say, that the outrage is with those who aren’t horrified at the pointless destruction of a non-rare and non-wild animal. Marcello S obviously has no problem that other people think this particular thing is bad, because Marcello obviously thinks it’s bad too. But there are other bad things, and the reasons why those are bad are related to this particular bad thing.
re 70:
seems you need a little fillin, to understand the relevance of discussing the poacherdentist here.
a few days earlier, PZ started a discussion about a creationist dentist making a confabulation about dentists disproving atheism.
personally, I saw a news story elswhere, about a poaching dentist and added it as an ironic comment. the next day, PZ began this thread with the prelude, “OK, everyone who has written to me to tell me about Walter Palmer, Minnesota dentist and butcher of wildlife, …”
I hope this answers your sarcastic question,
Thank you, slithey, for filling me in. The metaliterature of blogging is an interesting subject.
Marcello S
Not in the Boreal Forest or the Arctic.
I’m sure there are others but those are the ones I am familiar with.
Marcello, let us examine the concept of an ecosystem. An ecosystem is a community of all the living organisms within it as well as its non-living components. The key part is how these components interact and mutually support each other. This includes production, consumption, the cleaning up of the assorted detritus, and so on. But each of these parts are interconnected and necessary for the functioning of the whole, even those bits that seem destructive such as when a wolf makes a meal out of an elk fawn. As a highly (some could say overly) evolved primate, humans are as much a part of the ecosystem as anything else, the fact that we too often use our technological advances to lord over it notwithstanding. When we consume meat, we are functioning as a strand in that web just as much as when we die and become worm chow. In plain English, it serves a purpose and does not waste. When someone kills an animal simply because it will make a nice rug, that serves no purpose as per our role in an ecosystem.
P.S. Industrial farming is a whole other topic which has been extensively covered by other posters and so I’ll ignore.
Marcello S, are you yourself an actual animal rights advocate and/or vegetarian or are you just here for the lulz?
“When we consume meat, we are functioning as a strand in that web just as much as when we die and become worm chow. In plain English, it serves a purpose and does not waste. When someone kills an animal simply because it will make a nice rug, that serves no purpose as per our role in an ecosystem.”
This is a morally vacuous statement. I’m tired of this discussion.
And, yes, i am a vegan. I don’t find all this ridiculous grandstanding about Cecil entertaining. It’s actually pissing me off.
And just to be clear, i don’t consume any animal products. Ethical vegetarians (people who abstain from meat, but consume other animal products out of concern for non-human animals) are useless and deeply misguided. Eating eggs or dairy is just as exploitative as eating meat.
That’s cute, chigau.
What about for deep wounds or burns, where a high protein diet is medically required? Are you an absolutist?
So, a food fundie then, an extremist.
Marcello S, how then do you feel about people keeping pets? How about TNR programs that do abort-spays? Is my work wrong for euthanizing kittens with FeLV?
On a random note of curiousity, how do vegans cope with the fact that every soap, every shampoo, every antibiotic, every drug EVER has been tested on animals? Sure, the special shampoos may say ‘not tested on animals’, but that’s because they’re using ingredients that were previously tested by someone else, and don’t need to be tested again.
I cry myself to sleep every night, rowan.
Yeah, not believing Marcello to be the genuine article. The insincerity is dripping and the mask is flimsy.
PZ, if you’re still reading this thread, what do you think about the idea of the U.S. extraditing Palmer to Zimbabwe?
I’m with you. Death threats are out of line. We should handle this by rule of law. Unfortunately, the law is Mugabe.
Marcello, your dodging of my questions is noted as is your heavy sarcasm. Highly inconsistent for someone who claims to be a vegan to be so blase about the treatment of laboratory animals. The curiousity on my part at least was genuine.
chigau @ 79 – Actually, eating meat has a direct and severe effect on the ecosystem of the arctic. Meat production accounts for approximately 14.5 percent of total annual anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. See here: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/. And the arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on earth. See here: https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/arctic-meteorology/climate_change.html.
For this, and other reasons, I don’t think it’s all that easy or straightforward to make the case that meat consumption is purely a personal choice without serious moral repercussions. Peter Singer, anyone?
Clearly chigau is referring to the native peoples of the Arctic region who spent their winters eating virtually nothing but meat and survived quite successfully. The global effects of a modern intensive meat raising industry are a different subject entirely.
I’m a little late to the discussion, but I would humbly suggest that if you value maintaining large wild animal species, then perhaps you should be encouraging people like our immoral doctor to do more hunting.
http://www.perc.org/articles/shoot-elephant-save-community
But Kenya’s public policy was not repeated in other African nations, which have had decidedly different results.
@ Marcello S
I’m curious. I can see how people would have objections to large-scale dairy and battery farming that is so common today; but were legislative changes to result in a return to small-scale, free-range farming, would you consider eating eggs and dairy then?
@ Tom Weiss
Correllation =/= causation. The second quote is big on details about how CAMPFIRE has resulted in growth of wild populations through the introduction of sustainable hunting quotas. Great, that makes logical sense and is a fantastic end result, and the fact they’ve managed to get jobs and direct income out of it by allowing some hunting is just grand. I would question why you think that allowing hunting has had any effect on the former, rather than being in place purely for the latter, though.
Your first quote, however, completely fails to draw any sort of causative link between the banning of hunting and the decline of wild populations. Why do you assume that the former caused the latter?
Marcello S,
I think I’m with you somewhat. I’ve struggled on and off with feeling comfortable with the idea of eating meat (I do currently eat meat).
If killing Cecil was wrong at least partly because it caused the lion pain, then killing any animal that feels pain can’t be justified entirely. It seems the best we can do is weigh the discomfort/pain/suffering of the animal against our need and desire and then deem it to be worth it in “the big picture”. In other words, we would have to be admitting we are doing something that isn’t right and then say “but it’s okay because…”
Now, on the question of “feeling pain”: Does a cow feel pain exactly in the same way we do? My knowledge of biology is limited to basic first year college courses, but if you walk up to a cow and stab it, wouldn’t it’s immediate reaction be identical to a human’s (except from verbally communicating disapproval of course)?
Another way I’ve thought about it is that how many of us meat-eaters would kill a cow ourselves with our own hands, i.e. perform the meat-eating process from scratch all by ourselves from start to finish? We would be perfectly fine doing many other things in our lives which we consider morally okay from start to finish. So why the unease in (and for many of us meat-eaters outright refusal to) personally kill an animal with our own hands?
Anyway, these are questions I’ve personally struggled with over the years. I’m not quite sure where I land on these issues, and I’m definitely not trying to make other people’s diet my business. I’m trying to figure it out for myself as I eat meat myself on a near daily basis.
Lofty #94 is correct.
….
I agree with anteprepro, Marcello S is trolling.
….
and Tom Weiss never does anything else.
This is how sorry Dr. Palmer is:
(Can’t embed tweets from this computer, so here are quotes from River Dental’s Twitter page, with links.)
“The practice remains closed yet again. Waiting for this to all blow over. The internet has a VERY short memory.”
(https://mobile.twitter.com/RiverBlufDental/status/626742584514248704?p=v)
“Please stop being angry at @RiverBlufDental. What is done is DONE Today is a new day.” (Accompanied by an “inspirational” pic that reads “Anger makes you smaller while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you are.”)
(https://mobile.twitter.com/RiverBlufDental/status/626743378726645761?p=v)
“Song of the Day: “Let It Go” from @DisneyFrozen youtube.com/watch?v=moSFlv… #NP #SongOfTheDay #LetTheStormRageOn”
(https://mobile.twitter.com/RiverBlufDental/status/626744977360470016?p=v)
It seems like Saad @97 is the only one that managed to use some brains.
The worst of all is Nerd of Redhead, juses rollerblading christ the fallacies he’s mindlessly popping out…
Look, producing eggs usually means that all male chicks are ground to a pulp as soon as they hatch.
Producing milk means that the cows need to be kept continuously pregnant, the calf is separated from the mother as soon as its born and slaughtered slightly afterwards. The whole cycle is consuming and milk cows gets slaughtered young.
Pretending that these animals do not suffer is a delusion that flies in the face of pretty much everything we know about non-human neurobiology.
In the developed world, and save specific health conditions, eating animal product is a CHOICE.
If you *choose* to eat animal products, your money is endorsing the practices above, and it doesn’t have to be this way.
Myself? While I have drastically reduced the amount of animal products in my diet, I am still largely omnivore.
I made an entirely selfish decision, I take moral responsibility for the fact that animals will be tortured and killed for my pleasure and convenience, but at least I don’t make pathetic excuses for it.
@ chigau #98
The worst thing is, I don’t think TW is a troll. I think he presents his genuine opinions in good faith. It’s just that his genuine opinions are shallow and ill-conceived.
Yesterday, the wind shifted to blow from the southwest, which is unusual. When it does that, though, it blows the stench from the fecal lakes at the swine farms off in that direction right over the town of Morris, and the whole place smells like pig shit.
So yes, factory farms are crimes against the environment, against humanity, and against the animals that are processed there. You don’t need to tell me.
F.O.
Bless your heart.
@chigau: to be honest, there were only a handful of really stupid comments in this thread.
But what really got me angry, was the silence of everybody as a couple of the regulars were abusing logic against a newbie.
None called them out.
We needed PZ to post.
None who stands up and says “look, that was a fallacious argument”.
None called out Nerd on using logic that we’d laugh to if it was used by a creationist.
This is what scares me of “communities”.
I’m not a vegan, but I listen to Citizen Radio, and I really admire their stance on veganism. Jamie and Allison are vegans because they are going above and beyond. As far as I can tell, they treat it as a supererogatory act. At the very least, they’re positive about it. Even when talking about this very issue, Jamie’s comments were something like, “I’m not trying to make anyone feel guilty or equate what this hunter did to eating meat, but if you want to turn this awful event into something positive, going vegan would be a really cool thing to do.”
Marcello S, on the other hand, is making some very strong arguments against going vegan.
@ F.O.
Normally I get annoyed when people make illogical and insulting arguments against vegetarianism or veganism, and I’ll speak up in defence of them despite not being one myself… but Marcello was being an arsehole, so I let it go. Perhaps I shouldn’t have.
Basically, I’m with Saad at #97. There are ethical issues surrounding the eating of meat, and serious ethical problems with the meat industry in it’s current state. I still eat meat, and I have to acknowledge that my reasons are partly just simple selfishness, but I will at least buy free range and refuse anything that has been slaughtered without stunning.
F.O. #100
Hey, if you’re gonna eat meat, why let any part of the animal go to waste?
I have actually eaten brain too. My mom used to make a delicious spicy dish out of them.
I’m with Thumper @106
I don’t get these ‘uber’ vegetarians who always lecture others as if they have some kind of moral high ground.
In my opinion it’s virtually impossible to live a lifestyle that avoids animal exploitation to some degree. Aside from the obvious blight that is factory farming, it’s infused in medical research, agriculture, garment production…on and on. What? Vegans don’t make use of medical science? They just rub some organic mud on their infections or degenerative hips? They make their clothes out of the grass in their backyards. And NEVER use products for hygiene. Lands no! Bullshit.
It’s great to be vegetarian. Have at it. But how many small mammals, reptiles, nesting birds etc are destroyed as crops are harvested? I’m no expert but I know it’s a metric fuck tonne. Google it. And they aren’t even used for food.
I eat meat, but about 80% of my diet is veg. We rarely eat out, and never fast food. We buy eggs, milk and cheese from a local farm market…there is a group there (Mennonites?) who have hand raised chickens, goats etc who set up every Saturday. It’s probably not perfect but it has to be better for the chickens than a factory farm.
For red meat we usually buy a cow (or part thereof) from a local farm. You can actually go there and pick your cow, which is then slaughtered as humanely as possible. Usually we buy with a few others, have the meat butchered in various forms (steak, sausage, hamburger) and freeze it. Lasts most of the year. My father also hunts (we live in Atlantic Canada, and because all predators have been killed, there is a problem with moose overpopulation, so hunting is essential). One moose will feed my family and my parents for a year, and every part is used. It’s not ideal – but as long as the animal is free to roam beforehand, it has to be better for the moose or cow than being torn to pieces by wolves.
I’m waiting for the day food science allows us to grow meat in a lab for consumption. I’m in. Until then I’ll do the best I can and do as little harm as I can.
One thing I won’t do is belittle others as if I have some moral high ground. None of us do.
AP
I sort of feel for Marcello S, but his calling people names won’t win anyone over.
@Thumper #106: thanks.
@AP #108: if you accept that all suffering is equally important, then vegans DO have the moral high ground. There’s little escaping.
Also, it’s not in black and white: accepting to exploit some non-humans for research doesn’t mean that then any form of exploitation is acceptable (especially because exploitation for food is on a much greater scale than research).
IIRC PZ himself is mostly vegetarian, while accepting animal experimentation to a larger degree.
Killing one is less bad than killing thousands, humans or non-humans, it does make a moral difference.
AtheistPowerlifter:
If it can be done to a lesser degree, the simple idea is that doing it less is higher ground than doing it more is.
Do you eat a diet entirely consisting of meat? If not, what makes you think vegetarians or vegans are responsible for more than you, without the addition of the deaths of livestock raised for their meat?
That answers that. So let’s assume it’s an accurate figure, and let’s assume there’s complete parity with the 80% of your diet that is veg and the first 80% of a vegan’s or vegetarian’s diet. The remaining 20% of your diet consists of intentionally killing large animals (which graze in fields that replace natural environments, by the way), but that could be avoided by replacing it with the remaining 20% of a veg diet which has much less of an negative impact that genuinely can’t be avoided.
The “moral high ground” you’re so offended by is an attempt to do as little harm as possible, and people “lecture others,” because when it comes to moral issues, it matters that others also do as little harm as possible. So we talk to each other about these things, sometimes quite emotionally: that is something less than killing and/or torturing an animal for no good reason. Your claims to be doing “as little harm as I can” are about claiming you’re not taking a very low moral ground, and they are something that can be evaluated as either true or false. If it’s the case that you’re doing the best you can because you really can’t do any better, that’s the only thing we should demand from each other, but it is something that has to be open to criticism to begin with. Taking the stance that everybody should stop the discussion and leave you to make your own (perhaps terrible) decisions is not being open to criticism, even if you happen to be doing the right thing.
Well, they’re not all grazers, unless you specifically avoided others, but the point is that they still take up land, and they are fed — fed with either these same grains you’re so (insincerely) worried about or fed with the products of other deliberately killed animals. They’re nowhere near the bottom of a food chain, so you could get the same energy more efficiently from other sources, without having to engage in the same amount of destruction.
@consciousness razor 110
Yep I don’t disagree with anything you said really. You missed my point (kind of) but that’s ok.
To be clear, I never said I was “so offended” by the lecturing vegans (for lack of a better term). Not sure where you read that I indicated “everyone should stop the discussion”. Was not my point. I also didn’t say that I wasn’t open to criticism, nor having my mind changed. Maybe I should have said that explicitly.
Next time I’ll try to be as clear and thorough as possible in my mini rant.
I also don’t agree – you would have to point me to the resources – that going vegan means simply replacing land use by cattle with crops. If we were all 100% vegan, the land and water use would be enormous. But I could be wrong.
@ F.O. #109
Hmm. Maybe they can claim a slightly higher moral ground. I still think you can’t discount animals destroyed in crop harvesting, and eating an animal that grazed freely and then slaughtered humanely (or a hunted moose say) is not necessarily morally wrong to me. As I said, less suffering than being vivisected by a predator. But I could be wrong. Not sure WHY you mentioned what PZ does (I don’t know what IIRC means).
AP
@ consciousness razor # 111
“…you’re so (insincerely) worried about …”
Fuck you.
AtheistPowerlifter, #112
IIRC, it stands for if I recall correctly.
@consciousness razor
Hey – please accept my apology. I thought you were referring to me in #111 and calling me insincere.
I apologize. I should have read more closely.
AP
I also don’t agree – you would have to point me to the resources – that going vegan means simply replacing land use by cattle with crops. If we were all 100% vegan, the land and water use would be enormous. But I could be wrong.
You could be and you are. Here’s an excerpt from the wiki article on animal feed (with my emphasis):
As I said, you get more out of less, if you didn’t have the livestock as intermediaries. You don’t need to as much grain (or use as much land for that grain) as you need to feed the cow which gives you an equivalent amount of meat. They’re not machines which perfectly convert their food into your meat.
The article cited at [1] makes some more interesting points:
But having intensive industrial farming operations like this, to minimize environmental damage and maximize how much food energy you get from the animal, means you’re not giving the animal the idyllic life without suffering, out at some free-range Mennonite farm let’s say, that you’d think it ought to have. All of that can obviously be resolved if we’re just not farming these animals in the first place (or reduced if we’re not farming as many).
As for this:
Maybe you’re sincere, but if so it seems like you have to be confused about something that’s obvious to me. But I really don’t know what that could be. I’ll take it back for now.
Sorry, the first paragraph in my previous comment was a quote from AtheistPowerlifter at #112.
@ # 116
Ok thanks for those references. And yes, for the record, I always try to be sincere. Sometimes confused, often wrong, but a legitimate attempt to have integrity internet stranger.
It’s articles such as this one that I read awhile ago that often muddy’s the water:
http://theconversation.com/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal-theres-more-animal-blood-on-your-hands-4659
I’m not sure if you’re an expert on agriculture and farming. Likely we both are not. But you’ve given me something to think about.
AP
Rowan,
The way everyone else copes with the fact that they can’t control everything and can never completely eliminate suffering, I suppose? Doesn’t mean they can’t try to reduce it if, how and when they can.
It’s hard not to get snarky at a question like that, frankly, because pretty much everyone who cares deeply about anything at all should know the answer and should be fighting similar inner struggles. If you come across an environmentalist* on the internet, do you also get “curious” as to how they “cope” with the fact that they are using a computer, because coltan mining? Or do you recognize what a cheap shot that would be?
*Or you can replace this by “human rights activist” and the example still stands, unfortunately.
I recall PZ getting dinged by someone — maybe a previous morph of Marcello S? — about flying. Something like: “But what about global warming? Carbon footprint! Hypocrisy!” or words to that effect.
I have a hunch that Marcello S had breakfast that included bacon from battery-farmed pigs, and eggs from battery-farmed hens. And tonight he’ll have not just steak, but veal for supper. And he’ll laugh with every bite.
Yeah, I remember that too, Owlmirror.
The objections raised in this thread are the same i hear when i talk about the exploitation of non-human animals with my muslim and christian friends. It would seem being an atheist doesn’t provide greater moral clarity than does religion, at least on this topic. Also, a few commenters here suggested that being vegan is extreme or supererogatory. This is a tremendous exaggeration. It took me all of one week to go vegan and my life has changed not one bit since i did. If you believe it is wrong to harm sentient beings for trivial reasons then being vegan is the least you can do. The greatest obstacle is saving face with your friends, family, and associates. This is the same pressure that exists when someone wants out of religion. In fact, there is much greater peer pressure in certain religions than than a new vegan would face.
Also, i don’t get why anyone would think I’m being insincere. I think by calling me out you are sublimating your anxieties about taking part in a system of oppression. If that’s the case, stop making excuses and go vegan.
Marcello S
golly
You can be a vegan if you want. I won’t stop you or criticize you. Just don’t tell me what to do. I don’t find your version of morality compelling.
“golly”, “bless your heart” – lol, all you have to offer are meaningless one liners and yet people think i’m the one that’s being insincere. If you have a better explanation for why some of the smart people in this thread would resort to ad-hominems, then have at it.
Hey, Nerd, don’t murder, rape, and pillage!!!11!!!!11!!
Hey, Nerd, don’t murder, rape, and pillage!!!11!!!!11!!
Nerd:
Well, that’s nice I guess. Why would you? Is there any reason we might have expected that, or is there no good reason for you to tell us these things?
On the other hand, do you think there actually is some credible reason that people might have to criticize meat-eating?
Be serious, Nerd. Do you allow anyone to tell you anything? And what good would that really do if you’re just going to be an obtuse jackass about it?
That’s strange. You don’t even find the environmental arguments compelling? Is it at all compelling to you that there’s pollution, extinctions, climate change, etc., whatever kind of human activities are responsible for those? Or do you only care when specific human activities are responsible for them, not others, and what would be a good reason for that which doesn’t look like rationalizing any of them away? The next time a global warming denialist comes by, remember to hold your tongue when they say bullshit like this, because apparently you’ve got fucking nothing in the way of a response.
Nightjar, looking at it more, yes I understand the possible for snarky reaction. I tried to phrase the question more politely because the very (very, very) few vegans I’ve met face to face have been… er… not very well informed, would be a polite way to put it. They had no idea how shampoos and cleaners try to get away with ‘no animal testing’. I figured that was better phrasing than “Do you know” which sounds much more insulting.
Rowan, a lot of “vegans” are not ethical vegans and wouldn’t care about what is in shampoo and cleaners. If you are looking for a straight response from me, i do not use shampoo or cleaners. I occasionally use apple cider vinegar to treat dandruff, and use vinegar and bob’s red mill baking soda for cleaning. Store bought cleaners are not only unpleasant smelling, but entirely dispensable for domestic uses. I’m no hair expert and i’m sure others might require more intensive hair treatment to look and feel even half as good as I do, but I’m sure you can find a solution that works for you with some research.
I agree with Marcello completely. We mass produce, abuse, torture, and kill animals to consume their flesh and secretions purely because we derive pleasure from the taste or from the convenience.
But before you can accept that you must first accept that it is possible to be healthy on a vegan diet. The existence of healthy life-long vegans is proof of that.
Secondly, there is nothing of nutritive value in animal products that cannot be obtained from plant-derived foods. The vast majority of us live in places where plant-based food is abundant and cheap. Eating sufficient protein on a vegan diet is trivial. As a bonus, plant protein comes without all the cholesterol and saturated fats associated with disease, not to mention whatever hormones or antibiotics are injected into the animals. Of course, vegans may need to take vitamin B12 supplements, but that’s easy to do and B12 deficiency is not an exclusively vegan issue anyway as it has a lot to do with modern sanitation.
Third, we don’t eat animal products because of their low cost. Meat is expensive. Staple vegan food is cheap: rice, beans, etc. Vegan convenience/transition foods like pseudo meats and cheeses are expensive. And yes, fresh fruits and vegetables can be expensive, but everyone is supposed to be eating lots of fruit and veg for a healthy diet, right?
I respectfully and earnestly ask my fellow readers: Why do you unnecessarily kill animals? It is clearly not necessary, since you /could/ eat a healthful vegan diet if you were so inclined.
When you get right down to it, it’s for pleasure isn’t it? It’s just a different kind of pleasure than the trophy hunting dentist seeks–a more socially acceptable pleasure.
CR, I stay out of such arguments about diets, as I see that humans have evolved as omnivores, and that is the best diet. You want to change yours, fine. I’ll even cook you vegatarian entrees if you ate here. Now, would you return the favor? Do you perhaps see a problem there? I do.
@Nerd #132
No, Nerd, I wouldn’t kill an animal and cook it’s flesh for you. I wouldn’t ask or pay someone to do it for me either. Since you are an omnivore, though, I would definitely share with you the delicious and spicy chana masala with basmati rice. It is simmering as I type this. I made extra!
That’s a pretty fucking pathetic response. Humans evolved murdering and stealing from each other too. Does evolving make anything the best anything?
What the hell are you even saying here? Is it just an opinion of yours which has nothing to do with reality, or on what planet are you staying out of an argument? Do you think a person with a plant-based diet also has “the best” one, whatever that means, or is there something inadequate about that?
Besides, what could any of that have to do with the ethical issues about what’s best for the animals and the environment? Even when you change the subject to human health, it looks like you’ve got nothing (definitely haven’t presented any evidence), but what makes you think changing the subject is supposed to help somehow or matter to anyone?
What favor? Maybe you should actually tell me about these things you’re seeing that I’m not. It should be interesting, if you’re not going to criticize anybody or tell them what to do.
@Nerd #132
Oh, I almost forgot to disclose that while chana masala with rice is high in protein it is low in saturated fat and cholesterol. So, unfortunately, I won’t be able to replicate the nutritional experience of consuming animal flesh for you. I’m so sorry for that! But, I think it is still safe to eat.
Also, I should elaborate that I’m using a base of onions and tomatoes spiced with cardamom, cloves, cumin, ginger, garlic, salt, pepper, bay leaves, red chili powder, coriander powder, and mango powder. I do hope the aroma and flavor of this dish favorably compare with the pleasure you derive from the taste of the flesh of a recently killed animal.
Nerd is saying that if he ever invites you over to eat at his place and if you inform him beforehand that you don’t eat animal-based products, he will cook you a meal free of animal-based products! And he apparently thinks you wouldn’t return the favor, for some reason. I don’t see why. Of course I would return the favor. If Nerd informs me beforehand that there is a particular foodstuff he won’t eat for whatever reason, I will also cook him a meal free of that particular foodstuff. Why would this even be an issue?
Oh wait. That’s not what you’re asking in return, is it, Nerd?
This shit is why people hate vegans. This shit, right here, that Marcello keeps spewing.
If YOU want to eat nothing but rabbit food, and YOU want to suffer severe vitamin deficiencies, that’s fine.
Don’t sit there and lecture me on what my diet “needs”. You are not me. You are not in a position to know my needs.
Meat is a necessary component of the human diet, because plants simply do not produce all of the vitamins and minerals we need to live, not to mention the lack of proper protein.
Y’all go right on and rabbit-up, I’ll be over here, eating as Nature intended.
(TL;DR – Mind yer own damn plate, and leave other people alone.)
A farmer friend of mine grows grains for human consumption using the lowest impact farming methods available. Some years rain during the harvest season ruins some of the grain and it is downgraded to stock feed. What do the vegans recommend he do instead of selling the grain at a low price, dump it and make a total loss? Animals will eat stuff that is definitely not fit for human consumption and turn waste into useful products.
Let me just point out that many meat-eaters don’t actually do this. At all. Try to eat a vegetarian dish at the same table as they are eating, and as soon as they notice, whatever conversation you were having with them stops abruptly. “What are you eating? Oh, you’re vegetarian, I did not know! Or vegan? What’s the difference? What do you eat? What do you not eat? When did you stop eating it? Why did you stop? Was it hard? Do you eat X? What about Y? Really? Why? Why not? What do you normally eat for breakfast? How do you replace W? How can you be sure you’re getting enough *random nutrient that pops into their head*? I could never give up on *their favorite meat dish*, you know. Unthinkable. What do you miss the most? Does it bother you if I eat this or that next to you? No? Really? Want a bit of this, hahaha, just kidding!” I get it, it’s curiosity, and it’s usually well-meant. But it gets tiring after a while, when you’re just trying to eat, and some people can get fucking intrusive even when you give them signs of not being particularly in the mood for that type of conversation at the moment.
(Let me also point out how I’m not going to generalize from this to something along the lines of “and this is why people hate meat-eaters”. Because that would be stupid.)
@WMDKItty #137
Ooh I love bingo! http://letthemeatmeat.com/post/3255154559/defensive-vegan-bingo
WMDKitty, #137
Citation needed.
Actually, there exist too many vegetarians who live healthy lives for that claim to even be redeemable by citations.
With a capital “N” no less.
Right. The “as nature intended” arguments. Where do we see those?
WMDKitty @137:
Let’s say I disagree with you, but am willing to be persuaded. What evidence to you have to support your position?
WMDKitty @137, Saad @141, Tony @142:
Combining grains (corn or rice, say) with some bean varieties gives you all the essential amino acids necessary for complete protein requirements.
The necessary minerals can also be obtained from plants.
AFAICT, the only vitamin that’s a problem with vegan diets is B12, which you can get as a supplement.
Of course, there are people for whom a vegan diet is problematic.
My suspicion/hypothesis—which is mine, and no one else is responsible for it, or is obliged to pay it much mind—is that, what with genetic variability being the raw material that evolution selects for, and what with people in different times/places having reliable access to different food sources (and in variable quantities!), different people might find it more, or less, easy to get their dietary needs from vegetarianism/veganism (is this the right word?)/omnivory/carnivory.
(Hmmm…that sentence is a bit run-onny, isn’t it? Still understandable?)
I do not have the slightest idea how I would go about testing it.
Sacrificing the test subjects for detailed analysis might well be taken…amiss.
–
Could grief – I hadn’t realised that I, and my wife and son, must have been dead for years. Thanks for pointing that out, WMDKitty – now I can go and get us cremated without further fuss!
Thank you all for demonstrating why vegans are so hated.
There’s no need for the food police — you can eat what you want, and I’ll eat what I want.
My condolences, Nick. I wonder if the food police will consider investigating.
WMDKitty @146: Luckily for them, a lot of vegans are also (Taylor) Swiftians.
Rob Grigjanis
What I don’t get — from either “side” — is why are (generic) you so hung up on what other people are eating?
I’m of the opinion that if it looks good,eat it.
consciousness razor
That was an uncalled-for sideswipe.
Are you of the opinion that if you want something, that means it’s okay kill the one who has it?
If so, why the fuck would anyone care what your dumbass opinion is?
If not, how exactly could you describe this any other way?
If I looked good, would you eat me? If not, what’s your actual reasoning supposed to be like, instead of this useless bullshit?
I’m only doing as Nature intended.
WMDKitty @149: I’m hung up on the idea that people should be informed as to what they need, or don’t need, to eat. There are options. “We need meat” is just wrong, and the amount of meat we eat is devastating the environment. I say that as a meat-eater who is trying to change his habits, and it’s fucking hard.
It’s funny; I can discipline myself to work out, and to study, and to not drink too much*, but meat and tobacco are major problems for me. That doesn’t stop me from recognizing that they are harmful.
*Seriously, I’d be drunk half the time if it didn’t interfere with Other Stuff.
I am also a meat eater. I eat less meat than my taste buds want, because I try to find the most ethical sources for what I consume that I can. What few eggs I eat come from a friend with chickens that are her beloved pets. I know that I don’t *need* meat to survive, and I’m more than happy to graze on uncooked produce out in a garden if I have access to one. For some reason store bought veggies don’t appeal to me most of the time, except for the mushrooms and potatoes. Being an omnivore merely means that we *can* eat plants and meat. We’re not obligate carnivores like cats or snakes. I got to see the end product of a vegan who translated their lifestyle onto their cat; blindness and heart failure. And we’re not purely herbivores, as evidenced by our short intestines.
Yeah, cr, that’s the kind of toxicity PZ was trying to get rid of.
I respect your choice as to what’s on your plate.
All I ask is the same respect in return.
Maybe it would help if you actually explained what is toxic, what it is that makes you hate vegans, and why anybody should “respect” your claims which are patently false.
You admit the fact that eating an animal kills it, yes? So “if it looks good, eat it” equates to “want it, kill for it.” To be as charitable as I can, considering how absurdly useless that is as a standard for anybody to seriously entertain, I tried to assume your real opinion is maybe somehow better, because you don’t really think it should be like that. That’s an opportunity to say what you actually meant, since it apparently didn’t happen the first time. I still don’t have that, and you haven’t acknowledged since that your original statement needs correction or elaboration or anything at all. There’s nothing in there that’s worth any respect from me or really even worth my time. You’ll have to come up with something better, if you’re going to give anybody a chance at having a reasonable conversation with you.
I don’t respect killing animals unless it really is necessary, and it isn’t generally necessary. I also don’t think we should cause unnecessary damage to the environment, which is another problem that is only made worse by eating meat. Is that why vegans are hated? Is saying that toxic? Is it disrespectful? I know these things aren’t simple or easy, and I know everybody’s going to make mistakes sometimes, so I try be as understanding as I can about it. But effectively denying that these are even problems, or taking no responsibility whatsoever for them, is not going to work. That sort of stance is going way over the line of respectability.
This is an intentional misrepresentation of what I said.
And no. Vegans are hated because y’all just can’t resist policing other people’s diets. Just like you’re doing right now, in fact.
I am going to continue eating what I need to eat to stay healthy.
Another meat eater here. I eat it because I like it. I wouldn’t deliberately torture an animal but I also kill rodents for research, insects I find in my house and slugs I find in my garden. Animals kill other animals so I don’t find any of it particularly morally troubling. And personally I think the best thing a human being can do for the environment is not to breed.
So you’re going to be vegan now?
Or is this supposed to be coded language for saying you have some specific health condition that actually requires eating meat, which most people don’t have?
I realize there may be people with such conditions, which is unfortunate and not something I have any reason to criticize — although, chemistry being what it is, I don’t understand why there would need to be any dead animals, since there’s no special magic stuff in an animal that can’t be had some other way.
But if that’s what you meant, you shouldn’t be saying a lot of craptastic things about humans generally, what Nature intended, and so on. It’s hard to tell what any of that could mean or what the talk of “rabbit foot” is about, unless it’s false or is expressing something you just don’t like that has nothing to do with health.
WMDKitty,
If you’re going to accuse someone of intentionally misrepresenting what you said (which is basically accusing someone of being dishonest), you could perhaps explain it a little?
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say either with “if it looks good, eat it”. Best I can come up with is that your position is that when it comes to food any discussions of possible moral issues should be suspended, because all it matters is whether you want or do not want to eat something, and any further discussions amount to food policing. Is this closer to what you’re aiming at or still a misrepresentation?
Where is cr trying to police anyone’s diet? Why is simply discussing these things “policing”? If I say I don’t think we should keep burning fossil fuels at the rate we are doing now, am I also policing other people’s daily commutes? Don’t you see how this stance (which I hope I’m not misrepresenting) would quickly make every discussion unacceptable?
And I fully expect you to do so. But this:
These aren’t statements about you and your needs. This is bullshit, and it’s also very close to lecturing other people on their needs. You can’t expect to say something like that and have no one point out that it is bullshit. You can’t even say something like that and not expect some snark in response.
chris61,
All of them? Can I just ask why capturing them and releasing them outside is not an option? Don’t get me wrong, I usually have no quibbles swatting a mosquito that is about to bite to me, but most of the bugs I find in my house are harmless and fascinating. If it’s something new I take a photo and then try to identify it with online ID guides and learn something new. If it’s familiar I just pick it up and put it outside. There’s an argument to be made for obvious invasive species, but otherwise killing is pointless.
Animals also maim and torture other animals, but you just said you wouldn’t torture an animal. See where this ‘reasoning’ is going wrong?
nightjar
I’m an adventurous eater. Willing to try anything once. Hence “if it looks good, eat it.”
Except that it’s not bullshit. Humans evolved to eat both meat and plants, and I see no reason to limit my diet just to assuage some people’s feelings.
Additionally, one has to be in a relatively privileged position to adopt a vegan diet — those specialty foods are expensive, and I can’t afford them.
If you look back up-thread, you’ll see that cr has been fairly hostile from the start, and does not respect other people’s choices.
Like I’ve said:
You mind your diet.
I’ll mind mine.
Having commented on the thread, I should perhaps say that at present I’m vegetarian but not vegan, although I’ve recently replaced a lot of the cheese in my diet with soya-based “mock cheese”, and stopped buying eggs; I do eat (and enjoy) these things when eating out, or when they are cooked for me. I don’t think we can live without causing death and suffering to some non-human animals, and I do think there are strong arguments for some use of animals in agriculture (particularly in poorer countries, where their manure and labour are hard to replace), and in research; but there’s absolutely no doubt that a drastic reduction in the global consumption of meat and other animal products would be highly beneficial for the environment, and would greatly reduce the unnecessary infliction of suffering. It won’t do to try and fence off dietary choices from moral considerations, or use bullshit arguments in defence of meat-eating such as those we’ve seen here.
WMDKitty,
That’s fine, but surely you can see how “looks good to me” is sort of a shitty argument to justify food choices when the consequences of those choices are being pointed out?
Yes, but that’s not what you said. Humans don’t need to eat meat to be healthy, we’re not obligate carnivores. So meat is not a necessary component of the human diet. People who don’t eat meat don’t necessarily suffer severe vitamin deficiencies. Some do, some don’t. Same goes for people who eat meat. Those two sentences I quoted are bullshit.
You don’t actually need to buy any of those expensive specialty foods! Grains, beans, vegetables, mushrooms, fruit, seeds… that’s what those foods are made of anyway, but not as expensive as the processed stuff. In general. Okay, algae are expensive, and it’s too bad because they’re great food.
But I am privileged, I don’t buy a lot of what I eat. I live in a small village, and I do see how it is indeed a privilege to be able to grow much of your food (and have your neighbors share stuff with you). I have no idea what it would be like to have a mostly-vegan diet if I were living in an apartment in a big city, for example. I have no idea if it would be more or less expensive than eating meat. (I also never bought nor cooked meat, so I have no way of making a before/after comparison. I stopped eating meat at a very young age and I learned to cook precisely because I didn’t want to eat what my omnivorous parents were cooking for themselves, so I had to learn to cook my own food.)
Anyway, all this to say that I completely understand that it’s not always practical or affordable or even doable for many people to change their diets so radically. It is, however, practical, affordable and doable to avoid using bullshit arguments on the internet just because a vegan once was an asshole to you.
So have you, WMDKitty. Sorry, I can’t read that comment as anything but hostile.
I have an unusual source of eggs right now. About two years ago I found a collared dove with an injured wing to which I gave shelter. She did recover somewhat and she can fly decently now, but she’s too tame and releasing her now would be like feeding her to the neighborhood cats. The thing is, she lays eggs. Regularly. There is no male and she doesn’t even sit the eggs. So… I’ve been eating them.
Nightjar@163,
Rather less unusually, some (ideologically) vegan friends of mine acquired some chickens (no cockerel) with their current house. They eat a few of the eggs, and give others away – they can’t sell them for legal reasons.
@159 Nightjar
Never claimed it was reasoning, I just said that is where my own sense of morality draws the line.
@159 Nightjar
Spiders I leave alone, ladybugs I release, ants, millipedes, flies, cockroaches and wasps I kill. Wildlife other than insects (mice, birds, the occasional bat) I release. I don’t pretend there’s any logic to it.
What Palmer deserves is a short drop and a sudden stop. If all he gets is being shamed on the Internet he should consider himself very lucky.
@WMDKItty #160
Yes, our ancestors survived on both meat and plants. That doesn’t mean that eating meat is optimal for human health. It is very well established that eating lots of meat causes disease in humans. As I’m sure you know, evolution isn’t a guided process with a goal or purpose in mind.
No one is demanding that you change your diet. We are only arguing that it is unnecessary to eat meat in order to live long, healthy lives. And secondly, that eating meat requires killing (and often the immense suffering of) animals.
We are just pointing out that most people believe that killing or inflicting unnecessary suffering on other beings is unethical. That belief is the core of our outrage over trophy hunting, and it is also the core motivation of many people, including myself, to strive towards reducing animal suffering (aka a vegan lifestyle).
By the way, no one is “100% vegan”. We have all consumed animal products, because they are so ubiquitous. Being vegan means continuously pursuing a reduction of suffering, rather than having accomplished a total elimination of suffering.
If you don’t feel that eating meat conflicts with your existing values and sense of ethics, that’s fine. I would argue that it probably does contradict your existing values and sense of ethics, but it’s fine. If you feel you need to eat meat in order to be healthy, that’s fine. It’s strange, and probably not true, but fine. Keep doing whatever you want.
Vegans know very well that we cannot force anyone to change. We are trying to appeal to your sense of empathy, rationality, and pre-existing convictions about ethics. Our arguments might make you feel guilty, but at the end of the day it will always be your choice.
Specialty vegan food like mock meats and cheeses certainly are expensive luxuries. Purely out of curiosity, I have been trying several different kinds of such products lately, and honestly I don’t care for any of them. They are highly processed, and I don’t crave the flavor or texture of the animal products that these products replicate anyway. Yet, they certainly do serve as a useful gateway product to help ease the transition to a vegan diet.
Non-specialty, staple vegan foods are cheap. It’s what most of the world lives off of, and what Americans used to live off of until the animal agriculture industry boomed in recent decades. Meat is and always has been an expensive luxury. Just ask grandma how often she ate steak growing up. Or look at developing economies of the world like China. As its middle class grows, so does demand for luxuries like automobiles and meat.
Eliminating meat from my diet has saved me money. Think about it, why grow a bunch of plants, feed it to animals, then eat the animals, instead of just eating the plants in the first place? Eating meat uses more land, water, and energy and creates more waste. That’s why it is and always will be more expensive.
William Webb
Don’t do this. Just no.
nightjar
That was in response to several overtly-hostile and preachy posts from militant vegans.
There is no “moral high ground” on this issue.
Once again, I request that WE ALL go back to minding OUR OWN PLATES.
On that note, I’m out — I’ve had my fill of veg-head bullshit about “meat is murder”.
@ Nerd of Redhead #132
That’s something of a false equivalency. You don’t have a moral objection to cooking vegetables. They do have a moral objection to cooking meat.
@ WMDKitty #137
Can we not pretend that Marcello is representative of all vegans? I have a couple of vegan friends and none of them would go off on an accusatory rant about other people’s diets apropos of absolutely nothing. Marcello is a vegan who also happens to be an arsehole; that does not mean all vegans are arseholes.
This is empirically disprovable bullshit. And I suspect you know that.
And throwing in the Appeal to Nature fallacy is really not helping your case.
#160
This is the first reasonable argument you’ve made all thread. You should have led with that. It’s no good going off on a rant about how hostile and unreasonable vegans are when in the process you are exhibiting the same behavior you’re criticizing.
As reasonable as it is, it’s based on something of a misapprehension. Tofu and almond milk and all that bullshit is not necessary to a vegan diet. Pulses and veg aren’t expensive. Here in the UK, the prime choice are “Indian supermarkets” (big supermarkets in areas populated mostly by people of Indian descent), where you always seem to be able to get an awful lot of produce for not a lot of money.
@Nightjar #139
That’s not really “policing people’s plate” as it is rude curiosity about a diet different to their own. While I can see that it would be incredibly annoying after a while, it’s not really comparable.
@ Chris61 #156
See this (bolded part) I don’t get. Why not just catch them and put them outside? If there’s a nest or something and it’s physically impossible to relocate them all, then fine. But individual bugs? There’s no need to kill them.
Thumper:
As you can see for yourself, neither #139 nor #137 mentioned “police” or “policing.” That bit of bullshit came later in #146, which Nightjar actually responded to in #158. It evidently refers to criticizing (or simply discussing) the claims and choices people are making, on moral or epistemic or other grounds, but there’s so little useful and coherent content in WMDKitty’s comments that maybe nobody knows what that’s supposed to be about.
Since WMDKitty can’t or won’t, maybe you’d clarify things. What do you think is really “policing people’s plate”? Is it anything, or is it comparable to anything? Is it a bad thing? Are food police using excessive force, engaging in cruel and unusual punishment, infringing anyone’s rights, or supporting an unjust political or economic system? Do they have any power? Is the only power or authority appealed to here simply what is or morally and factually right, and if not, is there anything undemocratic or tyrannical about how these food police are actually wielding their power?
These are not valid responses to someone pointing out the moral problems with killing animals to eat them nor are they valid defenses of killing animals to eat them:
– mind your own plate
– this is why I hate vegans
– don’t lecture me on what my diet needs
– you eat what you want, I eat what I want
– we’re supposed to eat meat
– nature intended us to eat meat
The first four responses are actually summed up better with “I don’t want to have this discussion”. That’s what you’re actually trying to say when you say any of those four things. You want to avoid the discussion (and that’s fine, just say so). The last two are simply incorrect.
Compare those first four responses with a Gamergater conversation:
– mind your own video games
– this is why I hate SJWs
– don’t police what I play in my own time
– you play what you want, I play what I want
Talking about the moral issues of killing animals for meat is not the same as policing your plate, just like talking about sexism in video games is not the same as policing your personal playing of video games.
There’s an additional issue with those first four responses: they try to make the argument about the meat-eater when the argument was actually about the suffering of animals.
Over the years I learned here a lot about ethical arguments with regard to killing animals. I found some of them compelling, but some arguments presented are very, very lacking in substance. As a result I still see killing animals as morally neutral issue. The moral dimension is added in the context of when and how the living and killing of the animal in question finds place.
This particular killing of the lion Cecil I see clearly out of any grey zone and in the amoral teritory, but I do not see killing of animals for food as principally problematic, and not at all problematic if the animal is given a good life and quick and painless death.
But I have seen a lot of bad arguments used for promoting good things and this is one of them:
@sindi #168
I have neither the strenght, nor the time needed to adress all of what I disagree with, so I will adress only this one, because it is objectively, empirically, measurably, calculably wrong – and it put me personally off of accepting even good arguments used by vegans for years.
It is true, that meat production as currently practiced in large portions of developed world is mostly more expensive and wastefull than producing plant based foods. It is true that massive reduction in meat consumption in developed world would decrease strain on the environment and also feed more people with current land use. That is because animals are being fed with food that is also fit for human consumption. But this is not inevitable, unmutable state of affairs. This is not the one and only right way how to produce meat. This is also not how meat was historically produced and this is not how meat is produced all around the world right now.
One simple fact kills this argument – ruminants can digest cellulose, humans cannot. So you can succesfully grow cows, sheep and goats for meat and milk in areas that are unfit for producing plant based foods for direct human consumption. As an example of how animals are raised in area that is not fit for other forms of cultivation than pastures I offer you Národní Park Podyjí -click-. It is since middle ages an artificial ecosystem that requires grazing by sheep and goat to keep it the way it is – and it is a sanctuary for many endangerded species in CZ, so letting it go back to its natural state would in fact be detrimental to biodiversity, because those endangered species have nowhere else to go – the land where they used originally live is now used for crops or otherwise.
You can also feed to household animals offals from producing flour etc, and remnants from cooking. Where I live, pigs were originally used as a way of processing inevitable household food waste (spoiled food, remnants, offalls, cut offs. etc.) untill 1970.
Also in some areas of the world some wild animals are overpopulating (f.e. wild boars, deer) and are significantly damaging crops. There are multiple options how to deal with this, but one of them is simply killing these wild animals and eating them. And when compared with other possibilities (like reintroducing their predators), this one is maybe the most ethical one if one seeks reduction of suffering in the world. A bullet mostly kills an animal quicker than a pack of wolves.
You can feed a few rabbits with the grass mown on your yard (or you can use rabbits/goats directly instead of lawnmowers).
I wish the slugs that are decimating my garden and reducing my vegetable output by more than 10% (100% on some crops) were edible. I would eat them directly. They are however not edible by humans (they secrete some awfull tasting stuff). But guess what – ducks eat them and like them! So if I get a few ducklings in the spring, I might get more veggies from my garden, because the ducks will eat the slugs. But what should I do with the ducks in the winter? Well I could feed them with the veggies they earned me, thus getting even at the end and making me having them rather pointless from economical POV. Or I could eat the ducks in the winter, thus increasing the overall usable output of my garden – and lo and behold, this is exactly what some people are right trying to do and the only thing that stops me from trying it is that I do not have the extra time needed to care for the ducks. But I know that when I was a kid we had ducks and chicken – and no slugs in our vegetable patch, so I am inclined to think that it works.
So in conclusion – no, it is not always and it will not always be more expensive and land using to produce meat to feed X people than it is to produce plants to feed X people. The problem with arguments that contain words “always” and “every” is that every rule is always a generalization of something that has some underlying variation to it – and that variation can bes sometimes pretty wide and include things that seemingly defy or contradict the rule. I actually think you are aware of that because many of your arguments do take that into account and you use much more sensible wording in them (and I agree with a lot of it).
@ CR #172
You’re right, that did come later. #139 was about “Mind your own damn plate”. I interpreted that to mean “Don’t moralise about other’s eating habits”(and interpreted “Policing others’ plates” as moralizing about others eating habits), and assuming I’ve interpreted that correctly then I stand by what I said.
I’m not sure why you are asking me to speak for WMDKitty or generally acting as if I agree with them, when in fact I think they were being a bit of an arsehole and were definitely being very unreasonable, and thought I had made at least the latter fairly clear.
Charly:
It makes no difference what the animals are fed. Plants take in solar energy that we can eat. Cows (e.g.) can eat plants too, but much of that energy is wasted for us: we don’t get those calories, nor do we have any use for the work the cow is doing with the calories it burns. It just goes up in smoke. So it is simply and clearly more efficient to get our energy directly from plants, mushrooms, etc. That’s essentially just the second law of thermodynamics in action, and I have no idea how there could be any real dispute about that.
Are there enough areas like that, in the right places, to support livestock for everyone who currently eats meat all over the world? Would you be okay if meat prices went up, if that were required by law? If livestock are concentrated in areas like that (so it can be productive enough), how would that affect the environment compared to a lower concentration?
I don’t know, but they’re questions you’re not asking, so I’m doing that.
Or put fences around your crops. The fact that it’s possible to use different method isn’t the issue, and it doesn’t mean those are okay.
I’m not taking any responsibility for the suffering caused by a pack of wolves or other carnivores. We are responsible for our own actions, toward each other and toward them. They do not have a well-developed sense of morality or responsibility to even talk about (neither do most herbivores, so that’s clear). Nothing we do is going to change that. If we could reason with them about why they ought to cause less suffering, that would be something to consider. However, we can try to reason with other human beings about that. (Although it’s obvious they may not be very reasonable in return.)
You could also use slave labor, or you could pay a bunch of people to go out there with scissors, or you could use pesticides, or you could use satellites equipped with fucking lasers. Who cares? One obvious point here is that lawnmowers don’t feel anything at all, so there’s no sense whatsoever in saying they’re being exploited. If we used renewable and clean energy sources, they would not be an environmental problem any more than anything else using energy is an environmental problem. There’s also no actual need for yards with cut grasses in the first place. This is not a genuine problem that anyone faces, and you’re really grasping for straws if you also think it needs that kind of a solution.
Thumper:
Yes, I get your point. Expressing curiosity about your eating habits is not really the same as expressing ethical concerns about your eating habits*, I agree. Neither strike me as “policing” anything, though, and both can be done in annoying, pushy ways. I interpreted WMDKitty’s #137 (partly) as “that’s why people hate vegans, they’re pushy and always remarking about what’s on people’s plates”. You know, the all-too-familiar pushy vegan stereotype. And I do find it amusing how on the one hand vegans are so annoying because they are always telling the world about their veganism, but on the other hand… well, see #139. I pretty much never bring this stuff up in normal conversation, but some people pretty much demand to know why, specifically, there is no meat on my plate.
*Not that some meat-eaters don’t do the latter too, but it’s usually just a really stupid type of concern trolling (but cows will go extinct if no one eats them !!!).
consciousness razor, I stated that massive reduction of meat consumption is desirable. Perhaps I worded it poorly, but it is not true that I do not adress those questions you posed. I am stating that there are areas/circumstances where producing meat is cheaper than producing edible plant matter in that particular area/circumstance. I am not saying that it would cover current meat consumption or making meat cheaper than plant food on average.
What pisses me off however is that you are using the word suffering as if it were the same as killing and you are equating having a few rabits or a goat to slavery. Those things are not the same, and it is just as dishohest debating tactics, as it is when anti abortion people use word baby for fetuses and equate abortion with murder. It is a manipulative tactic and I am somewhat disappointed seeing that from you, but I have seen it often in these debates so I am hardly suprised.
Nightjar #177
Oh, for fuck sake. Repost to fix:
Oh god, my fellow omnivores can be fucking embarrassing at times. I’ve heard that argument before, and it’s so stupid. And I don’t understand why some omnivores have such a problem with it. You guys are following your conscience, and doing it in such a way that doesn’t hurt anyone. What the fuck’s the problem? I think a lot of omnivores assume that the mere mention of vegetarianism is some tacit criticism of their eating habits, and immediately go on the defensive.
“Policing” was hyperbolic, and I suspect deliberately so. And while the stereotype is mostly inaccurate, people like Marcello do exist, and it happens occasionally (I’ve been on the receiving end of it only once, and the other people I was with, who were mostly veggies and a couple of vegans, told her to fuck off). Trying to eat while someone is telling you what an immoral bastard you are because of the contents of your plate is not pleasant. But then, I imagine some irritating bastard treating you like a circus exhibit because there’s no meat on your plate isn’t either. I think the difference is that the latter, while undoubtedly annoying, isn’t a deliberate attempt to make you feel bad and contains no suggestion that you are immoral.
That does sound like a situation you jut can’t win :-/
I do hate the “pushy vegan” stereotype. I have two vegan friends (one recently turned veggie->vegan), one veggie friend, on pescetarian friend, and a veggie-but-occasionally-eats-fish aunt; and my girlfriend has one veggie and one vegan friend. Through my veggie/vegan friends I have met many other veggies and vegans, and a few through my girlfriend’s friends. And yet of all the veggies and vegans I have met, only one ever subjected me to a moralising rant about my diet, and as mentioned they were immediately told to pack it in by all the other veggies and vegans around me. They exist, sure, but to pretend they are representative of all vegans is just ridiculous.
@CR #176
I disagree with this bit. We don’t get all the energy a plant has taken in from the sun when we eat them, because obviously they use some of it themselves precisely as animals do. In and of itself, that’s not a reason not to eat them. And the reason meat tastes good is because it has such a high concentration of calories per pound. It is the most efficient way to get calories and amino acids into your system; that’s kind of beyond dispute. You have to eat a fairly large serving of pulses to get the same amount of calories and protein that you do from a regular portion of meat.
Of course you could just eat that larger serving of pulses, but if I’m going to call out omnivores for incorrect or illogical arguments, then I’m going to do the same vice versa. This is not a manufacturing chain; the efficiency of a diet is not measured by the loss of energy incurred during the transferal from the sun directly to you, else we’d have stopped at photosynthesis. It’s about getting the most amount of calories, proteins, vitamins and minerals in you with the least amount of food, and meat does that.
The rest of what you said I agree with.
Charly,
I think you are being unfair, consciousness razor didn’t do that above. “You could also use slave labor, or you could pay a bunch of people to go out there with scissors, or you could use pesticides, or you could use satellites equipped with fucking lasers” is enumerating a bunch of unrelated stuff you could do in order to make a point. The point being that not everything you could do should be done. That is no more equating it to slavery than it is equating it to hiring people to mow your yard, equating it to using pesticides (hm, herbicides?) or equating it to using satellites with lasers (eh).
On a different note, I do agree with you that arguments based on the environmental impact of meat consumption do not hold in all circumstances and areas of the planet and in all hypothetical future worlds with less people to feed. Not the current state of affairs, though.
***
Thumper,
Oh, I totally understand that.
Not the same thing at all, but I remember trying to eat as a kid while some family members discussed when to slaughter the next batch of chicken. It wasn’t pleasant. :-/
(For me, personally, stopping eating meat wasn’t a rational decision, it was an emotional one and I think it stemmed precisely from growing up around farm animals. Asking me to eat a rabbit is like asking me to eat my cat. I honestly see no difference.)
@ Nightjar
I can totally understand that. And logically speaking, there is no difference, so you’re in the right there. A couple of months ago I kept getting invites to sign a petition to “Stop Cruel Chinese Cat-Meat Markets!”. My immediate thought was “What ignorant cultural imperialism [or words to that effect]. There is no moral difference between eating a cat and eating a cow. Just because you think of cats as pets doesn’t make them a less-valid food item to humanity in general.”
Having never grown up on a farm, this has led me in the opposite direction to you, and I’ll try things most Westerners won’t. Anything you can put on a plate, really. I get very annoyed with people who’ll happily eat chicken or pork, but won’t eat rabbit or deer because they’re cute and fluffy. I get annoyed because this is a logically inconsistent position that they haven’t thought through. Vegetarianism and veganism, on the other hand, are logically consistent and well thought through.
Thumper,
Ah, yes, the “Chinese are evil because they eat cats and dogs, how dare they!” western-centric sentiment. I don’t have much sympathy for that either.
Cuteness and fluffiness as a measure of worth is also basically why most people don’t give a fuck about all the insect and amphibian species we are losing. Who cares about an ugly frog (such as, say, this one!) anyway, right?
Getting back on topic:
http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/us-huntress-s-selfie-creates-social-media-furore-115080401244_1.html
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/cecil-lion-hunters-guide-theo-bronkhorst-says-hes-done-nothing-n403641
Hunting trophies: Delta, United and American ban transport
@ Nightjar #184
I have a soft spot for frogs. My first exposure to properly wild animals was catching frogs in the pond in the back garden. I got pretty good at it.
I don’t understand people who don’t like frogs. For a start, they’re an entire bloody order. Which ones don’t you like? 88% of all amphibians are in the order Anura; there’re thousands of species! And some of them are really pretty. You’ll struggle to find another order that exhibits such a diverse array of colours, textures and patterns. Ditto calls. And they can call way louder than any animal of their size ought to be able to. And they live damn near everywhere. And some species can go into hibernation under the ground for years!
*ahem*. I like frogs.
@ Caine #185
Yeah, I became aware of giraffe lady earlier today. Didn’t realize she was being quite so deliberately provocative, though.
“It’s so beautiful, I shot it!”
These people give me the sads.
Thumper:
“We” were never plants, and evolution isn’t directed or hierarchical. I just don’t understand what you mean by “we’d have stopped at photosynthesis.”
Of course there are niches for organisms that eat plants. (The energy remaining in the plant is otherwise lost, but they make use of some of it.) And there are obviously niches for animals that eat other animals.
But there are 7+ billion humans on the planet. Global food production for us is a manufacturing process, and we’re able to decide how/when/where/why we get our energy.
What? I have no idea if you need to have a larger mass on your plate if it doesn’t contain meat (there are a huge number possibilities and it varies a lot), but my point is that you’re using more or less agricultural area/time to get what you need, which (along with water use, pollution, etc.) has a certain impact on the environment. That area does not stay fixed, no matter what combinations of different sorts of crops (and livestock) you put in it. That’s the sense in which, for the whole human population, meat is not an efficient or low-impact source of energy.
@ CR
I was under the impression that the earliest lifeforms on Earth were algae, so logically we must have descended from plants?
But it doesn’t matter; by “we” I meant life in general, and I was being facetious.
What I was trying to say, on a more serious note, is that if you look at the problem as an attempt to transfer the sun’s energy to the human body as efficiently as possible, which is what you seemed to be treating it as, then it really depends on how you define efficiency. At each stage energy is lost, as you pointed out. So cutting out the meat stage and eating plants directly cuts out some energy loss. But at each stage energy is also concentrated into a smaller mass. You can gain the same energy from a smaller amount of meat than plants. Thus, this isn’t a very good argument in favour of veganism.
But it’s also a problem of scale. For the individual, meat is the most efficient diet. This is inarguable. If you’re trying to get the most amount of calories with the least amount of food, you want meat. If you are looking at the problem from a global perspective, where you are attempting to produce the most amount of energy-efficient food for the least possible land use, then yes the whole world living a vegan lifestyle would be more efficient.
Thumper,
No. I suppose you are referring to cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), the bacteria that use the same type of photosynthesis (oxygenic) as algae and plants. But they aren’t really algae, they are bacteria.
And we don’t descend from cyanobacteria either. They weren’t the earliest life forms. For one thing, anoxygenic photosynthesis came before oxygenic photosynthesis. Some of the bacteria that carry out those different forms of photosynthesis belong to deeply branching (ancient) phyla, but I think you would have a hard time claiming that life’s last universal common ancestor was a photosynthesizing organism…
… Although now that I think about it and if I remember correctly, Cavalier-Smith actually tried to do that by putting Chlorobacteria as the oldest prokaryotic lineage, but that’s, er, controversial (to say the least). But again, they aren’t plants and don’t do the same thing as plants. If you take our lineage and go down the tree you will never find a plant, you will never find an organism with plant-like photosynthesis, and very likely you won’t find photosynthesis at all.