Is It Ethical To Eat Meat?
The Benefits of Being A Human
First off, congratulations! Because if you're reading this, chances are you're human, or at least a dolphin with an above average intelligence. And that means you beat the odds by merely not being born an amoeba, or exist as a bit of space debris, or a hemorrhoid up my ass, or a mentally challenged dolphin. Considering the sheer amount of biological and abiological matter out there in the universe, what are the chances of any one of us actually being a human? It must be up there with winning the lottery 10 times in a row. We basically hit the jackpot big time.
Found them - the true cause of global warming
I don't think, for the most part, we express enough gratitude for not being a hemorrhoid up someone ass, but I suspect there's an evolutionary reason for this. Caveman who were too preoccupied contemplating why they weren't a mammoth probably didn't fare too well actually fighting them to have many descendants. So unfortunately, inheriting the very genes that allow us to remain miserable after winning 10 lotteries in a row is sort of part of the prize pool of being human. But make no mistake, compared to all the other creatures around here, we're basically Gods. So how have we chosen to wield this power over lesser lifeforms?
Animal slaughter
Well I have good news and bad news: the good news is that the very same brain power that has allowed us to invent the photocopier so we can find out what our own asses look like, has also enabled us to become pretty efficient at killing other animals, over a hundred billion a year, in fact. The bad news is I was lying when I called it good news. Indeed, you'd expect they'd be some very compelling reasons to justify 2000 times more yearly animal deaths than the number of people killed in World War 2. But 2000 animal Hitlers are not being thwarted every year, despite Orwell's Animal Farm trying to convince us otherwise. Ultimately, considering that most research has shown that a strict vegan diet is perfectly nutritious, we have to come to terms with the fact that these animals are killed for one predominant reason: because kale tastes like shit.
Fine, So What?
'Ok, so one or two or a few hundred billion chickens and pigs and buffaloes die, so what? I happen to like buffalo wings!' I hear a hypothetical straw man ask. Well, while animals are not as sophisticated as (some of) us, they are still sentient beings capable of immense suffering. Almost all animals respond to physical pain, except maybe frogs, which are a bit oblivious when it comes to being slowly boiled for some reason. Still, when common practice in the farming industry is to grind up or suffocate countless baby male chicks in plastic bags for the crime of not being able to lay eggs anymore than you or I, it's hard to not sympathize with their physical suffering.
Shhh - I'm pretending to lay an egg, don't tell them I have a pecker
Furthermore, many animals are also capable of experiencing extreme grief and anguish, like when mother elephants mourn over the death of their young, which doubly sucks for them considering their exceptional memory. Millions of cows worldwide are forced to give birth every 9 months just so they can have milk extracted by machines in their tiny crates. These baby calves are taken away from their distraught mothers within the first day so as to not waste any of the latter's precious milk.
Of course most of us are complicit to this process of large scale animal torture and killing just by contributing to market demand. Overall, a non vegan person is responsible for murdering approximately 100 animals a year. Minnesota dentists tend to have a slightly higher batting average here. Remember, this is all pretty much for the sole purpose of us being able to enjoy the momentary pleasure of consuming meat. Maybe we should all try eating Brussels sprouts while masturbating instead?
Wake up sheeple and stop killing us!
Conclusion
Well it certainly seems like vegans also have the moral high ground in addition to the advantage of having an excuse to be the biggest pain in the ass at every dinner party. Needing an entirely separate menu is one thing, but do they really have to preface every sentence with the words 'As a vegan...'?
Am I a vegan myself? I'll answer that after I finish these wicked wings. But hypocrisy aside, I figured if any one of my millions of readers converted to veganism, it would be just as morally good as me doing so myself. I have been trying to eat less meat though. This is sort of frustrating because as a social rule, no one gives partial credit here, even though I'm contributing to far less animal suffering than the average person. It's strangely all or nothing in an almost religious way: a single slice of bacon gets you on the shit list just as quickly as touching yourself in the shower. So despite my efforts to cut down on meat, I don't even get to be an annoying twat by starting every sentence with 'As a vegan...', which annoys me because I like being an annoying twat.
It's hard to deny that the mass slaughter and torture of this many animals for the mere purpose of gratifying our taste buds is probably not going to be seen as a shining beacon of moral virtue by future generations, finger lickin' good or not.
References
Animal Equality
Sam Harris: "I Can't Ethically Defend Eating Meat."
Should we be Vegetarian? - Philosophy Tube
All images from https://www.pexels.com/
If you enjoyed this piece, please Upvote, Resteem and follow me @trafalgar, especially if you believe non steemit/crypto related articles are good for the platform
i love meat but since 3 weeks ive stopped eating it - i need to get more healthy :)
Using the worst possible methods of ranching and comparing them to the best possible methods of veganism is not really fair.
Pasture animals are not tortured, return carbon to the soil and improve diversity, and can be slaughtered humanely - whereas in nature they die of starvation, or fearful, violent, rending predation.
Meanwhile some forms of veganism increase desertification, remove carbon from soil (and it ends up in the air), requires oil based fertilizer, oil fueled harvesting/transport (sometimes across oceans), and ends up displacing and killing millions of smaller forms of life. My beef at lunch kills one 2000th of a cow, my salad may have killed dozens of birds, mice and insects.
The question is not "Is it ethical?" but "can it be made ethical?" If one really wants to stop the torture and pollution, put your money into locally pastured meats. Because those ranchers don't care what vegans want. They care what their customers want. They will switch from CAFOs to Grassfed if they see a profit.
I think the problem is in part ignorance and also people not acting in accord with what they know.
Animal agriculture is the leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution, and habitat destruction.
1/3 of the planet is desertified, with livestock as the leading driver. (United Nation)
As many as 40% (63 billion pounds) of fish caught globally every year are discarded.
Animal agriculture is responsible for up to 91% of Amazon destruction.
The leading causes of rainforest destruction are livestock and feedcrops.
Ten thousand years ago, 99% of biomass (i.e. zoomass) was wild animals. Today, humans and the animals that we raise as food make up 98% of the zoomass.
80% of antibiotic sold in the US are for livestock.
82% of starving children live in countries where food is fed to animals, and the animals are eaten by western countries.
1.5 acres can produce 37,000 pounds of plant-based food.
1.5 acres can produce 375 pounds of beef.
Cowspiracy (It's on Netflix and its director is Leonardo Dicaprio)
The way you can tell if something is humane is by asking if you would like it to happen to yourself. No sentient being wants to die unless they're terminally and or mentally ill. Other than that, there no such thing as ethical slaughter. If you think not then you're kidding or lying to yourself, both of which are extremely foolish.
Veganism isn't about being perfect, it's about doing the best you can to avoid cruelty and exploitation. With regards to the displacement and killing of animals accidentally as side effect of agriculture, please stop with the FUD: http://www.theflamingvegan.com/view-post/Vegan-Mythbusting-1-Are-wild-animals-killed-when-grain-is-harvested-for-vegans
Also, beef requires more plant matter to produce then the return in caloric value one gets back from the dead flesh. This makes it an inefficient means of energy transfer. Think about this, everyone in the world could be fed if the feed we used for farm animals was directed toward other humans. We currently have enough resources to feed 10 billion people this very moment but, instead we use it feeding the enslaved, abused, raped, tortured and eventually murdered animals.
We are destroying the future as the livestock industry is the largest contributor of green house gasses, one of the biggest pollution problems we are facing and the greatest waste of water to date. One pound of beef requires 600 gallon of water and in the south western USA, there is a shortage and this will increase in the coming years.
I'm not going to mention the health benefits of being vegan in this post but, i can tell you it's a huge plus. If you do your research you'll find this out yourself. It's selfish to think your taste-buds matter more than the lives of our fellow earthling. As Bill Gates and now many are saying, "Plant based diets are the future!".
Killing is killing. No matter how you do it.
BTW, I was vegetarian for 30 years before I learned better.
I support. Better to improve the lives of those animals that live on farms. Anyway, no one will be able to translate all people into vegetarianism.
I own some black people, but i own them humanely u know. I own less black people than the average white person. I feel better :)
Its hard to live or survive without causing damage. A vegetarian diet is probably less destructive. Old habits die hard, though, because society in general always leads us towards eating meat, poultry, fish, and so on.
What an intellectually dishonest, "narcissistic", semi obvious comment, cows poo on the ground around other plantationed animals. Did you not subjectively state, "Pasture animals are not tortured, return carbon to the soil and improve diversity, and can be slaughtered humanely - whereas in nature they die of starvation, or fearful, violent, rending predation."? Do you think this is being COMPLETELY honest with yourself? Please try coming from a compassionate space for sentient LIFE(has emotions, wants to go on living), Please enlighten how murdering(involuntarily taking another life) can in any "unwarped way" be remotely considered "humane"? Or is "what is going on here", massive cognitive dissonance(lying to yourself) to rationalize needlessly torturing, murdering and then consuming animal flesh? Why, for taste pleasure? Imagine you do not consider yourself a sadistic soul that takes taste pleasure over a sentient life. Perhaps something to reflect on.
I've worked on farms and saying that the best possible farm practices are representative of the meat industry as a whole is unfair, given that these farms produce hardly any of the meat consumed. Your argument about salad is illogical, one cow eats 26lbs of "salad" a day. 90 million acres of land in the US is devoted to corn all machine harvested, with most of the crop going to livestock feed. 70% of the deforested land in Brazil is used for pasture and livestock feed is grown on much of the rest. You're criticizing vegans for eating salad while ignoring all the food that cows need to grow to adulthood.... thats whack. Nice cognitive dissonance you got there.
Completely agree I was raised in Mexico and always had organic food available through my childhood. We ate what we harvested and the animals we raised. Now fast forward 20 years and it's very difficult to find true organic food since most farmers gave up since the big corporations brought them to bankruptcy!
I've never been 100% comfortable with eating meat for many of the reasons which you suggest. Suffering is suffering.
I've felt for a while now once synthetic meat is both cheaper and higher quality than what we currently consume, most of humanity will suddenly grow a conscience and future generations will look back at us as barbaric. Until that time though, we'll continue slaughtering animals in horrible ways without remorse :P
We ate meat and that's why our brains evolved. Factory farming is terrible of course but I think all of nature feeds on itself (lions hunting gazelle or whatever) and humans are part of nature. Plus, bacon!
Maybe if we stop being barbaric there will not be any future generations?
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating being cruel to animals or anything, but pure might helped create society as it is. It is a good idea to be as fair and as ethical as possible, but lets not forget that survival is still a thing.
It is moral to have a measure of what we do. What is happening today is above every measure and it is unethical. Its not what the ordinary people do but mostly what the big companies do to have profit.
I totally agree!
Very convincing.. I can not convert all of sudden but I can choose not to be. I'll try to reduce my dosage of meat intake.
One thing nice about your post, you wrapped up the conclusion in very compact which created impact.
Great thoughts @trafalgar
thanks a lot chandu :)
I gave up meat many years ago and don't really miss it. There are veggie substitutes for many things if you want that taste, but I realise some people don't even want that. I do choose to still eat fish now and then, but it should be a personal choice. It's not a religion that dictates what we should and shouldn't do.
I thought Steven Wilson stated his reasons well. We are not hunter-gatherers now. Food is an industry and meat is just a product. I think many people don't even think about where it comes from and don't equate farm animals to their pets.
The vegan food substitutes are getting so good that soon it'll be hard for people to justify not giving up meat. Seriously, I had these vegan chicken strips. We put some franks red hot sauce on them and I actually cried because they tasted just as good as a hot wing, and no animal had to be killed for me to enjoy it.
I look forward to the day when vegan substitutes are just as good and just as cheap. I doubt that day is far off.
You won't believe this - I finished watching this very video just 5 minutes back! He's absolutely right.
... ?
I love that you tackle topics like this. You've got a great sense of humor. The issue is so complicated when you mix the treatment of the animals with the potential environmental effects from methane gas. But yeah, it's hard as hell to reconcile all of the reasons not to eat meat, with just how delicious bacon is!
Unfortunately human nature need to be fixed, we are killers.
It's not only animals, we are killing and torturing humans today as we done forever before.
We kill for money, love, profits, culture and religious difference, indirectly when we vote for crazy people or let government go to war...
The problem is deeper than vegetarism, we should find a way to respect what and who surround us.
Yes we can't be perfect. Is it a reason to do nothing? where do we arrive to be perfect?
Look like we do a lot of things in life where we don't care to achieve perfection.
Monkey see monkey do
Probably what SS were thinking when they obey to oder.
Think by yourself, don't do what you would not like to surfer, each person is proportionally responsible to humanity condition.
Thanks for the info, unfortunately I love meat too much to ever give it up!