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Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 17:37
by Lada
linguaholic wrote:
Create perfect conditions for the chickens, how much will it cost? And will you have enough money to buy an egg after raising the expenses for our beloved chickens?

Why do we have to eat eggs at all?

Please, make a PR compaign "we don't need eggs" around the world, and tell the results.

It's not arrogance, it's just truth. I hope nobody will deny that human race is on way higher level of its development then animals, that we have range of features which differs us from them.

If humans are so highly developed, self-conscious, ethical etc. how does that "superiority" over animals give them a right to torture them?

It doesn't give a right, I said earlier that we need to take care of animals. But I'm against of making a big deal from nothing, crying "poor chickens, fabric doesn't give them enough space for living, poor ants, people squelch them every day" blablabla

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 17:40
by Lazar Taxon
Draven wrote:Humans are not that smart and advanced. For all the arrogance they've demonstrated, I always think of homo sapiens as the biggest failure of evolution so far.

Well, I think of modern humans as sort of like "the animal that broke evolution". Before the rise of civilization, animals had all been part of relatively balanced ecosystems, living in wilderness conditions. But when given the chance, humans - unlike any other animal - were able to develop technology that removed them from the environment and allowed for tremendous exploitation and destruction of the planet. It's as if nature had a pretty good formula for making non-sapient animals, but then when we came around, nature was completely unable to deal with us. So in that sense you could say that it's nature's fault.

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 17:59
by linguaholic
I don't get it; do you want me to find a euphemism for it? Should I say I want them to find an ethical way to get their cows to move on to the next life? I'm just using the correct word :noclue:


My point was that slaughtering is unethical in itself.

Please, make a PR compaign "we don't need eggs" around the world, and tell the results.


I don't get your point. Please explain.

It doesn't give a right, I said earlier that we need to take care of animals. But I'm against of making a big deal from nothing, crying "poor chickens, fabric doesn't give them enough space for living, poor ants, people squelch them every day" blablabla

What does "taking care of animals" mean to you then?
And please don't be silly, nobody was talking about ants. This is about industrial killing.

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 18:03
by Steisi
linguaholic wrote:My point was that slaughtering is unethical in itself.


Then we have a difference of opinion :yep: Diversity <3 :D

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 19:19
by JackFrost
Draven wrote:One word, however: rice. I don't think Westerners can truly comprehend this :mrgreen:

Do you really think so? You're talking to a Western whose in-laws love to do nothing but buy rice, make rice, eat rice, and shit rice.

"It's only animals." and "It has always been like this."

It's only animals and it always has been like this. Other animals do this as well and, yes, I am including humans as animals. :)


As for me. I don't buy a lot of meat. Just a serving once per week, so this is almost a moot point for me. I don't really buy eggs weekly either and my cooking hardly needs any. I don't go buy fast-food often (just once or twice per month). But I spend $40 per week on food, so it's too much for me to get "ethical" with meat or you'd be asking me to pay twice the amount I pay per week to do so. I'm a low-budget student. You're talking to a guy who lives with a luxury of just an internet and a roof over my head. No TV. No car. I don't go out often. I hate McD, KFC, etc. and I don't see a point of having those.

So I feel happy enough with my life and my eating habits and I have more worries than whatever the first poster is showing in the youtube videos. Didn't watch them because I know what they're going to have. ^^

My point was that slaughtering is unethical in itself.

My teacher told me that they shoot a nail in the cow's head and it dies in a snap. I don't see that being unethical. It's a painless death and most humans don't have that chance when they near their end.

Well, I think of modern humans as sort of like "the animal that broke evolution". Before the rise of civilization, animals had all been part of relatively balanced ecosystems, living in wilderness conditions. But when given the chance, humans - unlike any other animal - were able to develop technology that removed them from the environment and allowed for tremendous exploitation and destruction of the planet. It's as if nature had a pretty good formula for making non-sapient animals, but then when we came around, nature was completely unable to deal with us. So in that sense you could say that it's nature's fault.

You said it so beautifully.

Why do we have to eat eggs at all?

Good source of protein and we don't have to kill chickens for that. If you buy free-range chickens who just die from natural causes, then there you go...eggs are good.

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 19:24
by BezierCurve
the last one is more developped, but still not like human - I mean mentally healthy humans without any psychic defections.


Give me one good reason why we shouldn't eat mentally ill people then :D

What about wasting money invested in sustaining human bodies with dead brains? Wouldn't it be more progressive to donate them to starving people? After all there's no intelligence/mind in there, just proteins.

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 19:30
by Boes
The answer to why we eat other animals is very simple: because we can.

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 19:36
by linguaholic
Just like we can kill other human beings, torture people, destroy the earth... good reason.

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 19:49
by JackFrost
linguaholic wrote:Just like we can kill other human beings, torture people, destroy the earth... good reason.

You could, but don't expect not to land in jail. :)

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 19:51
by linguaholic
My teacher told me that they shoot a nail in the cow's head and it dies in a snap. I don't see that being unethical. It's a painless death and most humans don't have that chance when they near their end.


So killing is ethical as long as it is clean and quick?

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 20:08
by loqu
As I studied in university, you cannot kill a cow with a painless method if you want to eat its meat. It just doesn't work, because to make possible the chemical reactions that transform muscle into meat, the animal has to be unblooded (which is the correct verb?). Otherwise the muscle just goes rotten and inedible.

Anyway I proposed myself not to write anymore on this thread, but wanted to give you the fact.

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 20:09
by Boes
linguaholic wrote:Just like we can kill other human beings, torture people, destroy the earth... good reason.


We can, and we do it because there are no consequences. Or at least no consequences that most would find to be very troubling or are ignorant about. It's scary when you think of it, but people are like that.

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 20:19
by JackFrost
linguaholic wrote:
My teacher told me that they shoot a nail in the cow's head and it dies in a snap. I don't see that being unethical. It's a painless death and most humans don't have that chance when they near their end.

So killing is ethical as long as it is clean and quick?

Yep, if I want to have some of my mother's wonderful spaghetti and meatballs.

And many humans wouldn't have the luxury of having a painless death. Not many people died peacefully in their sleep, you know?

As I studied in university, you cannot kill a cow with a painless method if you want to eat its meat. It just doesn't work, because to make possible the chemical reactions that transform muscle into meat, the animal has to be unblooded (which is the correct verb?). Otherwise the muscle just goes rotten and inedible.

After you shoot a nail in the head and killing it in snap, you can deblood the cow right there. No need to slit its throat while still alive.

Naturally the muscle will become rotten and inedible after a certain stage of any death. They chop up the cow right after the slaughter.

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 20:25
by Sheidhaf
CoBB wrote:
Sheidhaf wrote:I'm not an expert on the subject; I read about it in a magazine that is typically very accurate.

Well, instead of reading magazines, try dog-keeping sometime. :yep:

Magazinok olvasása helyett egyszer inkább próbálj kutyát tartani. :yep:


I have a dog. It's not very intelligent, and I know that dog's are famous for trying to fight or befriend the dog in the mirror.

I understand that the mirror method also does not prove an animal's self-consciousness. I don't think that there is an accurate way, but observing most animal actions and how almost everything that they learn and do is based on what they have always done, I personally do not believe that many of them understand their own existence. I do, however, understand those that do believe them to have self-concept.

I'm against the needless killing of animals, and I understand why we kill them for food. We are omnivores, our digestive systems were made to process meat, and we probably ought to provide them with at least a little.

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 20:35
by linguaholic
Yep, if I want to have some of my mother's wonderful spaghetti and meatballs.

The taste of your mother's meatballs is no ethical argument, I'm sorry.

And many humans wouldn't have the luxury of having a painless death. Not many people died peacefully in their sleep, you know?

Yes, I know.
So let's kill all those people painlessly now?

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 21:01
by Javier
Everytime I read this thread and see Sarabi's avatar I realize I have not bought eggs this week and I have been craving for an omelette every morning :(

Tomorrow I must buy the eggs, otherwise no omelette this weekend :cry:

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-22, 21:27
by JackFrost
linguaholic wrote:
Yep, if I want to have some of my mother's wonderful spaghetti and meatballs.

The taste of your mother's meatballs is no ethical argument, I'm sorry..

Well tough shit. I'm a fan of her meatballs. :D

And many humans wouldn't have the luxury of having a painless death. Not many people died peacefully in their sleep, you know?

Yes, I know.
So let's kill all those people painlessly now?

Go ahead. I'll keep an eye on the news for a case of mass killing in the Netherlands.

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-23, 2:12
by Trapy
JackFrost wrote:
And many humans wouldn't have the luxury of having a painless death. Not many people died peacefully in their sleep, you know?

Yes, I know.
So let's kill all those people painlessly now?

Go ahead. I'll keep an eye on the news for a case of mass killing in the Netherlands.

Soylent Grun ist Menschenfleisch!!! (/sorry, don't know dutch :()

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-23, 7:40
by Steisi
JackFrost wrote:[
And many humans wouldn't have the luxury of having a painless death. Not many people died peacefully in their sleep, you know?

Yes, I know.
So let's kill all those people painlessly now?

Go ahead. I'll keep an eye on the news for a case of mass killing in the Netherlands.


The difference is that we don't want to kill those people for food. Without going into a Nazi rant; from the perspective of vegetarianism we wouldn't gain anything out of killing mentally ill people or people who we predict are going to die peacefully in our sleep, because usually we don't practice cannibalism.

I can see that this argument will go round and round in circles because there are vegetarians who just feel that everyone can do just fine on a vegetarian diet, therefore eliminating the need to kill animals at all. On the other hand there are people who eat meat, who for whatever reason think that eating meat is a necessity, and therefore aren't going to stop it. So instead of having all these inhumane chicken throat slitters and stuff they prefer to instead campaign for more ethical methods of slaughtering animals. Of course killing is more ethical if it's clean and quick; is anyone arguing that it's better to torture the crap out of something before it dies?

For me eating meat is something I'm not going to stop because I see it as important for my diet. So killing animals for food is alright, in my opinion, but I'm not so inhuman that I want to see them suffer and be mutilated.

It would be interesting to know if animals actually know that they're being brought up for food. I mean, we know about it (and that's probably what makes us squirm ethically) but the cow farms in Finland I've seen mean that cows live a perfectly peaceful life grazing as much as they want and roaming fields. They probably spend 95% of their life as happy as cows can be. That's the kind of treatment I want for animals farmed for food, and I don't see much unethical with that.

Re: Meat-eating and the industry

Posted: 2008-10-23, 7:43
by loqu
I had meatballs for dinner yesterday and thought of JackFrost.

But I'm angry with my mother because those poor little plants had to be killed to make the garnish :( It was really mean. I'll fight for the rights of leek, onion and tomato to live.