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Can you be a carnivore and care about animals?

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    #92
    auspicious
    Registered Users Posts: 4,497 ✭✭✭auspicious


    corner of hells wrote: »
    What I want to know is if vegans feel guilty mowing their lawns ?

    Nothing goes to waste. I throw those cuttings in with some spuds and rice. Yum.


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    #93
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    auspicious wrote: »
    They are hard work for the majority as the majority tend to do mental gymnastics to not feel bad about their everyday choices.

    The thing is that majority don't need to do mental gymnastics to feel better, since it's acceptable, and therefore they don't need to think about it all...

    I certainly never think about this topic until I see a thread like this, or meet a vegan on a crusade. The rest of the time, I genuinely never think about farms, animals, slaughterhouses, etc.

    Everyday choices, typically, are things that people do on automatic.. they're not usually something that needs to be justified.


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    #94
    auspicious
    Registered Users Posts: 4,497 ✭✭✭auspicious


    [Deleted User] wrote: »
    The thing is that majority don't need to do mental gymnastics to feel better, since it's acceptable, and therefore they don't need to think about it all...

    I certainly never think about this topic until I see a thread like this, or meet a vegan on a crusade. The rest of the time, I genuinely never think about farms, animals, slaughterhouses, etc.

    Everyday choices, typically, are things that people do on automatic.. they're not usually something that needs to be justified.

    It's about what people accept as the norm. Without questioning accepted practices we'll always be stuck in the constraints of the past which affect the rights of others without a voice.
    By others I mean beings which have a full conscious experience of reality which is whole in and of itself to them.
    Take the practice of FGM as an everday occurrence in some thirty countries in Africa. Just because it's tradition dose not make it morally acceptable.
    Any sentient being deserves the right to life and fair treatment.


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    #95
    igCorcaigh
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 11,076 Mod ✭✭✭✭igCorcaigh


    [Deleted User] wrote: »
    The thing is that majority don't need to do mental gymnastics to feel better, since it's acceptable, and therefore they don't need to think about it all...

    I certainly never think about this topic until I see a thread like this, or meet a vegan on a crusade. The rest of the time, I genuinely never think about farms, animals, slaughterhouses, etc.

    Everyday choices, typically, are things that people do on automatic.. they're not usually something that needs to be justified.

    Exactly. We as a society are led to accept the hidden violence that is inherent to the way we live.

    Be that violence toward an animal, a person, nation or the environment.


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    #96
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    If Homo Floresiensis had survived in isolation on an island in Indonesia for just another 50,000 years longer of its prior million year history, would many people have considered them fair game to eat? What if our archaic distant cousin hominins such as Neandertals and Denisovans hadn't gone extinct/ got subsumed into the species we call "modern humans", but instead a few isolated "pure bred" individuals of either species had remained untouched in some corner of the globe for the last few hundreds of thousands of years: how immoral would it be to eat them? At what distance of cousinship with the currently existing population of humans should we consider it beyond the pale, or is there some other way of determining what is fair game? Capacity to form hybrids with modern humans is a candidate criteria but depending on genetic distance it can become statistical ie. Possible but very unlikely, grading up to impossible. I wonder could Homo Floresiensis and modern humans form viable offspring. It's such a lucky coincidence from a moral quandary point of view that we're the last remaining hominin and that these issues can remain abstract questions.


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    #97
    igCorcaigh
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 11,076 Mod ✭✭✭✭igCorcaigh


    Wall of text poster, you raise fringe moral dillemas, thank you.

    I think the issue under discussion is the animals we currently eat.


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    #98
    ThewhiteJesus
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,714 ✭✭✭ThewhiteJesus


    SouthWesterly wrote: »
    Quiet possible

    I had friends over for dinner this evening (within guideline's)

    Everything on the table was from my garden including the chicken I raised and killed.
    It was well looked after for its short life.

    Did you choke your chicken?


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    #99
    auspicious
    Registered Users Posts: 4,497 ✭✭✭auspicious


    Throughout history up until we developed sustainable agricultural practices everything was surely fair game.
    These days, in the 'Western hemisphere' at least, we have reached a standard of food security where we can allow ourselves to question objective moral standards relating to our daily food choices and their impacts on our environment and the species which share this single planet with us.
    Though our uncontested intelligence and nurtured sciences we have realised we can do better. That at this current stage in our gobalistic endeavours we have discovered we have no other solution than to make imperative choices that treat our continual existence and planetary equilibrium of utmost priority.


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    #100
    SouthWesterly
    Registered Users Posts: 6,456 ✭✭✭SouthWesterly


    igCorcaigh wrote: »
    That's an example of how it can be done.
    Not scalable of course.

    I think most of the ethical problem lies with industrial scale rearing of animals for cheap meat.

    My chicken took 10 weeks.
    The one in tesco is 3 weeks old.


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    #101
    SouthWesterly
    Registered Users Posts: 6,456 ✭✭✭SouthWesterly


    ThewhiteJesus wrote: »
    Did you choke your chicken?

    Broke its neck along with 14 more.


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    #102
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    auspicious wrote: »
    It's about what people accept as the norm. Without questioning accepted practices we'll always be stuck in the constraints of the past which affect the rights of others without a voice.

    Except that you've decided that the rights of others are superior to the rights of the majority... and the world we live in, everyone has a voice. To suggest otherwise is ridiculous. Just because they're ignored, doesn't mean that they've had the ability to express themselves removed.
    By others I mean beings which have a full conscious experience of reality which is whole in and of itself to them.

    Who have the right to live their own lives based on that reality... but it doesn't mean that they have the right to enforce their reality on others. They're a minority. The majority is typically the way society works. My eating meat has no impact on your life... whereas your forcing me not to eat meat (because of "your" reality)....
    Take the practice of FGM as an everday occurrence in some thirty countries in Africa. Just because it's tradition dose not make it morally acceptable.

    It does, for them. I have zero interest in forcing foreign cultures to embrace western values unwillingly. For us, it's not acceptable. People should accept the common values of the country that they live in. If you can't, don't live there. Simple enough.

    The problem with your logic is that it suggests that anyone who decides that their morals are "the best" has the right to enforce it on others.
    Any sentient being deserves the right to life and fair treatment.

    A laudable belief. No, I do think it's a lovely idea... but nah. I'll deal with my own reality, and that reality says life is hard/unfair to loads of "sentient" creatures. **** happens.

    Humanity consumes... This life you lead in Ireland/Europe is propped up by the consumption of heaps of the worlds resources, without which, you'd essentially be living in a third world nation. Service economies 'sacrifice' the resources of others in order to exist... the exploitation of other territories to support an economy that can't sustain itself without imports of food, fuel, etc. Sure, we "buy" these things but it's a stacked deck for poorer nations to supply the richer nations.

    I find your whole attitude quite superficial TBH.


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    #103
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    igCorcaigh wrote: »
    Exactly. We as a society are led to accept the hidden violence that is inherent to the way we live.

    Be that violence toward an animal, a person, nation or the environment.

    Exactly? Err, no. 'People' don't care. There's a difference. It's not important to them. It's not as if there haven't been heaps of documentaries showing the cruelty that happens in many industries... People will watch them, say it's terrible, and then forget about it 15 minutes later. It's not important to their way of life, unless something directly affects them. And even then, most will shrug it off after some time.


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    #104
    auspicious
    Registered Users Posts: 4,497 ✭✭✭auspicious


    Majority rules stinks of might makes right.
    We've learned as a world soceity quite harshly of late that the sidelined minority should unquestionably have a fair and equal voice; an acceptance of equality and unequivocal fairness despite their lesser numbers or unequal footing in soceity.
    "The majority is typically the way society works" genocides are derived from this mindset.
    The minority is never in a position to enforce. Only to endorse and fight for equity.
    **** happens because those of an uncaring disposition allow it to be so.
    [Beings deserve right to life] is a laudable position because you're blinded by cognitive dissonance.

    Yes we know we're propped up by unsustainable practices and this state of Western being needs serious adjustment and it won't happen easily until the few make a stand against it, especially when many endorse the current status quo.


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    #105
    Errashareesh
    Closed Accounts Posts: 572 ✭✭✭Errashareesh


    Don't kid yourselves. If a cow ever got the chance, it'd eat you and everyone you care about.


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    #106
    suicide_circus
    Registered Users Posts: 19,802 ✭✭✭✭suicide_circus


    Mmmmm...that's good Billy


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    #107
    Wanderer78
    Registered Users Posts: 28,805 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    ancapailldorcha wrote:
    I don't really know then. Is the question of this thread's title valid?


    Yup, I'm one of those weird humans that does


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    #108
    Wanderer78
    Registered Users Posts: 28,805 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    Errashareesh wrote:
    Don't kid yourselves. If a cow ever got the chance, it'd eat you and everyone you care about.


    I think cows just need a cuddle, they seem to respond well when mooed at


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    #109
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    auspicious wrote: »
    Majority rules stinks of might makes right.

    No, it doesn't. That's just bringing it up to cast negative impressions over the whole thing. Democracy (even if I'm dubious about it's effectiveness) is based on the views of the majority, so does that also line up with might makes right?
    We've learned as a world soceity quite harshly of late that the sidelined minority should unquestionably have a fair and equal voice; an acceptance of equality and unequivocal fairness despite their lesser numbers or unequal footing in soceity.

    Actually, we're learning the direct opposite, due to the continuing failures of multiculturalism, and the "equal" rights of migrants who should never have been allowed into the country in the first place.
    "The majority is typically the way society works" genocides are derived from this mindset.

    Oh, Gosh, I suppose that's something minority groups never sought and brought about? :rolleyes: It's worth pointing out that within western society/history, it has been the majority that have prevented or ended most genocides in our regions.
    The minority is never in a position to enforce. Only to endorse and fight for equity.
    **** happens because those of an uncaring disposition allow it to be so.
    [Beings deserve right to life] is a laudable position because you're blinded by cognitive dissonance.

    You make cognitive dissonance sound like a foregone and proven concept.. it's not.. just as it's often used inappropriately by people.

    In any case, you're throwing around terms that could easily be assigned to you too.
    Yes we know we're propped up by unsustainable practices and this state of Western being needs serious adjustment and it won't happen easily until the few make a stand against it, especially when many endorse the current status quo.

    LOL. Pipedreams.


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    #110
    auspicious
    Registered Users Posts: 4,497 ✭✭✭auspicious


    A hundred and fifty years ago they would have thought you were absurd if you advocated for the end of slavery.
    Fifty years ago they would object to the idea of African Americans receiving equal rights under law. Also in apartheid South Africa.
    A hundred years ago they laughed at the suggestion of the idea for women's right to vote; what were those silly Suffragettes playing at?
    Twenty five years ago you were called a pervert for advocating LGBT rights.
    Stupid pipe dreams.


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    #111
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    auspicious wrote: »
    A hundred and fifty years ago they would have thought you were absurd if you advocated for the end of slavery.

    "Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed on 25 March 1807"

    Ahh, no... perhaps add another hundred years to your estimate? people would have been talking about it for quite some time before change happened.
    Fifty years ago they would object to the idea of African Americans receiving equal rights under law. Also in apartheid South Africa.
    A hundred years ago they laughed at the suggestion of the idea for women's right to vote; what were those silly Suffragettes playing at?
    Twenty five years ago you were called a pervert for advocating LGBT rights.
    Stupid pipe dreams.

    nah... you're reaching.... and drawing comparisons that don't match with the topics we're talking about here.

    You really want to compare those social/legal changes with your desire that we stop eating meat? Or that we change the entire economic processes that modern economies are established under?

    Yeah. Pipedreams is appropriate.


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    #112
    auspicious
    Registered Users Posts: 4,497 ✭✭✭auspicious


    Pipe dream- unattainable or fanciful hopes.
    They remain pipe dreams until they are brought to attention and espoused.

    ...change the entire economic processes that modern economies are established under..

    ..people would have been talking about it for quite some time before change happened....

    There you go.

    It's about extending compassion and right to life to those that we view as different.
    That's why we should care for animals.

    That's my lot. Good luck.


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    #113
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    auspicious wrote: »
    It's about extending compassion and right to life to those that we view as different.
    That's why we should care for animals.

    That's my lot. Good luck.

    I view a tree as being different. I'm not going to torture the tree, or damage it just for kicks, but if I need wood for a fire... yeah, I'm going to use the branches nearby or the tree itself. I'm not going to place the tree as having the same value as a human though.

    Same with animals. I'm not going to torture them, or seek to cause them pain, but if I can buy a steak in a restaurant, I'm going to do so.

    You can care for animals, while at the same time, eating other animals.


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    #114
    smellyoldboot
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,075 ✭✭✭smellyoldboot


    Tar.Aldarion wrote: »
    You can definitely eat meat and feel like you love an animal, but if you actually loved them and not just what they can do for you, you wouldn't hurt them. Nobody likes to think they are hurting others and people like to defend their own actions. I grew up on farms, I thought I cared for the animals - in a lot of ways I did but I really started caring for them when I stopped partaking in harming them as much as I could. Putting their wellbeing before my appetite.

    How many pet cows and pigs are you going to take in when we all stop eating meat? Or will they just frolic through the newly planted corn/soy fields free to graze at their leisure?


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    #115
    Errashareesh
    Closed Accounts Posts: 572 ✭✭✭Errashareesh


    Try our new beef-flavoured chicken.


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    #116
    nthclare
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,316 ✭✭✭nthclare


    smellyoldboot wrote: »
    How many pet cows and pigs are you going to take in when we all stop eating meat? Or will they just frolic through the newly planted corn/soy fields free to graze at their leisure?

    The problem with corn and soy these days is they're all generic hybrid's and their DNA is all modified by human intervention.

    It'll cause havoc with our own DNA, the first time I remember seeing this in action was during the movie The Omen The final conflict.

    The Thorne Industry was manipulating plants and bosting them up with chemicals, I remember studying hydroponics as a student in the 90's and it's totally unnatural.

    I try to avoid any foods that are genetically modified, most vegan products are genetically modified and basically unnatural.
    Unless you're buying fruit and vegetables from a local organic farm.

    I fish a lot and if it came to it, I could live off the ocean.
    During the summer there's an abundance of species that are edible, during the winter there's flounder's, codling, whiting, coalies, bass and
    Dogfish.
    I don't hunt, but rabbits are abundant too.

    There's a lot to be said to be a hunter gatherer and embracing our wild side.

    My lifestyle isn't for everyone, or any softies, weak SJW types and liberals.
    They're the weakness in society who'll perish if there was a worldwide catastrophe.

    We need to stay tough and hold onto our animal instincts.


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    #117
    quickbeam
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 16,287 Mod ✭✭✭✭quickbeam


    ancapailldorcha wrote: »
    Can you be a carnivore and care about animals?

    Many can apparently. I can't personally.

    When you think about it, it's quite arbitary what we deep "acceptable" to eat in the animal world. Most Irish wouldn't eat dog, but would happily eat pig. Wouldn't eat horse which is happily eaten in France. Happy to eat cow which is revered in India.

    Yes, meat is tasty. But mostly only because we close our minds to what it actually was. If that juicy steak on your place actually came from a German Shepherd you'd probably not think it so tasty.

    Added that most* meat is mass produced as result of intensive farming and involves unhappy sad lives for the animals, and terrifying deaths, as well as being a huge contributor to greenhouse gases, you've another reason not to consume meat.

    At the end of the day though, it is a personal choice. Dairy also causes unhappy lives to animals and contributes to greenhouse gasses, and I'm not vegan, so I'm probably a hypocrite too.


    * yeah, you'll always have the quaint little farmer who loves the animals dearly, but still sends them to slaughter when the time is right.


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    #118
    Jimi H
    Registered Users Posts: 371 ✭✭Jimi H


    I like animals so I don’t eat them.


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    #119
    auspicious
    Registered Users Posts: 4,497 ✭✭✭auspicious


    nthclare wrote: »
    The problem with corn and soy these days is they're all generic hybrid's and their DNA is all modified by human intervention.

    It'll cause havoc with our own DNA, the first time I remember seeing this in action was during the movie The Omen The final conflict.

    The Thorne Industry was manipulating plants and bosting them up with chemicals, I remember studying hydroponics as a student in the 90's and it's totally unnatural.

    I try to avoid any foods that are genetically modified, most vegan products are genetically modified and basically unnatural.
    Unless you're buying fruit and vegetables from a local organic farm.

    I fish a lot and if it came to it, I could live off the ocean.
    During the summer there's an abundance of species that are edible, during the winter there's flounder's, codling, whiting, coalies, bass and
    Dogfish.
    I don't hunt, but rabbits are abundant too.

    There's a lot to be said to be a hunter gatherer and embracing our wild side.

    My lifestyle isn't for everyone, or any softies, weak SJW types and liberals.
    They're the weakness in society who'll perish if there was a worldwide catastrophe.

    We need to stay tough and hold onto our animal instincts.

    I won't add any more of my own opinions to this thread but in the vid. below the young philosopher Cosmicskeptic whom recently became vegan tackles the question of hunting and our animal instincts.
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xPVKcavDy2k


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    #120
    Thelonious Monk
    Registered Users Posts: 13,735 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    I think it's kind of unfair to some animals, like people go nuts when puppies are found in farms or abandoned, but have no problem eating pigs which never see the light of day and are held in horrible cramped conditions, which is probably 99% of pigs in Ireland.
    So I haven't eaten pig in ages, I don't miss it either.


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    #121
    gozunda
    Registered Users Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    quickbeam wrote: »
    Many can apparently. I can't personally. When you think about it, it's quite arbitary what we deep "acceptable" to eat in the animal world. Most Irish wouldn't eat dog, but would happily eat pig. Wouldn't eat horse which is happily eaten in France. Happy to eat cow which is revered in India. Yes, meat is tasty. But mostly only because we close our minds to what it actually was. If that juicy steak on your place actually came from a German Shepherd you'd probably not think it so tasty.Added that most* meat is mass produced as result of intensive farming and involves unhappy sad lives for the animals, and terrifying deaths, as well as being a huge contributor to greenhouse gases, you've another reason not to consume meat.
    At the end of the day though, it is a personal choice. Dairy also causes unhappy lives to animals and contributes to greenhouse gasses, and I'm not vegan, so I'm probably a hypocrite too.
    * yeah, you'll always have the quaint little farmer who loves the animals dearly, but still sends them to slaughter when the time is right.

    No offence meant but I reckon we all can put down that pamphlet type stuff. Funnily enough much of that same stuff has been trotted out here (and elsewhere) more times than I've had religious rollers to the door to be fair

    But seriously the fact is many animals eat meat and yes us humans are animals too. And like them we've been eating meat since the dawn of time - and evidently done very well by doing do as a species.

    Interestingly the bulk of prey species eaten by omnivores and carnivores are infact herbivores - all which are a part of the entrophy and recycling of nutrients in the ecosystem. So for them and us - Its neither unnatural (nor morally wrong btw) to eat meat. Its simply An intrinsic part of life on this planet.

    That said carnivores (and by extension other meat eaters) have been shown to be biologically programmed to generally avoid eating other carnivores and members of their own species due to the transfer risk of common pathogens. This goes for humans as well. But yes there some exceptions.

    Thankfully most humans no longer need to chase animals over cliffs with spears. Over time we evolved and took to agriculture where we learned to domesticate some of these herbivore species - feed them, protect them from predation and illness then kill and eat them. In Ireland we have very strict laws relating to how animals are looked after and humanly killed.

    Words like "unhappy" "sad" "terryifying" is the usual pan universal arsenal used by some anti meat preachers tbh. And generally are used as a broad paintbrush to black anything regardless of the facts or otherwise. And no eating meat is clearly not synonymous to rape or murderer or killing granny and eating her or whatever else some throw into the mix with the kitchen sink.

    Yes granted there are some of our food production practices both animal and vegetable which need to be completely rethought and improved. But such practises are not a reason for throwing your sausage or cabbage out with the dishwater- rather it is a reason for improvement. As for greenhouse gas thing etc - global food production both animal and vegetable makes up just 11 % of all greenhouse gases. The majority of emissions - over 70% coming from the use of fossil fuels in the transport, manufacture and energy sectors. Whatever we do we have to eat.

    Anyway if it hasn't happened already - we'll no doubt have some more diatribes about eating Fido, some links to a highly edited and extreme farming video taken in the US and a transcript of a pdf from the diatetic vegan association which informs us that meat is the same as nuclear waste and will make your willy or other essential bits fall off or shrivel up in and how eating plants is the absolute bestest. :pac:

    To the OP - the answer is yes we can.


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