Around 10 billion animals are killed each year in the United States. It's a truly astounding figure. Let's not kid ourselves that something unfathomably evil is going on.
It's great that some people get their animal products from the sustainable farm down the road. That is better. But let's also not pretend it even makes a dent.
During World War II, about 70 million people were killed over the course of the conflict (1939-1945). In just the United States alone, we will kill that number of animals in less than three days. If you were to compare the entire loss of American life in that war, it would take you about 20 minutes to achieve in our factory farm system.
There are also 300 million people living in the US, another truly astounding figure. People eat meat, and have forever. Just because there are now more people around to eat meat now does not make the process of making meat (also called killing animals...) suddenly become evil. You can make an argument that factory farming methods are inhumane, and we can have a rational discussion. But your appeal to the magic of large numbers is meaningless to me, just because 10 billion animals get killed for food each year does not make it "unfathomably evil".
(And also, you are going to compare loss of life in war to animals killed for meat.... Seriously?)
For the record I'm not calling you evil. So this isn't an ad hominem attack... unless you're a factory farmer, in which case, you probably are. ;-)
People eat more meat at more meals than they ever have in history. The truth is that it's unsustainable and it causes huge long term problems for our environment. The fact that we have always done it doesn't really matter. We know we can live without it and be healthy. The question is should we continue to do it and if so, at what cost? And as hackers, we might ask if there's a way around it.
Comparing loss of human life in the deadliest war that humans have ever fought (where most of us have no problem labeling certain actors evil) perfectly illustrates the magnitude of the "magic" large numbers. The very best killing apparatus that war has ever seen is beat by factory farming in one country in 3 days. I find that to be truly incredible.
Maybe you don't want to stop eating meat. But maybe you do care about some of the problems the world faces because of it (water shortages, global warming, human famine, rainforest depletion, run-off into other food and streams, mad cow or swine flu, etc).
For many people this is a truly emotional issue. A judgement about factory farms feels like a judgement about themselves. I was once at a very expensive conference (like $2k a ticket) and after a speaker suggested that people cut their meat intake to solve some the world's problems about a 1/3 of the people got up and left. But most people who don't eat meat today did at one point in their lives. I'm part of a family that until I left college ate meat at every meal.
It's not enough to say we're going to keep doing what we're doing because we've been doing it forever. As hackers and entrepreneurs we know that human behavior can change and we often try to be the ones who cause it. We don't happily accept the status quo. So why do so many of us readily do so when it comes to eating meat?
The only thing about your comparison that makes sense is the word "magic". I am not taking a position for or against factory farming or eating meat, just against the ridiculousness of comparing war to farming.
First: the most efficient war killing methods are still very inefficient. This lies mostly in the fact that the other side consists of free-range actors, who are actively trying to kill and not themselves be killed.
Second: Killing a person, for the purpose of making a point, is different than killing a person for food. Further killing a non-person for food is even more different. My species is more important to me than theirs.
Third: The animals are domesticated, therefore are part of a symbiotic relationship in which they get to live fairly well, without so much worrying about getting to eat, breed etc, in exchange for being docile, and eaten at the end of the road. Death by bad slaughterhouse is less painful, less terrifying, and quicker than death by wolf. People are not on the eating/killing end of such an agreement.
Finally: regardless of the ethics/morality of eating meat, appealing to emotion is still a logical fallacy.
Your comparison is roughly the same as: "I cannot believe that there are 100K new porn vids (not including cam girls!) released every year. Its unconsciable. By comparison, the catholic church, the most efficient child raping organization ever[1], only managed a few hundred boys per year. Thats just 3 days of filming in just our country."
[1] not a belief of mine personally, just a random "fact" like wwii being the most efficient at killing.
There's quite a lot to say in response, but I'll limit the scope of it to two of your points, and I'll try to be brief with each.
(1) "My species is more important to me than theirs."
Our species is only more important in a very big way: we are the scourge of the Earth. We have destroyed our planet and its inhabitants beyond comprehension, and people like you -- likely among the more intelligent of our precious and wonderful species -- cannot find it in their self-pronounced greatness to be good. We are extremely important in that we annually torture and kill 50 billion fellow animals, sensitive creatures all, for the sake of our own convenience and culturally imputed preferences.
So yes, we are extremely important. Catastrophically so.
And by the way, your species-ism is shamelessly fallacious. You are not better or correct or more valuable simply because you belong to homo sapiens, and your fellow species members are not better or correct or more valuable simply because they belong to the same species as you do.
Moreover, comparing human value to pig value in support of factory farming is a complete canard. It's a moot point whether or not humans are "more" valuable, because we do not need to factory farm other creatures in order to live healthy, happy lives ourselves. Indeed, factory farming will be a primary reason why humans in the future will have horrible lives indeed, on a hellscape formerly known as the green planet.
(2) "The animals are domesticated, therefore are part of a symbiotic relationship in which they get to live fairly well, without so much worrying about getting to eat, breed etc, in exchange for being docile, and eaten at the end of the road."
You are so amazingly incorrect about this. The animals do not "live well." Here is a sampling of what is routinely done to animals on factory farms, in no particular order: confinement in spaces so tight they can't move; traumatic mutilation, including tail-docking, hole-punching, de-beaking, and castration; living in piss and feces, their own and others; rampant disease; unnatural food, including corn and other animal product waste, that causes them to be sick and so overweight that their bones break; and many more abuses besides. The animals literally go insane after a short while, and you would too, believe me. And yes, then, after they have lived in these conditions for they are slaughtered.
"A symbiotic relationship?" "Living well?" Couldn't be further from reality.
I'm going to deny that the number you are talking about means anything at all in context of being evil. If one person eats one chicken per week that is 52 chicken killings a year, I see nothing evil about that. If 300 million people eat 1 chicken per week that is 15.6 billion living creatures killed per year, but it still isn't evil. I don't think you are really talking degree, just scale. In this case doesn't matter, if killing things for food is OK (which I think it is) then lots of people eating killed things for food is also OK. So there are two reasonable points of discussion 1) Is is OK to kill living creatures to eat as food (I think we should, they are tasty) 2) If the answer to 1 is yes then do we also have a moral or ethical obligation surrounding our treatment of these things before we kill and eat them?
First, again again again, we are not just talking about "killing animals for food." We are talking about torturing them for their entire lives and then killing them.
Second, you say you think "killing [animals] for food is OK." Can you please at some point contend with the fact that this killing is completely unnecessary? Can you contend with the fact that the "killing" we are talking about also has catastrophic effects for the environment, both in localized ecosystems and in the atmosphere of our planet?
You can make simple declarations all day ("Killing things for food is OK"), but that doesn't amount to justification at all.
Humans evolved eating meat. There is significant evidence that a diet high in meat and saturated fat rather than the neolithic agents sugar and grains is among the healthiest available.
Why is killing animals to produce food for people an "unfathomably evil" thing?
Perhaps you can easily wrap your head around the idea of killing 10 billion living creatures a year. I have a really hard time even imagining we're capable of being that efficient at killing. It's almost all from factory farming which you agreed in an earlier comment is "terrible". Maybe you wouldn't go so far as to say it's evil. I will.
Everyday, science learns that humans aren't all that special in our capacity to feel pain, plan for the future, find enjoyment out of life, care for our offspring, etc. This is one of those issues where eventually we will all be horrified at what we allowed to happen.
But any time that we make a judgement call that some being's suffering and untimely death is okay because it's lesser than us, that says more about us than it does about those beings. As a species, we've certainly been wrong about these things before.
Yes, humans evolved to eat some meat in their diets at points in time where other foods were scarce. This does not mean that meat is something we should eat often or as a primary source of food. And it does not mean that we can't survive without it.
In addition to the incomparable suffering that animals who spend their entire lives in factory farms experience, a few good reasons are:
1. It is the number one cause of global warming
2. It's one of the main causes of deadly health problems in humans (heart disease, cancer, obesity related diseases).
3. It's a big reason why people go hungry. You can grow way more food to feed people through plant based agriculture. When you allocate land to meat production, you deprive people of food.
4. The reason why 60% of the rivers in America are classified as "impaired" due to runoff.
There are lots more reasons if you look and I suggest you do.
Just because we've done something for a long time doesn't mean we should keep doing it. Wouldn't you say that the conditions of the world have changed considerably since we were hunter-gatherers a few thousand years ago? Well, we need to evolve. The very best thing you can do for the planet, other humans, and yourself is to eat less meat.
I tire of these "prove me wrong" arguments. How about you prove yourself right?
Show me that the evidence for that position was all produced by someone funded by a meat producer.
This tactic of yours is frequently used by politicians and other extremist groups and I want to see it stopped.
You get to be the first one. Start researching your position and prove to me that you are right.
The question being debated is whether meat was a part of the diet of our ancestors. Whether it's justifiable is a seperate discussion and should not be brought into discussion. Facts don't depend on our moral opinion about them.
No, several questions are being debated. The comment you refer to also asked why eating should be considered evil. And the question of whether or not humans have evolved to eat meat, especially to eat meat anywhere near the levels that Westerners (and increasingly, Easterners) do today. Of course, it has been downmodded because it doesn't comport with the status quo.
The reason I asked for people to justify their eating of meat is that this is the first logical step in any of these debates. It is not up to me to tell you why your behavior is unjustified before you have even attempted to justify it yourself. Of course, whether or not humans evolved to eat is a separate question from whether or not it is moral to cause unnecessary suffering.
You can deride moral beliefs as mere "opinions," but moral propositions -- like all propositions -- contain ontological commitments. Those moral propositions that are founded upon false ontological propositions are bad moral propositions. Opinion doesn't come into that equation. Those who value their own suffering but do not value the suffering of others have breached logic and upheld falsehoods.
I realize I have a proof by exhaustion on my hands, so I guess you're right. I wouldn't worry about it too much, my original post will get downvoted into oblivion as soon as the weston price guys wake up.
Humans did not "evolve eating meat." Yes, they began to eat meat relatively recently, but only during winter periods after migrating into colder climates. Even then, humans ate almost no meat when plant food was abundant, during warmer seasons.
Anatomically the case for human herbivorism, or at least heavy-plant omnivorism, is strong. Check it (I hope this formats okay):
Meat-eaters: have claws
Herbivores: no claws
Humans: no claws
Meat-eaters: have no skin pores and perspire through the tongue
Herbivores: perspire through skin pores
Humans: perspire through skin pores
Meat-eaters: have sharp front teeth for tearing, with no flat molar teeth for grinding
Herbivores: no sharp front teeth, but flat rear molars for grinding
Humans: no sharp front teeth, but flat rear molars for grinding [we're talking about actually sharp teeth, not so-called human “canine” teeth]
Meat-eaters: have intestinal tract that is only 3 times their body length so that rapidly decaying meat can pass through quickly
Herbivores: have intestinal tract 10-12 times their body length.
Humans: have intestinal tract 10-12 times their body length.
Meat-eaters: have strong hydrochloric acid in stomach to digest meat
Herbivores: have stomach acid that is 20 times weaker than that of a meat-eater
Humans: have stomach acid that is 20 times weaker than that of a meat-eater
Meat-eaters: salivary glands in mouth not needed to pre-digest grains and fruits.
Herbivores: well-developed salivary glands which are necessary to pre-digest grains and fruits
Humans: well-developed salivary glands, which are necessary to pre-digest, grains and fruits
Meat-eaters: have acid saliva with no enzyme ptyalin to pre-digest grains
Herbivores: have alkaline saliva with ptyalin to pre-digest grains
Humans: have alkaline saliva with ptyalin to pre-digest grains
Source: A.D. Andrews, Fit Food for Men, (Chicago: American Hygiene Society, 1970)
So humans don't have a single trait in common with predators? Humans don't have eyes in the front of their head for good depth perception? Or did you just pick a selection of facts to support one viewpoint and ignore anything that contradicts you?
I'm obviously not saying humans don't have a single trait in common with some predators. Humans have blood, for example. Get over your indignation at being challenged and think about what you say. That'd be nice.
To answer your question, these are simply the most clear-cut traits that are present in herbivores versus omnivores and carnivores. The "front-facing eyes" is an out-of-date meme from high school textbooks.
You forgot to add omnivores and opportunistic predators to your analysis. You ignore our very close relatives, chimps, who hunt. You ignore insects as a food source, which were probably important to our ancestors. You are picking and choosing features for convenience.
It's great that some people get their animal products from the sustainable farm down the road. That is better. But let's also not pretend it even makes a dent.
During World War II, about 70 million people were killed over the course of the conflict (1939-1945). In just the United States alone, we will kill that number of animals in less than three days. If you were to compare the entire loss of American life in that war, it would take you about 20 minutes to achieve in our factory farm system.
If you still don't see it as evil, animal agriculture is far and away the number one source of global warming pollution (http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?newsID=20772&CR1=w...).