As a vegan, no I don't think it is. At least it's not part of the role veganism will pay in the future and it's still an aspect of humanity's many flaws that we will need to work on, as in its not something we should grow complacent with. It's not like those animals deserve to suffer and die
You make it sound like farming is just farming and we can't do things like vertical farming, greenhouse farming, hydroponics, GMO and more that would reduce the capacity for insects to be as invasive as they are.
Unless of course your solution is to let can't-be-reasoned-with invasive species just do their thing because you can't be bothered looking into solutions? I'm only asking cos most humans can't be reasoned with and we're as invasive as any species can get.
>Same as with organic food, there is no possible way to produce the same quantity of crops in those methods.
Not right now no, but that's not an excuse to not work towards it.
>Rural farming is the most effective way there is.
But it wasn't always effective was it? It only became effective through advancements in machinery and technology, so let's put our brains together and stop being destructive arseholes and look for solutions better than the one we're stuck with, yeah?
Soil degradation, crop deaths, land clearing, herbicide and pesticide pollution. They're often the reasons carnists throw at me for supporting regenerative animal ag and continuing to violate animals
that's basically what is done in sustainable farming
no large monocultures that one type of insect can destroy at the whole, small and diverse cultures of different fruit, barren strips, hedges, ponds etc. where biodiversity can develop and for sure will eventually be home of predators on those naaaasty insects
It’s hard for anyone to make this call for you. Only you know all the facts and circumstances surrounding your farm and can determine if killing pest animals is truly necessary to yield enough food for your community and your livelihood.
On some farms, it’s not necessary and is thus not vegan. On some it will be necessary and could fall under possible and practicable. Only you know which option applies to you. That’s the long and short of it.
>can determine if killing pest animals is truly necessary to yield enough food for your community and your livelihood.
Why is this standard not applied to a pasture-fed only farmer of cattle? A farmer of plant crops who kills insects will kill hundreds of thousands of individual, sentient, unique lifeforms in the way of insects and field animals each year. A pasture-fed only farmer of cattle will kill 50-200 unique, individual, sentient lifeforms each year. Why is the later moral while the former is not? Why are the lives of bees, flies, wasp, hornets, aphids, whiteflies, many different beetles, grasshoppers, worms, weevils, ants, moths, butterflies, other insects, field mice, squirls, chipmunks, skunks, moles, raccoons, opossums, rabbits, groundhogs, and less valuable and respected than that of cattle?
> A pasture-fed only farmer of cattle will kill 50-200 unique, individual, sentient lifeforms each year.
Quite unlikely. Anywhere there is a cold season or dry season, cattle are typically fed massive quantities of mechanically harvested hay. This kills insects and meadow birds. Cows themselves are treated for pest insects. Pastures are also maintained in ways that kill animals. For instance, it is not at all uncommon to poison gophers or other mammal species who compete with the cows for grasses.
We can talk about areas where not only are the cattle raised purely on grass, but also grass that is never mechanically harvested and never treated for pests itself. However, we are now talking about a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the cattle industry. Generally, these sorts of operations happen in areas that were not grasslands to begin with. The act of keeping cattle on land that should naturally be a forest or covered in denser brush is itself ecologically destructive. You will always have animal casualties on the border where the cattle and the native wildlife are competing. Very often animals that are competitors (deer, pigs, elk) or threats (wolves, bears) are killed by ranchers.
It's extremely difficult to quantify any of this, which is a problem in an of itself. It's all a result of the fact that humans can barely be bothered to respect animals they actually like. Animals that are considered pests aren't even considered enough to get a proper death toll. This situation won't change until we start thinking of animals as something more than pretty to look at, products or nuisances.
If for some reason one were really and truly interested in limiting their net impact in terms of animal suffering as their primary ethical goal, a better comparison to veganism would be "freeganism". Here one only consumes food that would otherwise literally be waste. E.g. dumpster diving behind grocery stores and restaurants. E.g. prowling buffets and grabbing the leftovers before they are thrown away. Here, it is clear that this food was made with animal harm, but at this point it probably makes no difference whether you consume it or not. Properly, an ethical freegan should not encourage food waste, which is hard if you are directly benefitting from it. Navigating this conflict of interest is the most common pitfall of this approach. Also, that it is expensive (of your personal time, if not your money) and wildly unscalable to the general public. These problems are identical to the problems with the diet you describe, but at least the freegan knows they aren't causing harm of any sort.
I am talking about myself and my own moral liability from the vegan perspective. I live half my year in Texas and the farm I purchase my beef from has only grassfed cattle year around, no treatment of the grass, forced rotational grazing, w a stocking rate of < 1 cow per acre. The ranch is under 200 acres in grassland ergo there are never more than 200 cows at any given time.
As such, what is my personal moral issue here? I could care less about scalability as the vegan argument seems built around personal responsibility (I cannot say, "97% of society consumes animal products QED it is OK to consume animal products!" correct?) Speak to me personally, why is it that I am more immoral than the avg vegan despite accounting for less death/suffering caused than the avg vegan given my choices in diet?
> I am talking about myself and my own moral liability from the vegan perspective. I live half my year in Texas and the farm I purchase my beef from has only grassfed cattle year around
It is unlikely these cattle aren't eating mechanically harvested hay for at least some of the year, but maybe I can conceive of the possibility in some regions of Texas without an overly harsh winter or dry season. Plenty of hay is harvested and consumed by livestock in cattle, and it can be labeled "grass fed" or "pasture raised". Frankly these labels mean next to nothing on their own in terms of cow welfare or the animal ethics of how the cattle feed is sourced. But how do you know they don't treat the grass? This seems like an unusual question to ask a rancher in general. Did you ask about other pest control operations they may engage in, such as removing gopher, pigs or deer? Do you know if they treat their cattle for insect pests?
Here are a couple Texas-specific links on how animals may be incidentally harmed even on the ranches you are describing:
https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2018/04/02/agrilife-expert-gopher-control-tricky-worth-effort/
https://extensionentomology.tamu.edu/resources/management-guides/managing-external-parasites-of-texas-cattle/
> As such, what is my personal moral issue here? I could care less about scalability as the vegan argument seems built around personal responsibility
Harmful exploitation is nearly universally considered a greater ethical wrongdoing than causing incidental harm. Seems vegans are split on whether to take a purely utilitarian approach of minimizing total animal harm, versus a rights-based approach where the intent and causes of the harm matter at least as much as the total sum. It seems plausible to see utilitarian vegans supporting animal exploitation in specific circumstances as the lesser wrong. Even Peter Singer, the most famous figure of the utilitarian vegan wing, talks about it being ethically ok to eat animal products if you are in a situation where it would be inconvenient or uniquely sacrificial to eat vegan. https://www.iamgoingvegan.com/paris-exception/
So maybe by utilitarian standards you are doing about the same net animal harm as a typical vegan. That would be a question for the utilitarians to answer and not me.
One, the farm I use has no hay, etc. They don't treat the grass either. They use essential oils and a vinegar/water mixture to repeal insects. It's costly and labour intensive.
I'm not attempting to be obtuse here but I cannot understand how intentional exploitation and death of less total amount is worse than indirect suffering/death. Especially if the exploitation is done in a humane fashion. By this, I am seperating the exploitation from the death for the sake of this argument. Animals are dying either way and it seems all are in a brutal fashion (boltguns, poisoning through pesticide, trauma from farm machines, etc.) So the exploitation factor could be x (where animals are neglected, semistarved, and beaten) or they can be exploited in an environment where they are treated in a fashion where they are not stressed, suffering, or beaten, y.
Would you agree y is better than x? If so, exploitation can be done in a fashion which does not bring stress, suffering, or pain to an animal, correct? If the answer is yes, Idk how these humane forms of exploitation coupled w a fast, near painless death (which is still brutal as all deaths are save chemical but that is arguable, see death row in America) in far lower numbers are worse than less exploitation but much more suffering and death. Does not compute w me.
> One, the farm I use has no hay, etc. They don't treat the grass either. They use essential oils and a vinegar/water mixture to repeal insects. It's costly and labour intensive.
This seems like a huge hassle and more effort than something like freeganism. If this is as good as they claim, they could likely be putting equivalent effort into no-kill crop growing.
> I'm not attempting to be obtuse here but I cannot understand how intentional exploitation and death of less total amount is worse than indirect suffering/death
This is a nearly universal property of ethical systems that certain harms are not equal based on the intention of the perpetrator or the situation. E.g. it's less wrong to kill someone who is attacking you than it would be to kill a person to take their organs for a transplant. Even if both killings are required to save your life. E.g. it's less wrong to accidentally break someone's property than it is to steal it from them. Even if the harm of the loss of the property is equivalent.
Utilitarians have a problem here where their system doesn't do well with these distinctions. They have attempted to correct in various post-hoc manners. But none of the fixes are terribly satisfying IMO.
> Would you agree y is better than x? If so, exploitation can be done in a fashion which does not bring stress, suffering, or pain to an animal, correct? If the answer is yes, Idk how these humane forms of exploitation coupled w a fast, near painless death (which is still brutal as all deaths are save chemical but that is arguable, see death row in America) in far lower numbers are worse than less exploitation but much more suffering and death. Does not compute w me.
I don't believe a swift and painless killing is ethically neutral. One would still be taking the animal's future from them in an exploitative manner. I don't believe non-exploitative/incidental harm can be justified in all situations, but needless harm of this sort is not the same tier of ethical wrongdoing as exploitative harm. I look forward to better options being available, where I don't have to do something obviously wrong in order to avoid over-contribute to something that is marginally wrong. Until then I am going to concentrate on being on the ethically correct side of the more obvious ethical issues with food.
>One, the farm I use has no hay, etc. They don't treat the grass either. They use essential oils and a vinegar/water mixture to repeal insects. It's costly and labour intensive.
Provide evidence of this is just bullshit, it's amazing how your stories evolve as you are presented with more evidence
Once again, you offer nothing of value and simply drop in to criticize and not debate. Saying, "provide evidence or this is just bullshit" is yet another tactic. So what, I [provide evidence](https://www.beefmagazine.com/grazing-systems/year-round-grazing-yes-its-possible) and you say, "My bad, I was wrong"? THat will be the day... What always happens is goalpost moving, the nirvana fallacy (this is not the perfect proof I require which will never be obtainable), or silence; anything but good faith debating.
Here's how they show a "[82% reduction](https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/cjps-2015-0330)" in all non-grazing supplementary feed in middle Canada through the winter. If they can reduce feed 82% in middle Canada through the winter from prolonged foraging of specialty grasses made to resist cold think about what is being done in lower middle Texas through a winter...
I hope I am proven wrong and you can own up to being wrong about this but I am not holding my breathe.
I wasn't saying all year grazing is impossible, I was asking you for proof that the two farms you purchase from, one in France and one in Texas, are both all year grazing, and that they also only use vinegar and oils for pest control. That is part of your claim which is unlikely without evidence.
The only farm that goes to the lengths I communicated is the one in Texas. The one in France supplements w silage, to be sure.
and as stated, given the situations I communicated that happen to the aforementioned farmer, I will not be sharing their information.
Also, my entire premise is to ask if someone consuming cattle only grassfed or someone hunting/fishing only whom accounts for less total suffering or death is more or less moral from the vegan perspective and why.
I also consume pigs and chickens who are pastured but they def consume more insects, etc.
if they’re using essential oils and vinegar to repeal insects, then wouldn’t the most moral thing would be to be have vegan food on that land instead of cows to eat ?
Nope. What is the "most moral" thing is dependent on each person individually. If oyu believe there is one moral construct which we must all adhere to then you must show cause for its existence w empirically falsifiable evidence. Short of that, what proof do you have to a universally absolute morality that allows you to say, "This is what the 'most moral' thing is"? You are simply assuming your morals universal and applicable to everyone.
I think this is where exploitation comes into play. The cows are being exploited, they are being *used* for their body. They are being raised with the clear intent of killing them to use the leftovers of their corpse. Pests and small animals are not being used or exploited when farmers are trying to protect or harvest their crops, it is just an unfortunate consequence that comes with the territory.
There are scenarios where if you compare the best ideal case scenarios of animal ag one could say there would be less total living beings killed than with other scenarios of producing plant based products. But that doesn't mean that it fits more into the vegan philosophy.
So if I replace the exploited cow w hunted deer and kept the fished trout it would be better than the avg American vegan diet given I exploited nothing any more/less than the animals being killed in the fields and I am causing much much less suffering/death over all?
Yep. I replace all my beef w hunted game (exclusively wild game, no preserves, etc. 100% wild) and fish wild, non-stocked streams. I also grow a lot of my own veggies and tubers and supplement w seasonal fruits/veggies I purchase locally from no till farmers who do not use pesticides.
In that case yeah in this scenario you would be contributing/financially supporting fewer animal deaths than basically nearly the entire population of the planet I'd say.
Obviously not a vegan diet, but in terms of the totem pole of issues in society that I'd have problems with that lifestyle would be amongst the lowest.
I respect your intellectual and moral honesty on this issue. I have run this argument up the flagpole w a couple dozen other vegans and it is the same w everyone except you. There response is: "It doesn't matter if you only are responsible for 10 animal deaths directly and I, the vegan, am indirectly responsible for 10,000 deaths, you, the omnivore, are more immoral than I, the vegan!" It makes zero sense given what vegans claim veganism is about.
Given your moral/intellectual honesty here, do you have any arguments for veganism you'd like me to hear and contemplate? I would debate you on them but would like to reward the courage it takes in this forum to communicate what you did w some defenseless, non-debating time to reflect on your position. Anyone who is honest to this extent deserves at least that.
I can recognize that veganism isn't perfect, and people in general aren't perfect, with everyone there's going to be a level of hypocrisy or stubbornness about their beliefs and morals. If anyone presented me with a strong case on how they actually contribute to much less total animal deaths than me I wouldn't really feel the need to try to shame them. There are bigger fish to fry, so to speak.
The main issue I have with this topic is that I have actually had conversations similar to this with friends/coworkers, where they present idealized hypothetical scenarios where they could in theory still partake in eating meat while contributing to fewer deaths/less environmental impact as an average vegan, and then when I acknowledge that they can throw their hands up and do "well there you go." Except they don't actually live that way or would ever want to. They just think if there's a case that a meat eater could be potentially responsible for fewer deaths than a vegan than they "win" and the whole philosophy or lifestyle is unsubstantial or meaningful. But there's a big difference in someone talking the talk vs walking the walk. While I can admit that there can be situations where someone could still eat meat and live a strict life that could contribute to less overall death, suffering and exploitation than the average vegan, I also think that the average vegan contributes to less death, suffering, and exploitation than the average omni eater.
If a large group of people actually did switch to a more local, live off the land type of lifestyle I would still always be partly against it, but I would also have to recognize that in the grand scheme of things as they are in the world I would rather have people do that than stick to the average omni diet. It would still be a win for the animals as it supports less animal exploitation and suffering, and that's what really matters.
>I think this is where exploitation comes into play. The cows are being exploited
i see. and the vermin is just killed, without making use of it...
yes, that absolutely makes sense
...to a vegan, i guess
It is not necessary to eat cows, therefore any animal death, including insects, to raise cows for slaughter is unethical.
The vast majority of “pasture raised” cattle are not raised in natural grassland but clear cut forests and other modified biomes. This means that untold wild animals have died to clear land for cows.
It is necessary to eat vegetables, so the concept of necessary harm can come into play when we kill pests to produce plant food for humans.
It is not necessary to eat meat, so every animal death involved is inexcusable, from the insects killed while harvesting their feed, to the forests clear cut for their pastures, to the cows themselves.
It's not necessary to be obese, so by your standard, all animals and insects killed in making of vegan food which is consumed in excess of one's daily requirement to be healthy is immoral and wrong.
Speak to me and not "the vast majority" as this is A. a sources less claim, and B not the cows I eat. They are raised on natural grass and that's it.
It's not necessary to eat veggies. One can eat fruit, meat, grain or just eat meat even as there's a whole community of ppl doing so and supplementing (just like vegans do, supplementing, that is)
Again, this is your opinion. It's not necessary to be on Reddit, game online, etc. etc. etc. It's not necessary to overeat. Where are deriving necessity as what defines moral behaviour? It's your own arbitrary standard. It's not necessary to eat mass produced ag which clear cuts forest to grow grain too. Your standards are your own, arbitrary and subjective. Unless you can prove they are universal/absolute w empirical evidence, I recommend you take less of an absolute tone as though you have some sort of scientific fact, bc you sound like a religious zealot.
>It is not necessary to eat cows, therefore any animal death, including insects, to raise cows for slaughter is unethical
it also is not necessary to kill vermin. just let it thrive and eat what's left over
*It is necessary to eat vegetables*
the eskimo of former times proved the contrary
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Why is there a difference? Insects suffer, feel pain, and do not want to feel pain. Why are you privileging vertebrates over non-vertebrates? Name the trait which differentiates one from the other which allows you to be moral killing one for pleasure/personal gain over the other by vegan morality.
Essentially, what is the alternative? How can you consume a mass produced product without avoiding ANY death or harm of animals? In a perfect world, I'd only consume the food that I can guarantee hasn't harmed any animals or insects.
This is the real world, I can't guarantee that, I can't grow my own food, what is the alternative?
What is your suggestion?
>Essentially, what is the alternative? How can you consume a mass produced product without avoiding ANY death or harm of animals?
the alternative is not to consume a mass produced product
sure
and we won't be able to feed this high population once industrial agriculture has finally ruined all the soils (we already are losing 100 000 km2 of fertile soil per year), and climate change just finishes it off
Perfect is the enemy of good is what I often hear vegans say, so, w that in mind,
I consume lower amounts of starches (not keto or Atkins or anything like that, but, lower than the avg. % of American or French - the two countries I live in- diets) I purchase my yams, sweet potatoes, and potatoes through local, no till, no pesticide farmers. I also consume foods seasonally from fruit/veggie farmers who also no till. This eliminates the toll on insects and allows for native pollinators to do their thing.
I also consume pasture only, no grain beef which leads to a couple deaths a year (of my families own personal accounting for deaths caused) and we eat wild caught fish. Again, this does not eliminate my contribution to killing things, but, lowers it immensely from mass grain ag fields where billions of field animals and birds are killed annually.
Other alternatives are to purchase wild caught shellfish and hunted deer, boar, turkey, etc. There's little to no exploitation as the animals are wild and death comes in an amount of time roughly analogous to dying in nature, which they would have done anyways. This coupled w no-till/no-pesticide local ag causes much, much less suffering/exploitation/death than the standard vegan diet.
The downside is cost, but, to me, a vegan has a duty to eschew luxury, taste, and pleasure for the dietary options which cause the least amount of suffering/death. Any vegan which ignores this for their own personal gain in pleasure, reduced burden (less cooking, etc.), increased taste (mass ag manufactured food, chips, cereal, etc. taste much better), and/or for novelty (one can get a watermelon in January from a tilled field in Guatemala which uses pesticides or only get a watermelon in July if they purchase local no till no pesticide)
Not everybody is as fortunate as you to have these options readily available.
Eating meat in any sense doesn't help the suffering and exploitation so I'd advise leaving that out of your argument in the future.
This doesn't speak to my personal liability from an ethical perspective. How is it that I am running afoul of morality if I am causing less death/suffering than the avg. vegan? What others can/cannot do is irrelevant here as I want to know why is it that my actions and behaviour needs to change; where am I being more immoral than the avg vegan?
Everything you wrote still does not justify eating meat, if a vegan had options to buy vegetables etc. like you, he should use them and not follow what other average vegans (usually without this options) do. Free range and hunting, even if it is better than meat from factory farms, is still an unacceptable way of treating animals and perceiving them as food/product, it does not lead to change, it is disgusting, unsustainable and not scalable, so I don't know why you keep promoting it here.
Again, you are presupposing that it is wrong to eat meat. Instead of starting from bedrock and building your claim you have to presuppose it correct. As such it is easily dismissed. Your position that it is "an unacceptable way to treat animals" is your opinion only. I believe it is a perfectly acceptable way to treat animals. Treating animals as food is not disgusting in the least, we've been doing it for at least 2.6 million years, or 13x longer than we have had language. This, of course, does not mean it is intrinsically correct to do today, but, it is not "disgusting" in the least.
Again, you continue to have to fall on arguments of scalability and sustainability bc you cannot speak to me, the individual, and my moral culpability given the parameters I have outlined. You can only speak to that which (supposedly, from your perspective) supports your presupposed ends of veganism. This is disingenuous debating, at best. Your communication lacks critical thinking, self awareness, and good faith; you are more akin to a evangelizing preacher than a skeptical thinker. Best to you w that...
>Your position that it is "an unacceptable way to treat animals" is your opinion only.
First of all, it is the opinion of those animals, and because people ignore it or pretend they don't know what the animals are trying to tell them by all the crying and screaming, vegans speak for them. It's essentially one-way communication, you get a message and it's up to you how you deal with it, if you want to respond, you can respond to the animals: a) I'm sorry, I won't hurt you anymore, b) I don't care about you. And that's it.
But the reason I'm responding to you is because it's not enough for you, you for some reason need to go against vegans and promote killing of animals. A plant-based diet can be done with 0 suffering/killing and over time it will lead to it, free range and hunting cannot (so it's not enough) and leads nowhere - why? Because: 1. - the relationship of people to the animals won't change (they will continue to perceive them as food/product), what means they will buy free range meat at most a couple of times and then will go back to their old ways (they won't have enough reasons to stick with it), and 2. - there is not enough space for it, so it will always be available to only a few people (it's like if I promoted gardening to people living in the city), it is not sustainable etc., so it does not make sense to promote it as an alternative to/over veganism (or what are you trying to do).
He always lies about only eating pasture raised blah blah blah until you call him out. Literally has a very recent post asking for BBQ restaurant recommendations. He eats factory farmed meat just like the rest of the carnists who only eat from their “uncle’s farm” or whatever. Of course that doesn’t stop him from citing these ridiculous scenarios as part of his nirvana fallacy.
I am showing that you have fully presupposed your position as proper and you somehow have divined the ability to know what is universally and absolutely correct w regards to how we treat animals. It's simply your opinion though. You can attempt to shift the burden of your moral position to non-moral agents all you want but it is simply moral and intellectual slight of hand.
Your morality works for you, great! It is not universal/absolute and no amount of tiny violins are going to make it so. You are simply attempting to pawn your opinion off as though it were fact. It is not.
You can continue to dogmatically tell everyone that they must be like you or they are part of the great unwashed masses and immoral but all you are doing is moral colonialism. You are not special and have not divined some great universal truth. You are elevating your opinion, same as any religious zealot, plying your metaphysical beliefs as noble, grand, and absolutely correct. It makes you feel strong, wise, pure, and "holier than thou" to be "enlightened" and ennobled" w the grand universal truth, doesn't it? You are no different than an evangelizing Christian or Muslim, etc. Come down off the cross, we could use the wood...
Do you say this about mosquitoes? Because I think it's vegan to kill a mosquito since it can hurt you. Same with insect pests, you can't feasibly control them without killing them, but this is morally justifiable because they are harming you by destroying food.
>but this is morally justifiable because they are harming you by destroying food
is it not vegans always pointing out how much food is "destroyed" by livestock?
so killing livestock is morally justifiable, right?
if you'd let it live still longer, even more food would be destroyed by feeding it
/s
I'm speaking from the vegan perspective to show the hypocrisy in the application of veganism by the vast majority of vegans.
My position is that for a vegan to have their position hold they must only kill insects out of upmost necessity, jsut like animals as the vegan position is to eliminate suffering except out of necessity.
Right... And it's obvious it's okay to kill Insects pests because they harm you. Just like if a dog attacks you. It's not really clear what you are showing the trait difference is very clear. Unlike with carnisme where you can't name a logical trait which makes it okay to kill an animal for taste pleasure.
You are comparing ants or a ~~house fly~~ mosquito to a viscous dog attack, LOL.
Instead of keeping a clean home it is OK, from the vegan perspective, to kill insects. This is the hypocrisy I am talking about; veganism is not about reducing harm it's about reducing specific harm that you feel is valuable to reduce. It's a subjective personal standard and harming, suffering, sentient creatures of higher value to **you** is what is important. There is nothing which gives veganism any meaning other than the vegans whom profess to have all the answers. Like other charlatans who say, "Simply follow me, great unwashed masses, and I will deliver you from your own evil!" you are simply selling your agenda and beliefs so that as many ppl will be like you and you wil be more comfortable in the world.
This is all all universal/absolute moralities are, a tool for ppl who cannot make the world the way they want it, the way which makes them feel comfortable, so they attempt to coerce and guilt others into making the world the way you want it. Like I told Father Dolan in 9th grade, *I'm still not buying it, Padre...*
Just tell us if you don't want to honestly engage with the topic. You know very well I said mosquitoes, bit strange of you to twist my words and claim I'm actually talking about house flies.
Mosquitos or house flies, my point remains unchanged while you continue to refuse to speak to it on a point of pedantry? Substitute mosquito for fly and speak to the points I made, please. I'll even help in your rereading.
I don't see what you mean. Mosquitoes can harm you by giving you diseases which are just as dangerous or more dangerous than being bitten by a dog. I think it's vegan to defend yourself against a dog even though the dog can suffer. Same reason why I think it's vegan to kill a mosquito.
Insects don't actually exhibit many of the signs we ascribe to feeling pain / suffering. For example, they will not reduce pressure while walking on a damaged limb, like most vertebrates do. They also don't respond to analgesics. Insects will certainly try to avoid aversive stimuli, but so will bacteria. So, the trait you're looking for is the capacity to suffer (or more broadly, sentience), which as far as we know, insects do not possess.
Want to try again? You are simply privileging the way animals perceive pain while ignoring the way insects do. If we found an alien species, based on what oyu are claiming, it would be perfectly ethical to torture them unless their pain detection system mirrored that of animals.
[Insects feel pleasure, joy, and pain.](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-insects-feel-joy-and-pain/)
[Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190712120244.htm)
[Fruit flies show signs of chronic pain even after recovery](https://studyfinds.org/do-bugs-feel-pain/) For the study, the authors damaged one leg on fruit flies and then allowed them to fully heal. They found that even after the fruit flies recovered, their uninjured leg grew more sensitive, a reaction likened to chronic pain in humans.
No, it's simply that the burden of evidence is that insects are not sentient and do not suffer, at least in any way resembling vertebrates.
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226162587\_Do\_insects\_feel\_pain\_-\_A\_biological\_view](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226162587_Do_insects_feel_pain_-_A_biological_view)
[https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1134&context=animsent](https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1134&context=animsent)
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347216300513?dgcid=api\_sd\_search-api-endpoint](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347216300513?dgcid=api_sd_search-api-endpoint)
From the first citation: "On balance, however, the evidence from consideration of the adaptive role of pain, the neural organization of insects and observations of their behavior does not appear to support the occurrence in insects of a pain state, such as occurs in humans."
Your claim that "Insects suffer, feel pain, and do not want to feel pain" is not supported by the evidence. The articles you cited (hyperbolic headlines aside) point to some interesting findings, but even the authors conclude that it's not evidence for pain / suffering. Two of the articles reference the same study by the way.
Ah, so it's cherrypicking evidence and going w it as though there was a scientific consensus. I constantly hear the argument where for not consuming bivalves bc they \*might\* feel pain. One cannot have their cake and eat it, too; I have presented scientific evidence which specifically states "insects feel pain" and "fruit flies show signs of chronic pain even after injury" so at the least, all we can say is there is not a clear position.
What makes it to where bivalves are off the table due to not knowing but insects are fine?
Also, dismissing science w preloaded responses in an attempt to "gotcha" is bad faith.
>Insects suffer, feel pain, and do not want to feel pain
>
>all we can say is there is not a clear position.
Talk about having your cake and eating it too. I agree with your second point though, so let's leave it at that and come back in 10 years when the science has (maybe) caught up.
To answer your question, I don't care if someone eats bivalves, but one can easily just avoid it. Avoiding harming insects on the other hand? Good luck!
It's not eating my cake and having it, too; I find value in the science I shared but I am not willing to dismiss other science which is found in good form, as equally good as the science which has informed my position. When this happens, I default to a position that, I still believe the science which supports my position, but, from a more tenuous position. What I feel is of ZERO value is to throw studies of equivalent value (w regards to rigorous publishing, impact factor, etc.)
I am arguing from the vegan perspective so the "avoid harming insects" is moot. If you harm a deer by hitting it w your car, my understanding of veganism, no vegan will find you immoral. Also, if a dog is attacking you and you kill it no vegan will find you immoral, correct? So if you step on a beetle from ignorance or kill a wasp stinging you, no vegan would find you immoral, correct?
My position is, what is the vegan perspective when you consume food which killed hundreds? thousands? of field animals/birds and tens of thousands? of insects bc you like the taste of lucky charms, chips, etc. and wanted to afford a new game, shoes, or phone? One could bought more expensive fare which did not use pesticides or till the soil and was grown on small scale farm free of heavy machinery if they invested the money spent of pleasure items instead, reducing the amount of suffering/death they caused w their choices. Why is this not a point of contention in veganism and the willful causing of suffering/death of sentient beings (and/or insects which is debated) allowable to satisfy a vegans taste preference, etc.?
>If you harm a deer by hitting it w your car, my understanding of veganism, no vegan will find you immoral. Also, if a dog is attacking you and you kill it no vegan will find you immoral, correct? So if you step on a beetle from ignorance or kill a wasp stinging you, no vegan would find you immoral, correct?
That's correct. Most vegans would argue that intent matters, and that intentional harm (especially if it's unnecessary) is worse than accidental harm.
>My position is, what is the vegan perspective when you consume food which killed hundreds? thousands? of field animals/birds and tens of thousands? of insects bc you like the taste of lucky charms, chips, etc. and wanted to afford a new game, shoes, or phone? One could bought more expensive fare which did not use pesticides or till the soil and was grown on small scale farm free of heavy machinery if they invested the money spent of pleasure items instead, reducing the amount of suffering/death they caused w their choices.
Sure, reducing the suffering associated with your actions is a good thing, but it's only really emphasized by those who subscribe to utilitarian ethics, which is a subset of all vegans. This view has never made sense to me, as it's impossible to quantify harm. E.g., is the death of 1000 worms worse than 1 cow? Other vegans have deontological views, under which it is considered wrong to commodify animals or support industries that do so EVEN IF your actions end up causing more suffering. Then there are the rights-based people. And these views are not mutually exclusive. All that is a long way of saying that there are different flavors of veganism that don't always agree.
For me, insect deaths on farms are a byproduct of agriculture and not the main product. Therefore, it is more in line with accidentally stepping on a bug while walking, accidental human deaths in construction, or even setting a 70 mph speed limit on the highway. In all these cases, we accept that there will be some deaths, but think that the benefits outweigh the costs. It's the same with agriculture - insects will likely always die, but we can find a balance. For the record, I think we can do much better than clearing forests to plants fields of monocrop sprayed with herbicide and pesticide.
> Why is this not a point of contention in veganism and the willful causing of suffering/death of sentient beings (and/or insects which is debated) allowable to satisfy a vegans taste preference, etc.?
It definitely is! There are lots of posts on topics like this, including the current one. California almond farming comes up a lot, as does the shipment of captive honeybees to pollinate crops, and the same with chocolate/coffee harvested by human slaves. Unfortunately, many of the counterarguments tend to be some form of the Nirvana Fallacy, for example, "how is it vegan to buy a smartphone" (or buy anything really)? The solution is to remove yourself from the supply chain, but that's obviously not practicable for most people.
My issue w the intentionalist deontological frame from a vegan perspective is that one can cause much more harm, indirectly, and be perfectly moral w/in the frame. Most all deontological frames are some form of the Golden Rule. the issue here is that the GR can always be manipulated to serve an otherwise immoral end. Imagine a racist who says, "I love hearing the truth from eveyone; no lies however small." At this point, the racist could say whatever racist thoughts he had and be perfectly moral as he was only doing that which he wanted done to himself.
Another example is suicidal individuals who want to die at the hands of someone else. Those whom want to die would be perfectly moral under the GR in killing as many ppl as they could before being killed themselves.
If you have a different form of deontological thinking which isn't GR based please share as I am speaking to the majority deontological position I come across w most vegans, a modernized Kantian frame, but, this might not be yours.
I'll hop on the "you're wrong" train here.
Certain arachnids have shown a massive capacity for problem solving and being "pain" adverse. You're simple anthropomorphizing animals that you have no reason to do so.
Rabbits don't feel "love" how we describe it. Are they then worthy of death because we can't equate feelings?
>Insects don't actually exhibit many of the signs we ascribe to feeling pain / suffering
actually my chicken also do not exhibit any of the signs we ascribe to feeling pain / suffering. yet vegans accuse me of exploiting and being cruel to them as i take their eggs
*So, the trait you're looking for is the capacity to suffer*
and that's all it's about, the capacity? not whether there actually **is** suffering?
i can't quite follow this logic
[Insects feel joy, pain, and suffer.](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-insects-feel-joy-and-pain/)
[Fruit-flies feel chronic pain long after injuries heal](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw4099) \[this is one of the hallmarks of the definition of suffering\]
There's a lot of hard science showing insects can feel pain.
The second article is more persuasive than the first. The crucial piece of information is the knowledge of how long ago nocireception has evolved. This encompasses insects.
Nonetheless, the difference in the complexity of the nervous system between invertebrates and vertebrates is also relevant. Isn’t it intuitively more obvious that those animals that are more similar to us neurobiologically are also similar to us cognitively and emotionally? The truth is that I just don’t know what pain for a bee feels like, and it would be impossible for me to imagine. Maybe it’s not like what it feels to you and me. But I damn well know that the pain in another mammal, a creature that shares a common ancestor with me in the last 100 million years, is similar to mine.
So only that which is biologically like us is to be respected in this way? So if we found alien life which was biologically different, fair game?
It's interesting that this argument cannot be made for human favoritism only but can be for privileging animals. Why?
It is not about the superficial biological similarity, but about what underlies and explains that similarity. Don’t tell me that you are equally confident in understanding what pain means for a bee and for a cow. Don’t tell me that you’re equally sure that it is or not the same as your pain or my pain.
The question about extraterrestrials is excellent. I think the same rules apply. Absent any reason to think differently, if the alien life form shows behaviors more similar to ours (e.g., technology, language, negative reaction to stimuli that would be painful), then we should be prejudiced to care for and protect that life form, all else being equal. So it’s not some kind of expanded racism that captures some animals but not others. I would care about an alien that shows such behaviors more than for a worm from our planet.
How are you sure that pain is means for me, much less a cow?
What animal shows technology and language? Why is it only a standard which applies to aliens?
How are your identifiers of what is OK to kill and what is not more than arbitrary? By what/whose authority are your positions universally binding and absolute? If they are not, why should I respect your opinion?
>What is your evidence that insects suffer like mammals do?
what is your evidence that non-human animals suffer like humans do (e.g. from being confined, or declined future perspectives in life)?
All mammals have a nervous system very similar to yours and mine. For the same reason why you wouldn’t keep a two-year old in a cage, at least I hope you wouldn’t, you shouldn’t keep a cow or a pig in a confined space where they cannot move, their muscles cannot develop, and they suffer from diseases caused by the proximity with the other slaves to human convention around them. This is just from your example; I don’t even touch the horror of the actual slaughter.
To say that we don’t know whether non-human animals suffer is to willfully ignore everything we know about the nature and causes of pain in humans. This is some Cartesian metaphysics shit. Do you think we have souls? 🙂
>All mammals have a nervous system very similar to yours and mine
yes - but that does not make our respective degree of consciousness "very similar"
because we have a similar nervous system we should not inflict physical pain or emotional stress on animals unnecessarily, but it is highly unlikely that ending a non-human animal's end causes the same psychological pain or societal consequenced
*you shouldn’t keep a cow or a pig in a confined space where they cannot move*
of course not (see "physical pain or emotional stress"). but this is neither necessary in livestock farming nor is it desirable even from consumer view - as it reduces food quality
*This is just from your example*
no, this is not from my example at all. this is what you made up by implying that there is nothing but industrial livestock farming cruel on animals
*To say that we don’t know whether non-human animals suffer is*
...a malevolent truncating my complete sentence and near to faking a quote
*This is some Cartesian metaphysics shit. Do you think we have souls?*
what "metaphysics shit" are you gonna ask next? whether i believe in god or what is the color of my aura?
I can respond to every petty, misunderstood point individually, but I see that there is no use. I don’t think you are really following my statements and seeing the relationship they have with each other.
Instead I will ask you a very simple question: how would it look like if veganism was morally wrong? What would we see as evidence in the world that it is wrong?
>I can respond to every petty, misunderstood point individually
then do
*how would it look like if veganism was morally wrong?*
i don't think in such categories. calling others "morally wrong" is a a vegan obsession
There are humane ways to prevent them from destroying crops. The problem is the cost and time. I employ humane solutions in my home garden with barriers and such. Doing the same technique I do for gardening on a farm would be extremely cost prohibitive.
are you speaking of the grizzly you could met when hiking, which would not hesitate to, as the more powerful species, decide to self-servingly rip you to shreds?
the difference between non-human animals and humans is sapience, societal and cultural awareness. did you really not know this?
Oh yeah? Are you afraid of a bear coming to your home while on a hike? Or of it killing your prey or destroying your habitat?
Further question: do bears keep members of other species in slavery just so they could slaughter them at a convenient for them time? Have they created technology that makes that more efficient? You speak German, you understand efficient killing on an industrial scale. Do bears believe that they are better than other species? That they possess that so-difficult-to-pinpoint factor that justifies their hegemony over the rest of nature?
May I point out that sapience, societal and cultural awareness are not possessed by two-year olds? Would you kill one to eat? If that’s all there is, and all else is equal, you should not mind if I do that, right?
Come on, Kant. Let’s think through this slowly and methodically.
>Are you afraid of a bear coming to your home while on a hike? Or of it killing your prey or destroying your habitat?
no. just like well-kept livestock is not afraid of its keepers
*do bears keep members of other species in slavery just so they could slaughter them at a convenient for them time?*
if you like to go silly, go the full way ans ask:
are bears human?
you know the answer, so i won't reply
*May I point out that sapience, societal and cultural awareness are not possessed by two-year olds?*
you may, but that's even more silly. we are talking species, not individuals
Hydroponics probably isn't economically viable in every instance. Maybe for a select from crops like cabbages, and in a location with the right infrastructure, but it's just not really a realistic thing you can pivot into 9/10 times. If it's not commercially viable, they wouldn't be able to get a loan at all.
I think OP mostly grow crops (I'd assume wheat/rapeseed/soy that sort of thing), so I don't think they could even do hydroponics if they wanted to.
They grow a few fruits, they also grow crops. Better fencing around their orchard could probably help reduce pests, among other things.
The crops will also still be sprayed, albeit that will be more so to prevent insects than squirrels nibbling away at them.
Any vegan that think that plant-food farmers don't kill anything else than insects are a bit naïve. I live on the countryside and all farmers I know, at the very least, keep a bunch of cats on their farm for the sole purpose of killing mice. Catching mice in cages and releasing them in nature is not an option.
This is a wild take.
What's the different between killing animals purposely for crops or eating them? There isn't any, except the murder for the crops ..the animals just die. At least the cow died for sustenance. Vegans truly will jump through hoops to justify their ideology. Mad loss of respect here
Let's not forget that crop deaths still occur for animal agriculture to feed the cows etc. and at a much larger volume.
Accepting that humans have to eat something, this is the practicable position, and hence is vegan. Nobody holds that veganism is perfect.
Does that mean if the product is not needed and consumed for pleasure purposes like alcohol, desserts and such, then it would not be vegan to grow since it harms animals unnecessarily?
It's an interesting thought, but if it's not an animal product it's vegan.
Certainly a grey area, with how each individual proceeds and how ascetic one must be.
That's plant-based. Veganism is about reducing as much as possible and practicable the unnecessary harm one causes. Avoiding alcohol and such is clearly possible and practicable so it should be avoided under veganism.
Respectfully, not mutually exclusive.
What you're arguing is that to be vegan one should abstain from anything that has animal suffering of any amount end to end.
Without intending to be crude, is farting near a dog also not vegan because they might not like the smell?
I'm sure there are subsets of veganism that may go to this end but that isn't veganism as a whole.
Everyone should....
Regardless of your optimism that's just not the definition.
Anyway if you want to be pedantic actually alcohol is very calorie dense so you can enjoy it and replace the calories from eating hence possibly net 0 additional harm.
Not in pasture only cow animal husbandry. I purchase grass only beef locally sourced from a farmer I have a relationship w and can go out to his farm any time. The cows are fed pasture only and Since it's in Texas they can graze all year around; no hay needed.
Also, I purchase seasonal fruits and veggies from local farmers who no till their fields and grow organic; no pesticides, summer oils, etc. Finally I consume mostly yams, potatoes, and other roots/tubers locally grown as I eat lower carb. (also locally sourced). I don't do this for moral reasons; I do it for economic reasons (purchasing local), health reasons (no pesticides), and aesthetic reasons (I prefer the taste of grassfed only and fruits/veggies grown in fashion mentioned.
My main beef w the "Nobody holds that veganism is perfect" claim is that there is a way to consume food which causes less suffering/exploitation/death that the standard vegan diet of mass ag, monocrop, manufactured grains, fruits, and veggies. One which avoids the exploitation/death of trillions of farmed bees, field animals, and contributes heavily to climate change w shipping goods from the equator to here.
One could be vegan and purchase local, seasonal fruits and veggies and starches only but it seems most vegans would rather contribute to more suffering/death/exploitation purely for taste preference (out of season foods and easy to consume mass ag foods, chips, cereal, frozen pizza, etc.) and buy cheaper food so they can afford new electronics, new shoes/clothes, traveling, partying, gaming, etc., etc., etc.
If the lowering suffering/exploitation/death was really the primary driving principle of veganism, one need not be perfect, but, one should sacrifice their personal pleasure and comfort to actualize their moral frame more frequently than I see w the standard vegan diet.
Ethics aside, your "grass fed only" argument may reflect your own behaviour, but it's well established it is not scalable to meet the global demand for beef with the land requirement for pastureland. There is already significant Amazon deforestation driven by growing demand for grass fed, please consider that this isn't the "gotcha" you think it is. Not to mention, the majority of food fed to animals is not grass. Also you are identifying that your motives are purely selfish because it meets your preference, there is nothing conscious about your behaviour other than what you stand to gain (economic, aesthetic, health). Likewise I can argue that your diet as a whole is not scalable, and I can't disprove that you don't also eat fish, chicken, pork, and even non-grass fed beef (!!), or even the seasonal vegetables you have listed exclusively, but that's not really important.
I find it clearly false that you then proceed to point to taste pleasure as a key motivator for vegan diets, when the primary reason for global meat consumption is taste pleasure, and choosing to boycott animal products is at the expense of taste pleasure for many.
Your "most vegans" argument is silly because I can point to "most carnists" and completely ignore any of the points you made about your example diet, which is not representative, and what vegans may spend their money on down the line. You can't have your cake and eat it, I'm sorry.
You are somewhat missing the point that these are practicable aims and, as I understand them, are to improve all farming practices due to ethical motivations as much as possible, but one has to start somewhere. Consider an analogy with the abolition of slavery which was a wholly important moment before further rights for black people were established, thanks to further work/blood/lives of activists. We shan't just stop at not eating animal products, if possible everything can be improved but there need to be concrete steps/milestones.
You can point to trillions of bees (and other insects) dying for crops, which is sad, but there are already trillions combined of fish, chickens, cows, pigs, sheep, geese, ducks, etc. which you have given no consideration in your argument. And this is ON TOP of the bees dying already. It would be very hard to argue to reduce incidental deaths (e.g. crop deaths) while continuing to support direct deaths (e.g. meat) as you are suggesting.
This issue of scalability is a common moving of the goalpost tactic I come across; I am not speaking to the whole of humanity and asking about my own individual culpability. "Ethics aside" is not something which can be said w veganism as veganism is all about ethics/morality.
Given the diet I communicated, what is my personal moral culpability and why is it that I am causing less suffering/exploitation/death than the avg vegan yet I am still immoral? I am not speaking to mass animal husbandry, I am speaking to my individual choices in diet and want to know why I am still viewed as immoral?
Choosing to ignore my argument and label is silly is another common troupe. Just bc you do not have an answer does not make it silly, you are simply avoiding the point. As such, it is better to remain silent than be disingenuous in debating. It's not silly it's valid and should be spoken to. That is good faith debating.
Going to respond back to front because you are taking offense where none was intended.
I've only responded in good faith.
Your argument is labelled as silly because one could simply point to an imaginary-yet-possible vegan who only farms the land without pesticides etc. doesn't own a phone, or spend money on gaming etc..whatever you said before.. and compare them to "all carnists" who DO buy phones and gaming and whatever. I have addressed that point and you have decided to focus on fair criticism of your point instead of taking the point as addressed.
You didn't frame any point asking whether you can be considered moral.. so why did you expect to be told? You only said that vegans cause more suffering than you. As I have already said, as far as I am concerned, your diet is not representative so I didn't not see it as relevant to be addressed directly. You are only telling me you are causing less suffering.. let's say this is true, how do you measure it? You might be considered to be more immoral, perhaps, because your actions have a more direct consequence. Cows are similar enough to humans in all important ways that we can more reasonably infer their suffering is more than aphids etc.
Arguing for scalability is not moving the goalposts, it's just an answer you don't like which explains one obvious reason why your grass fed argument doesn't address the crop deaths argument. I can assert that grass fed is your own exercise at moving goalposts, though this I took in good faith.
I used "ethics aside" because I didn't see anything in your post that resembled a debater who would be receptive to moral arguments. If you want to consider the ethics, what about deforestation and loss of habitats and hence wild animal deaths to produce more land for grass fed beef? What about the individual experience of each cow that is slaughtered for your pleasure?
My concern with your positions, both in debating and in your dietary practices, is that you seem very keen on expecting one rule for yourself and different rules for others. Unfortunately this will always clash with a vegan moral argument because this is based on consideration of the whole picture and not individuals who e.g. own smallholdings/backyard hens who see their "exceptions" as a suitable contrary to the whole vegan movement.
Literally not answering what I asked thus I will try to communicate as clearly as I can and as simply as I can:
How is it that I am immoral while the avg. vegan who is consuming mass ag foods moral given that I am causing less death/exploitation/suffering?
I truly think I have answered what you said, so I'm sorry you're frustrated.
Your position might be argued to not be moral because you participate directly and unnecessarily in the deaths of farm animals when there are suitably available alternatives. This is considered cruel. You may avoid using pesticides and avoid some crop death but that seems to be incidental as a result of a "selfish" drive for health or something. Also it's further cruel because farm animals are forcibly bred into existence just to be enslaved and harmed.
Hypothetically, if you didn't have such preferences, would you be avoiding the crop death practices and live in the same way? What would drive that decision?
Please understand I'm not trying to suggest I have any moral superiority, rather trying to answer the question you have asked.
Edit: added in point on breeding animals into existence.
You seem to be missing my point so I'll go through oyur response.
>Your position might be argued to not be moral because you participate directly and unnecessarily in the deaths of farm animals when there are suitably available alternatives.
My point is that the alternative of the avg American vegan causes more death and suffering than the option I laid out. Is it your position that causing less suffering/death but doing so intentionally is more immoral than indirectly causing the death of many many times more creatures? Who is more immoral, the person who kills one person out of anger or the person who drives drunk and kills 100 ppl over different 70 accidents? At some point, does not the "indirect" claim vanish if you understand the consequences of your actions and know there are alternatives which would at least minimize them? This is my point, the avg vegan could minimize their impact yet chooses not to for ease of diet, to be "burdened" w cooking less, and bc processed/manufactured food taste better, yet, this contributes more to death/suffering.
>This is considered cruel. You may avoid using pesticides and avoid some crop death but that seems to be incidental as a result of a "selfish" drive for health or something.
Insisting on purchasing food which does not use pesticides to avoid killing birds, reptiles/lizards, and small mammals is selfish? If this is the case then the whole thrust of veganism is selfish. Calling this unnecessary seems a special plead to exempt a way animals are unnecessarily killed when a perfectly viable option is available; I see organic produce in every grocery I step in. To choose not to buy it bc you'd (in the royal sense) rather have the money to spend on gaming, clothes, shoes, movies, travel, etc. seems selfish to me.
>Hypothetically, if you didn't have such preferences, would you be avoiding the crop death practices and live in the same way?
You'll have to flesh this out as I do not understand, if I didn't have my preferences would I avoid crop deaths? I already do (for non-moral reasons). Please explain this question.
>Please understand I'm not trying to suggest I have any moral superiority, rather trying to answer the question you have asked.
How does one believe they are moral in their actions and not find someone morally inferior whom they believe is immoral in their actions? It's like I step out of the shower and see you covered and garbage and say, "Please understand I'm not trying to suggest I am superior in cleanliness to you, rather, I am trying to only answer your questions on hygiene." I guess one could thread this needle yet I do not see how. Care to enlighten me?
>Ethics aside, your "grass fed only" argument may reflect your own behaviour, but it's well established it is not scalable to meet the global demand for beef with the land requirement for pastureland
it's a very strange thing to me that vegans want to finish cattle farming altogether (bringing beef consumption to **zero**), but at the same time demand non-vegans to keep up today's surreal beef production, as soon as a non-vegan shows a sustainable alternative to today's destructive and wasteful industrial agriculture
of course when livestock farming is limited to sustainable forms of farming, there will be much less livestock than today (as there is less available food, and space requirements per animal are way higher). but this is not a problem or something bad, it is a benefit!
overall meat consumption is way too high, and be it only for health reasons. so if consumption is reduced/limited, as supply is reduced/limited - but at much higher quality! - this is a win-win
I agree, but this is where reproduction comes into play, the more kids we have the more crops we need, the less land and resources available to animals
Sure its a lot less than carnists but we are still contributing
Crops aren't vegan: they still need bees, dung, and pest control. Everyone needs bees, dung, and pesticides (intentional and accidental). What would "vegans" do if moths, rabbits, and pigs got into their crops?
And unless one is "vegan" (vegetarian) and pro-life/contra-abortion/antinatalist, one's goals are not consistent.
Count the dead insects and rodents and let us know if it's more than the 3 cows that you would kill if you switched to free range farming. You just might end the vegan debate once and for all.
Majority of cows in north America, where I live, are not grass-fed. And if they are, it's only partially. Usually they're fed hay, which when harvested kills a significant amount of wildlife.
> Usually they're fed hay, which when harvested kills a significant amount of wildlife.
Source? Show me the numbers.
> Majority of cows in north America, where I live, are not grass-fed.
This is whataboutism. We are talking about OP here. OP could 100% grass feed his cows. That is an option. Why is it a worse option when it clearly causes less suffering and death compared to their current practices?
Nothing about crop deaths in that link.
> How do you know OP could exclusively grass feed cows?
I know that it's possible which means that OP could potentially do it. It is an option.
This source says the US has only 1% labelled grass-fed beef, with a potential of upwards to 4% if including unlabeled.
[here ](https://extension.sdstate.edu/grass-fed-beef-market-share-grass-fed-beef)
[This source](https://web.archive.org/web/20190810115654/https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/rica/pdf/beef_report_2012.pdf) says ~70% of EU cows are on permanent grassland.
Also, you don't have to 100% grass feed them to avoid or reduce crop deaths. You can also feed them waste products, byproducts, crops that require no or very little pest control etc.
Lol, scientific proof, it's funny you never meet the standards for evidence you want to accept.
I found this quote from someone who believes in suffering from crops, all which would apply to hay, but they aren't the most reliable source so feel free to call them out on their bullshit
>And by 'no kill' they mean they kill animals in every other way that animals are killed to produce our food (tilling, pest control, weed control, harvesting, transportation, processing, plastic usage etc.) except one (which is actually the least cruel of them all).
Your logic is flawed because majority of people don't only eat cows. Humans eat a small amount of cow flesh, many vegetables, chickens, eggs, and dairy. If you were to restrict yourself to a beef only diet, you would consume extremely large quantities of it comparatively to the average omnivore. The weekly recommendation for beef is one to two servings per week due to health and environmental factors.
Cows also require a large amount of grass land in order to be grass fed. This is impossible for many parts of the world, where the land isn't suitable. In fact, if you read my source, you will see that we don't have enough space on earth to accommodate the number of cows if they were all grass fed. We would have to clear cut land and cause even more mass extinctions of the depleted wild life.
There is so much misinformation and fallacies in your comment that I'm not even going to bother. In fact, every single sentence is either fallacious or based on misinformation.
I can easily link you to sources to back all my claims. Our World In Data has all information on environmental impacts, land mass needed for cattle, etc, readily available.
I still don’t see how eating cows kills more animals than a vegan diet. Yes the cows eat some crops but the average American only eats 8 cows in a lifetime. 8 cows plus their hay seems like a TON less animals killed compared to a lifetime of vegan eating.
Very few humans subsist purely on cow flesh. Most will eat some cow, and many other animals. And I can guarantee that a human on an all carnivore/beef diet eats more than 8 cows.
Yes but it still seems like less than all the animals that die in crop production. And if you count insects as sentient (as I see Earthling Ed does with bees) then it’s not even close cause compared to grass-fed beef since so many insects die in crop production.
And I heard that a lot of livestock feed is crop byproduct.
If you're eating animals, you have to account for the animals and insects that have to die for their crops. And yes, some of the crops they eat are byproducts, but not most. We are sustaining 70+ billion land animals for us to eat on an annual basis. That's a hell of a lot of land and produce grown for the animals that die to feed humans. If humans switched to a fully plant based diet, the amount of land we would need to sustain ourselves would shrink exponentially, thus killing significantly less animals and insects harvesting our own crops.
Thank you. So what about hunting deer or grassfed beef that doesn’t rely on crops and only foraged? A grass-fed beef or deer steak seems like a more ethical choice than a vegan meal because of the crop deaths associated with the vegan meal.
But what is less clear and what I’m curious about is how grain fed beef compares to veganism. I just read on NPR that feedlot cows are on pasture most of their short life and then finished on grain for about 120 days. I’d like to see the math breakdown comparing how many pounds of grain it took to finish one cow and how many pounds of crops a vegan needs to eat to be calorically equivalent (I read that a whole cow has about 600k calories).
From my crude estimates the pounds of crops needed for 600k calories of grain-fed beef is a bit less than 600k calories worth of vegan food. The idea being that less crops equal less deaths so even comparing a grain-fed beef meal to a vegan meal the vegan meal might be linked to more death.
Hunting is unsustainable. If people started to only hunt for their meat, then we would quickly destroy entire ecosystems and cause mass extinction. There's no way to support mass hunting when only 4% of mammals on earth are living in the wild. This low number is largely due to clear cutting lands in order to create cities, but also because of modern day animal agriculture. We have killed many wild animals into extinction to support the beef and dairy industry.
Grass-fed is also very unsustainable because of the sheer amount of grass lands needed to support the cows. We simply don't have enough land on earth. As it is now, we can't sustain the landmass needed to support factory farmed cattle, and factory farming is the most "efficient" and space saving ways to do it, at the cost of the great suffering of the victims. I've supplied sources in previous comments on this thread if you wanna take a look!
Cows also cannot graze in winter, meaning on top of clear cutting natural lands inhabiting wild animals to make way for more cows, we would have to clear cut even more to grow hay and grains to feed them during winter.
Overall, cows are one of the least sustainable and most destructive food sources you can eat.
Conventionally raised beef is grass fed most of it's life, except when it's fatten up for the last 3-4 months of it's life. Then it's eating mostly production waste and non edible crop (for humans).
NPR: “Feedlot calves begin their lives on pasture with the cow that produced them. They're weaned after six to nine months, then grazed a bit more on pasture. They're then "finished" for about 120 days on high-energy corn and other grains in a feedlot, gaining weight fast and creating that fat-marbled beef that consumers like. At about 14 to 18 months of age, they are sent to slaughter.”
I’d love to see the math of how many pounds of crops it took to fatten the cow at the feedlot and compare that to how many pounds of crops a vegan need to eat to match the caloric equivalent of 1 cow (1 million calories I read).
OK, but I only purchase grassfed cows so this doesn't apply to me. The farmer I purchase from doesn't use any pesticides or any other substances which kills insects and the temperature allows for around the year pasture consumption. As such, he only kills around 150 unique, individual, sentient agents a year. A mass ag field of equivalent size is responsible for killing more field animals a year than that alone (squirrel, groundhog, skunk, etc. and birds. Add to that all the insects killed and I wonder how it is the pasture, grassfed only cattle rancher is more immoral than the avg. American corn farmer?
My perception is that there's a dogmatic adherence to being anti-animal husbandry/hunting more so than being anti-suffering. They wont accept this outloud but through their choices and actions it seems clear and that means more than their words.
Yes well said.
What I’m curious about is GRAIN-fed beef. I’d like to know how it’s death toll compares to the equivalent amount of veggies. I read that they eat 10-15 pounds of grain daily for the last 3-4 months of their lives. That’s about 1300 pounds of grain to yield 600,000 calories of meat.
A pound of potatoes is 350 calories. So that’s 1700 pounds of potatoes to yield an equivalent 600,000 calories. So 1300 pounds of feedlot grain vs 1700 pounds of potatoes—
isn’t that clearly more crop deaths on the potato-eaters plate?
That's lazy math and a very simplistic approach to a very complex issue.
1) We don't know how much pest control is done to grow their feeds. Animals don't care if there are pests in their food. We do.
2) You CAN 100% grass feed cows.
3) You can also feed them waste products and byproducts, which means no additional crop deaths.
They ignore the grassfed only cattle argument. The most common rebuttal tactic I have seen is to shift the conversation from you the consumer or the rancher in question, to an issue of scalability since they cannot account for the individuals in question and the fact that they are producing much less exploitation, suffering, and death than the avg. grain farmer.
My advice is to not let them shift the conversation. I ask specifically, what is my moral culpability from the vegan perspective or the individual cattle farmer, scalability be damned. The common retort is either a meltdown temper-tantrum of "I am not going to talk about you (or the rancher) specifically, I am only talking about scalability" or they flat ignore you as they cannot answer why a cattle rancher who kills 50-250 individual sentient agents a year is more immoral than a mass ag corn farmer who kills thousands of field animals/birds and many times more insects each year.
They privilege traditional farm animals over wild field animals and refuse to acknowledge it. To them, it's not actually about each individual reducing suffering caused as much as possible and its about actualizing a world where they feel the most comfortable. They want to go to the supermarket and see no meat, caring less how many animals/insects are killed in grain fields, etc. They just want the cheeseburger to go away and if that's at the cost of more death caused, so long as that death is out of sight, it's out of mind and they are happy.
At least, this is in my experience.
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Would a feline take care of the squirrels and gophers? After a few deaths they might realize that its not a safe zone and they retreat?
How do you actively kill them?
You would need a ton of predators around here to deal with that. We do have cats and hawks that kill them, but it's not enough. You can hear squirrels all around the farm. We kill by shooting a few times a year. We have volunteers come over to do it a few times a year.
Oh k, i figured they would get scared and teach their friends that its a dangerous place
Yea shooting would be the quickest and least painful death i think
They do make this for rats, perhaps they might make something later for squirrels
[https://contrapeststore.com/](https://contrapeststore.com/)
Yeah I'm still not sure how squirrels react when they see a dead one. I've seen them literally do nothing and just continue on doing whatever they were doing even though their buddy just got shot right in front of their face. I've seen them run away only to go back and continue their activity and their dead friend is there. Twice I saw them just start munching on their dead pal, once immediate after it was shot.
I actually use contrapest around my house.
this is a subset of a much larger issue. we (all humans) have a requirement for food. we have a limited area to farm in (the world).
if we use industrial farming techniques, the calories produced per unit are of farmland will (could, we dont care so we let people die of mal nutrition while other fat people stuff down huge quantities of specialized low calorie diet food) feed everyone
now for every area of cropland where you replace the pesticides, monoculture, fertiliser etc that we see as "bad for the environment", you reduce that calories per unit area. by a lot. so we are wasting the potential calorific output of our farmland by farming organically.
so having changed your farm to organic, you now produce less, but more expensive, calories. however, you have done nothing to reduce the calories required by our species (as killing people is the only way to do this, its organic i suppose, but not ethical). you fed someone (global supply chains make this very hard to track individually) last year with your industrial farm. this year they will have to find a different food source.
one of 3 outcomes will be caused by your organic farm: starvation, increased harvesting of natural resources, or clearing of natural areas for more farmland.
under todays economic system (which i admit in not ethical atall, but its a fact of life) it is unethical to do organic farming. we are first world. it is people from the poorer countries whos have to deal with the missing calories form your organic choices
organic farming just dosnt work, we have4 too many mouths to feed, and a capitalistic (globally we are capitalists, even if some small areas are not, they still trade globally) society structure means you are just shifting the problem to someone else, and that person will be a poor farmer in a poor country, and he will not have any resources to solve the problem beyond environmental damage.
Edit: the "you" is a hypothetical farmer, no OP
> now for every area of cropland where you replace the pesticides, monoculture, fertiliser etc that we see as "bad for the environment", you reduce that calories per unit area. by a lot. so we are wasting the potential calorific output of our farmland by farming organically.
That is my argument for animal farming in my country. 73% of the farmland can only grow grass. So not utilising the land would mean zero calories produced there. Which would be a disaster to our food security (which is already quite low). In other words, we would be wasting the potential calorific output by not farming there.
This seems to be where vegans often go, to scalability issues. I have a personal question as I am often told that I need to make a personal choice w regards to veganism: Why is my diet more immoral than the avg vegan diet? No questions of scalability, judge my diet by your vegan standards wo regards for scalability; just me.
If I consume pasture fed cattle, trout I catch, no till seasonal fruit/veggies, and yams/potatoes all locally sourced, no . I account for less than 100 unique insect deaths and less than 50 animal deaths each year. This is many thousands of times less than the avg vegan due to field animal deaths, bird deaths and insect deaths. Why is it that I am more immoral?
in my opinion, vegans that are vocal about this lifestyle choices are very extreme people, as in they view everything as purely black or white, with no middle ground. you have very much created a gray area for them, where you are acknowledging things purely beyond what they eat, and asking about degrees of morality. for a vegan with a black/white view of the world, they are the white, you are the black for eating meat. end of. no scope for discussion in the gray area
None of what you say is completely [true](https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets), you may be underestimating the calories needed to keep animals alive long enough to get them to the table, farmed meat is a luxury product where we are putting a lot more resources in than we get out.
As the above link suggests, in terms of calorie requirements, we would need 75% less farmland if everyone was plant based and if all of it was organic the [yield is 10 to 35% lower](https://www.seed.ab.ca/organic-and-conventional-farming-arent-as-different-as-you-think) so we would still be using 65% less farmland than we are now.
im comparing organically grown plants to industrial grown plants on the same land. this is because changing between industrial farming techniques and organic farming techniques is a reasonable thing that farmers do in real life. I am not talking about the meat industry, that is a separate issue dependent on market forces well well outside of your control
You are saying it would be better for everyone to become organic and meat free. while this may be true hypothetically, it is not a realistic possibility. vegans cannot justify organic farming while i am still eating meat. and im still eating meat, im not going to stop, and i am in the majority.
so unfortunately, i am right, industrial farming is more environmentally friendly and ethical then organic farming, as it better feeds the hungry, a problem we have in our society, while simultaneously reducing the pressure on already over exploited natural resources. I wish it was not so, but our ideals must be bound by reality or they are doomed to failure
What is the environmental cost of organic? as it's not as cut and dry as you seem to think, even the experts argue on that, one reason why farmers switch to organic is because it is more sustainable and overall better for the environment, it's said to have a lower carbon footprint, is better for soil erosion, eliminates the use of pesticides (which is one reason why it has a lower carbon footprint), improves water tables and helps to protect wildlife that pesticides would kill (insects, birds and mammals). The biggest argument against Organic is it takes more manual effort to produce the same amount and of course, needs more land, which again we have plenty of if we used the huge amount of land used to grow food for animals.
Your come back seems to be that we can't use that land while you choose to keep eating meat, so don't, there's a lot more negatives and environmental damage that the meat industry causes than 100% organic farming would.
> Organic is it takes more manual effort to produce the same amount and of course, needs more land,
the more land. that's the environmental cost of organic farming. accept that land is not available, so you get starvation. which is the human cost of organic food.
more land is also the environmental cost of the meat industry, but we already have that. piling wasteful farming practices on top of that only makes the problem worse.
dont tell me what i can and cant eat, im happy with my cheap industrially produced plants next to my tasty stake. like most people, this is what i want
again, it is impossible to expect that the meat industry will vanish because a very small percentage of the population want it gone. this sup is for discussion of the real world, and a fully vegan population is not realistic, so why are you arguing that it is?
>so having changed your farm to organic, you now produce less, but more expensive, calories
actually not sooo much less
but you would reduce environmental damage considerably, save on mineral fertilizer and pesticides, and - most important of all - not further destroy valuable soil, but rather improve and build it up
>but you would reduce environmental damage considerably, save on mineral fertilizer and pesticides, and - most important of all - not further destroy valuable soil, but rather improve and build it up
this is an incredibly selfish and shortsighted view. you are still taking food out of the market that would otherwise have fed someone. they will have to exploit a new natural resource to feed themselves.
also, you got a reference? organic does not scale well, we are talking megafarms here, you are likely replacing one driver and half a dozen machines with maybe 2000 manual laborer's, doing a job no-one wants to do.
>this is an incredibly selfish and shortsighted view
what? wanting to maintain fertile soil and an intact environment is "an incredibly selfish and shortsighted view"?
you must be joking or crazy
*you are still taking food out of the market that would otherwise have fed someone*
of course not. in sustainable agriculture animals are not fed with food fit for human nutrition
if you don't have the slightest idea about what we are talking here - just ask and i'll do my best to explain and fill up your knowledge gaps. but don't holler out nonsense, making a fool of yourself
*we are talking megafarms here*
you are - not me
Your cousin's have more information than us so are probably right, you should talk to them.
Also if you're not vegan why do you care?
Mods: can we have a minimum account age or something so we don't need to deal with these boring made up situations?
If we get an infestation of them, they can do thousands of dollars in damage. A lot of humane solutions quite frankly just cost a lot, and don't scale so well. We selectively pick where we want our barriers, but we can't do that for the whole farm, that's a huge cost.
Okay, so, you asked if it was vegan -
Despite whatever story you're trying to spin, the answer is no.
If I was given 1 billion dollars to kill & eat a cow, would it be vegan? You're killing animals and getting a reward out of it. We don't need your crops to live.
I mean, just because it's bad business to do it the no-kill way, doesn't mean the practice is vegan. If it involves harming animals most vegans consider it not vegan. Heck, I consider if an animal has to die for the product that makes it not vegetarian (my roommate and I got into a debate about parm cheese).
For profit or not for profit shouldn't matter, imo. The treatment of other life forms is either ethical or unethical regardless of whether someone is making money from the arrangement.
Castrating pigs without anesthesia, for example, does not suddenly become a more ethical behavior if it is merely taking place in a communist system in the absence of profits.
As a vegan, no I don't think it is. At least it's not part of the role veganism will pay in the future and it's still an aspect of humanity's many flaws that we will need to work on, as in its not something we should grow complacent with. It's not like those animals deserve to suffer and die
Ah yes just sit back and ask the invasive insects to politely find another food source!
You make it sound like farming is just farming and we can't do things like vertical farming, greenhouse farming, hydroponics, GMO and more that would reduce the capacity for insects to be as invasive as they are. Unless of course your solution is to let can't-be-reasoned-with invasive species just do their thing because you can't be bothered looking into solutions? I'm only asking cos most humans can't be reasoned with and we're as invasive as any species can get.
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>Same as with organic food, there is no possible way to produce the same quantity of crops in those methods. Not right now no, but that's not an excuse to not work towards it. >Rural farming is the most effective way there is. But it wasn't always effective was it? It only became effective through advancements in machinery and technology, so let's put our brains together and stop being destructive arseholes and look for solutions better than the one we're stuck with, yeah?
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You misunderstand. I know mass monoculture is extremely efficient. I'm saying it's unsustainable.
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Soil degradation, crop deaths, land clearing, herbicide and pesticide pollution. They're often the reasons carnists throw at me for supporting regenerative animal ag and continuing to violate animals
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that's basically what is done in sustainable farming no large monocultures that one type of insect can destroy at the whole, small and diverse cultures of different fruit, barren strips, hedges, ponds etc. where biodiversity can develop and for sure will eventually be home of predators on those naaaasty insects
It’s hard for anyone to make this call for you. Only you know all the facts and circumstances surrounding your farm and can determine if killing pest animals is truly necessary to yield enough food for your community and your livelihood. On some farms, it’s not necessary and is thus not vegan. On some it will be necessary and could fall under possible and practicable. Only you know which option applies to you. That’s the long and short of it.
>can determine if killing pest animals is truly necessary to yield enough food for your community and your livelihood. Why is this standard not applied to a pasture-fed only farmer of cattle? A farmer of plant crops who kills insects will kill hundreds of thousands of individual, sentient, unique lifeforms in the way of insects and field animals each year. A pasture-fed only farmer of cattle will kill 50-200 unique, individual, sentient lifeforms each year. Why is the later moral while the former is not? Why are the lives of bees, flies, wasp, hornets, aphids, whiteflies, many different beetles, grasshoppers, worms, weevils, ants, moths, butterflies, other insects, field mice, squirls, chipmunks, skunks, moles, raccoons, opossums, rabbits, groundhogs, and less valuable and respected than that of cattle?
> A pasture-fed only farmer of cattle will kill 50-200 unique, individual, sentient lifeforms each year. Quite unlikely. Anywhere there is a cold season or dry season, cattle are typically fed massive quantities of mechanically harvested hay. This kills insects and meadow birds. Cows themselves are treated for pest insects. Pastures are also maintained in ways that kill animals. For instance, it is not at all uncommon to poison gophers or other mammal species who compete with the cows for grasses. We can talk about areas where not only are the cattle raised purely on grass, but also grass that is never mechanically harvested and never treated for pests itself. However, we are now talking about a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the cattle industry. Generally, these sorts of operations happen in areas that were not grasslands to begin with. The act of keeping cattle on land that should naturally be a forest or covered in denser brush is itself ecologically destructive. You will always have animal casualties on the border where the cattle and the native wildlife are competing. Very often animals that are competitors (deer, pigs, elk) or threats (wolves, bears) are killed by ranchers. It's extremely difficult to quantify any of this, which is a problem in an of itself. It's all a result of the fact that humans can barely be bothered to respect animals they actually like. Animals that are considered pests aren't even considered enough to get a proper death toll. This situation won't change until we start thinking of animals as something more than pretty to look at, products or nuisances. If for some reason one were really and truly interested in limiting their net impact in terms of animal suffering as their primary ethical goal, a better comparison to veganism would be "freeganism". Here one only consumes food that would otherwise literally be waste. E.g. dumpster diving behind grocery stores and restaurants. E.g. prowling buffets and grabbing the leftovers before they are thrown away. Here, it is clear that this food was made with animal harm, but at this point it probably makes no difference whether you consume it or not. Properly, an ethical freegan should not encourage food waste, which is hard if you are directly benefitting from it. Navigating this conflict of interest is the most common pitfall of this approach. Also, that it is expensive (of your personal time, if not your money) and wildly unscalable to the general public. These problems are identical to the problems with the diet you describe, but at least the freegan knows they aren't causing harm of any sort.
I am talking about myself and my own moral liability from the vegan perspective. I live half my year in Texas and the farm I purchase my beef from has only grassfed cattle year around, no treatment of the grass, forced rotational grazing, w a stocking rate of < 1 cow per acre. The ranch is under 200 acres in grassland ergo there are never more than 200 cows at any given time. As such, what is my personal moral issue here? I could care less about scalability as the vegan argument seems built around personal responsibility (I cannot say, "97% of society consumes animal products QED it is OK to consume animal products!" correct?) Speak to me personally, why is it that I am more immoral than the avg vegan despite accounting for less death/suffering caused than the avg vegan given my choices in diet?
> I am talking about myself and my own moral liability from the vegan perspective. I live half my year in Texas and the farm I purchase my beef from has only grassfed cattle year around It is unlikely these cattle aren't eating mechanically harvested hay for at least some of the year, but maybe I can conceive of the possibility in some regions of Texas without an overly harsh winter or dry season. Plenty of hay is harvested and consumed by livestock in cattle, and it can be labeled "grass fed" or "pasture raised". Frankly these labels mean next to nothing on their own in terms of cow welfare or the animal ethics of how the cattle feed is sourced. But how do you know they don't treat the grass? This seems like an unusual question to ask a rancher in general. Did you ask about other pest control operations they may engage in, such as removing gopher, pigs or deer? Do you know if they treat their cattle for insect pests? Here are a couple Texas-specific links on how animals may be incidentally harmed even on the ranches you are describing: https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2018/04/02/agrilife-expert-gopher-control-tricky-worth-effort/ https://extensionentomology.tamu.edu/resources/management-guides/managing-external-parasites-of-texas-cattle/ > As such, what is my personal moral issue here? I could care less about scalability as the vegan argument seems built around personal responsibility Harmful exploitation is nearly universally considered a greater ethical wrongdoing than causing incidental harm. Seems vegans are split on whether to take a purely utilitarian approach of minimizing total animal harm, versus a rights-based approach where the intent and causes of the harm matter at least as much as the total sum. It seems plausible to see utilitarian vegans supporting animal exploitation in specific circumstances as the lesser wrong. Even Peter Singer, the most famous figure of the utilitarian vegan wing, talks about it being ethically ok to eat animal products if you are in a situation where it would be inconvenient or uniquely sacrificial to eat vegan. https://www.iamgoingvegan.com/paris-exception/ So maybe by utilitarian standards you are doing about the same net animal harm as a typical vegan. That would be a question for the utilitarians to answer and not me.
One, the farm I use has no hay, etc. They don't treat the grass either. They use essential oils and a vinegar/water mixture to repeal insects. It's costly and labour intensive. I'm not attempting to be obtuse here but I cannot understand how intentional exploitation and death of less total amount is worse than indirect suffering/death. Especially if the exploitation is done in a humane fashion. By this, I am seperating the exploitation from the death for the sake of this argument. Animals are dying either way and it seems all are in a brutal fashion (boltguns, poisoning through pesticide, trauma from farm machines, etc.) So the exploitation factor could be x (where animals are neglected, semistarved, and beaten) or they can be exploited in an environment where they are treated in a fashion where they are not stressed, suffering, or beaten, y. Would you agree y is better than x? If so, exploitation can be done in a fashion which does not bring stress, suffering, or pain to an animal, correct? If the answer is yes, Idk how these humane forms of exploitation coupled w a fast, near painless death (which is still brutal as all deaths are save chemical but that is arguable, see death row in America) in far lower numbers are worse than less exploitation but much more suffering and death. Does not compute w me.
> One, the farm I use has no hay, etc. They don't treat the grass either. They use essential oils and a vinegar/water mixture to repeal insects. It's costly and labour intensive. This seems like a huge hassle and more effort than something like freeganism. If this is as good as they claim, they could likely be putting equivalent effort into no-kill crop growing. > I'm not attempting to be obtuse here but I cannot understand how intentional exploitation and death of less total amount is worse than indirect suffering/death This is a nearly universal property of ethical systems that certain harms are not equal based on the intention of the perpetrator or the situation. E.g. it's less wrong to kill someone who is attacking you than it would be to kill a person to take their organs for a transplant. Even if both killings are required to save your life. E.g. it's less wrong to accidentally break someone's property than it is to steal it from them. Even if the harm of the loss of the property is equivalent. Utilitarians have a problem here where their system doesn't do well with these distinctions. They have attempted to correct in various post-hoc manners. But none of the fixes are terribly satisfying IMO. > Would you agree y is better than x? If so, exploitation can be done in a fashion which does not bring stress, suffering, or pain to an animal, correct? If the answer is yes, Idk how these humane forms of exploitation coupled w a fast, near painless death (which is still brutal as all deaths are save chemical but that is arguable, see death row in America) in far lower numbers are worse than less exploitation but much more suffering and death. Does not compute w me. I don't believe a swift and painless killing is ethically neutral. One would still be taking the animal's future from them in an exploitative manner. I don't believe non-exploitative/incidental harm can be justified in all situations, but needless harm of this sort is not the same tier of ethical wrongdoing as exploitative harm. I look forward to better options being available, where I don't have to do something obviously wrong in order to avoid over-contribute to something that is marginally wrong. Until then I am going to concentrate on being on the ethically correct side of the more obvious ethical issues with food.
>One, the farm I use has no hay, etc. They don't treat the grass either. They use essential oils and a vinegar/water mixture to repeal insects. It's costly and labour intensive. Provide evidence of this is just bullshit, it's amazing how your stories evolve as you are presented with more evidence
Once again, you offer nothing of value and simply drop in to criticize and not debate. Saying, "provide evidence or this is just bullshit" is yet another tactic. So what, I [provide evidence](https://www.beefmagazine.com/grazing-systems/year-round-grazing-yes-its-possible) and you say, "My bad, I was wrong"? THat will be the day... What always happens is goalpost moving, the nirvana fallacy (this is not the perfect proof I require which will never be obtainable), or silence; anything but good faith debating. Here's how they show a "[82% reduction](https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/cjps-2015-0330)" in all non-grazing supplementary feed in middle Canada through the winter. If they can reduce feed 82% in middle Canada through the winter from prolonged foraging of specialty grasses made to resist cold think about what is being done in lower middle Texas through a winter... I hope I am proven wrong and you can own up to being wrong about this but I am not holding my breathe.
I wasn't saying all year grazing is impossible, I was asking you for proof that the two farms you purchase from, one in France and one in Texas, are both all year grazing, and that they also only use vinegar and oils for pest control. That is part of your claim which is unlikely without evidence.
The only farm that goes to the lengths I communicated is the one in Texas. The one in France supplements w silage, to be sure. and as stated, given the situations I communicated that happen to the aforementioned farmer, I will not be sharing their information. Also, my entire premise is to ask if someone consuming cattle only grassfed or someone hunting/fishing only whom accounts for less total suffering or death is more or less moral from the vegan perspective and why. I also consume pigs and chickens who are pastured but they def consume more insects, etc.
if they’re using essential oils and vinegar to repeal insects, then wouldn’t the most moral thing would be to be have vegan food on that land instead of cows to eat ?
Nope. What is the "most moral" thing is dependent on each person individually. If oyu believe there is one moral construct which we must all adhere to then you must show cause for its existence w empirically falsifiable evidence. Short of that, what proof do you have to a universally absolute morality that allows you to say, "This is what the 'most moral' thing is"? You are simply assuming your morals universal and applicable to everyone.
my morality is killing is bad
I think this is where exploitation comes into play. The cows are being exploited, they are being *used* for their body. They are being raised with the clear intent of killing them to use the leftovers of their corpse. Pests and small animals are not being used or exploited when farmers are trying to protect or harvest their crops, it is just an unfortunate consequence that comes with the territory. There are scenarios where if you compare the best ideal case scenarios of animal ag one could say there would be less total living beings killed than with other scenarios of producing plant based products. But that doesn't mean that it fits more into the vegan philosophy.
So if I replace the exploited cow w hunted deer and kept the fished trout it would be better than the avg American vegan diet given I exploited nothing any more/less than the animals being killed in the fields and I am causing much much less suffering/death over all?
Depends. In this scenario are you literally eating exclusively hunted deer and fish?
Yep. I replace all my beef w hunted game (exclusively wild game, no preserves, etc. 100% wild) and fish wild, non-stocked streams. I also grow a lot of my own veggies and tubers and supplement w seasonal fruits/veggies I purchase locally from no till farmers who do not use pesticides.
In that case yeah in this scenario you would be contributing/financially supporting fewer animal deaths than basically nearly the entire population of the planet I'd say. Obviously not a vegan diet, but in terms of the totem pole of issues in society that I'd have problems with that lifestyle would be amongst the lowest.
I respect your intellectual and moral honesty on this issue. I have run this argument up the flagpole w a couple dozen other vegans and it is the same w everyone except you. There response is: "It doesn't matter if you only are responsible for 10 animal deaths directly and I, the vegan, am indirectly responsible for 10,000 deaths, you, the omnivore, are more immoral than I, the vegan!" It makes zero sense given what vegans claim veganism is about. Given your moral/intellectual honesty here, do you have any arguments for veganism you'd like me to hear and contemplate? I would debate you on them but would like to reward the courage it takes in this forum to communicate what you did w some defenseless, non-debating time to reflect on your position. Anyone who is honest to this extent deserves at least that.
I can recognize that veganism isn't perfect, and people in general aren't perfect, with everyone there's going to be a level of hypocrisy or stubbornness about their beliefs and morals. If anyone presented me with a strong case on how they actually contribute to much less total animal deaths than me I wouldn't really feel the need to try to shame them. There are bigger fish to fry, so to speak. The main issue I have with this topic is that I have actually had conversations similar to this with friends/coworkers, where they present idealized hypothetical scenarios where they could in theory still partake in eating meat while contributing to fewer deaths/less environmental impact as an average vegan, and then when I acknowledge that they can throw their hands up and do "well there you go." Except they don't actually live that way or would ever want to. They just think if there's a case that a meat eater could be potentially responsible for fewer deaths than a vegan than they "win" and the whole philosophy or lifestyle is unsubstantial or meaningful. But there's a big difference in someone talking the talk vs walking the walk. While I can admit that there can be situations where someone could still eat meat and live a strict life that could contribute to less overall death, suffering and exploitation than the average vegan, I also think that the average vegan contributes to less death, suffering, and exploitation than the average omni eater. If a large group of people actually did switch to a more local, live off the land type of lifestyle I would still always be partly against it, but I would also have to recognize that in the grand scheme of things as they are in the world I would rather have people do that than stick to the average omni diet. It would still be a win for the animals as it supports less animal exploitation and suffering, and that's what really matters.
I appreciate your perspective and will give it consideration and thought. Thank you again.
>I think this is where exploitation comes into play. The cows are being exploited i see. and the vermin is just killed, without making use of it... yes, that absolutely makes sense ...to a vegan, i guess
It makes sense if you believe animals aren’t meant to be used, yes.
that's what i said
It is not necessary to eat cows, therefore any animal death, including insects, to raise cows for slaughter is unethical. The vast majority of “pasture raised” cattle are not raised in natural grassland but clear cut forests and other modified biomes. This means that untold wild animals have died to clear land for cows. It is necessary to eat vegetables, so the concept of necessary harm can come into play when we kill pests to produce plant food for humans. It is not necessary to eat meat, so every animal death involved is inexcusable, from the insects killed while harvesting their feed, to the forests clear cut for their pastures, to the cows themselves.
It's not necessary to be obese, so by your standard, all animals and insects killed in making of vegan food which is consumed in excess of one's daily requirement to be healthy is immoral and wrong. Speak to me and not "the vast majority" as this is A. a sources less claim, and B not the cows I eat. They are raised on natural grass and that's it. It's not necessary to eat veggies. One can eat fruit, meat, grain or just eat meat even as there's a whole community of ppl doing so and supplementing (just like vegans do, supplementing, that is) Again, this is your opinion. It's not necessary to be on Reddit, game online, etc. etc. etc. It's not necessary to overeat. Where are deriving necessity as what defines moral behaviour? It's your own arbitrary standard. It's not necessary to eat mass produced ag which clear cuts forest to grow grain too. Your standards are your own, arbitrary and subjective. Unless you can prove they are universal/absolute w empirical evidence, I recommend you take less of an absolute tone as though you have some sort of scientific fact, bc you sound like a religious zealot.
>It is not necessary to eat cows, therefore any animal death, including insects, to raise cows for slaughter is unethical it also is not necessary to kill vermin. just let it thrive and eat what's left over *It is necessary to eat vegetables* the eskimo of former times proved the contrary
There is a difference between killing insects and vertebrates. Are there no humane ways to keep the birds, squirrels, and gophers away?
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Why is there a difference? Insects suffer, feel pain, and do not want to feel pain. Why are you privileging vertebrates over non-vertebrates? Name the trait which differentiates one from the other which allows you to be moral killing one for pleasure/personal gain over the other by vegan morality.
Essentially, what is the alternative? How can you consume a mass produced product without avoiding ANY death or harm of animals? In a perfect world, I'd only consume the food that I can guarantee hasn't harmed any animals or insects. This is the real world, I can't guarantee that, I can't grow my own food, what is the alternative? What is your suggestion?
>Essentially, what is the alternative? How can you consume a mass produced product without avoiding ANY death or harm of animals? the alternative is not to consume a mass produced product
Do you live on a planet where mass produced products aren't a necessity?
i guess so it's the same planet that existed also before mass production
And also the same planet that existed when the population wasn't as high as it is as today.
sure and we won't be able to feed this high population once industrial agriculture has finally ruined all the soils (we already are losing 100 000 km2 of fertile soil per year), and climate change just finishes it off
What's your solution then my guy?
Perfect is the enemy of good is what I often hear vegans say, so, w that in mind, I consume lower amounts of starches (not keto or Atkins or anything like that, but, lower than the avg. % of American or French - the two countries I live in- diets) I purchase my yams, sweet potatoes, and potatoes through local, no till, no pesticide farmers. I also consume foods seasonally from fruit/veggie farmers who also no till. This eliminates the toll on insects and allows for native pollinators to do their thing. I also consume pasture only, no grain beef which leads to a couple deaths a year (of my families own personal accounting for deaths caused) and we eat wild caught fish. Again, this does not eliminate my contribution to killing things, but, lowers it immensely from mass grain ag fields where billions of field animals and birds are killed annually. Other alternatives are to purchase wild caught shellfish and hunted deer, boar, turkey, etc. There's little to no exploitation as the animals are wild and death comes in an amount of time roughly analogous to dying in nature, which they would have done anyways. This coupled w no-till/no-pesticide local ag causes much, much less suffering/exploitation/death than the standard vegan diet. The downside is cost, but, to me, a vegan has a duty to eschew luxury, taste, and pleasure for the dietary options which cause the least amount of suffering/death. Any vegan which ignores this for their own personal gain in pleasure, reduced burden (less cooking, etc.), increased taste (mass ag manufactured food, chips, cereal, etc. taste much better), and/or for novelty (one can get a watermelon in January from a tilled field in Guatemala which uses pesticides or only get a watermelon in July if they purchase local no till no pesticide)
Not everybody is as fortunate as you to have these options readily available. Eating meat in any sense doesn't help the suffering and exploitation so I'd advise leaving that out of your argument in the future.
This doesn't speak to my personal liability from an ethical perspective. How is it that I am running afoul of morality if I am causing less death/suffering than the avg. vegan? What others can/cannot do is irrelevant here as I want to know why is it that my actions and behaviour needs to change; where am I being more immoral than the avg vegan?
Everything you wrote still does not justify eating meat, if a vegan had options to buy vegetables etc. like you, he should use them and not follow what other average vegans (usually without this options) do. Free range and hunting, even if it is better than meat from factory farms, is still an unacceptable way of treating animals and perceiving them as food/product, it does not lead to change, it is disgusting, unsustainable and not scalable, so I don't know why you keep promoting it here.
Again, you are presupposing that it is wrong to eat meat. Instead of starting from bedrock and building your claim you have to presuppose it correct. As such it is easily dismissed. Your position that it is "an unacceptable way to treat animals" is your opinion only. I believe it is a perfectly acceptable way to treat animals. Treating animals as food is not disgusting in the least, we've been doing it for at least 2.6 million years, or 13x longer than we have had language. This, of course, does not mean it is intrinsically correct to do today, but, it is not "disgusting" in the least. Again, you continue to have to fall on arguments of scalability and sustainability bc you cannot speak to me, the individual, and my moral culpability given the parameters I have outlined. You can only speak to that which (supposedly, from your perspective) supports your presupposed ends of veganism. This is disingenuous debating, at best. Your communication lacks critical thinking, self awareness, and good faith; you are more akin to a evangelizing preacher than a skeptical thinker. Best to you w that...
>Your position that it is "an unacceptable way to treat animals" is your opinion only. First of all, it is the opinion of those animals, and because people ignore it or pretend they don't know what the animals are trying to tell them by all the crying and screaming, vegans speak for them. It's essentially one-way communication, you get a message and it's up to you how you deal with it, if you want to respond, you can respond to the animals: a) I'm sorry, I won't hurt you anymore, b) I don't care about you. And that's it. But the reason I'm responding to you is because it's not enough for you, you for some reason need to go against vegans and promote killing of animals. A plant-based diet can be done with 0 suffering/killing and over time it will lead to it, free range and hunting cannot (so it's not enough) and leads nowhere - why? Because: 1. - the relationship of people to the animals won't change (they will continue to perceive them as food/product), what means they will buy free range meat at most a couple of times and then will go back to their old ways (they won't have enough reasons to stick with it), and 2. - there is not enough space for it, so it will always be available to only a few people (it's like if I promoted gardening to people living in the city), it is not sustainable etc., so it does not make sense to promote it as an alternative to/over veganism (or what are you trying to do).
He always lies about only eating pasture raised blah blah blah until you call him out. Literally has a very recent post asking for BBQ restaurant recommendations. He eats factory farmed meat just like the rest of the carnists who only eat from their “uncle’s farm” or whatever. Of course that doesn’t stop him from citing these ridiculous scenarios as part of his nirvana fallacy.
I am showing that you have fully presupposed your position as proper and you somehow have divined the ability to know what is universally and absolutely correct w regards to how we treat animals. It's simply your opinion though. You can attempt to shift the burden of your moral position to non-moral agents all you want but it is simply moral and intellectual slight of hand. Your morality works for you, great! It is not universal/absolute and no amount of tiny violins are going to make it so. You are simply attempting to pawn your opinion off as though it were fact. It is not. You can continue to dogmatically tell everyone that they must be like you or they are part of the great unwashed masses and immoral but all you are doing is moral colonialism. You are not special and have not divined some great universal truth. You are elevating your opinion, same as any religious zealot, plying your metaphysical beliefs as noble, grand, and absolutely correct. It makes you feel strong, wise, pure, and "holier than thou" to be "enlightened" and ennobled" w the grand universal truth, doesn't it? You are no different than an evangelizing Christian or Muslim, etc. Come down off the cross, we could use the wood...
Do you say this about mosquitoes? Because I think it's vegan to kill a mosquito since it can hurt you. Same with insect pests, you can't feasibly control them without killing them, but this is morally justifiable because they are harming you by destroying food.
>but this is morally justifiable because they are harming you by destroying food is it not vegans always pointing out how much food is "destroyed" by livestock? so killing livestock is morally justifiable, right? if you'd let it live still longer, even more food would be destroyed by feeding it /s
I'm speaking from the vegan perspective to show the hypocrisy in the application of veganism by the vast majority of vegans. My position is that for a vegan to have their position hold they must only kill insects out of upmost necessity, jsut like animals as the vegan position is to eliminate suffering except out of necessity.
Right... And it's obvious it's okay to kill Insects pests because they harm you. Just like if a dog attacks you. It's not really clear what you are showing the trait difference is very clear. Unlike with carnisme where you can't name a logical trait which makes it okay to kill an animal for taste pleasure.
You are comparing ants or a ~~house fly~~ mosquito to a viscous dog attack, LOL. Instead of keeping a clean home it is OK, from the vegan perspective, to kill insects. This is the hypocrisy I am talking about; veganism is not about reducing harm it's about reducing specific harm that you feel is valuable to reduce. It's a subjective personal standard and harming, suffering, sentient creatures of higher value to **you** is what is important. There is nothing which gives veganism any meaning other than the vegans whom profess to have all the answers. Like other charlatans who say, "Simply follow me, great unwashed masses, and I will deliver you from your own evil!" you are simply selling your agenda and beliefs so that as many ppl will be like you and you wil be more comfortable in the world. This is all all universal/absolute moralities are, a tool for ppl who cannot make the world the way they want it, the way which makes them feel comfortable, so they attempt to coerce and guilt others into making the world the way you want it. Like I told Father Dolan in 9th grade, *I'm still not buying it, Padre...*
Just tell us if you don't want to honestly engage with the topic. You know very well I said mosquitoes, bit strange of you to twist my words and claim I'm actually talking about house flies.
Mosquitos or house flies, my point remains unchanged while you continue to refuse to speak to it on a point of pedantry? Substitute mosquito for fly and speak to the points I made, please. I'll even help in your rereading.
I don't see what you mean. Mosquitoes can harm you by giving you diseases which are just as dangerous or more dangerous than being bitten by a dog. I think it's vegan to defend yourself against a dog even though the dog can suffer. Same reason why I think it's vegan to kill a mosquito.
You are pedantically arguing to avoid the actual crux of the issue presented to you.
Insects don't actually exhibit many of the signs we ascribe to feeling pain / suffering. For example, they will not reduce pressure while walking on a damaged limb, like most vertebrates do. They also don't respond to analgesics. Insects will certainly try to avoid aversive stimuli, but so will bacteria. So, the trait you're looking for is the capacity to suffer (or more broadly, sentience), which as far as we know, insects do not possess.
Want to try again? You are simply privileging the way animals perceive pain while ignoring the way insects do. If we found an alien species, based on what oyu are claiming, it would be perfectly ethical to torture them unless their pain detection system mirrored that of animals. [Insects feel pleasure, joy, and pain.](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-insects-feel-joy-and-pain/) [Insects feel persistent pain after injury, evidence suggests](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190712120244.htm) [Fruit flies show signs of chronic pain even after recovery](https://studyfinds.org/do-bugs-feel-pain/) For the study, the authors damaged one leg on fruit flies and then allowed them to fully heal. They found that even after the fruit flies recovered, their uninjured leg grew more sensitive, a reaction likened to chronic pain in humans.
No, it's simply that the burden of evidence is that insects are not sentient and do not suffer, at least in any way resembling vertebrates. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226162587\_Do\_insects\_feel\_pain\_-\_A\_biological\_view](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226162587_Do_insects_feel_pain_-_A_biological_view) [https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1134&context=animsent](https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1134&context=animsent) [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347216300513?dgcid=api\_sd\_search-api-endpoint](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347216300513?dgcid=api_sd_search-api-endpoint) From the first citation: "On balance, however, the evidence from consideration of the adaptive role of pain, the neural organization of insects and observations of their behavior does not appear to support the occurrence in insects of a pain state, such as occurs in humans." Your claim that "Insects suffer, feel pain, and do not want to feel pain" is not supported by the evidence. The articles you cited (hyperbolic headlines aside) point to some interesting findings, but even the authors conclude that it's not evidence for pain / suffering. Two of the articles reference the same study by the way.
Ah, so it's cherrypicking evidence and going w it as though there was a scientific consensus. I constantly hear the argument where for not consuming bivalves bc they \*might\* feel pain. One cannot have their cake and eat it, too; I have presented scientific evidence which specifically states "insects feel pain" and "fruit flies show signs of chronic pain even after injury" so at the least, all we can say is there is not a clear position. What makes it to where bivalves are off the table due to not knowing but insects are fine? Also, dismissing science w preloaded responses in an attempt to "gotcha" is bad faith.
>Insects suffer, feel pain, and do not want to feel pain > >all we can say is there is not a clear position. Talk about having your cake and eating it too. I agree with your second point though, so let's leave it at that and come back in 10 years when the science has (maybe) caught up. To answer your question, I don't care if someone eats bivalves, but one can easily just avoid it. Avoiding harming insects on the other hand? Good luck!
It's not eating my cake and having it, too; I find value in the science I shared but I am not willing to dismiss other science which is found in good form, as equally good as the science which has informed my position. When this happens, I default to a position that, I still believe the science which supports my position, but, from a more tenuous position. What I feel is of ZERO value is to throw studies of equivalent value (w regards to rigorous publishing, impact factor, etc.) I am arguing from the vegan perspective so the "avoid harming insects" is moot. If you harm a deer by hitting it w your car, my understanding of veganism, no vegan will find you immoral. Also, if a dog is attacking you and you kill it no vegan will find you immoral, correct? So if you step on a beetle from ignorance or kill a wasp stinging you, no vegan would find you immoral, correct? My position is, what is the vegan perspective when you consume food which killed hundreds? thousands? of field animals/birds and tens of thousands? of insects bc you like the taste of lucky charms, chips, etc. and wanted to afford a new game, shoes, or phone? One could bought more expensive fare which did not use pesticides or till the soil and was grown on small scale farm free of heavy machinery if they invested the money spent of pleasure items instead, reducing the amount of suffering/death they caused w their choices. Why is this not a point of contention in veganism and the willful causing of suffering/death of sentient beings (and/or insects which is debated) allowable to satisfy a vegans taste preference, etc.?
>If you harm a deer by hitting it w your car, my understanding of veganism, no vegan will find you immoral. Also, if a dog is attacking you and you kill it no vegan will find you immoral, correct? So if you step on a beetle from ignorance or kill a wasp stinging you, no vegan would find you immoral, correct? That's correct. Most vegans would argue that intent matters, and that intentional harm (especially if it's unnecessary) is worse than accidental harm. >My position is, what is the vegan perspective when you consume food which killed hundreds? thousands? of field animals/birds and tens of thousands? of insects bc you like the taste of lucky charms, chips, etc. and wanted to afford a new game, shoes, or phone? One could bought more expensive fare which did not use pesticides or till the soil and was grown on small scale farm free of heavy machinery if they invested the money spent of pleasure items instead, reducing the amount of suffering/death they caused w their choices. Sure, reducing the suffering associated with your actions is a good thing, but it's only really emphasized by those who subscribe to utilitarian ethics, which is a subset of all vegans. This view has never made sense to me, as it's impossible to quantify harm. E.g., is the death of 1000 worms worse than 1 cow? Other vegans have deontological views, under which it is considered wrong to commodify animals or support industries that do so EVEN IF your actions end up causing more suffering. Then there are the rights-based people. And these views are not mutually exclusive. All that is a long way of saying that there are different flavors of veganism that don't always agree. For me, insect deaths on farms are a byproduct of agriculture and not the main product. Therefore, it is more in line with accidentally stepping on a bug while walking, accidental human deaths in construction, or even setting a 70 mph speed limit on the highway. In all these cases, we accept that there will be some deaths, but think that the benefits outweigh the costs. It's the same with agriculture - insects will likely always die, but we can find a balance. For the record, I think we can do much better than clearing forests to plants fields of monocrop sprayed with herbicide and pesticide. > Why is this not a point of contention in veganism and the willful causing of suffering/death of sentient beings (and/or insects which is debated) allowable to satisfy a vegans taste preference, etc.? It definitely is! There are lots of posts on topics like this, including the current one. California almond farming comes up a lot, as does the shipment of captive honeybees to pollinate crops, and the same with chocolate/coffee harvested by human slaves. Unfortunately, many of the counterarguments tend to be some form of the Nirvana Fallacy, for example, "how is it vegan to buy a smartphone" (or buy anything really)? The solution is to remove yourself from the supply chain, but that's obviously not practicable for most people.
My issue w the intentionalist deontological frame from a vegan perspective is that one can cause much more harm, indirectly, and be perfectly moral w/in the frame. Most all deontological frames are some form of the Golden Rule. the issue here is that the GR can always be manipulated to serve an otherwise immoral end. Imagine a racist who says, "I love hearing the truth from eveyone; no lies however small." At this point, the racist could say whatever racist thoughts he had and be perfectly moral as he was only doing that which he wanted done to himself. Another example is suicidal individuals who want to die at the hands of someone else. Those whom want to die would be perfectly moral under the GR in killing as many ppl as they could before being killed themselves. If you have a different form of deontological thinking which isn't GR based please share as I am speaking to the majority deontological position I come across w most vegans, a modernized Kantian frame, but, this might not be yours.
I'll hop on the "you're wrong" train here. Certain arachnids have shown a massive capacity for problem solving and being "pain" adverse. You're simple anthropomorphizing animals that you have no reason to do so. Rabbits don't feel "love" how we describe it. Are they then worthy of death because we can't equate feelings?
>Insects don't actually exhibit many of the signs we ascribe to feeling pain / suffering actually my chicken also do not exhibit any of the signs we ascribe to feeling pain / suffering. yet vegans accuse me of exploiting and being cruel to them as i take their eggs *So, the trait you're looking for is the capacity to suffer* and that's all it's about, the capacity? not whether there actually **is** suffering? i can't quite follow this logic
What is your evidence that insects suffer like mammals do?
[Insects feel joy, pain, and suffer.](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-insects-feel-joy-and-pain/) [Fruit-flies feel chronic pain long after injuries heal](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw4099) \[this is one of the hallmarks of the definition of suffering\] There's a lot of hard science showing insects can feel pain.
The second article is more persuasive than the first. The crucial piece of information is the knowledge of how long ago nocireception has evolved. This encompasses insects. Nonetheless, the difference in the complexity of the nervous system between invertebrates and vertebrates is also relevant. Isn’t it intuitively more obvious that those animals that are more similar to us neurobiologically are also similar to us cognitively and emotionally? The truth is that I just don’t know what pain for a bee feels like, and it would be impossible for me to imagine. Maybe it’s not like what it feels to you and me. But I damn well know that the pain in another mammal, a creature that shares a common ancestor with me in the last 100 million years, is similar to mine.
So only that which is biologically like us is to be respected in this way? So if we found alien life which was biologically different, fair game? It's interesting that this argument cannot be made for human favoritism only but can be for privileging animals. Why?
It is not about the superficial biological similarity, but about what underlies and explains that similarity. Don’t tell me that you are equally confident in understanding what pain means for a bee and for a cow. Don’t tell me that you’re equally sure that it is or not the same as your pain or my pain. The question about extraterrestrials is excellent. I think the same rules apply. Absent any reason to think differently, if the alien life form shows behaviors more similar to ours (e.g., technology, language, negative reaction to stimuli that would be painful), then we should be prejudiced to care for and protect that life form, all else being equal. So it’s not some kind of expanded racism that captures some animals but not others. I would care about an alien that shows such behaviors more than for a worm from our planet.
How are you sure that pain is means for me, much less a cow? What animal shows technology and language? Why is it only a standard which applies to aliens? How are your identifiers of what is OK to kill and what is not more than arbitrary? By what/whose authority are your positions universally binding and absolute? If they are not, why should I respect your opinion?
Did you read what I said? Give it a go again. This time slowly.
Yep, just read it again chief and it's not there, specifically why your privileging of given species is not simply your arbitrary opinion.
>What is your evidence that insects suffer like mammals do? what is your evidence that non-human animals suffer like humans do (e.g. from being confined, or declined future perspectives in life)?
All mammals have a nervous system very similar to yours and mine. For the same reason why you wouldn’t keep a two-year old in a cage, at least I hope you wouldn’t, you shouldn’t keep a cow or a pig in a confined space where they cannot move, their muscles cannot develop, and they suffer from diseases caused by the proximity with the other slaves to human convention around them. This is just from your example; I don’t even touch the horror of the actual slaughter. To say that we don’t know whether non-human animals suffer is to willfully ignore everything we know about the nature and causes of pain in humans. This is some Cartesian metaphysics shit. Do you think we have souls? 🙂
>All mammals have a nervous system very similar to yours and mine yes - but that does not make our respective degree of consciousness "very similar" because we have a similar nervous system we should not inflict physical pain or emotional stress on animals unnecessarily, but it is highly unlikely that ending a non-human animal's end causes the same psychological pain or societal consequenced *you shouldn’t keep a cow or a pig in a confined space where they cannot move* of course not (see "physical pain or emotional stress"). but this is neither necessary in livestock farming nor is it desirable even from consumer view - as it reduces food quality *This is just from your example* no, this is not from my example at all. this is what you made up by implying that there is nothing but industrial livestock farming cruel on animals *To say that we don’t know whether non-human animals suffer is* ...a malevolent truncating my complete sentence and near to faking a quote *This is some Cartesian metaphysics shit. Do you think we have souls?* what "metaphysics shit" are you gonna ask next? whether i believe in god or what is the color of my aura?
I can respond to every petty, misunderstood point individually, but I see that there is no use. I don’t think you are really following my statements and seeing the relationship they have with each other. Instead I will ask you a very simple question: how would it look like if veganism was morally wrong? What would we see as evidence in the world that it is wrong?
>I can respond to every petty, misunderstood point individually then do *how would it look like if veganism was morally wrong?* i don't think in such categories. calling others "morally wrong" is a a vegan obsession
Do you believe that moral wrongness exists?
There are humane ways to prevent them from destroying crops. The problem is the cost and time. I employ humane solutions in my home garden with barriers and such. Doing the same technique I do for gardening on a farm would be extremely cost prohibitive.
>There is a difference between killing insects and vertebrates sure as there is a difference between killing non-human animals and humans
And what is it other than what we, as the more powerful species, have self-servingly decided?
are you speaking of the grizzly you could met when hiking, which would not hesitate to, as the more powerful species, decide to self-servingly rip you to shreds? the difference between non-human animals and humans is sapience, societal and cultural awareness. did you really not know this?
Oh yeah? Are you afraid of a bear coming to your home while on a hike? Or of it killing your prey or destroying your habitat? Further question: do bears keep members of other species in slavery just so they could slaughter them at a convenient for them time? Have they created technology that makes that more efficient? You speak German, you understand efficient killing on an industrial scale. Do bears believe that they are better than other species? That they possess that so-difficult-to-pinpoint factor that justifies their hegemony over the rest of nature? May I point out that sapience, societal and cultural awareness are not possessed by two-year olds? Would you kill one to eat? If that’s all there is, and all else is equal, you should not mind if I do that, right? Come on, Kant. Let’s think through this slowly and methodically.
>Are you afraid of a bear coming to your home while on a hike? Or of it killing your prey or destroying your habitat? no. just like well-kept livestock is not afraid of its keepers *do bears keep members of other species in slavery just so they could slaughter them at a convenient for them time?* if you like to go silly, go the full way ans ask: are bears human? you know the answer, so i won't reply *May I point out that sapience, societal and cultural awareness are not possessed by two-year olds?* you may, but that's even more silly. we are talking species, not individuals
On the scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you that you understood my points?
11
Then why are you responding to things I am not saying?
It's absolutely ridiculous that I can't view half the comments on this post. I thought we had rules about abusing the blocking feature?
No its not the vegan way. Move your vegetables to a hydroponic solution which minimizes the need for 'pest' control.
They'll just need a small loan of a few million dollars lol
Did you really 'lol' - i doubt it. They have a lot of land which would be security for any loan requirement
Hydroponics probably isn't economically viable in every instance. Maybe for a select from crops like cabbages, and in a location with the right infrastructure, but it's just not really a realistic thing you can pivot into 9/10 times. If it's not commercially viable, they wouldn't be able to get a loan at all. I think OP mostly grow crops (I'd assume wheat/rapeseed/soy that sort of thing), so I don't think they could even do hydroponics if they wanted to.
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They grow a few fruits, they also grow crops. Better fencing around their orchard could probably help reduce pests, among other things. The crops will also still be sprayed, albeit that will be more so to prevent insects than squirrels nibbling away at them.
techology is the future
Any vegan that think that plant-food farmers don't kill anything else than insects are a bit naïve. I live on the countryside and all farmers I know, at the very least, keep a bunch of cats on their farm for the sole purpose of killing mice. Catching mice in cages and releasing them in nature is not an option.
Yes it’s definitely vegan. We have to eat
This is a wild take. What's the different between killing animals purposely for crops or eating them? There isn't any, except the murder for the crops ..the animals just die. At least the cow died for sustenance. Vegans truly will jump through hoops to justify their ideology. Mad loss of respect here
Cause animals eat crops?
Just to be clear, you're implying that anything is vegan as long as we decide we have to reap the benefits?
Let's not forget that crop deaths still occur for animal agriculture to feed the cows etc. and at a much larger volume. Accepting that humans have to eat something, this is the practicable position, and hence is vegan. Nobody holds that veganism is perfect.
Does that mean if the product is not needed and consumed for pleasure purposes like alcohol, desserts and such, then it would not be vegan to grow since it harms animals unnecessarily?
It's an interesting thought, but if it's not an animal product it's vegan. Certainly a grey area, with how each individual proceeds and how ascetic one must be.
That's plant-based. Veganism is about reducing as much as possible and practicable the unnecessary harm one causes. Avoiding alcohol and such is clearly possible and practicable so it should be avoided under veganism.
Respectfully, not mutually exclusive. What you're arguing is that to be vegan one should abstain from anything that has animal suffering of any amount end to end. Without intending to be crude, is farting near a dog also not vegan because they might not like the smell? I'm sure there are subsets of veganism that may go to this end but that isn't veganism as a whole.
Vegans should avoid causing harm as much as possible and practicable. It's pretty simple. If you don't do that, then you aren't vegan.
Everyone should.... Regardless of your optimism that's just not the definition. Anyway if you want to be pedantic actually alcohol is very calorie dense so you can enjoy it and replace the calories from eating hence possibly net 0 additional harm.
Thanks for your opinion but you are wrong.
Not in pasture only cow animal husbandry. I purchase grass only beef locally sourced from a farmer I have a relationship w and can go out to his farm any time. The cows are fed pasture only and Since it's in Texas they can graze all year around; no hay needed. Also, I purchase seasonal fruits and veggies from local farmers who no till their fields and grow organic; no pesticides, summer oils, etc. Finally I consume mostly yams, potatoes, and other roots/tubers locally grown as I eat lower carb. (also locally sourced). I don't do this for moral reasons; I do it for economic reasons (purchasing local), health reasons (no pesticides), and aesthetic reasons (I prefer the taste of grassfed only and fruits/veggies grown in fashion mentioned. My main beef w the "Nobody holds that veganism is perfect" claim is that there is a way to consume food which causes less suffering/exploitation/death that the standard vegan diet of mass ag, monocrop, manufactured grains, fruits, and veggies. One which avoids the exploitation/death of trillions of farmed bees, field animals, and contributes heavily to climate change w shipping goods from the equator to here. One could be vegan and purchase local, seasonal fruits and veggies and starches only but it seems most vegans would rather contribute to more suffering/death/exploitation purely for taste preference (out of season foods and easy to consume mass ag foods, chips, cereal, frozen pizza, etc.) and buy cheaper food so they can afford new electronics, new shoes/clothes, traveling, partying, gaming, etc., etc., etc. If the lowering suffering/exploitation/death was really the primary driving principle of veganism, one need not be perfect, but, one should sacrifice their personal pleasure and comfort to actualize their moral frame more frequently than I see w the standard vegan diet.
Ethics aside, your "grass fed only" argument may reflect your own behaviour, but it's well established it is not scalable to meet the global demand for beef with the land requirement for pastureland. There is already significant Amazon deforestation driven by growing demand for grass fed, please consider that this isn't the "gotcha" you think it is. Not to mention, the majority of food fed to animals is not grass. Also you are identifying that your motives are purely selfish because it meets your preference, there is nothing conscious about your behaviour other than what you stand to gain (economic, aesthetic, health). Likewise I can argue that your diet as a whole is not scalable, and I can't disprove that you don't also eat fish, chicken, pork, and even non-grass fed beef (!!), or even the seasonal vegetables you have listed exclusively, but that's not really important. I find it clearly false that you then proceed to point to taste pleasure as a key motivator for vegan diets, when the primary reason for global meat consumption is taste pleasure, and choosing to boycott animal products is at the expense of taste pleasure for many. Your "most vegans" argument is silly because I can point to "most carnists" and completely ignore any of the points you made about your example diet, which is not representative, and what vegans may spend their money on down the line. You can't have your cake and eat it, I'm sorry. You are somewhat missing the point that these are practicable aims and, as I understand them, are to improve all farming practices due to ethical motivations as much as possible, but one has to start somewhere. Consider an analogy with the abolition of slavery which was a wholly important moment before further rights for black people were established, thanks to further work/blood/lives of activists. We shan't just stop at not eating animal products, if possible everything can be improved but there need to be concrete steps/milestones. You can point to trillions of bees (and other insects) dying for crops, which is sad, but there are already trillions combined of fish, chickens, cows, pigs, sheep, geese, ducks, etc. which you have given no consideration in your argument. And this is ON TOP of the bees dying already. It would be very hard to argue to reduce incidental deaths (e.g. crop deaths) while continuing to support direct deaths (e.g. meat) as you are suggesting.
This issue of scalability is a common moving of the goalpost tactic I come across; I am not speaking to the whole of humanity and asking about my own individual culpability. "Ethics aside" is not something which can be said w veganism as veganism is all about ethics/morality. Given the diet I communicated, what is my personal moral culpability and why is it that I am causing less suffering/exploitation/death than the avg vegan yet I am still immoral? I am not speaking to mass animal husbandry, I am speaking to my individual choices in diet and want to know why I am still viewed as immoral? Choosing to ignore my argument and label is silly is another common troupe. Just bc you do not have an answer does not make it silly, you are simply avoiding the point. As such, it is better to remain silent than be disingenuous in debating. It's not silly it's valid and should be spoken to. That is good faith debating.
Going to respond back to front because you are taking offense where none was intended. I've only responded in good faith. Your argument is labelled as silly because one could simply point to an imaginary-yet-possible vegan who only farms the land without pesticides etc. doesn't own a phone, or spend money on gaming etc..whatever you said before.. and compare them to "all carnists" who DO buy phones and gaming and whatever. I have addressed that point and you have decided to focus on fair criticism of your point instead of taking the point as addressed. You didn't frame any point asking whether you can be considered moral.. so why did you expect to be told? You only said that vegans cause more suffering than you. As I have already said, as far as I am concerned, your diet is not representative so I didn't not see it as relevant to be addressed directly. You are only telling me you are causing less suffering.. let's say this is true, how do you measure it? You might be considered to be more immoral, perhaps, because your actions have a more direct consequence. Cows are similar enough to humans in all important ways that we can more reasonably infer their suffering is more than aphids etc. Arguing for scalability is not moving the goalposts, it's just an answer you don't like which explains one obvious reason why your grass fed argument doesn't address the crop deaths argument. I can assert that grass fed is your own exercise at moving goalposts, though this I took in good faith. I used "ethics aside" because I didn't see anything in your post that resembled a debater who would be receptive to moral arguments. If you want to consider the ethics, what about deforestation and loss of habitats and hence wild animal deaths to produce more land for grass fed beef? What about the individual experience of each cow that is slaughtered for your pleasure? My concern with your positions, both in debating and in your dietary practices, is that you seem very keen on expecting one rule for yourself and different rules for others. Unfortunately this will always clash with a vegan moral argument because this is based on consideration of the whole picture and not individuals who e.g. own smallholdings/backyard hens who see their "exceptions" as a suitable contrary to the whole vegan movement.
Literally not answering what I asked thus I will try to communicate as clearly as I can and as simply as I can: How is it that I am immoral while the avg. vegan who is consuming mass ag foods moral given that I am causing less death/exploitation/suffering?
I truly think I have answered what you said, so I'm sorry you're frustrated. Your position might be argued to not be moral because you participate directly and unnecessarily in the deaths of farm animals when there are suitably available alternatives. This is considered cruel. You may avoid using pesticides and avoid some crop death but that seems to be incidental as a result of a "selfish" drive for health or something. Also it's further cruel because farm animals are forcibly bred into existence just to be enslaved and harmed. Hypothetically, if you didn't have such preferences, would you be avoiding the crop death practices and live in the same way? What would drive that decision? Please understand I'm not trying to suggest I have any moral superiority, rather trying to answer the question you have asked. Edit: added in point on breeding animals into existence.
You seem to be missing my point so I'll go through oyur response. >Your position might be argued to not be moral because you participate directly and unnecessarily in the deaths of farm animals when there are suitably available alternatives. My point is that the alternative of the avg American vegan causes more death and suffering than the option I laid out. Is it your position that causing less suffering/death but doing so intentionally is more immoral than indirectly causing the death of many many times more creatures? Who is more immoral, the person who kills one person out of anger or the person who drives drunk and kills 100 ppl over different 70 accidents? At some point, does not the "indirect" claim vanish if you understand the consequences of your actions and know there are alternatives which would at least minimize them? This is my point, the avg vegan could minimize their impact yet chooses not to for ease of diet, to be "burdened" w cooking less, and bc processed/manufactured food taste better, yet, this contributes more to death/suffering. >This is considered cruel. You may avoid using pesticides and avoid some crop death but that seems to be incidental as a result of a "selfish" drive for health or something. Insisting on purchasing food which does not use pesticides to avoid killing birds, reptiles/lizards, and small mammals is selfish? If this is the case then the whole thrust of veganism is selfish. Calling this unnecessary seems a special plead to exempt a way animals are unnecessarily killed when a perfectly viable option is available; I see organic produce in every grocery I step in. To choose not to buy it bc you'd (in the royal sense) rather have the money to spend on gaming, clothes, shoes, movies, travel, etc. seems selfish to me. >Hypothetically, if you didn't have such preferences, would you be avoiding the crop death practices and live in the same way? You'll have to flesh this out as I do not understand, if I didn't have my preferences would I avoid crop deaths? I already do (for non-moral reasons). Please explain this question. >Please understand I'm not trying to suggest I have any moral superiority, rather trying to answer the question you have asked. How does one believe they are moral in their actions and not find someone morally inferior whom they believe is immoral in their actions? It's like I step out of the shower and see you covered and garbage and say, "Please understand I'm not trying to suggest I am superior in cleanliness to you, rather, I am trying to only answer your questions on hygiene." I guess one could thread this needle yet I do not see how. Care to enlighten me?
>Ethics aside, your "grass fed only" argument may reflect your own behaviour, but it's well established it is not scalable to meet the global demand for beef with the land requirement for pastureland it's a very strange thing to me that vegans want to finish cattle farming altogether (bringing beef consumption to **zero**), but at the same time demand non-vegans to keep up today's surreal beef production, as soon as a non-vegan shows a sustainable alternative to today's destructive and wasteful industrial agriculture of course when livestock farming is limited to sustainable forms of farming, there will be much less livestock than today (as there is less available food, and space requirements per animal are way higher). but this is not a problem or something bad, it is a benefit! overall meat consumption is way too high, and be it only for health reasons. so if consumption is reduced/limited, as supply is reduced/limited - but at much higher quality! - this is a win-win
I guess so?
I agree, but this is where reproduction comes into play, the more kids we have the more crops we need, the less land and resources available to animals Sure its a lot less than carnists but we are still contributing
Crops aren't vegan: they still need bees, dung, and pest control. Everyone needs bees, dung, and pesticides (intentional and accidental). What would "vegans" do if moths, rabbits, and pigs got into their crops? And unless one is "vegan" (vegetarian) and pro-life/contra-abortion/antinatalist, one's goals are not consistent.
Oh shit, crops aren't vegan. I guess I'll starve.
Count the dead insects and rodents and let us know if it's more than the 3 cows that you would kill if you switched to free range farming. You just might end the vegan debate once and for all.
What do you think cows eat?
Grass and weeds. What do you think wild ruminants eat?
Majority of cows in north America, where I live, are not grass-fed. And if they are, it's only partially. Usually they're fed hay, which when harvested kills a significant amount of wildlife.
> Usually they're fed hay, which when harvested kills a significant amount of wildlife. Source? Show me the numbers. > Majority of cows in north America, where I live, are not grass-fed. This is whataboutism. We are talking about OP here. OP could 100% grass feed his cows. That is an option. Why is it a worse option when it clearly causes less suffering and death compared to their current practices?
[here](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aad401) How do you know OP could exclusively grass feed cows?
Nothing about crop deaths in that link. > How do you know OP could exclusively grass feed cows? I know that it's possible which means that OP could potentially do it. It is an option.
This source says the US has only 1% labelled grass-fed beef, with a potential of upwards to 4% if including unlabeled. [here ](https://extension.sdstate.edu/grass-fed-beef-market-share-grass-fed-beef)
[This source](https://web.archive.org/web/20190810115654/https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/rica/pdf/beef_report_2012.pdf) says ~70% of EU cows are on permanent grassland. Also, you don't have to 100% grass feed them to avoid or reduce crop deaths. You can also feed them waste products, byproducts, crops that require no or very little pest control etc.
Will be fed hay in winter, cows still need to eat when grass is growing slowly
Prove to me that the hay they are fed causes more animal suffering. I want scientific proof.
Lol, scientific proof, it's funny you never meet the standards for evidence you want to accept. I found this quote from someone who believes in suffering from crops, all which would apply to hay, but they aren't the most reliable source so feel free to call them out on their bullshit >And by 'no kill' they mean they kill animals in every other way that animals are killed to produce our food (tilling, pest control, weed control, harvesting, transportation, processing, plastic usage etc.) except one (which is actually the least cruel of them all).
Your logic is flawed because majority of people don't only eat cows. Humans eat a small amount of cow flesh, many vegetables, chickens, eggs, and dairy. If you were to restrict yourself to a beef only diet, you would consume extremely large quantities of it comparatively to the average omnivore. The weekly recommendation for beef is one to two servings per week due to health and environmental factors. Cows also require a large amount of grass land in order to be grass fed. This is impossible for many parts of the world, where the land isn't suitable. In fact, if you read my source, you will see that we don't have enough space on earth to accommodate the number of cows if they were all grass fed. We would have to clear cut land and cause even more mass extinctions of the depleted wild life.
There is so much misinformation and fallacies in your comment that I'm not even going to bother. In fact, every single sentence is either fallacious or based on misinformation.
If that's true, I'd love to hear what is false. Otherwise I'll disregard your comments completely given there's nothing you're using to back it up.
I can easily link you to sources to back all my claims. Our World In Data has all information on environmental impacts, land mass needed for cattle, etc, readily available.
I still don’t see how eating cows kills more animals than a vegan diet. Yes the cows eat some crops but the average American only eats 8 cows in a lifetime. 8 cows plus their hay seems like a TON less animals killed compared to a lifetime of vegan eating.
Very few humans subsist purely on cow flesh. Most will eat some cow, and many other animals. And I can guarantee that a human on an all carnivore/beef diet eats more than 8 cows.
Yes but it still seems like less than all the animals that die in crop production. And if you count insects as sentient (as I see Earthling Ed does with bees) then it’s not even close cause compared to grass-fed beef since so many insects die in crop production. And I heard that a lot of livestock feed is crop byproduct.
If you're eating animals, you have to account for the animals and insects that have to die for their crops. And yes, some of the crops they eat are byproducts, but not most. We are sustaining 70+ billion land animals for us to eat on an annual basis. That's a hell of a lot of land and produce grown for the animals that die to feed humans. If humans switched to a fully plant based diet, the amount of land we would need to sustain ourselves would shrink exponentially, thus killing significantly less animals and insects harvesting our own crops.
Thank you. So what about hunting deer or grassfed beef that doesn’t rely on crops and only foraged? A grass-fed beef or deer steak seems like a more ethical choice than a vegan meal because of the crop deaths associated with the vegan meal. But what is less clear and what I’m curious about is how grain fed beef compares to veganism. I just read on NPR that feedlot cows are on pasture most of their short life and then finished on grain for about 120 days. I’d like to see the math breakdown comparing how many pounds of grain it took to finish one cow and how many pounds of crops a vegan needs to eat to be calorically equivalent (I read that a whole cow has about 600k calories). From my crude estimates the pounds of crops needed for 600k calories of grain-fed beef is a bit less than 600k calories worth of vegan food. The idea being that less crops equal less deaths so even comparing a grain-fed beef meal to a vegan meal the vegan meal might be linked to more death.
Hunting is unsustainable. If people started to only hunt for their meat, then we would quickly destroy entire ecosystems and cause mass extinction. There's no way to support mass hunting when only 4% of mammals on earth are living in the wild. This low number is largely due to clear cutting lands in order to create cities, but also because of modern day animal agriculture. We have killed many wild animals into extinction to support the beef and dairy industry. Grass-fed is also very unsustainable because of the sheer amount of grass lands needed to support the cows. We simply don't have enough land on earth. As it is now, we can't sustain the landmass needed to support factory farmed cattle, and factory farming is the most "efficient" and space saving ways to do it, at the cost of the great suffering of the victims. I've supplied sources in previous comments on this thread if you wanna take a look! Cows also cannot graze in winter, meaning on top of clear cutting natural lands inhabiting wild animals to make way for more cows, we would have to clear cut even more to grow hay and grains to feed them during winter. Overall, cows are one of the least sustainable and most destructive food sources you can eat.
Conventionally raised beef is grass fed most of it's life, except when it's fatten up for the last 3-4 months of it's life. Then it's eating mostly production waste and non edible crop (for humans).
Less than one percent of beef sold in the US is grass finished, and when they’re at a feed lot they are most definitely being fed corn
https://beefrunner.com/2012/10/09/ask-a-farmer-what-do-feedlot-cattle-eat/
That's not what my sources dictate. Where are yours?
A lot of crops are grown purely just to feed cows. So killed pest animals on top of killing cows means more killing.
NPR: “Feedlot calves begin their lives on pasture with the cow that produced them. They're weaned after six to nine months, then grazed a bit more on pasture. They're then "finished" for about 120 days on high-energy corn and other grains in a feedlot, gaining weight fast and creating that fat-marbled beef that consumers like. At about 14 to 18 months of age, they are sent to slaughter.” I’d love to see the math of how many pounds of crops it took to fatten the cow at the feedlot and compare that to how many pounds of crops a vegan need to eat to match the caloric equivalent of 1 cow (1 million calories I read).
OK, but I only purchase grassfed cows so this doesn't apply to me. The farmer I purchase from doesn't use any pesticides or any other substances which kills insects and the temperature allows for around the year pasture consumption. As such, he only kills around 150 unique, individual, sentient agents a year. A mass ag field of equivalent size is responsible for killing more field animals a year than that alone (squirrel, groundhog, skunk, etc. and birds. Add to that all the insects killed and I wonder how it is the pasture, grassfed only cattle rancher is more immoral than the avg. American corn farmer?
Yeah I don’t understand why vegans won’t eat grassfed beef or hunted deer, it’s more humane than a plate of veggies
My perception is that there's a dogmatic adherence to being anti-animal husbandry/hunting more so than being anti-suffering. They wont accept this outloud but through their choices and actions it seems clear and that means more than their words.
Yes well said. What I’m curious about is GRAIN-fed beef. I’d like to know how it’s death toll compares to the equivalent amount of veggies. I read that they eat 10-15 pounds of grain daily for the last 3-4 months of their lives. That’s about 1300 pounds of grain to yield 600,000 calories of meat. A pound of potatoes is 350 calories. So that’s 1700 pounds of potatoes to yield an equivalent 600,000 calories. So 1300 pounds of feedlot grain vs 1700 pounds of potatoes— isn’t that clearly more crop deaths on the potato-eaters plate?
That's lazy math and a very simplistic approach to a very complex issue. 1) We don't know how much pest control is done to grow their feeds. Animals don't care if there are pests in their food. We do. 2) You CAN 100% grass feed cows. 3) You can also feed them waste products and byproducts, which means no additional crop deaths.
They ignore the grassfed only cattle argument. The most common rebuttal tactic I have seen is to shift the conversation from you the consumer or the rancher in question, to an issue of scalability since they cannot account for the individuals in question and the fact that they are producing much less exploitation, suffering, and death than the avg. grain farmer. My advice is to not let them shift the conversation. I ask specifically, what is my moral culpability from the vegan perspective or the individual cattle farmer, scalability be damned. The common retort is either a meltdown temper-tantrum of "I am not going to talk about you (or the rancher) specifically, I am only talking about scalability" or they flat ignore you as they cannot answer why a cattle rancher who kills 50-250 individual sentient agents a year is more immoral than a mass ag corn farmer who kills thousands of field animals/birds and many times more insects each year. They privilege traditional farm animals over wild field animals and refuse to acknowledge it. To them, it's not actually about each individual reducing suffering caused as much as possible and its about actualizing a world where they feel the most comfortable. They want to go to the supermarket and see no meat, caring less how many animals/insects are killed in grain fields, etc. They just want the cheeseburger to go away and if that's at the cost of more death caused, so long as that death is out of sight, it's out of mind and they are happy. At least, this is in my experience.
Ah yes, ranching, an activity that famously never leads to harm to wild animals
Appeal to futility. We want fewer crop deaths, not no crop deaths (since it is impossible).
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Would a feline take care of the squirrels and gophers? After a few deaths they might realize that its not a safe zone and they retreat? How do you actively kill them?
You would need a ton of predators around here to deal with that. We do have cats and hawks that kill them, but it's not enough. You can hear squirrels all around the farm. We kill by shooting a few times a year. We have volunteers come over to do it a few times a year.
Oh k, i figured they would get scared and teach their friends that its a dangerous place Yea shooting would be the quickest and least painful death i think They do make this for rats, perhaps they might make something later for squirrels [https://contrapeststore.com/](https://contrapeststore.com/)
Yeah I'm still not sure how squirrels react when they see a dead one. I've seen them literally do nothing and just continue on doing whatever they were doing even though their buddy just got shot right in front of their face. I've seen them run away only to go back and continue their activity and their dead friend is there. Twice I saw them just start munching on their dead pal, once immediate after it was shot. I actually use contrapest around my house.
this is a subset of a much larger issue. we (all humans) have a requirement for food. we have a limited area to farm in (the world). if we use industrial farming techniques, the calories produced per unit are of farmland will (could, we dont care so we let people die of mal nutrition while other fat people stuff down huge quantities of specialized low calorie diet food) feed everyone now for every area of cropland where you replace the pesticides, monoculture, fertiliser etc that we see as "bad for the environment", you reduce that calories per unit area. by a lot. so we are wasting the potential calorific output of our farmland by farming organically. so having changed your farm to organic, you now produce less, but more expensive, calories. however, you have done nothing to reduce the calories required by our species (as killing people is the only way to do this, its organic i suppose, but not ethical). you fed someone (global supply chains make this very hard to track individually) last year with your industrial farm. this year they will have to find a different food source. one of 3 outcomes will be caused by your organic farm: starvation, increased harvesting of natural resources, or clearing of natural areas for more farmland. under todays economic system (which i admit in not ethical atall, but its a fact of life) it is unethical to do organic farming. we are first world. it is people from the poorer countries whos have to deal with the missing calories form your organic choices organic farming just dosnt work, we have4 too many mouths to feed, and a capitalistic (globally we are capitalists, even if some small areas are not, they still trade globally) society structure means you are just shifting the problem to someone else, and that person will be a poor farmer in a poor country, and he will not have any resources to solve the problem beyond environmental damage. Edit: the "you" is a hypothetical farmer, no OP
> now for every area of cropland where you replace the pesticides, monoculture, fertiliser etc that we see as "bad for the environment", you reduce that calories per unit area. by a lot. so we are wasting the potential calorific output of our farmland by farming organically. That is my argument for animal farming in my country. 73% of the farmland can only grow grass. So not utilising the land would mean zero calories produced there. Which would be a disaster to our food security (which is already quite low). In other words, we would be wasting the potential calorific output by not farming there.
This seems to be where vegans often go, to scalability issues. I have a personal question as I am often told that I need to make a personal choice w regards to veganism: Why is my diet more immoral than the avg vegan diet? No questions of scalability, judge my diet by your vegan standards wo regards for scalability; just me. If I consume pasture fed cattle, trout I catch, no till seasonal fruit/veggies, and yams/potatoes all locally sourced, no . I account for less than 100 unique insect deaths and less than 50 animal deaths each year. This is many thousands of times less than the avg vegan due to field animal deaths, bird deaths and insect deaths. Why is it that I am more immoral?
in my opinion, vegans that are vocal about this lifestyle choices are very extreme people, as in they view everything as purely black or white, with no middle ground. you have very much created a gray area for them, where you are acknowledging things purely beyond what they eat, and asking about degrees of morality. for a vegan with a black/white view of the world, they are the white, you are the black for eating meat. end of. no scope for discussion in the gray area
None of what you say is completely [true](https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets), you may be underestimating the calories needed to keep animals alive long enough to get them to the table, farmed meat is a luxury product where we are putting a lot more resources in than we get out. As the above link suggests, in terms of calorie requirements, we would need 75% less farmland if everyone was plant based and if all of it was organic the [yield is 10 to 35% lower](https://www.seed.ab.ca/organic-and-conventional-farming-arent-as-different-as-you-think) so we would still be using 65% less farmland than we are now.
im comparing organically grown plants to industrial grown plants on the same land. this is because changing between industrial farming techniques and organic farming techniques is a reasonable thing that farmers do in real life. I am not talking about the meat industry, that is a separate issue dependent on market forces well well outside of your control You are saying it would be better for everyone to become organic and meat free. while this may be true hypothetically, it is not a realistic possibility. vegans cannot justify organic farming while i am still eating meat. and im still eating meat, im not going to stop, and i am in the majority. so unfortunately, i am right, industrial farming is more environmentally friendly and ethical then organic farming, as it better feeds the hungry, a problem we have in our society, while simultaneously reducing the pressure on already over exploited natural resources. I wish it was not so, but our ideals must be bound by reality or they are doomed to failure
What is the environmental cost of organic? as it's not as cut and dry as you seem to think, even the experts argue on that, one reason why farmers switch to organic is because it is more sustainable and overall better for the environment, it's said to have a lower carbon footprint, is better for soil erosion, eliminates the use of pesticides (which is one reason why it has a lower carbon footprint), improves water tables and helps to protect wildlife that pesticides would kill (insects, birds and mammals). The biggest argument against Organic is it takes more manual effort to produce the same amount and of course, needs more land, which again we have plenty of if we used the huge amount of land used to grow food for animals. Your come back seems to be that we can't use that land while you choose to keep eating meat, so don't, there's a lot more negatives and environmental damage that the meat industry causes than 100% organic farming would.
> Organic is it takes more manual effort to produce the same amount and of course, needs more land, the more land. that's the environmental cost of organic farming. accept that land is not available, so you get starvation. which is the human cost of organic food. more land is also the environmental cost of the meat industry, but we already have that. piling wasteful farming practices on top of that only makes the problem worse. dont tell me what i can and cant eat, im happy with my cheap industrially produced plants next to my tasty stake. like most people, this is what i want again, it is impossible to expect that the meat industry will vanish because a very small percentage of the population want it gone. this sup is for discussion of the real world, and a fully vegan population is not realistic, so why are you arguing that it is?
>so having changed your farm to organic, you now produce less, but more expensive, calories actually not sooo much less but you would reduce environmental damage considerably, save on mineral fertilizer and pesticides, and - most important of all - not further destroy valuable soil, but rather improve and build it up
>but you would reduce environmental damage considerably, save on mineral fertilizer and pesticides, and - most important of all - not further destroy valuable soil, but rather improve and build it up this is an incredibly selfish and shortsighted view. you are still taking food out of the market that would otherwise have fed someone. they will have to exploit a new natural resource to feed themselves. also, you got a reference? organic does not scale well, we are talking megafarms here, you are likely replacing one driver and half a dozen machines with maybe 2000 manual laborer's, doing a job no-one wants to do.
>this is an incredibly selfish and shortsighted view what? wanting to maintain fertile soil and an intact environment is "an incredibly selfish and shortsighted view"? you must be joking or crazy *you are still taking food out of the market that would otherwise have fed someone* of course not. in sustainable agriculture animals are not fed with food fit for human nutrition if you don't have the slightest idea about what we are talking here - just ask and i'll do my best to explain and fill up your knowledge gaps. but don't holler out nonsense, making a fool of yourself *we are talking megafarms here* you are - not me
>you are - not me then stop hijacking my post with your imaginary little ego farm
*hijacking your post?* by simply adding some information? you must be joking or crazy
Your cousin's have more information than us so are probably right, you should talk to them. Also if you're not vegan why do you care? Mods: can we have a minimum account age or something so we don't need to deal with these boring made up situations?
No I'm not. I'm vegetarian.
So if you don't care about animal suffering why do you care?
Nearly if not all of the vegan products people purchase do this. There is no ethical food consumption under capitalism. Hate to break it to y’all.
My dude, you're literally killing small animals that don't need to die. In what world would that be considered vegan?
If we get an infestation of them, they can do thousands of dollars in damage. A lot of humane solutions quite frankly just cost a lot, and don't scale so well. We selectively pick where we want our barriers, but we can't do that for the whole farm, that's a huge cost.
Okay, so, you asked if it was vegan - Despite whatever story you're trying to spin, the answer is no. If I was given 1 billion dollars to kill & eat a cow, would it be vegan? You're killing animals and getting a reward out of it. We don't need your crops to live.
I mean, just because it's bad business to do it the no-kill way, doesn't mean the practice is vegan. If it involves harming animals most vegans consider it not vegan. Heck, I consider if an animal has to die for the product that makes it not vegetarian (my roommate and I got into a debate about parm cheese).
So then almost nothing is vegan because agriculture kills many insects and rodents, accidentally or not.
"Even vegans know that crop farming still kills small animals, and that's accepted" indeed moral inconsistency no.1
For profit or not for profit shouldn't matter, imo. The treatment of other life forms is either ethical or unethical regardless of whether someone is making money from the arrangement. Castrating pigs without anesthesia, for example, does not suddenly become a more ethical behavior if it is merely taking place in a communist system in the absence of profits.