latina_liebhaber:
> I know I wouldn't want to be someone else's lunch. So naturally I
> imagine what it would be like for an animal to have that as its sole
> purpose in life, especially when that life is so made miserable by
> modern manufacturing methods.

I see some merit in this view based on empathy, but if there's no
distinction made between an animal whose entire life is spent immobile
and force-fed in a small pen vs. one which lives its life in the wild
or grazing in a pasture, nor between species (say, primate vs.
ruminant vs. poultry vs. insects), well, that'd be so lacking in
nuance as to be more a turn-off than a foundation upon which I'd be
inclined to base much of my behavior.


> Obviously, this is just one of those
> things in life you either get or don't get. For example, exercise
> nuts tend to be naturally fidgety kind of people. Something in them
> just makes them physically restless. Those with a different
> biochemical disposition in the brain find it weird that people should
> want to go huffing and puffing on purpose.

Oh come on.

By similar token:

- all people who don't smoke are just fortunate to have different
brain chemistry and thereby lack the urge

- people who save money and live within their means have some
biochemical disposition to be nervous about the future, so they've
adjusted by becoming saps who are just easily with less of "the good
stuff"

- people who don't smoke pot, sniff coke, shoot junk are just over-
cautious nervous nellies who don't know what they're missing

- et cetera ad nauseum

Here in the real world, millions of us were never particularly fidgety
and driven to bouts of huffing and puffing, until for some reason
(e.g. quitting smoking, losing weight, whatever) we were motivated to
give it a try, fought through weeks and months of discomfort, inertia,
various setbacks, and eventually found that vigorous movement is a
deep and vital part of being fully human. Even for those of us
without the quirky biochemistry which reliably compels one to hop up
out of the La-Z-Boy mid-commercial for a quick eight miler.


> One day, technology will render our present economic arrangements
> unnecessary as well. By such a time, technology should also render
> meat-eating (not to mention weight-lifting and jogging!) redundant.

Woo-hoo, welcome to The Matrix!

What a joy it'll be to rid ourselves of these pesky artifacts like
bodies, action, thought... oh my, I can't hardly wait.