What can we do to stop aliens from eating us? How about swearing off
from eating meat?

There seems to be a common bit of vegetarian propaganda that goes
something like “if you eat animals how can you expect intelligent aliens
not to eat you?”

Let's think about this for a moment. We detect the sin of hypocrisy,
which for our species seems to be the ultimate sin. Eating animals and
yet asking not to be eaten ourselves on the grounds that we are sentient
animals strikes us as in some way a form of hypocrisy. It probably is.
So what? Is hypocrisy the ultimate sin recognized by all sentient
lifeforms everywhere? If if it then surely acting like hypocrites would
make us less attractive dinner table fare, wouldn't it? We would be less
likely to eat a “sinful” species that ate dung and its own young than
one that just ate grass, hung around in fields and went moo. Acting like
hypocrites would make us appear less tasty and nutritious. Acting like
hypocrites is probably a good survival strategy. Do we eat “wicked”
weasels, hyaenas, snakes and tapeworms in preference to “noble” animals
like deer and salmon?
Which species do we refuse to eat on moral grounds?

Do we avoid eating all peaceful herbivores? Hardly! In fact if we can
see any patterns at all here it is that the more animals an animal eats
the less likely it is we will want to eat it ourselves. The only
carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are fish, animals
that some people who call themselves vegetarians even try to redefine as
some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies, haddock are animals
that eat other animals, being cold bloodied, small-eyed and ugly doesn't
change anything, fish are not vegetables. If you eat fish you cannot be
a vegetarian.

We prefer to eat peaceful herbivores, we actively give preference to
those animals that eat a 100% pure vegetarian diet of grass. Why do we
assume that aliens will prefer to eat old, evil, bitter, twisted and
hypocritical animals like us rather than the nice innocent tender baa
lambs that we like to eat? It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.

Why don't we eat carnivorous animals?

There is no reason why we don't eat carnivorous animals apart from the
fact that they are too expensive to farm economically. When dogs are
raised to be eaten they are not fed on meat, they are given the cheapest
food that will do the job, usually grain, vegetables and kitchen scraps,
just like pigs.

I read in a newspaper recently (or was it The Sun?) about a man who
regularly dines off roadkill. He made no distinction between herbivore
or carnivore and enjoyed stoats and weasels quite as much as squirrels
and badgers. His finest meal was roast labrador, which apparently tastes
just like lamb.

The only problem with eating carnivores is you have to avoid their
livers, which can contain dangerously high concentrations of vitamin A.
The higher an animal (and yes fish are animals) is up the food chain the
higher the concentration of poisons such as heavy metals the flesh may
contain. Certain chemicals such as DDT and PCBs also build up in bodies
and accumulate as you go up the food chain, the most effective way of
riding them from the body is to breastfeed...

If aliens did have a desire to eat people which people would they want
to eat?

It really doesn't take a rocket scientist to work it out. Or a fully
qualified butcher. The best cuts would come from young people raised on
a pure Vegan diet, especially if they could be certified as Organic.
Aliens would give preference to young hippie and Goth chicks raised on
beansprouts, lentils and tofu not McDonalds and KFC. Card-carrying
members of PETA would fetch a premium price.

If you really want to avoid being eaten by aliens the best thing you can
do to ensure they don't fancy the idea of eating you is to eat meat,
ideally the meat and offal of diseased, evil, old, poor and hypocritical
aliens. Or failing that, sausages.

Being a vegetarian is as effective a remedy against hungry aliens as is
being a conscientious objector in the face of hordes of Nazis.

What does this aliens eating hypocrites argument remind you of? God?
Yes, we seem to be very good at inventing fictional entities which can
make the evil ones among us feel bad if only we can get them to swallow
a line of bull.

Are aliens likely to be able to eat us?

There is a fair chance that we will actually be poisonous to aliens, and
they could be poisonous to us. Elements that are rare on our planet tend
to be poisonous to us, for example heavy metals such as lead, uranium,
arsenic, cadmium, mercury and so on. They are poisonous largely because
we have not evolved to cope with them. There is a reasonable chance that
to aliens we will contain unacceptably high levels of elements that they
are not able to cope with even if they find our alien proteins and fats
attractive. We may be protected by traces of selenium, copper, chromium
or zinc which could be absent from their biological systems and so be
poisonous to them. Likewise they may have a biological system that
requires an element that we cannot tolerate such as arsenic or lead as a
nutrient. Perhaps alien children are told to eat up their vegetables
because they contain lots of healthy cadmium (essential for healthy
tentacles) while they would look on a Whooper, Big Mac or indeed a
McHuman with Cheese as loaded with quite deadly levels of poisonous
calcium and zinc and enough sodium to kill the Bugblatter Beast of Traal.


First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
posted by the author

--
Martin Willett


http://mwillett.org

Martin Willett wrote:

>
> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
> posted by the author
>

A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of
meat.

A troll.

ant and dec wrote:
> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>>
>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>> posted by the author
>>
>
> A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of
> meat.
>
> A troll.

How do you make that out? It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
to the points I made.

I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely one
of them. What was incorrect?

Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to be
eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance? Do you think I *couldn't*
find evidence of such an argument being deployed if I could be arsed to
do so?

Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and deer
than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?

In what way did I justify the consumption of meat? I didn't. I simply
took apart one of the arguments sometimes used against meat eating and
showed it to be rather farcical.

I posted this here because I was looking to see if anybody could come up
with any good case against me. Of course the original piece was designed
to be humorous (do veg*ns do humour?) and was not intended to win any
debate. I run a website that tackles dozens of issues, I don't have a
single-issue agenda. I've been doing this kind of stuff for six years
now and I've never been hounded out of any newsgroup and neither has any
newsgroup ever disbanded because they've been blown away by the power of
my analysis and rapier-like wit (with the possible exception of
alt.religion.christian.amish, but I think they had a few philosophical
difficulties before I showed up). I am here to stimulate a conversation,
not a conversion. I haven't insulted you so I'd appreciate it if you
didn't insult me. If you don't want to engage with me then fine, don't
do it. But please don't do other people's thinking for them by hanging a
ready-made hate label round my neck.

I've just re-read your post. Is "A Troll" your usual signature? I
apologize if I misinterpreted the nature of your post.

--
Martin Willett


http://mwillett.org

"ant and dec" > wrote
> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>>
>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>> posted by the author
>>
>
> A factually incorrect

You mean the part about the aliens? <LOL>

> diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of meat.

Eating meat doesn't demand justification.

> A troll.

You didn't actually take it seriously did you??

Martin Willett wrote:
> ant and dec wrote:
> > Martin Willett wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
> >> posted by the author
> >>
> >
> > A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of
> > meat.
> >
> > A troll.
>
> How do you make that out? It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
> to the points I made.
>
> I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely one
> of them. What was incorrect?
>
> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to be
> eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance? Do you think I *couldn't*
> find evidence of such an argument being deployed if I could be arsed to
> do so?

You probably could but "I don't eat meat in case it causes me to be
eaten
by an alien" is a misrepresentation of the argument.
>
> Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and deer
> than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?
>
> In what way did I justify the consumption of meat? I didn't. I simply
> took apart one of the arguments sometimes used against meat eating and
> showed it to be rather farcical.
>
> I posted this here because I was looking to see if anybody could come up
> with any good case against me. Of course the original piece was designed
> to be humorous (do veg*ns do humour?) and was not intended to win any
> debate. I run a website that tackles dozens of issues, I don't have a
> single-issue agenda. I've been doing this kind of stuff for six years
> now and I've never been hounded out of any newsgroup and neither has any
> newsgroup ever disbanded because they've been blown away by the power of
> my analysis and rapier-like wit (with the possible exception of
> alt.religion.christian.amish, but I think they had a few philosophical
> difficulties before I showed up). I am here to stimulate a conversation,
> not a conversion. I haven't insulted you so I'd appreciate it if you
> didn't insult me. If you don't want to engage with me then fine, don't
> do it. But please don't do other people's thinking for them by hanging a
> ready-made hate label round my neck.
>
> I've just re-read your post. Is "A Troll" your usual signature? I
> apologize if I misinterpreted the nature of your post.
>
> --
> Martin Willett
>
>
> http://mwillett.org

Martin Willett wrote:
> ant and dec wrote:
>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>> posted by the author
>>>
>>
>> A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption
>> of meat.
>>
>> A troll.
>
> How do you make that out?

It was wrong. It is a diatribe. Humour is often used as a mollifying
device for mental conflict, perhaps caused by your recognition of your
own hypocrisy.


>>
It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
> to the points I made.

Does a diatribe have a point?

>
> I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely one
> of them. What was incorrect?

Salmon, as *one* example is a carnivorous species that we eat as a
common food.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon

>
> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to be
> eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance?

What higher moral stance? Different morals perhaps. Why do you feel they
claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your perception of
your own morality.


>Do you think I *couldn't*
> find evidence of such an argument being deployed if I could be arsed to
> do so?

It is used by some.

>
> Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and deer
> than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?

More people eat salmon than tapeworms, none are more "noble" or "nasty"
than each other.

>
> In what way did I justify the consumption of meat? I didn't. I simply
> took apart one of the arguments sometimes used against meat eating and
> showed it to be rather farcical.

You've recognised your own hypocrisy, and have attempted to make joke
out of it.

>
> I posted this here because I was looking to see if anybody could come up
> with any good case against me. Of course the original piece was designed
> to be humorous (do veg*ns do humour?) and was not intended to win any
> debate. I run a website that tackles dozens of issues, I don't have a
> single-issue agenda. I've been doing this kind of stuff for six years
> now and I've never been hounded out of any newsgroup and neither has any
> newsgroup ever disbanded because they've been blown away by the power of
> my analysis and rapier-like wit (with the possible exception of
> alt.religion.christian.amish, but I think they had a few philosophical
> difficulties before I showed up). I am here to stimulate a conversation,
> not a conversion. I haven't insulted you so I'd appreciate it if you
> didn't insult me. If you don't want to engage with me then fine, don't
> do it. But please don't do other people's thinking for them by hanging a
> ready-made hate label round my neck.

I don't hate you. From what I can see you seem a quite a nice guy!


>
> I've just re-read your post. Is "A Troll" your usual signature? I
> apologize if I misinterpreted the nature of your post.

If you were looking for a good case against you, perhaps you should have
written something for that purpose.

Your response has made me reconsider your troll status!

>

Dave wrote:
> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>>ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>>Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>posted by the author
>>>>
>>>
>>>A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of
>>>meat.
>>>
>>>A troll.
>>
>>How do you make that out? It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
>>to the points I made.
>>
>>I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely one
>>of them. What was incorrect?
>>
>>Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to be
>>eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance? Do you think I *couldn't*
>>find evidence of such an argument being deployed if I could be arsed to
>>do so?
>
>
> You probably could but "I don't eat meat in case it causes me to be
> eaten
> by an alien" is a misrepresentation of the argument.

I would say it was an instructive re-interpretation of the argument that
shows how truly fatuous the idea is. Veg*ns will often use the "how
would you like it if somebody ate you?" line of reasoning (well, they
think it's reasoning) without going on to flesh out the ramifications of
the argument. It is an argument by ellipses. You float the idea half
finished, let it trail in the air, and hope the other person will flesh
it out in a way that convinces them that you had a point.

Sorry about all the flesh in that paragraph, I can be such a meathead at
times.

So what does the argument actually mean? It is clearly not a recipe to
avoid being eaten by aliens as I have shown. Any carnivore would prefer
to eat a vegetarian rather than a carnivore if there was any preference
at all, and if they were the sort of sickos that got off on the idea of
eating sentient and intelligent beings they would probably prefer to eat
the upstanding morally superior vegan rather than the hypocrite who eats
bacon and tries not to think about pigs. I can conceive of no possible
scenario in which the alien would eat carnivorous people and invite
vegans around for an after dinner game of backgammon and a chat about
the moral superiority of not exploiting animals.

So if it is isn't about a defence mechanism against consumption by
aliens what is it? An invitation to eat your way to moral superiority?
"I can out-smug you, but you could join me on this high horse". Come on,
come clean.

First alien: This roast man is delicious. A vegan, I can tell. I love
the stuffing.

Second alien: Stuffing?

First alien: Yes, the nut stuffing, really tangy. What did you use to
stuff it? Nuts, mushrooms, onions a little garlic I think. I can see
sweetcorn, what else?

Second alien: I didn't have to stuff it. It wasn't empty.


--
Martin Willett


http://mwillett.org

Dutch wrote:
> "ant and dec" > wrote
>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>
>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>> posted by the author
>>>
>> A factually incorrect
>
> You mean the part about the aliens? <LOL>

No.

>
>> diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of meat.
>
> Eating meat doesn't demand justification.

I never said it did. I read it that he was attempting albeit in a light
hearted way, to give an adequate reason or grounds for (in other words
justify) his decision to eat meat.

Anybody can be asked to show adequate an reason or grounds for a decision.

>
>
>> A troll.
>
> You didn't actually take it seriously did you??


He expected a serious comment. Should I have just written <LOL> "What a
wag."?

>
>

ant and dec wrote:
> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>> ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>> posted by the author
>>>>
>>>
>>> A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption
>>> of meat.
>>>
>>> A troll.
>>
>>
>> How do you make that out?
>
>
> It was wrong. It is a diatribe. Humour is often used as a mollifying
> device for mental conflict, perhaps caused by your recognition of your
> own hypocrisy.
>
>

I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat anything
smarter than a pig, unless I really have to. Fortunately that rule
doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
intelligence of pigs. Chimp chops? No thanks!

> >>
> It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
>
>> to the points I made.
>
>
> Does a diatribe have a point?

Why restrict yourself to one?

>
>>
>> I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely
>> one of them. What was incorrect?
>
>
> Salmon, as *one* example is a carnivorous species that we eat as a
> common food.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon

How is this a contradiction?

"The only carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are fish,
animals that some people who call themselves vegetarians even try to
redefine as some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies, haddock
are animals that eat other animals, being cold bloodied, small-eyed and
ugly doesn't change anything, fish are not vegetables. If you eat fish
you cannot be a vegetarian."

>
>>
>> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to be
>> eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance?
>
>
> What higher moral stance? Different morals perhaps. Why do you feel they
> claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your perception of
> your own morality.

Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like Christians
and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion, like slugs. Of
course they make a point of not *claiming* moral superiority while doing
all they can to ensure that other people get the message loud and clear.
Their entire bearing says "we're not claiming to be superior to you, oh
no, that would be rude and arrogant and not *nice*, but you do know that
you are inferior to us, don't you? You don't? Here, take a pamphlet,
it's all in there."

>
>
>> Do you think I *couldn't* find evidence of such an argument being
>> deployed if I could be arsed to do so?
>
>
> It is used by some.

Quite. If the cap fits, wear it.

>
>>
>> Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and
>> deer than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?
>
>
> More people eat salmon than tapeworms, none are more "noble" or "nasty"
> than each other.

People do not eat nasty animals. At least they don't like to think that
they do. Muslims for example are taught to vilify pigs as well as not to
eat them. I am not suggesting that species are objectively noble or
nasty, that isn't the point, but the perceptions vary. We don't eat rats
and cockroaches but we do eat prawns, which in turn eat marine carrion
and excrement, but we put that image from our minds, even to the point
of calling the alimentary canal of a prawn "just a vein", when in fact
it clearly is scum sucker shit.

>
>>
>> In what way did I justify the consumption of meat? I didn't. I simply
>> took apart one of the arguments sometimes used against meat eating and
>> showed it to be rather farcical.
>
>
> You've recognised your own hypocrisy, and have attempted to make joke
> out of it.

I endeavour to make a joke out of most things.

Sometimes I even succeed.

>
>>
>> I posted this here because I was looking to see if anybody could come
>> up with any good case against me. Of course the original piece was
>> designed to be humorous (do veg*ns do humour?) and was not intended to
>> win any debate. I run a website that tackles dozens of issues, I don't
>> have a single-issue agenda. I've been doing this kind of stuff for six
>> years now and I've never been hounded out of any newsgroup and neither
>> has any newsgroup ever disbanded because they've been blown away by
>> the power of my analysis and rapier-like wit (with the possible
>> exception of alt.religion.christian.amish, but I think they had a few
>> philosophical difficulties before I showed up). I am here to stimulate
>> a conversation, not a conversion. I haven't insulted you so I'd
>> appreciate it if you didn't insult me. If you don't want to engage
>> with me then fine, don't do it. But please don't do other people's
>> thinking for them by hanging a ready-made hate label round my neck.
>
>
> I don't hate you. From what I can see you seem a quite a nice guy!

Thanks, but it does annoy me when people are so quick to hang the
ready-made labels around people's necks. "He's just a troll." I am much
more than that.

>
>
>>
>> I've just re-read your post. Is "A Troll" your usual signature? I
>> apologize if I misinterpreted the nature of your post.
>
>
> If you were looking for a good case against you, perhaps you should have
> written something for that purpose.
>
> Your response has made me reconsider your troll status!
>

Good. My troll status is something I am very proud of. I am not your
common or garden troll. http://www.mwillett.org/troll.htm


--
Martin Willett


http://mwillett.org

Martin Willett wrote:
> ant and dec wrote:
>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>
>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>
>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>> posted by the author
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption
>>>> of meat.
>>>>
>>>> A troll.
>>>
>>>
>>> How do you make that out?
>>
>>
>> It was wrong. It is a diatribe. Humour is often used as a mollifying
>> device for mental conflict, perhaps caused by your recognition of your
>> own hypocrisy.
>>
>>
>
> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat anything
> smarter than a pig,

How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you drawn
this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?

unless I really have to. Fortunately that rule
> doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
> intelligence of pigs.

But not much respect for the pig?


>Chimp chops? No thanks!
>
>> >>
>> It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
>>
>>> to the points I made.
>>
>>
>> Does a diatribe have a point?
>
> Why restrict yourself to one?

We can move on, as the points are coming out.

>
>>
>>>
>>> I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely
>>> one of them. What was incorrect?
>>
>>
>> Salmon, as *one* example is a carnivorous species that we eat as a
>> common food.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon
>
> How is this a contradiction?
>
> "The only carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are fish,
> animals that some people who call themselves vegetarians even try to
> redefine as some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies, haddock
> are animals that eat other animals, being cold bloodied, small-eyed and
> ugly doesn't change anything, fish are not vegetables. If you eat fish
> you cannot be a vegetarian."

Sorry I missed that caveat. The article focused on not eating
carnivores, we eat carnivorous fish (and other things to a lesser
extent)what stops these hypothetical aliens 'fishing' for carnivorous
humans?

>
>>
>>>
>>> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to
>>> be eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance?
>>
>>
>> What higher moral stance? Different morals perhaps. Why do you feel
>> they claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your perception
>> of your own morality.
>
> Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like Christians
> and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion, like slugs.

I think this is a problem of your perception. Do you think I ooze moral
superiority like a slug, and why? Can you could give some examples of
personal experience as evidence?

> Of
> course they make a point of not *claiming* moral superiority while doing
> all they can to ensure that other people get the message loud and clear.

They don't claim it, because most don't feel (in my experience) or have
a higher moral position.

> Their entire bearing says "we're not claiming to be superior to you, oh
> no, that would be rude and arrogant and not *nice*, but you do know that
> you are inferior to us, don't you? You don't? Here, take a pamphlet,
> it's all in there."

Again this is your misguided (self?) perception.


>
>>
>>
>>> Do you think I *couldn't* find evidence of such an argument being
>>> deployed if I could be arsed to do so?
>>
>>
>> It is used by some.
>
> Quite. If the cap fits, wear it.

There's nothing wrong with asking that particular hypothetical question.

What "cap"?

>
>>
>>>
>>> Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and
>>> deer than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?
>>
>>
>> More people eat salmon than tapeworms, none are more "noble" or
>> "nasty" than each other.
>
> People do not eat nasty animals. At least they don't like to think that
> they do. Muslims for example are taught to vilify pigs as well as not to
> eat them. I am not suggesting that species are objectively noble or
> nasty, that isn't the point, but the perceptions vary. We don't eat rats
> and cockroaches but we do eat prawns, which in turn eat marine carrion
> and excrement, but we put that image from our minds, even to the point
> of calling the alimentary canal of a prawn "just a vein", when in fact
> it clearly is scum sucker shit.

I'm sure an alien wouldn't mind cleaning your "vein".

>
>>
>>>
>>> In what way did I justify the consumption of meat? I didn't. I simply
>>> took apart one of the arguments sometimes used against meat eating
>>> and showed it to be rather farcical.
>>
>>
>> You've recognised your own hypocrisy, and have attempted to make joke
>> out of it.
>
> I endeavour to make a joke out of most things.
>
> Sometimes I even succeed.
>
>>
>>>
>>> I posted this here because I was looking to see if anybody could come
>>> up with any good case against me. Of course the original piece was
>>> designed to be humorous (do veg*ns do humour?) and was not intended
>>> to win any debate. I run a website that tackles dozens of issues, I
>>> don't have a single-issue agenda. I've been doing this kind of stuff
>>> for six years now and I've never been hounded out of any newsgroup
>>> and neither has any newsgroup ever disbanded because they've been
>>> blown away by the power of my analysis and rapier-like wit (with the
>>> possible exception of alt.religion.christian.amish, but I think they
>>> had a few philosophical difficulties before I showed up). I am here
>>> to stimulate a conversation, not a conversion. I haven't insulted you
>>> so I'd appreciate it if you didn't insult me. If you don't want to
>>> engage with me then fine, don't do it. But please don't do other
>>> people's thinking for them by hanging a ready-made hate label round
>>> my neck.
>>
>>
>> I don't hate you. From what I can see you seem a quite a nice guy!
>
> Thanks, but it does annoy me when people are so quick to hang the
> ready-made labels around people's necks. "He's just a troll." I am much
> more than that.

Agreed.

>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> I've just re-read your post. Is "A Troll" your usual signature? I
>>> apologize if I misinterpreted the nature of your post.
>>
>>
>> If you were looking for a good case against you, perhaps you should
>> have written something for that purpose.
>>
>> Your response has made me reconsider your troll status!
>>
>
> Good. My troll status is something I am very proud of. I am not your
> common or garden troll. http://www.mwillett.org/troll.htm


Perhaps a positive novelty troll?

PS. I may be away for a day or two. - Apparently there's a Christian
(traditionally meat centric) festival going on that I'm expected to take
part in!

>
>

"ant and dec" > wrote in message
...
> Dutch wrote:
>> "ant and dec" > wrote
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>> First published on
>>>> http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>> posted by the author
>>>>
>>> A factually incorrect
>>
>> You mean the part about the aliens? <LOL>
>
> No.
>
>>
>>> diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of meat.
>>
>> Eating meat doesn't demand justification.
>
> I never said it did. I read it that he was attempting albeit in
> a light hearted way, to give an adequate reason or grounds for
> (in other words justify) his decision to eat meat.
=================
And, his reasons are just as viable as the reasons usenet vegans
give for not eating meat. Usenet vegan reasons are just as much
fantasy and delusion, eh?



>
> Anybody can be asked to show adequate an reason or grounds for
> a decision.
>
> >
>>
>>> A troll.
>>
>> You didn't actually take it seriously did you??
>
>
> He expected a serious comment. Should I have just written <LOL>
> "What a wag."?
>
>>

"ant and dec" > wrote in message
...
> Dutch wrote:
>> "ant and dec" > wrote
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>> posted by the author
>>>>
>>> A factually incorrect
>>
>> You mean the part about the aliens? <LOL>
>
> No.

Which part did you find to be "factually incorrect"?

>>> diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of meat.
>>
>> Eating meat doesn't demand justification.
>
> I never said it did. I read it that he was attempting albeit in a light
> hearted way, to give an adequate reason or grounds for (in other words
> justify) his decision to eat meat.
>
> Anybody can be asked to show adequate an reason or grounds for a decision.

I didn't interpret it that way. He was attempting to make light of the
emotional 'To Serve Mankind' argument contained in the admonishment "How
would you feel if aliens came to earth and saw *you* as food?"

>>> A troll.
>>
>> You didn't actually take it seriously did you??
>
>
> He expected a serious comment. Should I have just written <LOL> "What a
> wag."?

I didn't consider simply asserting that it was "factually incorrect" to be a
serious comment.

"ant and dec" > wrote
> Martin Willett wrote:

[..]

>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat anything
>> smarter than a pig,
>
> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you drawn
> this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?

It's not arbitrary, he gave the criterion, intelligence.

> unless I really have to. Fortunately that rule
>> doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
>> intelligence of pigs.
>
> But not much respect for the pig?

That doesn't follow.

[..]

>> Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like Christians
>> and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion, like slugs.
>
> I think this is a problem of your perception.

Oh, puleeeze!

ant and dec wrote:
> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>> ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>>> posted by the author
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the
>>>>> consumption of meat.
>>>>>
>>>>> A troll.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> How do you make that out?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It was wrong. It is a diatribe. Humour is often used as a mollifying
>>> device for mental conflict, perhaps caused by your recognition of
>>> your own hypocrisy.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat
>> anything smarter than a pig,
>
>
> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you drawn
> this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
>
> unless I really have to. Fortunately that rule
>
>> doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
>> intelligence of pigs.
>
>
> But not much respect for the pig?

If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
than not to.

Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there,
so don't bother pointing it out.

Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.


>
>
>> Chimp chops? No thanks!
>>
>>> >>
>>> It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
>>>
>>>> to the points I made.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Does a diatribe have a point?
>>
>>
>> Why restrict yourself to one?
>
>
> We can move on, as the points are coming out.
>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely
>>>> one of them. What was incorrect?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Salmon, as *one* example is a carnivorous species that we eat as a
>>> common food.
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon
>>
>>
>> How is this a contradiction?
>>
>> "The only carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are fish,
>> animals that some people who call themselves vegetarians even try to
>> redefine as some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies, haddock
>> are animals that eat other animals, being cold bloodied, small-eyed
>> and ugly doesn't change anything, fish are not vegetables. If you eat
>> fish you cannot be a vegetarian."
>
>
> Sorry I missed that caveat. The article focused on not eating
> carnivores, we eat carnivorous fish (and other things to a lesser
> extent)what stops these hypothetical aliens 'fishing' for carnivorous
> humans?

Nothing at all. Except that with billions of us to choose from thinking
purely as a connoisseur of meat I wouldn't be eating a 42 year old
overweight male omnivore when I could have a teenage vegan instead. I'd
be fit only for sausages or pies. My granddad was a farmer. He knew what
to eat, food was his life. He always went for local grass-fed heifer
beef. I think aliens would think the same way.

>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to
>>>> be eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> What higher moral stance? Different morals perhaps. Why do you feel
>>> they claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your
>>> perception of your own morality.
>>
>>
>> Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like
>> Christians and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion,
>> like slugs.
>
>
> I think this is a problem of your perception. Do you think I ooze moral
> superiority like a slug, and why? Can you could give some examples of
> personal experience as evidence?

They're too good at smugging it up to do much that you can put your
finger on. But you can tell, just like you don't have to see a man
engaged in sodomy to get a pretty good idea of whether or not he's ***,
but your observations would be easily taken apart by any competent
defence lawyer. It's obvious, but it wouldn't hold up in court.

>
>> Of course they make a point of not *claiming* moral superiority while
>> doing all they can to ensure that other people get the message loud
>> and clear.
>
>
> They don't claim it, because most don't feel (in my experience) or have
> a higher moral position.

How many times have you sat with somebody eating a salad who points out
that they also eat meat?

>
>> Their entire bearing says "we're not claiming to be superior to you,
>> oh no, that would be rude and arrogant and not *nice*, but you do know
>> that you are inferior to us, don't you? You don't? Here, take a
>> pamphlet, it's all in there."
>
>
> Again this is your misguided (self?) perception.

Carnivores don't wear badges and t shirts proclaiming their status for
the same reason that people don't wear "I didn't give money to charity"
badges. It is totally disingenuous to make out that vegetarians and
vegans do not want people to think they are morally superior because of
their diet, in exactly the same way that Christians do. People who
expect recognition for their moral probity make a point of not asking
for it but that doesn't mean they do not expect to get it and are hurt
when they don't get it.

>
>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Do you think I *couldn't* find evidence of such an argument being
>>>> deployed if I could be arsed to do so?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It is used by some.
>>
>>
>> Quite. If the cap fits, wear it.
>
>
> There's nothing wrong with asking that particular hypothetical question.
>
> What "cap"?

What? Are you unfamilar with that usage? You admitted that some vegans
and vegetarians use that line of argument, therefore my points are
addressed at such people. If you are one it is addressed at you, and I
leave it with you to decide if you qualify.


>>>>
>>>> Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and
>>>> deer than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> More people eat salmon than tapeworms, none are more "noble" or
>>> "nasty" than each other.
>>
>>
>> People do not eat nasty animals. At least they don't like to think
>> that they do. Muslims for example are taught to vilify pigs as well as
>> not to eat them. I am not suggesting that species are objectively
>> noble or nasty, that isn't the point, but the perceptions vary. We
>> don't eat rats and cockroaches but we do eat prawns, which in turn eat
>> marine carrion and excrement, but we put that image from our minds,
>> even to the point of calling the alimentary canal of a prawn "just a
>> vein", when in fact it clearly is scum sucker shit.
>
>
> I'm sure an alien wouldn't mind cleaning your "vein".
>

But he'd probably prefer yours.

>>>>
>>>> In what way did I justify the consumption of meat? I didn't. I
>>>> simply took apart one of the arguments sometimes used against meat
>>>> eating and showed it to be rather farcical.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> You've recognised your own hypocrisy, and have attempted to make joke
>>> out of it.
>>
>>
>> I endeavour to make a joke out of most things.
>>
>> Sometimes I even succeed.
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I posted this here because I was looking to see if anybody could
>>>> come up with any good case against me. Of course the original piece
>>>> was designed to be humorous (do veg*ns do humour?) and was not
>>>> intended to win any debate. I run a website that tackles dozens of
>>>> issues, I don't have a single-issue agenda. I've been doing this
>>>> kind of stuff for six years now and I've never been hounded out of
>>>> any newsgroup and neither has any newsgroup ever disbanded because
>>>> they've been blown away by the power of my analysis and rapier-like
>>>> wit (with the possible exception of alt.religion.christian.amish,
>>>> but I think they had a few philosophical difficulties before I
>>>> showed up). I am here to stimulate a conversation, not a conversion.
>>>> I haven't insulted you so I'd appreciate it if you didn't insult me.
>>>> If you don't want to engage with me then fine, don't do it. But
>>>> please don't do other people's thinking for them by hanging a
>>>> ready-made hate label round my neck.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't hate you. From what I can see you seem a quite a nice guy!
>>
>>
>> Thanks, but it does annoy me when people are so quick to hang the
>> ready-made labels around people's necks. "He's just a troll." I am
>> much more than that.
>
>
> Agreed.
>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I've just re-read your post. Is "A Troll" your usual signature? I
>>>> apologize if I misinterpreted the nature of your post.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> If you were looking for a good case against you, perhaps you should
>>> have written something for that purpose.
>>>
>>> Your response has made me reconsider your troll status!
>>>
>>
>> Good. My troll status is something I am very proud of. I am not your
>> common or garden troll. http://www.mwillett.org/troll.htm
>
>
>
> Perhaps a positive novelty troll?
>
> PS. I may be away for a day or two. - Apparently there's a Christian
> (traditionally meat centric) festival going on that I'm expected to take
> part in!

Me and my two atheist children will be celebrating it tomorrow too. My
Christian wife is out babysitting while some Jewish friends go out for a
Christmas drink. It's a funny old world, isn't it?

Meat is often the centrepiece of feasts because it is sharing food.
Herbivores don't share food and don't have much in the way of society,
they just use each other as bovine shields or the equivilent. If mankind
was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and socially
cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or not meat was
a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was doesn't make
an ought.


--
Martin Willett


http://mwillett.org

On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 10:09:59 +0000, Martin Willett > wrote:

[...]
>We detect the sin of hypocrisy,
>which for our species seems to be the ultimate sin.

· Since the animals we raise for food would not be alive
if we didn't raise them for that purpose, it's a distortion of
reality not to take that fact into consideration whenever
we think about the fact that the animals are going to be
killed. The animals are not being cheated out of any part
of their life by being raised for food, but instead they are
experiencing whatever life they get as a result of it. ·

>Eating animals and
>yet asking not to be eaten ourselves on the grounds that we are sentient
>animals strikes us as in some way a form of hypocrisy. It probably is.
>So what? Is hypocrisy the ultimate sin recognized by all sentient
>lifeforms everywhere? If if it then surely acting like hypocrites would
>make us less attractive dinner table fare, wouldn't it? We would be less
>likely to eat a “sinful” species that ate dung and its own young than
>one that just ate grass, hung around in fields and went moo. Acting like
>hypocrites would make us appear less tasty and nutritious.

Maybe they'd kill us as vermin.

>Acting like
>hypocrites is probably a good survival strategy. Do we eat “wicked”
>weasels, hyaenas, snakes and tapeworms in preference to “noble” animals
>like deer and salmon?
>Which species do we refuse to eat on moral grounds?

Human.

>Do we avoid eating all peaceful herbivores? Hardly! In fact if we can
>see any patterns at all here it is that the more animals an animal eats
>the less likely it is we will want to eat it ourselves. The only
>carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are fish, animals
>that some people who call themselves vegetarians even try to redefine as
>some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies, haddock are animals
>that eat other animals, being cold bloodied, small-eyed and ugly doesn't
>change anything, fish are not vegetables. If you eat fish you cannot be
>a vegetarian.
>
>We prefer to eat peaceful herbivores, we actively give preference to
>those animals that eat a 100% pure vegetarian diet of grass. Why do we
>assume that aliens will prefer to eat old, evil, bitter, twisted and
>hypocritical animals like us rather than the nice innocent tender baa
>lambs that we like to eat? It doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.
>
>Why don't we eat carnivorous animals?
>
>There is no reason why we don't eat carnivorous animals apart from the
>fact that they are too expensive to farm economically. When dogs are
>raised to be eaten they are not fed on meat, they are given the cheapest
>food that will do the job, usually grain, vegetables and kitchen scraps,
>just like pigs.

Pigs are omnivores. I'm not even sure if they can digest celulose,
but I doubt it. Chickens are omnivores. And it's the omnivores like
chicken, turkey and pork that can really screw you up if you eat it
undercooked. I'm guessing because of similarity in digestive systems
or something like that, but never have heard anyone say anything
about it.

[...]
>What does this aliens eating hypocrites argument remind you of? God?
>Yes, we seem to be very good at inventing fictional entities which can
>make the evil ones among us feel bad if only we can get them to swallow
>a line of bull.

It's impossible to know if God does not exist. It doesn't matter if
he does not exist either...it only matters if he does. Merry Christmas.

>Are aliens likely to be able to eat us?
>
>There is a fair chance that we will actually be poisonous to aliens, and
>they could be poisonous to us.

How about rishathra?

>Elements that are rare on our planet tend
>to be poisonous to us, for example heavy metals such as lead, uranium,
>arsenic, cadmium, mercury and so on. They are poisonous largely because
>we have not evolved to cope with them. There is a reasonable chance that
>to aliens we will contain unacceptably high levels of elements that they
>are not able to cope with even if they find our alien proteins and fats
>attractive. We may be protected by traces of selenium, copper, chromium
>or zinc which could be absent from their biological systems and so be
>poisonous to them. Likewise they may have a biological system that
>requires an element that we cannot tolerate such as arsenic or lead as a
>nutrient. Perhaps alien children are told to eat up their vegetables
>because they contain lots of healthy cadmium (essential for healthy
>tentacles) while they would look on a Whooper, Big Mac or indeed a
>McHuman with Cheese as loaded with quite deadly levels of poisonous
>calcium and zinc and enough sodium to kill the Bugblatter Beast of Traal.
>
>
>First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>posted by the author

I would expect beings with such technology to be able to produce
pretty much whatever kind of food they want without having to grow
it, or if not quite to that extent at least be able to produce food they
can live and thrive on that way. So far I can't help but think they
would treat us pretty much as a curiosity or something, unless they
wanted to exterminate us in which case I don't believe they would
have much trouble. It's not like we could do anything to defend
ourselves from much of an attack from space. All they have to do
is stand back and throw a few rocks at us, or put something between
us and Sol.

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 23:12:43 +0000, Martin Willett > wrote:

>If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
>of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
>than not to.

One "ARA" amusingly pasted the fact that:
__________________________________________________ _______
From: "Dutch" >
Message-ID: >

The method of husbandry determines whether or not the life
has positive or negative value to the animal.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
as if he were able to understand the fact, but later revealed that
he can not:
__________________________________________________ _______
From: "Dutch" >
Message-ID: >

some mystical "value to the animals"
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
__________________________________________________ _______
From: "Dutch" >
Message-ID: >

Any "positive experiences" that livestock may have, whatever that means, may
not and should not be used as an argument for raising them.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
I find that the truth is often both sad and hilarious at the same time
with these people. It's incredible really. This for example: why did
Dutch paste something that they don't understand much less agree
with? I've asked him many times, but he refuses to say why.

>Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there,
>so don't bother pointing it out.

The desperation of "ARAs" is made obvious by Dutch's hero Goo,
who proclaims to the world that:
__________________________________________________ _______
From: "Rudy Canoza" >
Message-ID: .com>

No zygotes, animals, people, or any other living thing benefits from
coming into existence. No farm animals benefit from farming.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
__________________________________________________ _______
From: Rudy Canoza >
Message-ID: k.net>

Life is not a benefit for farm animals.
[...]
Life is not a benefit for farm
animals
[...]
Life is not a benefit for farm animals.
[...]
Life is not a benefit for farm animals.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
__________________________________________________ _______
From: Rudy Canoza >
Message-ID: . net>

An entity's life _per se_ is not a benefit to it.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
etc, etc... Again it's sadly amusing to find "ARAs" are so desperate
for people to feel that no livestock benefit from farming, that they
insist life could never be a benefit for anything including themselves.

>Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
>could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
>loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.

The "ARAs" even have an "AR" pig fantasy which they believe
somehow refutes the fact that some farm animals benefit from farming.
I'll include what I believe they humorously consider to be the "refutation":
__________________________________________________ _______
From: "Dutch" >
Message-ID: >

Speak for yourself please ****wit. Here's your quote, Henry S. Salt speaks
for the pig here, you ought to listen.

[...]
"For mark, I pray
thee, that in my entry into the world my own predilection was in no wise
considered, nor did I purchase life on condition of my own butchery. If,
then, thou art firm set on pork, so be it, for pork I am: but though thou
hast not spared my life, at least spare me thy sophistry. It is not for
his sake, but for thine, that in his life the Pig is filthily housed and
fed, and at the end barbarously butchered."

Hear that ****wit? The pig says, if you are set on killing me for my flesh,
then so be it, just spare me the self-serving bullshit.

Spare all of us, ****wit. We don't need it, nobody needs it.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
A talking pig who knows he will be killed--and btw made into ham and
sausages, etc...there are about 20 or so odd subfantasies in their talking
pig fantasy--is certainly an anthropomorphic distortion of reality if not
sophistry. And it is *most!!!* certainly bullshit, making me wonder how it
could possibly be self-serving for anyone other than "ARAs". (Dutch and
Goo hilariously insist they are "AR" opponents, though neither are capable
of providing any example(s) of their opposition, nor can anyone else afaik.)

[...]
>Carnivores don't wear badges and t shirts proclaiming their status for
>the same reason that people don't wear "I didn't give money to charity"
>badges. It is totally disingenuous to make out that vegetarians and
>vegans do not want people to think they are morally superior because of
>their diet, in exactly the same way that Christians do. People who
>expect recognition for their moral probity make a point of not asking
>for it but that doesn't mean they do not expect to get it and are hurt
>when they don't get it.

Which is why there are people like Dutch and Goo who maniacally
oppose people considering that some farm animals benefit from farming,
because it suggests that some thing(s) could be ethically equivalent
or superior to veganism. Just the suggestion causes incredible cognitive
dissonance for them, so they desperately/amusingly try to make it go away.
Anyone interested in observing cognitive dissonance inspired reactions
can get fine examples by pointing out to "ARAs" that some farm animals
benefit from farming. I encourage you to give it a try. Dutch would be a
good subject, and so would Goo who recently is posting as--and probably
considers himself to be--Leif Erikson and S. Maizlich, along with however
many others I'm not aware of.

"Martin Willett" > wrote
> ant and dec wrote:

>> But not much respect for the pig?
>
> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
> of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
> than not to.
>
> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there, so
> don't bother pointing it out.

I really like your posts Martin, I agree with everything you have said up to
now, but that is a fallacy. You cannot compare living and dying to *not*
living, since never being born, never existing is not a real state. This is
called "The Logic of the Larder" and there is one fruitcake here who has
already replied to you who makes it his life's work to promote this idea.

http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.pdf
There, in brief, is the key to the whole matter.
The fallacy lies in the confusion of thought which attempts to
compare existence with non-existence. A person who is already in existence
may feel that he
would rather have lived than not, but he must first have the terra firma of
existence to argue
from; the moment he begins to argue as if from the abyss of the
non-existent, he talks
nonsense, by predicating good or evil, happiness or unhappiness, of that of
which we can
predicate nothing.

When, therefore, we talk of "bringing a being," as we vaguely express it,
"into the world," we
cannot claim from that being any gratitude for our action, or drive a
bargain with him, and a
very shabby one, on that account; nor can our duties to him be evaded by any
such quibble, in
which the wish is so obviously father to the thought. Nor, in this
connection, is it necessary to
enter on the question of ante-natal existence, because, if such existence
there be, we have no
reason for assuming that it is less happy than the present existence; and
thus equally the
argument falls to the ground. It is absurd to compare a supposed
preexistence, or non-
existence, with actual individual life as known to us here. All reasoning
based on such
comparison must necessarily be false, and will lead to grotesque
conclusions.

On 2005-12-25, dh@. <dh@> wrote:
> How about rishathra?
>

Is that from Ringworld?

Feffer

Dutch wrote:
> "Martin Willett" > wrote
>
>>ant and dec wrote:
>
>
>>>But not much respect for the pig?
>>
>>If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
>>of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
>>than not to.
>>
>>Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there, so
>>don't bother pointing it out.
>
>
> I really like your posts Martin, I agree with everything you have said up to
> now, but that is a fallacy. You cannot compare living and dying to *not*
> living, since never being born, never existing is not a real state. This is
> called "The Logic of the Larder" and there is one fruitcake here who has
> already replied to you who makes it his life's work to promote this idea.
>
> http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.pdf
> There, in brief, is the key to the whole matter.
> The fallacy lies in the confusion of thought which attempts to
> compare existence with non-existence. A person who is already in existence
> may feel that he
> would rather have lived than not, but he must first have the terra firma of
> existence to argue
> from; the moment he begins to argue as if from the abyss of the
> non-existent, he talks
> nonsense, by predicating good or evil, happiness or unhappiness, of that of
> which we can
> predicate nothing.
>
> When, therefore, we talk of "bringing a being," as we vaguely express it,
> "into the world," we
> cannot claim from that being any gratitude for our action, or drive a
> bargain with him, and a
> very shabby one, on that account; nor can our duties to him be evaded by any
> such quibble, in
> which the wish is so obviously father to the thought. Nor, in this
> connection, is it necessary to
> enter on the question of ante-natal existence, because, if such existence
> there be, we have no
> reason for assuming that it is less happy than the present existence; and
> thus equally the
> argument falls to the ground. It is absurd to compare a supposed
> preexistence, or non-
> existence, with actual individual life as known to us here. All reasoning
> based on such
> comparison must necessarily be false, and will lead to grotesque
> conclusions.
>
>

Do you start your reasoning from first principles and work upwards to
conclusions and lifestyle choices that might come as a surprise you or
do you work backwards from the practical policy stances you are most
comfortable with and in the process discover what your principles "must
have been"?

Do you regard lying to yourself as a form of sin?

--
Martin Willett


http://mwillett.org

On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 01:38:45 GMT, "Dutch" > wrote:

>
>"Martin Willett" > wrote
>> ant and dec wrote:
>
>>> But not much respect for the pig?
>>
>> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
>> of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
>> than not to.
>>
>> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there, so
>> don't bother pointing it out.
>
>I really like your posts Martin, I agree with everything you have said up to
>now, but

Now he has suggested that something could be ethically equivalent
or superior to the elimination of domestic animals, so of course YOU/"ARAs"
are getting another dose of cognitive dissonance.

>that is a fallacy. You cannot compare living and dying to *not*
>living, since never being born, never existing is not a real state. This is
>called "The Logic of the Larder"

Other than YOU/"ARAs", who else calls considering farm animals' lives
The Logic of the Larder? Of course when I see Logic of the Larder, I
understand what you're really referring to is your hero Salt's Logic of the
Fantastic "AR" Talking Pig, and nothing else. I also understand that there
are no such pigs, and most likely never will be. There are billions of farm
animals' lives to consider however, for those of us able to consider them.

>and there is one fruitcake here who has
>already replied to you who makes it his life's work to promote this idea.

It's just something I've been doing because I hate the mental restrictions
YOU/"ARAs" would impose on everyone if you could, but I doubt that
I've made even half as many posts promoting consideration of the
animals' lives as YOU/"ARAs" have made opposing the suggestion.
Goo alone has probably made far more than twice as many posts
opposing the suggestion as I've made encouraging it.

>http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.pdf
>There, in brief, is the key to the whole matter.
>The fallacy lies in the confusion of thought which attempts to
>compare existence with non-existence. A person who is already in existence
>may feel that he
>would rather have lived than not, but he must first have the terra firma of
>existence to argue
>from; the moment he begins to argue as if from the abyss of the
>non-existent, he talks
>nonsense,

You pasted the fact that:
__________________________________________________ _______
From: "Dutch" >
Message-ID: >

The method of husbandry determines whether or not the life
has positive or negative value to the animal.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
even though you continue to prove it's something you can't
understand.

>by predicating good or evil, happiness or unhappiness, of that of
>which we can
>predicate nothing.
>
>When, therefore, we talk of "bringing a being," as we vaguely express it,
>"into the world," we

Could consider Christmas...well...some of us can and others can
not.

>cannot claim from that being any gratitude for our action, or drive a
>bargain with him,
__________________________________________________ _______
From: "Dutch" >
Message-ID: >

Hear that ****wit? The pig says . . .
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
>and a very shabby one,

I've been asking for years what YOU/"ARAs" have to offer that
is better, and what it would be better for. So far the best you've been
able to say is that it would be or could be better for mice, frogs and
ground hogs if we eliminate all livestock. Is it really my fault if I can't
see any ethical superiority in that because YOU/"ARAs" are totally
incapable of explaining it? The superiority is not obvious, which even
you should be able to understand if only because of your complete
inability to explain how it would be. What YOU/"ARAs" need to
explain is why it would be superior to make the huge CHANGE of
eliminating ALL livestock for the supposed benefit of mice, frogs and
ground hogs, and whatever else is dinging around inside your hollow
skull.

>on that account; nor can our duties to him be evaded by any
>such quibble, in
>which the wish is so obviously father to the thought. Nor, in this
>connection, is it necessary to
>enter on the question of ante-natal existence, because, if such existence
>there be, we have no
>reason for assuming that it is less happy than the present existence;

Which always brings us back to wondering why you pasted the fact
that life could have positive value to animals, when you obviously can't
understand the fact much less consider it to be signifant in regards to
human influence on animals. And also brings up the question of why
you pasted this when you obviously can't consider it to be signifant in
regards to human influence on animals.
__________________________________________________ _______
From: "apostate" >
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 03:04:25 GMT

Wild animals on average suffer more than farm animals, I think that's
obvious.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
>and
>thus equally the
>argument falls to the ground. It is absurd to compare a supposed
>preexistence, or non-
>existence, with actual individual life as known to us here. All reasoning
>based on such
>comparison must necessarily be false, and will lead to grotesque
>conclusions.

YOU/"ARAs" promote grotesque ideas imo, like:
__________________________________________________ _______
From: "Dutch" >
Message-ID: >

Life does not justify death
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
__________________________________________________ _______
From: "Dutch" >
Message-ID: >

Taking moral credit for a livestock animal's very existence is analagous to
taking moral credit for the life of a daughter you sell onto the streets.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
You >
"Hear that ****wit? The pig says, if you are set on killing me for my flesh,
then so be it, just spare me the self-serving bullshit."

The pig doesn't know, and you couldn't explain anything to him
about it if you tried. That dishonest grotesquery is self serving
to YOU/"ARAs" apparently, and it is most obviously bullshit.

On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 04:29:05 -0000, Jeff Caird > wrote:

>On 2005-12-25, dh@. <dh@> wrote:
>> How about rishathra?
>>
>
>Is that from Ringworld?
>
>Feffer

Yes. I wondered if anyone was familiar with that. I just
found out yesterday they were going to make a movie
a few years ago, but it didn't work out for some reason
dammit.

Martin Willett wrote:
> ant and dec wrote:
>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>
>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>
>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>>>> posted by the author
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the
>>>>>> consumption of meat.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A troll.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> How do you make that out?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It was wrong. It is a diatribe. Humour is often used as a mollifying
>>>> device for mental conflict, perhaps caused by your recognition of
>>>> your own hypocrisy.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat
>>> anything smarter than a pig,
>>
>>
>> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you
>> drawn this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?

I'd like you to answer this point.

>>
>> unless I really have to. Fortunately that rule
>>
>>> doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
>>> intelligence of pigs.
>>
>>
>> But not much respect for the pig?
>
> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
> of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
> than not to.
>
> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there,
> so don't bother pointing it out.
>
> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
> could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
> loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.

This line of thinking is very often pulled apart as being complete BS.
by both camps. I see some have already pointed this out.

>
>
>>
>>
>>> Chimp chops? No thanks!
>>>
>>>> >>
>>>> It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
>>>>
>>>>> to the points I made.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Does a diatribe have a point?
>>>
>>>
>>> Why restrict yourself to one?
>>
>>
>> We can move on, as the points are coming out.
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely
>>>>> one of them. What was incorrect?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Salmon, as *one* example is a carnivorous species that we eat as a
>>>> common food.
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon
>>>
>>>
>>> How is this a contradiction?
>>>
>>> "The only carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are
>>> fish, animals that some people who call themselves vegetarians even
>>> try to redefine as some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies,
>>> haddock are animals that eat other animals, being cold bloodied,
>>> small-eyed and ugly doesn't change anything, fish are not vegetables.
>>> If you eat fish you cannot be a vegetarian."
>>
>>
>> Sorry I missed that caveat. The article focused on not eating
>> carnivores, we eat carnivorous fish (and other things to a lesser
>> extent)what stops these hypothetical aliens 'fishing' for carnivorous
>> humans?
>
> Nothing at all. Except that with billions of us to choose from thinking
> purely as a connoisseur of meat I wouldn't be eating a 42 year old
> overweight male omnivore when I could have a teenage vegan instead. I'd
> be fit only for sausages or pies. My granddad was a farmer. He knew what
> to eat, food was his life. He always went for local grass-fed heifer
> beef. I think aliens would think the same way.

I think you're blurring the realms of hypothesis and reality under the
pretense of a "joke".

>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to
>>>>> be eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What higher moral stance? Different morals perhaps. Why do you feel
>>>> they claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your
>>>> perception of your own morality.
>>>
>>>
>>> Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like
>>> Christians and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion,
>>> like slugs.
>>
>>
>> I think this is a problem of your perception. Do you think I ooze
>> moral superiority like a slug, and why? Can you could give some
>> examples of personal experience as evidence?
>
> They're too good at smugging it up to do much that you can put your
> finger on. But you can tell, just like you don't have to see a man
> engaged in sodomy to get a pretty good idea of whether or not he's ***,
> but your observations would be easily taken apart by any competent
> defence lawyer. It's obvious, but it wouldn't hold up in court.

You claim to observe this moral superiority, yet you can't give any
examples? I think it's a figment of your imagination.

>
>>
>>> Of course they make a point of not *claiming* moral superiority while
>>> doing all they can to ensure that other people get the message loud
>>> and clear.
>>
>>
>> They don't claim it, because most don't feel (in my experience) or
>> have a higher moral position.
>
> How many times have you sat with somebody eating a salad who points out
> that they also eat meat?

Occasionally. This reminds me of when I sat next to someone in a
restaurant, who said they were vegetarian, then went on to order the
duck! - Perhaps this is a meat eater trying to claim this mythical
"moral high ground", that doesn't really exist.

>
>>
>>> Their entire bearing says "we're not claiming to be superior to you,
>>> oh no, that would be rude and arrogant and not *nice*, but you do
>>> know that you are inferior to us, don't you? You don't? Here, take a
>>> pamphlet, it's all in there."
>>
>>
>> Again this is your misguided (self?) perception.
>
> Carnivores don't wear badges and t shirts proclaiming their status for
> the same reason that people don't wear "I didn't give money to charity"

Of course they do! What about "hunting pink" as just one example.

> badges. It is totally disingenuous to make out that vegetarians and
> vegans do not want people to think they are morally superior because of
> their diet, in exactly the same way that Christians do. People who
> expect recognition for their moral probity make a point of not asking
> for it but that doesn't mean they do not expect to get it and are hurt
> when they don't get it.

Unless you can give some evidence that this applies to the general
ve*gan population, I must consider this as a figment of your imagination.

There are irritating vegan zealots just as there are irritating
Christians, but they are few and far between, as you would get on the
"ends" of a normal population distribution.


>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Do you think I *couldn't* find evidence of such an argument being
>>>>> deployed if I could be arsed to do so?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It is used by some.
>>>
>>>
>>> Quite. If the cap fits, wear it.
>>
>>
>> There's nothing wrong with asking that particular hypothetical question.
>>
>> What "cap"?
>
> What? Are you unfamilar with that usage? You admitted that some vegans
> and vegetarians use that line of argument, therefore my points are
> addressed at such people. If you are one it is addressed at you, and I
> leave it with you to decide if you qualify.

I just wondered if the "cap" embraced a much wider scope than just that
of the usage. In this case it is a cap I have worn, but probably would
not again.

>
>
>>>>>
>>>>> Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and
>>>>> deer than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> More people eat salmon than tapeworms, none are more "noble" or
>>>> "nasty" than each other.
>>>
>>>
>>> People do not eat nasty animals. At least they don't like to think
>>> that they do. Muslims for example are taught to vilify pigs as well
>>> as not to eat them. I am not suggesting that species are objectively
>>> noble or nasty, that isn't the point, but the perceptions vary. We
>>> don't eat rats and cockroaches but we do eat prawns, which in turn
>>> eat marine carrion and excrement, but we put that image from our
>>> minds, even to the point of calling the alimentary canal of a prawn
>>> "just a vein", when in fact it clearly is scum sucker shit.
>>
>>
>> I'm sure an alien wouldn't mind cleaning your "vein".
>>
>
> But he'd probably prefer yours.

I don't think they'll be that picky, more likely to go after the one
that ate all the pies! The prize porker! ;-)

>
>>>>>
>>>>> In what way did I justify the consumption of meat? I didn't. I
>>>>> simply took apart one of the arguments sometimes used against meat
>>>>> eating and showed it to be rather farcical.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> You've recognised your own hypocrisy, and have attempted to make
>>>> joke out of it.
>>>
>>>
>>> I endeavour to make a joke out of most things.
>>>
>>> Sometimes I even succeed.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I posted this here because I was looking to see if anybody could
>>>>> come up with any good case against me. Of course the original piece
>>>>> was designed to be humorous (do veg*ns do humour?) and was not
>>>>> intended to win any debate. I run a website that tackles dozens of
>>>>> issues, I don't have a single-issue agenda. I've been doing this
>>>>> kind of stuff for six years now and I've never been hounded out of
>>>>> any newsgroup and neither has any newsgroup ever disbanded because
>>>>> they've been blown away by the power of my analysis and rapier-like
>>>>> wit (with the possible exception of alt.religion.christian.amish,
>>>>> but I think they had a few philosophical difficulties before I
>>>>> showed up). I am here to stimulate a conversation, not a
>>>>> conversion. I haven't insulted you so I'd appreciate it if you
>>>>> didn't insult me. If you don't want to engage with me then fine,
>>>>> don't do it. But please don't do other people's thinking for them
>>>>> by hanging a ready-made hate label round my neck.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I don't hate you. From what I can see you seem a quite a nice guy!
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks, but it does annoy me when people are so quick to hang the
>>> ready-made labels around people's necks. "He's just a troll." I am
>>> much more than that.
>>
>>
>> Agreed.
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I've just re-read your post. Is "A Troll" your usual signature? I
>>>>> apologize if I misinterpreted the nature of your post.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If you were looking for a good case against you, perhaps you should
>>>> have written something for that purpose.
>>>>
>>>> Your response has made me reconsider your troll status!
>>>>
>>>
>>> Good. My troll status is something I am very proud of. I am not your
>>> common or garden troll. http://www.mwillett.org/troll.htm
>>
>>
>>
>> Perhaps a positive novelty troll?
>>
>> PS. I may be away for a day or two. - Apparently there's a Christian
>> (traditionally meat centric) festival going on that I'm expected to
>> take part in!
>
> Me and my two atheist children will be celebrating it tomorrow too. My
> Christian wife is out babysitting while some Jewish friends go out for a
> Christmas drink. It's a funny old world, isn't it?

Yep.

>
> Meat is often the centrepiece of feasts because it is sharing food.
> Herbivores don't share food and don't have much in the way of society,
> they just use each other as bovine shields or the equivilent.

I think you've lost the plot here. Perhaps you've seen too many "turkey
on the table" movies.

If mankind
> was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and socially
> cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or not meat was
> a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was doesn't make
> an ought.

I agree meat was an important part of out human evolution. You and I are
fortunate to have a choice of what we eat. Perhaps more should think
about their choices, in particular what impact those choices have,
rather than blindly follow customs and practice.

>
>

"ant and dec" > wrote in message ...
> Martin Willett wrote:
<..>
> If mankind
> > was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and socially
> > cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or not meat was
> > a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was doesn't make
> > an ought.
>
> I agree meat was an important part of out human evolution.

'It has long been held that big game hunting is THE key development
in human evolutionary history, facilitating the appearance of patterns
in reproduction, social organization, and life history fundamental to
the modern human condition. Though this view has been challenged
strongly in recent years, it persists as the conventional wisdom, largely
for lack of a plausible alternative. Recent research on women's time
allocation and food sharing among tropical hunter-gatherers now
provides the basis for such an alternative.

The problem with big game hunting

The appeal of big game hunting as an important evolutionary force
lies in the common assumption that hunting and related paternal
provisioning are essential to child rearing among human foragers:
mother is seen as unable to bear, feed and raise children on her
own; hence relies on husband/father for critical nutritional support,
especially in the form of meat. This makes dating the first appearance
of this pattern the fundamental problem in human origins research.
The common association between stone tools and the bones of
large animals at sites of Pleistocene age suggests to many that it
may be quite old, possibly originating with Homo erectus nearly
two million years ago (e.g. Gowlett 1993).

Despite its widespread acceptance, there are good reasons to be
skeptical about the underlying assumption. Most important is the
observation that big game hunting is actually a poor way to support
a family. Among the Tanzanian Hadza, for example, men armed
with bows and poisoned arrows operating in a game-rich habitat
acquire large animal prey only about once every thirty hunter-days,
not nearly often enough to feed their children effectively. They
could do better as provisioners by taking small game or plant foods,
yet choose not to, which suggests that big game hunting serves some
other purpose unrelated to offspring survivorship (Hawkes et al. 1991).
Whatever it is, reliable support for children must come from elsewhere.

The importance of women's foraging and food sharing

Recent research on Hadza time allocation and foraging returns
shows that at least among these low latitude foragers, women's
gathering is the source (Hawkes et al. 1997). The most difficult time
of the year for the Hadza is the dry season, when foods younger
children can procure for themselves are unavailable. Mothers respond
by provisioning youngsters with foods they themselves can procure
daily and at relatively high rates, but that their children cannot, largely
because of handling requirements. Tubers, which require substantial
upper body strength and endurance to collect and the ability to
control fire in processing, are a good example.

Provisioning of this sort has at least two important implications:
1) it allows the Hadza to operate in times and places where they
otherwise could not if, as among other primates, weaned offspring
were responsible for feeding themselves; 2) it lets another adult
assist in the process allowing mother to turn her attention to the
next pregnancy that much sooner. Quantitative data on time
allocation, foraging returns, and changes in children's nutritional
status indicate that, among the Hadza, that other adult is typically
grandmother. Senior Hadza women forage long hours every day,
enjoy high returns for effort, and provision their grandchildren
effectively, especially when their daughters are nursing new infants
(Hawkes et al. 1989, 1997). Their support is crucial to both
daughters' fecundity and grandchildren's survivorship, with
important implications for grandmothers' own fitness.
....
http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=htt.../oconnell.html

'Ethnographic parallels with modern hunter-gatherer communities have
been taken to show that the colder the climate, the greater the reliance
on meat. There are sound biological and economic reasons for this, not
least in the ready availability of large amounts of fat in arctic mammals.
From this, it has been deduced that the humans of the glacial periods
were primarily hunters, while plant foods were more important during
the interglacials. '
http://www.phancocks.pwp.blueyonder..../devensian.htm

'Anthropologically speaking, humans were high consumers of calcium
until the onset of the Agricultural Age, 10,000 years ago. Current
calcium intake is one-quarter to one-third that of our evolutionary diet
and, if we are genetically identical to the Late Paleolithic Homo sapiens,
we may be consuming a calcium-deficient diet our bodies cannot adjust
to by physiologic mechanisms.

The anthropological approach says, with the exception of a few small
changes related to genetic blood diseases, that humans are basically
identical biologically and medically to the hunter-gatherers of the late
Paleolithic Era.17 During this period, calcium content of the diet was
much higher than it is currently. Depending on the ratio of animal to
plant foods, calcium intake could have exceeded 2000 mg per day.17
Calcium was largely derived from wild plants, which had a very high
calcium content; animal protein played a small role, and the use of dairy
products did not come into play until the Agricultural Age 10,000 years
ago. Compared to the current intake of approximately 500 mg per day
for women age 20 and over in the United States,18 hunter-gatherers had
a significantly higher calcium intake and apparently much stronger bones.
As late as 12,000 years ago, Stone Age hunters had an average of
17-percent more bone density (as measured by humeral cortical
thickness). Bone density also appeared to be stable over time with
an apparent absence of osteoporosis.17

High levels of calcium excretion via renal losses are seen with both
high salt and high protein diets, in each case at levels common in the
United States.10,11
..
The only hunter-gatherers that seemed to fall prey to bone loss
were the aboriginal Inuit (Eskimos). Although their physical
activity level was high, their osteoporosis incidence exceeded
even present-day levels in the United States. The Inuit diet was
high in phosphorus and protein and low in calcium.20
...'
http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/full...alcium4-2.html

"..... Man appears to be formed to nourish himself chiefly on roots,
fruits and the succulent parts of vegetables. His hands make it easy
for him to gather them; the shortness and moderate strength of his
jaws, the equal length of his canine teeth with the others, and the
tubular character of his molars, permit him neither to graze, nor to
devour flesh, unless such food is first prepared by cooking."
-- Cuvier, Regne Animal, Vol 1, p73

After a careful and exhaustive study into comparative anatomy,
European scientist, Dr. Richard Lehne came to the conclusion,

"Quite apart from the physiological findings of nutritional science,
which perpetually alter and are always in an unsettled form,
comparative anatomy proves - and is supported by the millions-
of-years-old documents of palaeozoology - that human teeth in
their ideal form have a purely frugivorous character."
...'
http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201...air/asthma.htm

"Martin Willett" > wrote
> Dutch wrote:
>> "Martin Willett" > wrote
>>
>>>ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>But not much respect for the pig?
>>>
>>>If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
>>>of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
>>>than not to.
>>>
>>>Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there,
>>>so don't bother pointing it out.
>>
>>
>> I really like your posts Martin, I agree with everything you have said up
>> to now, but that is a fallacy. You cannot compare living and dying to
>> *not* living, since never being born, never existing is not a real state.
>> This is called "The Logic of the Larder" and there is one fruitcake here
>> who has already replied to you who makes it his life's work to promote
>> this idea.
>>
>> http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.pdf
>> There, in brief, is the key to the whole matter.
>> The fallacy lies in the confusion of thought which attempts to
>> compare existence with non-existence. A person who is already in
>> existence may feel that he
>> would rather have lived than not, but he must first have the terra firma
>> of existence to argue
>> from; the moment he begins to argue as if from the abyss of the
>> non-existent, he talks
>> nonsense, by predicating good or evil, happiness or unhappiness, of that
>> of which we can
>> predicate nothing.
>>
>> When, therefore, we talk of "bringing a being," as we vaguely express it,
>> "into the world," we
>> cannot claim from that being any gratitude for our action, or drive a
>> bargain with him, and a
>> very shabby one, on that account; nor can our duties to him be evaded by
>> any such quibble, in
>> which the wish is so obviously father to the thought. Nor, in this
>> connection, is it necessary to
>> enter on the question of ante-natal existence, because, if such existence
>> there be, we have no
>> reason for assuming that it is less happy than the present existence; and
>> thus equally the
>> argument falls to the ground. It is absurd to compare a supposed
>> preexistence, or non-
>> existence, with actual individual life as known to us here. All reasoning
>> based on such
>> comparison must necessarily be false, and will lead to grotesque
>> conclusions.
>
> Do you start your reasoning from first principles and work upwards to
> conclusions and lifestyle choices that might come as a surprise you or do
> you work backwards from the practical policy stances you are most
> comfortable with and in the process discover what your principles "must
> have been"?

I think it's probably a combination, but that does not quite capture the
essence of my argument here. In the current context you said about
livestock, "it must surely better to live and die than not to". "Not to"
implies the existence a state of *unborness*, that's where the fallacy lies.
If such a state exists, then in order to call it inferior to "living and
dying" we must know something about it, and I submit that we don't. If it
doesn't exist then the statement cannot logically be made. As the author
above says, we make such statements with "the terra firma of existence to
argue from", and a very pleasant existence at that. I think that we *can*
say something quite similar to your statement to summarize the morality of
breeding livestock, and that is, *if* we breed animals to be food for us,
and we ensure that their lives are happy and content, then no person can
fairly accuse us of wrongdoing. Can you see what I am getting at? It is the
"ensuring that their lives are happy and content" that contains the valid
moral principle here.

> Do you regard lying to yourself as a form of sin?

I would have to say most likely yes, because such dishonesty would
inevitably lead to unjust behaviour towards others.

I would also like to add that it has been a very, very long time since
someone new of your caliber has come to these groups to address these
issues, I hope you decide to stay a while and share your insights.

<dh@.> wrote
> On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 01:38:45 GMT, "Dutch" > wrote:
>
>>
>>"Martin Willett" > wrote
>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>>> But not much respect for the pig?
>>>
>>> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
>>> of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
>>> than not to.
>>>
>>> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there,
>>> so
>>> don't bother pointing it out.
>>
>>I really like your posts Martin, I agree with everything you have said up
>>to
>>now, but
>
> Now he has suggested that something could be ethically equivalent
> or superior to the elimination of domestic animals,

That's got nothing to do with it dipshit. I don't dispute that *using animal
products* is "ethically equivalent or superior to the elimination of
domestic animals" to use your awkward wording. My argument is simply
examining the logic of the premise "If we didn't eat the pigs they would
never exist at all..."

Martin Willett wrote:

> ant and dec wrote:
>
>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>
>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>
>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>>>> posted by the author
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the
>>>>>> consumption of meat.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A troll.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> How do you make that out?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It was wrong. It is a diatribe. Humour is often used as a mollifying
>>>> device for mental conflict, perhaps caused by your recognition of
>>>> your own hypocrisy.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat
>>> anything smarter than a pig,
>>
>>
>>
>> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you
>> drawn this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
>>
>> unless I really have to. Fortunately that rule
>>
>>> doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
>>> intelligence of pigs.
>>
>>
>>
>> But not much respect for the pig?
>
>
> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
> of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
> than not to.

No, that's illogical thinking. When you compare two
things, the things must exist in order for the
comparison to make sense. It is patently absurd to say
that existing (no matter what the quality of life) is
better than never existing.

What does it mean for something to be "better" for some
entity? It means that the entity either must perceive
itself to be, or objectively seen by others as being,
better off THAN IT WAS BEFORE. That is, the entity's
welfare must have *improved* from what it was before.
But prior to existing, there was no entity, and so
there was no welfare of the entity. Thus, we see that
is is plainly absurd to talk about existence, per se,
making the entity "better off". Existence is what
establishes an entity's welfare; it does *not* improve it.

This false belief that it is better to exist than never
to exist leads to an infamous bit of illogic called the
Logic of the Larder, taken from the title of a famous
essay on this very topic. It leads someone to conclude
that he is doing a domestic animal he kills and eats
some kind of "favor" by causing it to exist. But the
person who wishes to eat meat cannot justify his meat
eating by saying he made the animal better off by
having caused it to exist. It is obvious that a person
who attempts to engage in this illogic harbors some
kind of doubts over the ethical justice of eating meat,
and is frantically trying to rationalize his diet by
making some aspect of it seem "other-directed". But
it's a dead end.


> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there,
> so don't bother pointing it out.

No, the qualifier is irrelevant. It is the *entire*
concept that is flawed.


>
> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
> could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
> loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.

And therein lies the *correct* justification for eating
meat: there is nothing inherently wrong with killing
an animal. Predators do it all the time, and there is
no moral dimension to their doing it. As long as one
isn't intentionally inflicting needless suffering on
animals, no rationale for the basic act of killing them
to eat them is needed.

dh@. wrote:

> On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 01:38:45 GMT, "Dutch" > wrote:
>
>
>>"Martin Willett" > wrote
>>
>>>ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>>>But not much respect for the pig?
>>>
>>>If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as most
>>>of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live and die
>>>than not to.
>>>
>>>Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it there, so
>>>don't bother pointing it out.
>>
>>I really like your posts Martin, I agree with everything you have said up to
>>now, but
>
>
> Now he has suggested that something could be ethically equivalent
> or superior to the elimination of domestic animals,

No. There is no moral credit to be taken for causing
domestic animals to exist. The animals are in no way
"better off" for having come into existence.


>
>>that is a fallacy. You cannot compare living and dying to *not*
>>living, since never being born, never existing is not a real state. This is
>>called "The Logic of the Larder"
>
>
> Other than YOU/"ARAs", who else calls considering farm animals' lives
> The Logic of the Larder?

Everyone who thinks about it seriously and correctly.


>>and there is one fruitcake here who has
>>already replied to you who makes it his life's work to promote this idea.
>
>
> It's just something I've been doing because

Because you stupidly subscribe to the Illogic of the
Larder.


>
>>http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.pdf
>>There, in brief, is the key to the whole matter.
>>The fallacy lies in the confusion of thought which attempts to
>>compare existence with non-existence. A person who is already in existence
>>may feel that he
>>would rather have lived than not, but he must first have the terra firma of
>>existence to argue
>>from; the moment he begins to argue as if from the abyss of the
>>non-existent, he talks
>>nonsense,

ant and dec wrote:

> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>> ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
>>>>>>>> posted by the author
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the
>>>>>>> consumption of meat.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> A troll.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> How do you make that out?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> It was wrong. It is a diatribe. Humour is often used as a
>>>>> mollifying device for mental conflict, perhaps caused by your
>>>>> recognition of your own hypocrisy.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat
>>>> anything smarter than a pig,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you
>>> drawn this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
>
>
> I'd like you to answer this point.
>
>>>
>>> unless I really have to. Fortunately that rule
>>>
>>>> doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
>>>> intelligence of pigs.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> But not much respect for the pig?
>>
>>
>> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As long as
>> most of their life is happy and content it must surely better to live
>> and die than not to.
>>
>> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put it
>> there, so don't bother pointing it out.
>>
>> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig
>> could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their
>> loving families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
>
>
> This line of thinking is very often pulled apart as being complete BS.
> by both camps. I see some have already pointed this out.

Right. There is only one long-term participant in this
or related newsgroups who subscribes to the bullshit
Illogic of the Larder: a 47-year-old Atlanta (Georgia)
area ****wit and homosexual named David Harrison who is
better known by most of the other regular participants
here as ****wit. ****wit believes that coming into
existence -per se- is a good thing for the entity that
comes into existence

"ant and dec" > wrote
> Martin Willett wrote:

>>>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat
>>>> anything smarter than a pig,
>>>
>>>
>>> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you drawn
>>> this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
>
> I'd like you to answer this point.

We all draw the line somewhere. Why do you believe that it is all right to
destroy animal populations in order to grow vegetables, fruit, grain,
cotton..?

[..]

>> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig could
>> face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their loving
>> families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
>
> This line of thinking is very often pulled apart as being complete BS. by
> both camps. I see some have already pointed this out.

Why is it complete BS? When animals die in crop fields they are often
cruelly dismembered or else are poisoned and die slowly of internal
hemorrhaging. Why is that all right and a bolt through the brain is not?

[..]


> I think you're blurring the realms of hypothesis and reality under the
> pretense of a "joke".

I think you are blurring human rights and our relationship with the rest of
the animal kingdom under the pretense of "morality".

[..]

> You claim to observe this moral superiority, yet you can't give any
> examples? I think it's a figment of your imagination.

You are in denial. Every time a veg*n announces that they don't eat meat,
wrinkle their nose sanctimoniously at a piece of meat, agonize rudely about
some microscopic bit of animal cells in some condiment, refer to statements
like "Meat is Murder", or bring up issues like "slaughterhouses" or "factory
farming" in discussion, they are implicitly setting themselves up as moral
paragons. In fact another way vegans describe themselves is "Ethical
Vegetarians". If you are "ethical" then what am I?

[..]

> If mankind
>> was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and socially
>> cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or not meat was
>> a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was doesn't make
>> an ought.
>
> I agree meat was an important part of out human evolution. You and I are
> fortunate to have a choice of what we eat. Perhaps more should think about
> their choices, in particular what impact those choices have, rather than
> blindly follow customs and practice.

The practise of abstaining from all animal products in food is no less
blindly following custom than any other choice. Perhaps vegetarians should
spend more time look closely at the impact of their own food choices instead
of just peering self-righteously at the choices others make.

On 2005-12-25, dh@. <dh@> wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 04:29:05 -0000, Jeff Caird > wrote:
>
>>On 2005-12-25, dh@. <dh@> wrote:
>>> How about rishathra?
>>>
>>
>>Is that from Ringworld?
>>
>>Feffer
>
> Yes. I wondered if anyone was familiar with that. I just
> found out yesterday they were going to make a movie
> a few years ago, but it didn't work out for some reason
> dammit.

Just as well. Did you see what they did with Riverworld?

Feffy

Dutch wrote:
> "Martin Willett" > wrote
>
>> Dutch wrote:
>>
>>> "Martin Willett" > wrote
>>>
>>>
>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>> But not much respect for the pig?
>>>>
>>>> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As
>>>> long as most of their life is happy and content it must surely
>>>> better to live and die than not to.
>>>>
>>>> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put
>>>> it there, so don't bother pointing it out.
>>>
>>>
>>> I really like your posts Martin, I agree with everything you have
>>> said up to now, but that is a fallacy. You cannot compare living
>>> and dying to *not* living, since never being born, never existing
>>> is not a real state. This is called "The Logic of the Larder" and
>>> there is one fruitcake here who has already replied to you who
>>> makes it his life's work to promote this idea.
>>>
>>> http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.pdf There, in
>>> brief, is the key to the whole matter. The fallacy lies in the
>>> confusion of thought which attempts to compare existence with
>>> non-existence. A person who is already in existence may feel that
>>> he would rather have lived than not, but he must first have the
>>> terra firma of existence to argue from; the moment he begins to
>>> argue as if from the abyss of the non-existent, he talks
>>> nonsense, by predicating good or evil, happiness or unhappiness,
>>> of that of which we can predicate nothing.
>>>
>>> When, therefore, we talk of "bringing a being," as we vaguely
>>> express it, "into the world," we cannot claim from that being any
>>> gratitude for our action, or drive a bargain with him, and a very
>>> shabby one, on that account; nor can our duties to him be evaded
>>> by any such quibble, in which the wish is so obviously father to
>>> the thought. Nor, in this connection, is it necessary to enter on
>>> the question of ante-natal existence, because, if such existence
>>> there be, we have no reason for assuming that it is less happy
>>> than the present existence; and thus equally the argument falls
>>> to the ground. It is absurd to compare a supposed preexistence,
>>> or non- existence, with actual individual life as known to us
>>> here. All reasoning based on such comparison must necessarily be
>>> false, and will lead to grotesque conclusions.
>>
>> Do you start your reasoning from first principles and work upwards
>> to conclusions and lifestyle choices that might come as a surprise
>> you or do you work backwards from the practical policy stances you
>> are most comfortable with and in the process discover what your
>> principles "must have been"?
>
>
> I think it's probably a combination, but that does not quite capture
> the essence of my argument here. In the current context you said
> about livestock, "it must surely better to live and die than not to".
> "Not to" implies the existence a state of *unborness*, that's where
> the fallacy lies. If such a state exists, then in order to call it
> inferior to "living and dying" we must know something about it, and I
> submit that we don't. If it doesn't exist then the statement cannot
> logically be made. As the author above says, we make such statements
> with "the terra firma of existence to argue from", and a very
> pleasant existence at that. I think that we *can* say something quite
> similar to your statement to summarize the morality of breeding
> livestock, and that is, *if* we breed animals to be food for us, and
> we ensure that their lives are happy and content, then no person can
> fairly accuse us of wrongdoing. Can you see what I am getting at? It
> is the "ensuring that their lives are happy and content" that
> contains the valid moral principle here.
>

From my own personal experience I know that it is possible to raise
animals for meat and they have a good life. I have seen it in action, I
have seen animals being cared for by my mother and by her father. I know
that farming is not by its fundamental nature cruel. It can become cruel
if the drive to keep down food prices is allowed to reduce the standards
of husbandry to unacceptible levels. It is the banks and supermarket
buyers that are determining how cruel farming is.

I see no reason to give up eating meat entirely for ever just because
some animals have been kept in poor conditions. I think drink driving is
a terrible thing but I don't see how going teetotal myself and whingeing
on about it to anybody who will listen (while making out that I'm not
trying to portray myself as morally superior) is the best way to prevent it.

If there is an issue with the welfare of farm animals there is an issue
with the welfare of farm animals and I say it should be addressed
directly and I will have no problem in paying more for food as a
consequence.


>> Do you regard lying to yourself as a form of sin?
>
>
> I would have to say most likely yes, because such dishonesty would
> inevitably lead to unjust behaviour towards others.
>
> I would also like to add that it has been a very, very long time
> since someone new of your caliber has come to these groups to address
> these issues, I hope you decide to stay a while and share your
> insights.
>
>
>

I like the cut of your jib.

(In case you're not familiar with that phrase I'm sure the origin is
nautical and has nothing to do with butchery.)

I think I have just worked out a new moral principle that is better than
the not eating anything smarter than a pig principle but also has the
same virtue of not making me change my ways and not painting me as a
hypocrite in the front of ravenous aliens: I'll not kill or contribute
to the death of any animal for food purposes /if that animal is clearly
capable of making a moral choice/, unless they have given me explicit
permission.

--
Martin Willett


http://mwillett.org

Martin Willett wrote:
> Dutch wrote:
>> "Martin Willett" > wrote
>>
>>> Dutch wrote:
>>>
>>>> "Martin Willett" > wrote
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>> But not much respect for the pig?
>>>>>
>>>>> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all. As
>>>>> long as most of their life is happy and content it must surely
>>>>> better to live and die than not to.
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I put
>>>>> it there, so don't bother pointing it out.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I really like your posts Martin, I agree with everything you have
>>>> said up to now, but that is a fallacy. You cannot compare living
>>>> and dying to *not* living, since never being born, never existing
>>>> is not a real state. This is called "The Logic of the Larder" and
>>>> there is one fruitcake here who has already replied to you who
>>>> makes it his life's work to promote this idea.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.pdf There, in
>>>> brief, is the key to the whole matter. The fallacy lies in the
>>>> confusion of thought which attempts to compare existence with
>>>> non-existence. A person who is already in existence may feel that
>>>> he would rather have lived than not, but he must first have the
>>>> terra firma of existence to argue from; the moment he begins to
>>>> argue as if from the abyss of the non-existent, he talks nonsense,
>>>> by predicating good or evil, happiness or unhappiness,
>>>> of that of which we can predicate nothing.
>>>>
>>>> When, therefore, we talk of "bringing a being," as we vaguely
>>>> express it, "into the world," we cannot claim from that being any
>>>> gratitude for our action, or drive a bargain with him, and a very
>>>> shabby one, on that account; nor can our duties to him be evaded
>>>> by any such quibble, in which the wish is so obviously father to
>>>> the thought. Nor, in this connection, is it necessary to enter on
>>>> the question of ante-natal existence, because, if such existence
>>>> there be, we have no reason for assuming that it is less happy
>>>> than the present existence; and thus equally the argument falls
>>>> to the ground. It is absurd to compare a supposed preexistence,
>>>> or non- existence, with actual individual life as known to us
>>>> here. All reasoning based on such comparison must necessarily be
>>>> false, and will lead to grotesque conclusions.
>>>
>>> Do you start your reasoning from first principles and work upwards
>>> to conclusions and lifestyle choices that might come as a surprise
>>> you or do you work backwards from the practical policy stances you
>>> are most comfortable with and in the process discover what your
>>> principles "must have been"?
>>
>>
>> I think it's probably a combination, but that does not quite capture
>> the essence of my argument here. In the current context you said
>> about livestock, "it must surely better to live and die than not to".
>> "Not to" implies the existence a state of *unborness*, that's where
>> the fallacy lies. If such a state exists, then in order to call it
>> inferior to "living and dying" we must know something about it, and I
>> submit that we don't. If it doesn't exist then the statement cannot
>> logically be made. As the author above says, we make such statements
>> with "the terra firma of existence to argue from", and a very
>> pleasant existence at that. I think that we *can* say something quite
>> similar to your statement to summarize the morality of breeding
>> livestock, and that is, *if* we breed animals to be food for us, and
>> we ensure that their lives are happy and content, then no person can
>> fairly accuse us of wrongdoing. Can you see what I am getting at? It
>> is the "ensuring that their lives are happy and content" that
>> contains the valid moral principle here.
>>
>
> From my own personal experience I know that it is possible to raise
> animals for meat and they have a good life. I have seen it in action, I
> have seen animals being cared for by my mother and by her father. I know
> that farming is not by its fundamental nature cruel. It can become cruel
> if the drive to keep down food prices is allowed to reduce the standards
> of husbandry to unacceptible levels. It is the banks and supermarket
> buyers that are determining how cruel farming is.
>
> I see no reason to give up eating meat entirely for ever just because
> some animals have been kept in poor conditions. I think drink driving is
> a terrible thing but I don't see how going teetotal myself and whingeing
> on about it to anybody who will listen (while making out that I'm not
> trying to portray myself as morally superior) is the best way to prevent
> it.
>
> If there is an issue with the welfare of farm animals there is an issue
> with the welfare of farm animals and I say it should be addressed
> directly and I will have no problem in paying more for food as a
> consequence.

Do you buy your food from the supermarket? Do you know or particularly
care where it comes from?


>
>
>>> Do you regard lying to yourself as a form of sin?
>>
>>
>> I would have to say most likely yes, because such dishonesty would
>> inevitably lead to unjust behaviour towards others.
>>
>> I would also like to add that it has been a very, very long time
>> since someone new of your caliber has come to these groups to address
>> these issues, I hope you decide to stay a while and share your
>> insights.
>>
>>
>>
>
> I like the cut of your jib.
>
> (In case you're not familiar with that phrase I'm sure the origin is
> nautical and has nothing to do with butchery.)
>
> I think I have just worked out a new moral principle that is better than
> the not eating anything smarter than a pig principle but also has the
> same virtue of not making me change my ways and not painting me as a
> hypocrite in the front of ravenous aliens: I'll not kill or contribute
> to the death of any animal for food purposes /if that animal is clearly
> capable of making a moral choice/, unless they have given me explicit
> permission.
>

What prompted this rethink?

Your lack of response in other threads in interesting. - Perhaps you're
more suited to 'debating' with a sycophant.

What difference does the ability to make a moral choice have on your
want to kill and eat a species?

Do you *know* that a pig can not differentiate between right and wrong?

Dutch wrote:
> "ant and dec" > wrote
>> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>>>>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat
>>>>> anything smarter than a pig,
>>>>
>>>> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why have you drawn
>>>> this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
>> I'd like you to answer this point.
>
> We all draw the line somewhere. Why do you believe that it is all right to
> destroy animal populations in order to grow vegetables, fruit, grain,
> cotton..?
>
> [..]
>
>>> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst death a pig could
>>> face, very few wild pigs die in hospices surrounded by their loving
>>> families with large quantities of euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
>> This line of thinking is very often pulled apart as being complete BS. by
>> both camps. I see some have already pointed this out.
>
> Why is it complete BS?

You've already stated why.

>When animals die in crop fields they are often
> cruelly dismembered or else are poisoned and die slowly of internal
> hemorrhaging. Why is that all right and a bolt through the brain is not?

Animals are dismembered, but there is no one deriving any pleasure
(being cruel) from it. One is easily avoided.

>
> [..]
>
>
>> I think you're blurring the realms of hypothesis and reality under the
>> pretense of a "joke".
>
> I think you are blurring human rights and our relationship with the rest of
> the animal kingdom under the pretense of "morality".

Yes we have a moral responsibility to the rest of the animal kingdom.

>
> [..]
>
>> You claim to observe this moral superiority, yet you can't give any
>> examples? I think it's a figment of your imagination.
>
> You are in denial. Every time a veg*n announces that they don't eat meat,
> wrinkle their nose sanctimoniously at a piece of meat,

"wrinkle their nose sanctimoniously"!

>agonize rudely about
> some microscopic bit of animal cells in some condiment,

"agonize rudely"!

>refer to statements
> like "Meat is Murder", or bring up issues like "slaughterhouses" or "factory
> farming" in discussion,

What's wrong with bring-up issues like "slaughterhouses" or "factory
farming" in a discussion?

>they are implicitly setting themselves up as moral
> paragons. In fact another way vegans describe themselves is "Ethical
> Vegetarians". If you are "ethical" then what am I?

We have different ethics. "If you are "ethical" then what am I?"

>
> [..]
>
>> If mankind
>>> was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and socially
>>> cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or not meat was
>>> a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was doesn't make
>>> an ought.
>> I agree meat was an important part of out human evolution. You and I are
>> fortunate to have a choice of what we eat. Perhaps more should think about
>> their choices, in particular what impact those choices have, rather than
>> blindly follow customs and practice.
>
> The practise of abstaining from all animal products in food is no less
> blindly following custom than any other choice. Perhaps vegetarians should
> spend more time look closely at the impact of their own food choices instead
> of just peering self-righteously at the choices others make.

"peering self-righteously"!

I was all inclusive in my statement, yet you have misread it; possibly
purposly to pull out a dietary sub-set of vegetarians.

>
>

This post typifies your modus operandi.

You seem to have labeled me as a ve*gan, and have then go on to
seemingly purposely misinterpret my posts adding inflammatory words of
no value except to demonstrate your dislike.

From what I've seen so far your posts rarely add value.

pearl wrote:
> "ant and dec" > wrote in message ...
>> Martin Willett wrote:
> <..>
>> If mankind
>>> was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and socially
>>> cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or not meat was
>>> a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was doesn't make
>>> an ought.
>> I agree meat was an important part of out human evolution.
>
> 'It has long been held that big game hunting is THE key development
> in human evolutionary history, facilitating the appearance of patterns
> in reproduction, social organization, and life history fundamental to
> the modern human condition. Though this view has been challenged
> strongly in recent years, it persists as the conventional wisdom, largely
> for lack of a plausible alternative. Recent research on women's time
> allocation and food sharing among tropical hunter-gatherers now
> provides the basis for such an alternative.
>
> The problem with big game hunting
>
> The appeal of big game hunting as an important evolutionary force
> lies in the common assumption that hunting and related paternal
> provisioning are essential to child rearing among human foragers:
> mother is seen as unable to bear, feed and raise children on her
> own; hence relies on husband/father for critical nutritional support,
> especially in the form of meat. This makes dating the first appearance
> of this pattern the fundamental problem in human origins research.
> The common association between stone tools and the bones of
> large animals at sites of Pleistocene age suggests to many that it
> may be quite old, possibly originating with Homo erectus nearly
> two million years ago (e.g. Gowlett 1993).
>
> Despite its widespread acceptance, there are good reasons to be
> skeptical about the underlying assumption. Most important is the
> observation that big game hunting is actually a poor way to support
> a family. Among the Tanzanian Hadza, for example, men armed
> with bows and poisoned arrows operating in a game-rich habitat
> acquire large animal prey only about once every thirty hunter-days,
> not nearly often enough to feed their children effectively. They
> could do better as provisioners by taking small game or plant foods,
> yet choose not to, which suggests that big game hunting serves some
> other purpose unrelated to offspring survivorship (Hawkes et al. 1991).
> Whatever it is, reliable support for children must come from elsewhere.
>
> The importance of women's foraging and food sharing
>
> Recent research on Hadza time allocation and foraging returns
> shows that at least among these low latitude foragers, women's
> gathering is the source (Hawkes et al. 1997). The most difficult time
> of the year for the Hadza is the dry season, when foods younger
> children can procure for themselves are unavailable. Mothers respond
> by provisioning youngsters with foods they themselves can procure
> daily and at relatively high rates, but that their children cannot, largely
> because of handling requirements. Tubers, which require substantial
> upper body strength and endurance to collect and the ability to
> control fire in processing, are a good example.
>
> Provisioning of this sort has at least two important implications:
> 1) it allows the Hadza to operate in times and places where they
> otherwise could not if, as among other primates, weaned offspring
> were responsible for feeding themselves; 2) it lets another adult
> assist in the process allowing mother to turn her attention to the
> next pregnancy that much sooner. Quantitative data on time
> allocation, foraging returns, and changes in children's nutritional
> status indicate that, among the Hadza, that other adult is typically
> grandmother. Senior Hadza women forage long hours every day,
> enjoy high returns for effort, and provision their grandchildren
> effectively, especially when their daughters are nursing new infants
> (Hawkes et al. 1989, 1997). Their support is crucial to both
> daughters' fecundity and grandchildren's survivorship, with
> important implications for grandmothers' own fitness.
> ...
> http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=htt.../oconnell.html
>
> 'Ethnographic parallels with modern hunter-gatherer communities have
> been taken to show that the colder the climate, the greater the reliance
> on meat. There are sound biological and economic reasons for this, not
> least in the ready availability of large amounts of fat in arctic mammals.
> From this, it has been deduced that the humans of the glacial periods
> were primarily hunters, while plant foods were more important during
> the interglacials. '
> http://www.phancocks.pwp.blueyonder..../devensian.htm
>
> 'Anthropologically speaking, humans were high consumers of calcium
> until the onset of the Agricultural Age, 10,000 years ago. Current
> calcium intake is one-quarter to one-third that of our evolutionary diet
> and, if we are genetically identical to the Late Paleolithic Homo sapiens,
> we may be consuming a calcium-deficient diet our bodies cannot adjust
> to by physiologic mechanisms.
>
> The anthropological approach says, with the exception of a few small
> changes related to genetic blood diseases, that humans are basically
> identical biologically and medically to the hunter-gatherers of the late
> Paleolithic Era.17 During this period, calcium content of the diet was
> much higher than it is currently. Depending on the ratio of animal to
> plant foods, calcium intake could have exceeded 2000 mg per day.17
> Calcium was largely derived from wild plants, which had a very high
> calcium content; animal protein played a small role, and the use of dairy
> products did not come into play until the Agricultural Age 10,000 years
> ago. Compared to the current intake of approximately 500 mg per day
> for women age 20 and over in the United States,18 hunter-gatherers had
> a significantly higher calcium intake and apparently much stronger bones.
> As late as 12,000 years ago, Stone Age hunters had an average of
> 17-percent more bone density (as measured by humeral cortical
> thickness). Bone density also appeared to be stable over time with
> an apparent absence of osteoporosis.17
>
> High levels of calcium excretion via renal losses are seen with both
> high salt and high protein diets, in each case at levels common in the
> United States.10,11
> ..
> The only hunter-gatherers that seemed to fall prey to bone loss
> were the aboriginal Inuit (Eskimos). Although their physical
> activity level was high, their osteoporosis incidence exceeded
> even present-day levels in the United States. The Inuit diet was
> high in phosphorus and protein and low in calcium.20
> ..'
> http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/full...alcium4-2.html
>
> "..... Man appears to be formed to nourish himself chiefly on roots,
> fruits and the succulent parts of vegetables. His hands make it easy
> for him to gather them; the shortness and moderate strength of his
> jaws, the equal length of his canine teeth with the others, and the
> tubular character of his molars, permit him neither to graze, nor to
> devour flesh, unless such food is first prepared by cooking."
> -- Cuvier, Regne Animal, Vol 1, p73
>
> After a careful and exhaustive study into comparative anatomy,
> European scientist, Dr. Richard Lehne came to the conclusion,
>
> "Quite apart from the physiological findings of nutritional science,
> which perpetually alter and are always in an unsettled form,
> comparative anatomy proves - and is supported by the millions-
> of-years-old documents of palaeozoology - that human teeth in
> their ideal form have a purely frugivorous character."
> ..'
> http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201...air/asthma.htm
>
>

Thanks for that. Very interesting; of particular personal interest was
the anthropological articles on calcium and osteoporosis.


:-)



The theory I was thinking of was the "brain food theory":


Brain food

Because meat is rich in calories and nutrients, easy-to-digest food,
early Homo lost the need for big intestines like apes and earlier
hominids had. This freed up energy for use by other organs. This surplus
of energy seems to have been diverted to one organ in particular - the
brain. But scavenging meat from under the noses of big cats is a risky
business, so good scavengers needed to be smart. At this stage in our
evolution, a big brain was associated with greater intellect. Big brains
require lots of energy to operate: the human brain uses 20% of the
body's total energy production. But the massive calorific hit provided
by meat kick-started an increase in the brain size of early humans.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_...thought1.shtml


Mind you, this was written by Robert Winston who's has sold himself to
the food industry.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/lords...560223,00.html
http://www.omega3.co.uk/omega3/pages/omega_3.php




>

"ant and dec" > wrote in message
...
> Martin Willett wrote:
>> Dutch wrote:
>>> "Martin Willett" > wrote
>>>
>>>> Dutch wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> "Martin Willett" > wrote
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>> But not much respect for the pig?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If we didn't eat the pigs they would never exist at all.
>>>>>> As
>>>>>> long as most of their life is happy and content it must
>>>>>> surely
>>>>>> better to live and die than not to.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Of course I know there's a qualifier in that statement. I
>>>>>> put
>>>>>> it there, so don't bother pointing it out.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I really like your posts Martin, I agree with everything
>>>>> you have
>>>>> said up to now, but that is a fallacy. You cannot compare
>>>>> living
>>>>> and dying to *not* living, since never being born, never
>>>>> existing
>>>>> is not a real state. This is called "The Logic of the
>>>>> Larder" and
>>>>> there is one fruitcake here who has already replied to you
>>>>> who
>>>>> makes it his life's work to promote this idea.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-c/salt02.pdf
>>>>> There, in
>>>>> brief, is the key to the whole matter. The fallacy lies in
>>>>> the
>>>>> confusion of thought which attempts to compare existence
>>>>> with
>>>>> non-existence. A person who is already in existence may
>>>>> feel that
>>>>> he would rather have lived than not, but he must first have
>>>>> the
>>>>> terra firma of existence to argue from; the moment he
>>>>> begins to
>>>>> argue as if from the abyss of the non-existent, he talks
>>>>> nonsense, by predicating good or evil, happiness or
>>>>> unhappiness,
>>>>> of that of which we can predicate nothing.
>>>>>
>>>>> When, therefore, we talk of "bringing a being," as we
>>>>> vaguely
>>>>> express it, "into the world," we cannot claim from that
>>>>> being any
>>>>> gratitude for our action, or drive a bargain with him, and
>>>>> a very
>>>>> shabby one, on that account; nor can our duties to him be
>>>>> evaded
>>>>> by any such quibble, in which the wish is so obviously
>>>>> father to
>>>>> the thought. Nor, in this connection, is it necessary to
>>>>> enter on
>>>>> the question of ante-natal existence, because, if such
>>>>> existence
>>>>> there be, we have no reason for assuming that it is less
>>>>> happy
>>>>> than the present existence; and thus equally the argument
>>>>> falls
>>>>> to the ground. It is absurd to compare a supposed
>>>>> preexistence,
>>>>> or non- existence, with actual individual life as known to
>>>>> us
>>>>> here. All reasoning based on such comparison must
>>>>> necessarily be
>>>>> false, and will lead to grotesque conclusions.
>>>>
>>>> Do you start your reasoning from first principles and work
>>>> upwards
>>>> to conclusions and lifestyle choices that might come as a
>>>> surprise
>>>> you or do you work backwards from the practical policy
>>>> stances you
>>>> are most comfortable with and in the process discover what
>>>> your
>>>> principles "must have been"?
>>>
>>>
>>> I think it's probably a combination, but that does not quite
>>> capture
>>> the essence of my argument here. In the current context you
>>> said
>>> about livestock, "it must surely better to live and die than
>>> not to".
>>> "Not to" implies the existence a state of *unborness*, that's
>>> where
>>> the fallacy lies. If such a state exists, then in order to
>>> call it
>>> inferior to "living and dying" we must know something about
>>> it, and I
>>> submit that we don't. If it doesn't exist then the statement
>>> cannot
>>> logically be made. As the author above says, we make such
>>> statements
>>> with "the terra firma of existence to argue from", and a very
>>> pleasant existence at that. I think that we *can* say
>>> something quite
>>> similar to your statement to summarize the morality of
>>> breeding
>>> livestock, and that is, *if* we breed animals to be food for
>>> us, and
>>> we ensure that their lives are happy and content, then no
>>> person can
>>> fairly accuse us of wrongdoing. Can you see what I am
>>> getting at? It
>>> is the "ensuring that their lives are happy and content" that
>>> contains the valid moral principle here.
>>>
>>
>> From my own personal experience I know that it is possible to
>> raise
>> animals for meat and they have a good life. I have seen it in
>> action, I have seen animals being cared for by my mother and
>> by her father. I know that farming is not by its fundamental
>> nature cruel. It can become cruel if the drive to keep down
>> food prices is allowed to reduce the standards of husbandry to
>> unacceptible levels. It is the banks and supermarket buyers
>> that are determining how cruel farming is.
>>
>> I see no reason to give up eating meat entirely for ever just
>> because some animals have been kept in poor conditions. I
>> think drink driving is a terrible thing but I don't see how
>> going teetotal myself and whingeing on about it to anybody who
>> will listen (while making out that I'm not trying to portray
>> myself as morally superior) is the best way to prevent it.
>>
>> If there is an issue with the welfare of farm animals there is
>> an issue with the welfare of farm animals and I say it should
>> be addressed directly and I will have no problem in paying
>> more for food as a consequence.
>
> Do you buy your food from the supermarket? Do you know or
> particularly care where it comes from?
> ==============================
Like you, I have no idea where the fruits and veggies I eat come
from specifically. I know that much of it is imported, very
little is actually local, and that it requires lots of processing
and transportation. Now, as to the beef I eat, I know exactly
where it comes from. Not more than a few miles away. Is
completely grass-fed, never goes to a feedlot or fed any grains,
never given any hormones, and is not given anti-biotics as a
standard practice. It goes to a local slaughter house, and then
to my freezer. The whole process occurs completely without
minutes of my house.



>
>>
>>
>>>> Do you regard lying to yourself as a form of sin?
>>>
>>>
>>> I would have to say most likely yes, because such dishonesty
>>> would inevitably lead to unjust behaviour towards others.
>>>
>>> I would also like to add that it has been a very, very long
>>> time
>>> since someone new of your caliber has come to these groups to
>>> address
>>> these issues, I hope you decide to stay a while and share
>>> your
>>> insights.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I like the cut of your jib.
>>
>> (In case you're not familiar with that phrase I'm sure the
>> origin is
>> nautical and has nothing to do with butchery.)
>>
>> I think I have just worked out a new moral principle that is
>> better than the not eating anything smarter than a pig
>> principle but also has the same virtue of not making me change
>> my ways and not painting me as a hypocrite in the front of
>> ravenous aliens: I'll not kill or contribute to the death of
>> any animal for food purposes /if that animal is clearly
>> capable of making a moral choice/, unless they have given me
>> explicit permission.
>>
>
> What prompted this rethink?
>
> Your lack of response in other threads in interesting. -
> Perhaps you're more suited to 'debating' with a sycophant.
>
> What difference does the ability to make a moral choice have on
> your want to kill and eat a species?
>
> Do you *know* that a pig can not differentiate between right
> and wrong?
========================
What a coincidence, neither can usenet vegans....
>

"ant and dec" > wrote in message
...
> Dutch wrote:
>> "ant and dec" > wrote
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>
>>>>>> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not
>>>>>> to eat anything smarter than a pig,
>>>>>
>>>>> How convenient for you, and inconvenient for the pig. Why
>>>>> have you drawn this seemingly arbitrary line at pigs?
>>> I'd like you to answer this point.
>>
>> We all draw the line somewhere. Why do you believe that it is
>> all right to destroy animal populations in order to grow
>> vegetables, fruit, grain, cotton..?
>>
>> [..]
>>
>>>> Death is unavoidable, humane slaughter is not the worst
>>>> death a pig could face, very few wild pigs die in hospices
>>>> surrounded by their loving families with large quantities of
>>>> euphoria-inducing pain-killers.
>>> This line of thinking is very often pulled apart as being
>>> complete BS. by both camps. I see some have already pointed
>>> this out.
>>
>> Why is it complete BS?
>
> You've already stated why.
>
>>When animals die in crop fields they are often cruelly
>>dismembered or else are poisoned and die slowly of internal
>>hemorrhaging. Why is that all right and a bolt through the
>>brain is not?
>
> Animals are dismembered, but there is no one deriving any
> pleasure (being cruel) from it. One is easily avoided.
=========================
Your pleasure means nothing, hypocrite. the animals are still
dead, and they are dead at your behest, killer. tell us how you
propse to do the avoidance progeam of yours, fool.


>
>>
>> [..]
>>
>>
>>> I think you're blurring the realms of hypothesis and reality
>>> under the pretense of a "joke".
>>
>> I think you are blurring human rights and our relationship
>> with the rest of the animal kingdom under the pretense of
>> "morality".
>
> Yes we have a moral responsibility to the rest of the animal
> kingdom.
>
>>
>> [..]
>>
>>> You claim to observe this moral superiority, yet you can't
>>> give any examples? I think it's a figment of your
>>> imagination.
>>
>> You are in denial. Every time a veg*n announces that they
>> don't eat meat, wrinkle their nose sanctimoniously at a piece
>> of meat,
>
> "wrinkle their nose sanctimoniously"!
=====================
Exactly. glad you agree, killer...

>
>>agonize rudely about some microscopic bit of animal cells in
>>some condiment,
>
> "agonize rudely"!
==================
Yes, completely, glad you agree, killer...


>
>>refer to statements like "Meat is Murder", or bring up issues
>>like "slaughterhouses" or "factory farming" in discussion,
>
> What's wrong with bring-up issues like "slaughterhouses" or
> "factory farming" in a discussion?
========================
Nothing, if you also bring up the massive death and suffering
from factory-famed crops, hypocrite. the problem is that it is
always glossed over by hypocrites like you. Also, usenet vegans
like to pretend that all meat comes from some imaginary process
of wanton abuse, cruelty and brutality. Your problem is that
you've watched and listened to too many propaganda spews.



>
>>they are implicitly setting themselves up as moral paragons. In
>>fact another way vegans describe themselves is "Ethical
>>Vegetarians". If you are "ethical" then what am I?
>
> We have different ethics. "If you are "ethical" then what am
> I?"
=====================
Hypocritical. You do nothing to follow your supposed ethics,
except the false and simple rule for your simple mind, 'eat no
meat.'

>
>>
>> [..]
>>
>>> If mankind
>>>> was herbivorous we'd never have become intelligent and
>>>> socially
>>>> cooperative, we'd just be living like gorillas. Like it or
>>>> not meat was
>>>> a vital part of what has made us human. But of course a was
>>>> doesn't make an ought.
>>> I agree meat was an important part of out human evolution.
>>> You and I are fortunate to have a choice of what we eat.
>>> Perhaps more should think about their choices, in particular
>>> what impact those choices have, rather than blindly follow
>>> customs and practice.
>>
>> The practise of abstaining from all animal products in food is
>> no less blindly following custom than any other choice.
>> Perhaps vegetarians should spend more time look closely at the
>> impact of their own food choices instead of just peering
>> self-righteously at the choices others make.
>
> "peering self-righteously"!
=====================
Exactly, glad you agree, killer...

>
> I was all inclusive in my statement, yet you have misread it;
> possibly purposly to pull out a dietary sub-set of vegetarians.
>
>>
>>
>
> This post typifies your modus operandi.
>
> You seem to have labeled me as a ve*gan, and have then go on to
> seemingly purposely misinterpret my posts adding inflammatory
> words of no value except to demonstrate your dislike.
>
> From what I've seen so far your posts rarely add value.
=============================
And your never do, fool...


>
>

"ant and dec" > wrote in message ...
> pearl wrote:
<..>
>
> Thanks for that. Very interesting; of particular personal interest was
> the anthropological articles on calcium and osteoporosis.

You're welcome.

> :-)
>
>
>
> The theory I was thinking of was the "brain food theory":
>
>
> Brain food
>
> Because meat is rich in calories and nutrients, easy-to-digest food,
> early Homo lost the need for big intestines like apes and earlier
> hominids had. This freed up energy for use by other organs. This surplus
> of energy seems to have been diverted to one organ in particular - the
> brain. But scavenging meat from under the noses of big cats is a risky
> business, so good scavengers needed to be smart. At this stage in our
> evolution, a big brain was associated with greater intellect. Big brains
> require lots of energy to operate: the human brain uses 20% of the
> body's total energy production. But the massive calorific hit provided
> by meat kick-started an increase in the brain size of early humans.
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_...thought1.shtml

If that were the case, carnivores should have massive brains!

> Mind you, this was written by Robert Winston who's has sold himself to
> the food industry.
>
> http://politics.guardian.co.uk/lords...560223,00.html
> http://www.omega3.co.uk/omega3/pages/omega_3.php



Proc Biol Sci. 1998 Oct 22;265(1409):1933-7.
Visual specialization and brain evolution in primates.
Barton RA.
Department of Anthropology, University of Durham, UK.

Several theories have been proposed to explain the evolution of
species differences in brain size, but no consensus has emerged.
One unresolved question is whether brain size differences are a
result of neural specializations or of biological constraints
affecting the whole brain. Here I show that, among primates,
brain size variation is associated with visual specialization.
Primates with large brains for their body size have relatively
expanded visual brain areas, including the primary visual cortex
and lateral geniculate nucleus. Within the visual system, it is, in
particular, one functionally specialized pathway upon which
selection has acted: evolutionary changes in the number of
neurons in parvocellular, but not magnocellular, layers of the
lateral geniculate nucleus are correlated with changes in both
brain size and ecological variables (diet and social group size).
Given the known functions of the parvocellular pathway, these
results suggest that the relatively large brains of frugivorous
species are products of selection on the ability to perceive
and select fruits using specific visual cues such as colour.
The separate correlation between group size and visual brain
evolution, on the other hand, may indicate the visual basis of
social information processing in the primate brain.

PMID: 9821360 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

Martin Willett wrote:
> Dave wrote:
> > Martin Willett wrote:
> >
> >>ant and dec wrote:
> >>
> >>>Martin Willett wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
> >>>>posted by the author
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption of
> >>>meat.
> >>>
> >>>A troll.
> >>
> >>How do you make that out? It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
> >>to the points I made.
> >>
> >>I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely one
> >>of them. What was incorrect?
> >>
> >>Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to be
> >>eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance? Do you think I *couldn't*
> >>find evidence of such an argument being deployed if I could be arsed to
> >>do so?
> >
> >
> > You probably could but "I don't eat meat in case it causes me to be
> > eaten
> > by an alien" is a misrepresentation of the argument.
>
> I would say it was an instructive re-interpretation of the argument that
> shows how truly fatuous the idea is. Veg*ns will often use the "how
> would you like it if somebody ate you?" line of reasoning (well, they
> think it's reasoning) without going on to flesh out the ramifications of
> the argument. It is an argument by ellipses. You float the idea half
> finished, let it trail in the air, and hope the other person will flesh
> it out in a way that convinces them that you had a point.
>
> Sorry about all the flesh in that paragraph, I can be such a meathead at
> times.
>
> So what does the argument actually mean? It is clearly not a recipe to
> avoid being eaten by aliens as I have shown.

Yes. You have shown that the argument is not a recipe for avoiding
something it was never intended to avoid in the first place. Well done.
:-)

> Any carnivore would prefer
> to eat a vegetarian rather than a carnivore if there was any preference
> at all, and if they were the sort of sickos that got off on the idea of
> eating sentient and intelligent beings they would probably prefer to eat
> the upstanding morally superior vegan rather than the hypocrite who eats
> bacon and tries not to think about pigs. I can conceive of no possible
> scenario in which the alien would eat carnivorous people and invite
> vegans around for an after dinner game of backgammon and a chat about
> the moral superiority of not exploiting animals.
>
> So if it is isn't about a defence mechanism against consumption by
> aliens what is it? An invitation to eat your way to moral superiority?
> "I can out-smug you, but you could join me on this high horse". Come on,
> come clean.
>
> First alien: This roast man is delicious. A vegan, I can tell. I love
> the stuffing.
>
> Second alien: Stuffing?
>
> First alien: Yes, the nut stuffing, really tangy. What did you use to
> stuff it? Nuts, mushrooms, onions a little garlic I think. I can see
> sweetcorn, what else?
>
> Second alien: I didn't have to stuff it. It wasn't empty.
>
>
> --
> Martin Willett
>
>
> http://mwillett.org

Martin Willett wrote:
> ant and dec wrote:
> > Martin Willett wrote:
> >
> >> ant and dec wrote:
> >>
> >>> Martin Willett wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
> >>>> posted by the author
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> A factually incorrect diatribe attempting to justify the consumption
> >>> of meat.
> >>>
> >>> A troll.
> >>
> >>
> >> How do you make that out?
> >
> >
> > It was wrong. It is a diatribe. Humour is often used as a mollifying
> > device for mental conflict, perhaps caused by your recognition of your
> > own hypocrisy.
> >
> >
>
> I don't have a problem with hypocrisy, I make a rule not to eat anything
> smarter than a pig, unless I really have to. Fortunately that rule
> doesn't restrict my diet very much. I have a lot of respect for the
> intelligence of pigs. Chimp chops? No thanks!
>
> > >>
> > It strikes me you simply haven't got an answer
> >
> >> to the points I made.
> >
> >
> > Does a diatribe have a point?
>
> Why restrict yourself to one?
>
> >
> >>
> >> I get accused of many things, writing stuff full of facts is rarely
> >> one of them. What was incorrect?
> >
> >
> > Salmon, as *one* example is a carnivorous species that we eat as a
> > common food.
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon
>
> How is this a contradiction?
>
> "The only carnivorous species that we eat on a regular basis are fish,
> animals that some people who call themselves vegetarians even try to
> redefine as some sort of vegetable. I've news for you veggies, haddock
> are animals that eat other animals, being cold bloodied, small-eyed and
> ugly doesn't change anything, fish are not vegetables. If you eat fish
> you cannot be a vegetarian."
>
> >
> >>
> >> Do veg*ns never use the hypocrisy of eating meat and not wanting to be
> >> eaten as a claim to a higher moral stance?
> >
> >
> > What higher moral stance? Different morals perhaps. Why do you feel they
> > claim a higher moral stance and why? Perhaps it's your perception of
> > your own morality.

If people decide to avoid animal source food products for perceived
ethical reasons as the vast majority of vegans do then it follows
they must consider this to be a higher moral stance.

> Oh come on. Veg*ns ooze their sense of moral superiority like Christians
> and Buddhists, they use it as part of their locomotion, like slugs. Of
> course they make a point of not *claiming* moral superiority while doing
> all they can to ensure that other people get the message loud and clear.
> Their entire bearing says "we're not claiming to be superior to you, oh
> no, that would be rude and arrogant and not *nice*, but you do know that
> you are inferior to us, don't you? You don't? Here, take a pamphlet,
> it's all in there."

Since you obviously have a problem with it perhaps you might like to
give
veg*ns some advice. Should they avoid acting in what they consider to
be the morally superior fashion in case it makes other people feel
uncomfortable? Show they avoid trying to educate people whom they
believe have similar moral values but eat animal products out of
ignorance?
How would you act if you agreed with their views about the raising or
killing of animals?

> >> Do you think I *couldn't* find evidence of such an argument being
> >> deployed if I could be arsed to do so?
> >
> >
> > It is used by some.
>
> Quite. If the cap fits, wear it.
>
> >
> >>
> >> Was I wrong in my analysis that more people eat "noble" salmon and
> >> deer than "nasty" hyaenas and tapeworms?
> >
> >
> > More people eat salmon than tapeworms, none are more "noble" or "nasty"
> > than each other.
>
> People do not eat nasty animals. At least they don't like to think that
> they do. Muslims for example are taught to vilify pigs as well as not to
> eat them. I am not suggesting that species are objectively noble or
> nasty, that isn't the point, but the perceptions vary. We don't eat rats
> and cockroaches but we do eat prawns, which in turn eat marine carrion
> and excrement, but we put that image from our minds, even to the point
> of calling the alimentary canal of a prawn "just a vein", when in fact
> it clearly is scum sucker shit.
>
> >
> >>
> >> In what way did I justify the consumption of meat? I didn't. I simply
> >> took apart one of the arguments sometimes used against meat eating and
> >> showed it to be rather farcical.
> >
> >
> > You've recognised your own hypocrisy, and have attempted to make joke
> > out of it.
>
> I endeavour to make a joke out of most things.
>
> Sometimes I even succeed.
>
> >
> >>
> >> I posted this here because I was looking to see if anybody could come
> >> up with any good case against me. Of course the original piece was
> >> designed to be humorous (do veg*ns do humour?) and was not intended to
> >> win any debate. I run a website that tackles dozens of issues, I don't
> >> have a single-issue agenda. I've been doing this kind of stuff for six
> >> years now and I've never been hounded out of any newsgroup and neither
> >> has any newsgroup ever disbanded because they've been blown away by
> >> the power of my analysis and rapier-like wit (with the possible
> >> exception of alt.religion.christian.amish, but I think they had a few
> >> philosophical difficulties before I showed up). I am here to stimulate
> >> a conversation, not a conversion. I haven't insulted you so I'd
> >> appreciate it if you didn't insult me. If you don't want to engage
> >> with me then fine, don't do it. But please don't do other people's
> >> thinking for them by hanging a ready-made hate label round my neck.
> >
> >
> > I don't hate you. From what I can see you seem a quite a nice guy!
>
> Thanks, but it does annoy me when people are so quick to hang the
> ready-made labels around people's necks. "He's just a troll." I am much
> more than that.
>
> >
> >
> >>
> >> I've just re-read your post. Is "A Troll" your usual signature? I
> >> apologize if I misinterpreted the nature of your post.
> >
> >
> > If you were looking for a good case against you, perhaps you should have
> > written something for that purpose.
> >
> > Your response has made me reconsider your troll status!
> >
>
> Good. My troll status is something I am very proud of. I am not your
> common or garden troll. http://www.mwillett.org/troll.htm
>
>
> --
> Martin Willett
>
>
> http://mwillett.org

pearl wrote:
> "ant and dec" > wrote in message ...
>> pearl wrote:
> <..>
>> Thanks for that. Very interesting; of particular personal interest was
>> the anthropological articles on calcium and osteoporosis.
>
> You're welcome.
>
>> :-)
>>
>>
>>
>> The theory I was thinking of was the "brain food theory":
>>
>>
>> Brain food
>>
>> Because meat is rich in calories and nutrients, easy-to-digest food,
>> early Homo lost the need for big intestines like apes and earlier
>> hominids had. This freed up energy for use by other organs. This surplus
>> of energy seems to have been diverted to one organ in particular - the
>> brain. But scavenging meat from under the noses of big cats is a risky
>> business, so good scavengers needed to be smart. At this stage in our
>> evolution, a big brain was associated with greater intellect. Big brains
>> require lots of energy to operate: the human brain uses 20% of the
>> body's total energy production. But the massive calorific hit provided
>> by meat kick-started an increase in the brain size of early humans.
>>
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_...thought1.shtml
>
> If that were the case, carnivores should have massive brains!
>
>> Mind you, this was written by Robert Winston who's has sold himself to
>> the food industry.
>>
>> http://politics.guardian.co.uk/lords...560223,00.html
>> http://www.omega3.co.uk/omega3/pages/omega_3.php
>
>
>
> Proc Biol Sci. 1998 Oct 22;265(1409):1933-7.
> Visual specialization and brain evolution in primates.
> Barton RA.
> Department of Anthropology, University of Durham, UK.
>
> Several theories have been proposed to explain the evolution of
> species differences in brain size, but no consensus has emerged.
> One unresolved question is whether brain size differences are a
> result of neural specializations or of biological constraints
> affecting the whole brain. Here I show that, among primates,
> brain size variation is associated with visual specialization.
> Primates with large brains for their body size have relatively
> expanded visual brain areas, including the primary visual cortex
> and lateral geniculate nucleus. Within the visual system, it is, in
> particular, one functionally specialized pathway upon which
> selection has acted: evolutionary changes in the number of
> neurons in parvocellular, but not magnocellular, layers of the
> lateral geniculate nucleus are correlated with changes in both
> brain size and ecological variables (diet and social group size).
> Given the known functions of the parvocellular pathway, these
> results suggest that the relatively large brains of frugivorous
> species are products of selection on the ability to perceive
> and select fruits using specific visual cues such as colour.
> The separate correlation between group size and visual brain
> evolution, on the other hand, may indicate the visual basis of
> social information processing in the primate brain.
>
> PMID: 9821360 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

Thanks again.

I have moved my position on whether meat had a major part to play in
human evolution. I will read more, but on balance there seems little
evidence to support that it did.


>
>