On Mar 15, 8:56*am, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 3/15/2012 12:32 AM, Rupert wrote:
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> > On Mar 15, 5:36 am, George > *wrote:
> >> On 3/14/2012 8:32 PM, Rupert wrote:
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> >>> On Mar 15, 4:06 am, George > * *wrote:
> >>>> On 3/14/2012 6:51 PM, Dutch wrote:
>
> >>>>>> > * *wrote
> >>>>>> On Mar 14, 10:04 pm, > * *wrote:
>
> >>>>>>> One compelling argument that you have definitely seen was given in great
> >>>>>>> detail in the vegan shuffle argument.
>
> >>>>>> Perhaps you can tell me which one you have in mind.
>
> >>>>> The "shuffle". The vegan's core belief is that by going vegan one is no
> >>>>> longer complicit in animal suffering. When the fallaciousness of that
> >>>>> belief is pointed out to them they start shuffling. This takes various
> >>>>> forms, such as a retreat to the "less suffering" position or a switch to
> >>>>> the "injustice" position.
>
> >>>> The shuffle shows that "vegans" are incoherent. *They don't have a valid
> >>>> reason for not consuming animal parts. *If it's because they think doing
> >>>> so violates animals' "rights", they lose: *their consumption causes the
> >>>> violation of animals' rights. *Point this out, and they switch to
> >>>> reducing suffering, but it's possible to follow a meat-including diet
> >>>> that causes less suffering than the diets most "vegans" follow. *Suggest
> >>>> that they consume meat that involves less suffering than what is caused
> >>>> by *their* "vegan" diets, and they flip-flop back to the rights argument.
>
> >>> I will gladly switch to consuming meat that involves less suffering
> >>> when I am convinced that there is a practical means of doing so.
>
> >> You aren't honestly open to being convinced of it. *You rule it out by
> >> axiomatically.
>
> > You have no rational grounds for thinking that.
>
> I do. *You've told us.
>
> >>> You have made some suggestions but what's holding me back is that I
> >>> am not convinced that they really would involve less suffering.
>
> >> And because of the way you play the game, you will never find out,
> >> because you won't even make an effort to determine how much suffering
> >> you cause. *You don't care. *You're happy and smugly satisfied that
> >> you're "better" than omnivores.
>
> > This is false. I have made an effort to determine how much suffering I
> > cause,
>
> No, you haven't. *You've categorically said the data aren't available.
>
> Stop lying.
>

The data aren't available, and I wouldn't know that unless I had made
some effort to find them, would I?

However there are some estimates that have been made of how much
suffering a vegan diet causes, and I engaged with you about one such
estimate in a recent thread.

Steven Davis writes

"In a study that has been done to examine the
effect of harvesting grain crops, Tew and Macdonald (1993) reported
that
mouse population density dropped from 25/ha preharvest to less than 5/
ha
postharvest. This decrease was attributed to both migration out of the
field
and to mortality. They estimated the mortality rate to be 52%. In
another
study, Nass et al. (1971) reported that the mortality rate of
Polynesian
rats was 77% during the harvest of sugar cane in Hawaii. These are the
estimated mortality rates for only a single species, and for only a
single
operation (i.e., harvesting). Therefore, an estimate somewhere between
52
and 77% (say 60%) for animals of all kinds killed during the
production
year would be reasonable. If we multiply the population density shown
in
Tew and Macdonald’s (1993) paper (25/ha) times a 60% mortality rate,
that equals a mortality of 15 animals/ha each year."

Does that strike you as a reasonable estimate? And do you also agree
that one hectare planted with soy and corn can produce 1000 kilograms
of protein, and that the mean annual dietary requirement for an adult
is 20 kilograms of protein?

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> >>>> Everything is wrong with what "vegans" claim for themselves *solely* by
> >>>> reason of not consuming animal parts. *They still violate animal rights
> >>>> in exactly the same way meat consumers do, and any given "vegan" does
> >>>> not cause less animal suffering than all meat consumers merely by reason
> >>>> of not consuming animal part - they aren't causing zero harm, they
> >>>> aren't minimizing, they aren't "doing the best they can", and they're
> >>>> not even doing better than all meat consumers.
>
> >>> There is no good reason for saying that not "doing the best they can"
> >>> given the limited information that is available.
>
> >> They aren't "doing" anything. *Their entire conclusion is based on what
> >> they're *not* doing: *consuming animal parts. *They assume that what
> >> they're not doing is all they need to know. *That has been proved not to
> >> be a sound basis for the conclusion.
>
> > Going vegan on the basis of information about what happens on modern
> > animal farms
>
> If you eat meat, you aren't required to eat meat from animal farms.
> That has *ZERO* bearing on the harm you *cause*, rather than the harm
> you don't cause by putting any particular type of meat in your mouth.
>

If you are avoiding causing a certain type of harm without replacing
it with a comparably bad harm then obviously you are achieving a
reduction in the amount of harm caused.

> You have no idea what amount of harm you cause - zero idea.
>

See above.

> >> *Some* improvement could be had for very little effort,
>
> > What's your evidence for that?
>
> **** you, cocksucker. *We've been through this. *Stop trying to waste my
> time, prick.
>

I take it you have no evidence, then.

> >> but they won't
> >> undertake *any* effort to learn how they might improve. *The decision
> >> not to consume animal parts is not the starting point in a quest to
> >> cause less harm - it's the ending point.
>
> >>> You also haven't
> >>> pointed out any specific example of a meat consumer who is doing
> >>> better than a vegan.
>
> >> Meat consumers don't make any of the fatuous claims of "vegans". *They
> >> don't accept the fake moral issues that "vegans" want to inject into diet.
>
> > You just *did* make a claim that some meat consumers are doing better
> > than vegans.
>
> *Individual* meat consumers, unlike *all* individual "vegans", make no
> claim about causing harm.
>

Yes, but I was engaging the claim that you made that some meat
consumers cause less harm than vegans.

> >>> For most meat consumers it is very unlikely that
> >>> they are doing better than a vegan.
>
> >> Why are you comparing yourself with meat consumers to show that you're
> >> virtuous?
>
> > I'm not.
>
> You are. *What you really wrote above, substituting where necessary, is
> "For most meat consumers it is very unlikely that they are doing better
> than a *me*." *You were making a statement about yourself.
>

It *entailed* a statement about myself, yes. But the reason I made the
statement is to engage with a claim that you made, not to try to prove
myself virtuous. You have no rational grounds for thinking that the
point of the statement was to try to prove myself virtuous, or that I
believe that simply showing that I am doing better than most meat
consumers is enough to show that I am virtuous.

> >> Don't you know that's invalid?
>
> >> 1. *Your diet causes the "rights" of animals to be violated.
>
> > That depends what rights they have.
>
> The *same* rights would be violated whether they are killed by combines
> or killed in slaughterhouses. ***** off, ****.
>

Other rights would be violated by factory-farming.

I've always agreed that those systems of animal agriculture which
cause no more harm than plant-based agriculture are just as morally
defensible, and you knew that.

> >> 2. *You almost certainly are not consuming the least-harm "vegan"
> >> * * * diet that you could, let alone the least-harm overall diet..
>
> > Yes, I have done everything I can to reduce the amount of harm caused
> > by my diet,
>
> You have done *NOTHING*. *You don't "do" anything. *You *don't* put
> animal parts in your mouth - that's all.
>

Take the step of becoming a vegan is doing something. You have given
no rational grounds for thinking that I am not doing everything I
reasonably can to reduce the amount of suffering and premature death
required to produce my food.

> >> What does the level of harm caused by "most meat consumers" have to do
> >> with what *you* are doing?
>
> >> Nothing, that's what.
>
> > You were the one who brought the subject up.
>
> *You* are doing nothing. *You obsess solely on what you're *not* doing:
> * consuming animal bits. *That's *meaningless* in terms of quantifying
> the harm you cause. *You don't want to quantify it - you don't care.
>

I'm not doing nothing. I acquired some information about what happens
on modern animal farms and responded by going vegan. I also made some
effort to find out about the harm caused by plant-food production,
which I discussed with you above.

> >>> You've given absolutely no good reason at all for thinking that vegans
> >>> are not genuinely concerned about animal suffering.
>
> >> I most certainly have. *I have shown beyond all dispute that their
> >> decision not to consume animal parts absolutely does *NOT* lead to the
> >> conclusion they wish to believe,
>
> > What conclusion?
>
> The conclusion that they're not violating animal rights, and that
> they're "minimizing"/"doing the best they can"/"doing better than
> omnivores". *That conclusion, you ****.
>

You haven't shown that it doesn't mean they're doing the best they
can.

> >> yet they do nothing more than that. *It
> >> *can't* be about animal suffering, because they don't do anything after
> >> their assumption has been falsified, which of course it has.
>
> > You're a fool.
>
> I've killed you.

Veganism is *obviously* in most cases an effort to do something about
animal suffering. Any fool should be able to see this.