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George Plimpton George Plimpton is offline
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Default Dietary ethics

On 8/1/2012 2:06 AM, Rupert wrote:
> On 31 Jul., 20:42, Dutch > wrote:
>> Rupert wrote:
>>> So what's your explanation for why he claims he doesn't think it?

>>
>> When it's laid out for him in simple terms he realizes how idiotic it
>> sounds so he can't say he believes it.
>>
>> But then he proceeds to attack vegans, "eliminationists", for their
>> failure to provide the opportunity for animals to experience "decent AW".
>>
>> He's not bright enough to realize that by doing so he is admitting that
>> he implicitly believes that non-existent animals can "lose" something.

>
> It's one thing to claim he's being inconsistent; that's different from
> claiming that he's lying about what he thinks.


Let's look at two of his lies about what he thinks and believes. The
first is his claim that he doesn't believe that unborn farm animals,
which he expects and wants to be born, will suffer a "loss" if something
prevents their conception and birth. When it became apparent to me, in
the summer of 1999, that ****wit believes there *would* be some kind of
moral loss if the farm animals he wants to exist were prevented from
being conceived and born, I began asking him to describe the loss, and
to identify who or what would experience it. I was after him for over
nine months to answer the question of who or what experiences the loss.
I asked him literally dozens of times, even offering possible answers
to him, one of which was the unborn animals. Finally, in August 2000,
some nine months later, he provided his classic example of ****wittery:

Yes, it is the unborn animals that will be
born if nothing prevents that from happening,
that would experience the loss if their lives
are prevented.
****wit - 08/01/2000

When I pointed out the belief is absurd, and he began to be mocked for
it, he immediately began furiously backpedaling from it. But why
wouldn't you think his answer would be honest, when he had had months to
conceive of the answer? And what about all his other statements that
support the conclusion that he *does* believe unborn animals *do* exist,
or "pre-exist", in some sense? For example:

What gives you the right to want to deprive
them [unborn animals] of having what life they
could have?
****wit - 10/12/2001

What I'm saying is unfair for the animals that
*could* get to live, is for people not to
consider the fact that they are only keeping
these animals from being killed, by keeping
them from getting to live at all.
****wit - 10/19/1999

If you keep an animal from being born which
would have been born without your interference,
you have denied life to it, whether it actually
exists or not.
****wit - 28 Sept 1999 http://tinyurl.com/2x3ogu

If it is wrong to cut their lives short, it is
even more wrong to discourage them from ever
getting to experience life at all IMO.
****wit - 9 Nov 1999 http://tinyurl.com/38bd9v

It is obvious, even to a dull mentally ill plodder like you, that
****wit assigns some kind of moral weight to the interests of animals
that haven't been conceived. How *else* could he do so if he doesn't
think they exist in some weird sense? How *else* could he say that
something could be "denied" or "unfair" to unconceived animals? It is
obvious, from the totality of the things he has written, that ****wit
thinks unconceived farm animals exist "in some sense", which is the only
way he can assign any moral weight to their "getting to experience life"
before they are actually alive. Of course, it's always possible that he
isn't assigning any moral weight to it at all, and is instead throwing
that bullshit out there as a smokescreen for *his* interest in seeing
the animals exist so that he may eat them, but that only means we've
caught him in a different lie.

So, that takes care of lie #1: if we are to take him at his word that
it really is the interests of unconceived farm animals he is trying to
protect, then he *necessarily* believes they will experience some "loss"
if something prevents them from being conceived and born and "getting to
experience life, and he is lying when he says he doesn't believe it. He
only says he doesn't believe it because the expression of the belief
sounds absurd on its face, and he can't defend it.

Now, for lie #2, specifically his statement that he considers the
unconceived farm animals to be "nothing". We can see that that's a lie
first by the totality of all the other things he's written about
unconceived farm animals being "denied" and "deprived" of life and
experiencing "unfairness". All of those statements demonstrate that he
considers "them" to be "something", specifically "something" that can
experience denial, deprivation, unfairness - and loss. This is obvious
and beyond dispute.

The second way we see that he is lying about the unconceived animals
being "nothing" is that it was said in a blatantly obvious effort to
distance himself from the most absurd comment he had made, the one for
which he was being mocked and ridiculed - the one which is entirely
consistent with all the *other* things he said that prove he thinks the
unconceived animals are "something".

Finally, the third way we know he's lying about it is that he
*explicitly* said they are "more than just 'nothing'" in an earlier
unguarded moment in which he wasn't on the hot seat to try to defend, or
run away from, an idiotic statement of belief:

The animals that will be raised for us to eat
are more than just "nothing", because they
*will* be born unless something stops their
lives from happening. Since that is the case,
if something stops their lives from happening,
whatever it is that stops it is truly "denying"
them of the life they otherwise would have had.
****wit - 12/09/1999

****wit has simply made too many statements, both direct and indirect,
that demonstrate his belief that unconceived farm animals are morally
considerable "somethings", for you reasonably to think he doesn't
believe it. You *know* he believes it. The only reason you wish to
pretend you don't know it is your own wholly irrational hatred of me,
such that if I say something that is obviously and demonstrably true,
you irrationally react as if you think it isn't true. That, Woopert, is
evidence of your psychosis.