About Us

pearl wrote:
> "Leif Erikson" > wrote in message k.net...
>> ant and dec wrote:
>>
>>> S. Maizlich wrote:
>>>
>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> pearl wrote:
> <..>
>>>>>> 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.
>
> My pleasure. Thanks for bringing it up. The "Christmas
> Lecture" on Ch5 is frankly driving me up the wall. grrr.
>
>>>>> 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.
>
> Apart from helping humans survive times of scarcity, ..no.
>
snip

I've been looking for more evidence of brain development and came across
this article "Evolution of the brainstem orofacial motor system in
primates: a comparative study of trigeminal, facial, and hypoglossal
nuclei" from the Journal of Human Evolution.

It's currently free on the following link.

It looks at brain stem development in terms of volume and grey level
index etc, and comparing these to the function of oral-facial muscles.

As a lay person it would seem to support the theory that brain
development in hominids is related to visual development, in this case
visual communication.

http://tinyurl.com/ckxq9

Conclusions

The results of this study reveal a mosaic of conservative and derived
traits in the orofacial motor nuclei of primates. In general, the volume
and neuropil space in these nuclei were closely correlated with overall
size variables, a finding that emphasizes the important role of
developmental constraint in determination of the volume and
cytoarchitecture of these brainstem nuclei. We tested several hypotheses
relating the structure of the orofacial motor nuclei to functional and
phylogenetic specializations. For the most part, however, variation in
these motor nuclei was not clearly associated with such adaptations.
After controlling for phylogenetic bias, there was no apparent
relationship between the neuroanatomic organization of these nuclei with
socioecological variables, such as social group size or the percentage
of leaves in the diet. In addition, despite phylogenetic variation in
the masticatory system as evident by mandibular symphysis fusion in
anthropoids, the scaling of Vmo did not differ between primate
suborders. Our analyses also did not find evidence to support the
hypothesis that the human hypoglossal motor system is uniquely
reorganized to facilitate articulate speech. In fact, orang-utans
displayed relatively larger hypoglossal nucleus volumes than humans.
Nonetheless, we found several instances where taxa exhibited significant
departures from conservative allometric scaling patterns. A grade shift
was observed in the scaling of XII volume such that the strepsirrhine
regression line had a higher elevation than the haplorhine line. In
addition, VII volume scaled with a steeper slope in haplorhines compared
to strepsirrhines, perhaps reflecting a difference between these
phylogenetic groups in the developmental mechanisms that regulate VII
motoneuron proliferation and subsequent elimination. Hominids,
furthermore, were found to have significantly larger VII volumes than
predicted for nonhominid haplorhines of their medulla volume. Taken
together, these phylogenetic specializations of VII may be related to
variation in facial muscle differentiation and increased descending
inputs from neocortical areas. These modifications may constitute a
neuroanatomic substrate for the evolution of fine motor control to the
facial muscles of expression in these taxa in association with increased
emphasis on gestural modes of communication utilizing the visual channel.

"Leif Erikson" > lied in message oups.com...
> the unethical foot-rubbing whore Lesley of Cork, Ireland lied:
>
> > "Leif Erikson" >
> >
> > Faking quotes,

Faking quotes, forged posts, lies, filth, harassment.
http://www.iol.ie/~creature/boiled%20ball.html

Profile of a Sociopath
http://home.datawest.net/esn-recovery/artcls/socio.htm

> Faking nothing, you goddamned lying whore. You are a chronic liar.

'Avoiding acceptance of responsibility - denial, counterattack and
feigning victimhood

The serial bully is an adult on the outside but a child on the inside;
he or she is like a child who has never grown up. One suspects
that the bully is emotionally retarded and has a level of emotional
development equivalent to a five-year-old, or less. The bully wants
to enjoy the benefits of living in the adult world, but is unable and
unwilling to accept the responsibilities that go with enjoying the
benefits of the adult world. In short, the bully has never learnt to
accept responsibility for their behaviour.

When called to account for the way they have chosen to behave,
the bully instinctively exhibits this recognisable behavioural response:

a) Denial: the bully denies everything. Variations include Trivialization
...
b) Retaliation: the bully counterattacks. The bully quickly and seamlessly
follows the denial with an aggressive counter-attack of counter-criticism
or counter-allegation, often based on distortion or fabrication. Lying,
deception, duplicity, hypocrisy and blame are the hallmarks of this stage.
...
Both a) and b) are delivered with aggression in the guise of assertiveness;
in fact there is no assertiveness (which is about recognising and respecting
the rights of oneself and others) at all. ...
....'
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/serial.htm#Denial

"ant and dec" > wrote in message ...
> pearl wrote:
<..>
> >>>>>> 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
<..>
>
> I've been looking for more evidence of brain development and came across
> this article "Evolution of the brainstem orofacial motor system in
> primates: a comparative study of trigeminal, facial, and hypoglossal
> nuclei" from the Journal of Human Evolution.
>
> It's currently free on the following link.
>
> It looks at brain stem development in terms of volume and grey level
> index etc, and comparing these to the function of oral-facial muscles.
>
> As a lay person it would seem to support the theory that brain
> development in hominids is related to visual development, in this case
> visual communication.
>
> http://tinyurl.com/ckxq9

Yes. Very interesting. Thank you.

> Conclusions
>
> The results of this study reveal a mosaic of conservative and derived
> traits in the orofacial motor nuclei of primates. In general, the volume
> and neuropil space in these nuclei were closely correlated with overall
> size variables, a finding that emphasizes the important role of
> developmental constraint in determination of the volume and
> cytoarchitecture of these brainstem nuclei. We tested several hypotheses
> relating the structure of the orofacial motor nuclei to functional and
> phylogenetic specializations. For the most part, however, variation in
> these motor nuclei was not clearly associated with such adaptations.
> After controlling for phylogenetic bias, there was no apparent
> relationship between the neuroanatomic organization of these nuclei with
> socioecological variables, such as social group size or the percentage
> of leaves in the diet. In addition, despite phylogenetic variation in
> the masticatory system as evident by mandibular symphysis fusion in
> anthropoids, the scaling of Vmo did not differ between primate
> suborders. Our analyses also did not find evidence to support the
> hypothesis that the human hypoglossal motor system is uniquely
> reorganized to facilitate articulate speech. In fact, orang-utans
> displayed relatively larger hypoglossal nucleus volumes than humans.
> Nonetheless, we found several instances where taxa exhibited significant
> departures from conservative allometric scaling patterns. A grade shift
> was observed in the scaling of XII volume such that the strepsirrhine
> regression line had a higher elevation than the haplorhine line. In
> addition, VII volume scaled with a steeper slope in haplorhines compared
> to strepsirrhines, perhaps reflecting a difference between these
> phylogenetic groups in the developmental mechanisms that regulate VII
> motoneuron proliferation and subsequent elimination. Hominids,
> furthermore, were found to have significantly larger VII volumes than
> predicted for nonhominid haplorhines of their medulla volume. Taken
> together, these phylogenetic specializations of VII may be related to
> variation in facial muscle differentiation and increased descending
> inputs from neocortical areas. These modifications may constitute a
> neuroanatomic substrate for the evolution of fine motor control to the
> facial muscles of expression in these taxa in association with increased
> emphasis on gestural modes of communication utilizing the visual channel.
>

the unethical foot-rubbing whore Lesley of Cork,
Ireland lied:

> "Leif Erikson" > lied in message oups.com...
>
>>the unethical foot-rubbing whore Lesley of Cork, Ireland lied:
>>
>>
>>>"Leif Erikson" >
>>>
>>>Faking quotes,
>
>
> Faking quotes,

Faking nothing, you goddamned lying whore. You are a
chronic liar.

> 'Avoiding acceptance of responsibility

What you fail to accept is that we KNOW you are not an
expert in any of the fields in which you pretend to
have expertise. You are an ideologue, not a scientist.
For some reason, you have bought into a food
ideology, and you mistakenly believe that your ardent
"true believer" status translates to expertise. It
doesn't.

"Leif Erikson"

Faking quotes, forged posts, lies, filth, harassment.
http://www.iol.ie/~creature/boiled%20ball.html

Profile of a Sociopath
...
when faced with accountability or unwelcome attention
which might lead to others discerning the sociopath's
true nature, responds with repeated and escalating
attempts to control, manipulate and punish
...'
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully....htm#Sociopath

'- may pursue a vindictive vendetta against anyone who dares
to held them accountable, perhaps using others' resources
and contemptuous of the damage caused to other people
and organisations in pursuance of the vendetta
- is also quick to belittle, undermine, denigrate and discredit
anyone who calls, attempts to call, or might call the bully to
account
- gains gratification from denying people what they are entitled to
.......'
http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/serial.htm

http://www.reflexology-research.com/updatedresearch.htm.

I've better things to do than parley with you, sick ball.

lesley the foot-rubbing whore of Cork, Ireland lied:

> "Leif Erikson"
>
> Faking quotes,

Faking nothing, you filthy lying skanky whore.

On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 03:48:58 -0000, Jeff Caird > wrote:

>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

I'm not familiar with that at all. Not even with the concept.
It would probably be a better use of time to spend less of
it arguing with people in these ngs and reading something
else instead. What little reading I've done lately has been
Niven, since he's my favorite sci fi author. I'm reading
Ringworld's Children now, about 10 pages per month. That
would make a hell of a movie! I think the Integral Trees could
be awesome too.

On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 20:19:11 GMT, "S. Maizlich" > wrote:

>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.

You're referring to an "ARA's" fantasy about what
HE/YOU/"ARAs" feel a pig would say if it could, and
if it knew it was raised by humans, and that humans
would kill it, and butcher it, and eat it, and it even knew
about ham and sausages Goo. It's amusing that anyone
could truly consider that anthropomorphic "AR" talking
pig fantasy, to somehow refute the fact that some farm
animals benefit from farming. Let's examine what must
be the part that YOU/"ARAs" think refutes the facts:

"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."

In order for your fantasy to be any more than pathetic
dishonesty, pigs would HAVE to know all that Goo.
And in addition to that, the same thing could be said
in regards to "ARAs" and their objective when the pig
instead says:

'it is not for their sake but for thine, that you would
rather prevent their lives than see them deliberately
provided with decent lives and humane deaths.'

>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,

That's all YOU/"ARAs" can imagine it to mean Goo,
because you can't understand how farm animals could
possibly have lives of positive value. Some are and some
are not, but they are all the same to YOU/"ARAs".

>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.

This is you explaining how you want everyone to feel about it:
__________________________________________________ _______
From: Jonathan Ball >
Message-ID: .net>

the "getting to experience
life" deserves NO moral consideration, and is given
none; the deliberate killing of animals for use by
humans DOES deserve moral consideration, and gets it.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
__________________________________________________ _______
From: Rudy Canoza >
Message-ID: et>

"giving them life" does NOT mitigate the wrongness of
their deaths
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
__________________________________________________ _______
From: "Rudy Canoza" >
Message-ID: . com>

Fact: IF it is wrong to kill animals deliberately for food, then
having deliberately caused them to live in the first place does not
mitigate the wrong in any way.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
__________________________________________________ _______
From: Rudy Canoza >
Message-ID: et>

You consider that it "got to experience life" to be
some kind of mitigation of the evil of killing it.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
__________________________________________________ _______
From: "Rudy Canoza" >
Message-ID: .com>

people who consume animals justify the harm they inflict
on the animals by believing that "giving" life to the animals
somehow mitigates the harm.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
__________________________________________________ _______
From: "Rudy Canoza" >
Message-ID: .com>

Humans could change it. They could change it by ending it.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
__________________________________________________ _______
From: Rudy Canoza >
Message-ID: . net>

There is no "selfishness" involved in wanting farm
animals not to exist as a step towards creating a more
just world.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 00:38:14 +0000, Martin Willett > wrote:

>dh@. wrote:
>> 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.
>>
>
>Unless we really need to.

Or change the rules of morality.

>>>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.
>
>Cows can't digest cellulose either.

Yeah all right, and neither can termites...but they can still live off it. And I
still don't know about pigs.

>That seems to be rather good proof
>that if there is a god he's probably not the smartest god he could
>possibly be.

How do you think it could have been done smarter? Don't forget
it is as it is whether God had anything to do with it or not, so you
will have to explain how a God could have made things turn out your
smarter way instead of the way they did.

On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 20:16:35 GMT, "Dutch" > wrote:

>
><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.

Bullshit.

>I don't dispute that *using animal
>products* is "ethically equivalent or superior to the elimination of
>domestic animals" to use your awkward wording.

Try to do better.

>My argument is simply
>examining the logic of the premise "If we didn't eat the pigs they would
>never exist at all..."

LOL! In what magical way do you think they might exist if we didn't
raise them for food? And don't tell me some stupid crap about wild pigs.
You might just as well mention that ANY other animal might exist, because
NO other animal has anything to do with the fact that if we didn't raise the
animals we raise to eat they would never exist...not wild pigs, not wild goats,
and not even your wild mice, frogs and groundhogs.

In an earlier post, didn't you give us permission to consider the lives of
animals when they are terrible, but not those that have positive value to
the animals? Since you refuse to make a list, a person is forced to guess
what you allow and what you don't. So far my guess is that you would
allow us to consider the lives of wild animals, and the lives of livestock
only if they are terrible. If there are other things you would allow or forbid,
let's you set it straight right now or I'll know my guess was correct.

On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 20:21:32 GMT, Leif Erikson > wrote:

>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.

Explain how lives of positive value are not as good as or better than
nothing.

****wit David Harrison lied:
> On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 20:21:32 GMT, Leif Erikson > wrote:
>
> >****wit David Harrison lied:
> >
> >> 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.
>
> Explain how lives of positive value are not as good as or better than
> nothing.

No, ****wit - YOU must demonstrate that getting to live is better than
not getting to live. "Positive values" has nothing to do with it.

Get busy, you chickenshit cocksucking punk.

****wit David Harrison lied:

> On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 20:34:15 GMT, "S. Maizlich" > wrote:
>
> >Martin Willett wrote:
> >
> >> S. Maizlich 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
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >> <snips>
> >>
> >>>>
> >>>> 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.
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks. I can digest that steak pie in peace now.
> >>
> >> It doesn't matter if the animal lives or doesn't,
> >
> >Right.
>
> It matters to YOU/"ARAs" quite a lot

No.

I'm not an "ara". But you already knew that.

> >But it's especially important to understand
> >that rationalizing one's meat consumption on the basis
> >that "at least" the animal got to live is a nasty
> >sophistry.
>
> No, it's a fact

It's a fact that it's a nasty sophistry, and that's all it is.

> >Not only that, it's needless: no such
> >rationalization is necessary. To me, the biggest
> >problem with such rationalization and sophistry is it's
> >attempting to play the "vegans'" game on their terms,
> >and as their entire ethical motivation for playing the
> >game in the first place is morally disgusting, it puts
> >one in an ethical swamp where one needn't have gone in
> >the first place.
>
> No

Yes. That's EXACTLY what it is, ****wit. There are two things wrong
with it. First, the game is wrong in the first place. Secondly, you
are INCOMPETENT to do it.

> >The Logic of the Larder when advanced
> >by meat eaters as a rationale for their meat eating
> >always has an unserious quality to it; as if those who
> >advance it really are just trying to pull a rhetorical
> >trick, a fast one, on their "vegan" opponents.
>
> LOL! this is classic. Now you're saying that
> pointing out the lives of billions of animals is trying to pull
> a trick on vegans.

That *is* all it is, ****wit.

> >> and if it lives it
> >> will die no matter whether it was caused to live or just happened to
> >> live. What matters is whether it lives or dies in avoidable suffering.
> >> As long as human animal husbandry does not impose more stress or
> >> suffering on an animal than it would be expected to experience in a life
> >> unaffected by humanity then we have done nothing to be ashamed of.
> >
> >I'm not even sure this last is a requirement, simply
> >because the animals we raise domestically for our
> >consumption never *would* exist unaffected by humanity.
> > All that's needed is good-faith effort to keep the
> >amount of suffering low, and always to be seeking ways
> >to reduce it further.
> >
> >
> >> I am quite confident that good animal husbandry can and often does
> >> meet that test.
> >
> >Of course it does.
>
> But you insist we're not allowed to think about that

No, I don't. Stop lying, ****wit, you gutless chickenshit punk.

****wit David Harrison lied:

> On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 20:19:11 GMT, "S. Maizlich" > wrote:
>
>
> >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.
>
> You're referring to

I'm referring to Henry Salt's concise, persuasive essay called The
Logic of the Larder, it which he eloquently demolishes the idea that
causing animals to live can be a rationale for killing and eating them.

> >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,
>
> That's all YOU/"ARAs"

I'm not an "ara".

> >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.

lesley the foot-rubbing whore of Cork, Ireland lied:

> "S. Maizlich" >
>
> Faking quotes,

Faking nothing, you ****ing whore. You're a whore - a lying, diseased
whore.

On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 20:01:59 +0000, Martin Willett > wrote:

>S. Maizlich 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
>>>>>>>>>
><snips>
>>>
>>> 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.
>
>Thanks. I can digest that steak pie in peace now.
>
>It doesn't matter if the animal lives or doesn't,

It matters if they do live, but not if they don't. So far no "ARAs"
have been able to give a good reason why we should not give
the animals' lives as much or more consideration than their deaths.
There is the obvious reason that "ARAs" don't want the animals
to exist--which is their whole objective--but it's a rare thing to see
an "ARA" give even that much of a reason. They just insist that
we don't, and maybe wag their Logic of the Imaginary Talking
"AR" Pig fantasy around a bit. Well...they don't often quote the
stupid thing for fear someone might laugh at it, but they refer to
it as if it were more than just a fantasy about a talking pig. It's
pretty much the same as it would be if they referred to Charlotte's
Web, or Chicken Run.

>and if it lives it
>will die no matter whether it was caused to live or just happened to
>live.

They don't get shorter lives because we raise them for food,
as veg*ns like people to feel that they do. It's another dishonest
impression they would like to create in people that animals somehow
have less life because we raise them to eat, when the truth is that
it's the "ARAs" who want to prevent them from having any.

>What matters is whether it lives or dies in avoidable suffering.
>As long as human animal husbandry does not impose more stress or
>suffering on an animal than it would be expected to experience in a life
>unaffected by humanity then we have done nothing to be ashamed of. I am
>quite confident that good animal husbandry can and often does meet that
>test.

So far none of them have given me any reason to feel any
differently about livestock than about any other animals. The
quality of their life determines whether it has positive or
negative value for the individual, and that can and often does
change throughout their lives.

"AR" appears to be very largely based on restricting what
people would allow us to believe, as far as I can tell. Consideration
for the lives of the animals is where they place some huge restriction
as I'm sure you've noticed...or at least you should have noticed. It's
one of the things they haven't made completely clear yet, and
maybe never will. They would allow us to consider the lives of
potential future wildlife, but not those of existing livestock, for
example. And why only wildlife, but not livestock? Why do they
insist we consider the animals' deaths, but also insist we do not
consider their lives as well? And above all that, why would anyone
restrict himself in the way these people insist that we must?

****wit David Harrison lied:
> On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 20:01:59 +0000, Martin Willett > wrote:
>
> >S. Maizlich 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
> >>>>>>>>>
> ><snips>
> >>>
> >>> 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.
> >
> >Thanks. I can digest that steak pie in peace now.
> >
> >It doesn't matter if the animal lives or doesn't,
>
> It matters if they do live,

No. Ethically, it doesn't matter in the least if an animal "gets to
experience life". The animal isn't better off for the experience, and
ethically, neither are we. *Materially*, humans can be better off, but
not ethically.

> >and if it lives it
> >will die no matter whether it was caused to live or just happened to
> >live.
>
> They don't get shorter lives because we raise them for food

They get shorter lives than they would get if they were bred into
existence and then allowed to live out their natural lifespan.

"Getting to live" in the first place is not of any value to animals.

> >What matters is whether it lives or dies in avoidable suffering.
> >As long as human animal husbandry does not impose more stress or
> >suffering on an animal than it would be expected to experience in a life
> >unaffected by humanity then we have done nothing to be ashamed of. I am
> >quite confident that good animal husbandry can and often does meet that
> >test.
>
> So far none of them have given me any reason to feel any
> differently about livestock than about any other animals.

WHY are you so obsessed with livestock existing, ****wit? I mean,
apart from your greedy with to eat them?

ant and dec wrote:

a post unworthy of a response.

--
Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org

Leif Erikson wrote:

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

>>>>
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>
>> I see. Which part of the argument?
>
>
> The part that says it is "better" for the pigs or other domestic animals
> to "get to experience life" rather than never doing so. That part. It
> has been thoroughly discredited.
>

I am always wary of arguments that have apparently been thoroughly
discredited, to the point that people will not even bother to explain
how they were discredited and why that argument was accepted and why
"everybody" now accepts the argument is over.

>>
>>
>>
>> This evening I'll be blurring the realms of reality with absinthe. But
>> jokes are good too.
>
>
> I tried that stuff once. There wasn't enough left in my friend's bottle
> to get to any realm-blurring.
>

>>>
>>> You claim to observe this moral superiority, yet you can't give any
>>> examples? I think it's a figment of your imagination.
>>>
>>
>> And I think you're being deliberately dense because it suits your
>> cause. Of course vegetarians want and expect to be seen as morally
>> superior,
>
>
> Not vegetarians; "vegans", also known as (so-called) "ethical"
> vegetarians. Lots of people are vegetarian for reasons other than ethics.

Yes, often out of vanity or health concerns, such as Hitler's idea that
it would cure his flatulence. I can't say *lack of* flatulence is
something I associate with a vegetarian diet.

Some people also go vegetarian ostensibly on moral grounds but only as a
ruse to justify being different, as a form of self-publicity and
self-worship or a smokescreen to draw attention away from an eating
disorder. For some vegetarian men their body is a temple, for many
vegetarian women their body is meant to be an object of worship.

In find people who disguise vanity and self-obsession as a form of care
for dumb animals (especially when it seems confined to animals with
eyelashes) to be particularly nauseating.

<snip>

--
Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org

Martin Willett wrote:
> Leif Erikson wrote:
>
> >>>>>>>>>> First published on http://mwillett.org/mind/eat-me.htm
> >>>>>>>>>> posted by the author
>
> >>>>
> >>>> 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.
> >>>
> >>
> >> I see. Which part of the argument?
> >
> >
> > The part that says it is "better" for the pigs or other domestic animals
> > to "get to experience life" rather than never doing so. That part. It
> > has been thoroughly discredited.
> >
>
> I am always wary of arguments that have apparently been thoroughly
> discredited, to the point that people will not even bother to explain
> how they were discredited and why that argument was accepted and why
> "everybody" now accepts the argument is over.

By now you must have seen several references to an excellent essay by
the English philosopher Henry Salt called The Logic of the Larder. I
believe Dutch just recently posted a link to a page where you can read
the essay on line.

I'm nowhere near as eloquent as Salt, but in my own terms I put it
something like this. When we say a thing or a state of being is
"better" for some entity, we mean that the welfare of the entity is
improved from what it would be if the entity didn't have the thing or
if it existed in some alternative state. But an entity must *exist* in
the first place in order to have an entity to be improved. That means
that, by definition, existence -per se- *cannot* make an entity better
off than if it had never existed, because prior to existing, there was
no entity and hence no welfare to be improved.

Now, you might object (as ****wit David Harrison does but then denies)
that entities have some kind of "pre-existence" that we cannot know or
perceive. If this is so, then we *still* cannot say that coming into
the existence we know makes the entity better off, because without any
knowledge of its welfare in its "pre-existent" state, we don't know if
coming into physical existence on earth improves the entity's welfare,
degrades it, or leaves it unchanged.

Thus, logically, it is absurd to think that coming into existence
improves an entity's welfare, and we therefore cannot logically
conclude that existing is "better" for the entity than never existing.

>>
> >>
> >> This evening I'll be blurring the realms of reality with absinthe. But
> >> jokes are good too.
> >
> >
> > I tried that stuff once. There wasn't enough left in my friend's bottle
> > to get to any realm-blurring.
> >
>
> >>>
> >>> You claim to observe this moral superiority, yet you can't give any
> >>> examples? I think it's a figment of your imagination.
> >>>
> >>
> >> And I think you're being deliberately dense because it suits your
> >> cause. Of course vegetarians want and expect to be seen as morally
> >> superior,
> >
> >
> > Not vegetarians; "vegans", also known as (so-called) "ethical"
> > vegetarians. Lots of people are vegetarian for reasons other than ethics.
>
> Yes, often out of vanity or health concerns, such as Hitler's idea that
> it would cure his flatulence. I can't say *lack of* flatulence is
> something I associate with a vegetarian diet.
>
> Some people also go vegetarian ostensibly on moral grounds but only as a
> ruse to justify being different, as a form of self-publicity and
> self-worship or a smokescreen to draw attention away from an eating
> disorder. For some vegetarian men their body is a temple, for many
> vegetarian women their body is meant to be an object of worship.
>
> In find people who disguise vanity and self-obsession as a form of care
> for dumb animals (especially when it seems confined to animals with
> eyelashes) to be particularly nauseating.
>
>
> <snip>
>
>
> --
> Martin Willett
>
>
> http://mwillett.org

Martin Willett wrote:
> ant and dec wrote:
>
> a post unworthy of a response.

Just like the other threads you can't, or won't answer. - Perhaps it may
expose your weaknesses, or perhaps you follow Oscar Wilde's tenet
"Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing."

You're a lightweight. (Not physically obviously).

>

pearl wrote:
> "Martin Willett" > wrote in message ...
>
>>pearl wrote:
>>
>>>"Martin Willett" > wrote in message ...
>>>
>>>
>>>>S. Maizlich wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>It is UNDISPUTED by evolutionary biologists that meat played an
>>>>>indispensable role in human evolution. Meat's role was both direct and
>>>>>indirect. The direct role was in providing the massive amount of
>>>>>protein needed for brain development. The indirect role is as an
>>>>>organizing principle of human activity.
>>>>
>>>>The organizational role is absolutely critical. There is no reason for a
>>>>vegetarian species to develop sophisticated communication because they
>>>>don't have anything sophisticated to communicate. Fruits and tubers
>>>>don't require teamwork or sophisticated tools to subdue, but our
>>>>ancestors brought down mammoths, give them some respect.
>>>>
>>>>Belittling the role of meat and hunting in evolution is as much
>>>>pseudo-science as creationism is. The collection of snippets of research
>>>>here and there that seem to offer some suggestion of support for a pre
>>>>decided stance is the antithesis of the scientific method.
>>>>
>>>>Human evolution required meat eating and hunting. That is not to say
>>>>that man was ever exclusively carnivorous, the only largely carnivorous
>>>>hominid was /Homo neanderthalensis/, who was almost as carnivorous as a
>>>>polar bear. But as far as anybody can tell all our direct ancestors were
>>>>omnivorous but more carnivorous than modern chimpanzees and that change
>>>>in diet was significant for the development of larger brains both in
>>>>allowing expansion and requiring it.
>>>
>>>
>>>"It is highly probable that plant foods were indeed the major part
>>>of the early hominid economy, and unequivocal evidence for hunting
>>>as against scavenging carrion does not appear until relatively late in
>>>the fossil record, probably not earlier than half-a-million years ago."
>>>Leakey, The Making of Mankind
>>>
>>>Frugivory is an intellectually demanding feeding behaviour demanding
>>>the development of strategic planning, whereas the folivores feeding
>>>behavior engages relatively simple tactics. According to Caroline E. G.
>>>Tutin et al. 'Allometric analyses suggest a relation between brain size
>>>(relative to body mass) and diet, with frugivores having relatively larger
>>>brains . . . Maintaining a frugivorous diet presents huge intellectual
>>>challenges of memory and spatial mapping compared with the relative
>>>ease of harvesting abundant foliage foods.' Tutin et al. also say that:
>>>
>>>"Studies of frugivorous communities elsewhere suggest that dietary
>>>divergence is highest when preferred food (succulent fruit) is scarce,
>>>and that niche separation is clear only at such times (Gautier-Hion &
>>>Gautier 1979: Terborgh 1983). "
>>>Foraging profiles of sympatric lowland gorillas and chimpanzees in
>>>the Lopé Reserve, Gabon, p.179, Philosophical Transactions:
>>>Biological Sciences vol 334, 159-295, No. 1270
>>>...'
>>>http://tinyurl.com/dahps
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Yes, as I said, the collection and circulation of snippets of
>>information which support the stance decided upon independently of any
>>evidence, a stance that needs no support, is the antithesis of the
>>scientific method.
>
>
> The information is based on evidence.

And the bit you have quoted, or re-quoted, or re-re-quoted you believe
supports your argument. Does the entire work?

>
>
>>The copy and paste of chapter and verse citation is absolutely typical
>>of the Creationist, another species of mass debater which uses
>>scientific research like a drunk uses a lamppost: more for support than
>>illumination.
>>
>>Normally when I come across copy and paste citations in Creationist
>>rants I copy a section of the text, including the citation, and see how
>>many times it comes up.
>
>
> Waffle.

That is a spurious accusation.

>
>
>> "that niche separation is clear only at such times (Gautier-Hion" 9
>>hits for Google, 12 for Google Groups. It goes up to 18 if I leave out
>>the citation. This makes me just a tad suspicious about the quotation. I
>>wonder if pearl can tell me what the next chapter says? In creationist
>>circles quotations from scientists that can be interpreted (or
>>misinterpreted) as supporting their cause, however obliquely, are traded
>>avidly like relics of the saints and posted by people who haven't a clue
>>about science but know what they believe.
>>
>>Our ancestors of course ate fruit for millions of years. This fruit
>>eating is written all over our bodies, especially in our binocular
>>vision and excellent colour discrimination. I don't know of any
>>evolutionary biologists that do not think we evolved from fruit eaters.
>>Of course we evolved from monkeys, and fruit-eating monkeys are smarter
>>than animals that eat leaves, who wouldn't expect a monkey to outwit a
>>sheep? But we left fruit eating behind to become omnivores. Armed with
>>excellent vision, grasping hands and an agile brain but lacking
>>offensive or defensive weaponry of any kinds a change in habitat that
>>led to a reduction in forests (and therefore fruit) and an increase in
>>open grasslands gave us a push in a new direction. We took to eating
>>tubers, digging them up with sticks as well as hands, we scavenged
>>carrion and we killed what we could catch. Over time what we could catch
>>got bigger, until it encompassed everything we decided we wanted to catch.
>
>
> '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
>

John 11:35

What has any of that got to do with the argument I was advancing? Are
you trying to demonstrate that you have a collection of quotes? I
suggested you would have.

>
>>You cannot live as a fruit-eater outside of tropical forests for the
>>simple reason that there are no fruits available for months at a time in
>>most other environments. There are no fruit-dependent species of mammal
>>of any kind living in Europe. Temperate zone fruits do get eaten, but
>>not by fruit-eating specialists like monkeys, which are confined to the
>>tropics. As modern humans were living well outside the tropics over
>>100,000 years ago you can conclude that they must have had an omnivorous
>>diet of some kind, unless you believe breatharians are not charlatans.
>>They were not big game hunters but they were not vegans or fruitarians
>>either.
>
>
> These days there's nothing to prevent most people being vegan.

Apart from the fact that they don't want to be perhaps? Does that count
as a reason? Do you support freedom of choice and democracy or do you
think your morality and your diet should be imposed on humanity for its
own good?

I have never made any suggestion that veganism was a dangerous or
impossible diet choice. Of course people can live healthily with a vegan
diet if they take extra care, monitor what they eat and are aware of
special sources of particular nutrients. But I have not been shown any
good reason why anybody should place such restrictions on their diet and
their freedom.

>
>
>>Social cooperation could only have developed through hunting and
>>meat-sharing. Gathering tubers is no more conducive to cooperation than
>>collecting fruit, unless you're a naked mole-rat, it is an activity in
>>which rewards follow efforts quite linearly. In contrast hunting is far
>>more hit and miss, an excellent hunter can have a bad day not through
>>idleness but through dumb luck.
>
>
> How is that cooperating with those who are left to actually
> provide for the urgent needs of dependants - the women?
>
> Sounds like a way of getting out of the real work to me.
>

The perpetual cry of the woman, the natural belittler of meat in the
diet, the woman who traditionally has supplied the bulk of the calories
through drudgery. No herbivorous species would ever cooperate for
precicely this reason: providing food from vegetable matter is drudgery
and shirking is bitterly resented.

Hunting contributes very high quality food to the diet. Exactly how
valuable the contribution of meat is will always be a matter of
contention, the hunters were always traditionally the men who would play
up the importance of meat and women would play it down. Meat was also
the currency of sexual betrayal. In every hunter gatherer tribe studied
the best hunters had access to the most women. Belittling meat is simply
part of the strategy to try to get women's contributions valued
more highly.

>
>>Cooperation begins to make a lot more
>>sense. If you bring down an animal too big for you to eat alone you
>>share it, and convert the calories you couldn't eat into social debts
>>and obligations.
>
>
> One large animal every thirty hunter days between everyone won't go far.

It is quite sufficient for most tribes to ensure they don't routinely
resort to cannibalism.

>
>
>>That kind of society makes sense but it requires a
>>further boost in brains and social skills. Meat helped us to become
>>sharers and carers. Without meat we would never have become human.
>
>
> You're wrong. Compassion is supposedly a human trait. Where's yours?
>

Ah. Now why did I find this AFTER I was looking for evidence that vegans
made out they were morally superior?

Compassion is a human trait but it isn't what makes us human. If we
discovered a tribe of people who were clearly intelligent, tool-using
and inter-fertile with us but had no compassion we would not conclude
that they did not belong to our species or did not qualify to be called
human, although we would be justified in studying them to understand
this anomalous condition. Likewise a species of compassionate wombats or
even chimpanzees would not be regarded as people.

It was sharing and cooperation that was vitally important in making the
transition from a baboon-like existence to the rich complex social life
we enjoy today. That would not have happened without a change in diet
that had meat eating as a vital component of it for the simple reason
that no vegetable based food requires elaborate cooperation to exploit.
Digging up a yam or picking a mango does not take a lot of cooperation,
language or plans drawn up in the sand with a stick but gathering honey
or hunting a buffalo does.

>
>>Of course that does not mean we ate a lot of meat or ate more meat than
>>vegetable-derived calories or even protein, only that meat eating was a
>>vitally important part of our behaviour.
>
>
> I helped us survive in times of need. Be grateful.
>

*You* did? That seems like a very strange claim to me.

--
Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org

Dutch wrote:
> "Dave" > wrote
>
>>Martin Willett wrote:
>
> [..]
>
>
>>>>>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.
>
>
> You would think it to be self-evident wouldn't you? Yet vegans consistently
> deny it when confronted by it.
>
>

They want the moral high ground, and of course demanding it wouldn't be
moral, so they are stuck in this situation of wanting the entire world
to see them as being morally superior and doing everything they can do
to ensure that people know that this is how they see themselves but they
have to do this without ever being seen to directly demand any such
thing. And then they jeer and say we can't find evidence of them making
any such demands. Hello? Of course we won't find any such evidence for
the same reason why you will find it hard to find evidence of people
demanding to be treated better because they are famous: it isn't done to
be seen to be demanding a particular status even though people work
their ******** off to get such status. If somebody shouts their mouth
off because they're rich or famous and thinks that entitles them to a
special status we rightly think they are obnoxious gits. Not demanding
special treatment is no evidence of a lack of desire to be granted it.
Everytime I travel on a train I would like to be given an upgrade to
first class, don't take my lack of asking for it to be evidence that I
don't want it.

>>>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.
>
>
> Futile.
>
>
>>Should they avoid acting in what they consider to
>>be the morally superior fashion in case it makes other people feel
>>uncomfortable?
>
>
> The discomfort of others translates into comfort for the vegan.
>
>
>>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?
>
>
> The only hope for vegans is to sacrifice the comforting feeling they get by
> making others uncomfortable while they subject their views to a criticial
> assessment. It's not a likely scenario, how many people can give up a sure
> sense of moral superiority for a mere hope of intellectual integrity?
>
>

--
Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org

<dh@.> wrote
> Martin Willett > wrote:

>>>>Which species do we refuse to eat on moral grounds?
>>>
>>>
>>> Human.
>>>
>>
>>Unless we really need to.
>
> Or change the rules of morality.

That is not your prerogative ****wit. Where did you get the notion that you
can arbitrarily change the rules of human morality which have developed
through adaptive consensus over the milennia?

<dh@.> wrote in message ...
> On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 20:16:35 GMT, "Dutch" > wrote:
>
>>
>><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.
>
> Bullshit.

Yes, bullshit, we have never suggested that.

>>I don't dispute that *using animal
>>products* is "ethically equivalent or superior to the elimination of
>>domestic animals" to use your awkward wording.
>
> Try to do better.

Better than directly respond to your point? How is that possible?

>>My argument is simply
>>examining the logic of the premise "If we didn't eat the pigs they would
>>never exist at all..."
>
> LOL! In what magical way do you think they might exist if we didn't
> raise them for food?

They wouldn't, and that would be no loss to them, because they would never
have existed.

> And don't tell me some stupid crap about wild pigs.
> You might just as well mention that ANY other animal might exist, because
> NO other animal has anything to do with the fact that if we didn't raise
> the
> animals we raise to eat they would never exist...not wild pigs, not wild
> goats,
> and not even your wild mice, frogs and groundhogs.

The amount of land we appropriate for animal feed and pasture is roughly
inversely proportional to the number of animals that can live undisturbed on
that same land and with those resources.

> In an earlier post, didn't you give us permission to consider the lives
> of
> animals when they are terrible, but not those that have positive value to
> the animals? Since you refuse to make a list, a person is forced to guess
> what you allow and what you don't. So far my guess is that you would
> allow us to consider the lives of wild animals, and the lives of livestock
> only if they are terrible. If there are other things you would allow or
> forbid,
> let's you set it straight right now or I'll know my guess was correct.

It's close. The lives of animals we raise per se are NOT a moral
consideration, but once we raise them, how we treat them *is* is a moral
consideration. That's the way it is, and it's not your prerogative to change
it.

"ant and dec" > wrote
> Martin Willett wrote:
>> ant and dec wrote:
>>
>> a post unworthy of a response.
>
> Just like the other threads you can't, or won't answer. - Perhaps it may
> expose your weaknesses, or perhaps you follow Oscar Wilde's tenet
> "Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often
> convincing."
>
> You're a lightweight. (Not physically obviously).

LOL! You haven't said anything of substance yet. Intellectually, that snarky
little cheap shot is your high water mark so far.

****wit David Harrison lied:
> On Sun, 25 Dec 2005 20:16:35 GMT, "Dutch" > wrote:
>
> >
> >****wit David Harrison lied:
> >> 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.
>
> Bullshit.

Nope. You're the one spreading bullshit.

>
> >I don't dispute that *using animal
> >products* is "ethically equivalent or superior to the elimination of
> >domestic animals" to use your awkward wording.
>
> Try to do better.

Your thinking is as muddy as your language. Your langugage is a
reflection of your thinking.

>
> >My argument is simply
> >examining the logic of the premise "If we didn't eat the pigs they would
> >never exist at all..."
>
> LOL! In what magical way do you think they might exist if we didn't
> raise them for food?

He doesn't. Their existence isn't morally significant, and does not
justify your eating them.

ant and dec wrote:
> Martin Willett wrote:
>
>> ant and dec wrote:
>>
>> a post unworthy of a response.
>
>
> Just like the other threads you can't, or won't answer. - Perhaps it may
> expose your weaknesses, or perhaps you follow Oscar Wilde's tenet
> "Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing."
>
> You're a lightweight. (Not physically obviously).
>

I didn't see much in the way of arguments, but I did see a lot of rather
second rate one line put-downs that scarcely attained the wit and
sagacity of the immortal "the one that smelt it dealt it".

Replying to a post like that would be time-consuming and would be
unlikely to achieve anything.

Have you got any points that really need addressing that haven't been
covered elsewhere in this thread? If so put them now, in a way that
looks like it deserves a reply.

--
Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org

dh@. wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 00:38:14 +0000, Martin Willett > wrote:

>
> How do you think it could have been done smarter? Don't forget
> it is as it is whether God had anything to do with it or not, so you
> will have to explain how a God could have made things turn out your
> smarter way instead of the way they did.

If herbivores could directly digest cellulose that would be smarter for
them.

Don't use a capital G for god unless you intend it to be a name, and
don't use the singular either, that will help you get a clearer bead on
what you are thinking about without having the language force
assumptions into the argument. If a god created animals that god (or
those gods) could have made herbivores able to digest cellulose directly
without relying on foreign bacteria, by secreting an enzyme only when it
was required in exactly the dose that was required according to the
animal's body's awareness of what it had eaten and the animal would not
be sidetracked by the process of reproducing and distributing those
bacteria.

Of course evolution doesn't bother with that route as the bacterial
quick and dirty fix does the job and produces a workable system with far
fewer steps, all of which are viable improvements. But a god who was
wise would know that a better solution would be possible, but it would
require an act of special creation.

--
Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org

On 2005-12-28, dh@. <dh@> wrote:
> On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 03:48:58 -0000, Jeff Caird > wrote:
>
>>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
>
> I'm not familiar with that at all. Not even with the concept.
> It would probably be a better use of time to spend less of
> it arguing with people in these ngs and reading something
> else instead. What little reading I've done lately has been
> Niven, since he's my favorite sci fi author. I'm reading
> Ringworld's Children now, about 10 pages per month. That
> would make a hell of a movie! I think the Integral Trees could
> be awesome too.

The _RiverWorld_ series by Philip Jose Farmer might be worth
your while; there are several books in the series and at 10
pages per month, it could take years! ;^) I have read
_Ringworld_ and am now on _The Ringworld Engineers_. Not
quite as fast moving as the first, but Niven is a great SF
writer.

My nym, Jeff Caird, is from Farmers _Dayworld_ series, BTW.

JC

Martin Willett wrote:
> ant and dec wrote:
>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>
>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>
>>> a post unworthy of a response.
>>
>>
>> Just like the other threads you can't, or won't answer. - Perhaps it
>> may expose your weaknesses, or perhaps you follow Oscar Wilde's tenet
>> "Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often
>> convincing."
>>
>> You're a lightweight. (Not physically obviously).
>>
>
> I didn't see much in the way of arguments, but I did see a lot of rather
> second rate one line put-downs that scarcely attained the wit and
> sagacity of the immortal "the one that smelt it dealt it".
>
> Replying to a post like that would be time-consuming and would be
> unlikely to achieve anything.
>
> Have you got any points that really need addressing that haven't been
> covered elsewhere in this thread? If so put them now, in a way that
> looks like it deserves a reply.
>

I don't know if you're sensitive, arrogant, lazy or a permutation of
these characteristics, but here they a

Some will loose some of the meaning that was intrinsic to the original
context; in these cases you will have to look for this.

I may have missed some of my points and some of your responses, but
that's the price you pay. In the main I've limited the points to where I
had outstanding questions, and I've assumed that other statements of
mine remain unchallenged; for example the juxtaposition of a meat
centerpiece with a herbivorous diet being "crap". If you want to
challenge these points, then you will have to do the work.

================================================== ====================

MW:

"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."

1) What prompted this rethink?

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

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

MW:

"Vegetarians and vegans do not realistically expect the world to turn
vegetarian but they keep promoting vegetarianism because it allows them
*to be seen* as vegetarians. If nobody ate meat they wouldn't have
anybody to feel superior to so they'd have to give up something else or
actually do something worthy in and of itself."

4) What utter crap. This is ALL in your mind, please provide SOME
evidence for these conclusions. You don't get it do you, it's YOUR mis
perception of vegetarians.

PS. If you followed someone in a canteen queue that ordered dishes that
contained no meat, can you say that person IS a vegetarian and had these
traits. You can't; but I'd be sure that you would think less of them in
some degree if you suspected they were. As Anais Nin wrote "We don't see
things as they are, we see them as we are".

MW:

"My best advice to you would be carry on. Your propaganda isn't working"

5)What propaganda of mine?

MW:

"Really? "I'm eating a salad but I'd like to point out to you that I'm
not a limp-wristed carrot-muncher I also eat meat""

6) I think you've got a problem with vegetarians! The common pattern of
events includes *others* pointing out my dietary choices, then the rest
of the table stating what they couldn't do without or can't understand
my choices, etc.

PS. Do you recognise this pattern of events?

MW:

"I have already explained why I can't prove it. But neither can anybody
prove that there is or isn't a god. Just because something can't be
proved it doesn't follow that it isn't so. I can't *prove* Elvis isn't
running a whelk stall on Venus either."

7) No, it was implicit in your response that the observation could be
made. Surely if you observe these vegetarians being smug, you can give
any examples; can't you?

MW:

"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."

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

"ant and dec" > wrote
> Martin Willett wrote:
>> ant and dec wrote:
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>
>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>
>>>> a post unworthy of a response.
>>>
>>>
>>> Just like the other threads you can't, or won't answer. - Perhaps it may
>>> expose your weaknesses, or perhaps you follow Oscar Wilde's tenet
>>> "Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often
>>> convincing."
>>>
>>> You're a lightweight. (Not physically obviously).
>>>
>>
>> I didn't see much in the way of arguments, but I did see a lot of rather
>> second rate one line put-downs that scarcely attained the wit and
>> sagacity of the immortal "the one that smelt it dealt it".
>>
>> Replying to a post like that would be time-consuming and would be
>> unlikely to achieve anything.
>>
>> Have you got any points that really need addressing that haven't been
>> covered elsewhere in this thread? If so put them now, in a way that looks
>> like it deserves a reply.
>>
>
> I don't know if you're sensitive, arrogant, lazy or a permutation of these
> characteristics, but here they a

Ad hominem prefaces just indicate that you are 1) ill-mannered, and/or 2)
lack confidence in your position.

> Some will loose some of the meaning that was intrinsic to the original
> context; in these cases you will have to look for this.
>
> I may have missed some of my points and some of your responses, but that's
> the price you pay. In the main I've limited the points to where I had
> outstanding questions, and I've assumed that other statements of mine
> remain unchallenged; for example the juxtaposition of a meat centerpiece
> with a herbivorous diet being "crap". If you want to challenge these
> points, then you will have to do the work.
>
> ================================================== ====================
>
>
> MW:
>
> "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."
>
>
> 1) What prompted this rethink?

You could have easily gleaned that from the context of the thread.

> 2) What difference does the ability to make a moral choice have on your
> want to kill and eat a species?

Since we all directly or indirectly kill animal life more or less
constantly, moral agency is a reasonable criterion to draw a firm
prohibition. It is certainly more rational than the place vegans draw it,
and that is that is to object vehemently to the killing *and using* of
animal parts, but not to the eradication of animals in agriculture and other
such processes. How is it reasonable to object to the disposition of the
corpse?

> 3) Do you *know* that a pig can not differentiate between right and
wrong?

There is no evidence that any animal other than humans understands the
concept of right and wrong. Other animals demonstrate social behaviours and
conditioning.

> MW:
>
> "Vegetarians and vegans do not realistically expect the world to turn
> vegetarian but they keep promoting vegetarianism because it allows them
> *to be seen* as vegetarians. If nobody ate meat they wouldn't have anybody
> to feel superior to so they'd have to give up something else or actually
> do something worthy in and of itself."
>
> 4) What utter crap. This is ALL in your mind, please provide SOME evidence
> for these conclusions. You don't get it do you, it's YOUR mis perception
> of vegetarians.

YOU are in denial. There is NO doubt that veg*ns display self-righteous
attitudes. You need to only read their posts on the ethics forum for a
while.

> PS. If you followed someone in a canteen queue that ordered dishes that
> contained no meat, can you say that person IS a vegetarian and had these
> traits. You can't; but I'd be sure that you would think less of them in
> some degree if you suspected they were. As Anais Nin wrote "We don't see
> things as they are, we see them as we are".

Veg*ns ought to take that to heart.

> MW:
>
> "My best advice to you would be carry on. Your propaganda isn't working"
>
> 5)What propaganda of mine?
>
> MW:
>
> "Really? "I'm eating a salad but I'd like to point out to you that I'm not
> a limp-wristed carrot-muncher I also eat meat""
>
> 6) I think you've got a problem with vegetarians! The common pattern of
> events includes *others* pointing out my dietary choices, then the rest of
> the table stating what they couldn't do without or can't understand my
> choices, etc.
>
> PS. Do you recognise this pattern of events?

What do you tell them ?

> MW:
>
> "I have already explained why I can't prove it. But neither can anybody
> prove that there is or isn't a god. Just because something can't be proved
> it doesn't follow that it isn't so. I can't *prove* Elvis isn't running a
> whelk stall on Venus either."
>
> 7) No, it was implicit in your response that the observation could be
> made. Surely if you observe these vegetarians being smug, you can give any
> examples; can't you?

Pretty much every one I have met, including myself when I was one. For
examples follow some of the threads in this forum. Check out this poem
http://www.beyondveg.com/holman-r/ea...togod-1a.shtml If you can
quiet the cognitive dissonance long enough read Roy Holman's brief bio
linked at the bottom of the page.

> MW:
>
> "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."
>
> 8) Do you buy your food from the supermarket? Do you know or particularly
> care where it comes from?

That's a smug comment, how about you? Have you ever attempted to discern the
different death tolls behind the non-animal products that you consume?

Dutch wrote:
> "ant and dec" > wrote
>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> a post unworthy of a response.
>>>>
>>>> Just like the other threads you can't, or won't answer. - Perhaps it may
>>>> expose your weaknesses, or perhaps you follow Oscar Wilde's tenet
>>>> "Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often
>>>> convincing."
>>>>
>>>> You're a lightweight. (Not physically obviously).
>>>>
>>> I didn't see much in the way of arguments, but I did see a lot of rather
>>> second rate one line put-downs that scarcely attained the wit and
>>> sagacity of the immortal "the one that smelt it dealt it".
>>>
>>> Replying to a post like that would be time-consuming and would be
>>> unlikely to achieve anything.
>>>
>>> Have you got any points that really need addressing that haven't been
>>> covered elsewhere in this thread? If so put them now, in a way that looks
>>> like it deserves a reply.
>>>
>> I don't know if you're sensitive, arrogant, lazy or a permutation of these
>> characteristics, but here they a
>
> Ad hominem prefaces just indicate that you are 1) ill-mannered, and/or 2)
> lack confidence in your position.

This is the second times of written a reply. Bloody newsreader! So
forgive my brevity, lack of sensitivity, and gramer bad speling!

I written a reply to you as you raised some issues and not followed your
normal M.O.

Martin may come out of his shell, you never know.

It's not ad hominem it's a statement that I do not know if Martin is
sensitive to a few "one liners", arrogant enough to demand that the
points are re-presented or lazy enough to ask that I recompile the
points so he can answer them in one place.

Try and read things as they ARE.

>
>> Some will loose some of the meaning that was intrinsic to the original
>> context; in these cases you will have to look for this.
>>
>> I may have missed some of my points and some of your responses, but that's
>> the price you pay. In the main I've limited the points to where I had
>> outstanding questions, and I've assumed that other statements of mine
>> remain unchallenged; for example the juxtaposition of a meat centerpiece
>> with a herbivorous diet being "crap". If you want to challenge these
>> points, then you will have to do the work.
>>
>> ================================================== ====================
>>
>>
>> MW:
>>
>> "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."
>>
>>
>> 1) What prompted this rethink?
>
> You could have easily gleaned that from the context of the thread.

I'm not that naive. Do you have a crystal ball or are you walking funny?

>
>> 2) What difference does the ability to make a moral choice have on your
>> want to kill and eat a species?
>
> Since we all directly or indirectly kill animal life more or less
> constantly, moral agency is a reasonable criterion to draw a firm
> prohibition.

A fallacious argument based on "Common Practice".

>It is certainly more rational than the place vegans draw it,

Another fallacious argument.

> and that is that is to object vehemently to the killing *and using* of
> animal parts, but not to the eradication of animals in agriculture and other
> such processes. How is it reasonable to object to the disposition of the
> corpse?

You're raising another diversionary issue. My question to Martin was
"What difference does the ability to make a moral choice have on your
want to kill and eat a species? I would rather at this stage keep things
simple, we don't want Martin "getting off the hook" do we.

>
> > 3) Do you *know* that a pig can not differentiate between right and
> wrong?
>
> There is no evidence that any animal other than humans understands the
> concept of right and wrong. Other animals demonstrate social behaviours and
> conditioning.

I don't consider you an expert on nonhuman ethics.

http://www.answers.com/topic/nonhuman-animals-ethics

Morality evolved just as any other human characteristic. Are you
arrogant enough to think that traces of these characteristics do not
exist in other animals?

We are limited by OUR understanding of the nonhuman world.

>
>> MW:
>>
>> "Vegetarians and vegans do not realistically expect the world to turn
>> vegetarian but they keep promoting vegetarianism because it allows them
>> *to be seen* as vegetarians. If nobody ate meat they wouldn't have anybody
>> to feel superior to so they'd have to give up something else or actually
>> do something worthy in and of itself."
>>
>> 4) What utter crap. This is ALL in your mind, please provide SOME evidence
>> for these conclusions. You don't get it do you, it's YOUR mis perception
>> of vegetarians.
>
> YOU are in denial. There is NO doubt that veg*ns display self-righteous
> attitudes. You need to only read their posts on the ethics forum for a
> while.
>
>> PS. If you followed someone in a canteen queue that ordered dishes that
>> contained no meat, can you say that person IS a vegetarian and had these
>> traits. You can't; but I'd be sure that you would think less of them in
>> some degree if you suspected they were. As Anais Nin wrote "We don't see
>> things as they are, we see them as we are".
>
> Veg*ns ought to take that to heart.

I do; I quoted it.

>
>> MW:
>>
>> "My best advice to you would be carry on. Your propaganda isn't working"
>>
>> 5)What propaganda of mine?
>>
>> MW:
>>
>> "Really? "I'm eating a salad but I'd like to point out to you that I'm not
>> a limp-wristed carrot-muncher I also eat meat""
>>
>> 6) I think you've got a problem with vegetarians! The common pattern of
>> events includes *others* pointing out my dietary choices, then the rest of
>> the table stating what they couldn't do without or can't understand my
>> choices, etc.
>>
>> PS. Do you recognise this pattern of events?
>
> What do you tell them ?

I answer their questions in a short and polite a manner as possible. I
really try hard not to be seen as "pushy". Sometimes I say that I don't
like meat, which is true.

>
>> MW:
>>
>> "I have already explained why I can't prove it. But neither can anybody
>> prove that there is or isn't a god. Just because something can't be proved
>> it doesn't follow that it isn't so. I can't *prove* Elvis isn't running a
>> whelk stall on Venus either."
>>
>> 7) No, it was implicit in your response that the observation could be
>> made. Surely if you observe these vegetarians being smug, you can give any
>> examples; can't you?
>
> Pretty much every one I have met, including myself when I was one. For
> examples follow some of the threads in this forum. Check out this poem
> http://www.beyondveg.com/holman-r/ea...togod-1a.shtml If you can
> quiet the cognitive dissonance long enough read Roy Holman's brief bio
> linked at the bottom of the page.

This was written by a recovering raw "foodist" on an anti-vegetarian web
site. Not entirely representative of a vegetarian.

>
>> MW:
>>
>> "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."
>>
>> 8) Do you buy your food from the supermarket? Do you know or particularly
>> care where it comes from?
>
> That's a smug comment, how about you? Have you ever attempted to discern the
> different death tolls behind the non-animal products that you consume?

My question is a fair one, not smug at all. Most people I know don't
know and don't care where their food comes from.

I have looked for and generally failed to find any reliable evidence of
crop "death tolls". I do buy items where available that are produced to
standards of organisations that are "more green" like the Soil
Association, and buy items that have "low mileage" etc.

>
>

"ant and dec" > wrote
> Dutch wrote:
>> "ant and dec" > wrote
>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> a post unworthy of a response.
>>>>>
>>>>> Just like the other threads you can't, or won't answer. - Perhaps it
>>>>> may expose your weaknesses, or perhaps you follow Oscar Wilde's tenet
>>>>> "Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often
>>>>> convincing."
>>>>>
>>>>> You're a lightweight. (Not physically obviously).
>>>>>
>>>> I didn't see much in the way of arguments, but I did see a lot of
>>>> rather second rate one line put-downs that scarcely attained the wit
>>>> and sagacity of the immortal "the one that smelt it dealt it".
>>>>
>>>> Replying to a post like that would be time-consuming and would be
>>>> unlikely to achieve anything.
>>>>
>>>> Have you got any points that really need addressing that haven't been
>>>> covered elsewhere in this thread? If so put them now, in a way that
>>>> looks like it deserves a reply.
>>>>
>>> I don't know if you're sensitive, arrogant, lazy or a permutation of
>>> these characteristics, but here they a
>>
>> Ad hominem prefaces just indicate that you are 1) ill-mannered, and/or 2)
>> lack confidence in your position.
>
> This is the second times of written a reply. Bloody newsreader! So forgive
> my brevity, lack of sensitivity, and gramer bad speling!

I am hesitant to forgive your flaws, as you are to forgive the perceived
flaws of others.

> I written a reply to you as you raised some issues and not followed your
> normal M.O.

Whatever that is...

> Martin may come out of his shell, you never know.

I think Martin has already taken a pretty clear position, I don't see how
you consider he is in a shell.

> It's not ad hominem it's a statement that I do not know if Martin is
> sensitive to a few "one liners", arrogant enough to demand that the points
> are re-presented or lazy enough to ask that I recompile the points so he
> can answer them in one place.

Your points seem to be more rhetorical "heckling" than anything else.

> Try and read things as they ARE.

I do, I do.

>>> Some will loose some of the meaning that was intrinsic to the original
>>> context; in these cases you will have to look for this.
>>>
>>> I may have missed some of my points and some of your responses, but
>>> that's the price you pay. In the main I've limited the points to where I
>>> had outstanding questions, and I've assumed that other statements of
>>> mine remain unchallenged; for example the juxtaposition of a meat
>>> centerpiece with a herbivorous diet being "crap". If you want to
>>> challenge these points, then you will have to do the work.
>>>
>>> ================================================== ====================
>>>
>>>
>>> MW:
>>>
>>> "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."
>>>
>>>
>>> 1) What prompted this rethink?
>>
>> You could have easily gleaned that from the context of the thread.
>
> I'm not that naive. Do you have a crystal ball or are you walking funny?

It's easy, back up the thread from his statement and read the previous
messages. Those immediately prior to his statement are the one(s) which
prompted his re-think. Why is it important anyway?

>>> 2) What difference does the ability to make a moral choice have on your
>>> want to kill and eat a species?
>>
>> Since we all directly or indirectly kill animal life more or less
>> constantly, moral agency is a reasonable criterion to draw a firm
>> prohibition.
>
> A fallacious argument based on "Common Practice".

Show how it is fallacious. Are we not to draw a line somewhere? I don't
understand your point.

>>It is certainly more rational than the place vegans draw it,
>
>
> Another fallacious argument.

Please show how.

>> and that is that is to object vehemently to the killing *and using* of
>> animal parts, but not to the eradication of animals in agriculture and
>> other such processes. How is it reasonable to object to the disposition
>> of the corpse?
>
> You're raising another diversionary issue.

The issue of collateral deaths is critical to understanding the fundamental
fallacious thinking underlying veganism.

> My question to Martin was "What difference does the ability to make a
> moral choice have on your want to kill and eat a species?

I would say that ability to make a moral choice, inasmuch as it implies
"ethical thinking", implies abstract thought and therefore self-awareness
and even the ability to contemplate one's mortality. If an animal is that
advanced then I would not want to take it's life either.

> I would rather at this stage keep things simple, we don't want Martin
> "getting off the hook" do we.

I have given an answer, what is so important to you in "skewering" Martin?

>> > 3) Do you *know* that a pig can not differentiate between right and
>> wrong?
>>
>> There is no evidence that any animal other than humans understands the
>> concept of right and wrong. Other animals demonstrate social behaviours
>> and conditioning.
>
> I don't consider you an expert on nonhuman ethics.

>
> http://www.answers.com/topic/nonhuman-animals-ethics
>
> Morality evolved just as any other human characteristic. Are you arrogant
> enough to think that traces of these characteristics do not exist in other
> animals?
>
> We are limited by OUR understanding of the nonhuman world.

Of course ethics evolved out of social behaviours in our pre-human
ancestors, but there is difference between acting socially in a social group
and understanding and considering ethical principles.

>>> MW:
>>>
>>> "Vegetarians and vegans do not realistically expect the world to turn
>>> vegetarian but they keep promoting vegetarianism because it allows them
>>> *to be seen* as vegetarians. If nobody ate meat they wouldn't have
>>> anybody to feel superior to so they'd have to give up something else or
>>> actually do something worthy in and of itself."
>>>
>>> 4) What utter crap. This is ALL in your mind, please provide SOME
>>> evidence for these conclusions. You don't get it do you, it's YOUR mis
>>> perception of vegetarians.
>>
>> YOU are in denial. There is NO doubt that veg*ns display self-righteous
>> attitudes. You need to only read their posts on the ethics forum for a
>> while.
>>
>>> PS. If you followed someone in a canteen queue that ordered dishes that
>>> contained no meat, can you say that person IS a vegetarian and had these
>>> traits. You can't; but I'd be sure that you would think less of them in
>>> some degree if you suspected they were. As Anais Nin wrote "We don't see
>>> things as they are, we see them as we are".
>>
>> Veg*ns ought to take that to heart.
>
> I do; I quoted it.

There's a difference between quoting something to admonish others and seeing
how it applies to yourself. It is a very apt quote in describing vegans in
general, who adopt this notion/belief that it is wrong to "kill and eat"
animals, then project this as a moral requirement on others. They are seeing
through the filers of what [they *think*] "they are", not "what is".

>>
>>> MW:
>>>
>>> "My best advice to you would be carry on. Your propaganda isn't working"
>>>
>>> 5)What propaganda of mine?
>>>
>>> MW:
>>>
>>> "Really? "I'm eating a salad but I'd like to point out to you that I'm
>>> not a limp-wristed carrot-muncher I also eat meat""
>>>
>>> 6) I think you've got a problem with vegetarians! The common pattern of
>>> events includes *others* pointing out my dietary choices, then the rest
>>> of the table stating what they couldn't do without or can't understand
>>> my choices, etc.
>>>
>>> PS. Do you recognise this pattern of events?
>>
>> What do you tell them ?
>
> I answer their questions in a short and polite a manner as possible. I
> really try hard not to be seen as "pushy". Sometimes I say that I don't
> like meat, which is true.

Which is what a meat-eater might do at a dinner with a group of vegans.
Social pressure to behave socially is powerful. But the underlying
self-righteousness comes out in an anonymous forum such as this. To see it
you must spend some time reading with an open mind.

>>
>>> MW:
>>>
>>> "I have already explained why I can't prove it. But neither can anybody
>>> prove that there is or isn't a god. Just because something can't be
>>> proved it doesn't follow that it isn't so. I can't *prove* Elvis isn't
>>> running a whelk stall on Venus either."
>>>
>>> 7) No, it was implicit in your response that the observation could be
>>> made. Surely if you observe these vegetarians being smug, you can give
>>> any examples; can't you?
>>
>> Pretty much every one I have met, including myself when I was one. For
>> examples follow some of the threads in this forum. Check out this poem
>> http://www.beyondveg.com/holman-r/ea...togod-1a.shtml If you can
>> quiet the cognitive dissonance long enough read Roy Holman's brief bio
>> linked at the bottom of the page.
>
> This was written by a recovering raw "foodist" on an anti-vegetarian web
> site.

It's not "anti-vegetarian", it is *honesty-about*-vegetarianism and other
food-based pseudo-moralities.

> Not entirely representative of a vegetarian.

I think it conveys the message very well.
>
>>
>>> MW:
>>>
>>> "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."
>>>
>>> 8) Do you buy your food from the supermarket? Do you know or
>>> particularly care where it comes from?
>>
>> That's a smug comment, how about you? Have you ever attempted to discern
>> the different death tolls behind the non-animal products that you
>> consume?
>
>
> My question is a fair one, not smug at all. Most people I know don't know
> and don't care where their food comes from.

Most meat-eaters know pretty much where their meat comes from.

> I have looked for and generally failed to find any reliable evidence of
> crop "death tolls".

How convenient. How much do you actually know about commercial agriculture?
If you like I could paste a few dozen links that support the phenomenon. If
you were a farmer you would know.

> I do buy items where available that are produced to standards of
> organisations that are "more green" like the Soil Association, and buy
> items that have "low mileage" etc.

One does not need to be a vegetarian to do those things. In fact it is quite
common to consume meat and have a smaller impact than the average vegan.

Dutch wrote:
> "ant and dec" > wrote
>> Dutch wrote:
>>> "ant and dec" > wrote
>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>>> Martin Willett wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ant and dec wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> a post unworthy of a response.
>>>>>> Just like the other threads you can't, or won't answer. - Perhaps it
>>>>>> may expose your weaknesses, or perhaps you follow Oscar Wilde's tenet
>>>>>> "Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often
>>>>>> convincing."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You're a lightweight. (Not physically obviously).
>>>>>>
>>>>> I didn't see much in the way of arguments, but I did see a lot of
>>>>> rather second rate one line put-downs that scarcely attained the wit
>>>>> and sagacity of the immortal "the one that smelt it dealt it".
>>>>>
>>>>> Replying to a post like that would be time-consuming and would be
>>>>> unlikely to achieve anything.
>>>>>
>>>>> Have you got any points that really need addressing that haven't been
>>>>> covered elsewhere in this thread? If so put them now, in a way that
>>>>> looks like it deserves a reply.
>>>>>
>>>> I don't know if you're sensitive, arrogant, lazy or a permutation of
>>>> these characteristics, but here they a
>>> Ad hominem prefaces just indicate that you are 1) ill-mannered, and/or 2)
>>> lack confidence in your position.
>> This is the second times of written a reply. Bloody newsreader! So forgive
>> my brevity, lack of sensitivity, and gramer bad speling!
>
> I am hesitant to forgive your flaws, as you are to forgive the perceived
> flaws of others.
>
>> I written a reply to you as you raised some issues and not followed your
>> normal M.O.
>
> Whatever that is...
>
>> Martin may come out of his shell, you never know.
>
> I think Martin has already taken a pretty clear position, I don't see how
> you consider he is in a shell.

A protective shell of no response.

>
>> It's not ad hominem it's a statement that I do not know if Martin is
>> sensitive to a few "one liners", arrogant enough to demand that the points
>> are re-presented or lazy enough to ask that I recompile the points so he
>> can answer them in one place.
>
> Your points seem to be more rhetorical "heckling" than anything else.

They are mainly questions. They are obviously difficult for some to
answer, but they're not rhetorical.

>
>> Try and read things as they ARE.
>
> I do, I do.
>
>>>> Some will loose some of the meaning that was intrinsic to the original
>>>> context; in these cases you will have to look for this.
>>>>
>>>> I may have missed some of my points and some of your responses, but
>>>> that's the price you pay. In the main I've limited the points to where I
>>>> had outstanding questions, and I've assumed that other statements of
>>>> mine remain unchallenged; for example the juxtaposition of a meat
>>>> centerpiece with a herbivorous diet being "crap". If you want to
>>>> challenge these points, then you will have to do the work.
>>>>
>>>> ================================================== ====================
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> MW:
>>>>
>>>> "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."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 1) What prompted this rethink?
>>> You could have easily gleaned that from the context of the thread.
>> I'm not that naive. Do you have a crystal ball or are you walking funny?
>
> It's easy, back up the thread from his statement and read the previous
> messages. Those immediately prior to his statement are the one(s) which
> prompted his re-think. Why is it important anyway?

I asked a series of so far unanswered questions; then in a response to
someone else, a related rethought moral principle appeared. I wondered
if there was a connection.

>
>>>> 2) What difference does the ability to make a moral choice have on your
>>>> want to kill and eat a species?
>>> Since we all directly or indirectly kill animal life more or less
>>> constantly, moral agency is a reasonable criterion to draw a firm
>>> prohibition.
>> A fallacious argument based on "Common Practice".
>
> Show how it is fallacious. Are we not to draw a line somewhere? I don't
> understand your point.

I think you are feigning ignorance.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/falla...-practice.html

"Since we all directly or indirectly kill animal life more or less
constantly, moral agency is a reasonable criterion to draw a firm
prohibition." is a perfect example.

>
>>> It is certainly more rational than the place vegans draw it,
>>
>> Another fallacious argument.
>
> Please show how.

Again, I think you know why. Because you think you are "better" doesn't
make you right.

>
>>> and that is that is to object vehemently to the killing *and using* of
>>> animal parts, but not to the eradication of animals in agriculture and
>>> other such processes. How is it reasonable to object to the disposition
>>> of the corpse?
>> You're raising another diversionary issue.
>
> The issue of collateral deaths is critical to understanding the fundamental
> fallacious thinking underlying veganism.

You're raising another diversionary issue. Raise it as a separate thread
if you want.

>
>> My question to Martin was "What difference does the ability to make a
>> moral choice have on your want to kill and eat a species?
>
> I would say that ability to make a moral choice, inasmuch as it implies
> "ethical thinking", implies abstract thought and therefore self-awareness

Do you think it is impossible for nonhumans have these characteristics?

> and even the ability to contemplate one's mortality. If an animal is that
> advanced then I would not want to take it's life either.

Getting back to Martin's "Alien example" there may be a characteristic
that they have and we don't, so would eat us. More importantly *why*
wouldn't you want to take its life?

>
>> I would rather at this stage keep things simple, we don't want Martin
>> "getting off the hook" do we.
>
> I have given an answer, what is so important to you in "skewering" Martin?

It's part of a *discussion* group to have a *discussion*. I just get the
feeling he 'walked off in a huff' before we'd finished because things
seemed difficult.

>
>>> > 3) Do you *know* that a pig can not differentiate between right and
>>> wrong?
>>>
>>> There is no evidence that any animal other than humans understands the
>>> concept of right and wrong. Other animals demonstrate social behaviours
>>> and conditioning.
>> I don't consider you an expert on nonhuman ethics.
>
>> http://www.answers.com/topic/nonhuman-animals-ethics
>>
>> Morality evolved just as any other human characteristic. Are you arrogant
>> enough to think that traces of these characteristics do not exist in other
>> animals?
>>
>> We are limited by OUR understanding of the nonhuman world.
>
> Of course ethics evolved out of social behaviours in our pre-human
> ancestors, but there is difference between acting socially in a social group
> and understanding and considering ethical principles.
>

It's more than "acting socially in a social group".

>
>>>> MW:
>>>>
>>>> "Vegetarians and vegans do not realistically expect the world to turn
>>>> vegetarian but they keep promoting vegetarianism because it allows them
>>>> *to be seen* as vegetarians. If nobody ate meat they wouldn't have
>>>> anybody to feel superior to so they'd have to give up something else or
>>>> actually do something worthy in and of itself."
>>>>
>>>> 4) What utter crap. This is ALL in your mind, please provide SOME
>>>> evidence for these conclusions. You don't get it do you, it's YOUR mis
>>>> perception of vegetarians.
>>> YOU are in denial. There is NO doubt that veg*ns display self-righteous
>>> attitudes. You need to only read their posts on the ethics forum for a
>>> while.
>>>
>>>> PS. If you followed someone in a canteen queue that ordered dishes that
>>>> contained no meat, can you say that person IS a vegetarian and had these
>>>> traits. You can't; but I'd be sure that you would think less of them in
>>>> some degree if you suspected they were. As Anais Nin wrote "We don't see
>>>> things as they are, we see them as we are".
>>> Veg*ns ought to take that to heart.
>> I do; I quoted it.
>
> There's a difference between quoting something to admonish others and seeing
> how it applies to yourself. It is a very apt quote in describing vegans in
> general, who adopt this notion/belief that it is wrong to "kill and eat"
> animals, then project this as a moral requirement on others.

Where's this "projection". If it's these groups, then is an ideal place
to test ideas and hypothesises. Groups do not represent the general
population.

They are seeing
> through the filers of what [they *think*] "they are", not "what is".
>
>>>> MW:
>>>>
>>>> "My best advice to you would be carry on. Your propaganda isn't working"
>>>>
>>>> 5)What propaganda of mine?
>>>>
>>>> MW:
>>>>
>>>> "Really? "I'm eating a salad but I'd like to point out to you that I'm
>>>> not a limp-wristed carrot-muncher I also eat meat""
>>>>
>>>> 6) I think you've got a problem with vegetarians! The common pattern of
>>>> events includes *others* pointing out my dietary choices, then the rest
>>>> of the table stating what they couldn't do without or can't understand
>>>> my choices, etc.
>>>>
>>>> PS. Do you recognise this pattern of events?
>>> What do you tell them ?
>> I answer their questions in a short and polite a manner as possible. I
>> really try hard not to be seen as "pushy". Sometimes I say that I don't
>> like meat, which is true.
>
> Which is what a meat-eater might do at a dinner with a group of vegans.
> Social pressure to behave socially is powerful. But the underlying
> self-righteousness comes out in an anonymous forum such as this. To see it
> you must spend some time reading with an open mind.

I do read, and I do try an adopt an open mind.

>
>>>> MW:
>>>>
>>>> "I have already explained why I can't prove it. But neither can anybody
>>>> prove that there is or isn't a god. Just because something can't be
>>>> proved it doesn't follow that it isn't so. I can't *prove* Elvis isn't
>>>> running a whelk stall on Venus either."
>>>>
>>>> 7) No, it was implicit in your response that the observation could be
>>>> made. Surely if you observe these vegetarians being smug, you can give
>>>> any examples; can't you?
>>> Pretty much every one I have met, including myself when I was one. For
>>> examples follow some of the threads in this forum. Check out this poem
>>> http://www.beyondveg.com/holman-r/ea...togod-1a.shtml If you can
>>> quiet the cognitive dissonance long enough read Roy Holman's brief bio
>>> linked at the bottom of the page.
>> This was written by a recovering raw "foodist" on an anti-vegetarian web
>> site.
>
> It's not "anti-vegetarian", it is *honesty-about*-vegetarianism and other
> food-based pseudo-moralities.

I haven't got a problem with it.

>
>> Not entirely representative of a vegetarian.
>
> I think it conveys the message very well.

Not to me.

>>>> MW:
>>>>
>>>> "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."
>>>>
>>>> 8) Do you buy your food from the supermarket? Do you know or
>>>> particularly care where it comes from?
>>> That's a smug comment, how about you? Have you ever attempted to discern
>>> the different death tolls behind the non-animal products that you
>>> consume?
>>
>> My question is a fair one, not smug at all. Most people I know don't know
>> and don't care where their food comes from.
>
> Most meat-eaters know pretty much where their meat comes from.

Where's the evidence for that statement?

http://www.intracen.org/tradstat/sitc3-3d/ir842.htm is just an
indication of the massive international trade in meat.

People order a McDonald's, a chicken curry, buy a turkey without a
thought of where the meat comes from, just talk to anyone you know. I
don't know of any cooked food outlet that details the country of origin
of its meat (odd exceptions, like Scottish Salmon, etc).

Even something that they may believe to be from a certain country, only
to find out it's not (Like union flags on Polish bacon). Much of our
meat is just stamped with a "Health Mark", so without looking up a code,
you don't even know what the country of origin is (I think there's
separate legislation for beef).

>
>> I have looked for and generally failed to find any reliable evidence of
>> crop "death tolls".
>
> How convenient. How much do you actually know about commercial agriculture?

I would guess more than average, but that's not saying much.

> If you like I could paste a few dozen links that support the phenomenon. If
> you were a farmer you would know.

Please post some reliable, scientifically credible links if you have some.

>
>> I do buy items where available that are produced to standards of
>> organisations that are "more green" like the Soil Association, and buy
>> items that have "low mileage" etc.
>
> One does not need to be a vegetarian to do those things. In fact it is quite
> common to consume meat and have a smaller impact than the average vegan.

Again I don't believe you have any evidence to support that claim.

Certainly there can be circumstances where a meat consumer could have a
lesser impact. I've cited an example myself on another thread.

>
>

"ant and dec" > wrote
> Dutch wrote:

[..]

>>>>> 2) What difference does the ability to make a moral choice have on
>>>>> your want to kill and eat a species?

>>>> Since we all directly or indirectly kill animal life more or less
>>>> constantly, moral agency is a reasonable criterion to draw a firm
>>>> prohibition.
>>> A fallacious argument based on "Common Practice".
>>
>> Show how it is fallacious. Are we not to draw a line somewhere? I don't
>> understand your point.
>
> I think you are feigning ignorance.
>
> http://www.nizkor.org/features/falla...-practice.html
>
> "Since we all directly or indirectly kill animal life more or less
> constantly, moral agency is a reasonable criterion to draw a firm
> prohibition." is a perfect example.

I think it's a very poor example of that fallacy, and the reason I say so is
that I did not attempt to use the commoness of killing animals to excuse
doing it, I used it to place the "drawing of a line" in context. I will
re-state. The killing and harming of animals directly and indirectly is a
normal part of life, particularly if one includes *all* forms of animal
life, such as the ones in our hair and on our skin, insects, rodents etc..
and all forms of activities and processes. It's the nature of the biosphere
in which we live, animal life is ubiquitous. So in that context, as ethical
beings, it is expected, natural, normal to "draw a line" in the sand, and
say we will NOT kill certain animals based on some criteria. He suggested
intelligence and moral capabilities as ones he considers, which seem pretty
common and reasonable ones to me.

>>>> It is certainly more rational than the place vegans draw it,
>>>
>>> Another fallacious argument.
>>
>> Please show how.
>
> Again, I think you know why. Because you think you are "better" doesn't
> make you right.

That's not the reason I gave. The reason is that the vegan "line" makes no
sense to me is that it essentially bases the line on the disposition of the
corpse, i.e. as you said yourself, to "kill and eat" an animal is immoral,
as in hunting or animal agriculture, but to kill in agriculture in general
is ignored, as in poisoning of pests to protect crops.

>>>> and that is that is to object vehemently to the killing *and using* of
>>>> animal parts, but not to the eradication of animals in agriculture and
>>>> other such processes. How is it reasonable to object to the disposition
>>>> of the corpse?
>>> You're raising another diversionary issue.
>>
>> The issue of collateral deaths is critical to understanding the
>> fundamental fallacious thinking underlying veganism.
>
> You're raising another diversionary issue. Raise it as a separate thread
> if you want.

I think I am addressing the core issue. You posed the question "What
difference does the ability to make a moral choice have on your want to
*kill and eat* a species?" My question to you is, what criterion would you
suggest? As I said, the usual vegan criterion seems nonsensical.

>>> My question to Martin was "What difference does the ability to make a
>>> moral choice have on your want to kill and eat a species?
>>
>> I would say that ability to make a moral choice, inasmuch as it implies
>> "ethical thinking", implies abstract thought and therefore self-awareness
>
> Do you think it is impossible for nonhumans have these characteristics?

I don't like to use terms like "impossible" but when I examine the kind of
thinking that goes into ethical decision-making I am pretty confident that
non-humans cannot do it. Chimps share food with peers and act socially but
can they understand moral principles? Would a chimp return bananas to a
member of another chimp troupe who dropped them because it was the right
thing to do the way you would take the trouble return a wallet to someone
you didn't know?

>> and even the ability to contemplate one's mortality. If an animal is that
>> advanced then I would not want to take it's life either.
>
> Getting back to Martin's "Alien example" there may be a characteristic
> that they have and we don't, so would eat us. More importantly *why*
> wouldn't you want to take its life?

I would say because we think that they possess a degree of awareness of
themselves as individuals in the world to the point that we feel a
connection to them which precludes eating them. I feel that way about
primates, I thinks it's horrid that people eat them.

>>> I would rather at this stage keep things simple, we don't want Martin
>>> "getting off the hook" do we.
>>
>> I have given an answer, what is so important to you in "skewering"
>> Martin?
>
> It's part of a *discussion* group to have a *discussion*. I just get the
> feeling he 'walked off in a huff' before we'd finished because things
> seemed difficult.

Maybe that's the case...

>>
>>>> > 3) Do you *know* that a pig can not differentiate between right and
>>>> wrong?
>>>>
>>>> There is no evidence that any animal other than humans understands the
>>>> concept of right and wrong. Other animals demonstrate social behaviours
>>>> and conditioning.
>>> I don't consider you an expert on nonhuman ethics.
>>
>>> http://www.answers.com/topic/nonhuman-animals-ethics
>>>
>>> Morality evolved just as any other human characteristic. Are you
>>> arrogant enough to think that traces of these characteristics do not
>>> exist in other animals?
>>>
>>> We are limited by OUR understanding of the nonhuman world.
>>
>> Of course ethics evolved out of social behaviours in our pre-human
>> ancestors, but there is difference between acting socially in a social
>> group and understanding and considering ethical principles.
>>
>
> It's more than "acting socially in a social group".

Is it? Read over the examples on that web page with that in mind.

>
>>
>>>>> MW:
>>>>>
>>>>> "Vegetarians and vegans do not realistically expect the world to turn
>>>>> vegetarian but they keep promoting vegetarianism because it allows
>>>>> them *to be seen* as vegetarians. If nobody ate meat they wouldn't
>>>>> have anybody to feel superior to so they'd have to give up something
>>>>> else or actually do something worthy in and of itself."
>>>>>
>>>>> 4) What utter crap. This is ALL in your mind, please provide SOME
>>>>> evidence for these conclusions. You don't get it do you, it's YOUR mis
>>>>> perception of vegetarians.
>>>> YOU are in denial. There is NO doubt that veg*ns display self-righteous
>>>> attitudes. You need to only read their posts on the ethics forum for a
>>>> while.
>>>>
>>>>> PS. If you followed someone in a canteen queue that ordered dishes
>>>>> that contained no meat, can you say that person IS a vegetarian and
>>>>> had these traits. You can't; but I'd be sure that you would think less
>>>>> of them in some degree if you suspected they were. As Anais Nin wrote
>>>>> "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are".
>>>> Veg*ns ought to take that to heart.
>>> I do; I quoted it.
>>
>> There's a difference between quoting something to admonish others and
>> seeing how it applies to yourself. It is a very apt quote in describing
>> vegans in general, who adopt this notion/belief that it is wrong to "kill
>> and eat" animals, then project this as a moral requirement on others.
>
> Where's this "projection". If it's these groups, then is an ideal place to
> test ideas and hypothesises. Groups do not represent the general
> population.

The notion that it's wrong to "kill and eat" per se is central the the idea
of veganism. It's an exaggeration of the usual idea that it's wrong to eat
humans, pets, apes or symbolic animals.

> They are seeing
>> through the filers of what [they *think*] "they are", not "what is".
>>
>>>>> MW:
>>>>>
>>>>> "My best advice to you would be carry on. Your propaganda isn't
>>>>> working"
>>>>>
>>>>> 5)What propaganda of mine?
>>>>>
>>>>> MW:
>>>>>
>>>>> "Really? "I'm eating a salad but I'd like to point out to you that I'm
>>>>> not a limp-wristed carrot-muncher I also eat meat""
>>>>>
>>>>> 6) I think you've got a problem with vegetarians! The common pattern
>>>>> of events includes *others* pointing out my dietary choices, then the
>>>>> rest of the table stating what they couldn't do without or can't
>>>>> understand my choices, etc.
>>>>>
>>>>> PS. Do you recognise this pattern of events?
>>>> What do you tell them ?
>>> I answer their questions in a short and polite a manner as possible. I
>>> really try hard not to be seen as "pushy". Sometimes I say that I don't
>>> like meat, which is true.
>>
>> Which is what a meat-eater might do at a dinner with a group of vegans.
>> Social pressure to behave socially is powerful. But the underlying
>> self-righteousness comes out in an anonymous forum such as this. To see
>> it you must spend some time reading with an open mind.
>
> I do read, and I do try an adopt an open mind.

I think you do, I accept that.

I have to leave it at that now, it's very late here.

[...]

Dutch wrote:
> "ant and dec" > wrote
>> Dutch wrote:
>
> [..]
>
>>>>>> 2) What difference does the ability to make a moral choice have on
>>>>>> your want to kill and eat a species?
>
>>>>> Since we all directly or indirectly kill animal life more or less
>>>>> constantly, moral agency is a reasonable criterion to draw a firm
>>>>> prohibition.
>>>> A fallacious argument based on "Common Practice".
>>> Show how it is fallacious. Are we not to draw a line somewhere? I don't
>>> understand your point.
>> I think you are feigning ignorance.
>>
>> http://www.nizkor.org/features/falla...-practice.html
>>
>> "Since we all directly or indirectly kill animal life more or less
>> constantly, moral agency is a reasonable criterion to draw a firm
>> prohibition." is a perfect example.
>
> I think it's a very poor example of that fallacy, and the reason I say so is
> that I did not attempt to use the commoness of killing animals to excuse
> doing it, I used it to place the "drawing of a line" in context. I will
> re-state. The killing and harming of animals directly and indirectly is a
> normal part of life, particularly if one includes *all* forms of animal
> life, such as the ones in our hair and on our skin, insects, rodents etc..
> and all forms of activities and processes. It's the nature of the biosphere
> in which we live, animal life is ubiquitous. So in that context, as ethical
> beings, it is expected, natural, normal to "draw a line" in the sand, and
> say we will NOT kill certain animals based on some criteria. He suggested
> intelligence and moral capabilities as ones he considers, which seem pretty
> common and reasonable ones to me.

You've now explained the context of your response and given it more
detail, but I don't feel I've got any nearer understanding why you've
drawn the line there, except it's "common and reasonable", which don't
seem good reasons to me.

>
>>>>> It is certainly more rational than the place vegans draw it,
>>>> Another fallacious argument.
>>> Please show how.
>> Again, I think you know why. Because you think you are "better" doesn't
>> make you right.
>
> That's not the reason I gave. The reason is that the vegan "line" makes no
> sense to me is that it essentially bases the line on the disposition of the
> corpse, i.e. as you said yourself, to "kill and eat" an animal is immoral,
> as in hunting or animal agriculture, but to kill in agriculture in general
> is ignored, as in poisoning of pests to protect crops.

The two 'lines' are entirely different, one aim is to kill, and can
normally be avoided. The other; crop deaths may be necessary as the are
conflicting interests where there may be no viable alternative.

Using a travel analogy; we all have an interest in travel (personal or
food transport, etc), but this does conflict with an interest in
personal and others safety (people are hurt and killed). Sometime these
deaths are caused by reckless driving, intentional racing and other
inappropriately behaviors.

In the same way some farmers may act inappropriately and needlessly
kill, but with policies such as those promulgated by the Soil
Association these can be minimised.

We have a need to travel, we have a need to eat; both needs can be met
by a policy of minimising the risk of and lessening the impact of any
conflict of interest.

>
>
>>>>> and that is that is to object vehemently to the killing *and using* of
>>>>> animal parts, but not to the eradication of animals in agriculture and
>>>>> other such processes. How is it reasonable to object to the disposition
>>>>> of the corpse?
>>>> You're raising another diversionary issue.
>>> The issue of collateral deaths is critical to understanding the
>>> fundamental fallacious thinking underlying veganism.
>> You're raising another diversionary issue. Raise it as a separate thread
>> if you want.
>
> I think I am addressing the core issue. You posed the question "What
> difference does the ability to make a moral choice have on your want to
> *kill and eat* a species?" My question to you is, what criterion would you
> suggest? As I said, the usual vegan criterion seems nonsensical.

What usual vegan criterion? To put my criterion in it's simplest form; I
would suggest looking at the impact on the interests of all the
stakeholders of the action being taken to satisfy any need, in light of
the alternatives. The stakeholders would obviously have different
interests, but all have an interest in being alive and being free from pain.

>
>>>> My question to Martin was "What difference does the ability to make a
>>>> moral choice have on your want to kill and eat a species?
>>> I would say that ability to make a moral choice, inasmuch as it implies
>>> "ethical thinking", implies abstract thought and therefore self-awareness
>> Do you think it is impossible for nonhumans have these characteristics?
>
> I don't like to use terms like "impossible" but when I examine the kind of
> thinking that goes into ethical decision-making I am pretty confident that
> non-humans cannot do it. Chimps share food with peers and act socially but
> can they understand moral principles? Would a chimp return bananas to a
> member of another chimp troupe who dropped them because it was the right
> thing to do the way you would take the trouble return a wallet to someone
> you didn't know?
>
>>> and even the ability to contemplate one's mortality. If an animal is that
>>> advanced then I would not want to take it's life either.
>> Getting back to Martin's "Alien example" there may be a characteristic
>> that they have and we don't, so would eat us. More importantly *why*
>> wouldn't you want to take its life?
>
> I would say because we think that they possess a degree of awareness of
> themselves as individuals in the world to the point that we feel a
> connection to them which precludes eating them. I feel that way about
> primates, I thinks it's horrid that people eat them.
>
>>>> I would rather at this stage keep things simple, we don't want Martin
>>>> "getting off the hook" do we.
>>> I have given an answer, what is so important to you in "skewering"
>>> Martin?
>> It's part of a *discussion* group to have a *discussion*. I just get the
>> feeling he 'walked off in a huff' before we'd finished because things
>> seemed difficult.
>
> Maybe that's the case...
>
>>>>> > 3) Do you *know* that a pig can not differentiate between right and
>>>>> wrong?
>>>>>
>>>>> There is no evidence that any animal other than humans understands the
>>>>> concept of right and wrong. Other animals demonstrate social behaviours
>>>>> and conditioning.
>>>> I don't consider you an expert on nonhuman ethics.
>>>> http://www.answers.com/topic/nonhuman-animals-ethics
>>>>
>>>> Morality evolved just as any other human characteristic. Are you
>>>> arrogant enough to think that traces of these characteristics do not
>>>> exist in other animals?
>>>>
>>>> We are limited by OUR understanding of the nonhuman world.
>>> Of course ethics evolved out of social behaviours in our pre-human
>>> ancestors, but there is difference between acting socially in a social
>>> group and understanding and considering ethical principles.
>>>
>> It's more than "acting socially in a social group".
>
> Is it? Read over the examples on that web page with that in mind.

There's more than just that one web page. I will, if I get time get some
more links.

>
>
>>>>>> MW:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Vegetarians and vegans do not realistically expect the world to turn
>>>>>> vegetarian but they keep promoting vegetarianism because it allows
>>>>>> them *to be seen* as vegetarians. If nobody ate meat they wouldn't
>>>>>> have anybody to feel superior to so they'd have to give up something
>>>>>> else or actually do something worthy in and of itself."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 4) What utter crap. This is ALL in your mind, please provide SOME
>>>>>> evidence for these conclusions. You don't get it do you, it's YOUR mis
>>>>>> perception of vegetarians.
>>>>> YOU are in denial. There is NO doubt that veg*ns display self-righteous
>>>>> attitudes. You need to only read their posts on the ethics forum for a
>>>>> while.
>>>>>
>>>>>> PS. If you followed someone in a canteen queue that ordered dishes
>>>>>> that contained no meat, can you say that person IS a vegetarian and
>>>>>> had these traits. You can't; but I'd be sure that you would think less
>>>>>> of them in some degree if you suspected they were. As Anais Nin wrote
>>>>>> "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are".
>>>>> Veg*ns ought to take that to heart.
>>>> I do; I quoted it.
>>> There's a difference between quoting something to admonish others and
>>> seeing how it applies to yourself. It is a very apt quote in describing
>>> vegans in general, who adopt this notion/belief that it is wrong to "kill
>>> and eat" animals, then project this as a moral requirement on others.
>> Where's this "projection". If it's these groups, then is an ideal place to
>> test ideas and hypothesises. Groups do not represent the general
>> population.
>
> The notion that it's wrong to "kill and eat" per se is central the the idea
> of veganism. It's an exaggeration of the usual idea that it's wrong to eat
> humans, pets, apes or symbolic animals.

I think this is the nearest we'll get an agreement. I'm not a vegan
partly because I think it is only part of a solution, and strict
adherence to it's rules may not give the best solution to all
stakeholders, in all circumstances.

>
>> They are seeing
>>> through the filers of what [they *think*] "they are", not "what is".
>>>
>>>>>> MW:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "My best advice to you would be carry on. Your propaganda isn't
>>>>>> working"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 5)What propaganda of mine?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> MW:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Really? "I'm eating a salad but I'd like to point out to you that I'm
>>>>>> not a limp-wristed carrot-muncher I also eat meat""
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 6) I think you've got a problem with vegetarians! The common pattern
>>>>>> of events includes *others* pointing out my dietary choices, then the
>>>>>> rest of the table stating what they couldn't do without or can't
>>>>>> understand my choices, etc.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> PS. Do you recognise this pattern of events?
>>>>> What do you tell them ?
>>>> I answer their questions in a short and polite a manner as possible. I
>>>> really try hard not to be seen as "pushy". Sometimes I say that I don't
>>>> like meat, which is true.
>>> Which is what a meat-eater might do at a dinner with a group of vegans.
>>> Social pressure to behave socially is powerful. But the underlying
>>> self-righteousness comes out in an anonymous forum such as this. To see
>>> it you must spend some time reading with an open mind.
>> I do read, and I do try an adopt an open mind.
>
> I think you do, I accept that.
>
> I have to leave it at that now, it's very late here.

Not late but I have lots on at the moment.

>
> [...]
>
>

Dutch wrote:
> "Dave" > wrote
> >
> > Martin Willett wrote:
> [..]
>
> >> >> 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.
>
> You would think it to be self-evident wouldn't you? Yet vegans consistently
> deny it when confronted by it.
>
> >> 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.
>
> Futile.
>
> > Should they avoid acting in what they consider to
> > be the morally superior fashion in case it makes other people feel
> > uncomfortable?
>
> The discomfort of others translates into comfort for the vegan.

I think this is an unfair characterisation of veg*n psychology.
A sweeping generalization at the very least. Was that what you
were like during your time as a vegetarian?
>
> > 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?
>
> The only hope for vegans is to sacrifice the comforting feeling they get by
> making others uncomfortable while they subject their views to a criticial
> assessment. It's not a likely scenario, how many people can give up a sure
> sense of moral superiority for a mere hope of intellectual integrity?

Martin Willett wrote:
> Dave 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
> <snip>
> >>>
> >>>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.
> >
>
> Quite. To say otherwise is simply being obtuse.

> >>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?
>
> If veg*ns want to carry on getting cheap moral superiority without
> having to do anything really worthy they should carry on exactly as they
> are doing. Veg*nism will never be an opportunity for moral superiority
> if it is universal, so the struggle must go on for ever and must never
> be allowed to succeed. Ensuring that they never make a united and
> coherent front, that there are always several contradictory sets of
> ideas on display and that they are seen to also endorse a variety of
> alternative and counter-cultural causes. I especially commend the use of
> the "it's all the same struggle comrade" approach whenever possible to
> ensure that veg*nism is always associated with the kind of militant
> animal rights people who torture the pets of laboratory workers to show
> how bloody serious they are and associating veg*nism with drugs,
> homosexuality, torching McDonalds and overturning BMWs is always a good
> idea.
>
> What about holding a march on Trafalgar Square under the banner of
> "Vegans: kick a pigeon if you think meat is murder" and carry banners
> that say "Vegans fart louder" or "Vegans: spit or swallow?"

Very good but on a more serious note what if Veg*ns do genuinely want
to further their AR objectives without hurting the feelings of their
fellow
human beings too much?

I am almost but not quite a vegan. I am opposed to all the activities
you describe not just because they are bad PR but because they
assume a greater authority to make moral judgements about issues
than society at large. Anarchist ideas about direct action are highly
pernicious and would tear society apart if they became more widespread.

I do not consider that I have any
more authority to make ethical judgements than you or anyone else
but naturally wouldn't be near-vegan if I did not consider it an
ethically superior position to take. I have no authority to demand
that you or anyone else follow me along this path but see nothing
wrong with presenting arguments or information that you may not
be aware of in order to allow you to make an informed decision.
Since this attitude appears to bother you I would ask that you
imagine that instead of vegansim I am advocating an alternative
cause that you passionately believe in and then please tell me
how to improve my attitude.

> > How would you act if you agreed with their views about the raising or
> > killing of animals?
> >
>
> Badly. I'd be a bloody dangerous person if ever I was infected by
> religion or moral absolutism. I know my capacity for bloody-mindedness
> and it scares me.
>
> Seriously, I can't do it. It would be like trying to imagine what I'd
> think if I was a bat.
>
> If I agreed with those views I wouldn't be me and I wouldn't have my
> thoughts or my memories.
>
> No, I didn't say vegans were all batty.
>
> <snip>
>
> --
> Martin Willett
>
>
> http://mwillett.org

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Have you ever eaten.......	Denise in NH	General Cooking	9	22-04-2009 05:59 PM
Anyone eaten Fox ?	Steve Y	General Cooking	13	26-01-2007 10:56 PM
The most food ever eaten...	Andy	General Cooking	40	13-12-2006 04:01 PM
How many of these has Kibo eaten?	Adam Funk	General Cooking	1	19-06-2006 08:32 PM
How many of these has Kibo eaten?	Adam Funk	General Cooking	0	19-06-2006 07:17 PM

Menu

About Us