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Vegans cause animals to go extinct?

I would go vegan, but if my steak bar isn't at 100%, I can't do all the important human development work that I don't do.
 
cornsail said:
I assume you meant to include dairy as well.

In which case: No, but I don't see why anyone should care. Species go extinct all the time. A domesticated animal that is of no value going extinct is hardly concerning. ...
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Yes I did. As somebody who grew up with cows, and found them to be actually friendly and smarter than you'd think, I would be very sad if there were no more of them.
 
This extinction nonsense is not unlike the ontological argument for God in that it's fanciful and completely stupid. It's not even half-witted.

First, assuming everyone adopted a humane, environmentally friendly-diet -- i.e., became a vegan -- then cows would NOT go extinct.

Second, assuming everyone did turn vegan (wildly unlikely in our lifetime), then it would not happen all of a sudden. It would be a gradual process. But sure, continue to assume the improbable in order to argue an imbecilic non-point.

Third, admit your concern for cows is overwhelmingly self-interested rather than moral/rational. If the panda went extinct in the next few years, then there would surely be a lot of hand-wringing on behalf the even cuter black & white mammal... but we'd get on with our day. If the cow went extinct, then we'd hear unprecedented belly-aching. What am I gonna eat?!?

As for a loss of jobs, or devastation to the economy, the same has been said about for other industries -- except arguments from oil companies and slave-owners sound far more plausible. Interestingly, cutting out consumption of cows cuts across both topics: it's a way to help the environment and act humanely (beef production is highly inefficient -- if our goal is to feed people; abolishing the machinery of death is the right thing to do -- if our concern for the feelings and interests of others outweighs our desire for tastier meals).
 
It's a ******** rationalization from the start. If we develop a vat meat that is tastier, cheaper, healthier, more environmentally responsible and safer than traditional meat, who is going to eat womb meat for the sake of animals? Answer: nobody. Especially since I just called it "womb meat."
 
mumblethrax said:
It's a ******** rationalization from the start. If we develop a vat meat that is tastier, cheaper, healthier, more environmentally responsible and safer than traditional meat, who is going to eat womb meat for the sake of animals? Answer: nobody.
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Correct. People will eat it because of "tastier and cheaper" part. Possibly because of "healthier".
 
So if say animals are raised in a factory but with heavy regulations that ensure they don't feel much pain (as pain is guaranteed to happen in the wild) and the death comes as painless as possible maybe by drugging them up (doobies??) would vegans be somewhat okay with that? As i see it the big problem is that owners of farms&factories could care about the welfare of the animal but don't due to money and maybe even not caring. If in the future most likely artificial meat will come into mainstream and could likely replace real meat, so seeing as how not much progress has been made by vegans shouldn;t most of their efforts turn this way to ensure the welfare of the animal?

Btw some sarcasm till the last question which is the serious one. Not being a ******* but adding humor as i have played online games with people who were vegans and we had a healthy relationship of messing around alot.
 
mumblethrax said:
It's a ******** rationalization from the start. If we develop a vat meat that is tastier, cheaper, healthier, more environmentally responsible and safer than traditional meat, who is going to eat womb meat for the sake of animals? Answer: nobody. Especially since I just called it "womb meat."
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Heh, not that "vat meat" is an attractive title either (I use it myself, but that isn't what it will be marketed as).

Besides, it would be far from impossible to spend a few (animal) generations selectively breeding cows and other domesticated food animals to be capable of surviving in the wild, I'd think.
 
Drachasor said:
Heh, not that "vat meat" is an attractive title either (I use it myself, but that isn't what it will be marketed as).
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Exactly--vat meat will be called something awesome and only slightly dystopic, like "cleanburgers" or "TastyMheat." But you'll never get womb meat out of your head, not without disastrous results.

Besides, it would be far from impossible to spend a few (animal) generations selectively breeding cows and other domesticated food animals to be capable of surviving in the wild, I'd think.
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We've already got wild herds like the Chillingham CattleWP. I should have led with that.
 
Bisco said:
So if say animals are raised in a factory but with heavy regulations that ensure they don't feel much pain (as pain is guaranteed to happen in the wild) and the death comes as painless as possible maybe by drugging them up (doobies??) would vegans be somewhat okay with that?
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I think almost everyone agrees that, all things being equal, killing something quickly and painlessly is less harmful than tormenting it beforehand.

I don't think vegans are likely to buy your statement. For a start, how do you justify the odd presumption that the experience of being slaughtered and dying is somehow not harmful to non-human animals, yet almost always harmful to humans in a vastly incomparable way? I don't think its possible, at least not without committing to a position where it's permissible to murder a similarly situated human.
 
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Dessi said:
I don't think its possible, at least not without committing to a position where it's permissible to murder a similarly situated human.
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Sure it is. Being killed and eaten is the single most common end for all wild animals, with exception of top predators. Humans are top predators.
 
Mark6 said:
Dessi said:
I think almost everyone agrees that, all things being equal, killing something quickly and painlessly is less harmful than tormenting it beforehand.

I don't think vegans are likely to buy your statement. For a start, how do you justify the odd presumption that the experience of being slaughtered and dying is somehow not harmful to non-human animals, yet almost always harmful to humans in a vastly incomparable way? I don't think its possible, at least not without committing to a position where it's permissible to murder a similarly situated human.
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Sure it is. Being killed and eaten is the single most common end for all wild animals, with exception of top predators. Humans are top predators.
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How about an argument which doesn't invoke the naturalistic fallacy?
 
Mark6 said:
Mark6 said:
Dessi said:
I think almost everyone agrees that, all things being equal, killing something quickly and painlessly is less harmful than tormenting it beforehand.

I don't think vegans are likely to buy your statement. For a start, how do you justify the odd presumption that the experience of being slaughtered and dying is somehow not harmful to non-human animals, yet almost always harmful to humans in a vastly incomparable way? I don't think its possible, at least not without committing to a position where it's permissible to murder a similarly situated human.
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Sure it is. Being killed and eaten is the single most common end for all wild animals, with exception of top predators. Humans are top predators.
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First show it is a fallacy.
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Your argument is a hardly subtle restatement of "might makes right". Its a very textbook example of the naturalistic fallacy, its based on the presumption that 'survival of the fittest' is a normative statement rather than a descriptive one.

Either you're ascribing normative value 'survival of the fittest', or your comment is totally irrelevant to the question being discussed in the this thread, "how do you justify your diet?"
 
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cornsail said:
You're not really claiming killing plants is an ethical problem, are you?
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It depends if what's wrong with eating meat lies with the killing itself, or the associated pain, depending on the technique. If it's the latter, then better norms and regulations should satisfy them. It clearly doesn't, so it must be the killing, which would mean that killing plants is just as evil. So again, clearly not it.

Bottom line: ethical vegans just feel bad when cute animals are killed. I'm not sure they feel that way about leeches, ants or salmonella.

First of all, pain, suffering, fear, desire for freedom, yada yada yada; these are all functions of the brain. There is no evidence that plants, or any other brainless entities (e.g. brainless animals like sponges, rocks, soda cans, etcetera) are capable of experiencing pain, or experiencing anything, for that matter.
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There is no evidence that animals have a desire for freedom. And there is much evidence of pain, suffering and fear in wild animals that domesticated animals don't have to contend with.

Additionally, following a vegan diet kills less plants. So even if killing plants were cruel (which it isn't), veganism would be the best way to go.
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Now that is an actual argument.

Personally, I don't think too many animals would go extinct if we stopped eating them, though the domesticated kinds might. I'm stuff fuzzy on how I'd get my proteins, mind you.

Oh, and medical research.
 
Belz... said:
It depends if what's wrong with eating meat lies with the killing itself, or the associated pain, depending on the technique. If it's the latter, then better norms and regulations should satisfy them. It clearly doesn't, so it must be the killing, which would mean that killing plants is just as evil. So again, clearly not it.
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It depends if what's wrong with killing humans lies with the killing itself, or the associated pain, depending on the technique. If it's the latter, then better norms and regulations should satisfy them. It clearly doesn't, so it must be the killing, which would mean that killing plants is just as evil. So again, clearly not it.

Bottom line: ethical vegans just feel bad when cute animals are killed. I'm not sure they feel that way about leeches, ants or salmonella.
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Sounds to me like you're putting words in their mouths without actually bothering to talk to one.

Ethical vegans will almost universally acknowledge that life, in and of itself, isn't valuable. Its not biological life that matters, but biographical life and life which has an experiential welfare -- like the capacity to feel pain, pleasure, satisfaction, suffering, see one's self over time, have wants, expectations, and so on.

Plants, salmonella, ants, AI opponents in video games and such have no mental life. In what way is something harmed if it has no experiences whatsoever? How do you make an argument that being killed or staying alive is in an organisms best interests if it cannot, even in principle, prefer one outcome or the other? What moral characteristics do they have at all? Name just one which makes them comparable to an organism with experiential welfare.

This is not a controversial point of view. I'm quite certain that you support abortion up to a certain point, likely support non-voluntary euthanasia for people in a permanent vegetative state -- you might have your talking point reasons in debates, but if you're anything like me, you've probably wondered what moral characteristics early term fetuses or vegetative humans even have, how do you even harm something without a mental life in principle?
 
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Belz... said:
There is no evidence that animals have a desire for freedom.
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And yet wasn't someone upthread arguing that keeping cats indoors so they don't hunt is cruel and against their desire for freedom? It seems to me that this argument is all over the place.

I suppose I find it hard to agree that killing an animal by ramming a rod through its brain and then hacking it up is somehow more humane than not doing this. As Dessi says, the same could be said for suffering people around the world. Why not just hack up the world's starving masses, since a quick and painless death, systematically executed (then being eaten), is preferable to dying one day of the world's many dangers?
 
citizenzen said:
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So to take particular happiness in killing a cat, (especially without addressing these other issues) confirms my suspicion of hunters: they do it because they like to kill.
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A bit OT but as an avid hunter I would like to address this.

I don't particularly 'enjoy' killing. I've killed quite a few things in my short stay here on Earth. I can't speak for all hunters but I don't know any that 'like' to kill.

When I go out in the woods, like I will today, to 'kill something' is not my objective. Bring home meat is the objective. Killing an animal is necessary to that end. In fact, this is how life ends for most animals, typically they are killed and eaten. Wiki answers be damned. My buddy manages 240 acres for deer and most die of non-human predation.

When I observe an animal, take deer because it's deer season, when I observe a deer in the wild I am in awe. Deer are beautiful gracious creatures perfectly adapted to their wide range of environments. I consider it a true honor to behold these animals and supreme challenge to harvest them. I am a bumbling human on their turf.

If we are going to make huge generalizations I will make one now: Ask hunters what the worst thing that could happen during a hunt and most will tell you it's wounding an animal or not recovering it. Hunters want a clean, quick kill. Double lung or heart shot. That's a far more humane death then they would ever face being run down by a pack of coyotes or slowly wasting away from disease.

An animal out in the wild and harvested (I prefer this word but 'killed' is just as good)in a humane manner is much more palatable to me than an animal that was stuck in a cage so small they couldn't turn around and fed until it was profitable to slaughter them.

I am a former vegan of several years. I was involved with an animal rights organization that is considered a domestic terrorist organization. I am no whelp wet behind the ears about this topic. If someone is truly concerned about animal welfare they would applaud ethical hunting.

How do I justify my diet? Well, humans are omnivores. We are not ruminates.
 
Unabogie said:
Well, first, are you sure being eaten is the "single most common end" of animals in the wild?
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Yes, I am quite sure.
According to Google-Fu,

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_some_of_the_leading_causes_of_animal_deaths
The main reason for wild animal deaths though is The main reason for wild animal deaths though is habitat destruction, pollution, over harvest, and diesese
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More earthworms and flies die through "habitat destruction, pollution, over harvest, and diesese" than from being eaten by birds and spiders? Really?

The quote in wiki.answers.com may be accurate if you change it to "main reason for species going extinct" -- not main reason for individual animal deaths.

As to how I "justify" my diet -- I do not feel any need to justify it. As foxholeatheist put it -- humans are omnivorous, not herbivorous. I frown at factory farming and prefer to catch and kill my own food, but do not consider "might makes right" a fallacy. Humans are predators, and that's what we do. By the way, here is an excerpt from my will:

"I invaded a world of underwater creatures by choice - if they retaliate against me for my invasion into their world, I chose this risk."

If some day another predator turns tables on me, I will fight, but I will not complain.
 
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