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Veganism/vegetarianism and "ethical" lifestyle choices

willow11 said:
Is 'easiness' that sound a basis for making an ethical decision though?



Look man, I must say that our interaction is actually causing me a bit of anxiety and unease. You seem to have some issue with me directly, which is why you keep talking about me. I understand that I disagreed with some of your comments earlier and questioned them. This was never meant to be taken personally. I questioned ONLY what was written here and made no comment (that I recall) about you as a person. If I did, I apologise. Thing is, you have been making comments about me as a person and you've no grounds to do that. I'm not really keen on getting called a hypocrite because I disagreed with PART of what you said. I absolutely know that I am not 100% ideologically sound or always consistent and logical. No human is. I refuse to have that hurled at me as an insult by another human. I'm not sure why you can't see that despite being told that on many occaisions that personal comments are uncalled for and not permitted and, furthermore, basically obliterate the logical basis of your reasoning.

Its frustrating being misunderstood, but I have to accept that the fault is mine because every time I explain myself, you don't seem to get it. So I have to give up and cease communicating with you in this thread.

Trust me, it'll be better for all concerned.
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If you get insulted when someone calls you on hypocritical behavior, then that is your problem. When I get called on mine, I can laugh it off and see it for what it is. My intent is not to belittle you, but to voice my genuine opinion based on my observations. Are you saying that I am not allowed to think another person is acting smug about their morals, or saying things that appear hypocritical without voicing my views? But. then would it be ok for others to voice views that I feel offended by? Like when someone tells me I am lazy, ignorant, or lack integrity? This is perfectly acceptable, but you are saying that I can't say a person lacks empathy and complains about things they he, himself, seems guilty of?

This is the second time you said ypu would disengage from the convo. As I told you the first time, I would rather you not respond at all, then for you to keep misapppying my arguments as a generalization for all vegetarians. But, you ignored my request and persisted. I, too, get frustrated when I am misunderstood. Heck, I have a speech impediment foe the first 10 years of my life. So, some could say I get obsessed about making sure someone interprets my messages with some degree of accuracy.

I don't have nothing against you personally. I am just busting your balls, because your misguided persistence annoys me, and I would like to correct it. You could say that I am a hypocrite, if I hadn't admitted to being guilty of being Human. You forget, I can admit it when my behavior implies my laziness or a lack of integrity. I have even admited that I too can be smug when I am taking a stand for or against something. Its only natural when you make a choice for the greater good, that you feel pride in yourself. However, the more you draw attention to the "good" you do, the more you appear smug to those who don't see the necessity for modifying their basic natural food preferences or the inherent immorality of eating the flesh of animals. Needless to say, I still like to put my two cents in. Have I not appeared smug to you telling someone how smug they come off when they criticize the choices of another? Like I said, I am just drawing attention to many underlying motivations that could be at work within some styles of thinking, while acknowledging that I am Human, so its also natural to be motivated by similar subconscious motivations.
 
ForEverAfter said:
This is the last time I'm going to respond to you, turk.



It isn't a false analogy. You read it wrong.
It was clear what I meant when I wrote it and I've made it even clearer since.

You suggested that immorality must either apply to all things or nothing...
To be selective, you said, is hypocrisy.

I provided you an exaggerated example of how absurd this kind of logic can be, when applied to a different situation...

My point did not rely on any of the terms being directly comparable.
I was making a logical comparison, not a qualitative comparison.
Perhaps you should read it again.

Before you get worked up again, just consider the following for a moment.
This is the last time I'm going to explain it to you.

...

a) it is immoral to eat meat
b) it is immoral to assume that your body is the same as another person's

You're saying that they both need to coexist or neither can exist at all.
That is absurd... Similarly, the following can exist independently of each other.

c) it is immoral to rape
d) it is immoral to watch Sesame Street

All I'm doing is showing you an example of two things that can be immoral independently of each other, without being contradictory or hypocritical. For the last time: I'm not saying that rape is the same as eating meat.



What I'm saying, if you bother to comprehend it, is not reliant on any qualitative comparison whatsoever.
(My point stands, regardless of whether or not I can prove anything of the sort.)

Please try and understand what I'm saying.
It's not particularly complicated.
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it only seems that way to you because you have no idea what my argument was. I said no such things.

willow has admited that he does not think its immoral to eat meat. He voiced no objection to the statement, "it is immoral to eat meat." In fact, he defended it.

However, based on his logic criticizing "immoral" as a poor word choice, it stands to reason that he should have also voiced similar reasoning against the claim eating meat is immoral.

Really, you are wasting alot of time arguing something of so little value and substance. Who cares if I think someone is being hypocritical, are you honestly going to debate something so insignificant when its not even directed at you?
 
murphythecat said:
for some, killing is immoral, for other its not. at this point, theres nothing to argue. its a matter of values and some people doesnt have the same value. I consider that we have to protect life and make sure we dont create suffering in any living organism if possible.

taking a life/killing another being is immoral imo but for some its not. theres nothing to prove here. its evidence. some consider its okay because we have to eat. whats there to argue really?
I dont see how rape is immoral but killing is not.
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First off, not everyone values non-human life. Not everyone believes that we have the same duty and obligation to treat all species of Life with the same amount of human dignity, and neither do you because you don't see to value plant life as much as animal life. Since you also draw a line and determine a life is more valuable if its more closely related to your particular species of life, it seems hypocritical that you judge other's for not extending their moral obligation to other species of animals, when you also draw a line and fail to apply the same duties and obligations to all forms of life.

do you drive a car? look what the oil industry has done to the environment. Killed countless animals. Are you killing animals because you support the oil industry by driving a car? Look at how many humans are killed by cars. Should driving a car, then, be considered inherently immoral?
 
Abject said:
I literally couldn't maintain my levels of protein (disregarding fat completely) without gaining fat from too many calories with the protein.
Sure, I could eat vegan if I wanted to eat an entirely different ratio of protein/fat/carbs, but I would either be hungry all the time (to the point where I'd just not eat in order to binge) or I'd be gaining fat all the time (due to plant matter not having anywhere near the satiety/fullness that meat/animal product provides)
It's possible for me to eat vegan, but it'd result in a higher BF% and constant hunger, which would affect all my interpersonal interactions and everyone would hate me for being a grumpy hungry fuck
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were you eating nuts, almond, seeds, beans, ect. these contain crazy amount of protein. half a cup of almond gives you almost the third of the intake of protein a men need per day, which is around 55g.

ime, hunger isnt fully compensated by eating enough protein, starchy food is what fill one up. so oatmeal, bread, barley, lentils, beans, rice, potatoes will fill you up easily.
 
I value plant life as well and I protect and be careful with plants. However, clearly a plant can less physically suffer then a animal. we already have had this discussion about plant suffering vs animal suffering and the consensus was that eating a fruit doesnt do any harm.

I dont drive a car, I have no license.
turkalurk said:
First off, not everyone values non-human life. Not everyone believes that we have the same duty and obligation to treat all species of Life with the same amount of human dignity, and neither do you because you don't see to value plant life as much as animal life. Since you also draw a line and determine a life is more valuable if its more closely related to your particular species of life, it seems hypocritical that you judge other's for not extending their moral obligation to other species of animals, when you also draw a line and fail to apply the same duties and obligations to all forms of life.

do you drive a car? look what the oil industry has done to the environment. Killed countless animals. Are you killing animals because you support the oil industry by driving a car? Look at how many humans are killed by cars. Should driving a car, then, be considered inherently immoral?
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hypocritical. you like this word and you apply it to all sauce.
can we stay on one subject at a time. lets not compare eating meat with using a car, with buying chinese product which controbute to the suffering of chinese. lets keep it one subject.
Im almost worried by your comprehension skills.


You are not even interested in the matter, you just want to critic people in here
 
murphythecat said:
I value plant life as well and I protect and be careful with plants. However, clearly a plant can less physically suffer then a animal. we already have had this discussion about plant suffering vs animal suffering and the consensus was that eating a fruit doesnt do any harm.

I dont drive a car, I have no license.
hypocritical. you like this word and you apply it to all sauce.
can we stay on one subject at a time. lets not compare eating meat with using a car, with buying chinese product which controbute to the suffering of chinese. lets keep it one subject.
Im almost worried by your comprehension skills.


You are not even interested in the matter, you just want to critic people in here
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wow, dude, I can't call people hypocrites, but you can imply my stupidity? WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!!


HOW COMPASSIONATE AND EMPATHETIC OF YOU! MEDITATE ON THAT!

I will give you sufficient time to read this, but will start looking for a block button so I can start using it.
 
Well, he wasn't without grounds to say that. But you're really stirring it here. Maybe keep the guidelines in mind or I can't see you posting here for much longer.
 
ok, lets keep to the subject and talk about my lack of comprehension skills, but I can't point out the hypocrisy of that? And, I am the one who lack comprehension skills because I don't understand how this is fair, balanced, and logically consistent? Yes, I suppose I will get another scolding or a ban for posting off topic while the regulars can do worse and it goes unchecked by the mods. Like I said, I welcome a ban. If that's hiw this place operates(with blatant disregard for fairness and impartiality, then what would I be missing to be banned from this place?
 
willow11 said:
This place is fair. You're just being silly now. Just relax dude :)
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argument from personal incredulity, no point is made, just a testament of personal opinion with no counter explaining how it is not hypocritical to censor and prohibit my criticisms of "hypocrisy or smugness or lack of empathy," but to allow other people on the same side of your argument to imply "a lack of comprehension skills, laziness, drunkiness, deceptively combatant, lack of integrity, lack of empathy, lack of caring, being silly, etc"
 
Today I ate organic applesauce and organic sprouted walnuts, organic hempseed oil, and organic DEAD VELOCIRAPTOR.
 
Abject said:
I'm still not understanding. Let's say grains contain x calories. Chickens and cows eat those grains. The produce will have 3 plant calories for each non-plant calorie, whereas the meat will have 10 plant calories for each non-plant calorie? If not I'm stumped, because I can't see how it could be that one requires more calories than the other, whether a chicken is just laying eggs or getting slaughtered it's gonna need the same amount of feed to grow.
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That's not what I meant. Imagine that you grow 20,000 kCal of wheat. You alternately feed this in equal amounts to chickens who produce eggs and feed it to steer who produce beef. You get 3,000 kCal worth of eggs and 1,000 kCal of beef. This is what I meant by caloric ratios of 3:1 vs. 10:1.

murphy said:
half a cup of almond gives you almost the third of the intake of protein a men need per day, which is around 55g.
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But what is optimal? Some indications suggest that ~80 gm. is better (allowing for repair and muscle gain following aerobic exercise). You'd need even more if you're trying to bulk up. However, it's not hard to get 80 gm. / protein / day as a v-gun. . .

FEA said:
Veganism doesn't exist on that scale. You could argue that being vegan contributes indirectly to the suffering of all animals, by contributing to the suffering of the planet via other industries. But, you could say the same thing about driving a car or using the internet.
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I would say that yes, we should include such behaviors. Vegetarianism (including veganism) needn't dominate our ethical calculus (but it can, if we'd like). I think such quantitative factors are relevant. But otherwise, we might as well go with your average lacto-ovo vegetarian, whose diet is not dominated by eggs and dairy (at least in my observations). And we should take into account that the increased caloric efficiency of eggs and dairy entail that a "serving" of egg or dairy represent a smaller proportion of that animal's life than a serving of meat.

ebola
 
Vegetarianism (including veganism) needn't dominate our ethical calculus
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I care more about the ethical implications of consuming animal products than I do about other issues.
But, I don't have a zero tolerance towards people consuming meat. It doesn't trump all other issues.
I just feel like it's totally unnecessary.

I'm not trying to equate vegetarianism with meat-eating in any way.
They're not even near each other, ethically.
But Veganism isn't near either of them.

If we arbitrarily assign values to vegetarianism and meat-eating, say 10 and 100 respectively, and we assign the value zero to veganism... you could argue that 10 is considerably closer to zero than it is to 100, but I think that's missing the point.

If you eat meat, but you eat it once a month, then your "value" might be less than the average vegetarian.
You said it depends on what kind of vegetarian you are. So it also depends on what kind of meat eater you are.

Being a vegetarian (as opposed to eating meat) is kind of like not eating pig meat (as opposed to eating all meat), in the sense that you're still consuming animal products but you're being selective about it.

Forgive me if I didn't totally understand what I'm responding to. I'm quite stoned and sometimes, I think, you write in relatively inaccessible terms. I can usually understand what you write, but it often takes a bit more work than with (most) other Bluelighters. What you write, generally, could be written in a way that is easier to digest for people who aren't accustomed to that sort of language (which is most of the population, I would imagine)... I imagine that many people, who are less educated than me, find it even more difficult to comprehend some of your posts (relative to other people's posts) when they are inebriated... I'm rambling, I apologize.
 
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