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Penguin travels every year to visit man who rescued him (2016)

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Re: Penguin travels every year to visit man who rescued him (2016)

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curses omitted from this comment. If you would believe some materialists, we're ALL just biological machines with illusory feelings, though...

Funny thing is, Descartes was approaching it from literally the exact opposite angle. To him, the soul was all the difference between real pain and "mechanical reaction".

For such a smart guy, to act on such an assumption without any evidence for either a soul in us or no soul in animals seems grossly out of character... although he probably predates the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution of thought

Re: Penguin travels every year to visit man who rescued him (2016)

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet... I continue to eat bacon. sigh. I've met pigs that were clearly happy to see a friendly face of any species... haunts me, actually. I've raised pigs, and eaten those pigs. They're a lot like dogs - very loyal and intelligent. I suppose that makes me a monster in this thread full of vegans.

I had a pet pig, Habeas Corpus we called him. Smart as could be. Loved to hang around us, play tug with a knotted t-shirt, run around the yard chasing/being chased. Gentle as could be. We had a wire fence ring with a tree in it, that's where he stayed on summer nights. Hated going back into his pen at night when he was a piglet, became really hard to get close to around dusk, would just keep his distance casually wit…

I think pigs are the next animal I will give up eating.

The last thing to be given up will be bacon, of course. I could switch to turkey bacon of course.

Funny name, btw!

Re: Penguin travels every year to visit man who rescued him (2016)

#283
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from B12, what nutrients are in meat that I cannot get from a vegan diet? Why is it acceptable to be slaughtering hundreds of millions instead of billions of animals a year, if we don't need to? And we don't have to reinvent meat; most vegans don't eat fake meat products. We could move away from the concept of eating meat all together.

Creatine, Carnosine, D3, DHA, Heme-iron, Taurine. But it's not just about the nutrients, it's about the supply and the cost. Most people don't have access to the balanced assortment of grains, vegetables, and legumes you seem to enjoy. Without meat and dairy they would risk malnourishment. We probably could move away from meat, if everyone was well off (and took supplements). But that's not the case. And I never said…

Creatine is not an essential nutrient and is produced naturally in the human body from amino acids glycine and arginine which i can get from legumes amongst many sources. Carnosine comes from amino acids, which i can get all 9 of from legumes and whole grains. D3 from mushrooms. DHA my body converts from ALA, which i get from nuts amongst many other sources. Heme-iron I don't specifically need, I just need Iron, which i get from whole grains, legumes, nuts etc. Taurine comes from amino acids, see Carnosine.

Re: Penguin travels every year to visit man who rescued him (2016)

#284
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, if you asked me to kill you and I did, I'd still get arrested due to anti-euthanasia laws (depending on jurisdiction!) Using your reasoning, we should happily eat any animal (possibly including human, but animals also commit suicide sometimes) that suicided... I think death is an inherently ugly thing no matter how you approach it, and given the existence of carnivores and omnivores who are not vultures wai…

But a hyena is a carnivore. Humans are not. A hyena cannot contemplate the finality of death and probably doesn't understand much about the pain it's causing, it's just eating a meal. Humans do understand all those things and on top of that humans do not need to eat meat and are very possibly healthier without it, yet we continue to do so. Also, nearly all meat consumed by humans comes from factory farms which depriv…

https://www.cornucopia.org/scorecard/eggs/

The highest rated egg producers have "truly pastured" chickens... which is probably as close as you can get to giving them a "natural life" while confining them. Note that there is a mutually-beneficial trade going on here- They do give up their eggs (and eventually themselves), and are (broadly) confined, but while alive they can eat as much as they want and they are secure from predation.

I am extremely impressed by Impossible burgers (Beyond is OK, but Impossible... wow.) I haven't tried vegan eggs but if they don't get the yolk almost exactly right I might not be able to switch, can you provide a link?

Also, what's your opinion on lab-grown muscle meat? Is it all about ethics for you?

> To me it seems incredibly cruel to continue to eat animals and their eggs and milk.

I believe at least the "eggs and milk" can be done in humane ways. Again, we provide an environment for them with unlimited food and minimized risk of predation. In the wild, food would be scarce and predation risk would be ever-present.

As far as eating animals... I consider it a near-necessary evil for now that will eventually go away. (I know you're arguing that it isn't necessary, and you're probably right... I'm talking about convincing EVERYONE of this RIGHT NOW tho)

> We don't need to do it anymore and to continue to do so is willfully supporting cruelty against animals.

I have an idea you might like. What if you took a few friends to do a field trip to the source of the meats/eggs/cheese they eat (after doing the homework to investigate where these are, of course)? Judgment-free. And also to observe treatment and (if you can stomach it, and if they permit it, which they may not) the slaughtering part. I'd go on that trip. Observed truth is the best argument...

Re: Penguin travels every year to visit man who rescued him (2016)

#285
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plants don't have a central nervous system that can experience discomfort or stress. The terms are used as an analogy. My laptops emits heat when it is "stressed" as well.

I'm a backyard beekeeper and I just love bees. They're very intelligent. But you should see how commercial beekeepers treat them in the production of all this "vegan" food.

In the production of what vegan food? Vegans don't eat honey. Maybe you mean what California does in order to grow almonds? So just American almonds? that's not really "all this vegan food" is it. it's one thing that isn't exclusively eaten by vegans.

Re: Penguin travels every year to visit man who rescued him (2016)

#286
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a hyena is a carnivore. Humans are not. A hyena cannot contemplate the finality of death and probably doesn't understand much about the pain it's causing, it's just eating a meal. Humans do understand all those things and on top of that humans do not need to eat meat and are very possibly healthier without it, yet we continue to do so. Also, nearly all meat consumed by humans comes from factory farms which depriv…

https://www.cornucopia.org/scorecard/eggs/ The highest rated egg producers have "truly pastured" chickens... which is probably as close as you can get to giving them a "natural life" while confining them. Note that there is a mutually-beneficial trade going on here- They do give up their eggs (and eventually themselves), and are (broadly) confined, but while alive they can eat as much as they want and they are secure…

so what happens to the male chicks that are born in the egg industry? They get killed, by gassing, suffocation or being thrown into a grinder. Why does a dairy cow produce milk? because she has a baby. Where does that baby go after birth? I mean, the milk is for the humans, not the baby cow, right? Baby cow gets taken from mother causing intense emotional pain for both, and if male, sold into incredibly cruel veal industry or beef industry or just killed. If female she goes through the same lifelong torture of repeated rape, then having her baby stolen, then being milked raw by machines, in lonely terror, as her mother, for around 4 years, before her poor body is spent and she is shot as humans have no use for her. Dairy cows have possibly an even crueler fate than beef cows. How is any of this humane? Why would I ever go to see any of this happening? There is so much written and video evidence available online, I don't need to go and see it happening myself. Think about how much meat, cheese and eggs people in America alone throw down their throats every day. There is no way this demand could ever be met by anything other than the most cruel and heartless industrial scale production methods where animals are no more than a commodity to be exploited.

Re: Penguin travels every year to visit man who rescued him (2016)

#287
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plants don't have a central nervous system that can experience discomfort or stress. The terms are used as an analogy. My laptops emits heat when it is "stressed" as well.

I'm a backyard beekeeper and I just love bees. They're very intelligent. But you should see how commercial beekeepers treat them in the production of all this "vegan" food.

It sounds like you're trying to imply that the vegan food industry is particularly harsh on bees. This is not the case. Livestock consume far more of our crop yield than we humans do, at least in the US. We would need fewer commercial beekeepers if we ate plants directly. You're always losing caloric efficiency when you take extra steps through the food chain. There is no environmental damage caused by eating vegan food that isn't magnified when consuming animal products.

Re: Penguin travels every year to visit man who rescued him (2016)

#288
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you continue to eat other animals if you feel the way you do about other animals?

Because at the end of the day I have to eat and meat is a fantastic source of nutrients, many of which aren't found in a vegan diet like heme-iron.

Humans don't need heme-iron, just iron. And I can get all the iron I need from whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds and vegetables.

Re: Penguin travels every year to visit man who rescued him (2016)

#289
post #64

When I was a child, a school teacher showed me this hoax video of flying penguins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dfWzp7rYR4 . Unfortunately, for a brief period of my childhood, I was under the assumption that penguins could indeed fly. By the time I had uncovered my teacher's subterfuge, I had already made a fool of myself by publicly positing that such penguins existed. Admittedly, my teacher was only playing a p…

In French, "pingouin" is the name for a flying bird[0] though very few people know it and most mix up pingouins (auks) with manchots (penguins, literally "armless"). Saying that penguins can fly is technically correct but people will laugh at you unless you are prepared to spend a long time explaining it. I think it's a shame that a teacher would mislead a child the way yours did. Having worked with penguins (the fli…

> I think it's a shame that a teacher would mislead a child the way yours did.

I had a really good teacher who would sometimes tell us particularly absurd things to see if we would figure it out and contradict her. When we did she would remind us that we should think for ourselves and not accept at face value claims just because they were presented by an authority figure.

Re: Penguin travels every year to visit man who rescued him (2016)

#290
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In French, "pingouin" is the name for a flying bird[0] though very few people know it and most mix up pingouins (auks) with manchots (penguins, literally "armless"). Saying that penguins can fly is technically correct but people will laugh at you unless you are prepared to spend a long time explaining it. I think it's a shame that a teacher would mislead a child the way yours did. Having worked with penguins (the fli…

> I think it's a shame that a teacher would mislead a child the way yours did. I had a really good teacher who would sometimes tell us particularly absurd things to see if we would figure it out and contradict her. When we did she would remind us that we should think for ourselves and not accept at face value claims just because they were presented by an authority figure.

I do this with my son all the time to see if he’s listening / get him to think critically. I always let him know if he doesn’t catch on though so he’s not misinformed.
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