Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

css.umich.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 794 posts

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#531

Post by tsimionescu »

ownagefool wrote: post #519
tsimionescu wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not an argument that fairs well on HN in general, but the fact that we can eat something this similar to a burger but without the slaughter of living, feeling, individual being is so unbelievably important and incredible. The problem I have with this argument is that it always seems to me to focus on the life of the animal, but not on the death of the animal. All animals eventually die, and most natural dea…

I think the original argument is a good one, but lets try another. If we had fully lab grown meat that was identical to the real thing. How many of us would convert? In theory, we all would. In reality, we still covet mined diamonds, so we'll probably still irrationaly claim there's a difference long after there really is.

> If we had fully lab grown meat that was identical to the real thing. How many of us would convert? In theory, we all would.

Why would we all, even in theory? If we could farm animals humanely, grazing them in areas where crops anyway can't be planted, letting them range, giving them a good life where they don't fear predators, don't freeze to death in winter or die of hyperthermia in the summer etc., and then kill them humanely (by which I mean, with as little pain as possible) when we decide, why would that be less moral than killing off the entire species (more or less) and living off lab-produced meat?

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#532

Post by NicoJuicy »

sweetheart wrote: post #36

While it is not my experience at all, I understand that some folks have certain negative opinions of Beyond Burgers, and other fake meat/imitation burgers: - The texture is off - Maybe they cook strangely - Potentially less taste But the most important thing about them, and the reason I urge everyone to at least _try_ Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. This is not an argument that fairs well…

Define violence against animals please?

If there wouldn't be an economic incentive to keep animals alive, their land would be reporposed to crops/housing and a lot of animals would be slaughtered pointlessly.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#533

Post by ookdatnog »

neuro_image2 wrote: post #298

I am an avid meat-lover but it does play on my conscience that I am in fact eating a former sentient being and potentially contributing to environmental devastation. I would appreciate answers to the following two, albeit simplistic questions that always plaque me when I consider stopping eating meat products: 1) Is it really unethical to eat animals when the natural trajectory of most animals lives was likely to be…

I'm quite torn about the utilitarian argument, that claims that it is justified to kill animals for their meat as long as we give them better lives than they would have in nature.

I have used this argument myself, but it occurred to me that you could use a similar argument to defend human slavery: why should it not be legal to buy a slave from a poor country where there's famine and war? You could provide your slave with an objectively better, safer, and more comfortable life, and it's unlikely someone else would help them.

I don't buy that argument at all though, so I'm not sure I should buy the quality-of-life argument for farm animals. But I'm not really sure and I've gone back and forth on this, would love to see some other thoughts on this.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#534

Post by xdennis »

purephase wrote: post #86
jimmaswell wrote: post #7

That's good and all but the taste is still far off from normal. Impossible is a lot better but still not an exact fit.

Well shit, the taste is slightly off so let's keep killing billions of sentient animals.

Don't mind if I do. Your emotional arguments only work on impressionable children.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#535

Post by tommit »

arvinsim wrote: post #478
tommit wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a good point to make. Us humans should definitely strive to hold ourselves to a higher standard than that. Also, it's a hell of a difference between the wolf, who has to kill in order to survive, and the man, who just has to choose something else to eat in the supermarket or restaurant. Justifying ones choice by comparing oneself to a wolf is incredibly flawed. No one here would bat an eye if, for whatev…

Who is us on that regard? Who decides the standard?

Sorry, that is my personal expectation that I would hope the majority of the world would agree with, but I'm not trying to decide that standard for you. You do you.

It's cheesy, but the with great power comes great responsibility quote kind of holds up the way I see it. We pretty much dominate every other species, but we shouldn't pick and choose traits of other species in order to win arguments. We aren't wolves, we aren't dolphins. We have the capabilities to make the choice and don't kill and still survive. All it takes is changing ones habits a bit. We also have the capabilities to understand and decide that rape is wrong, and most people don't do it. Can you imagine what it would sound like if an accused rapist would point to dolphins as defense?

I'm not trying to set a standard for you. All I want to say is that pointing at other animals to justify our behavior is flawed and something we should be above as a species as a whole.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#537

Post by cubesmarching »

tsimionescu wrote: post #492
sweetheart wrote: post #36

While it is not my experience at all, I understand that some folks have certain negative opinions of Beyond Burgers, and other fake meat/imitation burgers: - The texture is off - Maybe they cook strangely - Potentially less taste But the most important thing about them, and the reason I urge everyone to at least _try_ Beyond Burgers, is they require no violence against animals. This is not an argument that fairs well…

> This is not an argument that fairs well on HN in general, but the fact that we can eat something this similar to a burger but without the slaughter of living, feeling, individual being is so unbelievably important and incredible. The problem I have with this argument is that it always seems to me to focus on the life of the animal, but not on the death of the animal. All animals eventually die, and most natural dea…

All humans eventually die, and most natural deaths are far more horrifying than how we would be able to murder other humans, especially in modern times (though even traditional slaughter is nothing compared to dying of cancer, stroke, being murdered in a car crash, etc.)

So, I think that it is important how the humans are grown (prisons are absolutely horrible, unacceptable places to live in, and should ideally become illegal sooner rather than later, regardless of the consequences on the price of labor). But I really don't think there is any reason to feel bad about the murder of 25 year old people who have led a decent life, even if it may be shorter than they would expect in nature (the huge proliferation of the human species is kind of payment for that, in a way).

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#538

Post by darkwater »

tsimionescu wrote: post #494
darkwater wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dislikable and anti-social part is, in the end, just because they make feel the rest of us guilty. Very few people would say with a straight face "Yeah, I like that humans farm and kill animals so I can enjoy a juicier dish". All of us omnivores do that, but only few ones will face that reality happily. The rest of us will just blame the messenger.

Actually, most people throughout human history have done just that. Being squeamish about seeing animals getting killed is a pretty modern development, at least outside nobility. And even today, most people in the world likely still participate occasionally in the slaughter of animals, as this is still routine in all rural areas of the world, even in the US and Europe.

Yeah, I perfectly know. But at the same time we used to beat children (and in some places and some persons still do) to educate them and now this is not welcomed anymore. So, society changes, morality changes over time, things we didn't do, now we do. Things we didn't have the tech to do, now we do have and that can lead to further changes in our morality.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#539

Post by xdennis »

tagawa wrote: post #304

Sorry to be picky but… "less greenhouse emissions" -> "fewer greenhouse emissions"

I don't think that's how it works. My understanding is that you use "fewer" for discreetly countable things (fewer tables, fewer people) and "less" for continuous things (less rice, less time).

Emissions are continuous. I don't emit one emission now and another emission the next hour.

Re: Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger life cycle assessment (2018)

#540

Post by rhn_mk1 »

koheripbal wrote: post #516
0-_-0 wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you could make the argument that it's possible to ethically raise animals in a way where it's a good deal for both sides, as long as an animal suffers less than it would suffer in nature. If causing unnecessary suffering is unethical, then the opposite should be a moral imperative, so this simple mathematical argument leads to the conclusion that ethically raising animals should be morally superior to veganis…

The extension of this argument exposes the absurdity, as it would imply that we go out and domesticate nature. Stop lions from killing their prey in the Savannah, etc... and convert them to a vegetarian diet.

Why does domestication sound absurd? It's not usual, but also not unprecedented. Homo sapiens had domesticated itself into eating vegetable burgers, after all.
Post reply on HN