Eating meat is good, says the philosopher • Hacker News Board

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#21

Post by Scarblac » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 3:42 PM UTC

If our meat animals didn't exist, a lot of other animals would. Animals eat a lot of food that would be available calories for other animals instead, after all.

Also, never existing at all is not a negative, it is null. There is nobody to experience a negative effect of not existing.

So I don't think this is a very good argument.

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#22

Post by tpl » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 3:42 PM UTC

Just planting row crops results in much more cruel death than most people realize I think.

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#23

Post by armoredkitten » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 3:43 PM UTC

The reasonable counterargument to this is that you are comparing the actual pain and suffering of real, existing animals, to the potential life of animals who do not currently exist. "What happens if we stop raising livestock?" means that no further cows will be born to a life of suffering. That's...really it. Those hypothetical animals aren't floating around in the aether wishing someone would just have let them be born.

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#24

Post by weatherlite » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 3:43 PM UTC

So the author is pro life I would assume...?

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#25

Post by tasty_freeze » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 3:44 PM UTC

Slavery is good, says the philosopher. Think of those millions of slave children that would have not existed if not for the slave trade. Sure, had their predecessors remained in Africa they would have had different progeny, but that is an abstraction; those children didn't exist. We are considering actual children who lived, and of course tens of millions of their offspring that resulted, many of them alive today. If you could wave a magic wand and get rid of slavery, would you? What kind of monster would you be to vanish and nullify millions of people who are currently living meaningful lives?

Would anyone actually agree with the above sentiment? How is it different than what this thinkpiece is putting forth? It is a post-hoc justification for the status quo.

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#26

Post by thriftwy » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 3:45 PM UTC

avg_dev wrote: post #17

What a load of rubbish. 1. Plant-based diets are good for the environment. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6316289/ 2. Animals are sentient. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4494450/ 3. The "thought experiment" is flawed. See https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/eating-meat-is-good-says-the... - good rebuttal here Keeping animals alive in the worst possible conditions on the promise that "we'll do…

2. I guess what you have meant is "self-aware" because to claim animals are sentient is to make this word meaningless.

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#27

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 3:47 PM UTC

_ZeD_ wrote: post #6

from the first paragraph: "Imagine a dystopian future in which aliens with a taste for human flesh kidnapped a bunch of people from Earth and raised them as livestock on their alien planet. Humans on the alien planet are kept alive “free-range,” able to interact and live their life, but only for their first 20 years. Then they are harvested for food." yeah, its "The Promised Neverland"

[deleted]

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#28

Post by glitchc » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 3:47 PM UTC

Animals eat other animals. We sometimes eat animals that other animals eat. We should eat animals sometimes, and only those that other animals eat.

Seems logical..

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#29

Post by Scarblac » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 3:48 PM UTC

blamestross wrote: post #2

It really boils down to: "Is humans acting as their squishy biology dictates" good or does our "goodness" derive from striving to be more than that biology? I'm on the "accept that we are made to eat meat and probably should on occasion" end of the spectrum, but that doesn't make the current state of how we make and consume meat an ok thing. Factory farming isn't a necessary evil, and the level at which we eat meat (…

We're made to have sex too, that doesn't justify rape. We make choices and are responsible for our actions.

We can clearly survive without eating meat without any adverse effects. That makes it just another choice we make. We're responsible for our choices and can't get away with vague claims about biological dictates.

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#30

Post by justintrtle » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 3:49 PM UTC

thriftwy wrote: post #26

avg_dev wrote: post #17

What a load of rubbish. 1. Plant-based diets are good for the environment. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6316289/ 2. Animals are sentient. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4494450/ 3. The "thought experiment" is flawed. See https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/eating-meat-is-good-says-the... - good rebuttal here Keeping animals alive in the worst possible conditions on the promise that "we'll do…

2. I guess what you have meant is "self-aware" because to claim animals are sentient is to make this word meaningless.

How does the claim that animals are sentient make the word meaningless?