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Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

erikhoel.substack.com

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Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#71

Post by csours »

bambax wrote: post #55
csours wrote: post #10

Are animals people? For most of human history, the answer has been no. I'm sure that there have always been humans that thought of their favorite animals as people (or similar), but the scientific and social acceptance of animals having consciousness and emotions similar to humans is VERY recent. Look at the pushback that Jane Goodall got for her research for context. Anyway, I don't have a good ethical argument in f…

Animals aren't people, but people are animals. Animals aren't cows, or crabs. Some animals are cows; some other animals are people.

Some humans treat some dogs like they treat people, or even better than they treat people. It's very normal and common to treat a pet dog better than a human stranger. Many animals are at least as smart as dogs; however dogs seem to have distinct abilities in understanding and empathising with humans (because they have been bred to do so).

Animals have some of the same rights as humans - it's illegal to torture animals for instance.

I'm not making a strong argument that animals ARE people, because I don't have a strong belief that animals are people; but some people do have that strong belief, and I feel like history will be on their side.

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#72

Post by surement »

fsflover wrote: post #59
surement wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should eat less meat and probably far less beef Why beef specifically?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef#Environmental_impact

How much Brazilian beef do we eat in the US? I don't think any deforestation is done to raise beef in this country.

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#73

Post by disintegore »

chad__homen1m wrote: post #41
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…

[dead]

It made us so smart in fact that we developed the scientific knowledge necessary to no longer have to do it.

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#74

Post by bambax »

csours wrote: post #71
bambax wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Animals aren't people, but people are animals. Animals aren't cows, or crabs. Some animals are cows; some other animals are people.

Some humans treat some dogs like they treat people, or even better than they treat people. It's very normal and common to treat a pet dog better than a human stranger. Many animals are at least as smart as dogs; however dogs seem to have distinct abilities in understanding and empathising with humans (because they have been bred to do so). Animals have some of the same rights as humans - it's illegal to torture anima…

I didn't mean to say that "people are animals" in the sense that they are mean, or bad; just that humans are one species among many other species. People are one kind of animal, as are all other species.

Animals certainly aren't people; cows are cows, people are people, and we are all animals.

Also, it's not actually illegal to torture animals. It's illegal to torture some animals, sometimes. It's not illegal to pile up lobsters, a non-social and fiercely territorial creature, in small tanks, for months, and eventually boiling them alive, or to keep sows in confined spaces where they spend their whole life giving birth from constant artificial insemination, and crushing their pups because there's no room. Etc.

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#75

Post by csours »

bambax wrote: post #74
csours wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some humans treat some dogs like they treat people, or even better than they treat people. It's very normal and common to treat a pet dog better than a human stranger. Many animals are at least as smart as dogs; however dogs seem to have distinct abilities in understanding and empathising with humans (because they have been bred to do so). Animals have some of the same rights as humans - it's illegal to torture anima…

I didn't mean to say that "people are animals" in the sense that they are mean, or bad; just that humans are one species among many other species. People are one kind of animal, as are all other species. Animals certainly aren't people; cows are cows, people are people, and we are all animals. Also, it's not actually illegal to torture animals. It's illegal to torture some animals, sometimes. It's not illegal to pile…

Fair.

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#76

Post by wooque »

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…

Thanks, but I'm sticking with meat eating

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#77

Post by argondonor »

bena wrote: post #31

I've stumbled upon some of the same thoughts: cows would be fucked if we stopped eating beef; animals wouldn't give two shits about devouring my ass if the conditions were right, turnabout is fair play; fuck crabs; etc. But I also recognize some the points raised by vegetarians/vegans: we do eat way too much meat; we do treat livestock horribly; fuck crabs; etc. And I think the answer is closer to vegetarianism than…

But animals don't synthesize B12 either, they only store the B12 that they consume. There's no benefit not to just consume it ourselves.

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#78

Post by bena »

argondonor wrote: post #77
bena wrote: post #31

I've stumbled upon some of the same thoughts: cows would be fucked if we stopped eating beef; animals wouldn't give two shits about devouring my ass if the conditions were right, turnabout is fair play; fuck crabs; etc. But I also recognize some the points raised by vegetarians/vegans: we do eat way too much meat; we do treat livestock horribly; fuck crabs; etc. And I think the answer is closer to vegetarianism than…

But animals don't synthesize B12 either, they only store the B12 that they consume. There's no benefit not to just consume it ourselves.

Ruminates like cows produce B12 through their gut bacteria. That's synthesis.

And before you say "that's the bacteria, not them", then we technically digest anything because gut bacteria is essential for digestion. We are gestalt organisms. Always have been.

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#79

Post by dilap »

richiebful1 wrote: post #66
dilap wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're eating farmed plants, then there is a lot of environmental destruction and animal death/suffering behind that, too.

That is certainly true, but livestock is often eating row crops. A significant chunk of soybean meal and corn goes to feed livestock [1] [2]. If those row crops were consumed directly by humans instead, it would require a lot less land. [3] [1] https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/where_do_all_these_soybeans_go [2] https://www.iowacorn.org/corn-uses/ [3] https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-m...

You need more than just raw calories, though. How much plant food would it take to match this in terms of protein and B-vitamins?

https://imgur.com/a/8zzvcrq

So that's just 1 pound of beef.

You could get about 500 pounds of that raising a cow for a couple of years and slaughtering it.

What inputs would you need? Not too much, if you have grass, which a lot of the earth does. Let the cow graze, find it water. Optionally fatten it up at the end w/ some grain -- probably a better use than making ethanol out of it, at least.

We used to have millions of wild buffalo roaming North America. They were a dietary stable for many Native American tribes.

Were they really living in a less sustainable way than modern vegans picking up Impossible Burgers from Whole Foods?

Re: Eating meat is good, says the philosopher

#80

Post by steve_adams_86 »

disintegore wrote: post #73
chad__homen1m wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

It made us so smart in fact that we developed the scientific knowledge necessary to no longer have to do it.

My understanding is that similar benefits of access to meat were gained from learning to cook in general, as well. While meat likely contributed to humans being able to advance as a civilization and perhaps conferred various physiological benefits, the skill of cooking in general allowed us to extract more nutrition from a lot of foods we'd otherwise spend a lot more time chewing and digesting.

Getting nutrition from food faster, with less energy, is a huge deal. Whether it's meat or not, being able to feed young children easily digested, high-calorie food is a huge advantage. Being able to feed anyone is a huge advantage, but in particular weening children earlier would have freed up mothers to reproduce more and/or do other work. Humans becoming more independent earlier is a major factor in humans being more productive in many of these studies.

I haven't read about this for a few years, but as I recall it doesn't seem that the protein/fat components of this development were the essential factor for moving people forward. We're able to get plenty of calories and nutrition (including protein) from plants, but only if we cook it. Meat certainly helps, but isn't required in the equation.

I'm opened to being corrected – like I say, I'm probably out of date here. I'm not sure what evidence could have changed this, though.

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