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[NJW2000]

Fine, yes, there are cases in which people are forced to eat meat to live, due to nonsensical first-world food deserts, I never said otherwise. Still doesn't mean you can bring evolution into moral arguments. As I said, what matters is the nutritional packages people are capable of getting hold of today - if it's a choice between an entire chicken or a packet of crisps, sure, people are justified in eating the chicken. One doesn't need to mention evolution to note that meat can have great nutritional value - that's simply a fact.

I may be quibbling here, but people do try to hijack evolution by trying to extract some sort of teleological claim about our bodies - I dislike that kind of argument immensely.

Insect pain being the dumbest take I've read in a long time. The nervous systems of mammals are very clearly different from those of insects used to produce crops - it's hard to prove that insect pain even exists, given what we know about their nervous systems.

When did they discover this? This is good news. Can you link the study?

That insects have different nervous systems to animals? No, I can't link the study, but it's been known about for a while.
That it's hard to prove insect pain exists? I don't know what kind of study you'd like linked, but this gets into insect neurology. While insect brains have some plasticity in their response to negative stimuli, it's very hard to show that the mechanisms producing this count as experienced pain of the type we'd like to avoid causing. Some fairly deep questions here - that's one side of the debate, wiki should give a sense of the other.

Besides, - if wheat is so terrible, we really shouldn't be giving almost half of it to livestock.

Exactly.

Eh? So your problem with "vegan activists" (apparently you only mean anti-cruelty activists, not climate) is that they don't complain enough about the insects that die producing the wheat that is fed to the animals, rather than the animals that live their entire life in cages? Ok.

[wierd]

Mine would be more, "the large field of grass that is used to free-range cattle, supports a very wide and diverse ecosystem of many complex vertebrate animals, which do in fact suffer from ecological disruption when those large fields of grass get replaced by the 'more efficient' soybean fields, because of the very real consequences of monoculture."

If the goal is to minimize overall animal suffering, then you have to consider the suffering of a few hundred cattle to be less, than the suffering of several thousand animals that also inhabit that habitat, that would suffer its loss.

One must also consider the ecological impacts of the manufacture of the nitrogen fertilizers used on the soybean field, as it is almost entirely derived from fossil fuel feedstocks.

[MaxTheFox]

If I stopped buying factory-farmed meat I wouldn't really take away any of the factories' profits. I'm just one person. The vast majority of the population is uncaring. I can't change anything so I don't bother.

[hector13]

If I stopped buying factory-farmed meat I wouldn't really take away any of the factories' profits. I'm just one person.

That’s a silly argument. If everybody thought that, nobody would take any action on anything because they’re all “just one person”.

Factory profits aren’t the issue, anyway, the means they use to achieve those profits are.

[MaxTheFox]

If I stopped buying factory-farmed meat I wouldn't really take away any of the factories' profits. I'm just one person.

That’s a silly argument. If everybody thought that, nobody would take any action on anything because they’re all “just one person”.

I know. The problem is that not enough people are actually taking action thus if I did I won't change anything. It's not like I will magically inspire people to protest against animal cruelty by buying free-range.

[wierd]

You are missing the point Hector is making.

For a movement to even be a movement, someone MUST take the action, in the face of such highly unfavorable odds.



I am perfectly down with a stark reduction in the production of meat and poultry products, to be consistent with what is realistically feasible to produce without factory and feedlot conditions/practices. To me, that is perfectly justifiable with solid reasoning based on resource utilization and scientific methods.

"DONT EAT ANY MEAT AT ALL! MEAT IS TORTURE" however, is not supportable in such capacities. Its ultimate conclusion is widespread ecosystem destruction in favor of high-density monocropped fields, sustained exclusively to the abuse of nitrogen fertilizers. Such outcomes directly cause the suffering of a diverse cast of complex vertebrate lifeforms, and can even cause extinctions.  That harm MUST be considered, if the argument is going to not be hypocritical.


Now then;  What is actually lacking (and sorely so) in modern human diets, is leafy greens.  With traditional agricultural practices, these are both costly in terms of land acreage required, and with water use.  This is why they are not favored agricultural staples, and are instead heavily out-competed by much more productive cereal (and pseudo-cereal) crops, like Wheat, Rye, Barley, Oats, Rice, and Corn.

Recently however, there have been some very nice innovations with automated vertical farming, which do not have as stringent requirements for land it can be done on (since it is done indoors), and which has been shown to use substantially less water and fertilizer, and-- due to the controlled environment, can be done without the use of herbicides or pesticides. Most specifically, because leafy greens are the easiest crops to adapt to this cultivation methodology.

Re-evaluation of the arguments with this new development can yield scenarios where large agricultural areas can be rewilded, or at the very least, used for grassland pasturage, enabling the secondary use as animal habitat to be conserved, while producing a highly marketable product. 

[hector13]

If I stopped buying factory-farmed meat I wouldn't really take away any of the factories' profits. I'm just one person.

That’s a silly argument. If everybody thought that, nobody would take any action on anything because they’re all “just one person”.

I know. The problem is that not enough people are actually taking action thus if I did I won't change anything. It's not like I will magically inspire people to protest against animal cruelty by buying free-range.

You’ll not be contributing to supporting the farmers that do use inhumane methods, at minimum. If enough people do that, it will discourage using those methods, likely encourage more humane methods if you choose to buy from those sources instead, and contribute to a reduction in the cost of those things as more people using the inhumane methods change over to the humane methods.

It’s not about immediately changing everything bad about it, or encouraging other people to stop doing it, it’s about doing your own bit to not contribute to it.

[MaxTheFox]

Well "doing my own bit" won't change anything, nor would it encourage anything given how apathetic the Russian people are. Yes if everyone bought free-range then the factories would be forced to change their ways. But I can't make everyone do that no matter what I do. Call me defeatist, but this is reality.

I do buy free-range when I have the money though, since then there's no reason not to give at least a bit of support. But I'm poor. If I have the choice between factory meat and no meat at all then I'll take the factory meat.

[Caz]

Eh? So your problem with "vegan activists" (apparently you only mean anti-cruelty activists, not climate) is that they don't complain enough about the insects that die producing the wheat that is fed to the animals, rather than the animals that live their entire life in cages? Ok.

...What? No.

I can't take you seriously if you're just going to make up things.

[NJW2000]

...What? No.

I can't take you seriously if you're just going to make up things.

I'm just trying to understand your logic - what's hypocritical about these activists? You seem to think it's the fact that they don't worry about the insects that die making their grains. Yet you think that it's a bad thing to give wheat to livestock, as this entails more insect death for less food. On your view, veganism is going to result in the lowest amount of insect "suffering", so is logically the most moral option other than suicide. Do you think the activists should advocate voluntary extinctionism? Is that why they're hypocrites?


I'm not taking you seriously, I'm finding this hilarious. But I am genuinely trying to work out what it is you're saying.

[Urist McSpike]

A new year, a new ask:
How to you justify eating meat?
I do so, sometimes, but you don't get my justification when you don't even know it.

Mine boils down to two simple things:  Hedonism & laziness.

1.  I like tasty food, and I don't discriminate with regards to vegetarian, meat, or culture.  If something looks interesting I will try it, and if I enjoy it, I will continue to eat it when I can.

2.  I grew up on a dairy farm, and I know where meat, eggs & milk come from.  I have zero qualms about imitation meat products, or vat meat.  If they are tasty (and nutritious) and inexpensive, I would be happy to switch.  But I'm not paying $200 per pound for pink-slime vat beef.  It is easier for me to pick up what I want from the grocery store to support flavor & nutrition.  Organic & free-range products are available, but more expensive or harder to get.  I could be more diligent about that choice than I am, so I am guilty of laziness on that part.

I do understand various motivations people have, and I have changed my buying habits over the years a bit.  Many years ago, ground beef was a regular item on my grocery list; as the price continued to rise, I switched to eating more chicken & fish, only getting beef when I specifically make something requiring it.

[Caz]

...What? No.

I can't take you seriously if you're just going to make up things.

I'm not taking you seriously, I'm finding this hilarious. But I am genuinely trying to work out what it is you're saying.

Well, that is one of the problems of making assumptions in an argument. You end up getting ahead of yourself and then waste time refuting false arguments.

what's hypocritical about these activists? You seem to think it's the fact that they don't worry about the insects that die making their grains.

Yes, the hypocrisy is that vegans assume moral superiority because they believe that a plant-based diet causes less animal suffering and death, when this is not true.

Yet you think that it's a bad thing to give wheat to livestock, as this entails more insect death for less food.

Hmm, no. I think it's a bad thing to give wheat to livestock because I believe that they should be reared on pasture.

On your view, veganism is going to result in the lowest amount of insect "suffering", so is logically the most moral option other than suicide.

Not sure how you came to this conclusion. Can you expand on this?

Do you think the activists should advocate voluntary extinctionism?

I don't have an opinion on what they should do or not.

[NJW2000]

I don't have an opinion on what they should do or not.

Ah, you need me to explain that "hypocritical" is generally taken to be a normative term in ordinary conversation. Thank you for engaging with me, this is a fun discussion to be part of. For us to continue, please specify what you mean by the definite article. Be clear!

More seriously, you seem to think that eating crops is more intensive in insect "pain" than some alternative - apparently pasture-reared livestock, as anything else is fed on huge quantities of wheat. As far as I can understand you, the vegans are hypocrites for not advocating that alternative, if anything. And this based on a strong belief in insect pain.

Well, good to know. Was just wondering why the sensitive and well-informed young people I know who protest factory farming and eat vegan diets are such hypocrites - my curiousity is very much satisfied.

[wierd]

He's not wrong though, you know.

Wheat gets sprayed with insecticides, where a cattle pasture does not.

(And smug self-assurance bordering on conceit does not lend itself to quality discourse. It is actually rather offensive, and begs the question. Specifically, your tone makes the sin of presuming itself inimpeachably correct, without qualification. This is improper. To have a proper discourse, one must be willing to indulge in thr conception of being wrong, and thus be willing to accept evidence to that end.)

The stipulation that suffering requires pain is also improper. Systemic debilitation is indeed a form of suffering, and imposing it, a form of cruelty. Insecticides are not at all humane in the manners in which they work, often operating through systemic debilitation.

There is then the cascading repercussions of insecticide use, which causes systemic debilitation in higher level trophic networks, such as rodents, fish and birds. (Which is why DDT was banned in the US.)

And yes, the failure of your attested "sensitive young people" to contemplate these cascading consequences (2)* while preaching from a position of smug self-assurance, is defacto hypocrisy.  (specifically, the position taken is that the vegan path minimizes overall suffering of animal populations, and is asserted so in a very bombastic, and self-assured way, when actual evidence is not consistent with that position; The increased reliance on pesticides required for a pure vegan diet results in cascading systemic harm through multiple trophic levels, and causes direct, observed disruption of extended food webs for such animal species, and thus is directly and systemically implicated in wide-reaching, systemic harm and suffering of a diverse cast of animal populations, and thus is by no means "less cruel."  This makes the notion of an ethical basis for the veganism hypocritical.)


*

Sensitivity of birds and bats to neonicotinoids

Gibbons et al. (2015) reviewed the direct and indirect effects of neonicotinoids and fipronil on vertebrate wildlife including mammals, fish, birds, amphibians and reptiles. LD50 values for imidacloprid, clothianidin and fipronil are available for 11 species of bird (Table 9). There is considerable variation in the lethality of these compounds to birds, both between bird species and pesticide type. Using US EPA (2012) classifications for toxicity (see legend for Table 9), imidacloprid ranged from moderately toxic to highly toxic, clothianidin from practically non-toxic to moderately toxic and fipronil from practically non-toxic to highly toxic. Many of these studied bird species are granivorous and can be expected to feed on sown seeds shortly after the sowing period. Theoretical levels of seed consumption necessary to cause mortality were calculated by Goulson (2013); see “Risk from non-flowering crops and cropping stages prior to flowering” section.

In addition to lethal effects, several studies have identified sublethal effects of neonicotinoid ingestion on birds (Table 10). House sparrows can become uncoordinated and unable to fly, and studies of Japanese quail and red-legged partridges have reported DNA breakages and a reduced immune response, respectively. Many of these sublethal effects occur at lower concentrations than the lethal dose. A single oral dose of 41,000,000 ng/g of imidacloprid will cause mortality in house sparrows; a substantially lower dose (6000,000 ng/g) can induce uncoordinated behaviour and an inability to fly (Cox 2001). Whilst imidacloprid is highly toxic to Japanese quail, with an LD50 of 31,000,000 ng/g, chronic daily doses of 1000,000 ng/g/day can lead to testicular anomalies, DNA damage in males and reductions in embryo size when those males are mated with control females (Tokumoto et al. 2013).

In addition to the studies reviewed by Gibbons et al., one additional study is available that assessed the impact of neonicotinoid ingestion on birds. Lopez-Anita et al. (2015) fed red-legged partridge Alectoris rufa imidacloprid-treated wheat seeds for a period of 25 days in the autumn and an additional period of 10 days in the spring, matching the pattern of cereal cropping in Spain. One treatment contained seeds treated at the recommended dosage rate and the second at 20% of the recommended rate, to mimic a diet composed of 20% of treated seeds. Treated seeds contained concentrations of imidacloprid of 140,000–700,000 ng/g at the two dose rates. As the 400 g partridges used in this study consume around 25 g of seeds a day, a daily ingestion of 8800 and 44,000 ng/g/day was expected.

Imidacloprid at the highest dose killed all adult partridges in 21 days, with first deaths occurring on day 3. Mortality in the low dose and control groups was significantly lower at 18.7 and 15.6% respectively. As all partridges in the high dose died, effects on reproductive output were only measured in the low dose treatment. Compared to controls, low dose females laid significantly smaller clutches, and the time to first egg laying was also significantly increased. There was no difference in egg size, shell thickness, fertile egg rate and hatching rate. There was no detectable impact on chick survival, chick growth or sex ratio between these two groups. These results are in line with previous findings for lethal (Table 9) and sublethal (Table 10) effects of neonicotinoid consumption by birds. Whilst LD50s vary across two orders of magnitude from 11,300 to >2000,000 ng/g, sublethal effects are seen across a more consistent range of doses over one order of magnitude between 1000 and 53,000 ng/g. The greatest outstanding issue is that no data exist that quantify the actual exposure rate to granivorous birds from neonicotinoid-treated seeds. As such, it is difficult to judge whether these clearly demonstrated lethal and sublethal effects are manifested in wild bird populations in the field.

In addition to sublethal and lethal effects potentially caused by the ingestion of neonicotinoids from treated seeds, bird populations may also be affected by a reduction in invertebrate prey. Hallmann et al. (2014) used bird population data from the Dutch Common Breeding Bird Monitoring Scheme, a standardised recording scheme that has been running in the Netherlands since 1984. Surface water quality measurements are also regularly collected across the Netherlands, including data on imidacloprid levels. Hallmann et al. compared surface water imidacloprid levels between 2003 and 2009 with bird population trends for 15 farmland bird species that are insectivorous at least during the breeding season to assess the hypothesis that neonicotinoids may cause bird population declines through a reduction in invertebrate food availability. The average intrinsic rate of increase in local farmland bird populations was significantly negatively affected by the concentration of imidacloprid. At the individual level, 14 of the 15 bird species showed a negative response to imidacloprid concentrations, with 6 out of 15 showing a significant negative response. As previously discussed in “Sensitivity of butterflies and moths to neonicotinoids” section, it is difficult to disentangle the effects of neonicotinoids from the effects of general agricultural intensification. Hallmann et al. attempt to control for proxy measures of intensification including changes in land use area, areas of cropped land and fertiliser input, but imidacloprid levels remained a significant negative predictor.

The only available study that has quantified changes in invertebrate prey availability after neonicotinoid treatment and concurrent changes in the bird community was conducted in the USA. Falcone and DeWald (2010) measured invertebrates in eastern hemlock Tsuga canadensis forests in Tennessee after trees have been treated with imidacloprid to control hemlock woolly adelgid Adelges tsugae. The imidacloprid treatment had a significantly negative effect on non-target Hemiptera and larval Lepidoptera. However, there was no corresponding decline in insectivorous bird density between treatments. Direct comparison between this study and the findings of Hallmann et al. 2014 are difficult due to the very different ecological conditions. It is likely sufficient untreated areas existed in hemlock forests for insectivorous birds to find sufficient forage. In the Netherlands, one of the most agriculturally intensified regions in the world, unaffected semi-natural habitat is scarce and a reduction in prey availability caused by neonicotinoid application would have a more severe impact.

No studies are available that measure the effect of neonicotinoids on bats and bat populations. A link between neonicotinoid use and declining farmland butterfly populations has been suggested (Gilburn et al. 2015; Forister et al. 2016), and given the ecological similarity between butterflies and moths, a similar trend may be ongoing, though this has not yet been investigated. Many bat species feed on moths, so a reduction in the moth population is likely to impact bat populations through a reduction in food availability. Mason et al. (2014) link neonicotinoid use with an increase in the frequency of bat diseases such as White Nose Syndrome (caused by the fungus Geomyces destructans) in both the USA and Europe. They hypothesise that consumption of neonicotinoid residues in insect prey weakens the immune system of bats. However, no evidence is presented demonstrating the presence of neonicotinoid residues in moths or bats or a passage across these trophic levels or that exposure to neonicotinoids weaken the immune system of bats, resulting in increased rates of fungal infection. The position of Mason et al. must currently be considered unsupported.

[Yoink]

Mine would be more, "the large field of grass that is used to free-range cattle, supports a very wide and diverse ecosystem of many complex vertebrate animals

*sigh* I'd stayed out of this thread in the past, but this point is so absurd that I need to say something.   
Are you seriously trying to argue that cattle grazing has a positive effect on the environment? Putting aside concerns of methane emissions or whatever, are you perhaps unaware of the long-lasting devastation cattle fields actually cause to any land used for the purpose? Even once they're finally abandoned by cattle farmers and can serve a more positive purpose, it's a huge battle to get anything to grow there afterwards even if there's any soil left to stick plants in.   
And if there's a waterway unfortunate enough to make its way through a cattle paddock, boy, you can forget it.   


All this is irrelevant when most of the arguments in here hinge on "but animals still suffer even if you don't eat them", anyway. That's just dumb. The whole idea is to minimise your impact as best you can, not to somehow magically prevent all suffering, ever. Eating plant-based alternatives is still a helluva lot better than funding the meat industry no matter how many awful pesticides might be involved (as I'm sure others have said, those same fertilisers get used to grow the same damn crops as animal feed anyway).   
I don't see the majority of anti-vegan types getting out there and proselytising for anti-natalism, anyway. They just try to pull all of these arguments out of their collective arses when their outdated views and lifestyles are being challenged.    
NJW2000, I respect your honesty with others and with yourself. Admitting that you don't care about an issue, rather than bending over backwards trying to paint the other side as being wrong, already puts you streets ahead of a lot of folks.   

Yet you think that it's a bad thing to give wheat to livestock, as this entails more insect death for less food.

Hmm, no. I think it's a bad thing to give wheat to livestock because I believe that they should be reared on pasture.

How many folks would you expect to feed with animals fed that way, exactly? Is it going to be an uber-exclusive treat for the hella rich?   
Or are you in favour of clearing, like, the entire planet for pasture?