Thanks, sir. Your essay looks promising, though without a kindle (my home library contains over 2,500 "dead-tree" books) I'm afraid I won't be reading it anytime soon. Anyway, welcome to TPF ...

Thank you for being welcoming, Proof.

Every manuscript I have published on Kindle I also have available for you in pdf. form. So tell me what the item is to which you refer, and how or whether I can get a moderator's permission to let you have a link to a place to read it on the worldwide web or the internet.

The million dollar question: If veganism is "good", why did carnivory evolve? Does mother nature make (silly) mistakes? Does God make boo boos? Something doesn't add up now does it?

The idea that we're here merely to eat and shit is egregious. — baker

I don't know how you arrived at that from what I said. One of the ideas that I did propose was that we're here to initiate the next step of evolution. I also proposed the idea that asserting that you know why you are here is something akin to a delusion of grandeur.

I don't think we are here for anything. We are here because of many things (the Big Bang, the formation of the Earth, the evolution of humans and our parents having sex), but here for nothing. We each create our own purposes for ourselves, so if you don't want to be here just to eat and shit, then that is your prerogative. I don't want to be here to just eat and shit either, which is why I am here having a discussion with you and doing many other things besides just eating and shitting.

The idea that we're here merely to eat and shit is egregious.
— baker
I don't know how you arrived at that from what I said. — Harry Hindu

Because I didn't. It's the theme I'm pursuing in this thread, as initiated in my first reply in this thread. The OP has a consumerist approach to life, and this is what I'm criticizing.

One of the ideas that I did propose was that we're here to initiate the next step of evolution.

I also proposed the idea that asserting that you know why you are here is something akin to a delusion of grandeur.

So, per you, us being here to "initiate the next step of evolution" is "something akin to a delusion of grandeur".

I don't think we are here for anything.

But you just said

One of the ideas that I did propose was that we're here to initiate the next step of evolution.

We each create our own purposes for ourselves

How can that be? We're not living in a vacuum.

I don't want to be here to just eat and shit either, which is why I am here having a discussion with you and doing many other things besides just eating and shitting.

I'm refering to comsumerism, consumption, in a broader sense that just eating and defecating, though. One can also be a consumer of music, art, ideas. What is blameworthy is the attitude of "we're here to consume".

This just dawned on me. We don't eat animals alive? They have to be dead you see! Vultures got tired of waiting!

:up:

One of the ideas that I did propose was that we're here to initiate the next step of evolution. — Harry Hindu

Which is circular. If life exist to generate next life, you involve life in the reason.

to be here just to eat and shit — Harry Hindu

:snicker: We're basically tubes, fancy ones but essentially tubes (mouth - guts - anus). Brains are, the bottom line, an organ that works for the tubes. It's kinda rebelling, now and then (hunger strikes), but it still serves the tubes. I wriggle, wiggle...like a worm!

Keep looking for that Boltzmann brain, Smith. It'll really help. :love:

I've been dining on some faux meat products from the supermarket - a mince product which made an acceptable spaghetti bolognaise for dinner last night, and just now Impossible Meat burgers for lunch. Yum! :nerd:

Keep looking for that Boltzmann brain, Smith. It'll really help. — Wayfarer

Did you know...

According to some scientists, (parasitic) worms rolled back on nervous system development (they lost their minds :snicker: ).

These Romans Worms are crazy! — Obelix

Zen Buddhism [mushin no shin (mind without mind)] is for nematodes, parasitic ones! :scream:

I don't think the idea that killing / mistreating animals is unethical and killing / mistreating plants is perfectly fine holds much philosophical merit. — Tzeentch

Maybe not so much philosophical but biological for sure. Plants have totally different survival strategy, they are "built" to be eaten by animals, and then they just grow back the part that was eaten. Or maybe the animals eat flowers, fruits etc. that are even more meant to be eaten. Biologically, plants and animals are different in this sense. Plants are more like the "lab meat" of scifi visions of future.

As for me, I've been mostly vegan for many years. My "philosophical" argument is very thin, I just don't feel good about eating my fellow living and breathing creatures. So I don't eat them.

I don't know which diet is best for the climate, and I don't believe I have the resources or competence to really understand these complex issues. So I'm happy that other people are doing it. If it turns out that my way of living is a disaster for the environment, then I'll probably change something.

Argument:
1. The consumption of meat will never be perfectly ethical, but the consumption of well cared, pasture-fed animals, is much more ethical than factory-farmed animals and is beneficial to human health.
2. A vegan diet is directly morally ethical, as it does not involve direct animal suffering, however, it may have indirect ethical issues given the environmental and health impacts.
[For the sake of the argument, please assume the scientific side of premises 1 & 2 is true]
3. It is more ethical to consume humanely raised animal products for the sake of human health and the prevention of climate change. — Louis

There are some challenges to this in that there is a question whether one's devotion to non-humans can be placed above one's obligations to other human beings. In short, consider if this position will assert your own selfish interests to the detriment of a larger interest in social ties.

The primary advantage human beings have over other animals is found in the cooperation with other people. So, if factory farming produces the greatest advantages for the human race on the whole compared to farming methods less stressful for the animals, it would seem to be more ethical to support the former over the latter.

So, if the well-cared, pasture-fed animals approach employs fewer people and feeds fewer people and leads to higher food costs, then it seems to betray a more basic principle than the self-interested desire to avoid animal suffering.

However, it still leaves open the idea that a convincing argument could be made that the preferred approach could lead to better working conditions and wages or profits for farmers and a more sustainable agricultural approach for the industry as well.

Also, the dichotomy between the approaches is not exact or defined. There are industrial agricultural approaches moving toward the more humane and sustainable so it may be more effective to reform factory farming in ways that do not hinder productivity than advocate for the complete replacement of it by styles of farming that may not be scalable over the entire market.

While your testimonial may be valid, I hope you would note that a single person's subjective analysis of their health is of very low value compared to large sample size, statistical data. I will read your essay in time.

Evolution is not a morally guided system, well its not a guided system at all. Organisms evolved to reproduce, thats it, many things, good and bad have come from it, but we cannot decided what is good or bad based on its results.

Evolution is not a morally guided system,e well its not a guided system at all. Organisms evolved to reproduce, thats it, many things, good and bad have come from it, but we cannot decided what is good or bad based on its results — Louis

Good is, by and large, pro-life (pro-choicers might wanna rethink their position because now they look bad) i.e. ethics seems to be be a faithful servant of (the god of) evolution which, as we all know, seems to be in the business of creating/perpetuating life (for as long as possible). A survival game or endless mode.

Good is, by and large, pro-life (pro-choicers might wanna rethink their position because now they look bad) i.e. ethics seems to be be a faithful servant of (the god of) evolution which, as we all know, seems to be in the business of creating/perpetuating life (for as long as possible). A survival game or endless mode. — Agent Smith

This may be an accident of perspective. Things that are able to perpetuate remain while things that do not perpetuate do not continue to exist. So the attribution of "good" to those things that stick around is arbitrary. Almost anything we might consider evil today is just as likely to sustain itself. Slavery and serfdom lasted for centuries. Far longer than the societies today that "abolished" them.

So, if we reinstate slavery and serfdom (and who is to say we haven't), by the standards of longevity and perpetuation, they can certainly be considered good.

Slavery and serfdom lasted for centuries. — ASmallTalentForWar

These are now reportedly dead and buried. I'm not sure though, evil memes adapt and evolve and find new ways to survive. Just yesterday I was reading up on Batesian mimicry. Feels relevant (to me).

Another thing, what do you suppose the law is all about? Incarceration to capital punishment - don't these give you the impression that some form of eugenics (regulating the gene pool) is going on here? Then there are the social credits you gain for being a good human being? Something mighty interesting is going on, wouldn't you say?

The million dollar question: If veganism is "good", why did carnivory evolve? Does mother nature make (silly) mistakes? Does God make boo boos? Something doesn't add up now does it? — Agent Smith

This is probably unhelpful, but your question leads to a variety of interpretations. Animals ate other animals. One day, many moons later, plants came into the picture and animals evolved to eat plants. In an evolutionary sense, non-animal eating animals came AFTER animal eating animals (and omnivores are in-between). So if evolution is progress, the vegetarian/vegan animals are ahead of the carnivores.

Also, you may have noticed that vegans are a subset of people - this means that people can evolve into being vegan, but could not evolve into being omnivores. Again, the shift from being what we are (omnivores) to something else is evolution - so what we are becoming is better than what we are.

In any event, the argument from evolution doesn't work in favor of meat eating the way you might think unless you are saying that what organisms evolve to do is an indication of moral acceptability. In that case, everything everything does is morally acceptable (after all, everything that is alive evolved to be precisely what it is), so the existence of carnivores is of no moment in the discussion of whether it is better to be a carnivore rather than an omnivore that chooses to limit its behavior/diet.

And yes, god (mother nature, etc.) makes lots of boo boos. It goes with the territory.

There is no reason not to believe that we will be able to produce vat grown meats of extremely high quality. Until that day comes I guess you are stuck.

I understand that it may be compelling to argue how my current belief in the health and environmental impact of meat consumption may be wrong, and if you would like to argue it go ahead. — Louis

If humans continue to evolve into cyborgs or robots, the vegetarian question may become moot. Instead we'll be debating the morality of consuming Nuclear vs Hydrogen vs Solar energy vs Carbon-based Life-Forms, as the source of our electron diet. :joke:

I would say a good reason to believe that is that many science endeavours, that are highly funded, are working on lab-grown meats, with fair progress.

Yuval Noah Harari touches upon the issue of how our brains have messed up evolution in his book Sapiens. He doesn't explain how it happened but he says that the human brain kinda made a quantum leap in the few hundred thousand years that have passed and became a force to reckon with - tools, hunting weapon, etc. were rapidly invented in a geological wink of an eye - and animals like mammoths and others couldn't adapt fast enough to humans and hence died out.

The crux of the problem: Our brains can bring abour rapid changes (re global warming), changes that are just too fast for plants and animals to adapt to. The mechanics of evolution weren't designed for fast-acting forces. We could, in fact, draw a parallel between planetkiller asteroids and h. sapiens in terms of the extensive devastation to the ecology we're responsible for. Veganism is the mind's idea, but the body wants meat. If memory serves, our guts are essentially adapted to a meat diet.

vat grown meats — I like sushi

The first tentative steps towards brains in vats. :grimace: :fear: :scream:

Argument:
1. The consumption of meat will never be perfectly ethical, but the consumption of well cared, pasture-fed animals, is much more ethical than factory-farmed animals and is beneficial to human health.
2. A vegan diet is directly morally ethical, as it does not involve direct animal suffering, however, it may have indirect ethical issues given the environmental and health impacts.
[For the sake of the argument, please assume the scientific side of premises 1 & 2 is true]
3. It is more ethical to consume humanely raised animal products for the sake of human health and the prevention of climate change. — Louis

1&2 - why do you assume that not eating animals is ethical? why being ethical is good? if a wolf eats a rabbit, is he ethical or not ethical?
3 - why do you assume climate change it bad? what is the optimal temp. and co2 levels, why do you believe that?

in short, all your arguments are based on pretty much baseless assumptions. if you take those assumptions at face value, than yes, your conclusions sound logical. if you question those assumptions, your conclusions fall apart.

addendum ...

Also, this from Solar Foods in Finland
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.euronews.com/next/amp/2022/01/03/protein-made-from-thin-air-could-be-the-food-of-the-future-for-astronauts-and-may-save-ear — 180 Proof