The Student Room Group

This discussion is now closed.

Check out other Related discussions

My favourite pro veganism quotation!

Scroll to see replies

Original post by scrotgrot
I'm not justifying eating meat today, just saying why we wouldn't have been here to ask the question if we hadn't been meat-eaters - specifically big game hunters - as cavemen.


Well without the use for slavery throughout history we would live in a much much less developed world. Do you think we should still enslave the africans and jews? I think Hitler had a similar idea!
Original post by Louisb19
Well without the use for slavery throughout history we would live in a much much less developed world. Do you think we should still enslave the africans and jews? I think Hitler had a similar idea!


Not really, slavery was used as a source of labour, not innovation.


Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by Stiff Little Fingers
No, my argument is that it's not comparable with slavery, and that doing so effectively shows how ridiculous your argument is.


I'm interested why comparing it with slavery makes no sense to you.
Original post by Stiff Little Fingers
Not really, slavery was used as a source of labour, not innovation.


Posted from TSR Mobile


Without slavery, the western world as we know it would not exist.

I also don't see how eating flesh leads to innovation. You could argue that women not being able to own property was a source on innovation, should we have kept that around?
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Louisb19
Without slavery, the western world as we know it would not exist.


We still have a form of slavery: it's called work. Essentially it would be as if we changed from farming animals as if they were commodities to giving some of them more food and better conditions if they could make us more profit, and encouraging them to trample on each other.
I believe it's relevant because you asked me to tell you the differences between animals and humans, or something to that effect. You weren't very clear. :smile:

As for the lions, you're splitting hairs. I was making a comparison. It doesn't make sense for members of a species to eat each other, and it isn't really necessary given the presence food-chains.

Neighbours; again, you're splitting hairs. By neighbours, I mean fellow human beings, not the family next door. :smile:

So are you against every carnivore/omnivore in existence? I'm sure the great white shark, ape, and snow leopard would love to debate with you on this topic.

Animals eat each other. We eat them, some of them can eat us if we're not careful. If a greater predator than us existed, we would probably become that animal's food.

Again, even though I'm not against eating meat, but I am against the unnecessary mistreatment of animals in farms and the like. There are humane ways to do things.

Perhaps if you explained your choice to be vegan/vegetarian, I would better understand you.

Note; me purchasing cod doesn't mean that I condone the unnecessary torture of cod. It means I'm hungry and I need to eat. :smile:
Given the choice between buying tortured cod or cod that's been killed humanely, I'd choose the latter, but it's not always that clear.

I can't stay for much longer today as it's getting late; if I don't reply, it's because I'm asleep and I'll get back to you tomorrow if you wish.
Original post by scrotgrot
We still have a form of slavery: it's called work. Essentially it would be as if we changed from farming animals as if they were commodities to giving some of them more food and better conditions if they could make us more profit, and encouraging them to trample on each other.


Work is slavery? You have every right to go live in the forest if you like, then you won't have to work!

If we stopped working the entire world would collapse since no one in the western world would have food, shelter or water. On the other hand, if we stopped killing animals:

- C02 emissions decrease
- 6 MILLION less animals die per minute
- 45% of the land on earth doesn't have to be used for the meat industry
- The amount of food we have available would increase 5 fold
- The human race could live with the peace of mind that we don't enslave and torture everything that we find.

No argument you can make apart from 'It tastes good!' is valid in favour of the meat industry, so please stop trying; it's honestly embarrassing.
Reply 167
Original post by redferry
Cheap?! Are you kidding me it's extortionate -_- (you're talking to someone on a PhD wage here who spends 20-30 quid a week on food shopping for two people)

No rowing is the worst thing I can possibly do for fingers and wrists unfortunately - it's part of what caused the problem. I swim and do spin 5 x a week atm but it'll be a ot more difficult to keep up once I started proper job.


£20 - 30 for TWO people?! I spend £50 a week on just ME, at least £20 on meat for the week. One year of Vit D3 supply is like £10?
Original post by AbsoluteAnarchy

So are you against every carnivore/omnivore in existence? I'm sure the great white shark, ape, and snow leopard would love to debate with you on this topic.

Animals eat each other. We eat them, some of them can eat us if we're not careful. If a greater predator than us existed, we would probably become that animal's food.


Snow leopards hunt for their food, its a part of nature. Humans keep animals in cages and slaughter 200 Billion of them per year.

It really aggravates me when people compare hunting to the meat industry, if your is argument seriously 'Animals eat other animals in nature so they can survive, Humans do this to! We have to go hunt at Tesco and catch an animal that was born without the slightest chance of having a decent life.' then you need to re-asses your intelligence.
Original post by Louisb19
Snow leopards hunt for their food, its a part of nature. Humans keep animals in cages and slaughter 200 Billion of them per year.

It really aggravates me when people compare hunting to the meat industry, if your is argument seriously 'Animals eat other animals in nature so they can survive, Humans do this to! We have to go hunt at Tesco and catch an animal that was born without the slightest chance of having a decent life.' then you need to re-asses your intelligence.


So because we are capable of isolating our food before killing it, which is more efficient by a mile, it is not comparable? Do you honestly think that the hunters of the world would keep hunting if they could keep their food in a pen and kill them with a fraction of the effort?

Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by Louisb19
Without slavery, the western world as we know it would not exist.

I also don't see how eating flesh leads to innovation. You could argue that women not being able to own property was a source on innovation, should we have kept that around?


Not particularly, slavery drove luxury goods and provided a massive basis to the economy of developing America, but at the same time it stood in the way of industrialisation.

Never said it was, and I highly doubt you've any chance of making that argument, but humour me, how exactly was a lack of women's rights a source of innovation?


Posted from TSR Mobile
If you actually read the post before that I explained why, eating meat is part of our natural behaviour as omnivores, slavery was a developed framework as part of proto-capitalist systems, not part of human biology. You're trying to compare a basic tenant of human biology to a societal event, what you've done in essence is taken someone saying they wished health nuts would stop trying to shove sugar free diets down their throat and asked them whether they think people with objections to the subjugation of women should keep them to themselves. It's obviously nonsense.


Posted from TSR Mobile
Legend :top:

[video="youtube;f53YE-YU8rw"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f53YE-YU8rw[/video]
Original post by Jammy Duel
So because we are capable of isolating our food before killing it, which is more efficient by a mile, it is not comparable? Do you honestly think that the hunters of the world would keep hunting if they could keep their food in a pen and kill them with a fraction of the effort?

Posted from TSR Mobile


Interestingly enough, certain species of ant have managed it and so do: http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150105-animals-that-grow-their-own-food


Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by saeed97
If someone tried to stop me from eating meat i'll end them.


Well if you were an animal see how you like it being exploited, abused & killed for food!
Original post by Stiff Little Fingers
Interestingly enough, certain species of ant have managed it and so do: http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150105-animals-that-grow-their-own-food


Posted from TSR Mobile


I rest my case

Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by scrotgrot
On the contrary, I expect male humans would more or less kill each other on sight if we didn't have to club together to hunt large animals. At the very least our society would be like that of chimpanzees so a strict brutal hierarchy. You could kiss goodbye to the purposeful association of human beings and therefore to much of the technological progress we have enjoyed over the past ten thousand years.


We are much more like bonobos.

In fact the current thought in anthropology is that humans would not be where we are today if we had been more like chimpanzees than bonobos. Especially with regards to the differences between gender.

Hate to say but the bonobo similarities also mess up your view of feminism and the role of females in humans from a genetic standpoint :holmes:


Original post by Jammy Duel


So what?

You can find what is essential rape as a mating strategy in loads of sexual species. Is rape now ok because of that? I mean after all, if you rape and get a woman pregnant you have passed on your genes. Which is all evolution is about.
(edited 8 years ago)
That's completely irrelevant - I said that humans are omnivorous animals, that much is true.

No more than in as much as food forming part of social events, but eating is still primarily for survival, and that includes the eating of meat.

It's quite obvious that eating and owning slaves are not comparable, given, y'know, eating is a biological necessity, but beyond that morals don't come into predator-prey relationships, which is another point where your argument falls down.


Now, assuming you're one of these least harm ethical vegans - why when a bivalve (which have no central nervous system and so have no more a concept of pain than plants) based diet or local hunter-gather behaviour would cause less deaths than mass crop farming, given the use of pesticides to kill insects and the regular hunting by farmers of voles, field mice and other destructive species, would you not adopt one of these diets instead, if it's truly a case of doing as little harm as possible then why, when meat based diets cause less harm, adopt veganism? (Obviously the logical conclusion for causing the least harm is to never have lived, but we'll stick to minimal harm for now)


Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
We are much more like bonobos.

In fact the current thought in anthropology is that humans would not be where we are today if we had been more like chimpanzees than bonobos. Especially with regards to the differences between gender.

Hate to say but the bonobo similarities also mess up your view of feminism and the role of females in humans from a genetic standpoint


Fair enough, I tend to think we are a mix of both tbh. I mean we have pretty much always had rules around sex and rigid hierarchies, only argument against it that I can see is that settled agriculture is unnatural and before that we used to be gynocratic hippies - as many feminists indeed argue - but then why has agriculture been so enduring and universal?

Unfortunately it may simply be that agricultural societies are just better; and with agriculture we are now on evolutionary timescales. So it could be that even if humans used to be like bonobos we are now changing.
Original post by scrotgrot
Fair enough, I tend to think we are a mix of both tbh. I mean we have pretty much always had rules around sex and rigid hierarchies, only argument against it that I can see is that settled agriculture is unnatural and before that we used to be gynocratic hippies - as many feminists indeed argue - but then why has agriculture been so enduring and universal?

Unfortunately it may simply be that agricultural societies are just better; and with agriculture we are now on evolutionary timescales. So it could be that even if humans used to be like bonobos we are now changing.


Well yeah, that is where anarchist anthropologists come from. It was the advent of agriculture that we became such a hierarchical species, when before that we were relative egalitarian. Their view is that most of these hierarchies is a result of social conditioning and a form of historical materialism rather than genetic changes and can thus be changed. Which is the viewpoint I side with, although that is based on personal intuition rather than rigid science.

"
Chimpanzees are political, aggressive, hunt for meat, and engage in primitive war with neighbouring groups. Bonobos have sex for pleasure as well as procreation, and make a variety of almost bird-like vocalisations.

Chimpanzee societies are more “patriarchal” or male dominated, whereas bonobos live in more female-centred or “matriarchal” societies."

https://theconversation.com/do-chimps-and-bonobos-go-ape-when-risk-goes-wrong-14846

We probably do have a mixture but I can't imagine Chimpanzees being able to create the kind of large scale societies we, although that is purely my viewpoint. Also according to that article we are as closely related to both Bonobos and Chimpanzees genetically speaking.

Latest