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Vegans cause animals to go extinct?

mumblethrax said:
It might not make sense to people who can't distinguish between statistical genetic "interests" and genuine psychological interests. To the rest of us, who live in the real world, it makes perfect sense.

Cows, as far as we can tell, do not spend their days lamenting the plight of unseen future generations. They don't care about cows on the other side of the world. They just don't care about how many replicas their genes have managed to produce.

The idea that because the gene drives reproduction, the gene is of utmost importance...it's the kind of error only human beings have the luxury of making.
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No one has ever been able to show life has any other purpose than to propagate as much of its own DNA as possible. Even if you happen to disagree with this, it doesn’t follow that animals would be psychologically better off to not exist then to be doomed to die and be eaten at some point since this is the fate of nearly all animals anyway.
 
lomiller said:
No one has ever been able to show life has any other purpose than to propagate as much of its own DNA as possible.
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No one has even been able to show that life has any purpose at all. This is just a category error; life is not teleological. We weren't talking about life, however--we were talking about what is harmful.

Even if you happen to disagree with this, it doesn’t follow that animals would be psychologically better off to not exist then to be doomed to die and be eaten at some point since this is the fate of nearly all animals anyway.
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It doesn't make sense to talk about something that doesn't exist--that will never exist if we grant the premises of the hypothetical--being better or worse off. It's just a total non-starter. You aren't better situated the moment you have your first experience--you're situated for the very first time.
 
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Unabogie said:
They are forcibly hooked up to machines to give milk, they are fed chemicals to make them grow very fast which causes them pain, they are treated poorly and are not cured when they get sick, then they are killed.
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If that's how cattle are treated in your country, then it's not good. However, don't imagine it's the same everywhere.

The use of BST is illegal in this country. "Treated poorly" is a bit vague to refute, but may have some truth in it depending. The only cattle who aren't cured when they get sick are those unfortunate enough to be in organic herds. And humane slaughter/euthanasia is not necessarily an evil.

Rolfe.
 
lomiller said:
No one has ever been able to show life has any other purpose than to propagate as much of its own DNA as possible. Even if you happen to disagree with this, it doesn’t follow that animals would be psychologically better off to not exist then to be doomed to die and be eaten at some point since this is the fate of nearly all animals anyway.
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That is some seriously muddled thinking.

Rolfe.
 
If more people became vegans then a lot less farmland would be needed, that was previously used to grow food for farm animals. So there would be room for more animals.
 
If more people became vegans, a lot more farmland would be needed to grow their food.

Rolfe.
 
angrysoba said:
Shirley Vegans don't use leather either do they?
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Conscientious vegans (and vegetarian, like me) minimize their use of animal products. And luckily, animal-free alternatives are becoming more and more available.

So my shoes? Canvas.

My belt? Some kind of non-leather thing ... that looks like a leather bet.

My wallet? It's leather. But it's a gift from my father-in-law, so until it wears out, I'll use it.

I take Vitamin D each morning and it probably has gelatin in the capsule. If the drugstore gave me a vegetarian alternative, I'd buy it.

It's really about minimizing the damage we inflict.

Oh. And one other thing.

Stop calling me Shirley.
 
Its a well known fact that wild animals typically die peacefully in their sleep, in a nice comfy bed, with strong painkillers if they need it.
 
And on a related note - show me an anti-hunt activist that owns a cat and I'll show you a bloody hypocrite. I am a 'cat person' BTW.
 
hodgy said:
And on a related note - show me an anti-hunt activist that owns a cat and I'll show you a bloody hypocrite. I am a 'cat person' BTW.
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I'll bite. I'm an anti-hunter (though I'm not sure what you mean by that) and my wife and I own 6 cats, all rescued from the street.

So please, tell me how I'm a hypocrite.
 
citizenzen said:
I'll bite. I'm an anti-hunter (though I'm not sure what you mean by that) and my wife and I own 6 cats, all rescued from the street.

So please, tell me how I'm a hypocrite.
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My categorisation might not apply to you so apologies if so and I am very glad that you rescue cats, I also do.

I do not hunt foxes and have no desire to but I fail to see a moral reason to oppose other people hunting foxes when I have cats. I am very sure that the amount of (uncontrolled and unmonitored) suffering, misery and death imposed by my various cats on the spiders of my living room and the small mammals and birds of my garden is several orders of magnitude greater than that wreaked by an entire foxhound pack.

Many people can somehow turn a blind eye to cats being let loose to do what nature compels them to yet a tightly controlled pack of hounds is subject to a different moral code. It seems hypocritical to me. The fox's suffering for some reason is more significant than the sparrow's...

If you didn't have / save / breed cats then there would be much less suffering in the world. Where are the vegans and hunt sabateurs calling for cat euthanasia?
 
Rolfe said:
If more people became vegans, a lot more farmland would be needed to grow their food.

Rolfe.
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This is obviously wrong. As has already been mentioned in several posts in this thread if you eat meat then you need to grow crops to feed the animals, this will always be a greater quantity of food than if you just ate the crops yourself.

IIRC the efficiency for beef is about 10%, poultry is about 20% and farmed fish is about 40%. This is just in crop biomass terms, energy efficiency is an even bigger margin due to transport and other energy costs. Clearly we would need a lot less farmland if everyone was vegan.

This isn't to say this is 'what we should do' there are a lot of other factors, but you can't say it would require more farmland, thats just bs.
 
hodgy said:
Many people can somehow turn a blind eye to cats being let loose to do what nature compels them to yet a tightly controlled pack of hounds is subject to a different moral code. It seems hypocritical to me. The fox's suffering for some reason is more significant than the sparrow's...
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Oh, that kind of hunting.

I'm a Yank, and hadn't thought of that.

A couple of thoughts ...

We do keep 4 out of 6 cats indoors all the time. The outside world is a dangerous place for both cats and birds, and we feel strongly about minimizing the damage cats can do to the animals in our backyard.

One of the cats that we do allow out had a taste of outdoor living as a younger cat (before we rescued it) and demanded (by pooping and peeing all over the place) to be let outside. It, and one other cat that had been habituated to the outdoors are allowed out during the day. We bring both in for the night.

And to tell you the truth, birds do suffer for it. One just died the other day. But we're trying to do what we can to min-i-mize the damage, including trimming bushes to remove hiding places, and belling if it comes to it.

The concept of the damage that cats can do to the local fauna isn't lost on us. Cats should ideally be kept indoors for their own safety and the safety of other animals. And always spay or neuter your cats. The world certainly doesn't need too many of those vicious little beasts running around.

As for hunting, I'm definitely pro fox.
 
hodgy said:
Its a well known fact that wild animals typically die peacefully in their sleep, in a nice comfy bed, with strong painkillers if they need it.
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Much like no animal has ever evolved to winter climates, let alone survived one.

If you want to make an argument for hunting, please don't pretend it has the slightest connection to "compassion killing" or animal welfare. I've NEVER met a hunter who wasn't absolutely hostile to the idea of animal rights.

As often as people kick around the "starving deer in winter" argument, it has nothing to do with the actual reasons people hunt.
 
hodgy said:
And on a related note - show me an anti-hunt activist that owns a cat and I'll show you a bloody hypocrite. I am a 'cat person' BTW.
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I have two indoors cats and I would very strongly support a law that categorized hunting as purposeful animal cruelty.

The only hypocritical aspect I can see here are the make it a felony to shoot a cat through the head with an arrow, but exclude deer. There's no rational explanation why cats suffer in an obviously cruel manner, but deer do not. The suffering is there, the cruelty is obvious, should be regarded no differently from dog fighting or other blood sports.
 
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Dessi said:
Much like no animal has ever evolved to winter climates, let alone survived one.

If you want to make an argument for hunting, please don't pretend it has the slightest connection to "compassion killing" or animal welfare. I've NEVER met a hunter who wasn't absolutely hostile to the idea of animal rights.

As often as people kick around the "starving deer in winter" argument, it has nothing to do with the actual reasons people hunt.
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Seems lots of people are meeting others of a type they haven't met before.

There are a great many responsible hunters. The "starving deer" argument may not be a primary motivator but it still could well be a fair justification for hunting for themselves, as well as those in the community hostile to hunting. I have hunted myself and know people who took particular happiness in killing a feral cat out of knowledge of that they do to native animal populations.

Hunters, by virtue of spending a lot of time in the outdoors, may have a better understanding of the place and have motivations to protect it that are based on realities rather than romantic notions.

I care about animal welfare and would rather eat a hunted bird than a factory farmed one. But I don't enjoy scenes where hunters descend on the local wetlands en-mass.
 
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