Veganism and Cannibalism

Suddenly my tomato soup doesn't look appetizing, what so ever...
*goes to eat something not red*
 
GarmGarf said:
Because they are basing their lifestyle off different principles.

Meat-eaters who don't support human cannibalism most likely think along the lines that humans are more sacred, in some sense, than other animals, at least relatively to themselves (i.e: while some humans believe that humans are universally/absolutely more sacred than other animals, other humans reckon that while humans are more sacred, it is subjective/relative (i.e: the opinion: "other species would believe that they are the more sacred ones, and their belief wouldn't necessarily be wrong or right, but I feel justified/excusable in treating humans as more sacred, for they are of my kind")).

Most vegetarians/vegans would hold this view but would also hold an additional view that it is wrong to harm animals (including humans) [thought experiment: would the average vegetarian/vegan choose to save a human or any other given animal in a danger scenario? (Presumed answer: the human)]. However, many might find that vegetarians/vegans attempting to convert others to their adopted lifestyle wouldn't mention the first principle, because that wouldn't be tactical for their cause.


Things tend to sympathise more with other things similar to themselves. For example, some vegetarians/vegans care a lot about animals but don't give a damn about plants. Why? Well, basically animals are more similar to humans than plants are. Some vegetarians/vegans probably became that way because of sympathy to certain animals, but ended up applying that sympathy to all animals as a principle because it made sense at the time (and seems more virtuous). A lot of vegetarians/vegans will justify their lifestyle because animals have a nervous system (a great way to justify the principle), but let's consider what would happen if an alien sapient plant race came to Earth - are they more likely to sympathise with Earth's animals or plants? Ok, maybe they would be attracted to our sapience more than Earth's plants' cellular walls, but who knows. Regardless, sympathy levels resonate when the subject is of the exact (or I suppose at least really close to the) same species as the sympathizer, and this sympathy is related to how "sacred" one perceives things to be.

One can look at this situation as a tier or subset system - just as (the super great majority of) vegetarians/vegans find it ok to eat plants, but not ok to eat non-human animals or humans, meat-eaters who don't support human cannibalism find it ok to eat plants and non-human animals, but not ok to eat humans, where the different classifications are like tiers/(sub)sets. An example of this concept working in another field is as follows: some Christians would say that only Christianity is tolerable, while some would say that Christianity and other Abrahamic religions are tolerable, while some would say that any monotheist religion is tolerable, and etc.


On a different note, plants have done nothing to deserve to be eaten. If anything, humans are justified in eating herbivores as vengeance for the plants those animals have ate.




For some.



So is browsing Internet forums instead of working for society.

However, we humans have acquired the ability to exchange efficiency for pleasure/recreation, to a degree, and meat is tasty to me, and many other humans would agree.
Click to expand...

I would say the flaw in this argument is that everything eats plant--- aside from plants. It would be impossible to live a life without plants, yet, possible without meat. I don't think it's really about sympathy not to eat animals, it's the logic that we can eat animals but not human beings, another animal. If cannibalism was legalized I would certaintly become a meat eater.
 
Being on the topic of cannibalism and legal, is it illegal to eat people, if they were already dead? Who "owns" the dead bodies?

Also, I can assure you that cannibalism will reappear in full front nudity, once people starve long enough. No doubt about it, the same happens with animals, it happens with humans all the time (even in the last century), when they are hungry enough. Even herbivores (say, cows) - if you let them starve, long enough, they begin to bite each other. In some sense we could say there are no herbivores and carnivores, there's just biomass with certain mechanic propensity, and cultural bias, taught to next generation (that applies to animals and humans), by imitation of the previous generation.

However, the point is that these people don't have to be hungry, if we are a little more rational about it. Now, if someone doesn't care about the suffering of other beings, even when it could be alleviated, that would be sad, and is also not the average human case. Most humans share at least some form of compassion.

About that rapper, saying that veg-people are skinny and weak, I'm not sure that's a valid statement, and it seems it could be only by comparison with the overweight, overpumped "norm" which was manufactured recently (almost like gm chickens). In reality, it shouldn't matter soooooo much how strong your own body is. Because in the end of the day, we are just ants. A little bigger ants, or a little smaller ants, big deal. We don't (have to) live in a jungle today.

Also, I don't think veg-eating should be like some strict pledge, but even if people reduce the meat-eating (in frequency and quantity), it would be a big step. In fact, that's how we got here - we haven't ever before eaten much meat, only some meat, because it's hard to get. Even carnivores do not overeat with meat, they eat infrequently and they move a lot. Otherwise they would poison themselves.
 
Last edited:
enfp can be shy said:
There is no such thing as integrity. There is no such thing as preaching also. Those are very selfishly oriented and outdated notions, used to scare you. They are political and religious, not rational. But I can see why they are important, when one has to deal with many who are very deeply into such terminology (like Gandhi had to).
Click to expand...

Wait, so when one friend (A) says to another (B) that: "cheating is the worst thing in the world", and then that friend (A) goes off and cheats on the other friend's (B) significant other, what happens there? Integrity and preaching don't exist according to you, so is this situation only as bad as if friend A said nothing?

If someone's going to manipulate others into a system, doesn't that say something if they don't obey it themselves?

And how the hell does preaching not exist?

Preaching: "to give earnest advice, as on religious or moral subjects or the like" - you are doing that right now. Ok, ok, so since preaching doesn't exist, all your advice on vegetarianism, and anything, is invalid. Oh wait, but integrity doesn't exist, so this doesn't apply to you. How convenient.

enfp can be shy said:
About "depriving" children of something, it is good also to think whether we are not deprived, by being fed it. Then comes the consideration, why have we been fed it, in the first place, was it with concern for our own health, or was it with concern for someone to feel good bossing someone else. The origin of choices makes them more clear. It is not really in our choice, to resist much of the choice, that's why I say it's not anybody's fault (including the bossing ones).
Click to expand...

The parents of meat eating families like meat (ask them), so they put dinners with meat on the table for their kids, because it isn't efficient for them to make a vegetation option. Then if one of their kids goes vegetation, they get pissed off because that is really inconvenient, so they attempt to encourage them back to meat.

The "bossing around" there is for the efficiency of the family.

enfp can be shy said:
It's not that they "liked" meat, it worked for them to sustain population, at some point. They became less dependent of climate shifts. It was crucial for survival. (now it's not, and is even the other way) The whole idea of "liking" things is much more recent, and I'd say it is also an enforced idea (one person to dominate another gets them to claim they like something; it's a form of identification of ownership, marking territory of influence). Originally, you just explore things, and what you like or don't like, is temporary.
Click to expand...

Wait, you say what people like is temporary, yet you tell people that you aren't expecting anyone to change their ways.

If liking stuff is only temporary, then go vegetation yourself. You'll soon get used to it, according to you, I think.


slant said:
I would say the flaw in this argument is that everything eats plant--- aside from plants. It would be impossible to live a life without plants, yet, possible without meat. I don't think it's really about sympathy not to eat animals, it's the logic that we can eat animals but not human beings, another animal. If cannibalism was legalized I would certaintly become a meat eater.
Click to expand...

What? I really don't see how that flaw exists in my post.

How exactly does the fact that everything (besides plants) ultimately eats plants even a point in this issue?
 
I would like to quickly step in and express this one thing, then I'll leave to do what you will.

I am absolutely awed that this has become a serious thread! I mean, what? we're having a serious discussion in a thread that started by slant accusing vegetarians of being immoral, and calling cannibals the pinnacle of morality!? I mean, lets step back, we're having a serious discussion in a thread that started by slant. I doubt this was her goal, and amazed that she's allowed it to go this far.

continue.
 
This was intended to be a serious thread, I thought it out very throughly.
 
A statement like "cheating is the worst thing in the world" is meaningless anyway. It says nothing functionally. It's simply a way for one person to tell to another to do what they tell them.

Preaching: "to give earnest advice, as on religious or moral subjects or the like" - yes, and moral subjects are irrelevant, only efficiency matters. In the case of humanity, compassion is important physiological element of humanity (along with most mammals and some birds); and there's data about how land can be used more efficiently by herbivores than carnivores. That's that. Anybody can use that data as they wish.

The "bossing around" there is for the efficiency of the family. - I didn't mean the bossing within the family. It is merely a projection of other bossings, which are projections of others. The parents teach their kids what the world teaches the parents. If the whole family has begun in another living situation, the parents would have taught their kids something else. As I explained, this is nobody's fault, but it is useful to analyze how any kind of training originates. Usually it is kept by traditional (or superstitious) force, even if the process is a little too complex, which makes it look subtle.

then go vegetation yourself. You'll soon get used to it, according to you, I think. - actually, I did, and that's what happened. I've never felt better, in my life. But that is irrelevant. The ego-oriented presumption that man can only draw correct conclusion about other humans by personally doing it is not rational, and would prevent a lot of useful development, if applied universally. Usually behind every mind there is a supportive one(s), and vice-versa. The transformation of human qualities is a little more complex than the currently popular local analysis. And, as I said, I don't expect that everybody may unlearn what's already learned. But that's not even needed.
 
slant said:
I was having this chat in the tinychat designated area that I decided would be a good topic to actually branch out on. I understand cannibalism and veganism, in most cases, have nothing to do with each other but I wanted to link them together.

While it is possible to eat a completely plant-based diet [ with no animals involved], it is not possible to eat a completely meat based diet [with no plants involved]. If you are a meat eater, you are either eating a plant-eating creature or a carnivore that eats other creatures, and somewhere down the line of the animal food chain there will be an animal who has eaten a plant that indirectly effecting your diet.

To go further upon that, many vegans or vegetarians do not eat meat or animal products for moral reasons about harming animals- and yet, our current society is against cannibalism. I would move to argue that if a person is not okay with an animal being slaughtered, they are not okay with a person being slaughtered in the same manner. If this is the case, why is it that meat eaters do not support cannibalism? If it is okay to eat animals, but not okay to eat other human beings [ human beings are in fact animals just like other creatures] doesn't that prove there is some moral agenda behind meat eaters as well, an agenda, that does not seem to follow a coherent line of thought.

Imagine that we did allow cannibalism, and perhaps, instead of killing human beings for meat we ate our dead that were 'good'. Good, being defined as non-diseased. This would make HIV positive people invaluable, etc.

I would hypothesize that this could even make a market in third world countries, where people were making their dead into t-bone steaks and selling them- It wouldn't be a stable economy, and in order to keep up with the animal industry we would have to slaughter them at the same rate.

But hey. It's okay to eat animals.
Click to expand...

heh, that's radical thinking if i've ever heard it. humans don't see other humans at the same level as animals, society in general tends to promote an elevated view of human beings compared to all other creatures on earth. life as we know it, working life, family life, every kind of social activity would not occur the way it does if the majority of people considered animals to be on par with us, to be eaten as "meat" the way other creatures are. btw in some places they do eat human meat, and also it is not technically possible to live without b12 in your diet, and that is formed from bacteria which normally grow on meat. the only way vegetarians survived in the past without b12 supplements was by eating bacteria-contaminated foods.
 
I was under the misconception B12 could be received by the sun, as well.
 
what if you like eating dead bodies so much that you go on a killing spree just to satisfy this urge??:mfly:
 
Well I guess I win, in this case.

My point is superior to all else :D
 
sooo ok, let me get this straight...

is slant saying that cannibalism is the pinnacle of morality because we finally see humans on the same level as animals...?

--
i, personally, have no problem with eating meat..
it's natural, food chain. ehh.. why complicate it with if's and but's? what's not natural is the brutal mass slaughtering of animals...
and as for the question of why don't humans start eating other animals if that's the case-- i also think that's that again is not a case of morality but that most species aren't inclined to eating their own. not that we're better that anybody else.

i have never seen a lion eating another lion. (but i guess if it was really hungry...)
 
xizzax said:
sooo ok, let me get this straight...

is slant saying that cannibalism is the pinnacle of morality because we finally see humans on the same level as animals...?

--
i, personally, have no problem with eating meat..
it's natural, food chain. ehh.. why complicate it with if's and but's? what's not natural is the brutal mass slaughtering of animals...
and as for the question of why don't humans start eating other animals if that's the case-- i also think that's that again is not a case of morality but that most species aren't inclined to eating their own. not that we're better that anybody else.

i have never seen a lion eating another lion. (but i guess if it was really hungry...)
Click to expand...

Nonsense, many animals are prone to infanticide that involves eating the young- such as rats and ground squirrels. Sand Tiger Sharks eat their brothers and sisters from the womb.

About lions: Adult male lions will often kill and eat cubs. This is generally when a male lion comes into a pride and has killed the other lion who had been leading it- he will kill the cubs that have any possibility of being fathered by the previous male leaders and will re-mate with the females. Often times this involves eating the newborn.
 
My 2 or 3 cents. I have lived as vegetarian, and as vegan. I also now eat meat. I vas a vegetarian for six years a vegan fir six months thanks to a roomate, and after getting extreamely malnourished durring pregnancy was told to eat meat or lose the baby. So I ate meat. ( that doctor has proven to be full of shit many times. So who knows the validity of this.) Well after getting sick I now require the dense proteins only meat can give me.

Ok that being said I was never a meat is murder kinda gal. I've always been a to each his own kinda gal. This argument is circular, we are not primative anymore, but once we were and they too sought out to hunt their meat or starve. Canabalism will never be allowed so long as there is Christianity.

Furthermore I cannot argue with the op's logic. Though there are very few instances in nature where beasties canabalize. It's a natural aversion.

This concludes my opinion, I did not read farther than the op so if this argument has been visited, disreguard.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
I figure, they're already dead by the time they get to me.
I'm not going to let meat go to waste.
For one thing, there are people who would give anything for a piece of meat that some would have me leave be.

And, I know that if I was an animal and I got killed, I would rather be eaten by someone/thing so I could have a scrap of dignity of death instead of having my entrails on show.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top