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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32956 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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Considering that American levels of meat consumption are unsustainable environmentally (we would need 8 earths if everyone ate as much meat as Americans), and generally seem to result in poor health outcomes, it seems that moving closer to a vegan diet would be better for all of us.

I'd jump to blaming sugar and lack of exercise for bad health outcomes before I blamed meat. Do you not think those two health interventions would be more effective?

While regenerative grazing can generate meat in a sustainable manner, it cannot do so on the scale of factory farming, and thus cannot satisfy the insane American demand for meat.

I'm curious on the numbers on this. Is factory farming more efficient land use? How much is currently being used as regenerative grazing?

There’s also the issue of ethics to consider: cognitive research has shown that many farm animals (cows, sheep, chickens come to mind) show many signs of intelligence similar to young children and pet animals. I've become much more open to the idea of small-scale animal farming, where animals are treated humanely, but still ultimately killed and eaten, but this still entails eating far less meat. Nutrition isn’t a serious barrier, so what’s your excuse?

In terms of ethics, I've come to realize I'm a human centrist all the way. I really don't care how smart other animals, aliens, or machines are. I prioritize humans first. The only way that I care about animal suffering is that my fellow humans are bothered about it. But only a minority seem extremely bothered about it, most people don't care, or have an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude.

The final reason is that I generally like the taste of meat, beef most of all, chicken is ok, and I dislike most pork products. I went mostly vegetarian when I was over in India. The quality of the meat wasn't great, and the quality of vegetarian food was really good. I'd probably stop eating meat if vegetarian food tasted as good, and was significantly cheaper.

I think simple sugars certainly have a role in metabolic syndrome, but saturated fat is also clearly a huge problem (i.e atherosclerosis and obesity). Pretty much the only source of saturated fat is animal products (dairy and meat).

Factory farming exists because it is cost efficient. Growing grain and soy for animal feed is more efficient in terms of calories per acre than grass fed (because wheat and soy are more efficient plants at converting sunlight to calories and protein than grass is). However, our current monoculturing is clearly not sustainable from a disease or resource use perspective. So we'll have to go back to more traditional animal agriculture methods. Which means less meat.

I'm not sure that your ethical point is really a satisfying argument to me. What is the difference between that statement and me saying "I'm really not concerned about the suffering of black people, I'm a white-centrist?" I also don't believe this is true for most humans ala pets: most humans surely care way more about their dog than someone halfway across the globe.

As far your last point: I think you underestimate how much that we can adjust to changing hedonic stimuli. I used to love beef and pork and salmon before I was vegan, but 4 years of vegetables has made me like... vegetables.

Factory farming exists because it is cost efficient.

Factory farming doesn't really exist for beef in North America -- cattle are overwhelmingly raised on rangeland (which is not good for growing other crops either) then given some grain (in an outdoor feedlot) for the last couple of months to put some cheap weight on them and provide the fatty marbling that Americans like. If you want to skip that last step, you can get grassfed beef just as easily as all that vegan stuff you are buying.

Granted if all beef were grassfed we would produce somewhat less beef -- I'd need more than a wave of the hand to be convinced that this would be in any way untenable in terms of available grazing areas.

I'm not sure that your ethical point is really a satisfying argument to me. What is the difference between that statement and me saying "I'm really not concerned about the suffering of black people, I'm a white-centrist?" I also don't believe this is true for most humans ala pets: most humans surely care way more about their dog than someone halfway across the globe.

It wasn't really meant to be convincing. I'm fine if you value animal welfare and want to be a vegan. If you can do it while being healthy, all the better to you.

It's just that I don't care about non human entities so no arguments that appeal to their welfare are convincing to me. My viewpoint doesn't have to be universal, just prevalent enough that there are enough people to allow the meat industry to continue existing.

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