Adhering to one group or another's philosophy does not de-facto make you a good person. What you're talking about is the desire to adhere to an extremist view of life based on what you think will be in the video (because of the way the rest of the posters have described it, and/or the first few frames if you clicked on the link).

You need to find your own moral compass, and reconcile within yourself the fact that you will inevitably come across "discrepancies" in the way you look at the world. For example, some people might feel just fine about eating meat/animal products because they need it to live, but eschew fur and/or leather because it's fashion rather than necessity.

Others may buy only kosher meat products (regardless of religious beliefs), as one of the rules regarding what's considered kosher involves the way in which the animals are killed - the process is ostensibly more humane because of one of the Noahide laws: "Do not eat flesh taken from an animal which is still alive".

You're going to inevitably have contradictions in the way you look at the world. Having one opinion about one thing ("Animal cruelty is bad") and a different opinion about another ("Chicken is rather tasty") does not make you a horrible person.

TL;DR: ALL IS NOT LOST AND YOU AREN'T THE DEVIL IF YOU AREN'T A VEGAN.

Noola said something earlier I found amusing: I have those pointy teeth for a reason.

The video suggests we should all evolve on Earth, together... in harmony...

And who is to say we haven't? We have evolved to eat meat. We have the teeth for it. We have the digestive system for it. We have the skill for it. Natural Selection involves the survival of the fittest, and the human species is the most fit. We aren't cheating ourselves by being what we are. We are thriving.

Likewise, let's imagine no one ate meat. With what would we replace that food source? Plants? Look at how many people, hundreds of millions, that are starving right now. Are we really in a position to give up food? Do you think that saving a cow or a chicken or a puppy means anything whatsoever to starving human beings withering away to nothing in the depths of Eastern Asia or parts of Africa... or right here in the damn United States itself?

An equally sad tale can be told about how many millions and millions of dollars are spent on propaganda like this every year and on other ridiculous causes instead of trying to benefit man itself.

A lot (not all, obviously, but some of them for sure) love to make you think you'll go to hell if you aren't though.

I remember one time I made the mistake of asking a Vegan why honey was on the list of bad things to eat. You'd have thought I asked why we can't eat babies or something. I was treated to a half an hour long lecture I couldn't escape from while the Vegan tried her best to make me feel like some kind of monster because I like honey.

I don't like to stereotype and try to avoid it when I can, but the experience really soured me on interacting with Vegans in general and stuff like this movie only make the impression worse. I know there's some really nice folks out there who happen to be Vegan. Folks who could care less what I eat as long as I don't try to make them eat stuff they don't want to. I hope to meet them someday! Cause every interaction I've ever had with Vegans has been more along the lines of the honey fiasco.

I also just want to throw a tid bit out about Hunting. I'm not a Hunter. I remember on my 12th birthday, my daddy bought me a 12 gauge pump shotgun so I could go squirrel hunting with him. I was a terrible shot so he put a scope on it for me! Anyhoo, I slew my first squirrel one day, and it didn't die because of the distance. My father had to finish the squirrel off by bashing its head in with a big rock (shooting a squirrel in spasm up close with a shotgun probably isn't the best of ideas). I took my trophy home, cried for two days, and I buried in it because I was so upset.

That being said, I'm the first to tell you that I support Hunting (and Fishing!). I like in WV, and we have a ridiculous deer population. Each year, they find more and more deer that have literally starved to death, and the deer are eating up a lot of the food that they need to be sharing with other animals due solely to their large number. They get into areas they shouldn't be, eat produce from farms and gardens, and if someone is a farmer, that could very well be a huge deal to them. And so, when hunting season comes in, I enjoy my deer jerky like everyone else.

I may be weak lacking the stomach to kill deer, but it's necessary for a greater good. My parents both hunt (as does most of my family). They both prefer bow hunting to be technical, and they practice routinely so they can quickly and swiftly take down a deer - it's a fairly instant process for a skilled hunter. There aren't rednecks. They don't gloat about killing another living being. They always eat the meat. They clean up the mess. They tan the hides. It's essentially a waste free process.

Like other hunters in our area, if they realize they have an excess of deer meat that they will not eat, they donate it to the local shelters, which -gladly- take it in to help feed the poor.

Terrible, shameless act my butt!

EDIT:

Fixed some typos.

Yeah, my brother hunts. He uses just about every bit of the deer he takes.

Managed hunting is necessary. Because, like Narsrim said, an overpopulation of deer only leads to the deer starving, getting into places that are dangerous for them, spreading disease from group to group, inbreeding, deer being hit by cars left and right because there's too many of them and they're constantly crossing busy streets trying to find food, etc.

Now, I'm not for folks who poach (that is, hunt animals forbidden by law to hunt or hunting out of season). That's very much of the bad. And I think if you hunt you should use the animal and not just collect the trophy bits. But hunting is not evil. Far from it.

I haven't seen the video. But I know I pretty much couldn't go vegan if I want my bloodsugar to remain stable. Best diet for a diabetic is one that consists of lots of meat and fat, with few vegetables. No carbohydrates, etc. Then my bloodsugar is great and I don't need to take any other insulin than what the pump gives all day round. So, yeah. Some of us can't go vegan because of medical reasons.

Also fairly certain insulin was discovered by animal testing.

For many years, insulin given was from animal's. It is now biosynthsized for the most part, but you are none-the-less correct.

It smells like beaver (The animal, seriously) according to my mom's boyfriend, who is a hunter journalist.

I think a lot of people are addressing the issue of cruelty, not vegetarianism. I, for one, do not think it is cruel or wrong to eat a cow or a pig or a chicken. It's the process by which we kill them and treat them. Again, it comes down to this thing we call our "humanity." Our superior minds that can't seem to grasp that just because it is not human, it doesn't have the right to not be tortured and beaten.

As for the numbers, a good rule of thumb is to take the governments numbers, then take the numbers from the activist groups, and throw a dart somewhere in the middle. You think the activist groups are the only ones spouting off misinformation? Nope.

Again, I don't really want to address vegetarianism/veganism as a a whole as that is a personal choice, plain and simple. My issue is this. As people, we should be able to look at this footage, understand just what the hell we are looking at, and accept that it is happening. It's a cold dose of reality. Regardless of how much it happens, it should not. Ever.

edit: Bow hunting? Seriously? No. The sole reason you bow hunt as opposed to hunt with a gun is for the sport. Even with a gun, the death is not often as "instant" as you say. I grew up in the county, I went on hunting trips (though never participated), and I know more than a thing or two on the subject. Population management may be a necessity, and some may argue that nature has it's own way of leveling out populations, but there are humane ways to do it and bow hunting is uh...not one of them.

When I was about 6 or 7 years old, I visited some family in Tennessee, including a cousin who was a few years older than me. She and I went walking in the woods during my visit, and we came across two teenage boys who had tied a kitten to a tree by its tail, and were taking turns hitting it. One of the kitten's front paws was all but falling off. Begging the two boys to stop produced no result; their argument when we asked them to give the kitten to us instead was something along the lines of "Well it's nearly dead anyway."

Eventually they chased us off. I don't know what happened to those boys, though I'd imagine they became the sort of people I wouldn't want to be around; I do know they killed the kitten.

There's a difference between hunting out of necessity and hunting for sport. If you're killing another living thing for the enjoyment of the act, then yes, it's a terrible, shameless act.



That's the point of the movie I found interesting, and why I thought it was worth sharing. I don't think it does any harm to be reminded that we're not the only sentient things on the planet.

And as a side note - My intention was not to make people who eat a hamburger feel guilty! Humans are designed to digest meat. That doesn't mean you can't feel compassion for those who are treated inhumanely.

Okay. Now that that's been said, I feel a bit better. Thank you.

And yes, I do agree with that last sentence, that just because you eat meat doesn't mean you can't feel compassion for those who are treated inhumanely. That's a statement I can get behind.

Here's the thing about veganism for me - it does have a point, I realize that. I'm definitely a meat-eater, but I can respect the vegan movement for what it's trying to do. It's how it's presented that can have me either saying "hey, maybe I can do this," down to being angry and depressed and essentially saying " you" to the vegan in question. The key is, in my opinion, to make it fun and accessible. An example of how to do this: free food events! I go to vegan potlucks whenever I find out one's around, because it's free food and if I ask for recipes, I can find out how to do it myself, and figure out how to make tasty vegan meals I can really enjoy. But when veganism is presented in such a way as to be a brickbat to one's brain with guilt and "shame on you" tactics, then...well, it kind of loses its ability to be seen as anything other than extremism, and the insanity associated with extremism. And one thing I've noted - such presentations are pretty prevalent on the Internet.

I've seen plenty of vegans in real life, and they've all been nice people. But generally to me, vegans on the Internet...hoo boy. Vegans + Internet = bad times. But I think that's true with almost any identifiable group on the Internet - it's the Greater Internet Jerkwad Theory, which goes:

Normal person + anonymity + audience = total jerkwad.

I'll post more thoughts later, but I'm glad I could get this bit out of the way.

I totally agree with this statement.


edit @ Parabollus: I enjoy a lot of Vegan dishes myself. Except the ones made with tofu. Cause it is some of the nastiest stuff ever invented.

We evolved to do or have a lot of things that really aren't good ideas in the context of a modern society, like paranoia about ethnic or cultural out-groups, uncontrolled population expansion and so on. Morality is largely distinct from this, particularly now that we can defeat cognitive biases with careful analysis.


Not that I advocate vegetarianism, but just because it's inviable now doesn't mean it'd continue to be inviable if we actually tried. Livestock takes up a huge amount of pastoral land that could otherwise be arable. It couldn't be an instant process, sure.

In the sense of evolution from its scientific definition, your statements make zero sense. I'm not sure how to reply because evolution has absolutely nothing to do with say cultural paranoia. The types of enzymes our bodies are capable of producing to break down animal proteins has very little to do with a moral compass for a given group of people.

Likewise, it is not viable because as stated, we have food shortage in various parts of the world. It's not a matter of switching food sources. It's a matter of not having food sources.

That's because the sense of evolution from its scientific definition has nothing to do with morality and so bringing up the fact we evolved to eat meat has nothing to do with this topic. Cultural paranoia is a useful evolutionary mechanism. Eating meat appears to have been the same. Neither of them get a free pass in ethics.


What? Part of the reason we have a food shortage is that we're using livestock instead of arable land, as mentioned. The amount of food you can get from one given the space and effort put in is so much less than the other it's just barely comparable. Now, you probably wouldn't get a balanced diet that way, especially without synthetics to supplement it in third world countries, but switching pastoral land to arable land for crops is so far from making a food supply problem WORSE...

You're so full of . If you actually had to make the choice between dying a painful and suffering death or surviving at the cost of a pig, you damn well know you'd choose life. Hell, I'd tear that pig apart with my bare hands and -eat- it's heart if that was the only way for me to survive. So would you. It's the law of survival, deal with it.

I love animals. I have three dogs, two cats and a bird that I've gained after only a year of living in a house that allows pets. I've skimped on my own groceries to make certain I had enough money to buy their food. I've volunteered at local animal shelters because I disagreed with their treatment of said animals and personally believe that any human being who intentionally mistreats an animal should be killed.

That said, if it's a choice between another human being or an animal, the human being takes priority. This doesn't mean we should needlessly torment animals, but the idea that the pig is more important than a human being is preposterous.


I can't speak for numbers, but I do know that my sister-in-law grew up on farms, and I know that her parents farm takes damned good care of their animals. So I know that not -every- farm treats their animals like crap. I'm curious to know what the percentage is, though.

As a side note: I'm honestly surprised that her father still takes the time to be so kind to their animals. His wife was killed when one of their horses got temperamental and -literally- bit off her neck. I'd hold a grudge, I'm sure of it.



Doesn't stop the smokers. They're paying like eight bucks a pack here in california right now, in an economic depression.


I worked in a paint store that sold industrial coatings to a huge farm in central California, and one time the guy from the Beef side described to us the process for killing cows. It's pretty damned brutal, I admit. The only thing I have to say is that he was able to explain in great detail -why- they do it that way, and short of going into brutal details I'll say that the reasons are actually pretty good, and nothing of the cow is wasted.

As far as bow hunting goes: my uncle (a viatnam vet) bow hunted for the rest of his life after the war. It is honestly amazing how fast a deer dies when you hit it in the heart. Of course, this only works if you're as good a shot as my uncle. On the other side of that coin: I also took criminology courses in college and one of my projects was detailing ballistic damage living things. I can say with 100% certainty that a non-fatal bullet is far more painful and damaging than a non-fatal arrow. Arrow sucks, but I'll take an arrow over a bullet any day, knowing what the bullet -actually- does to you when it hits you.

Keep it civil please.


Obviously the movie wasn't referencing smaller family run farms. All the videos seemed to be of mass producing places.

It's not that I particularly agree or disagree with your point, you just worded it very hilariously.

Wow, yeah, that was aggressive.