• Stages of "vegan" retreat

    From mur@.@21:1/5 to All on Sun Apr 15 23:03:45 2018
    XPost: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian, alt.food.vegan

    On Sun, 25 Mar 2018 21:16:36 -0700 (PDT), Rupert <rupertmccallum@yahoo.com> wrote:

    On Mon, 26 Mar 2018 00:01:07 -0400, mur@. wrote:

    On Mon, 5 Mar 2018 23:59:22 -0800 (PST), Rupert <rupertmccallum@yahoo.com> >>wrote:

    On Tuesday, March 6, 2018 at 4:10:29 AM UTC+1, mur wrote:
    On Sat, 3 Mar 2018 10:21:30 -0800, Bud Frawley <bud_frowley2@aggregoat.con>
    wrote:

    The Ever Weaker Stages of "vegan" Self-Aggrandizement

    Stage I - "I live a 'cruelty-free' 'lifestyle'"

    A lie.  Everything "vegans" consume causes some harm to animals, which >>>> >"vegans" say necessarily amounts to cruelty.

    Stage II - "I 'minimize' the harm my 'lifestyle' causes to animals"

    A lie - a lie twice over.  It's a lie, first, because in order to
    minimize you have to measure, and no "vegan" has ever measured. It's
    also a lie because there is always some possible - not just possible, >>>> >but reasonable - further effort that could be undertaken, but isn't only >>>> >out of a wish for ease and comfort.

    Stage III - "I'm doing the best I can to reduce harm to animals" A lie, >>>> >for the second reason in Stage II.

    Stage IV - "I'm doing better than you bastard meat eaters" And here we >>>> >arrive at what it always was all about.  And yet, everything is wrong >>>> >with this false claim.  First, it isn't true - there is some meat eater >>>> >somewhere who is "doing better" than most "vegans".  This is the subject >>>> >matter of the excellent "Vegan Shuffle" piece.  It is possible to reduce >>>> >harm beyond that caused by the typical "vegan" with a meat-including
    diet.  The greater vileness of this claim, however, is that it attempts >>>> >to make virtue a matter of comparison with others, rather than doing
    what is right, and that is never a valid basis for virtue.  This
    illustrated by the famous sodomy example featuring Derek Nash and his >>>> >beloved twin brother David.

    If David sodomizes the wretched eight-year-old neighbor boy six times a >>>> >week, and Derek sodomizes the lad "only" four times a week, Derek cannot >>>> >claim to be virtuous because he's "doing better" than David at
    refraining from harming the boy.  Note also:  if David increases his
    filthy acts of depravity against the boy to a dozen times a week, Derek >>>> >could also increase his filthy acts of depravity to, say, 10 times a
    week, and he could still maintain his claim to be "doing better" than >>>> >David.

    Virtue is never shown by means of a comparison with others.  Virtue
    consists only in doing what is right, and not doing what is wrong.

    The entire "vegan" claim collapses.

    * not "cruelty-free"
    * not "minimizing"
    * not "doing the best I can"
    * not "doing better than you meat eaters

    It's all a lie, and the goal of the lie was morally invalid even before >>>> >they started.

    Just shameful.?

    · Vegans contribute to the deaths of animals by their use of
    wood and paper products, electricity, roads and all types of
    buildings, their own diet, etc... just as everyone else does.
    What they try to avoid are products which provide life
    (and death) for farm animals, but even then they would have
    to avoid the following items containing animal by-products
    in order to be successful:

    tires, paper, upholstery, floor waxes, glass, water
    filters, rubber, fertilizer, antifreeze, ceramics, insecticides,
    insulation, linoleum, plastic, textiles, blood factors, collagen,
    heparin, insulin, solvents, biodegradable detergents, herbicides,
    gelatin capsules, adhesive tape, laminated wood products,
    plywood, paneling, wallpaper and wallpaper paste, cellophane
    wrap and tape, abrasives, steel ball bearings

    The meat industry provides life for the animals that it
    slaughters, and the animals live and die as a result of it
    as animals do in other habitats. They also depend on it for
    their lives as animals do in other habitats. If people consume
    animal products from animals they think are raised in decent
    ways, they will be promoting life for more such animals in the
    future. People who want to contribute to decent lives for
    livestock with their lifestyle must do it by being conscientious
    consumers of animal products, because they can not do it by
    being vegan.
    From the life and death of a thousand pound grass raised
    steer and whatever he happens to kill during his life, people
    get over 500 pounds of human consumable meat...that's well
    over 500 servings of meat. From a grass raised dairy cow people
    get thousands of dairy servings. Due to the influence of farm
    machinery, and *icides, and in the case of rice the flooding and
    draining of fields, one serving of soy or rice based product is
    likely to involve more animal deaths than ~ servings
    derived from grass raised animals. Grass raised animal products
    contribute to fewer wildlife deaths, better wildlife habitat, and
    better lives for livestock than soy or rice products. ·

    Okay, so look, I've done a bit of Googling and you can definitely get at least 10,000 servings of tofu from the production of one hectare of soybeans. (Specifically, one hectare will yield about 3 metric tons. I found a recipe for making tofu using
    just 300 grams, I am sure that that recipe yields at least one serving.)

    Now then. Do you have any idea at all how many premature deaths would happen to wild animals living in the field as a result of the production of one hectare of soybeans?

    What have I told you about that?

    You've said there is variation,

    Apparently you'd like us to think there is not, so how many premature deaths
    do you want us to think would happen to wild animals living in the field as a result of the production of one hectare of soybeans?

    so I'm obviously asking for the mean figure.

    Support your belief that there could be one, then YOU provide the figure. Of
    course you can do neither which you prove consistently.

    Steven Davis cites two studies, one for the mortality rate for arable wood mice after one harvesting operation of cereal and one for the mortality rate for Polynesian rats for one harvesting operation of sugar cane. The first one reports a mortality
    rate of 52% and the second a mortality rate of 77%, so Steven Davis suggests that it is resonable to suppose that multiplying the initial population density (summed up for all the different species) by 60% would give a good estimate for the total
    collateral death rate per hectare for one harvesting operation of soybeans.

    No links for a person to check out whether they agree with your >>interpretation of what was presented or not.

    You

    You showed me to be correct.

    Does this all sound reasonable to you so far, or do you see things to object to here?

    I've given you people several other significant aspects to take into >>consideration. Even though you have no respect for what I've been pointing out
    for you all these years, can you remember any of the things I have pointed out
    regarding this particular aspect (crop production) of human influence on other
    animals?

    I have no memory of you saying anything particularly interesting.

    I point out aspects you people are not mentally capable of appreciating at all, much less are any of you capable of including them in your overall impression of human influence on other animals, much MUCH less your own influence.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)