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.

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