Comment by somenameforme

Comment by somenameforme 2 days ago

26 replies

View on Hacker News

It's just the circle of life. Live in a remotely rural area with animals around and you're going to see pretty regular death. For instance foxes are beautiful, extremely intelligent, and amazing animals. They'll also systematically and sadistically kill literally every single chicken inside a henhouse, one by one, if they get in. In another instance a dog I loved more than anything as a child to young adult was killed by a wild boar - tusk straight into the lungs.

The same, by the way, applies to vegetarian stuff. The amount of critters being killed to keep them away from the veggies would probably shock you, especially in the rather inhumane way its sometimes done in industrial farms. Shooting, for some baseline, is considered one of the most humane ways of dealing with large pests.

I simply see nothing wrong, at all, with eating meat. It's a natural and normal part of life and also, by far, the easiest way to ensure you hit all your necessary nutrients without going overboard on calories - especially if you live an active life and/or are into things like weight training.

addicted 2 days ago

Murder is also part of the “circle of life”, whatever that may mean, given that it’s pablum that means nothing. As is disease.

We rightfully find these immoral and don’t engage in them.

That’s not a defense of the immoral act. It’s just words to describe the immoral act.

Reply View 16 replies
  • amanaplanacanal 2 days ago

    Try this then: every animal eats other living things to survive. We have been doing it for a billion years. Is a basic drive built into it DNA. After that, is just a question of which living things you are going to eat.

    Reply View 13 replies
    • 42772827 2 days ago

      The key difference between humans and every other animal that has ever existed is our ability to reason about systems and the morality of actions.

      Some birds will abandon weaker chicks to focus on the ones most likely to survive. Others will allow siblicide. That these behaviors exist and have existed for billions of years is a fact orthogonal to morality because birds don’t have the capacity to reason about systems and the mortality of actions.

      “Living things” is a sleight of hand, logically. When it comes down to it, everything is just atoms in the end. So why not murder? Why not steal? Why not exploit the poor? Reductionism leads us down some very dark paths indeed.

      Reply View 10 replies
      • AlexandrB 2 days ago

        > Some birds will abandon weaker chicks to focus on the ones most likely to survive. Others will allow siblicide. That these behaviors exist and have existed for billions of years is a fact orthogonal to morality because birds don’t have the capacity to reason about systems and the mortality of actions.

        There's something missing from this analysis. Namely that animals that have many offspring generally expect most of them to die and this is part of selective pressures that keeps the population healthy. If, for example, a mouse could reason morally it might still let many of its weaker babies die because keeping them alive would not be good for mouse-kind. It's inappropriate to assume that the child rearing morals of a low-fecundity, high-parental-investment species like ourselves applies to other species with different reproductive strategies.

        Reply View 1 reply
        • 42772827 2 days ago

          > If, for example, a mouse could reason morally it might still let many of its weaker babies die because keeping them alive would not be good for mouse-kind.

          I agree. If a mouse could reason morally and inside the system it currently inhabits, it might reason that way because it was unconscious of or had no access to alternatives for survival.

          It’s is absolutely inappropriate to assume any morals on a species that has no capacity for reason.

          Reply View 0 replies
      • slothtrop 2 days ago

        Morality is arrived at through value judgement. We have a social contract with each other, not animals.

        People generally dislike gratuitous pain and cruelty, hence we're seeing a push for cage-free hens and the like. They don't oppose slaughter in and of itself.

        Reply View 6 replies
    • erfgh 2 days ago

      That's factually incorrect. You don't have to kill a plant to get the fruit and/or the seeds it produces.

      Reply View 0 replies
    • paulcole 2 days ago

      Do you follow every basic drive built into DNA?

      Reply View 0 replies
  • sigzero a day ago

    Killing is part of the "circle of life". Murder is not. They are two very different concepts.

    Reply View 0 replies
  • slothtrop 2 days ago

    You skipped a step. Immoral acts are immoral because we deem them so. Animal slaughter in itself is not generally thought as such. Unless you think aboriginal / hunter-gatherer tribes who maintain their traditions are immoral for not modernizing.

    Reply View 0 replies
sneak 2 days ago

> It's a natural and normal part of life

So is dying of smallpox.

Wikipedia:

> Smallpox is estimated to have killed up to 300 million people in the 20th century and around 500 million people in the last 100 years of its existence.

Completely natural, and completely normal.

That doesn’t mean we should be engaging in it in 2025.

The naturalistic fallacy is not justification for killing living things.

Reply View 0 replies
erfgh 2 days ago

Ease cannot be used to ethically justify an action. But even so, you ignore that, according to research, people who eat meat have worse health than people who don't.

Reply View 7 replies
  • [removed] 2 days ago
    [deleted]
    Reply View 0 replies
  • slothtrop 2 days ago

    It's not that simple. High consumption of animal saturated fat can raise total blood cholesterol, but animal consumption in and of itself does not necessitate that. Notwithstanding, with a balanced diet high in vegetables and fiber, omnivores do not fare any worse than vegans in acm.

    Reply View 5 replies
    • aziaziazi 2 days ago

      While that’s true in theory, we don’t observe a sufficient fiber intake for most human omnivore. That is Erfgh point : the classic diet don’t meet nutrients goals when studied on the field by researchers.

      Reply View 4 replies
      • slothtrop 2 days ago

        > we don’t observe a sufficient fiber intake for most human omnivore.

        This has no bearing on the argument. That is just as true of vegans who purchase boxed products.

        It's also fairly US-centric. If you observe countries with the longest lifespan, lowest CVD incidence and overall best health outcomes, they consume a more varied whole-foods diet with animal products.

        > the classic diet

        This is the Americanized diet of ultra-processed foods. Whole foods are the solution, which is in no way shape or form contingent on whether animal products are included (unless the diet is "carnivore" which is not representative, and even there you can find traditional societies who fare ok even if not completely optimally).

        Reply View 3 replies