Why abstain from meat?

If you understand why it would help, why wouldn't you do it?

 

You get what I mean haha... You should start a movement instead of just making a personal decision

 

I don't have any autoimmune diseases. Besides, it tastes too good to stop.

 

Sure it will. Every less chicken I eat is one less chicken slaughtered.

Do you find the treatment of animals who can subjectively experience the world in a similar way to us abhorrent?

I don't get what you mean. Sure, it would be nice to start a movement, but wouldn't one less person contributing to animal suffering be better than none?

Fair enough on the taste aspect, but you don't have to have an autoimmune disease to benefit from less (certain types of) meat in your diet.

 

The problem with billions of animals dying is the aggregate suffering of each animal, not simply the fact that "lots are dying". One less chicken being eaten = one less chicken suffering = reduction of suffering. Nobody said that you had to save every animal.

 

Animals eat other animals too. Just saying.

 

It could be beneficial, but I'm already hitting the gym so I'll be fine.

 

Some animal species rape each other. Just saying.

I wonder what the health benefits of avoiding those meats AND hitting the gym would be?

 

So what's your specific concern? Are you concerned about animal suffering? Is it an environmental thing? Can you spell it out? I'm not trying to be obnoxious, I just want to make sure that we're on the same page.

Oh of course, the (let's say) chicken industry doesn't adjust their numbers down to single digits, it's probably more like lots of a thousand. So if you don't eat a chicken, that has a 1/1000 chance of your choice affecting anything...though that means that if it does, it saves 1000 chickens, so it cancels out, really. Which makes perfect sense, after all - corporations that want to sell animal flesh will sell less if there are less people buying animal flesh.

I fully agree that buying one more plastic straw won't make the difference between turtles surviving or not - but buying dead animals to eat is far, far more direct.

 

Okay, good, the concern is the aggregate suffering of billions of animals. Is that fair? The AGGREGATE suffering of billions of animals, and not just the fact that "billions of animals are suffering"? It makes a big difference.

The math is absolutely that granular when it comes to, as I meant in my example, purchasing whole chickens. Of course it doesn't work out exactly like that when it comes to pigs, sheep, and cows, but I'm sure you understand that there's no magic number of people that need to stop eating meat for it to have an effect. Going back to the "buying a whole chicken" example: Even if you're the only person who chooses not to buy meat, even if you're a rounding error, as I said, if meat is produced in lots of 1000, then you have a 1 in 1000 chance of saving 1000 chickens, so it evens out. The mathematics aren't quite so neat for pigs, sheep, and cows, but surely you can't deny that fewer meat-eaters = fewer animals slaughtered.

On a side note, and perhaps this isn't as much of an issue for you, but if you were horrified by billions of animals being killed for their flesh, wouldn't that disgust you to the point of not wanting to partake of that suffering?

 

That could be nice. But then again I wonder what the health benefits would be if I started drinking less coffee, spend less time on computer, stretch every single day etc.

Lots of benefits, but I'm not doing that either.

 

Not your life, not their choice.

If you give that little of a fuck, why reply to this thread? Lol. If you cared about health benefits in the slightest, you'd have made the change yourself, regardless of what it is you switch to / eliminate. A little research goes a long way.

 

Transitioning diet from meat-eating to meat-abstaining isn't worth it for me. Do I care about animal lives/feelings? No. Do I care about the health benefits? Sure, to a certain degree. But it's not enough for me to change my lifestyle.

As for why I replied to this thread. It begs the question why abstain from meat? Factoring in the non-subjectives such as health benefits (plant-based diet that doesn't abstain from fish could help with autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis), then it comes down to whether the pros outweigh the cons. For me, it doesn't.

 

I think every point has been argued at this point, good discussions guys.

 

Fair enough, you never said "aggregate". Let me ask you, then, does it make a difference to you whether 5 or 7 billion animals die? Are they both equally bad because "billions" are dying? Or is one worse than another? Please note, I'm making up these numbers to demonstrate my point.

You're right, it's absolutely not that granular. I was being too simplistic.

Suppose that I propose a system where animals are slaughtered in batches of 1,000. In such a system, your choice to buy one less chicken would only have a 1/1,000 chance of having an effect, but if it did, it would save 1,000 chickens, so by basic math, it actually cancels out.

That doesn't make any sense, because these are animals that are bred in captivity, without influence from outside animals. Now, if each cow bred on a free-range farm meant that one less wild animal suffered a horrifying death, sure, you could make the argument that factory farming reduces suffering. But it doesn't.

Very poor example. A better thing to wonder would be what health benefits there would be if you stopped drinking 12 cups of coffee a day, didn't spend 14 hours on your computer daily, and got a minimal amount of daily exercise every day. Don't misrepresent what I said.

 

To clarify, then - you're equally as outraged by one animal dying by billions?

Okay. Let's reduce the efficiency to where animals are purchased in lots of 10,000. I'm sure that you can imagine a scenario where one less animal is purchased, and the order drops accordingly? If not, can you please explain how else the order would drop, if not by less people ordering animals?

It kind of sounds like you're trying to suggest that animals bred to live and die "humanely" somehow take away from animals that live and die in the wilderness. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

 

Only thing is no one's gonna stop eating meat for minimal health benefits, which is why I specifically mentioned autoimmune diseases in the first place.

 

Why not? If 1 billion deaths outrage you, why wouldn't 2 billion deaths outrage you more?

No, as I explained, in my scenario where chickens are sold in batches of 10,000, one person's choice would have a 1/10,000 chance of affecting the total number of chickens produced. Unless you're suggesting that the number of chickens produced isn't based upon consumer demand?

My mistake. I'm not sure why you made that point, then.

I never said it would be good for autoimmune diseases, and I'm curious as to why you think that a plant-based diat would have "minimal" health benefits.

 

I said they could be good for autoimmune diseases, which again would the only reason I'd consider changing diet. It'd have minimal health benefits in my current condition. The reason for this is I've already cut back on several stuff such as sugar, butter/high-fat foods, and any hot drinks to a certain degree.

 

Well, I don't know your current condition, so I guess I can't speak to that

Which of the three (sugar, high-fat foods, and hot drinks) do you think are responsible? Whichever way you respond, can you talk to us a little bit more about how hot drinks are bad?