men and wolves (were Re: Lance Armstrong & physical abilities

[Guest guest]

On 8/16/05, José- s Barbosa <jcmbarbosa52@...> wrote:

> :

>

> I am not concerned with vegans. Veganism doesn't make sense to me,

> although you often find people (mostly on the Net) claiming they are

> totally vegan (without cheating) and enjoy radiant health.

>

> Until sometime ago most if not all fish were fished, while most if

> not all meat was raised. In many cases, that made a difference. Of

> course ocean fish has a lot of problems nowadays, but in my mind you

> can live and thrive on fish and seafood as excellently as on meat

> (red or white). I would say that ovo-pesco-vegetarians (however

> bizarre such a denomination is) can actually have excellent (not

> simply decent as you put) health, even without meat. Of course, if

> the only flesh you eat is fish and seafood, you may be creating a

> rather dull diet for yourself, for meat adds a lot of variety, too.

> But in terms of protein, EFAs, minerals, and digestibility, fish and

> seafood seems to offers all you need and to be on the same level as

> meat if not superior. And maybe it is silly to add this, but... since

> fish are cold-blooded animals and rather apathetic (unless I am very

> wrong), you don't usually feel an intense connection with them and so

> killing them is less of an emotional issue than killing a warm-

> blooded mammal.

>

> Regards,

>

> JC

an interesting article below:

I get emails from vegetarians, and hear from them in the street, that

their only objection to eating animals is that it's wrong to kill and

eat " sentient " beings. I contend that we can't live, period, without

eating living things, and that any species' level of sentience is at a

point on a continuum, not a cosmic on/off selection.

" Sentience " is basically sense perception, or consciousness.

" Consciousness " is basically an awareness of oneself and one's

surroundings; some definitions include thought and will, or awareness

of one's own thoughts. I say " basically " because philosophers may

never agree on what consciousness is. Any list of criteria we can

develop can be duplicated by a computer, while we remain unwilling to

accept that a computer is conscious (so far).

To start at the bottom of the food chain, we know that electromagnetic

fields generated by living plants show a dip in activity following

environmental events we wouldn't expect the plants to sense, much less

react to. One environmental event tested was the killing of a goldfish

or something else across the room from the plant.

Thus, in at least some rudimentary way, we have evidence that plants

can experience something on the order of sadness. This is remarkable,

as plants don't have organs we'd associate with consciousness at all.

But we do know beyond a doubt that plants react to events we wouldn't

even expect them to detect.

Then we have plants that overtly react to their environment, such as

the Venus Fly Trap. We know that this plant senses and reacts. We

don't know whether the plant has a consciousness, and might never

know. We can't communicate with plants today, but that doesn't mean

never. We didn't think we could communicate with apes until we taught

a few how to type.

I wouldn't be surprised if we discover that some plants meet more of

the criteria for consciousness than some non-plant critters, such as

flatworms. So now, the moral vegetarians have to decide which plants

they can eat, based on the criterion of level of sentience.

You see where this is going: Level of sentience is a continuum, with

humans at the top of it on this planet. Whatever you eat, you are

depriving living things of a continued, possibly conscious, existence.

You're selecting a point on that continuum at which you'll begin

eating, even if you mistakenly believe you're eating only

non-conscious life forms.

The trick to being a moral eater, then, is being aware of where on the

continuum you're stepping in and ending other creatures' lives.

Carnivores like me step in nearer the top than do vegetarians. How do

we make our choices?

I can't speak for other folks, but I don't eat other mammalian

carnivores. Cats, dogs, and bears seem too much like kinfolk. If their

eyes are in the front of their heads, like ours, rather than on the

sides, like a rabbit's, they're my cousins. They're generally

intelligent. Such animals should be domesticated as companions, left

alone, or driven away or killed if they get too uppity, competing with

me for resources or chasing my children. Besides, most of their meat

would probably be tough and stringy as food.

Animals with eyes on the sides of their heads are prey. They're born

knowing they're prey. All their instincts tell them to do nothing but

hide, eat, and reproduce. They never get to relax in the sun. They eat

their young if they fear detection. Their general stupidity is

probably nature's salve for their cringing existence. I've known

someone who had a pet bunny rabbit. That rabbit was a useless,

unaffectionate, unresponsive waste of pet food.

I would bet that nature deliberately made it the case that predators

have difficulty emotionally bonding with prey. I have seen, however, a

cat bond with a bear in a zoo. Predators recognize like minds.

Horses and oxen are prey animals, but we (at least in the Americas)

generally have found them more economically valuable for work and

entertainment than for food. Work animals can be tough meat, too.

For fish and sea mammals, the no-predators rule seems to be overridden

by the intelligence rule for most of us. I find myself in agreement.

Sharks are unfathomably stupid, and can be quite tender when simmered.

Dolphins also seem to have little regard for sharks, and will attack

them (punching them to death with their noses) on sight.

So there's the bargain: You select a point on the consciousness

continuum at which you're willing to step in, kill, and eat. Any point

on the continuum you select is arbitrary, and selecting plants doesn't

necessarily mean you're selecting the dumbest creatures available. I

plan to keep eating the red meat out of which some of our most

delicious fellow earth travelers are made.

Why eat meat at all? That's an easier question. God commanded us to

eat meat in the book of Leviticus. On the other hand, if you're an

atheist, then just look in a mirror. Your eyes are on the front of

your face, and you have teeth made for eating meat. We wouldn't have

evolved either without it being to our nutritional advantage, and once

it's been to our nutritional advantage for a million years or so,

we're not going to undo that by trying to play nice.

And what's " anarcho " about being a carnivore? Nothing, intrinsically;

but you tend to find more paleolibertarians among carnivores than

among vegans, perhaps because paleolibertarians are the ones among us

who are willing to own up to truths that are uncomfortable for a lot

of folks.

So enough, already: Vegetarians, come away from The Dark Side. Pork is

the other white meat; beef is what's for dinner; and a day without

pepper-crusted venison tenderloin is like a day without sunshine.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/edmonds/edmonds229.html

[Guest guest]

-

>I was particularly thinking about this: unless you're comparing

>animals to humans, I don't think you're entitled to say animals are

>stupid. If you define intelligence as the (innate) capacity to

>survive in a given environment, then any animal in the wild and

>within its own species (no comparison between different species

>involved) is intelligent.

Defining intelligence that way, though, means not defining it at all. A

bacterium has an innate capacity to survive in a given environment -- in a

wide variety of environments, in fact.

-

[Guest guest]

--- In , Idol <Idol@c...>

wrote:

> -

>

> >I was particularly thinking about this: unless you're comparing

> >animals to humans, I don't think you're entitled to say animals are

> >stupid. If you define intelligence as the (innate) capacity to

> >survive in a given environment, then any animal in the wild and

> >within its own species (no comparison between different species

> >involved) is intelligent.

>

> Defining intelligence that way, though, means not defining it at

all. A

> bacterium has an innate capacity to survive in a given environment -

- in a

> wide variety of environments, in fact.

>

>

>

>

> -

Oh, I don't know, . Strictly speaking, you may be right, but in

broad terms, the definition of intelligence can be as elusive as that

of life. In fact, I concede it is a very personal issue as far as I

am concerned, because I usually am annoyed at people calling animals

stupid. I can be very choosy at times.

JC