Humans are at the top of the food chain, we are the apex predetor, and we are REALLY REALLY good at killing things, We earned our position, true we are a glass cannon one trick pony, but its a good trick, To the victor go the spoils, all races beneath us are here for our sole use. This is natural as Ants have been shown to farm both fungas and other insects, for their own use. They became the apex of their small spear and are exploiting the perks of said advantage, we as the human race should also use our position for the betterment of our own race.
If you had a switch in front of you, that you had to pull, Left it killed 1 new born human, Right it killed 1 new hatched chicken, which way would you flick the switch? The ratio would have to be extremely high for me to even consider not going right.
Humans are born Omnivores and thus eat meat and plants. So there is nothing stopping someone from eating either. Avoiding a health discussion on both sides, I think humans are unique in the way we view meat. The classic predator pray scenerio is not morally flawed to me as it is nature. Nature is built on survival of the fittest and there are always +/- interactions in ecology.
Setting that aside, I am selective of the very little meat I do consume and this is based on how people treat animals. Human's superior intelligence have allowed humans better methods to harvest human substences needed for life and meat. But these methods are NOT always moral and never fair to the animals inside ie (factory farming). That is where eating meat is unmoral to me as people dont give credit to animals as living things and make them products of the economy.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Currently Playing:
Modern: RUGScapeshift[RUG...Occasionally with goyfs RUGTarmotwinRUG(RIP)
Legacy: UWxuwr miracles and stonebladeUWx
Commander: UWRShu Yun/Ruhan SmashUWR
Humans are at the top of the food chain, we are the apex predetor, and we are REALLY REALLY good at killing things, We earned our position, true we are a glass cannon one trick pony, but its a good trick, To the victor go the spoils, all races beneath us are here for our sole use. This is natural as Ants have been shown to farm both fungas and other insects, for their own use. They became the apex of their small spear and are exploiting the perks of said advantage, we as the human race should also use our position for the betterment of our own race.
If you had a switch in front of you, that you had to pull, Left it killed 1 new born human, Right it killed 1 new hatched chicken, which way would you flick the switch? The ratio would have to be extremely high for me to even consider not going right.
I would kill the chicken. But if the choice was you killing the chicken or you eating a cheese sandwich for lunch, would you kill the chicken?
I would kill the chicken, I am taking the LESS murderous path by choosing the chicken, as Many MANY animals are killed in the harvesting process for plants to be consumed, The wheat that made that bread for that sandwich likely killed far more animals than that one chicken.
I would kill the chicken, I am taking the LESS murderous path by choosing the chicken, as Many MANY animals are killed in the harvesting process for plants to be consumed, The wheat that made that bread for that sandwich likely killed far more animals than that one chicken.
But the corn that you used to feed the chicken probably killed the same amount of animals as the wheat. Which means that you killed the same amount of animals plus the chicken. You have more blood on your hands this way.
but if everyone eat's vegitarian the amount of farm land required would expand enormously, perticuarly when you keep in mind that alot of the food grown for animals is deemed "unfit" for human consumption. Its not like you can just instantly terraform it over to stuff we can eat, If they could grow stuff that was fit for human consumption (ie a higher profit yeild) do you not think, in todays capitalistic socity they would?
but if everyone eat's vegitarian the amount of farm land required would expand enormously, perticuarly when you keep in mind that alot of the food grown for animals is deemed "unfit" for human consumption. Its not like you can just instantly terraform it over to stuff we can eat, If they could grow stuff that was fit for human consumption (ie a higher profit yeild) do you not think, in todays capitalistic socity they would?
No, they would grow whatever is cheapest to grow that still makes them money. People like eating meat, so food will be grown for the animals.
I just think it's so idiotic to object to hunting, or any slaughter of meat. It shows an obvious disconnect from nature and reality.
I think you sir, suffer the disconnect. You are just so sure you're right and that there is not even a debate to be had. You condescendingly pick apart someone's real moral dilemma and essentially infer they are stupid and you definitely know better.
Well, whole religions and cultures have made up their mind for the other side of the argument and have been living that way for a long time.
These are your personal philosophies not moral absolutes. Your whole post is structured as an attack.
I believe the morality of consumption in general is a personal matter that others should respect and also that the morality of consumption is a very important moral discussion to keep open because we have so much power to exercise choices that make a real impact at every point of consumption (I'm not just referring to meat vs veg). Consequently and inherently due to the demand that we create I believe it is very much so an open moral debate.
edit: in anticipation of of "just because whole cultures... doesn't mean anything" well, then the same goes for eating meat. Morality, is in essence a higher plane of choice afforded to us humans. As we don't hold animals to a moral standard. So we have created choice where "naturally" there should not be one. I think any argument that says meat eating is natural therefore exempt from the moral question or if you go even further, on the right side of the moral fence- is simply incorrect.
Personally I can understand both sides of the argument, I do think either conclusion is a moral one. And, I think the choice is deeply personal and relative.
In the real world- the real world outside of debate club- we all know these conversations often offend one or multiple parties as the choices people have made are part of their identity. What usually offends? When the tone of the debate begins to intone that one or both parties has invested in trying to change the other parties mind.
it doesn't say that plants can feel pain. It says that they can remember events. Pain and memory are not the same thing.
Youre right, wrong link. Maybe 'pain' is the wrong word. The post above (and those below) definitvely show that plants respond to negative stimulus (being eaten) in such a way as to ensure its own survival. While the lack of nociceptors can be interpreted as 'plants dont feel pain' its also pretty foolish to argue they dont 'feel' anything. they obviously respond to stimulus in a predictable way.
Although green plants have no nervous system, they can transmit messages through the length of the plant body. It has long been thought that the stomata open and close solely in response to what they sense, but we now know that they can also be controlled from as far away as the tips of the roots
If an impulse passes along a nerve in an animal, an advancing wave of gates opens to allow sodium ions into the nerve and potassium ions out. Now that we can study plant cells, the same mechanism has been detected in them. The most interesting discovery of all was that plant cells, like animal nerves, can manifest a receptor potential before the action potential itself.
The study of electrical activity in plants shows that they can sense touch, and respond to the stimulus, in a coordinated and appropriate manner. Clearly, they process data. They do no more than they need to, but what they do is well adapted to the demands of their daily lives.
There are aspects of plant behaviour that seem to suggest that a plant can store a memory of an earlier experience. Plants have been shown to remember earlier traumas - they can recall being wounded on one side, and compensate for the damage by later growth. If you have dandelions in a mown lawn you may observe that they flower almost prostrate on the ground, as though they have learned that a raised profile will lead to them being cut off in their prime. Equally interesting is the fact that plants can distinguish between one stimulus and another. If a sensitive plant is repeatedly stimulated by touch it will eventually fail to respond. If another form of stimulus is applied (an electrical stimulus, say) it will immediately respond to that. Plants clearly have the means to tell different types of signal apart. More research is needed into these phenomena, which suggest the plants are more alive to their surroundings than is widely believed.
The organs of touch in humans can detect a fine hair weighing 0.002 mg drawn across the skin. The sensitive hairs of Drosera, the sundew, can detect a stimulus of 0.0008 mg, while Sicyos tendrils respond to 0.00025 mg, which is eight times lighter than humans can detect.
This would seem to indicate a centralized system of processing for chemical and electrical signals... what we call sensations. We have pleasant and unpleasant sensations. Pain is the one that alerts us that something is wrong, and needs attention. Seems like plants are processing that same information to me.
Also of worthy note: 'they dont feel pain' was used as a justification of slavery. (That being: the 'lesser' races couldnt feel pain the same way )
The only significant moral argument against meat consumption that I have heard is the suggestion that it's irresponsible to live on a food that requires such a high volume of resources to produce. Resources consumed and space occupied by livestock could feed many more people if used for grain/veg/fruit etc. With the inevitable overpopulation of the planet, it is not prudent or ethical to concentrate so many calories into what is essentially a luxurious tasty high protein treat for a lucky handful of humans (relatively speaking).
The only significant moral argument against meat consumption that I have heard is the suggestion that it's irresponsible to live on a food that requires such a high volume of resources to produce. Resources consumed and space occupied by livestock could feed many more people if used for grain/veg/fruit etc. With the inevitable overpopulation of the planet, it is not prudent or ethical to concentrate so many calories into what is essentially a luxurious tasty high protein treat for a lucky handful of humans (relatively speaking).
So your answer to 'too many humans' is to make more food? More food=more population. This is biological fact, and have ~5000 years of experimentation to prove it.
The other problem with this line of reasoning is that most of our animal food stocks are supposed to be eating foods that are calorically inaccessable to us. Eat all the grass you want, youll still die of starvation because our bodies dont metabolize cellulose. Grasslands are a normal part of land succession. So if the plan is to clear more land for an increasing populace, we'll soon be leveling everything. Agriculture consumes about half of the usuable land in this country alone.
We dont need a slab of meat with every meal, but it tastes so good because out body is equipped to find what it needs. Every notice how food tastes better when youre really hungry? Thats your body saying give me nutrients or give me death.
Population arguments could be their own, enormous conversation. I wish there was a reason to believe we aren't headed for mass starvation in Africa/Asia at some point in the near future, but I'm pretty sure those death tolls are going to become and stay extremely high, and I'm pretty sure there's no way to avert it that we would find morally permissible.
The only significant moral argument against meat consumption that I have heard is the suggestion that it's irresponsible to live on a food that requires such a high volume of resources to produce. Resources consumed and space occupied by livestock could feed many more people if used for grain/veg/fruit etc. With the inevitable overpopulation of the planet, it is not prudent or ethical to concentrate so many calories into what is essentially a luxurious tasty high protein treat for a lucky handful of humans (relatively speaking).
So your answer to 'too many humans' is to make more food? More food=more population.
I don't recall saying that "I had an answer" to anything. I merely pointed out one of the few legitimate moral arguments against eating meat (applies to beef primarily). Yes, grasslands are an important biome but we have limited space to work with in a soon to be overpopulated world. Solutions to overpopulation is another thread entirely.
Getting biological facts out of 5000 years of indirect, low quality observations is pretty hard. Ecologically, there is no reason to assume that food is in all cases the limiting driver for population growth. Human beings, especially those living in modernized societies, require much more than just food. The trend is pretty clear, too, that populations start to decrease as per capita wealth goes up.
Though population has many more factors than just food availability, it is a form of security that has historically always resulted in more people. Since thw birth of totalitarian agriculture (fertile crescent) our population has continued to grow exponentially. If food is not the major limiting factor than what are these people made up of?
There are two problems with this counter-argument. First, a substantial percentage of global meat production is achieved through feeding these animals high quality feed, which we could use as food for ourselves or which is produced on land where we could produce crops suitable for our own consumption without considerable losses of production efficiency. This has been highlighted in countless articles.
This is an issue of totalitarian production. Not that it is happening, but the ideology of how it should. With responsible locally managed animal husbandry most of these issues dont exist. Large scale factory line food production of non-meat sources can be just as damaging as cattle. (Google soy brazil rainforests)
Second, when animals are fed grasses or other feed not very suitable for human consumption, that does not mean there are no alternate uses for these types of area's and products. Bio-energy is one example, as well as the enormous impact meat production has on deforestation and overgrazing rates. Grasslands occur naturally, but they are also created and degraded on a large scale through clearing of other ecosystem types. They also provide more services than just the production of grasses for our animals to eat.
The animals on the land provide a service to the land as well. When replaced, the normal nitrate cycle becomes dangerous (nitrates are extremely toxic to animals) the most prevalant non-animal fertilizer is annhydrous ammonia. Its production is less than ideal, as are the effects of Its overuse. Practically every organic farm i have visited or studied with have eventaully had to concede to using animals (even if not for food)
When thos grasslands are cleared for high efficiency monocrop farms, how is it any less damaging than allowing animals to overgraze it? The land still becomes bankrupt.
The plan is not to clear more land, the plan is to cut into the inefficiencies of our food production. One method that has been highlighted is the reduction of meat consumption. Others are decreasing the inefficiencies at the end of the supply chain (for instance in supermarkets and at home) and closing unnecessary productivity gaps in developing area's.
Monocrop factory farming does exactly that, cut inefficiency. I would hardly call that a solution. Americans throw 50% of our food away, this issue isnt production inefficiency.
Cutting down on meat consumption is obviously part of the issue (60lb lamb can feed a family of four for ~5 months @ 4oz/person 3 times per week)
Seems like most of the issues you have with meat production are really the same issues i have with food production in general; mass produced factory farms (regardless of the actual thing produced) are not sustainable.
tl;dr: basing an arguement against eating meat on the ethical framework of environmental friendliness is phallacy.
(BTW none of this is intended to be condecending or demeaning, i often take a conversational tone in text. ive also read waaaay too much Socrates.)
Obviously there is a need for a bit of over simplification with these issues because humans are just bad subjects for science.
If you dont study this stuff, the coorelation between food availability and population is somewhat murky, so heres an analog. (Im always mystified by the mental backflips people make to try and disprove it. i have yet to hear any kind of legitimate arguement to this)
find a cage large enough for 100 mice to live comfortably, add a male and a female mouse and each day enough food for 100 mice. Before long we will have our hundred mice. Though the exact count will vary, it will stabilize around 100. Keep the food input the same and the output (mice pop) will follow suit.
Experiment #2: same cage, same mice, same food. This time we'll decrease the available food by 10% each day. Guess what happens to population? It spikes dramatically then levels off briefly before falling to whatever the food can support, decreasing with the available supply.
Experiment 3: same all around except this time we increase food availability by 1% each day. Within a few generations they're practically living on top of each other. Population spikes then slows then remains stable; based upon the limiting factor, space. Lets expand the cage walls and watch what happens... oh look more mice. Why? The temporary limiting factor of available space presented enough threat that lack of breeding (not starvation) kept our numbers down even though food was more than plentiful. We are beginning to see this around the world. Moving the cage walls is essentially immigration.
This is a prime example of carrying capacity and food source as a function of population. We dont need elaborate classes on abstinence, or the trouble of securing a supplier for all those tiny condoms (imagine the poor grad student that has to put em on) we simply limit their food supply. however, given ample food and enough space...
Some will say: But humans have free will and birth control and other stuff that makes this experiment not applicable to us...
I answer: then why has human population growth been exactly like this model? what makes us so different, biologically, than our experimental mice?
More available food = more population. This is a basic biological fact, which has been proven time and time again (theoretically and empirically) Virginia abernathy first coined the term fertility-opportunity to describe how exactly it occurs (i won't take the time to fully flesh it out here) but heres a blurb about the biological mechanisms in other species pulled from other studies for a 2000 study titled "human population as a function of food availability." (take a guess why they named it that) These are all from peer reviewed scientific journals, so the scientifically derived empirical evidence is both present and largely reliable (as we see similar results across species)
Scott and Fore (1995) investigated the effects of food availability on reproduction in the marbled salamander. Subjects were assigned to one of three groups. At the end of the experiment, 60% of the high-food females were reproductive. In the medium and low-food groups, these numbers were 42% and 12% respectively. These results demonstrate that food availability influences the population dynamics of a species.
Similarly, Komdeur (1996) demonstrated that the Seychelles warbler prolonged their reproductive season, including increases to year-round breeding, when their natural condition changed to one with high food availability.
Conversely, in female musk shrews (whose sexual receptivity is not restricted to the preovulatory period), 48 h of food restriction led to reduced mating behavior compared with ad-lib controls. Thus, small reductions in food availability can inhibit female sexual behavior (Gill and Rissman, 1997).
In the Calanus finmarchicus, egg production is suppressed when the nutrient pool decreases below a minimal critical value. Thereafter, no eggs are laid. When food is reintroduced, somatic growth resumes until structural body weight is restored, then ovogenesis [egg production] is fueled (Carlotti and Hirche, 1997).
Also, Iwamoto (1978) has shown that monkey troop size increases rapidly after artificial provisioning, but the level of consumption efficiency of the troop is always maintained lower than the critical point in both the artificial and natural habitat. Starvation within the troop simply does not occur if the rate of food availability is held relatively constant.
(who grants these people, btw?)
Conclusion: theres a simple reason damn near everything on the planet is quite frisky in spring; abundant food availability.
That last sentence bears repeating: Starvation within the troop simply does not occur if the rate of food availability is held relatively constant. What this tells me is that the key to population control is to simply stop turning more of the land into a human food production machine.
Now that the mystery of "how do new people come to be?" (birds and bees talk is another thread) has been settled lets move forward.
Then why would the populations of many European countries be decreasing if it weren't for immigration?
from the statistics i can find about 70% of the population growth is attributable to immigration. The other 30% isnt as much but its still growth. I believe you might mean the average family size statistic (cant find the study im thinking of that gives exacts) but the generally reported EU ideal family size is 2 kids. This social construct is reducing the size of individual families (those cage walls are getting awfully close, maybe we oughta invest in some condoms) but the total population is still growing. Where the people started their life is somewhat irrelevant; the simple standard for gauging the environmental impact of a group is done by the following formula (I)mpact=(p)opulation x (a)ffluence x (t)echnology. Hence where they live currently (and the standard methods of acquiring resources there) is the relevant bit. If your food has to be trucked in, you're consuming those resources regardless of your birth conditions.
This is the sum of the growth of several [groups of] human populations in different area's and times. But the reality is that, after individuals in society transcend a certain threshold of individual wealth (this can be a proxy for other things too, it's just the indicator commonly used), they raise less kids.
True, however we cant compartmentalize growth (and ignore the total trend) because people dont stay in one place. Temporally, its been ~70,000 or so years since we have had a major population decline (toba catastrophe. though the black death killed 100m or so, it didnt bottleneck the species enough to slow our growth for long. if the Toba theory is accurate humans were almost wiped out. total human pop esitmated at 1k-10k breeding pairs, miami has that people many per square mile) so the evidence suggests weve been growing as a total population for a long, long time. then suddenly our growth became exponential, we have only managed this since the advent of high efficency farming (IE fertile crescent monocropping. to beleive we suddenly settled down and became agriculturalists all of the sudden there is silly. agriculture is not a human invention, we likely borrowed the idea from leafcutter ants)
Totaling the 40 countries with negative population growth gives us a total loss of 3.29%. Totaling the 40 slowest growing countries gives 9.81% growth. Obviously this isnt a directly comparable number (as 10,000 people with a 10% pop gain is nothing compared to Chinas .5% @~1bil) it does tell us that if these 80 countries were the only ones in the experiment, the countries with population loss would have to host a population 3+ times the size of those with gain to keep numbers approximately the same. The other 151 countries on the list all have population gains from .5% to 4.93% (cia world factbook)
In reality, the only major contributor to *world* population with declining population is the US.(-.48%; 3rd largest population) india's 1.38% and chinas .5% growth make our raw decline laughable at best.
point: each year we increase the amount of available food and the population grows with it. Every year we repeat this experiment and barring a few fluke years we find the same thing. More food = more population.
The remainder of your points are mostly valid, though slightly misdirected. Yes, soy is grown to be fed to cattle. I maintain that this is not proper animal husbandry. In our current system their production of foodstuffs is the only concern of the producer; maximizing efficiency is the #1 goal. Responsible animal husbandry focuses on the whole spectrum of beneficial/damaging/tertiary effects. I love having chickens, their clucking at sunrise sucks (how did these things not go the way of the dodo? Ive almost gone for the axe just for the snooze button effect) but otherwise they make my family happier and provide a host of services beyond just eggs and eventually meat.
Show me a vegetarian diet that supplies everything needed for vital function without supplements (which require massive amounts of energy to produce, refine, transport, and sometimes store) Now show me the production model that allows the production & distribution to happen sustainably. It doesnt exist. I know because i spent years looking for it. The main focus of my education has been sustainable food production. From birth to 9 i was largely vegan (some dairy) from 13-18 i was vegetarian (long term veganism is hard on the psyche and the body) the closest i have found to a healthy vegeterian diet is lacto-ovo-veg, (dairy and eggs) which is still not sustainable because of the intensive fossil fuel requirements.
ultimate Conclusion: no diet (meat or veg only) is sustainable under our current system of production. We simply consume and waste too much. Only through carefully managed, locally produced, small scale, seasonal farming will we be able to stabilize as a species. Simply put, grow your own food, keep your own chickens, sheep, goats, rabbits, etc. Alternatively we could just start eating bugs. Best source of protein for the required inputs.
Hence an arguemment against eating meat based on the rationale of being more "green" is phallacy at best and outright fabrication at worst. (and very dangerous to our health and the overall health of the planets intricate working systems.
The original post was about the morailty of eating meat. My arguement is that the proof of burden lies with the one making the claim.
You can point to fossil fuel requirements and pollution, but the fact of the matter is that those factors are not part of the final price.
What? Fossil fuels are one of the largest determinants of food cost, it's involved in practically every step. Readying the land, fertilization, cultivation, much of packaging, transport, even the lights in the grocery store are predominantly from fossil fuels.
if a food shortage occurs along the way, even more land is going to be cleared.
That's akin to saying when people fall from an airplane they make a parachute. parachutes are made because people have fallen from airplanes before and a security measure (the parachute) has been taken.
Under ideal conditions there's some bean sprouts that can be cultivated in about 2 weeks. There's a breed of radish called the 18 day radish. (Takes about 4 weeks here in portland, not very good either) clearing land is about providing the security that we wont starve xxx months from now. Not in response to starvation.
Society
Society may lessen the immediate pressure of feeding oneself, (mass production is more efficient) but it certainly does not remove the constraints of biological law. If anything society is largely a limiting factor (public opinion of large family for example)
How would you implement sustained stagnation?
Your thinking is too bi-modal. There are more options than just grow or falter. How about reduce quantity to improve quality? Less can be more. This is part of that grassroot revolution, smaller families.
My generation is the first in recorded history to have a shorter life expectancy than our parents. (Im 31) so that should help a bit. Maybe we match our birth control usage with our life control usage (antibiotics, life saving surgery, etc). We could always stop allowing health interventions. If people want to eat mcdonalds until they look like toweled off sea life in a mumu and sunhat, more power to em. Wanna smoke a carton a day? Puff em down. That oughta knock numbers down a little. Wanna smoke meth, bath salts, and crack while shooting heroin into your balls? Have fun. Stop putting Mr Yuk stickers on bleach and drain-o. Dumb kids get thirsty too. Really just kinda brainstorming, I'm sure we could really get the list going if we approached it in earnest.
How are you going to keep this strategy of yours from upsetting human society alltogether?
You miss the point. Disrupting the society of endless need is precisely the objective. Out current model is tireless growth over all else. Quarter after quarter, fiscal year after FY, growth. Look at every natural cycle: growth & decay. Wax & wane. Ebb and flow. There is nothing that can grow forever. It's sad (to some) that people have to die, but it wouldn't be billions if we had lived in accordance with natural law.
I was speaking to the OP's question. The conversation has certainly segued into another very directly related line of questioning, however my point remains. Veg/vegan =/= "green." Therefore the only viable argument i can see against eating meat is a question of personal values. If it makes you feel bad, don't do it. The natives (here on the North American continent) managed to create a way of life that persisted mostly unchanged for 15,000 some years. Great gma said "living in beat. Like a drum or a heart. That's what ties us together, the pulse." As far back as anyone on that side can remember 2 kids was the way of life. My uncle was the first to have a 3rd. (My cousins disabilities are looked at as proof of disapproval from the ancestors of his parents by great gma)
I stated what i believe to be one of the pieces to the solving overpopulation a while back. Stop converting more land into food space. We didn't suddenly arrive at 7 billion overnight, the fix wont either.
Roughly the same amount of food = roughly the same amount of thing to eat that food.
A switch from beef and milk to highly refined livestock product analogues such as tofu and Quorn could actually increase the quantity of arable land needed to supply the UK.
...
[In all fairness it also says]
We estimate that a 50% reduction in livestock production consumption would release about 1.6 Mha of arable land (based on the yield of crops supplying the UK) used for livestock feed production.
So again its an issue of lifestyle. Most Americans are gluttons. We're a largely (pun intended) country of dumb fat little piggies that eat roast beef. "That's Murican!" I haven't done much world travel, and realize we're obviously one of most dramatic consumers of the worlds resources. But also recognize that people are biological beings too, we may have society (i would argue other animals such as ants or bees have societies that are just as complex) but we're still subject to the same laws. If there is a surplus of food we will grow to fill it; society, birth control, and overpopulation be damned.
We may try to act like we're civilized, but we're just a bunch of monkeys with mobile phones and ak47's; trapped somewhere between reptilian brain and achieving Kardashev type 1 status. There are people that will still answer "4" when asked how many elements there are... [facepalm] phlogiston is *not* an element.
Really wish i could spend more time in conversation, but the demand on my time is increasing. (Kids are great, as long as you can give em back.) It's been fun, hopefully i can find time to lurk about.
The problem with limiting food can directly be seen in Africa and across the entire animal kingdom. When conditions get more and more harsh, species will generally adapt to have more and more offspring to increase the chances of those genes being passed on an off spring surviving. If there is a better environment, then there is no need for that adaptation and so it will be diluted within the gene-pool of mutations that generate less offspring. With human beings in Africa, they willingly choose to have as many babies as they can because they know there's a good chance many of them will die within a few years, that and they don't really have condoms anyway, so mat was actually right. People can choose, become more educated, pursue different life styles instead of trying to have as many babies as they can, but really it's only going to happen in an environment where they actually can do those things more easily than being disease ridden and famished and having children.
With the way the ecosystems of the world are currently set up, they act according to a very delicate balance of probability and survival rates. If there aren't enough predators, too much of a herbivorous species will decimate the plant population. If there aren't enough plants though, the ecosystem will collapse because plants are where the food chain starts. We really want to have produce more plants, because there isn't that much of a problem to have too many plants, other types of organisms don't feed off of the same types of nutrients of the soil, so it simply increases the capacity of a typical food chain. And, if a thing eats a plant, the will use approximately 10% of the plant's energy for its own body. If a thing eats a creature that ate a plant, they will get approximately 10% of that 10% which is why large predators are adapted to be more ravenous, they just need to eat so much meat to sustain their large bodies because they only get 1%-.001% of the original energy captured by plants from the sunlight and air. Plants are much easier to take care of than animals anyway, if you don't ignore basic animal rights, and all they require is some sunlight, water and soil, and not even always rich soil, just ground. The domesticated plants will need rich soil, but the biosphere of plants in general can go without the soil that you're use to and we're already making progress in genetically modifying plants to produce more food and even synthetic meat anyway. They can grow with just air, feeding off of rain and moisture and sunlight without roots, desert sand, completely submersed in water and I think some scientists recently discovered a culture of organisms still alive buried under nearly a mile of solid ice in Antarctica. The only thing that could really go wrong is not having enough CO2 in the atmosphere to trap heat or possibly cause mass I guess in a way asphyxiation of land plants, but we'd have to produce well beyond the current plant population to do that. I guess it's possible to increase the O2 amount too much, but forest fires would naturally take care of that themselves. The amount of plants would be reduced and so O2 would no longer be produced at as great of a rate, a self correcting unstable equilibrium.
Now, if you actually want to talk about the "ethics" of meat eating, why don't you just start with the fundamental question, which is "is your life truly worth more or less?". Is your life actually worth the life of something else, and why?
My bet is that it isn't either, the only way I can think of to explain the system is that no particular organism's life is worth more than anything else's, the ecosystem s just a neutral plain where things can take a turn in any direction. Some long time ago some organism adapted to being able to break down the cell walls of other bacteria while other organisms had more luck feeding off of sun-light and nutrients they made themselves, and there's no right or wrong, that's just how it happened to turn out, just a few mutation happened to allow some organism to feed off of the chemicals that make up other organisms and that's it. From there it's just statistics. Another question is, do we want to change that, can we even change that, and change it into what? It seems humanity is heading towards the point where things like evolution don't really have to effect it.
But, that's just my opinion, a sort of "there is no real answer" approach because it would involve defining the meaning and value of all individual organisms which of course is a purely relativistic problem, it would be like saying "it's 4:00pm in the universe". You can make whatever decision about meat eating you want, when you want, but if humanity as a whole makes the wrong decision, it's not too late for things to take a terrible turn.
The problem with limiting food can directly be seen in Africa and across the entire animal kingdom. When conditions get more and more harsh, species will generally adapt to have more and more offspring to increase the chances of those genes being passed on an off spring surviving.
Evidence? Everything ive studied says exactly the opposite.
We really want to have produce more plants, because there isn't that much of a problem to have too many plants, other types of organisms don't feed off of the same types of nutrients of the soil, so it simply increases the capacity of a typical food chain.
they only get 1%-.001% of the original energy captured by plants from the sunlight and air.
While there is a loss of energy at each trophic level, there's also a concentration. That's why meat is so calorically dense. In fact you have to eat ~10x as much kale or brocolli to get the same number of calories. http://www.drfuhrman.com/faq/question.aspx?sid=16&qindex=9
It seems humanity is heading towards the point where things like evolution don't really have to effect it.
This has to be one of the least effective statements ive ever heard. Evolution didn't suddenly stop with us discovering fire, or fossil fuels, or the higgs boson. Evolution is a process. We may have surpassed evolution in terms of speed of change, but we are under its effect now more than ever. Look at the number of lethal untreatable infections we have created. C.diff, mrsa, etc.
While there is a loss of energy at each trophic level, there's also a concentration. That's why meat is so calorically dense. In fact you have to eat ~10x as much kale or brocolli to get the same number of calories.
A greater concentration perhaps, but less available. Carnivorous animals still need to expend a lot of energy trying to catch prey, it would be more efficient for them if like a cow or rabbit they could digest basic plant tissue, at least in areas with higher plant density, either way massive amounts of energy are lost.
It seems humanity is heading towards the point where things like evolution don't really have to effect it.
This has to be one of the least effective statements ive ever heard. Evolution didn't suddenly stop with us discovering fire, or fossil fuels, or the higgs boson. Evolution is a process. We may have surpassed evolution in terms of speed of change, but we are under its effect now more than ever. Look at the number of lethal untreatable infections we have created. C.diff, mrsa, etc.
Evolution is the statistical process by which genes are passed down with a probability linked to how adapted they are to the environment they are in. If we can over-come the environment and control genes and our bodies, we are not necessarily subject to that statistical phenomena, because our survival is no longer based the mere adaptations of genes, but rather complex technology which we can use to survive otherwise inhospitable environments and survive otherwise incurable diseases. Right now it's still a bit of both, but gradually it's been changing. Would you rather wait a few billion years to be able to survive the vacuum of space? Or would you rather build a metal container that can do it for you?
If you had a switch in front of you, that you had to pull, Left it killed 1 new born human, Right it killed 1 new hatched chicken, which way would you flick the switch? The ratio would have to be extremely high for me to even consider not going right.
Setting that aside, I am selective of the very little meat I do consume and this is based on how people treat animals. Human's superior intelligence have allowed humans better methods to harvest human substences needed for life and meat. But these methods are NOT always moral and never fair to the animals inside ie (factory farming). That is where eating meat is unmoral to me as people dont give credit to animals as living things and make them products of the economy.
Modern:
RUGScapeshift[RUG...Occasionally with goyfs
RUGTarmotwinRUG(RIP)
Legacy:
UWxuwr miracles and stonebladeUWx
Commander:
UWRShu Yun/Ruhan SmashUWR
I would kill the chicken. But if the choice was you killing the chicken or you eating a cheese sandwich for lunch, would you kill the chicken?
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Link.
http://theconversation.com/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal-theres-more-animal-blood-on-your-hands-4659
But the corn that you used to feed the chicken probably killed the same amount of animals as the wheat. Which means that you killed the same amount of animals plus the chicken. You have more blood on your hands this way.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
No, they would grow whatever is cheapest to grow that still makes them money. People like eating meat, so food will be grown for the animals.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
I think you sir, suffer the disconnect. You are just so sure you're right and that there is not even a debate to be had. You condescendingly pick apart someone's real moral dilemma and essentially infer they are stupid and you definitely know better.
Well, whole religions and cultures have made up their mind for the other side of the argument and have been living that way for a long time.
These are your personal philosophies not moral absolutes. Your whole post is structured as an attack.
I believe the morality of consumption in general is a personal matter that others should respect and also that the morality of consumption is a very important moral discussion to keep open because we have so much power to exercise choices that make a real impact at every point of consumption (I'm not just referring to meat vs veg). Consequently and inherently due to the demand that we create I believe it is very much so an open moral debate.
edit: in anticipation of of "just because whole cultures... doesn't mean anything" well, then the same goes for eating meat. Morality, is in essence a higher plane of choice afforded to us humans. As we don't hold animals to a moral standard. So we have created choice where "naturally" there should not be one. I think any argument that says meat eating is natural therefore exempt from the moral question or if you go even further, on the right side of the moral fence- is simply incorrect.
Personally I can understand both sides of the argument, I do think either conclusion is a moral one. And, I think the choice is deeply personal and relative.
In the real world- the real world outside of debate club- we all know these conversations often offend one or multiple parties as the choices people have made are part of their identity. What usually offends? When the tone of the debate begins to intone that one or both parties has invested in trying to change the other parties mind.
Youre right, wrong link. Maybe 'pain' is the wrong word. The post above (and those below) definitvely show that plants respond to negative stimulus (being eaten) in such a way as to ensure its own survival. While the lack of nociceptors can be interpreted as 'plants dont feel pain' its also pretty foolish to argue they dont 'feel' anything. they obviously respond to stimulus in a predictable way.
They can even pass the reponse of that stimulus to other members of its species through a symbiote (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.12115/abstract;jsessionid=74F0A48D80503A6375C01F799954DB9D.d01t04) That's a far more advanced communcations system than humans employ.
This would seem to indicate a centralized system of processing for chemical and electrical signals... what we call sensations. We have pleasant and unpleasant sensations. Pain is the one that alerts us that something is wrong, and needs attention. Seems like plants are processing that same information to me.
Also of worthy note: 'they dont feel pain' was used as a justification of slavery. (That being: the 'lesser' races couldnt feel pain the same way )
Grammar is the difference between knowing your ****, and knowing you're ****.
So your answer to 'too many humans' is to make more food? More food=more population. This is biological fact, and have ~5000 years of experimentation to prove it.
The other problem with this line of reasoning is that most of our animal food stocks are supposed to be eating foods that are calorically inaccessable to us. Eat all the grass you want, youll still die of starvation because our bodies dont metabolize cellulose. Grasslands are a normal part of land succession. So if the plan is to clear more land for an increasing populace, we'll soon be leveling everything. Agriculture consumes about half of the usuable land in this country alone.
We dont need a slab of meat with every meal, but it tastes so good because out body is equipped to find what it needs. Every notice how food tastes better when youre really hungry? Thats your body saying give me nutrients or give me death.
Grammar is the difference between knowing your ****, and knowing you're ****.
I don't recall saying that "I had an answer" to anything. I merely pointed out one of the few legitimate moral arguments against eating meat (applies to beef primarily). Yes, grasslands are an important biome but we have limited space to work with in a soon to be overpopulated world. Solutions to overpopulation is another thread entirely.
Though population has many more factors than just food availability, it is a form of security that has historically always resulted in more people. Since thw birth of totalitarian agriculture (fertile crescent) our population has continued to grow exponentially. If food is not the major limiting factor than what are these people made up of?
This is an issue of totalitarian production. Not that it is happening, but the ideology of how it should. With responsible locally managed animal husbandry most of these issues dont exist. Large scale factory line food production of non-meat sources can be just as damaging as cattle. (Google soy brazil rainforests)
The animals on the land provide a service to the land as well. When replaced, the normal nitrate cycle becomes dangerous (nitrates are extremely toxic to animals) the most prevalant non-animal fertilizer is annhydrous ammonia. Its production is less than ideal, as are the effects of Its overuse. Practically every organic farm i have visited or studied with have eventaully had to concede to using animals (even if not for food)
When thos grasslands are cleared for high efficiency monocrop farms, how is it any less damaging than allowing animals to overgraze it? The land still becomes bankrupt.
Monocrop factory farming does exactly that, cut inefficiency. I would hardly call that a solution. Americans throw 50% of our food away, this issue isnt production inefficiency.
Cutting down on meat consumption is obviously part of the issue (60lb lamb can feed a family of four for ~5 months @ 4oz/person 3 times per week)
Seems like most of the issues you have with meat production are really the same issues i have with food production in general; mass produced factory farms (regardless of the actual thing produced) are not sustainable.
Grammar is the difference between knowing your ****, and knowing you're ****.
(BTW none of this is intended to be condecending or demeaning, i often take a conversational tone in text. ive also read waaaay too much Socrates.)
Obviously there is a need for a bit of over simplification with these issues because humans are just bad subjects for science.
If you dont study this stuff, the coorelation between food availability and population is somewhat murky, so heres an analog. (Im always mystified by the mental backflips people make to try and disprove it. i have yet to hear any kind of legitimate arguement to this)
find a cage large enough for 100 mice to live comfortably, add a male and a female mouse and each day enough food for 100 mice. Before long we will have our hundred mice. Though the exact count will vary, it will stabilize around 100. Keep the food input the same and the output (mice pop) will follow suit.
Experiment #2: same cage, same mice, same food. This time we'll decrease the available food by 10% each day. Guess what happens to population? It spikes dramatically then levels off briefly before falling to whatever the food can support, decreasing with the available supply.
Experiment 3: same all around except this time we increase food availability by 1% each day. Within a few generations they're practically living on top of each other. Population spikes then slows then remains stable; based upon the limiting factor, space. Lets expand the cage walls and watch what happens... oh look more mice. Why? The temporary limiting factor of available space presented enough threat that lack of breeding (not starvation) kept our numbers down even though food was more than plentiful. We are beginning to see this around the world. Moving the cage walls is essentially immigration.
This is a prime example of carrying capacity and food source as a function of population. We dont need elaborate classes on abstinence, or the trouble of securing a supplier for all those tiny condoms (imagine the poor grad student that has to put em on) we simply limit their food supply. however, given ample food and enough space...
Some will say: But humans have free will and birth control and other stuff that makes this experiment not applicable to us...
I answer: then why has human population growth been exactly like this model? what makes us so different, biologically, than our experimental mice?
More available food = more population. This is a basic biological fact, which has been proven time and time again (theoretically and empirically) Virginia abernathy first coined the term fertility-opportunity to describe how exactly it occurs (i won't take the time to fully flesh it out here) but heres a blurb about the biological mechanisms in other species pulled from other studies for a 2000 study titled "human population as a function of food availability." (take a guess why they named it that) These are all from peer reviewed scientific journals, so the scientifically derived empirical evidence is both present and largely reliable (as we see similar results across species)
Scott and Fore (1995) investigated the effects of food availability on reproduction in the marbled salamander. Subjects were assigned to one of three groups. At the end of the experiment, 60% of the high-food females were reproductive. In the medium and low-food groups, these numbers were 42% and 12% respectively. These results demonstrate that food availability influences the population dynamics of a species.
Similarly, Komdeur (1996) demonstrated that the Seychelles warbler prolonged their reproductive season, including increases to year-round breeding, when their natural condition changed to one with high food availability.
Conversely, in female musk shrews (whose sexual receptivity is not restricted to the preovulatory period), 48 h of food restriction led to reduced mating behavior compared with ad-lib controls. Thus, small reductions in food availability can inhibit female sexual behavior (Gill and Rissman, 1997).
In the Calanus finmarchicus, egg production is suppressed when the nutrient pool decreases below a minimal critical value. Thereafter, no eggs are laid. When food is reintroduced, somatic growth resumes until structural body weight is restored, then ovogenesis [egg production] is fueled (Carlotti and Hirche, 1997).
Also, Iwamoto (1978) has shown that monkey troop size increases rapidly after artificial provisioning, but the level of consumption efficiency of the troop is always maintained lower than the critical point in both the artificial and natural habitat. Starvation within the troop simply does not occur if the rate of food availability is held relatively constant.
Conclusion: theres a simple reason damn near everything on the planet is quite frisky in spring; abundant food availability.
That last sentence bears repeating: Starvation within the troop simply does not occur if the rate of food availability is held relatively constant. What this tells me is that the key to population control is to simply stop turning more of the land into a human food production machine.
Now that the mystery of "how do new people come to be?" (birds and bees talk is another thread) has been settled lets move forward.
from the statistics i can find about 70% of the population growth is attributable to immigration. The other 30% isnt as much but its still growth. I believe you might mean the average family size statistic (cant find the study im thinking of that gives exacts) but the generally reported EU ideal family size is 2 kids. This social construct is reducing the size of individual families (those cage walls are getting awfully close, maybe we oughta invest in some condoms) but the total population is still growing. Where the people started their life is somewhat irrelevant; the simple standard for gauging the environmental impact of a group is done by the following formula (I)mpact=(p)opulation x (a)ffluence x (t)echnology. Hence where they live currently (and the standard methods of acquiring resources there) is the relevant bit. If your food has to be trucked in, you're consuming those resources regardless of your birth conditions.
True, however we cant compartmentalize growth (and ignore the total trend) because people dont stay in one place. Temporally, its been ~70,000 or so years since we have had a major population decline (toba catastrophe. though the black death killed 100m or so, it didnt bottleneck the species enough to slow our growth for long. if the Toba theory is accurate humans were almost wiped out. total human pop esitmated at 1k-10k breeding pairs, miami has that people many per square mile) so the evidence suggests weve been growing as a total population for a long, long time. then suddenly our growth became exponential, we have only managed this since the advent of high efficency farming (IE fertile crescent monocropping. to beleive we suddenly settled down and became agriculturalists all of the sudden there is silly. agriculture is not a human invention, we likely borrowed the idea from leafcutter ants)
Totaling the 40 countries with negative population growth gives us a total loss of 3.29%. Totaling the 40 slowest growing countries gives 9.81% growth. Obviously this isnt a directly comparable number (as 10,000 people with a 10% pop gain is nothing compared to Chinas .5% @~1bil) it does tell us that if these 80 countries were the only ones in the experiment, the countries with population loss would have to host a population 3+ times the size of those with gain to keep numbers approximately the same. The other 151 countries on the list all have population gains from .5% to 4.93% (cia world factbook)
In reality, the only major contributor to *world* population with declining population is the US.(-.48%; 3rd largest population) india's 1.38% and chinas .5% growth make our raw decline laughable at best.
point: each year we increase the amount of available food and the population grows with it. Every year we repeat this experiment and barring a few fluke years we find the same thing. More food = more population.
The remainder of your points are mostly valid, though slightly misdirected. Yes, soy is grown to be fed to cattle. I maintain that this is not proper animal husbandry. In our current system their production of foodstuffs is the only concern of the producer; maximizing efficiency is the #1 goal. Responsible animal husbandry focuses on the whole spectrum of beneficial/damaging/tertiary effects. I love having chickens, their clucking at sunrise sucks (how did these things not go the way of the dodo? Ive almost gone for the axe just for the snooze button effect) but otherwise they make my family happier and provide a host of services beyond just eggs and eventually meat.
Show me a vegetarian diet that supplies everything needed for vital function without supplements (which require massive amounts of energy to produce, refine, transport, and sometimes store) Now show me the production model that allows the production & distribution to happen sustainably. It doesnt exist. I know because i spent years looking for it. The main focus of my education has been sustainable food production. From birth to 9 i was largely vegan (some dairy) from 13-18 i was vegetarian (long term veganism is hard on the psyche and the body) the closest i have found to a healthy vegeterian diet is lacto-ovo-veg, (dairy and eggs) which is still not sustainable because of the intensive fossil fuel requirements.
ultimate Conclusion: no diet (meat or veg only) is sustainable under our current system of production. We simply consume and waste too much. Only through carefully managed, locally produced, small scale, seasonal farming will we be able to stabilize as a species. Simply put, grow your own food, keep your own chickens, sheep, goats, rabbits, etc. Alternatively we could just start eating bugs. Best source of protein for the required inputs.
Hence an arguemment against eating meat based on the rationale of being more "green" is phallacy at best and outright fabrication at worst. (and very dangerous to our health and the overall health of the planets intricate working systems.
Grammar is the difference between knowing your ****, and knowing you're ****.
What? Fossil fuels are one of the largest determinants of food cost, it's involved in practically every step. Readying the land, fertilization, cultivation, much of packaging, transport, even the lights in the grocery store are predominantly from fossil fuels.
That's akin to saying when people fall from an airplane they make a parachute. parachutes are made because people have fallen from airplanes before and a security measure (the parachute) has been taken.
Under ideal conditions there's some bean sprouts that can be cultivated in about 2 weeks. There's a breed of radish called the 18 day radish. (Takes about 4 weeks here in portland, not very good either) clearing land is about providing the security that we wont starve xxx months from now. Not in response to starvation.
Society may lessen the immediate pressure of feeding oneself, (mass production is more efficient) but it certainly does not remove the constraints of biological law. If anything society is largely a limiting factor (public opinion of large family for example)
Your thinking is too bi-modal. There are more options than just grow or falter. How about reduce quantity to improve quality? Less can be more. This is part of that grassroot revolution, smaller families.
My generation is the first in recorded history to have a shorter life expectancy than our parents. (Im 31) so that should help a bit. Maybe we match our birth control usage with our life control usage (antibiotics, life saving surgery, etc). We could always stop allowing health interventions. If people want to eat mcdonalds until they look like toweled off sea life in a mumu and sunhat, more power to em. Wanna smoke a carton a day? Puff em down. That oughta knock numbers down a little. Wanna smoke meth, bath salts, and crack while shooting heroin into your balls? Have fun. Stop putting Mr Yuk stickers on bleach and drain-o. Dumb kids get thirsty too. Really just kinda brainstorming, I'm sure we could really get the list going if we approached it in earnest.
You miss the point. Disrupting the society of endless need is precisely the objective. Out current model is tireless growth over all else. Quarter after quarter, fiscal year after FY, growth. Look at every natural cycle: growth & decay. Wax & wane. Ebb and flow. There is nothing that can grow forever. It's sad (to some) that people have to die, but it wouldn't be billions if we had lived in accordance with natural law.
Grammar is the difference between knowing your ****, and knowing you're ****.
I stated what i believe to be one of the pieces to the solving overpopulation a while back. Stop converting more land into food space. We didn't suddenly arrive at 7 billion overnight, the fix wont either.
Roughly the same amount of food = roughly the same amount of thing to eat that food.
Total Vegetarian diet =/= less land used
https://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/6503
A switch from beef and milk to highly refined livestock product analogues such as tofu and Quorn could actually increase the quantity of arable land needed to supply the UK.
...
[In all fairness it also says]
We estimate that a 50% reduction in livestock production consumption would release about 1.6 Mha of arable land (based on the yield of crops supplying the UK) used for livestock feed production.
We may try to act like we're civilized, but we're just a bunch of monkeys with mobile phones and ak47's; trapped somewhere between reptilian brain and achieving Kardashev type 1 status. There are people that will still answer "4" when asked how many elements there are... [facepalm] phlogiston is *not* an element.
Really wish i could spend more time in conversation, but the demand on my time is increasing. (Kids are great, as long as you can give em back.) It's been fun, hopefully i can find time to lurk about.
Grammar is the difference between knowing your ****, and knowing you're ****.
With the way the ecosystems of the world are currently set up, they act according to a very delicate balance of probability and survival rates. If there aren't enough predators, too much of a herbivorous species will decimate the plant population. If there aren't enough plants though, the ecosystem will collapse because plants are where the food chain starts. We really want to have produce more plants, because there isn't that much of a problem to have too many plants, other types of organisms don't feed off of the same types of nutrients of the soil, so it simply increases the capacity of a typical food chain. And, if a thing eats a plant, the will use approximately 10% of the plant's energy for its own body. If a thing eats a creature that ate a plant, they will get approximately 10% of that 10% which is why large predators are adapted to be more ravenous, they just need to eat so much meat to sustain their large bodies because they only get 1%-.001% of the original energy captured by plants from the sunlight and air. Plants are much easier to take care of than animals anyway, if you don't ignore basic animal rights, and all they require is some sunlight, water and soil, and not even always rich soil, just ground. The domesticated plants will need rich soil, but the biosphere of plants in general can go without the soil that you're use to and we're already making progress in genetically modifying plants to produce more food and even synthetic meat anyway. They can grow with just air, feeding off of rain and moisture and sunlight without roots, desert sand, completely submersed in water and I think some scientists recently discovered a culture of organisms still alive buried under nearly a mile of solid ice in Antarctica. The only thing that could really go wrong is not having enough CO2 in the atmosphere to trap heat or possibly cause mass I guess in a way asphyxiation of land plants, but we'd have to produce well beyond the current plant population to do that. I guess it's possible to increase the O2 amount too much, but forest fires would naturally take care of that themselves. The amount of plants would be reduced and so O2 would no longer be produced at as great of a rate, a self correcting unstable equilibrium.
Now, if you actually want to talk about the "ethics" of meat eating, why don't you just start with the fundamental question, which is "is your life truly worth more or less?". Is your life actually worth the life of something else, and why?
My bet is that it isn't either, the only way I can think of to explain the system is that no particular organism's life is worth more than anything else's, the ecosystem s just a neutral plain where things can take a turn in any direction. Some long time ago some organism adapted to being able to break down the cell walls of other bacteria while other organisms had more luck feeding off of sun-light and nutrients they made themselves, and there's no right or wrong, that's just how it happened to turn out, just a few mutation happened to allow some organism to feed off of the chemicals that make up other organisms and that's it. From there it's just statistics. Another question is, do we want to change that, can we even change that, and change it into what? It seems humanity is heading towards the point where things like evolution don't really have to effect it.
But, that's just my opinion, a sort of "there is no real answer" approach because it would involve defining the meaning and value of all individual organisms which of course is a purely relativistic problem, it would be like saying "it's 4:00pm in the universe". You can make whatever decision about meat eating you want, when you want, but if humanity as a whole makes the wrong decision, it's not too late for things to take a terrible turn.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=11040788&postcount=245 - read the whole post. But mainly the spoiler.
no. Just no. One of the major issues in this country is water quality because of too many plants.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutrophication
While there is a loss of energy at each trophic level, there's also a concentration. That's why meat is so calorically dense. In fact you have to eat ~10x as much kale or brocolli to get the same number of calories.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/faq/question.aspx?sid=16&qindex=9
This has to be one of the least effective statements ive ever heard. Evolution didn't suddenly stop with us discovering fire, or fossil fuels, or the higgs boson. Evolution is a process. We may have surpassed evolution in terms of speed of change, but we are under its effect now more than ever. Look at the number of lethal untreatable infections we have created. C.diff, mrsa, etc.
Grammar is the difference between knowing your ****, and knowing you're ****.
The population can die off, but the rate that people are born can still increase, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_birth_rate
which will just fuel the consumption of resources.
Plants like algae could contaminate water and possibly roots, but not only do we have filtration systems but a bigger issue is that fertilizer isn't regulated and the run-off used on farms get's into the water
https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/jeq/abstracts/24/3/JEQ0240030420
A greater concentration perhaps, but less available. Carnivorous animals still need to expend a lot of energy trying to catch prey, it would be more efficient for them if like a cow or rabbit they could digest basic plant tissue, at least in areas with higher plant density, either way massive amounts of energy are lost.
Evolution is the statistical process by which genes are passed down with a probability linked to how adapted they are to the environment they are in. If we can over-come the environment and control genes and our bodies, we are not necessarily subject to that statistical phenomena, because our survival is no longer based the mere adaptations of genes, but rather complex technology which we can use to survive otherwise inhospitable environments and survive otherwise incurable diseases. Right now it's still a bit of both, but gradually it's been changing. Would you rather wait a few billion years to be able to survive the vacuum of space? Or would you rather build a metal container that can do it for you?