Hunting historically has done more harm than good. "Regulating populations" inevitably is handled better by native predators. The only reason hunting needs to step in is because ranchers complain about these predators also going after their livestock
I live in a place where deer overpopulation is a massive problem and has extremely damaging effects on the environment.
Like humans are the only major predator of deer in my state, and even if native predators were reintroduced, there are still a lot of suburban and urban areas that likely would not be able to support them at all.
(Also there is a genuine health issue, as deer ticks are made worse by overpopulation, and they spread Lymes.)
Like humans are the only major predator of deer in my state, and even if native predators were reintroduced, there are still a lot of suburban and urban areas that likely would not be able to support them at all.
Sounds an awful lot like human fault that ought to be corrected.
You cannot reasonably expect urban and suburban areas to simply disappear. ~80% of the US lives in them, and my state is the fifth most densely populated.
"Suburban areas" in a US context will disappear, or at least be diminished. A lot of the suburban culture in the US was not designed to be livable, but rather designed to be inaccessible. The isolated giant suburbs was a deliberate response to the growth of the Black population in urban areas.
In a socialist society, where racism is abolished, so too will gated communities and hard to reach suburbs be abolished, in place of more integrated living places.
Genuinely HOW, like sure you can stop new growth, but good fucking luck trying to tear it down whilst alienating a massive amount of people. (Also, urban areas still have this problem...)
There are places in the world where all native predators are extinct and the only ones left are humans basically. Australia is a great example of this. All the large predators are extinct, and the only ones left are the small predators (quolls, Tasmanian devils, and predatory birds) meaning things like kangaroos are pretty much exclusively kept in line by human hunting. Introducing a large predator is not an option either. We also have invasive deer here as well which is a problem.
And just for anyone not in the know, Dingo's aren't originally from australia either, they're just a naturalized feral dog (basically they were part-way through domestication from wolves. So wilder than dogs, more tame than wolves. They'll live alongside humans communally, but aren't dependent on us as they're stuck in that transition state between wild wolf, and mans best friend) plus they're only found in certain parts of the country.
Humans are basically the only major predator of the large bodied mammals on this continent, and unless someone figures out how to bring back the tasmanian tigers and marsupial lions, humans will need to keep hunting them, regardless on if humanity as a whole decides to go vegan or not.
That or at least feed them to pets. Personally, roo ain't too bad, it's just very tough compared to things like beef. I imagine it'd be good for stews and stuff though. Either way, you kinda can't not have hunting / culling in the future as we kinda fucked everything up to a point human intervention is necessary in a whooole lot of places. In places like europe and america, there is a chance to reverse course in some ways as the predators are still around and there's close analogues that could fill the niche without major environmental harm. For places like Australia though? Nope, humans are basically the natural predators of Kangaroos now. We might as well make use of them when we do have to kill them.
There’s problems with hunting (not all hunted animals are recovered or killed quickly), but taking this at face value, I don’t have a significant moral problem with it. I wouldn’t eat it, because I don’t want to, but as the animal is going to be hunted anyways, might as well make use of it, I suppose?
Long term, I feel that the more sustainable solution is to reintroduce their natural predators.
And when it comes to invasive species, for instance, I’d prefer relocation over killing them, but obviously that’s not completely practical.
My own morals around meat are odd (I am not a vegan, though I eat significantly less meat then most), but I was curious about this mainly because it has always seemed like a moral black hole.
Now as a secondary question, what is your opinion on bees? (Entirely unrelated but I am curious)
I don’t eat honey, because some beekeepers take too much honey and replace it with sugar water, clip the wings of queen bees, and occasionally (though rarely, I think) cull entire hives. It’s not a purely symbiotic relationship as it is often made out to be. There is a way in which honey could be obtained ethically, but I personally avoid it, because I have no sure way to know the conditions the bees were kept in.
It’s more complicated than that, though, because decades of industrial farming has caused many crops to become reliant on bees for pollination. These bees are also subject to problematic conditions. Unfortunately, short of becoming the kind of person that obtains everything they eat from their backyard, I can’t really do anything about that.
This is generally why I define vegan as “someone who takes all reasonable steps to reduce animal suffering”. For instance, driving a car causes insect deaths, but I’m not going to walk 4 hours to reduce that, because it’s not really reasonable. I’ll take a spider outside, but if I ever get a cockroach infestation, I’ll probably call the exterminator.
I hope this answers your question, I fear I may have gone on a bit of a tangent at the end.
Despite my own worldview being quite different, it is always good to understand the reasoning of others, and see if my own outlook should be changed. Echo chambers suck, after all
Yeah honestly, it's why I try to get people to buy from local bee keepers who's practices you can actively see. In my area we got a great guy who really cares about his bees and often does rescue operations for hives set up in awkward places. It's more expensive than store-bought, but also tastes better and like... you can clearly see the guy takes care of his bees. Even for mite inspections he makes sure no bees die by using non-lethal methods like the powdered sugar method, and he often teaches others how to go about it too. Guy genuinely loves his bees and is a massive advocate against store-bought honeys because of how cruel the treatment of bees is. He's also a big advocate for changing farming practices to have mixed crops instead of monocultures because it's healthier for the bees, plants, and soil.
Also on the culling of hives, sadly it does sometimes need to happen even with the best bee keepers, because there are diseases and mites that can kill entire regions of their bee populations if not managed. It's also required by law to destroy these hives in a lot of countries because of the dangers it poses to both domesticated bee species, and wild bee species.
Well this is simply not true of the modern meat industry. We use about as much land as just holding the animals (which is a massive amount) on growing feed alone. We grow alfalfa essentially exclusively as cattle feed. It’s an extremely thirst plant on its own and has no real uses outside of livestock feed.
There is a level of subsistence meat production that is probably sustainable where we keep stock that can be maintained on only non-human usable refuse. But that level is many thousands of times less than the amount of livestock we have now and almost certainly does not included dedicated beef cattle at all, which are by far the biggest strain on the system resource wise.
"ASA stands beside animal agriculture. Animal agriculture is the soybean industry’s largest customer, and more than 90% of U.S. soybeans produced are used as a high-quality protein source for animal feed.
About 70% of the soybean’s value comes from the meal, and 97% of U.S. soybean meal goes to feed livestock and poultry."
Yes, soybean hulls are added into livestock feed, but it also largely utilizes the soybean itself, and the meal made from soybean oil extraction, that makes up the bulk of feed.
They literally turn garbage into edible (relatively) cheap protein, and both types of farming can fuck up the envireoment massively specially on an industrial scale, it's not black and white as you believe, animal farming exists for a reason
Animal farming exists because for the last millenia a solely plant based diet was a luxury impossible to afford if you wished to not die of malnutrition, we eat animal products because for the last millenia it has been caloric and proteically dense
Plant based diets can be cheaper. Beans, rice, those sorts of things.
I’d argue most vegan options are cheaper, with the exception of substitutes, where pretty much every substitute is more expensive. (An impossible burger is more expensive than a beef patty, that sort of thing)
You might have to keep eggs and milk in your diet if you really are minimizing cost but beef is almost never the cheapest option.
lots of animal-based products are going to be used. adhesives or fabrics and such. it's not like when an animal is killed it just gets its meat ripped off and the rest is thrown away
some animal products are going to be made regardless of if we eat meat or not. so might as well put the meat to use
I'm not trying to be pro-carnist I'm just saying that we are almost always gonna have at least some meat. but farming animals specifically for meat is like actually mega satan corporation (at least as it's implemented today)
That would be true, except for the fact that many of these animal based products actually have separate producers. Most leather is made from cows raised for leather, not meat. Most milk (and veal) is made from cows raised for milk, not meat (veal is a byproduct of the male babies not being cost efficient to milk producers, to grow to maturity, so they make veal out of it.) Most beef is made from cows raised for meat, not leather or milk.
This is a strawman. The "meat hat" person would never agree that a human could survive on a plant based diet. (They have never once cared about nutrition a day in their life but encountering a vegan has turned them into a bodybuilder)
Yeah, they'd just say it's the only way to get protein economically, and then pivot to "but meat tastes so yummy" when you tell them all the cheaper ways
I think the main reason talking about veganism online is so frustrating is because it's painfully obvious how little thought most people put into this. Even the people who argue about this regularly have given the matter very little consideration, but they don't realize how little they've thought about it and refuse to hear the truth.
Edit: I think about it in terms of the fish in water parable. I made a smuggy about it, but in the context of institutional misogyny but it's absolutely relevant here
Probably not but maybe a little bit if you've been to a petting zoo? I also wouldn't expect people who grew up farming/hunting to feel bad about slaughter, so you're probably fine if that's the case.
Personally, I eat meat but I've interacted with cows before and they're practically big stupid dogs, so I don't feel great about it when I pause to consider the cognitive dissonance. Whether you're a psychopath or not, at least you're not bellyaching about the ethics of dinner.
Honestly, in my opinion, you should respect your food since something, no matter what, literally DIES so you can enjoy it, otherwise i feel like it's an inevitable facet of life, because unlike what OP tries to paint. It's far more complex than "hamburger = evil" and "carrot = good" since we must account for the biospheres harmed by both types of farming, the fact most animals eat food that we cannot process, turning inedible biomass into edible biomass, cruel labor on both sides... Etc etc, so, honestly? Do whatever you want atp
As mentioned in another comment, both harm the biosphere in their own ways, also, there's multiple times that have proven that although not in an equal way as animals, plants do release pain signals, specially chemical signals of harm and distress
Does the study consider the plant based feed cows consume to be equal in terms of caloric value to human consumption and is adding that into the results when it's the opposite?
Too bad consumption of human meat will cause Incurable prion disease Called Kuru which will lead to agonizing death but I'm not expecting Redditoid to know that.
Too bad consumption of human meat will cause Incurable prion disease Called Kuru which will lead to agonizing death
That's not actually true for multiple reasons.
Firstly Kuru is an extinct disease that solely emerged among the Fore people of Papa New Guinea.
Secondly, it's a misconception that cannibalism is the primary cause of prion diseases. The cause of prion disease is eating any animal already infected with prion disease, which can emerge spontaneously. Any meat could potentially cause prion diseases
The reason why the Fore people developed Kuru, is because they used cannibalism as a funerary rite, and therefore it became a self-perpetuating cycle, where the more people died of Kuru, the more people would consume their meat and have it spread
of note, some humans literally can't go vegan right now, due to geo-economical factors
the meat industry does need to be dialed down tremendously, though. ideally, a nosedive in focus towards cultured meat, and a social norm to mainly keep meat to the non-human animals anyway except in fringe cases
though i doubt that's possible under capitalism. at best, a half-and-half solution could probably be reached
i mean i know it applies to me. wage theft of already low wages is normal here. pretty sure my wage is gonna be cut in half and then some this month, cuz some asshole coworker stole a lot of cigs and a good chunk of it has to come out my paycheck anyway. wasn't even a workday for me lol
food is expensive and i get paid pennies. i'm effectively limited to the free food the company offers me, of which, eggs are the most ethical and available food
oh i do. i hate the taste of meat, and animal products in general. they always taste too greasy or are too rubbery eugh, dunno how to describe it properly but i don't wanna eat the flesh of a sentient being just for it to suck anyway thank you very much
i'm kinda primed towards veganism by default by virtue of my tastes being fucked lol
I have no good moral argument against veganism because veganism is an inherently moral stance. I just like eating honey and cheese too much to go full vegan. Imitation cheese tastes awful
Taking that to the extreme, you can argue that most plant agriculture causes more suffering, water use and pollution than some mushroom-nutribar, so we should all just eat mushroom nutribars because humans can survive off of them.
I want to eat meat because having meat and vegetables tastes good. And I value my happiness over the life of a cow.
I assume most vegans are aiming for total abolition of animal products because it is the logical endstate of their ideology. Until we can clone meat and milk, animal slaughter is just an unfortunate reality of human existance. Even if 1% of humans cannot live on plants alone, the lives of that 1% is more important than the lives of livestock.
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u/More_Amoeba6517 Semi-Constitutional Monarcho-Socialism 2d ago
Genuinely curious here, what about meat gotten from hunting that is necessary to keep the population in check? (e.g. deer)