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Comment by JoeAltmaier | Hacker News Reader

...and harvesting those plants kills millions of rodents per section. A plant diet is quite arguably more devastating to animal life than a meat one.

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> A plant diet is quite arguably more devastating to animal life than a meat one.

No, a person could not credibly make that argument. Don't forget that the meat-providing animals have to eat plant material.

So you have the same problems of the vegan diet, plus the inefficiency of the plant-to-meat conversion, plus killing of the meat animals.

or you still have the exact same singular problem:

You kill things in order to survive.

Full stop.

Meat eaters, vegans, pescatarians, vegetarians, whatever - they all survive by killing other living things and consuming them.

I was wondering the opinion of someone who was making good passionate arguments against the consumption of meat on the basis that it is immoral to kill and eat living things.

I guess wondering how that user feels about this philosophical quandary is downvote worthy though

The definition of veganism is, a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.

It's not about pursuing some ideal in which no one gets hurt. It's also ludicrous to argue that "killing" plants is in any way comparable to killing actual animals. Check out this site, it very accurately and in a straightforward manner discredits all of the arguments you've made against veganism in this thread so far - http://adaptt.org/veganism.html#

I'm responding directly to an argument based on it being morally wrong to kill living things, specifically to kill some living things but not others (cows but not golden retrievers).

I am not making arguments against veganism, i am asking a philosophical question in response to a moral position. Please understand i am not attacking you or your lifestyle

My argument was, again, how do you use a moral justification of 'killing things is wrong' to change from one lifestyle of killing things, to another lifestyle of killing different things?

Why is cow vs golden retriever so important, but golden retriever vs potato completely laughable? You are still ending life to nourish your body no matter what. Both a cow and a potato cause and have external costs as well (i would say methane from cows is less or equally concerning as pesticides)

> Why is cow vs golden retriever so important, but golden retriever vs potato completely laughable? You are still ending life to nourish your body no matter what.

This is what Jainists believe and they actually avoid root vegetables for this reason. I'd like to see you make the same argument for fruit, for example. Do you think "killing" a fruit is the same as killing a cow? Do you really think a fruit's life is "ended" when I bite into it? If so, you're just appealing to ridicule and I'm not sure this conversation is worth having.

> i would say methane from cows is less or equally concerning as pesticides

The methane emitted from cattle farming is literally one of the largest contributors to climate change. To say it's less concerning than the use of pesticides shows a deep ignorance of the contradicting evidence, or confusion.

But there used to be millions of buffalo roaming the American Midwest. They produced methane too. So this isn't some new issue, right?

>I'd like to see you make the same argument for fruit, for example.

Why is cow vs golden retriever so important, but golden retriever vs apple completely laughable? You are still ending life to nourish your body no matter what.

Oh and i doubt you will have that opinion if bees are eradicated worldwide due to pesticides and we all die off

A cow grazing a pasture is not killing the mice in that pasture. Its true that winter fodder (hay) requires cutting the field (three times over the summer). But that isn't the same as plowing, planting, cultivating and for some crops, digging to harvest. So grass-fed beef is absolutely several orders of magnitude less devastating to animal life. One cow is killed to feed several people. Instead of millions of rodents killed to provide potatoes.

Beef cows need very much more food than pasture grazing.

Not around here. In Iowa, they're grass fed for most of their lives.

The worldwide premeditated killings of 60 billion land animals in slaughterhouses and 90 billion marine animals in the waterways are diametrically opposed to the accidental tractor-killings in a field. Slaughterhouses intentionally kill animals for meat, dairy and egg-eaters. How many farmers do you know intentionally crushing gophers, mice and snakes with their John Deeres?

Every single mouse, snake and gopher in the field is killed by plowing, spraying, cultivating and harvesting. By the millions per section. The ground under the shade of a field of corn is essentially sterile. Enough denial; its absolutely disastrous to animal life to farm vegetables and grains.

Okay, but it's even more disastrous to animal life to farm animals. Over 150 billion animals are bred and killed on purpose. A billion is a thousand times more than a million, by the way. Using the argument that some animals are inadvertently killed as a byproduct of crop production, especially when the overwhelming majority of those crops are grown for livestock, is just logically fallacious and dishonest.

Hey a section is one square mile. So Iowa has over 50,000 sections. 90% under cultivation. Most for grain, not for animals. So in Iowa alone, we've about met that number. Add in California, Illinois, Nebraska and so on and we zoom past that number.

Of course we do. There are thousands of rodents for every cow. This is a silly discussion. Its a pity it makes Vegans seem responsible for billions of deaths, but there it is.

And I seriously doubt that 15 farm animals are killed for every man, woman and child on the planet. That's gotta be fiction.

Both everything I and you have said can easily be verified with simple Google searches. You are being dishonest if you think more animals are killed by vegans than meat, dairy and egg eaters, or just trying to start a flame war. Either way, I think you've learned some interesting things through our discussion and I hope you'll consider it with less personal bias in the future.

I hope you've learned something too. That nothing comes free; that just because you don't see the killing doesn't mean you're innocent. That the entire subject has no easy answers.

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