Where's an Environmentalist when you need one

[Montegriffo]

> What the fuck, man?? You can't feed the lions nothing but wheat grass! This is animal abuse. Lions are carnivores for fuck sake.

>> sounds like an appeal to nature to me. You cannot argue that we ought to feed lions meat just because they evolved that way. Stop being Hitler.

Lol I don’t support lions being held in captivity.

Don't let the strawmen distract you John, you're holding your own here.
Apologies if I've asked you this before, how do you feel about the Muntjak deer issue?
Here in Norfolk and Suffolk, they are becoming a real problem. They were first brought to England in 1958 to stock a few country estates as an ornamental species.
Unfortunately, they have thrived in the wild and are damaging the habitat and out-competing our indigenous deer species.
They do untold damage to young trees by stripping the bark.
Those few animals brought here 70 years ago now amount to an estimated population of 5 million and a study commissioned to look into the problem recommended an immediate cull of one and a half million Muntjak.

As a long time vegetarian, I can find no moral objection to humanely killing and eating
this invasive (and very healthy, organic and tasty) animal.

What say you?

[PartyOf5]

"I am outperforming you", "weaker creatures". The fact that you keep repeating these kinds of statements is very telling.

[heydaralon]

How can I say something found in nature, our nature, is beyond it? Was it not natural that humans got empathy and intelligence? Is it not natural that our intelligence leads to technology, which leads to a lack of need for things like meat to survive, and is it not natural that our empathy leads to ethical discourse?

Do you live in a human civilization with roads, factories, internal combustion engines, and supply chains from farm to table set up? Do you run your A/C? Do you use plastics and styrofoam in anyway? Do you have children? Do you live in a way that is outside of basic survival? If you answered yes to any of those things, then guess what? You are responsible for the mass die off of animals that you bemoan. Animals are killed by hunters and factory farms. They are also killed when we take land and the resources they need to survive and use it to live on, work on, and debate on an internet forum. There is no getting around this. Additionally, if we decide that we won't eat meat or hunt a certain animal, then it will grow in the wild until a plague or another species competes and kills it. There is no getting around this either.

I would take vegans far more seriously if they acknowledged this fact and admitted that they are as much a problem as the omnivore sapiens they rail against. You can't have it both ways. Either you acknowledge that we are apex predators at the top of the food chain who do affect our environment and eat and kill other animals, or you live in such a way that utterly minimizes your impact, effectively lowering yourself to their level on the food chain. Giving up meat is great. Really want to save animals? Live in a tent in the woods without electricity and plumbing, and don't farm in any way shape or form. because that takes natural animal habitat and displaces them. Just pick fruits and mushrooms you find on the ground. Also, don't reproduce, because more children equals more farmland needed and more lost habitat. You are killing animals, but your cognitive gymanistics are blinding you to this fact.

This is simply the futility fallacy combined with the nirvana fallacy.

Veganism does make a positive difference and you making up some pie in the sky ascetic alternative that will never be adopted by reasonable people doesn’t change that fact.

Lol it doesn't. Especially since you are clearly fine with harming animals by using modern tech and living on land previously occupied by them. You are a half assed slacktavist at best. Making "sacrifices" and patting yourself on the back, while still enjoying the system that causes animals to die and not really taking your convoluted beliefs to their logical conclusion. And you are the only person being pie in the sky here. Explain to me in this magical world where we stop eating meat animals will stop competing with us and eachother for limited resources.


I eat meat every day, and to be honest, sometimes I throw out some of it, if I'm full. I can just go to the store and get more meat and I will keep doing that. The way I see it, the meat I'm wasting is your portion. From now on I'm gonna buy a little extra and continue this practice.

[PartyOf5]

Don't let the strawmen distract you John, you're holding your own here.

He's holding his own all right.

[Montegriffo]

Don't let the strawmen distract you John, you're holding your own here.

He's holding his own all right.

Be careful he doesn't slap you in the face with it.

[JohnDonne]

> What the fuck, man?? You can't feed the lions nothing but wheat grass! This is animal abuse. Lions are carnivores for fuck sake.

>> sounds like an appeal to nature to me. You cannot argue that we ought to feed lions meat just because they evolved that way. Stop being Hitler.

Lol I don’t support lions being held in captivity.

Don't let the strawmen distract you John, you're holding your own here.
Apologies if I've asked you this before, how do you feel about the Muntjak deer issue?
Here in Norfolk and Suffolk, they are becoming a real problem. They were first brought to England in 1958 to stock a few country estates as an ornamental species.
Unfortunately, they have thrived in the wild and are damaging the habitat and out-competing our indigenous deer species.
They do untold damage to young trees by stripping the bark.
Those few animals brought here 70 years ago now amount to an estimated population of 5 million and a study commissioned to look into the problem recommended an immediate cull of one and a half million Muntjak.

As a long time vegetarian, I can find no moral objection to humanely killing and eating
this invasive (and very healthy, organic and tasty) animal.

What say you?

Hmm, definitely a gray area, and of course it has nothing to do with the ethics of meat eating in general.

My two cents: Ecosystems don’t have any inherent subjective interests, though sentient animals do. Therefore, from an ethical point of view there needs to be some ethically relevant reason that we should go out of our way to kill these creatures. Are they going to over-eat themselves and other creatures to starvation, creating more suffering for more creatures, including themselves than if they were killed? I’m not saying I would then think it’s cool to kill these animals, but it would be a rationale for population control that would be difficult to argue against.

But I think there’s the assumption that killing deer is the only option for population control, when they might be given vasectomies so that they can continue to mate without creating more deer, which could even more effectively limit their populations. That would be ethically preferable to killing in my opinion.

In the end, I also have trouble with this idea, I don’t think humans are necessarily obligated to meddle with ecological problems, even the ones that “we” created, when it involves violating the lives of sentient creatures. I sometimes think we should stop trying to control ecosystems and instead limit our effects on them as much as practically possible.

[heydaralon]

looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

wild deer vasectomies

This guy is trolling. I took the bait, and you won this one dude. I gotta say, you had me there for a minute.

[JohnDonne]

Do you live in a human civilization with roads, factories, internal combustion engines, and supply chains from farm to table set up? Do you run your A/C? Do you use plastics and styrofoam in anyway? Do you have children? Do you live in a way that is outside of basic survival? If you answered yes to any of those things, then guess what? You are responsible for the mass die off of animals that you bemoan. Animals are killed by hunters and factory farms. They are also killed when we take land and the resources they need to survive and use it to live on, work on, and debate on an internet forum. There is no getting around this. Additionally, if we decide that we won't eat meat or hunt a certain animal, then it will grow in the wild until a plague or another species competes and kills it. There is no getting around this either.

I would take vegans far more seriously if they acknowledged this fact and admitted that they are as much a problem as the omnivore sapiens they rail against. You can't have it both ways. Either you acknowledge that we are apex predators at the top of the food chain who do affect our environment and eat and kill other animals, or you live in such a way that utterly minimizes your impact, effectively lowering yourself to their level on the food chain. Giving up meat is great. Really want to save animals? Live in a tent in the woods without electricity and plumbing, and don't farm in any way shape or form. because that takes natural animal habitat and displaces them. Just pick fruits and mushrooms you find on the ground. Also, don't reproduce, because more children equals more farmland needed and more lost habitat. You are killing animals, but your cognitive gymanistics are blinding you to this fact.

This is simply the futility fallacy combined with the nirvana fallacy.

Veganism does make a positive difference and you making up some pie in the sky ascetic alternative that will never be adopted by reasonable people doesn’t change that fact.

Lol it doesn't. Especially since you are clearly fine with harming animals by using modern tech and living on land previously occupied by them. You are a half assed slacktavist at best. Making "sacrifices" and patting yourself on the back, while still enjoying the system that causes animals to die and not really taking your convoluted beliefs to their logical conclusion. And you are the only person being pie in the sky here. Explain to me in this magical world where we stop eating meat animals will stop competing with us and eachother for limited resources.


I eat meat every day, and to be honest, sometimes I throw out some of it, if I'm full. I can just go to the store and get more meat and I will keep doing that. The way I see it, the meat I'm wasting is your portion. From now on I'm gonna buy a little extra and continue this practice.

Lol Youre doubling down on the appeal to futility fallacy bro. There’s no “logical conclusion” of veganism, it’s simply a practical philosophy that if adopted by everyone would vastly improve the well-being of all sentient life. That’s the whole point, and notice the emphasis on practical. That’s something your little “run around the woods and eat lichen” scenario lacks, probably because you realize it’s a bullshit nirvana fallacy.

[JohnDonne]

"I am outperforming you", "weaker creatures". The fact that you keep repeating these kinds of statements is very telling.

Care to elaborate dawg?

[heydaralon]

This is simply the futility fallacy combined with the nirvana fallacy.

Veganism does make a positive difference and you making up some pie in the sky ascetic alternative that will never be adopted by reasonable people doesn’t change that fact.

Lol it doesn't. Especially since you are clearly fine with harming animals by using modern tech and living on land previously occupied by them. You are a half assed slacktavist at best. Making "sacrifices" and patting yourself on the back, while still enjoying the system that causes animals to die and not really taking your convoluted beliefs to their logical conclusion. And you are the only person being pie in the sky here. Explain to me in this magical world where we stop eating meat animals will stop competing with us and eachother for limited resources.


I eat meat every day, and to be honest, sometimes I throw out some of it, if I'm full. I can just go to the store and get more meat and I will keep doing that. The way I see it, the meat I'm wasting is your portion. From now on I'm gonna buy a little extra and continue this practice.

Lol Youre doubling down on the appeal to futility fallacy bro. There’s no “logical conclusion” of veganism, it’s simply a practical philosophy that if adopted by everyone would vastly improve the well-being of all sentient life. That’s the whole point, and notice the emphasis on practical. That’s something your little “run around the woods and eat lichen” scenario lacks, probably because you realize it’s a bullshit nirvana fallacy.

lol its "practical" to avoid eating meat, which is utterly woven into every human culture, human biology, religion, and human psychology for millions of years, but its impractical to live in a tent in the woods (even though humans lived that way for hundreds of thousands of years. In fact, many humans live like that today). You could easily revert back to an earlier, less resource consuming state, but you choose not to, because its easier to ruin family dinners over crabs and scold people online, while still being part of the problem. If you view humans harming sentient animals as being immoral, then it should follow that you would want to avoid not only eating them, but reducing activities that cause them to die. Since modern civilization undoubtedly does this, why is it too much to ask for you to give up this modern immoral life? You lack convictions sir.