Obviously this question is only for people who eat beef regularly.
But I just was wondering, what IQ/ability would make you swear off beef? If they could speak like an 8 y.o, would that be enough to cut off beef? If they got an IQ of 80, would that do it?
I think your should stop eating any meat the moment you don’t feel like you have what it takes to look at the animal in the eye while you kill it for consumption.
If you think you can’t do that, then you should reconsider your meat consumption.
I’m approaching this point in my life and reducing consumption accordingly.
Cows can be moderately smart when raised as such. It’s humans who selected the specific traits we considered more convenient for our needs, and breed them like that.
Would that philosophy extend to other parts of life? I feel like at the surface this sounds great, but when thinking why this sounds great i cant help but wonder if its even possible to look at choices with these kind of angles.
It’s a good question. I don’t know. There are many reasons why I like meat. And there are many reasons why it’s problematic.
I think this is a potentially applicable philosophy. It won’t solve the “problems” but at least will make it a more consistent experience for everyone involved (except the animal perhaps)
But I just was wondering, what IQ/ability would make you swear off beef?
10% of the current IQ would probably be high enough.
I guess my cutoff would be actual conversation. Unless they specifically ask to be eaten, ala the bit from Hitchiker’s Guide, in which case I guess the sky is the limit.
They’d have to be on one level with pigs, basically.
They would have to be able to hold a conversation. Octopi are much, much smarter than cows, I will still happily eat them… though I feel a little guilty about that. Cows, though? No guilt.
That said, there is much tastier red meat to be had, if only we diversified our livestock. Kangaroo and Ostrich, in particular. And both of those animals are cold-blooded killers who deserve to be eaten.
I think it should be mandatory for everyone to spend at least one day of their young adult life hunting, killing, dressing, and cooking. The experience will likely alter the person’s entire outlook on life and meat in general.
I never forget that meat was a life that mattered; with a personality; good and bad days; life; experience; struggle it lost to me. It doesn’t stop me from eating meat. I wish I had the ability to hunt for what I need. I know my own ethics, like when to take a clean shot, and only taking what I need. Animals in industrial livestock facilities are mostly managed by unethical criminals. None of us asked to be born in such an overpopulated world. Unfortunately, this is the impossible problem. If you are smart enough to see the issue of overpopulation, that is great, but even if you avoid having children, those that are not so bright will always enumerate.
That’s the paradox though isn’t it?
If smart people were “too smart to reproduce” then we have a whole generation being raised by people who weren’t
I once stayed off red meat for 1 year and my health improved tremendously, and then returned to it and my health deteriorated in record time. I’m now back off red meat and feeling better than ever. Maybe at one time red meat was good for you, but the way they raise cattle for profits it would not surprise me they are butchering sick animals as well.
I’ve been off red meat this year; no noticeable changes to health. I’ve gained a few pounds, but there might be confounding.
Red meat, and processed meat, and processed red meat, etc. certainly aren’t great for you - cancer risk and such. Limiting their consumption makes sense for (long-term) medical reasons, often for economical, ethical and environmental reasons as well. In terms of acute food safety, most “developed” countries will do a good enough job to make sure you don’t catch a pathogen from it. Can’t assume everyone plays fair, but you also can’t really assume they don’t.
If you feel ill or have measurable changes to your health just from eating red meat, though… you might want to see a doctor.
I wouldn’t eat a dog, a monkey, an octopus, a dolphin, a whale, a cat, a parrot, a crow, or a donkey. Pretty much everything else is on the table unless I’m missing something.
I don’t think it’s entirely to do with intelligence. Pigs for example are apparently of similar intelligence to dogs, but I love eating pork. Obviously the dog has the advantage of a unique domestication where they can read and react to our emotions better than virtually all other animals.
So it’s an interesting question you ask. Because while intelligence isn’t the primary reason it has to certainly be a motivator because all of those I listed are intelligent animals.
To actually answer your question, they would have to be pretty damn smart for me to stop eating them because they are delicious.
Out of curiosity, are they delicious or are their rubs/seasonings/spices/sauces delicious?
A vegan friend of mine once asked me this question and while I can honestly reply that I can find them tasty with just the fat needed to cook it, plenty of people I know require at least a little (but sometimes copious amounts of) plant-based modification.
On the flip side, I only enjoy coffee with lots of cream and sugar. If I didn’t need the caffeine I might give it up completely.
Out of curiosity, are they delicious or are their rubs/seasonings/spices/sauces delicious?
Usually I eat my meat with only salt. Anything else distracts from the taste of the meat.
On the flip side, I only enjoy coffee with lots of cream and sugar
I drink black coffee. I used to drink it with milk and sugar when I was younger. When I was 17 I lived with my uncle for a few months and the guy was a coffee addict. He would drink like 3 or 4 full pots of coffee a day. Naturally, he would offer me coffee a lot and I started drinking a lot of coffee as well. Everytime I would put sugar/milk in my coffee he would call me a pussy. Say I’m being effeminate, couldn’t handle coffee, etc. So I started drinking it black lol.
Once you get used to it though, it’s better in my opinion. Coffee with sugar tastes gross to me. You can really taste the coffee when it’s black. I say try it out sometime. Maybe you’ll end up a convert too. Although I don’t think anybody is a pussy for not drinking coffee black. My uncle is a bit close minded / old school immigrant.
My dad ate a dog, and he says it’s pretty good.
The unique problems for me with dogs is not just that they’re evolved to interact better with us, it’s that in many places where they eat them it’s believed that it tastes better if it was terrified and in pain when killed. So you can imagine how they’re treated when getting prepared to slaughter. No easy life or death for food dogs.
Then there’s several places in Peru where it’s believed cats taste better if drowned.
Not that we treat our livestock great in the west but some cultures take it to a horrifying level due to tradition.
My personal limit is recreation, or having fun. So no cows, or pigs, horses or dogs or cats, mostly no mammals really. But also i wouldnt eat like a crow, or octopus.
No smarter than they are now.
Do you eat beef regularly? If so, then you would stop, and if you’ve already stopped you were precluded from this question so really shouldn’t have answered.
I do currently, but I was vegetarian for over a decade and vegan for part of that. I never buy beef and only eat it because I work in a restaurant and eat for free.
But the intelligence isn’t really at issue, the ecological impact is why I don’t buy beef. That and the taste: it’s a C-grade meat at best, way below pork and most poultry, especially given the higher price point.
What I eat is already dead. I’ve never decided to eat something in such a way that it contributed to the harm of any lifeform. So it’s not a matter of intelligence, but if it was, it could be as intelligent as a snail and I still wouldn’t eat it.
Sorry to inform you, but plants are lifeforms.
What’s a plant going to object to if it’s eaten? I doubt there are any as intelligent as a snail.
To be fair, cows don’t object to it either.
So should I not eat plants either? What should I live off of, Lemmy crowd? Photosynthesis? Gravitosynthesis?
You can eat whatever you want.
I eat meat, but this is a dumb fucking take. The meat industry exists because we eat meat. If people didn’t eat meat, then cows wouldn’t be slaughtered. Therefore, if we all didn’t eat meat, that cow that you ate wouldn’t be dead.
The meat industry exists because we eat meat.
But not all meat-eating leads to the perpetuation of the meat industry. Not all exchanges involving meat are fuel for said industry.
The goal of pro-animal ethics is “do no harm”, not “do not eat them”. There are several workarounds to the former. I’m not pulling these out of my ass, there are century-old industries around these too.
Us deciding to eat meat contributes directly to the harm of cows
Is “directly” the new “literally”? Because it literally contributes indirectly.
Unless it’s already dead, at which point there is nothing to harm. Vegetarianism is a spectrum.
Have you ever heard of demand and supply? You are being willfully ignorant or playing dumb
It’s not demand and supply if you don’t “demand” the supply of anything. Sure, I buy meat, but it’s not something I look forward to the existence of.
If someone strikes an animal while driving, or a natural disaster takes its life, and someone decides it might as well be eaten, is that supply and demand? If I stop over at someone’s house, and they have hunted an animal they’re about to eat, but I neither hunted the animal nor knew they would eat the animal for dinner that night as I visited, is that supply and demand, or did I just happen to be somewhere where someone else’s guilt of having killed an animal is in my favor?
It’s a spectrum, hence the link.
That’s a no on your link dawg. I like the magical land you live in tho, where meat just appears for you to consume
Meat doesn’t magically appear. It comes from animals who have just died. But the deaths do not necessarily come via a single means, nor does the consumer necessarily have any bearing on the suffering of the animal or future animals.
I am surprised that anyone would mention “supply and demand” at all given Lemmy has a largely (including myself, just not from a Marxist viewpoint) anti-capitalist demographic, which would mean supply and demand shouldn’t be seen as a necessary factor.
nor does the consumer necessarily have any bearing on the suffering of the animal or future animals.
That’s absurd. So if I hire an assassin to kill you, I have absolutely no responsibility if you’re killed by an assassin?
Companies won’t kill animals to produce meat unless there’s demand. If you buy meat, you’re creating demand. There is a causal link between your consumption and what happens to the animals. Therefore, you have at least a share of the responsibility.
I am surprised that anyone would mention “supply and demand” at all given Lemmy has a largely (including myself, just not from a Marxist viewpoint) anti-capitalist demographic
Being anti-capitalist doesn’t mean one is incapable of understanding how capitalism works. There are rules that govern it, and those exist whether you’re in favor of it as a system or not.
The purchase of an item is treated as the demand of an item. This is how an economy works. They don’t mean that you’re barging into places yelling about how you want meat. Your money flowing to them is enough to justify further slaughter to provide more meat.
Sometimes the supply exceeds the demand though. Suppose there are a thousand pieces of meat in a store. Only eight hundred are bought. The other two hundred isn’t bought and spoils, yet with no bearing on the market. So then imagine someone standing in the store mulling this over, “I could buy the meat, as long as it’s there, or I could refuse it, and it has died in vain, but also if I buy it, who is to say I have a bearing on its death or if the money goes to the industry, when the store already paid for it and might have backup uses for it?”
I don’t think in black and white.
They always prepare more than the allotted amount based on demand to meet unanticipated fluctuations. Your spent dollars on meat per month are calculated into their spreadsheets. No amount of pretend justification liberates you from the consequences of your actions. If you did not buy meat, there would be (your consumption*1.25) less meat in the store on average. You are not buying overflow meat. They are producing your meat plus overflow.
Just for you.
you’re contributing to demand if you buy meat
It depends on the circumstances of its origins, as I explained below.
“what if”
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Us deciding to heat meat contributes directly to the ham of pigs
If all of those typos were a joke, I salite you
They’ll basically need to become smart enough to sue for their right not to be eaten and win before I stop eating them.
I’ve seen some cows that I feel are smarter than some humans I’ve met.
The point at which it could collaborate with others and fight back.
Until then, it looks like meat is back on the menu, Boys!
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Basically, I wouldn’t be able to eat anything that speaks (I haven’t and don’t intend to, but that’s not what would prevent me from eating a “talking” parrot, for instance)
