Vegetarianism

[neverthesame]

"Dumb" as they are, many mammals have the capacity for rudimentary reasoning, like, for instances, scientists say pigs are more intelligent than dogs and are able to make simple arithmetic calculations. Dolphins have syntax. All mammals and even some birds love to play, that's a sign of intelligence as well. And animals do have emotions and feel pain, just like we do. I respect life and I choose to protect it. Life is an amazing phenomenon! It might be even extremely rare in the universe. Unfortunately, there's not enough empathy in the world. There's so much greed, selfishness and abuse. We (humans) just don't know when to stop.

I'll stop here, before I embarrass myself too much. I'm just an old, sentimental fool...

[Beautiful sky]

Maritsa: "Most animals are fairly dumb; as in, they are instinctual: eat, have sex, sleep, wake up find food and repeat the process."

LOL. And so are most humans! You made such a simplistic and close-minded statement I wouldn't have expected from an INFj...

There's nothing closed minded about that statement; it's nature. Boiling things down to the simple things that are the bottom line is my forte.

Because we're such advanced and emotionally distinct creatures, we also make the HUGE mistake of anthropomorphizing everything else around us; we like to assign human or what we know of as human qualities to other animals; we're not sure what goes on with them let alone knowing really what goes on in our own minds.

[Creepy-pokeball]

I kind of wonder what children taste like now. Thank you all for bringing this new food source to the attention of 16t.

[Aquagraph]

These things aren't mutually exclusive you know. I can be a vegetarian without thinkin everyone else should be too. Making a personal life-change doesn't mean one loses the ability to focus on the bigger picture or promote changes on a global level.

I also find it funny that you, a meat-eater, seem to show much more interest in labeling than me or Aqua who both have heavily reduced our meat consumptions. Yet you are the one who complains about it hindering the solvement of the sustainability problem.

Most animals are fairly dumb; as in, they are instinctual: eat, have sex, sleep, wake up find food and repeat the process.

I did all those things today and everything else I did were on the upper floors of Maslow's hierarchy of need.

I'd also never expect it from somebody not to eat meat - animals eat each other as vvell. But I just feel the mass production of meat is soooo vvrong...But lack the knovvledge and I don't have enough insight to give solutions.
[...]
My bf keeps saying that I should meat because if the lion met me, he vvould eat me vvith no regrets.

There's nothing I'm going to say against what you said but I'd like to point out two things:
We get the opportunity to choose our diet. Lions don't.
Human is the only animal that imprisons animals for something that is basically luxury.

[neverthesame]

OK, Maritsa, I get it. You're just dumb. And unfortunately, you're representative for a large part of the human population. It's an already known and scientifically researched fact that dogs have the intelligence of a 2 years old human child. Pigs have the intelligence of a 3 years old child and they also have 94% DNA that's similar to our human DNA. Even the DNA of plants is similar to human DNA.

You can eat whatever you want, but making such idiotic statements like you do it's something I can not overlook.

[Beautiful sky]

OK, Maritsa, I get it. You're just dumb. And unfortunately, you're representative for a large part of the human population. It's an already known and scientifically researched fact that dogs have the intelligence of a 2 years old human child. Pigs have the intelligence of a 3 years old child and they also have 94% DNA that's similar to our human DNA. Even the DNA of plants is similar to human DNA.

You can eat whatever you want, but making such idiotic statements like you do it's something I can not overlook.

I don't think you realize that I'm not saying "it's wrong to be a vegetarian" I already said that I think it's honorable. But, we are predators and in the cycle of nature, we did and do eat other creatures and had a diet far greater than the one we've limited ourselves to due to agriculture; I'm saying it's about striking a balance.

[Atlast]

OK, Maritsa, I get it. You're just dumb. And unfortunately, you're representative for a large part of the human population. It's an already known and scientifically researched fact that dogs have the intelligence of a 2 years old human child. Pigs have the intelligence of a 3 years old child and they also have 94% DNA that's similar to our human DNA. Even the DNA of plants is similar to human DNA.

You can eat whatever you want, but making such idiotic statements like you do it's something I can not overlook.

I'm curious what criteria they used to measure this and how they did it. names?

[neverthesame]

I'm curious what criteria they used to measure this and how they did it. names?

You want me to call you names?

[mu4]

There's nothing I'm going to say against what you said but I'd like to point out two things:
We get the opportunity to choose our diet. Lions don't.
Human is the only animal that imprisons animals for something that is basically luxury.

Domestic animals only exist to be eaten, we breed them for that, we breed them stupider, dumber and more docile so we can farm them better. If the mechanism existed to breed them to the point where they are little more the meat popsicles, many probably wouldn't mind.

Meat isn't always a luxury as it has nutritional and health benefits and there are regions of the world where meat farming is more efficient then plant food farming. The luxury of choice is something humans get, humans have chosen to extend this luxury to other humans(sometimes), but it's not a luxury that many humans have chosen to extend to our domestic animals.

Killing or the farming of an animal will never be the same to me as the imprisonment and killing of a human. Are you trying to say "meat is murder", or that "farming is imprisonment", because you're starting to sound like what I was talking about.

I'm all for meat popsicles, then domestic animals can largely go extinct and be a true delicacy.

[Aquagraph]

Killing or the farming of an animal will never be the same to me as the imprisonment and killing of a human. Are you trying to say "meat is murder", or that "farming is imprisonment", because you're starting to sound like what I was talking about.

Sure. Okay.

[neverthesame]

In Papua New Guinea, inhabitants still eat, unofficially, human mean. Probably much less than they used too, until decades ago. Maybe that's not too bad for population control purposes.

[HandiAce]

Relating back to the OP a little bit. My main motivation for going vegetarian is for economic reasons. I guess my own nature is extremely frugal. As of right now I still eat meat, but only in the evening. The rest of what I eat is vegetarian and it seems to be working out pretty well. I figure any dietary changes should be done deliberately so I don't screw up and compromise my own health too much.

[Atlast]

A complete rejection of any and all suffering of animals founded upon ethical concerns is a projection of a human cultural code of ethics into the animal kingdom. This comparison is incompatible; our cultural system of ethics is valid only within the bounds of the human race, as most mammals do not have the ability to cognitively generate anything close. They abide by a completely different code and culture. The closest thing we have to empirically describing this is explained in the theory of evolution. Thus, their code encourages us to dominate them; we are fulfilling their purpose.

Pat yourselves on the back, meat eaters; we are the true heroes of the animal kingdom!

You want me to call you names?

No lol, I just wanted a lead into where I could find some info on those studies . More specifically, I am curious how they defined intelligence and sought to measure it, not just in humans, not just in animals, but in a comparison of human to animal! Especially since the study of 'intelligence' isn't empirical and the nature of those statistical claims would imply that it is.

[Crispy]

Fuck Animals!

and then eat them

[Moou]

I'm a vegetarian! (lacto-vegetarian)

Ask me questions

[huiheiwufhawriuhg]

I'm a vegetarian too, I don't know many vegetarians but those that I know seemed to be NFs