Zuckerberg Only Eating Animals He Personally Kills 544
theodp writes "Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has begun personally slaying animals for food, part of a resolution to fully appreciate the meat he eats by limiting it to that which he personally kills. Zuckerberg has mostly been vegetarian since making the vow, but his hands-on kills thus far include a goat, pig, chicken and a lobster. 'He cut the throat of the goat with a knife,' Zuckerberg pal Jesse Cool told FORTUNE, 'which is the most kind way to do it.'"
To this, I say, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Going" sounds superfluous given who we are talking about.
Re:To this, I say, so what? (Score:5, Funny)
People of Palo Alto, HIDE YOUR HUMAN INFANTS!
Is he eating the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution?
Re:To this, I say, so what? (Score:4, Funny)
Warn your Gummi Bears not to wander the streets without an adult being present!
Re:To this, I say, so what? (Score:5, Funny)
He's not gone off the deep end yet. We reserve that judgement til he takes a dozen tech journalists to a remote island and declares "The hunt ...is on".
I give it a week.
Re:To this, I say, so what? (Score:5, Funny)
ATTENTION CmdrTaco-
Do not accept any invites from Mark Zuckerberg to visit his outfit in exchange for T-Shirts.
I repeat- Do not accept any invites from Mark Zuckerberg to visit his outfit in exchange for T-Shirts.
Re:To this, I say, so what? (Score:5, Informative)
NO Cmdr Taco accept his invites to visit his outfit and send kdawson in your place.
Re:To this, I say, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, killing animals for food is 'going off the deep end'? I lived on a farm from ages 5-11. We slaughtered several of our animals for food. That's where the meat comes from after all, or weren't you aware?
Maybe you lived in a city your whole life and got it nicely packaged for you in a supermarket or pre-cooked and now you want to consider people who actually kill the animals as somehow beneath you, or having 'gone off the deep end'? Maybe you should reconsider your food choices if you want to avoid looking like either a blatant classist or a hypocrite.
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So, killing animals for food is 'going off the deep end'? I lived on a farm from ages 5-11. We slaughtered several of our animals for food. That's where the meat comes from after all, or weren't you aware?
Maybe you lived in a city your whole life and got it nicely packaged for you in a supermarket or pre-cooked and now you want to consider people who actually kill the animals as somehow beneath you, or having 'gone off the deep end'? Maybe you should reconsider your food choices if you want to avoid looking like either a blatant classist or a hypocrite.
Pft every true geek knows that meat comes from a replicator which once the food as appeared displays a message "no was harmed in the replicating of this meat".
Meh, who really cares. Good on him I say.
Re:To this, I say, so what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seeking to re-evaluate the fundamental aspects of life isn't "going off the deep end". It's just a sign of someone who thinks about things, and goes through something called "personal development" that is actually a sane and normal and healthy process that some intelligent adults go through. But go ahead with the irrational ad hominems if it makes you feel better. I'm not a fan of Zuckerberg, but this is not worthy of criticism.
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Now, /not/ killing the animals and still eating them, at least partly... That would hit the mark for going off the deep end for me...
For me, killing animals for fun rather than to eat them would be going off the deep end.
And as it happens that is a disturbingly popular pastime in some countries and areas.
Re:To this, I say, so what? (Score:4, Insightful)
this is a pretty bullshit argument. He's not allowing others to do his murder for him, and he's making the choice to only eat meat if he's willing to kill it himself.
I have struggled with this myself, honestly. I don't want to kill animals. but I love to eat meat. I should not eat meat unless I can be ok with killing the animals. Otherwise I'm just a hypocrite.
being willing to eat meat as long as SOMEONE ELSE kills the animal is simply insulating yourself from the consequences of your own actions. That's like saying I'm fine with not giving poor people health care as long as I don't have to watch them die. It's cowardly. Facing the consequences honestly and making the decision for yourself is the most intellectually honest thing a person can do.
It's not a "desire" to kill animals. It's a desire to only be RESPONSIBLE for the death of animals you'd be willing to kill yourself in order to eat. That seems like a clear and honest litmus to me.
Re:To this, I say, so what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, our society has become increasingly sociopathic. It's alright as long as someone else does it. If you want the end result, what it takes to get there doesn't matter, and so forth. Unless you do it yourself, and then you're a monster. Or, unless you do it for others, then you're a service provider.
Then there are the people like the one you responded to, who are incapable of distinguishing between personal responsibility and a fleeting desire to get what they want regardless of the consequences.
Re:To this, I say, so what? (Score:4, Funny)
When I was a wee lad, I thought that a veterinarian would put the animal, say a cow, under and cut out a steak. After that, he'd stitch it back together and back to the rolling hills of the farm for it.
Then my mom explained what really happened...
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Funny thing is that I read a national geographic article about a primitive tribe that did just this. Drug the cow, cut out a strip of flesh (mostly fat and skin) and sew it back up.
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So this salesman visits a farmer and notices he has a pig with three prosthetic limbs. He asks the farmer what's going on.
The Farmer say "well, this here's a special pig. Once my son fell in the well and the pig came and pounded on the door until we came to see what was wrong. So this pig here saved my son's life."
The salesman asks again, "but what about this pig's legs? How did they get like that?" The Farmer says "My wife was alone at home when a fire broke out and she fell unconscious. The pig brok
Re:To this, I say, so what? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not killing animals for food that's going off the deep end, it's the idea that there's some meaning in only eating the ones you kill yourself. He'd never eat only the vegetables he picked himself, or only the bread he baked himself (starting with wheat that he threshed himself). And nobody would only use a computer that they made themselves from iron ore and raw silicon. ("I want to remind myself of how we must destroy the environment in order to get my computer".)
We have division of labor for a reason.
Re:To this, I say, so what? (Score:4, Interesting)
mod this guy up. For all we know, Mark enjoys killing things and uses this story as cover.
Re:To this, I say, so what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, but sometimes a division of labor leads to a lack of knowledge about the effort involved in said labor, which then leads to a lack of respect for the laborers or the end product itself.
Killing your own food might be one of the more extreme ways to address this - there are certainly people who can eat meat but are too squeamish at the sight of blood, and they have a right to eat meat just like the rest of us - but there are other plenty of other ways to address this, too.
For example, Dirty Jobs [discovery.com] is all about showing how some of the manual jobs in our country get done, and celebrating the fact that there are people out there willing to do them for us. Matthew Moore's Digital Farm Collective [digitalfar...ective.org] project is designed to show non-farmers the effort involved in the production of their vegetables - if you knew that it took the use of a small bit of our fertile planet and some of our precious water for 140 days just to grow one single carrot, might you be a little more invested in the appreciation of that carrot in your dinner? Would you be less likely to let it rot in your fridge?
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I actually think he's doing something different. I've heard vegetarians say that people should only eat animals that they kill themselves -- it's a way to make people fully aware of the fact that eating meat involves the death of a living animal (rather than the normal way of having the animal killed out of sight and we just stop by the grocery store and purchase some meat nicely wrapped in plastic, or already cooked in a restaurant). The goal is to make people stop eating meat.
The goal is flawed. The goal should be to make them aware and *appreciate* the fact eating meat involves the death of a living animal, not to turn them off meat altogether (though exposés of modern industrial methods of butchering and preparing meat may do that all on their own).
Though I've not personally killed an animal myself aside from cooking a live lobster, I was with my grandmother when she choose a live chicken in the markets of Hong Kong, which was then slaughtered and de-feathered in front o
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Goat is freaking awesome. Like mutton, but less grassy. The best thing about eating goat is that you're essentially guaranteed that it wasn't raised on a factory farm.
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I prefer kid (young goat - the word "kid" as signifying "a child" is a figure of speech, when you refer to someone as a "kid", you're calling them a young goat. Apologies to those who already knew this. Some people react badly when you tell them you enjoy eating the flesh of kids. )
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So, killing animals for food is 'going off the deep end'?
Oh come on, who eats a goat?
Chupacabra
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No, the Chupacabra (literally, Goat Sucker) sucks their blood.
Re:To this, I say, so what? (Score:4, Informative)
Interestingly enough, In the US, there are federal laws on the humane slaughter of an animal and slicing their throat is not part of it unless you hit them in the head with a single blow to knock them unconscious.. It's outlawed unless involved in a religious ceremony which would by default make it a ritual sacrifice unless he wants to go up against the laws.
I don't know if or any penalties that would apply for violating it, but we have laws on it.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode07/usc_sec_07_00001902----000-.html [cornell.edu]
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More importantly, even if he did say it: with his track record on privacy - which part about this would be hard to believe?
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I don't think the AC was lecturing anyone, and in fact specifically said in the line you quoted that they don't necessarily oppose eating meat. If you're so self-conscious about your diet, you might consider spending more time being sure that it's the diet you want and less time lashing out at strangers on the Internet.
All of that said, I think it's a mistake for most people, at least in industrial societies, to regard their diet as a personal choice. A personal choice is a choice which only affects the per
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Wouldn't this be the shallow end?
Fish? (Score:2)
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I heard... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I heard... (Score:4, Funny)
CEO Mark Zuckerberg Eaten (Score:2, Funny)
I've been doing this for years! (Score:5, Funny)
Which is why I mostly eat spiders out of tissues :(
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On a completely OT note, whatever happened to the "Don't use karma bonus" option when commenting? Seeing as half* my posts are ridiculous shit (see above) it seems stupid to post them at +2.
*: OK, only half are supposed to be ridiculous shit. In practice it's closer to a 90/10 split.
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Assuming that everything is working, you can push the little gear icon next to the "Post Anonymously" checkbox (which I just now realized that after a year or so they finally made it not white-on-white). You can also push the Options button below the input box. Either one will open a Web 2.0!!! div that contains a checkbox with "No Karma Bonus?" and a save button. Check it, and Save. Then Post.
Posting without karma bonus, in case it doesn't work...
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So they've made a one-off option into a permanent configuration setting? Or is it still one-off (which would make the placement truly bizarre).
[Posting to test]
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Permanent setting it is. Odd.
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I've been doing this for years, which is why I'm a vegetarian.
I can respect that.. (Score:2)
I've killed a few sheep for food myself, and It does give you a new appreciation for where the meat comes from. It's amazing how some people are outraged by killing "free range" pilot whales only because it is very bloody, with NO thought about what exactly is in their quarterpounder.
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Cows don't have quite the brain capacity or (as recently demonstrated) technology or language sophistication of cetaceans, cows generally have much shorter lifespans, and harpoons at sea are generally not effrective or quick. So at least some of us object on grounds other than "bloody". Well, except in the usual British phrase of "you bloody morons!"
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Pilot whales are not harpooned, but driven up on shore and then their spine is cut. I wouldn't call it painless, but I don't think its savage or torture. Just for reference they are smaller than killer whales but typically bigger than dolphins, FYI.
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We have no shortage of pilot whales either, afaik. But most people only hear "whale" and assume the worst.
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The last estimate the IWC did for pilot whales was 1989 and they calculated between 440,000 - 1,370,000. Which, in my books, translates to "we haven't a clue". MarineBio.org lists their population as "unknown but not considered endangered". Which also translates to "we haven't a clue".
Whale populations are extremely difficult to estimate, though the Japanese method of hauling them ashore and counting them one at a time is probably not the best.
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Yea, killing whales for "science" is absurd.
Here are some more numbers, courtesy of wikipedia:
"In its Red List of Threatened Species the IUCN lists both the Long-finned and Short-finned Pilot Whales with "Data Deficient" status according to its 2008 assessment. In a previous assessment in 1996 the organization listed the species in the "Lower Risk/least concern" category. However, the IUCN also says that with an estimated subpopulation size of 778,000 in the eastern North Atlantic and approximately 100,000
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Whale populations are extremely difficult to estimate, though the Japanese method of hauling them ashore and counting them one at a time is probably not the best.
Ah... "Research."
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What kind of twisted mind would infer that from what I said?
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Both came from a live animal. It doesn't make it more 'clever' if you do it yourself.
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But I'm not talking about endangered whales, nor harpooning.
And as for cetaceans being too smart... They people love to identify with whales without ever having seen one *shrug*.
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There is of course the issue of free range migrational animals that cross many international marine boundaries, as to who can be defined as 'owning' them and thus entitled to kill for for crossing a boundary or in international waters. This could be considered as theft of resources where those animals are freely allowed access to marine resources in other nations and that access to natural resources is stolen by other nations killing that resource which had been provided for and who value the animal for it
I approve of this course of action. (Score:4, Insightful)
I grew up in a hunting and fishing household. I've long held the belief that you appreciate you food more if you kill it yourself. I hate to say it because I really dislike Zuckerberg, but he has something going here. If I had the disposable income and free time to procure live animals on a regular basis I would probably do this as well.
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Does he grow his own vegetables or kill (harvest/cook) them too? If not, what's the point?
IMHO, just cooking for yourself is enough to obtain an appreciation for what you eat.
Re:I approve of this course of action. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've long held the belief that you appreciate you food more if you kill it yourself.
+1
I have two nieces who routinely waste about half the food they put on their plates -- which pisses me off for a number of reasons -- but both are died-in-the-wool animal lovers. "How can you shoot a moose? They are soooo cute and cuddly!!!"...while throwing away 8 oz. of steak every night at dinner.
When you kill the animals you eat for food yourself, it becomes very, very real to you that your dinner was bought with the blood of another living creature. You don't just throw the meat away because you understand where it came from and what it means for it to be on your dinner plate.
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while throwing away 8 oz. of steak every night at dinner.
WHaaaat? Your nieces have steak every night for dinner? Wow.
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And they throw away half of what is put on their plates, so they are each served a 16oz steak every night.
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I have two nieces who routinely waste about half the food they put on their plates -- which pisses me off for a number of reasons -- but both are died-in-the-wool animal lovers. "How can you shoot a moose? They are soooo cute and cuddly!!!"...while throwing away 8 oz. of steak every night at dinner.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that perhaps the parents should give them smaller portions of steak, and only give them more if they ask for it.
Or maybe the parents should quit feeding them something they obviously dislike.
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I completely understand your sentiment. However, I would also claim the sentiment to encourage everyone to eat everything that is served to them is what singlehandedly promotes childhood obesity in the United States. I actually had to teach my own father (who is fit but has high cholesterol) that the trick to being healthy is to stop eating when it's time to stop eating, regardless of what remains on your plate, or regardless of whether or not you want to finish it. If you want your nieces not to waste f
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Exactly. It also isn't practical for me because I don't have the free time to hunt for all my meat or the money and property to raise/buy live animals.
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I Call Fowl (Score:2)
Suuuuuure.... (Score:2)
Just an excuse for him to kill some animals every day...
(I'm only half joking, the guy's an evil bastard)
Do you think I deserve your full attention? (Score:5, Funny)
He only slits their throats (Score:5, Insightful)
So he doesn't raise, hunt or catch them, or clean them or prepare them himself. He only does the actual killing...
Does anyone else find this disturbing? [think Of Mice and Men]
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Not at all. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've killed, butchered, and cooked several animals. By far, the most difficult part is killing the animal. Especially when it doesn't go well. It can be pretty disturbing. All the rest is just gore. I wish more people had this attitude. I think fewer animals would live miserable lives and people would waste less.
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It's actually kinder to slit someone's throat than to fire them.
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Generally much easier to get a new job than to try to put all your blood back in...
Only half the story (Score:2)
The goat actually felt more violated by how Zuckerberg treated his personal privacy than he did about the whole throat cutting thing.
Dear Mr. Zuckerberg, (Score:5, Insightful)
the most humane way to kill a goat is *not* to cut its throat.
The most humane way to kill a goat (or any animal for that matter) without chemicals is to shoot it.
At best with a powerfull but silenced firearm - as not to scare the animal while its
sensory functions remain intact for a few seconds after the fact.
Anyway, please refrain from cutting throats of live beings, wether they're animals or whatnot.
Thanks.
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Silenced firearm? .22 silent. No need to silence it anyway, bullets are supersonic. A .22 to the brain pan and the show is over before it hears the bang. Even a cow can be dispatched this way. Bullet through the eye socket, since cow skulls are too thick for a .22.
No such thing exists. Suppressors exist, but they won't even make a
A powerful firearm is also a bad idea, makes a mess and does not kill any faster than a .22 bouncing around inside an animals skull.
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Cutting the throat leads to a massive drop in blood pressure. That leads very rapidly to unconsciousness. The idea that one could remain conscious for a few seconds after decapitation is bunk.
Properly done, shooting is a better option as it will destroy parts of the brain that would perceive danger or pain. However that takes more skill. You could easily shoot the wrong part of the brain, and leave an incapacitated goat to slowly bleed out.
Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg, (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely, the bolt gun used in slaughter houses is the best way. However a slit throat is not a "slow bleed". It's a nearly instantaneous loss of blood pressure to the brain. No blood pressure means no oxygen delivery to the brain.
Have you ever experience postural hypotension? That's where you stand up rapidly, and lose blood pressure to the brain for a few seconds until your blood can catch up. Normal people can get light headed from this, and those with low blood pressure can pass right out.
Now if that momentary decrease of blood pressure can cause someone to pass out that rapidly, what do you think cutting the source of blood is going to do?
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Anyway, please refrain from cutting throats of live beings, wether they're animals or whatnot.
I realize it may sound odd that this is what caught my attention in your post, but what whatnot do you refer to that is a living being -- with a throat -- but not an animal?
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Timing: I don't know about goat, but with lamb, it takes 30 seconds to die after you slit its throat.
Pain: I don't know. The lamb I slaughtered didn't struggle much. I wonder if it's calm like when people slit their wrists in the bath, or agonizing?
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If he really wants to experience empathy (Score:2)
Finally.. the Facebook CEO does something I like.. (Score:2)
The amount of people who have a disconnect from where our food comes from is growing. That he wants to help bridge that gap personally, is awesome.
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It's utterly irrelevant where the food comes from. Utterly and totally. We've been eating animals forever, and knowing or not knowing what it looks like as it's dying doesn't make a rational case for vegetarianism, and watching it die doesn't rationalize breaking a vow of vegetarianism. Any human who can't stomach the sight of its food being made is ignoring the nature of the species. Any human who has to make up rationalizations for eating the way they do is confusing nutrition for faux humanitarianism
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If I was very rich and knew a lot of people hated me I might start paying attention to where my food comes from too.
Crazy Rich (Score:2)
What is it with rich people doing more and more esoteric things in a desperate attempt to feel like they're either special or somehow experiencing more to life than the next guy?
I'm a full-blown meat eater, I've cleaned and gutted my own fish like anyone who's fished properly, chopped the head off a chicken and held the neck over a sink so that when it tried to pull the headless chicken act all the squirty blood was aimed somewhere, and I wouldn't claim that's made me any closer to understanding sustainable
Not a big deal (Score:2)
Re:Not a big deal (Score:4, Funny)
...Big deal, get a hunting rifle and go get a deer, moose, elk...
Pffft, a rifle. A real man goes into the woods naked and unarmed, and kills his prey by ripping out its throat with his teeth.
And a real woman tells him to stay the hell out of the house until he's hosed himself off.
In other news (Score:2, Insightful)
I only dispose of trash in my own personal incinerator and landfill in the backyard. Sure, it's dirty, smelly, time-consuming, inefficient, annoying to my neighbors and family, and has virtually no effect on the global trash situation, but it discourages me from generating trash. At least until I become as numbed to the problem of trash disposal as the professionals I used to pay to do that job.
Seriously, though, if you want to solve a problem that human nature walks us right up to, don't bother experimen
Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent (Score:2)
two people I would not have thought about in the same way, before today
you know what? i grew up on a farm. i've butchered animals. i've milked them. i've bottlefed them. i've healed them. i've euthanized them. i've midwifed them. i'm completely unimpressed
modern living in the west means we are disconnected from our food sources like no generation before us. the chicken nuggets on our plate bear no cognitive relationship to the actual chickens we see, probably, only on television or the internet
then, at age
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i think it's because i'm an omnivore. and i guess you missed my shpiel about your canine teeth in my top post
"No. Historically humans are vegetarians"
and what the hell do you say to that delusion?
from the inuit to the masai, from the butchered animal bones found at caves and archeological sites everywhere...
what do you say to someone completely deluded as to natural human history?
if you want to make the case for vegetarianism, that's fine. if you want to deny the full and obvious weight of history, all you
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which means that vegetarianism is just as indefensible as what i am saying
which means i can come over and murder you with a nailclipper, you have no argument with that
oh no wait, it means you're an idiot
morality is real, just as real as every other goddamn thing you can discuss in logical and coherent terms. additionally, a lion kills a zebra, an orca kills a seal, i eat a piece of bacon: in natural morality, all are acceptable or equivalent. in human morality, i cannot kill another human being unless in se
I knew it! (Score:2)
Always a first (Score:2)
That's the first ethical thing I've heard of Zuckerberg doing. I'm not holding my breath to see if there ever will be a second.
Pretending that meat doesn't involve death is widespread. Oh sure, people SAY they know, but when it comes right down to it, it's an abstract, intellectualized thing with no sense of reality. When you're the one who has to make the cut or pull the trigger, you can't pretend you're not responsible.
Animals die so humans can have meat. If you can't bring yourself to be the one to d
Eh, okay... (Score:3)
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To be really honest, I for one love to eat meat, but can not stomach the thought of actually killing an animal myself, not even a ulgy animal.
I really love animals, but love to eat meat allot also, so I guess am just screwed up, not really sure what to do about this, but not eating meat just seems to drastic of a food change. It also seems to me that to kill something and look it in the face and watch it die is something that is either to hard to deal with or just to real for me, not sure but I just do not
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I have no problem with killing the animals you eat.
Although you might be quite busy if several people take you up on that offer, all claiming to be the Anonymous Coward...
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This reminds me of Mike Rowe talking about Dirty Jobs at TED. Seen here. [youtube.com] Turns out the "humane" method of castrating lambs (using rubber bands) is a lot worse for the lambs than the "barbaric" method (using a knife). The whole talk is pretty interesting.