Meat?

@antihuman: okay, while I'm not that interested in this discussion, for various unimportant reasons, i think you pretty much contradict yourself...

in this quote (and the corresponding post) you claim that if a famine occurs, more children will be born out of sheer despair, to keep the population stable, and to spread the genes, to help 'em survive (?).
correct me if I'm wrong, but you are more ore less saying that a decrease in food production will increase the birthrate (as we can see, poorer --> less food --> more children, you stress the ''third world'' as an example)

so, by saying that less food will produce more children, you contradict yourself in the following:

apart from this, I don't think the THIRD WORLD is overpopulated. it's 'our' so called FIRST WORLD that is overpopulated. it's just the distinct food supply, they receive, compared to our 'civilized' countries...

feel free to correct/attack me, for i know there are some points...

 

After some very inspiring local discussions I would say:
Everybody here had some point - but nobody was right in general.

According to the UN-reports on the respective web-sites and the CIA world-fact-site:
The world population is already decreasing! While the food production is indeed increasing!
The number of people endangered by hunger is decreasing too and the main problem in solving the world hunger isn't production or distribution (at least not in general) - but the global market prices:
People endangered by malnutrition are poor and just not able to afford the food they need!
Malnutrition claims more long term victims than starvation - and malnutition has enormous long time consequences, including the tendency in less developed countries to have more/too many children.
The reason for this is the lack of social security - so elders and disabled people need the support of their family, and having many children becomes kinda old-age provision.

Mass starvation occurs in areas suffering from political unrest, war or natural disasters and endemic plagues like HIV in central Africa, resulting in the breakdown of economic and social structures - but starvation isn't a constant treat anymore today.

Population statistics are deceiving (because they include immigrants from other areas) -
the clue are the "sub-replacement-fertility"-statistics - they relate the rates of deaths and actual births in a certain area - and according to them, the world population is stable with a tendency to decrease, the decrease is more prominent in developed societies/countries and in some (like germany) it has reached an almost dramatic stage!

I guess the "egoistic gene" theory came from vassil:
- a food crisis provokes an increase of the fertility of the affected species -
to give an individual set of genes a higher rate to survive.

This is true for many species in nature, but not for all, because many species only reproduce at certain times and only once or twice per year, this makes them very vulnerable for extinction, they react too slow to the crisis.
I guess he mentioned the theory to counter the argument that humans are still ruled by natural/biological laws, but he said also - and I agree with that - that our species has managed to overcome the rulez - not completely, but in those important aspects that allowed us to spread all around the world, no matter what climate, obstacles or temporary problems we encountered. No other species ever achieved the same, no other species is as adaptable like ours.

A strict biological view on humans doesn't work - due to the fact that we live in structured societies (other species don't do that) - we made our own rulez, blotting out some of biology's laws.
So there is a lot more to consider: socio-psychology, socio-history, socio-economy, all that socio-stuff which is a very young science and still suffering from lots of -isms and other teething troubles.

I'm no specialist in biology - but I think we should be very careful in trying to solve the problems by using "biological/natural laws" - the nazis did that and created a justification for mass termination and holocaust, and the idiots of the "socio-biological" trade may be less dangerous/important today - but their blabbling is a complete waste of time and a source of confusion for those looking for easy solutions.
And don't forget, much of our privileged being is the result of colonisation and exploitation of the less developed and suffering "other" half of the globus - I think we have to pay back very much to those who aren't as lucky as us...

 

I disagree somewhat. How does the term 'humane' imply that exactly? I was just saying that I know some people who believe that it's right or ok to eat animals provided they are treated well and looked after, and I think that is hypocritical - "I'm still going to eat you, but don't worry because you'll be well looked after before I do!"

And yes, we are highly intelligent animals. We possess the ability to improve life for other animals, it's just a shame that we use that ability to exploit them.

 

@AgentOrange

i was not saying a decrease in food production will increase the birth rate, i was saying the exact opposite. that quote does not contradict my argument. a population increase requires an increase in food production to occur, and an increase in food production necessitates an increase in population. those are not contradictory statements. i think you misunderstood what i was saying.

a famine is caused by overpopulation. once again, this is ecology 101. a famine occurs when a population outgrows its' habitat's ability to provide food for every member of that population. this is the definition of overpopulation. really, the entire world is overpopulated because we are consuming at a rate that is too fast to be sustained indefinitely, but many third world countries are far more severely overpopulated than most first world countries.

@punkpenguin

the word "humane" is derived from the word "human," and therefore implies that to be human is to be this superior moral being, ethically above ending life to survive, which is nonsense. life must end for life to continue.

i agree, exploitation in all forms is terrible. however, killing a wild animal for food isn't exploitation, it's survival. as i stated in previous posts, domestication is essentially imprisonment of animals, and is therefore exploitative. wild animals, on the other hand, live free and natural lives, and eating them is in no way reprehensible.

 

this is quite simply false. i don't know where you saw this "statistic," but i assure you, we are rapidly approaching 7 billion people. right now we're at about 6.9 billion. around 2000 we were at 6 billion i think. thats a billion people in 12 years or so.

i would like to see evidence for the idea that fewer people are going hungry. this sounds just as ridiculous to me because famines CANNOT be solved by sending food. It might be temporarily softened if food becomes more affordable (which in itself seems unlikely considering our growing population and the international capitalist system), but if a region is incapable of sustaining itself, eventually sending them food simply allows the population to continue growing beyond the region's carrying capacity. these are basic ecological principles, just as applicable to humans as to every other species.

no, we haven't. you can no more "overcome" the laws of ecology than you can "overcome" the law of gravity. when you jump off a cliff, you might think you've "overcome" gravity for a certain amount of time, but eventually you will crash. the same is true of human society when it attempts to circumvent the laws of ecology. i should point out that the 10000 years that mankind has been trying to exclude itself from these laws is a very short amount of time on a biological scale, and we are approaching a crash very quickly. probably within 2 or 3 generations. it is possible to temporarily delay the effects of natural laws. it is not, however, possible to exclude yourself from them indefinitely. the idea that we can is extremely short-sighted and willfully self-deceptive, not to mention a tad hubristic. this is not to say that metaphorical "flight" is impossible, but it requires an understanding of the principles at play.

the nazis ignored real ecological laws and tried to label ideology as science. there's a HUGE difference. we don't HAVE to live in accord with the laws of ecology, but if we don't, our species and the planet will suffer the consequences. we won't have to do a thing, nature will take care of it on its own. however, anyone with an interest in human survival should have an interest in altering our society to conform to natural laws. if we do nothing, the world will eventually fix itself by removing the problem; namely, civilization.

 

Yeah, and cutting off someone's head will cure their headache too.

 

I'm a queer vegan nihilist of colour and if your not, I mean I cant even talk to you meat breath...j/k obviously, if someone eats meat due to selfish choices, thats fine, meat is an addiction that is hard to break like heroine or nicotine. It's bad for you clearly, but because of culture or addiction you cannot leave. I could slip and eat a burger tomorrow, and get a hot shot and die who's to say...

also preemptively if you eat enough food at every meal it is just as bad as feeding into the worldwide government condoned opium trade... And don't you dare try to measure levels of addictions with me like this is a goddamn NA program, because different people have stronger receptors in their brain for different substances and different levels of cravings depending on the time of their lives and their bio-chemestry

also eugenics? you know that if food production was cut only poor people would starve right?

 

and the nazis used starvation in the german occupied east europe to kill millions of russians and poles... biological solution for the sub humans, very rational... and always according to "natures laws".

simply wrong - the nazis used the standard of sciences of the time and simply justified their crimes this way.
best example: eugenics - and because of it's long tradition (including a good pinch of chauvinism) they had not to invent it themselves, just to put it to the extremes.
criminals like "dr. mengele" were international regarded specialists of genetics and eugenics before they went to auschwitz...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

my dear: nature isn't an authority passing down laws - it's the summary of relations and conditions and we barely took a glance of the big picture by now - mind me saying that you sound like a true christian to me, replacing god with "nature"?

so we haven't evolved as the worlds unique social species, including minor matters like care for the young, weak, disabled and old, solidarity, mutual support, not to mention that we are the only species that is more or less aware of itself, our surroundings, able to draw conclusions and act accordingly more or less wise?
we could destroy the world as we know it a little - doesn't that mean we are outside the game?

are we comparing apples with stones? it's quite a bit polemic but i saw "the eternal jew" yesterday - and the makers compared rats with jews...
your views of overpopulation vs. food and about your favorite "famine" are ridiculous, some education is really necessary:
http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Lea ... ry_people_
http://www.wfp.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine

and please, please, please: read the stuff, compare the graphics about population and hunger and see the differences - before you continue to blame old mother nature for natural desasters and man made crisis.

i should point out that the modern homo sapiens sapiens appeared more than 260.000 years ago and wasted almost the complete time since then with chasing gods and spirits, witches and demons - until 300 years ago sciences slowly started to become serious.
how much time will you waste before you stop ignoring that todays population problem isn't that old and a symptom of the conflict between knowledge and criminal balance of power, not a question of biology.

i wonder what became of the old anarchist wisdom:
an attack on one is an attack on all?

 

Ok fair point about the humane thing, but I disagree that killing and eating wild animals is a means of survival. We can survive perfectly fine without eating them

 

Not condemning/condoning meat, and definitely not jumping on the lame primitivist/anti-civ bandwagon here...but I doubt the average person can go out untrained into the wilderness and survive as a vegetarian/vegan. So in this instance, eating wild game could count as a means of survival.

 

I cannot say that I am an anti-civ person but, I like them, because they are hard... also I've known at least a few vegans that eat wild game but only if they know the person that killed it, or did it themselves, because what they disagree with is factory farming... The weird unspoken aspect of the anti-civ is the whole mass die off of humans thing, thats a hard sell to most people.

I doubt the average person would survive in the wilderness, especially untrained.

 

i'm getting sick of repeating myself. please refer to my previous posts in this thread for all the counter-arguments you need. debating against mythology is impossible, especially when you (intentionally or ignorantly) misinterpret half the things i've been saying. if you don't want to take my word for anything I've said about the population and food production, look into the author Daniel Quinn. he is a master of the subjects of civilization, agriculture, human population, famine, etc. and his books have a lot more time and space to thoroughly explain the concepts involved than i have while debating with 5 different people at the same time on an online forum. as for the debate over veganism, yes we can survive without meat, but i once again refer you to my previous posts to explain why doing so does not necessarily make you a bastion of moral purity.

 

I like the idea of hunting the meat that you consume. I keep telling my wife that I want to start hunting wild pigs. They are an invasive species and I think you would be helping the environment.

 

guess you are kidding?
daniel quinn is the author of "philosophical" N O V E L S - do you really take his writings serious?
looking at your "truths" and "laws" i guess you do - and looking at the fellowship of ishmael (btw; a "telepathic gorilla") my suspicion of some sectarian believe gets more than justified.

oh yes, apples are stones: lets follow another guru blindly...

 

lolz, I would eat peopls... is republican flesh vegone?

 

na, it's contaminated/poisonous! tastes like styrofoam...

 

also, very unhealthy, too much fat, too less muscles and TONS of contamined substances, not tasty...

 

hippies