There would be none.

Which actually has an interesting implication: cows, sheeps, pigs etc are at no risk of going extinct, precisely because they are exploited by humans. In fact humans do a lot to maintain good gene combinations and over time improve the genetics of the herd.

An interesting side-effect of this is that this selection pressure can be carried to the extreme, as in the case of turkeys, where factory-farmed turkeys are such genetic freaks that they would basically die from stress on their heart if they lived for much longer than the time at what they're harvested, simply because they grow so fast and put on so much weight that the rest of the body can't keep up with it. It's also anatomically impossible for factory-farmed turkeys to mate normally, they must be artificially inseminated. Several varieties of 'heirloom' turkeys almost went extinct because factory farming had displaced all of the old-time farms, but a resurgence has started up, basically splintering from the organic food movement, where traditional breeds of turkeys are now produced on farms using the same methods dating back to the 1800's and earlier, which all ended around 1950 or so.

Anyway the idea that exploited animals are safe from extinction is being promoted by a guy in my country (many people consider him a bit crazy) where he wants to allow the farming of a couple of our national, endangered birds (like the Kiwi). His argument is that if industry was allowed to farm kiwis, their numbers would dramatically increase and they'd be safe from extinction.

Except this is a bit of a fallacy, particularly in the US. It takes approx 6 pounds of corn to produce 1 pound of edible beef. If you were really interested in feeding the starving family, you'd feed them corn, not beef.

Now obviously humans need protein and beef is a good source of this, but there are other much cheaper sources of protein available. If all you care about is feeding a 'starving family' then giving them beef isn't required. Also Americans on average eat way way way more meat than is required, or healthy for them.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 4 2012, 9:36 pm by Lanthanide.

Well worth nothing that I used the word "necessity"... of course developed farming would be potentially morally superior in utilitarianism, but if no other food sources were available to enable the survival of multiple sentient beings, it would be morally right to kill and eat one animal.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 4 2012, 9:59 pm by jjf28.

I don't think corn grows in tundras.

Vegetarians make the assumption that somehow animals are more worthy of consideration than plants. That somehow animals are people too, and we shouldn't eat people so we shouldn't eat plants. Me, I see no difference. Sure, maybe dogs or gorillas or dolphins or whales might be intelligent enough to count as something sentient, but the every time a chicken drowns out in the rain, I feel I am justified in saying animals are no different than plants. My body was designed to eat meat. I crave meat when I'm hungry. I am not worried about finding a positive ethical solution in favor of eating meat, I am satisfied that there is no credible negative problem.

Lanthanide makes an interesting point which I've thought about a few times.
Relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JpRmmMyNYo

To really have any sort of discussion you have to define ethics.

I can find no objective basis on which to divide creatures between "conscious" and "non-conscious", nor function to map "similarity of brain to mine" to "level of consciousness"; any answer, whether in favor of animals' rights or not, is entirely arbitrary.
The two opposite possibilities for "any answer" are solipsism, and the assumption that everything is conscious. The former, if used as the default philosophy, would likely result in behaviours of greatest negative estimated utility, their effects averaged out across the entire "any answer" spectrum; the latter, on the other hand, is nil, as there's no way to determine an expected utility for any action and thus all actions are equal.
All that said, I'm inclined to err in the "safe" direction from whatever appears to me the most intuitive assumption. Doesn't make my answer any less arbitrary, but that's the way things go.

Has the validity of human rights been established, objectively, to any greater degree than animal rights?

It's not ethical to eat meat.

meat tastes good. I am smarter than all the other species on the planet. That's why it's fine to eat meat. Ethics doesn't come into the equation. Growing animals is especially cruel, but I do not have a problem with it because of my previous statement.

By the way, it's not ethical to live in the desert, or in the tundra either.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 4 2012, 11:06 pm by rockz.

Are you trying to bring up the point of "define ethics"?
Your edit makes it appear overwhelmingly so, but I'd rather not assume, so (if not):
Ethics define "fine"ness. The first paragraph is self-contradictory.

(if so):
TiKels already brought that up, and in any case, discussion hasn't reached a point where there's any need to (despite what he says).

Yes, but I have trouble imagining where such a situation would exist. Maybe if you're in the middle of nowhere and there is a cow next to you, you kill it and eat it. But if we're talking about a situation where a farmer is producing food for their town, they can feed their town directly on the corn they grow much more efficiently than they can feed them on meat from the cows. Now if the town needs a source of protein and there is no such other source available, then sure, it would make sense then. But otherwise it's considerably less efficient to eat meat instead of just eating the grains directly.

Now in a case like New Zealand where almost all of our cows eat grass (which is inedible for humans) it is quite different, except that you could in many cases replace the grass with wheat or corn and still be more productive.

I'm not sure why this is relevant or what you're even trying to say. Cows don't "grow" in tundras either. If you're using tundra land as a place to store your cattle, and you are feeding them corn that was grown somewhere else, then clearly you have transported corn to your tundra. You'd still be more efficient feeding the local town if you used the corn as human feed instead of the cattle.

Did you actually have a point, because it's not clear?

Nothing says delicious like some freshly picked tundra cows.

--

I honestly don't think cows have the mental capacity to understand or fear that one day, we're going to kill them. I advocate painless methods, however. Also I support that they are well treated.

The industry doesn't quite perform either of these things, so I am forced to oppose what many farms do.

I mean we don't feel bad about chomping on plants just because they're living. Hell, plants don't even feel pain. But these other animals do, so in the interest of granting person rights only equivalent to their attributes, I don't think we should cause them to experience pain or suffering. But neither are they guaranteed rights that say, dolphins, should have.

It's stupid to revert back to the "DURR DESCARTE ASSUMED NOTHING SO WE SHOULD ASSUME ETHICS DONT EXIST DURR DURR" that a lot of you are doing when you're talking about an issue like this. You aren't cool or clever for doing it, it's been done a million times by a million idiots. What would be cool and possibly clever, is to address the situation in a respectable, reasonable manner, since you see that so little on the internet. We live in a society which has ethics; it's wrong to cause pain and suffering. Animals can feel pain because they have a central nervous system which was designed to feel pain, plants do not. This is why there's a question of whether or not its bad to kill and eat animals where there really is no question about whether killing plants is bad, we have no evidence whatsoever that plants can feel pain. It's obvious from simple observation that the overwhelming majority of non-human animal species do not share in our intelligence. They lack some crucial self-awareness that humans have. As long as animals lack that special something we humans have, I dont find anything wrong with causing them pain just like I dont feel like killing plants is bad. Sure I think we should treat them with respect as an extension of the idea that we should treat everything with respect, but if some cows gotta die for my burger, no worries from me.