Not wanting to kill animals isn't the only reason people become vegetarians. A friend of mine avoids red meat (he'll eat fish, chicken, and pork, though) because he got food poisoning from an underdone steak one time.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
As I see it, there are three basic categories of motive for why a person would choose to avoid eating meat:
1: One's own health. Whether this is a matter of avoiding meat-borne diseases like salmonella, or of avoiding unhealthy components of meat such as cholesterol, saturated fat, etc., the core concern is that "there is/may be something in the meat that I don't want to put into my body". This group of people would probably continue to avoid meat even if it were replicated from raw elements (hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, etc.).
2: The animals' health. Here it is viewed as cruel to raise and keep (or to hunt) animals with the intent of killing them for food, especially if the high demand for such animals results in poor living conditions while they are still alive. This category is the most likely to take up eating meat if a synthetic version were available.
3: Abstract moral/religious principles. Maybe your religion prohibits eating it, or maybe it's a personal decision, but the motivation goes beyond mere bodily health for either yourself or the animals and may have a spiritual component to it.
A person's motivation may have any combination of these three factors. For example, the Vulcan traditional vegetarianism can be analyzed as follows:
1: The desert climate of Vulcan (made worse by the damage from nuclear wars during the Sundering) made mass production of meat impractical since clean water and fertile soil were sparse. This issue probably continued until synthetic food became available.
2: Surak's philosophy of logic and mercy implied that it was illogical to bring animals into the world solely to die for one's own benefit.
3: Habitually killing and eating the flesh of animals would fuel the bloodlust that had led to the Sundering, and would thus work against the attempts at self-control that were encouraged under the teachings of Surak.
It will likely be centuries before people can't tell the taste between replicated meat and meat. If people in the Star Trek universe could replicate any type of meal they wanted, then there is a good reason why people went to Sisko's dad's restaurant.
1.) Humans are designed to eat meat. They have evolved teeth with the primary function, of tearing meat.
Given that, who is anyone to say they 'know' better than a couple million years worth of evolution. That's the point that always struck me as wrong, vegetarians arguing that they know better than mother nature. The problems we have with meat today stem from what goes into it and peoples tendency to over do it in portions and frequency.
2.) According to the voluminous references on multiple series' meat from a replicator isn't actually meat. It is replicated, restructured protein molecules and textured carbohydrates, so for the 'ethical' veganista, there should be no issue, it's not an animal or anything even resembling an animal.
Not wanting to kill animals isn't the only reason people become vegetarians. A friend of mine avoids red meat (he'll eat fish, chicken, and pork, though) because he got food poisoning from an underdone steak one time.
I should think replicators wouldn't do that... unless they were told to. :cool:
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
I never expect anyone to understand. Nor do I expect it, I respect them to eat meat, so whats all the big hoo ha about me not?
Well, disregarding the fact that I can't quite decipher sentences like the quoted ones:
Medically-forced vegetarianism is perfectly logical. I do still think replicated/synthetic meat wouldn't have such issues, but other than that, I can understand it completely. My own sister has (or is developing?) a mild allergy to chicken herself. Mind you, it doesn't sound as serious as what you seem to be describing, but...
Also, there's a difference between vegans (no animal products of any kind, including milk and stuff) and vegetarians (no meat, but milk, cheese and the like are fair game).
(Funnily enough, I'm reminded of a late episode of "Jeeves and Wooster", where Madeline Bassett tries to force vegetarianism on Gussie Fink-Nottle, but eats meat herself due to medical reasons...)
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
1: One's own health. Whether this is a matter of avoiding meat-borne diseases like salmonella, or of avoiding unhealthy components of meat such as cholesterol, saturated fat, etc., the core concern is that "there is/may be something in the meat that I don't want to put into my body". This group of people would probably continue to avoid meat even if it were replicated from raw elements (hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, etc.).
The key word there, is 'may'. Given the Human propensity for eating meat throughout history, your argument holds no water...
2: The animals' health. Here it is viewed as cruel to raise and keep (or to hunt) animals with the intent of killing them for food, especially if the high demand for such animals results in poor living conditions while they are still alive. This category is the most likely to take up eating meat if a synthetic version were available.
To hunt and cleanly kill prey is not cruel, whatever the liberal agenda tries to say, and should never be compared to the cruelty of battery farming and the like. To hunt and cleanly kill prey, and eat what one kills, historically, is necessity, not cruelty... To torment and abuse, that is cruelty. To hunt, is something very different.
3: Abstract moral/religious principles. Maybe your religion prohibits eating it, or maybe it's a personal decision, but the motivation goes beyond mere bodily health for either yourself or the animals and may have a spiritual component to it.
I have no issue with a person having religious reasons for not eating a particular meat, but I guarantee that if a person was literally starving, they would eat said meat. Even the Qu'ran allows a Muslim to eat pork under such circumstances...
1: The desert climate of Vulcan (made worse by the damage from nuclear wars during the Sundering) made mass production of meat impractical since clean water and fertile soil were sparse. This issue probably continued until synthetic food became available.
Sparsity of clean water and fertile soil would equally impede crop production to sustain a vegetarian lifestyle...
2: Surak's philosophy of logic and mercy implied that it was illogical to bring animals into the world solely to die for one's own benefit.
The tal'shaya allowed for merciful execution, and could be applied to person and beast alike. To benefit from something, and to use it to continue one's existence is logical. To starve rather than kill, is not logical, and as mentioned above, to hunt for what one needs, is not cruelty nor sport, but survival.
3: Habitually killing and eating the flesh of animals would fuel the bloodlust that had led to the Sundering, and would thus work against the attempts at self-control that were encouraged under the teachings of Surak.
Given that the Vulcan brain has the ability to inhibit its own emotions, the idea of 'the bloodlust of the hunt' is a fallacy, as a Vulcan hunter would no doubt use discipline to still his emotions, thus enhancing and optimising his ability to make a clean kill, thus minimising any suffering to the beast, thus reducing any potential 'cruelty'... To hunt for food is not the bloodlust of 'hunting' for sport and trophy. Tuvok's use of the bow suggested that they were used historically on Vulcan, and no doubt for the hunting of dangerous prey, where it would be logical to hunt, and if not kill, at least bring prey down from a distance for close up despatch via blade or more likely, the tal'shaya...
Also, the sundering occurred after the wars, and occurred because S'task and his followers rejected Surak's maxim. If bloodlust was all that drove those people, the Romulan Star Empire would never have been founded, let alone become a galactic power, because they would have killed too many in the early days to create a viable colony/off-shoot.
To hunt and cleanly kill prey is not cruel, whatever the liberal agenda tries to say, and should never be compared to the cruelty of battery farming and the like. To hunt and cleanly kill prey, and eat what one kills, historically, is necessity, not cruelty... To torment and abuse, that is cruelty. To hunt, is something very different.
Though I am no vegetarian myself, it is my understanding that the killing itself is also objectionable to some--they do not wish to contribute to the deaths of animals where choosing not to eat meat would avert those deaths.
Sparsity of clean water and fertile soil would equally impede crop production to sustain a vegetarian lifestyle...
Indeed it would, but growing vegetables and grain, and then feeding those to livestock in order to eat the livestock would feed fewer people than just feeding the vegetables and grain directly to the people. Even the most efficient meat production methods would require several calories of grain/vegetables for each calorie of meat produced.
The tal'shaya allowed for merciful execution, and could be applied to person and beast alike. To benefit from something, and to use it to continue one's existence is logical. To starve rather than kill, is not logical, and as mentioned above, to hunt for what one needs, is not cruelty nor sport, but survival.
Certainly it is logical to hunt when needed. However, the organized raising of livestock for slaughter--bringing animals into the world specifically so that their deaths will benefit oneself--is the thing that would be discouraged by a philosophy of avoiding the infliction of suffering on animals.
Given that the Vulcan brain has the ability to inhibit its own emotions, the idea of 'the bloodlust of the hunt' is a fallacy, as a Vulcan hunter would no doubt use discipline to still his emotions, thus enhancing and optimising his ability to make a clean kill, thus minimising any suffering to the beast, thus reducing any potential 'cruelty'...
There is a thing known as "tempting fate". Pushing the limits of one's control unnecessarily is likely to lead to a breach of control. A person recovering from rage issues does not aid himself by recklessly engaging in activities that are known to encourage rage attacks.
Also, the sundering occurred after the wars, and occurred because S'task and his followers rejected Surak's maxim. If bloodlust was all that drove those people, the Romulan Star Empire would never have been founded, let alone become a galactic power, because they would have killed too many in the early days to create a viable colony/off-shoot.
Apologies. I had confused the term "Sundering" with the wars themselves that led to the "Awakening".
This is why I don't understand vegetarians. The animal's already dead, eating it isn't going to change anything.
Because buying meat for food creates a business reason to keep slaughtering animals.
I mean, if one day we'd say "Okay, it's over, we will no longer kill animals, this is the last meat we got", I suppose than a Vegetarian could morally justify eating the animal.
I am not a vegetarian, but I can understand the moral reasons for being one, and I respect people that make that choice.
Replicated meat (and vegetable) seem to avoid the moral problems of food.
Another reason to avoid meat can be health reason. That said - humans evolved eating meat, fruit and vegetables, so it can't be all that bad. In fact, animal proteins may have been required to enable us growing the energy-hungry brains we have. (But that doesn't mean we still need it to maintain it - we are now much more efficient in growing crops and the like than we were as hunter and gatherers.)
The question is - how much of it is healthy, and what do we currently put into our animals to get the masses of meat humanity demands to feed itself?
That could also mean that many meat-related problems with health could be void. Replicated food won't contain hormones, antibiotics and what not.
1.) Humans are designed to eat meat. They have evolved teeth with the primary function, of tearing meat.
Given that, who is anyone to say they 'know' better than a couple million years worth of evolution. That's the point that always struck me as wrong, vegetarians arguing that they know better than mother nature. The problems we have with meat today stem from what goes into it and peoples tendency to over do it in portions and frequency.
Mother Nature knows nothing. She is not a person. Evolution doesn't have a goal. It just selects based on the environment. We used to live in an environment where there weren't giant crop fields that were treated with fertilizers and if necessary watered, without machines that could help us grow and harvest our food. We did evolve in an environment where animals roamed free and were not put into cages.
We used to live an environment that would not have been able to sustain 6 Billion humans.
Things change, for good or ill. Evolution isn't fast enough to alter our genetic make-up so significantly. (But don't mistake that for evolution to stop working on us. Gravity doesn't stop working just because we build planes.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
There is a thing known as "tempting fate". Pushing the limits of one's control unnecessarily is likely to lead to a breach of control. A person recovering from rage issues does not aid himself by recklessly engaging in activities that are known to encourage rage attacks.
Exactly - it's a case of belt and braces. There are any number of scenes in Star Trek where the famous emotional control comes unstuck (usually under exceptional circumstances, but exceptional circumstances happen). So in readiness for those occasions, it would be only sensible to avoid getting too used to killing living creatures. Familiarity breeds contempt and all that, or at least it plausibly might do. And if they were scared enough to turn their whole society into the bizarre logic-machine they did turn it into, in the cause of that NEVER EVER HAPPENING AGAIN EVER, then going vegetarian just to be on the safe side would be nothing. Atom bombs are frightening.
Anyway, to answer the original question: I'm a vegetarian myself, for reasons of not wanting to get animals killed. (I'm not sure about whether meat is bad for you; since I don't eat it anyway, I've never got round to looking into that very hard.) I've never eaten meat (my parents are vegetarian too), so if there were replicators - or when they get lab-grown meat working properly - I'd probably try it out of curiosity. But I'm not sure whether I'd then go on to eat more of it; you like what you're used to, don't you? And that makes sense of the Vulcans, too. I mean, you could replicate dead snails (in fact, they're on the replicator list in-game!). Would you eat them? (Leaving aside any readers who do already eat snails, of course.) Logically, there would be no reason why Vulcans should *not* eat replicated meat, but on the other hand, why *should* they?
Maybe maybe not, but if they starve long enough, they eat anything.
Hast thou not gone against sincerity
Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds
Hast thou not lacked vigor
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts
Hast thou not become slothful
Though I am no vegetarian myself, it is my understanding that the killing itself is also objectionable to some--they do not wish to contribute to the deaths of animals where choosing not to eat meat would avert those deaths.
Indeed, it is objectionable to some, but equally, it is not objectionable by others... Don't misunderstand, I absolutely abhor animal cruelty of any kind, but have absolutely no moral concern with eating a dead animal for food... The presence of a food replicator middies the issue, because there is no longer the issue of how the livestock has been treated. In the episode of Voyager, Harry was disgusted at the idea of having eaten something which came from a live animal (but by implication, had no issue eating replicated meat) Chakotay, on the other hand, simply smugly replied that he was a vegetarian... (which when replicators become available, if not down a
to a dislike of the taste or texture of meat, becomes something else...)
Indeed it would, but growing vegetables and grain, and then feeding those to livestock in order to eat the livestock would feed fewer people than just feeding the vegetables and grain directly to the people. Even the most efficient meat production methods would require several calories of grain/vegetables for each calorie of meat produced.
But would it? Especially in a society where a person's activities would require a higher calory intake... I can't think of many Earth societies which were historically vegetarian. (I've heard that Japan originally was, but there was still fish eaten, and personally I find vegetarians who make a distinction between fish and other animals to be hypocrites...)
Certainly it is logical to hunt when needed. However, the organized raising of livestock for slaughter--bringing animals into the world specifically so that their deaths will benefit oneself--is the thing that would be discouraged by a philosophy of avoiding the infliction of suffering on animals.
I disagree, as I don't see that in itself inherently cruel, but still necessity. Afterall, not all farmers run battery farms, and I imagine Vulcans would take a pragmatic view of things rather than an emotive one...
There is a thing known as "tempting fate". Pushing the limits of one's control unnecessarily is likely to lead to a breach of control. A person recovering from rage issues does not aid himself by recklessly engaging in activities that are known to encourage rage attacks.
Hmm... I wouldn't consider a hunter hunting for his supper to be someone pushing the limits of their control, certainly not someone I would compare to a recovering rage-addict...
Indeed, it is objectionable to some, but equally, it is not objectionable by others... Don't misunderstand, I absolutely abhor animal cruelty of any kind, but have absolutely no moral concern with eating a dead animal for food...
The point being debated here, as I understand it, is of whether the reason for the animal's death was for it to become food, as opposed to dying incidentally and then being eaten opportunistically because hey, it's already dead so why waste it. Eating roadkill would fall under "why waste it", whereas killing it with the motive of obtaining its body to eat would be the "objectionable" act.
But would it? Especially in a society where a person's activities would require a higher calory intake... I can't think of many Earth societies which were historically vegetarian. (I've heard that Japan originally was, but there was still fish eaten, and personally I find vegetarians who make a distinction between fish and other animals to be hypocrites...)
Pardon, I thought that the polite practice with thought experiments was to change a single variable while keeping as much as possible constant? I meant that all else being equal, feeding your grain to livestock and then eating the livestock will net you less calories to eat than just eating the grain. Remember, you are already expending all of the labor/calories to raise and harvest the grain in both cases.
I disagree, as I don't see that in itself inherently cruel, but still necessity. Afterall, not all farmers run battery farms, and I imagine Vulcans would take a pragmatic view of things rather than an emotive one...
Whether one views creating life for the specific purpose of destroying/consuming it as ethical or not depends upon how much one values non-sapient lives vs. sapient lives. Let us say that a hypothetical person would eat the equivalent in meat of thirty cows in a lifetime. Clearly if we consider this as acceptable, then it implies that we consider one person to be at least thirty times as valued as one cow--not just economically, but morally as well. And since we are using a hypothetical abstract person about whom we know nothing except that he likes to eat meat and lives in a society that permits it, then it implies that this value judgement is independent of any personal emotional attachment we might have to the person as an individual.
Hmm... I wouldn't consider a hunter hunting for his supper to be someone pushing the limits of their control, certainly not someone I would compare to a recovering rage-addict...
Well, I was comparing the Vulcans in general to "recovering rage-addicts", since their aggression towards each other had led them to global nuclear war, after which they turned their backs upon fighting in anger.
There is also an ethical issue between hunting and raising animals for their meat. Hunting is completely natural and has some benefits to the environment like population control while raising animals for meats depends on the treatment of the animals. If it is done properly, then the animals are protected from other predators and are sometimes guaranteed to live a certain amount of time in relative comfort. Unfortunately, that is only the ideal situation and far too often doesn't occur.
However, life is supposed to be precious and evolve on its own which doesn't happen with raising animals. Livestock don't have any freedom of their own even if they are in relative comfort. The same could be said about pets, but it is difficult to determine who is the pet and who is the master as far as cats are concerned.
The point being debated here, as I understand it, is of whether the reason for the animal's death was for it to become food, as opposed to dying incidentally and then being eaten opportunistically because hey, it's already dead so why waste it. Eating roadkill would fall under "why waste it", whereas killing it with the motive of obtaining its body to eat would be the "objectionable" act.
I don't find it morally objectionable to kill animals for food either, and have no issue with either bolt or halal slaughter practices (and have read all the research on both) I simply do not object to eating meat. I would prefer that a farmer treat their livestock with humanity, but if they don't, that's nothing to do with me as the end consumer, and as the end consumer, even if I was to abstain from meat in a boycott, that would not impact on the farmer's practices, as they are still going to carry on as before, and the meat will still wind up on a shelf for sale.
I have No Issue with that whatsoever in any way, shape, or form, and consider the argument for vegetarianism on such grounds, to be about as deep as a bumper sticker, and nothing more than something someone uses as a means of feeling better about themselves... I respect others freedom of choice, but when they start using that to either try and obtain a moral high ground, or make themselves feel better about themselves, that's when I lose respect for them as an individual.
I meant that all else being equal, feeding your grain to livestock and then eating the livestock will net you less calories to eat than just eating the grain. Remember, you are already expending all of the labor/calories to raise and harvest the grain in both cases.
I see your point... Yes, that is true, but equally, the meat provides other nutrients which vegetables simply cannot.
I was also meaning, that in regards a hunter/gatherer lifestyle, I do not believe that vegetarianism would provide the necessary nutrients to maintain the activities of said lifestyle.
And as before, in the Vulcan example, if there is no clean soil/water to raise food beasts, there is equally not enough clean soil/water to grow enough crops to nourish a community...
Whether one views creating life for the specific purpose of destroying/consuming it as ethical or not depends upon how much one values non-sapient lives vs. sapient lives. Let us say that a hypothetical person would eat the equivalent in meat of thirty cows in a lifetime. Clearly if we consider this as acceptable, then it implies that we consider one person to be at least thirty times as valued as one cow--not just economically, but morally as well. And since we are using a hypothetical abstract person about whom we know nothing except that he likes to eat meat and lives in a society that permits it, then it implies that this value judgement is independent of any personal emotional attachment we might have to the person as an individual.
I disagree. As I said upthread, while I have no issue with eating meat, I do not, under any circumstances, tolerate any kind of animal cruelty. The notion that someone who eats meat, is somehow comparable to someone who deliberately abuses animals, is utterly false, and simply the kind of rhetoric and propaganda espoused by the likes of PETA. There IS a difference, and if someone cannot determine that difference for themselves, then their moral compass is certainly more than a bit out of whack...
Equally, a vegetarian who still eats fish, is a hypocrite, as fishing, as an industry, is just as 'cruel' as cattle farming, if not more so, because of the massive wastage created by the imposition of fishing quotas which means that much of a catch may be thrown back dead.
Well, I was comparing the Vulcans in general to "recovering rage-addicts", since their aggression towards each other had led them to global nuclear war, after which they turned their backs upon fighting in anger.
Nuclear war is due to governments/factions not individuals... I would suggest that the Vulcans from the time of the Awakening and the Sundering, were in fact no more dangerous than Romulans (or indeed the Mintakans) Surak's maxim was the winning ideology, so of course it will have been presented as the more favourable lifestyle by Trek, but that does not make the reverse (the Romulans) absolute evil... Vulcans of the 23/24/25 centuries, on the other hand, without logic, were arguably 'more dangerous' than a logical Vulcan, not only due to the dramatic shifts in Vulcan moods and emotions, but because they are not used to living with, and dealing with them. As mentioned, the Romulans (while historically viewed as villains) are not inherently dangerous or violent, equally, Sybok was no madman, and by embracing his emotions, had developed a rather affable and emotionally balanced personality. He was only The Villain because Plot Said So, and the vision he pursued, was not a delusion, simply a 'false message' from a malevolent entity... So by demonstration, not the danger which many would claim him to be...
Hmm... I wouldn't consider a hunter hunting for his supper to be someone pushing the limits of their control, certainly not someone I would compare to a recovering rage-addict...
Hmm. You could argue that that might be, in some ways, more dangerous. Being used to killing living creatures in anger might encourage the habit of being angry. But it's equally plausible that being used to killing living creatures in cold blood, without making any fuss about it, might do its little bit to encourage being equally casual about killing in general... "They shoot horses, don't they?"
Not saying that's definitely true; I don't think psychologists have settled yet whether it does work that way or not. But it plausibly could be, and as I say the Vulcans were paranoid enough for anything.
Hmm. You could argue that that might be, in some ways, more dangerous. Being used to killing living creatures in anger might encourage the habit of being angry. But it's equally plausible that being used to killing living creatures in cold blood, without making any fuss about it, might do its little bit to encourage being equally casual about killing in general... "They shoot horses, don't they?"
Not saying that's definitely true; I don't think psychologists have settled yet whether it does work that way or not. But it plausibly could be, and as I say the Vulcans were paranoid enough for anything.
Are you seriously trying to compare the professional detachment of a hunter/slaughterhouse operative to that of killing in general?:eek:
Maybe next you'll compare a butcher to someone who dismembers the folks they kill :eek:
But would it? Especially in a society where a person's activities would require a higher calory intake... I can't think of many Earth societies which were historically vegetarian.
It's a well-established phenomenon. Basically, whenever energy is converted between different forms (think sun>plants>herbovore>carnivore) some is lost in the process. Raising livestock loses a lot of energy, and so is less efficient than eating the food ourselves. Even through a slaughtered cow might feed a bunch of people for a day, remember that you have to feed the cow for 1.5 to 2 years... and cows eat a lot.
This can be useful if they're eating something that we can't, but it's a problem if we're feeding them, say, corn that we could eat ourselves.
It's why there are always so man more prey animals than there are predators.
It's a well-established phenomenon. Basically, whenever energy is converted between different forms (think sun>plants>herbovore>carnivore) some is lost in the process. Raising livestock loses a lot of energy, and so is less efficient than eating the food ourselves. Even through a slaughtered cow might feed a bunch of people for a day, remember that you have to feed the cow for 1.5 to 2 years... and cows eat a lot.
This can be useful if they're eating something that we can't, but it's a problem if we're feeding them, say, corn that we could eat ourselves.
It's why there are always so man more prey animals than there are predators.
I definitely see what you mean there, my only issue(s) are:
- If a vegetarian diet could have provided sufficient nutrition for Earlier Lifestyles.
- In the Vulcan instance, if there would indeed have been the suitable land to grow enough vegetables to sustain ongoing communities...
I definitely see what you mean there, my only issue(s) are:
- If a vegetarian diet could have provided sufficient nutrition for Earlier Lifestyles.
That's mainly a function of knowledge, rather than the food itself. You can live off an entirely vegetarian diet, but earlier civilizations may not have known how to.
It might be valuable to point out here that civilization as we know it was possible through advances in agriculture. At first, being a farming culture sucked because, as you hint at, they were nutritionally more poor than hunter-gatherers, but gradually they actually began producing more food than they needed, allowing the rise of classes of people who didn't have to grow food.
I definitely see what you mean there, my only issue(s) are:
...
- In the Vulcan instance, if there would indeed have been the suitable land to grow enough vegetables to sustain ongoing communities...
This requires a certain amount of handwavium--the writers were making things up as they went along, and weren't logically consistent. In real life, the Vulcans might never have been able to develop a technological civilization at all on their desert planet.
Can vegetarians in the Star Trek universe eat replicated meat?
(yes, they biologically can, but would it prevent them from being vegetarians?)
Not attempting to offend anybody or cause a debate about vegetarians anno 2014 (there are stupid sites for that), but about replicated stuff ONLY.
I am vegan myself so I won't even attempt to eat any replicated meat. I do make in the real world here Mock (Mimic) Meat which is based on veggies/fruit. So if I was on the Star Ship I would programmed the Replicator to make Burgers or Hot Dogs without Meat in them. It can be done. I do myself. They come out so good my GSD (German Shepard Dog) enjoys them.
Comments
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Which transporter technology, I could DO that.
:eek:
-Leonard Nimoy, RIP
The rep template for one, perhaps
1: One's own health. Whether this is a matter of avoiding meat-borne diseases like salmonella, or of avoiding unhealthy components of meat such as cholesterol, saturated fat, etc., the core concern is that "there is/may be something in the meat that I don't want to put into my body". This group of people would probably continue to avoid meat even if it were replicated from raw elements (hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, etc.).
2: The animals' health. Here it is viewed as cruel to raise and keep (or to hunt) animals with the intent of killing them for food, especially if the high demand for such animals results in poor living conditions while they are still alive. This category is the most likely to take up eating meat if a synthetic version were available.
3: Abstract moral/religious principles. Maybe your religion prohibits eating it, or maybe it's a personal decision, but the motivation goes beyond mere bodily health for either yourself or the animals and may have a spiritual component to it.
A person's motivation may have any combination of these three factors. For example, the Vulcan traditional vegetarianism can be analyzed as follows:
1: The desert climate of Vulcan (made worse by the damage from nuclear wars during the Sundering) made mass production of meat impractical since clean water and fertile soil were sparse. This issue probably continued until synthetic food became available.
2: Surak's philosophy of logic and mercy implied that it was illogical to bring animals into the world solely to die for one's own benefit.
3: Habitually killing and eating the flesh of animals would fuel the bloodlust that had led to the Sundering, and would thus work against the attempts at self-control that were encouraged under the teachings of Surak.
Given that, who is anyone to say they 'know' better than a couple million years worth of evolution. That's the point that always struck me as wrong, vegetarians arguing that they know better than mother nature. The problems we have with meat today stem from what goes into it and peoples tendency to over do it in portions and frequency.
2.) According to the voluminous references on multiple series' meat from a replicator isn't actually meat. It is replicated, restructured protein molecules and textured carbohydrates, so for the 'ethical' veganista, there should be no issue, it's not an animal or anything even resembling an animal.
Don't copy that pork choppy!
"There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard
I should think replicators wouldn't do that... unless they were told to. :cool:
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Well, disregarding the fact that I can't quite decipher sentences like the quoted ones:
Medically-forced vegetarianism is perfectly logical. I do still think replicated/synthetic meat wouldn't have such issues, but other than that, I can understand it completely. My own sister has (or is developing?) a mild allergy to chicken herself. Mind you, it doesn't sound as serious as what you seem to be describing, but...
Also, there's a difference between vegans (no animal products of any kind, including milk and stuff) and vegetarians (no meat, but milk, cheese and the like are fair game).
(Funnily enough, I'm reminded of a late episode of "Jeeves and Wooster", where Madeline Bassett tries to force vegetarianism on Gussie Fink-Nottle, but eats meat herself due to medical reasons...)
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
To hunt and cleanly kill prey is not cruel, whatever the liberal agenda tries to say, and should never be compared to the cruelty of battery farming and the like. To hunt and cleanly kill prey, and eat what one kills, historically, is necessity, not cruelty... To torment and abuse, that is cruelty. To hunt, is something very different.
I have no issue with a person having religious reasons for not eating a particular meat, but I guarantee that if a person was literally starving, they would eat said meat. Even the Qu'ran allows a Muslim to eat pork under such circumstances...
Sparsity of clean water and fertile soil would equally impede crop production to sustain a vegetarian lifestyle...
The tal'shaya allowed for merciful execution, and could be applied to person and beast alike. To benefit from something, and to use it to continue one's existence is logical. To starve rather than kill, is not logical, and as mentioned above, to hunt for what one needs, is not cruelty nor sport, but survival.
Given that the Vulcan brain has the ability to inhibit its own emotions, the idea of 'the bloodlust of the hunt' is a fallacy, as a Vulcan hunter would no doubt use discipline to still his emotions, thus enhancing and optimising his ability to make a clean kill, thus minimising any suffering to the beast, thus reducing any potential 'cruelty'... To hunt for food is not the bloodlust of 'hunting' for sport and trophy. Tuvok's use of the bow suggested that they were used historically on Vulcan, and no doubt for the hunting of dangerous prey, where it would be logical to hunt, and if not kill, at least bring prey down from a distance for close up despatch via blade or more likely, the tal'shaya...
Also, the sundering occurred after the wars, and occurred because S'task and his followers rejected Surak's maxim. If bloodlust was all that drove those people, the Romulan Star Empire would never have been founded, let alone become a galactic power, because they would have killed too many in the early days to create a viable colony/off-shoot.
Though I am no vegetarian myself, it is my understanding that the killing itself is also objectionable to some--they do not wish to contribute to the deaths of animals where choosing not to eat meat would avert those deaths.
Indeed it would, but growing vegetables and grain, and then feeding those to livestock in order to eat the livestock would feed fewer people than just feeding the vegetables and grain directly to the people. Even the most efficient meat production methods would require several calories of grain/vegetables for each calorie of meat produced.
Certainly it is logical to hunt when needed. However, the organized raising of livestock for slaughter--bringing animals into the world specifically so that their deaths will benefit oneself--is the thing that would be discouraged by a philosophy of avoiding the infliction of suffering on animals.
There is a thing known as "tempting fate". Pushing the limits of one's control unnecessarily is likely to lead to a breach of control. A person recovering from rage issues does not aid himself by recklessly engaging in activities that are known to encourage rage attacks.
Apologies. I had confused the term "Sundering" with the wars themselves that led to the "Awakening".
I mean, if one day we'd say "Okay, it's over, we will no longer kill animals, this is the last meat we got", I suppose than a Vegetarian could morally justify eating the animal.
I am not a vegetarian, but I can understand the moral reasons for being one, and I respect people that make that choice.
Replicated meat (and vegetable) seem to avoid the moral problems of food.
Another reason to avoid meat can be health reason. That said - humans evolved eating meat, fruit and vegetables, so it can't be all that bad. In fact, animal proteins may have been required to enable us growing the energy-hungry brains we have. (But that doesn't mean we still need it to maintain it - we are now much more efficient in growing crops and the like than we were as hunter and gatherers.)
The question is - how much of it is healthy, and what do we currently put into our animals to get the masses of meat humanity demands to feed itself?
That could also mean that many meat-related problems with health could be void. Replicated food won't contain hormones, antibiotics and what not.
Mother Nature knows nothing. She is not a person. Evolution doesn't have a goal. It just selects based on the environment. We used to live in an environment where there weren't giant crop fields that were treated with fertilizers and if necessary watered, without machines that could help us grow and harvest our food. We did evolve in an environment where animals roamed free and were not put into cages.
We used to live an environment that would not have been able to sustain 6 Billion humans.
Things change, for good or ill. Evolution isn't fast enough to alter our genetic make-up so significantly. (But don't mistake that for evolution to stop working on us. Gravity doesn't stop working just because we build planes.)
Not really, these are teeth evolved primarily for tearing meat. http://www.blogcdn.com/www.pawnation.com/media/2010/01/2311374241a18eb4c017o.jpg Horses on the other hand have next to no canine teeth. Human teeth seem to be designed to have a reasonable go at anything that's offered them.
Exactly - it's a case of belt and braces. There are any number of scenes in Star Trek where the famous emotional control comes unstuck (usually under exceptional circumstances, but exceptional circumstances happen). So in readiness for those occasions, it would be only sensible to avoid getting too used to killing living creatures. Familiarity breeds contempt and all that, or at least it plausibly might do. And if they were scared enough to turn their whole society into the bizarre logic-machine they did turn it into, in the cause of that NEVER EVER HAPPENING AGAIN EVER, then going vegetarian just to be on the safe side would be nothing. Atom bombs are frightening.
Anyway, to answer the original question: I'm a vegetarian myself, for reasons of not wanting to get animals killed. (I'm not sure about whether meat is bad for you; since I don't eat it anyway, I've never got round to looking into that very hard.) I've never eaten meat (my parents are vegetarian too), so if there were replicators - or when they get lab-grown meat working properly - I'd probably try it out of curiosity. But I'm not sure whether I'd then go on to eat more of it; you like what you're used to, don't you? And that makes sense of the Vulcans, too. I mean, you could replicate dead snails (in fact, they're on the replicator list in-game!). Would you eat them? (Leaving aside any readers who do already eat snails, of course.) Logically, there would be no reason why Vulcans should *not* eat replicated meat, but on the other hand, why *should* they?
Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds
Hast thou not lacked vigor
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts
Hast thou not become slothful
to a dislike of the taste or texture of meat, becomes something else...)
But would it? Especially in a society where a person's activities would require a higher calory intake... I can't think of many Earth societies which were historically vegetarian. (I've heard that Japan originally was, but there was still fish eaten, and personally I find vegetarians who make a distinction between fish and other animals to be hypocrites...)
I disagree, as I don't see that in itself inherently cruel, but still necessity. Afterall, not all farmers run battery farms, and I imagine Vulcans would take a pragmatic view of things rather than an emotive one...
Hmm... I wouldn't consider a hunter hunting for his supper to be someone pushing the limits of their control, certainly not someone I would compare to a recovering rage-addict...
The point being debated here, as I understand it, is of whether the reason for the animal's death was for it to become food, as opposed to dying incidentally and then being eaten opportunistically because hey, it's already dead so why waste it. Eating roadkill would fall under "why waste it", whereas killing it with the motive of obtaining its body to eat would be the "objectionable" act.
Pardon, I thought that the polite practice with thought experiments was to change a single variable while keeping as much as possible constant? I meant that all else being equal, feeding your grain to livestock and then eating the livestock will net you less calories to eat than just eating the grain. Remember, you are already expending all of the labor/calories to raise and harvest the grain in both cases.
Whether one views creating life for the specific purpose of destroying/consuming it as ethical or not depends upon how much one values non-sapient lives vs. sapient lives. Let us say that a hypothetical person would eat the equivalent in meat of thirty cows in a lifetime. Clearly if we consider this as acceptable, then it implies that we consider one person to be at least thirty times as valued as one cow--not just economically, but morally as well. And since we are using a hypothetical abstract person about whom we know nothing except that he likes to eat meat and lives in a society that permits it, then it implies that this value judgement is independent of any personal emotional attachment we might have to the person as an individual.
Well, I was comparing the Vulcans in general to "recovering rage-addicts", since their aggression towards each other had led them to global nuclear war, after which they turned their backs upon fighting in anger.
However, life is supposed to be precious and evolve on its own which doesn't happen with raising animals. Livestock don't have any freedom of their own even if they are in relative comfort. The same could be said about pets, but it is difficult to determine who is the pet and who is the master as far as cats are concerned.
I have No Issue with that whatsoever in any way, shape, or form, and consider the argument for vegetarianism on such grounds, to be about as deep as a bumper sticker, and nothing more than something someone uses as a means of feeling better about themselves... I respect others freedom of choice, but when they start using that to either try and obtain a moral high ground, or make themselves feel better about themselves, that's when I lose respect for them as an individual.
I wouldn't know...
I see your point... Yes, that is true, but equally, the meat provides other nutrients which vegetables simply cannot.
I was also meaning, that in regards a hunter/gatherer lifestyle, I do not believe that vegetarianism would provide the necessary nutrients to maintain the activities of said lifestyle.
And as before, in the Vulcan example, if there is no clean soil/water to raise food beasts, there is equally not enough clean soil/water to grow enough crops to nourish a community...
I disagree. As I said upthread, while I have no issue with eating meat, I do not, under any circumstances, tolerate any kind of animal cruelty. The notion that someone who eats meat, is somehow comparable to someone who deliberately abuses animals, is utterly false, and simply the kind of rhetoric and propaganda espoused by the likes of PETA. There IS a difference, and if someone cannot determine that difference for themselves, then their moral compass is certainly more than a bit out of whack...
Equally, a vegetarian who still eats fish, is a hypocrite, as fishing, as an industry, is just as 'cruel' as cattle farming, if not more so, because of the massive wastage created by the imposition of fishing quotas which means that much of a catch may be thrown back dead.
Nuclear war is due to governments/factions not individuals... I would suggest that the Vulcans from the time of the Awakening and the Sundering, were in fact no more dangerous than Romulans (or indeed the Mintakans) Surak's maxim was the winning ideology, so of course it will have been presented as the more favourable lifestyle by Trek, but that does not make the reverse (the Romulans) absolute evil... Vulcans of the 23/24/25 centuries, on the other hand, without logic, were arguably 'more dangerous' than a logical Vulcan, not only due to the dramatic shifts in Vulcan moods and emotions, but because they are not used to living with, and dealing with them. As mentioned, the Romulans (while historically viewed as villains) are not inherently dangerous or violent, equally, Sybok was no madman, and by embracing his emotions, had developed a rather affable and emotionally balanced personality. He was only The Villain because Plot Said So, and the vision he pursued, was not a delusion, simply a 'false message' from a malevolent entity... So by demonstration, not the danger which many would claim him to be...
"They've got a cherry pie here, that'll kill ya!" - Special Agent Dale Cooper
My character Tsin'xing
Hmm. You could argue that that might be, in some ways, more dangerous. Being used to killing living creatures in anger might encourage the habit of being angry. But it's equally plausible that being used to killing living creatures in cold blood, without making any fuss about it, might do its little bit to encourage being equally casual about killing in general... "They shoot horses, don't they?"
Not saying that's definitely true; I don't think psychologists have settled yet whether it does work that way or not. But it plausibly could be, and as I say the Vulcans were paranoid enough for anything.
Maybe next you'll compare a butcher to someone who dismembers the folks they kill :eek:
This can be useful if they're eating something that we can't, but it's a problem if we're feeding them, say, corn that we could eat ourselves.
It's why there are always so man more prey animals than there are predators.
Bleugh! I hate pie! It's messy and usually not that tasty! :P
- If a vegetarian diet could have provided sufficient nutrition for Earlier Lifestyles.
- In the Vulcan instance, if there would indeed have been the suitable land to grow enough vegetables to sustain ongoing communities...
It might be valuable to point out here that civilization as we know it was possible through advances in agriculture. At first, being a farming culture sucked because, as you hint at, they were nutritionally more poor than hunter-gatherers, but gradually they actually began producing more food than they needed, allowing the rise of classes of people who didn't have to grow food.
This requires a certain amount of handwavium--the writers were making things up as they went along, and weren't logically consistent. In real life, the Vulcans might never have been able to develop a technological civilization at all on their desert planet.
I am vegan myself so I won't even attempt to eat any replicated meat. I do make in the real world here Mock (Mimic) Meat which is based on veggies/fruit. So if I was on the Star Ship I would programmed the Replicator to make Burgers or Hot Dogs without Meat in them. It can be done. I do myself. They come out so good my GSD (German Shepard Dog) enjoys them.
Time will only tell!