Slashdot Mirror

http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/WhyVegan.pdf

Seriously. Maybe this looks tailormade, but take a look.

[shameless propaganda]

That's why eating vegan makes more sense.

[/shamless propaganda]

But I also agree with the sentiment about patenting life forms. Even if I wasn't against IP on principle, that's taking it too far.

Actually, there is no least-harm paradox. If you want to minimize the number of animals that die on account of your diet, it's best to eat a vegetarian (or preferably, vegan diet), which causes fewer deaths than one based on large free-range ruminants.

Reference: Least harm: a defense of vegetarianism from Steven Davis's omnivorous proposal.

Mant - this the AC you replied to. You have made some very valid points here for sure.

I agree that outwardly observable reactions to physically damaging stimuli, which may appear to suggest pain, do not necessary mean that a subjective feeling of what I label "pain" is also occuring.

Of course I cannot be absolutely certain that even other humans actually interpret pain the same as I do, or for that matter that they are even conscious.....but that is probably getting a bit too low level(or is that high level?) philosopical for now.

All empathy(whether for humans or animals) is a form of projection or imagining. Unless one could experience the consciousness of another being directly one would have to take a guess at what is, or could be going on inside anothers mind/body.

I once read an article on the web(can't seem to track it down right now, and this desciprtion of the article is sketchy at best) that certain hormones and/or neurochemicals as well as certain neurological structures and/or receptors that appear to be related to pain perception in humans were also found in animals right down to level of insects. Of course at the current relatively primitive level of scientific understanding of the brain, let alone consciousness, such studies leave a lot to be desired.

Here's is a link to an article about many of the points you brought up:
http://www.veganoutreach.org/insectcog.html

It's definitely a complex issue with many uncertainties. The line where empathy and compassion is relevant and where it may not be relevant is an ongoing issue as far as I am concerned.

Why are you wasting your time judging Pflipp? Instead of waiting for Pflipp to practice what he preaches, let's see *you* take the initiative.

I agree with you that there is no such thing as absolute veganism; animal products are shoveled into just about everything today [1]. It's easy to get discouraged and give up. Still, I encourage you to strive for animal rights. Every little bit helps. Jack Norris of Vegan Outreach defines veganism as "an attempt to reduce the intense suffering of non-human animals," which includes "a lifestyle that does not support animal exploitation." [2]

The more research I did, the more products I found that neither included animal products nor were tested on them. If you buy these products, you influence the companies that make them, and indirectly, consumers who see these new products. Here is a directory (among many others) of cruelty-free items and their producers.

Anyway. the important thing is that you go out there and do something.

- Roey Katz

1. For a complete list of chemicals derived from animal products, please see this list

2. "Defining Vegan", by Jack Norris, R.D.

> Oh yeah, what a horrible life: eat, sleep and for a few, reproduce.

There are plenty of resources out there on the net -- even objective ones -- that show how truly horrendous conditions are for animals on factory farms. I suggest doing some research; you may just be surprised.

http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan

> they were born to die and become food.

Please! Black slaves were born to work in the fields for their white owners too, but that don't make it right.

Heads are Gonna Roll: The Lexical Connection Between Capitalism and Death

While doing research for a longer expose on the correlation between Western Economics and the worst forms of human violence, such as war, slavery, and murder, I have discovered a most fascinating bit of history. There apparently is a connection between the economic system known as Capitalism and a killing device known as a Guillotine. The connection may leave your head spinning ;^)

We begin by examining our language, for our language has evolved along with our human cultures. Studying word origins (etymology) may give us insightful clues into our history, the unpleasant parts of which the historians may have sanitized in order to make their product (history books) more marketable. We humans, it seems, don't like to be reminded of our savage origins, or the logical inconsistency of our savage nature.

In this essay, I will begin to explore some ideas I have which may explain our violent culture, which Rutgers University Law Professor Gary Francione says exhibits a "moral schizophrenia", a society which Frank Zappa called "socially retarded" and "dumb all over", a community defined by for-profit media corporations spewing confused doublespeak to unquestioning alcohol anesthetic brains, a culture which, rather than condemning all violence, attempts to justify that violence which suits our own savage lust for blood, fills our bellies, is good for our investments, or guarantees us a cheap tank of gas for our sport utility vehicles.

Contrarily, I assert the premise that a civil and democratic society with a stable population (i.e. not growing) based on the principles of non-violence is the only logically consistent, sustainable, and morally defensible kind, a society where the civil order is spontaneous, arising from social contracts amongst morally responsible beings. This utopian ideal is opposed to our current world, where a kind of fascist order is imposed by gangs of violent thugs with high-tech weapons, operating only under color of an ersatz law imposed by a savage and non-representative elite ruling class.

In my studies and experiences, the correlation between savagery and our dominant religious beliefs were always clear (the topic of a different essay!), but at some point I began to formulate a hypothesis that there may be more to blame than just religion as the source of Western violence.

During my research, I discovered that our happy, G-rated, warm and snuggly word "capital" shares it's roots with the not-so-splendid word "decapitate". "How curious!", I thought. What could be the common thread connecting these things? Any ideas? Well, it turns out the key is right inside your head.

Well, not inside exactly. It's in all heads. It *is* all heads, in the abstract sense: a roundish bone covered with flesh and hair containing eyes and a brain, the center of consciousness of an autonomous creature possessing the animating force, which roams the earth of its own free will, self-aware, and aware of its surroundings.

So where the hell can I be going with this, you ask!

Well, open up any dictionary, and you will learn that the Latin root of the word "capital" is "capitalis", from the Indo European "kaput", which means head. Remember the guillotine we spoke of before? This is a device used for decapitation, where the unlucky victim loses his head. Are you beginning to see how this all fits together?

Now our Economic System has become a "sacred cow", so to speak, as the people who criticize it are labeled the most horrible names. All of us who grew up in America were taught from the earliest age the evils of "Communism", a rival economic system, but never told exactly why it was evil. During the 1950s and 1960s, Senator Joseph McCarthy lead one of the largest witch-hunts in modern history, and many professional actors and musicians were blacklisted as being suspected members of Communist organizations.

But because we enjoy challenging the herd-think, let's see if we can find other lexical connections between our economic "sacred cow", and death. Perhaps it will lead us to some other sacred things which are often overlooked, even trampled upon by the stampeding mob, so obsessed by greed, so absorbed with getting stroked by Adam Smith's Invisible Hand of self-interest, they can't even hear the cries of those they hurt, or don't think those others matter. Perhaps they simply don't care.

But maybe, just maybe, Adam Smith and all his followers (like Ayn Rand) are wrong. Perhaps selfishness, since all life is connected, is a kind of self-hatred. And since self-hatred seems to often lead to self-destruction, those of us who actually enjoy life and feel it is worth living, and worth sustaining, want to see self-hatred transformed by love into something better.

Every man, woman, and child, every smelly leper, every prisoner, every bird, every bee, and every cockroach and spider are all perfect reflections of the Divine Spirit, so perhaps the greed embodied by Capitalism is a kind of blasphemy, perhaps a capital offense.

Which provides a nice segue back to our topic! A "capital offense" is a crime deserving the death penalty, a possible sentence for which is when the accused heads off to the guillotine. Notice however, that a capital letter is at the head of different sort of sentence. A Capitol is where the head of the government lives, which is (hopefully) a man with a good head on his shoulders. Finally, in Russian, a thing which is "kaput" is as dead as Marie Antoinette. If you begin to see how this all fits, go the the head of the class!

But all of these capital-death denotations come from etymological connection between the word "capital" and the word "head". But from where does this connection derive?

The Cult of the Cow: Capitalism and The Idea that Things with Eyes and a Brain are Ownable Property

The connection between capitalism and the Indo European word for "head" comes from another nexus, that between economics and cows. From antiquity to the present, cattle have been referred to "heads of cattle"; even the word Cattle derives from "chattel" also from the Indo European word for head. Note the word "chattel" has been used to refer to "animal property" (horses, pigs, sheep, cows, and yes, even human slaves), for hundreds of years. Heads are Money, or so our language seems to be telling us.

The capitalism-cow connections are endless: A successful business venture is a "Cash Cow". When investments are growing, it's a Bull Market. When you are exhausting some resource, you are "milking it for what it's worth". While not explicitly a cow connection, the phrase "making a killing" (meaning making a profit) may indirectly refer to the slaughter of innocents for profit, to sell to those that crave the taste of blood.

There are connections to other animals, and slavery: one United States Federal Reserve Note (a/k/a, a dollar) is also called a "buck", a unit of money. But a buck also means a male deer (a unit of food to a carnivore), and is also slang for a male slave.

Now I'm losing some of you right now, because you say the Bible allows killing animals. We need meat in order to be healthy. Animals aren't moral agents, and don't have souls. We've always exploited animals for our gain. Look at nature! Big fish eating little fish...

But I argue that the same idea that allows ownership of a cow, allows for the ownership of a man. And if you think that slavery is gone from the modern world, you are not seeing the forest for the trees. The same notion that allows for the killing of a cow for selfish reasons, can be used to justify killing *any* creature, or *any human society*, for those same selfish reasons.

Isn't it time for the cycle of violence to stop?

Even the word "stock market" derives from the slave trade, where "livestock" was sold at auction. Now this word only connotes non-human animals, but historically it was applied to human slaves as well. There are still remnants in our language of this. Today, human prisoners are kept in holding devices or cells called stockades or a bull pens.

Thus, cows, prisoners, slaves, and those murdered by the state for their crimes, are all connected in this way, not just to the roots of word Capitalism, but also to the Capitalist idea which treats each of these creatures as beings not of their own right, but ownable property, having no self interest nor the power of self determination, but existing only to serve the interests of their owner, the Master or the State.

We humans claim to be smarter than the animals, "higher" than those savage brutes. So why can't we use our heads for something more than a place to park our John Deere ball cap, and figure out a way to formulate peace? Can't we create a new economy which does not rely upon dominination of the weak, and explotation of those creatures which don't speak our language?

End.