Zuckerberg Only Eating Animals He Personally Kills

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.'"

Comments

To this, I say, so what?

[Kenja]

Really unsure why I should care... this seems more of a People Magazine article then News For Nerds.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[blackraven14250]

It's about one of the most successful (monetarily) modern nerds going off the deep end.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[jd]

"Going" sounds superfluous given who we are talking about.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

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?

[Omnifarious]

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.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Pvt_Ryan]

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?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

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?

[obergfellja]

ie: "Ummm... who cares?"

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, killing animals for food is 'going off the deep end'?

Oh come on, who eats a goat?

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, I have little respect for people that are of the mentality "I only care to have said object, not how it came to be or how it works". Furthermore, as a vegetarian that is not necessarily against eating meat but more the manor that animals are treated pre and post slaughter; the only way I would currently eat meat is if I knew the means of the animal's raising and method of it's kill. I would speculate that opposition to this perspective is likely due to the ignorance resplendent in the misinformation dominated marketing of consumer culture. It's mostly the same reason that globalization and outsourcing work; the majority of people don't care how their products are made or how the people making them are treated as long as it's cheap.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[RedDeadThumb]

It is funny. C'mon, we aren't allowed a little fun?

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Hatta]

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.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Bing Tsher E]

The Zuck was never a nerd. He's definitely a fratboy type who used nerds.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[grub]

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...

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[RussellSHarris]

I've eaten goat. And, hell, in some countries you'd be the weird one if you hadn't eaten goat.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[elPetak]

amen brother!

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Bieeanda]

People magazine? I thought this was someone trying to expand Literally Unbelievable into exploring the credulity of Slashdot readers as well as Facebookers.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

He is off the rocker for this, but only for running around for everyone to hear. The man is heading up a rather large, high profile tech company and this is just bound to piss of a lot of people. By people I mean more than PETA. Is there anything wrong with what he is doing? Of course not.

"That's where the meat comes from after all, or weren't you aware?"

Most people aren't. You can try to explain and drive it home all you want but this is simply not the kind of thing that the average person even wants to wrap their mind around. This will seem like a lot of different bad things to different people and he is being naive thinking he can tell us intimate details about his life raising eire.

After all, were not talking about Faceb.....ahhh shit.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[zanian]

Really unsure why I should care... this seems more of a People Magazine article then News For Nerds.

Well, it is on idle, but this seems more like sleeping or dead, rather than idle.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing that when you were a wee lad you didn't have to walk very far to get to the back of the bus

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[lpp]

So, killing animals for food is 'going off the deep end'?

Oh come on, who eats a goat?

Chupacabra

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Nadaka]

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.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with what he's doing? The only downside is that it's more work. The upside is an increased understanding of man and nature.

You probably shouldn't eat anything you wouldn't be willing to kill yourself. A lot of modern urban dwellers are, in a strange sense, very sheltered and parochial; they have been removed from nature.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[sco08y]

Wouldn't this be the shallow end?

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[SilentStaid]

He didn't release that information - Jesse Cool did. Jesus Christ it's in the god damn summary!

More importantly, even if he did say it: with his track record on privacy - which part about this would be hard to believe?

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about one of the most successful (monetarily) modern nerds going off the deep end.

Calling this idiot a nerd is too much.
More like marketing asshole that wants to be a nerd.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Cosgrach]

Goat meat is fantastic! They make great stew or lasagne. The last two that we slaughtered we shot in the brain pan. Quick and easy. A knife? That's stupid.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[White Flame]

I don't really care much about animal treatment, but that sounds more cruel than just killing it.

(Not to mention inefficient.)

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[jcoy42]

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?

[Cytotoxic]

Is he eating the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution?

No... The Supreme Court, Congress and President are handling that just fine, thanks.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

aha! to not kill the host.
classically parasitical, i telsya.
for 25 points, align that as a metaphor (bettryet, conceit) for the current state of our economy.

and, of course, rowdy poo.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Jiro]

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?

[Jiro]

There's a difference between being willing to kill an animal yourself and actually doing it. Being willing shows that you aren't trying to avoid moral objections to meat. But actually doing it, unless you're a hunter or a farmer, is stupid for reasons that have nothing to do with the moral value of killing animals. Would you really write only on paper that you personally made by chopping down a tree and grinding it down into wood pulp yourself? Probably not, but it's not because you find it wrong to kill trees, it's because getting paper that way is such a ridiculously inefficient thing to do that anyone who'd really do it has shown themselves to have lost touch with reality.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[MaskedSlacker]

Seeing as there may not be enough to go around expect them to gorge on the rest of the thing too. Americans expect hearty portions these days.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[MaskedSlacker]

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?

Movies taught me that soylent green is people, what do animals have to do with it? Aren't they all gone/extinct?

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[element-o.p.]

Ugh...that's more repulsive to me than simply killing the animal before butchering it. I had surgery in my mid-20s, and the six weeks of recuperation afterwards pretty much sucked. Imagine if that was your life: anesthetized before surgery, parts cut out of you, stitched back together again, several weeks of moderate discomfort to outright pain, and then about the time you finally started feeling "normal" again it's time to rinse and repeat .

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[MaskedSlacker]

No, the Chupacabra (literally, Goat Sucker) sucks their blood.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Eponymous Hero]

a hot steamy pile of shit was also not raised on a factory farm. and i've never described any meat i've eaten as grassy. what planet are you from?

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you. If I was able to kill an animal personally, I'd eat those nicely prepared meat from shop. But I'm not. So I'm vegetarian. That's why, suprisingly enough, I agree with his choice. At least he's not a hypocrite.
However, murder is a murder for me, so...
Oh crap, that's hard ;)

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Culture20]

Goat meat is fantastic! They make great stew or lasagne. The last two that we slaughtered we shot in the brain pan. Quick and easy. A knife? That's stupid.

Yeah, a knife and blood-letting sounds more like a ritual sacrifice than a slaughter. Maybe he's doing it within city limits though, so no shooting of firearms..

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[NetNed]

Goat is the most widely consumed meat in all the world. Look it up.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Culture20]

for 25 points, align that as a metaphor (bettryet, conceit) for the current state of our economy.

I prefer car analogies, but this one includes a little of Michael J Fox and gas prices, so that's got some economy:
It's like Back to the Future where Marty uses his skateboard by grabbing onto passing cars. If he did that today, there would be some serious road rage since he'd be "stealing" gas.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Killing animals for food, for survival or for profit, isn't going off the deep end. Doing so when you've got billions in the bank and way better things to do, in order to "appreciate the food you eat", is.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Eponymous Hero]

zuckerberg, to the best of everyone's knowledge, does not live on a farm. nor do we believe he was raised on one. it is perfectly normal for hicks to slaughter their own food. they're hicks. they don't live in cities (not most of em anyway). to live in a city, to live a modern high-tech lifestyle and then announce a preference for the inconvenience and violence required to slaughter one's own food, does imply that his mind may be out to lunch.

i wonder if he allows his employees time in their schedule to slaughter their own meat? it would be awfully unfair to promote a "better" practice and then prohibit others from following suit.

i wonder if he'll start making his own clothes now? after all, if it's more humane to slaughter your own food, then it is definitely more humane to make your own shoes than to get a pair made in a sweatshop. maybe he'll give up cars and whittle his own conestoga wagon from a single tree. shit, maybe he'll give up on facebook and start writing actual letters to people he knows to keep them informed.

i wouldn't say it's crazy or "off the deep end" to slaughter your own food, but if you aren't going to give up on society and technology altogether and go become a quaker, then it is definitely stupid, and maybe even just for attention.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[peragrin]

NO Cmdr Taco accept his invites to visit his outfit and send kdawson in your place.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[grub]

Hey, I was all of 5 or 6. Had no real concept of 'killing'.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think using a knife is kosher style.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[swordgeek]

I come from farming stock on all sides of the family, and have no problems with killing animals for food. When you're on a farm, it makes good sense to slaughter some of your own product for food.

Zuckerberg's attitude, though, really strikes me as gleefully sadistic. If he's concerned about animal welfare, he could just as easily become a vegetarian. Instead, he's going significantly out of his way to kill animals. Any claims of humanitarianism at this point seem a bit hollow. More like trophy hunters who are "maintaining/restoring the natural balance of wildlife."

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Omnifarious]

Way to put words in the gp's mouth. If you were honest with yourself, you'd probably admit that a declaration like, "I only eat animals I've personally killed" sounds a little crazy. Let's say you go to a party and some guy comes up to you and says, "You know, omnifarious, I only eat animals that I've personally killed." What do you think of that fellow? 'cause I'll tell you something. That guy you just met? He's simultaneously the most interesting guy at the party and the most likely to hunt you for sport. I guess I'm saying that there's something a bit off about him.

I wouldn't say that. I know a lot of people who have a rather visceral reaction to being confronted with exactly where their food comes from. I would be surprised if some come to the conclusion that they should force themselves to come to grips with this fact in the most direct way possible. And I don't think billionares are anybody particularly special. I wouldn't think they'd gone off the deep end, I'd think that they were going through an interesting phase in their moral development.

Now, I will admit there are ways to make that statement seem creepier. For example, going on about the gory details without any prompting (which he didn't do, someone is quoting a friend who was personally involved) or having a certain gleeful glint in your eyes. But there is no statement that can be attributed directly to Mark in that story that's like that. The only thing close in when he talks about a lobster tasting better, but then he attributes that to the fact he hadn't had any lobster in a long time because of the restriction he's chosen for himself.

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

Who's the classist again?

I'm sorry, but the original statement seem very much like "Why would one of the richest nerds go off and actually butcher his own meat?". Well, why wouldn't he? Is the work considered 'dirty' or 'unclean' or wrong in some way? Nobody thinks to remark on the fact that he drives his own car when he could easily pay to have someone else do it, or clean his own house (well, maybe he doesn't do that) even though he could afford a housekeeper. Why should butchering his own meat be any different?

People tend to denigrate the people who do the jobs they'd prefer not to think about. Japan has developed a weird caste system based on whether or not your ancestors ever worked in the sewers. And that sort of thing starts with a reaction of disdain and disgust whenever someone brings up the unpleasant thing.

You: "A member of my family killed some animals once". Yeah, I can see how that's relevant and/or insightful. Great job as usual, mods!

I've done some hunting (rabbits) and some fishing and cleaned things myself. It was a small farm, so I was also involved in butchering. Being a kid on a farm means you're involved and help out and are exposed to all the details.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[pandrijeczko]

Furthermore, as a vegetarian that is not necessarily against eating meat but more the manor that animals are treated pre and post slaughter;

Furthermore, as a vegetarian, you've made a personal decision about the type of food you want to put in your mouth & I respect that.

So now butt out & don't lecture an omnivore like me about what I should & shouldn't do.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Ahnteis]

Some of us think it's "cute" that Zuckerberg has time to personally slaughter his meals, dress the meat, and prepare it. I wish *I* had that kind of free time and disposable income. Of course I probably wouldn't spend it killing my dinner.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Obfuscant]

So, killing animals for food is 'going off the deep end'? I lived on a farm from ages 5-11.

When you live on a farm where you raise animals and eat them, yes, killing animals for food is normal.

When you live in a big city and you normally never come close to an animal while it is alive, switching to a mode where you eat no animals except those you've personally killed is "going off the deep end".

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, ...

Nobody said that. Nobody said anything about anyone but Zuckerberg.

It's the same thing as someone who has never worn a shirt other than one made by Brook's Brothers suddenly deciding he's going to plant the backyard in cotton, get himself a cotten gin, start weaving his own cloth, and wear nothing that he hasn't sewn togther himself. It's just looney. For him.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't have to kill animals for food, nobody makes you do it and it is not your profession, but you do it anyway, then that means you want to kill animals. It is a sign that the person is discontent with having access to everything and seeks to reevaluate the fundamental aspects of life. Off. The. Deep. End.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[pandrijeczko]

But isn't living on a farm and rearing animals that you do not kill just for you to eat just as hypocritical?

Presumably you raised livestock and sold it for money knowing full well it would be slaughtered for others to eat.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[sumdumass]

You would describe it if you knew the difference between pasture raised beef and corn raised beef.

Grassy is the off flavor that should naturally be in different meats but disappeared with the factor farms. It's like the difference between farm raised catfish and fresh caught catfish.

Anyways, I admire his actions in this as it is he gets to ensure the animals he eats were humanely raise, and slaughtered.

BTW, have you notices that everything tastes like chicken or chicken tastes like everything. It's not because chicken is bland, it's because factory farm raised chicken is bland and doesn't taste like chicken. A free range bird feed vegetables and whatever it can forage will taste Superior-ly and distinctively better. This is similar to the term Grassy as it's generally the natural flavor of the animal depending on what it eats.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Darinbob]

Warn your Gummi Bears not to wander the streets without an adult being present!

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[element-o.p.]

The crux of the problem is this: there are things that people want, in this case food (steak, for example). Satisfying these wants sometimes means others are going to suffer (in this example, the cow that is slaughtered for the steak). However, most people don't like to think about how the things they want are obtained at the expense of someone or something else. Zuckerberg, by making a statement in this way, is forcing people to face the unpleasant fact that the steaks in the package at your local supermarket were once part of a living, breathing animal. Since it is easier to dismiss Zuckerberg as a wacko than it is to face the unpleasant fact that a lot of what we eat comes at the expensive of another life, that's exactly what many people are choosing to do. Sure, it's intellectually dishonest, but...well, did you ever hear of a guy named Socrates? People got so uptight with him for throwing their intellectual dishonesty in their collective faces that they sentenced him to death.

This isn't limited to food, either. Like that Hummer you drive? That's arguably a major explanation for why we are still at war in Iraq, and why we're now getting involved in Libya, too. How many of the toys your kids play with were made by a Chinese kid in a sweatshop? Do you know that for certain? <shrug> I'm not pointing fingers, and, Mr. AC, I'm certainly not accusing you specifically of any of this. But I am saying that Zuckerberg at least is facing the reality that when he eats meat, it's because an animal died.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Omnifarious]

Presumably you raised livestock and sold it for money knowing full well it would be slaughtered for others to eat.

Nope, we butchered all of our own animals. Sometimes we sold the meat to neighbors. But we were not a big operation, just a fairly small family farm designed mostly to feed ourselves.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Darinbob]

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 broke in and grabbed her wrist in its mouth and dragged out outside to safety. So this pig here saved my wife's life!"

The salesman says "this is wonderful, but how did you pig lose his legs?" The farmer replies "well this one time I fell off the tractor and got my foot caught and it started dragging me across the field and I could not control it. But the pig ran up and into the cab and sat down on the brake until it stopped. So that pig there saved my life!"

Again the salesman asks "this is a marvelous pig I understand, but how did he lose his legs?"

The farmer answers "Well, a find and wonderful pig like this who has saved you and your family's lives, well... You just don't eat a pig like that all at once."

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Omnifarious]

When you live on a farm where you raise animals and eat them, yes, killing animals for food is normal.

When you live in a big city and you normally never come close to an animal while it is alive, switching to a mode where you eat no animals except those you've personally killed is "going off the deep end".

On the contrary. I think someone who was raised on a farm who decides that they must only eat animals they've killed themselves is a bit strange. They already have had to face exactly what goes on.

Someone who never has, I can understand deciding that slaughtering your own animals is the only way to bring the point home to yourself. It's very easy to not really understand. I think it's a moral ill of society that most people don't really know.

Primitive hunter-gatherers understood. Many of them had rituals thanking the animal for its life. In modern society its all packaged so most people can avoid having to know or think about it. As I said, I think that we're poorer for it. I wish more people realized. We'd have more vegetarians, and I think a better appreciation for the fact that we're part of the ecosystem.

I think people's 'ick' reaction is a perfect example. They don't want to have to think about it. And think people who put themselves in the position of having to must be somehow broken or disturbed. If he had lived in a house where a housekeeper always did the cleaning, nobody would raise an eyebrow if he said he was going to fire his housekeeper and do his own housecleaning for awhile in order to understand the housekeeper's life a bit better.

I doubt he'll do it forever. It's very time consuming. But I don't really care if he does, and I don't think it's in any way a negative thing.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[ed1park]

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?

[sumdumass]

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

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't have to kill animals for food, nobody makes you do it and it is not your profession, but you do it anyway, then that means you want to kill animals

If you eat animals, that means you want to kill animals, whether that be directly or indirectly.

Me, I have no problem with either. But if you're too squeamish to kill the animal yourself, go ahead and let someone else do the messy part of the job; unfortunately we're too civilized to let Darwin kill you off.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is he eating the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution?

What is this "Constitution" you speak of? Is it some kind of Al-Qaeda document?

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I say it's going off the deep end because it's completely unnecessary. I'm not saying it's beneath me; I'm saying it's not a necessary facet of life for the vast majority of people to kill animals. I can respect the decision to do it once, possibly of each animal species, but it's just a way to overall waste when you're inundated with an excess of both cash and time.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[LurkerXXX]

Sorry, yes, only eating animals you kill yourself is going off the deep end.

I grew up on a farm myself. Regularly killed the chickens, rabbits, etc for dinner.

Doing cattle is a whole different ballgame. You want someone doing that who does it all the time. There's an art to it, and if you are just doing it on off here, or there, you are going to do a crappy job, wasting a lot of the meat in the process.

Is there any particular philosophical reason you would limit yourself to chicken and rabbit meat and now cow meat? No. Doing so is loony.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd bet Zuckerberg can't slaughter animals he eats as painlessly and quickly as a professional butcher can. He could as well fund the research for artificially grown meat or large scale nutritional usage of insects if he really wants to be "eco friendly"..

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course I probably wouldn't spend it killing my dinner.

Then you don't really get to talk.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing that when you were a wee lad you didn't have to walk very far to get to the back of the bus

I get it, that's a short bus joke

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[sortius_nod]

Yeh, I use goat a lot. Goat Curry, Goat Chilli Con Carne, Goat Kebabs - like tasty lamb.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, killing animals for food is 'going off the deep end'?

No, claiming something stupid for attention is.

That's where the meat comes from after all, or weren't you aware?

Yes, and servers are all build by someone. But does anyone only use servers they built themselves?

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice troll.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Osgeld]

Goat is good, as others have pointed out its like lamb but much less greasy

I tell you what though, turtle, stay away

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

He'd only use the social media website idea's he came up with himself! oh wait...

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Maxo-Texas]

Yes, the cows would live with all the bulls who were released to the easy life after bullfights as our tour guide for a mexican bullfight told us 25 years ago.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's obviously a difference between wanting to eat meat and wanting to kill an animal. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion. Normal people don't want to kill animals. The fact that animals are slaughtered so that we can eat meat is accepted, not desired.

Anyway, it's only a peripheral argument. There would be similar concern about Zuckerberg's mental health if he decided to live in a cave for half a year in order to improve his appreciation of modern plumbing.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[element-o.p.]

Sorry - didn't mean to like I was criticize you. It just sounded creepy to me now :)

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Obfuscant]

On the contrary. I think someone who was raised on a farm who decides that they must only eat animals they've killed themselves is a bit strange. They already have had to face exactly what goes on.

Yeah, yeah, touchy feely Gaia-ism that survives only because we have the luxury of being able to have others do jobs for us in exchange for us doing things they don't want to do so we don't have to work 20 hour days just to survive, and then we get to spend our "free time" pretending that everything is God. Those cows have souls just as valuable as humans' souls, and ants are just humans who are suffering from bad karma. I get it.

And think people who put themselves in the position of having to must be somehow broken or disturbed.

People who think that killing animals is bad and then decide they're going to kill animals themselves so they feel bad about it, instead of simply not eating animals so nothing has to be killed, are both broken and disturbed. I think the shrinks call it "masochism".

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's obviously a difference between wanting to eat meat and wanting to kill an animal.

There's obviously a difference between hiring a hit man to kill your ex and just doing the job yourself. Yet both ways you're equally liable.

Normal people don't want to kill animals.

Normal people don't want to COOK. Period. Hello, Pizza Hut.

You want meat? Then an animal dies. You can't deal with that? Fine, keep letting someone else bring the meat to your table.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[XxtraLarGe]

I think more people should try killing their own food. I go deer hunting every year. Most years I get one, and come home with a couple of coolers full of meat, but I had to earn it.

I have to gut the deer, haul the deer out of the woods, hang it up in the garage and then skin it, then butcher it. Then I rinse the meat and cut it further or grind the rough stuff for hamburger, then package it in vacuum-sealed bags.

You can argue whether or not it's humane, but I think I'd rather have a bullet through the heart & bleed out after 5-10 seconds or so rather than be chased down by a pack of wolves, which we also have where I hunt.

Some people think hunting is unfair, but I usually sit out in the woods in sub-freezing temperatures for several days before I ever see one. Deer don't care too much about the snow, and they have much better hearing & sense of smell than any person, so it's easy for them to avoid you if you're not sitting very still & silent.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[TheScreenIsnt]

"This is dumb and doesn't belong here" bubbles up to the surface here all the time. I'm turning in my sig. Slashdot, you're too into yourself. I no longer identify with what has become a community where easy criticism is consistently considered insightful. The tone is ugly and the signal to noise ratio has, for me, crossed a waste-of-time threshold on a scale much larger than single-silly-article. The whole community seems to exist (largely) in order to congratulate itself for its own cleverness. Bye bye.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[MstrFool]

Well, IMHO it's not going off the deep end. It recognizing where meet comes from, and doing it your self rather then having some one do it for you. No more going off the deep end then fixing your car your self. 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... Yup, you don't eat a pig like that all at once...

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[SMoynihan]

We have "black pudding" here in Ireland. It's blood sausage.

Back in the old days, when a family would have a potato patch and a pig, they would bleed the pig, mix it with some oats, and eat the sausage.

Family gets protein, pig lives.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[brit74]

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. Sounds like Mark took them up on the offer, but hasn't gone fully vegetarian.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aspergers'? Can you really not tell that there is a difference between a desire for a particular food and a desire to do with your own hands what's necessary to get that food? People who develop a desire to do the latter have problems. People who just want to eat what their body considers tasty do not.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to completely and utterly miss the point. Your supposedly-similar example is completely different. Whether you hire someone or do it yourself, you want her dead for no other reason than the fact that you want her dead. Wanting an animal to die for food is different. Claiming Zuckerberg's gone off the deep end is a little premature, but this is most definitely a publicity stunt and thus isn't in any way important.

Honestly, why should I care what Zuckerberg's doing? At least this means he's taking a break from blatantly misusing private information.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[BasilBrush]

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?

[theshowmecanuck]

Since this is Slashdot, the best way I can respond to this is by saying you make yourself sound like the people of 'Eminiar VII' and 'Vendikar' in the Star Trek episode 'A Taste of Armageddon' . I tend to think that it shows Zuckerberg as having a more reverential respect for the animals he eats. Now with that analogy done, I have this feeling that hokey latex fake Klingon skin is starting to form on me... I need to shower [wink].

Now if somehow I managed to be eating lunch with him and the response he gave to 'this is good, what is it?' is, 'remember that homeless guy down on main street?', then you might have a point.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Unequivocal]

But people who eat hamburgers aren't going significantly out of their way to kill animals? Seems real similar to me, except he's going out of his way to kill the animals personally. You eat a burger instead of the fries, you've pretty much gone out of your way to kill a cow.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Savantissimo]

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. )

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry you were so stupid when you were little :-(

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[grub]

No prob, I wasn't offended, should have mentioned my age off the hop.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[rhakka]

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?

[rhakka]

there is meaning in it, to the person who is taking responsibility for their own actions. Division of labor is not more "meaningful". it's simply more efficient. Meaning is determined by a given person for him or herself.

I salute his convictions. I hate how easily I fall into eating factory farmed meat. which is unsustainable, unhealthy, and inhumane... and can stay that way forever, because of your high vaunted division of labor making sure that most people don't understand what they are eating. Or if they do understand, at least we don't have to actually face the reality of it when we buy our nice packaged beef products in the store. We can pretend that THIS meat wasn't so bad.

We have division of labor because specializing is helpful for many things. opting out of that structure, for whatever reason, is hardly "going off the deep end" though. If a person desires to be more connected with the essentials of his or her own existence... more power to them.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[camperdave]

For a hunter, it's not going off the deep end. For a farmer, it's borderline (farmers usually send the animals off to the abattoir and in a few days pick up a trunk full of packages wrapped in butcher paper). For a billionaire website developer, it's definitely off the deep end.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Culture20]

He could as well fund the research for artificially grown meat

It tastes like despair.

if he really wants to be "eco friendly"

Somehow I doubt artificially grown meat is more "eco friendly" than natural meat.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Culture20]

But people who eat hamburgers aren't going significantly out of their way to kill animals? Seems real similar to me, except he's going out of his way to kill the animals personally. You eat a burger instead of the fries, you've pretty much gone out of your way to kill a cow.

That's like saying I went significantly out of my way to kill Foxconn employees for my iPhone. Or significantly out of my way to enslave Indian factory workers for my haubergeon. Or significantly out of my way to enslave illegal immigrants for my produce.

People eat the end product of the Farm->Reseller->Slaughterhouse->Reseller->Marketplace chain because of convenience. It's just as easy as gathering (because it's right next to the rest of the food in the store), or even easier in a restaurant since they prepare it too.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[SydShamino]

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 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 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?

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Pinky's Brain]

Yep, and saying slicing the throat while conscious is the most humane way is classical Jewish propaganda ...

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Fjandr]

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?

[Fjandr]

Unless you're talking to yourself in that post, you must have missed all the "I's" in it. The poster was talking about their own choices. Nowhere in there was a lecture regarding what you should and shouldn't do. It was a commentary on their own choices and specifically denoted opinion about the nature of how many people look past the process that gets them the resulting products they use.

So now butt out & don't lecture

The only one telling someone what they should and shouldn't do is you, right here.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

The meaning comes from the fact of killing something with a nervous system, with a personality, and recognizing that you're doing that. And I'm a confirmed omnivore. But I absolutely understand the desire for someone to feel that internal consistency requires them to be willing to actually kill the animal that provides the food, to recognize that you're killing something with feelings. Personally, I find it commendable; even if you don't, there's no reason to judge him on this. There are plenty of other things to judge him on, but this isn't one of them.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[quacking duck]

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 of us. I remember being slightly queasy at the sight, having grown up in a big Canadian city, but only slightly. Far from turning me off meat, it made me appreciate dinner more that night, and I make a point never, ever to waste meat at a meal.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Opportunist]

If you do it to make a living, it's pretty normal.

If you do it to make a statement, I'd say it's a wee bit off the scale.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[EdgeCreeper]

It's not screaming.. It's just the air escaping!

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[other-different-nick]

So why don't you stuff it then? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muQJwHrCfAo

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

invite is a verb: "I invite you to a party".

The word for which you were searching is the noun invitation. "Do not accept any invitations from Mark Zuckerberg"

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or halal

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a difference between being willing to kill an animal yourself and actually doing it. Being willing shows that you aren't trying to avoid moral objections to meat. But actually doing it, unless you're a hunter or a farmer, is stupid...

Bullshit

Many people will happily say they are willing to kill an animal (or to do a million other things), but then, when push comes to shove, they'd never actually go through with it. In this case, saying you're willing to do something is complete hypocrisy, a lie and shows you to be a coward.
The only way you'll truly know that you're willing to do something is if you actually go and do it.

(Yes, I am aware of the irony of decrying cowardry whilst posting as AC).

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Mindcontrolled]

Same here in Germany. Any vertebrate needs to be made unconscious before killing it. I just had a game warden check my equipment for the right kind of club to knock out my fish before bleeding them on my last fishing trip. Around here we definitely have penalties - in the fishing case, that would be suspension of your fishing license if you get caught not doing it the proper way.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Joce640k]

And the NSA's "Carnivore" domestic spying project.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[BeanThere]

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.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[BeanThere]

We evolved as hunter-gatherers. I believe almost every man has a hunter instinct somewhere in him, even if it's suppressed in most people and thanks to our cushy upbringings. I grew up in the city and in an "anti-hunting" family, so I never really thought I would get into it, but as I got older I got curious about it and wanted to try it and eventually did, and there is something a little awesome about going out, tracking down and killing an animal, and literally feeding your family from the meat. To slashdotters I say don't knock it till you've tried it, and try it at least once. Obviously, one always tries to be as humane as possible, and no part of the animal whatsoever goes to waste. Time was almost every American family hunted for at least some of their food. I don't think we should ever entirely lose that heritage and way of life, firstly because it satisfies an important part of who we are as humans, and secondly because if we as a civilization accidentally ever de-industrialize and regress for whatever reason, those skills are going to be important ... I think if the remnants of civilization consist of a bunch of 'pansy-boys' whining about how "killing animals is evil" or going "ew, gross" we will quite possibly die out as a species. And if we have e.g. an alien invasion, we will also need a lot of good old sharp-shooting 'aggressive' males to fight.

Unless we de-industrialize, within the next several decades it could well become cheaper to artificially grow meat than to eat real meat .. it's likely to become ever harder to defend these good old primitive ways.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should can the sense of persecution, Cletus. This is about an absurdly rich tech mogul suddenly deciding he's going to slaughter his own meat.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[RockDoctor]

When you live in a big city and you normally never come close to an animal while it is alive, switching to a mode where you eat no animals except those you've personally killed is "going off the deep end".

Not accepting your point (I've bred, killed, skinned, gutted and eaten pet rabbits while living in a medium-size town, and wouldn't have any moral concern about doing it again. The wife might object, but I wouldn't force her to eat Flopsy, Mopsy and Chewy.

But as a matter of information that I'm not particularly interested in - does Zuckerberg live in a city-centre apartment (where he'd be practically limited to chickens on the roof), in a suburban house (limited to something not much bigger than a goat or a pig), or in an out of town mansion (where getting a license to keep an elephant is likely to be the main constraint).

I also note that TFS does not say he'll only eat animals he raised himself. which renders the "room to raise" question above pretty moot.

It's the same thing as someone who has never worn a shirt other than one made by Brook's Brothers suddenly deciding he's going to plant the backyard in cotton, get himself a cotten gin, start weaving his own cloth, and wear nothing that he hasn't sewn togther himself. It's just looney. For him.

Ummm, not Zuckerberg, but that is pretty much what the Mahatma did. It may not fit your lifestyle, but neither you, the Mahatma, nor Zuckerberg are the same person, so ... what?

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[BlueScreenO'Life]

As a vegetarian I can relate to that, it's about awareness. But I have no goal in mind to turn people off meat, and I don't judge people who eat meat. After all, we are gifted to be top-of-the-chain predators.

I wouldn't mind eating meat coming from animals I had killed myself, if I ever found myself in a situation that only animal food is available.

Just be aware.

By the way, while we're on the topic of division of labor - for efficiency's sake, I guess - production of animal food is orders of magnitude less calorie-efficient than vegetable food. It is only through subsidies coming out of our pockets that we don't realize that.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me? Division of labour *always* leads to a lack of knowledge about labour outside your own field. That's the whole point of specialisation in the first place - allowing you to focus on what you do, rather than on other jobs that aren't part of your mandate.

Now, lack of respect for other people's work is a culture problem; the solution is education, not publicity stunts.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[flyneye]

Ahhh, yes, I recall my youth on the farm. I even worked for other farmers as a teen. I watched my grandmother hatchet chickens, my grandfather and uncles dressing deer an pheasant. Eating live animals in not very appealing.
          In my own experience, I can tell you, you really gotta put some heart into swinging that sledgehammer at ol' bossys head though. You definitely don't want a cow to live past the first hit. It's just not civilized.. Getting enough custom cut beef to feed my family for 8 months on free range non hormone beef? Priceless.
      Also there is one meat you don't have to kill for and is just part of farm life.... Mountain Oysters. WoooHoooooo!
I will return details upon request from any green /.ers . Including recipes.
      I can never forget seeing sexy "Janie" from New Britain Conn. and her family, come out to the sticks to visit friends who summered in our tiny town. We took her and siblings on a tour of the countryside and visits to a farm. I present actual quotes from the trip for your amusement.
        " I slipped and fell in this thing back there, what is it, it smells like crap"
          " They do what? We get milk and meat at the grocery store"
          "you can't get pregnant if the girl is on top" ( o.k. that wasn't from the trip, but followed the drunken fair dance.)
It's true, locale affects intelligence and customs. We all eat Yummy Delicious Meat though. If we don't we tend to believe that protein rich vegetation will keep our brain chemistry and physical wellbeing intact, while the rest of us laugh and make jokes at their expense. I don't see anyone living particularly longer or necessarily healthier, depending on common sense control of portion sizes.
      I'm all about meat and have eaten many animals from snakes to bear, from brains to nuts,from bowls and plates.Damn I love a good BBQ . Hell it comes with beer!

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[flyneye]

If you don't have to kill food and you know somebody did, by your speculation are you not promoting mental disease of some poor sod working in an abortoire,who could've just as easily driven a forklift elsewhere? Honeypie, these aren't Rocket Surgeons at the meat packing plant.

I personally watched my teenage brother pet a stray dog on the head to get him to sit still , while he stepped back and unloaded a .22 rifle into its head. About 9 rounds. He grew out of that sort of behaviour and is a big animal lover. No, I wouldn't say he was ever discontent. Spoiled, yes. Off the deep end, No. Swimming in the deep end, Yes.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[flyneye]

It's a bit damn tough unless you crock it like a roast. Even though he was my friend I can honestly say raising goats made him smell of goats.
Hands up, anyone out there who's smelled a goat!

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[flyneye]

Large hot piles of steamy shit are what livestock commonly walk around on in factory farmville. Could it be why commercial meat tastes like shit?
Ever eaten anything but grocery store crap? Stupid farmers and Commercial meat packers don't purge animals before slaughter.
Grassy is a term I understand. Purging can help.
I'm sorry you're from Planet Dumbshit where intelligence is ridiculous.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[flyneye]

Amen brotha, Preach tha Word!!

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[rich_hudds]

Unless you are hunting with weapons you've made yourself you may as well just buy the meat in a supermarket, you're no closer to primitive man.

The world needs fewer aggressive males not more, and any aliens capable of invasion are probably going to be able to cope with a few gun nuts like you.

Time was almost every American family lived off the land. Then they were exterminated by Europeans with guns and germs. There is no going back.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Nikolai Weibull]

So, killing animals for food is 'going off the deep end'?

It’s the belief that you’re somehow better than other people for only eating what you kill yourself that is a sign of “going off the deep end”. It’s also smug and rather offensive. (I also don’t see him living on a farm, doing all the work it takes before you actually put the animals to slaughter.)

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if privacy goes well with ketchup?

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Jiro]

That justifies doing it *once*. He's not doing it once. He;s deciding that he's *never* going to eat meat that he didn't personally kill himself. Once he's done it a few times and understands tha \t he's killing an animal, pledging to continue to do it for the rest of his life makes no more sense than only using paper from trees you chopped down yourself.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not a farmer, he's a pretentious billionaire. We all know where our food comes from. I've never killed anything bigger than a spider, but I come from a farming family and have seen cows slaughtered. I don't need to do it myself to "appreciate" where my food comes from. And remember, classism works both ways.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[hittman007]

...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.

You had me up until you compared it to a personal political view. This is being debated enough that a comparison to a political viewpoint doesn't need to be inserted.

I am curious how many people noticed that it stated that he has largely been a vegetarian... Well this is slashdot so I'm guessing not many...

I went hunting once, killed my first and only deer. It made me feel bad inside. I also learned just what it costs to keep someone alive...

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Omnifarious]

It’s the belief that you’re somehow better than other people for only eating what you kill yourself that is a sign of “going off the deep end”. It’s also smug and rather offensive. (I also don’t see him living on a farm, doing all the work it takes before you actually put the animals to slaughter.)

I didn't get the sense of smugness at all. It seemed to me like it was a personal choice motivated by a desire to fully appreciate where his meat came from.

And that's true, I can't really see him putting in the time and effort to make a farm work himself. Even going to a farm will help you appreciate just how much time and effort it is, but yeah, I still agree with you there. :-)

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[GCsoftware]

An invite can also be used as a noun, it's perfectly accepted usage.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Unequivocal]

Keep smoking it. Foxconn employees don't have to jump out of windows to make iPads. Last I checked, the only way to eat a hamburger is for someone to kill a cow.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[omfgnosis]

He doesn't have to kill animals for food, but if he's to eat animals *somebody* has to do so. Having someone else do the killing is no more and no less an expression of "wanting to kill animals". There are plenty of reasons to want to be the person who does the slaughtering beyond a desire to kill: an ethical inclination to take responsibility for one's own actions; concern for the quality of treatment of the animal; concern for the quality of the meat.

I'm not sure what it has to do with being "discontent with having access to everything", as being involved in the production of the food one eats is a "thing" to "have access to"—and it's something that many, many people don't or can't have. That said, I don't see what would be wrong with such discontent; "having access to everything" hardly sounds like a fulfilling life, and while I have no interest in portraying him as anything heroic, I would imagine it's doubly unfulfilling to a person who is accustomed to creating.

And I'm not sure how any of that is reflective of "reevaluating the fundamental aspects of life"; how is "having access to everything" or having your animal slaughtering done for you a "fundamental aspect of life"? And even—no, especially—if it is, what is so wrong with reevaluating that?

There is not one component of your point that makes a lick of sense. I can't really fathom why people entrenched in the accoutrements of modern techno-living are so threatened by people who question some of those accoutrements... Are you afraid that you, too, might some day need to get your hands a little dirty?

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[omfgnosis]

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 person[s] making the choice. For those of us in industrial societies, our dietary choices affect far more than just ourselves. Even if you aren't willing to consider the effects on the animals you eat (or consume non-meat products from), the different farming methods available can have a huge impact on the quality of the surrounding environment—large factory farming operations create massive amounts of pollution, particularly harming water—as well as on the quality, diversity and affordability of foods available to the population at large.

You and your cheeseburger are not an island.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Xaositecte]

How you you be fully aware of all of those things and not see that it proves exactly the opposite point you're trying to make.

You are complicit in the suicide of Foxconn workers, enslavement of Indian factory workers, and enslavement of illegal immigrants for your produce.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Culture20]

That's not the point. I didn't go significantly out of my way to do those things. The dark side isn't more powerful, it's easier; mote seductive. The "good" options for consumer goods are more difficult, and you have to go significantly out of your way to do them.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[rhakka]

I challenge you, then, to illustrate how the two things are different. If you are not ok with watching poor people die on the sidewalk walking into a hospital, but you also do not think we should give them health care, then you are just as hypocritical as someone who thinks it's ok to eat meat but that it's not ok to personally kill an animal.

the fact that your level of comfort with the two situations may be different doesn't make the situations themselves different.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[dreampod]

The difference is that Zuckerberg is taking moral responsibility for his actions by accepting whatever unpleasentness is involved in killing the animals rather than passing off an excuse that it would be too hard to not participate in the enslavement of workers to make his goods like you are.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[queazocotal]

I'm not sure that you've not heard confused accounts of bloodlettig, which is used by some tribes to get some nutrition out of the cow without killing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRYZp8KmODE
Caution - link does not contain Rick Astley.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[hittman007]

I challenge you, then, to illustrate how the two things are different. If you are not ok with watching poor people die on the sidewalk walking into a hospital, but you also do not think we should give them health care, then you are just as hypocritical as someone who thinks it's ok to eat meat but that it's not ok to personally kill an animal.

the fact that your level of comfort with the two situations may be different doesn't make the situations themselves different.

Show how they are different? Thats easy, animals are a food source, the "poor" are not. The article is talking about a food source and an opinion on a certain method of obtaining meat. Are you saying we kill "poor" people for meat? These two are only the same if your answer is yes.

I would also like to point out that this same group of people have access to a measure of health insurance. Its not official, and they don't pay anything (everyone else pays for it through their insurance actually, one big reason insurance rates are so high) but its there. Hospitals are, after all, not allowed to refuse anyone for emergency service. Ironically this provides better health care to the "poor" than many universal health care systems that are in theory designed to try and help them, usually hurting the rest of the populace in the process.

Is there a better way to do cover them? I'm sure there is, however that debate has no place here when taking about personally killing animals for ones food as opposed to having some invisible third party do it.

You will notice the word poor has been in quotes every time before now, this is because many of these "poor" people apparently make more money than I do. Many of the "poor" people in this country are poor because they spend to much of their income on the wrong things.

Also before you read into the above I'm not saying that there aren't any truly poor people in this country, and I"m not doing to say that there aren't any that die on the streets alone. This, however, is also true for those countries that have this so called "universal" health care, and if you were able to find an accurate source of numbers I think you would be surprised as to how many this happens to in countries with universal health care...

Am I a hypocrite? No. As I said before, you are putting two things together here that have no relation.

Now I'm not going to talk about the poor or healthcare any more here, the article in question simply does not warrant it.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[rhakka]

You are missing the entire point and going off on your own tangent. I made no assertions about current levels of healthcare or whether or not poor people are, in fact, currently dying in the street today. That is all you. My statements were hypothetical, note the important little word "if" in there a few times.

the premise I actually put forward is simple:

IF you are not ok with giving poor people health care, ONLY if you do not have to see them die in the street, that is EQUAL TO being ok with eating meat but NOT being ok with killing animals, in terms of cowardice and hypocrisy.

  if you agree with either one, you are a hypocrite in that realm. If you do not have the moral fortitude to own up to the consequence of your own action in a direct sense, then you are simply a coward who needs to be insulated from the world you promote, and I have no respect for that, in myself or in anyone else.

If you eat meat now, but would not eat meat if you had to kill it yourself, you should not eat meat now because someone else does the killing for you. If you don't know if you would kill for meat, you should probably figure that out. It might, at the least, change how much meat you eat.

exactly similar would be IF... IF... IF.... you were willing to say no one should get health care they cannot pay for, but were unwilling to stick to that principle when faced with a dying kid. You'd be a monster, IMHO, if you did stick to your guns in that case, but you would not be a coward or a hypocrite. If you can imagine that you would not be able to stick to those guns, then it would be important to recognize that you do, in fact, believe that people should get health care even if they can't afford it. How, why, how much, when, none of those questions apply to my HYPOTHETICAL statement.

As far as the meat, and as I posted already, I struggle with this already myself, as I'm not sure I would eat as much meat as I do now.. or at all... if I had to face the killing of it myself directly. I haven't had the courage to face this concern of mine as of yet. I just don't rationalize my cowardice, or my hypocrisy. At least, not as successfully as some others in this thread.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[hittman007]

You are missing the entire point and going off on your own tangent.

Am I?

I made no assertions about current levels of healthcare or whether or not poor people are, in fact, currently dying in the street today. That is all you. My statements were hypothetical, note the important little word "if" in there a few times.

the premise I actually put forward is simple:

OK...

IF you are not ok with giving poor people health care, ONLY if you do not have to see them die in the street, that is EQUAL TO being ok with eating meat but NOT being ok with killing animals, in terms of cowardice and hypocrisy.

And to this I simply suggested you use a less political comparison. Health Care is a hotly debated issue in my country today and people have strong feelings on both sides. There are those that will take your hypothetical metaphor as a direct link.

...cut a small portion of your text...If you do not have the moral fortitude to own up to the consequence of your own action in a direct sense, then you are simply a coward who needs to be insulated from the world you promote, and I have no respect for that, in myself or in anyone else.

No argument here.

If you eat meat now, but would not eat meat if you had to kill it yourself, you should not eat meat now because someone else does the killing for you.

In principle I have no problem with this statement either. There was a time in our past where pretty much everything a family group/clan ate they killed/picked/harvested themselves. Unfortunately in the modern day world today it simply isn't feasible.

If it came down to it and it was a choice of me surviving or that animal over there, well sorry animal.

If you don't know if you would kill for meat, you should probably figure that out. It might, at the least, change how much meat you eat.

I have been camping where we brought no food, we fished for everything we ate. We ate well. As I mentioned above, if it comes to it, I have no problem with it.

exactly similar would be IF... IF... IF.... you were willing to say no one should get health care they cannot pay for, but were unwilling to stick to that principle when faced with a dying kid. You'd be a monster, IMHO, if you did stick to your guns in that case, but you would not be a coward or a hypocrite. If you can imagine that you would not be able to stick to those guns, then it would be important to recognize that you do, in fact, believe that people should get health care even if they can't afford it. How, why, how much, when, none of those questions apply to my HYPOTHETICAL statement.

If you look at my original reply to your first message that I replied to I simply said that using something other than a sometimes fiercely debated political issue as an example, one that many people reading will assume you have a specific political viewpoint on a topic other that what is currently being debated.

As far as the meat, and as I posted already, I struggle with this already myself, as I'm not sure I would eat as much meat as I do now.. or at all... if I had to face the killing of it myself directly. I haven't had the courage to face this concern of mine as of yet. I just don't rationalize my cowardice, or my hypocrisy. At least, not as successfully as some others in this thread.

It depends for me, if it comes down to it I know I would do it for survival. However I simply don't see something like this happening in the modern day world. Where would we put the animals, and for that matter plants in a city environment today...

Long story short, I agree with you in principle, however I don't see it being feasible in the modern day world, and, as I said in my initial reply, I suggest using a less hot button issue than healthcare in any form to try and get your point across, even if it is only hypothetical.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[rhakka]

I understand it's a hot button issue. that doesn't make your response to it correct. Understandable, perhaps. but it's really a similar lesson to draw in either case and frankly with the tea party cohorts running around I wouldn't be upset if they were forced to evaluate their own stance on health care a bit more honestly either. two birds, one stone. I think most of us can establish we're not really ok with poor people and kids dying on the sidewalk, so all the whining about socialism is kind of moot and really the question should migrate to the practical questions you raise fairly quickly... who, how much, how often, how to administer, etc.

I don't mind someone (cough cough) having to be more careful about how they respond to hypotheticals either ;) look at all the good lessons going around!

I of course would eat meat for survival. I definitely would also kill occasionally as I believe SOME meat intake is optimal for health and I have not, as of yet, seen any real examples that lead me to believe otherwise in my vegetarian/vegan friends. I've never seen so many food allergies or general ailments as I have amongst vegetarian/vegan circles. of course that may just be "use it or lose it" but hey, why risk it.

But survival is not the question for most of us, and I eat WAAAY more meat than would be nutritionally required by any measure, and so it becomes a question of "how much would you kill just for the taste of meat"? Currently I suspect my "murder quotient" is far higher than it would be if I had to face each meal eye to eye before eating it. But I don't really know until I test it. I also don't know how much I'd want the meat if I had a lot less of it around... it might be higher than I suspect now, all fat and happy on beef, pork and chicken on a daily basis.

I agree it would hard for me to test this... I don't really have time to work at a slaughterhouse, but I do live in the country and I'm sure I could go to a farm and ask to be part of the process for a weekend or something. but I do certainly think this is a problem with division of labor, not a benefit.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[hittman007]

From what I'm reading we are very close in principle.

As I said in my last post, in the world today there is no reasonable way to meet said principle.

Also I would also extend the doing it yourself to any plant life you consume. Just my opinion, but I think you can't have one without the other without being, as you say, a hypocrite.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[rhakka]

I think you can: there is no moral ambiguity in eating plants others have raised, IMO. Unless you think plants have feelings, in which case, your only choice is to starve to death. so I don't think this extends forever, I think it's very clearly only applicable in a case where you are shielded from your own morality/immorality by "outsourcing" the dirty work to others.

Maybe, if the food is grown with pesticides and such and the workers are getting sick and you're fine with it because you don't have to watch THEM die to give you cheap food. But absent some kind of actual harm there, then I can only say that it's very educational to grow some food yourself, and laudable... but I can't fucking stand weeding and I'll be happy if I never grow another tomato in my god damned life. Growing up on a small farm does that to some people I guess. (before you ask, we never butchered our own animals... not sure why, really).

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Xest]

"So, killing animals for food is 'going off the deep end'?"

Yeah, if you're a multi-billionaire.

"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."

Blah blah, cutting down forests, mining for oil and other materials are all pretty destructive too but it's not really something you do yourself out of choice just so you can say "Hey, look at me, I'm Mr Ethical, I cut down my own rainforest and made my own table, and smashed up my own hill to mine my own metals to weld my own car together".

Really, the point is this, not that people don't know where their food comes from, but that ending the life of something isn't particularly pleasant. If you start doing it to make a point or as a PR stunt then yes it's a little weird. The issue is that killing something for food out of necessity because it's your job- your living, or for mere survival, is one thing, but doing it to make a point, or because you enjoy it? That's a little more strange.

You seem to recognise that slaughtering an animal isn't a particularly pleasant and enjoyable thing, so please realise if people are saying it's weird it's not because they're disrespecting people like you who have done this rather unpleasant task, but because they wonder why someone would do such a thing out of choice when they simply do not have to.

When we're talking about someone who judging by past comments and actions seems somewhat of a sociopath, one with quite a hunger for power, coupled with the fact there's a list of animals he's killed and a comment of how he killed one as if he's tallying them up on a scorecard or something (Chicken- tick, pig- tick, goat- tick, horse- tick, human- tick), then I'm not really suprised people think he may have gone off his rocker a little. That's not to say that means people like you who did this out of necessity are also in the same boat however.

I think most people recognise slaughtering animals for food is a fact of life, but as a PR stunt, to make a point, or for enjoyment? That's a little more weird.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[SydShamino]

Yeah, but it doesn't always lead to a lack of knowledge about the effort required for said labor.

I'm not knowledgeable about the mechanisms on my local garbage truck, but I understand how hard it is to work outside for 6 hours on a hot, sweaty day with a big pile of stench nearby, and I can appreciate that they do work I won't.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Omnifarious]

When we're talking about someone who judging by past comments and actions seems somewhat of a sociopath, one with quite a hunger for power, coupled with the fact there's a list of animals he's killed and a comment of how he killed one as if he's tallying them up on a scorecard or something (Chicken- tick, pig- tick, goat- tick, horse- tick, human- tick), then I'm not really suprised people think he may have gone off his rocker a little. That's not to say that means people like you who did this out of necessity are also in the same boat however.

This is the only part of your post I agree with. But, I do agree with it. I don't think it's a PR stunt for him, but I can agree that keeping a list is rather strange, and perhaps a bit disturbed.

On the other hand, I remember most of the animals we slaughtered since we had a fairly small farm. And while I don't really like to talk about it in detail, if I felt I had to talk about it, I would likely do so in a very cool and detached way, and it might sound to some people like checkmarks on a list.

But I kind of doubt that's what's up here.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Omnifarious]

I still think a lot of people's reaction is along the same lines as why Japan has the Burakumin class. And I think most people would benefit from a visit to a farm or a slaughterhouse and maybe doing a bit of that work themselves. I feel that we (as a society) have become very disconnected from certain realities and that it would do people some benefit to become reconnected with them.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Xest]

But doesn't it stretch to everything? We turn a blind eye to ecosystems destroyed for our raw materials, we turn a blind eye to abysmal working conditions of people who make our clothes and gadgets- sometimes even child labour, we don't recognise what utterly filthy jobs people have to do to ensure our waste management systems work.

There's a lot of unpleasant jobs out there that people are detached from but it seems to be a new fad to focus on the food part of it. The fact is we're a consumer society, we live in a world where people can choose to pay to have these sorts of jobs done. I'm not sure it's an inherently bad thing- what exactly changes between paying for some meat at a supermarket and killing it and producing it yourself?

It strikes me as little more than a new machismo fad- "look at me, I'm a real tough guy, I kill my own food". I've snared and skinned rabbit in the past, I didn't like it in the slightest, but it was part of getting our own food. I'm not really sure what value there is in all people doing the same- it didn't teach me anything I wasn't aware of. It was just as horrible as I expected it to be. What is the value exactly of people being "reconnected" to the reality of slaughter for food? the hope they'll be shocked into going vegetarian or something? There seems to be this view that because people don't do it, they can't or wouldn't do it- they could and would, they just prefer not too, and like plumbing blocked toilets and so forth they'd rather pay someone else to do it.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Eponymous Hero]

not from Planet Dumbshit, i'm from Planet Over-Your-Retarded-Head. i don't give a hairy fuck about your factory farms. my points are:

1. the best thing about goat better not be that it's not raised on a factory farm. there are plenty of horrible tasting things out there that grow free-range or wild, that not being from a factory farm does not necessarily make it good. the commenter was convincing me that goat tasted good until this ridiculous claim.

2. yes, i have eaten food that i've killed. i've also sampled many kinds of exotic meats, like crocodile, emu, ostrich and kangaroo. i understand the term gamey to describe the taste of meat. that grassy is a term you understand just won you a gold star sticker and a serenade from the 1cm orchestra. they had a hit on the the top 40 billboard charts, titled "Purge that goat before you slice his throat." gfy.

overheard at mcdonald's

guy #1: you gonna get the big mac again?
guy #2: naw, it's not grassy enough for me. tastes like it wasn't purged before slaughter.
guy #1: i know what you mean. i hate it when they don't care about our hyper sensitive taste buds
guy #2: unless we're talking about fries, they invented a whole new field of science just for that
guy #1: you'd think if the "grassy" quality in the taste of food were important they'd find a way to simulate that with a pheromone, like they do with the fries...
guy #2: right, like they could make the soy patty taste like it was once alive and fed grass to eat, maybe while it wandered around some open land....
guy #1: what toy came with your meal?
guy #2: nothing much, just some literature on how to purge your intended kill so as not to contaminate the meat...
guy #1: sounds like fun, definitely not the buzzkill on a joke i don't get that wasn't intended for me

overheard at specialty grass-fed burger joint:

guy #1: does this burger taste corny to you?
guy #2: you mean, does it taste like it was fed corn? nah, i would say it tastes more...grassy...
guy #1: either way it tastes better than mcdonald's
guy #2: yeah but i can never tell if that's because actual better food tastes better than pheromones, or because i'm paying 3x as much for the grass-fed burger.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Omnifarious]

the hope they'll be shocked into going vegetarian or something?

Actually, the opposite. I trace the existence of PETA directly to people being unaware of how nature actually functions or where their food comes from at a fairly early age.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Xest]

I can't really comment on PETA, I know it has a very negative perception in the US, but certainly here in the UK it would be completely wrong to make such a comment about our animal welfare organisations.

When we have videos of turkeys being thrown up into the air and hit with a baseball bat then left around crippled, sometimes paralyzed, and sometimes dying to suffer until they're finally actually culled a few days later and that sort of thing then it's nothing to do with a disassociation from the reality of where our food comes from but a complete distaste of sick fucks who actually get pleasure out of seeing things suffer.

Certainly here in the UK, whilst few people like seeing animals die, they understand it's necessary for their food. What they don't think is necessary is for people to get pleasure out of making living things suffer a slow painful death for fun. Not liking unnecessary suffering at least has little to do with not wanting to have meat killed for food, and many vegetarians here are vegetarian not because they don't want to see animals killed, but because they don't like the unnecessarily cruel practices involved.

Personally I couldn't ever be a vegetarian because I don't really eat a lot of vegetables, and do eat a lot of meat, but I do have some respect for their viewpoint- importantly it's had some positive effects here in the UK, battery farming of chickens has seen a massive decrease in favour of free range eggs for example, and the best part of all that? the quality of our food has improved as a result too, and to demonstrate the fact that many of these vegetarians aren't rational, many are now happy to eat eggs again as a result knowing the animals were treated reasonably.

I'm not saying there aren't purists out there who think all killing is bad, and yes they're irrational, but they're really a minority amongst vegetarians so to bundle them all in with PETA (assuming PETA's reputation is deserved- as I say, I don't know enough about it) seems rather unfair.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Omnifarious]

I'm not equating all vegetarians with PETA or stating the cruelty or mistreatment of animals is OK and we should be trying to denigrate organizations that stand against that sort of mistreatment.

I'm saying that the extremes of position we see in the US are, in my opinion, at least partly the result of how disconnected and insulated people are from the source of their food. Here PETA is known for being very extreme and calling absolutely any use of animals for food in any way a horrible abuse. They've been known to sometimes use violence (though generally not deadly violence) to make their point.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Xest]

We do have those sorts of animal rights extremists here but they tend to target people who do lab testing on animals, and people who farm animals such as mink for fur rather than food.

These are much greyer areas IMO as there's a fair question as to whether such use of animals really is necessary- whilst medical testing on animals may in some cases be something we simply have to accept if we want new medicine it's testing of cosmetics that animal rights activists tend to target. I do somewhat agree with them doing so, I'm not convinced making animals suffer for the sake of testing the latest perfume to see if it burns skin, or the effect it has if you get it in your eyes and so forth, or farming them in abysmal conditions for the vanity of fur coats when fake fur is just as good (and doesn't cause allergic reactions, and lasts longer!) is in any way a reasonable use of animals.

I can certainly sympathise with the disrespect people would have for PETA if it believes we should all go vegetarian and does so in a militant fashion. That certainly crosses a line beyond rationality.

Re:To this, I say, so what?

[Omnifarious]

I can certainly sympathise with the disrespect people would have for PETA if it believes we should all go vegetarian and does so in a militant fashion. That certainly crosses a line beyond rationality.

There's a reason the backronym 'People Eating Tasty Animals' is so popular here. While the issues they raise about factory farming are worthwhile, they do so in a way that implies any use of animals for food (including eggs or milk) are ethically questionable. Though, protests about these sorts of things are usually a step below violence. Just public displays that are purposely very shocking and that feel like attacks even though no physical harm is being done.

I heard...

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard he actually has someone else kill the animal and then steps in and claims credit for the kill.

Re:I heard...

[Puzzles]

Actually Zuckerberg does the killing himself. However the Winkelvoss twins claim the kills for themselves.

Re:I heard...

[ackthpt]

I heard he actually has someone else kill the animal and then steps in and claims credit for the kill.

Yeah, but he doesn't get the experience or the gold for killing the goat.

Re:I heard...

[Darinbob]

He's got staff for that.

Re:I heard...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how Bill Gates hunts.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg Eaten

[microcentillion]

The man claimed no foul, as he had killed Zuckerberg himself before enjoying his meal

Re:CEO Mark Zuckerberg Eaten

[Anonymous Coward]

by a grue

Re:CEO Mark Zuckerberg Eaten

[Geminii]

How was the Zuckerburger?

Actually, he's killed half a dozen cows...

[rjk94]

...on Farmville.

Idiot

[jdastrup]

Idiot.

Re:Idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

I strongly disagree. He's a douchebag of historic proportions for other reasons, but I believe that you should at least be open to the practice of killing the animals you eat -- and hopefully have done it a couple of times with different animals, so you at least have some personal experience in the process. The vast majority of Americans are so detached from where their food comes from and the personal experience of killing an animal for food is like, that it strongly negatively distorts their diets. While I think this sort of policy would probably result in some people becoming vegetarian, it likely would also get many people to trade shitty processed meats for legitimate meat. Fresh meat is as strong a differentiator as fresh vegetables or fruit, but it gets no attention at all outside of seafood.

I also think that getting people more experienced with killing their food would reduce some of cultural misunderstanding between urban folks who have strongly negative feelings towards guns and gun owners and rural folks who do go hunting regularly. One of my best friends was telling me her only experience involving a gun was having a friend in school blow his own head off with one; that's more experience than most people I know who didn't grow up in my rural town. Not surprisingly, most of them view guns and gun owners with fear or antipathy.

Re:Idiot

[jdastrup]

I have no problem with killing the animals you eat. But he is an idiot, and the current trend of elitists/celebrities/multimillionaires doing this is stupid.

But you, on the other hand, grow your own food and refuse to eat it otherwise. You grow your own cotton, raise your own sheep for their wool, make your own clothes, and refuse to wear it otherwise. Good luck with all that.

Re:Idiot

[rjstanford]

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...

I'm loling on the inside

[Anonymous Coward]

At least until Zuckerberg cuts it out.

^_^

[Anonymous Coward]

:3

I've been doing this for years!

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

Which is why I mostly eat spiders out of tissues :(

Re:I've been doing this for years!

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

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.

Re:I've been doing this for years!

[Qzukk]

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...

Re:I've been doing this for years!

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

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]

Re:I've been doing this for years!

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

Permanent setting it is. Odd.

Re:I've been doing this for years!

[iluvcapra]

I've been doing this for years, which is why I'm a vegetarian.

Re:I've been doing this for years!

[Anonymous Coward]

Taught me something new, thx.

Re:I've been doing this for years!

[EvanED]

Turn off some new stuff in the options somewhere to go back to a mostly older page and it'll give you it back. I didn't even realize it was gone for most people.

I can respect that..

[VMaN]

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.

Re:I can respect that..

[jd]

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!"

Re:I can respect that..

[VMaN]

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.

Re:I can respect that..

[Twinbee]

Both came from a live animal. It doesn't make it more 'clever' if you do it yourself.

Re:I can respect that..

[VortexCortex]

Not to mention we've no shortage of cows... It's not like there are too many whales -- as the stewards of Earth you'd think we'd act like it instead of extincting species for no other reason than because we want to.

Re:I can respect that..

[VMaN]

We have no shortage of pilot whales either, afaik. But most people only hear "whale" and assume the worst.

Re:I can respect that..

[macmacaman]

As a person who has gotten to kill a few pigs, I mostly agree with your sentiment. I am not outraged by the killing of a whale because of the blood. I am outraged because it is usually not done quickly or humanely, because often a B.S. reason of conducting "science" is used an excuse to fuel an industry, because some of the species of whales hunted are threatened or endangered (can't say that about pigs and sheep), and for the fuzzy reason that I think cetaceans are too smart to eat. But whales aside...I understand where you are coming from.

Re:I can respect that..

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? We're breeding whales now?

Re:I can respect that..

[jd]

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.

Re:I can respect that..

[VMaN]

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*.

Re:I can respect that..

[VMaN]

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 around the Faroes, Faroese catches of 850 per year are probably sustainable.
According to the American Cetacean Society — a whale protectionist group — pilot whales are not considered endangered. The society cites that there are likely about 1,000,000 long-finned and at least 200,000 short-finned pilot whales worldwide."

and

"Long-term annual average catch 1709–1999: 850
Annual average catch 1900–1999: 1,225
Annual average catch 1980–1999: 1,511
Annual average catch 1990–1999: 956"

The records are pretty good, continuous since 1709, and partially back to 1584

Re:I can respect that..

[rtb61]

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's presence and not it's carcase.

Re:I can respect that..

[VMaN]

What kind of twisted mind would infer that from what I said?

Re:I can respect that..

[rjstanford]

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."

Re:I can respect that..

[Algae_94]

The whales are doing this on their own.

Re:I can respect that..

[VMaN]

I don't see the problem with a .1% population cull, borders or not. If there were conservation issues, sure, it'd need to be regulated tightly. And owning a migrating animal? The whales are born free, and they die free. Sounds like a good deal to me, compared to what the rest of my lunches go through before ending up on my plate.

Re:I can respect that..

[Gerocrack]

Wait... are you saying Zuckerberg tore the spine out of a beached whale, then ate it?

Re:I can respect that..

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus any human kills count towards shortage.

Re:I can respect that..

[Anonymous Coward]

If you go by brain capacity, should we be handing out stricter sentences for murdering people with high IQs? Can we hunt down people who use l33tspeak for free?

Re:I can respect that..

[larry bagina]

I don't know about whales, but certainly dolphins

Re:I can respect that..

[jd]

The other problem is species. It wasn't that long ago that genetic research forced the reclassification of northern right whales into two distinct species (essentially slashing the population size). I don't know how much research has been done on pilot whales - not much, if it's as data-deficient as it appears to be - and it may well prove that there's only one distinct species there. On the other hand, if there are N+1 species or subspecies then there's a maximum of 1/(2^N) of the estimated numbers in the smallest-numbered group.

That the northern right whale split was such a surprise (it was only discovered around 2000, long after the discovery that dorsal fins uniquely identify cetaceans and certainly after the invention of photography) tells me that the assumptions being made aren't always being checked very carefully.

The numbers probably are sustainable, provided N=0 or 1 (ie: 1 or 2 species), not convinced the numbers are as good if N is any larger.

The ethical issues get a bit trickier. It's observed that bottlenose dolphins and orcas can manufacture tools, work with intermediate languages when pods gather, and can even operate touchscreen panels with purpose (well, orcas might well use porpoise sometimes, they're like that). That starts getting into cloudy issues, especially as you can't really do similar studies on whales very easily. What sized screen would you use for a blue whale, anyway? The Japanese argument that this makes cetaceans no smarter than a dog just doesn't hold up. Dogs don't manufacture tools and the only thing they're likely to see touchscreens as good for is as a chewtoy. However, we can't compare species directly, research is way too primitive to draw any meaningful conclusions, and even if we could, we've no framework for defining when something shouldn't be a food item for intellectual reasons, only environmental ones.

Re:I can respect that..

[element-o.p.]

Apparently, about half of /.

As I've followed this thread, I have become increasingly alarmed at the astounding lack of reading comprehension on display. Is everybody here channeling Nancy Grace, or what?

Re:I can respect that..

[harlows_monkeys]

One of the most striking segments on "Human Planet" showed people who live on a volcanic island where very little crops can be grown hunting whales. They go out in small paddled boats, and someone with essentially a long sharp stick leaps and tries to hit the whale. Over the next several hours they poke at the whale with their sharp sticks until it dies, and they then haul it ashore where it feeds the village for months.

If the whales are so smart, why don't they learn to swim away when the boats launch? The whales are big enough to easily capsize the boats, but they don't. They could probably escape after the first attack by simply swimming away, but they don't.

It's even worse for whales in the open ocean. In the old days, whaling boats were sale boats and very limited in their ability to maneuver. Whales should have been able to learn to stay far away, and if they accidentally got too close, learned how to swim in a way that the boat could not follow. Modern whaling ships are powered and more maneuverable, but also make a ton of noise. Whales should be able to easily avoid coming in range of them.

Conclusion: whale intelligence is greatly overestimated.

Re:I can respect that..

[jd]

Please! This is Slashdot. They're channeling William Shakespere (who wrote all of Shakespere's plays under the pseudonym of William Shakespere, to deprive Francis Bacon of recognition as the author).

Re:I can respect that..

[jd]

This was answered in I think it was the fourth season of the revamped Doctor Who.

Re:I can respect that..

[HornWumpus]

If that is true I might even sign up for twitbook.

Re:I can respect that..

[angst_ridden_hipster]

Is it morally worse to kill and eat an intelligent creature than to kill and eat an unintelligent creature? Why?

Re:I can respect that..

[russotto]

Yea, killing whales for "science" is absurd.

Then the International Whaling Commission should not have abandoned its charter by banning whaling, thus prompting these ridiculous but face-saving (all around) claims about "scientific research".

Re:I can respect that..

[brit74]

> "Is it morally worse to kill and eat an intelligent creature than to kill and eat an unintelligent creature? Why?"
Is that a serious question?

If it's just as bad to eat an unintelligent creature as an intelligent one, then I think I can accuse vegetarians of genocide everytime they eat yogurt or bread or drink beer (the last two are made with brewers yeast). I suppose all plants can also be considered "unintelligent creatures" as well.

Re:I can respect that..

[Obfuscant]

The other problem is species. It wasn't that long ago that genetic research forced the reclassification of northern right whales into two distinct species (essentially slashing the population size).

You mean a geneticist single-handedly cut the population of a certain species IN HALF? Wow. I'd say we ought to ban genetic research then. Very dangerous to northern right whales, at a minimum.

On the other hand, let them tackle the human overpopulation problem. They might whittle the herd down by a few orders of magnitude if they could just find some genetic differences...

Re:I can respect that..

[SydShamino]

I bet that, pound for pound, cows are the most prevalent hoofed mammal on the planet. As an pseudo-evolutionary tactic, cows have been greatly rewarded for their evolved ability to be damned tasty.

Re:I can respect that..

[emj]

Since no one's got a clue about how many there are exactly I think stating a percentage like that is very far fetched. It would be interesting to know how the population has changed, and maybe then you could talk about percentages.

Re:I can respect that..

[VMaN]

I think your premise is flawed. No one has a clue about how many *exactly* there are of anything. But we do have estimates. The same thing we have of any wild animal.

I approve of this course of action.

[Nadaka]

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.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[bertoelcon]

Agreed, the nerd in me still thinks he's a douche but the redneck in me thinks this is a good thing to try.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Anonymous Coward]

You would appreciate the car you drive more if you designed and built it yourself. For most people it's just not practical.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you dislike him for being immensely successful, extremely intelligent, an excellent businessman, fairly good looking, popular, or is it just generic nerdjealousy masquerading as some ethical bullshit? Cause I'm gonna go right ahead and guess you've never met him and don't actually know enough about him to dislike him on honest grounds.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Mindcontrolled]

True. Everyone should at least have done it once, to get the full appreciation. These days I only slaughter the fish I catch - if I catch them, they seem to be a step ahead of me lately - but growing up in deep country and being used to slaughtering whatever gets on the table gives you some perspective.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[VortexCortex]

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.

[Nadaka]

I dislike him because he is a duchebag, a liar, a cheat and someone who uses friends, allies and total strangers alike without regard for their rights or well being.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Nadaka]

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.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Apocryphos]

I think AC had that covered with "excellent businessman"

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Anonymous Coward]

I really do better appreciate the people I kill by my own hand; with the same sense of satisfaction a drone operator gets when he kills a village full of Muslim children.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[sirdude]

oh bollocks. This isn't about money or property and I dare say that as long as you don't live in an apartment, you can have a couple of chooks running about. This is about appreciating where your food comes from and moreover, appreciating that you are taking the life of an innocent animal to satisfy your cravings for a quarter-pounder. It is also worthwhile considering why you are a non-vegetarian and wonder whether you would be one today if it weren't for your upbringing.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Nadaka]

I do live in an apartment at the moment. So no, I can't really have some chickens running around.

I know it is about appreciating your food. My post 4 levels up said exactly that.

The post you are responding to is responding to the post about the practicality of the matter.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[sirdude]

Ugh! I blame it on CmdrTaco :S I do get a little heated about non-vegetarianism and the hypocrisy of people who cuddle a lamb one minute and slit its throat the next. Also, to quote a friend of mine, this is not the age of the computer, this is the age of the supermarket. People rarely have any idea where their dinner comes from - be it meat or veggies - or why they are eating it.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[painandgreed]

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 grew up in a similar household, and I certainly appreciate not having to gut and skin the food any more.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[element-o.p.]

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.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[element-o.p.]

Well played, sir. I'd mod you up, if I had mod points right now.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[element-o.p.]

Ummm...no. I started cooking my own food just as soon as I was old enough (I always enjoyed it), and I was always cognizant of the fact that steaks don't just magically appear at the supermarket -- you have to kill a living animal to eat meat. However, it wasn't until I was finally able to go hunting in my twenties that I truly began to appreciate that if I am going to eat meat, it means something had to die. Many people, my wife for example, are *aware* of that fact, but it's unpleasant so they intentionally don't think about it. My wife can't even eat anything that still looks like the animal it came from (Cornish game hens being a good example) because it forces her to admit that her food was once alive.

Growing your own vegetables gets a little closer, since it takes a lot of work to grow enough vegetables to feed a family. But just cooking your food? Not even close.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[RussellSHarris]

Which is why the animals I've killed and eaten were squirrels, doves, rabbits, etc.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Anonymous Coward]

You should take them to a slaughterhouse and let them see what makes their meal.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I guess you'll be happy to know that I've never cuddled a lamb without slitting its throat. It's important to never be a hypocrite.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[mortonda]

while throwing away 8 oz. of steak every night at dinner.

WHaaaat? Your nieces have steak every night for dinner? Wow.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Teckla]

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.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[DerekLyons]

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.

Maybe they should have been given smaller servings then. Or maybe, if they had steak 'every night', they need a greater variety of meals so as to avoid boredom.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[SydShamino]

Show your nieces Digital Farm Collective. They may like some of the videos. And his point is to show the effort involved in the creation of food (in this case vegetables) so maybe they'll pick up on this and start applying it to meats as well.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[MacDork]

while throwing away 8 oz. of steak every night at dinner.

If they have 8 oz of steak to throw away, that's your first mistake. Grown men shouldn't eat more than 6.5 oz of meat per day .

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy answer #1): Feed them 1/2 the quantity in the first place.

Ease answer #2 (which I was raised with): You pick your own food to be placed on the plate. You do not leave the table until you've eaten that food. Period.
No this does not lead to getting fat - don't make excess quantities available. This requires non-fat-ass-lazy yet-still-calm parents.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Bill Dimm]

And they throw away half of what is put on their plates, so they are each served a 16oz steak every night.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how old your nieces are, but I think the real wasters are the people giving them over 8 ounces of meat in a single serving to begin with. And why can't the steak go in the fridge from the plate instead of the garbage?

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Warhawke]

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 food, don't over-prepare food. If they get food at a restaurant, get a to-go box. If you want leftovers for tomorrow, put away half of the food you prepared and only serve the other half.

I fail to see how this is your nieces' faults. Nor do I think it's yours, per se. I'm just saying that your nieces' response is perfectly acceptable if they are being over-served food.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[element-o.p.]

My complaint is not that they are not eating everything on their plates, but rather that when they have too much (and they are in their 20's, so serving size is entirely up to them) it never even occurs to them to put the leftovers in a container to save their food, but that their first instinct is to throw the excess away.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Throwing away food is no different than throwing away anything else. If you can afford it, do it.

It's called economics, bitches. Learn it.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Anonymous Coward]

or....

you could just be a vegetarian... why is it that people seem to automatically assume that everyone eats meat for every meal??

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe their portion sizes are too large. 8oz is a lot.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Anonymous Coward]

We only need like 3oz of meat a day. The problem is how much is being prepared and served for them (whether or not that's also their decision depends on who's to blame, I'm not saying they're not), not that they won't eat too much food.

Re:I approve of this course of action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people don't have much control over what their nieces eat. And people who do try to exert that sort of control are the nosy aunt or uncle who doesn't get invited to Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner.

I Call Fowl

[JackSpratts]

So slitting a goat's throat's ok but walking around w/a live chicken is beyond the pale apparently.

Re: I Call Fowl

[ackthpt]

So slitting a goat's throat's ok but walking around w/a live chicken is beyond the pale apparently.

Apparently this is only news of interest to people who have never hunted or raised livestock -- the sort of people who get their meat at the Grocery or McDonalds -- people who's food comes in a tin, wrapper or is served on a plate. This is such non-news it's pathetic.

In other news Steve Ballmer killed a mouse by throwing a chair, but has not confirmed to have eaten it.

Suuuuuure....

[GameboyRMH]

Just an excuse for him to kill some animals every day...

(I'm only half joking, the guy's an evil bastard)

Awesome, why do sociopaths run everything?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is coming from someone who has lived in the midwest and has personally killed/cleaned/cooked deer, possum, squirrel, duck, wild turkey, turtle, rattlesnake, alligator, etc. etc.

And I'm saying this is really bizarre behavior. I hunt because I enjoy the sport and I eat the meat I get from hunting because 1) it's good, and 2) I inherently appreciate the fact that living things (be it plants or animals) have to die for me to stay alive. I would never tell anyone that they have to kill, clean, or even cook the meat they eat to "truly appreciate" it. If you're curious about the process and want a deeper understanding of the whole process, watching it live is plenty good enough.

This is just...odd.

Re:Awesome, why do sociopaths run everything?

[guybrush3pwood]

So you're saying you appreciate the realization of the fact that animals must die if you are to survive, but dislike that Olé Mark want to eat what he kills in order to appreciate it?

If that's the case, it is my honest opinion that you're a pussy and a hipster, and My Man Mark deserves respect for this thing.

Re:Awesome, why do sociopaths run everything?

[pandrijeczko]

You kill possum but can use a computer keyboard? What are you? Some kind of stereotype-erasing freak???

Re:Awesome, why do sociopaths run everything?

[HornWumpus]

Depending on the GPs use of / he might have found the possum on the road and only cleaned and cooked it.

I wonder?

[MightyMartian]

Is there any way to report a story about Zuckerberg that doesn't come out with him sounding like the next incarnation of Satan?

Re:I wonder?

[Bing Tsher E]

Perhaps by reporting on a story involving the Zuck where he remains anonymous and his name is not mentioned.

Even then, though, there's likely to be a stench we would detect.

Re:I wonder?

[Cosgrach]

Perhaps his obituary? That would be a good start.

Do you think I deserve your full attention?

[tibbetts]

I think if your clients want to sit on my shoulders and call themselves tall, they have the right to give it a try - but there's no requirement that I enjoy sitting here listening to people lie. You have part of my attention - you have the minimum amount. The rest of my attention is back at the slaughtering pens of Facebook, where my colleagues and I are doing things that no one in this room, including and especially your clients, has the stomach to do.

I'm glad you post at 0 ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... because that means less people have to be annoyed by you.

He only slits their throats

[Ossifer]

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]

Re:He only slits their throats

[Anonymous Coward]

He's killing mice and men too? That's sick!

Re:He only slits their throats

[dadioflex]

I think you're on to something there. There's a process and most people would baulk at the killing while being relatively happy to raise, feed, care for and then eventually eat the animals. Even most farmers don't kill the animals, either through choice or legislation. If he's killing animals to make their sacrifice meaningful then good for him. If he's killing animals because just eating meat he hasn't looked in the eye before plunging home the dagger is no longer good enough for him then I wouldn't approve.

Re:He only slits their throats

[Anonymous Coward]

The man wants to start his own farmville.

Re:He only slits their throats

[Intron]

It's actually kinder to slit someone's throat than to fire them.

Re:He only slits their throats

[Ossifer]

Generally much easier to get a new job than to try to put all your blood back in...

Re:He only slits their throats

[Anonymous Coward]

He apparently goes to where his strengths lie...

Re:He only slits their throats

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

In this economy? You have got to be kidding!

Re:He only slits their throats

[Jekler]

The Social Network 2: Zuckerberg Silences the Lambs

I believe he's a sociopath. He's killing under the guise of it being some kind of humanitarian act because it's socially acceptable for CEOs to spend their free time killing, like the Go Daddy CEO who announced that hunting elephants is the most rewarding thing he's ever done. It's rewarding to them because murder is the only thing that gets their dopamine production going.

These people just have an irresistible urge to snuff out life. Zuckerberg tried to screw people in business when he thought nobody could prove anything. He called people dumb fucks for trusting him with their personal information. The only time he's sorry about anything is when he gets caught. And now he's slitting animal throats, [sarcasm]what an awesome guy.[/sarcasm]

I wouldn't be surprised if there are prostitutes in the woods somewhere with his fingerprints on them; having to revert back to things that can't beg isn't going to satisfy him for long.

To all the CEOs who think that killing things is your best possible contribution to society, do us all a huge fucking favor and don't bother getting out of bed in the morning.

Re:He only slits their throats

[Xyrus]

If he starts talking about long pork, run away. Or shoot to kill.

Re:He only slits their throats

[Anonymous Coward]

Better than letting them be tortured in meat manufacturing plants. I still refuse to use Facebook though.

Lambs to the slaughter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like facebook dumb fucks^w^w users, there's a clear pattern here.

Rich guy with one good idea has a 2nd, stupid idea

[Anonymous Coward]

... news at 11.

Great, so now he wants to throw away 200 years of economic development. Somebody needs to explain the concepts of the division of labour and comparative advantage to him. My guess: his girlfriend is crazy and he's willing to be crazy to stay with her.

While claiming he is working on killing the animal

[Anonymous Coward]

Then not answering e-mail about it, then suddenly claiming he has abandoned killing the animal.

The most kind way?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is allowing the animal to bleed out like that the most kind way of killing it? A quick shot to the head is far more merciful.

The Farm Animal Welfare Council in the UK have said that it takes up to two minutes for an animal to die with the throat-cutting method. If you screw up the cut, the animal could take a considerable amount of time to lose consciousness, and you might require multiple cuts.

Try watching a video of a halal or kosher butchering and tell me how it's an better than using a gun. The only argument I've seen for halal/kosher style butchering is that it doesn't happen in a factory, thus reducing trauma on the animal... but shooting an animal doesn't need to either, so it's not really much of an argument.

Re:The most kind way?

[HornWumpus]

'Farm Animal Welfare Council'?

Let me guess; a volunteer organization?

Never trust anything remotely animal related coming from the UK. The cat people have taken over that asylum.

Re:The most kind way?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is allowing the animal to bleed out like that the most kind way of killing it?

Who said anything about bleeding out?

If the throat is cut properly, the lungs fill with blood and it drowns pretty quickly. Bleeding out takes much longer.

Re:The most kind way?

[Anonymous Coward]

Drowning in your own blood vs. instant death. Which is less traumatic?

Again, that's assuming the cut is made properly. I can't imagine they're always perfect.

Re:The most kind way?

[FiloEleven]

This reminds me of Mike Rowe talking about Dirty Jobs at TED. Seen here. 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.

Re:The most kind way?

[shutdown -p now]

I'm gonna trust them in this case, because it's basic common sense. There's no more humane method of killing than instantly destroying brain tissue, which is precisely what a "bullet to the head" does.

It's also very well known from experience that cutting throat is not exactly an instant death, neither in animals nor in men - all you need to find that out is to watch any video where such happens.

Re:The most kind way?

[Alimony Pakhdan]

The only argument I've seen for halal/kosher style butchering is ...

How about this: Jews & Muslims may be pesky minorities, but our human rights trump "animal rights".

Re:The most kind way?

[HornWumpus]

Your basic common sense is exactly wrong.

There is nothing humane about 'instantly destroying brain tissue'. To be humane what you want is to instantly destroy the brain stem. Which is harder then it sounds. At that we don't know where consciousness lies in the brain. Awareness might remain until the brain cells die anyhow. How would we know?

Cutting off blood supply to the brain is as near instant as you can get.

I have no problem with a body thrashing about for a minute, as long as the brain died of annoxia in seconds. Truth be told, as a hunter I've got no problem with shooting a dear in the heart and it taking a minute to die. Gut shots suck though. Ruins much of the meat.

Re:The most kind way?

[Anonymous Coward]

Drowning is considered to be a pretty good way to go, actually. If anything, it's the struggling while you're still conscious that's traumatic. Combine that with near-instantaneous loss of blood pressure to the brain and you have very rapid loss of consciousness and death occurs with almost no struggling or trauma at all. If I was to die that way, I'd be afraid of the knife I'm sure but I'm also pretty certain I wouldn't be around to experience much else other than that single first cut. And it's really not that hard to sever the windpipe and major arteries; it's not like there's any bone or much of anything solid in the way.

Veggies and Fruits insulted

[Anonymous Coward]

What about veggies & fruit? Are the chopped liver to Mr. Z?? Frankly, I'd love to see a rich, self-important billionaire reduced to a hunter gather lifestyle for his daily food than spending money on women, wine and rich toys.

Only half the story

[greg1104]

The goat actually felt more violated by how Zuckerberg treated his personal privacy than he did about the whole throat cutting thing.

Re:Only half the story

[MrKaos]

The goat actually felt more violated by how Zuckerberg treated his personal privacy than he did about the whole throat cutting thing.

Zuckerberg slit the throat of privacy around the world just as kindly.

Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Qbertino]

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.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[RightSaidFred99]

Yeah, seems a bit of a joke. How long does it take a goat to die with a slashed throat and how much pain does it feel. Compare that with a gun or captive bolt pistol, which should offer immediate cessation of sensation.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you really thought that out didn't ya. Use a silencer everybody! Christ...

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[sethmeisterg]

MOD PARENT UP!

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[VortexCortex]

Why waste bullets? Use a pneumatic piston at the base of the skull. Still -- no matter where you shoot something, dying is going to hurt unless you destroy the whole brain all at once... I say dynamite strapped to the things' heads are the most humane.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[h4rr4r]

Silenced firearm?
No such thing exists. Suppressors exist, but they won't even make a .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.

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.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait- you mean the most humane way to kill a goat isn't by staring at it?

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[guybrush3pwood]

The most humane way to kill anything is old age, you insensitive clod!

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[ljw1004]

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?

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Hatta]

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,

[Rob the Bold]

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?

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

There is little pain from getting throat slashed with a sharp enough knife. It's like any other simple cut.

This is one of the most humane ways of actually killing an animal. Shooting something does not make it die faster - it's a crapshoot. You can end up causing a lot of pain and trauma with a gun.

I may not like Zuckerberg based on his ideas, but what he is doing is getting closer to the food. Taking the trouble to actually kill an animal like this shows he actually cares more about it than people that just go to the supermarket and get their meat there where the killing is outsourced. The additional time he spends doing this is proof enough.

If everyone did this, there would be much reduced meat consumption.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why they have bolt guns(not a real gun), that has a large metal rod.

They use those in slaughter houses and is faster than a slow bleed from a friggin knife.

Though I kinda sorta get the using it as a method to make you feel the value of the food properly, it's still weird.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that a silenced firearm is not "silent" right? You can get a .22lr down to "hearing safe" levels (~100db). But any caliber larger than that which can humanely kill an animal will just bring the noise levels down from "jesus-fucking-christ-that's-loud-why?!" to "shit-that's-loud!" Really good suppressors can bring the noise level of a gun down by as much as 30db. But when you are starting from 150db+ a silenced firearm can still be pretty loud.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[yincrash]

I imagine that a throat slit really just feels like a deep cut. Not actually that painful. Blood rushing out causes a drop in blood pressure and temperature causing you to feel a little cold while you pass out. I think it would feel like if you gave too much blood. A simple cut will not be that much more painful, especially compared to a low powered rifle (maybe not a high powered one?)

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't the kindest way be to induce nitrogen narcosis? It looks positively pleasant when Michael Portillo underwent it (not to death, obviously) for a BBC documentary.

You have no oxygen to breathe, but because there's no build up of CO2, your body doesn't alert your brain to the problem.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[HeckRuler]

Except for the part where he never mentioned aiming for the head...

Also, supressors are pretty heavily regulated, and Zuckerburg in California is outright banned from owning one. At least if he wants to have some beef stroganoff in-state.

But really. Step #3: Cattle are rendered unconscious by applying an electric shock of 300 volts and 2 amps to the back of the head, effectively stunning the animal,[7] or by use of a captive bolt pistol to the front of the cow's head (a pneumatic or cartridge-fired captive bolt). Swine can be rendered unconscious by CO2/inert gas stunning.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

You might be interested to know that according to both Jewish and Islamic law that the only clean way to slaughter an animal is by cutting its throat.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but they can still be breathing for a suprising amount of time after the blood has run out. It does take a bit of time for the heart to stop beating as well. (recently helped someone slaughter a sheep halal style...no, I didn't do or watch The Cut, but did keep its head & neck held over the bucket, and did look at things a bit after The Cut). It was a quiet death, but... I think there is a deep, inate sense of "Oh Shit! WTF?!?" after The Cut has been made, as well as the pain of it all. But shock comes on pretty quick, too.

I had to shoot a dying sheep this year, too. I didn't really enjoy that, either.

I'm not sure what is the "best" way to do it. I'm pretty sure the mechanicalized, corporate slaughterhouse is the worst way to do it.

At least when you help with the process, you're pretty sure the animal is dead before you start doing the rest of the processing. Not so sure when they have a 100-animal/hr quota to keep up with.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

Having done it both ways, you, sir, are utterly full of shit.

The Peaceful Cut is the kindest way to slaughter a living animal. A razor sharp knife is nearly painless, unlike the roaring, shattering impact of a bullet.

Seriously. I have shot an animal at point blank range through the base of the skull, so that the pressure blew her eyes out the front. I have also participated in the slaughter of pigs, using an extremely sharp knife.

The knife is kinder. The animal thrashes less, screams less, in general suffers less. Anyone who has done it knows this. A properly slaughtered animal sighs, sinks to its knees, and dies. A shot animal thrashes and jerks even if it's brain has been completely destroyed. You are not just your brain!

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Hatta]

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?

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Mycroft-X]

Not true, I heard a P220 (.45) with a can on it about two weeks ago -- the impact of the bullet 50 yards away was louder than the pistol itself.

Most, if not all .45 ACP rounds are subsonic.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Actually the accepted way is using an electric shock to the brain. It's instant and unlikely to cause pain. The reason for the throat slit isn't that it's painless or humane it has to do with preserving the meat by letting the heart cause the animal to bleed out. The electric shock keeps the organs working for a while so the same effect can be achieved without the suffering. Unless he's going through all the steps of preparation, the unpleasant bits, then he's only into killing the animal and he's doing it in a way that maximizes suffering.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong
not all rounds are supersonic. .22 subsonic rounds are quite popular and can be more accurate.
they're also quieter.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[reeno49]

Having done it both ways, you, sir, are utterly full of shit.

The Peaceful Cut is the kindest way to slaughter a living animal. A razor sharp knife is nearly painless, unlike the roaring, shattering impact of a bullet.

Seriously. I have shot an animal at point blank range through the base of the skull, so that the pressure blew her eyes out the front. I have also participated in the slaughter of pigs, using an extremely sharp knife.

The knife is kinder. The animal thrashes less, screams less, in general suffers less. Anyone who has done it knows this. A properly slaughtered animal sighs, sinks to its knees, and dies. A shot animal thrashes and jerks even if it's brain has been completely destroyed. You are not just your brain!

FTFY

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

I agree with your point, but as you actually asked an honest question:
Throat Flower

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

cow skulls are too thick for a .22.

No so. A .22 is sufficient, as long as it's point-blank and at right angle to the cow's forehead.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[RussellSHarris]

Actually, it's all of that combined with the lungs rapidly filling with blood. The animal drowns long before it would have died due to blood loss alone.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, really pneumatic piston. SAFE and humane. Running around shooting guns at animals heads, wtf.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[cOldhandle]

I agree, I would definitely choose one of those methods of dying myself rather than getting my throat cut, but I'm guessing such a myth exists to try to shield bizarre religious slaughter rituals from those concerned with animal rights.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[benlwilson]

The most painless way to kill an animal would be using an odorless gas that results in the animal just calmly falling asleep without noticing. However, even then you are still robbing the animal of the rest of its life, its not like the animal was injured and going to suffer. So really, even killing in the most painless way isn't humane. The most humane way to kill an animal for food is to not kill it at all and eat something else.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. He's bought into the kosher/hallal bullshit about the humane ways to kill. The cut-the-throat thing is based on some biblical interpretation about bloodless meat, and they rationalize it after the fact by claiming that it's less painful or traumatic. I was in a slaughterhouse once and saw it being done, and the animals looked pretty traumatized to me as they slowly bled to death while hanging in the air, kicking and convulsing while doing so.

By the way, I'm ethnically Jewish myself (so this isn't some anti-Semitic rant) and I'm also a vegetarian atheist. But lying about what's "humane" because of some biblical-interpretation bullshit, when it leads to extra suffering for animals, is really disgusting.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

The most humane way is by a pull-gun close to a specific point on the forehead which cause instant death to the animal. Killing an animal in any other way in Norway is illegal (except for hunting, where each shot is demanded to be a certain kill by the necessary trauma), the code is to avoid unecessary pain to the animal while also protecting the integrity of the meat itself. If the animal is killed in another way where the brain is active, it will release adrenaline to the muscles and body in general and thus the quality is not as good as possible.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

A large and powerful rifle with a 'silencer' is still going to be one hell of a loud shot. You can have puny bulled velocity + silencer for quiet, but big powerful rifle with silencer is going to be loud.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[shutdown -p now]

There is a difference between cutting throat and decapitation.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

[...]However that takes more skill. You could easily shoot the wrong part of the brain, and leave an incapacitated goat to slowly bleed out.

Yep, that's true. I remember back at my grandfather's farm, he sent one of his workers to kill a cow. The guy put four friggin' bullets in the poor animal's skull but still couldn't kill it.

My granddad got really pissed off since the animal was going to be under stress thus affecting the quality of the meat. So he took the rifle, aimed right between the cow's eyes and shot...the animal instantly drop dead.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

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

That bit right there shows you have no idea WTF you are talking about. Nice try.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[GNious]

Bolt-gun, from forehead through to the root - quick, painless, efficient
(but somehow doesn't always kill very old pigs)

Optionally execute in a high-CO2 environment to induce a sedated state in the animal.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

You.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[other-different-nick]

Mod parent and grandparent up! When I saw No Country For Old Men, it quickly became obvious to me that Anton Chigurh had discovered the most humane way to interact with other people. I've followed his lead, and I've had no complaints yet (and no survivors either).

I don't understand why this story has more than 250 comments. If some random huckster's choices make you question whether to eat store bought meat, why not just quit eating meat entirely? That's what I did 20 years ago, and I have no regrets.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[mapkinase]

Besides humanity of the kill, one must consider the value of meat. Meat is better without blood (think of blood as water and sewage pipes in your house combined) and cutting the throat and let the spinal nerve system to take care of the pumping the blood out is the optimal combination: humane enough and producing high quality meat.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

Please refrain from cutting the throats of androids as well.
To kill an robot humanely:
1. Disconnect mains power supply.
2. Hook up a second, smaller, high impedance battery in parallel with the internal battery.
3. Disconnect the internal battery.
4. Short the leads on the second battery.
The short will quickly discarge capacitors that would have lived on for a while, had all power simply been disconnected.

And remember, always: Don't kill androids just for sport. Only kill androids that you intend to eat.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[MrKaos]

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.

I've been hunting many times and shot animals. It didn't make me a man but it made me desperately aware of how callously our modern food systems treat animals. I was taught to aim precisely and then taught to hit the animal in the heart or the head. Even so it's a brutal way to kill an animal, most of the time they die from shock. But using a rifle is the most humane thing for the shooter not the animal, killing anything with your hands affects you psyche. I'm certain Zuckerberg is actually doing the right thing by using a knife, if it's sharp enough then I doubt the animal is even aware what has happened and doesn't suffer. I think it's the perfect analogy of facebook user privacy actually.

If you want to kill an animal humanely form a distance then use a compound bow and arrow, it fit's your criteria but doesn't induce the trauma to the animal that a bullet does. Personally having done my share of hunting, killing, butchering, skinning, salting, gutting and chopping up of animals I'm happy I won't be squeamish about it if I need to to survive, but I'm very very happy I don't have to do it anymore even if I am not happy about how it is done or the animal are treated. Humans don't have to be cruel to the animals we eat and, in fact, it's in our interests that they are as happy and healthy as possible so that nasty toxins aren't produced by their distress before becoming food.

Incidentally;

[My english is better than most other people's german, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]

I'd suggest that your sig should actually read

[My english is better than most other people's german, so please point out my mistakes politely. Thank you.]

This indicates that you are interested in improving your English as opposed to improving other peoples manners when pointing out mistakes. It's a subtle difference, unless of course you are striving to improve peoples manners in which case feel free to ignore my advice.

Having seen the construction of the German language I admire anyone with *any* grasp of its subtle characteristics which are well beyond me.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[rubycodez]

sounds like vegetarian talk, an unnatural lifestyle for humans.

. omnivores eat meat, deal with it.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[rubycodez]

you have some kind of idealistic world between your ears, with incorrect assumptions about firearms. If you shoot an animal, even in the heart, it may be many minutes before it dies after running away. Even a head shot may not be immediately fatal (I've seen this both while hunting and on my friend's farms). Sound suppressed firearms make loud noises; I've fired suppressed weapons.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[rubycodez]

where do people get the absurd idea that firearms kill instantly? sometimes they seem to immediately incapacitate, other times the animal runs away or stands while bleeding out for many mintes. I've seen cattle take a head shot at point blank range and stand there while blood spews out.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[rubycodez]

wrong, head shots with a .22 sometimes aren't fatal. Seen it a few times myself on friend's farm. Even humans have survived a head shot with .22. Do the humane thing and use a large caliber with wide wound channel.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a guillotine-type device with a rapidly closing hydraulic press on the other other that captures the severed head and within a fraction of a second smashes it to a thickness of about 1mm, dispersing the neural network before pain or awareness is processed?

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[tecnico.hitos]

Anyway, please refrain from cutting throats of live beings, wether they're animals or whatnot.
Thanks.

True. I once saw a letuce writhing and gargling sap. It was horrible.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[RightSaidFred99]

Because... a head shot from a high powered rifle with almost _always_ kill..immediately? Your anecdote does nothing to dismiss this fact. Some yokel firing a 22 into a think-skulled cow or the fluke 1/1000000 animal that survives a high caliber head shot is meaningless.

Once in a while some guy jumps out of a plane and his parachute doesn't open, and somehow he survives landing.

"This just in! Rubycodez on Slashdot scoffs at people who think skydiving without a parachute is dangerous! 'Yeah, people have survived it.', he is quoted as saying, while mocking all the fools who think it will almost always kill you.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[Anonymous Coward]

Well technically, if it has a throat then it's an animal.

Re:Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

[SleazyRidr]

Vegetarians talk about shooting animals? I think I missed a meeting...

If he really wants to experience empathy

[unassimilatible]

Let him do a Facebook share buyback on IPO day with his personal funds, and see how badly the retail investor will do on that over-valuated trade.

Oy vey!

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Zuckerberg's ... hands-on kills thus far include a goat, pig, chicken and a lobster.

Shechita or not, pigs and lobsters ain't kosher.

His approach to meat eating is friendlier

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to applaud this guy for understanding the connection between meat and loss of life for an animal. He's aware of it, whereas most consumers are not. If we acknowledge that animals have brain structures similar to ours and that they experience fear and terror, then it's even more important for us to acknowledge humane practices when we consume them for food. Missing that link inbetween doesn't force us to think about the situation.

As for me, I failed at my attempts at veganism. Part of it is my fault, for lacking the will-power to take the extra steps to make the lifestyle worth it. The other part is that our society makes this lifestyle extremely difficult. Animal products are in so many things that it takes a tremendous amount of effort for a vegan to choose his or her meals over a non-vegan. So if Zuckerberg manages to reduce meat consumption overall, I'd say he's a winner.

Re:His approach to meat eating is friendlier

[Comen]

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 want to take that step in to being able to hunt and hold up dead deers in a photo for instance.

Re:His approach to meat eating is friendlier

[element-o.p.]

Then you are more intellectually honest than a lot of people I've met. Like you, I really like animals, too. Sheesh, I've got three dogs and a cat at home, two fish in a bowl at my desk at work, we've had a rabbit in our house, and the highlight of my week -- well, almost anyway -- was when my daughter and I found a porcupine walking up our driveway while we were playing Frisbee in the yard the other day, so I know where you are coming from. I tend to be a rather empathic person, but I have gone hunting. The first animal I ever shot (and with a bow, at that) was a grouse, and it was surprisingly difficult. When hunting, you have to own up to the fact that there is a live animal who's life you are about to take. That's not easy. In my opinion, everyone who wants to eat meat should, at least once, have to kill the animal they intend to have for dinner. That's not because I'm sadistic, but rather because I think we would be a lot less blase about wasting meat and eating animals raised in inhumane conditions if we were painfully aware of what it means to be a carnivore (well...technically, omnivores, but you get my point). Regarding "being able to hunt and hold up dead deers in a photo"...yeah, I'm with you there. For people who are into that, that's cool I guess, but I'm not about showing off the trophy I bagged; I'm about providing healthy food for my family and not spending my money to support corporations that raise cattle, chickens, pigs, etc. in inhumane conditions.

Re:His approach to meat eating is friendlier

[Anonymous Coward]

You're lucky you live in a time and place that you can divorce yourself from the procurement of your own food.

Finally.. the Facebook CEO does something I like..

[gQuigs]

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.

Christ, what an asshole.

[dswensen]

Christ, what an asshole.

This is different from a grocery store, how?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, people who are freaked out about this need to get over it. The food you eat used to be alive. That steak used to moo once. And guess what, it's delicious!

Om nom nom nom nom!

-www.awkwardengineer.com

What is this? /. Gossip?

[hackertourist]

Rumors for nerds. Stuff that doesn't matter.

And I will laugh!

[Anonymous Coward]

And I will laugh when he gets sick from uneven blood levels or dies of some disease he catches from one of those animals. Self-natural selection?

I've heard money does strange things to people, but, unless he's trying to make a economics point about 'being rich', he'd probably be best served giving some of his money to those that have NOTHING to eat, rather than publicity BS like this.

Re:And I will laugh!

[Anonymous Coward]

And I will laugh when he gets sick from uneven blood levels

When he gets sick from WHAT?

Re:And I will laugh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't humour him.

Re:And I will laugh!

[onkelonkel]

It's true. You need to keep your blood level even. Once your blood level is more than 10 degrees off vertical, you will feel ill, have trouble sleeping and be driven to commit crimes such as rape, murder and Pope abuse. Once your blood level reaches 15 degrees off vertical you will have toothaches, limb drop and orificial seepage. You will scruple at nothing, and will return library books late. Once your blood level is 20 degrees off vertical you are mostly fixin to DIE!

Re:And I will laugh!

[other-different-nick]

Trust your barber
To plug your holes
Trust him to make more

Re:Lawsuit pending

[Anonymous Coward]

I fucked your mom. What a slut!

Do Tell...

[AnotherAnonymousUser]

Tell us Mr. Zuckerberg, what does manflesh taste like?

Re:Do Tell...

[element-o.p.]

Chicken.

--Mark

The Sequel to Charlotte's Web

[Anonymous Coward]

Zuckerberg's Famous Pig

Crazy Rich

[XiaoMing]

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 anything.

Did he use every part of the pig he killed? Because pig hoof soup is actually a delicacy in many places. How about pig ears and pork rinds? If he really wanted to understand sustainable food he'd either be a vegetarian or eating insects (not a joke, as insects, being lower on the food chain, more readily convert vegetation into useful proteins. Just because killing a bunch of random shit didn't make me educated doesn't mean I couldn't do it by much less stupid channels).

This BS sounds about as effective as posting where you like to leave your purse as a status update to raise awareness for ... whatever it was, probably sustainable eating habits.

Re:Crazy Rich

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, but don't you know: the rich are superior, attaining heights of experience unmatched by mere peasant mortals. The utility they derive matches their income perfectly, dollar for dollar, as those who take their values from pop economics have always known.

Just fucking with you all.

Re:Crazy Rich

[Anonymous Coward]

If he really wanted to understand sustainable food he'd either be a vegetarian

Look out the window next time you fly. Farms, hours and hours of farms, as far as the eye can see. Eating plants has less impact than the raising and consumption of cattle, sure - but sustainable? Sustainability my ass.

As for the rest, Zuckerberg has clearly reduced his consumption of meat through this process - which is absolutely lowering his impact or carbon footprint or whatever hippie dippy crap Al Gore is going on about these days. So, then - put up or shut up. Why are you posting on Slashdot? Do you know the environmental impact the production of a computer has? Yet you're still here, typing away, solely to whine about Zuckerberg? Above all, when you're a self-confessed 'full-blown meat eater'?

Seriously?

You're complaining because he's using his celebrity to potentially give rise to people pausing and considering their own impact on the planet? What, he's not going far enough? Seriously, what is it?

I'm starting to think that bit about Zuckerberg's business cards denoting him as the CEO, bitch wasn't a dick move. There are a great many bitches skulking about this rock.

Re:Crazy Rich

[mortonda]

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, .

??? Huh. We always killed the chicken *outside*.

Re:Lawsuit pending

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Mom!!! :)

Fish?

[iamhassi]

No fish? What's he got against fish? Figured that'd be the first one on the list.

Re:Fish?

[Anonymous Coward]

No fish? What's he got against fish? Figured that'd be the first one on the list.

It's okay to eat fish, 'cause they don't have any feeeeeeelings...

Re:Rich guy with one good idea has a 2nd, stupid i

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this was his good idea. Facebook the shitty, less humane, thoroughly harmful one.

Not a big deal

[Dyinobal]

So he's basically killing farm animals? Big deal, get a hunting rifle and go get a deer, moose, elk, what ever and none of that game fed feeder Dependant animals that you find on hunting ranches for the city folk. Then he'd have a better understanding.

Re:Not a big deal

[Shabazz Rabbinowitz]

...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.

Re:Not a big deal

[jimrthy]

C'mon mods...this is funny (even if it is buried pretty deep)

Oh, what a man

[Anonymous Coward]

I love it when rich jackoffs can afford to be our moral superiors, taking an ideological stand over nothing..

(I worked in a slaughterhouse for 3 years in high school, fuck you silver spoony Zuckerberg)

In other news

[devnullkac]

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 experimenting with changing human nature; at best it's a waste of time. Try instead to lure us with something better: invent Mr. Fusion if trash is your bogeyman. For animal suffering, maybe you should look at cheap and tasty artificially replicated meat.

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

I only dispose of trash in my own personal incinerator and landfill in the backyard.

Osama, is that you?

Re:In other news

[smellsofbikes]

There was an interesting article in the New Yorker about two weeks ago, detailing the science behind the attempts to grow artificial meat. Unfortunately that link only gives an abstract and a small section, but it's an interesting read if you wander down to the library and check it out. So far, the state of the art is a piece of artificial meat about 14mm long, 3mm wide, and maybe a couple cells thick, and even then it's just muscle cells without any actin/myosin structure so it'd be like, I dunno, moosh. But they're making progress.

Re:In other news

[SydShamino]

I only dispose of trash in my own personal incinerator and landfill in the backyard.

So you lived in Osama's compound?

Re:In other news

[FiloEleven]

Here's an interview of that article's author on Fresh Air that is free to listen to. It probably isn't as in-depth as the article, but it's easier to get access to =)

Lobster?

[lieden]

>and a lobster.

I'm pretty sure that anyone who has ever cooked lobster has killed it. They are sold alive.

Re:Lobster?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that anyone who has ever cooked lobster has killed it. They are sold alive.

Imported European lobsters maybe, but not the indigenous furry lobsters.

Creeps me out.

[BadPirate]

I'm sorry, but I know the PR slant on this is Eco PC, but slitting the throats of goats sounds like a better way to start a career in serial killing then it is to continue a career as a software CEO. While it is important to appreciate the things you have, this is taking it too far. Farming the fields all day would give a person a better understanding and appreciation to the work that goes into their bread, but would leave their hands calloused. Similarly, killing your own food will give a better empathy and appreciation, but doing enough of it will probably leave those feelings calloused as well. I'm just saying, it's a fine line between self improvement and self abuse - http://www.pet-abuse.com/pages/abuse_connection.php

Even if your DM is Monty Hall

[Maintenance Goof]

A goat, pig, chicken and a lobster are not worth a lot of EP. I doubt Zuckerberg is even second level. There! Now it is news for geeks.

Re:Even if your DM is Monty Hall

[Culture20]

A goat, pig, chicken and a lobster are not worth a lot of EP. I doubt Zuckerberg is even second level. There! Now it is news for geeks.

But the real XP is in plot points and gold value. The lobster might have been key in a Sahuagin attempt to rule the seas. And there's no doubt he's got a lot of XP from gold. Of course, there is the one-level per adventure limit to consider.

In some countries

[Anonymous Coward]

they eat cats. Who cares about some countries?

Re:In some countries

[Anonymous Coward]

People smarter than you.

Re:In some countries

[flyneye]

*insert obligatory joke about eating pussy here*

Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[circletimessquare]

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 10, you ride by a truck on the highway, and see some movement in the slats and a pink snout trying to poke out: pigs going to slaughter

and for the first time, you realize what's going on

and you think you are witnessing fucking auschwitz

it's so fucking maudlin!

such contrived weepy empty drama from the mind of people raised more artificially than their food!

it's just food you coddled cloistered fucks. it has a brain? it has thoughts? emotions? so what! has this EVER fucking mattered in hundreds of millions of years of carnivore catching prey on the savannah or in the jungle or in the seas?

feel the inside of your mouth. between your incisors and your molars (you have both, you're an omnivore): you can feel two jagged teeth. these are called your CANINES. they are MADE to RIP flesh from bone and masticate it. you ARE an eater of meat. says hundreds of millions of years of evolution. says what every previous generation of YOU did, going back generations since before your ancestors were human, even mammal

now THAT'S natural morality (as opposed to human morality, which governs our relationship with other humans, NOT that which governs the relationships in the natural world or our relationship with it)

our grandparents and greatgrandparents and every generation before that grew up in societies where domestic farm animals were in earshot and smelling distance away, their entire lives. before they could talk they were aware that the geese squawing outside for the past few months wasn't squawking anymore because it was on the dinner plate tonight. no. big. deal

in fact, today, most of humanity lives like this: humans and ducks, pigs, cattle, etc., all bric-a-brac next to each other in a cacophony of noises and smells. this is reality. this is normalcy. the majority of humanity, in time and space, does not consider eating meat or who butchers it an issue

it's only an issue for rich coddled drama queens who grow up in hermetically sealed lives away from their food sources. in other words, your "morality" is as artificial and inconsequential to the reality of life on earth and of the majority of humanity, as your rich upbringing is (if you were born in the west, in the modern era, you are rich, according to any previous generation or every other contemporaneous society)

meat is food. meat is good. tonight i am going to have myself some chicken nuggets, and i'm going to enjoy it, knowing full well what i am eating was once a chirping chicken. who FUCKING cares. get the fuck over yourselves, rich sheltered westeners. you live in an artificial hermetically sealed environment, and some of your attitudes are pathetic reflections of your artificial unreal upbringing

meat is not murder. meat is TASTY

one final thought:

BACON

(*lips smack*)

case closed

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't disagree with most of what you're saying, but you really ought to try decaf.

mmm.. bacon...

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[Anonymous Coward]

"meat is not murder. meat is TASTY"

Do be sure to remember that when you are lying on your hospital bed stricken with
cardio-vascular problems which will result in the end of your miserable redneck existence.

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[circletimessquare]

cardiovascular problems results from metabolic syndrome, which results from too much sugar in the diet, another bane of a modern western rich diet. a person who eats only meat and nuts will not have any cardiovascular problems. both high in fat, both harmless

it is the triglycerides that the liver makes from excess sugar that kills the heart. the excess sugar gives you diabetes, and makes you fat. and some say, even gives you cancer. metabolic syndrome is the result of too much sugar in the diet. metabolic syndrome is the cause of obesity, diabetes, strokes, and heart attacks

so enjoy your bacon, stay away from the corn syrup, and you won't have a heart attack

the meat eater will outlive the fruit eater

you need to update your dietary theories from the 1980s. fat is not your problem. sugar is

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[Anonymous Coward]

one final thought:

BACON

(*lips smack*)

case closed

Bacon heh?

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[White Flame]

meat is not murder. meat is TASTY

Or my take on it: "Vegetables are murder"

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a wack-job. It is not normal for humans to eat meat. Our teeth and digestive systems are not build for meat eating. Humans for most of history have eaten vegetarian diets. And no, I am not a vegetarian.

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[Anonymous Coward]

There are other primates that have canines that are strictly vegetarian. Gorillas have the largest canines of any primate, and are vegetarian in the wild. They have them for self-defense purposes. They're not a guarantee that you're "meant" to eat meat. One could just as easily say that they're a part of humanity's evolution for maximum adaptability, so that we CAN eat meat in the absence of other sources in order to ensure our survival. However, to say that we're "supposed" to eat meat or "meant" to eat meat, or, science help us, "designed" to eat meat... that's just silliness.

All that said, even if you take the view that we are adapted for meat eating, there are still reasons not to eat meat. Perhaps in simpler times we could get away with it, but the habit is no longer sustainable. Seriously look at a factory farming operation some time. 150,000 male chickens killed daily at just one egg operation, because they can't lay eggs and don't grow quickly enough to be profitable as a meat source. They're thrown down a chute into a machine that grinds them up while they're still alive. At some point in the future our descendents will look back at what we did for food and be absolutely horrified.

It's morally and ethically wrong to eat meat at the rate we do, and the fact that we can recognize the untenable situation we've created in our environment and change it is what separates us from lower species. So forgive me if I look at people like you like you're crazy; acting like they're just another jungle predator.

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[toppavak]

by your logic rape and murder should be perfectly ethically acceptable because that's how we evolved: the strongest male kills the other competing males and mates with every female in sight. For most vegetarians it's not as much about whether what we eat has brains and emotions but whether we do and whether we choose to use them.

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[circletimessquare]

that's a good argument about the teeth, evolution does have a lag period. well said

as for the sustainability of eating meat, that's more a function of there being too many humans. i think this problem will correct itself (disease or war), but that's another discussion. but mostly, pretty much all of our problems with sustainability: energy, food, climate change, etc., its really a function of too many people as the root of the problem, not anything else. you can make some amazing leaps of technology to give us a little breathing room, and we have over the past century, but eventually, more people are born, and all of your great advances in solar energy sources or growing wheat in the desert: rendered moot. the only really effective solution to sustainability is less people. all other solutions just buy you temporary time, and only put off the inevitable reckoning of just too many damn people

as for the rest of what you have written: there is human morality, and there is natural morality. natural morality governs our relationship with our planet. lack of sustainability for example. also: it's perfectly fine to eat meat

the problem comes when you confuse human morality with natural morality. for example, social darwinism: that we should treat our fellow humans in a struggle for survival or capital as cruelly as life on the savannah. no: human morality is separate, and takes precedence in how we govern our behavior to our fellow man

but another way to screw up human morality and natural morality is to start applying human morals to our relationship with other animals. bullshit

i saw a chick walking down the street the other day: "animals are people too." that just about sums up your nuttiness right there

there is human morality and there is natural morality. different things, for different domains of society/ life. don't mix the two up, or you wind up with some really stupid thoughts

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[circletimessquare]

you didn't read my post. i specifically addressed the difference between natural morality and human morality

human morality governs our relationship with our fellow man

natural morality governs our relationship with the natural world

cognitive errors occur when you try to apply natural morality to social problems (social darwinism, for example, which obviously is pure evil)

or when you try to apply human morality to natural problems (like a chicken deserves the same respect as a your fellow human beings. no. it's just fucking lunch)

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[Prune]

You write: "in fact, today, most of humanity lives like this: humans and ducks, pigs, cattle, etc., all bric-a-brac next to each other in a cacophony of noises and smells. this is reality. this is normalcy. the majority of humanity, in time and space, does not consider eating meat or who butchers it an issue"

In fact, this is not normalcy, since agriculture and animal husbandry are only ~10K years old, which is not nearly enough time for biological evolution; we are nearly identical to what we were when we were hunter-gatherers just previously to that time. Evolution of humans happened on a time span of an order of magnitude longer.

Your post also makes the fallacy of mixing up objective explanation with ethical/moral justification. There is no such thing as natural morality. Morality is a purely subjective thing. It can be scientifically explained in terms of why it arose by evolutionary psychology, and maps to the physical universe by the neural correlates of moral/ethical thoughts. However, explanation is not justification. The latter remains purely in the realm of the subjective, and the subjective is partly shared between like minds, and largely unique and individualistic since our minds, while alike, are not identical. What is natural and what is unnatural has no bearing on ethical considerations beyond the practical limitations it imposes on ethically-justified actions.

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[turing_m]

feel the inside of your mouth. between your incisors and your molars (you have both, you're an omnivore): you can feel two jagged teeth. these are called your CANINES. they are MADE to RIP flesh from bone and masticate it

I prefer to use my molars for the actual mastication bit, but to each their own.

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[reeno49]

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 10, you ride by a truck on the highway, and see some movement in the slats and a pink snout trying to poke out: pigs going to slaughter

and for the first time, you realize what's going on

and you think you are witnessing fucking auschwitz

it's so fucking maudlin!

such contrived weepy empty drama from the mind of people raised more artificially than their food!

it's just food you coddled cloistered fucks. it has a brain? it has thoughts? emotions? so what! has this EVER fucking mattered in hundreds of millions of years of carnivore catching prey on the savannah or in the jungle or in the seas?

feel the inside of your mouth. between your incisors and your molars (you have both, you're an omnivore): you can feel two jagged teeth. these are called your CANINES. they are MADE to RIP flesh from bone and masticate it. you ARE an eater of meat. says hundreds of millions of years of evolution. says what every previous generation of YOU did, going back generations since before your ancestors were human, even mammal

now THAT'S natural morality (as opposed to human morality, which governs our relationship with other humans, NOT that which governs the relationships in the natural world or our relationship with it)

our grandparents and greatgrandparents and every generation before that grew up in societies where domestic farm animals were in earshot and smelling distance away, their entire lives. before they could talk they were aware that the geese squawing outside for the past few months wasn't squawking anymore because it was on the dinner plate tonight. no. big. deal

in fact, today, most of humanity lives like this: humans and ducks, pigs, cattle, etc., all bric-a-brac next to each other in a cacophony of noises and smells. this is reality. this is normalcy. the majority of humanity, in time and space, does not consider eating meat or who butchers it an issue

it's only an issue for rich coddled drama queens who grow up in hermetically sealed lives away from their food sources. in other words, your "morality" is as artificial and inconsequential to the reality of life on earth and of the majority of humanity, as your rich upbringing is (if you were born in the west, in the modern era, you are rich, according to any previous generation or every other contemporaneous society)

meat is food. meat is good. tonight i am going to have myself some chicken nuggets, and i'm going to enjoy it, knowing full well what i am eating was once a chirping chicken. who FUCKING cares. get the fuck over yourselves, rich sheltered westeners. you live in an artificial hermetically sealed environment, and some of your attitudes are pathetic reflections of your artificial unreal upbringing

meat is not murder. meat is TASTY

one final thought:

BACON

(*lips smack*)

case closed

FTFY

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[circletimessquare]

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 self-defense. who says? WE say. who the hell are we? human society, human civilization, bitch

and if you continue to think these moral statements have no meaning or weight, please shut up and let the adults speak and get back to us when you stop painting your fingernails black, stupid teenager

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[Anonymous Coward]

Since no girls will have sex with me I have been doing it whith horses and sheep. I am glad that this is okay because most people seem not to like if they find out.

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[circletimessquare]

lions eat zebras, orcas eat seals, i eat bacon

eating other species is natural morality

but i haven't seen many cheetahs mounting wildebeasts, or snakes getting it on with crocodiles. as such, if humanity says fucking other species is immoral, there's nothing in natural morality that contradicts that

anything else i can help you with today?

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[freeze128]

For some reason, your post makes me want to kill and eat Mark Zuckerberg, and not feel guilty about it.

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[Anonymous Coward]

modern living in the west means we are disconnected from our food sources like no generation before us

Ah, good old hyperbole.

The switch from mostly-rural to mostly-urban happened a few generations ago, when the rails connected all and the buildings reached up to touch the sky. The generation freaking out today at age 10 that coloring book animals are meat is the third Western generation of disconnect. Their parents (now in their 30s) grew up with meat coming from the supermarket. The generation before that got it from a deli, or maybe from a butcher shop. You've got to go back to before the refrigerated rail car.

(Oddly enough, I don't remember ever having a personal "omg meat comes from WHERE?!" moment. Maybe seeing big cats hunt stuff on nature shows as a kid insulates one against it. When you're finally old enough to mentally make the rest of the connections, it ends up being a "Oh. Ok." moment instead of freaking out.)

BACON

And this is why we're not all vegetarians. Mmmm... bacon....

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[kombipom]

The point I think you are missing is choice.

For most of history (and for most people in the world today) if they want to get enough nutrition to survive they eat meat, that's why we're evolutionarily equipped for it. Our own survival tends to come before the pain and death of animals that we have control over. I get that, and under the same conditions I would kill and eat a pig. Frankly in extremis I might eat a person.

The difference is that in our hermetically sealed, mollycoddled, western lives we can get all the nutrition we need without the pain and death of other animals (other than the poor sods breaking their backs in the production of veggie food of course). Some of us make that choice. You can argue about what constitutes morality until you are blue in the face, we all draw lines in arbitrary places about the stuff we think is right and wrong.

I have to wonder why you are so angry about this. Nobody is threatening to take your steak away. I think the point that some people are making is simply that if you care about how an animal lives or dies, which Zuckerburg seems to be claiming he does, you could simply choose not to eat them.

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[Anonymous Coward]

Much veg*anism is based on the principle that suffering is (often) an inherently fundamentally highly undesirable state, and that efforts should be made to reduce/eliminate unnecessary suffering.

In fact, many people(including non veg*ans) would agree that avoiding/reducing unnecessary suffering is a/the core justification and driving impetus behind some of their most important moral behaviour toward other humans.

Darwinism and the sciences in general, as well as subjective observations *clearly* show us that many non-human animals very likely experience suffering not too dissimilar to (at least a subset of) human suffering.

The ramifications of these realities should be obvious to anyone who has a decent grasp of logic, empathy and compassion.

If we seek, as moral beings, to reduce/eliminate unnecessary suffering, and animals(like humans) are capable of suffering, and the current practices of farming animals for food induces unnecessary suffering then we should act to eliminate these practices. Veg*anism is one method to attempt to achieve this goal.

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[circletimessquare]

i can tell the difference between my fellow humans, and lunch

why can't you?

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[Anonymous Coward]

Your response completely misses the point, and to be honest seems rather primitive and simple-minded. There are certainly many differences between humans and other animals. I'm not in any way suggesting that there are no differences between humans and other animals. Rather, I'm arguing that there is significant similarity in the *suffering* that both humans and other animals can experience.

Many of my moral choices, principles and behaviours are based upon the fact that others can suffer; I want to eliminate unnecessary suffering. Since both animals and humans can suffer, it is logically and morally consistent that my choices, principles and behaviours take this suffering into account in a way that does not inherently discriminate based solely upon the species of the suffering being.

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[circletimessquare]

i am concerned with human suffering

i am certain that animals suffer to get on my dinner plate. my problem is understanding why an animal suffering is an issue

it must be a matter of empathy. i empathize with other human beings. i even empathize when an animal suffers. but this is an atavistic connection, not a moral or logical one. if someone jumps out at me and goes "boo!" i will jump, or if someone taps my knee i will reflexively kick. likewise, if an animal suffers, i will feel something

but this is just an empty reflex without moral meaning

something to be afraid of is something like nuclear terrorism. something not to be afraid of is the boogeyman in the closet. even though both forms of fear have the same emotional root, the higher mental faculties cut out the extraneous pointless sources of fear

likewise, to me it is a sort of infantilism to continue empathizing with animals in the same moral way one would empathize with another human being. let me ask you: do you empathize with the suffering of an animal more than a human? the same as? 1/10th? for me, it is zero. it is not a matter of me feeling nothing, it is a matter of my higher mental faculties discarding empty, invalid emotional stimulation

for me it is simply a matter of an extraneous childlike kneejerk response that must be dismissed, in the name of being an adult, rational human being. because we are talking about animals, not humans. we do not go "i am afraid of the dark, and that is all the rationale we need for making fear of the dark 100% valid." no, logically, as adults, we don't think like children, we rationalize why the fear is without merit

in the same way, that i feel for a dog's face or a goat suffering, does not justify the emotion on the simple merit of the emotion existing. no, the empathy logically has no merit- we're talking about dinner, not people, and so the atavistic impulse to feel something about it is real, but it does not result in any higher mental faculties being engaged. the emotion should be discarded

i suppose some people are emotionally wrought hysterics, and cannot dismiss their base emotions. these are silly people with random lives, being yanked from one emotion to the next, completely at the mercy of them. this is not someone i respect, and certainly not someone in any capacity to say something valid to me about morality. i am not at the mercy of the whims of my adrenal glands nor do i have a imbalances in my brain chemistry. i am a master of my emotions, not vice versa. on what basis am i to respect someone whose thoughts are simply derivative of the chemical weather of their brain, more impressionable to the face of a koala bear than logic and reason?

this doesn't mean i don't care about the fate of species. we are stewards of this planet, and must care for it. nor do i defend someone who finds pleasure in giving pain to living things, this is a dangerous individual that must be stopped

it simply means i eat meat, i am made to do so. do you suppose it is valid to reason with a lion why it should stop making zebras suffer? again, there is human morality, and natural morality, i am not confusing them, but natural morality dictates our relationship with our food, not human morality. there is nothing but folly in extending human morality to nonhuman realms of existence

i know what i am, and i am comfortable with the way that evolution made me. to me, when i see people concerned about eating meat, i see only infantilism and awkwardness with who and what they are. grow up

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think it's valid/reasonable to discard such empathic feelings toward animals, but retain it for humans? What's the particular distinction(s) between animals and humans that justifies this different treatment?

Extrapolating your line of reasoning seems like it might lead to psychopathy.

I think my meta-ethical position might best be described as emotivist/non-cognitivist. I think that emotions/feelings are arguably the basis upon which much of my moral and compassionate framework is built and sustained. But, I don't necessarily believe this invalidates the framework. Axioms and first principles have to come from somewhere....don't they?....

Your apparent bias toward more "cold" logic in matters of morality could also be based upon emotion - e.g. "Being logical makes me feel good."

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[circletimessquare]

If I jump out at you from the dark, you are afraid. This is ephemeral and without validity. If you see the guy driving the car in front of you on the highway start to drift to the side of the road, you are afraid. This fear is based on a rational reason to be afraid, for yourself and that sleepy driver.

Likewise, if I see pictures from a war torn part of the world, I feel empathic. This is based on my affinity and care for my fellow human beings. The feeling is not ephemeral, because it involves my relationship with other human beings, the basis for the human social fabric, our relative prosperity and peace, and everything else that describes my quality of life in this world, from the most crass materialism to the most transcendant spiritualism: my fellow human beings and their well-being and happiness, and my well-being and happiness: moral behavior.

I can see expressions of terror on the faces of animals too. The underlying emotion is real, just like the fear if I jump out at you from the dark. But just like that "boo!", the empathy is discarded as without merit, because it is directed at ANIMALS. You know, lunch. I can discern a face in terror. And? It's a fucking herbivore. It tastes good. It's happiness has no merit to me, it's taste on my tongue does.

You ask why should this empathy be discarded. I am asserting why should the empathy be respected. You seem to argue that because the emotion exists, that is all the validity it needs. I am saying that the emotion is real but that is only the one ingredient into whether or not it figures into a moral judgment. You seem dismissive of my appeal to reason, that that appeal is undergirded by some sort of emotion in me too. No, you are avoiding my point: without reason, there is no basis for any moral judgment, no matter the emotion involved. This entire conversation would be pointless without reason. There is nothing holding us together as a human society without it. Emotion is only part of it, not the whole, and not the only thing of import. Just because the emotion exists, it is not automatically morally valid. You have to agree that lots of ephemeral emotions are just pointless, and without deeper moral or logical value. I am saying that when it comes to your feeling for the suffering of animals to become my dinner, that that is a pointless and ephemeral empathy that is without moral weight, and you should discard it, but if you don't, I certainly will discard you as a hysteric whose emotions has overwhelmed your sense of reason.

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[Anonymous Coward]

If I jump out at you from the dark, you are afraid. This is ephemeral and without validity. If you see the guy driving the car in front of you on the highway start to drift to the side of the road, you are afraid. This fear is based on a rational reason to be afraid, for yourself and that sleepy driver.

I don't find the analogy relevant. The feeling of being afraid when someone(who is of no danger) jumps out of the dark at you is based upon an inaccurate understanding of the reality; namely that the person jumping out of the dark may be dangerous.

On the other hand, both the feeling of empathy for animal suffering, and the feeling of empathy for human suffering is based upon an accurate understanding of the reality: both human suffering and animal suffering are real.

Likewise, if I see pictures from a war torn part of the world, I feel empathic. This is based on my affinity and care for my fellow human beings. The feeling is not ephemeral, because it involves my relationship with other human beings, the basis for the human social fabric, our relative prosperity and peace, and everything else that describes my quality of life in this world, from the most crass materialism to the most transcendant spiritualism: my fellow human beings and their well-being and happiness, and my well-being and happiness: moral behavior.

My relationship with humans is, arguably, generally broader, deeper, more complex, more intricate and more connected to my self-interest than my relationship with non-human animals.

Those qualities(and many others) certainly play a part in shaping my moral actions towards humans, but the basic recognition that other humans are feeling beings also plays a significant part in motivating my actions.

Non-human animals share this quality of being feeling beings and thus also receive some level of considered moral behaviour from me. Further, from a biological perspective, humans and many animals share a huge number of similarities, and I think this also should warrant moral consideration.

The fact that human and animals are feeling beings is not "ephemeral." The fact that humans and many animals share millions or even billions of years of evolutionary history is not "ephemeral." These are unquestionable realities, and I don't think they can or should be disregarded when it comes to morality.

Your stance toward animals has many similarities with barbaric racism to me, but instead of racial differences you are using species differences to deny moral treatment.

I can see expressions of terror on the faces of animals too. The underlying emotion is real, just like the fear if I jump out at you from the dark. But just like that "boo!", the empathy is discarded as without merit, because it is directed at ANIMALS. You know, lunch. I can discern a face in terror. And? It's a fucking herbivore. It tastes good. It's happiness has no merit to me, it's taste on my tongue does.

Jeffrey Dahmer had a taste for humans, he didn't care about their happiness, they were only lunch afterall - and they tasted good.

You seem to argue that because the emotion exists, that is all the validity it needs. I am saying that the emotion is real but that is only the one ingredient into whether or not it figures into a moral judgment.

I'm not basing it solely on emotion. My feelings of empathy are an accurate reflection of reality - animals really suffer. I used reasoning to verify that my empathic response accurately reflected reality. I used reasoning to conclude that logical consistency demanded that my moral response to suffering in humans should extend(in specific ways) to suffering in non-human animals.

without reason, there is no basis for any moral judgment, no matter the emotion involved.

I think that's a pretty decent argument. I'd tentatively support it; given the right definition of "morality."

Emotion is only part of it, not the whole, and not the only thing of import. Just because the emotion exists, it is

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[circletimessquare]

i saw a chick walking down the street once, she wore a shirt that read "animals are people too." the essential absurdity succinctly, yet laughably, seriously stated

that is the root of your problem. animals aren't human. across that divide, there is no argument you can make for extending human considerations onto nonhumans. it's just so absurd

why aren't you angry with lions? you do realize they start ripping and chewing into zebras in terror while they are still breathing? children? mothers? take the boa constrictor. it finds its prey. it squeezes. the creature dies in terror trying to breathe. all of your bullshit emotional resonance arguments above: why aren't you angry at the boa constrictor?

you remind of this enthusiastic moron:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Treadwell

you and other rich westerners grow up in this artificial environment, disconnected form the simple truths of the natural world. and in this fantasy land, you derive all of these incredibly stupid ideas about animals and their nature

if you are an animal, it is possible or probable one day you will be eaten, and you will die in horror and terror. WELCOME TO REALITY, you coddled suburbanite

this is nature my friend. this is the way everywhere on the globe, on land and sea. it has been this way for hundreds of millions of years. this is the basis for our relationship with the natural world: food. you don't extend human morality onto the natural world. it's an absurdity

but no matter. you keep building castles in the sky, i will have lunch. tasty, meaty lunch. mmm

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[Prune]

I wish I were still a teenager; alas, I was born in '80.
Your complete (and likely intentional, in order to save face) misunderstanding and misrepresentation of my actual argument proves yet again that one should not confound nerds with bona fide intellectuals.

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[Anonymous Coward]

i saw a chick walking down the street once, she wore a shirt that read "animals are people too." the essential absurdity succinctly, yet laughably, seriously stated

that is the root of your problem. animals aren't human.

If you had paid attention to what I'd written here previously, you'd have known that I don't believe that animals are humans. Rather, I believe that animals share SOME morally-relevant characteristics with humans(e.g. the ability to suffer.)

across that divide, there is no argument you can make for extending human considerations onto nonhumans. it's just so absurd

Humans suffer. Animals suffer. My morality seeks to minimize unnecessary suffering. The logic is very simple. There is no divide on this point, just sound logical consistency.

why aren't you angry with lions? you do realize they start ripping and chewing into zebras in terror while they are still breathing? children? mothers? take the boa constrictor. it finds its prey. it squeezes. the creature dies in terror trying to breathe. all of your bullshit emotional resonance arguments above: why aren't you angry at the boa constrictor?

Actually, I'm absolutely repulsed by the suffering that occurs in nature, including that which is inflicted on animals by other animals. Ideally I would like to stop this suffering too. Currently however, the immense difficulty in achieving this makes it untenable, but I believe that in the future with further technological and other advancements it may become viable.

you and other rich westerners grow up in this artificial environment, disconnected form the simple truths of the natural world. and in this fantasy land, you derive all of these incredibly stupid ideas about animals and their nature.

Development and prosperity("rich westerners") allows the scope and depth of moral behaviour to increase. This is a very good thing. It is the reason, for instance, why there are no longer Western children working in mines and as chimney-sweeps.

if you are an animal, it is possible or probable one day you will be eaten, and you will die in horror and terror. WELCOME TO REALITY, you coddled suburbanite

this is nature my friend. this is the way everywhere on the globe, on land and sea. it has been this way for hundreds of millions of years. this is the basis for our relationship with the natural world: food. you don't extend human morality onto the natural world. it's an absurdity

Improving upon "reality" is one of the common characteristics of moral humans. It's one of the reasons why the "reality" of black slavery was abolished, for instance. Just because animal suffering has been a reality for millions or billions of years doesn't mean that it should continue to be so for the future if there are viable alternative options(e.g. vegetarianism.)

I think you might have psychopathic tendencies and pathologically-reduced empathy levels if you are unable to follow the arguments I have presented. Most non-vegetarians still show significant empathic and compassionate responses to animal suffering; animal welfare is even written into law.

Are your moral actions towards other humans guided at all by a desire to avoid inflicting unnecessary suffering, for the sake of the person suffering?

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[circletimessquare]

"Humans suffer. Animals suffer. My morality seeks to minimize unnecessary suffering. The logic is very simple. There is no divide on this point, just sound logical consistency."

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall."

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series/Self-Reliance

"Actually, I'm absolutely repulsed by the suffering that occurs in nature, including that which is inflicted on animals by other animals. Ideally I would like to stop this suffering too. Currently however, the immense difficulty in achieving this makes it untenable, but I believe that in the future with further technological and other advancements it may become viable."

okaaay

the weight of reality, of hundreds of millions of years of natural reality. and you do not wish to learn from it. you wish to change it. you are a speck of dust that understands not one bit of the reality you live in, but you seek to reverse it, because it offends your simple-minded sense of "consistency"

you are an absurd, arrogant little bit of nothing, without the slightest understanding of your relation to the real world, and worse in your attitude towards it than the worst polluting, natural environment destroying selfish fool. at least he just wants to consume and not think about his consequences. you? you see the natural world, are offended by it because of your silly little infantile ignorant feelings, and therefore, you wish to destroy all of it! why? because are animals are cute and shouldn't cry. ha!

what an insufferable asshole you are

know the natural world for what it is. let it teach you the way of the world, reality. or crawl back to suburbia where animals are cute stuffed plush toys or coddled genetic derivatives of canines or felines or dancing happy feet or kung fu pandas or other farts of whimsy. and just please, coddled suburbanite: please shut the fuck up about that which you wish to remain ignorant of and yet still condemn

you are an ignorant arrogant fool

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[Anonymous Coward]

the weight of reality, of hundreds of millions of years of natural reality. and you do not wish to learn from it. you wish to change it.

I know it's just like I was telling my bro: for billions of years there were no computers in nature, nothing doing billions of calculations per second, then like some foolish human egotist didn't learn anything from that, and wanted to change reality and he made computers. That's why I never use dem computers. Stay away from thar computers I tell ya! So unnatural-like.

what an insufferable asshole you are

I'm arguing for trying to reduce suffering in the world, whilst you don't care one wit about the suffering of animals so long as they taste good, and I'm the asshole. Riiiiiight......

Seriously, you know or are worried that you have psychopathic tendencies, aren't you?

It's odd the way you rapidly vacillate between a seemingly rather philosophically competent person to someone who engages in the most basic of logical errors and fallacies.

I just hope you're a troll.

Re:Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Nugent

[circletimessquare]

you're the one who wants to obliterate how the natural world functions because it offends your infantile sensibilities that animals are cute cuddly things with feelings, so lions and boa constrictors have to be reprogrammed. to be cute and cuddly and not lions and boa constrictors

and i'm the psychopath?

the NATURAL WORLD buddy. you want to rewrite it. that makes you extremely ignorant and arrogant. and please don't lecture me on advances in human morality or human technology. that's not the natural world, fool

what next moron? outlaw disease because it kills cute rabbits?

I support Mr. Zuckerberg's actions!

[Montezumaa]

I must say that self reliance is a lost art. So many people do not know how to grow plants, or properly slaughter animals for consumption. In today's world, so many people rely on market to produce their food. Not if, but when our current society falls apart(from war, or other major problems), people will not be able to care for themselves and will die.

Cutting a goats throat is actually the best way to kill a goat. I am sorry if some people are too sensitive to accept this, but most of you have no experience in slaughtering animals, so save to feigned outrage.

I would love to tell Mr. Zuckerberg how proud I am of him for using his position in society to promote self reliance and promote the learning of lost arts. I hope more people start doing these types of things.

Re:Lawsuit pending

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop posting online, mom, you're drunk.

As a long-time vegan..

[Vegan Cyclist]

...i would suggest that rather than get into the perverse world of actually killing animals (but still bypassing the rest of the process, ie, raising, feeding, etc), why not just stop eating animal products altogether? (I hope he's 'getting his hands dirty' with egg and dairy products as well...so much killing in those industries too - calves from dairies end up as veal, and many, many unwanted male chicks from layer hens are ground up shortly after birth.)

We, as humans, have no physiological need for any foods that come from an animal, and in this day and age it's easy enough to find vegan alternatives to just about anything you can think of....and vegan foods are much better for the environment and resolve most ethical issues, especially if buying organic. (Look up 'veganic' as well - vegan-organic farming using no animal fertilizer, etc..!)

When it comes down to it, we're raising and killing animals for nothing more than a specific taste sensation. This is really unfortunate, given the lives these animals have to go through, the ethical compromises the humans involved have to make, the massive drain on resources and damage to the environment. That is an awfully high price for something as unnecessary as a 'specific taste'.

- Dave

Re:As a long-time vegan..

[dknight]

my wife's a vegan, and I'll tell you the same thing I tell her:
vegan food tastes like crap (and believe me, I've been forced to eat a *lot* of it)

as long as meat keeps tasting so much better than any of your alternatives, I'm gonna keep eating it

food was meant to be enjoyed, and not suffered

Re:As a long-time vegan..

[Anonymous Coward]

...i would suggest that rather than get into the perverse world of actually killing animals

Perverse? It's about as natural as anything humans do. In the real sense of perverse (at odds with nature), veganism is far more perverse than an omniverous diet.

I don't have anything against people eating whatever they want, but don't try to justify it by inventing falsehoods.

Re:As a long-time vegan..

[Nikkos]

When you eat whatever it is you eat, you're killing something. Just because it's not warm and fuzzy and doesn't have eyeballs doesn't make a damn bit of difference. How do you know if plants feel pain? Cut off a branch of a tree - see that sap that comes weeping out? Are those tears? It's obviously a physiological response to damage. If you're over-emotional and internalize the death of something, that's your ethical problem. As for me I like steak, I like lobster, I like green beans, and I can look all three in the eyes (leaves?) and say "yum."

Now if you want to make cases about treating the animals with at least some semblance of respect, OK. I'm not gonna argue that Japanese harvest of whales is pointless because most of the meat is wasted. Or that the grisly death of male chicks is disturbing. Maybe instead of beating the anti-meat drum and going against the vast majority of the population, instead you suggest that people eat roosters too and find something else for the Japanese fisherman to do with their time.

Complaining about massive drains on resources is illogical when you waste your own resources espousing an ideology which will most likely never ever be accepted by the rest of the world. How 'bout getting off your soapbox and spending time trying to find a "happy medium" that people can embrace instead?

Re:As a long-time vegan..

[element-o.p.]

We, as humans, have no physiological need for any foods that come from an animal, and in this day and age it's easy enough to find vegan alternatives to just about anything you can think of

Look, if you can eat vegan, more power to you. I respect that. However, while "All people [may be]...created equal" not all people are identical. No diet can be one-size-fits-all. My sister-in-law tried going vegan until her body basically started digesting itself. At her doctor's insistence, she finally began forcing herself to eat meat (she didn't like the taste of it, didn't like the way most meat-providing animals were raised and treated, and *really* didn't like thinking about the fact that her meat came from something that was once alive) but her body couldn't tolerate a vegan diet. Maybe she's just a really odd exception to the rule, but I kind of suspect that she is just one end of a bell-curve and you are the other, with most of us somewhere in between, with regards to our ability to tolerate a meat-free diet.

Re:As a long-time vegan..

[dejaniv]

....and vegan foods are much better for the environment

I wouldn't count on that, vegans fart at least as bad as cows...

Re:As a long-time vegan..

[reeno49]

food was meant to be enjoyed, and not suffered

Actually, I'm quite sure food was meant to sustain life.

Re:As a long-time vegan..

[Vegan Cyclist]

Err..what do we as humans do that is 'natural'? We're far from natural, and this is as weird a place as any to start waving the 'natural' card!

It's 'natural' to beat, eat and rape others of our own species..

I find it odd that we generally DON'T want to model our behaviour after other species, but diet is one common exception.... A critical element here is that we very much have a choice.....and that is why we refrain from other harmful behaviour.

Re:As a long-time vegan..

[Vegan Cyclist]

Even if plants are sentient (which there is zero evidence to support, and you can't be comparing say a pig and a tomato plant....), eating plant foods is still the more compassionate choice, given that any animal we commonly exploit eats VASTLY MORE plants.

Given that as a vegan i am against the consumption of hens, why would i advocate for the consumption of roosters...? Certainly, i would prefer Japanese fisherman do something else, but i can't cover every situation in one post....we're speaking about a very privileged human who could make very different choices.

And i think most everyone CAN embrace this message, if they wanted to. Why should i give up because most people don't agree (yet)? 100 yrs ago nearly everyone found the idea of abolishing human slavery just as laughable as you consider veganism. Luckily, people eventually progress. The attitudes and mentalities that enable the exploitation and domination of other animals is deeply troubling.

Re:As a long-time vegan..

[other-different-nick]

Are you seriously trying to blame your wife's bad cooking on veganism?

privacy is an animal?

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm. that explains alot.

Why not? Once it's dead, it all looks like meat.

[RussellSHarris]

I refuse to get on the bandwagon that some animals are more sacred than others. If it's bred for food and killed humanely, why not eat it?

Not really a slashdot story, but...

[Dreyu.wolfe]

This seems like an odd forum for this story, but leaving aside the sensationalist aspect of Zuckerberg, this is actually a really good thing. I have often thought that those who eat meat should have a hand in its procurement, if not doing the actual killing, at least assisting in the butchering. It is ill-advised disassociation when people eating animals have no idea where they came from and give no thought to the animal's life or treatment. I have hunted deer and elk and subsequently cleaned and butchered them myself. I have also eaten my share of plastic-wrapped grocery store meat. I feel that only the former prepared me to ethically appreciate the latter.

If people were forced to have a more active hand in their meat procurement, I imagine meat consumption would drop a fair bit. That would be good for both the carbon footprint inherent to raising meat and for the obesity issues in countries where meat consumption is the highest.

Looks like a hoax

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who had really hard time believing this is not a hoax?

"Facebook Founder Only Eats Animals He Personally Kills" seems like a perfect topic for a spam (see the videos here) or negative PR campaign.

Same idea led me to become vegetarian

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the same thought some years ago. I thought, could I kill the animals that I was eating? I decided, eventually, and with regret (because I like the taste of meat) that I could not would not. I've been a vegetarian every since. I admire Zuckerberg for doing this, actually. I hope he doesn't eventually decide that he likes killing animals as much as he likes (metaphorically) killing the competition, but, if he does, at least he's being honest and clear-eyed about where and how we get meat.

Re:Finally.. the Facebook CEO does something I lik

[Anonymous Coward]

that isn't what he is doing, he is satisfying his own sociopathic tendencies. the upside is we probably won't find anymore headless women in NYC while he's doing this.

His puppy meat...

[earls]

Is going to be bruised to hell.

I knew it!

[Cytlid]

That's what he's doing! Jees, you'd think I would have figured it out by now. He's eating our privacy.

Always a first

[Caerdwyn]

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 do the deed, at least don't sneer at those who do; you're not in a position (morally, legally, or otherwise) to do so. Having a class you can look down upon because they do the work you're not man enough to do yourself is one of the pervasive hallmarks of caste system. Who here is going to argue that cultures endorsing formalized caste systems are anything other than evil?

Animals also die so other animals can have meat. Cows aren't "better" than lions because they eat grass instead of antelope. Vegans aren't "better" than me because they don't eat meat. Unless we're about to forbid lions, wolves, and sharks from eating anything other than whole-grain bread, there's no claim to morality here. To do so is to place humanity squarely above and separate from every other living thing, and I've yet to meet a vegan who didn't also espouse that humanity is part of a continuum of animals. Since when are the rules different for us if we're all interconnected?

I hunt, and I apologize to nobody for it, most especially not to vegans. The thrill in the hunt is the hunt itself, not in the joy of killing; the killing is for meat not for bloodlust. None of the hunters I know takes wicked pleasure in the death itself. When I kill, it is my duty to do so humanely; the end must be as sudden, as unannounced and as swift as if a meteor fell out of the sky. In so doing, I am more merciful than any other animal that has ever walked the Earth, and am also more merciful than any method used in the name of the desert-religion-du-jour or any method used commercially.

Re:Always a first

[RazorSharp]

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.

What's doing something ethical? Does sleep count?

I think you meant ethical in the sense of 'doing good,' but I don't see how killing animals is doing good. I'm not saying it's bad, it seems to be ethically neutral to me.

Zuckerberg killing farm animals is no different to me than Charlie Sheen fucking porn stars. It's something some rich guy is doing with his money that has no effect on me or anyone else. It's not an ethical issue. It really just shows how out of touch Zuckerberg is -- you've gotta be out of touch if you think you have to kill to appreciate life. What's next, is he going to go to prison to learn to appreciate his freedom? Personally, I think he should give all his money away so he can learn to appreciate wealth.

Like!

[mcneely.mike]

I wonder how many facebook 'friends' the goat had.

And why do people use facebook? It is filled with retards sending each other cookies and pokes, or whatever and pretending they have loads of friends.

Just asking!

He should kill his ugly face

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that's hideous.

A modest proposal

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, now we know why he wants children on Facebook.

Re:Finally.. the Facebook CEO does something I lik

[blair1q]

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.

How about if Zuckerberg spends some of his time worrying about people who are being forced into poverty by the system that makes it so easy for him to become blindingly wealthy with so little effort? That would be real humanitarianism.

Re:Finally.. the Facebook CEO does something I lik

[Intron]

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.

Eh, okay...

[girlintraining]

He's working his way up to humans slowly.

Just go vegetarian

[unity100]

Instead of gutting goats like psychos (and claiming it is 'kind' to do it that way) just go vegetarian. its easy. it took 1 month for me to totally get off meat. i havent looked back since, and im healthy as an ox.

Not at all.

[pigwiggle]

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.

Re:Not at all.

[element-o.p.]

I wish more people had this attitude. I think fewer animals would live miserable lives and people would waste less.

Exactly.

Re:Not at all.

[aralin]

This is such a load of bollocks. Killing a rabbit takes whole of 10 seconds, most of which are spent trying to grab his wriggling hind legs in one hand. Skinning a rabbit takes almost 10 minutes if you know what you are doing and if you add the rest of the work and cooking its just easy to kill the rabbit compared to the rest. Same with fish. I'd say any other animal is going to be either same or for larger animals the post-processing work will be even more difficult.

If killing animals for food is this difficult for you, there is something wrong with your evolutionary process. I suggest to terminate this part of the genetic experiment in order to leave space for healthier and less pretentious samples. :)

Re:Not at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

If killing animals for food is this difficult for you, there is something wrong with your evolutionary process.

I believe there's nothing wrong, it's just that most people are never hungry enough to become killers. Starve them enough and they start killing and eating each other...

__

[aahpandasrun]

Mark Zuckerberg with a knife is something that will haunt my dreams.

So one more step towards...

[Red_Chaos1]

...full fledged sociopathy/psychopathy? I mean, he already doesn't give a fuck about people. Now he's just flagrantly showing he doesn't give a fuck about animals, so much so that he can do the killing himself.

*yawn* wake me when there's news that he finally came to his senses/grew a conscience. Then I'll care.

You keep what you kill

[turbogizzmo]

....it's the Necromonger way.

Re:Why not? Once it's dead, it all looks like meat

[RobNich]

True, except that cats are carnivores, which makes them more likely to have certain parasites. I will stick to herbivores. Delicious herbivores.

That's what I'd follow if I could afford to

[elucido]

But most of us don't live on a farm, and don't have the ability to kill our own food on a regular basis.

That being said I do think it's weird that so many meat eaters are willing to eat meats of animals they couldn't kill themselves.

If you are going to eat meat, you should be able to kill it or at least go hunting and experience the process. If you can't, then maybe eating meat isn't in your nature to begin with.

Autoknife?

[l00sr]

The real question is, does he gave the guts to do it in person, or does he in fact use an autoknife?

Re:Why not? Once it's dead, it all looks like meat

[element-o.p.]

If it's bred for food...why not eat it?

That's mighty particular of you...I prefer to eat wild animal meat, thank you very much!

Okay, okay. I was kidding. Mostly. There is a draw to wild game: no added hormones, no being kept in an inhuman pen until being slaughtered, etc. Otherwise, yeah, I pretty much agree with you (and RobNich below who makes a good point about eating herbivores rather than carnivores).

second hand vegetarian

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm a second hand vegetarian. i only eat animals that eat vegetables.

First good thing I've heard about him...

[SlideGuitar]

This has always been my "vegetarian" ethic. I don't eat animals that I'm not willing to kill. I couldn't kill a cow, so I don't eat cows. I think I could kill a chicken or a fish, and so I eat them. The fact that Zuckerberg has the money and time to put my theoretical schema to the test doesn't bother me. I applaud him.

The problem with meat isn't the killing, it's the lying. He's addressing the lying... and the hiding and the pretending. Good on him. Kol ha'kavod.

Re:First good thing I've heard about him...

[RazorSharp]

I don't lie, hide, or pretend anything when it comes to eating meat. When I see a large steer grazing it makes me want steak.

I don't kill my own kills because 1) I can't afford to buy my own cows 2) I have no place to store said cows 3) I don't have what's necessary to kill a cow and then store all that meat.

AND

4) Even if 1-3 were fulfilled, I would still buy my beef because it is much cheaper and much more efficient.

I'm sure that killing pigs and cows is gross as fuck, but if that was my only way to get bacon and beef. . .well, I wouldn't hesitate.

Why don't you stop traveling to places you can't walk to, while you're all about that hippy bullshit?

"It is not normal for humans to eat meat."

[circletimessquare]

humans eat meat. in all societies. throughout all of history

i guess people will believe all sorts of ignorant things

Re:"It is not normal for humans to eat meat."

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Historically humans are vegetarians. Only recently have we been eating meat widely. In fact even today there are more vegetarians than meat eaters in the world. Did you notice you don't have fangs in your mouth like a wolf, but mostly molars like a cow? Why do you think that is?

Re:"It is not normal for humans to eat meat."

[circletimessquare]

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 do is undermine your own credibility, which means maybe your argument for vegetarianism is as unsound as your grasp on reality and natural history

Fully support this

[Anonymous Coward]

I fully support Mark here. It's the only way to be a meat eater ethically. Of course, I don't think you have to kill everything you eat, just be able to do so.

My prediction

[cvtan]

He will eventually turn into Michael Jackson.

Who TF cares

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF cares

Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

That must freak the other restaurant patrons out immensely.

I'd feel better about this if hunters were calmer

[RexDevious]

In theory it makes sense, accept the impact the decision to eat meat makes, don't suppress the natural instinct to hunt and kill into a video game habit or bad personality ... but in practice I'm having trouble of thinking of any hunters who I'd want people to be *more* like. People who hunt, or say they hunt to bond with people who actually do, more often than not strike me as the opposite direction I'd like to see us go as a species.

City Folks...lol

[lexsird]

Should we cut them off from the food out here in the Country that we produce for them until they develop an appreciation for it? Every time I see a city, I think of how artificial it is and how it cannot sustain its self. I think of them as abominations upon the landscape. Filled with a ratball of humanity that serves no real purpose other than to feed and amuse its self. I can't help but think some intelligent life form is going to pass by Earth, take note and vaporize each one, removing the cancer they are from a suffering planet.

My fear though is, they might pay attention to the city dwellers and decide the entire race has to go for the sake of the universe.

tryveg.com

[assertation]

Zuckerberg could maximize his respect for animals by not eating them at all and do many other positive things with that one change as well.

If anyone is interested in reading about the many ethical, environmental and healths benefits of vegetarianism go to the site below.

Even if you have no intention of giving up meat, you will have a good idea why people do it, without having to invest a lot of time reading.

http://www.tryveg.com/

Tref

[twocentplain]

A guy named Zuckerberg eats lobster and pork? Oy vey.
Oh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg
"Zuckerberg was raised Jewish, and had his bar mitzvah when he turned 13, although he has since described himself as an atheist."

I suspect...

[JockTroll]

... Most of his protein intake comes from the headlice he plucks from his own scalp and greedily devours. Yum yum.

No Death Joy For Me

[Jekler]

I've fished, crabbed, and slaughtered chickens on my grandmother's farm. In the end it's just nourishment to me, I don't derive any sense of fulfillment from being personally involved in the killing.

People have the same philosophy about every aspect of life. Stitch your own clothes, make your own soap, build your own house, grow your own weed, program your own operating system... of course there's value in experiencing everything in life, but I don't find it to be more true of one thing than another.

I think the philosophy of kill it yourself comes from the passive guilt associated with meat consumption without the emotional baggage imparted by the physical act of slaughter. I don't have any problem at all letting other people kill and prepare my food for me. Most of my life is designed to take advantage of the distribution of labor in society.

I really prefer the Industrialist approach; more money means more automation, to the end of eventually never needing to think about tasks related to basic biological maintenance.

Re:No Death Joy For Me

[Anonymous Coward]

thank you for making sense.

What about road killl?

[Anonymous Coward]

If he hits a squirrel/cat/dog does that count?

First the bit about UNABOMB, now this

[Anonymous Coward]

Zuckerberg getting back to "wild nature". It's kind of eerie.

Re:Why not? Once it's dead, it all looks like meat

[robot_love]

It's the "killed humanely" that you're going to have trouble with. Please watch "Food, Inc." for some rather disturbing images of how your food is killed.

Hint: It ain't humanely

Here's The Deal Then...

[pandrijeczko]

I will kill my own animals for my plate as long as everyone who owns a computer learns how it works and how to fix it themselves, rather than call on me to fix it.

I mean, we're talking personal responsibility here, right?

Re:Here's The Deal Then...

[Anonymous Coward]

I fix my own computer, everyone elses, and slaughter my own animals when I feel like it.

Nothing better than fresh dead.

correction

[nimbius]

'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.'"

if we're killing animals based on the level of kindness exhibited in the death method, then simply not killing the animal at all is the kindest way.

Re:Why not? Once it's dead, it all looks like meat

[Obfuscant]

True, except that cats are carnivores, which makes them more likely to have certain parasites. I will stick to herbivores. Delicious herbivores.

So you avoid pork? It is well known (at least to pork producers) that pigs will happily eat any rats or other vermin that show up looking for the corn that the pigs haven't eaten.

And pigs are good sources for trichinosis for just that reason.

Why should you care?

[Anonymous Coward]

You should care because Zuckerberg is a special kind of nutcase, followed by millions of Facebook sheeple. Christ, the guy stole the Facebook idea, and nobody paid attention until a bunch of money-laden VCs thought they could make a pile. Nice example, huh?

Facebook is heading for MySpace territory. Someone(s) - including Zuckerberg - are going to make huge financial kills on this joke of a platform, and then it will be on to the next thing.

How cool to kill your own meat! Wow! Sign me up!

Hey, Mark, if you want to "make a personal annual commitment" that's a real challenge, how about spreading the word about helping poor and hungry people around the world? Why not spend one hour per day doing THAT! Who needs to know, hear about, or be influenced by this holier-than-thou exercise about killing your source of animal protein.

Tell you what, Mark, The day that you go out into the bush with a bow and arrow, track down a wild animal, put it into your car and butcher it YOURSELF, at home, you can put this loony-bin, stupid idea of yours "where the sun don't shine".

I wonder how many of the Facebook sheeple will start doing this themselves? Hey, Mark, how about doing something to relive the suffering of the animals that DO go through hell on the way to the slaughterhouse? How about THAT?

And please don't tell me that this new throat-slitting hobby of yours will have even one iota of influence on the suffering of farm animals.

Seriously, why do we even pay attention to nutcases like Zuckerberg? For go's sake, let's hear about some REAL heros - single parents, people who really help the poor, or people who REALLY help abused animals.

Pathetic!

not a vegetarian

[petsounds]

In the CNN article, Zuckerberg is quoted as saying, "This year I've basically become a vegetarian since the only meat I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself." Funny, the vegetarians I know aren't going around slitting the throats of animals. If your diet is 90% vegetarian and 10% of the time you're executing animals, you're not a vegetarian.

While as a vegan I'm glad he's eating less meat, he seems to feel like he's exonerating himself from the death of the animals by being aware and thankful for their sacrifice. As if they had any say in the matter. I also think it's pretty messed up to just stroll in, slit a neck or two, and be off. That's a bit psychopathic.

It's also funny that he says he's eating much better foods and feels healthier. Yeah, that may be because you're eating a lot more vegetarian food now Zuckerberg, not because you've been murdering some pigs and goats in your spare time. It sounds like he's falling into the classic rich celebrity scenario of being swept up by some kooky figure with a crazy plan.

Re:not a vegetarian

[sephii]

In the CNN article, Zuckerberg is quoted as saying, "This year I've basically become a vegetarian since the only meat I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself."

Yeah, that's one of the dumbest thing I've ever read. This guy should first learn what vegetarianism is before calling himself "basically a vegetarian".

Re:not a vegetarian

[Panruru]

"This year I've basically become a vegetarian since the only meat I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself."

Eh, it's a figure of speech. Generally, when someone says he "basically" did something, he usually means he mostly did something. Zuckerberg's just saying that the amount of meat he consumes has dramatically decreased since he started killing the animals himself, which need not be a bad thing no matter how he phrases it.

I've personally believed that people should do this for a long time now. I would do it myself if it weren't so impractical. Most people really do take the source of their food for granted. I have heard many, many stories of people swearing off meat after visiting a slaughterhouse, and that was just from watching the animals get killed - and seeing the horrible conditions they live in, of course. Trust me; if everyone had the resources and willingness Zuckerberg does to kill their own animals, the meat industry wouldn't be nearly so overblown.

In any case, you should note that it was never Zukerberg's intention to become a vegetarian, nor was it his intention to eat healthier. He just decided to start doing his own dirty work. Eating better was a side effect of that, not the goal. If you're going to be hatin', you should start with the millions of people who eat meat every day and think nothing of it even though they like animals and would be horrified to see one die.

In Other News...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wealthy people who have the money to indulge eccentricities average working people would have trouble with continue to garner media attention.

Is this a FarmVille thing?

[Maltheus]

Never played it. How many points do you get for snapping a chicken head?

Re:Why not? Once it's dead, it all looks like meat

[RussellSHarris]

Of course. What I meant (and should have said) was more along the lines of "if it isn't somebody's pet".

Mr. Zuckerberg, Just For Your Information...

[pandrijeczko]

...I respect the fact that you've become very wealthy very quickly but the consequence of that is that you probably never have to work again & can now employ people to do any of the stuff in your life that you don't want to do any more. That means you can create a lot of free time to do other interesting things with your time, and good luck to you on that.

Me, I have a reasonably good job and live comfortably, for that I am very grateful. But I do have to work a mimimum of 40 hours a week to pay things like mortgages and bills. I also have to help clean the house, do the lawn, cook food, go shopping & do washing & ironing. If I had children then I would have to find a lot more time & money to make sure they were okay also.

Yes, I buy my meat pre-packaged because I'm a coward and I don't want to see any animal suffer, even if it is a humane and quick killing. But even if I had the physical courage to kill an animal in order to eat it, because I don't have as much money as you, I'd also need to butcher it, hang it in my own cold store & dispose of the parts that I'm not going to eat. Not to mention the time and cost to rear the animal before I killed it, or to get it transported to me for killing. This process would take considerably more time & money to do, but I am limited in both of those that I have to spare.

In other words, *YOU* can do this because *YOU* have huge wealth & a strong stomach, *BOTH* of which are pre-requisites for living that type of lifestyle.

Consequently, even if I possessed the courage to kill an animal, my limited resources make it impractical. Therefore the message you are trying to convey is wasted on the 99% of the population who likewise do not have the resource to do things your way.

In fact, we actually have a paradox forming here - you have made your money with Facebook *PRECISELY BECAUSE* millions of people waste time on it rather than putting it to better use - like killing their own animals.

In summary, you have the wealth & ability to kill animals precisely for the reason that the rest of us do not.

Re:Why not? Once it's dead, it all looks like meat

[RussellSHarris]

I can hardly help but be slightly tongue-in-cheek when I use the word "humanely". I have a rather dim view of the human race on the whole; it tends to go to the least common denominator. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals.

All the food I ever killed was, more or less, killed with as little unnecessary pain or suffering as I was able to ensure. And if it wasn't killed by me, well, it's still dead and it still looks like meat. I may not really condone of the way the animal was treated but there's not much use crying over spilled milk.

Okay, that pic's a bit weird...

[CCarrot]

Anyone know why the /. summary pic for this story is some guy playing with a puppy?

Mmmm...think I'll have the bichon veal today...gotta tenderize it first!

Re:Okay, that pic's a bit weird...

[geoffaus]

Its Zuckerberg - that puppy doesnt even look like it would fill him up!

Life is precious

[Anonymous Coward]

Lived in the burbs or the city all my life and went through something similiar. I think it comes from the idea that we as humans at large take for granite the food provided to us and from where it came.Many people out there will claim its no big dea,l but it is. To take a life is a strange feeling and when you do it for food you have a great appreciation for it. Many poeple would starve if not for grocery stores, i always felt a person should only eat what they are willing to kill. Life is precious

It's CmdrTaco vs Zuckerberg

[rsilvergun]

Zuckerberg's a little squeamish about killing a goat. CmdrTaco runs slashdot and listens to hot grit jokes all day. My money's on Taco.

Re:It's CmdrTaco vs Zuckerberg

[Unequivocal]

Did you intend to introduce the words "eat" and "goatse" into my mind simultaneously? No thanks to you, either way. Brrrrghgh.

At first I thought that the headline was...

[Dr.Who]

Zuckerberg Only Eating Animals His Personality Kills

Disclaimer: I have never met anyone named Mark Zuckerberg. I did see a popular movie featuring a character with that name. I have seen at least two television news clips describing something that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is doing. So I know nothing about CEO Mark Zuckerberg's personality or eating habits.

Excellent.

[pubwvj]

People should get more in touch with their food. I prefer raising mine and do. I don't say everyone has to but get closer. At the very least buy from local farmers who are raising animals on pasture. Pasture forage is sunshine, CO2 and H2O. It cleans the air you breath. It feeds the animal. You eat the animal. We are all part of the web of life. In time you too shall feed something, unless you choose to go extra crispy (cremation) or pickled.

Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of us are of the opinion that taking the life of a [relatively] intelligent creature is something not to be taken lightly. The issue at hand isn't the difficulty in procuring food, it's the responsibility we have, as humans, to preserve life.

Re:Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue at hand isn't the difficulty in procuring food, it's the responsibility we have, as humans, to preserve life.

Preserving life didn't get us to the top of the food chain, so I don't think it's a responsibility humans have.

No reason to be a vegetarian..

[crossmr]

When I was young, we'd raise 2-3 pigs over the summer and that would provide pork for most of the rest of the year. If he's only killing them to appreciate it, it takes but a couple of minutes to shoot them and slit their throats. There is no reason he couldn't go out for a weekend, take down a cow and a couple pigs and stock the freezer at home.

welcome to the real world

[pbjones]

a majority of the world lives by killing their own food, I don't see why it even rates a mention. Oh yer, he is rich and should have his servant do it, that's why.

Re:Why not? Once it's dead, it all looks like meat

[MstrFool]

With apologies to Will Rodgers... I never 'et an animal I didn't like. I quite respect some one killing their own food, rather then being squeamish and needing others to do it for them. Eating meat costs a life, and people should respect the life that ended. Few folks do, and I see that as quite a shame.

Nobody

[nurb432]

And nobody would only use a computer that they made themselves from iron ore and raw silicon.

He'd never eat only the vegetables he picked himself, or only the bread he baked himself

YOU many not.. but some of us might..

Speaking of, dinner is done.

who does...

[Anonymous Coward]

...he think he is -
Ted Nugent?

Strange

[CosaNostra Pizza Inc]

Is this guy to become the next Howard Hughes?

Nothing to see here, people!

[avatar139]

Just Zuckerberg following the usual FaceBook PR strategy which is to make a lesser precursory announcement so after the controversy of the initial announcement dies down he can finally disclose what happened to all those interns who mysteriously vanished to "cut costs" when it was being debated to start charging for the free cafeteria food!

Unnessary salughter

[Anonymous Coward]

Just go to the market like normal people do instead of killing another creature for no reason.

New mod for Farmville?

[Anonymous Coward]

Think Farmville crossed with American McGee's 'Alice' 0_0

Kudos (for once) to Zuckerberg.

[inAbsurdum]

My gut feeling tells me to instinctively feel negative towards anything about Mr. Zuckerberg, but in this case I have to pay the man some respect.

I've been a vegetarian for 18 years now (yeah yeah, I'm old and all that), not because I am against meat-eating per se (we are after all omnivores as a species), but because I am firmly against the meat industry. Animals are just a little more than commodities IMHO, even if only so slightly. There's also the question of environmental impact... Vegetarianism was the only sensible route for me personally at that time, but I'd gladly go the way of the hunter if it was feasible.

What, did you think meat came prepacked from the factory? Now, get off my lawn!

How about he live off what he kills most often?

[morethanapapercert]

Why doesn't Mark Z just learn to feed off the privacy of the millions users he has taken?

If he gets tularemia from one of the bunnies he kills, is it ok to laugh and enjoy it?

socially impractical

[Anonymous Coward]

first thing that came to mind is that while I grew up in a rural area and have slaughtered and dressed over a hundred chickens, this would be hugely impractical. It would mean being vegetarian at restaurants and friend's houses and such. I always find the biggest problem with any diet is that it is difficult to reconcile with the social aspects of eating together with people. But I have been in the Philippines for 8 years where food is very important (if you are invited to a Filipino party, say yes.)

Most kind as opposed to what?

[Vyse of Arcadia]

Cutting its throat with a toothbrush?

Sociopath..Serial Killer...etc

[rubberbando]

Zuckerberg has been watching waaay too much Dexter and is now practicing becoming a serial killer....

But then, I also think that he is the Anti-Christ...

No big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

In many parts of the world, especially the developing, agricultural countries, it's quite common to raise and kill your own animals for food.
Hunting is also an option.

If you're not squeamish about it, then go ahead.

So, it's definitely not just a Jewish/kosher thing.

What I do not understand is why Mr. FaceBook had to announce it and make a big deal about it.
I hope it was not a knee-jerk reaction to vegans who got upset about his meat-eating habits.

Stun?

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as throat-cutting being the "kindest" way to do it.. I know that when you bring sheep to the butcher, they stun them with AC current to the brain before letting them bleed out. (I'm not sure about goats, but I'd imagine they're similar)

I'd say *that* is the kindest way to do it.

It's empathy.

[pigwiggle]

Most people have it. And I'm guessing you do to. Despite all the lame - and transparent - machismo bluster.

microcarnivorism is better than vegetarianism??

[vmaldia]

I'm an Asian and in some parts of Asia it is traditional (why doubt the wisdom of the ancients?) for meat to be used not as a meal, but as flavoring and added nutrition. Plant matter like rice makes up the majority of calories. A common meal in poorer areas would be a plateful of rice and a few native sausages or a few small fish and maybe a few vegetables. An analogy would be instead of a steak with a side of mashed potatoes like western diets, you would have an equivalent caloric amount of mashed potatoes flavored with bits of chopped up steak (although I think bacon bits would be tastier). Microcarnivorism seems to be a reasonable compromise. I think more people would be willing to adopt a microcarnivore diet rather than go full vegetarian. If you properly choose the formulation of the diet, it gives you most of the health benefits of a vegetarian diet and the addition of small amounts of meat solves the flavor/meat craving problem as well as avoiding most of the nutritional deficiencies which a vegetarian diet puts you in danger of (unless you are careful). Microcarnivorism has most of the environmental benefits of vegetarianism like more calories per square kilometer of agricultural land. Even if the environmental benefits are less than full vegetarianism, the larger number of adoptees makes the impact bigger. BTW, i dont think "microcarnivorism" is an accepted term, but i'll accept the credit for inventing it.

Zuckerberg is a freak

[Anonymous Coward]

But nobody notices because they're too busy fellating him because he's so rich. That's what impresses people these days. Money.

Oddities

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a TV show on the Science Channel where insufferable New York hipsters request stuffed animals, but only if hasn't been "hunted."

Rolls eyes.

Sustainable? What a joke.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sustainable? I think not. It's much more "sustainable" to eat farmed animals than for Mr. Zuck to kill one animal himself and eat it. Talking about the economies of scale here.

This is news... how so?

[Opportunist]

Don't get me wrong, but this is something I would have expected to read in a tabloid, where the "freakish" behaviour of some celebrities gets celebrated. My question would be: How could this possibly affect me, and hence be something I want to be informed of in my news?

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind him eating animals he kills (actually, eating an animal is about the only good reason I could think of to kill it), but ... I mean, it's not that Facebook is again pooping in the face of its user's privacy, it's not that he's signing some deal with a company or that he's buying some company that could somehow affect me by shoving FB in my face 'cause I used that other product... call me selfish, but why the heck should it be interesting for me whether he kills his own meat?

What's next? A story about Stallman using the grease from his hair to fuel his car? Or about the kind of chair cushions Ballmer prefers?

Re:This is news... how so?

[UBfusion]

I'll tell you how it affects you (and no tabloid would ever write it explicitly) - the zombie apocalypse is here and now: Facebook feeds on brains and therefore is the legal and proper way of performing both self-lobotomy and cannibalism. Zuck just provides a subconscious metaphor: He chooses and kills gently the animals he feeds on in the same way we choose and chew our followers' brains.

Most kind? Not.

[macraig]

'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.'

The kindest way is a grenade strapped to its head. Slitting the critter's throat leaves the brain intact to slowly die. OTOH that means the goat gets to experience some awesome near-death phenomenon and maybe even meet Melinda Gordon before it passes into the Light.

So what does MySpace taste like?

[Trillan]

Seems like he'd be the guy to know.

Fully integrated values.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are not willing to kill to eat meat, then don't eat meat.

Re:Most kind? Not.

[Jane Q. Public]

Mod parent up. Where the hell does this guy get off, saying slitting its throat is "the most kind way to do it"??? I mean WTF??? In his opinion?

I think if we tied that guy up, and asked him what was the most merciful way we could kill him, I doubt VERY MUCH that he would say "Please cut my throat."

Other alternatives: sedatives, slow (painless) bleeding, a bullet in the grid-forsaken brain.

Seems to me, for a human, the latter would probably be most merciful, but for an animal, 1 or 2 might be better. But I don't presume to judge.

What bothers me most is that I had to read through like 300 comments before anybody even mentioned this.

He doesn't live on a farm

[johncandale]

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.

He doesn't live on a farm and has no practical reason to kill animals himself, If you can't see this is clearly a self-righteous attention seeking self gratification behavior, you don't understand humans. Besides the sanitation issues, time wasted, etc, it's just wasteful, unless he can eat a whole goat at once, if he just freezes it, might as well buy butcher bought. Either be a vegetarian or don't, it's not like this is practical for most of us to adopt into our lives. We don't tend to go chop down tress our selves, then trim them into planks, treat them, and THEN build a new garage with them either, by Marl's logic we should to better understand our impact on the forests. It's perfectly reasonable to have a professional do such work, because they will do it much better

Re:Most kind? Not.

[macraig]

Last three username digits the same? Fascinating.

Everyone else was focused on the Infamous Selfish Bastard instead of the fate of the animal; somebody had to say it.

New Media Animation (NMA)'s Video Story

[antdude]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXV0DkFlBU8

With funny animations too. :D

someone must have sent him to meatvideo.com

[BroadbandBradley]

it's all about killing animals for food http://www.meatvideo.com

Imagine what this means for employees...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, will he only fire employees that he has personally insulted first?

Re:Finally.. the Facebook CEO does something I lik

[Anonymous Coward]

You really think anything he does is "for other people"?

Re:Why not? Once it's dead, it all looks like meat

[flyneye]

One word, buddy, "Shark" eat it before it eats you.
Is there a better tasting fish on the planet?
O.K. two words, "Bear", I swear you haven't f**king lived till you've had a bear steak.
F**K it, meat's meat, a mans gotta eat.

Re:Why not? Once it's dead, it all looks like meat

[flyneye]

Yeah in the old days, it was probably more humane as it was actually done by hand.
I've downed beef with one stroke of a sledgehammer. Free range is definitly the way to go. No one likes driving by a feed yard anyway.

So he's only eating hookers and vagrants.

[Anonymous Coward]

So he's only eating hookers and vagrants.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

That'll teach the goat for unfriending Mark.

Kudos for Mark

[Anonymous Coward]

Kudos for Mark! Vegans are out of touch with reality.

he's a regular Ted Nugent

[jsepeta]

and other than that, just a bastard

First meal

[newslash.formatblows]

So is he going to eat privacy first?

Re:Why not? Once it's dead, it all looks like meat

[omfgnosis]

Wait... so because corporate farms/slaughterhouses are inhumane, so too must be all meat production?

Does Myspace count as an animal?

[Anonymous Coward]

cos he certainly killed that one!

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the f*ck is wrong with buying your food?

Eternal Treblinka.

[I am Jack's username]

Vegetables and fruit can't feel pain. Some people think causing unnecessary pain and suffering is unethical, and should be avoided. Some Jains take it further and feel it's wrong to kill anything, including insects and root vegetables.

In a PSA Paul McCartney said that "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian." The idea was that if someone actually saw the way animals are enslaved, tortured, and slaughtered by the billions (birds and mammals) and trillions (sea food) every year, that they'd become vegetarians or vegans. This turns out not to be true: some people manage to somehow forget when told the truth about where their food comes from and what unfathomable harm is done to get it cheap. Some people simply don't care - enslavement, torture, and slaughter just doesn't bother them if it's not done directly to them - they don't even care about what world they're leaving their overpopulating offspring.

There's a BBC show on Current TV about this

[Muad'Dave]

Kill It, Cook It, Eat It. The rabbit episode 'stars' the most ignorant, uninformed, assholic vegetarian I've ever seen: Francesca. Sadly, I can't find video of her on the show.

From the comments on their site:

Where in the world did you find that ignorant, ill-informed, small-minded twit Francesca?
"Let the scientists figure something out [to solve the rabbit overpopulation problem] - I'm not a bloody scientist".
On being anemic and malnourished - "Why can't I get a multivitamin from the chemist's shop - it's natural."

She's not only a typically clueless vegetarian but a sad example of a human being.