That's true, and it is really unfortunate. In fact, to go back to the original story posted here, I groan when I hear that PETA has made headlines, because you can usually count on it being some sort of divisive, sensationalist asshattery. But I'm happy with what they're doing here--it's interesting and potentially effective.
For what it's worth, in my experience the irrational vegan militants are indeed a minority of the people who take this position. If you're interested in reading a rigorous (but pretty easy to digest) philosophical defense of the consideration of animal welfare, I'd recommend checking out "Practical Ethics," by Peter Singer. It's satisfying to read a careful, intelligent approach to a topic that's often discussed in the worst possible ways...
Define unnecessary suffering? Did you define it based on human standards or the animals.
I meant this as avoiding causing animals to suffer, if it can be reasonably avoided. Like all ethical calculations, there's no one absolute obvious answer to all situations. If I can punch a cow in the face in order to save 10 people's lives, it seems reasonable to cause that one cow to suffer. There are other situations where it may not be as clear. This is inherent to all ethical dilemmas.
Do you want everyone to be Vegan?
Sure, that would be nice.
Do you want the extinction of whole swaths of animals?
Generally speaking, no. However, you seem to be implying that extinction carries an ethical weight; that it's something inherently bad that should be avoided. Why do you think that, exactly?
Do you use any parts of dead animals?
Everybody in modern developed societies does. I try to limit it as much as possible. I don't eat meat, I don't wear fur or leather, I try to push myself to avoid buying things that have explicit dead animal parts in them.
Unfertilized eggs?
I don't buy them, no. Not because I think the genetic code in the eggs deserves not to be eaten, but because the industry that produced the egg is probably causing chickens to suffer.
If a human life is saved from Animal Research, was it worth it?
This is certainly a more interesting question than whether it's worth it to kill an animal because someone wants to eat it instead of some tofu. It depends on the circumstances. If you'd say "yes", would you say that it's worth it if the research causes one million primates to suffer unbearable torture? It's an ethical calculation. All I'd argue for is that we consider the suffering of animals and not just add it into the equation as a big fat zero.
Are you a diabetic, if so be sure to refuse all the medicine since that came from research that caused animal suffering.
Nope, but I would not exist if it weren't for animal testing on Rhesus Monkeys (see here for details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhesus_blood_group_system ). Does that mean I should just accept that all animal testing is okay? I'm not sure what you're arguing here.
Are you, as a human an animal? If so (I would hope you say yes) shouldn't you be trying to end human suffering first.
You seem to be assuming that all animals have some obligation to first end intraspecies suffering, before considering interspecies suffering. I don't think this makes much sense. But, of course, I do value the eradication of human suffering. Do you? Does that mean everyone has go work to end human suffering before considering other causes?
I personally have nothing against a Vegetarian diet. But Veganism will always lead to trouble. It is not healthy (i'm not talking diet, i'm talking civilization here.)
I want you to be honest with yourself. Why should you change the order of nature that has existed for millions of years, just because you can suddenly afford it. Does it make you feel superior that you can survive a Vegan lifestyle while poorer people in other nations can not. What about the 2 kids this past year in SF who were forced a Vegan lifestyle from birth and ended up suffering from mal-nutrition rarely ever seen in modern society. If they were simply allowed milk would their bones not have broken so easily. Their mothers milk was useless.
Those people were crazy, not vegan. Repeat: they were crazy and not vegan. Technically, they were both, but let's be clear about which one comes first. You'd do better to read the letters to the editor that were published in response to the NYT article about that story--they include a letter from someone who testified for the pr
I have no idea how that's in response to what I wrote--what is the this in:
I would argue (and I'm vegetarian) that if you're vegan and you're against this then realistically, and we must be realistic here (vegans seem to often be a dream world), that you're condemning animals to further pain and slaughter. Vegans must embrace this if they're against cruelty to animals. To not help promote this is instead to just keep people harming and eating living animals. This is a solution which can lead to a future where there is no excuse to harm animals.
Now I know lots of vegans would point out I'm wrong, and that they can be against both... But if their aim is to create a world that is better for animals, then they should get behind this. To keep expecting some miracle that's going to turn everyone in to vegans is to be idiotic and to condemn animals to further slaughter. ?
Right, if you look at the thread above this one, someone else has already made that point--I haven't met those people, but I believe that they exist.
However, a few points for thought:
The egg and dairy industry is part of the meat industry
While killing an animal can be construed as causing it to suffer in a number of ways, what happens to an animal during its life is probably more important than when it dies
It may be more difficult than you think to postulate a perfectly humane farm
That's all extremely fair, and I'll try to use a more specific term in the future.
I am kind of curious what these other major sub-groupings look like, and what the percentage breakdowns might be.
If you take any one of those groups, though, I think a rational answer to the question of "is cloned meat okay?" is pretty easily reached:
For those concerned with animal suffering, the answer would probably be "yes"
For those concerned with their own health, the answer would probably be "I never took a stance on whether meat consumption in general was okay, but I've avoided it because I think it's unhealthy, and so it doesn't matter where it comes from--I'll continue to avoid it if it's unhealthy."
For those concerned with the environment, it would probably hinge on the difference in the environmental impact of eating cloned meat vs. a vegetarian or vegan diet; a difference we can only speculate about until someone comes up with a way to mass produce cloned meat that we can evaluate.
It's worth pointing out that even if someone who was vegan agrees that a new way of producing meat is okay, that doesn't oblige them to start consuming meat. I have no problem with cloned meat, but after ten years of being vegan, I really don't have any desire to eat it, ya know?
I don't believe I'm superior. I don't believe that vegans are superior to non-vegans. I think I'm being quite civil and honest, but let me know if you think I'm being haughty somehow. Was it something I said?
Frankly, I'm not persuaded by moral relativism. I also doubt that you'd be willing to accept the ramifications of taking a purely morally relativistic stance. I'm guessing that you act ethically on a day to day basis, and that you don't believe that it's irrelevant whether you do.
I'm not oversimplifying, exactly, but you're right that we are using different definitions of the word "veganism." It's an arbitrary label (read some of my other responses if you want to see just how much I understand that point), but my experience has been that people who avoid animal products for health or environmental reasons don't tend to label themselves as vegan. Perhaps that's out of touch, though.
I use veganism to describe the avoidance of animal products based on ethical concerns. I think that's how the word "vegan" was used in the original context of CmdrTaco's post, too, don't you think?
Yes, it sounds like the people you know are being hypocritical. I agree. Personally, I've never known someone who claims to be vegan but wears fur. Google for "vegan shoes" and you'll see that evidence that most vegans understand this.
It's interesting that you're replying to this reply but not my own. But anyway, clearly you're more likely to know someone is vegan if they are being a militant jerk about it.
I certainly don't advertise that I'm vegan, and I've had plenty of conversations that are exactly like the one described above.
I'm not sure why you're so insistent that all vegans are asshats. I guess you've just had some bad experiences with vegan jerks.
So I guess that, as with many views of the world, veganism isn't a black-and-white issue, but has increasingly stricter forms depending on the individual.
Yes, definitely. I'd replace "veganism" with "concern for animal welfare," just to make it a bit more obvious. I think you could say that veganism is a lifestyle choice that arises out of a concern for animal welfare.
So there are two spectrums, right? One is how concerned you are for animal welfare, and the other is what sorts of actions you're able/willing to do based on those concerns.
The reason I commented is that I always viewed veganism as a 'pure' form of ethics with regard to animals. I have several vegetarian friends and one vegan, and the interpretation of the latter's views might have skewed my own.
I think this is a common problem amongst vegans. People who strongly believe (belief qua ethics, not belief qua faith) in animal welfare decide to be vegan, and then think that they're taking a pure stance on the issue. But this isn't really the case. Let's start by assuming that avoiding the use of animal products is the ultimate way to act on a concern for animal welfare. It's easy enough to avoid eating meat, dairy, and eggs, but you can't entirely cut out the use of products that involve animal cruelty. Animal products are used everywhere, in the manufacturing of myriad consumer products. So you necessarily have to pick a place on the spectrum of animal product use/consumption that you feel comfortable with. Nobody in America can claim to be on the "pure" end of the spectrum. Of course, that doesn't mean throwing your hands up in the air, either. I personally think it's when meat eaters to try to limit their consumption of meat, or try to make informed decisions about the source, as you seem to do. It's more a matter of pushing yourself in the direction of less consumption than staking out a place on the spectrum and saying "go here or you're immoral."
But let's revisit that initial assumption about avoiding the use of animal products--what exactly does that accomplish? In an era of farm subsidies, even if 100 people suddenly become vegetarian, it's unlikely to even prevent the slaughter of a single animal. That's the quickest way to knock a vegan off their moral high horse:)
If it were only down to the question if an animal suffered or not, then a hypothetical vegan farmer would have no problem in raising cattle as good as he/she can and drink milk / eat cheese. A cow doesn't suffer when it is milked properly, and doing it yourself you would be in the position to judge so (although asking the cow might be a better option).
Right, well, this gets at what I said earlier about taking a slightly broader view of animal suffering. If you own a cow, you're really controlling almost every aspect of its life--from the broad picture of when it gets to eat, reproduce, socialize, etc. to the minutia of what it gets to eat, where it gets to wander, and so on. Is this sort of power relationship morally exempt? It's certainly better than treating a cow really poorly, but I don't think it's so clear cut. People usually bring up the issue of slavery to think about this sort of thing (and the parallels are there: there are lots of slave-owners who truly thought they were doing right by their slaves). There are also obvious differences, though--people have a sense of freedom that's likely more developed than animals. It's something to think about, though.
And of course, asking the cow would be ideal, but we have to scrap that option and decide how to proceed based on what we can know (and what the moral implications are for proceeding without really knowing for sure what animals are thinking).
Although I have been a vegetarian for a couple of months I have since fallen back to the sins of eating meat. When I choose meat, I do however pick biological meat over 'regular', hopefully giving an incentive to treat animals more humanely, beca
It's quite unfair to conflate a particular philosophical stance with proselytizing.
You can quite safely object to the proselytizing without objecting to the stance itself. Which, by the way, I do--I don't try to "foist my beliefs" on others, and I don't like it when I see other people do it.
Yes, I agree. Treating animals well, and not having to kill them, is a luxury that only wealthy and developed societies can afford. This is akin to how we treat humans, too--wealthy societies can afford to reduce suffering for the poor and disenfranchised, rather than exploit or enslave them.
You're not the first person to raise this sort of point. It's intelligent, and slippery, but still fundamentally flawed:
Let's say you run across someone being raped and beaten in Central Park. You scare off the attackers and thus save the victim from their horrendous predicament. Does that mean that you are allowed to do anything to the victim that falls short of raping and beating her? Are you allowed to humanely rob her, or humanely kill and cook her? The idea that offering a bad alternative to a worse situation is somehow exempt from moral calculation is just obviously wrong.
The other point you're raising is much more interesting. It's true that the naturalistic fallacy--that "nature" is somehow inherently better--tends to crop up in these kinds of discussions. But it's not a necessary premise of veganism, and I certainly don't think that the brutality of some natural environments justifies our own avoidable brutality.
Well, yes, I see what you're saying, and it's a fair point.
If you take any sufficiently generic philosophical stance, though (and let's please call this philosophy and not religion, since veganism has nothing to do with faith), you'll probably find that individuals who claim to take that stance have different versions of what the ramifications of that stance are.
The main problem is that these things are complicated, and our terms are simplistic.
It's also true that some people are just irrational, and pick and choose their definitions arbitrarily or based on emotional arguments, but let's set those people aside and not assume that they are valid representatives of the positions they claim to hold.
I can only speak anecdotally, but most of the people I know who adhere to some form of veganism do so because of the simple definition that I offered.
So, if an animal dies of old age, vegans wouldn't mind eating it? If a cow gives milk without suffering, vegans will drink the milk? I can only speak for myself, but the quick answers are "yes, of course, but... why?" to the first, and "yes, of course, but saying that there's no suffering involved might mean a rather complicated situation."
I'm not a vegan so please set me straight if I'm wrong, but I thought that vegans disprove of anything coming from animals (meat, milk, eggs), regardless if the animal suffered or not. I'm happy to respond, and I appreciate that you're going out on a limb and seem honest and genuinely interested. I can assure you that vegans, at least in theory, only disapprove of animals suffering unnecessarily. They might also take a slightly broader view of what animal suffering means than others do.
Of course, that said, some vegans are militant and irrational. But please don't judge veganism by their actions.
If you're interested in a rational, intelligent approach to why we might care about animal suffering, check out Peter Singer's "Practical Ethics."
Just because your sister might not want to eat cloned meat doesn't mean that she'll think that cloning meat is equivalent to raising and killing animals.
As a vegan, I can at least speak for myself: the answer is definitely "yes."
Veganism is neither irrational nor difficult to understand; if you're making an animal suffer unnecessarily, vegans are against it. It's amazing to me how such a simple position seems to confuse people.
Nope, this still assumes that the "analog" recording itself is more accurate than a digital recording, and that the only problem is that we don't have the technology to extract the correct sound out of it, yet. This assumption is not valid. The method of recording an analog signal to vinyl is quite imperfect.
Actually, the sound is affected by quantum interactions between the atoms of the record needle and the atoms of the vinyl, and if you used an electron microscope, you'd be altering the quantum properties of the vinyl, forever destroying the pureness of the music:)
Well, still, the format is not preventing postprocessing compression. For example, you could make a vinyl recording of an over-compressed CD.
Do you mean that analog compressors are not as powerful as digital compressors? This may be true, but it has nothing to do with the final recording medium, and I think analog compressors can still manage to compress something enough to screw it up:)
Another reason for vinyl's sonic superiority is that no matter how high a sampling rate is, it can never contain all of the data present in an analog groove, Nyquist's theorem to the contrary.
This statement is true, but completely irrelevant. The fact that a recording medium is analog does not mean that it is better at accurately recording and reproducing a sound than a digital medium. Magnetic tapes are also analog recordings. Putting a pencil on a string, hanging it next to a speaker, and having it draw a line on a moving sheet of paper is also an analog recording.
It's true that a digital recording can never contain the amount of data in a vinyl groove, but who is saying that all the data in a vinyl groove is more of an accurate representation of all the data extant in the original sound wave than a digitally sampled recording?
Although CDs have a wider dynamic range, mastering houses are often encouraged to compress the audio on CDs to make it as loud as possible: It's the so-called loudness war. Since the audio on vinyl can't be compressed to such extremes, records generally offer a more nuanced sound.
This is similarly irrelevant. Compression is a way of altering a sound wave, and has nothing to do with the final recording medium. Overcompression is a problem, but this is not an argument for vinyl over CD--it's just a comment on postprocessing techniques.
Slashdot Mirror
That's true, and it is really unfortunate. In fact, to go back to the original story posted here, I groan when I hear that PETA has made headlines, because you can usually count on it being some sort of divisive, sensationalist asshattery. But I'm happy with what they're doing here--it's interesting and potentially effective.
For what it's worth, in my experience the irrational vegan militants are indeed a minority of the people who take this position. If you're interested in reading a rigorous (but pretty easy to digest) philosophical defense of the consideration of animal welfare, I'd recommend checking out "Practical Ethics," by Peter Singer. It's satisfying to read a careful, intelligent approach to a topic that's often discussed in the worst possible ways...
Ah, gotcha. Then in that case (but as just one vegan) I totally agree with you.
Define unnecessary suffering? Did you define it based on human standards or the animals.
I meant this as avoiding causing animals to suffer, if it can be reasonably avoided. Like all ethical calculations, there's no one absolute obvious answer to all situations. If I can punch a cow in the face in order to save 10 people's lives, it seems reasonable to cause that one cow to suffer. There are other situations where it may not be as clear. This is inherent to all ethical dilemmas.
Do you want everyone to be Vegan?
Sure, that would be nice.
Do you want the extinction of whole swaths of animals?
Generally speaking, no. However, you seem to be implying that extinction carries an ethical weight; that it's something inherently bad that should be avoided. Why do you think that, exactly?
Do you use any parts of dead animals?
Everybody in modern developed societies does. I try to limit it as much as possible. I don't eat meat, I don't wear fur or leather, I try to push myself to avoid buying things that have explicit dead animal parts in them.
Unfertilized eggs?
I don't buy them, no. Not because I think the genetic code in the eggs deserves not to be eaten, but because the industry that produced the egg is probably causing chickens to suffer.
If a human life is saved from Animal Research, was it worth it?
This is certainly a more interesting question than whether it's worth it to kill an animal because someone wants to eat it instead of some tofu. It depends on the circumstances. If you'd say "yes", would you say that it's worth it if the research causes one million primates to suffer unbearable torture? It's an ethical calculation. All I'd argue for is that we consider the suffering of animals and not just add it into the equation as a big fat zero.
Are you a diabetic, if so be sure to refuse all the medicine since that came from research that caused animal suffering.
Nope, but I would not exist if it weren't for animal testing on Rhesus Monkeys (see here for details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhesus_blood_group_system ). Does that mean I should just accept that all animal testing is okay? I'm not sure what you're arguing here.
Are you, as a human an animal? If so (I would hope you say yes) shouldn't you be trying to end human suffering first.
You seem to be assuming that all animals have some obligation to first end intraspecies suffering, before considering interspecies suffering. I don't think this makes much sense. But, of course, I do value the eradication of human suffering. Do you? Does that mean everyone has go work to end human suffering before considering other causes?
I personally have nothing against a Vegetarian diet. But Veganism will always lead to trouble. It is not healthy (i'm not talking diet, i'm talking civilization here.) I want you to be honest with yourself. Why should you change the order of nature that has existed for millions of years, just because you can suddenly afford it. Does it make you feel superior that you can survive a Vegan lifestyle while poorer people in other nations can not. What about the 2 kids this past year in SF who were forced a Vegan lifestyle from birth and ended up suffering from mal-nutrition rarely ever seen in modern society. If they were simply allowed milk would their bones not have broken so easily. Their mothers milk was useless.
Those people were crazy, not vegan. Repeat: they were crazy and not vegan. Technically, they were both, but let's be clear about which one comes first. You'd do better to read the letters to the editor that were published in response to the NYT article about that story--they include a letter from someone who testified for the pr
Right, if you look at the thread above this one, someone else has already made that point--I haven't met those people, but I believe that they exist.
However, a few points for thought:
That's all extremely fair, and I'll try to use a more specific term in the future.
I am kind of curious what these other major sub-groupings look like, and what the percentage breakdowns might be.
If you take any one of those groups, though, I think a rational answer to the question of "is cloned meat okay?" is pretty easily reached:
For those concerned with animal suffering, the answer would probably be "yes"
For those concerned with their own health, the answer would probably be "I never took a stance on whether meat consumption in general was okay, but I've avoided it because I think it's unhealthy, and so it doesn't matter where it comes from--I'll continue to avoid it if it's unhealthy."
For those concerned with the environment, it would probably hinge on the difference in the environmental impact of eating cloned meat vs. a vegetarian or vegan diet; a difference we can only speculate about until someone comes up with a way to mass produce cloned meat that we can evaluate.
It's worth pointing out that even if someone who was vegan agrees that a new way of producing meat is okay, that doesn't oblige them to start consuming meat. I have no problem with cloned meat, but after ten years of being vegan, I really don't have any desire to eat it, ya know?
I don't believe I'm superior. I don't believe that vegans are superior to non-vegans. I think I'm being quite civil and honest, but let me know if you think I'm being haughty somehow. Was it something I said?
Frankly, I'm not persuaded by moral relativism. I also doubt that you'd be willing to accept the ramifications of taking a purely morally relativistic stance. I'm guessing that you act ethically on a day to day basis, and that you don't believe that it's irrelevant whether you do.
I just wanted to say that I'll be happy to reply to each of these, but maybe after the work day is over. Your low ID commands respect ;)
I'm not sure where to begin. Perhaps I'll begin by pointing you to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy
I'm not oversimplifying, exactly, but you're right that we are using different definitions of the word "veganism." It's an arbitrary label (read some of my other responses if you want to see just how much I understand that point), but my experience has been that people who avoid animal products for health or environmental reasons don't tend to label themselves as vegan. Perhaps that's out of touch, though.
I use veganism to describe the avoidance of animal products based on ethical concerns. I think that's how the word "vegan" was used in the original context of CmdrTaco's post, too, don't you think?
Yes, it sounds like the people you know are being hypocritical. I agree. Personally, I've never known someone who claims to be vegan but wears fur. Google for "vegan shoes" and you'll see that evidence that most vegans understand this.
It's interesting that you're replying to this reply but not my own. But anyway, clearly you're more likely to know someone is vegan if they are being a militant jerk about it.
I certainly don't advertise that I'm vegan, and I've had plenty of conversations that are exactly like the one described above.
I'm not sure why you're so insistent that all vegans are asshats. I guess you've just had some bad experiences with vegan jerks.
So I guess that, as with many views of the world, veganism isn't a black-and-white issue, but has increasingly stricter forms depending on the individual.
Yes, definitely. I'd replace "veganism" with "concern for animal welfare," just to make it a bit more obvious. I think you could say that veganism is a lifestyle choice that arises out of a concern for animal welfare.
So there are two spectrums, right? One is how concerned you are for animal welfare, and the other is what sorts of actions you're able/willing to do based on those concerns.
The reason I commented is that I always viewed veganism as a 'pure' form of ethics with regard to animals. I have several vegetarian friends and one vegan, and the interpretation of the latter's views might have skewed my own.
I think this is a common problem amongst vegans. People who strongly believe (belief qua ethics, not belief qua faith) in animal welfare decide to be vegan, and then think that they're taking a pure stance on the issue. But this isn't really the case. Let's start by assuming that avoiding the use of animal products is the ultimate way to act on a concern for animal welfare. It's easy enough to avoid eating meat, dairy, and eggs, but you can't entirely cut out the use of products that involve animal cruelty. Animal products are used everywhere, in the manufacturing of myriad consumer products. So you necessarily have to pick a place on the spectrum of animal product use/consumption that you feel comfortable with. Nobody in America can claim to be on the "pure" end of the spectrum. Of course, that doesn't mean throwing your hands up in the air, either. I personally think it's when meat eaters to try to limit their consumption of meat, or try to make informed decisions about the source, as you seem to do. It's more a matter of pushing yourself in the direction of less consumption than staking out a place on the spectrum and saying "go here or you're immoral."
:)
But let's revisit that initial assumption about avoiding the use of animal products--what exactly does that accomplish? In an era of farm subsidies, even if 100 people suddenly become vegetarian, it's unlikely to even prevent the slaughter of a single animal. That's the quickest way to knock a vegan off their moral high horse
If it were only down to the question if an animal suffered or not, then a hypothetical vegan farmer would have no problem in raising cattle as good as he/she can and drink milk / eat cheese. A cow doesn't suffer when it is milked properly, and doing it yourself you would be in the position to judge so (although asking the cow might be a better option).
Right, well, this gets at what I said earlier about taking a slightly broader view of animal suffering. If you own a cow, you're really controlling almost every aspect of its life--from the broad picture of when it gets to eat, reproduce, socialize, etc. to the minutia of what it gets to eat, where it gets to wander, and so on. Is this sort of power relationship morally exempt? It's certainly better than treating a cow really poorly, but I don't think it's so clear cut. People usually bring up the issue of slavery to think about this sort of thing (and the parallels are there: there are lots of slave-owners who truly thought they were doing right by their slaves). There are also obvious differences, though--people have a sense of freedom that's likely more developed than animals. It's something to think about, though.
And of course, asking the cow would be ideal, but we have to scrap that option and decide how to proceed based on what we can know (and what the moral implications are for proceeding without really knowing for sure what animals are thinking).
Although I have been a vegetarian for a couple of months I have since fallen back to the sins of eating meat. When I choose meat, I do however pick biological meat over 'regular', hopefully giving an incentive to treat animals more humanely, beca
It's quite unfair to conflate a particular philosophical stance with proselytizing.
You can quite safely object to the proselytizing without objecting to the stance itself. Which, by the way, I do--I don't try to "foist my beliefs" on others, and I don't like it when I see other people do it.
Yes, I agree. Treating animals well, and not having to kill them, is a luxury that only wealthy and developed societies can afford. This is akin to how we treat humans, too--wealthy societies can afford to reduce suffering for the poor and disenfranchised, rather than exploit or enslave them.
You're not the first person to raise this sort of point. It's intelligent, and slippery, but still fundamentally flawed:
Let's say you run across someone being raped and beaten in Central Park. You scare off the attackers and thus save the victim from their horrendous predicament. Does that mean that you are allowed to do anything to the victim that falls short of raping and beating her? Are you allowed to humanely rob her, or humanely kill and cook her? The idea that offering a bad alternative to a worse situation is somehow exempt from moral calculation is just obviously wrong.
The other point you're raising is much more interesting. It's true that the naturalistic fallacy--that "nature" is somehow inherently better--tends to crop up in these kinds of discussions. But it's not a necessary premise of veganism, and I certainly don't think that the brutality of some natural environments justifies our own avoidable brutality.
Well, yes, I see what you're saying, and it's a fair point.
If you take any sufficiently generic philosophical stance, though (and let's please call this philosophy and not religion, since veganism has nothing to do with faith), you'll probably find that individuals who claim to take that stance have different versions of what the ramifications of that stance are.
The main problem is that these things are complicated, and our terms are simplistic.
It's also true that some people are just irrational, and pick and choose their definitions arbitrarily or based on emotional arguments, but let's set those people aside and not assume that they are valid representatives of the positions they claim to hold.
I can only speak anecdotally, but most of the people I know who adhere to some form of veganism do so because of the simple definition that I offered.
Of course, that said, some vegans are militant and irrational. But please don't judge veganism by their actions.
If you're interested in a rational, intelligent approach to why we might care about animal suffering, check out Peter Singer's "Practical Ethics."
Just because your sister might not want to eat cloned meat doesn't mean that she'll think that cloning meat is equivalent to raising and killing animals.
How about you go ask her and let her respond?
As a vegan, I can at least speak for myself: the answer is definitely "yes."
Veganism is neither irrational nor difficult to understand; if you're making an animal suffer unnecessarily, vegans are against it. It's amazing to me how such a simple position seems to confuse people.
Nope, this still assumes that the "analog" recording itself is more accurate than a digital recording, and that the only problem is that we don't have the technology to extract the correct sound out of it, yet. This assumption is not valid. The method of recording an analog signal to vinyl is quite imperfect.
Actually, the sound is affected by quantum interactions between the atoms of the record needle and the atoms of the vinyl, and if you used an electron microscope, you'd be altering the quantum properties of the vinyl, forever destroying the pureness of the music :)
Well, still, the format is not preventing postprocessing compression. For example, you could make a vinyl recording of an over-compressed CD.
:)
Do you mean that analog compressors are not as powerful as digital compressors? This may be true, but it has nothing to do with the final recording medium, and I think analog compressors can still manage to compress something enough to screw it up
This statement is true, but completely irrelevant. The fact that a recording medium is analog does not mean that it is better at accurately recording and reproducing a sound than a digital medium. Magnetic tapes are also analog recordings. Putting a pencil on a string, hanging it next to a speaker, and having it draw a line on a moving sheet of paper is also an analog recording.
It's true that a digital recording can never contain the amount of data in a vinyl groove, but who is saying that all the data in a vinyl groove is more of an accurate representation of all the data extant in the original sound wave than a digitally sampled recording?
This is similarly irrelevant. Compression is a way of altering a sound wave, and has nothing to do with the final recording medium. Overcompression is a problem, but this is not an argument for vinyl over CD--it's just a comment on postprocessing techniques.
Of course it can--did you even read the link?
It will just take about six months to calculate the result.