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Thousands of Animals Slaughtered?

Rise

Well-Known Member
And this speaks to the virtue of our producing animals for their meat? No. It speaks again to the amazing amounts of selfishness we in the U.S. act upon.

Your belief makes no sense at all (your belief that you can accuse people of being selfish if they don't choose to put themselves out of business by manufacturing a product that people don't want).

You do realize it costs millions in equipment, land, and infrastructure to grow grain the way we do in the US, right?
Then you have the recurring costs of land taxes, labor, fuel, chemicals, etc.

Don't you realize that you can be the most altruist person in the word can't afford to grow corn like, on this scale, at a loss? It's physically impossible. They will lose everything if they try.

And then no one's getting any food off that land because the farmer is out of business. And no one has any reason to go spend millions trying to do the same thing the last guy did if they are just going to go out of business too.

So on what grounds do you think you get away with calling these people selfish for not doing what you say they should, when what you say they should do would literally be impossible?

For as illogical and impossible as your expectations are, you may as well try to claim these farmers are also being selfish for not using their superman powers to personally fly the grain around the world and deliver it faster than a speeding bullet.

We aren't willing to pay for vegetable crop what would be a living wage for a normal farmer,

I don't see any logical connection with your statement and what you tried to argue should happen.

How would raising the price of food (which is what happens when you raise farmer profits), result in that fallow land getting farmed to feed people after you stop using it to feed animals?

You still have all the same issues I described to you which would prevent that from being a viable option.

If you raise the price of the crops you're going to price even more of the international market out of buying it, and you'll likely see a reduced consumption among Americas of that crop. So you're not getting the increased demand from human consumption you would need to cause people to go flock to farm the fallow land.

but instead expect the meat product we are informed that we simply "NEED" to survive.
And so the farmer has no choice but to be involved in the animal side of the business if he wants to make that living wage.

Your claim is demonstrably false. People in this country make a living running farm businesses that don't sell meat or sell feed to meat producers.

Your claim is also illogical. If selling other farm products weren't profitable then nobody could do it to any significant degree - And therefore we wouldn't have USA grown produce on our store shelves.



The cropland would lay fallow due to the selfishness and expectations of the greedy/picky/selfish populace not getting what they want - instead of taking the time to understand what the basest level of what they actually need.

You ignored an important fact which disproves your claim:
We are already producing a surplus of grains for human consumption.
It's not that people don't want to eat corn. It's that they don't need anymore corn than they are currently consuming.

And so it's nonsense for you to try to accuse them of being selfish for not demanding someone produce more corn than they need. That actually sounds more selfish - demanding someone grow more corn than you actually need, for no reason, at their loss.


You're not exactly making counter-points. Several times you have raised "points" that I supposedly made, and then attacked them, when I said nothing of the sort.

You've only tried to give one example of that, and I just disproved your claim.

I disproved it by showing that not only have you tried to argue what I said you did (trying to claim that feeding crops to animals was taking food away from people). You even helped me do that by proceeding to restate that same argument in your same post.

I suspect you are very confused and thought I was accusing you of something something different, when I actually wasn't. I was referring to exactly what you are currently trying to argue.

What you seem to be doing is producing such ridiculous walls of text that you hope to scare your opposition into feeling outdone. Good luck with that.

Logical fallacy, "Ad Hominem" or "Appeal to Mockery". Probably also "Appeal to Motive".
Unable to dispute the points I have made, you're just trying to dismiss them by calling them names.
And then further trying to dismiss them by making up accusations about my points supposedly having ulterior motives other than simply being valid arguments in support of the truth.

You could not, if you tried to, establish that a single point I made was not relevant or logically valid. Which you would have to do before you could even begin to try to accuse my points of being what you claim.

Considering that the intention of my post has been nothing other than to make a thorough and truthful response, the fact that you interpret it as an attempt to "cause you to feel scared and undone" frankly says more about you than it does about me. Don't be scared of the truth. The truth is what will set you free.

Like I said - I don't have a plan. I just call things like I see them.

Calling things as you see them doesn't do anyone any good if you are ignorant of what you are looking at and have a very skewed and limited perspective.

I have pointed out above and in prior posts reasons why from both an ecological and economic perspective you have both a skewed perspective from your privileged western position and no real understanding of how agriculture and trade function on a practical level.

People are greedy/selfish/picky/ignorant. YOU are helping to perpetuate this with all your talk about how fundamental a "need" it is to have meat...

I have already established that meat is a nutritional need for most people around the world. You haven't disputed the reasons I gave for that. Which makes any point you're trying to make right now null, because meat is in fact a legitimate need for many.

and basically arguing for status quo.

Logical fallacy, "Strawman".
You are misrepresenting what I have argued.

I actually don't believe we should raise beef in the USA using a feedlot system.

But that has nothing to do with any of the points I made about why your arguments are wrong.

The arguments you've tried to make are wrong for the reasons I've already given, regardless of whether or not the current system is good or bad.

Well there are problems with how some of the world raises their animals intended for slaughter. You keep saying "most of the world doesn't 'X'" - but that DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACT THAT SOME OF THE WORLD DOES. Get that into your skull.

Your statement is not relevant to any of the claims you've tried to argue.

The reason is because no one has tried to dispute the fact that some animals are fed crops. Therefore, pointing that fact out doesn't prove anything you've tried to argue nor disprove anything I've tried to argue.

What is being disputed is your claim that feeding animals those crops necessarily results in people not getting as much food.
That's false for all the reasons I outlined.

That pretty much takes the sails out of the rest of what you posted, so I am not going to bother replying to it.
Logical fallacy, "argument by assertion".

Merely asserting that your argument disproves the rest of my post doesn't make it true just because you assert it does.

You would need to logically demonstrate why your claim disproves the rest of my post before you could make such a claim.

And considering that I just refuted your arguments in this post in a way that I can guarantee you won't have a valid counter argument to - you can't use a refuted argument as the basis for claiming you've disproved the rest of my post.
 
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Rise

Well-Known Member
You keep talking against points I didn't make,

Logical fallacy, "argument by assertion".

Merely claiming I am arguing against points you didn't make doesn't make your claim true just because you assert it.

You would need to demonstrate with factual quotations and valid logical argumentation why anything I said is in error.

If you could do that then I would be willing to recognize my error and correct my arguments accordingly.

all while informing me that I am doing the same.

This is also a type of assertion fallacy on your part.

You can't point to any error on my part in the post you are responding to.

Merely asserting it's in error doesn't make your claim true just because you assert it is.

You need to be able to demonstrate logically and factually why anything I said was in error.

Pointless. From my perspective, you're rather confused. I haven't had to say that often, because usually a person either directly or indirectly answers to a given point, or makes some related inference. You seem to go neither route and just start rambling to get whatever points out there that you want others to soak in, regardless whether the person you're "arguing" (if you can call it that) against even spoke on the topic you're rambling on about.


Logical fallacy, "Argument by Assertion".

Merely asserting that my points are not relevant or valid doesn't make your claim true just because you assert it is.

You would have to use valid logical argumentation and facts to demonstrate why any of my points are either not relevant or true.


Logical fallacy, "Ad Hominem".

Unable to refute the arguments I have presented, you can only try to attack me and my argument, calling them names.
 

Rise

Well-Known Member
Whether you choose to admit it or not, there are a host of implied claims in this paragraph:

...

- Finally - and most importantly - you're suggesting that this historical Scandinavian approach should work today.

This is why I asked you to be specific, because by being specific it has revealed that there was a great error in your understanding of what I said.

I never said the Viking era approach to agriculture should work in modern Scandinavia.

I never even said it was the ideal way to do things.

In fact, there's nothing in the context of my post that would lead you to conclude I was even trying to imply that.

If you look at the context of my post, you should clearly see the point I was making was that historically what you find is that the harsher growing conditions are the more people tend to lean on animals for their calories and nutrition.

It's also not clear from your post, but I get the impression you misunderstood how the Viking era system worked. It wasn't a system based solely on animals. They did significant amounts of crop growing too. They just leaned very heavily on animals because of their ecological conditions. More heavily than you will see in some other cultures.

This truth is seen in it's most complete form with the Inuit, where it's almost impossible for them to incorporate plants into their diet because of how harsh the cold conditions are. There is virtually no growing season to speak of. I would guess they probably eat more seaweed out of the ocean than they do berries harvested in the summer. But those two things make up an insignificant part of their diet, which is almost entirely animals.

The reason the Vikings abandoned Greenland was because even their animal heavy system couldn't be sustained after the reduction in their growing season that later happened. And they weren't willing to start living like the Inuits around them in order to survive. They chose to leave in order to retain their agricultural and pastoral lifestyle.

So, that is why I said none of the points I made depend on me being able to argue that a certain number of people can supported by the Viking system on a given number of acres.

My guess is that we can feed only a tiny, tiny fraction of the world's people based on this model.
I think you also have a misunderstanding of what the Viking system was. It wasn't that much different from the rest of the world which incorporates both a heavy reliance on cereal crops and animals together.

That is the standard you find around most of the world today as well as historically.

The difference is that, because of the harshness of their cold climate, they had to lean more heavily on cheese and smoked meat than other cultures to survive and get balanced nutrition.
 
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icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
This is why I asked you to be specific, because by being specific it has revealed that there was a great error in your understanding of what I said.

So are there any specific claims you're making about using marginal land to graze animals for consumption in 2020 and how efficient that would be? Or were all of your posts just for historical information?
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
If you are against meat eating in general that is your personal choice and not something you can impose on others when meat eating is as natural to humans as breathing.
I cannot, like anyone else, "impose" my view on others, whatever that means. Breathing is essential for human life, eating meat is not: humans are omnivores, meat is only essential for carnivores.
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
you may as well try to claim these farmers are also being selfish for not using their superman powers to personally fly the grain around the world and deliver it faster than a speeding bullet.

Logical fallacy. Appeal to mockery.
I could get into this line of posting but that would make me a tedious hypocrite.
 

Rise

Well-Known Member
Logical fallacy. Appeal to mockery.

Incorrect use of a logical fallacy.

Appeal to ridicule - Wikipedia

Something is only an appeal to ridicule/mockery if you use ridicule as a substitute for making a valid counter argument.

I didn't do that. As you will see by looking at the whole context of what I wrote, instead of isolating a single verse out of context.

In the case of my post, I gave specific factual and logical reasons why his proposal was physically impossible, and thus why it was absurd for him to expect farmers to comply with his expectations.


Furthermore, what I said wasn't even ridicule by definition. It was something called an "analogy". Definition of ANALOGY
It had actual relevance to what I was arguing as a method of demonstrating a point.
Used to re-enforce and drive home the logical points I had already made.
An extreme and absurd analogy by design, so as to maximally illustrate that what he expects from farmers is so impossible that he may as well have expected them to be superman himself. Because he would have to think they had economic superpowers or magic in order to do what he wanted.
 
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Rise

Well-Known Member
So are there any specific claims you're making about using marginal land to graze animals for consumption in 2020 and how efficient that would be?

You have to define what your metric of "efficiency" is.
Efficiency can be defined a lot of different ways.

So, I have to ask you: "Efficient" at doing what exactly?
And under what context? Because the context of the circumstances will also change your definition of what qualifies as "efficient".


Let me give a few examples of why you need to be specific about what your goal is, which will alter how you define "efficient":

1. From a land use for calorie production standpoint. If land would otherwise be useless for any kind of crop production, but you can graze livestock on it, then grazing livestock is 100% the most efficient food use of that land and crops are 0% efficient.

2. From a labor to calorie ratio standpoint. It takes relatively little labor to let a cow roam on pasture, and then butcher it when it's ready to eat, compared with all the labor involved in yielding a crop of grains. The less technology and infrastructure you have, the greater this disparity is going to be between the labor involved. With grains you need to plow the field, cultivate it, fertilize the field, sow the seeds, protect it from pests, water it regularly, harvest it, and then remove the grain seeds from the rest of the plant so that they can be stored away.
If you don't have a lot of extra labor to spare, but you have land to spare and need more calories, then letting cows graze on pasture becomes a more efficient way to gain calories per hour of labor you need to invest.
Rough estimates from numbers I googled suggest it might take about 10,000 corn plants (rounded out for ease of the math) to roughly equal the calories of a butchered cow. And that probably doesn't even factor in things like stock from the bones and relatively unused parts like the tongue. But anyway... No matter how you do the math the cow is going to give you more calories for the labor input unless you've got a lot of technology and infrastructure helping you out. This is because the cow can mostly look after itself as long as it has suitable land.
So from a labor standpoint, depending on your context, running the cow is more efficient in terms of calories gained.

3. Economically. Lets say for the sake of example that the best land in a particular area can support 500 cow days per acre, and the marginal land of that area offers 50 cow days per acre. But let's say the best land costs 20 times as much to rent or own (due to a higher tax value). With this theoretical example, the marginal land would be twice as efficient as the best land for raising cows. Those numbers are just made up for this example, to illustrate the point that there could be economic circumstances that make the marginal land more efficient per dollar spent to get a finished cow. Part of the reason this kind of disparity in price could exist like this is because generally the really good land like that is in more demand from other sectors of the economy or agriculture, so the competition raises the price. Some land is so marginal that no one wants it for anything and it's seen as good for nothing but letting livestock roam on it. So the marginal land could end up being a more efficient way to raise a cow from a monetary standpoint, even if you require more land per cow to do so.

4. From a nutrition standpoint. Let's say you have a poor community where all the land is arable and they have to grow all their own food. But they can't get all the nutrition they need from the plants they grow during the growing season. At that point using all their land for crops has a 0% efficiency at meeting their goal of complete nutrition, because it fails to meet it. But by devoting a portion of their arable land to raising animals it becomes the 100% most efficient option for meeting that goal because it's the only option available to them that will do it.
(of course, this is not taking into account the fact that with proper permaculture principles, there is the possibility of integrating animals into a crop production system with little or no significant loss of crop production. So you get the best of both worlds. But that's besides the point...)

Or were all of your posts just for historical information?

The point I made is just as relevant today as in history. That point was: The more unforgiving your ecology is, the more you need to lean on animals for survival and nutrition.

Both today and historically, technology and infrastructure are also more necessary to survival the more unforgiving your ecology is.

But most of the world today is still not in a position to bypass the limitations of their ecology entirely by leveraging large amounts of expensive technology and infrastructure (as the western world is capable of doing to a large degree).
 
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Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
Incorrect use of a logical fallacy.

Appeal to ridicule - Wikipedia

Something is only an appeal to ridicule/mockery if you use ridicule as a substitute for making a valid counter argument.

I didn't do that. As you will see by looking at the whole context of what I wrote, instead of isolating a single verse out of context.

In the case of my post, I gave specific factual and logical reasons why his proposal was physically impossible, and thus why it was absurd for him to expect farmers to comply with his expectations.


Furthermore, what I said wasn't even ridicule by definition. It was something called an "analogy". Definition of ANALOGY
It had actual relevance to what I was arguing as a method of demonstrating a point.
Used to re-enforce and drive home the logical points I had already made.
An extreme and absurd analogy by design, so as to maximally illustrate that what he expects from farmers is so impossible that he may as well have expected them to be superman himself. Because he would have to think they had economic superpowers or magic in order to do what he wanted.

Informal fallacy. Proof by assertion.
 

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
You have to define what your metric of "efficiency" is.

At this point, none of your claims are falsifiable, nice work if you can get it.

Step up, put some numbers on these claims of yours and answer the questions :)

I've asked you several times now variations on the question of just how many humans this marginal land can feed via grazing animals and eating them. Another aspect of the question I've asked is how much can be done sustainably. Because if you take marginal land to bare dirt, you've offered only a short term solution.

Step up man, trot out some actual estimates! :)
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
Breathing is essential for human life, eating meat is not: humans are omnivores, meat is only essential for carnivores.
You are right, it is not absolutely essential. More people in India live without consuming non-veg. food, perhaps some 450 million. But each person is different. My wife may do without non-veg. food. I cannot. Allow me to eat what I want to. And there is no sin involved. Our books have said -'Jeevo jeevasya bhojanam' (one life form is food for another), even if you were talking of vegetation. This was known to us since the time of Bhagawat Purana - (the story of 'dharma-vyadha', the pious butcher). Living means 'himsa', however hard you may try to avoid it. Of course, no problem if someone chooses to avoid meat. We appreciate that.
 

Rise

Well-Known Member
At this point, none of your claims are falsifiable, nice work if you can get it.

Logical fallacy, "Argument by Assertion".
Merely asserting that my claims are not falsifiable, or that I need numbers to support my claims, doesn't prove it's true just because you assert it is.

You would need to quote any specific claim I made and then demonstrate with logical argumentation why it is not falsifiable or why it needs numbers to back it up.

You have refused to even identify what specific claim you think I made that supposedly needs to be backed up by numbers or isn't falsifiable.

You won't be able to successfully do that because your claim is false.

The last time you tried to point to a specific quote of mine, you ended up being proven wrong (regarding Viking farming practices), because it turned out I never made the claims you accused me of making and therefore I didn't need to furnish any of the numbers you thought I did in order for my arguments to remain valid and my claim to remain standing as true.

If you tried to point to any specific claim I made in this thread you would find that what you claim about falsifiability and/or the need for numbers is baseless, unsupportable, and false.


I've asked you several times now variations on the question of just how many humans this marginal land can feed via grazing animals and eating them.

You may have asked the question, but you never established why the question would be necessary to answer in order for any of my claims to be true.

You're committing a type of "Strawman" fallacy by claiming I argued something I never did. Then trying to attack me for not providing data to support an argument I never made.

Because the fact is that your question isn't relevant to supporting any of the claims I have made.

You will not be able to pull out a single quote of anything I said that depends on me being able to furnish those kinds of specific numbers.

It's ok to ask the question, but it's not ok for you to falsely pretend any of my claims depend on that question being answered when they don't.

Step up man, trot out some actual estimates! :)
Step up and be specific about what you're asking for if you're serious about wanting more data.

I have repeatedly had to ask you to specifically identify what claim you think I made that supposedly needs more data to back it up, and you have continually evaded answering it. The one time you did finally answer it, you were proven to be wrong for thinking I needed to furnish more data to support my claim.

I cannot provide additional data to back up any claims for you if you can't even first tell me what claim you think needs to be backed up. That is basic logic - I can't read your mind.

And you can't prove I even need to provide additional data if you can't even start by pointing to what claim you think is deficient in data.


Furthermore, in the last post I specifically asked you to define the parameters of what you mean by "efficient". I even gave you multiple examples to illustrate why you need to be specific.

You ignored the question.

Again, step up and define what you're asking for if you're serious about wanting an answer.

You can't just throw out vague undefined questions like "how efficient are cows?" and expect an answer unless you can first define for us what metric of efficiency you want to measure them by.
 
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Rise

Well-Known Member
Informal fallacy. Proof by assertion.

Logical fallacy, "Argument by Assertion".

Merely asserting that I have committed a logical fallacy doesn't make it true just because you assert it is true.

You would need to provide logical argumentation and facts to prove your claim is true.

You will note that in my post you quote, I give many valid logical arguments and cite facts to prove my claim is true that you incorrectly accused me of committing a logical fallacy.

Note what is lacking from your post: Any kind of logical argumentation or the presentation of facts. You are merely asserting something as a counter to an argument, which is the very definition of the logical fallacy of Argument by Assertion.
 

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
I cannot, like anyone else, "impose" my view on others, whatever that means. Breathing is essential for human life, eating meat is not: humans are omnivores, meat is only essential for carnivores.
The natural diet of humans contain meat, fish etc. One should go for humane animal raising methods, but I see no reason for the population in general to move away from what is our normal diet. Processed meat certainly, but home cooked non- veg is good for health and part of balanced diet.
 

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
You are right, it is not absolutely essential. More people in India live without consuming non-veg. food, perhaps some 450 million. But each person is different. My wife may do without non-veg. food. I cannot. Allow me to eat what I want to. And there is no sin involved. Our books have said -'Jeevo jeevasya bhojanam' (one life form is food for another), even if you were talking of vegetation. This was known to us since the time of Bhagawat Purana - (the story of 'dharma-vyadha', the pious butcher). Living means 'himsa', however hard you may try to avoid it. Of course, no problem if someone chooses to avoid meat. We appreciate that.
Most people India are non veg actually. Only about 25% are vegetarians.
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
Logical fallacy, "Argument by Assertion".

Merely asserting that I have committed a logical fallacy doesn't make it true just because you assert it is true.

You would need to provide logical argumentation and facts to prove your claim is true.

You will note that in my post you quote, I give many valid logical arguments and cite facts to prove my claim is true that you incorrectly accused me of committing a logical fallacy.

Note what is lacking from your post: Any kind of logical argumentation or the presentation of facts. You are merely asserting something as a counter to an argument, which is the very definition of the logical fallacy of Argument by Assertion.

It seems RF is a veritable hotbed of fallacies,140 references to them in your last 250 posts. Thankfully, no actual fallacies in your posts.
 
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