I clicked back through the thread. I can't tell who you're yelling at.

Quzah. First UT ignores me, and now Quzah is ignoring me. In both cases, I asked simple questions.

Forget it, though. It's not that important.

I answered Jeopard style. In the form of a question. Next off, you basicly answered the question yourself when you said you used to do it. Next you'll ask Wolf why he puts his name in his sig when it's on the left hand side. Or did you already ask that in another thread and I missed it?

Quzah.

One poster at a time. :)

Wolf is a she.

juju

You're a big Ayn Rand fan aren't you?

I liked her when I was 18. Then I realized it was a pretty sad way to go through life. Not invalid necessarily, but sad.

peace,

mh

I agree with some of her views, but then I see holes in others.

What do you mean, sad? Sad that I lack compassion for animals? Or sad that I'm selfish?

Why?

Because i always have. Back in the dialup days (she says as she leans back in her rocking chair), we nearly ALL signed our posts.

Like Jinx said, look at the references on the pages linked: Worldwatch (left wing org, but I believe them), New York Times, The USDA, and the list goes on. Still some books by vegans, but many other clearly non-biased sources.

No you won't find this info spelled out anywhere else, because people don't want to know it.

There is no profit motive for the vegans, but there is a huge one for the meat industry. The vegans have other motives, some of which may be misguided, but are mostly rational (IMO, but I am one one of them... well almost). Also, you have many common folk who simply make their living (not profit) off of animals, which makes it a very difficult issue. If there was a mass exodus from eating meat it would probably be most devastating for the grain farmers. But that won't happen, so I shouldn't worry.

Both...

What I'm saying is that I think it's particularly unenlightened of people when given the choice between:

A) Me = gets 99 widgets and Something else = doesn't suffer
and
B) Me = gets 100 widgets and Something else = suffers a lot

to simply choose B based on a "what's it to me?" argument.

Of course selfishness is important. Humans always have their self-interest in mind. However, if selfishness is the only measure of the worth of something, that is "sad".

Your milage may vary.

I don't ask,"What's it to me", because I seldom do things for no reason. What's my motivation?

What other measure is there?

Well, there's "meta selfishness", or the desire to feel good about oneself for easing the suffering of others, regardless of their ability to repay. It's probably based on your empathy. When I see something like the burning chicken, I feel a sympathetic pain myself, so there is on some level a selfish aspect to my desire to prevent the pain.

Ahh, econ. Everything has utility...

Same question. If you don't believe there is another measure, then you have no motivation. Like I said before, the internal logic is sound. The only problem becomes where to draw the line.

If you knew that in order for you to have a "good day" today, a baby would have to die, would you allow that to happen? Or would you just decide to have a "bad day"? What about a kitten? Or an ant?

Everyone's got a threshold. Yours is just shorter than others.

One related question: Is there anything important enough that you would give up your life in order to preserve it?