Now now Timmy, finish eating your broccoli then you can go outside and play with your friends.

Well I couldn't sleep, and felt very warm and itchy... plus it was the first time, in weeks, that mosquitoes prevent me from sleeping. I was weirdly irritated, and I don't know if it's guilt or just some physical symptoms, cause the first can trigger the latter.

I'm not sure if this was brought up somewhere in here already, so apologies if it has.

Let's say hypothetically we stop breeding animals for food and let animal numbers fluctuate naturally. We evolved eating plants and meat, so even though we have the intelligence to rationalize killing animals, we are still technically part of the food chain. What if a certain animal (let's say deer), due to our refusal to participate in the food chain, overpopulate and throw the ecosystem into chaos. Would the vegetarians here reconsider?

This isn't me trying to convince people to not be vegetarian, I'm just curious what you guys would think of the situation.

Mosquitoes are right turds, it's pretty much the itchiest kind of bites I've had and damn they can bleed from over-scratching.

Thank goodness I've never had chicken box or I would scratch my entire layer of skin off.

First, I should say I don't like mistreatment of animals in any shape and I do try to be an aware consumer! Still, as a meat eater, of course I do accept mistreatment of animals in order to put food on my plate. It would be naive to deny it.

I think what I dislike the most with mistreatment for fun or entertainment is it's not the sort of thing I think should be fun. The way I see it, only emotionally dysfunctional losers laugh at torture and only people with an utter lack of respect for life will entertain themselves by mistreating animals. It's not exactly the trademark of a winning personality and a healthy mind, but rather indicates douchebagism and mental health problems .. imo ;)

Mistreatment as a "side effect" of animals being used for food is something I find a lot more tolerable. The goal is not to cause pain, but to get some kind of animal food product. Killing animals for food doesn't mean you're a heartless psychopath.

I agree with Tore. You could argue that the end result is the same but i i think there is a huge difference between killing animals for produce and killing animals for sport.

Ive said already that i think its perfectly natural for humans, as animals, to eat other animals and so yeah, id have to say that i support the killing of animals to an extent.

However i once shared a flat with a mate of mine who told me one day that he supported hunting and that it should be protected. I asked him why and he said because it is a "great British tradition."

Now as much as i would love to argue with that, hes actually right. Hunting is a British tradition. It shouldnt be, it should be illegal. Killing animals for sport is barbaric and doesnt serve a purpose. No one is benefiting from it at all apart from a bunch of upper class, wine-tasting, cheese-eating, fur-wearing, stuck up toffs who think its not only fun but their right to hunt and kill for fun.

If no one is benefiting from the death of an animal, then it shouldnt be happening.

You're talking about wild animals, not domesticated animals, correct, duga? I ask just to clarify, because in many livestock situations people artificially inseminate the animals to make them produce offspring, so simply stopping artificial insemination would cause the domesticated animal numbers to plummet.

With wild animals, such as deer (and we have a fair number in Iowa), hunters do currently kill many thousands. However, Iowa also lets hunters kill deer predators such as coyotes and bobcats.

So then obviously, if people stop killing deer, since people have wiped out natural predators, the deer population will increase, altering the balance of the ecosystem...which has already occurred in Iowa. If humans were to stop killing deer, humans would also have to stop killing animal predators in order to prevent a huge increase in the deer population.

Of course, the impact of *humans* on the natural exosystems of Iowa and the world is much greater than that caused by deer. The impact of deer is more subtle: as their numbers increase, the ratios of tree species and other plants in forests change, due to herbivory. Most of Iowa and Indiana are now covered in corn crops (tasty food for deer), due to people. The impact of deer on ecosystems is negligible, in comparison to that of humans, I'd say.

I forgot to answer your question! My answer would be that, no, I wouldn't reconsider my vegetarianism or support people killing deer if people feel the deer population is too large. (I would argue the human population is too large.) Also, whenever people feel they have to resort to killing others (whether animals or humans) to solve a problem, I think this means that people haven't explored other options thoroughly enough.

Except whether people kill animals purely for fun (the challenge of the "kill," and the adrenalin rush of hunting) or for fun but unnecessary food, the basic goal is the same: to increase human pleasure.

I feel that with meat-eating, the main reason people do it is emotional pleasure, since there are non-meat alternatives that satisfy nutritional needs just as well. This is one reason I see very little difference between killing an animal to have fun, and killing an animal to have fun food.

And yet it is also perfectly natural for animals to *enjoy* hunting and killing other animals, mojo.

I've seen cats and lions and other animals hunt and then "play" with their living food a little. They definitely look like they are enjoying it. Chasing and killing another animal is fun...for them! One would expect animals selected to be predators through natural selection to have a positive emotional state connected with the hunt. Just like sexual activity can feel good...so that people want to do it.

So, why shouldn't people like your flatmate just do the "natural" thing and enjoy hunting for pleasure, or gain pleasure from their traditions that involve chasing and hunting animals? He is benefitting from the pleasure caused by the hunt and kill, just like people benefit from the pleasure of the meat they get from people killing animals.

I will argue again that whether some behavior is "natural" or not should not determine whether we feel that behavior is an ethical behavior we want people (or ourselves) to follow.

Since non-meat alternatives exist, sport hunting and meat hunting are united by their ultimate goal: increasing human pleasure (and that is their main purpose, I'd say). Neither meat nor sport hunting is *necessary*. So, if killing animals unnecessarily for sport is barbaric, like you say, mojo, then why shouldn't killing animals unnecessarily for unnecessary food be seen as barbaric?

I think killing for fun or food as both being simply to "increase human pleasure" is a generalization which simplifies too much and hides what I think are important moral considerations. To me, if someone does it for a reason like the thrill of the hunt or the satisfaction of being able to provide for oneself, I can't morally consider those the same as doing it out of a sadistic pleasure for pain and suffering. What people think and the motives behind their actions is important to me and also something I think you too readily ignore.

I think the average member of a jury would agree!

I agree I am simplifying the situation, Tore, since people who kill for food *and* pleasure do get food (in addition to the psychological pleasure of eating it). Yet to me killing an animal for "the thrill of the hunt" is not morally *very* different from killing an animal out of "sadistic pleasure for pain and suffering."

I feel that people who kill animals to provide for themselves or to enjoy the hunt as sport (by which I mean pure fun, whether or not they eat some of the animal...and most hunters do eat part of their "harvest") are ignoring or minimizing the significance of the fact that they *are* intentionally causing (unnecessary) pain and suffering for that animal they are killing.

When someone hurts and kills an animal intentionally (though she could have stopped herself from killing it if she had wanted to), apologizing or feeling some regret may make the person feel better, but it doesn't help that animal being killed one iota. So, this is one reason people's motives (rationalizations) for killing an animal (whether for sport or unnecessary food) don't seem so important to me.

I am more understanding of how people would make the choice to kill animals to survive when people don't have access to other foods (though I still don't think it makes killing the animals a *good* thing). But when the killing is not necessary for a person's survival, then killing animals for food seems like pure hedonism to me. I don't mind hedonism at all (I'm certainly hedonistic in many ways)...but I am troubled when it causes others to experience unnecessarily pain and suffering or an end to their lives.

You gotta do what you gotta do to survive,and eat good food.