Burning Down

Good to know. I no longer have an appendix!

ProggyMan

Yeah, I think it's pretty irrefutable stuff. Of course we don't fully understand nutrition but it seems clear to me that gluten grain is poison, and rice, corn and other grain (Quinoa, for the record, is not a grain) should be eaten only sparingly. Government guidelines be damned.

VEGANGELICA

Veganism is back in the news due to Bill Clinton's switching to a fully plant-based diet to reverse his heart disease.

I meant to comment on Bill Clinton's dietary change earlier, but better late than never. Here's a good article about Clinton's health reasons for changing to a vegan diet:

I'm glad for Clinton that he got the knowledge and had the inspiration to make this dietary change.

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VEGANGELICA

I was watching the original cut of the movie "Blade Runner" after not having seen it for many years, and I re-realized that the ethical question it raises...

should humans consider it ethical to kill another being who has feelings yet is perceived to exist just to serve humanity?

...relates to the question of whether killing animals to eat them is murder.

The connection between the movie's ethical question and whether it is right to kill sentient beings (livestock animals) was noted by none other than "Blade Runner" actress Sean Young in an interview about the movie:

This video of lovely Sean Young in 1982 is the source of the quote:


Sean Young on Blade Runner - YouTube


* * *

I remember liking the movie when I first watched it. I liked it even more after this second viewing. If you aren't familiar with the movie, here's a description:


Rutger Hauer as a replicant in "Blade Runner"

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Guybrush

Slightly off-topic on the meat issue, but since you're mentioning Blade Runner ..

Blade Runner is one of my favourite movies of all time and so I recently watched the Blu-Ray release of the Final Cut version. Although I've seen the movies many times (and it always impresses me), watching it in full HD took it to another level. It's not like that with all movies, but Blade Runner contains so many beautiful details I had not noticed before which now popped out, such as the details of the city models or the apartments of Sebastian or Deckard.

All fans should check it out

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Something Completely Different

Zaqarbal

OMG, Blade Runner! One of the movies with more substance ever. BTW, have you seen this thread's tag? "Deep philosophical sh*t". That's just what I was thinking about (I mean, seriously) right now. That film is so thought-provoking!!!

Just to begin with: A priori, what main analogy between animals and replicants the film draws? I think that's clear: they both are NOT conscious of their own finiteness. That is, they don't know that they are going to die, sooner or later. However, we finally see that it wasn't true. Replicants are aware of their own death, and they're worried about it. And that makes them human. They are even "more humane that humans" themselves. Here lies an amazingly beautiful poetic paradox: the awareness of Death leads to the awareness of Life.

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Howard the Duck

actually, the other day, i was watching a Korean movie about abattoirs

the slaughter of the cow was quite grisly

and i was a bit unsettled and thought "so that's how my favourite meat gets done"

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Malaise is THE dominant human predilection.

Zaqarbal

^ And when religion takes part, it's even worse. Halal, Kosher, etc. There are terrifying YouTube videos about it. Just because of some superstitious bullshit from the Bronze Age. The great Chris Hitchens is absolutely right: religion poisons everything.

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Sansa Stark

Vegetarianism is awesome

VEGANGELICA

So true! "Blade Runner" has a memorable, dark ambiance of damp, cluttered decay mixed with advanced technology enabling humanity to create genetically engineered beings.

Since people in the real world have already made genetically engineered animals, the issues raised in the movie (set in 2017) aren't *too* far beyond ethical questions being debated now.

For example, genetically engineered salmon raise alarm because they grow twice as fast as regular salmon, which might allow them to out-compete regular salmon if they escape. Similarly, the "replicants" in the movie scare humans because the replicants are better than us, with our greater genetic limitations.

The movie asks, implicitly, what are the limits that humans should impose on themselves when deciding how they manipulate and treat other beings as individuals and as groups? Eventually, the ability of humans to manipulate their environment and other animals can end up damaging humanity and the rest of the world...not to mention the animals themselves.

Sometimes, Tore, it seems to me that people just take actions to make money and fulfill pleasurable desires without considering long-term negative effects on humanity and the rest of the beings here. Most genetically engineered organisms, for example, are created to compensate for bigger (human-created) problems that are the *real* ones humanity should solve: too much exploitation of the natural environment such as through over-fishing; great disparities in wealth and power among people, leaving billions in poverty; global warming (which relates to the first two problems).

Yes, it is a thought-provoking movie and this thread contains some deep philosphical shi*t!

I don't believe, though, that the awareness of death leads to the awareness of life, Zaqarbal. I see much evidence that animals, like human children, can be very aware of their own life and experiences without awareness that death awaits them. They can express fear and have a sense of danger without knowing about death.

When I was a child, for example, I first began to realize when I was 13 years old that I, and everyone I knew, would die, truly die, eventually. Yet before I was 13, I experienced life just as vividly and was full of emotions and thoughts. Knowledge of death just led to greater fears and nostalgia, a sense of impending doom, and the knowledge that loss was a definite in my future.

I mention this just in case someone is going to make the bogus claim that "animals don't know they are going to die; therefore, they aren't aware that they are alive; therefore, we can do with them what we will."

This reminds me of how in 2003 during the North Korean famine caused by the government using food and donations to feed government workers and the military while allowing the populace to starve, reports came in that people were killing children and selling them as meat:

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