Obviously this question is only for people who eat beef regularly.
But I just was wondering, what IQ/ability would make you swear off beef? If they could speak like an 8 y.o, would that be enough to cut off beef? If they got an IQ of 80, would that do it?
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I’ll go with the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy answer and say the cow likely will offer me in person which cuts of meat I prefer. It’s sole purpose in life is to be part of the food cycle. It knows that and it accepts it.
If they were smart enough to start protesting, I could see myself eating mor chikin.
Yeah, even if the spelling on their protest signs was atrocious, I’d still appreciate the effort and order some nuggets.
I don’t know if there’s an IQ amount, but there’s probably a dollar amount. The more expensive it gets, the less I’ll eat, and then eventually I won’t bother.
Basically the same here. Pepsi has basically priced themselves out of the market for me.
At the point where it consciously knows that we breed and slaughter them for meat. That would be my red line. I don’t know what IQ that equals to.
How do you know livestock cows don’t already know this?
I know they don’t know this consciously because of their behaviour. If we suppose they were intelligent enough to understand their predicament, I would expect them to protest in some way. For example by breaking out of their captivitity, trying to kill their captors, or even commit suicide.
This is not the behaviour we observe from cows. They seem perfectly happy to bond with and follow along their captors (farmers) right up to the point where they get a bolt through their head.
This - to me - clearly indicates that they are far below an intelligence level where they can understand the living conditions we put them in.
Because they’ll just walk into the slaugherhouse unaware like a dumb cow.
No smarter than they are now.
Do you eat beef regularly? If so, then you would stop, and if you’ve already stopped you were precluded from this question so really shouldn’t have answered.
I do currently, but I was vegetarian for over a decade and vegan for part of that. I never buy beef and only eat it because I work in a restaurant and eat for free.
But the intelligence isn’t really at issue, the ecological impact is why I don’t buy beef. That and the taste: it’s a C-grade meat at best, way below pork and most poultry, especially given the higher price point.
Intelligence has nothing to do with it. Intelligence isn’t even well defined or measurable. Things like IQ are designed for humans, so they would not be applicable to other beings. They’re barely even useful for human applications.
It’s an interesting question though. First, I’ll ask myself why I eat beef in the first place.
Why do I not eat dogs or cats?
I’m pretty sure that a dog/cat could be dumb as a rock and I still wouldn’t eat them because I’d still enjoy their company.
Now I do try to reduce the amount of beef I consume, but it’s mainly for environmental reasons.
Cows and pigs are great company and can get really attached to you.
How does that differ - but just social norms?
Nothing. That’s my point. Unless you count the practicality of having a pet cow/pig in a city.
Ah, ok, gotcha. Then we see it the same, I think
How low would my IQ have to be for you to let part of my omnivorous diet be meat ?
Would 80 do it ?
They’ll basically need to become smart enough to sue for their right not to be eaten and win before I stop eating them.
I think your should stop eating any meat the moment you don’t feel like you have what it takes to look at the animal in the eye while you kill it for consumption.
If you think you can’t do that, then you should reconsider your meat consumption.
I’m approaching this point in my life and reducing consumption accordingly.
Cows can be moderately smart when raised as such. It’s humans who selected the specific traits we considered more convenient for our needs, and breed them like that.
Would that philosophy extend to other parts of life? I feel like at the surface this sounds great, but when thinking why this sounds great i cant help but wonder if its even possible to look at choices with these kind of angles.
When they’re capable of doing a conversation with me.
Cause of death: Social Anxiety
Smart enough for them to stop being eaten. But at this point they’d have to have similar intelligence to ours, which means we’d probably be at war with them anyway.
10% of the current IQ would probably be high enough.
I think people forget that nature is quite brutal. If humans stopped eating meat, millions of animals would still be killed by predators, illness, parasites, old age, accidents, etc.
If cows became intelligent enough to participate in society but we had lab grown beef, I’d eat it.
If I don’t murder people, people will still get murdered. Therefore it doesn’t make a difference if I choose not to murder people?
No. First of all the tenses are wrong, then the equivalence is wrong.
If people stopped getting murdered, they’d still be killed by illness, parasites, old age, accidents. Basically the loss of life will not stop simply because humans stop taking that life. Are you going to start telling lions not to kill gazelle? Or parasites, viruses, and bacteria not to infest hosts?
Why is it OK for other animals to prey on other living beings, but not humans? You think humans are cruel? Read about what happens in the animal world. Hyenas eating buffalo alive, snakes eating their prey whole (while alive), parasites of course needing live hosts: one eats a fishes tongue and takes its place, another eats a whale’s eyes, yet another takes over the motor functions of ants and forces it clamp down on a plant where the ant dies of hungers and the fungus grows from the corps, the parasitic wasp that lays its eggs within tarantulas and the worms eat the tarantula alive, and so many more gruesome ways to die in the animal kingdom.
So it’s okay for me to murder, because those people would die anyway? If not, then there’s no point in bringing it up.
Just like there’s no point in saying that, unless it’s intended as some kind of justification.
In other words, why should we hold humans to a higher moral standard than lions? Are you really asking that?
If so, I can give you an answer but it seems like a ridiculous thing to ask and I’m just about positive you don’t actually believe that if the standard is good enough for lions and sharks it’s good enough for humans.
Think about it for 30 seconds and I bet you can come up with two really good reasons why there should be a different standard. If you give up, I can tell you the answer but it’s really obvious. I’m confident you can come up with them if you try.
This is also reframing the problem in a weird way. Living isn’t the same as having interests, preferences, emotions, being able to suffer, etc. The majority of people who are against (unnecessarily) eating animal products don’t take that position just because animals are living, but because they’re sentient.
We’re also the only species who raises animals just to eat them later. I’m not a vegetarian, I’m just planning out that you’re logic isn’t exactly perfect there.
That is false. Monkeys cultivate ants to eat them IINM and ants raise other aphids to do the same.
So you would also eat humans?
Why don’t we eat humans?
I guess my cutoff would be actual conversation. Unless they specifically ask to be eaten, ala the bit from Hitchiker’s Guide, in which case I guess the sky is the limit.
The point at which it could collaborate with others and fight back.
Until then, it looks like meat is back on the menu, Boys!
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