Ciaran O'Loughlin

@fanoonman @yginbar @Lewis_Bollard @PeggiBosquez Do you believe a diet free from animal proteins is healthy? Do you believe that eating the same diet as a monkey is healthy? Do you feel we have evolved beyond that point?

@Reframe_Reality @yginbar @Lewis_Bollard @PeggiBosquez (3) You imply that humans "socially evolve" into having new PHYSICAL needs to consume certain things just to physically SURVIVE. How does that occur, biochemically/physiologically? Even if you mean "social 'survival'", I'm here in society talking with you, and not eating meat.

This is a pig who spent years confined in a gestation crate. She was left behind when factory farms flooded in Iowa and then rescued by some volunteers. The volunteers took her home and dug her a mud pit. She ignored it. They assumed years of confinement had extinguished her natural instincts. Then they noticed her wandering into the woods on their property. They followed her — and found her rooting in a pile of dirt, digging her own mud pit. The pork industry claims pigs adapt to confinement. They don't. Inside every gestation crate is an animal who still yearns to root, wallow, and just be a pig. This is the tragedy of factory farming. We tried to reduce feeling animals to machines. We failed.

@fanoonman @yginbar @Lewis_Bollard @PeggiBosquez I'm saying that eating gazelle is not particularly difficult. You're implying eating meat is unnatural because of the difficulty level. Well not really, because we've managed it for tens of thousands of years! There's nothing complex or unnatural about it at all.

@Reframe_Reality @yginbar @Lewis_Bollard @PeggiBosquez (4) You say, "Lions can eat gazelle but can't peel bananas. Monkeys can peel bananas and could probably eat gazelle if they needed/wanted to. They don't." Why don't they? Which of the two are humans closer to, biologically? Why use the one we're not as a dietary role model?

I don't think "rights" are relevant to the conversation, especially when talking about animals like chickens. I think we have to make our own decisions on what is or isn't appropriate or moral, and I don't think there's a simple answer like "meat = bad" or "meat = good". I think that's fast food ethics.

@Reframe_Reality @Lewis_Bollard On your view, does this fact give people the right to kill them when they're young and healthy?

Lions can eat gazelle but can't peel bananas. Monkeys can peel bananas and could probably eat gazelle if they needed/wanted to. They don't. But if you believe a diet of just fruit is healthy for a human then be my guest, tuck in. But there's no way in hell I'm putting my body through that. Secondly, we did not socially evolve to NEED cigarettes to survive. Go and tell an indigenous hunter gatherer tribe to stop eating animal products and live off just fruit..see what they tell you.

@Reframe_Reality @yginbar @Lewis_Bollard @PeggiBosquez Why do you call that distinction "arbitrary"? One is simple enough that almost any human or primate could do it with ease; the other obviously takes manufactured equipment and a lot of work. I'll address 'social/biological evolution' next -- running out of space here.

@rumilyrics It's also like a muscle that gets stronger the more you use it.

Calmness is a superpower. The ability to not overreact or take things personally keeps your mind clear and your heart at peace.

@yginbar @Lewis_Bollard No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that they wouldn't be alive in the first place if it weren't for farming. Do you see any chickens in the wild?

@Reframe_Reality @Lewis_Bollard That's what matters morally, yes. Of course it's sad when an animal dies, but you can't say that since all animals eventually die anyway you might as well kill them because only outcomes count.

To me it seems like you're drawing a kind of arbitrary difference between the act of peeling a banana and skinning an animal. Btw you don't HAVE to skin or cook them, you can eat raw meat, especially if it's recently killed. You're also looking thousands of years of social and biological evolution to make this point. Yeah we are descended from monkeys that just ate fruit, but that isn't what we are and isn't what we have been for a very long time.

@Reframe_Reality @yginbar @Lewis_Bollard @PeggiBosquez (3) BTW, I'm not sure how bananas made your list. If you live where bananas grow, you pull a ripe one off of the tree and pop it open, as even children do with the ones from the store now. Primates usually peel them from the opposite end that we do, FWIW...

@Awakenthyself33 How?

I found Blood Meridian extremely inspiring, in terms of how unique and evocative prose can be. He actually makes up his own words at some points, and for all of the poetry of the writing is actually really direct at conveying what he means at times. He cuts through the conventions of language to put an image directly into your head without any beating about the bush or adherence to orthodoxy. All that said, I wouldn't say it's a super enjoyable read. There are fascinating moments. The ending is phenomenal. But he conveys something quite blunt overall with it. I think the idea is good and the execution is exceptionally impressive. But I can fully understand why people wouldn't enjoy it. I'm trying to read it a second time and getting quite bored, even though if someone asked me what the best thing I've ever read is, I would probably say Blood Meridian. A lot of great stuff isn't necessarily meant to be fully enjoyed. It can serve as a reference point. The Wire is one of the best shows ever, but it's probably not as enjoyable as bunging on a good episode of Kitchen Nightmares.

I feel like people wouldn't be frothing at the mouth over a guy who is just not that into Cormac McCarthy if they gave up the incessant and needless desire to be fully understood and liked by others.

@ErinPerise There's a Chinese guy making a potion out of eagle feathers somewhere

I refuse to believe this airbus is up in the air by ways of “aerodynamics” That is witchcraft and I know it

The language you learn in textbooks is SO different to the one people use in real life 😂 it's crazy. I sound like a robot speaking Spanish, compared to Spanish people sound like they're basically speaking a different language. So many idioms, weird pronunciations and made up vocabulary

It’s like, when you learn a language, it’s all in print. And when people actually use a language in real life, it’s in cursive handwriting. Endings, middles and contexts often left out, abbreviated, and totally idiosyncratic to each person. Especially true of Italian. Very endearing even though it makes it much harder to learn. It’s a sign of life in the language.

@yginbar @Lewis_Bollard So what matters is your culpability in the situation and you feeling like you have a clean conscience, not the actual outcome?

@Reframe_Reality @Lewis_Bollard If I kill an animal - especially if I do so intentionally- I'm responsible for its death and for any accompanying suffering. Otherwise I'm not.

But it's not natural for humans to do that... It's natural for praying mantis to do that. That's like if I say it's natural for humans to want to have sex with each other, and you say therefore I'm saying it's natural for humans to want to have sex with fish. Nope. Completely different.

@Reframe_Reality @fanoonman @Lewis_Bollard @PeggiBosquez I was responding to the use of "it's natural" as some kind of moral justification.

@theralkia Not wearing one is telling him you don't appreciate the life he gave you and feel entitled to his protection.

Wearing a seatbelt is telling God that you don’t trust Him

@euroesunasecta @Lewis_Bollard Agreed. If all farming was like this, there probably wouldn't even be a serious debate.

@Reframe_Reality @Lewis_Bollard For me the important ethical question is whether the animals can have a good life with a close-to-nature diet, social structure and environment. And once you kill, be respectful and use every part for the highest value purpose.

@jan_fifi @JMer3963 @Lewis_Bollard No, I'm asking you a simple question. What is a "nice" death for an animal? How many of them die in this way?

@Reframe_Reality @JMer3963 @Lewis_Bollard Are you talking about predatory animals, because they have to do it to eat. We don't.

@jan_fifi @JMer3963 @Lewis_Bollard Which animals in the wild die a nice death?

@JMer3963 @Reframe_Reality @Lewis_Bollard Well it's nice for you that you 'delight' in converting veggies and vegans back to eating slaughtered animals. Not much 'delight' for the poor animals when they're being slaughtered, no matter how humanely.

@fanoonman @yginbar @Lewis_Bollard @PeggiBosquez You could say the same about potatoes, grains, bananas, oranges, rice etc. Most foods require preparation. And modern humans also can't drink water from lakes or puddles, that doesn't mean that we aren't natural water drinkers.

@Reframe_Reality @yginbar @Lewis_Bollard @PeggiBosquez I think that was in reference to "I don't feel there's anything wrong with participating in the food chain, the same way animals do. It's natural." if you have to shoot it, skin it, gut it, clean it, carve it, cook it and season it, maybe you're not a natural carnivore.

@yginbar @Lewis_Bollard As opposed to them never existing? And please tell me which animals die nicely.

@Reframe_Reality @Lewis_Bollard That's because "ethical farming practices" still involve the key practice of killing animals in the prime of their lives, if not earlier. And even the most "humane" slaughtering methods, with the best of intentions, inevitably involve much fear, pain and suffering.

@yginbar @fanoonman @Lewis_Bollard @PeggiBosquez Who said we have to act like praying mantis? No one.

@Reframe_Reality @fanoonman @Lewis_Bollard @PeggiBosquez It's also natural for a female praying mantis to eat her mate during or after copulation - that doesn't make it the right thing for humans to do, even assuming it's equally nutritious.