I have seen ribs at craft services. Never steak though.
I think Iām going to go with yes, the former is more acceptable (less unacceptable) than the latter. I feel like if you asked this question to 100 people youād have some strong feelings both ways, but I bet the majority would go with killing because you are sadistic is more repugnant than killing because you are indifferent (and lazy, in this case).
I donāt know how to explain why I think this.
But there is an even greater distinction with the food/movie thing. We probably draw a very significant line between not minding that you know something died and not minding watching something die. It has a very different impact on someone to read about deaths in the paper than to find the dying person on the street themselves. A person who was indifferent to the former would be actually pretty normal, a person who was indifferent to the latter would be suspected of psychopathy.
Ha ha!
My behavior is inconsistent!
In fairness, I feel exactly the same way about people.
Pass the Soylent Green, please.
Iām sold. Switching to people a.s.a.p.
I suppose āfat catsā would be tastiest, as per my previous statement about the Kochs.
@glyph gryph I think you make a good argument. Do I dare make the argument that morality is after all, subjective? and killing an animal for food, even if that food is more for pleasure than absolute necessity (but Iād say itās rarely all one or the other, but a combination of both) is āmoreā moral than killing an animal for entertainment purposes. Let me put it this way, I would be more comfortable, so to speak, with a movie that showed a real slaughtering and butchering of an animal that is to be used for food, than I would be with an animal being slain just to serve a plot point.
the title contains a spoonerism as a philosophical conclusion : āno farm, no howlā.
The other problem is that the āpureā vegetarian diet also requires wholesale murder to accomplish. Even neglecting the environmental impact of transforming land into a farm, there is a lot of killing that goes on to prevent the loss of the crops to pests. In some more enlightened farming, that killing is outsourced to other species, so our proxy raptors and ladybugs do some of the killing for us.
As a vegetarian (and having farm experience), I know that many creatures have died that I might live.
Of course, if you take this chain of thought to its logical conclusion, youāll realize that all living creatures have to kill to exist. Iāve read that the average cubic meter of air has 10 million bacteria in it ā many of which are pathogenic to us, and which are neutralized by our highly efficient immune system. The water we drink has been filtered / sterilized / poisoned to kill off the microorganisms that inhabit it. Every surface we touch is swarming with microbes. We kill them (intentionally or not) so they donāt destroy us.
Iām torn on meat. From what I understand, we wouldnāt have the brains we have today if it wasnāt for the past meat eating of our biological ancestors. Also, bacon tastes good. Real good.
We got brainy from feasting on meat, but now in turn our meat-enhanced brains realize that eating meat is pretty draconian and cruel (especially industrial meat production), can be unhealthy and (most importantly) is a factor in contributing to global climate change and other environmental externalities.
I think thereās good arguments that say we can still nourish our brains without meat nowadays. Weāre now capable of using our brains to find plenty of tasty vegetarian protein out there, if weād try.
But trying to separate meat from an avid meat eater isnāt easy especially when healthy, veggie protein can often be more expensive because our federal subsidies are all out of whack. Also, like any other addict, meat eaters tend to get hostile and defensive about their meat eating.
Anyway, you all can go to hell, Iām going to go eat some chicken.
My issue is more with the entire meat supply industry. Our ancestors did eat meat, but probably not at the quantity we do today. So I would say we can all get by with a bit less meat.
Very true, I think mass, sustainable meat production went out of the window a long time ago unfortunately. I honestly think at this point weād be better off moving away from it entirely and the way things are going with climate change, we may be forced to do it whether we want to or not, anyway.
The emphasis on āman the hunterā is way overblown. ( Mainly due to gender bias in science and history, but thatās another topic altogether. 
)
In truth, most hunter-gatherer diets revolve(d) around gathering with meat as a supplement. ( Though, there are exceptions: ex. Inuit diets. ) These days though meat is seen as the main courseā¦ mainly because technology, antibiotics, whatnot has made raising animals so much easier.
My personal take is eating animals is fine, but the high demand is problematic. I think the demand is probably what drives all the unethical and unsafe cattle and chicken farm conditions.
If meat hadnāt been a supplement, would our brains developed as they did?
http://www.npr.org/2010/08/02/128849908/food-for-thought-meat-based-diet-made-us-smarter
Harming an animal for food is harming it for a form of entertainment (or āenjoymentā). Itās not necessary, and is explicitly done for purposes of sport or sensual pleasure.
No, heās just practicing his fallacious internet arguments, clearly. Trying on āfalse equivalenceā for size, apparently.
In focusing on the environment aspect, heās apparently also ignorant of the fact that the meat industry generates more greenhouse gas than the entire fucking auto industry, much less the agricultural industryā¦
1.) That theory is hardly unequivocal or air-tight.
2.) Even if it were true: My ancestors have done a lot of onerous shit that has in some way led to me being who I am and enjoying what privileges I enjoy. That doesnāt mean that I feel I have carte blanche to commit that same onerous shit. Your argument veers awfully close to the naturalistic fallacy. (Iām sure those proto-humans with the still developing brains probably committed an awful lot of rape that I might not be here without. That doesnāt make it okay for me to be a rapistā¦)
Iāve never seen steak or ribs at craft services, but at the catering truck sure.
Iām pretty sure the dogs are cool with it, at least. The only reason we started letting them hang around in the first place is that they proved useful for helping us kill other animals.
