A Response and Further Brainstorming to Mr. Finnivan

I would probably not use a computer again if I saw this every day...

Responding to my initial brainstorming, Mr. Finnivan brought up some good points about animal activism and encouraged me that my "reason" or lack-there-of for trying to shift to pescetarianism and eventually vegetarianism is not just a "whim" but has the potential to lead by example. Upon further reflection, I can attest much of what I am doing to my housemate who, after witnessing Food Inc., he was disgusted at the idea of eating "corpse" and thus he doesn't eat red meat, or chicken anymore. He still eats fish, however, but I admired his dedication when I taunted him with tantalizing teriyaki chicken, and my long-time personal favorite, (I still have dreams about eating it sometimes even though I refuse to eat it when I see it sitting there) Pulled Pork. I also admire how he had a similar response whenever I asked him "why are you a pescetarian?" he would respond with "I don't really know, I'm not doing it for making a statement, I just don't like eating corpse."

Maybe my view on if vegitarianism is morally requires is up to the person in question on an individual case, rather then a generalized case. I feel that is it was a moral requirement, it wouldn't work out, as there will ALWAYS be people going against morals, wether on a whim, or to make a point, or to get revenge, every law will be broken, questioned, and re-worked. That's why we have laws and why we acknowledge those examples of laws being broken.

An example:
Prostitution is illegal. People can easily ask "why" and the simple answer is, "it's the ownership of a person and goes against their ethical rights" but there will be individuals who still practice it for the sake of convenience, desperation, or to make ends meet. Take the poor, starving teenager who has been disowned by her parents for having a child. She must find some way to pay for her own life and her child's, and prostitution is an easy trade for her, and makes quite a bit of money, therefore she goes against the rules and is able to survive.

Though prohibition of prostitution is a little different from morally requiring people to forgo the practice of eating animals, the basic principal that "it is morally wrong to own a person, and to sell said person's flesh." goes hand-and-hand with the argument for vegetarianism  Even if cows, pigs, chicken etc. are not considered moral persons like whales and apes are, it still goes without saying that it is a cruelty to said animals.

Even though it is a cruelty, there are conditions where is is absolutely justifiable, like an many boreal and arctic regions where conditions for agriculture are scarce if non-existant, and food security is anywhere from 5%-35% anualy. Food security being the % of the population that lives without the risk or fear of starvation. These people rely on hunting and gathering for most of their sustenance and don't have access to readily available dietary supplements that could give them the required nutrients for survival. This is saddening, but the worse part is, with such a high dependance on meat, they suffer from many more food-borne illnesses, and parasites. Poor meat regulation, poor conditions, hunting, poor cooking and poor education has lead to outbreaks of parasites much worse then your "giardia" from contaminated water, or even tapeworms. How about a worm that lives in-between your cells and will slowly destroy your muscles to keep itself warm?

Parasites are actually another reason why I don't really like the idea of eating beef or pork.  Even though the parasites are cute, I wouldn't want them living within me. It doesn't unnerve me as much as others, but I really would like to go without a tapeworm, or ascaris,  or Trichinella, but sometimes it is unavoidable.

I have gone though a rant, and have decided that I will try to mention these ideas:

Reasons for Vegitarianism-
-> Ethical Treatment
Animals as Subjects-of-a-Life
Relation to Prostitution

-> Disregarding "Ethics"
Parasites/ Health
Economic Concerns
Ecological Concerns

Reasons why it should be a case-by-case basis
Economic Availability
Hunter/Gatherer Communities
Restricted Product Availability

He's Nuts!

The Final Count Down

Our final assignment is to, in no more then 3 pages (doublespaced), attempt to finish either of he following statements:
I am morally obliged to be a vegetarian because...
I am not morally obliged to be a vegetarian because...

This seems a daunting task since I usually attempt to argue against others to "stir the pot" of ideas and provide counter arguments. Since I have been doing this for most of my life I am not quite good at coming up with my own ideas, and especially not arguing for or against them. It is here that I will write most if not all of my thoughts and ponderings so be prepared for useless thoughts that will hopefully become some form of communicable idea.

So here begins the brainstorming process, I will decide on what vegetarianism constitutes.

Vegetarianism is eating (not consuming for later reasons) only plant based products as a primary source of food. Eggs, and dairy products are acceptable. I presently practice a semi-vegetarian lifestyle, eating poultry, eggs, fish and consuming milk and other dairy products, but I hope to shift to pescatarinism.
-> The lacto-ovo vegetarian does not eat the flesh of animals, but does eat both eggs and dairy such as milk and cheese from cows or goats. The ovo-vegetarian eats eggs but not meat. The lacto-vegetarian is similar to the lacto-ovo-vegetarian, but excludes eggs from his diet. A vegan not only excludes meat, but also all dairy products, eggs and foods which contain any product from animals, even gelatin. Pescatarians eat eggs and fish, but no beef, pork or poultry, while a semi-vegetarian generally follows a vegetarian lifestyle, but occasionally eats animal flesh.

i do this mainly because I have decided that, since I survived in Japan for 12 days without red meat, I think I can live without it. I am still iffy on ham... I love it so, but I consider it red meat due to it's porcine origin. Soon, I hope to exclude poultry (mainly chickens) from my diet. Looking at that statement  I feel this could be a moral shift towards vegetarianism  but then I  evaluated if there was a deeper reason why I a doing this, and I found none other then the potential dislike of Taenia solium and Taenia saginata, two tapeworms that have cute scolecies, yet... who wants tapeworms. I do care for life, but I unfortunately can't ever see myself picketing by a farm. I'm too passive to be an activist. It does give me a little sense of moral light to say "I am not eating this meat, therefore some animal somewhere doesn't need to die.

In Botany we discussed Food chains and looking at an example of energy efficiency. If we act as a primary consumer (eating plants) we would be able to support about 12 times the population as where we act as secondary consumers (eating meat from grazers, ruminants, insects etc) as energy is not conserved, only about 10% of the total energy is transferred between each level, so eating a cow yields more energy then a lion (assuming both were the same size) which is probably why we don't eat lion meat, because it would cause extinction of lions to feed all of the people of the earth.

This makes me wonder how many cows go into one hamburger... I don't exactly want to think about that... the cows probably form one huge burger tree from which burger pods are released, and the burgers can be plucked from the tree by McDonalds farmers who then slice the burgers into smaller, edible patties. So it seems that all the meat is put into one big vat and turned into burgers, so many cows make one burger!

Hello there! I'm just a drifter looking for a new home!
(Taenia Saginata, the beef tapeworm! Hope I didn't gross people out!)

Response to Mr. Fitzpatrick

After reading 'Property' under law, I thought on what was said regarding animal "ownership" and Brian brings up a good point about economic use of animals, that being, there shouldn't be any. As he puts it, "animals are not capable of entering into a contract and therefore any utilization of them in an economic setting is forced labor."

Now, I am not a political science major by any means, but I wanted to look into this idea of "what is defined as forced labor and I found out that in the USA constitution, 13th amendment  forced labor is defined as "Labor or service obtained by: threats of serious harm or physical restraint, any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe he would suffer serious harm or physical restraint if he did not perform such labor or services, and/or the abuse or threatened abuse of law or the legal process."

Looking at animals such as pets or test subjects, or food animals being used for forced labor... I don't believe they fall into that category. We are not actively threatening them or making them believe that, if they don't function well, they will receive harm. They probably can't even link "good performance = no harm" rather "this action = harm" I would say that, assuming animals have rights, it isn't a forced labor situation, but more a case of exploitation, extortion, and exaction. The flesh and organs being property of the animal and, since there is no legal way to sign away your organs as an animal (like we can through organ donating), we are taking their bodies and using it for ourselves as though they have no rights to their own property.

I believe that there needs to be a compromise when it comes to animal property rights, since animal products are still useful in our society, even though we are making progress towards separating animals as economic items, yet there are somethings that we have trouble going without, such as drugs and, under current laws, we are required as scientists to test on the lowest form of life, getting progressively higher and higher in the photogenic tree before reaching human testing. If we can find a way to diverge from that to human testing, we would save many animals, yet we would be faced with the predicament of "well, this may kill you or not, we will see" which we want to avoid. It is an interesting world we live in now, but we will see where technologies advance us. For now, I feel it is important to try and respect animals as much as possible, but I feel the economics of animal use can't go without some exploitation.

PETA needs some Chicken!

Recently I watched my favorite youtube series, Sci Show, and saw this video which i felt was relivent to our class! For those less biologically lexically literate  in vitro refers to grown in the laboratory and in vivo refers to in a living host (such as animals) Enjoy!

Following a School of Fish: A Respose to Mr. Keefner and Mr. Kelley

Based off of Mr. Keefner's initial commentary of: Captivity and Boredom, and Mr. Kelley's commentary: Response to Kurtiss, I would like to add my own input on the idea of captivity and boredom. When visiting the NE Aquarium (New England), I saw many fish just floating by, not actively looking for anything, not being dead, just kinda floating there. I was disappointed at the lack seeming lack of excitement in their life, but more disappointed in the onlooking children who would gape for a second, tap the glass (even though there are signs that say "don't tap the glass, it will infuriate the Paranas!") and when they saw no immediate movement, they would move on to the next tank. Exactly as we discussed in class about short attention spans to things that are not actively attracting attention or "cute". I found everything fascinating, even looking at a scared fish run from an electric eel as the eel cornered the poor thing in the corner of the tank before killing it, sending the "electricity meter" into the red (killing prey) from the yellow (hunting prey) which suddenly made every kid in the area rush over to the tank after there was a flash of red from the "voltage hitting the red zone." Shortly after the eel had its meal, the kids dispersed as the meter went to green (relaxing/calm) and then to blue (idle/ sleeping) and stayed there for quite a while.

Isn't he just so adorable?

I felt sorry for the eel, being the subject of so many electromagnetic fields then having nothing, and suddenly EVERYTHING is full of electricity (not just the water) all the brain firings of the onlookers trying to intemperate what they missed and play it out int heir heads before they grew bored and completely abandoned the eel. It must have sucked for the eel to suddenly feel so alone. (If you can consider the presence or absence of electromagnetic fields, in addition to an eel being able to feel) There was also an exhibit that made me a little sad... A HUGE goosefish, probably a good 2-3 feet long seemed to take up 1/2 of the width of the tank it was in. Unfortunately for such a large fish, that means it takes a huge effort and swimming sideways for a bit just to turn around. The fish was facing backwards, its eyes away from the crowd, yet open, staring off into space gaping its mouth in an attempt to attract the top-feeding fish in the tall tank to come down and nibble at its upper lip....

Keep a stiff upper lip, buddy. Everything will be okay... I hope!

I felt that most of the fish, with the exclusion of about 3 tanks, were set up in okay, if a little overpopulated environments. But I still felt pretty bad for the fish.

Aquatic Point of View

I visited the New England Aquarium this weekend and beheld a flock of fish. In particular, the poor fish that were in a circular tank. These fish were constantly swimming with no goal, exploration or anything in a dark tank that was circular with a light shining on them as they passed in front of the kids going "wow! That's a lot of fish!" and three seconds later, they proceeded to say "that's boring, lets see the other fish." Looking at these fish, there was a plaque explaining how they have senses that help them see other nearby fish and keep tight formations that can distract and harass predators, I found it interesting and was enraptured by their display, even though the fish must have been bored out of their minds! The seals which were for the most part excited to see people looking at them were happy enough, except for two of them who were brutally mauling, chasing and biting each other to the point of scraping fur and drawing blood. It was upsetting to see them so unhappy that they would fight.

There were other times where little kids disregarded the educational benefits of exhibits. We went to the museum of science and there was an exhibit about archaeology which me and this father were really interested in. The father's kid was not happy. He constantly complained about it being boring and how he wanted to see the baby chicks. The father replied, "Can you sit down and calm down, some people are trying to learn from this." It made me a little upset how unintended most of the kids were about these sciencey things. I remember when I was their age, my favorite thing to do was to look at all the exhibits that were on display! However, not all kids are like me at that age so.... yea.

Overall, I was disappointed at the general disinterest that it seemed kids had in science. The exhibits for the live animals (mainly fish, arthropods, amphibians, and reptiles) seemed rather well put together, not too constrained, the animals had more then enough room to maneuver and, despite the fact that they were still in captivity, I believe the fish and turtles were content with their surroundings.

A Response to Mr. Gaudet

In response to the question Humans and animals. Humans or animals. Humans vs. animals. Are these legitimate separations? There is an interesting battle with words when it comes to distinctions, especially between "humans" and animals, since, as Mr. Gaudet put it, "Humans are animals; so, from where does this fictional distinction come?" I feel this is a very difficult question to answer, especially because I am not as well acquainted with semantics and linguistic history as some people may be. In my best way of understanding this question, I feel it comes down to the human's (and I believe animals share a similar a similar state of mind as well) fear of being attacked by the unknown.

To define this "Unknown", we will call it some unknown other animal. For instance, I have a fear of dogs I am not personally familiar with, as I do not know how they will react to me being around them or trying to pet them. They could be happy with me petting them, or seeing a hand move, they could think I am going to hit them, thus bark and bite. The animal (be it human or otherwise) does not know how the other animal will react to it and thus it will likely try to avoid it if possible, distancing itself from a possibly hostile encounter. Us as Homo sapiens with our language systems, we like to classify things, and classify we do. Since the "wilds" are lands with other animals that haven't been domesticated, killed by us, or possibly discovered by us, we tend to avoid that area of uncertain encounters. Any being that we do not know, without reasonable doubt, how it will react to us, is considered unknown, and thus, wild.

"wild humans" are "humans" who act in ways that are unpredictable, or against the "norm" and thus are regarded with fear for their unpredictability. Much like animals that act in ways we can't predict are termed "wild" animals due to the nature of the "wilds" for which we assume they hail from. I believe this is where the term "wild animals" comes from. We refer to Dogs as "pets" as an overarching umbrella meaning companion animals such as fish, cats, dogs, gerbils, etc. While pigs, cows, and sheep are considered "livestock", minnows and worms and other small creatures are termed "bait".

In colloquia  I believe that anything that is not within our species is termed an "animal" as an overarching umbrella term for "non-Homo sapien beings in the Kingdom Animale".  Humans is a term we made for ourselves I believe to delineate these non-"human" animals from us. This could possibly date back to the time before Darwin's putting together of the concept of evolution, whereby we as Humans were created separately from the other creatures of the earth, and perhaps that term has stuck with us like slang and swears have. We may not want to use them because they don't make sense, but they are there through time so we have to deal with it wether we use them or not.

Dealing with the initial question of using the terms humans and animals as legitimate separations, I believe if we take "humans" to be slang for Homo sapiens, and we take "Animals" to mean "non-Homo sapien species" then I believe we can use those words... however it would be easier to understand if we just said "Homo sapiens vs. non-Homo sapien animals."

An Animal, or a  "Human"?