How smart would cows have to become for you to stop eating beef?
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?
Well I don’t eat meat at all, and part of the reason is the video on YouTube of the little girl who snuck her pet cow onto her indoor porch and is holding it in her lap and scratching it while it sighs contentedly.
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.
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.
It’s tasty
It’s relatively cheap
Very nutrient dense, so it’s easier to consume
Why do I not eat dogs or cats?
They are not socially acceptable to consume
They contribute positively to my life in other ways than being a food source
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.
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.
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.
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.
If people stopped getting murdered, they’d still be killed by illness, parasites, old age, accidents.
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.
If humans stopped eating meat, millions of animals would still be killed by predators, illness, parasites, old age, accidents
Just like there’s no point in saying that, unless it’s intended as some kind of justification.
Why is it OK for other animals to prey on other living beings, but not humans?
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.
but not 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.
to prey on other living beings
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.
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.
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.
I wouldn’t eat a dog, a monkey, an octopus, a dolphin, a whale, a cat, a parrot, a crow, or a donkey. Pretty much everything else is on the table unless I’m missing something.
I don’t think it’s entirely to do with intelligence. Pigs for example are apparently of similar intelligence to dogs, but I love eating pork. Obviously the dog has the advantage of a unique domestication where they can read and react to our emotions better than virtually all other animals.
So it’s an interesting question you ask. Because while intelligence isn’t the primary reason it has to certainly be a motivator because all of those I listed are intelligent animals.
To actually answer your question, they would have to be pretty damn smart for me to stop eating them because they are delicious.
The unique problems for me with dogs is not just that they're evolved to interact better with us, it's that in many places where they eat them it's believed that it tastes better if it was terrified and in pain when killed. So you can imagine how they're treated when getting prepared to slaughter. No easy life or death for food dogs.
Then there's several places in Peru where it's believed cats taste better if drowned.
Not that we treat our livestock great in the west but some cultures take it to a horrifying level due to tradition.
Out of curiosity, are they delicious or are their rubs/seasonings/spices/sauces delicious?
A vegan friend of mine once asked me this question and while I can honestly reply that I can find them tasty with just the fat needed to cook it, plenty of people I know require at least a little (but sometimes copious amounts of) plant-based modification.
On the flip side, I only enjoy coffee with lots of cream and sugar. If I didn’t need the caffeine I might give it up completely.
Out of curiosity, are they delicious or are their rubs/seasonings/spices/sauces delicious?
Usually I eat my meat with only salt. Anything else distracts from the taste of the meat.
On the flip side, I only enjoy coffee with lots of cream and sugar
I drink black coffee. I used to drink it with milk and sugar when I was younger. When I was 17 I lived with my uncle for a few months and the guy was a coffee addict. He would drink like 3 or 4 full pots of coffee a day. Naturally, he would offer me coffee a lot and I started drinking a lot of coffee as well. Everytime I would put sugar/milk in my coffee he would call me a pussy. Say I’m being effeminate, couldn’t handle coffee, etc. So I started drinking it black lol.
Once you get used to it though, it’s better in my opinion. Coffee with sugar tastes gross to me. You can really taste the coffee when it’s black. I say try it out sometime. Maybe you’ll end up a convert too. Although I don’t think anybody is a pussy for not drinking coffee black. My uncle is a bit close minded / old school immigrant.
My personal limit is recreation, or having fun. So no cows, or pigs, horses or dogs or cats, mostly no mammals really. But also i wouldnt eat like a crow, or octopus.
They would have to be able to hold a conversation. Octopi are much, much smarter than cows, I will still happily eat them... though I feel a little guilty about that. Cows, though? No guilt.
That said, there is much tastier red meat to be had, if only we diversified our livestock. Kangaroo and Ostrich, in particular. And both of those animals are cold-blooded killers who deserve to be eaten.
Add comment