The fox and chicken paradox
- Thread starter Ted Grant II
- Start date
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Seems you missed the qualification of "most humans". It would seem grossly unfair to be selective about "moral conduct". As a boy, would stealing an apple from someone's orchard land you in hell?
Would not put vegetarians down as evil
I would say misguided
If all humans in the world became vegetarians currently not enough land growing enough plants to sustain current world population
Doing it slowly would still require massive increase in vegetable growing land
I would expect a lowering of
- life expectancy
- energy levels
- increase in infectious disease due to body lower resistance
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Yep, the exponential function in all it's glory, unless we switched to "Soylent Greens"...Would not put vegetarians down as evil
I would say misguided
If all humans in the world became vegetarians currently not enough land growing enough plants to sustain current world population
Doing it slowly would still require massive increase in vegetable growing land
I would expect a lowering of
- life expectancy
- energy levels
- increase in infectious disease due to body lower resistance
Vociferous
Valued Senior Member
Again, does "able" mean "will" or "must"?
Moral judgement about foxes killing chickens.
Intelligence implies the capacity for judgement in general.
Things that "just are" become things that are deemed "good" or "bad".
I agree about the metaphor of the expulsion from Eden. We went from accepting things as they were to changing them, based on our judgement of good, useful, etc..
The only selective part is the individual's conduct.
Isn't there a measure of intent involved in "eternal damnation"?
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Does it make a difference? All things feed on each other. They always have, starting billions of years ago. Why should humans be punished for that which is fundamental.
The problem, IMO, does not lie in survival techniques, but in "greed" which seems peculiar to humans only. It is greed which is depleting the ecosphere and will be punished, not by God but by by Natural Law itself. Its all in the mathematics. Take too much now, later you will run short.
There is actually an expression "strenght through exhaustion". Therein lies our "mortal sin".
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Vociferous
Valued Senior Member
Why would humans be punished for foxes killing chickens?
What ever happen to peak oil?
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
A friend of mine once stopped me in my tracks, with a line of argument that had never occurred to me.
We had been arguing about the wisdom of going vegetarian. I argued at great length with her about the fact that
- we evolved to be meat eaters, and
- it's a normal part of our diet, and
- another zillion reasons to keep the status quo about eating meat, and
- being top predators and
- having the brains to mold the world the way we see fit.
And she said:
Because we can.
And I realized that our giant brains gave us ability to manipulate our environment as we saw fit. And that door swings both ways.
It did not mean that I realized we should become vegetarians, but I realized that - yes, we are a whole new animal in the universe. One that is not ruled by our bellies or our genes, but my our brains. And we can choose to do with it what we will. And if we come to a place where we decide not to raise animals just to slaughter them for meat, we could do that too.
I realized it was silly to argue as if we are still hide-wearing, spear-carrying plains wanderers. Our civilization will be what we make it. We cannot escape it or ignore that right and responsibility. If we choose to remain meat-eaters, it will be a conscious choice. But it will be a choice.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Do they? Hunting and killing foxes used to be a favorite pastime for the elite. We kill chickens for food, nobody gets damned for eating a chicken sandwich.
We're long past that and on the downslope of recoverable oil. It's estimated that in 40 years we will run out of crude oil and will be forced to use a different energy source. If we switch to electrical energy generated with coal, the same thing will happen eventually.
Remember the phrase "limited resource", which means exactly that. When the recoverable limit is reached the resource will be exhausted for practical use. This is the result of the Law of exponential function .
Vociferous
Valued Senior Member
Not as far a I know.
No idea where you're trying to go with this.
Oh, so there's a new peak oil prediction.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Indeed, our very intelligence is a double edged sword.
As atheist I can endorse this serenity prayer;
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
When has a human been punished for a wild fox eating a chicken? Who do you sue, the fox?
As long as we have a steady population growth we will be increasing oil production, but at cost of longevity, it's all in the maths.
I have linked this several times before, but it bears repeating:
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Vociferous
Valued Senior Member
I don't get it. Did someone argue that?
But new technology, like fracking and electric cars. Also declining birth rates (even below replacement rates) in many countries.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Your original post seemed to suggest it. Perhaps I misunderstood you.
I covered that in the qualification of "recoverable oil".
Where do you think our main resource of electricity comes from (especially in the eastern states)? Coal!
This will be my last post on this subject. It belongs in another subforum.
As to fracking, why do you think we are resorting to fracking? It's because the wells are running low.
(btw) Fracking is an extraction process and just another way of depleting our natural resources. And a dangerous one at that. Actually it is mainly used for extraction of natural gas.
The world population is still growing at 1% which means a doubling time of 70 years (1 lifetime)
http://www.worldometers.info/
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/apr/21/oilandpetrol.news
Of course "current consumption rates" is a misleading statement because it will go up as the world's population grows.
Watch the Bartlett lecture and read The Guardian link! It's really worth the time.
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sowhatifit'sdark
Valued Senior Member
Right, that's why I used it as an example. If it did show that, my using it as an example would have been very odd. Heck, one could own a fox and a chicken, or a dog and chicken, dogs being larger canines than foxes. And this would not prove the owner was insane or dumb. Very different even opposing types of inventions, products, could serve the purposes of one agent. Which contradicts the OP. The OP is a poor argument. It makes no sense. Someone should only create things that are alike in temperment, skills, activity. Nah. Humans, even very smart ones, do not limit themselves this way, why should a deity?
What a deity would never want a complicated ecosystem? It would rather have, say, just a giant glob of one bacteria? What a bizarre assumption the OP is making.
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sowhatifit'sdark
Valued Senior Member
If you eat animals, you are causing the deaths of more plants than if you are a vegetarian, since the animals we raise to eat, themselves eat a lot of plants - per pound of edible protein, for example. So we grow plants to feed to the animals we are going to eat. So actually a vegetarian is causing less animal death AND less plant death through their eating.
That is so a breakfast prayer.
:EDIT:
I'm hungry. Bacon... Beer... Me no think, me eat.
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Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Meat can be smoked and stored for winter when food is in short supply.
Eskmos eat almost exclusively meat and blubber during winter. A moral sin?
Human sin is that we have not learned to live within the dictates of natural seaons without the use of polluting gadgets to compensate for our fragile and vulnerable bodies.
Vociferous
Valued Senior Member
Yes, I think you did. I wasn't talking about god's moral judgement. Just human moral judgement about things like killing for food.