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The terrible rise of the butternut squash

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    The terrible rise of the butternut squash

    'it.

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      The terrible rise of the butternut squash

      It was a 'right-brained' association I made there.

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        The terrible rise of the butternut squash

        The Horse wrote:

        Right, but you keep trying to do it simply by repeating the statement (that humans are more important) as if it's self-evidently unconvincing.
        And also by arguing that from the point of vierw of a non human, it's less evident than it is from the point of view of a human; and also, that whatever one think on this matter actually isn't important. Even if I believed that humans were masters of the universe, I still wouldn't think that allowed them to eat animals. Humanity's importance is not the only argment being used by meat eaters, of course.

        Well, again you seem to object strongly to people trying to prove you wrong.
        What's wrong with them doing that?
        Nothing, but it's not something I feel that this particular form of arguing does. It hasn't worked. Maybe it's time to develop it a bit further.

        Fair enough. But asking the question isn't necessarily sneering - it's simply a test of the sort of thing SR was saying about being equally horrified by human and animal flesh. It raises questions about how horrified you are about ladybirds' deaths, and why you instinctively say that of course ladybirds aren't equal to humans, but struggle to say the same of cats. Where and how do you draw that line? These are all valid points of debate, but if you throw up your hands straight away and complain that you're being sneered at or patronised as soon as the question's raised, we don't get to deal with them.
        It isn't necessarily sneering. and it isn't necessarily not. I believed I had tried to point out that I was describing in general terms the way that this argument has often panned out in my exp[erience over the years, whilst talking to all sorts of people. I am so sorry that that wasn't obvious.

        Struggle to say the same of cats. No, cats aren't "the same" or "equal" to humans either, but I don't think that there is anything intrinsic in the nature of the world and the evolution of life on this planet that means one is better or more important or has more of a right to life than the other. I would love to hear what it is that would make a human objectively worth more than a cat that is not based on being human, or on this debate having to be held in human terms because we have no others. I would like to imagine that we were able to see it from outside of being human.

        Nobody did, though. What's the point of arguing against things nobody has said?
        Oh what's the point in being alive? I think it's a relevant issue. I think it is precisely because we *can* that we have, for example, battery chicken farms.

        Er, OK. It's very difficult to have any sort of discussion with someone this sensitive, I'm afraid.
        I only repeated the same terms you used first! I don't care what you call me or what you say to me, just for the record, but I do think that if you have said something I find dismissive, it's fair enough if i mention that. You in turn can then say whether it wasn't meant to be, or whatever. Not really actually that difficult at all.

        Then why characterise it as problematic?
        Depends on how you do it. As I've said before I think the 'equality' argument is a red herring, and find it less valid and therefore more annoying. I have to say that this is beginning to sound like angry nit-picking and a bit pointless. The issue is not whether or not anyone is allowed to argue.

        Again, that's just debate. I'm afraid someone who isn't sure whether they'd rescue a cat or a human from a fire because the human might not be "very nice" is quite surprising. But I didn't see anyone making "accusations", that's a hysterical slant on it.
        Let's just imagine that I wasn't being a bit sarcastic by saying it might be Pol Pot and pretend that I am indeed an enraged, purple in the face loon with no sense of perspective.

        Once again, I have had accusations made at me in the past. I don't feel, and apologies if anyone felt that I did, that anyone is making them today. I began this whole wearisome conversation back in what feels like 1987 now by saying that sometimes the debate goes like this and I find it a bit fraudulent as debates go. It seems to have mushroomed out of control just a bit and I'm making it worse AS I TYPE. Which is really the maddest part.

        The cat/human hypothetical is no good because there's another quite different hypothetical available, illustrating a different point? I don't follow.
        I believe I said it was less interesting, rather than no good.

        I never for a second suggested that you shouldn't, and it's a bit fucking cheeky to imply that I did. On the contrary, I'm actually wondering why you're so reluctant to argue back.
        I keep trying. I tried again at the top of this post. I think the arguments get a bit lost in this sea of pointless inner colonel quote madness, of which I am exactly as guilty, obviously.

        I don't think I can do this any more. I'm going to go to another board and talk about shoes and Cheryl Cole for a bit.

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          The terrible rise of the butternut squash

          Look, if you actually haven't got a problem with the way people have treated you on this thread, then fine, but how about not throwing around emotive terms like "pointing fingers", "accusations", "patronised" etc? Because, you know, with the best will in the world I'm not that interested in your previous debates, and it looked very much as if you were saying that this stuff was happening here and now.

          I would love to hear what it is that would make a human objectively worth more than a cat that is not based on being human
          You want someone to suggest qualities that make humans better than other creatures, without recourse to uniquely human qualities? Again, this is begging the question.

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            The terrible rise of the butternut squash

            As the resident hiker fanatic, I'd like to point out that sheep need a fair bit of care to survive in the semi-wild areas I see them roaming around. At the moment, you don't see many around because they've been herded (fascinating spectacle incidentally) and moved in barns because of the cold.

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              The terrible rise of the butternut squash

              The Horse wrote:
              You want someone to suggest qualities that make humans better than other creatures, without recourse to uniquely human qualities? Again, this is begging the question.
              Yeah, I think that's fair. I can't really imagine what an objective notion of "worth" might look like. As I say, though, I wouldn't base an ethic on a notion of "worth", except perhaps the "worth" of ethical claims.

              More generally, I can't really imagine a non-anthropocentric, "Martian" ethic: one in which the interests of, say, cats were treated in the same way as those of humans. I find it subjectively hard to imagine that anyone really cleaves to such an ethic, and I think if one were to exist and become current I shouldn't like it at all. I suspect it would have to be fought; perhaps literally fought. If people were serious about it, I think it would have consequences the rest of us couldn't bear. The missus'd be dead for a kickoff.

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                The terrible rise of the butternut squash

                Meat eaters did not start trying to draw non meater-eaters into comparisons between the comparative values humans and animals.

                SR's first post was clarified but in-between times others repeated his suggestions.

                I think it was perfectly fair to ask people to stop equivocating and state their feelings clearly because, they are two very different discussions.

                These threads always make me think and indeed this one has prompted decisions at home to try and have at least two non-meat dinners per week (sorry if that sounds like "some of my best friends are gay" type argument,it is not meant like that).

                However, if our dearly departed Cosby and one of our sons had been in the burning building then I would have gone to save the boy first, with no moral or ethical equivocation whatsoever. Even if it was not my son but a child molestor the human would have come first.

                Once the suggestion of equity is made I think it has to be expected that justification for that position would be sought.

                Edit: One thing I have been guilty of in the past, but which now jars with me, is the meat-eaters throwing in comments about which meat dish they have recently devoured. You can almost hear the sniggering.

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                  The terrible rise of the butternut squash

                  Speaking personally, that isn't how it's meant, though I can see how it comes across that way. It's more, I think, thinking about meat leading to thinking of meat, in a Homer Simpsom "Mmmmm, sacrelicious" stylee...

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                    The terrible rise of the butternut squash

                    Yeah, I mean the oxtail thing was simply that I was put in mind of off(-the-w)al(l) meat, and remembered that toro liked that sort of thing. I actually thought of him while I was cooking it, in fact.

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                      The terrible rise of the butternut squash

                      People have told me there's a certain resemblance.

                      But never twice.

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