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Humans aren't carnivores. We are (or, at least, most of us, the normal ones) are omnivores. There are a few herbivorous humans, but they're rather odd.

   

You mean, like the billions of people in South and East Asia?

   

What would have been cool in the Matrix is if he was offered another pill and moved up another level of simulation. If it follows that it is likely we are living in a simulation, then it follows that it is even more likely that we are living in a simulation of a simulation, and even more likely that we are living in a simulation of a simulation of a simulation.

You'd need a lot of pills.

   

Want to go tubing on the River Skai this afternoon?

   

Don't go any deeper without a life jacket.

   

Just to Ulthar and besides he has a silver key.

   

We know we're not living in a 'real' universe, since our senses are so limited. And our experience isn't just our brain taking in sense information and building experience out of that, but our brain expects to sense certain things and will shape experience out of the info coming in and this expectation. So we're a long way from reality there, such as that is.

Then, nobody seems to have solved the problem between quantum and Newtonian reality. Where is the boundary, what happens there?

Then there's the question of the unconscious mind, and the huge role it plays in our lives. Actions we think are consciously generated, actually come from the unconscious, we just like to think we're in control. We don't need more than one universe to know we're not living in reality.

   

   

Cute. I know a few vegans. There is a difference. vegetarians do not eat meat. That includes "meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish or by-products of slaughter". (Quoting from the Vegetarian Society webpage.)
Vegans: "Does not eat dairy products, eggs, or any other animal product."
Rationale is that milk does not involve killing an animal. In fact cows with full udders are uncomfortable, they need their milk drained. So dairy products are Ok. And non-fertilized eggs do not have an animal in them. And we don't eat eggs with an embryo; most people would consider that icky. So again, eating eggs does not involve killing anything.
But vegans obsess about dairy cattle are treated, and the fact many farmers kill calves for veal so they can sell all the cow's milk.

Within the Mars Society, we had one member who was a wanna-be vegan. He still ate meat, but talked about being vegan. And I know a couple ladies that are vegan. So I pointed out that a settlement on Mars would be vegan for a very long time. Any farm would require pressurized barns to house livestock, as well as air and water recycling. Manure would have to be recycled into fertilizer for a pressurized greenhouse to grow fodder (animal feed). Animals tend to eat the same food as humans, just less processed. Pigs eat the same food, cattle can eat straw but a feed lot provides grain. Chickens eat grain and insects. Because you can't grow crops or livestock "outside" on Mars, it's just more efficient to just eat the vegetable/grain directly. So I argued that Mars would remain vegan for a very long time.

But my meat eating friends didn't like that. So I pointed out once the Mars settlement was large, more than 1,000 settlers, would could afford to raise livestock. I had considered transporting fertilized chicken eggs in a refrigerator, not cold enough to kill the embryo, but cold enough to slow gestation. Then turn the fridge into an incubator to hatch the eggs on Mars. Turns out you can do this, but the maximum storage time is 6 weeks. Proportion of eggs that remain viable declines with each day in cold storage, after the maximum 6 weeks, very few are viable. But it takes 6 months to get to Mars. So that won't work. I had considered surgically removing the embryo from a fertilized chicken egg, freezing in liquid nitrogen, and keeping the egg in cold storage. On Mars thaw them, then put the embryo back in the egg. Freezing a whole egg could result in ice crystals that could destroy the embryo, but freezing human sperm in liquid nitrogen works. The trick is to freeze quickly, and keeping the thing small is key. Another Mars Society member suggested we try freezing whole fertilized chicken eggs in liquid nitrogen. See if it works anyway. That would be simpler. He was going to try it, but lost his little farm, so couldn't.

And there has been work on hybernation. Mice and rats go into hybernation with H2S gas at 60 ppm, plus elevated CO2, reduced O2, and ambient temperature dropped to +2°C. Body temperature dropped to that same temperature. When provided fresh air and warmed, the animals revived. It's been tried with a rabbit, required more H2S gas, and body temperature only dropped to +5°C, not +2°C, but it worked. Another researcher tried it with deer, elk, and moose. He replaced half the animal's blood volume with saline, and did all that other stuff too. It worked...sort of. 10% of the animals died, and of those that did survive, 30% had permanent brain damage. They became lethargic, would do nothing but stand around, eat, shit, and sleep. But for livestock restricted to a pressurized barn on Mars, that's a good thing. I suggested sending calves, just weaned from milk. The first cattle won't have any milk, so they have to eat grain. But calves to reduce body weight during transport. The 10% that die when you try to revive them, would provide a veal dinner for settlers. The calves would not have been force fed, just treated well in an attempt to start a herd, so the meat may taste like beef rather than veal. Either way, a good meal.

My vegan friends really didn't like it when I said that. They tried to argue that once Mars establishes the tradition of being vegan, it'll stay vegan. Eh, eat what you want. Either way meat will be expensive on Mars. After all this, a group from PETA approached Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, and demanded that Mars stay vegan. Elon had no idea where this came from. Said he isn't the overlord of Mars. I keep thinking that I'm the one who stirred up PETA. Oops! Sorry Elon.

One of the vegan ladies is my age and single. Well, when we met she led me to believe she was single. Turns out she has a boyfriend, he's just working out of town, and she was upset that he still eats meat. She wanted to spend time with me, but was disappointed when I didn't become vegan myself. I tried when around her, but just when around her. She didn't like the fact I haven't given up meat. But she hasn't given up on her out-of-town boyfriend either; he flies in every holiday. Frankly, she's very pretty but not good enough to give up meat.

   

"So again, eating eggs does not involve killing anything."

At an egg producing farm, baby chicks that are male are picked up off a conveyor belt and dropped into a shredder.

Male chickens won't lay any eggs.

   

Eggs sold in the grocery store are not fertilized. I've talked to people who bought eggs directly from farmers, decades ago before all the automation equipment it was possible for a fertilized egg to get through. Customers who cracked open an egg with an embryo were grossed out. Egg "candling" is shining a light through the egg to look for that embryo. So eggs in the grocery store do not involve killing anything.

But yea, the industry does keep chickens in conditions optimal for egg collection. Some people have objected to that. And they do keep vast numbers of egg laying chickens, and typically just one or two roosters for a farm of tens of thousands of chickens. Roosters motivate the chickens to lay. So when they hatch a batch of eggs to produce the next generation of chickens, they do select by gender. Vegans care about that.

I think chicken burgers are tasty and affordable. Safeway carries Sunrise Farms Chicken Burgers for $2.99 for a 1kg bag of 10 burgers. Other burgers cost between $6 to $24 for a package the same size. Most things at Safeway are more expensive than other large grocery stores, but this one is affordable. The cheap one is mush; don't thaw them, just throw frozen burgers directly in a frying pan. They're mechanically de-boned chicken. And they don't have breading, instead mixed with bread crumbs so fine the crumbs are not distinguishable. Chicken burgers with actual texture are more expensive. The cheap ones are still meat, and cheap. Mmm.

   

I don't see what all the fuss is about.

Being on the top of the food chain is not so bad when you consider the alternative.

   

^^ This. And while it's true that hens have a 2 year reprieve from the slaughter house, it's not a fun 2 years. It actually stops being fun about 30 seconds after they are separated between the sexes.



Untrue. The males are killed almost immediately.

   

I didn't explain it well enough.

Egg farmers require hens, not roosters. So whether they raise their own stock of hens, or buy chicks from a hatchery, male chicks are not required.

So all of the new chicks are sent down a conveyor belt and the male chicks are picked out by hand to be dropped into a shredder.

This leaves you with just female chicks (future egg-laying hens) to raise and feed.

So the production of eggs does require killing.

I like bringing this up to vegetarians.

   

I said there are two ways of producing eggs. One lets the rooster do his thing, resulting in fertilized eggs. Those are not sold in the grocery store, they are strictly for hatching. Then there are hens that are kept separate from roosters. When I was a child we had a field trip to a Hutterite farm. They had a barn of chickens with hens in wire cages. The rooster was allowed to fly free inside the barn. He could fly back and forth over the hens, but never have direct contact. So the eggs wouldn't be fertilized, so no embryo. Those eggs are sold to grocery stores.

   

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