Randy - "you" don't create anything. The PMR VR evolves and there is a possibility for a learning experience for a consciousness for that decision space. You seem to think that by saying "you" create a chicken it somehow gives you some right over that consciousness.

That level of decision space may be equal to a consciousness that was a dog in one life and then experiences one as a chicken. You wouldn't eat your dog but you have no problems with controlling the life of a chicken and then killing it to eat it.

Look at any critter as a consciousness having an experience packet equal to their level of decision space. I believe they have a right to experience that life as something other than a food or pelt animal if you have another choice for those needs.

I had a friend once that had about 25 chickens as pets. He knew all their names and they all liked to be picked up and handled. One night he had put all the chickens up in the barn and we were in the house talking. One of the chickens had missed being put in the barn and a few minutes later she came up to the back door and loudly told him all about it.

All farm animal sensor platforms are created by the intent of the farmer to breed them

The intent to provide this sensor platform opportunity, should be part of the ethics discussion

Having chickens as pets is a red herring argument...it is not a choice between chickens as pets vs chickens as food....

The choice is between chickens furnishing their bodies as eventual food, and no chickens.

The IUOC just moves to another platform. We are just eating the discarded virtual carcass.

The core question has to be, how does the chicken IUOC feel about this?

I am providing hundreds of incarnation opportunities through my chicken eating.

The chicken's view of this might be....don't try to be friends with me if that is going to make you squeamish about doing your duty

Just because killing an animal makes you feel squeamish, does not mean it is bad intent

The surgeon may choose to not become too friendly with the patient

Put down my dog last year...perhaps one of the worst experiences of my life, but she will thank me for it eventually

I am just wondering if vegetarianism reflects a limited way of viewing things, and does not fully embrace the implications of MBTOE

I realise Tom is not friendly to this line of thinking.

If the act of creating sensor platforms has no value, because sensor platforms are not scarce, and given the practical impossibility of ensuring animals are dealt with humanely...it is for these reasons I think vegetarianism, actually, veganism, may hold together logically.

As we have discussed, non-vegan vegetarianism, the eating of animal products, does not get you out of the killing element

--

another way of looking at it is that furnishing a carcass, is what chickens do for a living...it is their profession.

On Downton Abbey, the wise good Earl is frustrated with his heir, who is a middle class lawyer who despises the elitism of the upper classes.

He refuses to let his Valet take care of him. The Valet is very frustrated, bored, and concerned about the security of his job.

The Earl explains to the young heir that the Valet is trained to do this job, chose this job, enjoys his job, and it is arrogant and selfish of the Heir to not let him do his job.

In the next scene we see the heir allowing the Valet to dress him and take care of his clothing, and the heir compliments him on his skills, and the Valet is once again happy and comfortable, and proud of his role in the institution.

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?

Do you not remember discussing this very thing at the get together with Tom in Charlotte last year?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJI68YgN ... re=related

1:42 in.

What is your level of awareness?

Kroeran,



You could say the same about meat eaters. Keep that in mind.



This made me think of something I have never thought of before. Searched for it and found this...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/1 ... 69135.html

Have you ever thought of this as an option for humane meat consumption in the near future? What if we could make it so animals didn't feel pain at all, that would be a game changer, right? Then it would be like killing a huge bug for food :D

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I eat ego's for breakfast!
Sincerely, Ego.

Yes of course, and I disclosed above that I am offside to Tom on this

Happily, we are not yet a fundamentalist religion bound by every literal word from Tom's mouth

You yourself are offside to Tom's guidance on this, by being a strict vegetarian

My intent is to fully dissect this issue and get at the fundamentals, and analyze them from every perspective, including the implications of MBTOE

While I suspect Tom is 99.9 percent accurate with physics, if he is human, he will be less than 99% accurate in fields that he has had limited interest, and if we are to be a science based consciousness ecology, which is Tom's stated intent, and not a faith based religion, revealed by the founder, all statements and positions must be able to stand the scrutiny of field professionals and be consistent with the model.

My position is that we need to get beyond the "animals don't come here to be eaten" statement, and flush this out in more detail, so that intent may become increasingly effective.

What I am seeking is a bullet proof philosophical basis for Tom's position, that will stand the laugh test with animal welfare professionals.

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?

When it is done correctly, with state of the art practices, the animals experience zero pain.

I myself have seen a hog kill line and seen the hogs go through the process. They are made unconscious with a gas, and then are killed.

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?

Bawk. :)

Hey do you know why chickens don't wear underwear?
Because their pecker is on their face.

Love
Bette

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All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

I overlooked the practice of using gas. That seems better than trying to change an animals physical make up. I agree with you.

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I eat ego's for breakfast!
Sincerely, Ego.

How have I never heard that one before?! That is great.

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I eat ego's for breakfast!
Sincerely, Ego.

Thank you Lumpy, I try. :)
Love
Bette

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All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

I think the difference between what we are talking about, Randy, is that you look at it as a chicken with consciousness. I look at a consciousness experiencing a PMR life as a chicken. It is society that decides which animal is suitable for eating. While we don't eat dogs the Koreans do. Pigs are much smarter than dogs yet dogs are our companion animals and pigs are food.

By the way - they started gassing pigs before slaughter because pigs would get so scared they would freeze up breaking bones and ruin the meat. Pigs as many animals going to slaughter have to be handled very carefully because they appear to know what is going on and get very scared. Thus all the new technology about winding ramps and so on.

How do you decide what animal is suitable and what animal isn't? All life is consciousness experiencing the PMR in ways that correspond to their ability to manage decision space.

When you understand this you limit your interference to other life form's ability to evolve as much as you can.

If you don't think there is a difference then raise a dog and slaughter and eat it. There isn't any difference. You are justifying for yourself because you like the taste of meat.

Well, actually I just had a wonderful tasting bean soup from Whole Foods. Such discussions puts this issue in front of mind, so that slice of procuiotto in the fridge gets to live another day.

Where I come down on this personally, is the animal welfare efficiency argument....which is that it is just too much trouble to ensure the animal was treated properly. I believe this argument cannot be broken from any direction.

No, I am not particularly attached to eating meat pleasure wise...unlike my pleasure attachment to coffee and wine.

I really enjoy my legume soup lunches, but I have not yet figured out the correct proportions to stay out of digestive distress ;- )

For dinners, we have figured out the Joel Fuhrman-ian "salad is the main meal ", but we have drifted due to sloppiness and social pressures

I have a neuropathy that might be aggravated by low normal B-12 and iron, and after messing up my system with supplements, I am defaulting to red meat to see if that will help

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?

I recommend to you all the book, Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé, which goes back to 1971 publication. As it says on the cover of my old paperback copy, it is about 'How to enjoy a rich protein harvest by getting off of the top of the food chain'. Here is a web site http://smallplanet.org/ for their organization. There may be a better and newer publication available but this book has a great deal of discussion of what are known as complementary proteins. Foods that you can eat together so that the amino acids provided in total make a complementary and more complete protein profile so that you achieve a better nutrition over all without the necessity of animal protein to provide that same kind of protein quality. It is basically the kind of approach we will all be forced to if all 7 billion plus of us are to make it. If you get this or a similar book, you will see that the traditional dietary combinations of many societies fall into this kind of complementary protein category. It was not for no reason that traditional societies instinctively worked them out as proper diets. I am talking about things like beans and corn or fish and rice.

It can be better for you as well as cheaper. And it eliminates the need for animal protein which will only become more and more expensive and probably of lower and lower quality with GM foods being fed to more and more livestock and GM fish being bred and probably eventually, GM mammals. I have largely moved in this direction as it is what I can afford. I will probably have to move more into this direction as time goes on and do crock pot cooking instead of the microwave with prepared foods, little as I eat of that now. I will have to re read that book or a similar source soon myself.

It would be of value to us all if someone were to take it upon themselves to investigate and see if there is an updated and more valuable new version of this book. There are clearly a number of new books by this author but I do not have time to review them all and see if there is a better version and more up to date information.

Ted

I am battling a runaway small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (amongst other things). Those very same antagonistic bacteria feed on any kind of grain/starch/complex carb so anything containing those are out of the equation for me.

Therefore, meat has to be the staple of my diet.

Am I still a bad person now?

Or does it suddenly become OK since I will starve to death if I don't eat meat?

I think the general message of Tom regarding meat, apart from NPMR clarity issues, is that it is disrespectful to animals, and that at higher levels of quality, this becomes increasingly problematic in terms of feedback.

The other general message is that TOEism is a value-system which points to your personal feedback, not an externally imposed ruleset, apart from the one rule, which is to

-> pay attention to your own conscience for what to do at the next DELTA(t) of significance. <-

One may choose to adopt practises of persons who you think are lower entropy than yourself, for example, you may choose to reduce meat consumption, but this is initially at the mental level. The proof is in the pudding, when you personally experience feedback from this experiment, or not.

Refraining from sugar is very different than refraining from eating organic chicken. The former is entirely selfish, and relates to personal clarity, the latter relates to interaction with conciousness, and is primarily an issue of quality and feedback.

==

I don't think anyone can really know if they are a bad person or not, in the way you mean.

Your mom/sister/last-girlfriend could probably tell you, if you seriously want to know. ; - )

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Interestingly, the Trappists, or at least the ones at Snowmass Co., are mostly vegetarian, but they will generally eat meat when ill, having found that it reduces recovery time.

I remember being startled on my walk around, ... behind one door there was a modern battery cage egg factory.

http://www.snowmass.org/

I was puzzled about what these sort of guys were all about - but now I see that monasticism is the perfect lifestyle for buzzing around in NPMR, and I think that is what they are up too.

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?