A discussion on TFES forum

[brimstoneSalad]

Have you actually seen the video?
Cenk isn't just sharing his opinions; he's using the literal texts of the report and quotes.

Here's the link again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y9OwdlHm00

After seeing how he treated Sam Harris, I don't trust him not to cherry pick and quote things out of context. It's very easy to manipulate people's words to make them look like they're lying, and misrepresent them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQqxlzHJrU0
The original interview with Cenk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4Vlc5u46PA
(I believe Cenk went right back to misrepresenting him and giving a platform to slander right after the interview)

I agree that it's probably a mix, but it's pretty clear to me they were lying due to their own interests. Why else would they lie so significantly?

Correlation does not equal causation. It's possible they look for reasons to attack people because they're pro-war (and think war solves problems), and they're involved with military contractors because they are also pro-war (for the same moral reasons/misconceptions).
More money is a very weak motivator for people who are already ridiculously rich.

This is a serious problem in politics which is controlled for in science.

What?

Politics is not scientific: that's the problem with it. We can't really make any strong claims in that space.

[teo123]

Your biology teachers are not registered dietitians; they are not educated in the subject, and are no more qualified to advise you on diet than they are to perform open heart surgery.

And how much do you know about the subject? Do you know anything more than what's learned in school? For example, if the large intestine absorbs water, and it takes hours for what we have swallowed to get there, how come do we stop being thirsty immediately after we drink a glass of water?

Registered Dieticians (in the U.S., Canada, and some of Europe) are qualified to offer diet advice, but not prescribe medication or perform surgeries.

Well, my father says that, when I told him that I am a vegetarian, he asked a dietician about it, and that he said that it's good but that it's important for me to continue to consume dairy. I was very surprised by that, I used to think that every single dietitian supports veganism.

Two registered dietitians who specialize in offering advice to vegans.

And what about, you know, "secular" dietitians? Let's hear the other side. What do other dietitians think about veganism?

If you just want to be seen as "normal" and you want to eat cheese because you can't be bothered to sacrifice a little taste in order to do the right thing, don't make other excuses for it by trying to claim veganism is unhealthy.

Hey, it's not just cheese. I never actually used to like meat, but I've always liked poached eggs, ice creams, cakes, chocolate milk, muesli, and so on. Why should I give all of them up? Because of some nonsensical explanations of how not eating them could help the economy and animal rights? Because of a few discredited studies claiming that milk causes autism, allergies and osteoporosis and that eggs cause heart disease?
OK, I admit, it can be that I've only heard one part of the story (from the vegan bloggers). But, let's face it, it may be that I've only heard one part of the story about the shape of the Earth and that the Earth is actually flat. Is that a right way of thinking?

If you can't find supplements (which are better), you could eat oysters which are probably not sentient, if your parents insist you eat some animal products.

Are you kidding me? Who could afford to eat sea food every day?

Have you visited the farms in a surprise inspection to confirm all of this, rather than a guided tour where they show you the cleanest places and best cared for animals?

Well, I often see those animals graze when I go to school, so I can be pretty certain they aren't kept in small cages all their lives, as you claimed they are. As for whether they are happy, how could we know? And the claim that they are abused is an extraordinary claim and, as such, requires extraordinary evidence. Saying that they are abused because we don't have evidence to the contrary is an extreme case of argument from ignorance. It says that people who keep animals are guilty until proven innocent.

Even if people didn't eat it, they'd still kill these animals because they don't want to waste money feeding them and caring for them once they don't produce anymore.

And why couldn't they just set them free and not waste money killing them?

Stop trying to draw your own conclusions. You're very bad at it.

Do you have any idea how insulting you are?

You can't trust them except on their particular subjects of expertise (none of whom have experience in nutrition or are registered dietitians).

Well, you are obviously an expert in physics. Why should you be trusted about nutrition then? Obviously, this isn't a right way of thinking.

It's from the ADA.

What's ADA? Why is it to be trusted?

With proper planning, you can get all of the PROs with none of the cons.

Why should I take the risk? If it's associated with the vegan diet, it means that vegans are way more likely to get those deficiencies than non-vegans. I don't have the knowledge needed to carefully plan my diet, so I am just as likely to get those deficiency as other vegans are.

They defined vegetarian diets as including total vegetarian, or vegan diets.

Oh, sorry, I didn't know that. I assumed that total vegetarian diet excludes fish.

You need to be a little less skeptical of others' behavior.

And why is everyone else skeptical? Could it be that they have good reasons to be skeptical? You said I should be skeptical of dragons, but not of the equally crazy sounding airplanes, because everyone else is skeptical about dragons but not about the airplanes, right?
Or is it scientific consensus that the cows and chickens feel bad when you take their children or eggs away? I don't know. I know that until a few years ago, there was no consensus about whether they are even sentient.

Supply and demand is like this: Price = Demand / Supply

Well, since the supply equals demand, then the price should always be equal to one, according to your own logic. Are we using those words in the same way? The general rule I've learned by being in the school is that if something really really doesn't make any sense, that it has to be that you misunderstood it.

Bigger supply with the same demand means a lower price. Lower demand with the same supply means a lower price.

That makes no sense, supply and demand are always equal. And if both of them are high, the price is lower. That's why plant food or water today is inexpensive. And if both of them are low, as is for gold or oil, the price is higher. Now, if there are no domesticated animals, both the supply and demand of the plant food will go down, so the price is going to go higher. I don't know anything about economics, I am just applying the most basic common sense.

Why is she in jail?
Why hadn't you seen your father for seven years until now?

Well, she didn't let me see my father for seven years, until she ended up in jail. She is a teacher and she got fired from a school because she psychologically abused students there. When she was, after that, sued by my father for psychologically abusing another child, that is, me, she was accused and ended up in jail for a year. He was suing her for all those seven years, but nobody reacted to it until recently.

[brimstoneSalad]

And how much do you know about the subject? Do you know anything more than what's learned in school? For example, if the large intestine absorbs water, and it takes hours for what we have swallowed to get there, how come do we stop being thirsty immediately after we drink a glass of water?

Take five minutes to search a subject before assuming it's not understood:
http://sweatscience.com/how-quickly-is-water-absorbed-after-you-drink-it/
http://explainedhealth.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-absorb-water-into-the-body/

Several articles have reported on a study that followed the water with deuterium.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21997675

Of course I know more about nutrition than your biology teacher. I probably know more about biology than your biology teacher (which is not the same as nutrition).

If your biology teacher told you that bats and birds were closely related because they both have wings, and that dogs and lizards are closely related because they both walk on four legs, it would at least be reasonable for you to question be on that because such a claim IS within her area of expertise.
Her making claims on nutrition is like her giving you the "correct" interpretation of Shakespeare: it has little to nothing to do with her field of study, and she's not qualified to do it. Her opinions on the subject should mean only as much to you as those of your grandmother.

I'm citing scientific consensus and credible authorities on the subject. That's all you should have to know to believe what I'm saying (believe what scientific consensus in nutrition says).

Questioning that is just insulting and irritating. You might as well say "Well my grandma said the Earth was created by god, so all the scientists are wrong". There is an astronomical gulf in knowledge and qualification between the two.

Well, my father says that, when I told him that I am a vegetarian, he asked a dietician about it, and that he said that it's good but that it's important for me to continue to consume dairy. I was very surprised by that, I used to think that every single dietitian supports veganism.

1. Not every dietitian supports veganism. Some of them are wrong or crazy, like anybody can be. There are also physicists who believe bizarre things like that the universe was created by god. Individuals can easily be wrong, it is the professional consensus (making up the overwhelming majority) that agree that a properly planned vegan diet is healthy.
If you look hard enough in some shitty unaccredited religious school in a shitty medieval region, you can probably even find a biologist who believes in Intelligent design: the opinion of a single outlier doesn't mean anything to consensus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus

2. Dietitian isn't a protected term everywhere. In some countries, anybody can use the term, and the educational requirements are very low or non-existent (you can just bestow the title on yourself in some places). In the U.S. and Canada it is a protected term, which means only people with enough education can use it.
http://eatrightdc.org/dietitian-vs-nutritionist/

The title “Dietitian” is protected by law in many countries such as Canada, USA, South Africa, Australia, and the UK.

If you do not live in one of those countries, "dietitian" may not mean anything, and may not indicate a meaningful level of education on the topic.

3. The person your father talked to is probably concerned about your calcium intake. Ask your father to take you to talk to this "dietitian" directly to ask questions, and find out why this person thinks you should consume dairy. You may also want to find out what his qualifications really are.

And what about, you know, "secular" dietitians? Let's hear the other side. What do other dietitians think about veganism?

I already posted the consensus several times.

Basic overview on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegan_nutrition

ADA (USA): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864
Dietitians of Canada too: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12778049

UK: https://www.bda.uk.com/foodfacts/vegetarianfoodfacts.pdf

Summary
Well-planned vegetarian [again, including vegan by definition] diets are appropriate for all stages of life and have many benefits. These guidelines will help you enjoy all
the health benefits and ensure you’re eating a nutritious and complete diet.

Australia: http://daa.asn.au/for-the-public/smart-eating-for-you/nutrition-a-z/vegan-diets/

VEGAN DIETS ARE A TYPE OF VEGETARIAN DIET, WHERE ONLY PLANT-BASED FOODS ARE EATEN. THEY DIFFER TO OTHER VEGETARIAN DIETS IN THAT NO ANIMAL PRODUCTS ARE USUALLY CONSUMED OR USED. DESPITE THESE RESTRICTIONS, WITH GOOD PLANNING IT IS STILL POSSIBLE TO OBTAIN ALL THE NUTRIENTS REQUIRED FOR GOOD HEALTH ON A VEGAN DIET.

The page continues to say pretty much the same thing every other outline says, and then recommends visiting an accredited dietitian.

South Africa: Their site is terrible and has broken links when I try to view much of their material. One would expect about the same thing as the others.

Other countries don't necessarily have credible dietetic organizations.
You can find the same information, also, from health bodies of Western governments.

http://www.todaysdietitian.com/newarchives/082510p20.shtml
There are a number of vegan and non-vegan dietitians and experts contributing in this article.
Read the entire thing.

[brimstoneSalad]

Most of the rest of your post has achieved a level of stupidity and ignorance (such as on economics) you haven't reached since your were a flat Earther, but this one point was sensible:

I don't have the knowledge needed to carefully plan my diet, so I am just as likely to get those deficiency as other vegans are.

No, you don't. Which is why I linked you to all of those sources.
Believe it or not, and even though you are incredibly irritating and arrogant, we do have your best interests in mind and don't want you to be deficient in anything.
A deficient vegan is a bad example of veganism, and makes veganism look bad. We want you to be a healthy vegan.

I have repeatedly explained the basics of vegan nutrition, and those links in the prior post also echo this information.

Use this site: https://cronometer.com/
You can input what you're eating, and it looks up the data in the USDA database to tell you how much of various nutrients you are getting.

Post your results in a new thread on the forum.
If you have any problems, even specific to your country or situation, we can help you.

We know more than you do about vegan nutrition, because we have read up on these sources, and we are familiar with nutritional guidelines and the nutritional content of foods in a way that neither you nor your biology teacher are.

You are not alone in this. We are here to help.

I even said somebody would send you B12 supplements if it came to it.

I corrected your ignorance and misinformation on physics, and I can do the same on nutrition. Nutrition is not rocket science, it's mostly basic algebra and just following a few simple rules which are outlined in the sites I already linked you to.

http://www.theveganrd.com/7-habits-of-happy-healthy-vegans

Well, you are obviously an expert in physics. Why should you be trusted about nutrition then? Obviously, this isn't a right way of thinking.

I know about as much about nutrition as I do about physics. But when I don't know something, do you know what I do? I look it up from credible expert sources.

Being smart is often more about knowing what you don't know, and quoting people who know more than you do. You just need to know enough to be able to tell experts apart from quacks.
Trust the Ginny Messinas and Jack Norrises, not the Freelees and Durian Riders.

Don't come to your own conclusions about these things.
If you aren't sure if something is credible or not, you can post on the forum and we'll help you figure it out.

[brimstoneSalad]

Why should I give all of them up? Because of some nonsensical explanations of how not eating them could help the economy and animal rights?

1. There are vegan versions of these things, and if they aren't available near you, you just need to learn to cook for yourself.

2. It's not nonsensical, asshole. It doesn't make sense to YOU, like airplanes and rockets, because of your profound ignorance on the topic of economics and psychology. That doesn't mean you should reject them.

Given my track record of being right about 99% of the time, you should just believe what I say and work instead on humbly trying to understand economics and animal psychology rather than ignorantly contradicting me.

Because of a few discredited studies claiming that milk causes autism, allergies and osteoporosis and that eggs cause heart disease?
OK, I admit, it can be that I've only heard one part of the story (from the vegan bloggers).

No, you've only heard part of the story from pesudoscience bloggers. Milk doesn't cause autism or osteoporosis. Although many people are allergic TO milk (which is caused by milk obviously), I don't see why it would cause other allergies.

Eggs can contribute to heart disease due to the high levels of cholesterol, but the signal to noise ratio is low, since the contribution of a single egg is not very large and eggs may help people reduce consumption of other animal products. This is a more complicated issue due to confounding variables in epidemiological studies; in essence, by the cost-benefit analysis.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/eggs/

You need to learn to distinguish between legitimate information and quackery, and understand the nuance and complexity of dietary change that involves displacement and opportunity cost. None of these are things you have a grasp on right now.

If you want to understand these things, you need to ask instead of telling and making assumptions.

Jack Norris and Ginny Messina, who I linked you to multiple times, don't make inaccurate claims like those other less credible vegan bloggers.

But, let's face it, it may be that I've only heard one part of the story about the shape of the Earth and that the Earth is actually flat. Is that a right way of thinking?

There are legitimate science based experts who are vegan, and quacks who are vegan. You've apparently only read from the latter, and that's making you suspect of all claims.

It's as if you learned that the Earth wasn't flat, and then decided it must be a hypersphere instead ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersphere ).
Just because one claim is wrong or exaggerated doesn't mean you should go to the opposite extreme and assume that milk and eggs are healthy or nutritionally essential, and that cows and chickens are happy to make them and die for you.

If you can't find supplements (which are better), you could eat oysters which are probably not sentient, if your parents insist you eat some animal products.

Are you kidding me? Who could afford to eat sea food every day?

Did you even check the price, or are you just making assumptions again?

Canned oysters. You'd need a half an ounce a day.
Something like this: http://www.iherb.com/Crown-Prince-Natur ... 26-g/27588
That would be enough B12 for over two weeks if you just eat a little each day.

A supplement would be cheaper, but that wouldn't be very expensive. Can you not afford 0.19 euros a day?

And I'll repeat AGAIN, which you have ignored AGAIN: I said somebody would send you B12 if you really couldn't find it. That would be free for you.

Well, I often see those animals graze when I go to school, so I can be pretty certain they aren't kept in small cages all their lives, as you claimed they are.

If you see chickens grazing, that is highly irregular.

Chickens and veal calves are usually kept more confined. Beef cows are usually put out to pasture to graze for some time before being sent for finishing (which is confined in pens or feedlots) and then to slaughter.

Here's some U.S. beef industry propaganda that spells it out (definitely NOT a vegan source):
beefusa.org/uDocs/Feedlot%20finishing%20fact%20sheet%20FINAL_4%2026%2006.pdf

Cattle are raised on range or pasture land for most of their lives (usually 12-18 months), then
transported to a feedlot for finishing. These cattle usually spend about three to six months in a feedlot,
during which time they gain between 2.5 and 4 pounds per day. The cattle are fed a scientifically
formulated ration that averages 70 percent to 90 percent grain. On this special diet, cattle will gain
about 1 pound for every 6 pounds of feed they consume.
In the feedlot, cattle live in pens that house between 100 and 125 other animals and allow about 125 to
250 square feet per animal. Each animal has about 1 foot of space at the feed bunk during feeding,
which normally takes place twice a day. Cattle always have access to water in the feedlot.

If you can read (which you've shown yourself to not be good at), you can see the way they phrase all of that stuff is propaganda.
That is, they usually spend around 12 months (18 being their charitable extreme) on pasture, and around six months in a confined feedlot.
For every two cows you see on pasture, there's probably one confined getting fattened up for around 1/3rd of her life, and ready for slaughter as a child (one and a half years old).
On the feedlot they often only have 125 square feet of space per animal (cows are much larger than humans, you can do the math on that yourself).

As for whether they are happy, how could we know?

Hey, maybe slaves are happy, so we should keep slaves, right? How do you know? Unless you can prove slaves are unhappy, you should be pro-slavery.
Is that your idea of sensible reasoning?
You assume something you are exploiting is happy until proven otherwise?

The people who kill them claim they're happy. Do you find that credible? These are farmers who want to sell a product, and think god gave man animals to eat.

If you had a gun, and you didn't know if it was loaded or not, because it wasn't proved it was loaded, is it then OK to point that gun at somebody and pull the trigger?

You need to answer that question. Don't avoid it. This is what you're doing to animals. You don't know if they're suffering or not, but you're going ahead and doing it anyway.

If you are possibly harming an animal, and you don't know, then you should err on the side of caution and not do it.
In ignorance, you prefer to risk harming animals rather than just to abstain from it in case they are harmed, this is not ethical.
We should not risk harming others out of ignorance.

And the claim that they are abused is an extraordinary claim and, as such, requires extraordinary evidence.

Stop being such an idiot. And you're not just being an idiot now, you're being cruel too, because your idiocy is in defence of harmful practices now. The treatment of animals is both well documented, and supported by governmental and NGO organizations IN THE INDUSTRY.

https://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/P ... 0Sheet.pdf
https://www.aecl.org/assets/RD-files/Ou ... Report.pdf

"Animal abuse" is not an extraordinary claim. It's not the claim that somebody has flown on a dragon; it's the use of standard practice, and inevitable malpractice from underpaid, undersupervised, and uneducated workers.
The idea that there is not any animal abuse in the industry is an extraordinary claim.

Errors are made in every manufacturing process, and raising and slaughtering animals is no different. Except you don't just get a defective product like a pencil without an eraser or a broken lead, you get inordinate amounts of animal suffering in the fuckups.
Even without errors, standard practice is evidently extremely harmful to animals as demonstrated by behavioral evidence that you are moronically denying the validity of.

You don't even need vegan sources to confirm that: https://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/P ... 0Sheet.pdf

Background: Beak trimming, removal of 1/3 to 1/2 of the beak, is a routine husbandry procedure practiced in the poultry industry to prevent feather pecking and cannibalism. Domestic chickens possess natural behavior and motivational systems inherited from their ancestors (Red Jungle fowls), such as dust bathing and foraging behavior-associated scratching and ground pecking. Preventing chickens from performing those behaviors due to living environments results in stress, which leads to the expression of harmful behaviors. Currently, there is no single housing system to meet all the chicken’s behavioral and physiological needs. Feather pecking and cannibalism occur in all current housing systems and can lead to suffering and death in laying hens that have not been beak trimmed. Issues Related to Beak Trimming: Beak trimming has elicited a great deal of debate and research concerning the relative advantages and disadvantages of the practice from an animal welfare perspective. The bestowed benefits of lowered aggression, feather pecking, and cannibalism may indeed favor improved welfare during the laying cycle. However, a chicken’s beak is a complex, functional organ with an extensive nerve supply. Following beak trimming, several anatomical, physiological, and biochemical changes occur in cut peripheral nerves and damaged tissues. There is a considerable body of morphological, neurophysiological, behavioral and production research demonstrating the emergence of several markers of acute and chronic pain (e.g., persistent lethargy and guarding behaviors, reduced feed intake, and development of neuromas) as a result of trimming. This is of more concern when the beak trimming is conducted in birds which are 5 weeks old or older using a hotblade beak trimmer.

This is common knowledge, and that you don't know it speaks only to your ignorance.

So, now you know there's a bullet loaded into that gun. Are you still going to point it at somebody and pull the trigger?
Maybe you just don't give a shit.

And why couldn't they just set them free and not waste money killing them?

Just let billions of animals wander around in the streets, get hit by cars, and starve, or choke on garbage?
What exactly is your plan here?
The farmers won't let them eat the grass they plan to feed to their producing cows.

They do that kind of shit in some parts of India:
http://vspca.org/programs/plasticcow.php

This is what you want in your milk drinking utopia, right?

Milk drinking and egg eating is inherently reliant on death. Whether by slaughter, or a miserable existence in the street of the city, abandoned to get sick and starve or die from eating garbage.
Old cows would not be retired to valuable pasture land where productive cows graze.

Only if people reduced the amount of milk and eggs they ate by about 90% and paid 10x more for them (at least), would it be possible to give the cows and chickens some kind of real retirement.
There are only a couple sanctuaries in the world that operate like this: http://www.henheaven.org/
The farms near you operate to make a profit, not to take care of the animals properly.

And why is everyone else skeptical? Could it be that they have good reasons to be skeptical?

They are "skeptical" because of cognitive dissonance. Like you, they want to eat animal products, but they don't want to contribute to animal cruelty, so they are trying to rationalize their behavior. They do so by engaging in denial and rationalization. They deny that animals are sentient. They deny that animals on farms suffer (they believe in the delusion of happy farmed animals). They deny that it's possible to be vegan without being unhealthy. None of these rationalizations are based on real evidence, and they mirror the same rationalizations theists make to believe in god.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

They are not truly being skeptical, they are rationalizing and being delusional. Scientific consensus is that these animals are sentient, that they suffer. Industry evidence proves common practice. Court records and undercover footage prove common abuses. Scientific consensus in nutrition is that we do not need animal products to be healthy.

Denying these things is not skepticism, it's ignorance, and it's a particularly harmful kind of ignorance which perpetuates the suffering of others.

You said I should be skeptical of dragons, but not of the equally crazy sounding airplanes, because everyone else is skeptical about dragons but not about the airplanes, right?

Scientific consensus > Common opinion > Your assumptions.

Or is it scientific consensus that the cows and chickens feel bad when you take their children or eggs away? I don't know. I know that until a few years ago, there was no consensus about whether they are even sentient.

It has long been consensus, the recent statement just confirmed the consensus. Some consensus are unstated. It has been long known that animals are intelligent and sentient. The reason they were forced to all get together to make that declaration is because idiots like you kept insisting that animals weren't sentient (in contrast to all of the evidence).

You have to examine behavioral evidence and stress indicators to determine if animals feel bad when their children or eggs are taken.

Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYJPbrxdn8w

We can't scan every cow and calf's brain to prove distress, but we can't do the same with human beings. We learn how humans and non-human animals alike feel based on observing behavior.
You completely ignored my question before. Are you a solipsist? Do you believe that only you in all the world have feelings, and that no other beings do?

Cows, like most mammals, are likely universally protective of their young. According to anecdotes, chickens vary more in behavior: some protect their eggs, some abandon them.

In either case, the male calves and chicks are quickly killed because they aren't useful. Is that something you approve of? Do you approve of all of the other abuses? Do you approve of the well documented environmental destruction? The antibiotic resistance? These are all inevitable to milk and egg production.

[brimstoneSalad]

Now for your most absurd and ignorant arguments: Total misunderstanding of economics.

Supply and demand is like this: Price = Demand / Supply

Well, since the supply equals demand, then the price should always be equal to one, according to your own logic.

They're aren't always equal at the same price -- sometimes there's a surplus or a shortage, which crashes the market and lowers the price, or creates scarcity and raises the price.

I was just expressing the general relationship. These are actually based on curves, which may be too complicated for you to understand.

Watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9aDizJpd_s


If demand and supply BOTH increase at the same rate, then the cost stays about the same. If the demand and supply BOTH decrease at the same rate, the cost stays about the same. $1 for a loaf of bread when there's demand for ten loaves and a supply of ten loaves stays the same if there's demand for five loaves and supply of five loaves.
When there are ten loaves but only five people wanting to buy loaves, the price of the bread is reduced because the store wants to sell all of the bread rather than waste it. You go to the store, and see that bread is on sale, and you decide maybe you can eat toast for breakfast AND a sandwich for lunch, instead of having oatmeal. The cheaper something gets, the more willing you are to buy more of it than you otherwise wanted.

When animals stop eating half of our food, the farm land to grow the food will still be there, and it will still be easy for farmers to plant it. So a lot of farmers will keep growing that much food, because they think they can sell it (unless the government tells them not to).

But alas, because supply exceeds demand, the price will drop because the buyers are no longer in competition. So for the "first year" at least the farmers will be in a bad situation, since the price of grain would crash and there's so much food. Farmers would lose money that year.
A lot of that grain would end up being exported to other countries, or even turned into ethanol to replace gasoline... and then the demand for gasoline would drop since ethanol would be cheaper.

The important thing to understand is that the last thing that would happen is for food prices to increase. The more grain is available, the cheaper it will be, since the production capacity exceeds demand at the current price. Not so great for the farmers, but good for people who are hungry.

Over years, farmers would start to switch to other crops, like vegetables and fruits (which make more profit than grain), or ethanol production would pick up and use the excess grain or land, and the price would stabilize again. Farmers would change their businesses so they can make more profit (which is what happens when the market changes).

In reality, meat consumption in the world will drop slowly, so farmers will have plenty of time to start growing quinoa or whatever veggies that grow well in their regions, so they can still earn a good living. Only a stubborn farmer who insists on producing lots of corn despite a low market price would be in trouble.

Are we using those words in the same way? The general rule I've learned by being in the school is that if something really really doesn't make any sense, that it has to be that you misunderstood it.

You are definitely misunderstanding it.
Here's another video, this one is shorter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-yWKgZv9JY

That makes no sense, supply and demand are always equal.

False.

And if both of them are high, the price is lower.

False. The price is dependent on the cost of production and the price people are willing to pay for the item.

Producing a lot of something can decrease the price due to technical reasons: such as mass production in manufacturing and technological advances, as well as more efficient distribution.
See economies of scale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale

This, however, is also a curve, and is dependent on certain improvements of efficiency due to scale.
Nothing would significantly change in the way our food distribution infrastructure works, and all of our agricultural technology and infrastructure is already in place.
If we straight up closed half of the farms, it shouldn't meaningfully affect the price of food as long as demand for food was halved at the same time (actually, the sale of all of that farm equipment would lower the price of food in itself).

That's why plant food or water today is inexpensive. And if both of them are low, as is for gold or oil, the price is higher.

I don't understand how you can be this wrong. No it isn't, not even remotely. You don't even know what inexpensive and expensive mean.
When things are inexpensive, it's because they are cheap and plentiful resources which are cheap to produce. In the case of water, it exists in quantities in most places far exceeding consumer demand. When things are more expensive, it's because they're limited resources that cost more to produce or exploit.

According to your reasoning, food is more plentiful than fresh shit (since shit is made from food that has been digested and lost mass), and because demand is always equal to supply, shit must be more expensive than food. Really?

Why doesn't fresh human shit fetch a higher price than food, since the supply is lower than food?

Here's a hint: demand for fresh human shit is profoundly low. Nobody wants it, even though it's rarer than food, because it's less useful. Nobody wants to buy your feces. If you wanted to buy fresh human poop, you could get it for a song despite its relative rarity.

It's all about where supply and demand intersect to create the market price.

I don't know anything about economics, I am just applying the most basic common sense.

It's obvious that you don't know anything about economics, so stop making shit up. This is not "common sense", it's common stupidity derived from a profound ignorance driven by the Dunning Kruger effect to irrational conclusion by the arrogance of thinking you're more clever than you are, and smart enough to figure these things by yourself out without doing five minutes of research.
Do you think I, or anybody else, figured this stuff out on their own without learning about it from books and other resources? A cave man just doesn't wake up one day and ponder up the field of economics. This took hundreds of years of continual research and progress for humans to develop. Don't be arrogant enough to assume you can figure out things like this on your own.

Seriously, it would have taken you five minutes to just find some explanation like the ones I linked to and watch them rather than going off and making half cocked assertions.

Didn't I tell you to stop coming to your own conclusions? You did it with the flat Earth shit, and you're doing it again. Your conclusions are almost always wrong. This is why. Intuition is usually wrong on things like this. Stop using it. Just do some actual research for once.

Do you not understand why I keep criticizing you for this? You keep doing it.
I wouldn't give you such a hard time if you weren't so insistent about your claims. Why don't you just assume other people are right, and try to understand before making absurd claims like this and embarrassing yourself? Take a few minutes to read and listen first before assuming.

[teo123]

Take five minutes to search a subject before assuming it's not understood.

I didn't assume it's not understood, I wondered if you understand that.

I'm citing scientific consensus and credible authorities on the subject.

And how do you know if you are using the fallacious appeal to authority?

I already posted the consensus several times.

I mean, it's very hard for me to believe that's really a consensus. Like, if it were, why would my biology textbook, not just my teacher, tell me that a healthy human diet has to contain food from both plant and animal sources? Why is veganism, just like flat-earthism, associated, by the society, with a bad education? It just simply doesn't appear to be a consensus as much as airplanes, the shape of the Earth, or even evolution and global warming do. Seriously, where are those scientists who believe in veganism? Put yourself in my shoes, just for a second, please!

It's not nonsensical, asshole. It doesn't make sense to YOU, like airplanes and rockets, because of your profound ignorance on the topic of economics and psychology. That doesn't mean you should reject them.

So, if somebody argued for the existence of god in some foreign language you don't understand, would you think that he is right?

You need to learn to distinguish between legitimate information and quackery, and understand the nuance and complexity of dietary change that involves displacement and opportunity cost. None of these are things you have a grasp on right now.

So, how do you do that? Does it usually confirm what you already believe?

Just because one claim is wrong or exaggerated doesn't mean you should go to the opposite extreme and assume that milk and eggs are healthy or nutritionally essential, and that cows and chickens are happy to make them and die for you.

I thought that the opposite extreme would be to be a meat-eater.

Did you even check the price, or are you just making assumptions again?

Well, I just typed "oyster prices" in Yahoo, it gave me ridiculous results in the first few pages.

If you had a gun, and you didn't know if it was loaded or not, because it wasn't proved it was loaded, is it then OK to point that gun at somebody and pull the trigger?

Well, no, but I don't think that's a right analogy. I think that a correct analogy would be that you see a dress in the display and assume it was made by slaves, or otherwise abused workers, and therefore not buy it.

This is common knowledge, and that you don't know it speaks only to your ignorance. So, now you know there's a bullet loaded into that gun. Are you still going to point it at somebody and pull the trigger?
Maybe you just don't give a shit.

Well, I had done the research about it. Beak trimming isn't a very common practice in Europe. And other mutilations are banned in the European Union. It's only like that in America, and probably only in factory farms.

Just let billions of animals wander around in the streets, get hit by cars, and starve, or choke on garbage? What exactly is your plan here?

It's not like that I thought about that issue a lot. Well, those cows are still going to die somehow, no matter whether we use them for milk or not. How do the cows usually die in nature? Does milking them somehow make their death worse or their lives shorter? I don't know.

The farmers won't let them eat the grass they plan to feed to their producing cows.

I thought they feed cows with grains, don't they?

It has been long known that animals are intelligent and sentient.

So, how does my religion textbook then explicitly deny that animals are intelligent and sentient? I am not claiming they aren't, I am just claiming there is no such a strong consensus as you claim there is.

Do you believe that only you in all the world have feelings, and that no other beings do?

Of course not. Why would I? That's so ridiculous.

In either case, the male calves and chicks are quickly killed because they aren't useful. Is that something you approve of?

Well, it would certainly be better if they set them free than being killed, right?

Do you approve of all of the other abuses?

Well, no, and they aren't so common in Europe.

Do you approve of the well documented environmental destruction?

Well, synthetic composts, that would have to be used if everyone went vegan, also destroy the environment, right?

The antibiotic resistance? These are all inevitable to milk and egg production.

Well, the prophylactic use of antibiotics is banned in the European Union since 2011. The dairy and egg industry didn't stop, therefore it's not necessary, right?

If we straight up closed half of the farms, it shouldn't meaningfully affect the price of food as long as demand for food was halved at the same time (actually, the sale of all of that farm equipment would lower the price of food in itself).

But wouldn't that take more resources for one square-meter of land? For example, if you buy one tractor, you could harvest more land with the same amount of resources as for the smaller amount of land, right? Anyway, I think I get the point.

Don't be arrogant enough to assume you can figure out things like this on your own.

Well, I've figured out lots of the things about programming on my own, including how to calculate the distances in the coordinate system. And isn't there a giant difference between being skeptical of the existence of god and being so radically skeptical of your own memory and reasoning?

Seriously, it would have taken you five minutes to just find some explanation like the ones I linked to and watch them rather than going off and making half cocked assertions.

Well, I actually watched the CrashCourse video before, and I thought I understood it.

Didn't I tell you to stop coming to your own conclusions? You did it with the flat Earth shit, and you're doing it again. Your conclusions are almost always wrong.

No, they aren't. I won the school math, physics and ICT competitions two years in a row. If I wasn't coming up with my own conclusions when I was solving the tasks, I wouldn't have solved them. I am usually right, unless I argue for the conspiracy theories. Isn't there a very big difference between trying to make predictions based on your understanding of how the world works and saying "I don't know, therefore conspiracy!"?

This is why. Intuition is usually wrong on things like this. Stop using it.

On things like what? There is no obvious rule here. Understanding the basic perspective can be important for the survival, but the intuition fails at it.

Why don't you just assume other people are right, and try to understand before making absurd claims like this and embarrassing yourself?

I generally don't care so much about embarrassing myself on forums. Also, I posted those same arguments against veganism on TFES forum, also saying that there may be some good arguments for veganism rather than vegetarianism I just happened to be unaware of, so it would be good to make another post explaining in detail why they are wrong, right?

[brimstoneSalad]

And how do you know if you are using the fallacious appeal to authority?

By understanding what an appeal to authority is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

By the mid-twentieth century, it was common for logic textbooks to refer to the "Fallacy of appealing to authority," even while noting that "this method of argument is not always strictly fallacious."[6]

In the Western rationalistic tradition[7] and in early modern philosophy, appealing to authority was generally considered a logical fallacy.[8]

More recently, logic textbooks have shifted to a less blanket approach to these arguments, now often referring to the fallacy as the "Argument from Unqualified Authority"[9] or the "Argument from Unreliable Authority".[10]

From an empirical perspective, an authority with a good track record using scientific methods is more likely to be right than you are, and more likely to understand the subject -- particularly concerning a consensus.

I mean, it's very hard for me to believe that's really a consensus. Like, if it were, why would my biology textbook, not just my teacher, tell me that a healthy human diet has to contain food from both plant and animal sources?

Text books are rife with errors omissions, and government propaganda. Your educational system, and unfortunately your country, just are not reliable sources.
http://www.colleges.com/Umagazine/artic ... books.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruptio ... ions_Index

Even in the West, high school textbooks are of terrible quality. It's actually a serious issue. It's not so much a conspiracy as that the companies making them are having them written by idiots who can't be bothered to check their sources, or aren't paid enough so they just guess or make things up. This is a pretty well known problems, and it's probably much worse in languages other than English.

The consensus is the scientific consensus, advanced by credible bodies.

Why is veganism, just like flat-earthism, associated, by the society, with a bad education? It just simply doesn't appear to be a consensus as much as airplanes, the shape of the Earth, or even evolution and global warming do. Seriously, where are those scientists who believe in veganism? Put yourself in my shoes, just for a second, please!

It's not associated with bad education in the West. Vegetarians actually have higher IQs (there probably are not enough vegans studied to come to statistically significant results).

Scientific consensus doesn't mean that stupid people or the general public agree on it (Evolution and Global warming are contentious among the delusional). Scientific consensus means that experts whose field of study is it to know these things agree on it.

It doesn't matter how many electrical engineers think veganism is unhealthy, dietitians know it's healthy, and they're the ones who are qualified to determine the consensus. Likewise, it wouldn't matter how many dieticians thought electric wires should be left uninsulated to dissipate heat and prevent fires -- it's bullshit, and electrical engineers know that, dietitians are not qualified to have opinions on electrical engineering.

In terms of vegan scientists, you're mistaking BEING vegan, and the consensus that veganism is healthy and good for the environment and animal welfare.
Many or most scientists are amoral, and speak only on issues of empirical fact.

See the Dawkins & Singer interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xxdMUuZXUY

Dawkins eats meat, but recognizes that it's wrong -- he does it anyway because he can't be bothered to behave morally. It doesn't speak very well of scientists that they can admit these truths but not practice them, science has never been terribly huge on promoting ethics though.

So, if somebody argued for the existence of god in some foreign language you don't understand, would you think that he is right?

Not understanding an argument means you should reserve judgement about it. You do not have the tools to evaluate it. Instead, you should defer to the consensus of experts on that topic.

Dietitians are experts on nutrition: you should believe the consensus that a properly planned vegan diet is healthy.
Aeronautic engineers are experts in aircrafts and spacecrafts: you should believe their consensus about the existence and function of planes and spacecraft.

These are empirical issues that follow from scientific methodology.

Religion is very different, and doesn't use science: it's based on tradition and faith.
If you wanted me to explain why you should not believe in god when the consensus of theologians is that god exists, THAT would be a much better and less idiotic question.

So, how do you do that? Does it usually confirm what you already believe?

Quite often it changes my belief, and I learn something new. That's how you go from being an idiot to being smart: accept correction from experts. More often, I just don't know until I look it up. I don't like guessing, so I'll usually avoid topics I haven't read on.

You may notice that despite the large number of threads on video games on this forum, I haven't had much to say on them. I'm not really up on the games today, and my opinion wouldn't add much.

How do you determine who is an expert?
That can be more challenging, and it's something you have to learn.

Is Dr. McDougall an expert? Well, he is a doctor, right? It would seem so at first glace. But wait, are doctors qualified to offer nutrition advice? No, they aren't. How does what he's saying compare to experts in the field of nutrition (dietitians)? How does it compare with scientific consensus on weight loss and adequate nutrition, and official guidelines like those of the U.S., Canadian, and U.K. governments?

You have to take a little time to look into these things. Consensus becomes apparent when you follow the trail of expertise and look at the scientific qualifications of those making claims.

It should be obvious that dietitians in western countries (like the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.) are the most credible experts on nutrition in the world.
Your high school or middle school theology textbook or biology textbook in a barely developed country are not credible.

I thought that the opposite extreme would be to be a meat-eater.

The claims you referred to were about milk and eggs.

Well, I just typed "oyster prices" in Yahoo, it gave me ridiculous results in the first few pages.

Go to a grocery store and look for canned oysters.

If you had a gun, and you didn't know if it was loaded or not, because it wasn't proved it was loaded, is it then OK to point that gun at somebody and pull the trigger?

Well, no, but I don't think that's a right analogy. I think that a correct analogy would be that you see a dress in the display and assume it was made by slaves, or otherwise abused workers, and therefore not buy it.

The point is about need. You might actually NEED a dress. You certainly need clothing.
You do not need to eat milk and eggs, just as you have no need to point a gun at somebody and pull the trigger.

Need is an important consideration in ethics.
If you really thought a dress might be made by slaves and you had another option that you knew wasn't made by slaves, then you should choose the latter (you should also strive to learn more about it so you can make good decisions). If there's only one dress and you need clothes, then you buy it.

Well, I had done the research about it. Beak trimming isn't a very common practice in Europe. And other mutilations are banned in the European Union. It's only like that in America, and probably only in factory farms.

Did you even read the article I linked you to?
Read it.

Beaks are trimmed to prevent the birds from pecking and mutilating due to stress. Beak trimming is evil, but it may be less evil than NOT trimming beaks. The article was clear that there were no containment options that eliminated those stresses, making beak trimming necessary.
Europeans are terrible on animal welfare and often on environment as well, because they make impulsive decisions without looking at the consequences.

It's not like that I thought about that issue a lot. Well, those cows are still going to die somehow, no matter whether we use them for milk or not.

No they won't. If you don't artificially inseminate the cows and breed them, there will just be no cows aside from a few in sanctuaries.
They won't be taken from their mothers, they won't be crated, they won't be inseminated, they won't have their calves taken, they won't be milked, they won't be killed at a young age when production drops.

They will be spared that entire miserable existence.

How do the cows usually die in nature? Does milking them somehow make their death worse or their lives shorter? I don't know.

They don't, because there aren't wild cows running around everywhere. There are small populations of animals like bison and such (which live around 15 years in the wild).
The option is not to have 1.4 billion cows dying in nature vs. 1.4 billion cows being milked or raised for beef and then killed (both) on a farm.

If you didn't drink the milk, they wouldn't be bred, raised, milked, and killed. The whole process from birth to death is from you drinking the milk.

I thought they feed cows with grains, don't they?

Depends on the farm. If a farm were feeding the animal grains, they can't let it out into somebody else's field to eat the corn they're growing.

Farms have limited food available, whether that's grains they grow or buy, or grass they grow. In neither case are they going to let wild cows eat it.
Like in India, the cows would be left to wander the streets and barren areas and starve. It's not practical.

So, how does my religion textbook then explicitly deny that animals are intelligent and sentient?

Religion is not the scientific consensus.
At this point you seem to be intentionally trolling.
It also claims god exists.

You could ask a more legitimate question as to whether we should believe the church about god, since theologians are supposedly experts on god. But theologians are NOT experts on animal cognition of behavior. They have zero credibility to speak on those topics. No more so than an electrical engineer on diet, or a dietitian on electrical engineering.

I am not claiming they aren't, I am just claiming there is no such a strong consensus as you claim there is.

Stop being such an asshole. I already explained this and linked you to the definition. Would you just read the fucking links I give you?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus

Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity.

Of course not. Why would I? That's so ridiculous.

It's called solipsism, and it's no less ridiculous than you questioning the sentience of animals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

If you're going to be as ignorant as you are, you need to devote more time to reading what I give you and take initiative to look things up.

Well, it would certainly be better if they set them free than being killed, right?

In the billions? No. Both are horrible options. The only best result is for so many animals to not be born. At most, only enough animals should be born as the environment can support. The natural environment is already filled with birds and deer and rabbits and such. The forest doesn't need billions of baby animals released into it to starve or eat the forest clean so all of the animals will die.

Well, synthetic composts, that would have to be used if everyone went vegan, also destroy the environment, right?

Vegetable based composts (aerobic) are pretty good, and even capture carbon in humic acid. Synthetics aren't particularly bad; much better than animal agriculture.

We don't have zero impact agriculture, the point is to do the least harm we can.

Well, the prophylactic use of antibiotics is banned in the European Union since 2011. The dairy and egg industry didn't stop, therefore it's not necessary, right?

Like the debeaking probably is, that's actually worse. When you deny animals antibiotics, you deny them proper treatment for infections, and they die slowly of disease, suffering even more, as well as introducing more pollution and inefficiency from those deaths.

You get to choose between causing even MORE animal suffering, or introducing antibiotics and causing antibiotic resistant superbugs that threaten everybody. OR just don't eat animal products.

But wouldn't that take more resources for one square-meter of land? For example, if you buy one tractor, you could harvest more land with the same amount of resources as for the smaller amount of land, right?

I said tractors would get cheaper, because there would be a surplus in tractors available for small farms to buy since half the farms closed. Crudely, a farm now has two tractors instead of one because the neighbor farm closed and they bought the extra tractor, which increases productivity and lowers cost.

Well, I've figured out lots of the things about programming on my own, including how to calculate the distances in the coordinate system.

There's a huge difference between empirical matters and mathematical ones which you can double check on paper. You were able to check your results when you figured out distance, which is a huge benefit. On something like economics where you can't confirm your results easily, you can't assume your reasoning is correct.

And isn't there a giant difference between being skeptical of the existence of god and being so radically skeptical of your own memory and reasoning?

Not really. Most people who believe god is real do so because they trust their own reasoning.

Well, I actually watched the CrashCourse video before, and I thought I understood it.

Did you watch it again? Do you understand how and why you were wrong?

No, they aren't. I won the school math, physics and ICT competitions two years in a row.

You were probably doing a lot of things wrong, and a combination of your teachers being ignorant, and the other students being even dumber gave you the win. High school and middle school science competitions are usually jokes, even in the U.S., it's hard to imagine how absurd it is there.
I'm reminded of the saying, "It's like running in the special olympics, even if you win you're still retarded"

Isn't there a very big difference between trying to make predictions based on your understanding of how the world works and saying "I don't know, therefore conspiracy!"?

No. It's only meaningfully different if you have the means and ability to test it (and you do test it).
If you're not testing it, then you need to rely on experts. Actual experts, not your theology book or high school/middle school biology book, which have no credibility when it comes to nutritional science (not even a university text book would).

On things like what?

Empirical issues; matters of scientific fact that you can look up expert opinion and scientific consensus on.

Also, I posted those same arguments against veganism on TFES forum, also saying that there may be some good arguments for veganism rather than vegetarianism I just happened to be unaware of, so it would be good to make another post explaining in detail why they are wrong, right?

Sure. You should always endeavor to post corrections.

[brimstoneSalad]

Scishow made a recent video about sunbeams:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNYd5PV77hs

Funny that it was published just after I explained most of that stuff in this thread (is somebody at scishow reading this forum? ).
He has some better visual examples than I do, including receding rays (going to the opposite side of the sky from the sun) which also converge, and rays shown from space that prove the point.

It's a short video, worth watching and much more concise than my explanation.

[teo123]

From an empirical perspective, an authority with a good track record using scientific methods is more likely to be right than you are, and more likely to understand the subject -- particularly concerning a consensus.

Well, scientific consensus isn't a reliable authority either. Until a few decades ago, it was the consensus that babies couldn't feel pain. And I don't really see why should we consider science reliable. Reality is simply the word we give to the world our senses give us access to. Why aren't our senses then the ultimate authority about reality? Think of some extreme cases. If somebody beliefs it's the scientific consensus that grass is red, and, of course, sees that it's green, is he justified to believe that the grass is red? Look, I understand why I was wrong to claim that the entire scientific community (or any other large community) was in a conspiracy, but I still don't understand why it's wrong to claim they are mistaken.

If you wanted me to explain why you should not believe in god when the consensus of theologians is that god exists, THAT would be a much better and less idiotic question.

So, why? The explanation I've heard is that theology presupposes the existence of god, and that it isn't based on solid evidence. But so does the astronomy pretty much presuppose the earth being round, and, at least to someone who has read all those ad-hoc hypotheses TFES made and doesn't know to explain why they are wrong, that doesn't seem to be based on solid evidence either, yet I was wrong to reject it. Besides, mathematics presupposes Euclid's axioms, yet I think that nobody except Flat-Earthers denies them.

Quite often it changes my belief, and I learn something new. That's how you go from being an idiot to being smart: accept correction from experts. More often, I just don't know until I look it up. I don't like guessing, so I'll usually avoid topics I haven't read on.

Great! That doesn't seem to work for me though. I read a lot about critical thinking on-line, yet, when I try to do it, it almost always confirms what I already believe. For example, I identified the explanation that sun rays appear to converge because of the perspective as an obvious example of an ad-hoc hypothesis, and therefore not trustworthy.

Need is an important consideration in ethics.
If you really thought a dress might be made by slaves and you had another option that you knew wasn't made by slaves, then you should choose the latter (you should also strive to learn more about it so you can make good decisions). If there's only one dress and you need clothes, then you buy it.

So, why is then it right to buy yourself a mobile phone? For all you know, it might also have been made by slaves.

Beaks are trimmed to prevent the birds from pecking and mutilating due to stress. Beak trimming is evil, but it may be less evil than NOT trimming beaks. The article was clear that there were no containment options that eliminated those stresses, making beak trimming necessary.

Like I've said, we don't buy eggs from factory farms, so the chickens probably aren't kept in small cages. But it's a bit hard to check. I would have to (secretly?) find out who are those people who sell the eggs on the market in our village, then find out (again secretly?) where they live and then somehow get there. My parents, whom I trust about how those animals are treated here, may not be trustworthy. They were shocked when I told them about animals being kept in factories in America, when I know, from the Internet, that factory farms also exist in Croatia. I really don't know what to think.

No they won't. If you don't artificially inseminate the cows and breed them, there will just be no cows aside from a few in sanctuaries.
They won't be taken from their mothers, they won't be crated, they won't be inseminated, they won't have their calves taken, they won't be milked, they won't be killed at a young age when production drops.
They will be spared that entire miserable existence.
They don't, because there aren't wild cows running around everywhere. There are small populations of animals like bison and such (which live around 15 years in the wild).
The option is not to have 1.4 billion cows dying in nature vs. 1.4 billion cows being milked or raised for beef and then killed (both) on a farm.
If you didn't drink the milk, they wouldn't be bred, raised, milked, and killed. The whole process from birth to death is from you drinking the milk.Depends on the farm. If a farm were feeding the animal grains, they can't let it out into somebody else's field to eat the corn they're growing.
Farms have limited food available, whether that's grains they grow or buy, or grass they grow. In neither case are they going to let wild cows eat it.
Like in India, the cows would be left to wander the streets and barren areas and starve. It's not practical.
In the billions? No. Both are horrible options. The only best result is for so many animals to not be born. At most, only enough animals should be born as the environment can support. The natural environment is already filled with birds and deer and rabbits and such. The forest doesn't need billions of baby animals released into it to starve or eat the forest clean so all of the animals will die.

Weird. I was watching vegan bloggers every day for over a year now, and I thought I knew everything I needed to make an informed decision.

Like the debeaking probably is, that's actually worse. When you deny animals antibiotics, you deny them proper treatment for infections, and they die slowly of disease, suffering even more, as well as introducing more pollution and inefficiency from those deaths.

Only prophylactic use of antibiotics is banned. That doesn't mean they don't get antibiotics if it's medically necessary.

I said tractors would get cheaper, because there would be a surplus in tractors available for small farms to buy since half the farms closed. Crudely, a farm now has two tractors instead of one because the neighbor farm closed and they bought the extra tractor, which increases productivity and lowers cost.

How does it lower the cost? They can do efficiently whatever they do with only one tractor. If they buy another tractor, they have to sell their products at a higher price to pay off that tractor. Plus, of course, that tractor needs to be sustained with fuel and repairings.

There's a huge difference between empirical matters and mathematical ones which you can double check on paper. You were able to check your results when you figured out distance, which is a huge benefit. On something like economics where you can't confirm your results easily, you can't assume your reasoning is correct.

Wow! I thought that only someone who is satirical could say you can't trust the math.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrfF--cOeK8

Not really. Most people who believe god is real do so because they trust their own reasoning.

And why is that bad? At least they are free thinkers.

Did you watch it again? Do you understand how and why you were wrong?

Well, yes. I hadn't watch it very carefully.

You were probably doing a lot of things wrong, and a combination of your teachers being ignorant, and the other students being even dumber gave you the win. High school and middle school science competitions are usually jokes, even in the U.S., it's hard to imagine how absurd it is there.
I'm reminded of the saying, "It's like running in the special olympics, even if you win you're still retarded"

So, why should the public opinion be more valuable than my opinion then?

Empirical issues; matters of scientific fact that you can look up expert opinion and scientific consensus on.

Intuition is not really that bad. I would argue that science education, at least the way it's done in our school, makes people stupider. Would someone who has never read about the perspective expect the real horizon to be at your eye level if you are in an airplane? Would someone who has never heard about Newton's first law think that rockets can't accelerate because the force of the reaction mass is from inside and not from the outside? Would someone who has never heard about Bernoulli's equation and law of conservation of energy think that an engine that uses a fluid as a reaction mass contradicts the law of conservation of energy? Would someone who has never read about vanishing lines think that the parallel lines should converge towards your eye level regardless of the direction you are looking at? Would someone who has never read about distortion to misunderstand the distortion diagrams think that the parallel lines can only intersect above the horizon? Would someone who has never read about Occam's razor think that someone claiming to have been in an airplane is more likely to be lying? Would someone who has never read about the perspective think that a bird in the sky and a bird on the ground would appear to be the same size as long as the ground distance is the same? Would someone who has never read about Tyndall's effect and the law of reflection think that the light on the moon can't get into shadows? Though I am not sure about it, I think that someone who has never read about the perspective wouldn't think that vertical sun rays couldn't converge, neither would from the illuminated part of the moon not appearing to align with the sun drive a conclusion that the Earth is flat. To someone who actually uses his intuition, most of my arguments would appear outright ridiculous.

Sure. You should always endeavor to post corrections.

So, what opinion should I take on moderate drinking? I was against it, and criticized people who were for it for going against most of the medical authorities. But if I will support veganism again, I will do it myself.
And to be honest, I can't promise I will be good at arguing for veganism. It may be that I am simply addicted to being an idiot. Sometimes you get funny answers or learn something new and interesting, and you simply get used to people insulting you and whining about how stupid and insulting you are.