The great divide? Chickens vs. other meat.

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brimstoneSalad
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The great divide? Chickens vs. other meat.

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Mat Ball recently made a video with Vox:
https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/5/27/15701168/save-animal-lives-eat-beef-not-chicken

A number of youtubers have responded to it, in part due to the suggestion in the title to eat beef instead, which seems to go not just in parallel to the vegan message on another track, but possibly against it.

Matt commented in his blog that he was uneasy about the title, because he doesn't want people to eat beef instead (just stop eating chicken), but then suggested it was perhaps OK because it got a lot of eyes on the video. Unnatural Vegan called this "Freelee logic" I think. The idea that whatever gets views justifies it because of the overall message.

http://www.mattball.org/2017/05/i-guess-it-really-doesnt-go-without.html
At first, I was disappointed with the headline Vox put on the interview. However, given that the video has been trending on YouTube all weekend, and is closing in on a million views, I have to admit that Vox knew what they were doing in terms of capturing eyeballs. Clearly, there is a hunger among people to do something to help animals that seems, to them, achievable and sustainable.
[...]
To me, the most important goal is that we find the message that reaches and inspires new people, rather than what gets us more "Likes" on our Facebook feed. Given that this year, the average American will eat more animals and cause more suffering than ever before, I'll take a million new people learning about how to help animals over being lionized by the vegan police every day.
I'm sure Matt meant well, but it does seem like he was doing a little justifying here of the title (whether rational or not). Of course there was nothing wrong with the content, but is he misstepping in defending that title based on the ends it achieved (views)? A lot of people won't get past the title. What good could it do vs. the risk of what harm?

The downvotes on the Vox video clearly aren't just from vegans; many of the top comments are from environmentalist non-vegans who took issue with the suggestion to eat more beef.

Mic. the vegan, while he often courts pseudoscience (like his anti-GMO stuff) and gives impractical diet advice made a pretty good video on this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgxIVHye_OU
Basically outlining how replacing Chicken (which is more efficient, despite perhaps greater cruelty) with beef would be environmentally catastrophic. He's not an RD and he doesn't have nutrition training of any kind, but he does have a background in environmental studies or something of that kind if I recall correctly (maybe he should stick to those videos).

What are your thoughts?
Vincent Berraud wrote:...
I'd love to hear Vincent's take on the title. I know he supports the One Step message (and it might be a good message), but is it OK to advocate replacement with beef (whether this was inadvertent or not)?
It looks like the video got a lot of bad press from meat eating environmentalists.

Maybe the best message is not telling people what NOT to eat, since we don't know what they'll replace it with, but instead telling people what TO eat (like beans, tofu, rope-grown oysters)? It seems like that risks less stepping on each other's toes, and permits more alliance with environmentalism.
Jamie in Chile
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Re: The great divide? Chickens vs. other meat.

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I think he should have clarified more clearly to suggest to replace chicken with vegetarian meals.

I personally think we should tell people what NOT to eat rather than what TO eat. The fact of the matter is that I personally believe that eating meat mostly meals causing unecessary harm, suffering and death, therefore we should do less of it, or none at all.

However I think it's also true that a good way to advocate is to do what works. However, we don't know what works best. Nobody is trying to find out. People just have their own intuition, but no real evidence.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: The great divide? Chickens vs. other meat.

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Jamie in Chile wrote: Fri Jun 16, 2017 11:00 pm However I think it's also true that a good way to advocate is to do what works. However, we don't know what works best. Nobody is trying to find out. People just have their own intuition, but no real evidence.
Yes, this is a very big problem. We know being really mean doesn't usually help one-on-one. But beyond that, the content of a politely delivered message and its outcome is less well researched. Mercy For Animals does a little research on their stuff, but it's very minimal with poor sample sizes and mixed results.

It's entirely possible that the best activism isn't activism at all, but research into activism.
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Re: The great divide? Chickens vs. other meat.

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Jamie in Chile wrote: Fri Jun 16, 2017 11:00 pm I think he should have clarified more clearly to suggest to replace chicken with vegetarian meals.

I personally think we should tell people what NOT to eat rather than what TO eat. The fact of the matter is that I personally believe that eating meat mostly meals causing unecessary harm, suffering and death, therefore we should do less of it, or none at all.

However I think it's also true that a good way to advocate is to do what works. However, we don't know what works best. Nobody is trying to find out. People just have their own intuition, but no real evidence.
I made a response to the video, but I honestly think Ball was pretty much talking off the top of his head. He stated himself on his website that he didn't mean for the title to be "eat beef, not chicken." And he clearly hasn't thought through the environmental consequences at all (sure, a few lives may be saved in the short term, but if we get cooked as a result of agriculture induced global warming, it won't make much of a difference).

I think he's just another disgruntled activist. And while I don't blame him for being fed up with "the vegan bubble" as he calls it on his website, I don't see how his current approach is helping. BUT his actual website seems fine, in that it tells people a bit more about why we shouldn't eat chickens.

My last piece of criticism would be over that "chicken doing math" video on his website. Good lord. Chickens may very well be able to count, but the chicken in that video is clearly doing nothing of the sort. The trainer moves her hand towards the chicken whenever the chicken has reached the right number of pecks, and the dumbest person alive should be able to figure that out. I think it hurts the credibility of the message, but that's just my mean-spirited two cents.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: The great divide? Chickens vs. other meat.

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ModVegan wrote: Sat Jun 17, 2017 12:53 pm My last piece of criticism would be over that "chicken doing math" video on his website. Good lord. Chickens may very well be able to count, but the chicken in that video is clearly doing nothing of the sort. The trainer moves her hand towards the chicken whenever the chicken has reached the right number of pecks, and the dumbest person alive should be able to figure that out. I think it hurts the credibility of the message, but that's just my mean-spirited two cents.
Do you have a link? Maybe that was a joke... sometimes it's hard to tell by text if somebody is serious.
I remember the videos of people claiming their dogs could do math on TV from years ago.
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Re: The great divide? Chickens vs. other meat.

Post by ModVegan »

brimstoneSalad wrote: Sat Jun 17, 2017 3:42 pm
ModVegan wrote: Sat Jun 17, 2017 12:53 pm My last piece of criticism would be over that "chicken doing math" video on his website. Good lord. Chickens may very well be able to count, but the chicken in that video is clearly doing nothing of the sort. The trainer moves her hand towards the chicken whenever the chicken has reached the right number of pecks, and the dumbest person alive should be able to figure that out. I think it hurts the credibility of the message, but that's just my mean-spirited two cents.
Do you have a link? Maybe that was a joke... sometimes it's hard to tell by text if somebody is serious.
I remember the videos of people claiming their dogs could do math on TV from years ago.
It's starts around 00:40 in their intro video located on their homepage: http://www.onestepforanimals.org/

It's just annoying because some birds can tell the difference between different quantities of dots, etc. But this is just poorly done. A far better example of chicks actually using their "number sense" can be seen here: https://www.livescience.com/49633-chicks-count-like-humans.html
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: The great divide? Chickens vs. other meat.

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ModVegan wrote: Sat Jun 17, 2017 4:40 pm It's just annoying because some birds can tell the difference between different quantities of dots, etc. But this is just poorly done. A far better example of chicks actually using their "number sense" can be seen here: https://www.livescience.com/49633-chicks-count-like-humans.html
I think I found the original:
https://vimeo.com/126781646

Because her arm is usually out of frame, it's hard to tell if the hen know she's done based on arm movement or not. Sometimes the hen is facing away (the click is after the hen starts to turn) but she may be hearing the arm move or see some movement in the trainer's body. It's a poor example for sure.

Doesn't Matt work with Farm sanctuary? He may know this girl and have taken her word for it, but trainers can easily fool themselves.
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Re: The great divide? Chickens vs. other meat.

Post by Jamie in Chile »

I think the video was reasonably convincing.

In theory if they wanted to fake this video they could have done so by doing 100 takes or by providing some other stimlus not shown in the video. She might also have selected an unusually intelligent and attentive chicken that she knew would provide good results. If we really want to prove that chickens can count we would need to repeat the study in a proper scientific experiment with more than one chicken, a researcher that doesn't have a vested interest in a particular result, and better controlled conditions.

I still feel 70% sure that (some) chickens can count after watching the video.
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Re: The great divide? Chickens vs. other meat.

Post by brimstoneSalad »

I don't think the video was intentionally faked, and I do think chickens can probably "count" which is a pretty primitive mental task (they probably have to do it in order to keep track of chicks), but it's not clear in this video whether the hen is demonstrating that or responding to the trainer's body language to let her know (unintentionally) that she's done counting.
Jamie in Chile
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Re: The great divide? Chickens vs. other meat.

Post by Jamie in Chile »

I don't think the chicken was responding to some stimulus, I think she really was counting. However, I don't think we can draw a definite conclusion.
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