Philosophical Vegan Forum

Came across this today. http://www.newser.com/story/244538/tick-that-makes-you-allergic-to-meat-may-be-spreading.html

Is there an Evil(ish) Vegan genius out there engineering insects as weapons against carnivores? (Brimstone, I'm looking at you. )

I doubt it's a typical response to the bite, immune responses are not easy to predict and probably require a bit of a perfect storm to happen.
A more reliable method would be to inject meat-allergy immunoglobulins directly.

This only applies to most mammalian meat, though, not fish or poultry or certain primates. It's an alpha glactose allergy, which is only in mammal meat (aside from old world monkeys and apes like us, which is why we can be allergic to it).
So, somebody wouldn't have to go vegan with this allergy. It'd probably just make them switch to chicken... or long pig.

In theory, you could find a bunch of people with various allergies, expose them to the allergen to top off their levels, and then harvest their immunoglobulins and make a shot from all of them which would basically force somebody to go vegan. But there's no way to know if it'd last for life; even in normal cases of allergies, spontaneous loss of allergy is not unheard of, and treatment for allergies is advancing pretty fast (even food allergies).

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2017 12:38 am So, somebody wouldn't have to go vegan with this allergy. It'd probably just make them switch to chicken... or long pig.

Well, long pig doesn't seem likely, since they tend to vocally complain too damn much when being barbecued. But if given the choice between more sentient mammals or fowl such as chicken, I'd posit it is preferable for someone to eat chicken (or fish) instead of a mammalian cousin. (I haven't gone Vegan, and I accept that fish are sentient, but I don't feel as much concern for them as I do mammals. Especially pigs, seeing as how they have a human like capability for learning. )

Our bovine cousins are definitely capable of learning, just as our porcine friends are. Fowl may share a learning ability, but I think they are more akin to a reptilian type intellect than a mammalian one.

If this "allergy" only applies to mammalian meat, that's a plus compared to the alternatives.

PsYcHo wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2017 6:02 am But if given the choice between more sentient mammals or fowl such as chicken, I'd posit it is preferable for someone to eat chicken (or fish) instead of a mammalian cousin.

Birds have smaller brains, but in terms of density and intelligence they're pretty high up there.
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/26/7255.abstract

Chickens are not as intelligent by weight as other birds (like parrots), but still more intelligent than we would expect comparing brain size to mammals.

I believe cows are probably more sentient and intelligent than chickens, but cows also yield about 200x more meat... so I'm not sure that one cow is more valuable than that many chickens being slaughtered. Of course, cows are less efficient and eat more feed, so more wild animals die because of beef, but that doesn't totally close the gap.
It's hard to say which is worse in terms of animal suffering. It's possible that chickens are worse.

PsYcHo wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2017 6:02 amFowl may share a learning ability, but I think they are more akin to a reptilian type intellect than a mammalian one.

The science says birds in general are more akin to primates, both from the neural anatomy and behavioral intelligence tests.

http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/02/alex-the-parrots-last-experiment-shows-his-mathematical-genius.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDmCxUncIyc

A lot of power from such a tiny brain. Chickens are not as smart as these animals, but they are much smarter than would be expected.
Birds are more similar to mammals than reptiles (they're warm blooded, and have more neural anatomy in common).

If I remember correctly, the tick has to first bite a mammal (non primate, as primates do not have the alpha gal carbohydrate) and then bite a human (or other primate) for the allergy to set in. BTW, the alpha galactase allergy is the only known allergy to a carbohydrate, most allergies are due to proteins.

But fear not, my version 2.0 of the red star tick will not need to feed on other animals first and will work for all vertebrate animals. I had to start somewhere with the current version of the tick...

Sapphire Lightning wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2017 6:25 am But fear not, my version 2.0 of the red star tick will not need to feed on other animals first and will work for all vertebrate animals. I had to start somewhere with the current version of the tick...

You get an evil genius gold star!

I'm for personal choice so I don't agree with your evil plan, but it's a good one.

PsYcHo wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 3:08 am

Sapphire Lightning wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2017 6:25 am But fear not, my version 2.0 of the red star tick will not need to feed on other animals first and will work for all vertebrate animals. I had to start somewhere with the current version of the tick...

You get an evil genius gold star!

I'm for personal choice so I don't agree with your evil plan, but it's a good one.

Why favor the "personal choice" of somebody to kill animals (which violates the animals' personal choice to live) vs. the personal choice of somebody to create a mutant tick to cause meat allergy?

Live and let people create mutant ticks if they want to.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Mon Jun 26, 2017 3:47 am
Why favor the "personal choice" of somebody to kill animals (which violates the animals' personal choice to live) vs. the personal choice of somebody to create a mutant tick to cause meat allergy?

Live and let people create mutant ticks if they want to.

While I love the evil genius Sapphire Lightning's plan, it would force their will upon others without consent.

That being said, I also never said "don't do that", nor did I advocate for any situation upon which they should be banned from doing so.

I just said I didn't agree. Never said I would try to stop them.