Robin Hanson [hanson@econ.berkeley.edu] wrote:
>So unless you do something else in switching from meat to veggies, like
>donating money to charities that raise cows which are never killed, the
>direct effect of switching is to reduce the number of cows who ever live.
I've had this discussion with militant vegetarians before; their argument seems to be that they're so concerned about the welfare of cows that they'd rather see them extinct than used for food (and I'm not paraphrasing, that's what I finally get out of most of them if I keep pushing hard enough). Personally I find that idea totally irrational, but that won't convince them of anything.
Mark