In which Displaced Into Nothing turns into an author diatribe against the meat industry... · 3:28am Dec 27th, 2017
So...
This was unintentional...
I sat down to write just the very beginning of the next chapter, while it was fresh in my mind, and what came out could easily be mistaken for...
Vegan Propaganda?
That was not my intention, but damn do I write some interesting stuff when I'm off on a rant: I'm definitely going to revisit this in the sequel, because the industry-manufactured human obsession with eating mass quantities of meat, and the scarily intense processes that was created on the way to Nash Equilibrium, would make for excellent rational-horror AND socio-political discourse between humans and ponies.
Have fun with this one.
So... I’d like to take a moment to talk about the social norms of ponies when it comes to violence, as opposed to the ones of Westernized human societies.
Ponies are not, as humans often believe, a race of pacifists. They can be rude, aggressive, warlike, and even downright murderous, just as much as humans. That being said, they are primarily herbivorous, and have pretty much adapted to live in harmony with the natural world. They literally have a virtue in their culture, which does not have any real human parallel, that involves the facilitation the various functions of nature, including the animals, and another which involves living alongside nature, with no clothes between them and their world, just like animals. It would not be considered too outlandish, in pony culture, to literally walk out into the woods, naked, and have a cuddle with a wild animal. In fact, Fluttershy lets bears and bobcats into her home and even sleeps in the same bed as them as if they were some beloved family member. Now, that isn’t to say you won’t hear them talk about eating things like eggs, insects, and even sea animals like the imported Hippogriff Fish-Oil tea. In fact, it is not unheard of for the hungry pegasi of coastal cities to swoop down upon the ocean and pluck fish, or for Unicorns to lure in birds and kill them for sustenence, sometimes eating them raw, and even alive for their magical energy. The utility of consuming other animals is just considered to be a fact of life, often compared to the way that the bear eats the fish, or the cat eats the mouse: one creature dies, another gains sustenance, as is natural.
What ponies DON’T have, is the human meat-processing industry. They never raised animals for the sole sake of consumption, they never bred them for the fattiest and juiciest flesh, they never created a run for cattle to be lead by instinct into the slaughter house, they never invented the captive bolt pistol, the meat hook, or the meat grinder. Humans are the ones obsessed enough with eating other living creatures to create a whole massive infrastructure dedicated to supplying so much meat to their gullets that they start dying of heart disease from all the fat their omnivorous bodies were never meant to process. In fact, the mass scale of the human meat industry is, for the most part, a concept which is entirely alien to the planet of Equus, with the most similar level of organized killing of large animals only seen in the most horrific of cultures, such as the decadent Diamond Dog city of Dragon’s Den, or the Slave Pits of Gomorrah. The very idea that we’ve literally built a system to mass-produce the less intelligent animals of our planet as a source of comfort food, using government funding, and that it's become so normalized that the average family doesn't even question it, would be so extreme to a pony that they would wave it off as some sort of grimdark farce: an absurd dystopia, that would never happen in reality, written only as an immature attempt to shock the reader with its unrealistic level of senseless brutality. That’s how ponies see the idea of killing other creatures: they haven’t, as a species, normalized the concept.
So, while death and violence are not unknown to them, when a pony from this culture sees a spellcaster who is not only willing to tear an enemy apart with their magic, but to mutilate their own form in the process, it sets off quite a few red flags.
That was the culture of the ponies who had just seen me do exactly that.
This is honestly me whenever I get going on a certain topic.
4760136
XD
Then this fic must be right up your alley!
Nice, very detailed into how there culture is and i can't wait for the next chapter to see there reaction!
Very nice. I have also had my moral views bleed into my work in ways that I don't expect; it's part of how I know that all art, human expression of any kind, is political. I don't think it's possible for someone to create something without that something carrying some part of their worldview, which of course includes their moral stance.
This is written so convincingly. The fact of the meat industry, no matter how much I find it disgusting, continues to seem normal to me until something shoves me back into realizing exactly how fucked it is. I haven't managed to quit meat entirely, but I honestly can't justify it in any moral way. It's purely compulsion toward certain foods. This coming year might be the year I finally stop.
Ironically, being tasty is the most advantageous evolutionary trait a non‐sapient species can have. The only goal of life is to reproduce, and being tasty has led to us facilitating, nay, guaranteeing their continued existence. The cow’s bargain: food, protection, healthcare, and the guaranteed survival of your species and all it will cost you is our pound of flesh.
4760137
I've been enjoying it so far, hasn't let me down yet.
I gotta ask why if equestria doesn't have the meat industry do farm animals like pigs look like there domesticated counterparts pigs without selective breeding should look more like wild boar, I mean I guess that if you wanted to justify it you could claim that they were breed like dogs to be pets but then does that mean that applejack is a pig breeder (like a dog breeder) because there aren't any other explanations for her to have so many pigs.
4760145
that is sad but true let's face it if cows weren't a common food source and they didn't produce so much milk they'd probably ether be
A) extinct in the western world
B) kept as pets by rich children (looking at you ponies)
C) They'd be a common pet but the they'd be bread to be smaller we already did this to dexters so making them even smaller wouldn't be that hard . 4.bp.blogspot.com/-5O0TqulceM8/T5S8GL4pEkI/AAAAAAAABH8/jHHgkKwrGd0/s1600/dexter+cow.jpg.
4760145
Oh ... the 'healthcare' they get is extremely questionable. Constant animal rights violations are just normal in the meat industry. I know we aren't here to talk about that, I'm just saying.
4760166
The point was they live long enough to breed and thats all evolution cares about. That's why people with sickle cell anemia are so prevalent in certain parts of africa the disease kills them slower than AIDS and makes them immune to AIDS. thats how evolution works It doesn't matter if your life is pure pain if you live longer and breed more than the rest you your genes get passed on.
4760142
Oh yeah, the world building part here is definitely gonna stay in there. It's the bit about Western Culture's demented meat system thing that's getting snipped.
4760165
Some pigs are known to be pets (normally the "miniature' pigs which are pretty much runts), or the byproducts (crap/corpses) could be used for fertilizer, if you depend on plant life for food, it isn't all the surprising to have creatures to use as fertilizer, either when they die or when they crap. Only reason we humans don't gather our own crap or crap of some other animals do not work. Some animals also gain byproducts used in sweets they you'd scrap off them.
I argue, though what is natural, but ignorance or arrogance, we humans are anything but natural, we as far as we are aware, are the only truly highly intelligent creatures upon our world, and farming plants is honestly no real different than farming animal, i would make no argument against a species farming us, if they had a literal death switch at our throats anytime they ever desire. Course I'd fight it, obviously, as self preservation is my greatest desire or goal, however, a actual argument why it is bad, is not something I can truly supply, except for MAYBE our intelligence and potential which most other species lack. I love making arguments or debates so I apologize if I went a bit far.
Also... anyone would cringe form Self mutilation it is a sense of wrongness, and insanity that anyone and anything would find strange or insane, though not foreign, biting ones leg off to escape a prison or trap is not unheard of.
I'm a vegetarian, more due to the fact that I dislike meat, but I appreciate animal welfare campaigns. That being said, unlike PETA, I realize we are never going to stop eating meat, even if we figure out how to just clone meat, so the best thing we can do is ensure that the industry follows humane standards.
Cats and dogs. I mean that ponies have them as pets and unless they magicaly alter them to eat veggies they need their meat or fish. And I doubt that average pony can hunt to supply his or her pet with meat.
So some meat industry need to exist to at least supply pets with food.
4760202
I agree with most of what you said EXCEPT for the parts of humans not collecting are own crap as fertilizer 200 million farmers use human fertilizer https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080821-human-waste.html
and thats just raw sewage quite a few companies use human waste and label it as normal fertilizer there really isn't any health risks if it's properly treated.
4760214
What you have failed to address is the "human" modifier in that statement.
4760194
I think you should keep it in. It gives the world building a little more context through contrast with our own reality, and I personally found the addition absolutely hilarious. I feel like this is something that Bucking Nonsense would've written, were he still active on the site (RIP). The set up is just like how he liked to build up his punchlines. Oh man, the nostalgia is getting to me. Gute nacht, mein prinz. Gute nacht, tatsachlich.
PS- Was the Dreadlord another Displaced?
4760238
Hu I was not aware of that, thanks!
So the Ponies are kinda like... the primordial Zerg? You consume, you grow.
But Ponies are not omnivores, so of course they don't have such an industry. But what about Gryphons?
If the Gryphons were as advanced as Humans,they would probably do the same, if they don't have the thrill of the hunt in them.
You’re anti eating corpses, too? Now I really need to get on to read this...
Kinda have a hard time seeing how Mane 6 seeing Meta's violence connects to the meat industry. Cruelty Meta displayed was not the same kind of cruelty that takes place in butcheries. The way animals grown for food are treated is not normalized (aside from people that directly work in the industry), it's rationalized because it allows for easy and cheap production of tasty goods. A comparison between Pony justice and Human justice would be more fitting for this situation.
Meta acted with cruelty not because of greed, but because of her sense of justice. The guy wasn't a cow, he was a demon assassin sent to kill Meta, that tried to hurt innocent children and at the top of that, works for interdimensional army of evil. His evil-o-meter is off the charts. In our eyes, he forfeited his rights to life and decent treatment (quick and painless death), therefore she not only was allowed to rip him to pieces, but also she was allowed to enjoy doing it because she was executing the ultimate justice at that moment (was she enjoying it? were her emotions turned on or was it just an act?).
Though interesting, Meta's inner rant seems like a pointless world exposition and because of that, it does feel a bit like a Vegan propaganda. Can't wait for the next the chapter, it'll be a fun one again.
At first I thought it seemed like a bit of a non sequitur to associate Meta's violence with the slaughter and processing of livestock, but then I realized that was precisely the problem. We can have factory farms, where chickens are held in cages barely larger than they are, before being slaughtered and carved up for their meat, and we don't think anything of it. It is, in fact, the remoteness and covert nature of it that allows it to be so commonplace. In other words, if everyone had to behead their own chickens and slaughter their own pigs and cows, there would be a lot less people eating meat. Instead, what people pick up on the supermarket aisle is so abstract, it doesn't even register as animal flesh, only red fatty lumps in plastic, and white fatty lumps wrapped in plastic. It may as well be a vegetable, for all we know. That shows that there is kind of a taboo surrounding the slaughter of animals for meat, or else we wouldn't go to such lengths to sanitize the image of meat products. I don't consider myself a vegetarian, not even close, but I do understand rationally that meat production consumes a lot of natural resources, and I suspect that if meat packaging were honest and featured labels showing carved up animal carcasses, fewer people would be willing to eat it. I'm not squeamish though, so there would be more to go around for dedicated carnivores like me.
4760202
4760137
There is a brand of power, usually forbidden because of the implications - which fit in mostly with what Meta did to our dear departed 'friend'.
Lovecraftian Power - or the channeling of Elder Abominations to assist one in the execution of one's duty. Which, of course in Meta's case, was to depart the Displaced...one part over there, one part over here... and another part way up there, near the weathervane up that building.
Personally, I see the ponies taking exception with the show because while most animals kill, few 'slaughter' while cackling manically. Of course, when dealing with evil beings, cackling while dealing 'overkill' is a must.
It shows one cares.
Eh... I'm of two minds on this.
Firstly: it's a pretty reasonable train of thought, considering the circumstances. Ponies have no real reason to process meat on the scale we do, so if you picked one at random and asked it to draw a "meat thresher", you probably wouldn't get a coherent response. At least, not one that doesn't involve visible distress. I wouldn't expect their idea of bloodshed to go beyond necessity, practicality, or sustenance. Even strictly carnivorous sapients might think it a bit excessive, if they're pre-industrial (or lazy, if they're more hunter types than agriculture). The kind of ultraviolence Meta displayed? If nothing else, the sheer detachment from what she was doing, to the point that she didn't give a second thought to impaling her enemy with her own body after fashioning said body into improvised weapons, could be chilling in the same way a cold, remorseless serial killer is to us. (Or in the same way that exact same scenario would be.) To walk up and shred a living creature to ribbons, not because you had to but for the sheer glee of it, is not something a sane being ought to be doing. It's also a very human thing to do, if we're ever faced with an enemy we don't consider a part of our "tribe". There's a reason we don't have natural predators anymore.
Secondly: all dat headcanon, tho. That entire first paragraph of the explanation. IMO, if your character is trying to rationalize something, and you need to fabricate facts so they can reach the conclusion you want, that means you're trying to force the story down a very particular route. Which, of course, is only a "bad thing" in fanfiction where the author is using a pre-existing setting, unless it's also an AU fic based on such exceptions. But, this is something that happens a whole lot in the average HiE fic, so I don't know if you're trying to play the trope or what. It isn't all that implausible, but none of the canon sources support it. Personally, I think it'd be better if you established this stuff beforehand, at least before trying to use any of it to support a character's reasoning. If it comes out of nowhere like this, it feels like an asspull meant to justify another character's reactions or whatever. And, frankly, I don't think the mane six would need anywhere near that scale of justification to be utterly terrified of what Meta did. She just went full Shoggoth on a mofo, that by itself is worth a sanity check regardless of species. She also ratcheted up the intimidation factor just for lulz, which even a real Shoggoth wouldn't bother with, so there's that too.
4760265
Horses and ponies on Earth are actually capable of eating meat. They generally won't go through the effort of catching the meat, but they'll eat things that died recently if they aren't otherwise full at the time. Ponies in Equestria eat eggs, which is normally a strictly carnivorous practice. No pure herbivores eat eggs, unless they have the ability to process proteins like an omnivore or carnivore.
4760327
I'm not certain that just making people aware of just what goes into making a hamburger would make as big an impact as you seem to think. (Although it's the stuff of nightmares.) Before we bought our meat at the grocery store, we bought it from a butcher. And in those, at least some part of the carcasse is on display. And, considering the lack of refridgeration and hygiene standards, there would also be the matter of smell to go along with that delightful visage. And, before even that, there were plenty of people who just went out and did their own killing and butchery. We were hunter-gatherers before city builders, after all.
Sure, if we did it overnight there would probably be a dip in sales. But then people would just get used to it again, because let's face it: suffering is tasty. Even if they didn't, that would only create a new market for 'humane' butchery.
What kind of makes this even more nasty is that because it's an industry, if we did suddenly start eating significantly less meat we'd be causing a whole lot of problems for the farmers/ranchers, the workers in factories and whoever else I can't think of at the moment.
4760797
I see. Ponies eat meat only if they're desperate, is that it? Well, generally speaking that is.
4760814
Desperate or lazy, sure. They're just rarely ever desperate, because they can survive on a purely herbivorous diet and edible plants are everywhere. It's really only something you see in places like deserts, high mountain areas, and other locations horses have no business being.
Though, this reminds me: I remember a really old documentary where this one scientist speculated that human brains couldn't have developed without at least a somewhat carnivorous diet. Something about how our thinking meats use up a truly preposterous amount of energy compared to anything else in the animal kingdom, and how such a thing wouldn't be sustainable from an evolutionary perspective without the high nutrition density in fats and meat. Specifically, omega three. I don't know how factual that is though, and it was a pretty old documentary so it might be outdated by this point.
But, eh. Equestrian ponies eating eggs, milk, and cheese would cover that base, if it were true.
4760834
Yeah. I mean... that kinda explains why the Ponies are so dumb in the show and need to go to Celestia for some common sense... !
We need a theory. A film theory on the show: how the Ponies even survived for so long. This meat eating theory explains everything. Well... most things.
4760876
I'd like to state for the record that I don't actually agree with that documentary. Just in case all the disclaimers I added in didn't make that clear.
Something you said simply jogged my memory and that came tumbling out, is all. I don't even know if it's true, it's just something that seemed topical at the time.
4760901
I know. Still... proteins are found in beans dairy products and meat. In the show I've never seen them eat any of that. Maybe except milk and eggs in pastries. The Ponies eat a bunch of sugary products for glucose, but otherwise? No protein contained diet. Not in the show.
Random fact: the hands on your profile picture look like a pink dress. Something I just noticed.
4760284
Never said this was the totality of my personal views...
4760312
The non-sequitorial nature of it was why it got cut.
Y'all responding like this is in the chapter, I said in the post that this is a deleted bit.
4760176
*COUGH* Malaria! *COUGH* And it's HIV -- AIDS is the syndrom. Also, Sickle Cell Anemia is a genetic disorder that usually doesn't kill people.
4761163
My bad, I somehow missed that.
4761171
1) I didn't know about sickle cell anemia making people immune to malaria that was interesting and I concede that point.
2) HIV- is the virus that causes AIDS true, but AIDS is more of a condition that just so happens to be caused by it, It’s possible to have AIDS without HIV and certain studies have shown that people with Sickle cell anemia can have HIV but it’s likely to cause AIDS.
3) Sickle cell anemia is classified as a genetic disease and It is likely to kill someone with it either directly with the MUCH higher probability of having a stroke or indirectly with the much higher chance of infection.
4761160
Is it?
4761163
Well, I figured you were looking for some kind of feedback on it? If it was just for fun, then eh.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-29/america-s-worst-graveyard-shift-is-grinding-up-workers
I am not a vegetarian, but you're quite right. There is something grotesque and horrific about the things we do to get meat. A mostly herbivorous race would be shocked by it.
I wonder if that is part of the reason why my Sunset Shimmer originally regarded the Humanoids as dangerous and amoral barbarians, whom she had to rule by dividing and conquering in self-defense. She does not really start to soften on this attitude until after she meets Flash Sentry, and she does not realize she was categorically wrong until her defeat by Princess Twilight and her BIG Heel Realization.
4760145
And it is quite possible that once almost all our meat is artificial, our former meet animals will survive as domesticated pets.
4760912
We know for sure that they eat beans. And probably a wide variety of other vegetable proteins. Real herbivores get a lot of their protein through randomly consuming insects; the Ponies probably clean their food better than that before eating it, but deliberately substitute proteinaceous plant foods, eggs, milk and fish.