How smart would cows have to become for you to stop eating beef?

I'll go with the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy answer and say the cow likely will offer me in person which cuts of meat I prefer. It's sole purpose in life is to be part of the food cycle. It knows that and it accepts it.

If they were smart enough to start protesting, I could see myself eating mor chikin.

I don't know if there's an IQ amount, but there's probably a dollar amount. The more expensive it gets, the less I'll eat, and then eventually I won't bother.

At the point where it consciously knows that we breed and slaughter them for meat. That would be my red line. I don't know what IQ that equals to.

The point at which it could collaborate with others and fight back.

Until then, it looks like meat is back on the menu, Boys!

No smarter than they are now.

I think your should stop eating any meat the moment you don't feel like you have what it takes to look at the animal in the eye while you kill it for consumption.

If you think you can't do that, then you should reconsider your meat consumption.

I'm approaching this point in my life and reducing consumption accordingly.

Cows can be moderately smart when raised as such. It's humans who selected the specific traits we considered more convenient for our needs, and breed them like that.

Well, some people believe that pigs are as smart as toddlers. So a cow would, at a minimum, have to be smarter than a pig.

Intelligence has nothing to do with it. Intelligence isn't even well defined or measurable. Things like IQ are designed for humans, so they would not be applicable to other beings. They're barely even useful for human applications.

It's an interesting question though. First, I'll ask myself why I eat beef in the first place.

• It's tasty
• It's relatively cheap
• Very nutrient dense, so it's easier to consume

Why do I not eat dogs or cats?

• They are not socially acceptable to consume
• They contribute positively to my life in other ways than being a food source

I'm pretty sure that a dog/cat could be dumb as a rock and I still wouldn't eat them because I'd still enjoy their company.

Now I do try to reduce the amount of beef I consume, but it's mainly for environmental reasons.

They're already smart enough :) but up close they're a burpy gassy mess, feels like a sentient bioreactor who is really fussy about what delicious grasses their friends found on the other side of the hill.

Basically, I wouldn't be able to eat anything that speaks (I haven't and don't intend to, but that's not what would prevent me from eating a "talking" parrot, for instance)

They'll basically need to become smart enough to sue for their right not to be eaten and win before I stop eating them.

I think it should be mandatory for everyone to spend at least one day of their young adult life hunting, killing, dressing, and cooking. The experience will likely alter the person's entire outlook on life and meat in general.

I never forget that meat was a life that mattered; with a personality; good and bad days; life; experience; struggle it lost to me. It doesn't stop me from eating meat. I wish I had the ability to hunt for what I need. I know my own ethics, like when to take a clean shot, and only taking what I need. Animals in industrial livestock facilities are mostly managed by unethical criminals. None of us asked to be born in such an overpopulated world. Unfortunately, this is the impossible problem. If you are smart enough to see the issue of overpopulation, that is great, but even if you avoid having children, those that are not so bright will always enumerate.

When they're capable of doing a conversation with me.

But I just was wondering, what IQ/ability would make you swear off beef?

10% of the current IQ would probably be high enough.

Smart enough for them to stop being eaten. But at this point they'd have to have similar intelligence to ours, which means we'd probably be at war with them anyway.

Permanently Deleted

How low would my IQ have to be for you to let part of my omnivorous diet be meat ?

Would 80 do it ?

I guess my cutoff would be actual conversation. Unless they specifically ask to be eaten, ala the bit from Hitchiker's Guide, in which case I guess the sky is the limit.

I wouldn't eat a dog, a monkey, an octopus, a dolphin, a whale, a cat, a parrot, a crow, or a donkey. Pretty much everything else is on the table unless I'm missing something.

I don't think it's entirely to do with intelligence. Pigs for example are apparently of similar intelligence to dogs, but I love eating pork. Obviously the dog has the advantage of a unique domestication where they can read and react to our emotions better than virtually all other animals.

So it's an interesting question you ask. Because while intelligence isn't the primary reason it has to certainly be a motivator because all of those I listed are intelligent animals.

To actually answer your question, they would have to be pretty damn smart for me to stop eating them because they are delicious.

My personal limit is recreation, or having fun. So no cows, or pigs, horses or dogs or cats, mostly no mammals really. But also i wouldnt eat like a crow, or octopus.

Well I don't eat meat at all, and part of the reason is the video on YouTube of the little girl who snuck her pet cow onto her indoor porch and is holding it in her lap and scratching it while it sighs contentedly.

I once stayed off red meat for 1 year and my health improved tremendously, and then returned to it and my health deteriorated in record time. I'm now back off red meat and feeling better than ever. Maybe at one time red meat was good for you, but the way they raise cattle for profits it would not surprise me they are butchering sick animals as well.

I think people forget that nature is quite brutal. If humans stopped eating meat, millions of animals would still be killed by predators, illness, parasites, old age, accidents, etc.

If cows became intelligent enough to participate in society but we had lab grown beef, I'd eat it.

They would have to be able to hold a conversation. Octopi are much, much smarter than cows, I will still happily eat them... though I feel a little guilty about that. Cows, though? No guilt.

That said, there is much tastier red meat to be had, if only we diversified our livestock. Kangaroo and Ostrich, in particular. And both of those animals are cold-blooded killers who deserve to be eaten.

Smarter than me

Cows could launch a spaceship past Warp 1 and I would still want a cheeseburger. I could make do with a well marinated portabello burger at the same price.

They'd have to be on one level with pigs, basically.

I've seen some cows that I feel are smarter than some humans I've met.

46,876

I think eat human flesh will be common in 100 years.

Smart enough to feel pain.

What I eat is already dead. I've never decided to eat something in such a way that it contributed to the harm of any lifeform. So it's not a matter of intelligence, but if it was, it could be as intelligent as a snail and I still wouldn't eat it.