161
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
161 points (71.1% liked)
vegan
2594 readers
33 users here now
Please also check out vegantheoryclub.org for a great set of well-run communities for vegan news, cooking, gardening, and art. It is not federated with LW, but it is a nice, cozy, all-in-one space for vegans.
We ask that the you have an understanding on what veganism is before engaging in this community.
If you think you have been banned erroneously, please get in contact with one of the other mods for appeals.
Moderator reports may not federate properly and may delay moderator action. Please DM an active mod if an abusive comment remains after reporting it.
Welcome
Welcome to c/vegan@lemmy.world. Broadly, this community is a place to discuss veganism. Discussion on intersectional topics related to the animal rights movement are also encouraged.
What is Veganism?
'Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals ...'
— abridged definition from The Vegan Society
Rules
The rules are subject to change, especially upon community feedback.
- Discrimination is not tolerated. This includes speciesism.
- Topics not relating to veganism are subject to removal.
- Posts are to be as accessible as practicable:
- pictures of text require alt-text;
- paywalled articles must have an accessible non-paywalled link;
- use the original source whenever possible for a news article.
- Content warnings are required for triggering content.
- Bad-faith carnist rhetoric & anti-veganism are not allowed, as this is not a space to debate the merits of veganism. Anyone is welcome here, however, and so good-faith efforts to ask questions about veganism may be given their own weekly stickied post in the future.
- before jumping into the community, we encourage you to read examples of common fallacies here.
- if you're asking questions about veganism, be mindful that the person on the other end is trying to be helpful by answering you and treat them with at least as much respect as they give you.
- Posts and comments whose contents – text, images, etc. – are largely created by a generative AI model are subject to removal. We want you to be a part of the vegan community, not a multi-head attention layer running on a server farm.
- Misinformation, particularly that which is dangerous or has malicious intent, is subject to removal.
Resources on Veganism
A compilation of many vegan resources/sites in a Google spreadsheet:
Here are some documentaries that are recommended to watch if planning to or have recently become vegan:
- You Will Never Look at Your Life in the Same Way Again
- Dominion (2018) (CW: gore, animal abuse)
Vegan Fediverse
Lemmy: vegantheoryclub.org
Mastodon: veganism.social
Other Vegan Communities
General Vegan Comms
Circlejerk Comms
Vegan Food / Cooking
!homecooks@vegantheoryclub.org
Attribution
- Banner image credit: Jean Weber of INRA on Wikimedia Commons
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Why do people call it preaching?
It's baffling that "Hey maybe hamburgers aren't worth kilometers of cows chained with their face in a feed trough. Arranged this way so that the only activity they can engage in is to gorge themselves on low quality feed frequently filled with bits of other cows (backfeeding). Maybe they like have feelings and deserve better than this followed by a dehydrated wait in a death line in some artificially lit temple to screams and blood and horror?"
Is talked about in the same language as "Invisible sky person is deeply concerned about your masturbating habits and you are going to suffer for it!"
I was expecting something like "some just mention it and move on". Instead...
lol
Because despite it being logical to a point, usually the ones who wish to talk about can't actually explain the rationale for some of the more extremely ends of the philosophy.
I'm completely against industrial meat farming, but for instance game meat from deer that were killed for deer management?
Obviously a vegan will take the position that "eating meat is wrong, you're killing just for pleasure" usually. Which obviously isn't true, as there's no "just for pleasure", becsuse we're not talking about trophy hunting, but deer management, which is crucial and without which a lot of animals (and humans) would end up sick, suffering and dying as the ecosystem would overpopulate with deer, leading to a cascade of bad consequences, destroying the environment and the animals in it.
I support vegan products and consider myself a flexitarian, but I do also consume the occasional meat product. Preferably when it's cruelty free game meat.
Sheep are also another thing. Unless we plan to systematically eradicate the species, then we must tend to some sheep at least, which will mean shearing them, as that's required for their health. So then we end up with wool. Should that wool not be used? Would it be cruel to use that wool?
That of course again doesn't mean I'm not fervently against the horrible practices of the large sheep industry. It's just a question of "can't you see the eventual problems that taking a position so extreme would yield?"
And questioning these things can upset people, as it'd require flexing the ideology a bit, and that's something a lot of fervent vegans seem to have issues with. Which is apparent through say, using words like "carnist" to describe anyone who isn't 100% vegan. Almost in the same way dogmatic religions call anyone disagreeing "a heretic".
In the same way that monotheistic Abrahamic religions are, most of the "fighting" rhetoric of vegans is very much dogmatic.
@Dasus @naevaTheRat Why do you care about this stuff? Why does your energy flow towards arguing specifics with vegans? Go engage with meat eaters that don't care whether or not their food was factory farmed instead.
You've invented a vegan in your head to be smarter than. My vegan stance on culls is found here: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/11017095
Context of super necessary (apparently) kangaroo culls.
Species don't suffer, only individuals do. This defense of sheep implies we need to keep breeding pugs, or that if I were to make supersheep who lived ever minute of the day screaming in agony it would be bad to stop breeding them. An absurd stance.
In the interim selling wool creates perverse incentives and if it's a humanitarian effort (so to speak) we should use it for ends which don't profit us.
Your objections are standard and tedious, your examples of extremism in the ideology are actually examples of moderate stances.
I've never met a vegan that finds it morally objectional to scavange meat, assuming you aren't creating perverse incentives. Our objections are to suffering, you should probably stop tilting at strawmen.
You're a mod and didn't like the reply so you deleted it.
And you pretend you don't know what I mean when I say some vegans get upset and have issues with replying to these arguments, lol.
You're welcome to engage in good faith. I have infinite patience for anyone genuinely interested in discussion. It is against the rules of this community to post antivegan rhetoric.
Your initial comment was borderline butI decided to engage in good faith. Then you didn't engage with anything I said and said a few random gotchas. Other mods are welcome to intervene if they felt I removed your comment in error.
If you would like to rephrase your reply and write a better one you are welcome to do so.
If you can do the following:
comment on the content of my post on culling
talk about hunting and perverse incentives
edit your reply in the context of sheep species perpetuation to address what I had to say about super sheep/pugs, how wool is used
edit your reply to differentiate hunting versus scavenging
I will engage with you. Otherwise I will be recommending you get banned.
You can only comment here under the guise of good faith for so long. You're trying to bait a certain response so that you can "prove" a point and put words in other people's mouths.
I'm vegan with a somewhat differing view on culls, having worked for the EPA and with national parks. I agree that a better solution than culling would be ideal, and that no life wants to be killed or population managed. However, we cull because of our past failings. We wiped out natural predators in many areas that kept a balance, and now, if left unchecked, deer will eat themselves into starvation, and devastate their ecosystem. It would be death on a massive scale if unmanaged, and would even affect humans. I think it's a far smaller crime to kill a few deer and manage populations at safe levels, than to allow the mass starvation of entire ecosystems because of our past destruction of that balance.
Better solutions have been proposed. Ideally, where we can, we reintroduce native predators and protect their populations until they're stable. Is that different from killing for population control? We're introducing animals for the explicit purpose of hunting and killing deer in order to keep a balance. If that's wrong, then should we kill all predators? Of course not, but I digress. Those aren't arguments I think you'd make, and I'm not suggesting you'd agree whatsoever, but those are the perspectives we think about. Many many smart people have tackled this issue, and we have not found a better solution than culling. Sometimes, we've done some of what you suggested, and attempted to reduce fertility rates, though I see the same moral issue there as well. No sentient creature wants to be neutered or drugged to prevent reproduction. However, it's better than hunting in certain circumstances, and something has to be done. This isn't a problem that can be ignored to reduce environmental impacts in other areas. Overpopulation will happen, and it is devastating. I wish there was a simple solution, but we made mistakes when we destroyed the native ecosystem, and now it falls to us to keep it from totally collapsing.
But why not humans? and why make a sport of it and celebrate it, why eat them?
Like if species with a tendency to breed to ecosystem collapse should be killed, aren't we top of the list?
Without getting all Agent Smith about it, yes, humans are an ecological disaster. I'm not trying to throw charged what-ifs back and forth. We solve the problems we can. Can you clarify what you're saying? I agree that no animal should be killed by humans, but I also recognize that we must work with the solutions we have. Are you suggesting that we stop cullings and allow overpopulation to happen?
I strongly agree that hunting should not be a sport. I also believe that if we're going to kill an animal, we should at least use the corpse to feed back into the ecosystem, and I don't begrudge those that eat the things they hunt, if necessary. Many people subsist off hunting to survive, and while I disagree with the concept of hunting another animal for food, I won't suggest that they starve, especially when they're filling a vital ecosystem role. If we don't need the food though, we should not be hunting animals for food. I don't know if my opinion is well founded enough to defend the position that if an animal is killed, tragically necessarily, for culling, it should not be eaten. I believe that to be true, but I can't defend that position with anything but my personal feelings and beliefs. On some level, I understand the argument that if an animal must be killed, then it's wasteful to not use the meat. Regardless of either argument, I strongly disagree with trophy hunting, and find any hunting for sport abhorrent.
I hope you can see the nuanced nature of my position. I'm not trying to play devil's advocate or be contrarian. I have a well-formed belief from my experiences, and I am trying to argue my position, and don't think you have to agree with me, nor do I expect you to. I do not see a large scale alternative to culling at the moment. I think those types of alternatives are being pursued by some in the industry, but the scale is small. I also do not believe it's an option to allow populations to grow uncontrollably. I believe allowing that to happen would be as morally reprehensible as hunting for sport, as it's neglecting a duty we have to sustain an ecosystem that we damaged. I am open and interested in any and all alternatives to culling, but I've heard none that haven't been tried or that haven't been able to succeed at scale.
I went to sleep, I may write something more sensible when I have more patience but I suspect the difference is mostly speciesm. I think we ought not to discriminate in ways we treat species and standards we have about appropriate interventions. I agree that in the short terms there may not be good options but like suppose there are 5 spots on a liferaft and 10 people, that doesn't really make leaving 5 people to drown OK and you defs shouldn't outsource it to random yahoos that enjoy killing people.
Given we can't like distribute condoms and the pill to like kangaroos or deer or whatever there may be no good answers in the short term, but killing should be the absolute last resort. Like we should be closing farms for more land, managing forests for better outcomes, reducing fertility if we can and so on long before we kill. If we do kill we need to make sure it is done with a sole focus on harm reduction, which the way culls are done now is defs not true and we ought to be happy to apply the same reasoning to human beings (basically that we have tried everything else we can and because we can't reason violence is all that's left).
I agree that killing should be the absolute last resort, though I disagree that killing humans for population control should ever be in consideration. There is a difference between taking the role of a natural process, the predators that have been depopulated, and killing humans for population control, which have no natural predators. We also never need to consider that as an option, because as you pointed out, we can't distribute pills and condoms to deer, but we can to humans. We shouldn't be thinking of things in terms of equality, but equity. Humans can be managed through effective legislation and education. Deer cannot, and need much more direct intervention. I look forward to the day that culling is no longer necessary, as it's a brutal and unfortunate necessary evil. And for the purposes of demonstrating that it's not specifically about species to me, yes, I believe that if the only way to save the global ecosystem was a rapid depopulation of human beings with no alternatives, it would be right to do so, regardless of how impossible that hypothetical situation is.
Well yes, I also agree that we should never consider killing humans. Which is why I come down hard against culls. I don't have any evidence to suggest my life is more meaninful to me than a kangaroo's life is more meaningful to them.
Atm we cull without even really trying other things. We aren't gods, we make do with what we have, but we can leverage a shitload more resources towards non violent means of managing ecosystems for the benefit of all of their participants than we currently do.
Just curious, do you not see how that would frustrate someone who is not vegan? If your goal is to be confrontational, that little speech definitely hits the mark, but if you’re not, perhaps reflect on the preaching.
Personally, eat what you want to eat. The more vegans and vegetarians around, the better those food choices will be for everyone.
Why would it be frustrating? It is just true. There's no personal attack there, I'm not calling someone anything. It's just reality, if you eat hamburgers that is what happened to get it to your plate. If you don't think cows have feelings it shouldn't bother you, if you think cows have feelings but they don't matter very much it shouldn't bother you, if you do find it bothersome to think about but eat hamburgers that's on you not me.
Quite seriously, either you are ok with what you do or you are not. How is talking about it frustrating or confrontational?
I don't feel bad when I prune a tree, and if you talk about rows and rows of fruit trees being pruned and how they're slathered in nutrients and watered heavily to produce fruit before a harvester violently shakes them I feel neither confronted nor frustrated. I have no reason to even slightly suspect that treatment is wrong. Surely if feedlots and slaughterhouses are morally good or neutral I would at worst seem vaguely silly.
Ok, so I’m sure when you pick up your iPhone you’d love to have someone tell you how much abuse and suffering so many steps in the supply chain involve from the raw material harvesting, terrible working conditions to assemble them, etc.
Just pointing out that what you are doing is the literal definition of preaching. Not sure why you are surprised.
You know what, I would. If there is a problem that I'm unknowingly part of, it's better to know and maybe do something about it than to ignore it.
I can't say I will go live to a hut im the forest with no technology, but will at least be mindful of it and tried to minimize it. If I could afford a new iPhone, I'd certainly rather buy me a Fairphone. There are options and the options are a spectrum, not one or the other.
https://www.fairphone.com/
Yes actually, I don't deal with problems by ignoring them. That's uh, why I have a second hand phone.
See, when something I'm doing upsets me and conflicts with my self image as a person who tries to do good I stop doing that thing. What do you do?
Edit: rule 5. Sorry
Preaching doesn't mean lying or talking about unimportant things, nothing you said contradicts the idea its preaching.
Preaching is when you describe your beliefs in an attempt to convert other people, or to change their behavior.