Not really, some things are objectively bad and wrong and other things are merely subjective.
The problem we're having here are people who hold their subjective beliefs very strongly are then adamant that it makes said beliefs objective, just because they believe them.
even things like killing being bad is not objective in my opinion, it just simply stems from our minds and societies' process of growth through natural selection.
We believe that killing is bad only because we share the majority of their DNA and we are close genetically to what we're killing. It was evolutionarily incentivised to not kill those that are genetically close, as they and we share common ancestors from which such thoughts evolved.
this is imo why we value humans more than other animals, animals more than vegetables and relatives over strangers. Friends being valued more than strangers make sense as well, as they share ideas in the place of the shared genome.
in a wider scope none of this matters anyway, our lives and deaths are irrelevant to the universe and our lives don't actually matter outside what our minds tell us.
>inb4 some child left behind replies with "are you equating eating meat for sustenance with rape?"
Yes. You could eat something else for sustenance. The reason you choose meat is because it's a more enjoyable experience for you, despite the inherent harm. That sounds similar to another topic I mentioned in this comment
Eh, it doesn't mean that it wasn't at one point or that it can't be part of our reproductive strategy in the future. I'd even say that murder and cannibalism are very normal aspects of our species.
You're probably getting downvoted (I didn't just fyi) because it wasn't really relevant to the discussion. No one's disputing if cannibalism is natural, I was just trying to point out that killing and eating children is natural and yet still morally wrong to do.
What were you hoping to achieve with this? You sure showed them, not all natural activities are bad. Unfortunately, they didn't say that. You're arguing against nobody
Almost all herbivores are opportunistic carnivores. Cows are known to eat rats found in the hay. Horses sometimes gobble down a chick if they feel like it.
All these strict rules people believe about biology were prescribed by scholars of old who believed in a perfect creation where everything had its place, but reality is very messy.
99% of vegans dont say eating meat in itself is wrong and this bullshit narrative needs to stop
Edit: I wrote "in itself" to make it especially clear, but it seems people are skipping that part. The act of eating meat can not be evil, carnivorous animals do it for survival. The context is always what matters.
I would go as far as to say that most vegans wouldn't have a moral problem with eating roadkill. The physical act of eating meat is only harmful to an animal if it's still alive while you're eating it. The problem is the part before that, where you paid someone to hurt it
It's all about assumed context. If you ask that question in English on the internet, most readers assume you're talking about in the US, or failing that, in a developed country in the West. Therefore if you buy a pound of beef, it's from a factory farm.
They're not going to assume you're a scavenger harvesting meat from already dead caribou in the artic.
The majority of humans don't scavange meat from already dead animals, even in poorer countries wtf
Soy Salvadoreño y nadie en mi familia ni los vecinos ni el pueblo estaban comiendo animales muertos ni cuando tenían zapatos. Chele morongon, que crees tan bajo de los pobres???
Not all English speakers are from the "west", since it's a lingua franca.
You literally put in that the only option in developed countries is factory farmed meat, which is also not true. There's even European countries where the factory farming of the USA isn't allowed, and plenty of developing countries where it's encouraged.
you imply by saying only developed countries have this option, as if developing countries don't, and for some reason bring up fucking scavanging as one of developing countries alternatives? Really? You think that lowly of them that just classic old ranching didn't come to your mind????? The fuck dude. You just pulled a "those kids in Africa" or "the doctor is the male nurse" moment even if you didn't mean to. You clearly haven't traveled much.
What ever horror humanity has done, we are still holding the beer of invertebrates.
And yet nature's is is not a justification for aught. The fruit of the tree of wisdom (mythically) gave us empathy that we may live in harmony with neighbors, and in the late game, we have learned the imperative to see value in the fallow wilds.
A century ago, a vegan diet for humans as extremely difficult, possibly impossible. And to quote Saruman the forests will burn in the fires of industry! And they have.
We are not a vegan culture today because the food industry focuses on sales and profits, not on nutrition and health.
Though to be fair our massive land-hungry industrial farms will affect the biomes around them regardless of whether we grow plants or ranch livestock. Veganism is part of a solution towards a more harmonious civilization, but misses several pieces.
As much as I admire the morality and overall health of vegetarian/vegan folks, I would also super respect anyone who got all their protein by monstering whole live mice that they caught by hand.
I’m vegetarian and my partner is vegan but neither of us are strictly against the “hunter and gatherer” approach.
Where I live traditional hunting is almost nonexistent, but fishing and other ocean-based “hunting” (crabs, crays, oysters etc) is super popular. I’ve considered taking up spearfishing as it’s more intentional than throwing in a hook and dragging up whatever, and requires more (in my opinion) skill and nerve to pull off successfully. But even if I actually caught something the thought of cleaning it puts me off and I’d more than likely ruin it and waste a life for nothing.
No issues with anyone that can fairly catch and prepare their own meat for themselves, but I’ll stick to my tofu and seitan for now.
Vegans and vegetarians are not often more healthy than meat eaters. In fact a lot of them subsist mostly on junk food and ultra processed shit.
I dunno about their morals. For me it depends on whether they are opposed to meat because they think it’s murder (absurd notion: see op) or because they opposed the treatment of living animals in industrial meat farms, which is the real issue.
Are you gonna eat all those metric tons of corn that are produced to feed the cows? Because I sure as fuck won’t.
I understand your argument but I think that it is just one way of looking at it and it is still more focused on human welfare rather than sentient life form welfare. Because of that I think the scale of meat production and the treatment is the problem. In a perfect society people would buy a cow to eat per year per 2 people in the household and we would have far more human treatment of a sentient species and they could be afforded good lives and painless deaths.
Life by itself has no value, what is valuable is to what extent that life can be enjoyed.
I just don’t think life by itself has any value, nor that death in itself is tragic. Life for me is valuable so much as you have the ability to enjoy it, and I think it to be the same for all sentient beings. But the reality is we are all interlinked and dependent on one another, we need to eat one another to survive. And so I don’t believe that animals dying is a tragedy in itself, I think an animal living in agony and then dying painfully is the real tragedy. We can eat them but we should have them live like kings before we eat them, in honor of their sacrifice.
(Btw, I'm opposed to caged chicken egg cultivation, and even had my own chicken in the past before I couldn't anymore for eggs. Now I just pay the premium and researched which were the most ethical eggs in the store available. Happy hens make better eggs anyway. I'm just pointing out we're not the only ones that raise animals for consumption in nature).
I invented a fictional society for stories in which you are allowed to buy and consume meat, but only if you have a “carnivore’s medallion”. The only way to obtain one is to have witnesses observe you personally slaughter a living being (eg, a chicken) with no assistance.
Ideologically, seems like a good way to put friction on meat obsessions and get people to think about it.
Well, hunting involves the whole orange vests, ensuring legal permission, stalking an animal, etc. The idea would be if this world has hunters, any of them certified as a witness can get their colleagues a medallion without going the whole chicken route.
But obviously, most people who eat meat today don’t hunt. So they would need to go through the experience of taking life once before reaping the benefit.
I mean humans have always used tools but sure, you could take a chicken bare handed. Fish might be easier for a first go as I have seen a few people catch fish out of the water bare-handed after a few tries
I like this idea. We're raising chickens and probably rabbits this spring. If you're going to eat meat, you should face the reality of the life you are consuming.
E: For those downvoting, remember this is a shitpost and some level of inaccuracy is almost required. It's the shit part of the post. Like, c'mon guys...
Vegans have to deal with arguments like this but unironically on the daily. That hits a nerve, wether it's meant as a shitpost or not. Don't take it personally.
And it gotten so bad, that some people will accuse you being a vegan if you're not doing keto/carnivore diet, and thus an extremely militant and unpleasant one.
It's a shitpost on a shitpost community and they're in here taking it like it's a personal attack. They're clearly the ones who need to calm the fuck down in this scenario lol
The fact that it's such an old, overused, and mostly not even correct only enhances its status as a shitpost. That's what they're all about
Calling it "jokes" and shitposting is the chickenshit's ratfuck way of saying inflammatory things while attempting to avoid natural consequences. If you want to be an asshole to strangers on the Internet then at least have a spine about it.
Ooh I know that one! They are in a social situation that involves food and the vegan politely declines an animal product. Then they make an anti vegan joke and the vegan politely disagrees. Have been there many times.
No doubt about it, but I am yet to see someone who eats meat calling for vegans to be forcibly fed meat - and I have seen vegans saying that eating meat should be forbidden.
I've seen quite a few times black people have abused welfare programs. Usually they're posted under conservative accounts, and I get flamed in the comments for pointing out that these are videos posted by someone with an agenda who wants their audience to think certain things about certain groups of people without providing actual data on the subject
Do you think maybe some of the videos of vegans being douchebags that you've seen have been posted by someone with an agenda who wants their audience to think certain things about certain groups of people without providing actual data on the subject?
Have you ever tried to not eat in front of people ever? Turns out it's pretty hard to do. Sometimes, if you're nice to people, you get invited to go out to eat to a place. Often those places have no vegan options, and you have to explain why you can't eat there so people don't just think you're blowing them off constantly. We don't just go around telling everyone we're vegan like all the hate memes like to say.
Most vegans I've met, myself included, don't pick fights with people about veganism. We just live by example. It'd be cool if more people went vegan, but arguing with people about doing it doesn't help. Doing that is like trying to push religion on people or make people experience empathy. It isn't easy to go vegan (getting easier at least). Food is tied to a lot of people's culture who have a hard time relearning how to cook/eat and make generational recipes or comfort foods they've always eaten.
Tell them to find a vegan inclusive place next time and go anyway, the animal is already dead and being a patron this one time to satisfy a friend and have a good time is fine
Never heard this one before. I think I'll use it next time someone says that jerkin it to child porn is wrong. I mean, the harm is already done, right?
You also have to keep in mind that it sucks to be a vegan sharing a meal with an omni. Even with access to plant-based options, we're still required to be surrounded by what we see as gore, and people consuming gore.
You know how smokers can't smell smoke as well as nonsmokers? When I stopped consuming animals I was surprised to find that all meat, no matter how fresh, smells rotten. And everybody who consumes animals smells faintly like rotting corpses - especially during and right after eating.
Lmao. Look at OPs comments. They actually believe this shit. Based on all the other shitposts they post here and all throughout lemmy, they probably picked it up on reddit or some other trash site, thought it was funny, and came here to share.
Well, the first bullshit here is the word "purely". While they indeed have a mainly vegan diet, they also opportunistically consume insects and even small mammals.
In addition to consuming a lot of plant matter, gorillas occasionally consume insects. Gorillas are not considered carnivores in the wild, despite the fact that they may consume meat when it is served to them in zoos. Although officially omnivores, gorillas primarily consume plants, including leaves, stems, bark, flowers, and fruits. They occasionally consume tiny vertebrates and insects as well.
If all of humanity started to "occasionally consume tiny vertebrates and insects" while "primarily consuming plants" by tomorrow, which we could, we'd be way better off. Do you agree?
Yes, I've read my source. What it says is that Gorillas are NOT purley vegan (which was your statement) while not contradicting anything I said.
Even grazing herbivours, (cows, buffaloes) will occational eat small vertabrets. So not being considered "carnivores in the wild" doesn't really mean anyhing. You don't need to be carnivore (or even an omnivore) to not have a "purley vegan" diet.
Which of course makes sense, because animals are opportunistic, not idealistic.
If all of humanity started to “occasionally consume tiny vertebrates and insects” while “primarily consuming plants” by tomorrow, which we could, we’d be way better off. Do you agree?
I certainly wouldn't, but that wasn't really the point.
Really, the only "true vegan" animals are probably Pandas and Koalas which is kinda meaningless as well considering they don't eat anything else other than bamboo and eucalyptus, respectively
Us humans are opportunistic animals as well, which has led to us destroying our global habitat. So we need to change or society will collapse in the not so distant future. There are a lot of things we need to address to survive the next century. The way we eat is one of them. And it's the easiest, because you don't have to get off your ass and protest, you don't have to buy an expensive EV, you just change a habit and stop buying the destructive food next time your shop at the supermarket. You choose the food that saves ⅔ land use, waterpollution and co2-emissions. That's my point.
Yeah, this is just a vegan meme, no scientific theses. Gorillas sometimes eat a bug or two, and they have been seen eating small animals, but it's not their usual diet. Look it up, they eat up to 30 kg of plant stuff per day, including leaves, stems, bark, flowers and fruits. That's petty impressive.
Preach. This is why every Mr. Olympia is filled to the brim, just like non-vegan dudes' wives, with vegans. Boom. Nothing but power and rightness and winning. Bigger, stronger, smarter, righter, and better at internet discourse.
The human brain is fueled by about 20% of your caloric intake. We're evolved to be omnivorous. This isn't prescriptive but descriptive. It's going to take development to make vegan food delicious and something we want to eat (and then all the other features we want out of food: cheap, storage-safe, easy to prepare, etc.)
For those of us who still eat a meat diet, it usually takes a chef to make something actually enjoyable from strictly vegetables. Otherwise, we're used to receiving oddly-spiced bland mush from our vegan friends. But we could do better if we were putting billions into it, and not another more-addictive cheeto.
But we live entrenched in capitalism, so no one is going to take this seriously until we're already dropping dead from natural disasters and famine.
Wow, I asked for the bullshit and you seriously delivered! Not sure if I should take the time to reply to this, because would it even matter?
One thing, though: Everything you eat is vegan, except for the animal tissue, the milk-stuff and eggs. We don't need capitalism to invest in more vegan meat alternatives, we fight it by eating plant based! No junk, just delicious fruits, nuts, legumes and vegetables, like we always did. It's cheap, great for your body and for our suffering planet as well!
Omnivores? We were lucky apes who found out that fire kills enough parasites and bacteria that live in meat. Dogs are the real omnivores, pigs are, too. They eat a rotting squirrel if the feel like it! We die if our bleach-cleaned chicken filet wasn't in the freezer for a couple of hours.
Do you know what elephants and hippos eat all day ... damn, I just started replying.
No idea what you are talking about. I'm not even vegan, but I can make a delicious vegan meal without even trying. All my vegan friends make very tasty food, too. No need for billions.
For those of us who still eat a meat diet, it usually takes a chef to make something actually enjoyable from strictly vegetables.
This is a joke, right? Have you ever tried pasta? Rice? Fruit?
Edit: ramen, PB&J, Oreos, potatoes
The skills you need to make vegetables taste good are the same as the skills you need to make meat taste good. I really hope you aren't just, like, boiling chicken breasts and eating them unseasoned
Oreos are famously vegan. There's some dispute about the ethics of buying products with palm oil, and some sugar suppliers might use bone char to filter sugar, but the ingredients don't necessarily include any animal products
In light of the west's heavily animal-centric diets resulting in most of the top causes of death in these places, it's not exactly accurate to call us omnivores. The centered on whole plant foods our diets are, the better off we are. Animal flesh, dairy, and eggs, at the very least, cannot be consumed without increasing progression and risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes (Ignoring a host of other harmful effects like cancer and autoimmune disorders, which is more contentious).
It would be more accurate to say that we are primarily herbivores, but with an incomplete and dangerous emergency system for omnivory.
Let's put it this way, our bodies really like the smell, taste and mouthfeel of meat. So long as our system is focused on compelling people to eat via yummy food, there's going to be a market for it. It's not prescription, just description.
That's why I was saying we'll have to overcome capitalism before we can really beat this. Otherwise actual balanced nutrition will be a < checks spelling > commodifiable feature of food, rather than its essential point.
Estimates have it that in the industrial world, somewhere between 1-5% of people are vegan. That remaining the same until your preferred revolution happens, and your idealized form of governance becomes the reality everywhere: how is your socioeconomic system going to get the remaining 95% of billions of people to stop consuming, committing cruelty to, and exploiting animals? Sorry, but we have to do whatever we can in the here and now, and there is urgency in time. It's not only a matter of morality. We know that our wanton animal consumption is one of the largest drivers of climate change. We know that our society's addiction to flesh and secretions have resulted in agricultural systems that not only resulted in one recent pandemic, but we are hanging on the edge of an even worse flu pandemic that can end up happening at any time. 75% of new infectious diseases have a zoonotic origin.
In a world where ideal society has never happened and is always a dream away, we do not have the luxury of an either/or approach of fixing one problem before we think about the next.
The toxic food environment is a reality, and that needs to be fixed in policy. But individual choice matters too, because what we choose to buy is what drives what is sold. Taste is dynamic and subjective. New diets are only temporarily less satisfying until the person develops the knowledge, cooking skills, and palate to start getting more satisfaction out of their foods. Even better, the difference in the way people feel when they adopt a whole-food plant-based diet for even as little as a couple of weeks, is a start contrast to the standard western diet. Experiencing the difference first-hand generates more motivation to continue.
Also, our bodies do not inherently like the smell, taste, and mouthfeel of animal flesh. That is a learned habit. When a person goes long enough without consuming flesh, the very smell of it changes - even the freshest meats smell rotten, and the people who eat these foods smell like rotting corpses.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but our elite class seems determined to stay there, and historically violent revolution is what unseats them and allows their wealth to be redistributed from their Scrooge McDuck vaults.
Nonviolent resistance might work, but we haven't seen the kind of mass wealth dispersion that will be necessary.
And the elite are content to drive us right into extinction via the climate crisis and the plastic crisis. Even if you make technology that disrupts the meat market, they're going to legally wrest control of it from you (unless you are rich enough to defend it from Nestlé). Regardless, when it comes to the climate crisis, the deal is done. The pooch is screwed. We know after the collapse the upper limit of sustainable population will be about one billion, and that number dwindles with each day of inaction.
Meanwhile the industrial world is choosing far-right parties over the usual neoliberal crap we've endured through the latter half of the twentieth century, so we're not even serious about managing the climate crisis without the aforementioned revolution (and in that case, into some kind of communal government, since the typical outcome of a people's revolution is a chain of dictators).
Good luck convincing our officials, elected or not, to choose veganism over the meat industry, or even nutrition over junk food. You will need all you can get.
So be the change, Uriel238! You are against suffering, slavery and destruction of our resources? Against the greedy elite who brutaly and recklessly exploit the weak instead of protecting them? (See what I did there?)
Stop paying for dead animal parts next time you're shopping at the supermarket! It feels really good to not take part in this evil system of misery and annihilation.
I know veganism is not the only solution, but no solution will ever be enough without it. Plus it's the easiest Fuck You to the ruling class, while we wait for a revolution.
Dude, I already have doubts if I am worth my footprint, if we're going to think in transactional terms. It's easy to decide if cutting out meat is the only way I can make a difference, then why not cut out everything else as well? Should people kill themselves in order to spare nature the cost of their upkeep?
When we talk about the generation of greenhouse gasses, and the rising global average temperature, companies pollute in a day (in some cases, an hour) what humans produce across their lifetime. US suicides (49,000 per year, as of 2022, and rising with hate-crime and rampage killing rates) are barely a blip.
Maybe folks in the alt-right believe that human lives, at least the ones they don't like, are worth less than the resources they consume, but a lot more believe the lives are worth the food and poop,, which is, again, insignificant to the ever-burning fires of industry.
Quitting meat doesn't stick it to the man in any significant way, any more than self immolation does.
For those of us who still eat a meat diet, it usually takes a chef to make something actually enjoyable from strictly vegetables.
chop brussels sprouts in half, toss with avocado oil with some salt and pepper, and air fry for 15-20 mins. toss some balsamic on em after they're done.
Which is delicious! There are a number of things that are edible. But let me clarify...
In most of the households I lived in with others, I just needed to wait less than a month before the women around wanted flesh and blood. Neither spinach (which has the iron they crave) nor tofu (high protein) cut it.
And in the public, the mere smell of fast food burgers keeps them coming in. As long as dead animal flesh can be sold, it will be, and we don't regulate it. (Yes, in India, cows are sacred, but chickens and goats certainly are not)
There are plenty of individual dishes that are fine. But if you want well rounded nutrition, eventually you're going to be resorting to the few high-protein things that are either uninteresting or a bitch to prepare.
Now mind you, my kitchen savvy is limited. I'm learning, but slowly.
No, what I said was different from what was read. I'll take the blame you like. I'm not trying to win an argument, and don't think less of you if you fail to make a relevant point.
I'm trying to clarify my position.
I also wasn't intending to imply we can't or shouldn't have to move away from meat (more on that below) but that society is going to be difficult to move in that direction.
Though I would say eventually for sake of sustainability we'll probably need to move to veganism or cultured meat or invertebrate protein, at least until we can get our space colonization and terraforming programs up to speed. But we're probably going to starve via climate-crisis driven drought sooner than any of these solutions become popular.
I do hope to be demonstrated wrong by the future, though.
All I was trying to say is that it doesn't take a professional chef's level of skill to cook tasty and nutritious food without using meat.
To address more of your post I originally responded to, I don't think there's any need for development or investment in vegan/vegetarian food, or meat alternatives.
Plenty of delicious and nutritious food exists without requiring meat or animal products. And preparing such meals is not even remotely difficult or expensive, with the very important caveats of those food items being available for purchase without price gouging where folks live (like food deserts - think someone who can't afford a car but whose neighborhood doesn't have any real grocery stores), and some folks have dietary issues that may make eating meat the only practical choice.
I think we agree that the problem exists and that a lot of people are too comfortable with the status quo to voluntarily change. I just don't think it's fair to suggest that meat-free food somehow isn't good enough.
I think the problem isn't that we eat meat. It's that we torture the animals and have them live in deplorable conditions before we eat them. If we all hunted or raised our own animals or had the animals live in decent conditions it would be less of an issue for most REASONABLE vegans and vegetarians.
I used to be vegan and vegetarian a decade so I get it a bit.
I hated it when anyone would bitch about other people's food choices, but then complain when they did the same to them for their food choices.
Both sides I mean. I had some non-veggies once they found out I didn't eat meat would attack me for it. When I did start eating meat again some vegans and vegetarians would attack me for it.
I know that the industry is horrific. I have battled internally with becoming a vegan. And this isn't a but, it's just something i thought about once when thinking about the argument that whilst in nature, animals eat other animals, its not the same as what we do as we farma dn torture animals to get the meat....
Its cats....
Cats torture their prey....
They play with it, and maim it and keep it alive for as long as possible so they can chase it, for fun...
And sometimes they just fucking leave it there when it dies.
For me, I think the difference is that I have the means and opportunity to reduce (an incredibly minor amount, I know) the suffering of animals everywhere by not eating meat, so I feel somewhat an obligation to do so.
Whereas a cat does not have the knowledge or information or desire to make that sort of decision making. So I love them anyway...I just don't let them outside so they can't murder every living thing nearby for fun.
To each his own, that's just my personal impetus to be meat free.
Yeah, I think this is the big difference. We have the capacity to rationalize and introspect. If we can make a change for the better (and know we can), how do we justify not making it?
Sometimes the reason is “it’s hard” or an apathetic “it doesn’t matter”. But I think it’s very difficult to come to the conclusion that it’s (consumption of meat) the correct thing to do.
I say this as someone who commonly falls into the “it’s tough” bucket.
Actually, humans are animals. Once you view them in that light, the "I don't want to stop eating meat" becomes "I can't stop eating meat, because I am actually an animal who believe it is above instinct".
An important addition is that saying "we are animals" isn't supposed to cut what we judge to be morally right or wrong.
If anything, "We are animals" must be used to know that other animals may probably have similar introspection as us and we are unaware, thinking o ourselves as special kind of creature when it is far from being true.
If, let's say hypothetically, a cow do have not only feelings but also moral thought, thinking of a sacred "cow god/goddess) and having moral argument with fellow cows, then it just makes butchering them even more of a "crime" that it is already.
It is pretty horrible, but who's to say that despite our smart words and realizations, we aren't just acting on our own programming. Who is to say that our subconscious did not desire meat, and then our rational part of our minds made whatever excuse to justify eating more meat. Having said that, I want substitutes...
I feel like this ignores the point many are making here.
The statement that we are animals is true. But as many have pointed out, we have the extra layer of reasoning, introspection, and empathy.
We can see the pain and torture subjected on other animals and reson that it is unjustified and empathise with the pain by thinking about how we would feel if in the shoes of the animals being slaughtered. We can look at outlr actions and decide to make a change.
None of this, as far as we know, is possible for any other animal.
This is a huge distinction and one that, as i said, you have either missed or ignored whilst reading these comments.
Most of the time, adults don't torture their prey. Kittens aren't born with the ability to hunt, and their instincts need to develop too. So the mom brings home live prey for the kittens to play with. Sometimes adults keep this behaviour.
Absolutely, the meat industry needs to be clamped down on hard
But, there are plenty of vegans who also rail against alternatives like lab grown beef which is still meat but bypasses all the problems with the meat industry of today
If lab grown meat were readily available and affordable, I would switch in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, I know for a damn fact I dont have the discipline for veganism, bad as the industry is. Also milk and eggs have to be produced somehow no matter what or the animal dies because we bred them like that millennia ago so like might as well eat those anyway
Not a vegan, but I don't think I've ever heard a vegan say that. We've all watched nature shows. Rationale is usually a little bit deeper. Overconsumption, abuse of animals in meat/dairy industries, responsibility of humans to aim for a higher level of morality than animals, etc. Sure some go overboard, but I wouldn't underestimate the complexity of the thinking behind it.
Humans "i dont rape because i respect other humans". Meanwhile nature ....
And in before "but i need to eat", you dont need to eat animal products. You can have a healthy life with a vegan diet, arguably an even healthier life. And to go back to my original point, just because you need to cum, doesnt mean that you have the right to cause suffering and death to other sentient beings.
I 100% agree with you, that the existence of canine teeth does not mean that we must eat meat, but pandas are famously bad at living. The species only exists at this point because humans think they're cute
Telling boys to just go masturbate got us the Immorten Joe's Warboys ^†^ that are the alt-right, that got Trump into power twice. The boys we told to literally go fuck themselves when they raged over their sexual frustration got us the army of militants and voters behind the white Christian nationalist movement. I was among them in the 1980s, when the society gave a meager few more fucks about them than they do in the twenty-first century.
I suspect similar movements exist through Europe, which is generally rejecting neoliberalism for fascist-thick movements towards one-party autocracy.
No, I don't have a solution, and I've been working on it for thirty years. Christianity's proscription against sex (later limited to non-reproductive sex) figures largely into the problem and it's served so far as a sufficient distraction from class consciousness and effective response to industry's effect on climate, and the imminent climate crisis.
We don't have a way to let our young guys sow their wild oats, while we're careening towards multiple great filters we are unprepared to navigate.
I know: 🧶📌📇
Maybe even: 🐰🎩🫖☕
And yet, very few people think about it, still. Those who do ponder the angry-young-men problem discount them as ineligible or feel they are too repugnant to civilized folk to consider. I've heard otherwise rational content creators actually say (I paraphrase) these guys were mistreated as kids and are now a societal problem. But they suck, so fuck those guys.
It might be a failing of the human species itself, that we are compelled to cast our young men out the way gorillas cast out their adolescent females (but welcome strange females), and capitalism intentionally only has limited seats where they can pick themselves up, so the system teaches them from the beginning to be aggressive, ruthless and transactional. Not to get completely nihilist, but maybe our capacity for civilization is limited and we just can't overcome the paradigms that served us as migratory bands of hunter-gatherers.
In the meantime, our boys are taught they suck in our Christianity-heavy abstinence-only sex-ed, ^‡^ from which they descend into the incel movement, the manosphere, gamergaters, etc and from there into the transnational white power movement. Our society gave Trump his instant army, and it was ready for him the moment Trump went into politics. And our lack of interest or concern about the new batch of warboys we churn our from the US education system every year, is going to literally kill us all.
Just go vegan is going to end the same way, especially since the food industry cares not about actual nutrition but profit. Taking a page from Fourth International Posadism, we may have to end capitalism before we can create an ethical food production system (probably incorporating farming invertebrates as well as vegetables), but the problem right now is not what's the end result ( Fully Automated Gay Space Communism ) but how the heck we get there and not crash and burn with the global ecology.
Totally open to ideas, but I'm not the guy you have to convince.
† Not to be confused with Warboyz of W4K fame.
‡ Twenty six states mandate abstinence-only sex ed, that stuff that teaches girls they are chewing gum, or someother one-use safety-sealed metaphor, and that boys aren't allowed to think about sex until they have a salaried job and a ring. Seriously, this is still what is taught.
Three states mandate comprehensive sex ed: The west coast. And none of them require discussion of consent. (Some teachers include it anyway, as an elective topic). Of course, if we demanded opt-in consent in our sexual relationships, we might demand opt-in sex in our other contracts as well, say our jobs, our devices, our software, etc.
Not if you don't want to. Maybe you think I'm wrong after a couple of sentences. That's okay. The majority of American voters voted for an autocratic usurper. We can't expect everyone to get it or care.
Ok, I only read the first paragraph, but the poster said that instead of raping, you could masturbate. Are you suggesting that they should go raping instead?
There are too many people for us all to hunt our own meat, and the same amount of farmland that can feed x amount of livestock can feed significantly more people than the livestock would.
It's because the very existence of veganism implies that a) eating animals and the things they produce is harmful and b) you don't need to eat animals or the things they produce. Omnivores have to argue against one or both of those claims, or acknowledge that they're doing something wrong, and humans will commit a lot of evils to convince ourselves that we're not doing anything wrong
"I'm a good person, good people don't do bad things, therefore nothing I do is bad"
Nah I think most ppl honestly don't care. We don't even care about each other as the western world's entire lifestyle is based on the exploitation of other countries and their ppl.
You expect someone to suddenly give a damn about a cow 500 miles away?
Our species were shaped as omnivores, meaning we have a choice of what we want to eat. Don't forget where we don't live anymore: the jungle. Just because we used to live in caves doesn't mean we should live in caves now. Also, they didn't have McDonald's in the jungle.
So we domesticated fire, that's one step out of the swamp and steppes.
Then there was agriculture and animal husbandry, we became sedentary.
Writing developed, accelerating growth in the arts, math and engineering, the sciences... we had domesticated knowledge and memory - data storage.
Before we knew it, the printing press popped up and soon after we domesticated something abstract and invisible, awesome and truly fundamental - electromagnetism. That's is the big game changer right there.
We have figured out our physical place in the universe.
We can image distant supermassive black holes, we have mapped the farthest, faintest reaches of the visible universe using the oldest light there is - the Cosmic Microwave Background (which started out as orange light 13.7 billion years ago).
We are now in the process of harnessing sunlight and the wind; the genome; we can now even perform data operations using quantum superimposed electron states, harnessing the subatomic wave function itself.
Surely we can now domesticate cruelty-free protein chemistry. So many steps away from the swamp and steppes already, so far we can't turn and go back again. What's one more step?
Lab grown meat is not getting better nor cheaper since a decade, it's still an ungodly block of stem cells. This is not a political statement, I don't care if people eat lab grown, but it's not there yet and to me, it's off-putting and unnecessary.
Give plant based alternatives a try, there is already a huge variety that differs in taste and texture. Some are okay, some are great. At the moment, capitalism is stuffing it's pockets with vegan meat money but this stuff is super cheap and easy to make and prices will fall if production numbers go up and there's even more competition. So no need wait! Choose the food that reduces land use, water pollution and co2 emissions by at least 60%.
Hawks eat meat cause they have to. WE eat meat cause it's delicious. The Hawks dies if there are too many Hawks in one feeding ground. The human fucks up his and everyone elses Habitat for centurys cause he's too lazy to change.
The survival of the fittest narrative was debunked almost as soon as it existed, and that debunking is what forms the ideological basis of mutual aid. That people continue to spread this toxic misinformation over a century later is a testament to the unfortunate tenacity of lies.
Even in the most brutal depths of the natural world, cooperation is still the overarching basis of ecosystem health. It's known in Permaculture, for instance, that too much competition results in resource depletions.
A vegan ethic is inline with a growing awareness and need for us all to learn to expand our capacities of empathy and compassion, from those who are most like us, to those who are most unlike us.
On the topic of wilderness areas, vegans are divided on what the right approaches are. Some of us compare natural biomes to sovereign nations - while we dislike the harms that occur in those places, we feel a need to allow other species their independence to have their self-determination, if for no other reason than the fact that nature is the basis of maintaining a habitable planet, and interference in ecosystems should only be done with the utmost care.
But there are other vegans who do believe strongly that we should be intervening in wild places as well, with the goals of eliminating predation all together, and managing wildlife populations in more ethical ways.
"fittest" in "survival of the fittest" doesn't mean strongest or most dominant.
It means "best adapted".
It can be rephrased as "the species most likely to survive are those best adapted to their environment"
So it wasn't really debunked, per se, the strange perversion of "alpha" survival was debunked. Mutual aid is absolutely an excellent environmental adaptation that leads to survival.
Temporarily lower prices. A large consumer base is needed to support the infrastructure that provides meat food products. More people eating more meat will normally produce lower prices in the long-term.
Marginal cost doesn't always decrease. More people buying gold or whatever won't decrease the price of gold. The cheapest way to feed cattle is to just let them graze, but there isn't enough land on Earth for everyone to eat as much beef as Americans, even if using intensive agriculture to grow feed (which degrades the soil over time and results in large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions). I don't think there's enough land on Earth to maintain the current human population for very long. I.e. I think we are in the overshoot phase of a boom and bust population dynamic. Saw this graphic a while back, and it's wild how much of the biomass we've took over:
It may be made up for in quality though, having a smaller consumer base may result in ensuring higher quality meat on average. Perhaps even a situation where lab grown meat is used for things like hamburgers or chicken nuggets.
Tfw keeping animals in cages and slaughtering them after 6 months of misery from the comfort of your 21st century life is different from being a feral animal living in the wilderness
It's way easier for me to have a vegetarian diet when I'm eating at home. At restaurants the vegetarian options almost always contain the one thing I'm allergic to, so I often have no choice but to eat meat when I go out.
Depends on how far you go back. Grasslands came after jungles/forests.
Based on some of our traits (nose shape good for diving, can control our breathing voluntarily, fingers get more grippy when wet, lack of fur), we might have even been semi-aquatic for a while.
Yeah, that's why I said might, since any evidence is circumstantial and could have another explanation. I did not intend to present that as fact but merely a possibility of even more extreme environment changes than jungle to grasslands that we might have had in our ancient past.
I’m a vegetarian and also native. Humans have this weird hubris where they think they’re not part of the natural world.
Humans are designed to be omnivores, meat jumpstarted our evolution. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with eating meat, but what’s wrong is the ease and disregard for meat and the animals that provide it through the factory farming industry.
But at the end of the day there’s no more wrong with a person eating meat, than with that Hawk eating a mouse. We’re part of the circle.
We just have the privilege to live in a time and place where not eating meat is a realistic choice
Humans are part of nature, but what call nature is the mostly well balanced group of ecosystems and food chains. Humans turned nature into a devilish food machine. There's very few animals that hunt and kill for pleasure the way humans do, and even then the vast majority of humans could never kill an animal. So we pay someone else to do it. Killing meat for pleasure is evil, buying it at the supermarket is both evil and cowardly.
That's not how evolution works. Evolution doesn't have a plan, it doesn't wait, or speed up. Evolution just happens and our human ancestors would have continued to evolve regardless of agriculture. The path that evolution takes could have been very different but it would have happened. The human species is still evolving and will continue to do so until it's extinction.
Agriculture allowed us to stay in one place, changing the shape of the Landscape, fitting it to our needs, Form larger Packs of Peoples because of sustainable food income, therefore forming societies and developing introcate communicatio Mechanisms, growing large (ready efficienter) brains for that purpose because we could expedite more energy to it.
Without agriculture, we would still roam the World in Hunter & Gatherer Fashion, Not having so much of a society and would still be dump as bricks because our whole thought Processes and physique would be targeted towards Hunting and gathering.
Yes, Evolution does Not have a plan, but it does Not Happen spontaneously, AS the environment selects against unfavorable traits (and genes thereof) and towards favorable ones by breeding. If you have a better Chance If survival, you have a longer life and more chances of passing your expressed traits (by the means of genes) by means of breeding tothe next Generation.
I’m not going to get into a cherry pick our sources argument with you, agriculture is very important to humanity culturally.
Becoming an agrarian society is not what made us humans though.
An entry level anthropology course is a weird source to point at though as because I’m making biological and evolutionary argument and you’re referring to culture.
Regardless anthropological sources hold up the advent of fire and our ability to break free from simple nutrient sources and day time caloric gain AND venturing into colder regions. It allowed the dispersal of humans. Well before agriculture.
PS: fire more strongly supports the notion that humans were originally largely vegetarian, if you care to have a more salient point.
Depends on WHO you refer to as humanity. For me, humanity started at the Point, where we could create larger societies than Just Tribes of people, which all other Hominids have also in Common. If you refer to all Hominid Species Lifeforms (past and present), your Point may stand. But AS i Said before, neanderthal peoples also knew how to make fire, Same woth many other Hominid Species, that went extinct, as they were driven into a evolutionary Corner Not adapting to the Changes in environments and neighborhood Relations with the modern Human (Homo Sapiens). And yes, i know this Species is 300k years existent, much longer than agricultural Farming.
Alas i am Not a Scientist, but the notion of the Shitpost, that we must eat meat is ridiculus, as our Species was always an omnivore, allowing us to adapt better to the environmental Changes in the begining. This is Not, what differentiates us from other homidae.If you Just say, fire is what differentiates US, you cold also say, the ?dexterus? thumbs is the deciding factor. Other Species Had that too, its Not our Unique elling Point 😉
And the angel of the lord came unto me
Snatching me up from my place of slumber
And took me on high and higher still
Until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself
And he brought me into a vast farmlands of our own Midwest
And as we descended cries of impending doom rose from the soil
One thousand nay a million voices full of fear
And terror possessed me then
And I begged Angel of the Lord what are these tortured screams?
And the angel said unto me
These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots!
You see, Reverend Maynard
Tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust
And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat
Like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared
"Hear me now, I have seen the light!
They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul!
Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers!
The first time I ever heard this was the night that album released. Lived in a house in Cape Coral Florida with a bandmate, and a few members of another local band as roommates.
I think the other band’s drummer had gotten it earlier that day. Anyway… later that night, we pretty solidly cooked and listening to it, and when the album ended, no one wanted to get up and start it over or put on something else… so we all just sort of quietly sat there.
I swear to god- no one moved an inch, no one said a word. We were absolutely floored! What the hell were we hearing! Visions of a white haired Amish preacher, glasses swinging from a chain, as he stomped through a farm plot, yelling at us….
I was sitting around stoned out of my gourd with a coworker (pizza delivery). We were listening to music with the stereo way up and he played this album. He was watching me when it started, kept a straight face through it, died laughing when it got to rabbits wearing glasses. Damn, that's a good memory.
Ah yes, the anti-vegan. Nearly as annoying as the vegan.
I have the same advice for you as I have for vegans: let people eat what they want to eat, mind your business, and keep your preferences to yourself unless you're asked.
That said there is some irony here because you're framing this as unreasonable, but we do this all the time with other humans. As an outsider you should treat members of a group differently than they treat each other - unless you're saying white people should be allowed to drop N bombs lol
I had thought that veganism was more of a beliefs thing: to not eat products of exploitation, but then I heard the honey thing. The honey thing might be just from an overbearing vegan, or I just don't know the details, but beekeeping just looks so peaceful
eh, veganism doesn't work for my relatively unique anatomy (if I eat that much fiber I go to the hospital) but were it not for that I'd probably be eating a plant based diet. people tend to know what works for them, and i'm not going to judge them for their dietary choices. Except foie gras.
Can you even construct a sentence that makes sense, follow logic for more than 1 reply? Or is the sack of fat on your forehead is encroaching on your brain?
Not vegan, but to play the vegan’s advocate—vegans are acutely aware of the level of cruelty in the factory farm system, as well as it's affect on the environment and don’t want to partake in those systems of harm and taking without consent. To them, it’s not just a dietary choice but an ethical stance against suffering and exploitation. To someone who sees the life of a cow as just as sacred and important as a human's, you can imagine why it would upset them to see you eating a steak. Just like you might be upset if you saw someone eating a dog or a fellow human. To them there's no difference.
It’s similar to how evangelical Christians genuinely believe they’re trying to save people from eternal damnation when they get preachy. Just as annoying. The difference is that one is rooted in observable reality—documented animal suffering, environmental damage, and ethical concerns—while the other is a matter of 'faith.' and the latter is given a lot more leeway. So when vegans speak out, it’s not necessarily about policing your diet; it’s about trying to reduce harm in a world where harm is often hidden or normalized. And for what it's worth I have known a lot of vegans and not one of them was ever preachy or judgemental, in fact most tend to keep it to themselves because vegans are so often the subject of ridicule, the butt of played out jokes, or made to host a session of 20 questions and feigned health concerns from people who eat nothing but processed meat and carbs.
I believe everyone should be able to do and live as they want as long as it doesn't interfere with anyone else's ability to do the same, and I can fully understand how to a vegan someone eating a steak would break that rule.
And I'm saying the vegan that tells others how to live their lives is as fictional as the god who damns non-believers to hell. Even the weird publicity stunts by PETA are just to raise awareness of the issue.
And the moral implications are totally relevant as they completely explain the reasoning of someone who would care if you ate a steak, the question your original comment asks.
I'm a different person, that was my first comment here.
The way I see it, the discussion was about permitting others to commit acts which one considers immoral.
In the case of a vegan that might mean allowing someone else to eat meat, but the ethical dilemma is the very same as allowing a cannibal to eat a child. Does one have any right to intervene in their daily habits and societal norms, just because you think it's wrong? If yes, why shouldn't the vegan do the same?
I will say that I can't claim to be a vegan myself. I just found your logic flawed.
Youre entitled to your opinion, but the argument in itself is not a valid one. Not caring about what other people do has is called anarchy. How would you rate the same argument with other context?
"Lets care less about who others kill?" (that ones actually pretty similar now that im writing it^^)
"Lets care less about who others spit on?"
"Lets care less about when your neighbors blast their music at 130dB"
Imagine those in a context where there were no laws regulating those actions yet. Someone had to step up and start demanding we regulate behavior and establish rules for generally accepted behavior. Those rules are constantly changing and they should. We need to adjust to new information as we go on. Making animals suffer for our convenience is something many people consider immoral and sometimes people point out when other do immoral things.
What omnivores eat should actually matter to vegans because theyre responsible for stress and suffering, which many see as their moral obligation to oppose. Funny how its mostly the other way around.
Imagine people going around raging about how you dont beat your wife and kids or dont rape and kill children.
Also the environmental impacts. I don't own a huge polluting coal powerplant that is actively contributing to fucking up the planet that I live on, and I'm still allowed to criticise them for it. Why should the meat industry be any different?
I dont understand your point. Everyone DOES have the freedom you are talking about and noone is debating that. Why are you pretending like thats not the case?
In some areas men are allowed to beat their wives. Youre still allowed to critisize them for it, and you should be allowed to.
Also, regarding your actual equivalency, everyone is allowed to critisize women for getting abortions. But you shouldnt be allowed to deny it. Thats the difference. Were talking about the same thing over and over, youre just not seeing it are you?
Realizing now the mistake one makes when trying to remain neutral in a discussion where vegans are involved.
"Realizing now the mistake one makes when trying to remain neutral in a discussion where abolitionists are involved" ~ someone in 1850s Kansas, trying to remain neutral in a discussion about slavery and complaining about those damn abolitionists who can't see the nuance in owning people
>inb4 some room temperature IQ replies with "are you really equating eating meat with slavery?"
No, slavery is worse than animal agriculture. That doesn't mean that animal agriculture isn't wrong for the same reasons that slavery is. You're driving a demand for unnecessary harm to be done to sentient beings for a product you don't need to survive.
You say the cow cares? I say the cow never asked for your advocacy. And we both know you cannot prove it has.
I can prove pretty easily that cows can suffer. I can't prove that any individual cow wanted to live any more than I can prove that any murder victim wanted to live, but it's a safe fucking assumption that they did.
And it’s also safe to assume they are entirely clueless about the concept of meat consumption
And a child doesn't know what sex is, but it turns out that the victim not being able to comprehend the crime being committed against them is not a justification for committing that crime. I know, you don't think your logic can be expanded to cover things outside of dietary decisions, but it can whether you like it or not.
What someone wants to eat, provided it is legal- is only considered to be your business to you and you alone- not to them. So your opinions of their consumption of cheeseburgers is every bit as important to an omnivore as the opinions of Christian fundamentalists are to the LGBTQ.
Something being legal does not mean it's okay, and my opinion of me consumption is a bit more meaningful than the opinions of Christian fundamentalists to the lgbt, on account that your perfectly legal dietary decisions actively cause harm in a way that being gay doesn't.
Where we came from is less important than where we are going. The problems with veganism are not that they don't eat animals, in fact I don't think the problem is with veganism at all but with moral imperatives in general that promote black and white, oppositional political positioning. But moral imperatives are one of the most popular and effective rhetorical methods to make a point (and split opposition) so we are just kind of raised in it. If you're someone who has strong opinions you learn to express them in a certain way.
But veganism is good, but primitivist "return to nature" types have a dubious track record aka they tend to be chuds or on their way to chuddening. "Retvrn to the past" is a conservative talking point, but what separates us from nature is capitalism, not veganism.
Veganism is not return to nature. Quite the opposite. And it's definitely not a return to the past. Veganism is a modern view of society where we look at the possibilities we have today, granted to us by technology and science, and decide to spare the lives of animals. We have a surplus of food and supplements that makes meat consumption less healthy, efficient and ethical than plant based. It's was virtually impossible to do be 100% plant based 100 years ago in full health.
Your analogy basically boils down to Descartes' hypothesis about "animal machines".
There is a legitimate debate to be had about about the spectrum of consciousness/awareness and where it apparently stops. Most people would agree that mammals and birds are on it. I've seen the need for a central nervous system seen pop up a lot, but there is also octopuses, which are highly intelligent without having one. You can even find something that I can only describe as "intelligence" and a decent level of awarness in spiders, best example being the genus Portia. So where does the spectrum really end?
Some plants are capable of some impressive actions, like beansprouts systematically moving and "searching" for stuff to grab on, a lot of plants use pheremonal communications to warn each others of predators ... there is good stuff here. So are the just totally off the spectrum of awareness and purley operating on a mechanical level, like a phone? I'm not sure.
The point is, we don't really know what consciousness is. And while this video is quite dated, I'm not aware of a better take (though it doesn't really do much in practice).
I dated one for over a year. Mentally unstable that lot. I think the whole time she was introducing me to people I only met like two vegans that I would have considered mentally sound.
does this look natural to u?
I can side with the vegans that the meat industry needs to be clamped down on hard
But eating meat in of itself is not wrong, that is what is natural
There are plenty of things that are 'natural' that are wrong to do, why is eating meat any different?
That's a personal choice that people are allowed to make for themselves.
That misses the question a bit, no? Everything that is wrong to do is a personal choice. It’s not relevant to whether or not it should be done
Not really, some things are objectively bad and wrong and other things are merely subjective.
The problem we're having here are people who hold their subjective beliefs very strongly are then adamant that it makes said beliefs objective, just because they believe them.
Killing someone who's done nothing to you and doesn't want to die is pretty objectively bad.
Yes, killing other people is objectively bad. Thank you for agreeing with me.
Could you tell me how you measured that badness and how I can repeat the experiment?
What is the 'objective' source of your morality?
There is none. It's just my view based on how people see things. You're allowed to not agree, it doesn't have to be combative.
even things like killing being bad is not objective in my opinion, it just simply stems from our minds and societies' process of growth through natural selection.
We believe that killing is bad only because we share the majority of their DNA and we are close genetically to what we're killing. It was evolutionarily incentivised to not kill those that are genetically close, as they and we share common ancestors from which such thoughts evolved.
this is imo why we value humans more than other animals, animals more than vegetables and relatives over strangers. Friends being valued more than strangers make sense as well, as they share ideas in the place of the shared genome.
in a wider scope none of this matters anyway, our lives and deaths are irrelevant to the universe and our lives don't actually matter outside what our minds tell us.
Just to clarify I'm not saying that we should go around killing people, just that objectivity isn't real in morality
Are the animals also allowed a choice in the matter?
See this is what I told people when they found out I had sex with my dog, and they said I was crazy and abusive! Like, it's my own choice!
>inb4 some child left behind replies with "are you equating eating meat for sustenance with rape?"
Yes. You could eat something else for sustenance. The reason you choose meat is because it's a more enjoyable experience for you, despite the inherent harm. That sounds similar to another topic I mentioned in this comment
Homosexuality has been observed among a great many species, particularly birds and mammals.
What where we talking about again?
Killing and eating your children has been observed among a great many species, particularly reptiles and mammals.
What where we talking about again?
Eh, it doesn't mean that it wasn't at one point or that it can't be part of our reproductive strategy in the future. I'd even say that murder and cannibalism are very normal aspects of our species.
E: I guess I'm getting downvoted for seemingly pulling that out of my ass. But I recommend the book Dinner with a Cannibal: The Complete History of Mankind's Oldest Taboo by Caroline A. Travis-Henikoff. It's a serious look at how cannibalism shaped our cultures and evolution.
You're probably getting downvoted (I didn't just fyi) because it wasn't really relevant to the discussion. No one's disputing if cannibalism is natural, I was just trying to point out that killing and eating children is natural and yet still morally wrong to do.
What were you hoping to achieve with this? You sure showed them, not all natural activities are bad. Unfortunately, they didn't say that. You're arguing against nobody
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature
Yes, but most people in the west don't have the option to eat meat that are not from the meat industry.
That is exactly why veganism is attractive in the west.
Exactly as a vegan ex explained it to me.
Murder and rape are also "natural."
Yo this seems to be a bad take
I think something that defines humanity is that we really try not to follow the "rules of nature", ie. the rule of the stronger over the weaker
Yeah, I wash shocked to find out that Squirrels hunted and ate smaller mice when they felt the urge.
Almost all herbivores are opportunistic carnivores. Cows are known to eat rats found in the hay. Horses sometimes gobble down a chick if they feel like it.
All these strict rules people believe about biology were prescribed by scholars of old who believed in a perfect creation where everything had its place, but reality is very messy.
Carnivores, not cannibals lol
All cannibals are carnivores but not all carnivores are cannibals.
Thanks 😅
If you prefer to live a natural life, be my guest. Go ahead, live by your logic as you expect from others. Hunt, kill, and process your own food ;)
99% of vegans dont say eating meat in itself is wrong and this bullshit narrative needs to stop
Edit: I wrote "in itself" to make it especially clear, but it seems people are skipping that part. The act of eating meat can not be evil, carnivorous animals do it for survival. The context is always what matters.
I would go as far as to say that most vegans wouldn't have a moral problem with eating roadkill. The physical act of eating meat is only harmful to an animal if it's still alive while you're eating it. The problem is the part before that, where you paid someone to hurt it
You haven't been here long, have you?
Youre saying vegans want to stop animals from eating other animals? I dont think so.
🤣 go to the Lemmy vegan community and say that. I'm sure you'll easily get 99 upvotes and only a single downvote
It's all about assumed context. If you ask that question in English on the internet, most readers assume you're talking about in the US, or failing that, in a developed country in the West. Therefore if you buy a pound of beef, it's from a factory farm.
They're not going to assume you're a scavenger harvesting meat from already dead caribou in the artic.
The majority of humans don't scavange meat from already dead animals, even in poorer countries wtf
Soy Salvadoreño y nadie en mi familia ni los vecinos ni el pueblo estaban comiendo animales muertos ni cuando tenían zapatos. Chele morongon, que crees tan bajo de los pobres???
Incredible that you were able to mental gymnastics what I said into an attack on poor people and you assumed I can read Spanish.
I wish you well in your mental health crisis.
Not all English speakers are from the "west", since it's a lingua franca.
You literally put in that the only option in developed countries is factory farmed meat, which is also not true. There's even European countries where the factory farming of the USA isn't allowed, and plenty of developing countries where it's encouraged.
you imply by saying only developed countries have this option, as if developing countries don't, and for some reason bring up fucking scavanging as one of developing countries alternatives? Really? You think that lowly of them that just classic old ranching didn't come to your mind????? The fuck dude. You just pulled a "those kids in Africa" or "the doctor is the male nurse" moment even if you didn't mean to. You clearly haven't traveled much.
we were talking about chickens not beef.
I can go to a conservative community and say liberals have horns and get the same result. It proves nothing.
Pretty horrifying if you let yourself think of it.
What ever horror humanity has done, we are still holding the beer of invertebrates.
And yet nature's is is not a justification for aught. The fruit of the tree of wisdom (mythically) gave us empathy that we may live in harmony with neighbors, and in the late game, we have learned the imperative to see value in the fallow wilds.
A century ago, a vegan diet for humans as extremely difficult, possibly impossible. And to quote Saruman the forests will burn in the fires of industry! And they have.
We are not a vegan culture today because the food industry focuses on sales and profits, not on nutrition and health.
Though to be fair our massive land-hungry industrial farms will affect the biomes around them regardless of whether we grow plants or ranch livestock. Veganism is part of a solution towards a more harmonious civilization, but misses several pieces.
What the crap is this response?
As much as I admire the morality and overall health of vegetarian/vegan folks, I would also super respect anyone who got all their protein by monstering whole live mice that they caught by hand.
Our ancestors have been using sharp sticks, heavy sticks, and sharp rocks since they could walk upright, so I’d support that, too.
I’m vegetarian and my partner is vegan but neither of us are strictly against the “hunter and gatherer” approach.
Where I live traditional hunting is almost nonexistent, but fishing and other ocean-based “hunting” (crabs, crays, oysters etc) is super popular. I’ve considered taking up spearfishing as it’s more intentional than throwing in a hook and dragging up whatever, and requires more (in my opinion) skill and nerve to pull off successfully. But even if I actually caught something the thought of cleaning it puts me off and I’d more than likely ruin it and waste a life for nothing.
No issues with anyone that can fairly catch and prepare their own meat for themselves, but I’ll stick to my tofu and seitan for now.
Hell yeah
IMHO traditional hunting isn't a problem at all. It's sustainable and the animal gets a real life and a respectful death.
I'm not gonna do it myself but I'm not going to tell some Inuit that his ancestors were all wrong.
Great, now I have to replace all my beef with veal.
Vegans and vegetarians are not often more healthy than meat eaters. In fact a lot of them subsist mostly on junk food and ultra processed shit.
I dunno about their morals. For me it depends on whether they are opposed to meat because they think it’s murder (absurd notion: see op) or because they opposed the treatment of living animals in industrial meat farms, which is the real issue.
Are you gonna eat all those metric tons of corn that are produced to feed the cows? Because I sure as fuck won’t.
I understand your argument but I think that it is just one way of looking at it and it is still more focused on human welfare rather than sentient life form welfare. Because of that I think the scale of meat production and the treatment is the problem. In a perfect society people would buy a cow to eat per year per 2 people in the household and we would have far more human treatment of a sentient species and they could be afforded good lives and painless deaths.
Life by itself has no value, what is valuable is to what extent that life can be enjoyed.
However you gotta justify your choices I guess.
I just don’t think life by itself has any value, nor that death in itself is tragic. Life for me is valuable so much as you have the ability to enjoy it, and I think it to be the same for all sentient beings. But the reality is we are all interlinked and dependent on one another, we need to eat one another to survive. And so I don’t believe that animals dying is a tragedy in itself, I think an animal living in agony and then dying painfully is the real tragedy. We can eat them but we should have them live like kings before we eat them, in honor of their sacrifice.
OP's argument is far more absurd than its strawman.
Nature according to people who use that argument
Well if the ants can do it, why can't we?
(Btw, I'm opposed to caged chicken egg cultivation, and even had my own chicken in the past before I couldn't anymore for eggs. Now I just pay the premium and researched which were the most ethical eggs in the store available. Happy hens make better eggs anyway. I'm just pointing out we're not the only ones that raise animals for consumption in nature).
Why would what ants do have relevancy to what we should do?
It tracks the logic of the meme then counterpoint, this is the counterpoint to the counterpoint.
Those ants are farming aphids. They keep them in close quarters. Ants are nature. Ergo the meme
Everything is nature. But which closed quarters are they kept?
The ones where of the aphid strays too far from the closed in pack it becomes an instant snack (hey that rhymes).
At least we cook our chickens first (/s)
lol. Classic carnism.
You vegan? Apparently y'all are fine with meat too according to some:
https://lemmy.world/comment/14777125
I invented a fictional society for stories in which you are allowed to buy and consume meat, but only if you have a “carnivore’s medallion”. The only way to obtain one is to have witnesses observe you personally slaughter a living being (eg, a chicken) with no assistance.
Ideologically, seems like a good way to put friction on meat obsessions and get people to think about it.
Isn't this just hunting?
Well, hunting involves the whole orange vests, ensuring legal permission, stalking an animal, etc. The idea would be if this world has hunters, any of them certified as a witness can get their colleagues a medallion without going the whole chicken route.
But obviously, most people who eat meat today don’t hunt. So they would need to go through the experience of taking life once before reaping the benefit.
No assistance would be no guns, no bows, no knives, no traps, right?
Literally using your bare hands or something you find on the ground.
I mean humans have always used tools but sure, you could take a chicken bare handed. Fish might be easier for a first go as I have seen a few people catch fish out of the water bare-handed after a few tries
I like this idea. We're raising chickens and probably rabbits this spring. If you're going to eat meat, you should face the reality of the life you are consuming.
Sounds interesting.
90% alive today would not eat meat if they had to kill. You can grow up used to it of course.
If they went to live naked in the woods and used their apex predator canines to tear out a deer's jugular, I'm not judging.
Veganism isn't about respect for nature. It is a philosophy and way of living against animal cruelty and exploitation.
Congratulations on a legit shitpost.
For me it's 70% about trying to do something about climate crisis and 30% wanting to eat healthier
Whoosh.
E: For those downvoting, remember this is a shitpost and some level of inaccuracy is almost required. It's the shit part of the post. Like, c'mon guys...
Vegans have to deal with arguments like this but unironically on the daily. That hits a nerve, wether it's meant as a shitpost or not. Don't take it personally.
And it gotten so bad, that some people will accuse you being a vegan if you're not doing keto/carnivore diet, and thus an extremely militant and unpleasant one.
Mayhaps it is the vegans who need to avoid taking things personally
Yeah, it's totally unreasonable to get tired of hearing the same shitty comments and warmed over "jokes" every day.
It's a shitpost on a shitpost community and they're in here taking it like it's a personal attack. They're clearly the ones who need to calm the fuck down in this scenario lol
The fact that it's such an old, overused, and mostly not even correct only enhances its status as a shitpost. That's what they're all about
Calling it "jokes" and shitposting is the chickenshit's ratfuck way of saying inflammatory things while attempting to avoid natural consequences. If you want to be an asshole to strangers on the Internet then at least have a spine about it.
It can be both
I'd agree with both
I wonder how people arguing with them know they are vegans... 🤔
Ooh I know that one! They are in a social situation that involves food and the vegan politely declines an animal product. Then they make an anti vegan joke and the vegan politely disagrees. Have been there many times.
Really? Because I have seen quite a few times vegan claiming that eating meat is a "murder" when people were trying to enjoy their steaks.
Here on Lemmy one idiot even claimed that cutting sheep wool or something similar is a sexual assault
You know mate you get people with extreme opinions in all walks of life.
No doubt about it, but I am yet to see someone who eats meat calling for vegans to be forcibly fed meat - and I have seen vegans saying that eating meat should be forbidden.
I've seen quite a few times black people have abused welfare programs. Usually they're posted under conservative accounts, and I get flamed in the comments for pointing out that these are videos posted by someone with an agenda who wants their audience to think certain things about certain groups of people without providing actual data on the subject
Do you think maybe some of the videos of vegans being douchebags that you've seen have been posted by someone with an agenda who wants their audience to think certain things about certain groups of people without providing actual data on the subject?
Have you seen how wool is actually collected? It's quite violent.
Are you one of the idiots claiming sheep are sexually attacked during wool cutting?
Here's a video on wool, but content warning, it is graphic despite blurring.
::: spoiler spoiler https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8jNev6KVFnM&pp=ygUNdmVnYW5pc20gd29vbA%3D%3D :::
Is wool cutting a sexual assault according to you?
Have you ever tried to not eat in front of people ever? Turns out it's pretty hard to do. Sometimes, if you're nice to people, you get invited to go out to eat to a place. Often those places have no vegan options, and you have to explain why you can't eat there so people don't just think you're blowing them off constantly. We don't just go around telling everyone we're vegan like all the hate memes like to say.
Most vegans I've met, myself included, don't pick fights with people about veganism. We just live by example. It'd be cool if more people went vegan, but arguing with people about doing it doesn't help. Doing that is like trying to push religion on people or make people experience empathy. It isn't easy to go vegan (getting easier at least). Food is tied to a lot of people's culture who have a hard time relearning how to cook/eat and make generational recipes or comfort foods they've always eaten.
Tell them to find a vegan inclusive place next time and go anyway, the animal is already dead and being a patron this one time to satisfy a friend and have a good time is fine
Never heard this one before. I think I'll use it next time someone says that jerkin it to child porn is wrong. I mean, the harm is already done, right?
You also have to keep in mind that it sucks to be a vegan sharing a meal with an omni. Even with access to plant-based options, we're still required to be surrounded by what we see as gore, and people consuming gore.
You know how smokers can't smell smoke as well as nonsmokers? When I stopped consuming animals I was surprised to find that all meat, no matter how fresh, smells rotten. And everybody who consumes animals smells faintly like rotting corpses - especially during and right after eating.
By putting a post on the interwebs making fun of them and waiting for them to arrive? Not what you are implying, but also a quite effective method.
Lmao. Look at OPs comments. They actually believe this shit. Based on all the other shitposts they post here and all throughout lemmy, they probably picked it up on reddit or some other trash site, thought it was funny, and came here to share.
Imagine making this literal exact comment under a post about black people committing a bunch of crime
"Remember this is a shitpost, and some level of inaccuracy is almost required. It's the shit part of the post" under a 13/50 meme
I'll take "things actual vegans never say" for $500!
it's not even a contradiction. One can respect something and not emulate it.
I for one have great respect for the ocean, and the brave people who risk their lives sailing across it. I'm fine here in kansas lol
vegan.bingo
Let the Bullshit Bingo begin!
Well, the first bullshit here is the word "purely". While they indeed have a mainly vegan diet, they also opportunistically consume insects and even small mammals.
Please fact check before posting, this is scientificaly inaccurate. Yeah they might eat a bug or two, but gorillas normally don't eat other mammals.
That's literally here to fact check you, but ok.
https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/what-do-gorillas-eat-and-other-gorilla-facts
That's not quite "a bug or two".
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2828480/
https://kabiragorillasafaris.com/do-gorillas-eat-meat
Next time, check yourself.
Your source:
If all of humanity started to "occasionally consume tiny vertebrates and insects" while "primarily consuming plants" by tomorrow, which we could, we'd be way better off. Do you agree?
Yes, I've read my source. What it says is that Gorillas are NOT purley vegan (which was your statement) while not contradicting anything I said.
Even grazing herbivours, (cows, buffaloes) will occational eat small vertabrets. So not being considered "carnivores in the wild" doesn't really mean anyhing. You don't need to be carnivore (or even an omnivore) to not have a "purley vegan" diet.
Which of course makes sense, because animals are opportunistic, not idealistic.
I certainly wouldn't, but that wasn't really the point.
Really, the only "true vegan" animals are probably Pandas and Koalas which is kinda meaningless as well considering they don't eat anything else other than bamboo and eucalyptus, respectively
Us humans are opportunistic animals as well, which has led to us destroying our global habitat. So we need to change or society will collapse in the not so distant future. There are a lot of things we need to address to survive the next century. The way we eat is one of them. And it's the easiest, because you don't have to get off your ass and protest, you don't have to buy an expensive EV, you just change a habit and stop buying the destructive food next time your shop at the supermarket. You choose the food that saves ⅔ land use, waterpollution and co2-emissions. That's my point.
That makes sense.
My point was soley about Gorillas not having a purley vegan diet.
Would it be to say its a herbivore rather than vegan?
Then again, pretty sure most vegans end up eating a few bugs. Would a gorilla choose to eat mouse if presented with one?
Yeah, this is just a vegan meme, no scientific theses. Gorillas sometimes eat a bug or two, and they have been seen eating small animals, but it's not their usual diet. Look it up, they eat up to 30 kg of plant stuff per day, including leaves, stems, bark, flowers and fruits. That's petty impressive.
Preach. This is why every Mr. Olympia is filled to the brim, just like non-vegan dudes' wives, with vegans. Boom. Nothing but power and rightness and winning. Bigger, stronger, smarter, righter, and better at internet discourse.
The bit about non-vegans wives fucking sent me, little fucked we (people) joke about adultury as an own tho
Why are the vegans sounding more like cavemen than the meat-eaters?
The human brain is fueled by about 20% of your caloric intake. We're evolved to be omnivorous. This isn't prescriptive but descriptive. It's going to take development to make vegan food delicious and something we want to eat (and then all the other features we want out of food: cheap, storage-safe, easy to prepare, etc.)
For those of us who still eat a meat diet, it usually takes a chef to make something actually enjoyable from strictly vegetables. Otherwise, we're used to receiving oddly-spiced bland mush from our vegan friends. But we could do better if we were putting billions into it, and not another more-addictive cheeto.
But we live entrenched in capitalism, so no one is going to take this seriously until we're already dropping dead from natural disasters and famine.
Wow, I asked for the bullshit and you seriously delivered! Not sure if I should take the time to reply to this, because would it even matter?
One thing, though: Everything you eat is vegan, except for the animal tissue, the milk-stuff and eggs. We don't need capitalism to invest in more vegan meat alternatives, we fight it by eating plant based! No junk, just delicious fruits, nuts, legumes and vegetables, like we always did. It's cheap, great for your body and for our suffering planet as well!
Omnivores? We were lucky apes who found out that fire kills enough parasites and bacteria that live in meat. Dogs are the real omnivores, pigs are, too. They eat a rotting squirrel if the feel like it! We die if our bleach-cleaned chicken filet wasn't in the freezer for a couple of hours.
Do you know what elephants and hippos eat all day ... damn, I just started replying.
No idea what you are talking about. I'm not even vegan, but I can make a delicious vegan meal without even trying. All my vegan friends make very tasty food, too. No need for billions.
I have no question that everyone across the industrialized world would gladly switch to your delicious recipes.
Maybe you should start a business!
This is a joke, right? Have you ever tried pasta? Rice? Fruit?
Edit: ramen, PB&J, Oreos, potatoes
The skills you need to make vegetables taste good are the same as the skills you need to make meat taste good. I really hope you aren't just, like, boiling chicken breasts and eating them unseasoned
Well ...
Oreos are famously vegan. There's some dispute about the ethics of buying products with palm oil, and some sugar suppliers might use bone char to filter sugar, but the ingredients don't necessarily include any animal products
In light of the west's heavily animal-centric diets resulting in most of the top causes of death in these places, it's not exactly accurate to call us omnivores. The centered on whole plant foods our diets are, the better off we are. Animal flesh, dairy, and eggs, at the very least, cannot be consumed without increasing progression and risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes (Ignoring a host of other harmful effects like cancer and autoimmune disorders, which is more contentious).
It would be more accurate to say that we are primarily herbivores, but with an incomplete and dangerous emergency system for omnivory.
Let's put it this way, our bodies really like the smell, taste and mouthfeel of meat. So long as our system is focused on compelling people to eat via yummy food, there's going to be a market for it. It's not prescription, just description.
That's why I was saying we'll have to overcome capitalism before we can really beat this. Otherwise actual balanced nutrition will be a < checks spelling > commodifiable feature of food, rather than its essential point.
Estimates have it that in the industrial world, somewhere between 1-5% of people are vegan. That remaining the same until your preferred revolution happens, and your idealized form of governance becomes the reality everywhere: how is your socioeconomic system going to get the remaining 95% of billions of people to stop consuming, committing cruelty to, and exploiting animals? Sorry, but we have to do whatever we can in the here and now, and there is urgency in time. It's not only a matter of morality. We know that our wanton animal consumption is one of the largest drivers of climate change. We know that our society's addiction to flesh and secretions have resulted in agricultural systems that not only resulted in one recent pandemic, but we are hanging on the edge of an even worse flu pandemic that can end up happening at any time. 75% of new infectious diseases have a zoonotic origin.
In a world where ideal society has never happened and is always a dream away, we do not have the luxury of an either/or approach of fixing one problem before we think about the next.
The toxic food environment is a reality, and that needs to be fixed in policy. But individual choice matters too, because what we choose to buy is what drives what is sold. Taste is dynamic and subjective. New diets are only temporarily less satisfying until the person develops the knowledge, cooking skills, and palate to start getting more satisfaction out of their foods. Even better, the difference in the way people feel when they adopt a whole-food plant-based diet for even as little as a couple of weeks, is a start contrast to the standard western diet. Experiencing the difference first-hand generates more motivation to continue.
Also, our bodies do not inherently like the smell, taste, and mouthfeel of animal flesh. That is a learned habit. When a person goes long enough without consuming flesh, the very smell of it changes - even the freshest meats smell rotten, and the people who eat these foods smell like rotting corpses.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but our elite class seems determined to stay there, and historically violent revolution is what unseats them and allows their wealth to be redistributed from their Scrooge McDuck vaults.
Nonviolent resistance might work, but we haven't seen the kind of mass wealth dispersion that will be necessary.
And the elite are content to drive us right into extinction via the climate crisis and the plastic crisis. Even if you make technology that disrupts the meat market, they're going to legally wrest control of it from you (unless you are rich enough to defend it from Nestlé). Regardless, when it comes to the climate crisis, the deal is done. The pooch is screwed. We know after the collapse the upper limit of sustainable population will be about one billion, and that number dwindles with each day of inaction.
Meanwhile the industrial world is choosing far-right parties over the usual neoliberal crap we've endured through the latter half of the twentieth century, so we're not even serious about managing the climate crisis without the aforementioned revolution (and in that case, into some kind of communal government, since the typical outcome of a people's revolution is a chain of dictators).
Good luck convincing our officials, elected or not, to choose veganism over the meat industry, or even nutrition over junk food. You will need all you can get.
So be the change, Uriel238! You are against suffering, slavery and destruction of our resources? Against the greedy elite who brutaly and recklessly exploit the weak instead of protecting them? (See what I did there?)
Stop paying for dead animal parts next time you're shopping at the supermarket! It feels really good to not take part in this evil system of misery and annihilation.
I know veganism is not the only solution, but no solution will ever be enough without it. Plus it's the easiest Fuck You to the ruling class, while we wait for a revolution.
Dude, I already have doubts if I am worth my footprint, if we're going to think in transactional terms. It's easy to decide if cutting out meat is the only way I can make a difference, then why not cut out everything else as well? Should people kill themselves in order to spare nature the cost of their upkeep?
When we talk about the generation of greenhouse gasses, and the rising global average temperature, companies pollute in a day (in some cases, an hour) what humans produce across their lifetime. US suicides (49,000 per year, as of 2022, and rising with hate-crime and rampage killing rates) are barely a blip.
Maybe folks in the alt-right believe that human lives, at least the ones they don't like, are worth less than the resources they consume, but a lot more believe the lives are worth the food and poop,, which is, again, insignificant to the ever-burning fires of industry.
Quitting meat doesn't stick it to the man in any significant way, any more than self immolation does.
chop brussels sprouts in half, toss with avocado oil with some salt and pepper, and air fry for 15-20 mins. toss some balsamic on em after they're done.
Which is delicious! There are a number of things that are edible. But let me clarify...
In most of the households I lived in with others, I just needed to wait less than a month before the women around wanted flesh and blood. Neither spinach (which has the iron they crave) nor tofu (high protein) cut it.
And in the public, the mere smell of fast food burgers keeps them coming in. As long as dead animal flesh can be sold, it will be, and we don't regulate it. (Yes, in India, cows are sacred, but chickens and goats certainly are not)
There are plenty of individual dishes that are fine. But if you want well rounded nutrition, eventually you're going to be resorting to the few high-protein things that are either uninteresting or a bitch to prepare.
Now mind you, my kitchen savvy is limited. I'm learning, but slowly.
Feels like the goalposts just moved.
No, what I said was different from what was read. I'll take the blame you like. I'm not trying to win an argument, and don't think less of you if you fail to make a relevant point.
I'm trying to clarify my position.
I also wasn't intending to imply we can't or shouldn't have to move away from meat (more on that below) but that society is going to be difficult to move in that direction.
Though I would say eventually for sake of sustainability we'll probably need to move to veganism or cultured meat or invertebrate protein, at least until we can get our space colonization and terraforming programs up to speed. But we're probably going to starve via climate-crisis driven drought sooner than any of these solutions become popular.
I do hope to be demonstrated wrong by the future, though.
All I was trying to say is that it doesn't take a professional chef's level of skill to cook tasty and nutritious food without using meat.
To address more of your post I originally responded to, I don't think there's any need for development or investment in vegan/vegetarian food, or meat alternatives.
Plenty of delicious and nutritious food exists without requiring meat or animal products. And preparing such meals is not even remotely difficult or expensive, with the very important caveats of those food items being available for purchase without price gouging where folks live (like food deserts - think someone who can't afford a car but whose neighborhood doesn't have any real grocery stores), and some folks have dietary issues that may make eating meat the only practical choice.
I think we agree that the problem exists and that a lot of people are too comfortable with the status quo to voluntarily change. I just don't think it's fair to suggest that meat-free food somehow isn't good enough.
That explains most of shit vegans spread.
I feel like this is the “attack helicopter” joke of veganism
I think the problem isn't that we eat meat. It's that we torture the animals and have them live in deplorable conditions before we eat them. If we all hunted or raised our own animals or had the animals live in decent conditions it would be less of an issue for most REASONABLE vegans and vegetarians. I used to be vegan and vegetarian a decade so I get it a bit. I hated it when anyone would bitch about other people's food choices, but then complain when they did the same to them for their food choices. Both sides I mean. I had some non-veggies once they found out I didn't eat meat would attack me for it. When I did start eating meat again some vegans and vegetarians would attack me for it.
I know that the industry is horrific. I have battled internally with becoming a vegan. And this isn't a but, it's just something i thought about once when thinking about the argument that whilst in nature, animals eat other animals, its not the same as what we do as we farma dn torture animals to get the meat....
Its cats....
Cats torture their prey....
They play with it, and maim it and keep it alive for as long as possible so they can chase it, for fun...
And sometimes they just fucking leave it there when it dies.
And we love cats. Even vegans love cats.
And that sort of makes me laugh a bit.
For me, I think the difference is that I have the means and opportunity to reduce (an incredibly minor amount, I know) the suffering of animals everywhere by not eating meat, so I feel somewhat an obligation to do so.
Whereas a cat does not have the knowledge or information or desire to make that sort of decision making. So I love them anyway...I just don't let them outside so they can't murder every living thing nearby for fun.
To each his own, that's just my personal impetus to be meat free.
Yeah, I think this is the big difference. We have the capacity to rationalize and introspect. If we can make a change for the better (and know we can), how do we justify not making it?
Sometimes the reason is “it’s hard” or an apathetic “it doesn’t matter”. But I think it’s very difficult to come to the conclusion that it’s (consumption of meat) the correct thing to do.
I say this as someone who commonly falls into the “it’s tough” bucket.
Actually, humans are animals. Once you view them in that light, the "I don't want to stop eating meat" becomes "I can't stop eating meat, because I am actually an animal who believe it is above instinct".
Sure, we’re animals. Being able to reason and rationalize sure are something too, though.
An important addition is that saying "we are animals" isn't supposed to cut what we judge to be morally right or wrong.
If anything, "We are animals" must be used to know that other animals may probably have similar introspection as us and we are unaware, thinking o ourselves as special kind of creature when it is far from being true.
If, let's say hypothetically, a cow do have not only feelings but also moral thought, thinking of a sacred "cow god/goddess) and having moral argument with fellow cows, then it just makes butchering them even more of a "crime" that it is already.
It is pretty horrible, but who's to say that despite our smart words and realizations, we aren't just acting on our own programming. Who is to say that our subconscious did not desire meat, and then our rational part of our minds made whatever excuse to justify eating more meat. Having said that, I want substitutes...
I feel like this ignores the point many are making here.
The statement that we are animals is true. But as many have pointed out, we have the extra layer of reasoning, introspection, and empathy.
We can see the pain and torture subjected on other animals and reson that it is unjustified and empathise with the pain by thinking about how we would feel if in the shoes of the animals being slaughtered. We can look at outlr actions and decide to make a change.
None of this, as far as we know, is possible for any other animal.
This is a huge distinction and one that, as i said, you have either missed or ignored whilst reading these comments.
that's what the cats want you to think, dummy!
Most of the time, adults don't torture their prey. Kittens aren't born with the ability to hunt, and their instincts need to develop too. So the mom brings home live prey for the kittens to play with. Sometimes adults keep this behaviour.
Yeah I was thinking this kind of thing too, but also house cats have all the food they want anyway. Not sure how much each is a factor in this.
Boredom really.
Well fed house cats that don't need to bother eating their prey and don't necessarily entirely understand hunting will do that.
I wonder if a wildcat in an environment that had plentiful mice would start to do the same?
Absolutely, the meat industry needs to be clamped down on hard
But, there are plenty of vegans who also rail against alternatives like lab grown beef which is still meat but bypasses all the problems with the meat industry of today
If lab grown meat were readily available and affordable, I would switch in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, I know for a damn fact I dont have the discipline for veganism, bad as the industry is. Also milk and eggs have to be produced somehow no matter what or the animal dies because we bred them like that millennia ago so like might as well eat those anyway
Doesn't have to be all/nothing. You don't have to become a vegan, you could still cut down on how much meat you buy. Or only eat what you can kill?
don't do that
Not a vegan, but I don't think I've ever heard a vegan say that. We've all watched nature shows. Rationale is usually a little bit deeper. Overconsumption, abuse of animals in meat/dairy industries, responsibility of humans to aim for a higher level of morality than animals, etc. Sure some go overboard, but I wouldn't underestimate the complexity of the thinking behind it.
Humans "i dont rape because i respect other humans". Meanwhile nature ....
And in before "but i need to eat", you dont need to eat animal products. You can have a healthy life with a vegan diet, arguably an even healthier life. And to go back to my original point, just because you need to cum, doesnt mean that you have the right to cause suffering and death to other sentient beings.
Just masturbate. Just go vegan.
But what about my sharp canine teeth? Check mate.
Look at this carnivore devouring their prey.
Panda's are omnivores tho
I 100% agree with you, that the existence of canine teeth does not mean that we must eat meat, but pandas are famously bad at living. The species only exists at this point because humans think they're cute
From all the animals thst feed only on plants and have huge canines, you chose the bear?
I'm not your waiter, and this isn't Australia
Oh, then, whatever you say when you win checkers 😎
perfect for biting into a nice thick crusty on the outside, chewy on the inside sourdough roll
Those are to hold on to your victim more tightly
you don't know what anyone else needs
Telling boys to just go masturbate got us the Immorten Joe's Warboys ^†^ that are the alt-right, that got Trump into power twice. The boys we told to literally go fuck themselves when they raged over their sexual frustration got us the army of militants and voters behind the white Christian nationalist movement. I was among them in the 1980s, when the society gave a meager few more fucks about them than they do in the twenty-first century.
I suspect similar movements exist through Europe, which is generally rejecting neoliberalism for fascist-thick movements towards one-party autocracy.
No, I don't have a solution, and I've been working on it for thirty years. Christianity's proscription against sex (later limited to non-reproductive sex) figures largely into the problem and it's served so far as a sufficient distraction from class consciousness and effective response to industry's effect on climate, and the imminent climate crisis.
We don't have a way to let our young guys sow their wild oats, while we're careening towards multiple great filters we are unprepared to navigate.
I know: 🧶📌📇
Maybe even: 🐰🎩🫖☕
And yet, very few people think about it, still. Those who do ponder the angry-young-men problem discount them as ineligible or feel they are too repugnant to civilized folk to consider. I've heard otherwise rational content creators actually say (I paraphrase) these guys were mistreated as kids and are now a societal problem. But they suck, so fuck those guys.
It might be a failing of the human species itself, that we are compelled to cast our young men out the way gorillas cast out their adolescent females (but welcome strange females), and capitalism intentionally only has limited seats where they can pick themselves up, so the system teaches them from the beginning to be aggressive, ruthless and transactional. Not to get completely nihilist, but maybe our capacity for civilization is limited and we just can't overcome the paradigms that served us as migratory bands of hunter-gatherers.
In the meantime, our boys are taught they suck in our Christianity-heavy abstinence-only sex-ed, ^‡^ from which they descend into the incel movement, the manosphere, gamergaters, etc and from there into the transnational white power movement. Our society gave Trump his instant army, and it was ready for him the moment Trump went into politics. And our lack of interest or concern about the new batch of warboys we churn our from the US education system every year, is going to literally kill us all.
Just go vegan is going to end the same way, especially since the food industry cares not about actual nutrition but profit. Taking a page from Fourth International Posadism, we may have to end capitalism before we can create an ethical food production system (probably incorporating farming invertebrates as well as vegetables), but the problem right now is not what's the end result ( Fully Automated Gay Space Communism ) but how the heck we get there and not crash and burn with the global ecology.
Totally open to ideas, but I'm not the guy you have to convince.
† Not to be confused with Warboyz of W4K fame.
‡ Twenty six states mandate abstinence-only sex ed, that stuff that teaches girls they are chewing gum, or someother one-use safety-sealed metaphor, and that boys aren't allowed to think about sex until they have a salaried job and a ring. Seriously, this is still what is taught.
Three states mandate comprehensive sex ed: The west coast. And none of them require discussion of consent. (Some teachers include it anyway, as an elective topic). Of course, if we demanded opt-in consent in our sexual relationships, we might demand opt-in sex in our other contracts as well, say our jobs, our devices, our software, etc.
Am I supposed to read more than a sentence of this
Not if you don't want to. Maybe you think I'm wrong after a couple of sentences. That's okay. The majority of American voters voted for an autocratic usurper. We can't expect everyone to get it or care.
Lost my interest after scrolling down to see a footnote about Warhammer.
Ok, I only read the first paragraph, but the poster said that instead of raping, you could masturbate. Are you suggesting that they should go raping instead?
There are too many people for us all to hunt our own meat, and the same amount of farmland that can feed x amount of livestock can feed significantly more people than the livestock would.
Not all crops are created equal.
Crops intended for livestock are way easier to farm, require less water, less pesticides, less fertilizer, and less taking care of.
Many times crops intended for livestock are a necessary part of rotatory crops. As they tend to be easier on the land.
Farming is not as easy as "you can grow anything in any given land".
Non-vegan, hearing that vegans exist: "Hey, these people are different from me! I hate them!"
It's because the very existence of veganism implies that a) eating animals and the things they produce is harmful and b) you don't need to eat animals or the things they produce. Omnivores have to argue against one or both of those claims, or acknowledge that they're doing something wrong, and humans will commit a lot of evils to convince ourselves that we're not doing anything wrong
"I'm a good person, good people don't do bad things, therefore nothing I do is bad"
Nah I think most ppl honestly don't care. We don't even care about each other as the western world's entire lifestyle is based on the exploitation of other countries and their ppl.
You expect someone to suddenly give a damn about a cow 500 miles away?
"Hey guys, check it out. I jus came up with this HILARIOUS owl-meme!"
Our species were shaped as omnivores, meaning we have a choice of what we want to eat. Don't forget where we don't live anymore: the jungle. Just because we used to live in caves doesn't mean we should live in caves now. Also, they didn't have McDonald's in the jungle.
So we domesticated fire, that's one step out of the swamp and steppes.
Then there was agriculture and animal husbandry, we became sedentary.
Writing developed, accelerating growth in the arts, math and engineering, the sciences... we had domesticated knowledge and memory - data storage.
Before we knew it, the printing press popped up and soon after we domesticated something abstract and invisible, awesome and truly fundamental - electromagnetism. That's is the big game changer right there.
We have figured out our physical place in the universe.
We can image distant supermassive black holes, we have mapped the farthest, faintest reaches of the visible universe using the oldest light there is - the Cosmic Microwave Background (which started out as orange light 13.7 billion years ago).
We are now in the process of harnessing sunlight and the wind; the genome; we can now even perform data operations using quantum superimposed electron states, harnessing the subatomic wave function itself.
Surely we can now domesticate cruelty-free protein chemistry. So many steps away from the swamp and steppes already, so far we can't turn and go back again. What's one more step?
Next step is extreme longevity IMO. Such a bummer people only have a couple of decades to perfect their skills before it all runs out in the sand.
Get me a lab grown steak any day though!
Lab grown meat is not getting better nor cheaper since a decade, it's still an ungodly block of stem cells. This is not a political statement, I don't care if people eat lab grown, but it's not there yet and to me, it's off-putting and unnecessary.
Give plant based alternatives a try, there is already a huge variety that differs in taste and texture. Some are okay, some are great. At the moment, capitalism is stuffing it's pockets with vegan meat money but this stuff is super cheap and easy to make and prices will fall if production numbers go up and there's even more competition. So no need wait! Choose the food that reduces land use, water pollution and co2 emissions by at least 60%.
Ungodly?
Common, get off my lawn.
This is not my native language, I was tying to be funny :)
Okay, sorry, have a nice day!
🌱🌿☘️🍀 I'll uh go move my lawn ...
Very edgy. Care to elaborate?
This is for real shit post
Hawks eat meat cause they have to. WE eat meat cause it's delicious. The Hawks dies if there are too many Hawks in one feeding ground. The human fucks up his and everyone elses Habitat for centurys cause he's too lazy to change.
A balanced diet with some meat along with fruits/veg/nuts is the most healthy for most people.
Vegans can downvote me until the end of time but that doesn't make it less true.
The survival of the fittest narrative was debunked almost as soon as it existed, and that debunking is what forms the ideological basis of mutual aid. That people continue to spread this toxic misinformation over a century later is a testament to the unfortunate tenacity of lies.
Even in the most brutal depths of the natural world, cooperation is still the overarching basis of ecosystem health. It's known in Permaculture, for instance, that too much competition results in resource depletions.
A vegan ethic is inline with a growing awareness and need for us all to learn to expand our capacities of empathy and compassion, from those who are most like us, to those who are most unlike us.
On the topic of wilderness areas, vegans are divided on what the right approaches are. Some of us compare natural biomes to sovereign nations - while we dislike the harms that occur in those places, we feel a need to allow other species their independence to have their self-determination, if for no other reason than the fact that nature is the basis of maintaining a habitable planet, and interference in ecosystems should only be done with the utmost care.
But there are other vegans who do believe strongly that we should be intervening in wild places as well, with the goals of eliminating predation all together, and managing wildlife populations in more ethical ways.
It's a highly contentious topic to be honest.
"fittest" in "survival of the fittest" doesn't mean strongest or most dominant.
It means "best adapted".
It can be rephrased as "the species most likely to survive are those best adapted to their environment"
So it wasn't really debunked, per se, the strange perversion of "alpha" survival was debunked. Mutual aid is absolutely an excellent environmental adaptation that leads to survival.
This is a good way of putting it.
Falcons didn't fuck up by inventing tofu, so they have an excuse. We don't.
Some people just don't feel comfortable killing and eating animals. Let people live their own lives.
Anyways, less people eating animal products leads to lower prices for those who do (you).
Temporarily lower prices. A large consumer base is needed to support the infrastructure that provides meat food products. More people eating more meat will normally produce lower prices in the long-term.
Marginal cost doesn't always decrease. More people buying gold or whatever won't decrease the price of gold. The cheapest way to feed cattle is to just let them graze, but there isn't enough land on Earth for everyone to eat as much beef as Americans, even if using intensive agriculture to grow feed (which degrades the soil over time and results in large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions). I don't think there's enough land on Earth to maintain the current human population for very long. I.e. I think we are in the overshoot phase of a boom and bust population dynamic. Saw this graphic a while back, and it's wild how much of the biomass we've took over:
It may be made up for in quality though, having a smaller consumer base may result in ensuring higher quality meat on average. Perhaps even a situation where lab grown meat is used for things like hamburgers or chicken nuggets.
Imagine being this much of a naive child.
https://kellyjonesnutrition.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/manure-lagoon-1024x608.jpg
Vegans: exist
People like OP: how dare you make your own choices about your own life that don't hurt anyone in any way whatsoever
Tfw keeping animals in cages and slaughtering them after 6 months of misery from the comfort of your 21st century life is different from being a feral animal living in the wilderness
Isotopic evidence of high reliance on plant food among Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers at Taforalt, Morocco
Killing Humanly
It's way easier for me to have a vegetarian diet when I'm eating at home. At restaurants the vegetarian options almost always contain the one thing I'm allergic to, so I often have no choice but to eat meat when I go out.
The redditization of lemmy.world is finally complete. Congratulations, you have ruined the internet.
Actually, I believe current thinking is that we came from grassland, hence the advantage of upright walking.
Depends on how far you go back. Grasslands came after jungles/forests.
Based on some of our traits (nose shape good for diving, can control our breathing voluntarily, fingers get more grippy when wet, lack of fur), we might have even been semi-aquatic for a while.
Source on the semi-aquatic part? Looking it up only brings up the aquatic ape hypothesis which is pseudoscience.
Yeah, that's why I said might, since any evidence is circumstantial and could have another explanation. I did not intend to present that as fact but merely a possibility of even more extreme environment changes than jungle to grasslands that we might have had in our ancient past.
I’m a vegetarian and also native. Humans have this weird hubris where they think they’re not part of the natural world. Humans are designed to be omnivores, meat jumpstarted our evolution. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with eating meat, but what’s wrong is the ease and disregard for meat and the animals that provide it through the factory farming industry.
But at the end of the day there’s no more wrong with a person eating meat, than with that Hawk eating a mouse. We’re part of the circle. We just have the privilege to live in a time and place where not eating meat is a realistic choice
Humans are part of nature, but what call nature is the mostly well balanced group of ecosystems and food chains. Humans turned nature into a devilish food machine. There's very few animals that hunt and kill for pleasure the way humans do, and even then the vast majority of humans could never kill an animal. So we pay someone else to do it. Killing meat for pleasure is evil, buying it at the supermarket is both evil and cowardly.
Except its scientifically proven, that our possibility tonevolve was Not from Hunting, but agricultural Farming. But great Shitpost
Modern humans are around 300.000 years old .... we've only been farming for 10.000 years. Doesn't quite add up.
No it wasn't.
Otherwise humans wouldn't have been smart enough to figure out farming in the first place.
Also humans were already humans when farming was invented. We're not pokemon.
the first crop was rare candy and evolution stones
Don't fucking tell me what I can and can not be!
With the power of friendship I will finally become a Glurak (also screw English Pokémon names)
That's not how evolution works. Evolution doesn't have a plan, it doesn't wait, or speed up. Evolution just happens and our human ancestors would have continued to evolve regardless of agriculture. The path that evolution takes could have been very different but it would have happened. The human species is still evolving and will continue to do so until it's extinction.
Nope, there is the Evolution aspect of physique, that you are referring to, but there is also the socio economic aspect. As linked in the other Response: https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Courses/College_of_the_Canyons/Anthro_101%3A_Physical_Anthropology/12%3A_Homo_sapiens_our_History_and_our_Future/12.4%3A_Agriculture_and_its_Effect_on_Humans
Agriculture allowed us to stay in one place, changing the shape of the Landscape, fitting it to our needs, Form larger Packs of Peoples because of sustainable food income, therefore forming societies and developing introcate communicatio Mechanisms, growing large (ready efficienter) brains for that purpose because we could expedite more energy to it. Without agriculture, we would still roam the World in Hunter & Gatherer Fashion, Not having so much of a society and would still be dump as bricks because our whole thought Processes and physique would be targeted towards Hunting and gathering.
Yes, Evolution does Not have a plan, but it does Not Happen spontaneously, AS the environment selects against unfavorable traits (and genes thereof) and towards favorable ones by breeding. If you have a better Chance If survival, you have a longer life and more chances of passing your expressed traits (by the means of genes) by means of breeding tothe next Generation.
It was fire ya dingus.
Fire allowed us to cook our food, making us die less from pathogens and bacteria AND making more food digestible. ESPECIALLY meat.
Agriculture was what provided our exponential expansion.
You can’t just say “it’s scientifically proven” and make it so.
Except that all Species of Human Like apes Had that - homo sapiens, homo neanderthalensis, homo erectus etc. What US AS Homo Sapiens Sets US apart is agriculture: https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Courses/College_of_the_Canyons/Anthro_101%3A_Physical_Anthropology/12%3A_Homo_sapiens_our_History_and_our_Future/12.4%3A_Agriculture_and_its_Effect_on_Humans
It allowed is to stay in one place, developing it instead of living nomadic Livestyles in Hunter & Gatherer Fashion.
Before insulting someone on a discussion Platform, you should consider the possibility of checking their Claims yourself First.
I’m not going to get into a cherry pick our sources argument with you, agriculture is very important to humanity culturally.
Becoming an agrarian society is not what made us humans though.
An entry level anthropology course is a weird source to point at though as because I’m making biological and evolutionary argument and you’re referring to culture.
Regardless anthropological sources hold up the advent of fire and our ability to break free from simple nutrient sources and day time caloric gain AND venturing into colder regions. It allowed the dispersal of humans. Well before agriculture.
PS: fire more strongly supports the notion that humans were originally largely vegetarian, if you care to have a more salient point.
Depends on WHO you refer to as humanity. For me, humanity started at the Point, where we could create larger societies than Just Tribes of people, which all other Hominids have also in Common. If you refer to all Hominid Species Lifeforms (past and present), your Point may stand. But AS i Said before, neanderthal peoples also knew how to make fire, Same woth many other Hominid Species, that went extinct, as they were driven into a evolutionary Corner Not adapting to the Changes in environments and neighborhood Relations with the modern Human (Homo Sapiens). And yes, i know this Species is 300k years existent, much longer than agricultural Farming.
Alas i am Not a Scientist, but the notion of the Shitpost, that we must eat meat is ridiculus, as our Species was always an omnivore, allowing us to adapt better to the environmental Changes in the begining. This is Not, what differentiates us from other homidae.If you Just say, fire is what differentiates US, you cold also say, the ?dexterus? thumbs is the deciding factor. Other Species Had that too, its Not our Unique elling Point 😉
I read The Jungle in highschool. Not good book about food.
And the angel of the lord came unto me Snatching me up from my place of slumber And took me on high and higher still Until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself And he brought me into a vast farmlands of our own Midwest And as we descended cries of impending doom rose from the soil One thousand nay a million voices full of fear And terror possessed me then And I begged Angel of the Lord what are these tortured screams? And the angel said unto me These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots! You see, Reverend Maynard Tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat Like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared "Hear me now, I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers!
The first time I ever heard this was the night that album released. Lived in a house in Cape Coral Florida with a bandmate, and a few members of another local band as roommates.
I think the other band’s drummer had gotten it earlier that day. Anyway… later that night, we pretty solidly cooked and listening to it, and when the album ended, no one wanted to get up and start it over or put on something else… so we all just sort of quietly sat there.
And then, after a looooong silence, we heard this….
I swear to god- no one moved an inch, no one said a word. We were absolutely floored! What the hell were we hearing! Visions of a white haired Amish preacher, glasses swinging from a chain, as he stomped through a farm plot, yelling at us….
Needless to say… Minds were blown that night.
Such a good memory!
I was sitting around stoned out of my gourd with a coworker (pizza delivery). We were listening to music with the stereo way up and he played this album. He was watching me when it started, kept a straight face through it, died laughing when it got to rabbits wearing glasses. Damn, that's a good memory.
Ah yes, the anti-vegan. Nearly as annoying as the vegan.
I have the same advice for you as I have for vegans: let people eat what they want to eat, mind your business, and keep your preferences to yourself unless you're asked.
That said there is some irony here because you're framing this as unreasonable, but we do this all the time with other humans. As an outsider you should treat members of a group differently than they treat each other - unless you're saying white people should be allowed to drop N bombs lol
I had thought that veganism was more of a beliefs thing: to not eat products of exploitation, but then I heard the honey thing. The honey thing might be just from an overbearing vegan, or I just don't know the details, but beekeeping just looks so peaceful
eh, veganism doesn't work for my relatively unique anatomy (if I eat that much fiber I go to the hospital) but were it not for that I'd probably be eating a plant based diet. people tend to know what works for them, and i'm not going to judge them for their dietary choices. Except foie gras.
I'm not even vegan, and I find that this meme both grossly misrepresents what veganism is about, and seems mean spirited.
Oh wow OP, I didn't know you were a hunter!
Or are you just a sweaty fatso that posts trash boomer memes and gets meat delivered and wrapped in plastic?
Yeah, thought so.
Aww someone got their fefes hurt in c/shitpost lol, lmao even
Who, you? Because I called you a fatso?
🪞but if that's what you need to tell yourself to sleep at night I won't stop ya
What do I need to tell myself to sleep at night?
Can you even construct a sentence that makes sense, follow logic for more than 1 reply? Or is the sack of fat on your forehead is encroaching on your brain?
Get angry at a shitpost ✅
Attempt at personal attack ✅
Attack on Grammer ✅
Second attempt at personal attack ✅
I just need 1 more for my troll bingo card!
Second attack on Grammer ✅ BINGO BINGO BINGO
As far as "rage bait" goes, not really, everyone else here didn't resort to troll tactics. You're the only one who came in here raging about it LMAO
nom
Not vegan, but to play the vegan’s advocate—vegans are acutely aware of the level of cruelty in the factory farm system, as well as it's affect on the environment and don’t want to partake in those systems of harm and taking without consent. To them, it’s not just a dietary choice but an ethical stance against suffering and exploitation. To someone who sees the life of a cow as just as sacred and important as a human's, you can imagine why it would upset them to see you eating a steak. Just like you might be upset if you saw someone eating a dog or a fellow human. To them there's no difference.
It’s similar to how evangelical Christians genuinely believe they’re trying to save people from eternal damnation when they get preachy. Just as annoying. The difference is that one is rooted in observable reality—documented animal suffering, environmental damage, and ethical concerns—while the other is a matter of 'faith.' and the latter is given a lot more leeway. So when vegans speak out, it’s not necessarily about policing your diet; it’s about trying to reduce harm in a world where harm is often hidden or normalized. And for what it's worth I have known a lot of vegans and not one of them was ever preachy or judgemental, in fact most tend to keep it to themselves because vegans are so often the subject of ridicule, the butt of played out jokes, or made to host a session of 20 questions and feigned health concerns from people who eat nothing but processed meat and carbs.
I believe everyone should be able to do and live as they want as long as it doesn't interfere with anyone else's ability to do the same, and I can fully understand how to a vegan someone eating a steak would break that rule.
And I'm saying the vegan that tells others how to live their lives is as fictional as the god who damns non-believers to hell. Even the weird publicity stunts by PETA are just to raise awareness of the issue.
And the moral implications are totally relevant as they completely explain the reasoning of someone who would care if you ate a steak, the question your original comment asks.
Would you make the same comment if somebody else was eating a human child? If not, why?
"Just leave people alone to do their thing." "Let's care less about what others eat."
Do you see how this very same logic could be used to excuse pretty much any diet or action?
I'm a different person, that was my first comment here.
The way I see it, the discussion was about permitting others to commit acts which one considers immoral.
In the case of a vegan that might mean allowing someone else to eat meat, but the ethical dilemma is the very same as allowing a cannibal to eat a child. Does one have any right to intervene in their daily habits and societal norms, just because you think it's wrong? If yes, why shouldn't the vegan do the same?
I will say that I can't claim to be a vegan myself. I just found your logic flawed.
What if I like eating human meat?
Youre entitled to your opinion, but the argument in itself is not a valid one. Not caring about what other people do has is called anarchy. How would you rate the same argument with other context?
"Lets care less about who others kill?" (that ones actually pretty similar now that im writing it^^)
"Lets care less about who others spit on?"
"Lets care less about when your neighbors blast their music at 130dB"
Imagine those in a context where there were no laws regulating those actions yet. Someone had to step up and start demanding we regulate behavior and establish rules for generally accepted behavior. Those rules are constantly changing and they should. We need to adjust to new information as we go on. Making animals suffer for our convenience is something many people consider immoral and sometimes people point out when other do immoral things.
Where is the false equivalency? I dont think you know what that term means.
What omnivores eat should actually matter to vegans because theyre responsible for stress and suffering, which many see as their moral obligation to oppose. Funny how its mostly the other way around.
Imagine people going around raging about how you dont beat your wife and kids or dont rape and kill children.
Also the environmental impacts. I don't own a huge polluting coal powerplant that is actively contributing to fucking up the planet that I live on, and I'm still allowed to criticise them for it. Why should the meat industry be any different?
I dont understand your point. Everyone DOES have the freedom you are talking about and noone is debating that. Why are you pretending like thats not the case?
In some areas men are allowed to beat their wives. Youre still allowed to critisize them for it, and you should be allowed to.
Also, regarding your actual equivalency, everyone is allowed to critisize women for getting abortions. But you shouldnt be allowed to deny it. Thats the difference. Were talking about the same thing over and over, youre just not seeing it are you?
Explain please how it is not exactly the same.
Thought so. Sorry for demanding you do something youre not capable of.
u made the equivalency first.
The cow
"Realizing now the mistake one makes when trying to remain neutral in a discussion where abolitionists are involved" ~ someone in 1850s Kansas, trying to remain neutral in a discussion about slavery and complaining about those damn abolitionists who can't see the nuance in owning people
>inb4 some room temperature IQ replies with "are you really equating eating meat with slavery?"
No, slavery is worse than animal agriculture. That doesn't mean that animal agriculture isn't wrong for the same reasons that slavery is. You're driving a demand for unnecessary harm to be done to sentient beings for a product you don't need to survive.
I can prove pretty easily that cows can suffer. I can't prove that any individual cow wanted to live any more than I can prove that any murder victim wanted to live, but it's a safe fucking assumption that they did.
And a child doesn't know what sex is, but it turns out that the victim not being able to comprehend the crime being committed against them is not a justification for committing that crime. I know, you don't think your logic can be expanded to cover things outside of dietary decisions, but it can whether you like it or not.
Something being legal does not mean it's okay, and my opinion of me consumption is a bit more meaningful than the opinions of Christian fundamentalists to the lgbt, on account that your perfectly legal dietary decisions actively cause harm in a way that being gay doesn't.
it's not. we don't have proof that cows understand personal mortality. we therefore have no reason to believe they want to live or not to die.
eating cheeseburgers doesn't cause harm
Where we came from is less important than where we are going. The problems with veganism are not that they don't eat animals, in fact I don't think the problem is with veganism at all but with moral imperatives in general that promote black and white, oppositional political positioning. But moral imperatives are one of the most popular and effective rhetorical methods to make a point (and split opposition) so we are just kind of raised in it. If you're someone who has strong opinions you learn to express them in a certain way.
But veganism is good, but primitivist "return to nature" types have a dubious track record aka they tend to be chuds or on their way to chuddening. "Retvrn to the past" is a conservative talking point, but what separates us from nature is capitalism, not veganism.
Veganism is not return to nature. Quite the opposite. And it's definitely not a return to the past. Veganism is a modern view of society where we look at the possibilities we have today, granted to us by technology and science, and decide to spare the lives of animals. We have a surplus of food and supplements that makes meat consumption less healthy, efficient and ethical than plant based. It's was virtually impossible to do be 100% plant based 100 years ago in full health.
Wait that isn't what I meant at all, I was contrasting the "return to nature" view with the vegan view.
I tried editing for clarity
Ah OK. My bad
Plants can cry/scream. Checkmate, plant eaters.
So does my phone when the battery is low. Do you reckon I'm hurting it by not plugging it in right now?
Your analogy basically boils down to Descartes' hypothesis about "animal machines".
There is a legitimate debate to be had about about the spectrum of consciousness/awareness and where it apparently stops. Most people would agree that mammals and birds are on it. I've seen the need for a central nervous system seen pop up a lot, but there is also octopuses, which are highly intelligent without having one. You can even find something that I can only describe as "intelligence" and a decent level of awarness in spiders, best example being the genus Portia. So where does the spectrum really end?
Some plants are capable of some impressive actions, like beansprouts systematically moving and "searching" for stuff to grab on, a lot of plants use pheremonal communications to warn each others of predators ... there is good stuff here. So are the just totally off the spectrum of awareness and purley operating on a mechanical level, like a phone? I'm not sure.
The point is, we don't really know what consciousness is. And while this video is quite dated, I'm not aware of a better take (though it doesn't really do much in practice).
Watch out the one vegan with the finger strength left to press the downvote button is gonna come for you.
Meanwhile, the weakest vegan in the comments
linking to instagram is uniquely weak
And another one will report his post. They are surprisingly oversensitive 😂
I dated one for over a year. Mentally unstable that lot. I think the whole time she was introducing me to people I only met like two vegans that I would have considered mentally sound.
Don't get all logical, their heads may explode.
OP's argument is a fallacy so common it has a formal name. But I don't want to get "all logical" and put anyone's scalp at risk.