I misread the question.

I can provide an example, but you might hate me for it. I swear this is just to explain what I mean by this fallacy because I can't think of another example right now.

Justifying killing/using an animal for its skin/hide (e.g. leather or fur), because you're already killing the animal for its flesh, when in actual fact the killing of the animal doesn't need to take place at all (hypothetically).

Or justifying the killing of calves for veal as a necessary component of dairy production, when in fact dairy production isn't necessary, either.

I hope that makes sense

So, the plants found a way to hijack the bees' journey by putting some extra pollen on them to take to other flowers, since they're already there taking pollen anyway? That's awesome.

By playing beatbox music and making everyone stay away from me while I grew corn and ate it slowly in front of them while they watched me cautiously from a distance.

You're right technically... but i should have said "fictional story" and "plays multiple characters"

Please dont hate on me, I think my question is reasonable. And I still support Fairphone, and I dont want to debate over why they dont have a headphone jack. And please dont try to convince me to use a phone without a headphone jack, have done so for years and it's terrible for my purposes and leads to many many adapters breaking.

Or, maybe both pronouncers (the "jiff" gang and the "giff" crowd) will team up against me for saying that. At least we'll have harmony for most people if that's the case, and I'll be a sacrifice to keep the peace.

He chooses action, a bad action, instead of nonaction in relation to those bad actions. In that case, nonaction is actually preferable. Veganism is opting out of animal exploitation - often described as a non-action.

I understand the intent of calling it an action to stop exploiting animals, because ceasing an action feels like an action in itself, especially if resultingly, it's replaced by other actions. It's a change, which is an action of sorts. I use that language too because it's effective.

But I think it's interesting that we humans always frame issues related to impacting upon animals and the environment as if we're "helping" and "taking action" by simply stopping doing something bad/harmful or reducing our harm.

When we talk about becoming vegan, we often say things like "save hundreds of animals a year through reduced supply/demand", when really we mean more like spare them from the consequences of our own actions. And meanwhile, we never use the language of "saving" someone when a person decides not to kill someone they were considering killing - in the human context. So it feels maybe like we're still untangling speciesist bias and devaluing or de-individualizing other animals in subtle ways. Where for example, respecting an animal is seen as a virtuous, heroic action, rather than basic moral decency.

For the environment, it's the same, except less about individuals and more about feeling maybe like we're so entitled with our human egocentrism/anthropocentrism to use/"harvest"/damage the planet as we please, that deciding to reduce our harm to it is a "supererogatory" action deserving of praise, or that it's an encouraged option, rather than a moral obligation & duty. Same with animals more or less, except animals are sentient beings so it's arguably worse.

Ok I have another example.

Another example might involve arguing that the disposal of hazardous waste is necessary because it's a byproduct of a particular manufacturing process, while ignoring the question of whether that manufacturing process itself is essential or necessary. This fallacy occurs when one justifies an undesirable or harmful element as a necessary component of a larger practice or system without questioning the necessity of the entire system or practice.

That could all be true, but I should clarify when I said I felt like crap I meant physically (mentally as well, sure). As in, how you feel if you're really sick and unwell. Nausea, queaziness, headache, pain, lightheaded, etc.

Agreed. Another thing I would change is that I wasn't alerted that the post had been removed, only saw that it was missing from my profile. And I only found the reason for the deletion once I used the backlog feature, which isn't a feature that's made immediately known to users (I only found it after researching).

Actually almost all male calves do (in the dairy industry), because they can't produce milk and it wouldn't be profitable or financially feasible to keep them alive otherwise

"Male dairy calves are surplus to the requirement of dairy production, and thus, are often sold from the dairy farm in early life. In the United States, male calves are generally sold within days of birth (Shivley et al., 2019) for veal or dairy beef production (Perdue and Hamer, 2017). Raising young male dairy calves for meat, particularly veal, is a contentious issue that has received public scrutiny in the United States (e.g., California Prop 2, 2008) and globally (reviewed by Bolton and von Keyserlingk, 2021)."

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fanim.2022.1000897/full

It's pronounced GIF (sounding out each letter), like in that 'If Google Was A Guy' CollegeHumor video. Just so that it doesn't annoy or antagonise anyone for a meaningless purpose. Everyone wins.

Most what? Calves or male calves? Because it's factually incorrect to say that most male calves aren't killed for veal. They evidently are.

But let's ignore that for a second. The fact that any calves in the dairy industry are killed for veal, or even for beef (at only a few years older, still a fraction of their natural lifespan), is of course a harm, whether you agree with it or not. Killing an animal is harming them, no matter if they're a baby animal or a few-year-old animal.

It's a harm toward animals that some might justify as a necessary component of dairy production, which it is. But this ignores the fact that dairy production itself isn't necessary. And that was the crux of the fallacy I'm alluding to.

Definitely agree it can stem from insecurity and feelings of guilt about animals and the environment, though maybe other or more complex motivations at times.

And for all intents and purposes, people are criticizing our diet, because that's what most people believe veganism is, even though it's really an ethical stance against animal use/exploitation that extends to all products and actions beyond food. They're really attacking/lashing out/criticizing our animal-free/plant-based diet or lifestyle, even if they do out of their own moral beliefs. Someone doesn't even have to say anything, the existence of vegans is enough sometimes to make people feel like they're on trial and need to defend their actions to animals, & disparage the choice to avoid them. That's how it feels anyway. And tbh, it makes sense to feel insecure about it because it's pretty horrific what we do to animals, but responding to the notion that we don't have to do this or some people are against it, in an aggressive & unproductive way seems irrational to me. We just need to work on controlling our emotions better as humans I think.

The religious analogy is SO accurate too. It really feels like people are having their worldview and belief system challenged by people with a different one that appears to be rooted in ethics and sympathy for animals, something everyone can relate to. I think there were studies showing people who cared more about animals were more likely to hate vegans, which is really enlightening. The more that people share our values, the more they seem to want to fight against us because it forces them to comfront uncomfortable parts of themselves. This is also why so many leftists are anti vegan, imo. And I say this as a leftist, basically. Even though leftist ideas are usually about human rights principles, it's not too much of a leap to extend it to other sentient species, and the environment. So it can create this feeling of hypocrisy or cognitive dissonance, often termed as the "meat paradox" in psychological research

Also funny and coincidental, vegans often eat seitan (a product made from gluten/wheat protein), and we basically are like a satanic force that needs to be cleared out in the eyes of a lot of people. 😆While some Christians argue veganism is entailed by their religion (maybe after watching Christspiracy), others have literally called us satanic and demonic lol. And the same was said of abolitionists too, I guess justice and respect is super scary and evil to whomever is tasked with defending their antitheses:

USDA is inherently biased toward animal farming, and the first source I linked was a scientific study. But I'm not necessarily denying what USDA says. Holding a bias doesn't automatically make something untrue. You didn't quote anything they said, you made some hasty calculations based on their statistics, which seemed to overlook the distinction between male calves and female calves. You used this to make a statement that I never disagreed with, because I was making a different one. (One could call that a strawman fallacy).

Humane League is an animal welfare organisation. Of course they're going to focus on the most ethically unsound aspects of animal farming, since that's their purpose, but nothing they said was false. They did acknowledge that some male calves in the dairy industry are raised for beef, but that most are killed for veal.

One I can think of is false dilemma/false dichotomy (a false premise that erroneously limits what options are available, and forces us to choose between 2 options (either cause unnecessary harm and waste the full usefulness of the harm, or cause unnecessary harm and maximise its usefulness) when there is a third option to not cause the unnecessary harm in the first place.

However that's more general and I was looking for something more specific that refers to assuming something is necessary because it's an unavoidable component of another thing which itself is unnecessary.

Thanks so much for that, I really appreciate it!

I hope this is alright to ask, but do you agree with why they removed the post? Or would there be a way to appeal a removal in a case like this, when the reason given for removal doesn't seem to reflect the content? It doesn't seem accurate to me at all.

The reason given was this, from moderator candyman337 who commented:

"Locking this thread because this question seems to be inviting people to express ideologies of eugenics and that's a big nono."

This mod's comment received 4 downvotes.

I suppose they removed it completely after that, and I was able to find a reason listed as "super toxic comments" (the comments don't seem toxic to me at all, but I suppose that's subjective).

But with regard to the eugenics reason... uhhh what? I read the comments and there is no discussion of eugenics, and my question posed in the post also didn't relate to or encourage discussion of eugenics at all.

I found one comment that mentioned eugenics and that's it, and it seemed to be deemed by others to be as unrelated to the topic as I found it, since this comment received 3 downvotes and was left with a score of -2:

"this is eugenicist propaganda."

The comment this 'eugenicist propaganda' comment was in response to:

"Just because you are made uncomfortable by a comparison does not invalidate it, nor should it be shunned unless it is factually incorrect. In many places the disabled and mentally ill are treated like animals or worse. Unfortunately alot of the world does not fall under our idea of "humane" and that should be recognized and utilized as a data point."

I fail to understand how that comment had anything to do with eugenics, and then shortly after the mod locked the thread saying that my question was encouraging discussions of eugenics, based on that one person's seemingly irrelevant comment.

This doesn't seem fair to me, and it makes me wonder if just one single person commenting "this is eugenicist propaganda" in response to something that has nothing to do with that, will cause the whole post to be locked or removed, regardless of the topic?

Something tells me this mod was just looking for any reason to take down the post due to personal gripes with it, but I'm not claiming I know that. The reason really doesn't make sense at all.

Sorry for the long comment and thanks again for the help!