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I’m ideologically positive to vegetarianism and veganism but I’m so sick of this argument. Something being “made for humans” is in no way a positive — so is coc

by hnarn 6y ago

I’m ideologically positive to vegetarianism and veganism but I’m so sick of this argument. Something being “made for humans” is in no way a positive — so is cocaine.

seanwilson 6y ago
> Something being “made for humans” is in no way a positive — so is cocaine. It's more of a spin from the phase "milk is for baby cows" though (not sure what the equivalent would be for cocaine). I used to roll my eyes at this as a naturalistic fallacy but point the being made here is: 1) cows do not give milk unless they've been pregnant 2) the newly born calves need to be separated from their mothers so there's more milk sell There's no similar ethical difficult with oats.
- hnarn 6y ago
  It's a pretty ridiculous simplification of how nature works. Animals being dependent on each-other is found everywhere in nature, and the fact is that cows at this point would stand almost no chance in nature since we have bred them to the point of cuddly teddy bears. So you could argue that cows get protection and we get milk, it's not necessarily exploitation in my mind until you get to the point where you talk about industrial production of meat and dairy, which to be honest is pretty cruel and horrifying in parts.
  - seanwilson 6y ago
    > Animals being dependent on each-other is found everywhere in nature Human ethics clearly shouldn't and aren't based on what other animals do to each other though. > the fact is that cows at this point would stand almost no chance in nature since we have bred them to the point of cuddly teddy bears You could justify anything with this argument: "doing X to Y is bad, but we've specifically bred Y to have X done to them such that Y can't survive in the wild anymore, therefore it's okay to do X". Just stop breeding them. There's related species in the wild that will live on.
    - hnarn 6y ago
      Sure, from a vegan perspective you can stop the entire meat and dairy industry completely based on the fact that it's not strictly necessary for our survival, but a lot of things aren't strictly necessary for our survival. You can also argue that humans have an ethical responsibility to be "more" and that because of this we shouldn't consume anything that causes suffering in living beings. Both of these arguments come out of personal ethics though. In ethical terms, most people simply do not feel that the suffering of animals is equal to that of humans. One may not agree with this, but it's why people eat meat in the first place, or accept animal testing for medicine. So, as long as "specism" is the reigning morality that people subscribe to, it's unlikely we'll see a vegan wave, unless perhaps there's a climate component driving it as well.
0xfffafaCrash 6y ago
Look, if the marketing for oatly just focused entirely and explicitly on the cruelty of the dairy industry that they are competing against, they would never be a successful alternative to dairy because most consumers don’t respond positively to being exposed to graphic, disturbing, and negative information about competitors on product packaging. If anything it makes consumers want to look away, reach for humor to trivialize the issues, or rationalize away any role they choose to play in the cruelty. “Made for humans” here really doesn’t mean anything other than “not being taken from calves” except phrased in a more positive way. This isn’t about “natural” versus “artificial” as it is about making choices which are less ethically fraught, but vegans are hated by the large majority of the rest of us because we don’t care for others explicitly or implicitly condemning us for our lack of ethical integrity when we choose convenience and comfort over doing less harm.
- itsoktocry 6y ago
  >the cruelty of the dairy industry that they are competing against I have first-hand knowledge of "the dairy industry". I don't see cruelty. Can you fill me on what's cruel about it?
  - hnarn 6y ago
    Cruelty is subjective, so I'll play the vegan's advocate here since I'm not vegan myself: Dairy cows are forcibly inseminated and then used for their milk way beyond the time period they normally would produce milk. In many parts of the world they are kept in conditions which are cruel, and they may also suffer physically from this treatment (infections etc). In essence, dairy animals are treated like machines rather than animals and very little concern is given to their well being rather than their profitability. Morality is, as always, subjective, but from a vegan perspective, this is unnecessary and cruel exploitation. I'd also like to add that most vegans are not magically averse to meat or dairy as a product: they are mostly concerned with the industrial complex of producing animal products. I think most vegans would have no, or at least a lot less, problems with dairy production if it happened in a way where cows were treated very well and did not suffer in any way from having their milk taken (which would make milk prohibitively expensive, I assume).

by hnarn 6y ago

I’m ideologically positive to vegetarianism and veganism but I’m so sick of this argument. Something being “made for humans” is in no way a positive — so is cocaine.

seanwilson 6y ago

> Something being “made for humans” is in no way a positive — so is cocaine. It's more of a spin from the phase "milk is for baby cows" though (not sure what the equivalent would be for cocaine). I used to roll my eyes at this as a naturalistic fallacy but point the being made here is: 1) cows do not give milk unless they've been pregnant 2) the newly born calves need to be separated from their mothers so there's more milk sell There's no similar ethical difficult with oats.

hnarn 6y ago
It's a pretty ridiculous simplification of how nature works. Animals being dependent on each-other is found everywhere in nature, and the fact is that cows at this point would stand almost no chance in nature since we have bred them to the point of cuddly teddy bears. So you could argue that cows get protection and we get milk, it's not necessarily exploitation in my mind until you get to the point where you talk about industrial production of meat and dairy, which to be honest is pretty cruel and horrifying in parts.
- seanwilson 6y ago
  > Animals being dependent on each-other is found everywhere in nature Human ethics clearly shouldn't and aren't based on what other animals do to each other though. > the fact is that cows at this point would stand almost no chance in nature since we have bred them to the point of cuddly teddy bears You could justify anything with this argument: "doing X to Y is bad, but we've specifically bred Y to have X done to them such that Y can't survive in the wild anymore, therefore it's okay to do X". Just stop breeding them. There's related species in the wild that will live on.
  - hnarn 6y ago
    Sure, from a vegan perspective you can stop the entire meat and dairy industry completely based on the fact that it's not strictly necessary for our survival, but a lot of things aren't strictly necessary for our survival. You can also argue that humans have an ethical responsibility to be "more" and that because of this we shouldn't consume anything that causes suffering in living beings. Both of these arguments come out of personal ethics though. In ethical terms, most people simply do not feel that the suffering of animals is equal to that of humans. One may not agree with this, but it's why people eat meat in the first place, or accept animal testing for medicine. So, as long as "specism" is the reigning morality that people subscribe to, it's unlikely we'll see a vegan wave, unless perhaps there's a climate component driving it as well.

0xfffafaCrash 6y ago

Look, if the marketing for oatly just focused entirely and explicitly on the cruelty of the dairy industry that they are competing against, they would never be a successful alternative to dairy because most consumers don’t respond positively to being exposed to graphic, disturbing, and negative information about competitors on product packaging. If anything it makes consumers want to look away, reach for humor to trivialize the issues, or rationalize away any role they choose to play in the cruelty. “Made for humans” here really doesn’t mean anything other than “not being taken from calves” except phrased in a more positive way. This isn’t about “natural” versus “artificial” as it is about making choices which are less ethically fraught, but vegans are hated by the large majority of the rest of us because we don’t care for others explicitly or implicitly condemning us for our lack of ethical integrity when we choose convenience and comfort over doing less harm.

itsoktocry 6y ago
>the cruelty of the dairy industry that they are competing against I have first-hand knowledge of "the dairy industry". I don't see cruelty. Can you fill me on what's cruel about it?
- hnarn 6y ago
  Cruelty is subjective, so I'll play the vegan's advocate here since I'm not vegan myself: Dairy cows are forcibly inseminated and then used for their milk way beyond the time period they normally would produce milk. In many parts of the world they are kept in conditions which are cruel, and they may also suffer physically from this treatment (infections etc). In essence, dairy animals are treated like machines rather than animals and very little concern is given to their well being rather than their profitability. Morality is, as always, subjective, but from a vegan perspective, this is unnecessary and cruel exploitation. I'd also like to add that most vegans are not magically averse to meat or dairy as a product: they are mostly concerned with the industrial complex of producing animal products. I think most vegans would have no, or at least a lot less, problems with dairy production if it happened in a way where cows were treated very well and did not suffer in any way from having their milk taken (which would make milk prohibitively expensive, I assume).