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Probably going to get downvoted for this, things like this are why I’m shocked people think veganism is a crazy idea. It’s one thing for people to say it’s expe

Probably going to get downvoted for this, things like this are why I’m shocked people think veganism is a crazy idea. It’s one thing for people to say it’s expensive or not practical, but I can’t understand how someone can see something like this and not agree there’s at least some merit to the idea.

lr4444lr 5y ago
As a meat eater, I don't think there are too many serious challenges outside of religious beliefs to the ethical arguments for veganism. Mammals at least are clearly as sentient about survival and their kin as we are. But that doesn't mean we can't accept that their suffering is worth it for our gustatory pleasure. I could accept a world where I simply have to pay more for meat to spare the horrors of factory farming, but I have no personal problem with humane-intentioned husbandry and slaughter.
- hervature 5y ago
  Where in your argument are humans excluded for gustatory pleasure?
  - lr4444lr 5y ago
    We aren't. We have no ethical justification for why at the species level we get to cage lions for show rather than they us for food, if that's what you mean.
adventured 5y ago
I wouldn't downvote you for that opinion, however I am curious to hear your elaboration on what you mean. I'm not vegan and never will be. I don't think veganism is a crazy idea, I think it's great if that's what a person likes. And I don't see how this story, the context of it, adds substantial merit to veganism.
- 21eleven 5y ago
  > I don't see how this story, the context of it, adds substantial merit to veganism. If cows are smart enough to be potty trained then maybe we should not confine them to feedlots and slaughter them.
  - worik 5y ago
    These are not feedlots, are they? They video would not play for me). These would be herd homes, which are a very different concept. Generally cattle are very happy in "herd homes". Happier than living in the mud.
    - markstos 5y ago
      Golden retrievers may live happy lives, but we don't slaughter them.
      - nelsondev 5y ago
        If a being is killed, it ceases to be. If it has no friends/family who miss its absence, who cares? Death is not immoral, it just is.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    If you think that how we treat an animal should depend on its IQ, then you are heading down a road that many will find uncomfortable real quick. I honestly don't see how being smart enough to be potty trained has anything to do with whether something should be eaten. That's a truly bizarre connection to make. We are part of nature and eat food that is part of a traditional diet or a very close substitute. Whether something is in our traditional diet has only a limited relationship to how intelligent it is. For instance, if it is so intelligent that we have not been able to catch it then it would certainly be excluded from our diet. But in general, that's not why foods are actually excluded in practice, so this is a fringe theory to explain why humans have developed as omnivores that eat meat as well as vegetables.
s0meone 5y ago
Vegan here. Not sure if this is exactly what you are hinting at, but I do perceive a significant bias against veganism that is, to my perspective, usually just not based on a solid rational basis.
- worik 5y ago
  Veganism has no solid basis in that there is no precedent. There is for vegetarianism, it was not invented in the nineteenth century, but veganism was. There are no examples of vegan cultures before modern times. Given that what we do not know about human metabolism is more important than what we do know I am sceptical of some new radical dietary plan.
  - markstos 5y ago
    Animal agriculture is a top cause of climate catastrophe. Is avoid global catastrophe a radical idea?
    - worik 5y ago
      Is it? Is not industrial agriculture generally (and more generally, greed) the actual problem? I do not think that intensive crop growing is better than pastoral farming of animals for meat. The former is catastrophic to the local environment the latter is all around me and causes very few problems.
      - kelp 5y ago
        I don't have the numbers at my fingertips, but growing animals for meat generally requires growing lots and lots of feed stock. Many multiples more than what it would require to feed humans directly. So because we want meat, more and more industrial agriculture has to happen to grow that meat. So yeah, I think having an industrial meat industry has more environmental impact, than just having industrial farming in the absence of the industrial meat industry.
        5y ago
worik 5y ago
I eat cows. And pigs. I am not put off by this. The role of cows and pigs in this world is to be eaten. They would not exist otherwise.
- gfody 5y ago
  their roles could get more interesting once we give them neuralinks and higher educations
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    A science fiction story about a group of machine learning data labelers who get outsourced to neural interface outfitted livestock sounds promising.
- bavent 5y ago
  Because everything on this planet and beyond exists only for humans to exploit and use up? That’s a very narrow take on things.
  - worik 5y ago
    No. Animals that humans breed, farm, and that rely on humans for every aspect of their lives. They exist for humans to exploit. That is a very narrow part of things
    - asdf3243245q 5y ago
      Isn't that a circular argument? They only exist for humans to exploit because humans put them in that situation.
      - worik 5y ago
        Yes. We could stop, then no cows or pigs.
    - bavent 5y ago
panzagl 5y ago
I don't think veganism is a crazy idea, but it often seems to devolve into some sort of purity competition that becomes crazy.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
disneygibson 5y ago
All this illustrates is that vegetarianism is ultimately a human social phenomenon. Cute animals doing human-like things get our sympathy and fuel vegan cultural movements, while cockroaches replicating some other human quality are still treated as pests to be removed, without exception.
spoonjim 5y ago
I can only speak for myself: I feel that killing animals is wrong, I don’t have the self control to stop, and seeing people who do (and are living more ethical lives than me) makes me annoyed and resentful. I would, however, be extremely proud if my children decided to become vegan (and would prepare vegan meals for them).
- rhacker 5y ago
  I'm having trouble parsing your sentence. You're annoyed and resentful of yourself or of the vegans?
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    Of them, for holding a mirror up to my own failings.
- corry 5y ago
  Jim - I'm not vegan, but I wanted to be the voice of the universe telling you that you CAN do it. Start by moving to pescatarian or vegetarian for a month, then maybe a year. Then phase out the other stuff. Bask in the glow of doing something you believe is right, even if it's hard. Be the example for your kids even if it's with baby steps. Cheers.
- standardUser 5y ago
  One huge flaw with the way vegetarianism/veganism is often presented it that it's all or nothing. But that's a fallacy. Eat one less meat meal every week if you want. Have vegan Sundays. Cut out only cows.
- sweetheart 5y ago
  You can do it. You can absolutely do it.
webmobdev 5y ago
This argument doesn't work. I mean, people do horrible things to other people too (including killing them). So a dark way of looking at this is that people only care about things they form an attachment to (humans or animals or material objects).
- kelp 5y ago
  People also get PTSD from killing other people. And militaries go to great lengths to dehumanize the enemy and get soldiers to be more ok with killing other humans. People still often end up traumatized after doing that killing. Even at a huge distance, drone pilots end up with PTSD fairly frequently. So I don't think it's quite so black and white as only caring about things we have attachment to.
gremloni 5y ago
Vegan food is not delicious. I’m not going to stop eating meat, we need to figure out another way around this like lab grown meat or something.
- bavent 5y ago
  I don’t think you’ve had the right vegan food. Some is disgusting, just like some meat-based foods are (fermented shark?). Some can be made really well. I’m not a vegan but I’ve noticed what’s missing in it a lot of them is umami - savoriness. That’s an easy fix: soy sauce, kombu, tomatoes (paste especially), certain mushrooms, even pure MSG. Things with a lot of glutamate go a long way to making most dishes better, non-vegan ones included.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    I am an omnivore, but I noticed that mushrooms can often satisfy my craving for meat.
  - gremloni 5y ago
    Mushrooms is the only thing on that list that even comes close and I admit they are delicious.
    - bavent 5y ago
      I think it’s a matter of judicious use. I use a lot of tamari/soy sauce when I cook, but not enough that the food tastes overly of it. It’s the savoriness I want, not the actual flavor. Same with tomato paste - roast it in the oven so it has some color and then mix it in with things like soups. They won’t taste like tomato paste (unless you go overboard with it) but they will have a fuller mouthfeel and feel more satisfying. When I make stock at home from vegetable trimmings, I put mushrooms and kombu in. In Japanese cooking those two things make a dashi, which is a base stock for a lot of dishes, but even adding them to regular stocks (or if I’m cooking rice or quinoa or something) by tying a sheet of seaweed around some mushrooms and then pulling it out when the cooking is done, it imparts a lot of glutamate but not an overly seaweed-y flavor. I don’t eat the seaweed or the mushrooms usually (dried shiitakes have a texture I don’t like), I use them only to infuse things.
at_a_remove 5y ago
Well, if you can't understand, I guess you should hear some counterpoints. 1) Quite a lot of time, we will hear from the vegan/vegetarian community that humans were not designed to eat meat, we were only designed to eat in a vegan/vegetarian manner. This is done by selectively ignoring a lot of evidence. This pisses people off when it is caught. 2) We have some real-life study evidence that vegans/vegetarians live less long than people who have some meat. There's a sweet spot on the curve between deep-fried steaks every day and no meat ever. And yet the veggie crowd will over-simplify and say that their diet is the way to go if you want to live longer. Again, it's another case of manipulating the evidence and this also pisses people off when caught. Basically, the whackadoo types are running (and ruining) public relations for this kind of thing and that isn't working out.
deleted 5y ago
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Glyptodon 5y ago
I think where I get lost is the idea that things like this somehow mean having a chicken in your yard and eating some eggs every week is evil. That there are bad impacts of animal derived products, over-fishing, etc., and that these things aren't great seem like a true thing. But I don't understand how every case of anything to do with animals (including insects, etc.) is bad follows from it. (For another example, a hypothetical closed, renewable energy powered, aquaponic system doesn't strike me as propagating great evil.)
- kelp 5y ago
  This is the difference between me in my late teens, early 20s. hardcore vegan, avoided all animal products. Went to lengths to avoid leather, never ate any animal products. Now, 20 years later, I'm mostly vegetarian, and limit dairy and other animal products. But it doesn't have to be perfect. I'm just trying to consume less of it and lessen my overall impact. It doesn't have to be 100% pure.
- rpmisms 5y ago
  This is accurate. Goats and cows will literally beg you to milk them if you're late doing so. Chickens leave most of their eggs to rot, only incubating very few. Isn't it more disrespectful to the animal to let the food they provide go to waste?
  - sweetheart 5y ago
    Genuine question: Why do the animals beg you to milk them if they presumably have children? The animals only produce milk after having given birth, right? Are you saying that the animals produce so much milk that they still need to beg to be milked after their young have been nourished? Or are you saying they only beg for milk in situations in which their young have been taken away?
    - rpmisms 5y ago
      Cows and Goats will both wean their offspring on their own, and continue to produce milk for years afterwards. Milking them keeps them from getting pregnant again too soon.
kelp 5y ago
I think people react to veganism as a crazy idea because it's threatening. As an ethical choice, it's passing judgement on their own choices. So their (probably unconscious) reaction is to dismiss it at crazy. That's a defense mechanism to keep them from having to take a hard look at their own choices and the impact on other living beings. I was a pretty long time vegan and after about a decade as an omnivore, I'm now mostly avoid meat again, though I'm not as strict as I once was. When I was a serious vegan I'd keep it to myself unless I really had to mention it. But once it came up, people would frequently try to poke holes in my reasoning. It didn't take long before I'd heard all the arguments against. The only one that really resonated with me was: "I like meat too much, so I don't care to change, even if it's causing harm." I felt like that was honest, and I could respect it. Everything else felt like someone trying to defend their own ego. Now, this was all 20 years ago. So maybe people have softened to the idea some. Or at least are used to it enough that they wouldn't have as much the same reactions today.
- Aromasin 5y ago
  I agree that the fact it's threatening is the key issue. It was threatening to me for years before I took the leap. People have softened to the idea, but it is still the only stance I hold that I still get either rigorously questioned or belittled for - despite all the commercial and cultural support that continues to grow for it. This doesn't happen for any other political, ethical, or religious stance I hold - such confrontation would be frowned upon under normal circumstances, so there must be a reason for such a trigger. We are now actively weighing the benefits versus the costs of animal agriculture in a different light, because for the first time in our history we are, by in large, no longer reliant on it for our survival as individuals. A young philosophy YouTuber of all people (Alex O'Connor) was the one who put the ethics of veganism in the right light for me; I had already decreased my animal product consumption to almost nothing with it being the leading cause of deforestation and habitat loss, but was not sold on the animal rights front in the slightest. Alex dismantled all my "egotistical" arguments as you put it. I followed it by reading his recommendation of Peter Signers book 'Animal Liberation' which really nailed the coffin as it were. I recommend these videos [1][2] and this book [3] whole-heartedly for those who are on the fence, or even far beyond it but would like a "reasoned" view of veganism rather than the shallow arguments to might hear from your hippie friend or 14 year-old newly vegan niece/nephew. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1vW9iSpLLk&t=192s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1vW9iSpLLk&t=192s [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcVR2OVxPYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcVR2OVxPYw [3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29380.Animal_Liberation https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29380.Animal_Liberation
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standardUser 5y ago
I think there are many compelling arguments for veganism, but the idea that "animals aren't as dumb as we think they are" is not compelling. At least not to me.
unknownOrigin 5y ago
I think veganism is awesome. Sadly, I like meat more than I like veganism.
rpmisms 5y ago
I grew up very close with animals, and if anything, it made me like and appreciate meat more. Life is a short, vicious circle, and we're omnivores with a place in that circle. My dog will happily kill a deer (yep, I watched in shock as she did it), and eat it, and we're no different. The best thing we can do is care for the animals with respect, and give them good lives. It's far better than nature will ever provide.
- sweetheart 5y ago
  > The best thing we can do is care for the animals with respect, and give them good lives. Until someone gets hungry, and then letting the animal live a good life quickly stops being a concern, even though letting it live will result in exactly 0 nutritional problems (assuming a normal, balanced diet). > we're no different. But we are, no? We aren't dogs, right? Or lions, or deer, or doves, or elephants. We are humans, and can recognize moral worth and weigh the ethical concerns of a situation, such as "Is it really worth having this animal suffer and die, when I could instead just eat a veggie burger?" > vicious circle When do we get to the part of the circle where 10 billion humans are systematically artificially inseminated, farmed, milked, culled, processed, thumped, skinned, boiled, and cut every year to sate the appetites of pigs, geese, horses, cows, goats, sheep, fish, sharks, whales, etc?
  - rpmisms 5y ago
    > Until someone gets hungry, and then letting the animal live a good life quickly stops being a concern. Not to any responsible farmer. Respect in death as well as life. >"Is it really worth having this animal suffer and die, when I could instead just eat a veggie burger?" Yes. I have never killed an animal to eat and had it suffer. I kill sheep with a very sharp knife, and they're unconscious from blood loss before they feel the pain. I thank them for their gift once they're gone. > When do we get to the part of the circle where 10 billion humans are systematically artificially inseminated, farmed, milked, culled, processed, thumped, skinned, boiled, and cut every year to sate the appetites of pigs, geese, horses, cows, goats, sheep, fish, sharks, whales, etc? Whenever they get smart enough to do that to us.
cheese_goddess 5y ago
Speaking for myself, veganism is a crazy idea because it means putting yourself in a position where you can't get all the nutrients you need from the food you eat and you have to take supplements to make up for the deficiencies, otherwise you risk suffering from malnourishment. I don't get this kind of choice at all. Nourishment should come from food, not from supplements. If you don't eat well enough to keep yourself healthy and fullfill your needs, you should change your diet. If there are ideological reasons, religious or political reasons, then you should re-examine those. There is nothing ethical in starving yourself. You will not care for animals and will not save the environment by not eating enough food. What's more, being vegan achieves exactly 0 change to the suffering of animals and to the damage done to the environment. When you go to the supermarket and find a steak on a shelf, whether you buy it or not makes no difference to the suffering of the animal or the amount of greenhouse gasses produced to raise it. You can choose to buy the steak and eat it or not, but you can't change what has already happened. So whether you eat meat or not is just an empty, symbolic gesture. It may give you the warm moral fuzzies, but you haven't changed anything in reality. The idea of course is that if everyone becomes vegan, then meat production will stop or decrease. It could work in theory, but in practice the number of vegetarians and vegans keeps rising but meat production and consumption has been increasing steadily since the 1960's: https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production So what is the vegan plan? Whatever it is, it's not making a dent. Everybody has heard the vegan and vegetarian claims by now: meat is murder, it destroys the environment, you're a bad person for liking meat, the goalposts keep shifting, but meat production keeps increasing, never decreasing, no matter what. It's not just a crazy idea, it's an idea that doesn't work.

lr4444lr 5y ago

As a meat eater, I don't think there are too many serious challenges outside of religious beliefs to the ethical arguments for veganism. Mammals at least are clearly as sentient about survival and their kin as we are. But that doesn't mean we can't accept that their suffering is worth it for our gustatory pleasure. I could accept a world where I simply have to pay more for meat to spare the horrors of factory farming, but I have no personal problem with humane-intentioned husbandry and slaughter.

hervature 5y ago
Where in your argument are humans excluded for gustatory pleasure?
- lr4444lr 5y ago
  We aren't. We have no ethical justification for why at the species level we get to cage lions for show rather than they us for food, if that's what you mean.

adventured 5y ago

I wouldn't downvote you for that opinion, however I am curious to hear your elaboration on what you mean. I'm not vegan and never will be. I don't think veganism is a crazy idea, I think it's great if that's what a person likes. And I don't see how this story, the context of it, adds substantial merit to veganism.

21eleven 5y ago
> I don't see how this story, the context of it, adds substantial merit to veganism. If cows are smart enough to be potty trained then maybe we should not confine them to feedlots and slaughter them.
- worik 5y ago
  These are not feedlots, are they? They video would not play for me). These would be herd homes, which are a very different concept. Generally cattle are very happy in "herd homes". Happier than living in the mud.
  - markstos 5y ago
    Golden retrievers may live happy lives, but we don't slaughter them.
    - nelsondev 5y ago
      If a being is killed, it ceases to be. If it has no friends/family who miss its absence, who cares? Death is not immoral, it just is.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  If you think that how we treat an animal should depend on its IQ, then you are heading down a road that many will find uncomfortable real quick. I honestly don't see how being smart enough to be potty trained has anything to do with whether something should be eaten. That's a truly bizarre connection to make. We are part of nature and eat food that is part of a traditional diet or a very close substitute. Whether something is in our traditional diet has only a limited relationship to how intelligent it is. For instance, if it is so intelligent that we have not been able to catch it then it would certainly be excluded from our diet. But in general, that's not why foods are actually excluded in practice, so this is a fringe theory to explain why humans have developed as omnivores that eat meat as well as vegetables.

s0meone 5y ago

Vegan here. Not sure if this is exactly what you are hinting at, but I do perceive a significant bias against veganism that is, to my perspective, usually just not based on a solid rational basis.

worik 5y ago
Veganism has no solid basis in that there is no precedent. There is for vegetarianism, it was not invented in the nineteenth century, but veganism was. There are no examples of vegan cultures before modern times. Given that what we do not know about human metabolism is more important than what we do know I am sceptical of some new radical dietary plan.
- markstos 5y ago
  Animal agriculture is a top cause of climate catastrophe. Is avoid global catastrophe a radical idea?
  - worik 5y ago
    Is it? Is not industrial agriculture generally (and more generally, greed) the actual problem? I do not think that intensive crop growing is better than pastoral farming of animals for meat. The former is catastrophic to the local environment the latter is all around me and causes very few problems.
    - kelp 5y ago
      I don't have the numbers at my fingertips, but growing animals for meat generally requires growing lots and lots of feed stock. Many multiples more than what it would require to feed humans directly. So because we want meat, more and more industrial agriculture has to happen to grow that meat. So yeah, I think having an industrial meat industry has more environmental impact, than just having industrial farming in the absence of the industrial meat industry.
      - 5y ago

worik 5y ago

I eat cows. And pigs. I am not put off by this. The role of cows and pigs in this world is to be eaten. They would not exist otherwise.

gfody 5y ago
their roles could get more interesting once we give them neuralinks and higher educations
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  A science fiction story about a group of machine learning data labelers who get outsourced to neural interface outfitted livestock sounds promising.
bavent 5y ago
Because everything on this planet and beyond exists only for humans to exploit and use up? That’s a very narrow take on things.
- worik 5y ago
  No. Animals that humans breed, farm, and that rely on humans for every aspect of their lives. They exist for humans to exploit. That is a very narrow part of things
  - asdf3243245q 5y ago
    Isn't that a circular argument? They only exist for humans to exploit because humans put them in that situation.
    - worik 5y ago
      Yes. We could stop, then no cows or pigs.
  - bavent 5y ago

panzagl 5y ago

I don't think veganism is a crazy idea, but it often seems to devolve into some sort of purity competition that becomes crazy.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

disneygibson 5y ago

All this illustrates is that vegetarianism is ultimately a human social phenomenon. Cute animals doing human-like things get our sympathy and fuel vegan cultural movements, while cockroaches replicating some other human quality are still treated as pests to be removed, without exception.

spoonjim 5y ago

I can only speak for myself: I feel that killing animals is wrong, I don’t have the self control to stop, and seeing people who do (and are living more ethical lives than me) makes me annoyed and resentful. I would, however, be extremely proud if my children decided to become vegan (and would prepare vegan meals for them).

rhacker 5y ago
I'm having trouble parsing your sentence. You're annoyed and resentful of yourself or of the vegans?
- spoonjim 5y ago
  Of them, for holding a mirror up to my own failings.
corry 5y ago
Jim - I'm not vegan, but I wanted to be the voice of the universe telling you that you CAN do it. Start by moving to pescatarian or vegetarian for a month, then maybe a year. Then phase out the other stuff. Bask in the glow of doing something you believe is right, even if it's hard. Be the example for your kids even if it's with baby steps. Cheers.
standardUser 5y ago
One huge flaw with the way vegetarianism/veganism is often presented it that it's all or nothing. But that's a fallacy. Eat one less meat meal every week if you want. Have vegan Sundays. Cut out only cows.
sweetheart 5y ago
You can do it. You can absolutely do it.

webmobdev 5y ago

This argument doesn't work. I mean, people do horrible things to other people too (including killing them). So a dark way of looking at this is that people only care about things they form an attachment to (humans or animals or material objects).

kelp 5y ago
People also get PTSD from killing other people. And militaries go to great lengths to dehumanize the enemy and get soldiers to be more ok with killing other humans. People still often end up traumatized after doing that killing. Even at a huge distance, drone pilots end up with PTSD fairly frequently. So I don't think it's quite so black and white as only caring about things we have attachment to.

gremloni 5y ago

Vegan food is not delicious. I’m not going to stop eating meat, we need to figure out another way around this like lab grown meat or something.

bavent 5y ago
I don’t think you’ve had the right vegan food. Some is disgusting, just like some meat-based foods are (fermented shark?). Some can be made really well. I’m not a vegan but I’ve noticed what’s missing in it a lot of them is umami - savoriness. That’s an easy fix: soy sauce, kombu, tomatoes (paste especially), certain mushrooms, even pure MSG. Things with a lot of glutamate go a long way to making most dishes better, non-vegan ones included.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  I am an omnivore, but I noticed that mushrooms can often satisfy my craving for meat.
- gremloni 5y ago
  Mushrooms is the only thing on that list that even comes close and I admit they are delicious.
  - bavent 5y ago
    I think it’s a matter of judicious use. I use a lot of tamari/soy sauce when I cook, but not enough that the food tastes overly of it. It’s the savoriness I want, not the actual flavor. Same with tomato paste - roast it in the oven so it has some color and then mix it in with things like soups. They won’t taste like tomato paste (unless you go overboard with it) but they will have a fuller mouthfeel and feel more satisfying. When I make stock at home from vegetable trimmings, I put mushrooms and kombu in. In Japanese cooking those two things make a dashi, which is a base stock for a lot of dishes, but even adding them to regular stocks (or if I’m cooking rice or quinoa or something) by tying a sheet of seaweed around some mushrooms and then pulling it out when the cooking is done, it imparts a lot of glutamate but not an overly seaweed-y flavor. I don’t eat the seaweed or the mushrooms usually (dried shiitakes have a texture I don’t like), I use them only to infuse things.

at_a_remove 5y ago

Well, if you can't understand, I guess you should hear some counterpoints. 1) Quite a lot of time, we will hear from the vegan/vegetarian community that humans were not designed to eat meat, we were only designed to eat in a vegan/vegetarian manner. This is done by selectively ignoring a lot of evidence. This pisses people off when it is caught. 2) We have some real-life study evidence that vegans/vegetarians live less long than people who have some meat. There's a sweet spot on the curve between deep-fried steaks every day and no meat ever. And yet the veggie crowd will over-simplify and say that their diet is the way to go if you want to live longer. Again, it's another case of manipulating the evidence and this also pisses people off when caught. Basically, the whackadoo types are running (and ruining) public relations for this kind of thing and that isn't working out.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Glyptodon 5y ago

I think where I get lost is the idea that things like this somehow mean having a chicken in your yard and eating some eggs every week is evil. That there are bad impacts of animal derived products, over-fishing, etc., and that these things aren't great seem like a true thing. But I don't understand how every case of anything to do with animals (including insects, etc.) is bad follows from it. (For another example, a hypothetical closed, renewable energy powered, aquaponic system doesn't strike me as propagating great evil.)

kelp 5y ago
This is the difference between me in my late teens, early 20s. hardcore vegan, avoided all animal products. Went to lengths to avoid leather, never ate any animal products. Now, 20 years later, I'm mostly vegetarian, and limit dairy and other animal products. But it doesn't have to be perfect. I'm just trying to consume less of it and lessen my overall impact. It doesn't have to be 100% pure.
rpmisms 5y ago
This is accurate. Goats and cows will literally beg you to milk them if you're late doing so. Chickens leave most of their eggs to rot, only incubating very few. Isn't it more disrespectful to the animal to let the food they provide go to waste?
- sweetheart 5y ago
  Genuine question: Why do the animals beg you to milk them if they presumably have children? The animals only produce milk after having given birth, right? Are you saying that the animals produce so much milk that they still need to beg to be milked after their young have been nourished? Or are you saying they only beg for milk in situations in which their young have been taken away?
  - rpmisms 5y ago
    Cows and Goats will both wean their offspring on their own, and continue to produce milk for years afterwards. Milking them keeps them from getting pregnant again too soon.

kelp 5y ago

I think people react to veganism as a crazy idea because it's threatening. As an ethical choice, it's passing judgement on their own choices. So their (probably unconscious) reaction is to dismiss it at crazy. That's a defense mechanism to keep them from having to take a hard look at their own choices and the impact on other living beings. I was a pretty long time vegan and after about a decade as an omnivore, I'm now mostly avoid meat again, though I'm not as strict as I once was. When I was a serious vegan I'd keep it to myself unless I really had to mention it. But once it came up, people would frequently try to poke holes in my reasoning. It didn't take long before I'd heard all the arguments against. The only one that really resonated with me was: "I like meat too much, so I don't care to change, even if it's causing harm." I felt like that was honest, and I could respect it. Everything else felt like someone trying to defend their own ego. Now, this was all 20 years ago. So maybe people have softened to the idea some. Or at least are used to it enough that they wouldn't have as much the same reactions today.

Aromasin 5y ago
I agree that the fact it's threatening is the key issue. It was threatening to me for years before I took the leap. People have softened to the idea, but it is still the only stance I hold that I still get either rigorously questioned or belittled for - despite all the commercial and cultural support that continues to grow for it. This doesn't happen for any other political, ethical, or religious stance I hold - such confrontation would be frowned upon under normal circumstances, so there must be a reason for such a trigger. We are now actively weighing the benefits versus the costs of animal agriculture in a different light, because for the first time in our history we are, by in large, no longer reliant on it for our survival as individuals. A young philosophy YouTuber of all people (Alex O'Connor) was the one who put the ethics of veganism in the right light for me; I had already decreased my animal product consumption to almost nothing with it being the leading cause of deforestation and habitat loss, but was not sold on the animal rights front in the slightest. Alex dismantled all my "egotistical" arguments as you put it. I followed it by reading his recommendation of Peter Signers book 'Animal Liberation' which really nailed the coffin as it were. I recommend these videos [1][2] and this book [3] whole-heartedly for those who are on the fence, or even far beyond it but would like a "reasoned" view of veganism rather than the shallow arguments to might hear from your hippie friend or 14 year-old newly vegan niece/nephew. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1vW9iSpLLk&t=192s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1vW9iSpLLk&t=192s [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcVR2OVxPYw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcVR2OVxPYw [3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29380.Animal_Liberation https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29380.Animal_Liberation

deleted 5y ago

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standardUser 5y ago

I think there are many compelling arguments for veganism, but the idea that "animals aren't as dumb as we think they are" is not compelling. At least not to me.

unknownOrigin 5y ago

I think veganism is awesome. Sadly, I like meat more than I like veganism.

rpmisms 5y ago

I grew up very close with animals, and if anything, it made me like and appreciate meat more. Life is a short, vicious circle, and we're omnivores with a place in that circle. My dog will happily kill a deer (yep, I watched in shock as she did it), and eat it, and we're no different. The best thing we can do is care for the animals with respect, and give them good lives. It's far better than nature will ever provide.

sweetheart 5y ago
> The best thing we can do is care for the animals with respect, and give them good lives. Until someone gets hungry, and then letting the animal live a good life quickly stops being a concern, even though letting it live will result in exactly 0 nutritional problems (assuming a normal, balanced diet). > we're no different. But we are, no? We aren't dogs, right? Or lions, or deer, or doves, or elephants. We are humans, and can recognize moral worth and weigh the ethical concerns of a situation, such as "Is it really worth having this animal suffer and die, when I could instead just eat a veggie burger?" > vicious circle When do we get to the part of the circle where 10 billion humans are systematically artificially inseminated, farmed, milked, culled, processed, thumped, skinned, boiled, and cut every year to sate the appetites of pigs, geese, horses, cows, goats, sheep, fish, sharks, whales, etc?
- rpmisms 5y ago
  > Until someone gets hungry, and then letting the animal live a good life quickly stops being a concern. Not to any responsible farmer. Respect in death as well as life. >"Is it really worth having this animal suffer and die, when I could instead just eat a veggie burger?" Yes. I have never killed an animal to eat and had it suffer. I kill sheep with a very sharp knife, and they're unconscious from blood loss before they feel the pain. I thank them for their gift once they're gone. > When do we get to the part of the circle where 10 billion humans are systematically artificially inseminated, farmed, milked, culled, processed, thumped, skinned, boiled, and cut every year to sate the appetites of pigs, geese, horses, cows, goats, sheep, fish, sharks, whales, etc? Whenever they get smart enough to do that to us.

cheese_goddess 5y ago

Speaking for myself, veganism is a crazy idea because it means putting yourself in a position where you can't get all the nutrients you need from the food you eat and you have to take supplements to make up for the deficiencies, otherwise you risk suffering from malnourishment. I don't get this kind of choice at all. Nourishment should come from food, not from supplements. If you don't eat well enough to keep yourself healthy and fullfill your needs, you should change your diet. If there are ideological reasons, religious or political reasons, then you should re-examine those. There is nothing ethical in starving yourself. You will not care for animals and will not save the environment by not eating enough food. What's more, being vegan achieves exactly 0 change to the suffering of animals and to the damage done to the environment. When you go to the supermarket and find a steak on a shelf, whether you buy it or not makes no difference to the suffering of the animal or the amount of greenhouse gasses produced to raise it. You can choose to buy the steak and eat it or not, but you can't change what has already happened. So whether you eat meat or not is just an empty, symbolic gesture. It may give you the warm moral fuzzies, but you haven't changed anything in reality. The idea of course is that if everyone becomes vegan, then meat production will stop or decrease. It could work in theory, but in practice the number of vegetarians and vegans keeps rising but meat production and consumption has been increasing steadily since the 1960's: https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production So what is the vegan plan? Whatever it is, it's not making a dent. Everybody has heard the vegan and vegetarian claims by now: meat is murder, it destroys the environment, you're a bad person for liking meat, the goalposts keep shifting, but meat production keeps increasing, never decreasing, no matter what. It's not just a crazy idea, it's an idea that doesn't work.