5 ms·

They are letting perfect be the enemy of good. If they respond with "I love bacon" then tell them to eat plant-based + bacon. It's still a vast improvement envi

by Ritewut 6mo ago

They are letting perfect be the enemy of good. If they respond with "I love bacon" then tell them to eat plant-based + bacon. It's still a vast improvement environmentally than what they were doing previously.

OneMorePerson 6mo ago
Yeah there's some kind of absolutism aspect tied into identity. Also the funny tendency humans have to dislike the people who are most similar to them. Someone who is at least recognizing factory farming is bad and willing to even think that far is more similar to a vegetarian than the people who don't give a shit and never even think about where their food is coming from. Obviously there's the cognitive dissonance aspect to point out, but we are all doing that to some extent.
- alterom 6mo ago
  >Obviously there's the cognitive dissonance aspect to point out, but we are all doing that to some extent. Not necessarily. I mean, the people who give out an uncomfortable laugh do exhibit signs of cognitive dissonance. I don't have an issue with accepting both statements: factory farming is awful, and I still eat meat. There is no cognitive dissonance. The logic is straightforward: I do not believe that me, an individual, abstaining from meat is going to do much to factory farming, while it will make a huge, adverse impact on my life. Government regulation is how this problem would be solved (the only way it can get solved), and I'm all for voting for bans on factory farming, heavy taxes on meat products, etc. One's gotta pick their battles. I pick ones where my participation won't amount to martyrdom.
  - nickburns 6mo ago
    Equating eating meat with martyrdom in the year 2026 is, in fact, the same cognitive dissonance you personally deny. I eat meat. And I'm highly, highly morally conflicted. I'll leave it at that to avoid sounding hypothetical—except to mention that the only logical reason I don't go vegetarian/vegan is the work and personal development that'd be required of me. (I'll take being called lazy over disingenuous any day, if we're ostensibly virtue signaling here.)
    - aziaziazi 6mo ago
      Do what you like and as you like, but my two cents: if you want to make something that seems hard, start with one step and continue step by step at your own peace. Big goals are accomplished by proudness of small gaps instead of shame and desires of the missing ones. During 10 year I gently removed some ingredients of my diets/habits and added others in the meantime. It was longer but way easier than I imagined. Good luck, you lazy :-)
      - nickburns 6mo ago
        Hey, at my ripe, old age, I only started learning how to properly feed myself more recently than I'd like to admit. So I take your point about acknowledging one's baby steps once you successfully string a few together. Thanks for the encouragement!
    - alterom 6mo ago
      >Equating eating meat with martyrdom in the year 2026 is, in fact, the same cognitive dissonance you personally deny You completely missed the point. In the context of picking battles, martyrdom is (self) sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice, with no direct gain for the cause. Abstaining from meat, to me, will take away one of the not-so-many joys I have in my life, without possibly making a meaningful impact on unethical farming. I'm well off. You might be. Most people in the US are not. And in the end of the day, poor people are going to buy the cheapest products in the grocery store. So, there's always be a demand as long as there's supply. More than that. We don't really have a choice for where meat comes from anyway. There's no requirement to put that on the label, along with nutritional data. That, by the way, is another example where legislation can make a lot of difference. My point is that abstaining from meat is about as useful as that young man setting himself of fire in the US to help children in Gaza. Same goes about feeling bad about eating meat (while eating it). The impact on the cause is zero. Your energy would be better spent fighting the ag-gag laws, requiring disclosures on the labels, making ethically farmed products cheaper (and factory farmed produce more expensive), and so on. You having morally conflicted feelings doesn't help anyone. And it's simple, really: you are complicit in doing a bad thing. But the complicity is not in doing the thing, it's in supporting the system where in doing it is the rational choice for the majority of people. Your choice in doing or not doing the thing has very little impact on whether the thing happens.
  - GolfPopper 6mo ago
    >Government regulation is how this problem would be solved (the only way it can get solved) My cynical inner pedant compels me to point out that societal collapse will also solve "factory farming is awful". And we're probably closer to that than effective government regulation of it.
  - _DeadFred_ 6mo ago
    We used to have more humane farming. We used to have laws against child labor. We now eat pigs, animals smarter than dogs, that lived tortured lives while wearing clothing made by children. You can easily chose 'not factory farmed' and still eat meat. You just don't. I'm guessing unless you grew up rich or very recently, you consume more meat now than you were accustomed too growing up. In that case you choose to actively benefit from the factory farming.
    - alterom 6mo ago
      >We used to have more humane farming. We used to have laws against child labor. So, you get the point of having legislation like laws prohibiting child labor instead of moral grandstanding calling on people to abstain from purchasing unethically produced goods, right? >We now eat pigs, animals smarter than dogs, that lived tortured lives while wearing clothing made by children. Which goes to show my point: the problem of child labor has only ever been resolved by having legislation against it. Not by passing the (un)ethical choice onto the consumer. >I'm guessing unless you grew up rich or very recently, you consume more meat now than you were accustomed too growing up. I grew up in a communal flat in post-USSR-collapse Ukraine with five families to 1 toilet, in case you are wondering, and no, I don't consume any more meat now than I was accustomed to growing up. I don't see how that is related to anything I'm saying, other than trying to go for another holier-than-thou ad hominem. >You can easily chose 'not factory farmed' and still eat meat. Pray tell how. Let's be specific. I live in California, and while I consider myself well off, I'm not what you'd call rich. I shop in stores like Lucky, Ralph's, and 99 ranch. When I go to those stores, how do I tell which meat was "factory farmed", and which wasn't? Honest question, because that information isn't on the label. Which is, again, a point I am making: it should be illegal to not put this information along with nutrition data.
  - tapland 6mo ago
    Yeah but tons of things are awful. For me I couldn't keep doing things I knew caused immense suffering in other beings, be it humans or animals. (Sourcing things from ethical whatever and reducing consumption in general the last two decades, I'm sad my iPhone 6 isn't supported for banking so have to go android 10 etc). Vegetarian options got cheap, and I still eat locally produced eggs and some milk products. But like, awful can be coped with. Everyone thinks factory farming is awful. Few give a shit.
    - Ritewut 6mo ago
      Few people can afford to give a shit. Most people are getting the cheapest meat and dairy they can get from Walmart.
      - tapland 6mo ago
        Blessing/curse that meat is so expensive in Scandinavia that good vegan options actually became competitive. I know meat is dirt cheap in the US =/
      - NonHyloMorph 6mo ago
        It's still not cheaper to have a very meat rich diet then to have one that is mostly plant based; or entirely vegetablebased plus milk and eggs from local production - which wouldn't get you in some of the difficulties vegsns have to desl with, where they need to take some nutrients in the form of supplements if they don't absolutely optimize their diet (which again becomes expensive - would be interesting to be corrected here) All that is to say: some people act less ethical then others, and should have to accept that fact - instead of trying to produce an image of the self (to themselves mostly but also to others) that conceals it; be it through normalization ("guess we all do that"), rationslization ("if i wouldn't do it someone else would"), or blame shifting (if someone would do this and that i would behave like that, so it's up to them to provide me with xyz) edit: I apply that to myself. I know that I don't act as ethical as I could regarding the consequences of my diet.
  - fwipsy 6mo ago
    Basically this boils down to "I don't feel responsible for the meat I eat being factory farmed." Not that I'm in any position to criticize; I'm in the cognitive dissonance camp. Have you considered consuming "ethical" animal products (e.g. free range eggs or whatever?) That doesn't seem like martyrdom; compared to what you want (government mandated livestock welfare) it only costs you marginally more (due to missing economies of scale.)
    - alterom 6mo ago
      To the extent that I can, I do try to pick ethical products (like the aforementioned free-range eggs). It's not an all-or-nothing thing indeed; there's a huge spectrum between veganism and not at all thinking (or caring) about where the animal products come from. But yes, I, as a consumer, am not responsible for what is already heavily regulated in favor of factory farmers. Heard of the ag gag laws? You can't vegan them away. It's not a free market, see. It's as delusional to blame people for eating the availableunethically produced meat as it is to blame them for starving during the Holodomor (..or Great New Leap, or the Irish Potato Famine, or...). Radium-based snake oil "medicine" didn't disappear because the consumers boycotted an unethical product. It was because we have FDA. I really do not feel responsible for what would amount to trying to enforce regulation that doesn't exist. I am responsible for voting, so when it comes to the ballot, ethical farming does get my vote.
      - daemin 6mo ago
        All markets have rules, the "free" in "free market" is just marketing. (Not disagreeing with you, just mentioning it because your statement inside made me think of it)
        alterom 6mo ago
        Well of course. Free market (even as a theoretical concept) is only possible with regulation that prevents monopolies and ensures some sort of fairness. The agricultural market is perhaps the furthest thing from it, given the importance of, well, having food. Farmers get subsidies. Nation-states get involved in the circulation of food around the planet. Geopolitics comes into play. In some markets, individual choices of consumers matter a lot in shaping them. Agricultural products are as far from that as it's possible. I am not convinced that not buying unethical meat does any more than not buying unethical weapons of mass destruction, or not using Palantir's products. Few of us are hoarding stashes of chemical weapons or signing contracts with Palantir, and yet Palantir still thrives. Perhaps simply not buying it isn't always the most effective way to end something.
bko 6mo ago
I personally think vegans should consider eating cows. If you care about sentient life and abuse, think about how much meat one cow produces. Killing a single cow can feed you for well over a year.
- malfist 6mo ago
  You say that like it's mandatory to kill sentient life to feed people. It isn't.
  - nickburns 6mo ago
    I can imagine this poster's chortle thinking to themself, 'they thought I meant the animals!'
  - amanaplanacanal 6mo ago
    I always wonder what vegans think is going to happen to all the pigs, cows, and chickens if people stop eating meat?
    - cfstras 6mo ago
      Demand would go down, so meat companies would reduce breeding to reduce output. Or start an ad & lobbying campaign to increase demand again.
    - marliechiller 6mo ago
      Billions of pigs cows and chickens will stop being massacred in grizzly ways? Yours is an extremely common and unfortunately ill-informed argument that I see a lot. If I was given the choice between end all suffering by killing all factory farmed animals right now vs perpetuate it, im choosing kill all animals right now
      - amanaplanacanal 6mo ago
        It sounds like you don't have a problem with killing animals. Is it just the living conditions? If we replaced factory farms with more ethical practices, would that solve the problem for you?
dfxm12 6mo ago
To add a data point, I've reduced my meat consumption from "whenever I can" to "once a day" to "normally once a day, but some days none at all". It's really not that big a deal. I have no idea what this is doing to the environment, but I can confirm that I'm saving some scratch (bacon is expensive!), my hunger and tastebuds are just as sated, and my routine bloodwork has improved somewhat.
redsocksfan45 6mo ago
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by Ritewut 6mo ago

OneMorePerson 6mo ago

Yeah there's some kind of absolutism aspect tied into identity. Also the funny tendency humans have to dislike the people who are most similar to them. Someone who is at least recognizing factory farming is bad and willing to even think that far is more similar to a vegetarian than the people who don't give a shit and never even think about where their food is coming from. Obviously there's the cognitive dissonance aspect to point out, but we are all doing that to some extent.

alterom 6mo ago
>Obviously there's the cognitive dissonance aspect to point out, but we are all doing that to some extent. Not necessarily. I mean, the people who give out an uncomfortable laugh do exhibit signs of cognitive dissonance. I don't have an issue with accepting both statements: factory farming is awful, and I still eat meat. There is no cognitive dissonance. The logic is straightforward: I do not believe that me, an individual, abstaining from meat is going to do much to factory farming, while it will make a huge, adverse impact on my life. Government regulation is how this problem would be solved (the only way it can get solved), and I'm all for voting for bans on factory farming, heavy taxes on meat products, etc. One's gotta pick their battles. I pick ones where my participation won't amount to martyrdom.
- nickburns 6mo ago
  Equating eating meat with martyrdom in the year 2026 is, in fact, the same cognitive dissonance you personally deny. I eat meat. And I'm highly, highly morally conflicted. I'll leave it at that to avoid sounding hypothetical—except to mention that the only logical reason I don't go vegetarian/vegan is the work and personal development that'd be required of me. (I'll take being called lazy over disingenuous any day, if we're ostensibly virtue signaling here.)
  - aziaziazi 6mo ago
    Do what you like and as you like, but my two cents: if you want to make something that seems hard, start with one step and continue step by step at your own peace. Big goals are accomplished by proudness of small gaps instead of shame and desires of the missing ones. During 10 year I gently removed some ingredients of my diets/habits and added others in the meantime. It was longer but way easier than I imagined. Good luck, you lazy :-)
    - nickburns 6mo ago
      Hey, at my ripe, old age, I only started learning how to properly feed myself more recently than I'd like to admit. So I take your point about acknowledging one's baby steps once you successfully string a few together. Thanks for the encouragement!
  - alterom 6mo ago
    >Equating eating meat with martyrdom in the year 2026 is, in fact, the same cognitive dissonance you personally deny You completely missed the point. In the context of picking battles, martyrdom is (self) sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice, with no direct gain for the cause. Abstaining from meat, to me, will take away one of the not-so-many joys I have in my life, without possibly making a meaningful impact on unethical farming. I'm well off. You might be. Most people in the US are not. And in the end of the day, poor people are going to buy the cheapest products in the grocery store. So, there's always be a demand as long as there's supply. More than that. We don't really have a choice for where meat comes from anyway. There's no requirement to put that on the label, along with nutritional data. That, by the way, is another example where legislation can make a lot of difference. My point is that abstaining from meat is about as useful as that young man setting himself of fire in the US to help children in Gaza. Same goes about feeling bad about eating meat (while eating it). The impact on the cause is zero. Your energy would be better spent fighting the ag-gag laws, requiring disclosures on the labels, making ethically farmed products cheaper (and factory farmed produce more expensive), and so on. You having morally conflicted feelings doesn't help anyone. And it's simple, really: you are complicit in doing a bad thing. But the complicity is not in doing the thing, it's in supporting the system where in doing it is the rational choice for the majority of people. Your choice in doing or not doing the thing has very little impact on whether the thing happens.
- GolfPopper 6mo ago
  >Government regulation is how this problem would be solved (the only way it can get solved) My cynical inner pedant compels me to point out that societal collapse will also solve "factory farming is awful". And we're probably closer to that than effective government regulation of it.
- _DeadFred_ 6mo ago
  We used to have more humane farming. We used to have laws against child labor. We now eat pigs, animals smarter than dogs, that lived tortured lives while wearing clothing made by children. You can easily chose 'not factory farmed' and still eat meat. You just don't. I'm guessing unless you grew up rich or very recently, you consume more meat now than you were accustomed too growing up. In that case you choose to actively benefit from the factory farming.
  - alterom 6mo ago
    >We used to have more humane farming. We used to have laws against child labor. So, you get the point of having legislation like laws prohibiting child labor instead of moral grandstanding calling on people to abstain from purchasing unethically produced goods, right? >We now eat pigs, animals smarter than dogs, that lived tortured lives while wearing clothing made by children. Which goes to show my point: the problem of child labor has only ever been resolved by having legislation against it. Not by passing the (un)ethical choice onto the consumer. >I'm guessing unless you grew up rich or very recently, you consume more meat now than you were accustomed too growing up. I grew up in a communal flat in post-USSR-collapse Ukraine with five families to 1 toilet, in case you are wondering, and no, I don't consume any more meat now than I was accustomed to growing up. I don't see how that is related to anything I'm saying, other than trying to go for another holier-than-thou ad hominem. >You can easily chose 'not factory farmed' and still eat meat. Pray tell how. Let's be specific. I live in California, and while I consider myself well off, I'm not what you'd call rich. I shop in stores like Lucky, Ralph's, and 99 ranch. When I go to those stores, how do I tell which meat was "factory farmed", and which wasn't? Honest question, because that information isn't on the label. Which is, again, a point I am making: it should be illegal to not put this information along with nutrition data.
- tapland 6mo ago
  Yeah but tons of things are awful. For me I couldn't keep doing things I knew caused immense suffering in other beings, be it humans or animals. (Sourcing things from ethical whatever and reducing consumption in general the last two decades, I'm sad my iPhone 6 isn't supported for banking so have to go android 10 etc). Vegetarian options got cheap, and I still eat locally produced eggs and some milk products. But like, awful can be coped with. Everyone thinks factory farming is awful. Few give a shit.
  - Ritewut 6mo ago
    Few people can afford to give a shit. Most people are getting the cheapest meat and dairy they can get from Walmart.
    - tapland 6mo ago
      Blessing/curse that meat is so expensive in Scandinavia that good vegan options actually became competitive. I know meat is dirt cheap in the US =/
    - NonHyloMorph 6mo ago
      It's still not cheaper to have a very meat rich diet then to have one that is mostly plant based; or entirely vegetablebased plus milk and eggs from local production - which wouldn't get you in some of the difficulties vegsns have to desl with, where they need to take some nutrients in the form of supplements if they don't absolutely optimize their diet (which again becomes expensive - would be interesting to be corrected here) All that is to say: some people act less ethical then others, and should have to accept that fact - instead of trying to produce an image of the self (to themselves mostly but also to others) that conceals it; be it through normalization ("guess we all do that"), rationslization ("if i wouldn't do it someone else would"), or blame shifting (if someone would do this and that i would behave like that, so it's up to them to provide me with xyz) edit: I apply that to myself. I know that I don't act as ethical as I could regarding the consequences of my diet.
- fwipsy 6mo ago
  Basically this boils down to "I don't feel responsible for the meat I eat being factory farmed." Not that I'm in any position to criticize; I'm in the cognitive dissonance camp. Have you considered consuming "ethical" animal products (e.g. free range eggs or whatever?) That doesn't seem like martyrdom; compared to what you want (government mandated livestock welfare) it only costs you marginally more (due to missing economies of scale.)
  - alterom 6mo ago
    To the extent that I can, I do try to pick ethical products (like the aforementioned free-range eggs). It's not an all-or-nothing thing indeed; there's a huge spectrum between veganism and not at all thinking (or caring) about where the animal products come from. But yes, I, as a consumer, am not responsible for what is already heavily regulated in favor of factory farmers. Heard of the ag gag laws? You can't vegan them away. It's not a free market, see. It's as delusional to blame people for eating the availableunethically produced meat as it is to blame them for starving during the Holodomor (..or Great New Leap, or the Irish Potato Famine, or...). Radium-based snake oil "medicine" didn't disappear because the consumers boycotted an unethical product. It was because we have FDA. I really do not feel responsible for what would amount to trying to enforce regulation that doesn't exist. I am responsible for voting, so when it comes to the ballot, ethical farming does get my vote.
    - daemin 6mo ago
      All markets have rules, the "free" in "free market" is just marketing. (Not disagreeing with you, just mentioning it because your statement inside made me think of it)
      - alterom 6mo ago
        Well of course. Free market (even as a theoretical concept) is only possible with regulation that prevents monopolies and ensures some sort of fairness. The agricultural market is perhaps the furthest thing from it, given the importance of, well, having food. Farmers get subsidies. Nation-states get involved in the circulation of food around the planet. Geopolitics comes into play. In some markets, individual choices of consumers matter a lot in shaping them. Agricultural products are as far from that as it's possible. I am not convinced that not buying unethical meat does any more than not buying unethical weapons of mass destruction, or not using Palantir's products. Few of us are hoarding stashes of chemical weapons or signing contracts with Palantir, and yet Palantir still thrives. Perhaps simply not buying it isn't always the most effective way to end something.

bko 6mo ago

I personally think vegans should consider eating cows. If you care about sentient life and abuse, think about how much meat one cow produces. Killing a single cow can feed you for well over a year.

malfist 6mo ago
You say that like it's mandatory to kill sentient life to feed people. It isn't.
- nickburns 6mo ago
  I can imagine this poster's chortle thinking to themself, 'they thought I meant the animals!'
- amanaplanacanal 6mo ago
  I always wonder what vegans think is going to happen to all the pigs, cows, and chickens if people stop eating meat?
  - cfstras 6mo ago
    Demand would go down, so meat companies would reduce breeding to reduce output. Or start an ad & lobbying campaign to increase demand again.
  - marliechiller 6mo ago
    Billions of pigs cows and chickens will stop being massacred in grizzly ways? Yours is an extremely common and unfortunately ill-informed argument that I see a lot. If I was given the choice between end all suffering by killing all factory farmed animals right now vs perpetuate it, im choosing kill all animals right now
    - amanaplanacanal 6mo ago
      It sounds like you don't have a problem with killing animals. Is it just the living conditions? If we replaced factory farms with more ethical practices, would that solve the problem for you?

dfxm12 6mo ago

To add a data point, I've reduced my meat consumption from "whenever I can" to "once a day" to "normally once a day, but some days none at all". It's really not that big a deal. I have no idea what this is doing to the environment, but I can confirm that I'm saving some scratch (bacon is expensive!), my hunger and tastebuds are just as sated, and my routine bloodwork has improved somewhat.

redsocksfan45 6mo ago

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