Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
Veganism. It's interesting to see how even seemingly very moral people throw logic out the door when the topic turns to not killing animals.
Totally.
And I think the torture and abuse of non-human animals is fundamental to the treatment of human animals. When I see hegemony promoting the genocide of humans, it's obviously related to the complete devaluation of non-human life.
Agreed! Caring for (more than) humans tends to extend a great length.
I think the issue for me is less about not harming animals but more about the massive infrastructure of resource extraction, exploited labor force, and resource-intensive production that directly contributes to pollution and the undermining of low-income populations to subsidize vegan plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy. Vegans that support this industry arguably cause just as much harm to animals (including human workers and beasts of burden) as your average Texas Roadhouse customer.
Extremely ignorant take. Oxford Scientists Confirm Vegan Diet Is Massively Better For Planet
You don't even need sources for this, use common sense. What's going to cause more harm and resource consumption - growing five times more grain to feed animals and then eat those animals, or simply eating the grains directly? Animal agriculture is responsible for mass deforestation, a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and species extinction. But no, it's the vegans "arguably causing just as much harm."
Wouldn't it be nice if people bothered looking up things before they talk about them?
this study is just warmed-over poore-nemecek 2018, and suffers from the same flawed methodology to make its hyperbolic claims
It's not about being better than someone. Avoiding both animal and human harm can (and often do!) go hand in hand.
Many vegans I know try to reduce their harmful effects on the planet altogether.
Not many omnivores I know even try to help at all. Some do, but the ratio is completely different for this segment in my experience.
I mean throwing up a study about how vegans in the UK produce less greenhouse gas emissions than high-meat eaters only proves that veganism is better at producing less pollution. I never argued that it's not.
But the study you referenced doesn't account for worker exploitation, inequity in food distribution, or trade asymmetries. I think plant-based diets are fine, but many vegan products occupy industries that still perpetuate monocropping and resource-intensive production lines that produce massive profits for executives while leaving farmers with the short end of the stick.
I don't have a bone to pick with vegans, I just think being vegan is a stop along the way to a healthy planet, not the destination. I'm striving to be as nuanced as I can when I offer my critique, which is essentially we need to start discussing why slaughtering animals is morally bad but exploiting workers and agriculture in third world countries isn't. Having a healthy planet and lifting people out of poverty shouldn't be mutually exclusive goals.
You talk about nuance, but then just ignore a major point I made? Any kind of exploitation only increases many times over for non-vegan products because of how inefficient they are. Animals don't just pop into existence. Not only that, slaughterhouse workers have it way, way worse. You can look about their trauma and miserable lives, many articles will come up upon a single search.
Moreover, your critique isn't even relevant to veganism, which just makes it disingenuous. It's an agricultural issue and vegans aren't responsible for the way it is with their tiny population. On the other hand, meat and other animal products are inherently morally bankrupt.
I urge you to double-check your supposedly nuanced critique because this has been discussed many times over and it doesn't look like you've looked it up.
So veganism isn't related to or affected by agriculture? The plight of farmworkers worldwide is invalid because it's not as traumatic as slaughterhouse workers? You keep trying to frame my argument as anti-veganism, but it's really not. At this point I can only consider that I've triggered you in some ridiculous way that has nothing to do with anything we're talking about
Is your belief based on an animal's capacity for consciousness? If so do you think all animals, regardless of their intelligence, deserve the right to not be eaten? Where would you draw the line?
Let's look at this from the other direction.
Would you kill and eat a human? How about a monkey or dog? Where do you draw the line for your acceptance of murder?
No I wouldn't. But I would kill and eat an insect, fish, or bird.
Hi there, good question. For me there's no morals tied to the level of consciousness. That allows for cherry picking.
I apply the very simple principe "don't do to other living beings what you would not want to be done to you".
Ok but plants are also living beings so you should not eat them by your rule.
This is a common philosophical counter question I hear. While completely valid in its core, it distracts from the real problem. Have you considered the fact that we need food to survive? I'd rather choose the food (based on current research that plants don't feel pain as animala do) that seems to cause the least harm.
Meat or animal products of any kind don't fulfill that criterium.
Then we have the fact that it contributes negatively to our planet and the production takes a huge toll on both plants AND humans alike. It simply isn't efficient in any way.
So this really isn't an argument worth discussing.
If you consider all this, there's really only one logical choice based on the morals we decide on as a society. Which is currently seriously hypocritical.
Plants don't have any consciousness at all.
Did you read the comment I replied to?
They're talking about level of consciousness when it's established that the entity in question has any consciousness at all. It doesn't mean considering those with no consciousness, like plants or rocks. (I don't agree with it though, levels are worth considering.)
Yup. It's a moral baseline that, sadly, most people trip and fall over.
Diet and religion have always gone hand in hand.
That's like saying morals and religion have always gone hand in hand. Can non-religious not have morals?
People with strong food philosophies and beliefs act in a manner similar to religious zealots. They preach, condemn those who don't believe, have food "sins", are closed minded, etc.
Ok, but tbh religion is about controlling every aspect of life.
Hmmm, I wonder why people dedicated to forcing 95% of the population into an unwanted lifestyle change ever receive pushback at all? I mean it's completely reasonable to radically alter the diet that has supported humanity since before talking was invented but I'm sure you have a ton of nifty ideas on how to make lentils almost taste like chicken
Your username suits you at least.
Quite a typical response because no one is forcing you to do or change anything. It's still very much a choice. Even if it actively negatively contributes to both animal welfare and the earth existence.
You can debate how far one should go in veganism, but I think it's hard to defend the stance that there should be NO change of course in the current (intensive) animal factory farming scene. There really are no winners and humans don't realize how the system also makes life worse for them in the long run.
You can deny it, and try to use strawmen reasoning to the debate, but realize it makes you seem uneducated on the matter.
That being said, you do you, I won't change your stance and you won't changeine. I simply gave my opinion in this thread.
We made an unspoken promise to the animals we domesticated: If you provide for me and my family, I will ensure your line never fades from this world
It is unethical to abandon that promise, and the extinction of a species may be the single greatest wrong mankind can commit.
If you compare the health of wild animals to domestically cared for animals, you will obviously see that domesticated animals are healthier and have greater opportunities for enrichment and happiness under human care.
Yes there are vile humans who torture and keep animals in miserable conditions, and they should pay consequences for their cruelties and greed
Don't you dare paint every farmer with that same corporate battery farm brush.
I am not here to change your stance, I'm here to mitigate the dangerous attitudes your poorly considered stance engenders in others.
I am not fully going to reply to your statement, because the user below did so very clearly already.
Just remember, none of these conversations are centered around YOU or your situation. It's about the planet as a whole.
Without trying to insult you, it sounds like cognitive dissonance is at play here.
And I'd like you to quote the place where I said this was 'my' situation.
What a pathetically transparent attempt to slide the conversation.
Dozens of species go extinct every single day, in large parts due to deforestation for animal agriculture. Acting like keeping a handful of species we eat from extinction is somehow noble is silly by contrast. The concept of a species is a human construct in the first place, individual animals don't care that their species (which isn't even natural, we bred them like this) is kept going.
It's not about if those animals live under animal agriculture or in the wild. The animals in the wild already exist, the ones in captivity wouldn't exist at all, if we didn't breed them.
Most animal meat nowadays comes from factory farms. Worldwide it is roughly 90%, in the US it is 99%.
Um, source?
Especially when it's "foodies" that pretend to have this enormous respect for food. Shouldn't these people be on the bleeding edge of things?
It's interesting to me in the reverse, because it's sort of how the food chain works, granted I do hate seeing the inhumane conditions in which a lot of animals for food are kept (if we were still cavemen it seems more ok than now because it'd be more of a fair match between us and our prey).
Also plants feel pain too (please also kill them humanely).
Anyone who has attended a single biology class on plants can tell that they can't feel anything. You need a brain and pain receptors, plants lack both. But such obvious lies are perpetuated so you can keep abusing animals guilt-free.
The food chain hasn't really been a thing for us in a long time now and you know it. We've surpassed the traditional food chain.
P.S. I kill my plans more humanely than any animal will ever be slaughtered.
If you'll notice, it's not very often a vegan advocates for cheetahs to stop eating antelope.