The whole taste argument completely ignores nutrition.
Why don’t you only eat potatoes? Do you derive taste pleasure from B12 supplements?
Attaching a system of morality to a diet is just religion.
I maintain that veganism is just halal/kosher for atheists/agnostics.
The experiences of animals are real and matter. Their suffering is identical in nature to your own. Your moral perspective demands that you deny or ignore these facts. If you can deny that an animal’s experience has any value, you can do the same to a human.
If you can deny that an animal’s experience has any value, you can do the same to a human.
values are subjective
And yours are inconsistent. Is there a problem with people pointing that out?
no one can value everything the same… of course they are inconsistent
I didn’t say they had the same value. I said they had value. Consuming them for hedonistic pleasure is only ethically consistent with the view that animals have effectively zero or even negative intrinsic value.
nothing has intrinsic value
All of your efforts at self-preservation seem to disagree.
Okay? So?
Being cruel and violent to innocent creatures requires that you learn to suspend your empathy. Being cruel and violent to innocent creatures EVERY SINGLE DAY requires that you main your empathy, to actually injure yourself and impair your ability to be empathetic AT ALL.
To respond to your apparent non sequitur, I value compassion and empathy. Don’t you?
I value compassion and empathy
everyone does…not everyone has a problem with eating animals.
I could deny that a human’s experience has any value, true. But I generally don’t.
So you’ve never killed a mosquito, right? Or a spider? Ants, perhaps?
This is a bad faith argument, similar to saying “so you’ve never left a light on all day?” To someone protesting climate change.
The point of veganism (besides the environmental side) is that there is far too much unnecessary suffering caused to animals; complex and intelligent animals, because of the meat industry. Of course humans will probably always cause death and suffering to animals and even other humans, but accepting this and taking it as a reason for “why should I care at all then” is ridiculous.
I don’t think we are at the point where all of humanity can refrain from meat. Maybe most Americans but we should maybe collectively decide this is the goal before pursuing it.
Being incendiary is a strategy that only had small short term gains. Looking at th big picture more people need to understand the argument and it can’t be, “you should feel bad.” At least not until you’ve established the expectations and clear reasons why they exist outside of one’s own personal judgement.
Why can’t we?? Meat is a luxury product!! The only reason you can afford it at all is because I subsidize it so heavily with my taxes. It is made by refining cheap, safe, plentiful plant food using the bodies of animals to create a toxic, addictive, scarce luxury good. In that process, MOST OF THE NUTRIENTS ARE LOST. If we all stopped eating meat, we would have such an overabundance of food, we would have to stop farming more than half the land we are currently farming for plants.
Now tell me why YOU can’t stop being cruel and violent against the kindest, gentlest creatures on the planet? Because even if you can come up with a tortured hypothetical reason some unlikely hypothetical person can’t, if you can, then what you are doing is atrocity.
Not that I was going to listen to you anyway, but the entire way you’re going about this just makes you look like a dick.
Also, accusing me of being cruel and violent for buying a slab of meat off the shelf is laughably stupid.
I agree not everyone can refrain from eating meat, but waiting until everyone is doing it before one stops eating meat is a good way to ensure it never happens. Veganism has grown to where it is now from people deciding to adopt it for themselves, regardless of other people are doing it.
But yes you are right, the argument shouldn’t be “you should feel bad”. I think educating about the problems of the meat industry, and also making veganism ever more accessible and normalised are the ways forward. But it will spread person by person, not as large communal decisions. At least not yet.
I can deny the importance of human experience (the heat death of the universe will erase all traces of our existence and impact) without wanting to kill humans right now.
How did you conclude the experiences of animals matter?
How do you know animals are having experiences?
How do you know human experiences matter?
I don’t claim to have any answers to the above but I’ve never heard a satisfactory answer to these questions other than ‘I just believe it is so’ and if it boils down to my belief versus your belief I have to conclude that neither one of us actually has any idea.
You should be just as confident that animals are having experiences as you are that your fellow human beings are. They TELL you that they are having experiences. Have you never known an non-human mammal in your life?
If you were emotionally motivated to think of Irish people as not having the same full experience of life and suffering that you do (perhaps they taste good, or perhaps you have a coal mine their children labour in) you will find that you can convince yourself that they don’t. You are engaging in a set of obvious psychological defense mechanisms to protect your worldview that lacks any coherent ethical structure against ideas that are ethically consistent.
I dont know why you call it your moral system, when your system apparently is that the earth is supreme, humans dont matter, therefore anything that happens is okay. Morals are a societal thing, if you dont care about society then what’s the point?
How do you apply this system to your own actions? Just anything goes cause it doesnt matter?
I agree, morals are a societal thing and right now it’s perfectly socially acceptable to eat meat.
How I apply this to my own actions is by conforming to the made up rules of society because that seems to keep me alive.
If I lived in a vegan society and it was not socially acceptable to eat meat I likely wouldn’t.
They don’t. It’s a facile philosophy invented on the spot to avoid thinking rationally about ideas and feelings that they are not prepared to process. It’s disingenuous bullshit that we aren’t really supposed to engage with, it’s just suppose to distract and derail their own thought process. It’s fucking pathetic, practically solipsism.
So, do you only eat like shadows and stuff?
Do you derive taste pleasure from B12 supplements?
The store stocks them with raspberry and mango taste, so yes? I have no idea what your point is, though.
Attaching a system of mortality to a diet is just religion
… what? I’m sorry, but this simply doesn’t make sense at all. By this logic what is wrong with cannibalism? Attaching a system of morality to that diet would just be a religion right? And I’m sure eating human meat has all kinds of nutrients.
Nothing is inherently wrong with cannibalism.
I’m not a moral realist. So I don’t believe in moral facts I.e. that murder is ‘wrong’ or being charitable is ‘right’
It’s kid stuff (IMO) to believe in mystical rights and wrongs of the universe. The universe does not care one iota that you cease to exist tomorrow or if all humans were to become extinct (IMO).
If you disagree please point me to the source of your morals, how do you know what’s right and what’s wrong?
Who here is claiming that there are moral facts? Of course morals are constructs of human culture, but that doesn’t make them less important. Morals are essentially what we have learned to be important rules for good, healthy societies. Humans who abide by the idea that it is “wrong” to kill another human are far more compatible in a community than ones who do not. These concepts have developed over a very long time, which is why we tend to “know” when things are wrong (eg feel bad, guilty conscious, etc). One of these “rules” is that needlessly inflicting pain on intelligent animals is wrong. Similarly, causing unnecessary damage to the environment is wrong. The context of climate change is quite new, but the principle is the same.
One of these “rules” is that needlessly inflicting pain on intelligent animals is wrong.
that is not universal
who gets to define need
Obviously the observer decides for themselves what they think is needed. I didn’t think it would be controversial to observe that people tend to dislike/have an aversion to hurting intelligent animals for no reason.
Not everyone necessarily feels this, but many people do. Enough for us as a society to largely ban/shun things like dog fights, bull fights, circus animals, animal torture videos, etc
Vegans. Vegans are claiming there are moral facts when they say that I am wrong for consuming animal products.
Although I’ve had discussions with vegans who claim they aren’t moral realists, I can’t recall a satisfactory argument for a moral anti-realist vegan position.
If you’d like to offer one, please do.
I believe I just did? My argument is that despite morals not coming from some magical entity, they have an origin in humanities success in society, and are therefore still important. For something to be immoral doesn’t merely mean an entity says it is bad, it means that thing goes against principles which benefit our societies. Murder is immoral, not because an entity decided that, but rather because societies which accepted murder were far less successful than societies which did not.
For veganism, the environmental mortality is clear. Besides that I suspect the reason we tend to see unnecessary animal abuse as immortal is because kinder humans tend to be better for society, and kinder humans also tend to be kinder to animals, not just humans.
Yeah what you’re describing is basically humans make morals.
The problem you should have with this is that currently society is fine with eating animal products.
Many societies were successful because they ate meat.
How do you reconcile a situation where you believe humans are the source of morals but you disagree with a particular moral created by humans I.e. that it’s ok to eat meat?
Veganism is not a moral system, it is an ethical system. Before we continue, do you understand the difference?
mmmm animal flesh inbetween my teeth. Fking amazing.
But not swine. Fk swine.
The first time we harvested one of our pigs we had a wake for him. We ate all kinds of delicious cuts and raised a toasted to him.
To Biggun. He was a nice pig and he is a tasty pig.
TO BIGGUN!
<om no nom>
Well three of them are psycho strawman and the last one is nature playing out lol
I really don’t see how they are strawmen. The vast majority of people do not need meat, the reason they eat meat is because it tastes good. Taste is merely one of our senses, why is it ok to kill to enjoy the taste, but not ok to enjoy the sound or sight? That’s what the meme is getting at.
Nature playing out
Why is this an argument, when it isn’t an acceptable reason for anything else? Rape, murder, thievery are all things that most people see as wrong, despite them happening in nature plenty.
One of the things that makes humans unique is our ability to consider logic and mortality beyond what happens in nature, because nature certainly isn’t perfect.
The vast majority of people do not need meat,
you don’t know what others need
I of course don’t know what any specific person needs, but knowing what the vast majority of people need is trivial, it’s basic science.
Please stop arguing is such bad faith in every response you make.
i’m stating facts, and you concede those facts, and then claim i’m arguing in bad faith. you don’t know what that means: your accusation of bad faith is, itself bad faith.
You are stating strawmen: facts with no relevance to the argument presented, which you then point to and refuse to address the actual argument.
I never claimed to know what any individual needs, but you have started it as a fact as if that is at all relevant. It’s not, because I never claimed it. I claimed that I know that the vast majority of people need, based on basic science and statistics. If you have fact which actually argued against that, then please go ahead. But unrelated facts posing as arguments are strawman arguments, and are bad faith.
I never claimed to know what any individual needs
we can all read what you said
Why is this an argument,
That’s not an argument. it’s a fact.
It might be a fact, but it’s being used as an argument to make a specific point. These things are not exclusive.
And my question stands, why is it being used as an argument when it has no relevance?
Did you really just call stuffing 10 pigs in a cell smaller than my toilet, leaving them unable to even turn around, feeding them with drugs and then killing them without ever having seen the sun ‘nature playing out’? Good one.
this is moving the goal post
The trick is not to kill them yourself, but have factories and animal farms do it while deluding yourself into believing that there is a humane way to killing a living being when the reality is there are only less painful ways. Also, from the other side of the aisle, the trick is to delude yourself into thinking that animals would have any problems eating and preying on you. If cattle had no place in human society, their numbers would significantly decrease. What does that say about human societies with large socioeconomic disparity who are treated by cattle by the rich as they get increasingly automated?
There’s no point to this comment, it has been released into the wild so that it may be free.
Oh hey, a 1-day-old account posting 6 vegan posts in 1 hour to unrelated communities. I’ve seen this one before.
Hey! I made this content and was made aware of Lemmy by a friend two days ago. I decided to join and wanted to enter with a bang by sharing some of my OC.
Hey, I’m vegan!
Hello!
Hell yeah
Welcome and thank you for posting oc.
💚
Yep, Social Media Manipulation 101
I’ve seen an increasing trend of vеgаns doing this especially on lemmy
Yep, those awful vegans pushing their agenda for their own gains. Make ME aware of MY CHOICE to pay for animal abuse and torture?! Blatant manipulation!
no one is paying for animal abuse or torture
Exactly! My ancestors didnt pay for slavery, they just wanted cotton. Everyone need cotton, right? I mean they wouldve harvested the cotton themselves, but it was way cheaper from neighboring farmers for whatever reason. That didnt concern them though, they had enough prpblems!
comparing slaves to animals is what slavers do
Please dont twist my words. I didnt compare anything. And if I did, I would have compared animal cruelty with slavery (both as unethical acts), not animals with slaves (the recipients of cruelty).
anyone can see what you said
“slaves are the same as animals” famously an argument made by good people whos opinions we should listen too
Good point, but I never said they were the same, nor did I compare them. I just made an argument about passive involvement in unethical doings which some regard as normal.
yeah, yummy meat. I like it a lot. Sometimes i salt it than dry it myself, and god, does it taste delicious. I might be bothered by the cruelty of all this meat industry, but guess what, if i were to choose, i’d rather be a farm pig. Anything actually that does not comprehend the cruelty of this reality, and i’m not talking about farms here. Also, unlike most of us they go away quickly.
P.S. fyi, latest studies show that plants might also feel the pain. Sorry to disappoint you guys, but it seems like we are just doomed to bring more suffering in this world. You better find a way to cope with this before it became more researched.
Makes sense
The MFs in hungary, finland and the uk pretending that blood is a freaking ingredient and cooking “food” from it.
I am a lot more convinced by the environmental arguments to veganism.
To each their own, motivations for veganism vary vastly. My dad was hardcore vegan for over 25 years and never ever did he care about animals or the environment. He was vegan out of (for a lack of a better term) health beliefs. Nowadays he eats mussels and raw cheese and egg yolks.
Fastest way to get anyone offended is to even remotely imply they could change the way they eat… Jesus y’all are vitriolic WTF?
I don’t kill any animals, I leave that to others.
Putin-esque.
Specialisation of labour is literally the basis of our entire civilisation. Everybody does it for almost everything. Comparing that to Putin is definitely some next level stupid.
… and then you read my follow up comment and realized you had completely misconstrued my point, perhaps intentionally.
No, reading your follow up comment made me realise you misunderstood (maybe intentionally, but I think not) the inital point in the first place.
I understand it. And I understand that it is bullshit. It is an attempt to emotionally distance oneself from the consequences of one’s own choices. If one chooses for an animal to be killed, one is responsible for its death, and playing little semantic games cannot change that fundamental reality. But these games do prevent one from fully processing an idea that threatens them. Its how you brainwash yourself. Groom yourself to be able to commit cruelty and violence, and not feel bad about it.
To even engage in such sophistry is to confess one’s guilt.
Ok buddy.
You can have the last bark. I won’t reply anymore. Go ahead, take it. Buddy.
If most people in the world are Putin-esque, making the term meaningless, then sure.
No. What is Putin-esque is churlishly claiming that your cruelty and violence are actually the consequences of other people’s decisions and actions. It’s chilling and everyone sees right through it, but neither you nor Putin really care about that, because neither of you are engaging in good faith.
Username checks out.
They do be tasting good though
This but unironically
The toasty warm planet thanks your contributions. Especially those dying from extreme weather events!
My apologies. Didn’t realize my dietary habits were responsible for the state of the US electrical grid.
No, but its responsible for ~40% of the entire world’s global greenhouse gas emissions. If you’re at all left wing, you should put your money where your mouth is and commit to a diet that aligns with literally all of your beliefs.
But hey I’m just Three Ducks, relatively removed from the risk of meat eaters, in the US at least 🦆
all of agriculture is only responsible for about 20% of global emissions. your numbers are wrong
Prove it.
I’ve been vegetarian for about 3 years (working towards vegan) because I want to decrease my carbon footprint, but yeah. Meat is delicious.
If you can find TVP in the shops, in a steak shape, that stuff is ridiculous. You just cook them in a vegetable broth, press out the water and then sear them like a steak in a pan. The Maillard reaction turns the protein into that typical seared meat taste and it’s similarly chewy, too.
Granted I have been vegetarian for a bit too long to really judge it, but I did also immediately gag on my first bite, because my body was convinced I was biting into meat.
