Veganism, animal rights.

[kyle barnett]

Hey guys. Just a quick note. This is a topic I feel should be explored. 

If what people are saying is true about veganism in regards to the environment and health aswell as the cruelty in regards to animal agriculture... Shouldn't we open our compassion towards animals aswel as humans? 

Why are humans so inclined on helping humanity but putting animals as secondary? 

 

It sounds silly, but what makes a human different or have superiority over animals? Why should we help humans but not animals? 

 

Are animals less sentient than humans?

 

Want to hear your guys thoughts? 

Note. This is a topic I want to explore in this post, I am not here to push my views on anyone else, but to investigate. 

Personally (and this is just me) it never made sense how we consider it okay to exploit animals but not humans. 

 

[Nilsi]

This is such a big can of worms. The biggest problem is framing it in such a narrow way ("eating animals is cruel"). Basically our whole modern lifestyle is exploiting the environment. If you really care, think about how buying new clothes, ordering a book, agriculture, building giant city's etc. etc. impact the environment. Even a walk through the forest will mean death to uncountable insects and simple multicellular organisms etc. Surviving is killing - do it with dignity and redeem the dead by living a great life (as a vegan or omnivore or whatever is most in service of your highest values).

[zurew]

Veganism to me - is about moral and environmental considerations. 

I think there are very strong arguments in favour of veganism.

Edited September 17, 2022 by zurew

[thepixelmonk]

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

This is such a big can of worms. The biggest problem is framing it in such a narrow way ("eating animals is cruel"). Basically our whole modern lifestyle is exploiting the environment. If you really care, think about how buying new clothes, ordering a book, agriculture, building giant city's etc. etc. impact the environment. Even a walk through the forest will mean death to uncountable insects and simple multicellular organisms etc. Surviving is killing - do it with dignity and redeem the dead by living a great life (as a vegan or omnivore or whatever is most in service of your highest values).

This is a strawman that people love to use as an excuse and is basically saying, unless we can reduce our impact to absolute zero, nothing is worth doing at all. Comparing both the suffering and environmental impact that modern day animal agriculture causes to... "walking through the forest" is simply ridiculous.

[Nilsi]

45 minutes ago, thepixelmonk said:

This is a strawman that people love to use as an excuse and is basically saying, unless we can reduce our impact to absolute zero, nothing is worth doing at all. Comparing both the suffering and environmental impact that modern day animal agriculture causes to... "walking through the forest" is simply ridiculous.

That's not at all what I was saying. The strawman is acting like veganism will save the world.

I respect people that consciously choose to reduce animal harm and I was a vegan myself at one point, but I think it's a pretty big red hering at the end of the day.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Nilsi

[thepixelmonk]

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

That's not at all what I was saying. The strawman is acting like veganism will save the world.

I respect people that consciously choose to reduce animal harm and I was a vegan myself at one point, but I think it's a pretty big red hering at the end of the day.

It is exactly what you were saying, and you're just repeating yourself. Because you are not literally saving the world, you choose to do nothing instead. Veganism is not some sort of black and white, all or nothing philosophy- it's simply doing what makes sense and what's in your abilities to reduce the number one cause of suffering and environmental destruction our planet faces today.

[DocWatts]

As a society we can't even agree that other humans deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, otherwise things like universal health care and an end to exploitative labor practices would be an uncontroversial as giving women the right to Vote. (I'm writing this as an American).

So concern for the well being of animals is sadly a luxury at this point. Which of course doesn't take anything away from how monstrous practices like factory farming are, just that far more people within society need to expand their circle of concern for anything to change.

Edited September 17, 2022 by DocWatts

[kyle barnett]

5 hours ago, Nilsi said:

That's not at all what I was saying. The strawman is acting like veganism will save the world.

I respect people that consciously choose to reduce animal harm and I was a vegan myself at one point, but I think it's a pretty big red hering at the end of the day.

I understand your point of view and I agree to an extent. To me it's more moving in the right direction instead of doing nothing. 

I am vegan but even I think it's excessive to push everyone to go vegan. But it is a direction I believe humanity should be working towards it. 

The argument that we may aswell not bother is coming from a place of ignorance. 

I know in new zealand it was seen as the dummest thing ever to move plastic bags to paper and cotton at grocery stores. But times have changed and we have adapted.

People say it's the circle of life. That breeding billions of animals in factory farms and brutally killing them for production is life is a cop out.

We find it highly disturbing what happened to the jews but reaply what's the difference? The nazis considered the jews inferior and we consider animals the same. 

 

I'm not saying we have to let insects infest our houses because they have the same rights as us in that sense. But factory farming is a result of culture and sense pleasure rather than that of necessity. 

 

Before disagreeing though. Being open minded the possibility that maybe we don't need to do this is the right thing to do. 

 

Even if I am wrong and for some reason we NEED to do it. Nobody wants to consider alternatives. I see a disconnect there.

 

My fundamental question. What makes a distinction in regards to rights to live between humans and animals. Key... Its not intelligence 

[Nilsi]

I'm not saying veganism is useless or that I'm against it, Jesus Christ. I'm just saying there is a lot more to consider, if you actually care about reducing harm to animals and the environment. People abuse veganism to get some moral high ground and cleanse their conscience, yet are not actually serious about fixing these things or thinking about these problems at all.

Edited September 18, 2022 by Nilsi

[Nilsi]

13 hours ago, thepixelmonk said:

it's simply doing what makes sense and what's in your abilities to reduce the number one cause of suffering and environmental destruction our planet faces today.

This has to be horseshit. You are just randomly picking one node (animal slaughter) in a gigantic interconnected web of problems and claim, that that's somehow the main issue and cause of all the other problems. It's not and it won't solve anything on its own (it is still a good and respectable thing to do and I'm not arguing against that).

[Brandon Nankivell]

https://youtu.be/aAPi8U1wUH0?t=130

[Jannes]

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

This has to be horseshit. You are just randomly picking one node (animal slaughter) in a gigantic interconnected web of problems and claim, that that's somehow the main issue and cause of all the other problems. It's not and it won't solve anything on its own (it is still a good and respectable thing to do and I'm not arguing against that).

That’s true the point that many vegans make though is that veganism has compared to other things an incredible good effort to reward ratio. So in that sense if you care about the environement and suffering and you aren’t vegan or vegetarian then you don’t even do the basics and can’t be taken seriously. But your critique that many vegans get stuck there and become ignorant to any problems beyond that is definitely valid. 

[integral]

For some its this belief system and permutations of it. 

 

 

[Nilsi]

1 hour ago, Jannes said:

That’s true the point that many vegans make though is that veganism has compared to other things an incredible good effort to reward ratio. So in that sense if you care about the environement and suffering and you aren’t vegan or vegetarian then you don’t even do the basics and can’t be taken seriously. But your critique that many vegans get stuck there and become ignorant to any problems beyond that is definitely valid. 

I don't agree with this statement one bit. Eating a vegan diet makes me feel like shit and stunts my cognitive capabilities, so I'm actually doing the world a favor by eating meat. There are a million ways to care about the environment and work towards a more holistic relationship with it, you are just way too closed minded and ideological about this.

 

[Jannes]

33 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

I don't agree with this statement one bit. Eating a vegan diet makes me feel like shit and stunts my cognitive capabilities, so I'm actually doing the world a favor by eating meat.

If you are truly an exception then I would agree with you that it is ethical for you to eat meat. But there are so many different ways to eat plant based.. 
Are you sure you checked all the boxes (vitamins, macros, ..) ?

33 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

There are a million ways to care about the environment and work towards a more holistic relationship with it, you are just way too closed minded and ideological about this.

Lol I actually agree with you. 

2 hours ago, Jannes said:

But your critique that many vegans get stuck there and become ignorant to any problems beyond that is definitely valid. 

My point is that yes there are tons of ways to improve the environement. But some ways have larger effect then others.. Eating plant based has one of the largest effects. I am not discrediting other ways that improve the environement nor am I saying that just because you are vegan that you are automatically have a green thumb. Although it probably does help a good amount. 

[Jannes]

@Nilsi I actually turned from veganism to vegetarianism because I figured that the amount of social and personal stress I put on myself with the vegan diet would drain me from energy that could flow into developing myself which would reduce the amount of value I could give to the world and therefore in the bigger picture it’s better to be vegetarian then vegan for me. So I broke out of that ideology with a holistic approach. 

[Lila9]

We are biased in our favor.

The more conscious one, and its survivul isn't much threatened, the more likely he's to care about animals and nature, anything that isn't a human.

Some people are so lack in awarness and bothered with their own survivul issues that they even don't care much about other humans, that's why for many people, becoming a vegeterian/vegan sounds so ridicules, because when they don't care much about humans, why would they care about animals? Those are also the ones who criticizes vegeterian/vegan people for not caring about humas enough, they tend to say "first you need to take care of humans, animals later"- what they mean is not that they want you to care about all humans in the world, but only those who share the same values as they are. Usually they are blue/orange in spiral dynamics, usually right wing people who don't really care about humans suffering on the collective level.

 

 

Edited September 18, 2022 by Lila9

[a7xKingz]

I am a vegan but not everyone can thrive on a vegan diet. 

And this has nothing to do with macros, protein, iron, vitamins, I think it's something more nuanced than that that we quite don't understand yet. 

Some people feel like crap on a vegan diet, and they put their best effort to do it the "right" way. 

That being said I think if it works for one's body, one should be vegan because it's just the right thing to do. 

OP you are correct, it's ego that makes us think we're so special, we are not superior everything has its role and place here. 

If for whatever reason a vegan diet didn't work for my body, I would at least do research on the meats I was buying to ensure it came from a farm that treats its animals with dignity and respect.

That means allowing them to be animals, not stuffing them in cages. 

I think cultured meat will be the best outcome imo. People get to eat freely and do what's best for their bodies while not having to take the life of another being in order to survive. 

It's just cultured stem cells, it's not some fake meat, quality should improve too with more controlled laboratory environments.

[thepixelmonk]

I also think cultured meat is basically the solution. Just needs more time to go mainstream.

Edited September 19, 2022 by thepixelmonk

[Nilsi]

41 minutes ago, a7xKingz said:

I think cultured meat will be the best outcome imo. People get to eat freely and do what's best for their bodies while not having to take the life of another being in order to survive. 

It's just cultured stem cells, it's not some fake meat, quality should improve too with more controlled laboratory environments.

I agree. Can't wait for my CRISPR t-bone.