r/vegan • u/DivineandDeadlyAngel anti-speciesist • 6h ago
Rant Shit you get stuck hearing on loop in every vegan conversation.
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u/lifegiveswatermelons vegan 10+ years 6h ago
I have a friend (non-vegan leftist type) that used to make fun of me a lot. Now anytime he brings up that I’m vegan, he recently has been saying that “I’ve been really thinking about my meat choices lately and have been trying to go to ‘local ethically sourced meat’ shops instead”
I replied, “do they hug the cows before murdering them?”
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u/DreamOfAzathoth 4h ago
I agree with you sooo much on this. Like can you get ethically sourced CP? No. Why not? Because it’s morally wrong full stop. It drives me mad how people can’t step outside their heads long enough to wonder what the issue with “ethically” sourced meat might be and even to ask themselves why they are so attached and won’t just… I don’t know… stop murdering animals to eat them??
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u/shenoyroopesh 6h ago
Maybe let him go down that slope, soon he will realise there’s nothing ethical that he can eat within meat.
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u/lifegiveswatermelons vegan 10+ years 5h ago
I hope. But he’s in that “veganism is racist, what about poor people” phase. Also apparently has texture issues, so doesn’t like eating vegetables.
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u/my-little-puppet 4h ago
Sounds like a toddler. I can’t be friends with people like that.
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u/OldAssistant4220 4h ago
veganism? racist?? how funny. majority of racists are meat eaters, not vegans. Their friend is not very well informed.
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u/Elezian 5h ago
He’s thinking about it. That’s good. Too many people are willfully ignorant.
Most people aren’t able to change their habits/culture over night. Encourage him to keep thinking about the reality for these animals (which it does sound like you’re doing).3
u/lifegiveswatermelons vegan 10+ years 5h ago
Yea, for sure! My first reply was a bit snarky since he’s often very snarky towards me lol. But I followed it up by saying that it’s good he’s thinking about these things and any sort of change helps. I never thought he’d even come close to changing his thinking, so I’m overall hopeful.
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u/Rough_Check_5606 1h ago
The definition of the word murder is: unlawful, premeditated killing of one human being by another.
You cannot murder your property and humans cannot be your property. Or am I a murderer since i killed a fruit fly today? Or is it a murder only from a certain size? A big fly? I must be a serial killer
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u/Madrigall 1h ago
A little over 100 years ago it was not illegal to hunt and kill Aboriginal Australians. This is because they were considered to be local fauna, not humans. Would you say that the people that rounded up Aboriginal Australians and butchered them were therefore not murderers and should not be perceived as such?
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u/Rough_Check_5606 1h ago
That would be a valid argument if i had even a shadow of a doubt that cows could be considered humans in 100 years.
I agree that killing big animals feels wrong, but where you set the line? The only at least slightly non-arbitrary line of what's murder and killing is human - nonhuman.
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u/Madrigall 1h ago
Just to be clear then, the argument that you made wherein you claim that murder is exclusively “unlawful,” and thus to cannot murder property is not one that you genuinely believe in.
Because you do believe that the legality of killing does not matter, but instead the human judgement of the qualities of the thing that you’re killing.
That’s what I want to point out.
You pull out the legal definition to demonstrate your point, but abandon it the moment it ceases to demonstrate your point. This is a cowardly way of explaining your view because it means that even if your point is disproven it won’t affect your view, because you never really believed it in the first place.
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u/fuckingfuckingHonda 5h ago
And then your friend goes back to factory animal because of your comment, good job!
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u/lifegiveswatermelons vegan 10+ years 5h ago
and what about you?
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5h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/lifegiveswatermelons vegan 10+ years 5h ago
Thanks for confirming.
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u/Penis_Envy_Peter vegan 5+ years 3h ago
Absolutely wild that this sub allows overt carnist trolling.
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u/New_Welder_391 6h ago
You can't "murder" a cow
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u/lifegiveswatermelons vegan 10+ years 6h ago
Ok I see a lawyer has stepped into the room. How about kill, slaughter, butcher? is that better for you?
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u/ChocolateCosmos123 6h ago
Don’t forget ‘plants have feelings’ and ‘crop deaths’ or ‘I’m one person’ lol
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u/MarioFartDoubleDash 6h ago
"What about the insects that get killed growing vegetables" "What are your shoes made of"
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u/ChefDanyul 5h ago
I went to a vegan cooking school. When it came to figs a lot of folks had some trouble with it. Apparently there is a wasp that nests in fig fruits and you can’t harvest the fruit without harming the nest. My thought was “how many of you drove cars here today?”
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u/Tymareta 3h ago
My thought was “how many of you drove cars here today?”
So you thought exactly the same as omni's do towards veganism?
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u/TheFfrog vegetarian 4h ago
Also it's not a nest, it's pollination. The wasp pollinates the fig flower which them becomes the fig. Yes the wasp dies in the process, but a natural death in a natural process driven by the wasp's natural instinct, and also by the time you eat the fig the wasp inside has long decomposed, so you're not even actually eating the freaking wasp.
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u/Fit-Pride-4845 5h ago
Add "as a person who lives in a small rural community that needs fishing and hunting to survive..." to the list.
Sorry but no you don't, because if you did you'd be busy fishing and surviving (likely without good internet access) instead of posting bullshit on social media.
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u/Admirable_Ground_163 4h ago
As someone who lives in the mountains and was raised in hunting culture, I find the hunting conversation always goes better in person than it does online, only because the people I talk to can put a face to veganism and I am prepared to give eloquent responses to the concerns they bring up in real time.
Arguing with people about this online is a waste of time. The hunters never stop hunting, even though I know that I have communicated what I know to be the truth to the best of my ability, but I know at least I have planted the seed, however ignorant they were when receiving the information.
Also, I have started calling "Sporting Goods" stores, "Murder Bad" stores, as I live near many of them in our town. Murder Bad stores are a large part of the tourism economy here.
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u/Applethorn_Error_428 6h ago
Shocker, eating meat is still bad because you actively are responsible for the death of an animal. These types of arguments scream "I'm not doing anything wrong, the system is!!" Which is- yeah, it's horrid but you support it so I'd quiet down real fast
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u/Willy757 5h ago edited 5h ago
I think any societal move towards eating less meat is good.
I think getting 100% of people to eat 50% less meat is perfectly equivalent to getting 50% of people to eat no meat whatsoever.
I think we can build a much greater world for the environment and farming/ food standards while creating no new vegans.
Also I think that if someone takes on veganism but they do so out of any reason besides caring about animals, it's alright. Actually I genuinely don't care what their reason is.
As long as the result is what I want, I won't judge their morality because it's a waste of energy.
I think people who prefer the moral high ground over compromises with the exact same result are not good for this movement.
I think a few clever tax incentives and subtle legal engineering might save a milion more cows than any amount of gorry posters. I'm not gonna sit here and pretend I'm not right.
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u/Tymareta 3h ago
I think people who prefer the moral high ground over compromises with the exact same result are not good for this movement.
Except that people having firm moral and ethical stances is what's needed for actual, long term success. It's all good to claim that tax incentives and "subtle legal engineering" whatever the heck that means, but those do nothing to address the fundamental issue of how we got where we are, literally all it will take is the next candidate to undo it all and end up right back where we are.
As if peoples fundamental views and beliefs aren't changed, then no meaningful change can be enacted. It's like believing that people could have been tricked out of their other abhorrent behaviours throughout history, that the suffragettes totally could have had the vote if they weren't so strict in their beliefs and just instituted a minor tax break!
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u/Player3th0mas 6h ago
Eating meat is bad, the meat industry is bad, but equating meat and diary eaters to murderers and rapists is not true or the way to go at it
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u/Tymareta 3h ago
but equating meat and diary eaters to murderers and rapists is not true or the way to go at it
So you'd be totally ok with fucking and then stomping the family dog to death? If no, you should ask yourself why. Also for those about to knee jerk react, ask yourself why this caused such an immediate and visceral reaction.
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u/Player3th0mas 3h ago
I'd be okay with that? No.
I'm vegan, weird question.
But I do see that there's a stark societal difference between pets and animals exploited in the industry.
Yes I think the industry is wrong, and should be reduced to nothing, but that doesn't mean that someone who's living in a world where eating meat is the norm is equal to a murderer, in a world where killing other people is collectively considered wrong (with exceptions)
Had a discussion with someone who's like "don't hang out with murderers, racists and rapists" in response to someone talking about eating at restaurants.
"Go hang out with the KKK that's the same"
Nah miss me with that shit
Imo you can still be a good person if you just live your life. No need to call everyone who eats meat a murderer, drinks milk a rapist and if you disagree you must be a racist.
That kind of rethoric is so weird to me
That doesn't mean not to try to convince people to go vegan, but it means doing so in a well adjusted manner
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u/Tymareta 2h ago
Imo you can still be a good person if you just live your life. No need to call everyone who eats meat a murderer, drinks milk a rapist and if you disagree you must be a racist.
No-one said that, why are you adding in positions? You also failed to actually answer my question, if that persons lifestyle relies on the murder and rape of animals, what is the issue with pointing it out?
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u/inFamousAnimeBhole 3h ago
I’m genuinely curious what this community’s response to this will be - I’m very new to this community and am not trying to speak on things I’m new too but I really want to know what people would do in this situation.
I live near a big park nearby - big enough that it has its own native deer population. This is a park for families, so as you can imagine, no hunting was allowed to take place here, ever in the history of it existing.
Well, the deer population exploded. It created traffic issues which people were actually fine with as long as the areas were marked and people were careful.
But the deer started getting sick, and because of the high population density, they kept getting sicker and sicker, and eventually hunters had to come and thin the population down.
My question is this - is this ethical? If not, what would the ethical solution have been?
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u/ivanabrike vegan activist 2h ago
“The chopped-up cow in the supermarket’s freezer is already dead”
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u/Khashishi vegan 20+ years 5h ago
Yeah, it's arguments like "corporations are bad, therefore I'm innocent" that don't take into account that guilt is not mutually exclusive. You can be 100% guilty of the murder, and your accomplice can be 100% guilty of the same murder.
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u/lorienshift 5h ago
Vegans when people have different morals: [surprised Pikachu face]
I mean, I get that those things can be annoying, especially when they keep repeating, but I do feel like certain vegans—including many here—are way to set in what thet think is moral and then portray their opinion as the objectively correct one. In the end everyone draws the line somewhere else.
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u/ForPeace27 abolitionist 4h ago
Could say the exact same thing about people who oppose racism.
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u/lorienshift 4h ago
Look, I don't have time for a full-blown discussion, but let me just say this: there's things pretty much everyone can agree on is bad, like you see in the post, but once you go far enough on the vegan road, nuance starts to appear, and in certain places it's not possible to say whether the vegan approach is betetr or worse in effect. + then there's the fact vegans still value certain animals more based on intelligence; certain meat eaters just do it more strongly.
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u/ForPeace27 abolitionist 4h ago
Are you suggesting that if everyone agrees that something is good or bad then it makes it so? So morality is a popularity contest from your perspective?
but once you go far enough on the vegan road, nuance starts to appear, and in certain places it's not possible to say whether the vegan approach is betetr or worse in effect
You are going to have to be a little less vague here. Give me an example.
then there's the fact vegans still value certain animals more based on intelligence; certain meat eaters just do it more strongly
Again going to have to give me an example. What animal do I value more based on its superior intelligence?
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u/lorienshift 4h ago
Are you suggesting that if everyone agrees that something is good or bad then it makes it so? So morality is a popularity contest from your perspective?
No
Again going to have to give me an example. What animal do I value more based on its superior intelligence?
Insects—those are valued less. You could save more animals by eating a cow than by eating plants and contributing to crop death, just as a simple example.
Again, I'm not here to start an argument or even a discussion; I'm too tired to start this again. I probably shouldn't have commented in the first place tbf.
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u/ForPeace27 abolitionist 4h ago
No
Then what does it matter if there are things that everyone can agree on?
Insects—those are valued less.
Huh? Why are you assuming that's based off their level of intelligence?
You could save more animals by eating a cow than by eating plants and contributing to crop death, just as a simple example.
I grew up on a free range beef farm. Every night those cows got feed. More so in winter. In a vegan world we grow less crops because we no longer need to grow crops for farm animals. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
If you are worried about crop deaths, a vegan world reduces them.
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u/lorienshift 4h ago
Then what does it matter if there are things that everyone can agree on?
It doesn't; I never said it did.
Huh? Why are you assuming that's based off their level of intelligence?
So what is it based on?
I grew up on a free range beef farm...
I'm not saying raising cows kills more animals then plants as a general statement, but that you can raise a cow in such a way. Wouldn't that technically be more vegan than the average vegan diet then?
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u/ForPeace27 abolitionist 3h ago
So what is it based on?
Sentience, capacity for suffering. For example, if we had 2 humans, one was given a drug that would make them suffer tremendously if punched, and the other was given a drug that lowered their capacity to suffer to the point that they would hardly feel it, and I had to choose which one has to get punched, I am obligated to choose the one which results in less perceived harm. I don't base it off which one has a superior understanding of quantum physics.
I'm not saying raising cows kills more animals then plants as a general statement, but that you can raise a cow in such a way. Wouldn't that technically be more vegan than the average vegan diet then?
If you can hypothetically raise a cow where it somehow gets no feed at all, doesn't eat all the insects on the grass it grazes on maybe? But it would still be preferable to eat plants produced from vertical farming. The best case for plant farming is still more vegan than the best case for animal farming. Another problem with cows is the amount of land that is required for free range farming. It's the least sustainable method of food production with regards to land use. Currently, the leading cause of species extinction is loss of wild habitat due to human expansion [1]. Of all habitable land on earth, 50% of it is farmland, everything else humans do only accounts for 1% [2]. 98% of our land use is for farming. According to the most comprehensive analysis to date on the effects of agricultur on our planet, if the world went vegan we would free up over 75% of our currently used farmland while producing the same amount of food for human consumption [3]. Thats an area of land equivalent to the US, China, European Union and Australia combined that we could potentially rewild and reforest, essentially eliminating the leading cause of species extinction.
We are currently losing between 200 and 100 000 species a year. https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/biodiversity/biodiversity
https://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/causes-of-extinction-of-species
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u/lorienshift 3h ago
Sentience, capacity for suffering. For example, of we had 2 humans, one was given a drug that would make them suffer tremendously if punched, and the other was given a drug that lowered their capacity to suffer to the point that they would hardly feel it, and I had to choose which one has to get punched, I am obligated to choose the one which results in less perceived harm. I don't base it off which one has a superior understanding of quantum physics.
Sentience, intelligence—that doesn't change anything about the argument I had been making, no? Especially considering they're interconnected.
About the second part, I'll make sure to read that and the linked sites properly tomorrow; myahe check out some statistics. In the meantime, lete ask you this, because that's really all I want to know: would you say it's more ethical (and maybe even more vegan) to eat and raise an animal than to eat plants if the latter causes more death (if you value different animals differently just assume the added values are more than the one life of the cow and whatever insects may die from its grazing)?
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u/ForPeace27 abolitionist 3h ago
Sentience, intelligence—that doesn't change anything about the argument I had been making, no? Especially considering they're interconnected.
Yes its a huge difference, meat eaters will often cite intelligence as the trait from which they assign moral worth. I've personally never met a vegan who also uses intelligence as the trait, but maybe there are some. You said vegans use intelligence to assign moral worth just like meat eaters do, just to a lessor extent. That is false, using intelligence is flawed. If an animals level of intelligence is what makes it ok to slit their throat for a sandwhich, then it follows that people who are severely cognitively disabled, people with Lissencephaly for example who have less intelligence than the animals we eat, can also have their throat slit so we can have a sandwhich. We also don't grant the Einsteins of the world permission to slit the throats of people who have 100+ less iq than they do. You don't run into this problem with senteince. People with Lissencephaly are clearly still sentient and therfore their interests ought to be taken into account.
because that's really all I want to know: would you say it's more ethical (and maybe even more vegan) to eat and raise an animal than to eat plants if the latter causes more death (if you value different animals differently just assume the added values are more than the one life of the cow and whatever insects may die from its grazing)?
Yes absolutely. I just don't think that is almost ever the case. Pushing for more free range farms ultimately pushes for more land use, worse than factory farming. More land use means less wilderness and forests which results in a worse time for pretty much all beings on this planet.
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u/heartattk1 4h ago
That’s where hunting comes in. A person who hunts a deer or two each year actually causes less overall animal death.
Hunting and a home pesticide free garden causes less death than a vegan.
Then the argument becomes “Well that’s not realistic for everyone”. Which is the same argument they refuse to hear when it’s said to them.
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u/Tymareta 3h ago
Hunting and a home pesticide free garden causes less death than a vegan.
You would need to prove this first, most especially that an individual could survive entirely via their garden and not by using any additional products for preservation.
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u/heartattk1 2h ago
Wait…. Do you think that there was always a grocery store?
Even if a person was using what they grew for the majority and still grabbed vegetables in the winter months, it’s still far less using it all the time.
Now, before you say “that doesn’t count”.
If people said they would stop eating meat year round and only consume it in the winter months, would that have an impact on the factory meat? Yup!
It would massively reduce its footprint. Same logic applies to farming with crop deaths.
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