As an environmentalist, eating meat is probably the most immoral thing I do. I eagerly look forward to the day where we don’t have to kill animals to eat meat.
First of all, what technology is meant by “Lab-cultured meat”? Because if it’s something like taking a few cells from a few dead animals, which could even be extinct animals like mammoths or naturally extinct animals, and multiplying them in lab, without neurons/nerves and such, to feed all of humanity at reasonable efficiency, I just don’t see what else is there to say other than “Great! Let’s do it quick!”
The animal agriculture industry is exploitative to animals and workers. In places where there are abattoirs there are higher of violent crimes.
https://www.animalagricultureclimatechange.org/the-life-of-a-slaughterhouse-worker/
That’s because abattoirs reek and are placed in low income or rural areas. Of course crime would be higher there.
Just eat beans fam
To continue along this line, the breeding of crop varieties to include more protein still has a lot of potential, and the end result (beans, grains, etc) is far less risky than lab grown meat.
I haven’t eaten meat in 58 years. Ethical dilemma aside, what would be the point at this stage in my life. It would feel like a stumble and fall at the end of a marathon.
For meat consumers. We can’t expect other cultures to immediately abandon their dietary practices.
Thats why we should force them
I don’t know if I can do that to the Palestinians who do Qurbani at Eid.
Just out of curiosity, what made you vegan?
In my teens, I would work at my oldest brother’s in-law’s small farm during school holidays. There was a cow that befriended me and would walk over to the fence for head “scritches” when it saw me. One evening, after work, we were having dinner and my brother said, “By the way, you’re eating your friend.” Quit eating “meat” at 14, expanded to other critters, then questioned why no one feels sorry for a fish; quit eating all flesh by the time I was 16; not exactly sure when that evolved to include all the other stuff like dairy and eggs. Eating your friend can change your life.
Im sorry you have to go through that, it sounds traumatizing. And i hope you never have to go through something like that again Comrade.
According to the USDA, in those 58 years, I’ve saved 1,674 chickens, 41 turkeys, 5 ducks, 6 cows, and 24 pigs from murder, so at least her sacrifice was not for naught. The study did not include fish showing, as I stated, no one cares about a fish.
I think it could be a thing in the future and I would eat it given there wasn’t some insanely complex and expensive process that made it pretty much unviable, and I do believe that in time it will happen. People that say it’ll never work really underestimate human ingenuity and technology. Only 30-40 years ago the smart phone you hold on your hand would have been considered impossible. We now cure diseases that people used to just have to live with forever. We grow medicine using bacteria, using them to grow a steak doesn’t seem so far fetched.
And the there’s the argument of “why. We should all just eat plants.” The thing is, why not? Why not research the technology? Who knows what it could lead to. How many major human advancements came from an accident or unintended result from trying to research something completely unrelated? The answer is a lot. A lot of them. So go ahead, grow a steak or whatever. Let me throw a bunch of grass into a vat and out pops a bunch of “ground beef.” Do the science and learn shit. Personally, I’m hoping for more of a star trek type of food replicator. Make a super advanced 3d printer that just zaps atoms into the right formula to make me an omelet.
Like, I’m not gonna gatekeep the future. It’s the future. Do the science and make cool shit. Make USEFUL shit. At least it could potentially feed people. Maybe it becomes the first step in a more advanced food replication technology. Maybe we figure out how to grow the perfect nutritionally balanced feed stock that then can be used to replicate any other food you could want. Who knows? So go for it. I mean, it’s not like it’s hurting anyone.
Who knows? So go for it. I mean, it’s not like it’s hurting anyone.
lab grown meet requires biopsies. lab grown meat also often goes through taste testing that requires actual meat.
Using current, underdeveloped and rudimentary processes. There is absolutely no reason the technology cannot improve to a level where taking biopsies from living doners is no longer necessary.
It has to be more efficient than the current method to replace it. If lab grown meat requires more resources to produce the same amount of meat, it will never work out regardless of the moral reasons.
I feel like I’m living in blade runner. The buffalo are being evicted (again), and meat is growing in the lab instead.
hey, i just logged on to post the vaguely inflammatory open ended question for the day…
What time is it, folks?!
Please stop eating our animal comrades. That is all.
Its almost unbelivable that in a community as deconstructed as this one there are still rectionaries that downvote a comment like yours… being vegan is almost as tiring as being a Marxis-Lenninist.
I am a vegetarian. You will need to convince the Global South too, especially legions that are basically dependent on meat, like Mongolia, Central Asia, and the Middle-East. The transitional doesn’t happen in a day.
Its not a matter of convincing them if they’re dependant. Its a matter of making it economical and accessible. Plus the practices used by Mongolia for example are much more humane, efficient, and ecologically sustainable compared to the west. I don’t take much issue with a small rural country that treats animals with respect and where everyone is exposed to the killing of the animals and has great appreciation for them. From a purely moral standpoint I understand. But I just dont see the relevance in brining it up. The bigger issue is that countries with diverse and affordable vegan options still choose to consume meat at comparable rates to Mongolia. US and Australia actually consume more meat per capita than Mongolia depending on the data source. World population review has it at 131 (Mongolia) and 122 (USA) kg/person.
USA (while being a net importer) has 85m cattle stock vs 5m in Mongolia. The larger the animal the less efficient / more damaging it is for the environment. Although I concede that Mongolia eats more lamb than beef. Additionally the conditions in which American livestock are kept is reprehensible.
Brazil has 285 million cattle. Their exports have doubled since 2019. While slash and burning forest to clear new land for cattle. This is due almost exclusively due to American demand.
Its easy to finger wag Brazil for enabling those actions but it wouldn’t be the case if it wasn’t for glutenous Americans.
It is the same thing as telling the global south ect to stop using oil etc while having no ground to stand on. Unless your Chinese lol.
Lastly switching to widespread veganism on paper doesn’t necessarily improve shit for the global south. I’d much prefer if Mongolia continued as is than if everyone became vegan if it meant conditions like this. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zV9v0RIE-iI&pp=ygUMUGxhc3RpYyB0b2Z1 (Indonesians burning american plastic to cook tofu, filled with mircroplastic)
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Not eating animal products is a moral question, but it is not achieved by moral arguments. I have never encountered a consistent moral framework that can argue for exploiting animals in order to eat them or their produce, but winning arguments is not how you change peoples behaviour. The question of eating animal products is purely habitual and cultural and by extension social, thus changing many peoples diets is a question of changing many peoples habits and culture. So there is little “convincing” to do in a sense, maybe on an individual level for a few. The only way to transform the diets of larger swats of populations in a short time is cultural revolution, otherwise - with concerted effort- there will be a gradual shift over time.
It’s only a moral question when the material conditions are sufficiently developed.
The question of eating animal products is purely habitual and cultural and by extension social
It is primarily logistical and a matter of survival, which is why it’s so normalized throughout history.
Then there’s factory farming, which at this point is not so much an extension of habit, as it is an extension of the power of capital and industry maintaining itself for its own sake. It’s much the same reason that the US is still dependent on cars to an absurd degree, with high speed trains passed over as an option to build for decades on end.
These are two very different things and veganism as an individualist ideology with moralist arguments largely seems to have spawned as a reaction to factory farming, not as a reaction to subsistence hunting. And as far as I can tell, it is largely a failure of an ideology that doesn’t seem to do much more than get a fraction of people to boycott eating meat. Which I don’t think is because it’s using moral arguments, but because it’s isolating individualist ideology as a response to collective industrial production. And it gets bogged down too much in the entire relationship between humans and non-humans, instead of focusing on dismantling the obvious systemic abuse. I would say it’s similar to western atheist thought in that way. It’s not being holistic, but is instead getting lost in the weeds of one particular facet of things.
We are in agreement, I think, that you need collective power to change these things on a large scale. But I would argue it’s largely not a cultural issue, but is instead almost entirely an extension of the need to survive by eating food. Which capital plays into when justifying factory farming. There are the fanatics who insist on meat as some kind of pivotal thing inherently, but these appear to be a minority and if factory farming was ended, along with matching increase in availability of other proteins to compensate, the price would rise and it would somewhat naturally transform into a luxury item. There would be a reaction, certainly, but food is food and the overriding concern is whether people have it to eat, not where it comes from; which is why factory farming has gotten away with what it does for so long in the first place. This isn’t to say nobody ever cares where their food comes from, but it’s always secondary to “do I have food to eat”; otherwise, you end up dead. It’s for this same reason that the boycott element of veganism so often ends up looking like the ivory tower arguments of privileged people, since many in the world are not exactly swimming in food options in the first place.
Once again, we found ourselves in that realm of, we gotta seize the means or we’re going nowhere fast.
It is primarily logistical and a matter of survival, which is why it’s so normalized throughout history.
I have not been in many countries where eating meat is logistically easier and/or cheaper than not. Something being historically common does not mean it is primarily about survival. In most places and periods, meat was not available in equal measure to everyone, but that still doesnt explain why some animals are treated as food and some as companions, or why meat often is bound up with status, masculinity, tradition, identity, etc etc. Survival may explain why people eat something, but it does not explain the specific moral and cultural rules around what counts as edible.
It’s for this same reason that the boycott element of veganism so often ends up looking like the ivory tower arguments of privileged people, since many in the world are not exactly swimming in food options in the first place.
That is only true in the case of genuine scarcity, and in those cases I dont think anyone is seriously making a moral demand to starve rather then eat animal products. But in ordinary situations, veganism is not a question of survival but a question of what people choose when survival is not at stake. This is why moral arguments matter here.
These are two very different things and veganism as an individualist ideology with moralist arguments largely seems to have spawned as a reaction to factory farming, not as a reaction to subsistence hunting.
And as far as I can tell, it is largely a failure of an ideology that doesn’t seem to do much more than get a fraction of people to boycott eating meat. Which I don’t think is because it’s using moral arguments, but because it’s isolating individualist ideology as a response to collective industrial production.
Here we are in complete agreement, and in terms of the philosophy of the movement I am not “vegan” although my diet is. Factory farming is the central issue, but I would not dismiss individual ethical refusal on those grounds alone. You can reject a harmful system both politically and personally. Refusing to participate is not a substitute for collective change, but not meaningless either. Would you say the same about the BDS movement against Israel for instance? I’d argue than one can both take the consistent moral position as an individual and isolate yourself from such anti-social practices, and also work on dismantling the systemic abuse. Just like I dont think BDS is a means to an end when it comes to ending the explotation of the Palestinians - I am not gonna reject it for not “focusing on dismantling the obvious system of abuse”.
But I would argue it’s largely not a cultural issue, but is instead almost entirely an extension of the need to survive by eating food. Which capital plays into when justifying factory farming.
I disagree. If it were purely survival, then people would not have such strong and inconsistent taboos about which animals are acceptable to eat. Dogs, cats, horses and other animals are treated very differently across cultures despite all of them being edible - once again showing the role of culture. Meat eating is not just “food is food”, it is socially organized, morally coded and culturally inherited. The existance of eating is explained by the matter of survival but the boundaries are explained by culture.
if factory farming was ended, along with matching increase in availability of other proteins to compensate, the price would rise and it would somewhat naturally transform into a luxury item.
I guess your argument is that factory farming will end without our social and cultural conditions ending, I disagree completely. The same way I dont think we first will transform into a socialist economy, and only after have shifts in social and cultural praxis. These transitions are heavily intertwined and most of all socially enforced.
Well like I said:
I would argue it’s largely not a cultural issue
(added emphasis)
The point I’m trying to make there is not that the superstructure isn’t real and that it will easily organically change in every scenario. As I also said:
There would be a reaction, certainly, but food is food and the overriding concern is whether people have it to eat
The point I’m trying to make is about the pressures of the base and the importance of that. The cuisines of various cultures aren’t, for example, because those cultures chose at random what to eat. The dishes arose in some significant part out of what ingredients were available to them.
That is only true in the case of genuine scarcity, and in those cases I dont think anyone is seriously making a moral demand to starve rather then eat animal products.
I don’t think they are either, but you can imagine how tone deaf it may look if someone is food insecure and hearing someone talk about veganism like it’s the important issue of the day and like it is obviously easy to go vegan. One of the primary reasons for wanting dramatic social change in the first place is to make sure people are not living in poverty. It can sound weird if veganism is presented to people like it’s assumed that problem is already solved for them and they are living in a post-scarcity world, without homelessness and starvation.
Here we are in complete agreement, and in terms of the philosophy of the movement I am not “vegan” although my diet is. Factory farming is the central issue, but I would not dismiss individual ethical refusal on those grounds alone. You can reject a harmful system both politically and personally. Refusing to participate is not a substitute for collective change, but not meaningless either. Would you say the same about the BDS movement against Israel for instance? I’d argue than one can both take the consistent moral position as an individual and isolate yourself from such anti-social practices, and also work on dismantling the systemic abuse. Just like I dont think BDS is a means to an end when it comes to ending the explotation of the Palestinians - I am not gonna reject it for not “focusing on dismantling the obvious system of abuse”.
Well what has it accomplished in the individualist boycott form? To my perception of things, even in “left” circles, veganism can be controversial and get a bad rap for being dogmatic and idealistic about how animals are viewed, similar to how MLs view ultra left positions. I don’t think the reputation it gets is entirely fair, but what I was trying to point at there is effectiveness. Is it moving the needle at all? I’m at a point in my life I usually find it pretty easy to listen and shift on important issues on lemmygrad, but some of the arguments I’ve read about veganism in this thread make me feel out of place here. That’s how far off it can be from the ideological framework I have right now.
It’s not all about me, mind you, I’m just using myself as an example. And of vegetarians or vegans that I’ve known in RL, the way their choice seems to get taken is on the level of someone with a gluten intolerance asking for accommodation for gluten-free food. Something to be considerate of, but not something to take up as a practice of their own. It doesn’t seem to catch on in any meaningful way and can even be very off-putting in how the arguments get presented.
So in review, yes, the cultural view is valid to look at and matters. But if somebody is hungry enough, culture is probably going to take a backseat. History has plenty of famines in it, even in recent history, and region makes a difference in what crops can be grown, what wildlife is around, etc.
I think you’re still arguing against a position I don’t hold.
Nobody is claiming that people facing food insecurity should prioritize veganism over feeding themselves. The existence of poverty, famine and scarcity is not in dispute. What I’m disputing is the claim that meat eating is therefore primarily explained by survival.
The vast majority of meat consumption in wealthy societies is not occurring under conditions where the choice is “eat meat or starve.” It is occurring under conditions where people have multiple available options and make choices shaped by habit, culture, identity, tradition, convenience, and social norms. That is why people have strong feelings about eating dogs but not pigs, horses but not cows, why meat is associated with masculinity in some cultures, why serving meat is associated with hospitality in others, and why rising incomes are often accompanied by rising meat consumption. None of that is explained by survival.
I also think you’re shifting the discussion from morality to effectiveness.
You ask whether veganism is “moving the needle.” But that is a different question from whether the position itself is coherent. If I refuse to buy products produced through some form of exploitation, I am not doing so because I believe my individual purchase will dismantle the entire system. I am doing so because I do not want to participate in it.
And frankly, I don’t think you’d apply that standard elsewhere. If there were products on the shelf that you knew were produced through the direct exploitation of Palestinians, would your response really be “well, refusing to buy them isn’t moving the needle”? Or would you refuse to buy them because you think participation in that exploitation is wrong, regardless of whether your individual action transforms the system? (I notice you didn’t touch on this parallell in your previous answer)
That is the distinction I’m trying to make. Individual ethical refusal is not a substitute for structural change, but it is not rendered meaningless simply because structural change is also necessary.
As for cuisine arising from available ingredients: of course it does. But that is not a rebuttal to my point, it is part of it. Material conditions influence culture. They do not eliminate culture. The fact that diets develop around available resources does not explain why different societies draw radically different moral boundaries around which animals are food, which are companions, and which are untouchable. Those boundaries are cultural.
(I notice you didn’t touch on this parallell in your previous answer)
Well they aren’t the same thing. I’ve seen the comparison made before and it’s kind of obnoxious to compare the two things and tiresome to respond to, so I had just ignored it this time. I’m not obligated to acknowledge every rhetorical point you try to make at me. The subject I’m on in that regard is whether the current veganism movement is effective, not whether I would personally be shamed into refusing to buy goods if I heard that Palestinians were being harmed in the making of them.
But if I thought BDS was an individualist movement that doesn’t appear to be doing anything and has a reputation for making shitty arguments in favor of it, I’d question it too.
It’s not meant as a personal attack against any particular vegan. My own approach for various things is shit sometimes and that needs to be acknowledged and evaluated. We aren’t imbued with the right way forward. Hell, I’m not even attacking a vegan revolutionary party here, because as far as I know, there isn’t one. What even is there to undermine with such criticism when it’s so disorganized? Am I being unfair to speak on unpleasant material realities, as I can discern them?
veganism as an individualist ideology with moralist arguments largely seems to have spawned as a reaction to factory farming
Veganism has existed for millennia
as an individualist ideology with moralist arguments?
Yes, Buddhism.
Buddhists eat meat. I’ve visited Buddhist temples and eaten there.
From what I can find on it so far, it varies, with some being vegetarian, some being vegan, and some not considering it necessary. In any case, the form of veganism I was trying to talk about is the distinctly modern western form of it, one that doesn’t seem to have any noticeable relationship with buddhism.
I will concede I was overly hasty in how I went about talking about veganism with regards to history as a whole.
Incidentally, this does lend weight to Nocturne’s point in another comment, where they make a comparison between veganism and religion.
Everyone in here being a nerd about morals and ethics and efficiency without realizing that it doesn’t matter because they’ll never be vegan since they were ultimately at one point derived from animals
It’s hard to have a productive conversation about things like this when people say things like “I think eating meat is murder”. Like what do you even say to someone who has this kind of ridiculous opinion? Personally, eating habits are the same as religious beliefs to me. Do whatever you want, just don’t impose your bullshit on me.
Its so strange how people who eat meat (not out of necessity) refuse to admit that its immoral, or that there is no justification for it. I’d have much more respect for your types if youd preface your libertarian esque straw mans by conceding “there is no justification for eating dead animals for my own enjoyment but I don’t think its that bad, I don’t really care”
No one is imposing anything on you. Your just playing the victim because you can’t tolerate the cognitive dissonance.
Bro really had the option to just scroll past the post but nah apparently you needed to feel “imposed” upon.
What’s funny is that I didn’t give an opinion on it either way, I was pointing out a comment someone made and how unproductive shit like that is but sure buddy 👍🏿
Haha.
Talking about eating habits how do you manage having your cake and eating it too?
Your opinion is transparent regardless if you explicitly stated it or not. If you actually cared about having a “productive converstion” about it you would’ve gone about it differently. E.g. “that argument seems quite extreme and from my view is a hasty false equivalency” could suffice. Pretending to care about having a “productive conversation” yet immediately becoming provocative and inflammatory. Nice work!
Anddd
Being reactionary upon hearing someone else’s opinion that didn’t involve you when nothing was “imposed” upon you. While simultaneously claiming you don’t care about what other people believe or do. You imposed yourself into this thread.
You clearly do care what other people believe and think of you.
So what will it be? Having? Or eating?
Will you unimpose yourself fron this thread? Or will you be the bigger man and try and have a “productive conversation” presumably by ignoring my reciprocal provocations.
It’s hard to have a productive conversation about things like this when people say things like “I think wage labor is slavery”. Like what do you even say to someone who has this kind of ridiculous opinion? Personally, employment rights and property relations are the same as religious beliefs to me. Do whatever you want, just don’t impose your bullshit on me.
i’m not vegan just trying to reframe your comment into a scenario where there’s a deeply held powerful belief involved, but it’s one you agree with (or should, if you haven’t been banned from lemmygrad)
I kind of get what you’re trying to do, but it doesn’t really work as a comparison. Being dismissive toward class relations as a whole would indeed be a bad thing, but “I think wage labor is slavery” is a contestable statement even in ML terms. Wage labor is not, in fact, slavery. It sucks and capitalism is a highly exploitative power model, but slavery is literal ownership of a person and wage labor is not that. Wage labor may feel as bad as slavery sometimes by people who have never been slaves, but it is still a different form of exploitation.
Though I don’t fully mirror the position Nocturne took in my own views, their comparison to religion is somewhat valid. The idea of killing non-human animals counting as murder in the same meaning as killing another human being gets into beliefs that are hard to ground in science, not unlike when a Catholic says that abortion is killing a child. And like abortion, there are real problems with jumping at saying it’s a terrible thing to do and then thinking about it from the standpoint of punishing people for doing it - which could sound like a strawman, but there is someone in this thread who was talking about giving non-human animals human rights (which would mean you could be punished similarly for violating their rights).
Calling vegan ethics “like religion” is backwards. Veganism can be argued from moral principles: consistency, avoidance of unnecessary harm and recognition of animal sentience. By contrast, the idea that animals exist for human use has often been justified through explicit religious and cultural hierarchy, especially in Abrahamic traditions: that animals were created for human use and that human dominion over them is natural or divinely ordained. So if anything, the long-standing normalization of meat eating is closer to a theological worldview than the refusal to exploit animals is.
The idea of animals as property is not some neutral baseline of reason, but deeply tied to theology and cultural inheritance.
Also, comparing animal killing to murder is not a claim that animals are literally human, any more than opposing factory farming is the same as claiming abortion and murder are identical. It is a claim about morally relevant harm, not that species are interchangeable.
Also, comparing animal killing to murder is not a claim that animals are literally human
https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11773976/8264341
I believe non-human animals are people on the same level as a human and should have the same rights as humans. Eating a deer is cannibalism because it’s consumption of a person’s flesh.
In this very thread. You can speak on what you believe, but you can’t tell me all representations of veganism are saying what you say as if I’m making up positions that aren’t there - when I was just replying to one earlier.
Edited to add:
Calling vegan ethics “like religion” is backwards.
Someone in this thread pointed out that veganism has had ties to buddhism going back a while. Which is a religion…
I believe non-human animals are people on the same level as a human and should have the same rights as humans. Eating a deer is cannibalism because it’s consumption of a person’s flesh.
In this very thread. You can speak on what you believe, but you can’t tell me all representations of veganism are saying what you say as if I’m making up positions that aren’t there - when I was just replying to one earlier.
Lol, I will not base my arguments around reactionaries. Just as I scoff at people who point to some fringe reactionary marxist-in-name-only organization and say: “You can speak what you belive but you can’t tell me all representations of marxism are saying what you say…”, lets be serious. Just as there is little moral and logical consistency in eating meat, the same can be said of 1) attributing the equal moral value to humans as other animals and 2) thus enforcing the same judical rights for them.
Calling vegan ethics “like religion” is backwards.
Someone in this thread pointed out that veganism has had ties to buddhism going back a while. Which is a religion…
Now it I am starting to feel you are not arguing in good faith.
You are shifting between two different things: historical religious dietary rules and modern vegan ethics. The fact that some Buddhist traditions or other spiritual systems arrived at similar conclusions does not make veganism itself religious. It only shows that different moral traditions can converge on similar practices.
And yes, that is not strange at all. Philosophical and theological systems often overlap on certain conclusions by coincidence or through shared moral intuitions. That does not mean they have the same basis. Modern veganism can be grounded in secular ethics even though some older religious traditions happened to reach similar dietary practices.
Pointing to Buddhism does not prove that vegan ethics are “like religion.” It proves only that some religious traditions restricted animal use. That is not an argument against veganism, just a historical parallel.
Modern Western veganism is a reaction to factory farming.
Veganism has existed for millennia. (X)
Therefore vegan ethics are like religion.
Those do not cleanly follow from each other. At most, Buddhism shows that some religious traditions have long contained food ethics that overlap with vegan or vegetarian ideas. That does not make the modern secular ethical case for veganism “religious".
Especially since you yourself rejected this argument (X):
In any case, the form of veganism I was trying to talk about is the distinctly modern western form of it, one that doesn’t seem to have any noticeable relationship with buddhism.
If the point is specifically about the modern movement, then the relevant question is its actual moral structure now, not whether some older religion had adjacent practices.
There are multiple things going on here that are becoming painful to follow even when I was one of the ones in the conversation.
- You replying to me to tell me:
Calling vegan ethics “like religion” is backwards. Veganism can be argued from moral principles: consistency, avoidance of unnecessary harm and recognition of animal sentience.
Then proceeding to argue that it’s actually the reverse, citing Abrahamic religion as an example:
the idea that animals exist for human use has often been justified through explicit religious and cultural hierarchy, especially in Abrahamic traditions: that animals were created for human use and that human dominion over them is natural or divinely ordained. So if anything, the long-standing normalization of meat eating is closer to a theological worldview than the refusal to exploit animals is.
Buddhism is a direct counterpoint to this, as it shows there is a longstanding religion that has a near opposite view on animals.
On top of this, there is as you say, the more modern secular trend of veganism in the west. So your original claim is not sound. It is a statement on what you believe about where vegan arguments should be derived from, not a historical argument on what it is in practice.
You can say “those aren’t the real vegans” like we might about the ACP with regards to marxism-leninism, but that’s the framing then, if so. Not that the diverging point of view isn’t a real phenomenon. It is the dismissiveness that I was pushing back on and the framing implying that I was arguing with strawmen.
Especially since you yourself rejected this argument (X):
Me: In any case, the form of veganism I was trying to talk about is the distinctly modern western form of it, one that doesn’t seem to have any noticeable relationship with buddhism.
If the point is specifically about the modern movement, then the relevant question is its actual moral structure now, not whether some older religion had adjacent practices.
This was a different argument where I was clarifying that I was criticizing the effectiveness of modern veganism as an individualist boycotting practice in the west. I was in the process acknowledging that veganism also has ties to buddhism historically.
The fact that we cannot point to a “vegan state” of sorts in the way that we can with marxism-leninism is part of the problem (or at least, a revolutionary vegan theory - maybe there is one, but I haven’t seen it brought up in this thread). You can tell me what vegan is and then I might talk to someone else and get a different view and where is it leading? How can anyone organize for it if there is not even broad agreement on what it means in practice beyond the very basic definition of specific foods you don’t consume?
It’s pretty easy to agree in a general sense, “Don’t mistreat animals”, but if one person’s version of that is don’t factory farm abuse them and another’s is give them human rights, we’ve got no solid ground to stand on. Am I making sense or no?
Yeah that doesn’t really hit the same at all really
Just say you can’t cook 😂
ok cool story i think you might just be an asshole
Good thing I don’t really care about what random strangers on the internet think about me 👍🏿
That is a hyperbole (and I guess strawman from you), and should not be met seriously. However, I have met many many more meat eaters who would prioritize saving their dogs or cats over other humans - while I have never met one such vegan. So funnily enough this is a position that arises exactly because of the inconsistent moral argument for eating meat.
I attribute moral value to animals, and I attribute more moral value to humans - but since I attribute moral value to animals I refuse to take apart in a system which exploits their very life-essence for the purpose of surplus sustenance. At the same time, I would in 100% of cases prioritize a human over an animal - unlike meat-eaters who (if consistent) view them as private property and thus are willing to kill for their right of continued ownership.
You impose your beliefs onto the people that are forced to kill your meat for you. The only way for meat to be a readily available commodity in a world of billions of consumers requires working conditions that lead to early death in slaughterhouses and meat packing plants. Eating meat is social murder.
I really don’t care if someone hunts or traps, but if you buy meat at the store there’s human blood in your mouth.
Ok 👌🏿
but if you buy meat at the store there’s human blood in your mouth.
This is the type of shit that causes people to completely clock out of ever taking vegans seriously. If you apply this point of view consistently, guess what you get? You basically can’t exist under modern capitalism without having blood on your hands at some step. This tends to lead to things like: you live in some attempted anarcho communist off the grid way, cut off from society and unable to impact anything; you say fuck it I guess I’ll just do whatever because it’s all fucked anyway; or you semi boycott some things and give up on others.
Trying to get people to personalize systemic issues without changing anything on the system level does not fix systemic issues. What it does do is make the most conscientious people more neurotic and causes them to more blame themselves for things that are out of their control. While the least conscientious people continue to orchestrate crimes.
No, people tune out vegans because they want their treats. Meat is a luxury, and suffering people crave luxury, and so anyone who correctly observes “your luxury is soaked with blood” is going to make enemies. We have so few luxuries under capitalism that people will defend their treats to the death, there’s no way to actually convince people to give up meat. I sympathize.
But I’m not going to coddle their commodity fetishism, either. You can’t exist under modern capitalism without having some blood on your hands, but some commodities are more blood soaked than others. They should at least understand what they’re eating and think about the system of exploitation they’re engaged with.
Besides, giving up the most exploitative commodities is just good sense. I’m certainly not going to demand every cadre be a perfect vegan, it certainly isn’t the primary contradiction, but if a discussion about meat comes up I’m going to be honest.
That doesn’t touch the underlying and inescapable fact: industrial meat is impossible without hurting and killing workers. Any fully socialist society will move away from meat simply for the fact that the logistics of making it safe make it unsuitable for mass production. We would either ration meat severely so no worker had to mutilate their mind and body to harvest meat for billions of people, or we’d need fully-automated slaughter and meat processing facilities. The simple logistics of meat are a problem when we consider the workers behind it.
That’s why I stopped eating meat, because I know I’ll have to give it up eventually anyway. Why not start now? It’s easy.
No, people tune out vegans because they want their treats.
Meat is not a treat. It’s a high protein food that’s a staple in a lot of people’s diets, meal plans, known meals that work for protein, and fast food and restaurant menus when eating out. Going out and getting a fancy steak is a treat, sure, but that’s the outlier form of meat consumption. Including some chicken in a meal for protein is not. I just don’t even know how to process this statement. It feels like we’re living in two different worlds.
Wrong, vegan protein is cheaper.
Why reply to me with such a non-sequitur?
If plant protein is cheaper then meat doesn’t need to be a staple, you can make high protein meal plans and diets without any meat while also saving money. Therefore, it’s a luxury. People eat meat because it’s tasty and familiar, not because it’s necessary.
“I think eating meat is murder”
How much people have you ever heard saying that? like, be for real.
There’s literally someone in this post saying it, are you forreal?
I really hope it happens. I want to be vegan for animal welfare reasons but I have so many food intolerances and allergies, it’s impossible and I feel really guilty about it. Lab grown meat would solve the problem for me, and hopefully end factory farming eventually.
Yeah, a big con of high protein vegetarian options is it often comes with common allergens. Nuts, Gluten, soy. Not everyone is built for it.
Lab grown meat will also solve a lot of environmental and time constraints if achieved on correct sustainable scale.
i dont think its viable in scale. maybe for specific needs its an optimal choice. you still need biopsies to get cells from animals, so i would say its more vegetarian than vegan (so its still exploitative to animals). in general people can already have a vegan diet today. theres no need to invent anything.
more vegetarian than vegan (so its still exploitative to animals)
What if we use a stock culture?
if there was a way to totally not have animals in the process, then yes it would be technically vegan. maybe it will be super viable. but again, i think on a mass scale it is more efficient to just produce crops. communal agriculture is dead simple. while lab-cultivation requires lab equipment, which needs a whole new production process. you need to think about accessibility also, and its hard to beat accessibility of seeds and ground.
