this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
178 points (80.7% liked)
vegan
2638 readers
371 users here now
Please also check out vegantheoryclub.org for a great set of well-run communities for vegan news, cooking, gardening, and art. It is not federated with LW, but it is a nice, cozy, all-in-one space for vegans.
We ask that the you have an understanding on what veganism is before engaging in this community.
If you think you have been banned erroneously, please get in contact with one of the other mods for appeals.
Moderator reports may not federate properly and may delay moderator action. Please DM an active mod if an abusive comment remains after reporting it.
Welcome
Welcome to c/[email protected]. Broadly, this community is a place to discuss veganism. Discussion on intersectional topics related to the animal rights movement are also encouraged.
What is Veganism?
'Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals ...'
— abridged definition from The Vegan Society
Rules
The rules are subject to change, especially upon community feedback.
- Discrimination is not tolerated. This includes speciesism.
- Topics not relating to veganism are subject to removal.
- Posts are to be as accessible as practicable:
- embedded images of text require alt-text
- posts with an image of text should have a transcription in the body or alt-text
- paywalled articles must have an accessible non-paywalled link;
- use the original source whenever possible for a news article.
- Content warnings are required for triggering content.
- Bad-faith carnist rhetoric & anti-veganism are not allowed, as this is not a space to debate the merits of veganism. Anyone is welcome here, however, and so good-faith efforts to ask questions about veganism may be given their own weekly stickied post in the future.
- before jumping into the community, we encourage you to read examples of common fallacies here.
- if you're asking questions about veganism, be mindful that the person on the other end is trying to be helpful by answering you and treat them with at least as much respect as they give you.
- Posts and comments whose contents – text, images, etc. – are largely created by a generative AI model are subject to removal. We want you to be a part of the vegan community, not a multi-head attention layer running on a server farm.
- No brigading, either off-site or on-site. An incitement to brigade includes two elements: a call to disruptive action and a specific direction outside of this community in which to take that action. Exceptions include:
- Calls to boycott.
- Calls to in-person protest of a government, high-profile individual, or company/organization.
- Votes provided they have a sufficiently broad target audience or provably effective controls against vote brigading.
- Petitions.
- All Lemmy.World Terms of Service also apply.
Resources on Veganism
A compilation of many vegan resources/sites in a Google spreadsheet:
Here are some documentaries that are recommended to watch if planning to or have recently become vegan:
- You Will Never Look at Your Life in the Same Way Again
- Dominion (2018) (CW: gore, animal abuse)
Vegan Fediverse
Lemmy: vegantheoryclub.org
Mastodon: veganism.social
Other Vegan Communities
General Vegan Comms
Circlejerk Comms
Vegan Food / Cooking
Attribution
- Banner image credit: Jean Weber of INRA on Wikimedia Commons
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You can't work on laws to restrict meat eating without getting the public onboard first. Our democracy is flawed, sure, but we don't live in an autocracy. Vegan activists do work day in and day out on lobbying for legislation. California just the other day banned octopus farming.
But that worked because the public was broadly onboard with it because of the recent public understanding of how intelligent octopodes are. If California somehow passed a restriction on meats like pork, beef, chicken, etc., then the entire state would immediately riot and kick the legislature out, completely undoing the restriction.
Good point.
May I ask this.... Would you decide to gradually change your lifestyle to a less cruel one when the vegan arguments seem to be correct or would you rather wait for a law against eating meat?
Me personally? I don't care about cruelty, so what would get me to change is a law that says I must. Or legal/economic incentives.
I do care about the environment, so I don't eat beef. But that's not common. Most people who don't care about animal cruelty also don't care about the environment.
A lot of vegans are environmentalists too, and so it caught my eye that you specificied beef. If you're interested in an easy way to dramatically drop your environmental impact relative to the effort, trying out plant milks can be a great way to go about it. The dairy and beef industries are heavily intertwined, and from an environmental standpoint, dairy milk stands head and shoulders above plant ones in terms of emissions, land usage, and water usage. I would say that plant milks offer a better experience than dairy milk even completely disregarding the ethics and the environment, so it could be worth your while.
You're correct! And I'm working on that. I still think plant milks in cereal tastes weird, but fuck it cereal is bad for you anyway. I'm mostly on plant based milks now.
Hey, that's really cool; I'm glad you have a concrete goal for yourself. If you ever have any questions about plant milks, feel free to drop us a line. I think most of us have a lot of experience with them. I think I'm covering most of my bases here:
I'll check out Almond Breeze, thanks! I do loooove the taste of oat milk in my coffee, but yeah it's weird in cereal.
That sounds like you have that "if it doesn't affect me, why would I care" mind, which would be crazy. But I might have got that wrong what you just said.
To not care about cruelty is not "normal". To not have empathy for animals is far from normal. If I go into the city and show people videos of animal abuse, they'd be shocked. They have empathy.
So I wonder, why do you say that you don't care about cruelty? Is that just in regard to animals? Or do you also not care about other people suffering?
And for the second part: I disagree. People tend to care about the environment even though they consume animal products. It's just that they don't care enough so that they'll change their way of living. They prefer not to go out of their comfort zone. They want to consume. And they put personal wealth over the wellbeing of nature and other individuals if you ask me
I think it's a perfectly valid and internally consistent moral framework to care far more about the suffering of humans than animals.
Also, "don't care" is a bit of an exaggeration. More like, I don't like abusive practices and would prefer to eat humanely treated and humanely slaughtered animals. But abusive practices are also not a complete deal breaker for me. So there's a level of care there, but it's far below the care for humans.
And I do think that's a fairly normal and common moral framework, whether conscious or subconscious.
Nobody said that you have to care about animals in the same way as you care for humans. Nobody said that they're on the same level. You just literally said that you don't care about their suffering, which sounds insane to anyone.
You talk about "humane killing of animals without any necessity". Does "humane killing" sound humane to you? Humanely treated? Why do 99% of people claim they prefer "humanely treated" animals, when appr. 99% of all animal products come from factory farming? That's the opposite of humane. Nothing in the industry is humane. They all try to make money. I don't have to explain to you how you do that, I assume
It's not a common moral framework. But we don't have to discuss this any further. I see that you're not really open for that discussion.
Hey, you asked man.