Every once in a while I get that ominous feeling that killing and specially making animals suffer just for me to eat meat, fish and lactose is extremely wrong, but then I kinda forget.

I kinda see myself hunting wild game though so it's weird.

  • BeamBrain [he/him]
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    4 years ago

    No, I don't plan on becoming vegan

     

     

     

     

     

     

    I already did

    • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
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      4 years ago

      No true leftist is an omni.

      Dairy is a cruelty product, eggs are a cruelty product, the factory farming industry employs immigrants in exploitative conditions often undocumented giving the farmers control over their lives. Indentured servitude, modern slavery.

      Unless you're hunting deer for your meat, which is still cruel, you contribute to this system that is very easy to avoid with slight inconvenience.

      (Unless you're living in some food desert and must eat animal products to continue living, in that case there's no choice.)

      Go vegan comrades, do we have a vegan comm yet?

      • MiraculousMM [he/him, any]M
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        4 years ago

        You're right, but saying shit like

        No true leftist is an omni

        is fallacious and cringe

        • FUCKTHEPAINTUP [any]
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          4 years ago

          yeah that’s ultraleft deviation, the primary contradiction in human society is class, so ultra-vegans damning 99.999...% of people with normal diets and pretending they’re still doing politics, and that they just won it, isn’t going to work - colonizer thinking

          but I liked the rest of the post and agreed with it

                  • MarxGuns [comrade/them]
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                    4 years ago

                    I do sometimes feel bad when I rip up my plants that are no longer productive or have been eaten too badly by bugs. They are still living things and respond to their environment. But then I start thinking about being consistent and it results in me eating nothing, or, I eat anything. Any time I think too hard about it, I come down to an absolute for or against thing.

                    When I think about animals being slaughter cruely, I also think about animals as they exist in the wild. I think about the pretty brutal videos on that r/natureismetal or whatnot subreddit, of baby creatures being eaten, of animals being ripped open. It is disturbing and brutal. But it's how it works out there.

                    No matter. I think that if we are going to eat animals then we should be as humane as possible. I really like the idea of eating lab grown meat and more plants.

            • FUCKTHEPAINTUP [any]
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              4 years ago

              I don’t think anyone believes that. All we’re saying is that leftism doesn’t revolve around dietary virtues, we’re letting the masses have their milk and honey

              the masses... the masses must overthrow Burger King for themselves, and they’re going to do that through mass struggle, of which veganism-carnivorism is a secondary contradiction (yes we all align on the vegan side)

              there’s this idea, that you can lead the vanguard through personal choice and extreme purity, that leads people to do this performative petit-bourgeois thing, to take extremely liberal positions (that are good) and declare themselves willing to use the worst of authoritarian revisionism to impose them on the rest of us, as if that’s how we determine party pecking order, as if that’s anything more than an unpopular and performative red fascism

                • FUCKTHEPAINTUP [any]
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                  4 years ago

                  extreme vegan agitation is helping tremendously, the original argument was against the exclusionary statement that no true leftists can eat animal products, which is of course absurd and alienating for everyone outside of the Whole Foods class of American leftists

                  I’m legit outside foraging for wild blackberries while posting this

        • Mablak [he/him]
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          4 years ago

          makes sense if you consider that cows are comrades

      • crime [she/her, any]
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        4 years ago

        Unless you’re hunting deer for your meat, which is still cruel, you contribute to this system that is very easy to avoid with slight inconvenience.

        I get that it's slight inconvenience for some but you should be mindful of people who have history of eating disorders or other health issues that make it functionally impossible to be restrictive about their food. I opt for plant based protein when I can and have been working on adding more to my culinary repertoire but for the time being my mental health isn't in a place where I can fully drop meat and animal products.

        • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
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          4 years ago

          There are few dietary restrictions that actually require you to eat animal products, they're far more unhealthy for you.

          If it's some kind of protein deficiency there is plenty of non-animal protein sources, the vegan default is beans ofc and it's dead cheap.

          • Dan [they/them,undecided]
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            4 years ago

            I'm a picky eater to the point that it's an eating disorder. Without animal products I wouldn't have had any protein; beans make me vomit in disgust. But now I just drink a ton of Soylent so it's a mostly vegan diet.

      • Hungover [he/him]
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        4 years ago

        I know that it involves cruelty, but everything in capitalism involves cruelty. The veggies that I buy get harvested by Romanian workers for 2€ / h, getting cramped near the farm and spreading covid like wildfire, working in every weather. Pretty sure humans died for my mobile phone retrieving copper in the Congo or get sick manufacturing the electronics in China.

        I try to avoid meat and cruelty, but I think this fixation on food is pretty liberal and weird, since there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. I blame nobody for consumption choices, especially since those are often a financial necessity (the meat industry gets tons of subsidies here in Germany)

        • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
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          4 years ago

          Those animals eat the veggies, you'e doubling up on immigrant slavery, environmental impact, resources wasted, etc. One is demonstrably worse because it first requires the other.

          • gayhobbes [he/him]
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            4 years ago

            Actually since you're dedicated to this zero sum game of bullshit, if I ate nothing but pure beef all the time, I would be minimizing animal cruelty and suffering while still eating meat. Eating a diverse diet means that more animals have to suffer. Plus you haven't even thought of the animals killed and displaced just for your palm oil, your house, your roads. But I guess it feels nice to feel self-righteous based on consumer choice.

            • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
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              4 years ago

              No it doesn't genius, you're just eating several cows. Are you raising and butchering one cow yourself? Buying one wholesale that will last that many meals?

              I also don't use palm oil and neither should you.

              Look in the mirror, you're literally doing "yet you participate in society. Curious!"

              Fragile fucking liberals.

              • gayhobbes [he/him]
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                4 years ago

                Nah, you're just engaging in finger wagging over a consumer choice. Going vegan is going to save marginally more animal lives than not.

                See at least in my choice, I'd still get to eat meat and the cows are fed with thresher-harvested grain which would result in fewer animal deaths overall, and eating a cow (in my case, buying one wholesale that would last me for awhile) would kill less animals than your average vegan.

                Personally I'm not going to do that, but I like meat and will continue to eat meat. I will eat non-factory meat when I can get it and afford it. You can have a problem with that or whatever, but you're not really being honest with this argument. You only care about animals insofar as what can be done about their consumption for nutrition or clothing, but there's plenty more that could be done to minimize our overall impact and you don't seem to talk nearly as much about that.

                Also lmao do you think Marx subsisted on carrots?

                • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
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                  4 years ago

                  Going vegan is going to save marginally more animal lives than not.

                  What a fun take, it should if you do it right, save all the animal lives you would cause to die otherwise.

                  You'd think of all places this you wouldn't get losers who like to play leftist while doing nothing of substance but posting criticizing people that actually do make change in their lives.

                  I guess have fun with the heart disease

                  • Ryaina [she/her]
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                    4 years ago

                    I guess have fun with the heart disease

                    Where is that take coming from? I don't believe this poster ever indicated that they were consuming the high levels of red meat associated (note the current sciences, to my knowledge, can not link the two) with heart disease?

                    The arguments that have been presented so far are all about how counterproductive it is to criticize people for not going full vegan for reasons outside their control. it really is hard to eliminate all meat from a diet on the kinds of budget people like me live on.

                    Can it be done? sure. if you either know how to or have two years to learn how to cook; and access to a grocer that carries more veracity on its shelves that Rice and pinto beans; And the time to plan out a meal schedule and shopping list; AND your not ND in a way such as to have problems with any of the executive decision processes involved in all of that.

                    for a lot of people, it might as well be impossible.

                    so, if we agree that the cruelty in the process is bad and that as a group action must be taken to change it, don't go preaching about the moral superiority of your personal decisions.

                    • gayhobbes [he/him]
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                      4 years ago

                      so, if we agree that the cruelty in the process is bad and that as a group action must be taken to change it, don’t go preaching about the moral superiority of your personal decisions.

                      Which is basically my point, it's silly to shit on people for not going full vegan. If we were all vegan, capitalism would still exist and we'd still kill massive amounts of animals just to get our vegetables via factory farming.

                  • gayhobbes [he/him]
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                    4 years ago

                    Again, do you think Marx ate nothing but vegetables? You cannot be a leftist if you're not vegan?

                    And again you're just peddling junk science, vegans have the same mortality rates as people with other diets. That and vegan diets are not recommended for children, pregnant women, and the elderly.

                    • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
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                      4 years ago

                      vegans have the same mortality rates as people with other diets.

                      You know this is wrong and are only saying it to make yourself feel alright with eating meat and dairy.

                      That and vegan diets are not recommended for children, pregnant women, and the elderly.

                      You're none of those things.

                      • gayhobbes [he/him]
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                        4 years ago

                        You know this is wrong and are only saying it to make yourself feel alright with eating meat and dairy.

                        Is it?

                        You’re none of those things.

                        Why's it okay for kids, pregnant people, and elderly though?

                        • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
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                          4 years ago

                          Sorry there, misread that as morality. I don't know about mortality rates and don't care about if there's a difference, that's not my argument.

                          I also didn't say it was okay for children, I'm saying you're listing those things as some excuse not to switch to a plant-based diet despite not being any.

                          Usually people are here because of their ethical beliefs and claiming to be "leftist" but staunchly defending eating meat is laughable.

                          • gayhobbes [he/him]
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                            4 years ago

                            Sorry there, misread that as morality. I don’t know about mortality rates and don’t care about if there’s a difference, that’s not my argument.

                            Okay. Well, I do care. I like to eat meat. I am going to continue to eat meat.

                            I also didn’t say it was okay for children, I’m saying you’re listing those things as some excuse not to switch to a plant-based diet despite not being any.

                            Well no, I just don't get why this supposedly enlightened way of engaging with the world is bad for some groups of people.

                            Usually people are here because of their ethical beliefs and claiming to be “leftist” but staunchly defending eating meat is laughable.

                            I mean it's only laughable if you think animals are the same as humans, which I don't. Also there's a lot of leftists you'd be invalidating with your belief that you need to be a vegan to be a leftist, like literally all its founders and philosophers.

              • gayhobbes [he/him]
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                4 years ago

                I mean your take is my take, I don't think your diet is what makes you a good person. But if someone's gonna go there, I might as well punch some holes in their argument.

        • cadence [they/them,she/her]
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          4 years ago

          Wanna hear a good ideology? Ancap vegan. The only animal that should be exploited is humans.

        • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
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          4 years ago

          Something that makes the liberals here feel exposed. Too many children here that love to LARP without making the bare minimum change in their lives.

      • Himbo [he/him]
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        4 years ago

        Not Vegan but I agree.

        My love of Ben and Jerry's shouldn't triumph over ethics.

        • Phillipkdink [he/him]
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          4 years ago

          Ben and Jerry's has a surprisingly good selection of their flagship flavours in vegan form. Honestly you can tell if they're next to each other but otherwise you probably wouldn't notice.

      • kristina [she/her]
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        4 years ago

        Vegetables are a cruelty product. They use animal compost, pesticides, and involve removing wildlands for farming. Our technological level does not allow for a fully vegan society without the deaths of many of our population.

        This is the issue of individualism. You aren't changing a system nor are you advancing technological progress. I do think society will eventually be vegan out of pure efficiency, but that will only happen with technology.

          • kristina [she/her]
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            4 years ago

            Yeah. It requires personal change. That doesn't happen without material conditions changing, and I fail to see how material conditions will change in favor of veganism other than technology.

            • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
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              4 years ago

              That doesn’t happen without material conditions changing

              Shut the fuck up, jesus christ. When the chapos or Brace mentioned people dropping "material change" as if that makes them smart on stream the other day I didn't think too much on it, but christ if this isn't the spitting image.

              You can easily not eat animal products, they're fucking cheaper.

              • kristina [she/her]
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                4 years ago

                They literally aren't. One of the cheapest premade sources of protein is a damn McDonald's hamburger. The poor and the working class do not have a lot of time on their hands. Some aren't neurotypical and can make their own food. If you want to be strong enough to deal with fascists, you need around 30g of protein while working out. A single McDouble can handle that for cheaper.

                And don't give me shit about whey protein, to make it cheap you'd have to use milk to mix it. You can't just eat powder like that.

                And you can argue that maybe we should readjust our priorities, make certain products that are more vegan than other products cheaper. Sure, I agree with that. But you are arguing for people to choose specific, expensive things and acting like it is easily available to poor working class people right now. And the only thing that will change that situation are the following circumstances:

                1. SocDem electoral veganism (lol, I don't think they're even willing to begin that conversation)

                2. Revolution, which has pro-vegan elements (which requires certain material conditions)

                3. Technological advancement

                • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
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                  4 years ago

                  If you want to be strong enough to deal with fascists, you need around 30g of protein while working out

                  I'm going to guess you look like a scrawny 20 something, buying into the "protein from meat" myth. You know animals don't make their own protein right, they get it from the plants they eat.

                  No one needs whey powder, eat normal food. Learn how to cook beans, eat broccoli, spinach, potatoes, even rice. Your body is not using 30 grams of protein each time you work out fucking lol

                  • kristina [she/her]
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                    4 years ago

                    I'm personally scrawny. My boyfriend gave me this advice and he has ~32 inch thighs made of pure muscle.

                  • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
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                    4 years ago

                    Veganism has historically been lower class, that's only been flipped because your government gives your money to the animal farming lobby.

                    It's not classism to eat rice and beans you fucking moron.

                      • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
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                        4 years ago

                        Then you're self admitting classism with your comment and projecting that on others. And that just makes you an asshole.

                          • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
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                            4 years ago

                            Could have fooled me browsing this site.

                            Unless you're saying you're vegan but don't mention it online? As if that's something to be proud of, "I believe strongly in not eating animals but I'll stay silent about it."

                            👍

      • YeForPrez2020 [he/him]
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        4 years ago

        ... you do realize that those vegetables you're eating are being harvested by the very same slaves, right?

        • HadMatter [none/use name]
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          4 years ago

          For the most part, if you're eating meat in 2020, you're eating more vegetables indirectly through the animals you're eating, so whatever slave labor is used to grow the vegetables that the animals eat is still more than whatever slave labor is used to grow the vegetables a vegan eats.

          • YeForPrez2020 [he/him]
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            4 years ago

            So now we judge the quantity of slave labor that an individual indirectly causes? Does that mean that people who require higher calorie based are now more guilty based on the food to slavery index? I personally don't eat sweets, and for every 100 tonnes of sugar cane harvested, only 8 tonnes of sugar is produced. Does this make me better than the vegans who do eat candies and such then?

            I hope you understand how pedantic and purposeless this conversation gets when we're trying to weigh how much slave labor each of our diets produce to artificially see who's the better person.

            • Ezze [hy/hym,they/them]
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              4 years ago

              Slave labor is one metric, water resources is another. It's something that we all need and there is only so much of it. Veganism is just less wasteful than other forms of sustenance, from resources to labor.

              Making a case based one the .1% of the population that requires a high calorie diet for things like ultra competitive athletics is bordering on ridiculous. Most people can function on a modest caloric diet.

              • YeForPrez2020 [he/him]
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                4 years ago

                Higher calory diets aren't just for pro athletes, some people just need to eat more food to sustain themselves, i.e. hetero men needing to eat 25% more than hetero women, or just larger and taller people needing to eat more in general.

                But that's not even the basis of what I'm trying to say and I have a feeling you didn't attempt to read it past the first sentence. Like I said, I don't eat sweets, meanwhile crops like sugar and coco require huge amounts of raw harvest to produce only a small amount of the final product, and are infamous for abuses of slave labor and unlivable working conditions in places in South America.

                Does this then make me, a non-sweet eating omnivore, better than a vegan who likes to have candy? Do we need to each determine how much slave labor our individual diets support to see who the best leftsist is? This whole argument applies to other foods like oils, grains, etc. too. If you want to be vegan, then that's okay, but attacking omnivores is just so unnecessarily devisive and counterproductive towards solving issues like slave labor.

            • HadMatter [none/use name]
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              4 years ago

              I'm not sure what to tell you. It's my position that less slave labor is better than more. This is not a difficult proposition.

              • YeForPrez2020 [he/him]
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                4 years ago

                And yet I'm sure you still eat things, purchase things, take part in things that are completely unnecessary towards basic human needs.

                In that case, what point does comparing the total percentage of slave labor you contributed towards do except create a moral hierarchy of good to bad leftists (or just people in general) that you want to put yourself in? Should the omnivore be shamed that they rank worse on that hierarchy than the vegan? Should the vegan be shamed that they rank worse than the monk? I would argue that it is the intent behind people's actions- do they oppose slave labor, do they believe in equality- that matters much more than individual lifestyle choices. And arguing that such a moral heirarchy should exist only serves to alienate and divide.

        • BeamBrain [he/him]
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          4 years ago

          We can fix that by changing labor relations. There's no way to make animal agriculture not terrible.