• JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair]
    hexbear
    27
    2 months ago

    that kind of post is just pretending to not understand the cultural significance of pets. If there's actually a point behind it besides antagonizing people in a post about child abuse and violating social norms, I don't know what it is.

    • MattsAlt [comrade/them]
      hexbear
      7
      2 months ago

      You're deliberately misreading their post

      It says "why industrial animal torture industries do not" not that "industrial animal torture doesn't upset you just as much"

      Either you think pets are higher tier beings than the equally smart and full of personality animals killed for food or you don't. It's not that hard

      • JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair]
        hexbear
        14
        2 months ago

        Either you think pets are higher tier beings than the equally smart and full of personality animals killed for food or you don't. It's not that hard

        nah i think it's social categories, not moral ones. Cool i've deconstructed the categories of "pet animal" and "food animal" and think that if you want to keep a holstein as a pet or raise cats as livestock that's a little weird (historically, culturally, and logistically) but not some great sin just because the animals are flipped around.

        people keep lizards and weird bugs as non-traditional pets too, maybe it's easier to see compared to mammals that the thing that's special about a pet is that it's a pet, not the species.

        • MattsAlt [comrade/them]
          hexbear
          6
          2 months ago

          No, the thing that is special about all of them is that they're living creatures that can experience pain and have desires to live in their natural environments

          Your example isn't doing any favors here. It's honestly more concerning that all that matters to you is the label you assign to a being that gives its life worth. You're explicitly acknowledging anything could be a pet that is meaningful to someone but some just get the shit end of the stick and are killed after a lifetime of torture instead

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
            hexbear
            17
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            Now hold on.

            I'm a vegan, but I can recognize murdering your own pet as being even worse than murdering any other animal. The problem isn't that the dog is a pet, but rather, her pet. She just murdered a member of her family for pissing her off. That's serial killer shit.

            I had pet chickens before I was a vegan and if anyone killed them back then I'd fucking- well. They wouldn't kill anything ever again.

            • MattsAlt [comrade/them]
              hexbear
              4
              edit-2
              2 months ago

              I don't know what part of the thread I'm in at this point, but I've said elsewhere here that I agree this is more unhinged than average carnism defense. The underlying issue I'm trying to tease out here is the imposition of a human's will upon the life of an animal because the human wanted to do that and didn't care about the animal enough to make a different choice

              The parent to this developing struggle session was not equivocating the two, it was asking why one made carnists feel a certain way and the mass torture of animals for food doesn't

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
                hexbear
                10
                2 months ago

                The question necessarily implies hypocrisy on the part of carnists i.e. "if this woman murdering her dog makes you feel bad, you should feel bad when you murder animals" or even "you murder animals all the time, what right do you have to judge her for doing the same thing?"

                I certainly read it as you trying to equivocate the two! And I doubt I was the only one.

                • MattsAlt [comrade/them]
                  hexbear
                  2
                  2 months ago

                  If you eat meat and this kind of story upsets you, please do some careful examination of why the industrial animal torture industries do not.

                  The Internet is text based, assigning a tone to what is typed is purely a personal problem to put it bluntly.

                  They are asking why industrial animal torture is not upsetting but killing a pet dog is. Why is someone who feels upset about the suffering of a dog not also upset about the suffering of a pig, cow, or chicken? If it's purely the label of pet, we get back to the comment you replied to

                  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
                    hexbear
                    11
                    2 months ago

                    Vocabulary creates tone and "the industrial animal torture industries" is far from a neutral phrase. If you can't read tone it's a skill issue.

                    They are asking why industrial animal torture is not upsetting compared to killing a pet dog because they are equivocating the two.

                    "Pet" is not purely a label, it is the social relationship between pets and their families. That is what is so upsetting to people. Equivocating would make more sense if she had a dog-meat farm, because those aren't pets. Horrible, but only as horrible as any other blood farm that raises animals for slaughter. Killing pets, though, is clearly different. That's killing family. People are going to get upset about it.

          • JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair]
            hexbear
            4
            2 months ago

            is special about all of them

            this is about interrogating why people think pets are different from livestock, something common to mammals (and talking about desires gets a little weird, but anyway) isn't going to be the difference between them.

            You're explicitly acknowledging anything could be a pet that is meaningful to someone but some just get the shit end of the stick and are killed after a lifetime of torture instead

            yes. although to slide in part of another comment i saw pop up while typing this

            If it's purely the label of pet, we get back to the comment [queermunist] replied to

            i think it's the social relation itself rather than the label being a talisman. We even attach to inanimate objects the same way sometimes.

      • VILenin [he/him]M
        hexbear
        8
        2 months ago

        Why should I interrogate my own beliefs when I can completely ignore them and make a bad faith argument turning it into a personal attack on my fragile carnist ego?

        Ask me why I think the systemic mass slaughter of sentient beings is ok? How fucking dare you? Have you considered culture you stupid vegan? Stop antagonizing me! frothingfash

        • JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair]
          hexbear
          14
          2 months ago

          Why should I interrogate my own beliefs when I can completely ignore them and make a bad faith argument turning it into a personal attack on my fragile carnist ego?

          Ask me why I think the systemic mass slaughter of sentient beings is ok? How fucking dare you? Have you considered culture you stupid vegan? Stop antagonizing me! frothingfash

          could you show me where i called someone stupid? there's plenty of real things to be mad about you don't have to make up more.

          • VILenin [he/him]M
            hexbear
            7
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            Ancient carnist strategy: distract from the actual issue, make it about yourself.

            Another bad faith comment. I know you’re well aware of the bullshit you’re spewing but for all the toddlers out there learning how communication works, you don’t have to quote someone verbatim when caricaturing them.

            there's plenty of real things to be mad about

            I know the mass slaughter of sentient beings is a nothingburger to you but that doesn’t mean it is to everyone else :)

            you don't have to make up more.

            Indeed, it would be hard to make up something more depraved.

            But now you’ve upset me, responding to you made me forget about the oven and now my broiled dog is ruined. Please don’t antagonize me with your western morality btw.

    • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]
      hexbear
      6
      2 months ago

      That’s tautological though, they’re asking us to interrogate why we have a cultural importance and pets statistically and citing the cultural importance itself as the only reason doesn’t work

      • JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair]
        hexbear
        16
        2 months ago

        it's tautological because that's all there is. There are historical reasons why some animals made better draft animals or whatever than others, but our pets are special to us because we adopt them. You could adopt a cow or a shark too, we just usually don't because of the logistics.