Most people in animal husbandry would argue that artificial insemination is better for the health of the animals involved, for both the cow and the bull. Animals don't really follow the concept of consent, and the cow or bull could get seriously injured, or worse, otherwise.
Though the argument could easily be made that it would be better not to breed cows at all, and that would be the best health outcome.
Yes, as a vegan, my stance is we should stop breeding cows.
By the way, I've heard the argument "oh, it's better for the health of the animal to do ... whatever" in quite a few contexts that I think are just plain wrong. Such as, for example, farrowing crates. Apparently it's "better" for the sow and her babies if she is stuck in a crate so small she can't even turn around. I don't buy that farrowing crates are good for pigs and I don't buy that artificial insemination is good for cows either.
Hey we're not better people, we just have better habits. Nothing intrinsic. I encourage you to try and reduce your animal consumption. I'd learned about farmed animal suffering years before, and when I went vegetarian it was a weight off my shoulders that I hadn't even realized was there.
I don't think you do, but I think it's a contradiction to be sure. I'll say that I think it's fine to eat animals, but also I think it's not okay to have sex with them, and somewhere in between those two beliefs is artificial insemination of pigs and in practical terms that's a practice that just makes me shrug, so I suppose that my belief that it's not okay to have sex with animals is weaker than my belief that it's fine to eat them.
Let's back up to square one. Is it wrong to perform sex acts on a non-human animal? If so, why? You're talking too abstractly so I'd really like to just get something concrete to discuss with.
i don't think that's square one, i think square one is further back.
Is a doctor (or medical technician or whatever job title idc) doing the last step of IVF performing a sex act on or with the patient? the adult patient consents of course, but i don't think anyone thinks a doctor with a "turkey baster" is doing a sex act. I would say "preforming sex acts on..." isn't applicable to animal husbandry in the way i understand all those words.
i'm not trying to debate bro here, it's just not possible to have a conversation if we think words mean different things... which gets back to my previous point about vegans using a wider "bestiality" than the rest of us, apparently including Kinsey.
And yet instead of answering the question you went off on a tangent about IVF.
I didn't ask you your definition of sex act or say anything about doctors or animal husbandry. The question is VERY simple. Is it, or is it not, wrong to perform sex acts on a non-human animal?
I didn't ask you your definition of sex act or say anything about doctors or animal husbandry. The question is VERY simple. Is it, or is it not, wrong to perform sex acts on a non-human animal?
there's no point in my answering your question if we don't agree what counts as a sex act. we've already established that vegans have a broader meaning of bestiality than the rest of us so now we need to be careful about shit like whether a grill is a barbecue or a broiler.
I say "no" then you say artificial insemination is a sex act.
I say "no" then you say artificial insemination is a sex act.
See, this is the debate bro thing I'm talking about. You're trying to "win" the argument by not "falling for my trap." But there's no trap. You're completely off the mark about where I was going with this, and you'll never find out because you're scared of falling for it. Because to you, "winning" the debate is way more important than actually having a discussion. That's why you were speaking in abstracts like I pointed out when I first replied to you, because if you say anything concrete then there's a possibility for people to question your logic and pose hard questions that you aren't sure how to answer.
Not sure why I'm jumping in here, but you are being completely incoherent. You're saying people are saying things when they have said nothing of the kind. You are making weird moralistic arguments that not only have no material basis but make no sense.
I'm not the person you were responding to, but ok, let's do as you say, do the same with incest. Incest is not wrong because it is "against nature" (what does that even mean? Incest happens as part of the natural world and it is well-documented in humans as well as other species, even humans' closest genetic relatives). Incest is only wrong because of the harm it does to people being sexually exploited due to an almost inevitable power dynamic or because of the harm it does via potential genetic defects if there are offspring. It is not wrong because it seems "ew gross, sex with family yuck!"
Its wrong because you are having sexual intercourse with an animal, which is something against nature and just wrong in literally every way.
So you're really doing the tautology that "it's wrong because it's just wrong" argument? What is "nature" and how is this "against it"? "Ew, gross, that's just wrong!" may be a valid reaction but it's not engaging the question of why, and it's not addressing any of the arguments that have been made, but it's like you keep pretending that you are engaging the question and addressing what's been said. It's not wrong to have a gut reaction and your gut reaction may not even be wrong, but don't pretend that the problem is other user's "ideological dung" or some batshit reasoning on their part.
Its one of the true taboos of humanity, you don't do it.
People do do it, once again, it's been documented in countless human societies. If it IS wrong (and I agree that it is wrong) it is wrong for the same reasons that artificial insemination of animals to produce more of them as food for humans is also wrong. The only way this would not be the case is by vague, meaningless phrases like "against nature" and "just wrong." Artificial insemination, (which is forced pregnancy and (cw) the r-word) is much more "against nature" than members of different species having sex with each other, which once again, happens quite a bit in nonhuman animals and there is something like 3% and 8% of women and men, respectively, who have had sexual interaction with animals, including penetrative sex.
I swear I thought there were people with more than just vibes based politics here, but this shows that I will have to block a few fools in order to experience the site without crawling through ideological dung.
You are the one going off vibes-based reasoning here, which has been made very clear repeatedly by almost everyone who has responded to you. Block away, I have to do the same at times. But you're not doing so because the people you're blocking have bad arguments or are "vibes-based" or are even ideological (at least beyond the way that everything is ideological). You're doing so because their valid arguments are putting into question the things you have always casually accepted as normal and ok.
As for crawling through ideological dung, everyone needs to be extra careful when they think they smell other's. Some people don't recognize when they're just actually just smelling their own.
incest is bad and wrong because of power dynamics and grooming done to people. reproductive incest is also bad because of the genetics stuff but incest taboo predates that and historical people had a bunch of weird ideas about bloodlines which gave us the hapsburg chin.
the vibe against incest comes from the westermarck effect and social norms, but e.g. first cousin pairings are iirc genetically safe if you don't do several generations of them and such marriages are legal in a lot of places.
additionally, once in a while siblings separated at birth accidentally end up in incestuous relationships without knowing. there was a case in germany maybe 10-15 years ago and i've forgotten most of the details but i think they got sterilized after finding out and were allowed to stay together since there was no power imbalance and no risk of genetic whatever.
No its wrong because it is morally and completely wrong, with various mental and physically ill issues stemming from it.
Its wrong because you are having sexual intercourse with an animal, which is something against nature and just wrong in literally every way.
A vegan can easily give a good explanation as to why it's wrong: because an animal cannot give informed consent, gains no benefit from it, and may very well be harmed by it. Carnists, of course, fundamentally do not care about the wellbeing of animals or what they consent to (animals don't consent to being hacked apart and they definitely don't benefit from it), so all they can do is flail their arms and say "it's wrong because it's wrong."
You are flailing and making a fool of yourself because you cannot reconcile your opposition to bestiality with your support for funneling animals into industrial killing chambers.
You answered a question I didn't ask you, and your answer was utterly incoherent. Not only was I not interested in having this discussion with you (I don't know you, your stance, or the meaning of anything you've ever said) but I don't understand your answer even if I was. There are so many things incoherent about your response that it would be difficult for me to even break them all down. That's why I've issued a blanket "what the fuck" and waited for you to say something that makes sense.
I really don't think I'm interested. You're clearly operating on some number of dimensions that I don't have access to. I have some kind of "compatriot" somewhere that you're convinced I'm "feigning ignorance" of. I don't think you and I are operating on the same plane of existence.
You have to take up a finger-wagging "how dare you" stance and strawman my argument because you can't offer any coherent defense of your actions
I'd tell you to watch Dominion, but you clearly have no interest in examining the reality behind your decisions
Honestly if you'd just said "Yes, I know my decision to eat meat is predicated on horrific suffering on an industrial scale, but I don't care" I'd have at least a modicum of respect for you for acknowledging the choice you're making rather than acting like other people are beyond the pale for bringing it up
Honestly if you'd just said "Yes, I know my decision to eat meat is predicated on horrific suffering on an industrial scale, but I don't care" I'd have at least a modicum of respect for you for acknowledging the choice you're making rather than acting like other people are beyond the pale for bringing it up
oh my god you fucking pieces of shit can't get it through your head that not everyone who doesn't like you isnt the same copy paste reactionary. Get a grip and get a life.
yes, you do. Your diet requires humans to breed animals on factory farms: collecting semen from male animals and inseminating female animals. Those actions are mechanically the exact same thing as people committing the crime of bestiality. This is why most bestiality laws (and animal cruelty laws, for that matter) read something like "you can't fuck or mutilate animals, unless it's for a farming purpose".
This is why most bestiality laws (and animal cruelty laws, for that matter) read something like "you can't fuck or mutilate animals, unless it's for a farming purpose".
Well OBVIOUSLY that doesn't count because flails arms wildly
Getting sexual gratification from an act is not the crime here lol. Is this protestant brainworms or something? If now on starting tomorrow via some magical means, all humans started orgasming after biting into a steak, would it then now suddenly be morally wrong to consume steak?
The thread was somebody defending insemination of livestock, or at least trying to draw a distinction between bestiality and insemination because it is done to farm them rather than for sexual pleasure. My argument is that your intentions do not matter. Is the harm mitigated because you weren't horny while doing it? Why is it more important to view the crime through the lens of the perpetrator rather than through the lens of the victim in this scenario? It's a distinction without a difference.
I'm asking you what the fuck you're talking about. You keep saying "these arguments are online, this parallel doesn't match, this is vulgar materialism and vulgar idealism" but you never offer an argument or explanation why. Just vaguely gesturing that you disagree with what's being said. From the very first response where I asked if it would be suddenly wrong to consume a steak only if it sexually gratified you, to which you simply said "This makes no sense". But it does make sense. It makes perfect sense. You know what question is being asked. Your feigning confusion because you don't want to answer but you were compelled to reply anyway because you took exception to the gist of my argument.
For the love of god make a statement or take a position. Make a substantive claim or something. Or at least explain
I would argue there is a distinction between the two because bestiality is performing these actions for sexual gratification. Your overall point I do agree with, that the way we interact with animals in factory farms is sexual violence, but it is a different sort
Sure and that's how the law categorizes it: your "purpose" when committing the act is what matters. I personally think the particular categorization of different purposes (so that economic reward is valid, gustatory sensual pleasure is valid, and sexual/sensual or sadistic pleasure is not) is arbitrary in a nakedly self-serving way. I have never seen any moral reasoning that one specific kind of sensory pleasure should justify sexual contact with animals but another should not; carnists usually fall back to arguments that eating animals is one way to satisfy a physical need. (Such arguments are of course inadequate to explain harm done simply to make food taste better, like restricting animal movement or gavage). In general we do give weight to purposes when people commit acts that they thought were good, or did not expect to result in negative consequences, so in theory intention is a valid thing to consider.
I personally reject the "we didn't explicitly want this subset of results, but we took this action knowing full well it was going to cause these results" liberal apologia that we see for military collateral damage and such.
I don't think all of this is wrong, but there's a blending between discussing concepts and actual practice. "Is it wrong to harm animals for pleasure?" is a useful question, but separate from "is it wrong to fuck animals for sexual pleasure?" and both of these are distinct from "can certain kinds of pleasure justify harm generally?" I don't think you're necessarily wrong to put them together because you are making a good point about complicity in atrocity, but it is not the kind of conversation I want to have.
mhm. all reasonably different questions. I hew consequentialist, so I don't really see why one's state of mind (anticipating gustatory pleasure or experiencing sexual pleasure) while fucking the animal makes a moral difference. I think that the distinction you see between the first two questions is largely informed by custom: in pre-modern times a function of what was "normal", and today a byproduct of how industrial agriculture sanitizes the process of raising animals for food to give us neat blocks of commodity on the grocery store shelf.
Tangential but you might find Why I'm Not a Negative Utilitarian interesting. I was gonna write something about utilitarian view of pleasure types but it's not really important.
Good luck in the posting war against anti-intellectualism. Honestly I'm kind of surprised by the comments here. Since the issue affects almost nobody directly I feel like everybody should be able to dispassionately debate-bro about it even though it's taboo.
Honestly could apply to the majority of comments in this thread. People here have seriously lost touch with reality with some of the arguments in here. Reading this makes me want to never comment on general hexbear again. No one should seriously debate what Peter Singer says. He's been a crank for longer than I've been alive.
For myself, I think, where else would I be corrected? If I'm really up in the air with my thoughts, I'd appreciate and hope comrades could correct or work with me to educate and change my beliefs.
Genuinely curious, how do vegans think of indigenous diets and their consumption of animals? Many of the critiques I see here apply to industrial consumption of meat.
And how would you respond to the argument that vegans are propagating an unscientific belief in the supercession of nature by humans in a way similar to Christian dominionists, that sees us as unique actors capable of transcending a mutual relationship with nature whereas our inferiors (all other animals that eat animals) are incapable of moral action?
Also I've heard people argue that consuming plants also causes them distress and should be avoided. Would you reply to that in any way or is it silly?
Not here to argue, genuinely just want to know how vegans think about these questions. If you want.
The plants thing is entirely silly and based off a headline that says "grass screams when you cut it" and people took that literally. There's a big difference between "releases chemicals when disturbed" and "exists as a being with ganglia, nerves, a functioning brain, and everything else we understand to facilitate the experience of suffering". The ions in my phone battery vibrate when its charging, but I don't say that its excited.
I've seen vegans disagree on the matter of indigenous diets. I'm not sure what most agree on, but I can say vegans are way more focused on ending animal-eating in the context of industrialized society.
Not a vegan but we crossed that bridge the moment agriculture was invented. As for animals incapable of moral actions... I have yet to see a vegan seriously propose the end of natural predation. You're fighting ghosts or I'm misunderstanding.
You can check the r/vegan threads from when that was making the rounds. Plants don't feel pain. Even if they did, you'd cause more beings pain eating meat cause animals eat plants.
I have yet to see a vegan seriously propose the end of natural predation
This is what they were saying, humans eating animals is natural predation, or at least could be in a deindustrial setting, like wolves eating deer or whatever. Vegans, they were suggesting, believe in a very Eurocentric/Christian way that humans aren't animals when our engagement with them as predators is as natural as predators eating us. As long as you minimize the industrialized suffering, that is, they were envisioning small holder communal farming and hunting as their counterexample.
We won't "return to nature" that would be fascist. Humans will not eat "natural" food. Humans eat industrial food. Thinking "but what if they wouldn't" is fictional.
I think you can agree to the idea that humans are not superior to animals in any meaningful capacity and that, like other animals, have their own novel tendencies (like the ability to create food which has no animal involvement, as some worker ants like those of Harpegnathos saltator can turn into queen ants when there is none can be a novel tendency)
Indigenous people get trotted put in defense against veganism all the time. The defense treats indigeneity like some kind of monolith, it's very off-putting.
Indigenous people in the US are vegan more often than white people, same with most BIPOC people. I would recommend asking a vegan indigenous person these questions, or even just imagine yourself doing so, and consider whether it comes across as stereotyping.
Anyways, vegans are generally not focused on going after indigenous diets. They're focused on the vast majority of people who consume animal products because they were simply socialized to do so and never had to question it growing up, but have no sacred attachment to their sloppy joes or slightly more durable shoes or whatever. It's just food or products consumed out of habit and folks pitch an absolute fit when you point out that, say, it's a contradiction to say you're an animal lover because you love your pets but you go absolutely apeshit on someone that asks you to not eat or otherwise consume (entirely as a luxury, a form of entertainment) pigs that are just as smart and cuddly.
Industrialized agriculture produces sufficient vegan food such that animal products are no longer necessary dietarily. Same for materials and other animal products. The question is whether it continues to be acceptable to harm animals because the products have entertainment value.
I think for most people the answer is pretty obviously no, but they reeeeaally don't want to self-crit, so they fight for a while first.
Yeah it does kinda seem like weaponizing indigenous experiences to defend a boutique consumer choice. I think he aspires to hunter-gathering or considers it to be the superior way for humans to live, which I think contributes to trying this approach.
He also said he would starve to death if the revolution happened and meat was abolished. I guess vegetables are really that bad to some people.
plants can suffer but it's not an argument against veganism since every animal also eats plants, you are killing more plants (by like 10-100x) by eating meat
Factory farming has not been around as long as homo sapiens. Hell, animal husbandry and domestication of animals has only been around for at most 15000 years. Sure we've been eating meat for millions of years, but aside from some edge cases (arctic peoples are the first example that comes to mind) meat made up very little of the average diet.
If you're still driving predators off their kills so you can scavenge some meat or persistence hunting antelope then you can say you're doing the same thing that we've been doing since before we were homo sapiens sure, but I would argue even the modern practice of raising animals as opposed to hunting drastically alters the amount of animal products we consume.
Apologies for the rambling post but early hominid diets is something that interests me deeply
I'm also someone who isn't vegan (yet) but fully admit they're basically always right
it's been over a decade, and maybe the laws were changed in response, but i remember some news story about specifically necrobestiality not being illegal in several US states.
![[CW: bestiality] Professional "moral philosopher" ponders whether it's OK to sexually assault animals, featuring AI art](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/f26b2dce-7254-4537-acd1-5de623b591e0.png){kind=link}
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Most people in animal husbandry would argue that artificial insemination is better for the health of the animals involved, for both the cow and the bull. Animals don't really follow the concept of consent, and the cow or bull could get seriously injured, or worse, otherwise.
Though the argument could easily be made that it would be better not to breed cows at all, and that would be the best health outcome.
Yes, as a vegan, my stance is we should stop breeding cows.
By the way, I've heard the argument "oh, it's better for the health of the animal to do ... whatever" in quite a few contexts that I think are just plain wrong. Such as, for example, farrowing crates. Apparently it's "better" for the sow and her babies if she is stuck in a crate so small she can't even turn around. I don't buy that farrowing crates are good for pigs and I don't buy that artificial insemination is good for cows either.
Always have admitted vegans are correct and much better people than I am
Hey we're not better people, we just have better habits. Nothing intrinsic. I encourage you to try and reduce your animal consumption. I'd learned about farmed animal suffering years before, and when I went vegetarian it was a weight off my shoulders that I hadn't even realized was there.
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I will but only if the parent commenter I replied to also moves their self flagellation from here with me
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huh what the hell does this bullshit have to do with anything
so carnists also condone bestiality?
what the fuck
What fucking solar system are you living in
Functionally, yes. Do you know how the beef industry keeps getting more cows?
what the actual fuck is wrong with you
god yall are fucking gahhhh
WHAT THE FUCK
hexbear is great but this is a very bad moment from them
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so that means I fucking support this weirdo who wants to fuck animals? What the fuck does this have to do with this?
fucking weirdos
I don't think you do, but I think it's a contradiction to be sure. I'll say that I think it's fine to eat animals, but also I think it's not okay to have sex with them, and somewhere in between those two beliefs is artificial insemination of pigs and in practical terms that's a practice that just makes me shrug, so I suppose that my belief that it's not okay to have sex with animals is weaker than my belief that it's fine to eat them.
i have only ever heard vegans extend the definition of bestiality to include actions that are not for the sexual gratification of the person.
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because your use of terminology is subcultural and the rest of us don't think it applies to the situation
Let's back up to square one. Is it wrong to perform sex acts on a non-human animal? If so, why? You're talking too abstractly so I'd really like to just get something concrete to discuss with.
i don't think that's square one, i think square one is further back.
Is a doctor (or medical technician or whatever job title idc) doing the last step of IVF performing a sex act on or with the patient? the adult patient consents of course, but i don't think anyone thinks a doctor with a "turkey baster" is doing a sex act. I would say "preforming sex acts on..." isn't applicable to animal husbandry in the way i understand all those words.
i'm not trying to debate bro here, it's just not possible to have a conversation if we think words mean different things... which gets back to my previous point about vegans using a wider "bestiality" than the rest of us, apparently including Kinsey.
And yet instead of answering the question you went off on a tangent about IVF.
I didn't ask you your definition of sex act or say anything about doctors or animal husbandry. The question is VERY simple. Is it, or is it not, wrong to perform sex acts on a non-human animal?
there's no point in my answering your question if we don't agree what counts as a sex act. we've already established that vegans have a broader meaning of bestiality than the rest of us so now we need to be careful about shit like whether a grill is a barbecue or a broiler.
I say "no" then you say
artificial insemination is a sex act.
See, this is the debate bro thing I'm talking about. You're trying to "win" the argument by not "falling for my trap." But there's no trap. You're completely off the mark about where I was going with this, and you'll never find out because you're scared of falling for it. Because to you, "winning" the debate is way more important than actually having a discussion. That's why you were speaking in abstracts like I pointed out when I first replied to you, because if you say anything concrete then there's a possibility for people to question your logic and pose hard questions that you aren't sure how to answer.
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What? When did I do that? When did I even state any logic at all? I asked someone to explain their logic.
I didn't argue anything. I asked someone else to explain the reason that they are against that thing, so that I can better understand their position.
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Literally what the hell are you talking about
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is that why it's wrong? is it really?
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"against nature" and "just wrong" is not vibes based, got it
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Not sure why I'm jumping in here, but you are being completely incoherent. You're saying people are saying things when they have said nothing of the kind. You are making weird moralistic arguments that not only have no material basis but make no sense.
I'm not the person you were responding to, but ok, let's do as you say, do the same with incest. Incest is not wrong because it is "against nature" (what does that even mean? Incest happens as part of the natural world and it is well-documented in humans as well as other species, even humans' closest genetic relatives). Incest is only wrong because of the harm it does to people being sexually exploited due to an almost inevitable power dynamic or because of the harm it does via potential genetic defects if there are offspring. It is not wrong because it seems "ew gross, sex with family yuck!"
So you're really doing the tautology that "it's wrong because it's just wrong" argument? What is "nature" and how is this "against it"? "Ew, gross, that's just wrong!" may be a valid reaction but it's not engaging the question of why, and it's not addressing any of the arguments that have been made, but it's like you keep pretending that you are engaging the question and addressing what's been said. It's not wrong to have a gut reaction and your gut reaction may not even be wrong, but don't pretend that the problem is other user's "ideological dung" or some batshit reasoning on their part.
People do do it, once again, it's been documented in countless human societies. If it IS wrong (and I agree that it is wrong) it is wrong for the same reasons that artificial insemination of animals to produce more of them as food for humans is also wrong. The only way this would not be the case is by vague, meaningless phrases like "against nature" and "just wrong." Artificial insemination, (which is forced pregnancy and (cw) the r-word) is much more "against nature" than members of different species having sex with each other, which once again, happens quite a bit in nonhuman animals and there is something like 3% and 8% of women and men, respectively, who have had sexual interaction with animals, including penetrative sex.
You are the one going off vibes-based reasoning here, which has been made very clear repeatedly by almost everyone who has responded to you. Block away, I have to do the same at times. But you're not doing so because the people you're blocking have bad arguments or are "vibes-based" or are even ideological (at least beyond the way that everything is ideological). You're doing so because their valid arguments are putting into question the things you have always casually accepted as normal and ok.
As for crawling through ideological dung, everyone needs to be extra careful when they think they smell other's. Some people don't recognize when they're just actually just smelling their own.
incest is bad and wrong because of power dynamics and grooming done to people. reproductive incest is also bad because of the genetics stuff but incest taboo predates that and historical people had a bunch of weird ideas about bloodlines which gave us the hapsburg chin.
the vibe against incest comes from the westermarck effect and social norms, but e.g. first cousin pairings are iirc genetically safe if you don't do several generations of them and such marriages are legal in a lot of places.
additionally, once in a while siblings separated at birth accidentally end up in incestuous relationships without knowing. there was a case in germany maybe 10-15 years ago and i've forgotten most of the details but i think they got sterilized after finding out and were allowed to stay together since there was no power imbalance and no risk of genetic whatever.
A vegan can easily give a good explanation as to why it's wrong: because an animal cannot give informed consent, gains no benefit from it, and may very well be harmed by it. Carnists, of course, fundamentally do not care about the wellbeing of animals or what they consent to (animals don't consent to being hacked apart and they definitely don't benefit from it), so all they can do is flail their arms and say "it's wrong because it's wrong."
You are flailing and making a fool of yourself because you cannot reconcile your opposition to bestiality with your support for funneling animals into industrial killing chambers.
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Who is my compatriot????
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I'm not mocking anything, I'm asking you to explain what this word salad you're spewing means
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You answered a question I didn't ask you, and your answer was utterly incoherent. Not only was I not interested in having this discussion with you (I don't know you, your stance, or the meaning of anything you've ever said) but I don't understand your answer even if I was. There are so many things incoherent about your response that it would be difficult for me to even break them all down. That's why I've issued a blanket "what the fuck" and waited for you to say something that makes sense.
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I really don't think I'm interested. You're clearly operating on some number of dimensions that I don't have access to. I have some kind of "compatriot" somewhere that you're convinced I'm "feigning ignorance" of. I don't think you and I are operating on the same plane of existence.
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Then why are you the one with mod removed comments and the one getting upvote ratioed? @booty is actually making sense.
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Yes, how dare I point out the material realities that make your consumption choices possible
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You have to take up a finger-wagging "how dare you" stance and strawman my argument because you can't offer any coherent defense of your actions
I'd tell you to watch Dominion, but you clearly have no interest in examining the reality behind your decisions
Honestly if you'd just said "Yes, I know my decision to eat meat is predicated on horrific suffering on an industrial scale, but I don't care" I'd have at least a modicum of respect for you for acknowledging the choice you're making rather than acting like other people are beyond the pale for bringing it up
oh shut the fuck up you nerd
nah, this ones on you sister
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There are two constants on hexbear.net, vegans will advocate for animals, and Catradora_Stalinism will [removed by mod]
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Hi I eat meat but yo calm down
I think ill just block em and go back, yeah
Fucking finally
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They can also take the hint that they aren't welcome here and fuck off. Enjoy your next ban
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you're no comrade of mine, enjoy your next ban
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yes, you do. Your diet requires humans to breed animals on factory farms: collecting semen from male animals and inseminating female animals. Those actions are mechanically the exact same thing as people committing the crime of bestiality. This is why most bestiality laws (and animal cruelty laws, for that matter) read something like "you can't fuck or mutilate animals, unless it's for a farming purpose".
Don't eat em, don't fuck em.
Well OBVIOUSLY that doesn't count because flails arms wildly
i don't get sexual gratification from my food
Carnists stop misrepresenting our arguments challenge (rating: impossible)
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Carnists are werechuds and vegans are their full moon
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Getting sexual gratification from an act is not the crime here lol. Is this protestant brainworms or something? If now on starting tomorrow via some magical means, all humans started orgasming after biting into a steak, would it then now suddenly be morally wrong to consume steak?
no it's the common usage of "bestiality." outside of vegan standard english i guess.
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Find a better argument other than "Torturing and exploiting animals is okay as long as you're not horny while doing it"
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The thread was somebody defending insemination of livestock, or at least trying to draw a distinction between bestiality and insemination because it is done to farm them rather than for sexual pleasure. My argument is that your intentions do not matter. Is the harm mitigated because you weren't horny while doing it? Why is it more important to view the crime through the lens of the perpetrator rather than through the lens of the victim in this scenario? It's a distinction without a difference.
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I'm asking you what the fuck you're talking about. You keep saying "these arguments are online, this parallel doesn't match, this is vulgar materialism and vulgar idealism" but you never offer an argument or explanation why. Just vaguely gesturing that you disagree with what's being said. From the very first response where I asked if it would be suddenly wrong to consume a steak only if it sexually gratified you, to which you simply said "This makes no sense". But it does make sense. It makes perfect sense. You know what question is being asked. Your feigning confusion because you don't want to answer but you were compelled to reply anyway because you took exception to the gist of my argument.
For the love of god make a statement or take a position. Make a substantive claim or something. Or at least explain
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I would argue there is a distinction between the two because bestiality is performing these actions for sexual gratification. Your overall point I do agree with, that the way we interact with animals in factory farms is sexual violence, but it is a different sort
Sure and that's how the law categorizes it: your "purpose" when committing the act is what matters. I personally think the particular categorization of different purposes (so that economic reward is valid, gustatory sensual pleasure is valid, and sexual/sensual or sadistic pleasure is not) is arbitrary in a nakedly self-serving way. I have never seen any moral reasoning that one specific kind of sensory pleasure should justify sexual contact with animals but another should not; carnists usually fall back to arguments that eating animals is one way to satisfy a physical need. (Such arguments are of course inadequate to explain harm done simply to make food taste better, like restricting animal movement or gavage). In general we do give weight to purposes when people commit acts that they thought were good, or did not expect to result in negative consequences, so in theory intention is a valid thing to consider.
I personally reject the "we didn't explicitly want this subset of results, but we took this action knowing full well it was going to cause these results" liberal apologia that we see for military collateral damage and such.
I don't think all of this is wrong, but there's a blending between discussing concepts and actual practice. "Is it wrong to harm animals for pleasure?" is a useful question, but separate from "is it wrong to fuck animals for sexual pleasure?" and both of these are distinct from "can certain kinds of pleasure justify harm generally?" I don't think you're necessarily wrong to put them together because you are making a good point about complicity in atrocity, but it is not the kind of conversation I want to have.
mhm. all reasonably different questions. I hew consequentialist, so I don't really see why one's state of mind (anticipating gustatory pleasure or experiencing sexual pleasure) while fucking the animal makes a moral difference. I think that the distinction you see between the first two questions is largely informed by custom: in pre-modern times a function of what was "normal", and today a byproduct of how industrial agriculture sanitizes the process of raising animals for food to give us neat blocks of commodity on the grocery store shelf.
Tangential but you might find Why I'm Not a Negative Utilitarian interesting. I was gonna write something about utilitarian view of pleasure types but it's not really important.
Good luck in the posting war against anti-intellectualism. Honestly I'm kind of surprised by the comments here. Since the issue affects almost nobody directly I feel like everybody should be able to dispassionately debate-bro about it even though it's taboo.
hexbear moment
Honestly could apply to the majority of comments in this thread. People here have seriously lost touch with reality with some of the arguments in here. Reading this makes me want to never comment on general hexbear again. No one should seriously debate what Peter Singer says. He's been a crank for longer than I've been alive.
I think he should be dunked on, but I don't like the idea we shouldn't question why things we think are wrong are wrong.
For myself, I think, where else would I be corrected? If I'm really up in the air with my thoughts, I'd appreciate and hope comrades could correct or work with me to educate and change my beliefs.
Genuinely curious, how do vegans think of indigenous diets and their consumption of animals? Many of the critiques I see here apply to industrial consumption of meat.
And how would you respond to the argument that vegans are propagating an unscientific belief in the supercession of nature by humans in a way similar to Christian dominionists, that sees us as unique actors capable of transcending a mutual relationship with nature whereas our inferiors (all other animals that eat animals) are incapable of moral action?
Also I've heard people argue that consuming plants also causes them distress and should be avoided. Would you reply to that in any way or is it silly?
Not here to argue, genuinely just want to know how vegans think about these questions. If you want.
The plants thing is entirely silly and based off a headline that says "grass screams when you cut it" and people took that literally. There's a big difference between "releases chemicals when disturbed" and "exists as a being with ganglia, nerves, a functioning brain, and everything else we understand to facilitate the experience of suffering". The ions in my phone battery vibrate when its charging, but I don't say that its excited.
I've seen vegans disagree on the matter of indigenous diets. I'm not sure what most agree on, but I can say vegans are way more focused on ending animal-eating in the context of industrialized society.
Not a vegan but we crossed that bridge the moment agriculture was invented. As for animals incapable of moral actions... I have yet to see a vegan seriously propose the end of natural predation. You're fighting ghosts or I'm misunderstanding.
You can check the r/vegan threads from when that was making the rounds. Plants don't feel pain. Even if they did, you'd cause more beings pain eating meat cause animals eat plants.
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When the last vegan subthread dies on this website, Yog-Sothoth emerges from their million year slumber to devour our world.
This is what they were saying, humans eating animals is natural predation, or at least could be in a deindustrial setting, like wolves eating deer or whatever. Vegans, they were suggesting, believe in a very Eurocentric/Christian way that humans aren't animals when our engagement with them as predators is as natural as predators eating us. As long as you minimize the industrialized suffering, that is, they were envisioning small holder communal farming and hunting as their counterexample.
We won't "return to nature" that would be fascist. Humans will not eat "natural" food. Humans eat industrial food. Thinking "but what if they wouldn't" is fictional.
Okay, that ship has sailed in other words. I think he would just object, he's kinda a Graeber guy, but that makes sense to me. Thanks!
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Dunno, I told people I was curious and wasn't here to argue, I could argue anyway but I'm trying to engage in a way that encourages folks to respond.
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I think you can agree to the idea that humans are not superior to animals in any meaningful capacity and that, like other animals, have their own novel tendencies (like the ability to create food which has no animal involvement, as some worker ants like those of Harpegnathos saltator can turn into queen ants when there is none can be a novel tendency)
Brian Tomasik considers it, but he's a wingnut. There is very little literature on wild animal suffering.
Indigenous people get trotted put in defense against veganism all the time. The defense treats indigeneity like some kind of monolith, it's very off-putting.
Indigenous people in the US are vegan more often than white people, same with most BIPOC people. I would recommend asking a vegan indigenous person these questions, or even just imagine yourself doing so, and consider whether it comes across as stereotyping.
Anyways, vegans are generally not focused on going after indigenous diets. They're focused on the vast majority of people who consume animal products because they were simply socialized to do so and never had to question it growing up, but have no sacred attachment to their sloppy joes or slightly more durable shoes or whatever. It's just food or products consumed out of habit and folks pitch an absolute fit when you point out that, say, it's a contradiction to say you're an animal lover because you love your pets but you go absolutely apeshit on someone that asks you to not eat or otherwise consume (entirely as a luxury, a form of entertainment) pigs that are just as smart and cuddly.
Industrialized agriculture produces sufficient vegan food such that animal products are no longer necessary dietarily. Same for materials and other animal products. The question is whether it continues to be acceptable to harm animals because the products have entertainment value.
I think for most people the answer is pretty obviously no, but they reeeeaally don't want to self-crit, so they fight for a while first.
Yeah it does kinda seem like weaponizing indigenous experiences to defend a boutique consumer choice. I think he aspires to hunter-gathering or considers it to be the superior way for humans to live, which I think contributes to trying this approach.
He also said he would starve to death if the revolution happened and meat was abolished. I guess vegetables are really that bad to some people.
plants can suffer but it's not an argument against veganism since every animal also eats plants, you are killing more plants (by like 10-100x) by eating meat
oh just morally bankrupt as satan because we've been doing THE SAME THING AS ALL FUCKING HUMANS SINCE BEFORE WE WERE HOMO SAPIENS YOU HAOLE ASS BITCH
Factory farming has not been around as long as homo sapiens. Hell, animal husbandry and domestication of animals has only been around for at most 15000 years. Sure we've been eating meat for millions of years, but aside from some edge cases (arctic peoples are the first example that comes to mind) meat made up very little of the average diet.
If you're still driving predators off their kills so you can scavenge some meat or persistence hunting antelope then you can say you're doing the same thing that we've been doing since before we were homo sapiens sure, but I would argue even the modern practice of raising animals as opposed to hunting drastically alters the amount of animal products we consume.
Apologies for the rambling post but early hominid diets is something that interests me deeply
I'm also someone who isn't vegan (yet) but fully admit they're basically always right
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it's been over a decade, and maybe the laws were changed in response, but i remember some news story about specifically necrobestiality not being illegal in several US states.
Perhaps the assumption was that you shouldn't need a law against intercourse with animal corpses? Because holy fuck
yeah you have to think of something to ban it.
TW: bestiality, honestly just some really rotten humor
Technically the rules don't band him fucking a dog's corpse on the basketball court
something awful airbud fanfiction be like:
that's what I was going for
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