I really need an explanation on this since people are not shutting up for months that EU is apparently putting insects in food for the people to be forced to buy and feed on like survivalists in jungle would? I know that EU is completely unhinged nazi hellhole and whatnot, but to this extent to feed themselves on bugs? I don't think so.
Can somebody please tell me about this, they are not shutting up about it on social media for months?!
From what I can tell insects are sometimes looked at as an alternative to meat. It's nutritious and is far less damaging to the environment. I don't think it's a weird thing to do, apart from ignoring various plant based meat alternatives.
Now, you have some weird people out there, claiming we should all eat bugs or purposely sending pictures of whole grasshoppers for people to eat. I think that's partly to blame by the meat lobby or just some racist bullshit about Africans eating bugs.
I don't think bug burgers are going to win against plant based ones or lab grown meat if it ever gets that far. Not that I have to worry about that, I don't eat meat in the first place.
Wait, the "other cultures eat bugs" thing is a racist stereotype?
Everyone eats bugs already though. The acceptable limit of bugs in food is greater than zero.
It is just a right wing meme about the future hell scape created by their scapegoat and totally not by capitalism.
I checked an international english exam (hippo english olympiad) who's participants are mostly from global south countries and it had an article on eating insects that even suggested vegans to eat insects.
I see the suggestion of "eat insect to combat climate change" similar to if the brits told indians to eat a cows and pork to stop a famine they've started. Of course bugs are edible and eating them can help or someshit, but this is just watering down the climate change issue as a natural occurrence instead of something entirely caused by those same ones telling us to eat insects.
They think European consumption being equalized with Africans means that they'll have to eat bugs, because this is their view of Africa...
And not shit like, chocolate being more expensive (relative to wages) and less available because African farmers aren't being superexploited by Neo-Colonialism.
It's a psyop by museums to get a new generation to eat candied insects.
Sorry, I don't really know. Is it part of an anti-vegan campaign? Is it simply hedging bets against mammal farming? Is the EU's plan to sneak cricket powder into food a larger plot to loosen food standards? I'm afraid I have more questions than you!
Reactionaries really hate it though. They think a Jewish (old-school anti-semite) or transgender (new, hip anti-semite) world government is going to force everyone to eat bugs and live in pods. Typical right wing conspiracy stuff.
Is it part of an anti-vegan campaign?
Remeber how Marx in Capital wrote about multitute of methods to increase the rate of exploitation or worker class? One of chief methods there is to decrease the costs of labour reproduction, that is, the lowering the workers livelihood. Including cost of food, Marx given example how potatoes massively replaced bread in workers diet. There are multiple examples in the last centuries, junk food, chemical treating of foods in market etc. etc.
Bugs are next step, and the media campaign for it is normalisation of something that is universally treated as incredibly repulsive in basically every European culture - eating bugs is basically synonym for starvation, and even in starvation people sometimes prefer to die rather than eat bugs.
So i think this is not as much anti vegan as anti worker and pro bourgeoisie.
Finally, an actual Marxist analysis of the situation. So many of the other comments here sound, unfortunately, like something you'd find on liberal reddit under a post about "green lifestyles."
Let's not pretend the stigma against veganism doesn't exist.
It definitely does, and it makes it much easier to for them to push this shit.
Sure it does but proper vegan diet for workers is still less exploitative than bugs, so while that might get the idealist antivegans on board of that train, the material reason for that drive is still the same - intensifying exploitation.
I don't really get the big deal about eating bugs. I think, if we survive climate change, eating crickets for protein is sort of the least of our worries.
I don't want to do it under a capitalist paradigm, and definitely not to let the fat cats live in luxury. I'm not very interested in it, I just don't see the big deal.
As a vegetarian, I really don't see the difference. I don't want to eat bugs because the concept of eating meat sounds gross, but I don't understand how someone can eat other kinds of meat yet find insects disgusting.
Insect well-being dictates that it would not be appropriate to farm them
I'm not really sold on the specie-ist argument for veganism.
I care much more about the well being of humans than insects.
I don't want to re-hash larger arguments, and know there's relatively little likelihood of either of us changing our minds here, so I don't really want to pursue the larger vegan/not-vegan argument here!
I'm willing to listen to environmentalist arguments for veganism. Likewise, to people who (like monks in certain religious traditions) embrace veganism or vegetarianism as a kind of spiritual practice.
What I don't have time for is the concept that human beings need to stop seeing themselves as superior to other animals. It reeks of muddled thinkers like Count Leo Tolstoy. More importantly, it goes against the basic principal of Juche, that humanity, as "the most precious thing in the material universe," "is the master of all things and decides all things." I am all for humane treatment of animals, but the needs of humanity come first.
That's exactly my thought process! The Juche angle is something I've kicked around for a little while as well.
There would be nothing stopping a literal Nazi from making the same arguments to justify sacrificing people they don’t like to the meat grinder of fascism.
Actually, there is, because under the Juche philosophy the characteristic human traits -- independence, creativity, consciousness -- are held to be social in origin, not individual. There is no ubermensch in Juche, because there is no individual who possesses his or her "superior" characteristics innately and individually.
Yeah, no, this is just weird colonial-settler thinking but applied to humans instead of specifically white people.
Nobody really ever changes their minds in this sort of debate, but -- don't you think it's a little suspect that you arrived back, by a sort of loop, at the Cleanest Race position on the DPRK and its official ideology?
I care much more about the well being of humans than insects.
There is no reason to care about a human being that provides you no benefit more than an animal, other than pure prejudice. Human beings do not have "greater moral value" or some insane shit like that. The only possible justification we could use to prioritize human beings is some variant of "might makes right" bullshit which is just fascist schlock and leaves no room for the human beings that aren't "mighty". Or some weird pseudo scientific argument that animals feel less pain than us or something, but everyone agrees that's highly suspect anyways.
Either all conscious life is sacred, none of it is, or the life that you care about or directly benefits you is sacred. So, it's valid to care about humans more, but don't pretend it's an objectively correct belief, because there is no such thing in that field. I could claim that crickets are way more important than human beings and have about as much grounding as you as long as I legitimately believed that.
Does it make more sense to prioritize human beings because we're all human and want to be prioritized? Yeah, that makes sense. But hurting animals is still sus under that logic.
C'mon. I just said I don't want to do this. I don't want to have this argument.
I'm familiar with the view, and I don't find it convincing.
Your view isn't supported by any successful Marxists projects (to my knowledge), and is directly opposed by at least one (Juche).
Either all conscious life is sacred, none of it is, or the life that you care about or directly benefits you is sacred. So, it's valid to care about humans more, but don't pretend it's an objectively correct belief, because there is no such thing in that field. I could claim that crickets are way more important than human beings and have about as much grounding as you as long as I legitimately believed that.
You are welcome to your religious beliefs, but I do not share them and do not see them as integral to Marxism.
I, of course, find factory farming under capitalism to be abominably cruel. I don't see individual actions as effective in opposing it.
I would rip the throat out of a deer with my bare teeth, if I could.
Just because something is “marxist” doesn’t make it objectively correct. I don’t limit myself to things Marxists did because that’s a silly bastardization of Marxism.
I can take inspiration, but that’s a different thing entirely.
My understanding of this thread is that I:
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told rjs001 that I didn't agree with the root of their argument (the specie-ism argument for veganism).
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I attempted to avoid this very conversation by "agreeing to disagree" - we've all seen this argument play out, and know no one is changing their mind.
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You chose to ignore my wishes, and plunged ahead with the same argument we've all seen, ostensibly to evangelize.
I can take inspiration, but that’s a different thing entirely.
This reads, to me, as a really gross attempt to backdoor out of the conversation by acting like your personal choice to be a vegan is being criticized.
It is not. I am happy that you are happy with your choices, and the diet you've chosen.
You've moved from grandiose statements about me ("Either all conscious life is sacred, none of it is, or the life that you care about or directly benefits you is sacred") to "I" statements.
You are very welcome to be a vegan. You are not welcome to use your spiritual understanding to persuade me to be a vegan. I don't talk to Mormon missionaries for a reason.
Just because something is “marxist” doesn’t make it objectively correct. I don’t limit myself to things Marxists did because that’s a silly bastardization of Marxism.
I'm happy for you. You're welcome to your religious understanding. I do not share it.
I do not want to re-hash an argument over the specie-ism argument for veganism.
If you can't link that argument to Marxism, I would like you to leave me alone about it, please.
/* eta: archived context: https://archive.li/vOfUa
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