On one hand I think it's silly to imagine that personal consumer choices would actually cause systemic change, but on the other hand John Oliver is a lib so that's exactly what he should think so it is surprising he doesn't suggest it
Veganism isn't just personal consumer choices, it's changing those choices to further affect public perception and thus policy. No policy on the matter can or will be changed until people agree that our meat industry needs to go.
He actually does suggest it in his last episode on Pandemics, but immediately writes it off as "draconian". Wish he'd stop being a pussy on this and just stand firm that people need to stop eating meat, our government needs to stop subsidizing them, and factory farming needs to be made illegal. For national healthcare reasons, workers rights reasons, environmental reasons, and animal ethics reasons.
Reminder to all leftists: animal liberation and leftism go hand-in-hand.
I mean only if you assert that they do, which tons of people don't.
And I get that you don't have to flag every opinion you have as an opinion, but when it's a claim that you and like 5 other people have you should probably hesitate pronouncing it as a universal truth.
Chapochat start using qualifiers to make distinction between opinions and assertions challenge
Che is not a leftist because i saw him sticking 5 hot dogs in his mouth at once
Not perfect != Not a leftist and conflating the two is like classic motte and bailey shit posting.
I needed a stand in meat product and it was highest on the mental stack.
Animals aren't a part of the industrial reserve army of labor.
This isn't a materialist take.
This is a moralistic take trying to strengthen its legitimacy by piggybacking on other struggles.
(In before getting called a class reductionist for not standing in solidarity with all my comrades in George Orwell's "Animal Farm")
Communism isn't the only revolutionary leftist tendency, non-communist forms of anarchism, syndicalism and communalism are all examples I can think of that are revolutionary but don't call themselves communist.
But people are more important than animals.
I honestly can't see anyone saying otherwise.
Some vegans here are fucking obnoxious, sorry not sorry.
I do think that vegans piss off omnis for the same reason that leftists piss off liberals. No one likes being called out. And honestly, I'm making every effort to not call anyone out.
Vegans also care about giving undocumented people better opportunities and work conditions than the literal plantation conditions of a slaughterhouse.
These people are given no choice but to work here or starve, and can't report abuses because of threat of deportation. John gives the example of a worker who had both hands crushed being forced to sign a contract waiving all liability with a pen in between his teeth.
The respiratory issues that arise from working in a slaughterhouse mean most of them have gotten sick from breathing in the concentrated fumes.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5355534/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16419092/
Switching demand from meat to plant agriculture means jobs with better working conditions for these people. Fighting for path to citizenship is a part of that.
Can I ask an question? I grew up in a dirt poor Mormon family that lived on church food. How does someone go vegan when all their food is supplied to them based on charity?
It's about doing as much as you can. If you're not in control of your food it can be harder, especially if you aren't even the one picking the food you get. If one can get enough staples like rice, beans, canned veggies, it can be possible, but one shouldn't sacrifice their own health over it either. Other ways to live closer to a vegan lifestyle would be to avoid purchasing firsthand as much leather, wool, etc. as possible (secondhand thrifting is better since you aren't directly paying a leather producer). There are also places like Food Not Bombs and Sikh temples that provide exclusively vegan/vegetarian food to people in need.
Once you have control over your own food supply, though, its easy to be vegan and frugal. I eat on about $5/6 a day, and that includes vegan breakfast sausage and the occasional vegan cheese splurges. I can give you a sample grocery list after my shift if you're interested
I personally have not been in leftist circles for long and I also grew up with farms around me. Let me tell you there is not many Sikh temples in Hooper, Utah and your social safety net is the Mormon church and that is it. You keep chickens out of necessity in those types of places. I can understand wanting to live a more vegan lifestyle but it seems like something that people choose more out of convenience than circumstances to my family members. Which is why I have always sort of rode it off as an ideology thing, and never really talk to them about it more seriously. This is not even broaching the subject of how their religion says that God created the earth and how they can do with the plants and animals what they want. I personally can be as vegan as I want but like 99% of the people around are not even going to have it on their radar and might even think less of you for it.
Thanks for answering my question and listening to me rant a little bit.
why does vegan food have to imitate meat & animal-derived shapes & flavors if the point is to move away from such conventions?
Because I enjoy the flavors of fennel, clove, and maple together with a nice protein source. The point is to move away from the torture and suffering of animals, not to completely alienate oneself from the foods we've come to know and love.
fennel and clove & maple flavor can go in lots of things without calling them "sausage" and "cheese"
this seems a lot more about building a better mouse as far as privately-produced commodities & consumerism are concerned
Again, small stuff like terminology isn't what's important. Cue the "no ethical consumption" quote, but one literally requires a cow to go through a brief, painful life, consuming 16x as much food to produce the same amount, and be slaughtered by humans who are also suffering massively from their work environment. The other also has some downfalls of capitalism in its making, but nothing was forced to die for me.
every living thing requires something else to die in order to keep living, it's just how we compartmentalize "death" & rank organisms in the hierarchy of worthy consideration
for instance, Jains in addition to being veggie, do not eat carrots or potatoes & other root vegetables because they believe that such plants have a higher "spirit" than other leafy greens... these ethical concerns are after all not universalizable. but I do agree that animals under human care should not be tortured or unduly harmed
You're right about the ethics, which is why ethics is one of the weaker points to make for veganism, but its only one of many reasons why veganism is the better choice (water scarcity, deforestation, waste pollution, ocean dead zones, methane production, zoonotic illnesses, mass use of antibiotics and antidepressants in livestock, slaughterhouse working conditions, etc.). If you are truly concerned for animal welfare, you should watch some slaughterhouse footage and see for yourself whether you should be supporting it with your money.
the same argument can also be said about wearing shoes or buying gasoline, both of which use petroleum which is itself a concretion of animal-derived material
if you've ever watched footage of humans working in factories or seen humans working in agricultural fields picking lettuce, there is plenty of torture and pain endured just to harvest innocent painless plants
Don't you agree that ethical considerations should center around humans? and then radiate out to our relations with animals & the natural world, but always first within those concentric concerns
I don't see why ethical considerations should centre around humans, if your understanding of ethics is that causing pain for pleasure is bad then there's no discernible difference between the pain response of humans and non-human animals.
In regards to humans working in fields, when you buy meat there's both the exploitation of the farm workers who produce the meat, as well as the farm workers who produce the feed for farm animals so it's an extra layer of exploitation.
no, ethical considerations center around humans because humans are the nexus of ethical behavior & ethical standards... we do not look to non-human animals as models for ethical behavior, nor do animals look to humans, they are separate domains.
animals need other organisms to die in order to sustain themselves, just as humans do... the key is where the lines are drawn for humans' most intense ethical attachments & spiritual affinities. those rest and have always rested solidly with fellow human persons. this is expressed in our legal system as well as in our normative standards for interpersonal & intersubjective conceptions
animals deserve an exceeding amount of respect & care & those under human control should not be subjected to undue pain or torture from humans. legal conventions already protect against animal cruelty, and I agree they don't go far enough
I don't really understand this argument. Humans are animals, the only separation between us is that we know that we are sapient. Many animals show intelligence on a level of toddlers or infants, should our ethical considerations only centre around adults and not children who are insufficiently developed?
Pointing at legal systems and normative standards doesn't mean much, most of our legal structure is extremely archaic and as leftists we're constantly calling for overhauling what's considered normal. Veganism is just another avenue of radical social change.
Humans are humans and are capable of making human ethical calculations & Animals show animal intelligence, and their animal ethics are completely of an animal kind. Children have legal personhood & are themselves capable of "rationale" after a certain "Age of Reason", which means they are capable of imputing consciousness into other humans, and are themselves capable of determining that animals are not persons. Children are not animals, though I know that's not what you're trying to say
Pointing at legal systems and normative standards is pretty much the only edifice that means anything. That's because the legal system is the only accountable system amenable to changing human conventions & societal concerns. Most of our legal structure is based in ancient, but evolving, characteristics of political reality, politics that always concerned humans first & foremost, and ecology second. I agree that humanity depends on ecology & that animals shouldn't be tortured or made to suffer unduly
But veganism as an individualist & finger-wagging aesthetic in this way is not radical, it's merely a way to dehumanize first-order human ethics & divert attention away from class considerations... considerations which usually leave the lowest humans beneath the most esteemed animals within these hierarchies
You still haven't made an argument for what distinguishes human and animal intelligence besides legal norms of personhood. Animals like chimps, orcas and dolphins can have very complicated social systems and demonstrate intelligence on the level of young children/early humans. What's the difference in intelligence between a child and a dolphin? If we're not basing the distinction between humans and non-humans on intelligence what material basis are you distinguishing on?
Like I said, humans have a human ethical framework & different animals have their own animal ethical frameworks, mostly unknowable to us. i agree that animals are not profligate destroyers & killers & unguided by any behavioral good sense. Non-humans and humans alike are guided by self-preservation & kin selection & reciprocal altruism. and no, children do not demonstrate animal intelligence at a young age, they exhibit developing human intelligence
The difference between a child & a dolphin on this level is that a child has the ability to make mistakes and be held(or have their guardians be held) ethically & moralistically, and yes legally, accountable by the society. particularly after reaching this "age of reason" or being determined as of sound mind. dolphins that accidentally drown their trainers or "rape" scuba divers are not going to be held ethically or legally accountable ever, no matter how smart you think they are
the material basis is the material outcome. children are scolded & can learn these behaviors in ways that are not always considered base "operant conditioning", but because the child is able over time to make discernible MORAL calculations of right & wrong, not just what gets them scolded/deprived of treats... the intervening factor is recognition of ideals and fleshing out the contours of what constitutes "moral turpitude"
animals & other living things are killed all the time in the production of food both unintentionally and intentionally... killing agricultural pests & removing predators & varmints on farm land are both key to successful harvests
but fantasizing about what choices the consumer can look forward to in the vegan "free market" is itself commodity fetishism, except we are patting ourselves on the back for engaging in it.
There's this scientifically questionable idea that more field mice are hurt than livestock animals. Assuming this is true...
If you eat a pig that had a grain to mean conversation ratio of 8 to 1, or a cow that's like 20 to 1, won't less field mice die if we eat the plants directly? You realize that most grain in the US goes to feed livestock, right?
Edit: "won't less field mice die if we eat the plants directly. OMG I feel dumb
growing plants kills many animals, as well as the plants
if we're concerned about things dying, then I think the best choice is to not eat
not killing living things in order to survive is definitely something humans can't do
i am not talking specifically or only about plants, but organisms in general. But I am talking specifically about death & sustenance of life & how the two are inextricable... which in this spiritual & ethical sense might, in the most profane way, be the only real liberation for any living thing
Congrats, you defeated the strawman vegan. Would you like to face off against a strawman campus SJW next?
defeated? i thought we were only discussing how this isn't about personal aesthetics & individual consumerist flights of fancy
veganism when possible and practical. no one should judge someone who actually can't feasibly cut out animal products. it's when you're in a position to be able to that you should take action, in my opinion
If its worth anything I think you are right. Like I would totally would have the world swap over to a system of non-suffering. I am just trying to square the circle of poverty and I never can figure it out on my own short of ripping the whole system down.
for all the people going "omg the preaching vegans are so annoying," did you know that (cw bestiality)
spoiler
most bestiality laws in the us were specifically written so that farmers could continue literal sexual abuse of animals without being prosecuted by the state?
this type of thing is why we believe that leftism and animal liberation go hand-in-hand. I know it's annoying to be called out and I know you probably just want us to shut up, but this is why we keep saying it. by the way, if anyone wants a source on that, I'd be happy to provide.
Do you mean they were written with caveats for what farmers do or that they were created in order to sanctify what they do with outlawing bestiality as an excuse?
so it's different for every state, but for most states, the laws have claims in them saying that they don't apply to animal husbandry. I don't think most people realize what animal breeding actually entails but in order for it not to be prosecuted there has to be a loophole in the law (so, one was created). there was actually a huge backlash in Missouri(?) when bestiality laws were being proposed because the farmers believed it would directly harm them and their business.
(I put a question with Missouri because it may have been Michigan and I can't remember off the top of my head)
like I said, I don't think most people know the nasty shit that goes into animal breeding
This might be the most meaningless insult I've ever seen. What are you gonna call them a muggle next?
Vegan here. Like all John Oliver episodes, I watch it and I'm like "how does he not criticize capitalism"? The workers are shit on? No really?
Also failed to mention that meat packers in the US used to be well-unionized with good working conditions until the 80s when the companies and government colluded to break the unions.
lmao extincting a species to save them, because that makes sense.
This would likely result in extinction for breeds that can’t mate without intervention
I guess that means pandas should just go extinct too?
Those are all policy problems in agriculture (usually with capitalism at the root of the policy). Would fixing those take a reduction of meat eating? Probably. Would it require complete veganism? Hell no.
Brother 60% of all mammals on earth are livestock. 36% are people. 96% of mammals are us and the things we torture. This isn't destroying a wild species existing in an ecosystem, it's ending a human created abomination.
And they're all gonna die anyway? Like what should take their place? More pigs that live in crates or an expansion of the ecosystem? ( back to what it was like before we fucked it up)
Ideally, but the pieces of shit in this thread and in the world say otherwise. They literally cannot care about not lessening harm in the world.
Lessening harm of other people, yes people care. And that's what Oliver is addressing, the harm to the people.
Lessening harm of livestock, no. Most people don't give a shit.
But I think at least things like eggs milk & cheese could still be around. If done locally by communities then it should be a reasonable way to get protein. Heck, even just replace cows milk with goat's to make a smaller footprint.
And saying that OSHA being stronger will end the exploitation and deaths. If that was possible it would already be happening. OSHA exists to create the illusion of a commitment to safety.
Again with the reform-minded liberalism out of LWT.
The only reform that fixes factory farming for the workers and the animals is abolition of the practice.
In which case "OSHA being stronger" is equal to "OSHA not being an illusion of a commitment to safety".
Probably because every industry treats workers badly and ending the industry as a whole isn't the solution or even necessary to treat the works better.
Believe it or not, it's still possible to eat meat even if the packers aren't in slave conditions.
That's a different issue unrelated to the topic of the video. The video is about the treatment of workers, not the treatment of animals.
How do vegans feel about carnivorous pets such as cats?
Should I be feeding her more venison and scrambled eggs since those are slightly less immoral?
I have vegan friends that will only dumpster dive feed their cats. I think this is the only ethical way to have a cat.
Because we've eliminated all their predators, outside of places with wolves (and maybe a few places with enough mtn lions), deer have a cyclical population, they'll starve if the population isn't culled.
The end result is most municipalities will pay outside companies to shoot deer, who might even waste the meat if they can't issue enough tags.
Venison is ethical for the same reason meat that will otherwise go to waste is ethical, correct?
Not that I can feed my cat entirely venison, she needs a varied diet.
The deer thing was always iffy to me because they are a native species. Gonna go through all this, thanks for taking the time.
Id actually be curious to hear how a lot of vegans feel about sustainable hunting and fishing in general.
Lionfish and Asian Carp, for example, are causing havoc as an invasive species and eating them is actually a good thing environmentally speaking. Deer as well (maybe?) to a certain extent but also things like iguana in florida.
Specifically asking about non-native invasive species.
Wait, are iguana are invasive? But they're so cool, I don't have the heart to kill them.
When I lived there, and it was cold enough that they stopped moving I used to put them in tubs of warm water until they scampered back into the mangroves.
Yeahhhh the green iguana are invasive, they mess up the habitats of some endangered species and cause general infrastructural damage.
They call them chicken of the trees there and have been known to spontaneously go into hibernation during cold snaps and just fall from the canopy like lizard rain
Fwiw I think they're rad as hell too
Iguanas pose the same problems as outdoor cats, theyre a predator/competitor of native bird species IIRC. Florida is just a hot fucking mess of ecology.
Feel free to feed your cat waste meat venison. I have no issue with it.
