Why are people so dumb about veganism?

[Abomination]

I'm gonna "respect" the fuck out of this apple pie.

Whatever food you want to eat is that individual's business and they can prepare it whatever bumfuck crazy way they want to. I'm glad they don't want to eat meat or animal products, because I do, so more meat, eggs, honey, & cheese for me.

 

[Asita]

but that does touch on why people get angry with vegans -- meat-eaters know that what they eat causes pain and suffering, and the existence of vegans just highlights that it isn't necessary, even if they don't say a word.

Eh, that's probably true for some, but let's not dismiss the influence of...let's call them "born again vegans". You know, the kind who are downright 'holier than thou' and seem to take every opportunity to rub their self-righteousness in other people's faces. I choose this term specifically because there's a lot of overlap with a certain subset of Christians who take their own (often newly acquired) religiousity as a call to try to convert everyone they meet. Suffice it to say that they're often more obnoxious than compelling and probably end up doing more to inspire frustration towards their cause than support for it.

Now before anyone gets on my case about that, no, I am not attempting to paint all vegans as "born again" vegans. I'm positing that these are bad apples in the bunch, much like their namesake, and that these bad apples give their brethren a worse reputation than they deserve. If you want my overarching opinion on vegans...I'm afraid I don't really have one. Some I understand (eg. religious or medical reasons), others I respect, some I roll my eyes at (fad dieters), and still others I hold in contempt ("raw veganism" quickly ended up in the same bin for me as antivaxxers).

 

[CheetoDust_v1legacy]

To me it's kind of an insult to the ingredient you're making the burger out of that you can't enjoy it as whatever it is (is it tofu again? legit not sure what they make the fake burgers out of lol) but have to mould it into the shape of a burger and artificially twist it around to be kinda sorta like a burger. In the end it's still not a burger, it's a burger-like something else. You'd prolly enjoy it more if it was cooked like it was intended to be cooked.

What's a burger? Is it not really a burger if it's made with a breaded chicken breast? What if it's made of ground turkey instead of beef is it still a burger? What about good old fashioned veggie burgers that have been around forever? That even McDonald's and BK have always sold?

Also like it was intended to be cooked? No food was "intended to be cooked a certain way". Were burgers intended to be cooked on a grill? In a pan? We're they meant to be well done or medium rare? How was cauliflower meant to be cooked? Boiled? Roasted?

Mushrooms are great, you're having a mushroom burger, not a hamburger.

Nobody is claiming it's a hamburger. Now you're saying it is in fact a burger. I think you're probably talking nonsense because your earlier point was things like that aren't burgers.

Or a potato one, or a mushroom one. You can do things that are meant to be eaten with stuff in the same style a burger is.

Potatoes and mushrooms aren't "meant" to be eaten a certain way. Who gave the potato their divine purpose? And who declared that soy protein and beetroot shall not share in the task of being turned into a burger?

 

[Satinavian]

Mushrooms are great, you're having a mushroom burger, not a hamburger. Mushrooms are literally my favorite single ingredient on this planet actually. Matsutake are just amazing and the broth of dried shiitake is almost a nostalgic flavor and aroma to me (this shark fin soup I grew up on had a ton of them in it).

You can even make a tea/coffee-like drink from a certain type of mushroom that grows on tree bark. It has a woody texture and you grind it into a powder and then make the tea.

They don't really need to be marketed as a substitute to meat, not one bit. They're already good enough just being mushrooms.

Mushrooms are far more closely related to animals than to plants.

It is probably not a coincidence that they often have a similar role to meat in cuisine.

 

[Baffle]

Eh, that's probably true for some, but let's not dismiss the influence of...let's call them "born again vegans". You know, the kind who are downright 'holier than thou' and seem to take every opportunity to rub their self-righteousness in other people's faces.

Of course, there's always going to be people like that. It's the same with people who give up booze and then expect everyone else to do the same (crazy talk!). And for some people it's a large part of their identity, which isn't ideal (though I think it's an improvement on someone whose manhood depends on how many hotdogs they can eat without throwing up).

But if you don't eat meat, you do have to tell people that because it's still a minority decision; otherwise they might serve meat when you eat at their house, then you've wasted their time and ingredients. That's not rubbing it in people's faces. Unless someone asks or the subject comes up, I don't discuss why I don't eat meat.

If you could just stop the eating of meat with a single press of a button then I'd go for it but in this system where people are barely able to eat anything in a lot of places, you're not going to be ending meat consumption through personal abstaining. It's like trying to stop global warming by only taking cold showers and not turning on the lights at night. You're not really doing anything that makes a difference beyond just a hollow morality statement. I prefer being honest and hefting the responsibility rather than trying to wash my hands clean from it through a statement that's not really affecting anything.

(1) Places where people don't have a lot to eat aren't generally going to eat a lot of meat; it's more expensive and unpredictable to raise/hunt rather to grow vegetables, etc.

(2) Personally abstaining is the only approach open to anyone unless we want to start bombing abattoirs. If enough people abstain, fewer animals will be raised as food. It's not hollow morality to do the little you can do (whereas it'd be hypocritical of me to say 'Animals are treated awfully in the meat industry and I disagree with that -- pass me a steak would you?')

(3) You aren't hefting any responsibility. You've literally said you don't like the animals being killed but that's not going to stop you. You aren't really opposed to the death of the animal, so there's no responsibility for you to take. You're giving the same argument we hear all the time from climate-change deniers: 'Nothing I do on a personal level will help, I may as well do nothing.' (Also known as the 'What about China?' defence.)

 

[McElroy]

meat-eaters know that what they eat causes pain and suffering

They certainly don't. Maybe in absolute terms (there is hardly a life without some pain & suffering), but coming to the conclusion that the animal industry doesn't cause undue pain and suffering is how most people justify their carnivorous habits. Animal rights people try to apply Kantian moral rules to animals (we should value animals as animals always instead of products, pets, or workers) but the rest of us are happy to exclude them.

Basically, beating animals or burning them alive: undue suffering. Breeding a cow for a short, gluttonous life and then slaughtering it quickly: nothing wrong with that.

 

[Baffle]

They certainly don't. Maybe in absolute terms (there is hardly a life without some pain & suffering), but coming to the conclusion that the animal industry doesn't cause undue pain and suffering is how most people justify their carnivorous habits.

Eh, that's just willful ignorance because people need to justify it to themselves. I think, with the ease of access to information these days, not being aware of the conditions in factory farming must be deliberate.

I think it's fairly possible to ethically eat meat, just not in the way it's currently done. I would prefer people didn't eat meat, but think it's possible to not give an animal a thoroughly unpleasant life before you eat it. But meat would have to be much much more expensive for that to be viable.

 

[McElroy]

They certainly don't. Maybe in absolute terms (there is hardly a life without some pain & suffering), but coming to the conclusion that the animal industry doesn't cause undue pain and suffering is how most people justify their carnivorous habits.

Eh, that's just willful ignorance because people need to justify it to themselves. I think, with the ease of access to information these days, not being aware of the conditions in factory farming must be deliberate.

It's easy to find material of both responsible animal keeping and terrible mistreatment. One has to weigh it a bit in their mind. Even if we talked about pet keeping, which is much less controversial, an animal rights vegan person will tell you that it is wrong because it enables animal abuse. In that case it doesn't matter that a number of pet animals, most of them even, live a decent life. The same can be applied to animal industry.

I think it's fairly possible to ethically eat meat, just not in the way it's currently done. I would prefer people didn't eat meat, but think it's possible to not give an animal a thoroughly unpleasant life before you eat it. But meat would have to be much much more expensive for that to be viable.

When it comes to animals, I see them as means to an end. They don't have universal rights, and suffering is subjective -- it can't be measured meaningfully. The unpleasantness of for example a male chick getting the chipper is irrelevant in comparison to other chickens, pigs, cows, fish, dogs, and most of all humans.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I'm gonna "respect" the fuck out of this apple pie.

You've just reminded me that the American Pie franchise exists. Thanks a lot.

 

[Silvanus]

I'm gonna "respect" the fuck out of this apple pie.

You've just reminded me that the American Pie franchise exists. Thanks a lot.

And you've just reminded me that Don McLean's second album is worth a relisten.

 

[CaitSeith]

I think it's fairly possible to ethically eat meat, just not in the way it's currently done. I would prefer people didn't eat meat, but think it's possible to not give an animal a thoroughly unpleasant life before you eat it. But meat would have to be much much more expensive for that to be viable.

When it comes to animals, I see them as means to an end. They don't have universal rights, and suffering is subjective -- it can't be measured meaningfully. The unpleasantness of for example a male chick getting the chipper is irrelevant in comparison to other chickens, pigs, cows, fish, dogs, and most of all humans.

Well... sure, a person could get used to have a hole to access directly their stomach for clinical reasons. But I don't think cows would find that existence much less unpleasant.

Just another day in Paradise...

 

[McElroy]

Well... sure, a person could get used to have a hole to access directly their stomach for clinical reasons. But I don't think cows would find that existence much less unpleasant.

Just another day in Paradise...

I sent my spirit animal to ask the cow how it felt and surprisingly they recommend the procedure for every other four-legged friend out there! Moo-moo!

 

[Asita]

Eh, that's probably true for some, but let's not dismiss the influence of...let's call them "born again vegans". You know, the kind who are downright 'holier than thou' and seem to take every opportunity to rub their self-righteousness in other people's faces.

Of course, there's always going to be people like that. It's the same with people who give up booze and then expect everyone else to do the same (crazy talk!). And for some people it's a large part of their identity, which isn't ideal (though I think it's an improvement on someone whose manhood depends on how many hotdogs they can eat without throwing up).

But if you don't eat meat, you do have to tell people that because it's still a minority decision; otherwise they might serve meat when you eat at their house, then you've wasted their time and ingredients. That's not rubbing it in people's faces. Unless someone asks or the subject comes up, I don't discuss why I don't eat meat.

Naturally. And I completely empathize with that. Those are not the people I invoke as "born again" vegans. The ones I refer to as such are better exemplified by PETA. Or to use an example I saw in action, the type who feel the need to blow up pictures of the nasty bits of bulls and cows mid-coitus and shove them in people's faces at local events in an effort to make people stop drinking milk. My issues with the milk industry notwithstanding, those people are just assholes.

 

[Terminal Blue]

meat-eaters know that what they eat causes pain and suffering

They certainly don't. Maybe in absolute terms (there is hardly a life without some pain & suffering), but coming to the conclusion that the animal industry doesn't cause undue pain and suffering is how most people justify their carnivorous habits.

Those people are idiots.

If what happens in the meat industry does not constitute undue suffering, then the concept of undue suffering is meaningless. These are people who live in a pastoral fantasy of livestock farming that in no way resembles its actual modern practice. If your ability to eat meat is contingent on the fantasy that livestock "have a good life" before being humanely dispatched, then stop eating meat.

Animal rights people try to apply Kantian moral rules to animals (we should value animals as animals always instead of products, pets, or workers) but the rest of us are happy to exclude them.

"The rest of us" were also happy to exclude human beings when it suited our convenience, and look at the consequences..

See, this whole principle thing strikes me as a convenient fantasy. You assume that "a vegan" would also be generally opposed to domestication when in reality very few vegans have any real problem with pet ownership because pet ownership and the meat industry are not remotely comparable.

The idea that there are good farmers who are not cruel and bad farmers who are is also a convenient fantasy, one which conceals how inherent cruelty is to the entire process. A better comparison would be the meat industry and dog fighting. People who engage in dog fighting can exercise restraint and employ the minimum amount of cruelty required, but a certain degree of cruelty is required to achieve the desired outcome. That's just how it works. If your definition of undue cruelty is "the minimum ammount of cruelty required to reach the desired result" then that can still include theoretically any amount of cruelty.

See, this isn't an issue of principle, it's an issue of empathy. Objectively, pigs are highly intelligent animals who rival dogs or small children in cognitive ability. Putting a pig into conditions which suppress any form of natural behaviour will visibly traumatize the pig just as it would traumatize a dog or small child. The fact that most people will happily subject pigs to conditions they would never subject a dog to is a very clear cut example of cognitive bias. In reality, calling one animal a pet and the other livestock does not make them different in reality, it signifies how you feel about that animal, and in particular whether you can feel empathy towards it.

But, here's the thing. Being able to suspend empathy for an intelligent creature because it's not in the category of things you feel empathy for is not a good thing. Heck, even if this were an issue of principle, being able to treat two things differently purely on the basis of the taxonomic category into which a thing falls is not a good thing. While I'm very, very uncomfortable directly comparing "speciesism" with racism or anti-semitism (definately one of the most annoying vegan habits) vegans do sort of have a point. People have always been willing to decide that certain evils don't matter because of the type of being to whom they happen, rather than because they can actually be morally defended.

Richard Dawkins, for all that I dislike him and everything he has become, once made an excellent point. We live in a world in which aborting a single human zygote (the vast majority of which are spontaneously aborted naturally) elicits more moral outrage than the systematic torture of billions of animals in the name of harvesting their meat. Find any "funny animal" video on the internet and the comment section will be full of amateur dog whisperers talking about how this is actually cruel, very few of whom will be vegans. There is something profoundly wrong, profoundly indefensible about the logic by which we justify the treatment of animals in the meat industry. It does not hold up as a rational position, and implies a worrying selectivity of empathetic capacity.

The suffering of a cow, or pig, may be "subjective", but it is ultimately trivial for an emotionally healthy human to interpret and empathize with.

 

[Satinavian]

But, here's the thing. Being able to suspend empathy for an intelligent creature because it's not in the category of things you feel empathy for is not a good thing. Heck, even if this were an issue of principle, being able to treat two things differently purely on the basis of the taxonomic category into which a thing falls is not a good thing. While I'm very, very uncomfortable directly comparing "speciesism" with racism or anti-semitism (definately one of the most annoying vegan habits) vegans do sort of have a point. People have always been willing to decide that certain evils don't matter because of the type of being to whom they happen, rather than because they can actually be morally defended.

I disagree.

Being able to treat the same species and other species fundamentally differently is a good and healthy thing. Yes, humans are not that good at it which they prove by regularly humanizing animal and also by dehumanizing humans. But both actions are wrong.

Which means i have more problems with those that would never let any harm come to a dog or a cat than with those that have a problem with raising and killing pigs for meat.
Sure, it is better to treat animals in a good way, but when wheighted against other concerns, that should get not too high a priority. There are many practices in the meat industry that should be avoided - and actually generally are in many developed countries. Which is why e.g. the US has so many problems exporting meat into the EU. But i won't ever condone a 10k Euro chirurgical procedure to save a cat.

Now, avoiding/reducing meat because of climate change, that is something i can get behind more than concerns about animal welfare.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Just heard this from SquillaKilla?s ?SL1, 0 hits taken? run of the Dark souls trilogy:

?I?m a 5th level vegan; I don?t eat anything that casts a shadow.? XD

 

[Terminal Blue]

Being able to treat the same species and other species fundamentally differently is a good and healthy thing. Yes, humans are not that good at it which they prove by regularly humanizing animal and also by dehumanizing humans. But both actions are wrong.

Why are they wrong though?

For one, that's not how species work. If you look at a chart of the evolution of modern humans, that's not really a chart of the evolution of distinct, naturally separate species. A homo erectus didn't just spontaneously birth a homo sapien one day. It's a chart of the discontinuity of the fossil record, the spaces between the different forms are filled with countless intermediary stages which have been lost, but which absolutely existed. If you could see those intermediary points, where would you draw the line between species?

Species is not a rational basis for making distinctions between how you should treat things. It's an inherently abstract concept which, despite its usefulness in understanding evolutionary theory, ultimately has its roots in a pre-evolutionary worldview where different types of "kinds" were created by God from whole cloth.

A human being is quite different from a pig. Although they have a common ancestry, it's very distant. There are differences in form and ability caused by millions of years of divergent evolution. The fact that we call one homo sapiens and the other sus domesticus is a reflection of these real differences. It does not in and of itself actually make the two things different. Using the terms by which we refer to things as the basis for distinguishing between them is not rational, and indicates a mindset that is both dangerous and easily manipulated.

 

[Seanchaidh]

A human being is quite different from a pig. Although they have a common ancestry, it's very distant. There are differences in form and ability caused by millions of years of divergent evolution. The fact that we call one homo sapiens and the other sus domesticus is a reflection of these real differences. It does not in and of itself actually make the two things different. Using the terms by which we refer to things as the basis for distinguishing between them is not rational, and indicates a mindset that is both dangerous and easily manipulated.

One could make the case that refusing to draw these lines anywhere-- or somewhere, but absurdly including much of the food supply humans have enjoyed for many thousands of years in the same moral category/status as human beings-- is merely one species of that kind of manipulation.

It does not in and of itself actually make the two things different.

This is very true. Ultimately, animal rights are a matter of arbitrary human sympathy. When it comes to human beings, the capacity for both solidarity and for fighting back is far more salient. Which is why Klingons pretty obviously deserve universal human rights even though pigs seem like they don't.

 

[Satinavian]

Being able to treat the same species and other species fundamentally differently is a good and healthy thing. Yes, humans are not that good at it which they prove by regularly humanizing animal and also by dehumanizing humans. But both actions are wrong.

Why are they wrong though?

Because granting animals the same rights and priviliges as even the lowest status human does enjoy it utterly unworkable.

Which means we either treat animals fundamentally different or we reduce the rights of most humans to those that animals have, reintroducing cattle slavery but in worse.

 

[Silvanus]

Being able to treat the same species and other species fundamentally differently is a good and healthy thing. Yes, humans are not that good at it which they prove by regularly humanizing animal and also by dehumanizing humans. But both actions are wrong.

One doesn't need to humanize another species to justify compassion.

The avoidance of causing undue pain to others is morally good and right in itself. There's not really any rational reason that should be limited to your own species (any more than it should be limited to your own family). If a creature can feel pain, the compassionate thing to do is avoid causing it without need.

I've never understood why people are so willing to suspend moral principles they otherwise consider pretty universal or self-evident on such irrelevant lines.