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Apr 18, 2009
According to The Vegan Society:

"Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."

1. Ethics

1.1 Sentience of Animals

I care about other human beings because I know that they are having a subjective experience. I know that, like me, they can be happy, anxious, angry or upset. I generally don't want them to die (outside of euthanasia), both because of the pain involved and because their subjective experience will end, precluding further happiness. Their subjective experience is also why I treat them with respect them as individuals, such as seeking their consent for sex and leaving free from arbitrary physical pain and mental abuse. Our society has enshrined these concepts into legal rights, but like me, I doubt your appreciation for these rights stems from their legality, but rather because of their effect (their benefit) on us as people.

Many non-human animals also seem to be having subjective experiences, and care for one another just like humans do. It's easy to find videos of vertebrates playing with one another,[1] showing concern,[2] or grieving.[3] Humans have understood that animals are sentient for centuries.[4] We've come to the point that laws are being passed acknowledging that fact.[5] Even invertebrates can feel pain. In one experiment, fruit flies learned to avoid odours associated with electric shocks. In another, they were given an analgesic which let them pass through a heated tube, which they had previously avoided.[6] Some invertebrates show hallmarks of emotional states, such as honeybees, which can develop a pessimistic cognitive bias.[7]

If you've had pets, you know that they have a personality. My old cat was lazy but friendly. My current cat is inquisitive and playful. In the sense that they have a personality, they are persons. Animals are people. Most of us learn not to arbitrarily hurt other people for our own whims, and when we find out we have hurt someone, we feel shame and guilt. We should be vegan for the same reason we shouldn't kill and eat human beings: all sentient animals, including humans, are having a subjective experience and can feel pain, enjoy happiness and fear death. Ending that subjective experience is wrong. Intentionally hurting that sentient being is wrong. Paying someone else to do it for you doesn't make it better.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7GmYJnUtsY

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/r1vdyz/pufferfish_waits_by_its_trapped_friend_while_a/

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmnAWmL-sq0

[4] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159106001110

[5] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/22/enacted

[6] https://academic.oup.com/ilarjournal/article/52/2/175/659957

[7] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982211005446

1.2 The Brutalisation of Society

There are about 8 billion human beings on the planet. Every year, our society breeds, exploits and kills about 70 billion land animals.[8] The number of marine animals isn't tracked (it's measured by weight - 100 billion tons per year), but it's likely in the trillions. Those are animals that are sexually assaulted to cause them to reproduce, kept in horrendous conditions, and then gased to death or stabbed in the throat or thrown on a conveyor belt and blended with a macerator.[9]

Most people reading this will be leftists. That means you probably want to weaken or dismantle hierarchies, whether political, economic or social. You're hopefully an anti-racist, an anti-fascist and an anti-capitalist. You know that systems of oppression are bad.

Vegans are also anti-speciesist.

Different humans have different capabilities, but we respect them as people. Sometimes, they even have different rights and obligations. You'd probably be sympathetic to someone who wants to commit euthanasia due to terminal illness such as cancer. You're also probably sympathetic to a pregnant person who wants to terminate that pregnancy. In both cases, a human being is dying, but in both cases, we agree that it's moral. In the first case, because it's consensual and is relieving suffering. In the second, the human being doesn't yet have a subjective experience, and can't experience pain (until the third trimester, but most abortions at that stage are to save the health of the mother). Children gain new rights and responsibilities as they age, while seniors might lose rights if they're declared incapable or give power of attorney to a family member. Someone with a mental disability might similarly be declared incapable. So even within human beings, there's no single set of rights and responsibilities.

As anti-speciesists, we aren't calling for legal equality between humans and non-human animals. The rights of non-human animals might simply be real enforcement of existing anti-cruelty laws, without exemptions for farm animals. Vegans don't believe humans and animals are "the same", we just think that the massive exploitation and death of sentient life inherent to animal agriculture is an unnecessary injustice.

Like all systems of oppression, animal agriculture has a momentum of its own, with lobbyists manipulating public policy to replicate itself.[10][11][12] It supports and is supported by the ruling class.[13]

It's hard to quantify what this system does to humans. We know abusing animals is a predictor of anti-social personality disorder.[14] Dehumanising opponents and subaltern peoples by comparing them to animals has a long history in racist propaganda, and especially in war propaganda. The hierarchies of nation, race and gender are complemented by the hierarchy of species. If humans were more compassionate to all kinds of sentient life, I'd hope that murder, racism and war would be more difficult for a normal person to conceive of doing. I think that treating species as a hierarchy, with life at the bottom of that hierarchy treated as a commodity, makes our society more brutal. I want a compassionate society.

[8] https://faunalytics.org/global-animal-slaughter-statistics-and-charts-2020-update/

[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRAfJyEsko

[10] https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/removing-meat-subsidy-our-cognitive-dissonance-around-animal-agriculture

[11] https://landwirtschaft.jetzt/en/ipcc-report/

[12] https://www.dw.com/en/leaks-show-attempts-to-water-down-un-climate-report-greenpeace-says/a-59570391

[13] https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/members-congress-got-nearly-16-million-farm-subsidies-and-trade-war-bailout

[14] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12108563/

2. Environment

2.1 Greenhouse Gas Emissions

A 2013 study found that animal agriculture is responsible for the emission 7.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, or 14.5% of human emissions.[15]

A 2021 study increased that estimate to 9.8 gigatonnes, or 21% of human emissions.[16]

This is why the individual emissions figures for animal vs plant foods are so stark, ranging from 60kg of CO2 equivalent for a kilo of beef, down to 300g for a kilo of nuts.[17]

To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees by 2100, humanity needs to reduce its emissions by 45% by 2030, and become net zero by 2050.[18]

Imagine if we achieve this goal by lowering emissions from everything else, but continue to kill and eat animals for our pleasure. That means we will have to find some way to suck carbon and methane out of the air to the tune of 15-20% of our current annual emissions (which is projected to increase as China and India increase their wealth and pick up the Standard American Diet). We will need to do this while still dedicating vast quantities of our land to growing crops and pastures for animals to feed on. Currently, 77% of the world's agricultural land is used for animal agriculture.[19] So instead of freeing up that land to grow trees, sucking carbon out of the air, and making our task easier, we would instead choose to make our already hard task even harder.

I'd go as far as to say it will be impossible. A world that continues to eat animals will probably be one with a billion climate refugees by 2050.[20]

[15] https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/

[16] https://www.fao.org/publications/card/en/c/CB7033EN/

[17] https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

[18] https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/net-zero-coalition

[19] https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture

[20] https://www.zurich.com/en/media/magazine/2022/there-could-be-1-2-billion-climate-refugees-by-2050-here-s-what-you-need-to-know

2.2 Pollution

Runoff from farms (some for animals, others using animal manure as fertiliser) is destroying the ecosystems of many rivers, lakes and coastlines.[21]

I'm sure you've seen aerial and satellite photographs of horrific pigshit lagoons, coloured green and pink from the bacteria growing in them. When the farms flood, such as during hurricanes, that pig slurry spills over and infects whole regions with salmonella and listeria.[22] Of course, even without hurricanes, animal manure is the main source of such bacteria in plant foods.[23]

[21] https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/dead-zone

[22] https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/green-life/more-dozen-breached-hog-waste-lagoons-found-north-carolina-after-hurricane-matthew

[23] https://www.horticulture.com.au/growers/help-your-business-grow/research-reports-publications-fact-sheets-and-more/vg13039/

2.3 Water and Land Use

No food system, whether capitalist or otherwise, can overcome the laws of thermodynamics. Feeding plants to an animal will produce fewer calories for humans than eating plants directly. The ratio varies from 3% efficiency for cattle, to 9% for pigs, to 13% for chickens, to 17% for dairy and eggs.[24]

This inefficiency makes the previously mentioned 77% of arable land used for animal agriculture very troubling.[19] 10% of the world was food insecure in 2020, up from 8.4% in 2019.[25] Humanity is still experiencing population growth, so food insecurity will get worse in the future. We need to replace animal food with plant food just to stop people in the global periphery starving to death. Remember that food is a global commodity, so increased demand for soya-fed beef cattle in Brazil means increased costs around the world for beef, soya, and things that could have been grown in place of the soya.

Water resources are already becoming strained, even in America[26] and Europe.[27][28] Like in the Soviet Union with the Aral Sea, America is actually causing some lakes, like the Great Salt Lake in Utah, to dry up due to agricultural irrigation.[29] Rather than for cotton as with the Aral Sea, this is mostly for the sake of animal feed. 86.6% of irrigated water in Utah goes to alfalfa, pasture land and grass hay.[30] A cloud of toxic dust kicked up from the dry lake bed will eventually envelop Salt Lake City,[31] for the sake of an industry only worth 3% of the state's GDP.[32]

Comparisons of water footprints for animal vs plant foods are gobsmacking,[33] because pastures and feed crops take up so much space. As water resources become more scarce in the future thanks to the depletion of acquifers and changing weather patterns, human civilisation will have to choose either to use its water to produce more efficient plant foods, or eat a luxury that causes needless suffering for all involved.

[24] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/105002

[25] https://www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutrition/2021/en/

[26] https://theconversation.com/farmers-are-depleting-the-ogallala-aquifer-because-the-government-pays-them-to-do-it-145501

[27] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62519683

[28] https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-must-manage-water-resources-carefully-drought-continues-drought-group-2022-08-23/

[29] https://www.greenmatters.com/news/why-is-the-great-salt-lake-drying-up

[30] https://gopb.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022_07_27-Plan-for-Coordinated-Water-Action-Chapter-3.pdf

[31] https://d1bbnjcim4wtri.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/10101816/GSL_Dust_Plumes_Final_Report_Complete_Document.pdf

[32] https://economic-impact-of-ag.uada.edu/utah/

[33] https://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/product-water-footprint/water-footprint-crop-and-animal-products/

3. Health

3.1 Carcinogens, Cholesterol and Saturated Fat in Animal Products

In 2015, the World Health Organisation reviewed 800 studies, and concluded that red meat is a Group 2A carcinogen, while processed meat is a Group 1 carcinogen.[34] The cause is probably the haem iron in meat, which causes oxidative stress.[35]

Cholesterol and saturated fat from animal foods have been known to cause heart disease for half a century, dating back to studies like the LA Veterans Trial in 1969,[36] and the North Karelia Project in 1972.[37] Heart disease killed 700,000 Americans in 2020, almost twice as many as died from Covid-19.[38]

[34] https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/cancer-carcinogenicity-of-the-consumption-of-red-meat-and-processed-meat

[35] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3261306/

[36] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/01.CIR.40.1S2.II-1

[37] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6062761/

[38] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm

3.2 Antimicrobial Resistance

73% of antimicrobials sold globally are fed to livestock.[39] The UN has declared antimicrobial resistance to be one of the 10 top global public health threats facing humanity, and a major cause of AMR is overuse.[40]

[39] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1503141112

[40] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antimicrobial-resistance

3.3 Zoonotic Spillover

Intensive animal farming has been called a "petri dish for pathogens" with potential to "spark the next pandemic".[41] Pathogens that have recently spilled over from animals to humans include:

1996 and 2013 avian flu [42]

2003 SARS [43]

2009 swine flu [44]

2019 Covid-19 [45]

[41] https://www.hsi.org/news-media/animal-agriculture-could-spark-next-pandemic/

[42] https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/avian-influenza-humans/facts

[43] https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/sars/

[44] https://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/information_h1n1_virus_qa.htm

[45] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62307383

3.4 Slaughterhouse Worker Health

Killing a neverending stream of terrified, screaming sentient beings is the stuff of nightmares. After their first kill, workers report suffering from increased levels of: trauma, intense shock, paranoia, fear, anxiety, guilt, and shame.[46]

Besides wrecking their mental health, it can also wreck their physical health. In 2007, 24 slaugherhouse workers in Minnesota began suffering from an autoimmune disease caused by inhaling aerosolised pig brains. Pig brains were lodged in the workers' lungs. Because pig and human brains are so similar, the workers' immune systems began attacking their own nervous systems.[47]

[46] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15248380211030243

[47] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2841649/

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Apr 18, 2009

Jimlit posted:

I think a lot of your points are spot on. This however seems a bit loaded.

You are saying you don't think livestock should be killed. Why butter it up with a non-statement?

"Vegans think humans and animals are the same/should have the same rights" is a common anti-vegan strawman I wanted to get out of the way.

Jimlit posted:

I'd also like to hear your opinions on the economic feasibility of a vegan diet for most of the population. It seems like it would be prohibitively expensive for low income families and individuals to maintain a nutritionally sustainable diet especially with inflation and increased food costs.

You should be more concerned about the nutritional sustainability of meat-heavy diets. 42% of Americans were obese in 2020.[48] Look at the leading causes of death in America in 2020.[38] Diabetes, at number 8, can be managed and even cured on a plant-based diet. [49][50] Strokes, at number 5, can likewise be reduced on a plant-based diet.[51][52][53] Covid, at number 3, is much deadlier for obese people.[54] Cancer at number 2 and heart disease at number 1 were discussed in section 3.1. Poor people are eating themselves to death right now.

Meat is only cheap firstly due to subsidies as discussed in section 1.2, and secondly it's only cheaper than plants if you buy the nastiest, most horrifically bred meats around, like caged chickens. Soya, chickpeas, beans and lentils are all cheaper sources of protein than beef. If humanity all went vegan, we'd have the 77% of arable land currently used for pasture and feed crops[19] to grow plant foods on. Obviously plant diets would then become much cheaper. The market is currently geared to produce meat, so we need to regear it.

The issue isn't really cost, it's taste and social inertia (which is why conservatives are usually the more vocal opponents of veganism). Going vegan (and especially vocally vegan) will help overcome that social inertia. Obviously if I snapped my fingers and made everyone vegan, I'd then snap them again and make everyone socialist. But in reality we can only change diets for ourselves. That's why the title of the post is why YOU should go vegan!

[48] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

[49] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5466941/

[50] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1499267115300186

[51] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/STROKEAHA.113.002636

[52] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5466937/

[53] https://n.neurology.org/content/96/15/e1940.abstract

[54] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408398.2020.1775546

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

god please help me posted:

Me and some folks who I've found out also have been there, done that wrt trying out the vegan lifestyle have all come to the same conclusion: we all got loving malnourished lmao. As people who have suffered a lot and put a lot of personal money into the welfare of animals (including strays), don't take this to mean that I don't care about the welfare of animals, as seems to be the common accusation against people who are not satisfied with the vegan diet. I just feel that veganism without political campaigning to improve the overall field of agriculture (both livestock and crops) itself resigns veganism to a personal belief, rather than something that could help improve animals lives.

What were you eating?

god please help me posted:

Spending a lifetime on an alternative diet plan can only affect the animals you would've consumed in your own individual lifespan. Improving laws that will enrich the lives of livestock animals as a whole well beyond what they would naturally experience in nature (which is to say, short brutal deaths because nature is mean and there are no peaceful natural deaths)? Well that's something I do find worth struggling for.

I have no faith that veganism can do much by itself without any legislative effort to improve agriculture. It just feels so much the same way that oil corporations placed blame on individuals using the notion of a "personal carbon footprint," so that way no one would notice the major systemic issues.

I don't want to poo poo on people for doing what the feel is better for them, of course. I just want to know if there are any legislative pushes I can help support that improves animal welfare.

Do you think politicians will be more or less inclined to improve animal welfare if there are more vegans in the world?

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

god please help me posted:

I mean. I'm just concerned by that article since it seems that according to it, only 3.7% of the sample household spent anything on a meat substitute. You can certainly eat a diet of nothing but carbs and vegetables and have it indeed be inexpensive in comparison, but god that's not going to be healthy nor is it going to be that great if you're a working class poor person who does very labor intensive jobs (like me). Eating meat strikes the best nutrition/cost balance for working class poor people. I do not mind there being more people choosing a vegan diet, but there is a decent risk of being malnourished for those who don't know what they're doing.

I'm still unsure what you mean by malnourished.

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

god please help me posted:

Starting to feel bad, lacking energy and ability to focus, really hungry for protein and meat, feeling bloated and watery due to eating a lot of carbs/vegetables but not enough of protein. I had to admit that my attempt to cut out one of three of the essential macronutrients was not going well, so I went back to eating meat and vegetables primarily, and felt better. I still eat carbs too, no worries. Just not as much as I was when I trying how long I could go without meat. My friends have reported similar experiences. That's why the article talking about a diet of only 3.7% meat substitute strikes me as not feasible for me.

Beans, chickpeas and lentils have protein.

And yeah, take a vitamin supplement.

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

silence_kit posted:

Focusing on how iron is carcinogenic when taken in large amounts seems more than a little misleading, given that vegans often have to pay special attention to their diets to ensure that they get enough iron.

Is the amount of iron in the average non-vegan diet unhealthy, or is this a problem manufactured by the OP?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8118195/

quote:

3.1. Epidemiology of Dietary Iron and Cancer

Perhaps the largest epidemiological studies designed to understand the potential link between dietary iron uptake and cancer risk have been performed on cohort consortiums developed by the US National Cancer Institute. The NIH–AARP (National Institutes of Health–American Association of Retired Persons) Diet and Health Study is a cohort consortium developed with the aim of improving understanding of the relationship between diet and health. The NIH–AARP cohort consists of half a million retirees, between 50 and 71 years of age, recruited between 1995 and 1996 (42). Another epidemiological study cohort initiated by the National Cancer Institute is the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (PLCO). This cohort comprises nearly 148,000 men and women aged 55–74 years with no prior history of prostate, lung, colorectal, or ovarian cancer (200).

In an initial NIH–AARP study, the association between iron intake and the incidence of different cancer types was assessed in approximately 500,000 participants at 8 years’ follow-up (42). A 124-item food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) was used to assess dietary iron intake. In this study, individuals in the highest quintile of red meat intake, compared with those in the lowest, exhibited a statistically significant elevated risk of several malignancies, including esophageal cancer [hazard ratio (HR), 1.51; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.09–2.08], colorectal cancer (HR, 1.24; 95% CI, 1.12–1.36), liver cancer (HR, 1.61; 95% CI, 1.12–2.31), and lung cancer (HR, 1.20; 95% CI, 1.10–1.31), and there was borderline statistical significance for laryngeal cancer (HR, 1.43; 95% CI, 0.99–2.07). Red meat intake was positively associated with pancreatic cancer incidence only among men (HR, 1.43; 95% CI, 1.11–1.83). No association was found between increased intake of red meat and the incidence of breast, gastric, or bladder cancer, or leukemia, lymphoma, or melanoma.

In addition to large studies aimed at understanding the correlation between heme iron intake and the risk of multiple cancers, many studies have investigated the association between dietary iron and individual cancer types (Table 2). Colorectal cancer is the most extensively studied malignancy in which the association between dietary iron intake and cancer incidence has been assessed. A large, prospective study of 300,948 men and women with 2,719 cases of colorectal cancer demonstrated a positive association between colorectal cancer and red meat intake (HR, 1.24; 95% CI, 1.09–1.42) as well as processed meat intake (HR, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.01–1.32), and it concluded that increased heme iron was a likely contributor to the association between meat intake and colorectal cancer (41). In this study, the total iron intake by individuals was estimated using FFQs (41). The rationale for including processed meat intake was that heme iron, apart from being a pro-oxidant, can also catalyze the generation of N-nitroso compounds from nitrate and nitrite added to meat during processing (43). Nitroso compounds are potential carcinogens and exacerbate the risk of colon cancer (41). For example, in a combined study of two large cohorts of US health professionals [the Nurses’ Health Study (n=87,108 women; 1980–2010) and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (n=47,389 men; 1986–2010)], processed meat intake was positively associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer (HR, 1.15; 95% CI, 1.01–1.32) (19). In addition to these large single studies, two meta-analyses of 34 and 23 prospective studies demonstrated a positive association between heme iron and colorectal cancer, with a relative risk (RR) of 1.12 (95% CI, 1.04–1.21) and RR of 1.11 (95% CI, 1.01–1.22), respectively (8, 30). Similarly, a meta-analysis of 13 case–control studies in the Japanese population showed an association between meat consumption and an increased risk of colorectal cancer (RR, 1.34; 95% CI, 1.12–1.59) (131). Based on the overwhelming epidemiological evidence, current recommendations by the World Cancer Research Fund International for reducing colorectal cancer incidence include reducing the consumption of red and processed meat to less than 500 g per week (166).

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009
edit: I don't want to talk about iron any more

Enjoy fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Aug 30, 2022

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

Ytlaya posted:

It affects less than this, because the actual "production" from livestock farms isn't going to change based upon your own consumer choices. It's not like, by choosing not to buy chicken, you're bringing the chicken that was killed back to life. Or that the company is going to be aware that you didn't buy chicken at a restaurant and reduce its chicken production by 1 in the future. It's the sort of consumer choice that has literally zero impact unless it reaches a threshold where it makes farms actually decrease their "production." And I would argue that it's impossible for enough consumers to voluntarily reduce their consumption to such a degree, because our society/economy is so strongly intertwined with meat production. A real meaningful decrease would require government action (and this would require a fundamental change to our political system). There's a good chance that, even if there was a significant and widespread change in consumer behavior, meat production would still stay the same, with the products just being used in different ways (sort of like we've seen with other farming products, where the industry is powerful and has its own influence over the government, which provides it with subsidies).

It's sort of similar to climate change in this regard, only individual consumer choices are possibly even less relevant (since you're at least the the one actually creating emissions with something like driving, while the animal you'd be eating is always already dead, unless you buy a live lobster and release it into the ocean I guess).

Vegetarianism* is basically objectively correct morally, but your personal choices about what to eat don't really matter at all (to anything other than your own nutrition and finances, anyways).

* I don't think there's any meaningful ethical issue with eating fish. Overfishing is a serious problem, but that's a separate issue.


DrSunshine posted:

The environmental/social argument doesn't hold water for me because it frames it according to the "personal responsibility" model.

What I mean by this is that the argument is that one can, acting as an individual, by their choice to be a vegan, they can effect society-wide change in order to positively benefit the cause of animal welfare or the environment. This isn't convincing for me, because the marginal effect of a single individual in a society of 8 billion is minimal. At the scale necessary to effect material change, individual actions are replaceable: if you choose not to consume animal products, then someone else will. In effect, the animals exploited, the greenhouse gases emitted, are already baked into the system by the time you make your choice; the animals, raised in order to be food, are already dead.

Now this doesn't mean that I oppose one's individual preference to be a vegan. In fact, I have already easily transitioned into a 4/3, 5/2 vegan/pescatarian diet simply because I prefer it that way. I've found that I like eating vegan food more than I like non-vegan food, and that I like eating seafood more than land food. I also agree with the argument from the standpoint of personal ethics.

But to claim that individuals making the choice to become vegan because doing so will help X or Y social cause is somewhat specious to me, because socially effective changes require social-scale decisions, social-scale actions. In essence, it's not comparing apples to oranges. The correct tool for dealing with the cause of animal welfare would be to put pressure on manipulating the system of animal protection, the correct tool for dealing with the root cause of CO2 emissions from factory farming would be to put pressure on ending the system of factory farming. It requires a legal response, a response on the order of a conscientious social movement, not an individual response.

EDIT:

Essentially, I disagree with the framing of the topic. I think it should be "Why we should encourage veganism" or "Why we should stop society-wide animal cultivation".

EDIT2: And well, Ytlaya already made my argument upthread. Woops! :v:

Do you vote?

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

Harold Fjord posted:

Why would this be relevant?

It's an individual action people take in hopes of other people doing the same on a large scale, in order to change society for the better.

Definitely interested in how those two posters respond. If they're Marxists and say they don't I'd then bring up the law of the transformation of quantity into quality.

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

How are u posted:

I would say that encouraging people to vote for politicians who will enact system-wide top-down climate action is probably more worthwhile than trying to convince people to become vegans person-by-person. Voting is a tool that can unlock large systemic changes in a much quicker timeframe than it would take to convince everybody to voluntarily become vegan. This is just from the perspective of the climate change / environmental argument.

We can do both, as I do.

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

god please help me posted:

Why is the reply so short? Those were very good attempts to take this topic seriously.

I think it will demonstrate that they are either hypocrites or doomers

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

Content to Hover posted:

How did you become a vegan, for you personally was there an issue that held more weight? Your first post was diverse, which I think is great because in my experience there are many different reasons why people choose to become vegan.

I saw video of male chicks in the egg industry being fed into a macerator and then tried to analyse why I found it repulsive. I'd seen vegan arguments before but it hadn't registered emotively until then. The short essay under 1.1 is basically a distillation of my thoughts.

The process took a few years, because I had to be prodded to go from pescetarianism to vegetarianism to veganism. Some people need prodding to get out of their cognitive safe space.

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

platzapS posted:

gently caress i thought i was in cspam

No irony here comrade, we are saving the world from capitalism's excesses

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

silence_kit posted:

Use protein/calorie as the figure of merit. Lean chicken and tuna are almost pure protein, with some fat. Lentils are like 2/3 carbs, 1/3 protein.

Humans need 2,000 calories a day to live. People who need to worry about protein, like weightlifters, athletes and manual labourers, might need 3,000 calories or more!

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

silence_kit posted:

The following is not a problem that most people who live in the first world have (they usually have the opposite problem), but a great thing about animal-based food products for people who need high calorie diets is that they can have a high protein density and a high caloric density. You don't need to spend all day eating to get the calories you need.

I've never followed a vegan diet, but have had plenty of vegan meals which didn't have some kind of ingredient which served as a meat substitute. The thing that struck me the most about them was that I could just keep eating and eating the food. I would get tired of the act of eating before getting full. This is probably a good thing for most Americans, but for people who actually need high calorie diets (which most people do not) it is kind of a bad thing.

I don't think this is a reasonable criticism when compared to the benefits to animal welfare, individual health and the environment.

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

Communist Thoughts posted:

The last time there was a vegan discussion I asked if anyone could post good vegan recipes that didn't involve something weird as a subsistute.

Iirc I got posted a buncha stuff with yeast sludge pretending to be cheese

So the animals are gonna have to continue taking one for the team.

I do wanna try it out some day though cause I just have no idea what you'd even eat. I cook a lot of diff stuff and I don't think any of them are vegan. Salads without any good dressing or cheese...
I could make daal without ghee I guess or veggie chilli without stock or lard

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/diets/vegan

silence_kit posted:

Yeah, in principle, you could be vegan. Or you could just eat chicken, tuna, eggs, etc. like most of the rest of the first world.

Three quarters of Americans are obese or overweight

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm

so you should avoid eating like the rest of the first world.

Enjoy fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Sep 5, 2022

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

silence_kit posted:

What I don't understand is animal rights activists who dedicate most of their lives to the political issue. There are so many injustices in this world, and animal welfare is what they selected as their moral crusade? Come on.

The annual killing of 80 billion sentient beings is a pretty big injustice.

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

silence_kit posted:

If someone is making the noble decision to dedicate their entire life to a moral/social/political cause, and the issue they select is animal welfare, I think it reveals that their sense of morality is wack. There are so many greater injustices in this world for moral crusaders to dedicate their lives to than the well-being of animals.

You don't have to be a moral crusader to go vegan, you can just stop paying for animals to be abused. It's really easy.

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

OwlFancier posted:

I would argue that there is a difference between humans and animals in that I think humans have a sort of inner-world and can communicate that to other people even into advanced age most of the time and thus humans exist in a sort of... shared mental space? Not quite sure how to describe it but a human is usually a member of a community and their presence adds to that community and adds value to the lives of other humans who interact with them. Whereas I am far from sure that animals have either the inner world or the capability to form communities like humans do. I know they have some kind of social organization but I don't think I have good reason to believe the loss of any particular animal is equivalently devastating to their peers than the loss of a particular human may often be.

So yes the "soul" argument is certainly a factor for me. But I would also stress that while I don't think animals have "souls" they are obviously capable of feeling pain and stuff, so we should generally try to avoid that.

I mean if you keep the dogs in good conditions I don't see what the difference between that and any other form of agriculture would be other than I don't think puppy rugs would be very good commodities. Sheep are much better for that.

Lots of animals have a subjective experience. Even species without a mammalian neocortex: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959438821001100

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

OwlFancier posted:

I fear that position runs into the danger of solipsism where I identify as vegan despite eating a burger for dinner because I was out and the burger place was there and it was practical for me to get it and I had to eat something because I had work to do.

I would generally hew more to the idea that words have, like, collectively defined meanings, and vegans at least to me appear to be far more absolutist about the concept of avoiding animal products than I think it is necessary to be. They may not achieve it but their concept of practical swings well into my concept of exceptional.

I'm not a vegan out of technicalities, I'm a vegan because I know it's the right thing to do.

There's nothing exceptional about eating beans instead of beef.

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

OwlFancier posted:

Also by the extreme form of that logic you should not hold your child's hand when crossing the street because if the child wants to get hit by a car that's their choice.

This is the worst comment in the thread, well done

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009
The sticky situation of paying for animal abuse

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

Harold Fjord posted:

It's good when you make it clear that you aren't engaging in good faith at all. Thanks.

Sorry you can't come up with any solutions besides never thinking about animals again. Maybe you wouldn't be vegan if you didnt have a low key beastiality fetish.

No one engaged with anything I wrote in the OP :shrug:

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

Harold Fjord posted:

Sure we did. It's a good OP and I agree with a lot of it, just not every premise of morality or the conclusion. But on the other hand, I've made lots of posts here where the substantive point was disregarded so you could call me a puppy experimenter. :shrug:

I think actual animal welfare is more important than perceived individual moral harms.

Try experimenting on fewer puppies then

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

Harold Fjord posted:

This is exactly what I'm talking about and the exact kind of bad faith I'm sick of. Thanks for demonstrating it so aptly.

loving with animals does not have to involve stabbing them and I don't support stabbing them, but since I'm not a vegan the vegans posting find every horrible thing done to animals that has ever happened and lay it at my feet. Go gently caress yourself

You chose to defend bull fighting, you laid it at your own feet

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

Harold Fjord posted:

I explicitly did not. In fact, I outright indicated I disagree with some practices. You shithead

You said there were practices you disagreed with but "loving around with a bull" was not one of those. You said that in response to bull fighting being raised.

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

Epic High Five posted:

1) Are fish = conscious and meat still as contentious a point as it was like a decade ago last I checked in on it? What about stuff like scallops or oysters?

There's greater genetic diversity amongst fish than amongst all land animals, so it's hard to generalise. But some species of fish pass the mirror test: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000021

Epic High Five posted:

2) Omega-3 levels in vegans and vegetarians, I've heard they're good despite ALA being so poorly converted. Is this true, and if so what's the cause? Benefit from so many bad fats being cut out so a little bit goes a lot longer a way?

Personally I take an algae-derived supplement (it looks just like a fish oil pill)

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

Epic High Five posted:

Is genetic diversity a metric that's used a lot? At a glance it seems to me like the people who years ago would try to find correlations between things and number of genes or complexity of them only to find out it's basically useless for that, like it ended up being a "yep it's cold blooded" sort of thing

No idea I was just paraphrasing QI!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhwcEvMJz1Y

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

Mega Comrade posted:

You're certainly right on this. I was really enjoying this discussion until the thread took this turn, and it's silly but it honestly has made me completely disregard everything you have said up to this point.

What an abhorrent world view.

Does this Holocaust survivor have an abhorrent world view?

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009
For breakfast I usually have oat porridge (oatmeal) too. I like to slice some fruit on top.

For lunch I recently got into burritos (onions and courgettes/zucchini fried with paprika and then mixed with refried beans, then wrapped in the tortilla)

For dinner I often make bean chilli (onion, jalapenos and bell peppers fried with cumin, then I put it in a slow cooker with passata, canned tomato, and various cans of beans)

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009


Via Anne Mottet of the FAO

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

mystes posted:

It's not clear whether dietary cholesterol has any significant effect on blood cholesterol levels or otherwise matters at all

It was clear for decades, to the point that people stopped doing studies about it because it was proven fact. Since then the only people doing studies are industry-funded and looking to disprove the consensus by using bad methods

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQOXbr_AbOc

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

TychoCelchuuu posted:

Howdy everyone. Just stumbled across this thread. I haven't read all 14 pages (in fact I've only read about 3) so apologies if this has come up before, but we have a vegan thread over in Goons With Spoons. Properly speaking I don't think the ethics of veganism has much at all to do with the food - the issue is how we're treating the animals before we eat them, not what goes in anyone's mouth - but since lots of people have trouble thinking about veganism outside the context of a diet, you might find the thread helpful. The OP has lots of links and if you filter the thread just by my posts you can find a ton more recipes.

Thanks!

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

GreyjoyBastard posted:

yeah a lot of plants demonstrate an aversion response to danger or "pain", they just dont exactly move very fast, so if we're going to completely ignore brainpower in our calculus, modern science has presented us with a problem

Magnets show an aversion response when being held near to the same pole as another magnet, are you saying magnets need moral consideration?

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

DeadlyMuffin posted:

I think the "plants feel pain" argument against veganism is silly as anything but a game, but you are now literally comparing something moving because it is alive and reacting to stimuli, to something being moved by an external force applied by a magnetic field.

Pretty ridiculous huh

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

DeadlyMuffin posted:

It's a comparison that demonstrates a fundimental misunderstanding between something being alive vs. an inanimate object.

It's ridiculous to think it demonstrates anything at all besides that misunderstanding.

It demonstrates that just seeing a change in an object isn't enough of a reason to give it moral consideration.

I've explained in the OP why I think sentience is a good reason to give something moral consideration.

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

DeadlyMuffin posted:

So there is no moral difference between something that is inanimate, and something that is alive, if there is no sentience?

If I were to injure a plant, or break a rock, just for the hell of it, is there a moral distinction? What about a coral? Not a plant, but not really any more sentient.

Living vs. not seems like such a strong line to me.

Do you consider being a lumberjack to be more morally problematic than being a miner

I don't think plants per se deserve any more moral consideration than rocks. It's only when we think about externalities to sentient beings that things get complicated.

Enjoy fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Oct 18, 2022

Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009
Internet communists are some of the worst people imaginable

https://twitter.com/carterforva/status/1599154998474002432

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

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Enjoy
Apr 18, 2009

Kalit posted:

For my 2 cents, I wouldn't overthink it. If it's going to be thrown out and no one else wants it, then I would argue there are no noticeable environmental impacts. I'm sure you could go down the rabbit hole of "well if it's marked down as waste vs not then...". But IMO, at that point, eh.

Granted, that could lead to less than desirable social situations, such as refusing meat that's being offered as a meal from family/friends if didn't know you only eat meat that's already going to waste. That's a big part of why I just completely avoid a few different things, such as honey. It's easier for me to just say no to all of it instead of acting like a pretentious rear end in a top hat and refuse a friend's dessert with honey from an unknown source when I eat honey in other [non-bee killing] situations.

In the end, I think reducing meat/animal product consumption is a good goal from an environmental perspective, even if it doesn't end up being 100% of the time.

Maple syrup/golden syrup are nicer than honey IMO. In the UK maple syrup is quite expensive but golden syrup is cheaper than honey.

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