How Do You Feel About Veganism?

[PrincessHades]

@PrincessHades @davis_jen @laplex @Bloopy

the "sick and disgusting" way that the animals are being treated right now didn't fucking exist until 50 fucking years ago

a hundred years ago, nobody could have gotten away with what's going on now because they would have be lynched by the specific people that were in charge of slaughtering food-animals,

a hundred years ago the people in charge of slaughtering food-animals were just way the fuck more humane and would go fucking crazy if one of them could see the inhumane way the food animals are being treated right now

they made sure the animals were as-healthy-as-possible, completely happy, not-stressed-at-all, and making absolutely sure that they didn't feel any panic or pain when being killed,

raising and slaughtering the food-animals in this way actually makes the meat way-the-fuck less toxic that the meat being sold on store shelves today


there is a fraction of 1% of the human population that can't digest meat at all, and some people have trouble digesting the specific types of meat that are the most easily available for them,

for those specific people, becoming a vegetarian can actually make them healthier
but when i say "humans are designed to eat meat" what i mean is
that a really really huge percent of the population will get sick-as-hell if they try to become vegetarian
(can't even count how many times in a random 2-month-priod where i'm feeling queasy and eating a chunk of meat makes me feel better)

being disturbed by how food-animals are being treated should make people go back to treating the food-animals humanely
and i really don't know how to re-phrase this in any kinda way that will make people understand how obvious this is to me

morality and diet should be completely 2 completely separate things
your personal diet should be the diet that keeps your specific body healthy
and when your morality dictates your diet, you're being a dumb-ass

if you're sick and you change your diet in the way that heals you
then, congratulations on fixing your medical problem

if your morality makes you change your diet
then, congratulations on becoming an idiot

If your point is that humans are meant to eat animals, and that the sick an disgusting reduction of living creatures to nothing more than a source of profit and convenience was an advent of the last century or so, I definitely agree with you! I find factory farming to be abhorrent and disrespectful, but I understand that our biological reality is as omnivorous creatures. I don't think that the types of "activism" engaged in by the vegan community help at all, either. They simply divide people and make it hard for people to concede that there actually are issues with the way we handle agriculture. I'm really with you on that, you misunderstood.

I tried vegetarianism for a while, mostly because I can't afford to be choosy about where I get meat at this stage of my life. In the end, it failed. I'm underweight and right now, I'm putting my health first. I don't like the fact that I have to eat factory farmed stuff to do that, but I do for now.

I believe that hunting, raising livestock, and using animal products is an important part of our way of life. I just wish people weren't so sick and detached from the fact that we're talking about what could more or less be considered sentient beings. I hate how people just sweep it under the rug and deny it. Maybe if they didn't feel such shame about their own biological realities, they'd actually wake up and see the issues with how we treat animals and push for something better. Maybe they'd take up hunting, raising their own livestock (if they had the means), or at least making more ethical decisions with where they source their animal products, if they can afford it.

I'm with you. You generally made some good points. The way it's handled in factory settings is straight up gross.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

@PrincessHades
i also meant
that in America, most of the people protesting the "cruelty to animals" thing are completely ignoring the way that humans are designed to eat meat

 

[PrincessHades]

@PrincessHades
i also meant
that in America, most of the people protesting the "cruelty to animals" thing are completely ignoring the way that humans are designed to eat meat

I agree. Their intentions are often admirable, even if there's a bit of grandstanding, but the consequences of ignoring facts and using extreme sensationalism that the average person just can't relate to are actually so bad for animal welfare.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

I agree. Their intentions are often admirable, even if there's a bit of grandstanding, but the consequences of ignoring facts and using extreme sensationalism that the average person just can't relate to are actually so bad for animal welfare.

animal welfare and human diet should be 2 completely separated issues
humans should eat animals, but the food-animals need to be healthy in order for the humans eating those animals to be healthy
the way the food animals are being treated is actually making the meat you buy on a store shelf toxic

 

[PrincessHades]

animal welfare and human diet should be 2 completely separated issues
humans should eat animals, but the food-animals need to be healthy in order for the humans eating those animals to be healthy
the way the food animals are being treated is actually making the meat you buy on a store shelf toxic

This seems like you're trying to make an artificial separation as a reaction to the behavior of vegans. There's no reason that those who care about animal welfare shouldn't be conscious of what they consume. You're correct, but imo the two go hand in hand. Healthier animals, healthier food, healthier public.

The problem comes when you insist that people are "murderers" for doing something that's been a part of human life for millennia. That just makes people not want to think about the issue at all, and instead go into denial about the nature of their food.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

This seems like you're trying to make an artificial separation as a reaction to the behavior of vegans. There's no reason that those who care about animal welfare shouldn't be conscious of what they consume. You're correct, but imo the two go hand in hand. Healthier animals, healthier food, healthier public.

The problem comes when you insist that people are "murderers" for doing something that's been a part of human life for millennia. That just makes people not want to think about the issue at all, and instead go into denial about the nature of their food.

my point here is that most of the Americans who are are now becoming vegans are actually really trying to just completely abolish any humans eating any meat altogether, which is horrendously idiotic

 

[PrincessHades]

my point here is that most of the Americans who are are now becoming vegans are actually really trying to just completely abolish any humans eating any meat altogether, which is horrendously idiotic

I'm definitely with you here, it's a completely unachievable goal, and not something we should be aiming for anyways. It makes it feel like it's more about them and making themselves feel better than it is real-world change.

 

[CiG]

my point here is that most of the Americans who are are now becoming vegans are actually really trying to just completely abolish any humans eating any meat altogether, which is horrendously idiotic

You're so low IQ and meth'd out. Abolishing meat consumption is literally the easiest part to solve for, from a vegan perspective. There are myriad alternatives to what you can get from consuming meat. The biggest obstacle veganism faces is all the other uses we have for animal products, the things we are barely even cognizant of.

Also you're (both) seemingly unable to perceive this subject from the perspective of those you're critiquing. It's like asking a pro-lifer why they aren't content with not having abortions themselves and constantly try to stop everybody else from having them too. Because they view it as murder, and why would you sit by as murder is normalised? Same deal with vegans. If you believe in a fundamental concept like animal rights, why wouldn't you try to push that on society? To not do so would be absurd.

What's truly "horrendously idiotic" to me is a homeless meth-head saying we are "designed" to eat meat because, when he feels queasy, he eats a bit of meat and he's immediately cured. What kind of retarded shit is that? You're homeless, your diet is likely abysmal, and even if it were true, that doesn't mean meat itself is the remedy you fucking sped, it means you get things from meat that can help with queasiness that are 1000% replicable from other things. Meat isn't magic, animals eat things that they pass onto us when we consume them, eating meat is more convenient is all, but it's not necessary so why wouldn't a vegan argue to abolish it?

TL;DR you're a dumbass.

 

[PrincessHades]

You're so low IQ and meth'd out. Abolishing meat consumption is literally the easiest part to solve for, from a vegan perspective. There are myriad alternatives to what you can get from consuming meat. The biggest obstacle veganism faces is all the other uses we have for animal products, the things we are barely even cognizant of.

Also you're (both) seemingly unable to perceive this subject from the perspective of those you're critiquing. It's like asking a pro-lifer why they aren't content with not having abortions themselves and constantly try to stop everybody else from having them too. Because they view it as murder, and why would you sit by as murder is normalised? Same deal with vegans. If you believe in a fundamental concept like animal rights, why wouldn't you try to push that on society? To not do so would be absurd.

What's truly "horrendously idiotic" to me is a homeless meth-head saying we are "designed" to eat meat because, when he feels queasy, he eats a bit of meat and he's immediately cured. What kind of retarded shit is that? You're homeless, your diet is likely abysmal, and even if it were true, that doesn't mean meat itself is the remedy you fucking sped, it means you get things from meat that can help with queasiness that are 1000% replicable from other things. Meat isn't magic, animals eat things that they pass onto us when we consume them, eating meat is more convenient is all, but it's not necessary so why wouldn't a vegan argue to abolish it?

TL;DR you're a dumbass.

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I've dabbled very briefly in veganism and I've been a lacto-ovo vegetarian and also a pescatarian for fair periods of time, all for animal welfare reasons.

Aggressively pushing for the abolition of something that's so deeply ingrained in people's minds as a normal behavior is all but useless. It does work for some people (hence why they become vegans), but for most people, it just makes them want to ignore the problem because they don't like thinking about it.

Most people, when attacked, are more likely to push back (sometimes doubling down even) than they are to actually look at why they're being attacked and seek to change that. It's very possible that radical abolitionist activism could cause people who'd otherwise care about the cause in some way (say, cut down on meat, by from better sources, support animal welfarist laws) to shy away from it entirely and become the same types of people who brag about eating meat unlike those "squeamish PC libruhl snowflakes".

The problem I have with vegan activism (not the lifestyle) is pretty much the same problem I have with most other forms of radicalism. Generally, I don't want to miss out on a couple inches of progress because I wouldn't accept anything short of a mile. People love fights, causes, etc, but at a point, I think some people get way too caught up in their fights, to the extent that they compromise their causes, and this is one of the biggest problems I see in the activistic sphere.

edit note: cleaned some stuff up and removed a sentence just to make my tone more in line with my intent

 

[CiG]

That's the nature of activism, to be the more radical voice that shifts the Overton window.

 

[PrincessHades]

There're two ways of looking at this. One is what you said, the other is "every action has an equal and opposite reaction". Neither perspectives are wrong, but I think it's important to have a balance between the two.

Everyone should stand for what they believe in, but we have to be careful of the hills we choose to die on.

 

[CiG]

If you view the animal product industry as something approximating a speciest genocide, it's probably an easy choice for a lot of vegans to die on that hill. I also think the proof is in the pudding if you look at the stats, as veganism has only become more accepted, adopted and mainstream since it ideologically schismed with vegetarianism in the early 1900's.

 

[PrincessHades]

If you view the animal product industry as something approximating a speciest genocide, it's probably an easy choice for a lot of vegans to die on that hill. I also think the proof is in the pudding if you look at the stats, as veganism has only become more accepted, adopted and mainstream since it ideologically schismed with vegetarianism in the early 1900's.

These are good points. I definitely understand it, but I think getting the general public on board with completely abstaining from meat consumption is a next to impossible goal. As for veganism as a concept distinct from vegetarianism in general being relatively new, that's an interesting point.

I think that lab grown meat may be a much more viable solution to this problem. Inevitably, there will be a contingent of crazies who think that it's some sort of government-engineered bioweapon and insist that they'll only eat meat from slaughtered animals, but realistically, I think that would be the best way to all but eliminate large scale animal agriculture.

Between now and then, I think that those who can afford to do so should vote with their wallets. Reduce meat consumption overall, and stick to stuff that's farmed more ethically. I also hope more and more laws are passed to ensure that animals aren't mistreated, and I hope more and more people start to care about where their food comes from.

 

[davidkoperty]

I'm positive about it, it's everyone's choice and I don't see anything negative in it, only positive.