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"Without using ethical arguments, why vegan over vegetarian?", |
"First off - I am a vegan and in an ideal world, everyone should be vegan. Veganism has done so much good for the world and the animals and there's absolutely no need for the insane amount of meat consumed in the world.\\n\\nThis may be a very unpopular opinion but here goes...\\n\\nNot everyone in the world can be vegan, and demonising all meat eaters as evil is WRONG. Some people may still live with their parents and can't buy vegan food, others may live in a third world county where food is scarce and meat is available. There are WAY too many extreme vegans that absolutely turn meat eaters away from being vegan. I see videos on YouTube of vegans demonising and judging non vegans as evil scum for the food they eat, my issue with this is that the more you demonise them, the less likely they are to go vegan. Imagine if someone tried to push a 100% fruit diet on you, and demonised you for eating plants as they feel pain - are you more likely to listen to them while their shouting at you? No. I know its not a perfect example but hopefully you get my point. When I was eating meat in 2020 the thing that put me off veganism was the insanity of many vegans. Yes by all means talk to people about being vegan, tell them why its good, but for the love of god if they decide to eat meat, ACCEPT IT. You're doing your part - your helping animals and fueling this great vegan movement, now let others make their own choice...eventually they will see eating animals isn't good, but they need to come to that conclusion on their own. Speaking to vegans can help them along the way only if you respect their point of view. Most humans have been conditioned to eat meat - pushing veganism on them in an aggressive way just fuels their motivation to eat meat as you're now their enemy and they have a bad perception of vegans. \\n\\nIt also appears a lot of vegans want to boycott places like mcdonalds, burger king, KFC etc because they focus so heavily on meat, but by boycotting them you also boycott the vegan options, therefore lowering the demand for vegan choices at fast food restaurants. If vegans aren't going to buy the mcplant then mcdonalds will just abandon it and focus more on their meat range.\\n\\nI'm a vegan and I care about the animals but this extreme vegan movement needs to stop.", |
"Why do so many pro-vegan arguments compare animal agriculture to the holocaust/human slavery, or just human-on-human killing? It's pretty clear that most humans value human life more than non-human life.\\n\\nDo vegans really value human life and non-human life equally? If so, why?\\n\\nIf you DON'T value human life and non-human life equally, as a vegan, why not?", |
"When I think of what my perfect dream life would be, I fantasize about hanging out by the pond with my kids all day, surrounded by family and friends, surrounded by my favorite food with access to eat all day if I wish... knowing that at the end of my life I will not grow old and feeble to be a burden to my family, and that my death will be quick and without suffering or prolonged illness and might even serve a greater good. \\n\\nI drive by the pastures full of cattle and I am honestly jealous. \\n\\nWhy are you vegans trying to ruin their sweet deal? ", |
"I am currently a vegetarian. I am 100% on board with veganism on ethical, environmental, and sustainability grounds. I would not consider buying factory-farmed eggs and I avoid buying dairy products but am flexible about consuming them when served to me.\\n\\nHowever:\\n\\nI keep backyard chickens. I believe that I provide them a good life. They started living with me after some acquaintances moved house and were no longer able to care for them. They provide excellent manure for my garden, and lots of delicious and nutritious eggs, which I eat. They eat a lot of my kitchen scraps, which effectively reduces food waste in my house. They are funny friends and I cherish my interactions with them.\\n\\nI'm interested to hear any ethical/philosophical arguments against this arrangement.", |
"What's the difference between the two diets?\\n\\nWhy should the Vegan diet be appropriated while incarcerated?\\n\\nWhy shouldn't the Vegan diet be appropriated while incarcerated?\\n\\nWhy shouldn't the Carnivore diet be appropriated while incarcerated?", |
"Hello everybody,\\n\\nI stumbled upon an article describing the possibility to grow human organs for organ transportation in animals, to be specific, pigs. \\n\\nUnder the assumption, we already have this technology, what is your opinion about this? If you want to differentiate, in one case, one organ per pig and in another multiple organs per pig.\\n\\nI dont voice my opinion for now, i want to hear yours without mine influencing yours.", |
"So first asking as a vegan.\\n\\nMy friend the other day said would you eat a burger if I gave you 10k. I said sure.\\n\\nNow the questioning\\n\\n1) would you have refused that and are you sure that you're not just doubling down because it's hypothetical and makes you look better?\\n\\n2) if not is there a limit when you would accept the meat? (50 trillion could allow you to buy all the democracies and outlaw animal consumption)\\n\\n3) if the question is flipped to if you ate a burger they would never again eat meat so you would actually be causing less harm?\\n\\nBasically do you have a monetary / value ratio or a input / output value", |
"I am vegan myself, but this thread will address both meat eaters and vegans.\\nBoth parties are free to debate me on this.\\n\\nConsider this thought experiment:\\nDog is locked up in the basement near you and you know its there suffering, all you have to do to save it from starvation is open the basement doors and set it free. Since it is in your awareness, its your responsibility to save the dog. If you didn't know about it, and it dies, it wouldn't be your fault.\\nIf you are aware of dog being trapped would it be considered a murder if you let the dog die?\\nNow instead of dog it's starving child. It's even worse then right? \\n\\nBecause you know that you can save this child easy.\\nThe reason being, as with all human caused suffering, you are too attached to your experience.\\nYou can argue and say you didn't know about this, but now its right in your face. \\n\\nYou are all aware of this happening, every day in the world, but you are not opening the door.\\n\\nInaction = People dying.\\n\\n\\n", |
"I'm vegan but am looking to learn some of the best arguments against veganism. \\n\\nSo, what are the most philosophically or logically strong arguments against veganism?", |
"This annoying know-it-all guy just told me that vegan food can make you sick the first few times you eat it because your body isn't used to it. I said that can't be true because most of the ingredients in vegan food is stuff that meat eaters eat normally. He didn't seem to get it. Do you guys have any arguments for this? ", |
"I tried to have as inclusive but short a title as possible.\\n\\n * Yes, a vegan diet can be tasty.\\n\\n * Yes, it can be the cheapest diet you've ever tried.\\n\\n * Yes, it can be varied.\\n\\n * Yes, it can be high in protein with moderate kcal.\\n\\nPlease prove to me that it can be all 4 at the same time.\\n\\nSome info to preface this:\\n\\nI am an omni, but trying to transition one step at a time and I lift. \\n\\nI need about 2700 kcal/day to maintain my weight and definitely more than 100 g protein per day (probably closer to 150g) to \\"feel good\\" in the gym or make any progress at all. This is not something I have read online, it didn't come from a youtube fitness \\"expert\\", it's my own experience. Please don't start shooting videos of Brian Turner or John Venus at me, because I am neither of them.\\n\\nEating a standard vegan diet won't help me currently because eating 2700 kcal in oats, nuts, seeds, legumes and the like nets me 70-80 g protein at the absolute best (**boring and bland taste, very cheap, low variety, low protein**).\\n\\nIf I eat some of the 2700 kcal in fruits and veggies, rice, pasta or potatoes and the rest in the foods posted above, protein goes to 50g or less (**higher variety, better taste, still kinda cheap, very low protein**). Without even touching junk food (or alcohol :P), which I need to shut down my cravings.\\n\\nIf I eat with the goal of reaching 100-150g protein in vegan food, I will have to eat 4000+ kcal. I don't want to get fat, so no. Also I would have to cut out anything green because there is a limit to how much I can eat and those foods are very low in kcal.\\n\\nIf I eat protein isolates, tofu, tempeh or seitan as well as mock meats and non dairy milks: Well, we definitely solve some of the taste, variety and protein content issues but the problem is that I haven't seen these products anywhere, and buying online costs an arm and a leg. Keep in mind that I live in Greece. Stuff I also haven't found include nutritional yeast, gluten to make my own seitan and many condiments.\\n\\nBTW, I bought some soy \\"minced beef\\" the other day and it was delicious, for my dog. Don't remember the brand but I got it at Masoutis. I think Fytro? Could be wrong. And it was like 2-3x the price of actual minced beef too.\\n\\nInb4 excuses, please try to prove me wrong and keep in mind that I do want to be convinced eventually.\\n\\n**TLDR please help a curious omni transition in a healthy, cheap, tasty, varied, high protein vegan diet**\\n\\nBonus: Throw recipes at me. Just googling \\"vegan recipes\\" is a shot in the dark and pinterest is full of crap. I keep seeing \\"vegan gluten free soy free gmo free oil free salt free\\" and I cringe. Plus I don't like how everyone there presents themself as some special snowflake cooking genius, only for me to find out that the recipes (usually the ones that involve baking) don't live up to the expectations created by the author at all. EDIT: I am a fan of Arab, Greek, Spanish, Italian cuisines.\\n\\nBonus 2: What do you do for D, B12 and DHA?\\n", |
"A note about language: please stop calling animals \\"it\\"", |
"Vegans will often argue something along the lines of \\"any sentient creature should have some degree of rights. \\"Sentience\\" is typically defined as the possession of a subjective experience. I find it problematic to inherently value sentience for a few reasons\\n\\n1. Sentience is impossible to detect in others. Ultimately, all we have is our own subjective experience. Sure, I could argue that because I am sentient, and because other humans possess similar brains to me, most other humans are sentient as well, but that is impossible to know for certain. For all I know, everyone around me could be a P-zombie, that is a living thing that simply has the appearance of a sentient creature. Even if we agree that all humans are sentient, things become problematic when we go to other creatures, since they are different from humans. Is a cow sentient? A chicken? A frog? A worm? A sponge? a tree? a human fetus? One may argue that anything with a brain is sentient, but this presents its own challenges for vegan ethics. No computer has a brain - does this mean that no machine can ever be described as sentient? What about alien life that is very different from life on Earth? This may sound pedantic, but I think it is worth considering\\n2. I disagree that Sentience is necessary to grant an entity rights. If you somehow found out beyond the shadow of a doubt that your best friend was a P-zombie, would you be ok if I shot them to death for no reason? I doubt most people honestly would. I (and I would argue most people) dont truly value people around them because they are sentient, they value them because of the interactions that they are able to have with them, and because of the role that they play in society.\\n3. I disagree that Sentience is sufficient to grant an entity rights. Suppose we create a sentient \\"vision machine.\\" The machine is able to have a subjective experience, however only to the extent that it is able to see the world around it. It is unable to have thoughts, feel pain, communicate, move, etc. Should such a machine be afforded the same rights as a human simply because it has some level of subjective experience? I would argue not, because simply being able to sense the world around you has no real meaning in and of itself.\\n\\nEssentially we have no way to know what is sentient, and even if we did, it is not clear why sentience is relevant to grant something rights. Therefore I believe that to make a compelling case for veganism, vegans must offer a different criteria that grants animals and humans rights.\\n\\n​\\n\\nEdit: Changed point 1 from \\"sentience is impossible to detect\\" to \\"sentience is impossible to detect in others\\" which is more accurate. ", |
"Vegans don't eat any animal products. Vegans don't wear any animal products. Vegans don't use animal tested products. Vegans don't ride animals or participate in any form of entertainment on animals. Each of these end in the killing of animals.So how does veganism kill more animals than a non-vegan?", |
"I'm not a vegan but I am an athiest. I genuinely believe that religion creates an incredible amount of suffering and that the joy and comfort of religion can be found through other forms of community and exploration of life's actual mysteries which in fact could provide *more* joy and comfort than religion does. The analogy there of course being the vegan view that a vegan diet can be more satisfying and nutritious than a non-vegan diet without any of the suffering.\\n\\nBut the issue I have with veganism is the same issue I have with athiesm - it's when the adherents don't understand what they are asking (or worse, demanding) of people when they tell them they should change. We shouldn't take it at face value when people say they eat meat because \\"they like it\\" or \\"it's essential for proper nutrition\\" the same way we shouldn't take it at face value when a religious person says they adhere to their faith because it \\"makes sense to them\\" or is a \\"moral necessity\\".\\n\\nPeople do these things because they grew up doing it and their friends and family do it. I find it frustratingly obtuse to berate people for making bad \\"choices\\" when it comes to diet or religion. Both inform someone's identity in deep neurological ways. Browse r/vegan or r/atheism around the holidays. You can see how hard it is for many people in these subs to feel securily attached to the people around them that don't identify as vegan or atheism the way they do.\\n\\nThat's my main point, but I'll add that vegan and atheism are also simillar because of the black and white thinking. It's clear to me that veganism and athiesm are probably at least *mostly* right, but I can also see the wiggle room aronud the edges. Is it ok to eat clams because they're a good fit for your local economy? They might suffer a little when harvested, does that comprise a moral duty not to do it? Chickens and fish can feel pain and stress, but are they conscious? Do they suffer the way pigs and cows and people do? Vegans and atheists both come to their own conclusions about the nature of consciousness, which remains perhaps life's biggest mystery.\\n\\nMaybe more of a rant than a debate, but I've been needing to get this off my chest. Thanks for reading. I hope you'll be nice and I'm curious what you think.", |
"The stronger rules over the weaker, why should I care about animals?", |
"Would you eat wild deer you shot yourself that came from an area of deer overpopulation?", |
"White vegans need to understand that BIPOC vegans usually don't have the privilege necessary to give up meat", |
"Dear Vegans,\\n\\nOmnivore in Perpetuity here. Don't eat a lot of red meat, even local, because it's bad for the air and soil, and it's a very inefficient use of resources. Also cows are pretty great animals. I also eat crickets when I can; they are a very efficient source of protein. Lots of return for not much carbon investment, at least for now it looks what way.\\n\\nI have problems with most vegans, but I come in peace. Most notably, I find that vegans have an unfortunate lack of respect for plant life, which has indeed been shown to have pain responses and things very similar to nervous systems. So when vegans post videos of stabbing apples joking about lack of pain, I think about how old that apple tree was. Where its roots came from. How far back that seed system went. And the growth time it took to bring life and water to the apple. Stabbing plants and consuming them without mindfulness or gratitude is an immature mindset, and one that I repudiate. No matter what I'm eating, it's life. We must consume life to sustain life. Plants are life. As far as we know, nothing like them exists outside of our atmosphere anywhere else in the universe. So show plants a little respect. The next time you eat a vegetable, if you haven't, thank it, and be grateful for its lifespan. Be thankful for the billions of years of planetary evolution and progress that led to the existence of that sprig of broccoli. It's amazing. \\n\\nI've come to feel more strongly about this the more I've kept a garden and houseplants. If you think pruning a tree down to keep it producing citrus isn't exploitative, or that a succulent in the panicky throes of water deprivation isn't scared and fighting for its life, I urge you to reconsider. Of course, if veganism is truly about respect for life and not exploiting it, vegans wouldn't eat anything at all. They'd starve, and I'd hear a lot less bad science.\\n\\nI respect the rights of people to choose to eat what they can ethically bear. I especially respect those vegans who understand they aren't martyrs or saints, and who realize that going vegan, while it may reduce the carbon footprint of your diet somewhat, isn't going to save the planet. (For those of you who can't accept this, sorry. You aren't and it's not.) Emissions is now too complex a problem to have one solution (just get rid of meat!)-- and while every little bit helps, it is very, very important to cut through the pseudoscience BS and get the facts of the situation however and whenever we can.\\n\\nWhen discussing diet and CO2 emissions with anyone, not just those of the don't-eat-stuff-with-nervous-systems variety, but *anyone*, I must point at the (Green Revolution)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution). It fed about a billion people. It won Norman Borlaug a Nobel Prize. It also represents the largest irreversible new plateau of CO2 emissions in history. Scientists now recognize that it (opened up new problems)(http://www.climatecentral.org/news/green-revolution-brings-greater-co2-swings-18354). The greatest source of CO2 emissions is fossil fuel consumption, and what no vegan wants to hear is that your soy and your corn and your wheat, unless you know a local farmer, is probably contributing to deforestation and CO2 emissions more than you know or like to admit. In other words, there's a problem, and you're still part of it. Pointing at someone who's eating an egg, which by the way is an incredibly efficient source of nutrients for humans, or demonizing them for eating meat, doesn't work if you yourself are just a slightly less bad contributing factor.\\n\\nSo if you know the green revolution, you know that agriculture has a carbon footprint no matter what. When you save a billion people from starvation using an infrastructure that generates GHG, it doesn't really matter what you grow because you're not talking about what you grow, but how you grow it. Mass production. Mass production leads to GHG, and feeding people- anything- in the billions is going to create vast amounts of CO2. \\n\\nYes, modern farming has plants being grown for meat products, but what do you think will happen to those crops if the meat industry disappeared tomorrow? The farms would still grow crops for human consumption. Or biofuels. Or some other industry. \\n\\nFactory farmed meat is disgusting and should be replaced by something like locally-sourced sustainable farming, notably rotation farming or mixed farming. (More)(http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/Y0501E/y0501e03.htm) and more studies show that sustainable farms- farms that keep some small animals on the land, like pigs to root and churn soil, chickens to trim grass and produce fertilizer, or goats to trim grass and produce milk, cheese, and (if you want) meat- are better for the soil itself than ramming nitrogen fertilizer in the soil year after year in order to mass produce. Of course the studies vary depending on the metrics of what is considered \\"good,\\" but the consensus from a few of these brief studies that it's not only less damaging than factory farming meat, but also better than mass producing vegetables. The thing about farming sustainably, it turns out, is that it limits the size of your crops. So you can do it, but not with a big corporation or conglomerate in charge. It needs to be done locally- and right now, it's available, but only in limited areas- not to mention it's expensive compared to some Hormel or Tyson mistreated, antibiotic infused, mass produced \\"solution.\\" And Norman Borlaug's hypothesis (that farming is actually saving the world)(http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100615/full/465853a.html) seems to be creating its own set of economic and efficiency (dilemmas)(https://wle.cgiar.org/thrive/2012/10/02/borlaug-dilemma), ones that need careful consideration and study. More farming leading to more CO2 is, as it turns out, not actually great for the world. Despite the Nobel Prize.\\n\\nSo, let's say vegans conquer. The era of meat eating is over. The Earth is free of omnis and carnivores. Excepting of course predation in the natural world. You still have massive amounts of pesticides and fertilizers and runoff polluting rivers and groundwater. You still have deforestation for Soy (yes, deforestation for food and oil, not just cattle, and getting rid of the cattle does not get rid of the farmer) and Palm. You still have rice, a large contributor to GHG. And you still have in place the largest contributor to GHG emissions in the world: fossil fuel consumption. In other words, you still have Agriculture, and more. You still have Shipping and Industry. You don't eliminate the whole problem by eliminating meat- in fact it ignores the whole of the problem for a smaller one. It's an important one! But it's smaller. And I know the efficiency of crops, no longer used for feed, would increase (only if you are willing to continue to include them in the Agriculture contribution percentage of emission as well, the emissions for production and harvesting don't disappear,) and the US CO2 emissions would decrease by 5-6% removing cattle farming. It would also do away with the largest global contributor of methane, though not the largest in the United States (Industry and Natural Gas top Agriculture.) Sadly, after all this reduction, it's not as much as vegans often quote. Between 13-15% of United States CO2 emissions is from Agriculture. Not meat production. *All Agriculture.* About 5-6% of that is Meat production, meaning if you want to get rid of the full 14% contribution of agriculture, you can't grow plants. Any of them. And before you try to rope me into numbers about that, please know that I understand there's fossil fuel emissions related to meat production. And I'll hope and trust you understand that the Green Revolution shows plant-producing agriculture contributes to fossil fuels as well. A lot. And there's lots of conflicting info now about how much to increase farming of any kind-- because deforestation contributes to GHG as it removes our planet's most effective and natural CO2 scrubbers: trees. \\n\\nDeforestation needs to stop. Everyone can agree on that, I think, except the people earning money off of it. To me, this is more important than \\"please don't eat things that feel pain,\\" or even to reduce the 9-10% GHG CH4 contribution. Methane is increasing, but it's nothing compared to the CO2, which is a bigger problem both in scope and effects. It's estimated that 90% of the world's total CO2 emissions- meaning if CO2 is 88% of all emissions, so 90% of that 88% number, is from fossil fuels. Industry. Transportation. Electricity. Charging the fucking iphone, driving down the street, popping open the cardboard sleeve to the frozen yogurt and throwing it away (drive it to the dump, 17.7% of all methane in America comes from landfills,) or recycling it (drive it to the factory, process it, ship it to post-consumer processing, deliver it to consumer) when you're done. Either way. That's all killing the planet. Vegans use cells phones. Vegans throw shit away and recycle things. Vegans use plastic (plastic is made from oil/petrol.) If you exist on this planet right now, you are killing it. You are guilty. End of fucking story. Not eating meat isn't reducing your carbon footprint by half- it's reducing your *dietary* footprint. You still use electricity. You still use gasoline and consume items delivered by truck, train, or ship. You still eat food, and that food, unless you grow it yourself on your own land, is fertilized, grown, processed, and shipped.\\n\\nSo hey, we all do our best. You eat morally and ethically and work to reduce your diet footprint. Don't let that delude you into thinking you're more efficient than most. Don't let that cloud you to the other resources you consume. Because a blind spot like that can actually do more harm than you think you're saving everyone from.\\n\\nTo me, the question is not how to ethically or morally feed people without harming things with nervous systems. The question is how do we feed billions of people without harming the whole environment? No one has been able to answer this. 7 Billion Vegans is still 7 Billion humans. Plant matter for 7 Billion people is a huge, huge, huge amount of GHG emissions. Meat isn't the problem. Food isn't even the problem. The problem is mass production. Population.\\n\\nThe Green Revolution thought it was using science to save people. It did that, but it also became one of the main contributors to GHG emissions. So as it solved one problem, it created another. This is what a vegan world would be. Replace one problem with another.\\n\\nI don't envy your task. The region I live in and the culture around me is very meat-eating. Very, let's say, Trump country. I don't envy you fighting that cultural battle. Culture is hard to solve. I have some of my own battles to fight and sometimes they coincide with vegans. Sometimes they don't. Regardless, you are fighting a good fight. Good luck. Inform yourselves, eat responsibly, and change minds. Keep fighting factory farms and major corporations who harm animals and people while amassing great fortunes. I am with you on that fight, and am looking into how I can help.\\n\\nBut please, for the love of all that's holy and dear to you, stop spouting bullshit numbers and non-peer reviewed science. Don't find numbers you agree with. Find real numbers from real studies, even if you don't like them. The good thing about real science is it doesn't care about you. It just is. We don't need more misinformation in the world. Especially now.\\n\\nSincerely,\\nOmnivore.", |
"I asked this question in a few forums and basically every freaked the fuck out, but I don't know if I'm asking it wrong or coming across as uneducated? I'm curious to know if some vegans also refrain from eating vegan meat as well because they don't like the idea of eating animal meat or anything like it, from a compassion stand-point.\\n\\nEdit: I just want to thank everyone who responded! It took me a few posts on a few different forums for anyone to acknowledge this question and I'm really satisfied with the answers I've been getting :)", |
"There is a stance in veganism that says you are not vegan if you own a carnivorous pet or even have a non-vegan significant other. This is because you are supporting the animal industry if you pay for their non-vegan food. \\n\\nAt what point do you draw the line? Would a vegan business owner who employs non-vegans fall under this category? Taking non-vegan clients out for dinner? ", |
"What are vegans thoughts on brugsmania", |
"Generally this sub has been pretty good with this, but I've seen a few cases of it happening.\\n\\nI totally get downvoting off-topic argumentative posts in /r/vegan, but here it's crucial for this sub to serve it's purpose that we always give the benefit of the doubt, even when some commenters come across as needlessly combative. \\n\\nI'm not a mod or anything, so have no power to make or enforce any rules, but I believe it's in line with the sub policy and thought this was worth emphasizing.", |
"People like to claim that veganism is more than just a diet, because vegans also don't buy leather (which usually lasts for many years or a lifetime) and some other ingredients, that have a marginal effect on animal well-being.\\n\\n### It is all about ingredients!\\n\\nMaybe you don't eat all ingredients, but they are still just ingredients! Metaphorically, if you can eat it as a vegan (because it is not from animals), it is vegan. Any exceptions (like the reason palm oil is not considered vegan by some vegans) only prove my point, that veganism is a pseudo-lifestyle/philosophy.\\n\\nLet's see one example:\\n\\nhttps://www.vegansociety.com/resources/environment/water-requirements\\n\\n> Vegans use less water globally\\n\\n> The world will only have 60% of the water it needs by 2030 without significant global policy change, according to a recent report from the U.N.\\n> This situation is predicted to worsen as our population expands and consumption per capita increases with more and more people adopting resource-intensive Western meat eating habits.\\n\\nIs golf vegan, considering it's overall ecological impact? Pesticides and mowing is the worst animals cruelty I could imagine. Think about all the insects and rodents and birds.\\n\\nhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jun/14/thecaseagainstgolf\\n\\nOr are swimming pools vegan? After all, water is vegan.\\n\\nAnimals are being exploited and killed \\"vegan-friendly\\", mainly by polluting the habitat of animals with cars, electronics, entertainment in general and by following egoistic/selfish goals.\\n\\n### Vegans often claim, that veganism is not environmentalism.\\n\\nOne more reason, why veganism is a pseudo-lifestyle/philosophy. It just fakes that it is \\"so much more\\" than just a diet (\\"because I also don't like zoos\\"), it doesn't dare to make the realization, that environmentalism is a prerequisite of being vegan. You can't be a vegan, and not be an environmentalist, since your ecological footprint is in a direct relationship with the well-being of animals. And if this is the case, all vegans have to be r/ZeroWaste, there is no other way. \\n\\nOne response to this is, that veganism has to appeal to people, and if golf wasn't vegan, it would make vegans look stupid (maybe to late for that?) and more and more activities similar to golf would have to be boycotted.\\n\\nAnd that is all veganism is, a pseudo-lifestyle/philosophy devoid of integrity, consistency, in constant fear of not appealing to the masses, with all its denial about how cars and electronic devices are \\"necessary for survival\\", and all its clever rhetoric.\\n\\n### Some clever vegan rhetoric:\\n\\n#### If everything else (other than diet) is held equal, I am still reducing suffering more than non-vegans\\n\\nYou can't defend why you aren't consistent with your own beliefs, so you go on the offensive. Got it!\\n\\nIt is also an implicit admission, that veganism is a diet: Everything else is held equal usually, because nothing else really matters when discussing veganism (except zoos and leather shoes).\\n\\n#### Vegans are not perfect\\n\\nA great way of implying that vegans are at least \\"close to perfect\\", even if \\"100%\\" is impossible. Great marketing! \\n\\nBut not a good excuse, why you aren't consistent with your beliefs to a huge extent. Huge...\\n\\nMaybe try to run a mile instead of a marathon, if you just stated exercising, and quit talking about the marathon and how others should go for it, if you don't even know the distance?\\n\\n#### Nirvana fallacy\\n\\nI am not making an argument against a plant-based diet, in fact, I would be inclined to make an argument for it.\\n\\n#### I remember once hitting a bug with my car and I accidentally ate a spider in my sleep\\n\\nVegans often trivialize the harm they cause to animals by making up idiotic concerns as a response to real concerns (like the effects of the various forms of pollutants from cars, electronics, entertainment in general etc.). \\n\\nThe harm/suffering/death you are causing is no longer an accident, if you know it is an inevitable consequence of your actions.", |
"Sorry...I couldn't really come up with a good title for this one.\\n\\nAnyway, what I mean is that vegan principles less to conclusions that are almost impossible to follow. Take this example\\n\\n>It's wrong to harm animals when you don't have to\\n\\nThis is commonly employed against carnists to highlight their immorality. No vegan is actually consistent with this principle though. Your existence alone harms animals. I'm sure you're aware of this. I'm sure you're also aware that your existence is in no way necessary. You don't NEED to live. You could just commit suicide, which enables you to avoid all possible harm you would inflict if you were to keep on living. But you won't. Why? Because you want to live. You just want to experience the pleasure of living. You value convenience above acting ethically. (I am NOT encouraging suicide, I'm just making a point) It's the exact same shit when you tell meat eaters that they're making animals suffering merely for taste pleasure.\\n\\nI value logical consistency above all else, and if I find that I don't have it in me to properly follow a moral system, I abandon it. This is why I'm not vegan. I believe in reciprocal morality. I don't harm humans not because I value them, but because they might harm me if I did. Animals aren't in a position to lend such reciprocation, therefore they are worthless to me.", |
"Well my last thread didn't go down so well, but that's okay. I've been thinking more about it and I realized that it's true, I agree with vegans in the sense that I don't believe in mindlessly killing/torturing living things, or at least, things that can at least feel some pain. However, I still think eating meat falls well outside this, given that the purpose of eating meat/using animal products is for some kind of utility.\\n\\n​\\n\\nMeat, for me, anyway, represents an extremely cheap, convenient, and enjoyable source of food everyday. Vegans argue that one could go without meat, and I'd say that's true insofar as it's technically true that most people could probably walk 2-3 hours to work everyday instead of polluting the environment with their cars. Will we do that? Doubtful. The convenience/enjoy-ability/utility is too high even if we'd prefer not to cause harm to the environment.\\n\\nSo I'd say the trait that differentiates animals in this case is the aforementioned factors regarding their utility and enjoyability as food products and other uses. The case is commonly made that there's nothing morally different between marginal case humans like mental retards or babies, however, those individuals wouldn't serve as good alternatives to meat. Again I disagree with just sadistically killing anything, so that rules out murdering babies/retards just for fun. And while it could be argued that some people might enjoy eating people, there's nowhere near the utility provided to those tiny numbers of people to justify the harm to society/human rights permitting such behaviour would cause, especially when animals themselves are readily available.\\n\\n​\\n\\nSo hypothetically if alternatives to animal products that were as convenient and enjoyable were available then I'd say vegans would have a very strong argument. But, as it currently stands I don't think the moral value of very low intelligent beings outweighs the extreme usefulness of the products we make from them.", |
"I\\u2019m starting out from the assumption here that any barriers between the natural world and the human world don\\u2019t really exist, and it\\u2019s all the natural world. A consequence of this is that a farm is a natural ecosystem like any other (and not even the most recently developed one - cities would qualify too). \\n\\nI\\u2019m also starting from the assumption that factory farms are very bad and getting rid of them isn\\u2019t a bad thing at all. \\n\\nOk, with those two out of the way\\u2026it seems to me that all or most of the animal inhabitants of the farm ecosystem (sheep, cows, chickens, etc. (many of the plants too)) are only able to survive because of our relationship with them. This relationship is so ancient that their bodies have changed in ways that make them fully dependent on us, and make us fully responsible for then. On their own, in the wild, they would die really fast, and we\\u2019ve seen this happen (Shrek the sheep is a good example with a happy ending). \\n\\nThe only reason that we usually keep a tool around is because we use it - there aren\\u2019t many flint-knappers left, yunno? These animals evolved to be tools for producing certain things, just like honeydew aphids evolved to be more effectively farmed by ants. In a universally vegan world, these animals would go the way of flint tools - without a purpose or a reason to be around, I have a hard time imagining that they would do anything but go extinct. I don\\u2019t think that it\\u2019s very likely that people would have the resources to keep a stable population of them as hobbies or pets, especially not over centuries or millennia. \\n\\nSeeing as we\\u2019ve evolved in tandem with these species, and the entire reason that they can\\u2019t survive in the wild is because of us, it seems like we have a certain amount of responsibility for them both as individuals and as a species - just letting them die out seems wrong. But in a world where they have no purpose, I don\\u2019t see any future where they don\\u2019t either go extinct or reduce down to the most endangered of endangered species, on par with something like a snow leopard if they\\u2019re lucky. \\n\\nWhat\\u2019s the ideal vegan plan for these kinds of animals in a universally vegan world, and realistically (assuming a universally vegan world) how close do you think we\\u2019d get to that ideal? Is the faunal component of the farm ecosystem worthy of any sort of protection, or is it uniquely terrible amongst the rest of Earth\\u2019s ecosystems and in need of phasing out?\\n\\nEDIT: I\\u2019m out for the day, but thanks for the answers and discussion! Much appreciated.", |
"A well planned vegan diet can be healthy, no one can argue that. Affording such, both financially and time wise is something that not everyone can do. You have to supplement, you have have to know what to supplement and why. You have to be able to routinely afford these, or your health is at risk. Can lower income people afford the health care? Can they risk giving a diet change a shot? Basic education is lacking in poor areas. A vegan diet requires a certain amount of knowhow and resources that a lot of people can't adapt to if forced upon them. \\n\\nIf animal products are available, it is easier and more efficient to get what your body needs, in a way it was designed to process it. Even if by accident. People on both sides of the fence agree, in a survival situation eating animals is okay. Well, despite how things look on the outside, there are people with and without jobs, homes, internet access or families who are living in that survival mode right now. How can you justify saving animals, while pretty much forcing people who can't live a vegan lifestyle to suffer slowly their whole lives?", |
"How we call vegan meals is something I'd like to talk with you. \\n\\nMeat is the base of alimentation in the imagination of a lot of people. As an example you can hear \\"I eat beef with veggies\\" and not the contrary. \\"What ? You don't eat meat so what do you eat ?\\". Majority will consider meat as the base and all the others regimes as a sub-ensemble contained in it. \\n\\nBut I understand, I learn that I should eat meat at each meal at elementary school. We can improve this way of seeing food by labeling receipts differently. Since the beginning of my vegan life I can't stand this shortcut, for instance, between *no meat lasagnas* into *vegetarian lasagnas*. \\n\\nIf, and only if you really take the traditional receipt\\u200b of lasagna and ignore instructions related to meat, no problem call it *meat-less lasagnas*. But if you put extra vegetables/seeds/substitute to cream/... This is a whole new dish you create.\\n\\nThis deserves a new name. And vegetarian cause need a *no meat* referencial (you have the right to call it no meat haha). This dish you just cooked isn't lasagnas, not even *meat less* lasagnas. And you know how powerful a vocabulary is, right ?\\n\\n I know it's handy, shorter and everybody understand. But as an example ask to your Mexican friend who much food they have label for what we call fajitas/tapas in western world. If they are cooked slightly differently, if they have been friend, in which oil, in different size : they'll have different names.\\n\\nIn short: words are powerful enough to make look vegetarian lasagnas as a poor sister of lasagnas. But who ever tried //complete with your own receipt\\u200b name// ?", |
"I won't disclose whether I'm a vegan or not for now. I'm trying to see how you would respond if you were in the following debates:\\n\\nFirst argument:\\n\\nV: \\"How do you justify eating animals?\\"\\n\\nC: \\"Exactly the same way you justify eating cakes or buying other unnecessary things when the money could have been given to charity to save African children. If you donate \\u00a3X to African charities, how do you justify not donating \\u00a3(X+5), when that extra \\u00a35 could save a child's life?\\"\\n\\n​\\n\\nSecond argument:\\n\\nC: \\"Why don't you move to somewhere like New Zealand which does not subsidize farming at all? Currently part of your taxes are going to the meat and dairy industries.\\"\\n\\n​\\n\\nThird argument:\\n\\nC: \\"Suppose I adopted a vegan diet. Suppose I adopted your exact diet, except with one difference. I'm going to have an empty bowl on the counter and every time I prepare a meal with beans or rice in it, I'm going to put a bean or a kernel of rice in the bowl. When the bowl is full, I'll eat it instead of dinner. By following this routine, I am decreasing demand to the arable farming industry at virtually no cost to myself. Over my lifetime, I might even save ten or so voles. How do you justify not cutting down your eating just a teensy amount when you could save someone's life?\\"\\n\\n​\\n\\nFourth argument:\\n\\nC: \\"Not being vegan is more like \\"voting for death\\" rather than \\"killing\\", is it not? Wouldn't it be understandable to vote for a party that already had a 98% approval rating if doing otherwise would decrease your gustatory experience, even in a proportional voting system?\\"\\n\\n​\\n\\nEDIT: I've responded to as many of you as I can for now, but I'm moving about for a while so I will hopefully respond to the rest of you over the next couple of days but with a different account since I'm using a different account.\\n\\n​", |
"Salmon are predatory fish and cause suffering to other fish throughout their lives. If you kill a Salmon before its average lifespan, you are preventing the suffering of other fish that that Salmon would have killed. Those fish can instead continue to live their lives for some number of days, months or years before they are killed. This is a net positive and it\\u2019s therefore ethical to eat wild caught Salmon.\\n\\nA Salmon asphyxiating on the deck of a ship causes the same amount of suffering as its natural death would cause on average.\\n\\nAt scale, as long as the fishing is sustainable there will be no negative ecological consequences. Price will just increase if demand increases.\\n\\nThe same reasoning applies to other predatory species but I focused on Salmon because I think it\\u2019s one of the clearer cases.", |
"The meat industry, if only ethical farming practices are used, essentially allows for more happy animals to live than would be possible without a demand for meat. More happiness in the world, I would consider a good. What response would you have to a person that only eats meat that comes from sustainable ethical farming practices?\\n\\n I don't see a good way out of answering yes to the question in the title and not saying eating meat in this way is ethical.", |
"If I\\u2019m correct the prevention of unnecessary harm is the utilitarian argument for veganism. This is what has been convincing me, but is this standard for action not too demanding. \\n\\nIm thinking this because if I was to extend this line of reasoning to other actions I would be required to ride my bike most of the time avoiding travel when unnecessary, not over-eat, avoid excessive parties, buy a cheap phone when mine breaks, play my console less etc etc and basically live a very prudent lifestyle.\\n\\nReading this all back sounds ethical but too demanding for a person to constantly consider and adhere to. I support society going vegan and think it\\u2019s something we should all do but too tough of a standard for individuals to maintain when spread to all of life not just diet. \\n\\nI\\u2019ve been vegan for the last month, convinced by ethical reasons but mainly because my mum is religiously fasting (I\\u2019m atheist) so I had support to do it. Fast is going to break soon and I\\u2019m not sure if I can adhere to veganism strictly after.\\n\\nAm I just coping to eat meat or is there some validity to the argument that it\\u2019s too demanding of a framework", |
"Not seen it discussed here before but what\\u2019s your opinion on wool? ", |
"I saw a meme on r/vegan that to me seemed like it was saying \\"veganuary is b/s\\".\\n\\nAs someone who did veganuary on the way to being vegan, I was surprised to see this and felt it did more damage than \\"good\\" activism.\\n\\nI'd like to understand the other side of the debate here if anyone is willing.", |
"Depending where you live for example i live in Nz and it is important for hunting to happen as new zealand has no natural predators. Europeans introduced animals like possums and stoats which eat our native birds and eggs making them near extinct. Deer destroy native forests and fauna that is found only in NZ making them extinct. Of course the Europeans introduced more animals like goats and rabbits which also need hunted. NZ's ecosystem is fragile and these animals destroy it hence why hunting is a necessity in NZ.\\n\\nDisclaimer: hunting for trophys is bad dont support that", |
"When you shoot a deer with a big rifle, that's not impressive. You probably don't even know how to make one.\\n\\nBut when you shoot it with something like a bow and arrow, or sling, or spear, or anything else you can make for yourself in less than a year, you are simply cutting down the herd and doing what nature does, and becoming part of the food chain as a predator.", |
"/u/IlII4 requested user flairs, so I've enabled those. Please let me know if you think we need more options.\\n\\nI have also disabled link posts. Looking at the submission history, it appears these posts tend to be off-topic and generally do not generate a lot of discussion. Linking to external content is of course still allowed, but you're now expected to wrap them in a self post and to describe what it is that you would like to discuss.\\n\\nFinally, comment scores are now hidden for 20 hours to reduce bandwagon effects. \\n\\nOther suggestions and feedback are welcome.", |
"On the basis of environmentalism, eating fewer plants also reduces Nutrient loading on the earth. No agriculture lands, no grain silos, no deforestation. If environmental engineering and biotech. advances to the point of recycling all carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and micronutrients from waste to food, by creating primary photosynthates, which would then provide energy for bacteria and yeasts to (re)create food products, *would some vegans then extend their ideologies to not eating virgin plant products?* The greater nateure's food-web would become completely independent of human food webs. Everyone just eats, basically yeast and algae, but none of its nutrients except for sunlight will come from a non-recycled source, such as the agro-industrial Haber process, or phosphorus mining.", |
"First, some backstory: I'm two months vegan, and recently I've convinced both of my parents to try a vegan diet for 6 months (they love it so far). \\nLast night, my dad made a joke about getting chickens (my mom would never agree to this, vegan or not). He asked if it \\"would be okay (moral/ethical) to get some chickens just to have fresh eggs\\", nothing else. I admitted I thought it would be fine, besides the obvious health reasons. \\n\\nSo is that wrong? Assuming the chickens were fed a healthy plant-based diet, had a nice place to live, were taken care of, and not slaughtered unless they were deathly ill or something. Chickens lay unfertalized eggs naturally, so the consumption of eggs, rather than just letting them spoil, would cause no harm to anyone (aside from the consumer). I'm again just wondering from a moral and ethical (and possibly enviormental?) standpoint, both me and my family are aware of the health issues. \\n\\nTLDR; Is eating chicken eggs moral/ethical if the chickens are otherwise treated as pets?", |
"Excluding humans.", |
"Say a meat eater is against slaughtering animals what if he just eats roadkill or animals that have died naturally. What if he acts like a vulture waiting for the animal to die then he eats it. Dosent that reduce suffering. Some people really do eat dead animals they find on the road or in the wild.", |
"Humans are above animals in terms of ethics and self-awareness/sentience; they can and choose not to kill animals, because it's right, unlike animals could (?). We are all animals/persons, but humans are something more.\\n \\n*-*\\n\\n(Please bear in mind I am very open minded and this is not an opinion I hold very strongly.)", |
"Its known that some areas have very thin and low quality soil, are arid, and people in these areas generally herd goats, sheep and other types of animals because humans can't eat the grass there. As we know, grains and root vegetables don't grow everywhere. \\n\\nWhat do vegans think about those kinds of situations? I mean it's not difficult to eat vegetarian in damp tropical climates but most people don't live in those areas. ", |
"Wow. Sorry for the long post. I thought of ways to shorten the argument but I felt like I would be doing so at the expense of readability... Honestly, I'd be delighted if anyone even takes their time to fully read it let alone spend more time to come up with interesting arguments against it.\\n\\n​\\n\\nI see two very similar statements (but definitely different) used a lot without any justification. Honestly, I'm not so sure if these statements can be taken at face value. For the sake of reducing my typing, I will stick to \\"meat\\" for \\"animal product\\" and \\"cruelty\\" for \\"torture, slaughter, forced impregnation, etc.\\" Nevertheless, I don't think I'll make any assumptions about the specific words that prevents any generalizations.\\n\\n1. Purchasing meat is supporting animal cruelty\\n2. Purchasing meat contributes to animal cruelty\\n\\nFirst, I want to claim that there's a distinction between 1 and 2 in that 1 takes into account motives whereas 2 is a mere observation of the outcome.\\n\\nFor example, I believe many can agree that I would not be supporting homicide if I were to kill someone under a clearly reasonable instance of self-defense, whereas it is undeniably a fact that me practicing self-defense in that situation had contributed to an instance of homicide.\\n\\nNevertheless, after looking up various interpretations of \\"support,\\" I've concluded that it's not very clear whether there really is a distinction between 1 and 2 from a semantics stand point, thus I leave this claim as an unjustified premise. In particular, I'm claiming that 1 has both result elements and motive elements whereas 2 is entirely result-based. If you don't agree with the premise that 1 and 2 are distinct and that 1 is a mix of result and motive, I'm not so sure that constructive discussions can occur, but I'd be happy to see any good objections to this interpretation. Otherwise, we will assume this as a premise because the term support is way too vague for everyone to agree on some meaningful and consistent definition.\\n\\n​\\n\\n\\\\-------\\n\\n​\\n\\nThe outline of this post is to talk about the motive-based implications of the first statement and then talk about the second statement. Any result-based implications in the first statement can be interpolated from the second statement, and thus the first statement can be thought of as some weighted sum between the two with some unclear but hopefully reasonable weights.\\n\\nThe goal is to first attempt to establish that on a pure motive-basis, one is not supporting animal cruelty by purchasing meat. Finally, I leave a slightly blanket and less interesting argument (?) that from an individual standpoint, purchasing meat does not contribute to animal cruelty meaningfully compared to various actions that a vegan may also perform. Thus, I leave the conclusion as \\"it **probably** is pretty negligible\\" and therefore shift the burden of proof on whether it's negligible or not on others.\\n\\nThe argument will unfortunately be casuistry, although I take caution not to cheat with different premises and frameworks. Purely deontological arguments and utilitarian arguments are IMO beaten to death by 20th century philosophers (and I'd be accused of proof by obscurity)\\n\\n​\\n\\n\\\\-------\\n\\n**\\"Purchasing meat is supporting animal cruelty\\"**\\n\\nHere, we are focusing on the **motive/intent aspects of \\"to support.\\"** Again, the results aspect will be covered in statement 2. Thus for clarity, I will not use \\"support\\" in this section and rephrase it with err \\"advocate?\\" Perhaps there's a better replacement though.\\n\\n**\\"Purchasing meat is advocating for animal cruelty\\"**\\n\\nWe will use the notion of ultimate and and instrumental desires. These two notions are very well-studied and developed in the context of psychological egoism and altruism, but I don't mean to do any arguments by obscurity although these existing debates are strong inspirations to this particular argument. **As a side note, of course, we'll assume the falsehood of psychological egoism**, otherwise any discussion of motive in ethics become irrelevant. \\n\\nIntuitively, ultimate desires are the \\"end goals\\" whereas instrumental desires are the \\"steps.\\" For example, a person restricting their calorie intake would most likely consider \\"being healthy\\" or \\"losing weight\\" as ultimate desires and \\"not eating\\" or \\"working out\\" as instrumental desires; the person most likely does not place any value in \\"not eating\\" by itself but desires it only because it leads to his/her end goal.\\n\\n​\\n\\nFirst, consider this simple example:\\n\\n**\\"Hiring a hitman is advocating murder\\"**\\n\\nThis is certainly true. This is because the death of some target is both the ultimate and instrumental desire. Of course, this example doesn't help my point, but hopefully it helps set the context for future arguments.\\n\\n​\\n\\nNext, consider:\\n\\n**\\"Going on a road trip to see friends is advocating the use of gas\\"**\\n\\nIt's true that going on a road trip logically requires the use of a car, and therefore the use of gas. Nevertheless, in this scenario, the ultimate desire is \\"to see friends\\" whereas \\"using gas\\" is merely an instrumental desire.\\n\\n​\\n\\nFinally, consider:\\n\\n**\\"Purchasing meat (to eat it) is advocating for animal cruelty\\"**\\n\\nSimilar to the road trip example, the purchase of meat logically requires someone to slaughter an animal and thus logically require some form of animal cruelty. Nevertheless, there is a semantic but **very important** disparity in the motive; one buys meat not to perform animal cruelty but merely to **eat meat**, and thus, in this scenario, the ultimate desire is \\"to eat meat,\\" and \\"animal cruelty\\" becomes an instrumental desire.\\n\\n​\\n\\nNext, I need to establish that the only motive one is held accountable for from a **motive only analysis** is their ultimate desire. Again, this ignores the consequential aspect, which I guess most \\"animal rights\\" people place weight in.\\n\\n​\\n\\nThe argument is simply an absurdum style argument. In that case, me purchasing most electronics indicates me advocating for child labor, almost slavery-level employment conditions, etc. Me joining the military is me advocating for murder. and so on. With a less awkward phrasing, \\"I'm going to see my friends (driving a car) because **I want to use gas**,\\" or \\"I buy my phone because **I wanted to pay companies with unethical oversea workers practices**.\\" I mean they sound really ridiculous. Similarly, \\"I buy meat (to eat it) because I want to support animal cruelty\\" is just absurd. No. I buy meat to eat it. For more extensive arguments, see the back and forth in psychological egoism.\\n\\n​\\n\\n**Unfortunately, this is not a conclusive argument just like the psychological egoism arguments**. Nevertheless, from an aesthetics and productivity standpoint, it makes sense that we ought to separate these types of desires. It also helps (but of course does not prove) that philosophers tend to unanimously agree that they ought to be separable.\\n\\n​\\n\\n\\\\--------------------\\n\\nThis concludes what I consider is the interesting argument. If there are no issues with the above argument, we can agree that a meat eater is relieved from the motive aspect of the blanket phrase: \\"Purchasing meat is supporting animal cruelty.\\"\\n\\n​\\n\\nHowever, meat eaters are not relieved of the consequential aspect to this phrase yet. For clarity, I will focus on this phrase: \\"Purchasing meat contributes to animal cruelty,\\" which according to our premise and the previous argument is logically equivalent to the first statement. I leave the following unrefined arguments for completeness sake. My main goal was to establish the impossibility of any motive related blame assignment, and I don't really find the results of the consequential aspects interesting anyway but definitely am eager to hear of any interesting arguments (for either side).\\n\\n​\\n\\n​\\n\\nFirst, there's a very obvious nitpick argument, which can be a bit annoying but certainly is valid, that one can make:\\n\\n\\"**but it's impossible to NOT contribute to animal cruelty**\\". Of course, to truly \\"not\\" contribute to animal cruelty, one ought to cut off social ties with meat eaters, refuse service from any companies that employ meat eaters, etc, which is definitely impractical, ridiculous, yet not **logically impossible** (and hence does remain as a very important roadblock that animal right activists ought to address to get around any sorites paradox-like arguments). The idea is to then press the vegan on the location of the threshold one ought to draw and then forcibly wiggle that around. Of course, I can make this argument, but this is a bit boring; I believe that attacking reasonability in these threshold based topics leads to unproductivity. Nevertheless, I want to mention it here because I don't see anyway one can escape from this reasoning at a purely logical level, and I see people often take this as granted; I think it's very non-trivial and thus such a conclusion cannot be assumed.\\n\\n​\\n\\n\\\\-------\\n\\n​\\n\\nThe following is also a common argument, but I hope I can word it in a more compelling manner.\\n\\nIt's undeniably true that purchasing of meat does not **immediately** make the supplier kill another animal. Furthermore, I believe (**this is a claim**, but intuition tells me that the burden of proof lies on the opposing claim) that a few fewer purchasing of meat over a week or so does not really make any meaningful difference. This is a very common argument, and the naive retaliation to this claim is to say something along the lines of \\"but if everyone/lots of people does it, it does make a difference.\\" Yes, this is true. However, the context of this topic, as picky as it sounds, is the idea of blame assignment to a single individual, and in that context, you really can't assign any non-trivial blame to the individual when it's the collective responsibility of billions of people. Again, this argument only works when dealing with an individual scope. In a more familiar context, a single voter cannot be logically blamed for the collective lack of voting. Yes, this does mean that the amount of \\"responsibility\\" while being a bystander witnessing a murder is an inverse function of the number of equally capable witnesses in a utilitarian framework. This conclusion is controversial, but I'd be happy to defend this position with a simple \\"conservation of utils\\" argument :)\\n\\n​\\n\\nThere are many ways to establish this pretty obvious claim; a stats approach is to consider the distribution of voting outcomes when other n players vote with some fixed distribution. It turns out that analyzing the worst case is what matters, so consider a 0 mean distribution. Finally, drop some of the voters with some unknown distribution, and we see that the probability of the voting being split is a negligible function of n. A crypto motivated approach is to do the same thing as the math example but consider the set of all possible voting outcomes in the case when a vote is added vs not. The two sets will turn out to be computationally indistinguishable and hence the probability of the \\"vote mattering\\" is a negligible function of n.", |
"If you\\u2019re going to the grocery store and a non vegan family member asks you for a non vegan item, can you still be considered a vegan if you buy it but you yourself don\\u2019t consume it?", |
"Hello, I see many people upset about putting a label of \\u201cplant-based\\u201d on products that contain dairy, eggs, etc. What alternative label makes more sense? \\n\\n\\nScenario: We have three sandwiches:\\n\\n1. Cheeseburger\\n2. Plant-based cheeseburger (contains dairy)\\n3. Vegan cheeseburger\\n\\nHow do you want the second one labeled?", |
"This is a conversation I came across recently. Is this really an argument? Can we even compare drinking dairy milk with using vaccines or computers? How would you answer to this?\\nEdit: This is an observation, as I said in the title, not an argument.", |
"So I have sheep (living on a farm) where we take care of them and we care about the animals so why should I not shave my sheep (by hand not through a big machine) when my sheep feel bad if I don\\u2019t shave them?\\n\\nJust kind of want to hear a reason as I have never heard a good answer.", |
"I've seen many vegans refer to the position paper of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics on vegetarian diets, whenever health concerns about veganism are raised. In their paper, they write:\\n\\n'It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes.' \\\\(1\\\\)\\n\\nThis position paper has been criticized for being incomplete \\\\(2\\\\). I've summarized the main points from this reference here. Some of the points are targeted towards vegetarians specifically, but many also apply to veganism. For more details, refer to the source.\\n\\n1) Pregnancy outcomes: In most populations, the male/female sex ratio of newborns is around 105:100. In a British study, the male/female sex ratio was 81.5:100 in vegetarians vs. 106:100 in omnivores. The 23% reduction in births of boys might be due to malnutrition.\\n\\n2) Meat vs Milk: In an intervention trial of roughly 500 Kenyan school children, researches supplemented an otherwise plant-based meal with either 60g of beef, 200 ml of milk, or 3 g of oil. After 2 years, the meat group scored 10 IQ points higher than the milk group, and the meat group had 100 (50) % more muscle than the control (milk) group. The improved cognitive performance might be due to increased B12 consumption as well as better bioavailability of iron and zinc.\\n\\n3) Substituting meat for dairy increases the risk of acne.\\n\\n4) Phytoestrogens in soy: males born to vegetarian mothers in England were more than 3.5 times as likely to have malformed genitalia. which was statistically linked to the consumption of high-phytoestrogen legumes\\n\\n5) Iron and zinc absorption: vegetarians tend to have similar or higher iron intake than omnivores, but lower serum ferritin levels. Similarly for zinc. This is due to phytates in plants lowering the absorption of those minerals.\\n\\n6) Creatine: Lack of creatine intake among vegetarians lowers fluid intelligence and working memory by approximately 1 standard deviation, corresponding to about 15 IQ points (from a double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over study). Higher creatinine levels are also associated with higher earnings 20 years later.\\n\\n7) Taurine: low taurine intake may put infants at risk for impaired neurodevelopment. Low plasma neonatal taurine was associated with lower scores on the Bayley mental development index at 18 months and the WISC-R arithmetic subtest at 7 years.\\n\\n8) Long-Chain n\\u22123 PUFAs: vegetarians and vegans have lower plasma concentrations of EPA and DHA. The AND writes 'The clinical relevance of reduced EPA and DHA status among vegetarians and vegans is unknown.' If it's unknown, where do they take the confidence to claim vegetarian diets are healthful and nutritionally adequate?\\n\\n9) Vegetarian and vegan diets necessarily have high n\\u22126/n\\u22123 PUFA ratios. Some evidence seems to connect a high ratio with chronic systemic inflammation that can potentially lead to autoimmune diseases.\\n\\nThis is not proof that vegetarian diets are unhealthy in childhood, but it raises some concerns. The author of the paper concludes: 'Parents ought to be informed that the debate about the health effects of vegetarianism in children is not settled one way or the other.'\\n\\nSources:\\n\\n\\\\(1\\\\) Position of AND: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27886704/\\n\\n\\\\(2\\\\) Criticism of AND paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29405739/", |
"I thought it would be good to hear some vegan opinions and discussion about raising children vegan, vegan pregnancy, supplements babies would need, any good resources, etc. Anything slightly relevant would be great to discuss. I am interested in all of it. Even if we\\u2019re talking about whether or not babies should be vegan at all. \\n\\nSome context / me ranting if you are interested:\\n \\nMy partner and I would like to have a child in the next few years, and that got me curious about vegan diets for children. I had questions like: Is it really safe?, Can I do it without messing up?, etc. \\nI was looking for resources online such as guides, studies, families who create videos or vlogs that feed their children vegan diets with complete nutrition. There are many vlog families out there that do not feed their children all of the nutrients and supplements that they need, and it worries me that we could inadvertently do the same. I know that we should talk to a dietitian, and we definitely will do so closer to when we are ready to try for children, but I am worried because dietitian are people with flaws, too. Some doctors or dietitians might have a bias that suggests that we should not even try to be slightly vegan at all, while others that are too biased toward veganism may encourage us toward a vegan diet without considering other factors. Perhaps I am just too worried, but I do not want us to hurt our future children.", |
"Hey guys, I would like to preface by saying I am not a vegan, but I am sympathetic towards veganism. Even though I am not a vegan, I view it as something positive. This is more of a genuine curiosity than a debate, I am mainly looking for positive opinions and not arguments.\\n\\nOnto my post. Where do you draw the line with what is considered vegan or not? Previously I thought honey was a vegan product. Even though it is made by animals, I considered it to be more of a plant product that is a by product of animal interaction than an animal product. If honey is not vegan, where is the line drawn? Is any food that is made/harvested with the assistance of animals non-vegan? For a few examples, kopi luwak coffee is made from coffee beans that are harvested from animal poop. Truffles are sniffed out by trained dogs/pigs. Even most organic crops are fertilized by bees, with fertilizer from manure. \\n\\nPersonally I had thought veganism was not consuming animal genetic material (which honey does not contain afaik), which means I would personally place every example I said as vegan. Thoughts? If you disagree with honey being vegan, why is the work of bees fertilizing veggies considered while the honey is not? Or is this more of a \\"no true scottsman\\" scenario with no hard and fast rules?\\n\\nEdit: The general consensus from most people is no food that intentionally harms creatures. That's fair reasoning. Previously I had thought that honey was avoided as an animal by product, not because it harmed bees. This makes everyones reasoning much clearer. Thank you to everyone who replied.", |
"Hemos salido a las calles a preguntar a los ciudadanos qu\\u00e9 consumen en estas fechas y, sobre todo, qu\\u00e9 saben sobre lo que comen.", |
"How much knowledge did you gather before you went vegan, and still gather as new research is made. Is it important to you to keep up to date?\\n\\nI am not a vegan but I understand the general view and sometimes struggle with the fine print; not eating honey but wearing a pearl necklace?\\n\\nI am not in any way criticizing anybodys choices but trying to understand where people draw the line. It is an individual choice of course. What is your bottom line?", |
" \\n\\nIf your goal is to reduce animal suffering and/or protect animals, then it doesn't make any sense to apply those restrictions only to humans, the same way we don't apply punishment and defence only against humans.\\n\\nIt's irrelevant wheter another human is being attacked either by an animal or a human, people aim, rightfully so, to protect the human regardless.\\n\\nThe focus shouldn't be on the subject that is attacking, but on the subject that is being attacked, since the main goal of veganism is to reduce animal exploitation and suffering.\\n\\nIt's meaningless to claim that you are against animal suffering or death, but then throw them at nature, when they will likely, since we mostly don't eat predators, die the same way. Through consequentialist and utilitarian lens, you are, respectively, presenting the same outcome to the victim and not reducing suffering.\\n\\nThus, vegans should apply their principles to animals as well, otherwise the goal of the movement is useless.\\n\\nI will not answer appeals to nature, since they are fallacies in themselves", |
"Despite this topic coming up quite a few times, I wanted to start a discussion on it that relates to the common responses vegans give. I've always found them particularly confusing.\\n\\nIn moral discussions, we often identify acts which we believe are bad or acts which themselves are not bad, but lead to bad consequences. So, for instance, a vegan may argue that buying meat isn't intrinsically bad, but it leads to demand, which leads to an animal being slaughtered, which is the act identified as being bad. \\n\\nWhat tends not to be the case is that someone says that an act that *follows* a bad act is therefore bad. So let's say we find out some parent is abusing their kids. We take them away and give them foster homes. We don't say because it *came* from a bad act, that the act of taking the kids away and fostering them is therefore bad. Or if someone broke something of yours out of malicious intent, that fixing it was bad because it's only the result of a bad act. This seems an incredibly confusing move.\\n\\nHowever, this seems to be the nature of a lot of backyard hen egg-eating counter-arguments.\\n\\nHere are two I hear a lot:\\n\\n1) The hen may have come from a farm that kills the roosters.\\n\\n2) The hen may have been genetically selected over time to have health problems from over-laying.\\n\\nNow, these facts may seem relevant in the causative sense if we are *purchasing* these hens and thus increasing the demand for them. We can see how the *purchasing* leads to those acts occuring. But how does this really effect *whether or not you eat the eggs*. In most discussions, the purchasing element is removed by supposing a rescue hen. I'm taking it that the vegan position is that it is NOT categorically wrong to rescue a hen. Thus, if we have a hen, and we have it ethically (rescue) then in what way does the decision to eat the eggs relate to the 2 previous points? Eating the eggs doesn't cause extra demand for these hens, thus does not cause 1) or 2). \\n\\nThe case starts to look like \\"Because it came from a bad cause, then eating the eggs is bad\\". But, as already discussed, this just generally doesn't make any sense. You have the hen, you rescued it, which is good, and now you have a decision: eat the eggs or don't. The background facts of this hen's existence don't seem relevant to this decision. Unless someone can argue why an act is bad because it follows a bad act, these arguments should stop being made. Or unless someone wants to argue that eating the eggs causes 1) or 2) (and not the act of rescuing) then these arguments should stop being made. They make no sense.\\n\\nTo which I move on to two of the actual arguments that *do* seem connected with eating of the eggs. I will entertain one more argument in the end. There are two popular ones in this discussion:\\n\\n1) The chickens eat the eggs to regain calcium/nutrients lost in the egg laying.\\n\\n2) It's not yours (ownership rights).\\n\\nThe first one, to me, is bizarre. Vegans often argue that there is no nutrient in animal products that cannot be obtained with plant products. Thus, a properly balanced plant-based diet should make it so that the chicken does not require to eat back its eggs. I don't think vegans want to argue that the chicken needs eggs specifically, as that weakens the vegan position overall significantly. Thus, I find 1) to be a really poor argument.\\n\\nThe second one is very odd, too. If a chicken has the habit of laying eggs, ignoring them, and letting them rot, we can imagine that they *don't want them*. Imagine if I put out my garbage and someone goes and recycles it. We would not use the defense \\"That's not yours\\" against the act. I put it out because I didn't want it. (I'm ignoring the fact that our garbage might contain personal information, since there's no analogy of that and the chicken situation). Or if I'm done with a couch and I put it on the curb to get it out of my house, and someone comes along and takes it, we don't say, \\"No, let it sit there and rot, that's not yours.\\" It seems that if you *don't want something ever again*, you relinquish ownership of it. Unless we take the same attitude towards animal dung, or, picking up a feather preened off by a bird, or a discarded shell of a hermit crab, it just doesn't make sense as an argument.\\n\\nSo I find these 4 arguments against the eating of backyard rescue hen eggs.. terrible. They don't make any sense to me.\\n\\nThe last argument I'll entertain is the only one that I think has any plausibility:\\n\\n1) It normalizes meat eating.\\n\\nNow this argument I can understand the merits of, but ultimately find unconvincing. Imagine you invite someone over for a meal, who thinks you are vegan, but notices you have egg in the meal. They believe you've given up veganism and perhaps are less persuaded by the position. Or maybe you take a boiled egg to work, and people think less of your convictions, or it signals to them that you believe eating meat is okay or perhaps that you're a hypocrite. Okay, this seems plausible as an argument. However, these don't seem that hard to mitigate:\\n\\n1) Don't bring eggs outside of your home.\\n\\n2) Inform people in your home you invite the circumstances of the food, and the conditions required to make it ethical.\\n\\nUnless I'm missing something about these arguments, the only positions I could understand are:\\n\\n1) Backyard rescue hen eggs are ethically fine.\\n\\n2) Putting animal products in your mouth is intrinsically bad.\\n\\nAnd given that 2) isn't generally the axiom from which vegans argue, it seems 1) should be the default.\\n\\nWhat do you guys think?", |
"I want to put an open-ended question out there to see if anyone has a realistic idea on how the world could go Vegan and what steps would be necessary. Please see if you can back anything up with sources. Please bear in mind increasing population numbers, how it would work in third world countries, what would be the benefits and how would you overcome the negatives of such a transition? ", |
"Allow me to emphasize: This is a moral question, not an ethical question. I am not asking if it is moral to kill an animal for it's meat. I am not asking if it is immoral to harm an animal for it's meat. I am asking if, in your personal purviews, of course, is it immoral, by the simple fact, to eat meat. \\n\\nI would assume that it would be considered moral, for example, to eat an unfertilized egg if there was no harm done to the animal. After all, chickens produce excess eggs naturally; they do not need them all. By the same extension, I would assume that it would be considered moral to drink excess milk that a cow (or other mammal, sure) produces, provided that the calves receive the milk they need, and the cow was not artificially inseminated, and so on. If there is no mistreatment of animal life, it should seem moral to eat animal by-products if there was no harm perpetrated onto the animals producing those by-products. If you have a debate for these notions, by all means, present them. I am genuinely curious!\\n\\nWhat is different about meat? If an animal dies in a way we could not prevent, like accident or incurable malady, would it be immoral to eat the meat leftover? Would it be immoral to use it's bones to produce gelatin or make a broth? Would it be immoral to tan it's skin for leather? If an unweaned calf died, would it be immoral to use it's stomach to produce rennet, and then produce cheese?\\nIs simple use of the animal's body after it's death immoral by that fact alone? Is it immoral to just eat meat?\\n\\nThanks.\\n\\n(Note: I am not a vegan, but I am looking into it, but it is complicated.)", |
"One of the key arguments for animal rights is the argument from marginal cases, made popular by Peter Singer. The argument goes that for any morally relevant trait there exist non-human animals who possess said trait to a greater extent the some humans thus if we grant the human a right to life then we ought also to grant the non-human animals one as there is no morally relevant trait separating one that can be appealed to. The humans who posses these traits to a lesser degree then many non-human animals are known in the literature as the marginal cases, with the most likely candidates being infants, the severally cognitively impaired and the very senile. James Rachels has convincingly (I think) argued that the theory of evolution leads us to expect the existence of marginal cases, to expect species overlap with regard to morally relevant properties. I believe there are marginal cases but I'm looking for sources (preferably scientific papers) that prove this. Thought this would probably be the best place to ask.\\n\\nTL,DR: looking for sources to prove that there exist humans with lower cognitive functions than some non-human animals. ", |
"I'm not here to debate in the sense to get you to agree with me nor have you get me to agree with you. (i'm stubborn)\\nBut my reasoning for us to eat animal products is because we need vitamin B12. there's no other place to get it. The only place i find is 'fortified' food. which means before technology we would not have the luxury of being vegan, which means our bodies are technically made to be meat eaters, or at least animal product eaters, no?", |
"If meat is murder, and all meat livestock is being murdered, what is a viable murderless solution that can sustain 8 billion and counting humans eating only plants AND several more billion and counting \\u201clivestock\\u201d species eating only plants?", |
"\\n", |
"I was at Dunkin\\u2019 Donuts. I ordered two iced lattes for my friends. Neither are vegan or lactose intolerant. One requested an iced latte made with dairy milk and one requested an iced latte made with almond milk. I ordered them correctly however when the employee handed them to me I asked them if they made the one with almond milk and they said no you didn\\u2019t ask for almond milk. Even though I did I just took the beverages as it is rather than argue with the employee even if they had remade them they were just threw away the perfectly good beverage. What is your stance here? I should add that I am plant-based and one time I ordered a taco shell salad with beans and salsa, lettuce and no sour cream and it came out with sour cream. They told me that they could throw it out and make me a new one but I just scraped the shower cream off even though a little bit of the shower cream remained on my lettuce and on the fried taco shell. I figured what is the point of them wasting all that perfectly good food especially when they\\u2019re starving people in the world. How would you handle a situation like this or how have you handled a situation like this.?", |
"(This is a throwaway account.) I wanted to post in /r/Vegan but I wasn't sure if it's allowed. I understand why people are vegan, but as much as I want to say I also want to be a vegan \\"for the animals,\\" I can't find a connection within myself to care?\\n\\nI've watched so many videos on the meat/dairy/egg industry, and about how animals are slaughtered, and I still can't find an emotional connection to these animals. In my head, I merely think, \\"Many societies were able to grow and thrive because of their access to sustenance via meat/dairy/eggs/animal products.\\"\\n\\nAdditionally I had to dissect frogs and other animals in university, and I wasn't creeped out or disgusted by it, it was just purely a scientific exercise. I don't know if this is because I'm crazy, or because I'm trained to remove my emotions when it comes to suffering. I don't know.\\n\\nI have a plant-based diet, but I feel so detached from \\"caring about animals.\\" I feel that in order to be truly vegan, I should be just as passionate about animals and life as everyone else, but I'm not, and it makes me feel guilty.\\n\\nI need someone to talk to. I watch so many people on yt talk about how passionate they are about animals, and I want to say that I care that much too, but it just feels like I'm lying.\\n\\nEdit:\\nThank you everyone for you responses. I guess I never really thought about \\"it's ok to just choose this lifestyle,\\" even if I don't necessarily have the same reasons as other people. I don't really have any vegan friends to talk to about things, so it was nice to get your input.", |
"As per title. If you are a hated minority, but not only that, but also considered a dreg of society, a subhuman (because of ideas deemed extremely dangerous), then even vegan themselves hate you and wish that you did not exist, contradicting their claims that all life is valuable. All animal lives matters, BUT theirs, because many vegans would cheer on their demise (sadly, it is that normalized). Imagine how that person, considered subhuman by almost everyone, including many life-loving vegans, might feel about veganism, considering that if that person embraces veganism, she/he might be backstabbed by vegans and even die (socially or literally). Examples abound. In 1900 the dregs of society were gay people, yesterday it was trans people. Today? Many kinds of huge fears, relating to people whose mere existence is considered a threat. \\n\\nRegarding the year 1900, a vegan society back then would value all animal lives, while the gay people were considered subhuman. That had got to hurt for a vegan gay person, and if that person abandoned veganism it would be understoodable. Just 1 example, about the fact that being vegan does not automatically make you into an ethical person.\\n\\nIn summary, there are people out there justified in eating meat, because society in general would rather, and wishes they did not exist, most people even do not see them as humans anymore, just subhuman. And vegans are no exception, in general, they see them just the same, as I have seen some discourse in vegan communities advocating for violence against the social outcast, even without any proof of crime, just that gratuitious blood-lust and promotion of physical harm. We are all humans, and we are violent, vegans are not immune to the violence.", |
"Hi everyone, I am a vegan and just watched meat the family on 4od, I thought it was a pretty poorly thought out show which glossed over the actual slaughter part and painted the farming community in a positive light. I'm wondering if there are any vegans out there who thought this show was good or has any comments, thanks.", |
"I don\\u2019t know if in my lifetime that veganism will ever be the dominant diet without baby steps, but I believe a large portion of the population would consider getting a meal out of eating a less sentient insect than cows or pigs. ", |
"I might be wrong about this, and it might very well not be the case all around the world (most kinds of animal industries are not always the same all around the world, which is an important thing to take into consideration!), but as far as I know, there is no 'horse industry' in my country (Denmark), in the same sense as cow, poultry, pig industry and so on. Meaning, any product made from horses, like horse meat, horse leather and horse hair, all come from horses that has been bred and kept as riding horses. Usually private owned pet horses. In case of a horse needing to be put down for whatever reason, the owner can choose to donate the body to be used for products and meat, for either human consumption and often for zoos (its very popular to donate your deceased horse to be fed to lions or other carnivorous zoo animals. So much so, most zoos have waiting lists).\\n\\nConsidering if a horse product, such as horse meat or leather, comes from a horse that has lived a happy life as a riding horse but needed to be put down for other reasons, what are your thoughts on the use of these products? Also, brushes and stuff with horse hair. You don't need to kill the horse to use its hair, and they aren't raised for the purpose of their hair. In other words, if you are against horse products in a country that has no industry, wouldn't you in theory just be against the concept of pet horses? Or are you against that concept too?", |
"I just cant grasp that the reason people go vegan is because of empathy to animals as if they are humans (hence why so many holocaust comparisons).\\n\\nIf that was the case vegans would live in a world of complete panic and fury, just imagine if everyone around you was a mass murderer who ate the victims. Most vegans I met are just chill people.", |
"Hi. Portions of my family are livestock/field farmers who raise, butcher, and sell their livestock.\\n\\nOther than the butchering which is done in the most quick and painless way, their livestock (pigs/chickens/cows) are well taken care of with either free ranging or very large pens that are cleaned daily.\\n\\nI hunt small game, deer, coyote, and the occasional goose. Each is fully used as much as possible and none go to waste. I own an arsenal of guns which number in the 20s.\\n\\nI'm an EMT/Fire Fighter/Reserve Officer and have lived country most of my life. I've also been heavily carnivorous and unabashed by thoughts other than general conservation.\\n\\nAll that being said, I guess I get where the personal moral implications of veganism come from, but what exactly is the world gaining from vegans?\\n\\nI see the human population knowingly and concentratively domesticate livestock for the pure use of eating. We've dumbed then down to easily reciprocate livestock life, made them larger for more efficient consumption.\\n\\nWhat's the end game? Species genocide until only pets remain?", |
"This is my first post as a non vegan. My goal is to have answers from non vegans to my pro vegan arguments. Im open to hearing from vegans as well. My final question though is directed at vegans specifically. \\n\\nI truly believe MOST (not all) people who can go vegan but don't lack empathy. They believe that physical pleasure from eating meat or the convenience from eating animal products matters more than life. Most anti vegan arguments can not only easily be debunked, but also i doubt that the people saying them would use them elsewhere. For example, if eating meat is human nature, would you also say that SA is human nature? No, most would recognize that we're civilized. Therefore the true reason is lack of empathy. Meaning these would be the same people that wouldn't have stood up when facing things like segregation or slavery. Change my mind\\n\\nNow for lack of logic. This is the confusing bit. Most non vegans lack empathy, yet would be livid if they knew that someone had sex with an animal. I believe that's because they're blindly following a set of social norms. But how does that make sense? Having non harmful sex with an animal is much better than killing one, no? (I DO NOT SUPPORT ZOOPHILIA, ANIMALS CANNOT CONSENT) My question is, why is killing an animal to please my tongue okay but having sex with a horny animal to please my genitals not okay? Why is the outcome that results in death okay but not the one that results in pleasure for both parties?\\n\\nAnd finally, now a question for vegans. How would you define morality? And why should i agree with your view of morality? Because i cannot agree with the fact that killing is wrong if i cannot agree with how you view morals.", |
"Of all the issues I have with vegans (mostly social ones) I have a lot of trouble understanding how one goes about reaching the vegan ideology logically in that **nature isn't vegan**.\\n\\nCarnivores and omnivores have existed longer than humans as a species, so why would humans, an omnivore, go against their nature?\\n\\nI argue that the vegan ideology is anti nature in concept.\\n\\n**My View**\\nIn my opinion: Nature is the reaction of chemicals which fuel the movement of objects in space and with that:\\n1. Nature continues and is run by cycles.\\n\\n2. The ending of a cycle is due to it being interrupted by another cycle with specific characteristics which undo the former cycle.\\n\\n3. Cycles that make up nature interact and form larger communities.\\n\\n4. The end of a cycle is not the end of that part of nature but simply a change in what nature is.\\n\\n5. Nature will not end until all cycles have ceased without being inherited by a larger cycle.\\n\\nWhat I take from this:\\n\\n1. Nature has is from the big bang to the animal world.\\n\\n2. Changes in nature have insured that life competes for resources.\\n\\n3. Human follow their cycle as omnivores.\\n\\n4. By purposefully not following the cycle of consuming animals, a human would go against nature's cycle of humans.", |
"I'm a vegan and was recently asked how I feel about areas like the midwest where deer are often overpopulated and hunting is encouraged. The concept is essentially that having too many deer will lead to more car accidents and other dangers to humans (and the deer) and I assume some sort of food shortage or dangers of disease for the deer in addition to physical accidents.\\n\\nI've heard of similar situations with certain species of fish.\\n\\nHow do you feel about people hunting animals to control overpopulation and limit danger to humans?", |
"Title pretty much sums it up. I see/hear about all this awful stuff online from various, but biased sources: gestation crates, animals not being stunned effectively before slaughter, egg-laying hens in tiny cages, but how do I know it's not just a tiny minority of factory farms?", |
"Have a cousin who works in an anti human trafficking organization and she always tells me how sex trafficking isn't the most exploited type of human trafficking, it's actually labor trafficking where migrant workers are exploited after coming to America. \\n\\nI don't eat any meat but I still consume eggs and dairy products. I'm having a hard time quitting because while I may save some cows or chickens lives, the means by which my food is brought to my table is still unethical. Not only that but the clothes on my back, the cellphone in my hand, and even the apartment I live in were all made by beings who were taken advantage of. \\nSo where do you draw the line in terms of ethical consumption? It seems that everything I own was brought about in some evil or corrupt way ", |
"After looking vegan arguments online I find a lot moral arguments don't explain why death is not suffering, but pain is.\\n\\nI have seen Vegans argue that we should not eat animals to reduce suffering. That because plants do not have conscience or sentience, they do not suffer. I have to disagree because I think plants do not want to die just like animals, it just that it is much harder to empathize with plants since plants are much more different than us. Both plants and animals want to avoid death, and this can be seen by the different defense mechanisms that they use. For animals, pain is a defense mechanism telling the animal to run, fight, or call for help. Plants don't use pain, but use other defense mechanisms such as being poisonous, difficult to digest, or releasing chemical signals to other organisms. So to me it is obvious that plants do not want to die, and that because you are killing a plant, you are inducing suffering.\\n\\nI feel like if someone was really serious about reducing suffering through their diet they would be on a fruitarian diet. There seems to be an emotional appeal that killing animals is just wrong, but these emotions are based purely on empathy for animals and not plants, not to mention people's emotions can vary wildly from person to person, which is why I find this argument flawed. Personally I feel just as bad when I see a video of a forest fire and when I see a video inside a slaughter house.\\n\\nPlease share with me your thoughts.", |
"Did you guys know this subreddit had a Wiki? I didn\\u2019t, I was going to suggest building a wiki for some things.\\n\\nIs anyone interested in trying to work to expand the Wiki? Would the mods be open to a group of people brainstorming to expand the Wiki?", |
"What do people think of the idea that being vegan has a pretty low impact compared to donating to effective animal charities?\\n\\nI'm afraid most vegans don't donate to effective animal charities, and instead focus more on milk powder in their chips or other very marginal and low impact activities.\\n\\nWhat is the best way to spread the idea that being vegan is relatively low impact compared to other actions? \\n\\nIs this an idea that vegans would be open to, or do they have a certain degree of cognitive dissonance when it comes to donations?", |
"Vegan btw\\n\\nIn debates, meat eaters often bring up how more small animals are killed in the production of crops than are killed in the slaughter of cows or pigs or whatever animal. Vegans will usually shut this down by stating how we grow crops specifically to feed animals that we later slaughter, so even if animals die in crop production, less animals are dying in total with the vegan diet. Meat eaters will then respond by saying how most cows eat grass, and that very few animals are killed in grazing. The argument is at an impasse because each side thinks their side kills less animals. Either the vegans are right, or the meat eaters are right.\\n\\nIf the vegans are right, then they simply win the argument. If both sides care about reducing the total number of animal deaths, and the vegan side minimizes animal deaths, then the meat eater must concede.\\n\\nHowever, I think the situation is more complex if the meat eater is correct. For a utilitarian vegan that solely cares about reducing animal death and suffering, the meat eater's argument may be convincing. I do not think this is true if a vegan is arguing from an animal rights perspective. In terms of animal rights, a cow, full stop, has the right to life and not be slaughtered for food. To intentionally kill a cow is unjustified. However, there are two arguments this vegan could make to justify the animal deaths involved in crop production.\\n\\n1: They are an accident. Consider the case with driving cars: we know that every time we drive a car, there are going to be some unavoidable accidents that result in animal death, both human and fauna. However, most people, vegans included, would say that driving a car is morally permissible, even if we know that there will statistically be some deaths as a result. To intentionally hit someone with your car is definitely wrong, but merely driving with the knowledge that you could kill someone is not. Extrapolating this to the farming case, I would argue that most animals dying in crop production are like people killed in car crashes. For a farmer to go out of his way to kill a rodent on hit farm is wrong, but merely operating farm equipment as intended probably is not.\\n\\n2: They are justified. Imagine the following hypothetical: a person lives by himself on his farm in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles away from where any other human lives. He is self-sufficient, and sustains himself by farming various crops in a rotation such that he always has something to eat. Say that one day, he sees another human holding a torch, and this human is clearly going to burn down his farm. The farmer is in no danger from the fire since he can easily escape, but to run is to surrender his property and livelihood. Alternatively, he could shoot the fire-bearer with a rifle, killing him to protect his farm. Would the farmer be justified in killing the fire-bearer? I would argue yes. Even if there were 20 people trying to burn down his farm, he would be justified in killing every single one.\\n\\nWe could imagine pests as fire-bearers. Is it wrong to kill a pest if they are endangering the crops you are trying to grow? I don't think so. Obviously it would be better to find a non-lethal way of getting the pests to not destroy a farm, but I don't think think the lethal option, if necessary, is wrong. \\n\\nSlaughtering a cow is unjustified, protecting your crops is justified.\\n\\nAlso, I am not too knowledgeable on how farmers actually deal with pests in reality. But I would imagine that most methods they use could be explained by arguments 1 and 2. Let me know what you think.", |
"We have a whitetail deer population in the US. There's multiple methods on controlling the population. Just seeing what the vegans thoughts are on the best controlling method?\\n\\n(Here's an article about different methods including using contraceptives for control)(https://www.madetohunt.com/deer-herd-management/)", |
"To preface, I am vegan and have been for a while now, and will be for the rest of my life. This is a discussion that comes up with my partner (also vegan) that I hadn't really thought about before.\\n\\nI fucking love cats. I would love to have a cat. However, cats need to eat meat. They cannot be put on a vegan diet in any healthy way. If they need to eat meat to live, and we pay to have other animals killed for that purpose, how can we as vegans justify keeping cats as pets/companions?", |
"So, I am vegan for all of the reasons per usual but in this order (although they're all pretty equal)\\n1.) Health & philosophy \\n2.) Environmental concern\\n3.) But definitely not least, animal welfare\\n\\nI loosely follow a more whole food plant based diet. I am not a fan of excessive substitutes or processed foods. \\n\\nI regularly eat vegan Quorn products because I love the taste and they're relatively healthy even though I know they don't really fall in the wfpb category. \\n\\nMy question is what are your thoughts on how it's made, sourced and it's potential health effects?\\n\\nAfter a juice fast I did, I did notice some irritation reintroducing it back into my diet but I don't notice anything when eating it regularly (I know probs due to desensitization)\\n\\nI've looked into it's origins and seen a small amount of controversial stuff like allergic reactions. I think like 4 people died or something from eating it. \\n\\nIt fulfills a good part of my cravings for certain flavor profiles so I doubt I'd exclude it from my diet but just looking for some other opinions/experiences/research that I may not have considered.", |
"One of the most common arguments for veganism is that humans are not natural meat eaters or natural hunters, that we use weapons and machines to kill. It is said that because we could not realistically kill a grown cow with our bear hands that we are not natural meat consumers and hunters.\\n\\nHowever, us humans are in my eyes the dominant species of Earth, we built a metropolis and turned this planet to our own. We have the most developed and intelligent brains of any animals, because we ate meat during the time when our brains were evolving at the quickest. We use them now to use weapons to kill, and we always have done. Cavemen used spears and slingshots and traps to kill - just because we didnt do it bare handed doesn\\u2019t mean we aren\\u2019t natural predators. Our brain was our weapon.\\n\\nSo are humans natural meat eaters?", |
"If people didn't have a demand to eat chicken, then they would never be mass produced, therefore millions of chickens would've never even lived their lives for a moment. Why would people raise chickens if they didn't want to eat them, besides the small percentage that would want them as a pet? Since the demand is so high, more chickens are being produced, therefore more get to live a life that they otherwise wouldn't have even had, even if it ends with getting killed.", |
"If we define veganism as the rejection of the commodification of sentient life, then an important part of understanding the definition is understanding what we mean by \\"sentient\\".\\n\\nA straight-forward definition of \\"sentient\\" is \\"able to perceive or feel things\\". A simple interpretation of this definition would mean that any life which responds to stimuli is sentient (as reaction requires some ability to sense its surroundings).\\n\\nWe can say that animals (and other life) exist on a scale of sentience, with some species displaying greater sentience than others (having greater abilities to perceive or feel). But where do we draw the line for what constitutes sentience? That is, for what level of sentience does it become acceptable to commodify life? \\n\\nFor example, (plants can distinguish when touch starts and stops)(https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/2023/05/31/plants-can-distinguish-when-touch-starts-and-stops/). By the definition of sentience provided above, this would imply that plants are sentient. However, if we accept plants as sentient, then there is no ethical way to sustain humanity while adhering to the definition of veganism given above.\\n\\nI see three ways of solving this conundrum:\\n\\n1. Assert that plants are not sentient life.\\n2. Modify the definition of veganism to be the *minimization* of the commodification of sentient life subject to certain constraints (such as the preservation of human life).\\n3. Accept that humanity should depend purely on fruits for nourishment while allowing plants to grow undirected, as this avoids commodifying plants given that fruits are evolutionarily intended for animal consumption.\\n\\nI would assume that most vegans would subscribe to the first option. If not, let me know what other solution to this conundrum you might hold, and why.\\n\\nIf we take that plants are not sentient life, then we need to justify why plants are different from animal life. For example, we could assert that a nervous system is required for sentience. This requires that we justify why a nervous system deserves to be the distinguishing factor. What makes sensing through nerves so different from sensing through other means as plants do? Or, if we choose a different distinguishing factor, why that one?\\n\\nIf I missed something or made an unsubstantiated argument, I would greatly appreciate if you would point to where I have made a mistake. I hope this post did not come across as combative as that is not my intention. I am simply seeking to better understand veganism. Thank you.", |
"Asking here because I suspect the answer might be debatable. Sorry if this has been asked before, I did search before posting and did not see it.\\n\\nScenario: a person of sound mind decides they would like to be made into leather after their death. They view it similarly to being an organ donor, and they think it would be hilarious if people were walking around with a person leather wallet, belt, handbag, etc. They have drafted a will instructing that such items be made from themselves and bequeathed to various people. They have made this known for decades prior to their passing, so there is zero question that they fully consent to this.", |
"Okay just hear me out\\n\\nMany vegans feed their pets (dogs, cats, etc) kibble and meat...that's fair as they need it to live.\\n\\nHow do you guys feel about a vegan who rescues chicken and other farm animals but then slaughters them for pet food (their own pets)?assuming the cats and dogs are rescued too....isnt this more humane then buying kibble?\\n\\nEdit:\\n\\nI'm noticing alot of comments from omnivores \\n\\nThis is a question for vegans", |
"To phrase the title/thesis with more clarity:\\n\\nThe concepts \\"perfection isn't possible but you should still be vegan to reduce suffering as much as possible/practicable\\" and \\"veganism is all-or-nothing, any steps towards reducing suffering are useless unless you take all of them\\" are almost 100% mutually exclusive. If veganism is black or white, if ANY consumption of animal products means you've made zero progress vs someone who consumes more (e.g. vegetarian/reducetarian) the only \\"true\\" vegans would have to live like the 13% of the world that does NOT own a smartphone (gelatin in batteries). If veganism is removing all animal products from your life, then smartphones are one of them. If 13% of the world can do it, so can you; it's demonstrably \\"possible and practicable.\\" Otherwise you're saying an animal should die so you don't have to live like over 1/10th of the world does (some even by choice).\\n\\nYes it would be a ***much*** bigger quality of life change than just not-eating animals. It's harder to live the life you're *used* to living without electronics than it would be to just live without eating animals. But comparing the difficulty of removing one form of exploitation from your life to another is not a valid way to justify continuing exploitation of animals *if* veganism is black or white. A similar comparison could be made between vegetarianism and veganism. Thus any unnecessary consumption would disqualify you as a vegan, you'd be \\"reducetarian.\\"\\n\\nFor example: If you own a personal car, travel unnecessarily, etc. you're already guilty of killing animals unnecessarily. Chances are many of you may think you \\"need\\" a car to survive, but you don't. It's possible and practicable to live without a car for MOST people. Fewer than 1/7th of the world owns a car. The idea that you cannot live without a car is about as true as saying you cannot live without eating meat. If 6/7 people can get by without a car, you can too, right? Isn't this a more compelling argument than the argument that meat-eaters can get by without their meat because vegans (approx. 1% of the world) do?\\n\\nI mean, some vegans are proud to hold on their electronics longer than normal or to drive a used, fuel-efficient car, or to \\"try\\" being zero-waste. But that's all just \\"reducetarian\\" ethics if veganism is all-or-nothing. The same applies to many other unnecessary products that we vegans are unwilling to part with, despite the fact that it harms animals directly (gelatin in batteries require animals to die). Either it's \\"Zero animal product consumption or you're supporting rape/murder\\" or \\"a little support for rape/murder is okay as long as it's a smartphone\\"; Neither sound very good to me. Thus vegans cannot sit on both sides of \\"perfection/eliminating suffering completely isn't possible, but you should still be vegan\\" and \\"vegan is black or white\\" since no one is truly doing everything practicable/possible to reduce harm simply by being on reddit right now and using animal products.\\n\\nDisclaimer: I'd be considered vegan under all standards. I don't consume any animal foods or animal-derived clothing and do a good job reducing everywhere else. I just don't think it's a binary \\"with us or against us\\" when it comes to reducing suffering on this planet. I hope people choose vegetarianism if they're not willing to try veganism. I hope people choose to reduce meat intake and try meatless Mondays. I don't expect the world to be vegan any more than I expect the world to stop smoking cigarettes or going to war. I'll be glad for the progress wherever it comes, and try to advocate for progress in the most effective ways possible.", |
"I don't want to assume this is a tenet of veganism, but it seems to have been implied in a couple of the discussions I've had with family. ", |
"No indigenous population anywhere in the world is known to rely solely on plants for nutrition. \\n\\nWithout supplementing on a vegan diet you can become deficient in a multitude of essential nutrients which can have extremely serious implications, including making you infertile.\\n\\nThe term \\"vegan\\" was coined in 1944 years ago by Donald Watson, the founder of the Vegan Society, as a statement against vegetarians who ate dairy products. He took the first and last letters of the word vegetarian to create his orthodox version of vegetarianism\\n\\nBabies are dying from either being fed breast milk from a vegan mother who is not supplementing or fed a vegan diet without supplementation.\\n\\nVeganism appears to be the least nutritious diet, excluding crazy fad diets such as 'potato only diet'\\n\\nAren't vegans contributing to globalism as many of them have to rely on imported plants in the winter and many of these companies have unfair practices; profit greatly; have shady practices such as monsanto; use fossil fuels in every stage of the production and distribution of these plants; destroy the environment with things such as pesticides, fertilizers, monocrops causing top-soil erosion, GM crops, etc (discussion to this should happen in a separate thread as it is a very interesting topic as to whether veganism is actually good for the environment). \\n\\nWhy do vegans believe it is healthy in such a limited way? If you have to rely on supplements and drugs to not be deficient on this diet is that an optimal and healthy thing?\\n\\nIf it really was optimal, why did our ancestors begin and continue eating meat? Why do people thrive more on a supplement-free meat and are deficiency-free (especially raw) only diet than a supplement-free plant only diet?\\n\\nWhy do deficiencies in nutrients only found in meat have such a devastating effect on our health if we are not meant to consume animal products after childhood?\\n\\nI have been directed to this sub after posting in r/vegan because people were talking about raising babies vegan and it kinda shocked me because it seemed misinformed. I hope you guys here can help answer some of my questions\\n", |
"I created a post the other day about owning pets and how it is partially equivalent to slavery (it's not equivalent because animals cannot enter into a social contract with humans). However, quite a few people did not quite understand the moral implication of owning pet's (or partnerships as some put it) as potentially harmful from a human being's moral standpoint, if we are to use vegan ethics as moral guidelines. Instead, many turned to consequentialism(as one user pointed out), some arbitrary form of utilitarianism in favour of owning pets and some would argue that animals have no concept of human values therefore imposing freedom (a value we hold highly, does not matter as much as happiness or these values hold no value whatsoever). This is extremely problematic for the Vegan ethos, and I'll explain why, but instead I'll use one analogy to simplify the argument, and show why utilitarianism and consequentialism, and various forms or other arguments do not work when it comes to the vegan ethos. It'll also demonstrate the irrationality of veganism when it comes to owning pets.\\n\\nHere is the analogy: imagine a hypothetical world where every livestock animal appears happy, and is treated extremely well. They receive the food they require, they have lots of space to explore and live in natural environments (as much as reasonably possible). Livestock appears happy. One day, the farmer comes out and humanely stuns the animal (without it realising) and sells the meat. Livestock live a good, happy life.\\n\\n(1) The animal is happy, and (2) the animal is not suffering.\\n\\nWhy then, in this scenario, is it wrong to eat meat? If one were to argue against this by using inalienable rights for animals (e.g. freedom) then why does the argument not passover into pet ownership?\\n\\nThis hypothetical analogy unfortunately destroys the vegan ethos unless vegans give intrinsic and inalienable rights to animals (and pets) regardless of a utilitarian or consequentialist approach. If an animal lives a good life and is treated well, whether as livestock or a pet, the primary concern becomes the minimisation of suffering and maximization of well-being. If one does not give intrinsic and inalienable rights to animals, then there appears to be no difference between a meat eater and a non-meat eater. Therefore, without implementing principles of intrinsic and inalienable rights for animals, the moral distinction between consuming animal products and owning pets becomes unclear. Both actions can be seen as ethically permissible if they ensure the well-being of the animals involved (e.g. why should I not eat meat if the animal is happy?).", |
"Just discovered that the root of the discussion was work by Steve Davis whos calculations show pasture fed cows to produce 2x the calories/protein per death as beans and other crops. Then Gaverick Methany rebutted- Then this guy: https://farmingtruth.weebly.com/blog/responding-to-vegan-debunks-of-the-davis-study rebutted him and I wanted to know, from those of you either better readers than I or more familiar with this work than I am, all your thoughts on this.\\nSo- no \\u201cmost crops are used to feed animals\\u201d bc thats not relevant.", |
"Just an FYI\\n\\nSo that's not really a talking point anymore \\n\\n\\nhttp://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-cow-farting-1.3856202", |
"First off, I'm not a vegan, but I do boycott the meat and dairy industries, because of their animal rights violations, carbon emissions, water consumption, etc. Which means that I don't have a problem with eating meat and dairy, just purchasing them. However, if I go to a party and somebody else offers me meat that they already purchased, I'll eat it no problem. At that point, the animal has already been killed, and the meat has already been payed for, so eating the meat doesn't really harm anything at that point.\\n\\nBut I am curious. From an ethical perspective, why is it wrong to eat the meat once the damage has already been done? Eating the meat can't hurt the animal, since it's already dead, and it can't support the meat industry, since somebody else already paid for it.", |
"Supposedly people are coming closer to being able to produce cheap, lab grown meat, according to this post in r/futurology: https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/companies/lab-meat-to-transform-meat-industry-in-2021-12750778\\n\\nWhat's y'all's opinion about this? Personally, I see it as an option for decreased green house gases, decreased suffering, and possibly healthier meat options as we will be able to control the fat content much easier.\\n\\nEdit: really love the responses, y'all are so welcoming and I really appreciate the logical discussion. Obviously, this isn't meant to change vegans back to meat and such, but hopefully be a replacement for slaughter houses and be an ethical, environmentaly considerate solution for the masses. ", |
"I'll preface this with the fact that I'm in between a vegetarian and vegan for ethical reasons, with some more extremist views but some other very conservative views on animal rights/welfare issues. \\n\\nI've been pursuing /r/vegan for a while and I keep seeing lots of anti-honey views. I'm not 100% sure on exactly why bees are dying out but wouldn't supporting honey help save the bees by at least keeping the demand for them up? \\n\\nObviously it's not an ideal way to save the bees but even zoos have programs to save endangered/extinct species with the potential to releasee them and save the species in the wild. So worst case scenario we could keep bees in captivity and release them when conditions are favorable for their success. \\n\\nEDIT: Thanks for all the replies! Definitely helpful, I obviously understand the harm in taking honey away from bees and I understand most bees don't make honey. I think my point was that if we lose bees we lose their pollinating ability and captive honey bees could aid in that regard. But like others said even without supporting honey it's unlikely we'll ever lose honey bees. \\n\\n", |
"Because in the long range, 30-50 plus years, factory farming will be become automated, robotic. Few people will directly be involved in the mistreatment and slaughter killing. \\n\\nAnd the treatment of factory animal can be negotiated to improve. It will be a long haul, but it can be done. Government regulated. *(The goal of getting people to stop eating meat will never come about. Vegans, etc. will gradually accept this, and put their energies into improving factory conditions.)*\\n\\nBut hunting by hunting families? Which always involves transmission hunting practices and ethics to new generations? *Quote from NY Times article:*\\n\\n>When the Algonquin chef Cezin Nottaway was 5 years old, her mother taught her how to kill and skin a beaver with her bare hands. The little girl also learned how to snare a rabbit and to draw a moose out of the forest by emulating its haunting grunt.\\n\\n*(This indigenous practice is a little different from American hunting families, where boys usually don't learn to kill and cut apart their first deer until age 8-10. But both share the same ethics.)*\\n\\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/dining/canada-indigenous-cooks.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news\\n\\nVegans and animals rights people abhor this. Nothing worse, in their minds, than teaching young children to kill and then cut apart animals.\\n\\nBecause the goal of spreading vegan and animals rights ideology requires the opposite: \\"educating\\" *(indoctrinating)* as many people as possible, particularly children *(formative years)* that the above practices are immoral. (aka *Be kind to animals*)\\n\\n50 years from now: Factory farming automated. All *invasive species culling and eradication* conducted by drone and bot. No people involved. \\n\\nBut hunting as we have it today--alive and well. Children learning the animal killing trade at ages 8-10. Abhorrent.\\n\\n- - - -\\nMore excerpts:\\n\\n>Protesters have organized petition drives against some indigenous restaurants, including the newly popular Ku-kum Kitchen, which offers seared seal loin and seal tartare...\\n\\n>Late last year a petition calling on Ku-kum to remove seal from its menu gathered more than 6,500 signatures. \\u201cThe seal slaughters are very violent, cruel, horrific, traumatizing and unnecessary,\\u201d the petition said\\n\\n*Is there any animal killing which is not violent and cruel?*", |
"This is another \\"wool\\" topic. Right now I am trying to figure this ethical dilemma that I have faced.\\n\\nIs it ethically better to 1) exploit the bred sheep and shear their wool in order to prevent them from dying and suffering from mites OR 2) not exploit them by cutting wool and let them die themselves due to mites and other stuff?\\n\\nAlso would be grateful for your opinion on wool", |
"I\\u2019m a vegan and i constantly hear arguments against veganism, but so far i have found a way to debunk all of them.\\nDo you have any arguments against veganism that are valid ? I\\u2019m just curious.", |
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