• General_Effort@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    They are a small, harmless minority. Isn’t that enough? Maybe it’s made worse by the fact that they are perceived as non-violent and effeminate, because of their strong opposition to suffering, even when the victims are helpless, like animals. There is no personal risk in bullying them. It’s like the hate for environmental activists, trans-women, or liberals in general. I wouldn’t know that vegans aggressively proselytize their life-style if people didn’t aggressively tell me so; something that they share with “the gays”. Of course, people wouldn’t mind if they didn’t shove it in their faces all the time. Where have I heard that before?

    • Nelots@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      The vocal minority of gays don’t call me a murderer for liking women.

      • blackris@discuss.tchncs.de
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        4 months ago

        Sure, but maybe they would, if you instead of liking ate their body parts and would pay an industry to kill them for that purpose? We can only speculate.

        • Nelots@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          Yes, I’m quite aware vegans have a reason to be upset. Unfortunately, equating eating meat or drinking milk to personally murderering and torturing animals is not going to earn them any fans, and will in fact push people away from their just cause out of spite.

          That’s not at all relevant to the comment I was responding to, though.

          • Landsharkgun@midwest.social
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            4 months ago

            I mean, you are paying someone else to do those things for you. Or if you want to quibble over verbs, paying someone else to cause harm to animals for you.

            If it’s not currently possible for you to eat a less harmful diet, that’s one thing. There’s a ton of ways that our lifestyles can cause harm, and it’s perfectly fine if you’re just not in a good place to change one particular aspect of it. Refusing to acknowledge the harm that you are causing is frankly much more concerning. From understanding comes action, after all.

            • Nelots@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              I mean, you are paying someone else to do those things for you.

              That’s not exactly what’s going on. I believe a more apt way to describe it would be paying somebody that has harmed animals. This may sound like a distinction without a difference, but I don’t believe it is. Whether I buy pork at a grocery store or not, they aren’t going to kill any fewer pigs because of it. It’s not like the slaughterhouse is going to butcher exactly one less pig because I stopped buying meat. If I decide not to buy pork chop the next time I go to a store, either somebody else buys the pork, it’s donated to a food bank right before expiry, or it’s just thrown away. The pig is already dead, and the meat goes somewhere regardless.

              Unless you’re the type of person that eats meat every day, there is very little change you can make at an individual level. Of course, much like voting, change starts to happen once you get a lot of people to make that individual choice. Get 20 people to stop buying pork, and the store might order less. But at that point, I would argue it is far more of a societal issue. So while we are directly responsible for what happens to farm animals, I don’t think it’s at the level of us literally killing them ourselves.

              • Landsharkgun@midwest.social
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                4 months ago

                Pardon me for fighting you on this, but I believe you are incorrect. You’re abdicating your responsibility, in assuming that those animals will always be killed.

                Put it this way. If you lived next to a chicken farm, and drove over there any time you needed a chicken, and watched them kill it for you, would you have any qualms about saying it was killed for you? Why does having it go through a grocery store first somehow change this? However you get your meat, those animals were still killed for your benefit.

                The average American eats about 250 pounds of meat in a year. That’s a bit over half a cow, or about one and a half pigs, or somewhere north of a hundred chickens. That’s the butcher’s bill, directly attributable to the average American. So to take your own words - yes, if you stop eating meat, exactly one pig will not be killed every year. Around one and half, actually.

          • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Believing that animals are just like us s hardly and outlandish belief, on the facts. We’re evolutionarily closely related. We have basically the same skeleton. Skull, spine, rib cage, hips, 4 extremities. Arms and legs go: 1 big bone, 2 smaller bones, and lotsa little bones. It looks to be the same with the brain.

            We expect vegans not to blow up slaughterhouses or such. Fair enough. But expecting them to shut up about their beliefs is a bit much, no? Expecting them not to tell people how they feel, not to kiss in public, or hold a pride para… Sorry, wrong prosecuted minority.

            I’ve heard these takes about vegans for literal decades now, and not once has an actual vegan popped up to tell me that I’m a murderer.

            • Nelots@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              Okay? The ONLY thing I mentioned was them calling people murderers. Glad you haven’t, but I have had that happen. Another thing I’ve seen that I have issue with is vegans pushing their diets on their carnivorous pets. Like cats. But I have literally no problem with 99% of vegans expressing their beliefs.

              Yes, I’m quite aware vegans have a reason to be upset.

              their just cause

              Like I said. I even think they’re usually in the right. While I’m not a vegan for my own personal reasons, I hope they eventually make a positive change in the world.

      • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Well, it’s what they believe. What exactly is the problem there? I have never been called a murderer. There just aren’t that many vegans around. I don’t know in what kind of circles this would be a common occurrence.

        • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Well, it’s what they believe

          I’m sorry but this is a dogshit justification in nearly every situation

          • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            At first, I was confused. Isn’t the fact that you believe something the only justification for saying something? I mean, otherwise you’d be lying. But you’re saying you disagree with the belief in the first place, right?

            • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              I’m saying that the idea that something is justified because it is believed makes no sense. Apologies for being unclear.

                • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  No, I’m making the same point as @redisdead. Everyone says things because they believe them. That doesn’t make what they say correct/valid/etc just because of that belief. I actually think that veganism is a morally good position, but the justification of that position being “because I believe it” means literally nothing.

                  • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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                    4 months ago

                    Ok, so that’s why you’re not making any sense. You have no idea what’s going on.

                    Look, it’s very simple. Vegans are a small, harmless minority. So some people bully them. Of course, it’s their own fault. They wouldn’t mind them if they weren’t “out and proud”. It’s always the same story. There’s almost no variation.

                    I thought you were saying that it’s ok to bully them because they believe the wrong thing. That’s what @redisdead is saying. He compares them to “right wing cunts” when they speak their beliefs. Fascis get bashis. Just like vegans, I guess.

                    Watch the company you keep.

        • redisdead@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Yet when a right wing cunt says what he believes about minorities, that’s a problem.

          • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Vegans believe that animals have the same rights to live as humans. A nazi believes that the “others” do not have the same right to live as “his people”.

            I don’t think you’ll be able to convince me that these are morally or ethically equivalent positions. But I see the point. They both believe the wrong thing. The out-group sucks. Yes, I know how humans tick.

            • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              So what you’re saying is, their belief in their position doesn’t make it right/wrong. It’s the position itself that makes it right/wrong. That’s what we’ve been trying to say.

    • GetOffMyLan@programming.dev
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      4 months ago

      Animals massively outnumber us. It’s not our fault they are cowards and can’t organize a rebellion properly.