dx1 @ dx1 @lemmy.world

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761

Joined

2 yr. ago

I draw the line when the position being taken is wrong.

Agriculture refers to both animal and non-animal ag. Hence the prefix "animal" for "animal agriculture".

"Huge negatives for animals involved" is the reality of industrial agriculture, which provides the vast majority of meat (animal products in general) for human consumption today. To your later point, "free range" is typically what's referred to as "greenwashing", where a company has to meet some bare-minimum criteria to get a stamp on their product. E.g., the USDA criteria for "free range" re: eggs:

Eggs packed in USDA grademarked consumer packages labeled as free range must be produced by hens that are able to roam vertically and horizontally in indoor houses, and have access to fresh food and water, and continuous access to the outdoors during their laying cycle.

Re: cigarettes - it should be clear I'm referring to net negative "utility".

Just look at relative average stress levels of farm animals compared to humans.

Don't know what your methodology is for determining this. Separation trauma at birth, confined spaces and health hazards from living in waste are not a formula for stress-free living.

Ecology is not a distinct topic from ethics. Ecological outcomes have pronounced effects on human and animal experience. I alluded to this already.

Care to provide that magic bullet that dairy and meat will destroy humanity and individuals cutting out dairy/meat will save humanity?

Estimates on greenhouse gas emissions seem to converge at roughly 20-25% for animal agriculture, with roughly a 10x increase over more efficient plant agriculture. A comparable increase holds for water usage, fertilizer usage, etc., due to the caloric loss intrinsic to producing feed for animals versus consuming plant agriculture products directly. Part of the problem with this interpretation is that, even if you're only consuming actual "free range", chickens-walking-around-outdoors-pecking-bugs, cows-roaming-grasslands-nondestructively animal agriculture, the actual vast majority of animal agriculture does not fit this profile. (Side note, it is remarkable how almost everyone you talk to about this only eats the "free range" "humanely produced" animal products, when the vast majority of the products are not). The negative effects of animal ag on animals are less pronounced in non-confined spaces, but still fit the profile of exploitation for human use at negative benefit for humans relative to plant consumption.

Your central point seems to be that the benefit derived from eating animals for humans outweighs negligible negative effects on animals in an isolated best-world case of free range, "humane slaughter" scenarios. I would dispute that it's a net positive for humans in the first place, and you're basically putting the actual vast majority of animal agriculture in a special category you get to ignore because, supposedly, there are negligible or no negative effects on the animals that you consume. Which, first off, I doubt, but second, hits the ethical question of killing, which bears mentioning the ethics we apply to humans on these grounds. We do not consider it ethically acceptable to kill a random human walking down the street, of your own volition. Why? Something like, the trauma that their family/friends/acquaintances would endure, and the cost of denying them the rest of their life. For some reason these same points are not held true of animals? You may deny that they experience such trauma, but that would be incorrect. And the cost of denying them the rest of their life is undeniable.

I'm calling it here tbh. I don't think this is going anywhere beyond here.

You're literally posting anti-vegan shit, then vegans come into the replies and it's "oh no I'm being attacked". You're trivializing real concerns and trashing people who disagree. GTFO of here with that bullshit.

Yes, start with the Wikipedia one, that actually begins to examine it critically and points out that this campaign against PETA was spearheaded by an animal industry lobbying group...

Awesome. Thanks for helping make Lemmy a negative place inhospitable to differing viewpoints!

No, look up individual claims, look up the inverse of the claim, weigh the presented evidence against each other.

I.e., look up the mitigating factors here - was this an isolated case? Was it isolated to one state? Were animals from no-kill shelters dumped on the PETA-run shelter? What's the actual funding of this shelter compared to PETA's general operations? You know, ACTUAL THOROUGH ANALYSIS. Take the actual facts in question and put them properly in context instead of just swallowing literal animal ag industry propaganda coming out of groups like the Weston Price Foundation that have a vested interest in discrediting groups like PETA.

It's like every time people post something false, and you know it's false, you can't just let them know, they expect you to spend the next two hours of your life pulling up all the sources to show them, again and again and again and again and again and again. I've had this exact same conversation dozens of times, I'm sick of it. Can you not just learn how to research for yourself? Can you not post the discredited claim in the first place so we don't have to constantly play this game? Like, do the fact checking properly in the first place?

Yeah, I don't know how else to describe it. Mindless kind of one-liner, "gotcha", poorly thought out positions, "lool omg sooo true" kind of posts.

There's definitely been a shift. I didn't see these kinds of mindless "pop" posts until very recently.

I am not accepting non-vegans' opinions on how to be a better vegan at this time. I will keep your comments on file.

Mmn, so negative utilitarianism, the stance that people should minimize suffering. And for some reason this does not apply to animals? What reason?

There's the approach I have to fact-check things, I don't know what other approach people have honestly. Look up fact-checking, debunking etc. on it. I know there are dozens to hundreds of pages that fact-check the parroted "PETA euthanizes too many dogs" claim. I honestly can't believe people are still bringing this one up, I don't know how it could possibly be on me to start digging up sources for you.

Yeah, it's the ones who talk about their thoughts that are the issue. Fucking jerks!

Do more research on that claim.

Aaaaand the reddit crowd is here.

This is just obnoxious.

Litmus test I've found over the years on internet discussion - when you try to right the ship to actually talk about the concrete issue, and the other person keeps trying to turn it into personal me-vs-you and who's-better-than-who - they're operating in bad faith. "I am rubber, you are glue" replies just destroy any attempt people are having for a real discussion.

Not really. I am telling you that you’re not the only (or most) educated and prepared person in the vegan/meat discussion. Unless we take “vegans are axiomatically right”, you have a fairly massive burden of proof if you want to continue being offended by the idea that a non-vegan can have a 3-digit IQ.

Discuss the actual topic, like I just asked you to. What is the reasoning that's superior to vegan reasoning?

First off, feel free to open with any scientific evidence that cows suffer the emotional trauma of sexual abuse from farming. Because the thing is, we have thousands of years of evidence and that doesn’t seem to be the correct conclusion. No, calling cattle insemination sexual abuse is a malicious lie.

Rambling article that fails to prove its central point. Points out that cows identify humans as "the predator" but for some reason think this doesn't factor into a negative experience for human arms being jammed inside them? I don't know why people feel so compelled to defend this. It's sexual in nature and they don't like it, end of story.

This. Right. fucking. here. You are telling me that my moral system is less than dirt. That I am inferior to you.

This whole paragraph is literally the rationalization process. You internalize that somebody pointing out an ethical issue is attacking you personally, and from there launch into a whole thing about what a zealot absolute-fucking-asshole they must be for pointing it out, how they must think you're stupid, how dare they, blah blah blah. I am literally just talking about how a practice is unethical and the negative experiences (like this) I've had discussing it with people, where people flare up into an emotional shitstorm instead of talking about it calmly and rationally. You're doing it right now.

I’m a member of a fringe religion that my country tried to ban, so fuck “little nasty bit of discrimination”. YOU DON’T GET TO CALL YOURSELF A VICTIM OF DISCRIMINATION BECAUSE I DON’T LIKE YOU BELITTLING ME.

I don’t think you’re a subhuman. I think you’re a zealot.

It is discrimination. We take an ethical position and this is generalized as a stereotype to some kind of critical fault in our personalities - incorrectly. That worse forms of discrimination exist, or that you've experienced them, doesn't change that. You seem absolutely callous to my actual 10+ years of experience with this.

Ironically the "zealots" were a Jewish sect that objected to the unethicalness of Roman rule and were trying to throw it off, justifying resistance within the context of their religion.

And I’ve “lived through, rejected, and moved past” your thinking, too. I used to be an active member of a religion that has strong roots in both philosophical veganism and in philosophical omnivorism. Circle of live vs All life is sacred sects. You might not realize it, but a lot of people with a lot more understanding of ethics and a lot more philosophical background than you have spent a lot more time thinking about veganism than you have. And I lived through it, rejected it, and came out the other side.

Now you're belittling me, ironically. And what was the actual thinking that led you to "come out the other side"? At some point here are you trying to get past all the identity politics and being offended over whatever to actually talk about brass tacks here? What is the grand scientific/philosophical reasoning you used to decide that it's A-OK to use & abuse animals for human gain?

If you're referring to Buddhism, I would note how Buddha's reasoning for when eating meat is excusable does not apply to animal agriculture at all (the reasoning that, if the animal wasn't killed for you, it's OK - which fails the basic litmus test of how supply-and-demand works for when people actually go out and buy meat).

That's it, you're blocked.