I’ll start; Ricky Gervais is kind of a douchebag/bully. Yes, he’s vegan.
I’ll start; Ricky Gervais is kind of a douchebag/bully. Yes, he’s vegan.
Rule 2: Being outspoken about animal rights or the environment isn’t a negative quality.
I should clarify I’m mostly asking about a specific well-known vegan and something negative about them unrelated to their veganism.
There are factual differences between races. Sure the differences might not be as pronounced as differences between species, but why does that matter? Why should those differences forbid us from treating them all equally given that they’re all sentient beings?
I respect your endeavours I guess… regardless of your reasoning
You’re vegan, yet you don’t think speciesism is bad, and you don’t care about morals… right… 🤨
Recognising that speciesism is an immoral form of discrimination comparable to other forms like racism is key to animal liberation. So I believe rejecting the comparison is contrary to what veganism actually stands for.
Sorry I missed this comment.
Treating them all as equally well as possible makes sense, to be clear. That means not exploiting or harming any of them unnecessarily.
But treating them in exactly the same way doesn’t, since they have different needs and considerations as you point out. I agree with that.
And I’m not saying we should have all animals as pets, in fact due to the suffering it causes I would be wholly against the domestication of any more animals.
But we don’t have to treat animals in the same exact ways in order to respect and love them equally, even remotely or conceptually, even just based on the knowledge of them. It does feel strange to me to say “this species is my favourite species”. Is it speciesist? I’m not sure. It’s definitely not as bad as exploiting species selectively. But it might have some remnant of the views that led to those practices in the first place, potentially. I’m conflicted about it like another vegan said here whose comment was deleted.
Okay I believe you (Not all vegans are the same after all. For example some people call themselves vegan when they’re really just eating a plant-based diet, still buy other animal products, or don’t have very strong views about animal rights. Not saying that’s the case here but when there are fewer vegans in a community, there can be more of that.)
But what confused me is that rather than just answering the question of whether it’s speciesist to prefer one animal species over another (even when respecting both of their rights by being vegan), you mostly went on a tangent about rejecting the comparison between racism and speciesism, even though vegans typically stress the fact that both forms of discrimination of individuals are comparable to each other, and it’s usually people who are against the vegan movement who try to argue they aren’t, and say things like “Considering humans and non-human animals as the same is problematic” (even though that’s a strawman since the vegan position acknowledges the differences between species but advocates for moral treatment of all species regardless).
I just don’t really understand. Do you for example think that it’s wrong to compare immoral treatment of humans to immoral treatment of non-human animals? Because that’s the vibe I’m getting.
Why is it that the one person who responded who seemed to actually be vegan had their messages deleted? Are the mods here not vegan? Or are higher up Lemmy mods brigading this sub?
All of your talking points are very much what non-vegans and anti-vegans say. So please just be honest and tell me if you’re vegan or not.
There is no need to believe that every species is the same in order to treat them all as well and as equally as possible.
Vegans compare racism and speciesism all the time. And non-vegans are the ones who usually reject the comparison. So, I ask, are you vegan?
I’ve already gotten 2 non-vegans trolling. Please respect the nature of this question and only answer if you’re vegan and want to engage seriously.
That seems reasonable. We want a vegan community of actual vegans to communicate about topics with. Likewise “carnivore” dieters (I wasn’t aware there was a presence of them on Lemmy) probably want actual carnivore dieters to talk to. I don’t see the problem with this. If I ask a question directed toward vegans and all I get is responses from non-vegans, it defeats the purpose of my question. Only vegans can truly understand where you’re coming from about certain things to do with vegan topics. Guessing you’re not vegan based on your phrasing.
Well primarily vegans don’t eat honey because it’s a form of exploitation of animals (bees). This can carry ethical as well as environmental issues.
This goes into some of the reasons why vegans typically avoid honey:
https://www.careelite.de/en/why-vegans-dont-eat-honey/
TL;DR:
▪︎ Bees make the honey for themselves ▪︎ Honey production is exhausting ▪︎ We manipulate the animals for the honey ▪︎ Honey bees are exploited in mass breeding ▪︎ Bees are injured and die ▪︎ Honey is not particularly healthy ▪︎ There are plant-based alternatives ▪︎ Wild bees are important for biodiversity ▪︎ Bees are living beings and not commodities ▪︎ Wild bees are essential for the survival of us humans
And here is the Vegan Society’s page on honey:
https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/why-go-vegan/honey-industry
Hope that helped :)
Well that’s simply not true, I actually counted the practices I referenced and at least 14 out of 19 are standard practice in just about every dairy operation, are unavoidable on a large scale, and the other ones are extremely common as well. Also, thinking “the west” is better for animals is really misguided, since the US, Australia and the UK have some of the worst animal welfare standards in the world, and for example 99% of animal products come from factory farmed animals in the US. While more streamlined in developed countries, by all accounts, other countries aren’t quite as cruel toward animals as most western countries. This does have a lot to do with the fact that wealthier nations consume a lot more animal products than poorer nations on average. Take that as what you will. I’m not trying to point fingers at specific countries since every country in the world treats animals terribly in farming systems, and it couldn’t be any other way while we as a society are all consuming these products that need to be mass produced for a (rapidly increasing) human population.
I reacted to your comment because it was the first and only comment I saw that supported using milk. I only said I’m not a robot to explain that by my human nature, I didn’t read every comment, and I only have a limited amount of time that I would spend on social media like this in general, let alone this specific comments section. And also, making the point once is probably enough for a lot of people to see it. My goal was achieved already. I’m sorry to single you out, or if you felt that was unfair. Rest assured, I blame everyone for supporting animal agriculture equally.
Nice false appeal to hypocrisy to deflect away from the issue of animal exploitation, and blatant whataboutism. 2 wrongs don’t make a right. That’s a terrible argument.
“Hey, stop beating kids!”
“BuT I sAw yOu UsInG a SmArTpHoNe!”
So as per your own admission (pretty much any device you could be using), that’s essentially unavoidable in the current world we live in if you want to be a functional person. Are animal products avoidable? Yes.
That said, I bought my phone second hand from someone who doesn’t have an incentive or means to sell more. So I did not financially support any of the practices involved in the production. And only once it breaks down completely, my next phone will be a Fairphone, which is essentially the only ethical phone and didn’t exist when I got my current phone. What’s your next argument? Oh wait, all the arguments against veganism/defending animal exploitation are just bad faith, rubbish attempts to avoid addressing your own behaviour anyway.
Am I a robot? No, I’m not going to reply on every comment. I guess you care more about nonsense arguments than animals, the planet and your health.
I don’t use Facebook lol. I’m glad we agree that dairy farming causes severe suffering for cows and their calves, hugely impacts climate change, and that we need to stop doing it for their own benefit, and ours.
All of these practices still definitely happen on various farms around the world, especially in factory farming, and the worst of them are the standard practice. For example, cows make breast milk for their baby calves, not for humans. It’s exploitation by its very nature for humans to steal that milk. In almost all cases, the calves are denied the milk, separated from their mothers and killed for veal. Cows are artificially inseminated to keep them continually pregnant to produce milk, and have been selectively bred to overproduce so much that it very often causes them mastitis, lameness, spinal issues and destroys their bodies over time; sometimes they collapse completely. Once they can no longer produce milk, they too are killed for cheap beef at only 4-6 years old when they can live until 20-25. Any exception to this is rare, still involves immense harm to cows and calves, and can’t provide enough dairy for everyone (especially for cheese, which uses 10x as much milk than milk itself).
Dairy farming is unsustainable and cruel, and the products are unhealthy for humans and contribute to inflammation and disease. Lactose intolerance in adulthood was the natural state of humans for a reason. The lactose persistent gene is an unnatural adaptation and doesn’t prevent the health impacts of dairy.
Okay, not the best example. He’s alright. I couldn’t think of any but I was demonstrating the gist of the question.