This meme changed zero minds but made a few vegans feel pretty special.
Maybe not this single one, but if there’s a running discourse that shows veganism is perfectly common and normal, more people are willing to become vegan. This is part of the nudges we humans are prone to.
Vegans aren’t doing this to feel special, stop projecting. We just want people to stop harming animals and the only way to do that is to keep talking about it. Of all the responses vegans get, this is the most annoying one to hear.
I find vegans tend to have less empathy for their fellow man than we meat-eaters have for animals. It comes across as smug (and let’s be honest, it’s less insulting to call them smug).
You do realise that meat-eaters eat animals that were killed for them to be eaten? Please explain to me how this is more empathetic than posting a meme that triggered some meat-eaters.
That is the most insane sentence I’ve read. Vegans aren’t slaughtering and eating you. What empathy do you have for animals you choose to exploit and kill for taste preference? Vegans want people to stop doing a bad thing, that doesn’t mean we don’t care about those people, but it does usually mean that we have to argue with them.
What three animals everyone else eating? We’ve got chickens, ducks, pigeons, quail, geese, cranes, turkeys, cows, deer, elk, moose, antelope, armadillo, beaver, bobcats, coyotes, foxes, lynx, bear, bison, caribou, goat, musk ox, pronghorn, sheep, muskrat, opossums, pigs, porcupine, rabbits, squirrels, pheasant, chukars, and tons of tasty insects to choose from.
THAT’S the one you take issue with? Lol
In not sure anyone is eating muskrat or opossum outside West Virginia mountain hermits, people born before 1890, and anyone who self identifies as a trapper.
There’s parts of the Florida Panhandle where opossum is a serious delicacy. They even have a festival in August.
Squirrel are fantastic.
They’re the least “gamey” out of most small game, less so than rabbit, and taste something like leaner dark meat chicken.
Awesome in a crockpot substituted for chicken in most recipes. Can fancy up squirrel with a Sous vide to make squirrel confit bánh mì tacos, or keep it old school and make squirrel pot pie.
Dove, too.
Knew someone that tried to eat possum once, said it was the nastiest, greasiest thing he’d ever tried.
I’m from Kentucky, friend. I’ve definitely had a squirrel or two in my day.
I mean tbf, the majority of Americans don’t eat anything aside from chicken pork and beef, with the occasional turkey
To get 80k they’re obviously counting variations. How many breeds of cow have I eaten?
lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats
I eat meat AND vegetables
You gotta let people be people. Shaming someone for their dietary choices is not cool. Not everyone shares the same beliefs and that is fine.
I personally believe that people should not eat meat unless they have what it takes to kill it themselves so they understand what goes into it. Too many people eat meat all the time without understanding that something has to die for it to get there. I also disagree with mass agribusiness indoor livestock operations.
Some beliefs lead to immoral outcomes. I’m absolutely certain you can think of quite a few beliefs like that, right? Just picture a hill billy from Alabama, are his beliefs fine?
In the end, morals is applied ethics, and politics is applied morals. We absolutely should legislate and not tolerate bad beliefs. The vague idea that “everyone has their own belief/opinion and we have to respect it” is a thought terminating cliche that makes the world a worse place. My dad wants me to respect his antivax beliefs, my grandfather wants me to respect his climate change denialism beliefs. Should I?
When someones dietary choice causes huge amounts of needless suffering and death to the victim (the innocent animal that was exploited and killed) then that’s not “fine”. That’s a serious injustice that should be pointed out (at the very least)
Wait do you think farming doesn’t hurt animals? I’m all for not eating meat, but pretending you’re not harming millions of insects, birds, and various mammals every time you eat a salad, you’re confused about how food production works.
The moral thing people can do is stop making so many people. And hopefully we find ways to produce food in a better way one day. But farming on the scale that feeds billions of people is absolutely fucked.
Taking a step crazier, there are some animals that produce SO MANY calories that they represent less animal deaths per calorie than eating crops. Cows and Pigs are an example of that. I’m not going to get into hard numbers because everyone likes to hate on the other side’s numbers and my experience living in a farming community looks more like the numbers that make animals look bad. If you want to math it out, the farm industry estimates about 40 mouse deaths per acre farmed, and vegan advocates defend a 15 total animal deaths per hectare figure. Grass-fed cows are more death-efficient than corn (the gold standard efficient crop, if less efficient than potatoes) at around 10 deaths-per-acre of farmland. I’ve never seen an acre of farmland without at least 10 animal carcasses on it in a full growth+harvest cycle.
If you dont want to contribute to the comodification of sentient beings you’d also have to quit your job unless it somehow has literally zero impact on your physical and mental well being. Anyone got a job like that?
So, unless they can reduce the harm they cause to 0%, any and all attempts to reduce it are futile and pointless? This is the nirvana fallacy, and I hope you understand how horrible that would be if we lived by that rule. For example, I can’t stop all racism, all human exploitation, all sexism because I live in a capitalistic hellscape built on the suffering of others. Therefore, I don’t actually need to try, correct?
So your “argument” is, if we can’t be 100 % cruelty free, we shouldn’t reduce cruelty?
Plenty of foods are delicious.
So ethics aren’t a concern for you. How about the adverse health effects, or environmental impacts of the meat industry? Any considerations there, or is all about how delicious steak is to you?
Most people, including leftists, are meat eaters.
Did you assume he was a lefty because he used a word with more than 4 syllables?
I don’t care for debate so I’m just gonna share this tofu stir-fry recipe I like. I sub gochujang for the sambal oelek and skip the peanut garnish
See, that’s what I’m talking about. I’m saving that :D
I’ve never heard of sambal in my life, much less gochujang, but I guess we’re going on an adventure.
Is it vegan to sit on that high horse?
I know why people think vegans do this for some smug reason, but we don’t, I promise you. We just want people to change and stop hurting animals, and the only way to do that is to keep talking about it.
Funny thing is that many of us feel the same way about vegans. We just want them to change and stop getting in our face like street preachers with what we consider to be flawed logic and more flawed ethical philosophy.
And the only way to do that is to keep standing up to vegans the same way we do JWs. It sucks because it’s exhausting and we just want to be left alone.
But the difference between vegans and JWs is that the issue vegans have is real, and we have more than enough evidence for our case. Religion is a personal choice, but actions that harm others are not. You can call it preachy but that’s how things get better.
