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vegan
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Welcome
Welcome to c/vegan@lemmy.world. Broadly, this community is a place to discuss veganism. Discussion on intersectional topics related to the animal rights movement are also encouraged.
What is Veganism?
'Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals ...'
— abridged definition from The Vegan Society
Rules
The rules are subject to change, especially upon community feedback.
- Discrimination is not tolerated. This includes speciesism.
- Topics not relating to veganism are subject to removal.
- Posts are to be as accessible as practicable:
- pictures of text require alt-text;
- paywalled articles must have an accessible non-paywalled link.
- Content warnings are required for triggering content.
- Bad-faith carnist rhetoric & anti-veganism are not allowed, as this is not a space to debate the merits of veganism. Anyone is welcome here, however, and so good-faith efforts to ask questions about veganism may be given their own weekly stickied post in the future (see current stickied discussion).
- before jumping into the community, we encourage you to read examples of common fallacies here.
- if you're asking questions about veganism, be mindful that the person on the other end is trying to be helpful by answering you and treat them with at least as much respect as they give you.
- Misinformation, particularly that which is dangerous or has malicious intent, is subject to removal.
Resources on Veganism
A compilation of many vegan resources/sites in a Google spreadsheet:
Here are some documentaries that are recommended to watch if planning to or have recently become vegan:
- You Will Never Look at Your Life in the Same Way Again
- Dominion (2018) (CW: gore, animal abuse)
Vegan Fediverse
Lemmy: vegantheoryclub.org
Mastodon: veganism.social
Other Vegan Communities
General Vegan Comms
Circlejerk Comms
Vegan Food / Cooking
!homecooks@vegantheoryclub.org
But let's also be reasonable.
Eating cats and dogs is controversial. So is eating sharks or whale. Some diets are unnecessarily harmful. Since we all live on the same planet, that affects others and it makes sense to have an opinion on this.
Outside of the US, it's not controversial to say the average meat intake in the US is too high: for health reasons and for the environment. I think it's okay to judge people when they eat abnormal amounts of meat.
Are you saying I can eat people now?
Try some Soylent Green, it's not people this time!
One of the diets require killing, the other one doesn't. Be the better person and choose the latter.
it's wild youre down voted in vegan community
That's the omnis with bad conscience, not the community members.
Because this loser mentality of "it needs killing". Yeah it's called the circle of life. I guess we morally shame owls for hunting the mice that hunted the insects. If you want to make a statement on factory farms and torturous methodology, that's one thing. But death is a part of life, and having meaning in death to provide nutrition for continuation of life is just a reality.
You're missing something pretty important here. Death is part of life is an argument that you'd use to try and justify hunting. Farming also means breeding more animals that will be raised for their meat and killed after a few years.
Globally, 60% of all large mammals are livestock. It's a crazy number and there is nothing natural about this. The killing isn't the root problem, producing/breeding huge numbers of animals is.
Death might be a natural part of the circle of life, but we're artificially starting this circle for many farm animals. If we'd stop doing this at such an insane scale, we wouldn't need to discuss their death (or quality of life)
Importantly, this is something that we choose to do even though we don't have to. The owl has to hunt for mice and isn't able to choose not to. This makes our moral position not comparable to owls or any other animal.
The only morally correct metabolism is photosynthesis
If only photons could talk. Imagine the harm they experience.
shit man, guess treating disease is a mistake. Those bacteria need to grow in us after all. Sepsis is the cycle of liiiiiiife.
Wrong. They both require killing.
Only one demands awareness of it though
All those immoral lions relying on killing for their food. Just unnatural and immoral. If humans were meant to eat meat, we'd have teeth specifically adapted for it and digestive systems designed for omnivorous diets. Oh wait...
Oh yes, we borrow our moral from lions so eating one's own children is equally alright then.
You'll have to take that one up with Jonathan Swift. He makes some pretty convincing (obviously satirical) arguments.
Obviously it's not 1:1 and there are plenty of carnivorous/omnivorous animals you might find less objectionable, but the point is that there has to be some acceptance of nuance on both sides or neither can ever be "right." The claim that veganism can't be healthy is obviously BS, but so is the claim that there's nothing at all that can make meat eating acceptable.
Tbh though, I was scrolling "all" and didn't notice this was posted to the vegan community. I wouldn't have interjected just to say this if so, cuz I think going out of your way to be combative on any side of an argument tends to be counterproductive and more about oneself than the actual issue. So my apologies for that, but I stand by the point that there are ethical ways to eat meat that both omnivores and vegans would benefit from recognizing. If its a black and white issue, factory farming is no worse than raising your own livestock sustainably or hunting invasive species for meat. Rather than push people towards better habits, the all or nothing murder argument encourages an acceptance of the status quo by saying "meat is meat and it's all equally murderous according to vegans, so I might as well go for the cheapest stuff that is easiest to find if I am going to continue eating it." In any case, this isn't the place for a two-sided debate as a community by and for only one side of that debate. Zero judgment there, just didn't mean to start one in that context.
If lions were able to eat predominantly plants and fruits they would do so because it's easier and requires less energy.
Since we're the product of evolution we're not meant to do anything. Evolution is reactive to changing environments. In terms of what our physiology is most suitable for is predominantly hunting and gathering, with a bit of meat from hunting occasionally.
The fact that we have some sharp teeth and can digest meat doesn't mean that we have to consume the enormous amount of meat that we're currently eating. The health department of pretty much every Western Country says that its population eats unhealthy amounts of meat.
This makes it easy to argument against and if arguments start, information is lost. Someone could say crop death, eating more vegan food than absolutely necessary to survive.
Vegan candy, tasty but all the crop death. I'd recommend simple arguments like, I love animals and only want to hurt them as little as reasonably possible.
It's not as flashy as "the least amount of harm possible" I know, but it's at least the Truth. I think the difference between a vegan and others is only the level of harm they're willing to cause. But then again it was always like that. You're just lower than others in that animal-harm spectrum and not the absolute bottom. But still a lot lower.
"I'm not vegetarian because I love animals. I'm vegetarian because FUCK Plants."
-one of my vegetarian friends