• littlecolt@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    I have been seeing a lot of animal abuse posts on here lately. I hadn’t noticed 196 being like that in the past on here or Reddit. Is there a trend toward that for this community in general? I’m well aware of how fucked the industry is, but I also don’t sub to this community for that. I am here for little gay people shit posting in my phone. These just make me sad. I can’t personally do anything to stop this. I don’t want to unsub, and there’s not a great way to filter, unless it’s all the same OP? :(

    • MilitantVegan@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      It might still not be popular to be vegan yet, but the movement is growing rapidly. It could be a symptom of a larger trend - that the injustices against non-human animals is too terrible to keep Ignoring.

      Sometimes it just needs to be recognized that a problem isn’t going to go away until we start doing the hard work of solving it together.

      • littlecolt@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        That also wasn’t my point at all. I’m making no statement here about veganism. I’m saying 196 isn’t a vegan activism community and these bummer posts are obnoxious.

    • debil@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I can’t personally do anything to stop this.

      You can always upvote or share a post like this to spread awaraness and hence maybe make people buy less eggs, or at least make them pause to think before they buy their next eggs.

      • pyre@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        “i don’t want to see shit like this”

        “you can upvote it so more people see shit like this as well”

        thanks, very cool

        • debil@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Yes, so that maybe some day in the future this horrible shit is no more. Until then, get used to bumping into a thought provoking meme every now. The mild discomfort pales in comparison to the practice itself.

      • littlecolt@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Similar to recycling, the impact is small. There must be large systemic change. My adoption of a vegan diet, or my diligent recycling of aluminum and plastic, is a drop in the bucket.

        • threeduck@aussie.zone
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          6 months ago

          Couldn’t that logic be used against literally any good action? Like giving $100,000 to a malaria charity isn’t going to stop malaria. If everyone thought like vegans, the world would be vegan, the climate crisis would almost entirely be averted, rivers swimmable, billions of animal lives saved each year.

          If during your supermarket shop, you use vegan recipes instead, you’ll be one of those dominos. You could be the systemic change!

        • dinkusmann@feddit.rocks
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          6 months ago

          This is emphatically untrue. If you eat a few hundred fewer animals over the course of your life, that’s a few hundred animals saved (even if supply and demand aren’t perfectly elastic, the expected utility is 1-to-1). The fact that billions will still die is irrelevant.

          Would you refuse to save a child from poverty on the grounds that billions will continue living in poverty?

          • Victoria Antoinette @lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Would you refuse to save a child from poverty on the grounds that billions will continue living in poverty?

            this is a terrible analogy because at the end of one, you can point to the person being saved. no animals are saved by eating plants.

            • dinkusmann@feddit.rocks
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              6 months ago

              Good point. I don’t think it changes my argument though. If anything, allowing a creature to come into existence just so that it can be slaughtered is way more fucked up than exploiting an existing person.

          • littlecolt@lemm.ee
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            6 months ago

            Yes, it’s not my responsibility to save that child from poverty. I would also be terrible at it. I would much rather financially support organizations than will assist in saving children from poverty in a more meaningful way, as well as supporting politicians that align with my values as far as lifting not just children, but everyone, out of poverty.

            • dinkusmann@feddit.rocks
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              6 months ago

              You can, and should, give money to animal charities and support politicians in favor of better animal welfare (if you can find one) and I will commend you for that. But that does not negate the harm you do by paying for animals to be killed. Just as giving to a women’s shelter does not then mean that it becomes excusable for you to beat your wife.

              And I apologize for that analogy, I don’t think you’re a bad person. But I do think it’s an appropriate analogy and I think we live in a culture that normalizes and encourages normal people to participate in terrible atrocities. The reality is that you have nothing to lose from going vegan and, after a little research and preparation, it doesn’t take any extra effort, time, or money.

                  • Victoria Antoinette @lemmy.world
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                    6 months ago

                    Buying meat is paying for animals to be killed

                    no, it’s not. there are people who kill animals, and there are people who pay them, and most people are neither.

              • OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                That analogy goes so far above what’s happening, at least for the average person.

                Do you buy jeans or any clothing produced outside of the US? BAM, you’re as bad as the people in the factories abusing local communities and child labor.

                Should one attempt to find clothing that is ethical where possible? Then absolutely, and buying a pair of Levi’s doesn’t make you complicit in enabling child endangerment.

                Same with most things, I try my best to already only buy from brands that don’t: support genocide through funding or messaging, discriminate based on sex/race/gender, engage in union busting or union restrictive activities, employ under the table for children or for tax/benefit reductions. So many people try to argue from a place of Absolute Moral Supremacy, and the world is just too grey for that.

                Reduce the meat you eat, yes, that’s a good plan and it’s good for the budget and it’s good for the planet. But humans HAVE been eating animals for longer than we’ve walked upright, so going entirely non-consumption just isn’t going to happen.

                You can make stances as to why it’s a good thing, why it might assist you in the long run, but to conflate it with enabling violence towards spouses? That’s the kind of rhetoric that gets vegans shouted down and laughed at anytime the name is brought up. If you want to make long lasting change, changing hearts and minds will do that, and your tone/style won’t win hearts and minds.

                • dinkusmann@feddit.rocks
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                  6 months ago

                  First off, I have a tendency to be an asshole in online discussions so I want you to call me out if I’m being unproductive. I also really struggle with tone so please try to interpret what I say generously. This is why I generally only discuss veganism irl. This is a throwaway account I created just because I saw some anti vegan rhetoric and my emotions got the better of me. I’m going to abandon it as soon as we’re done talking. Here it goes:

                  As for you last point, I want you to consider things a vegan’s perspective for a second. You’re often forced to either package your ideas so meekly and inoffensively that they’re easily ignored or express them forcefully and then be called an extremist and mocked.

                  We slit the throats of 90 billion land animals each year. That’s billions of chickens who get theirs beaks cut off without anesthetic and get ammonia burns from living in their own shit. Billions of bulls that are branded, ear tagged, and have their testicles ripped off without anesthetic. Trillions of fish that suffocate to death or freeze to death in ice water.

                  And the absurdity of it all is that it’s easy, cheap, and healthy to simply eat plants. Most people can wash their hands of this entirely any time they want. The idea that none of this is ethical or necessary is an idea that deserves to be presented forcefully. The idea that animals are not property to be owned and exploited is no different from the idea that human beings cannot be property of their masters or their husbands and deserves to be expressed with the same vigor. So is it really that people hate us because we’re presenting our message wrong, or do people just hate us because our message is hard to hear?

                  I agree with most of your other points. Capitalism does force us all to be complicit in terrible things to a degree and I’m sure I absolutely could and should do more to avoid exploitative products. In fact, if you have a list of products that you avoid or a source you consult, I’d like know what it is. And if you’re willing to do research on the least explorative brand of jeans, then you really should go vegan. This is an easy win and I guarantee you it’s cheaper.

                  As for the “humans have eaten meat forever” argument. Humans have had slaves forever yet you are clearly against slavery. If you go vegan and prevent a dozen cows from being raised and killed for meat, that’s worthwhile regardless of what everyone else does.

                • dinkusmann@feddit.rocks
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                  6 months ago

                  Veganism isn’t difficult. And yeah my tofu exploits people in the third world, but the beef I used to eat was fed soy anyways. You’re just removing a one really horrible and unnecessary step from the food supply chain.

        • MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
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          6 months ago

          Yeah, you should go vegan, and also post depressing memes on 196 that make all the carnists feel guilty. That’ll have a bigger impact.

        • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
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          6 months ago

          The issue is how then do you get that systematic change? Governments are going to be extremely hard to convince to do anything as along as people expect to consume animal products en mass. It’s going to have to start with individual action until systematic change is palatable

          And with systematic action, it’s still going to have to involve change in consumption in the end. Factory farming is pretty much the only thing that scales. Want to avoid it? We’re going to need to see great drops in production and in turn consumption

          The impacts of people taking action do add up. For instance, in Germany there’s been declines in per capita meat consumption over the past decade

          In 2011, Germans ate 138 pounds of meat each year. Today, it’s 121 pounds — a 12.3 percent decline. And much of that decline took place in the last few years, a time period when grocery sales of plant-based food nearly doubled.

          https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23273338/germany-less-meat-plant-based-vegan-vegetarian-flexitarian

        • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          You sound like queer people in the 80s and 90s.

          “What does it matter if one person accepts me? Won’t change anything and it just bums me out.”

          Now, acceptance is the default position for most folk.

            • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Well, as a queer vegan. Its really hard not to notice that bigots and carnists say the same sort of things.

              “You’re just trying to feel special.” “It’s unnatural, your gentials/teeth were evolved for a specific use”. “Stop trying to convert kidsto your cult.” “Queer/vegan people always think they are so enlighted.”

              But more to the point, defeatism is always an easy excuse to do nothing. But individual actions can have ripple effects through generations. Do you think that those at stonewall would expect an entire month celebrating their actions? Enough people making a choice not to support animal agriculture puts the concept out of business. Do I expect that or liberation soon? No. But it’s gotten LIGHTYEARS better on both fronts in my own lifetime.

    • fracture [he/him] @beehaw.org
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      6 months ago

      yeah i feel you. i don’t think this would be better even if i were vegan (i’m not bc i think i would starve due to a number of dietary restrictions /allergies, but i cycle in the vegan food i can)