For the second group, I always like to ask "Why should I use your argument to convince people when it didn't convince you?"

I know I'm going to piss off every single group with this unpopular opinion, but I view veganism/vegetarianism and religion similarly.

Both of them come with benefits and downsides. The extent of these benefits and downsides differ from person to person. There's no "right" answer, talking about your choice is perfectly fine and I don't really care what you do either way, but I don't like it when you try too hard to convert me.

Economic forces are always going to welfare wash and treat these poor sentient beings solely based on the bottom line instead of their actual wellbeing. Please don't increase demand for their childrens and grandchildrens suffering.

Not vegan

Why?

The videos made me want stricter regulation, it didn't make me want to go vegan or cut down on meat.

But there are other reasons to be a little more conservative with meat in my diet.

I find it hard to understand the disconnect you must experience.

I watched some pretty terrible films. Watching those did make me cut down on meat and milk, and it made me try to source my animal products from more ethical sources. I still haven't been able to make the full commitment to veganism or vegetarianism, though, unfortunately.

That being said, I do wish these kinda of films were shown in schools. It would make most people more conscious of the cruelty and harm caused by these industries, and maybe there would be more push to move to more ethical ways of doing things in the meat and dairy industries.

I think it's important to be aware of the process of everything we consume, that way we can influence the impact our habits have.

People have been saying that for decades. It doesn't work. I never understood the concept of "protests shouldn't make me feel uncomfortable or inconvenience me." That kind of undercuts the purpose of a protest and trying to spread a message. If you make it so it's easy to ignore, it doesn't work. Without fail there's always the "ugh, someone who tries to make me feel bad about torturing and killing animals is simply not going to convince me to do otherwise." It's such a shitty excuse.

This is something that I often think about in connection with veganism.

I can sit down and watch a video about how vegetables are produced. It might be boring, but I could watch it.

Most carnists, on the other hand, can't sit and watch how hamburger, sausage, cheese, etc. is produced. For them to enjoy that food, they have to ignore all the suffering behind it.

Or maybe getting people uncomfortable and forced to think about it, and actively face the dissonance is effective. Maybe they get mad and confrontational, but then you have to ask why.

Why are you doing something whose moral implications are making you uncomfortable?

Same thing goes for shit like buying stuff made by people in horrible working conditions. Maybe we shouldn't feel as if we are entitled to being comfortable all the time, especially when we do so at the expense of others. What if it was you in the place of the worker or animal? Are you okay with continuing on like this?

And it makes people uncomfortable because it makes them see themselves as a bad person. But hey, maybe you should feel uncomfortable if you are doing something you yourself consider bad.

Isn't "I'm for the intentional non-participation in animal exploitation and cruelty" just a consequence of "I saw the videos you refuse to watch", hence similarly alienating and holier than thou?

Maybe even more so. "I can't continue because I saw a video" could be an unreflected emotional statement, whereas yours sounds like a moral argument.

I mean vegans are welcome to be vegan. If you want you can mention these things if you think they might matter to someone but in the end what is important to a vegan isn't going to be important to other people and that's fine. In the end suffering is life and we all are made to suffer so that someone else can exploit us. The only difference with meat is that it's nutritious and something our body makes good use of. Humans on the other hand are exploited so that the privileged can continue to be privileged.

Ok, but it's about something people actively and blindly participate and fund. Not just folks watching traumatizing videos for fun.

If I was actively funding the abhorrent things in those videos, you'd be well within your right to tell me to stop, or at the very least insist I watch them.

being omnivorous doesn't mean we have to eat meat, it means you get to choose, which is like, the entire point?

So much of that is misplaced anthropomorphism though. Throughout history hundreds of millions of people have wrung the neck of a chicken or dropped a lobster into boiling water. Almost none of them have cried.

TV melodrama is a weird way to decide which actions have moral weight. We're particularly sensitive to the deaths of mammals because we see human qualities in their suffering.

Do you think you would die or be unhealthy if you stopped eating meat and other animal products? If that's what you think then say that so someone has the opportunity to rebut you.

Because it's unclear what you're trying to imply by saying "we're omnivorous".

A vegan view requires no amount of anthropomorphizing. It's the traits that humans share with non human animals that makes what we do to them unjust. The traits that make us different are not required, and neither do they justify our treatment of animals.

Emotionally resonating with animals also does not require anthropomorphization. Empathy and sympathy between humans and non human animals is default in most people because of our shared experiences. A lack of is a sign of, at the very least, selective sociopathy, like the kind soldiers might be trained to have in regards to enemy combatants.

Veganism also is not a diet, I think that's important to say. And veganism doesn't create health disasters out of thin air. There's a plethora of nutritional studies backing up how eating with vegan restrictions can be more than adequate.

Describing vegans as making major dietary changes because they "saw one video" is a pretty dishonest interpretation. Rigorously sticking to a vegan diet can be fairly difficult, and requires you to be very aware of exactly what you're eating -- including innocuous seeming things like food dyes and white sugar, which can often be made of animal products. To me, that doesn't read as impulsive, but instead disciplined.

Furthermore, while the decision to switch to going vegan could theoretically sometimes be done on impulse, one still has to make the decision every single day. It's not just a decision you make and it's done, it's one you must always choose to continue to make. A vegan has to decide to continue to be vegan every day, likely while under scrutiny of themself and others.

What had the biggest impact on me was videos of pigs and cows being cute and dog like. Nothing else changed my view like a cow hopping around like a happy idiot.

(I'm not vegan but I eat pescatarian now and feel myself on the way to a bit more)

I've seen only a few you listed like cowspiracy and seaspiracy and a majority of those two films were just facts and diagrams and interviews. So I call bullshit. I know this is a bad faith attempt I mean seriously, "impulsive highly emotional person"? Maybe people who care for the environment see the facts and diagrams and convert because it isn't possible to feed this many people sustainably. It's not a health disaster to be vegan either, that's ridiculous of you to say. This won't shock you because you came here to troll but vegans can go through pregnancy just fine, breast feed just fine too, something that shouldn't be possible if it was such a health disaster. A lot of our food is already fortified with vitamins so you don't need meat for b12 or iron, just eat a bowl of cereal with soy milk. I'm in the process of going vegan so not 100% but I'm so tired of seeing trolls come to vegan communities to talk about how much they don't care about animals or the planet. And how manly and fulfilled it makes them feel to eat bacon. We get it, you're boring and have nothing new to say.

as a little kid i saw the slaughterhouse videos PETA would put into flash games. still eat meat to this day

It is very actionable to vote with their wallet and mouth and not eat meat. The "can't save them all, so why bother"-argument is really sad. I don't think most people would apply that logic, if they saw a child in distress, because so many children die every day of preventable causes. Every sentient being matter.

One person cutting down on red meat will never be enough

You could use that argument to invalidate voting or any boycott. "Why should I vote? My one vote won't change anything." The truth is, you aren't one person. There are many vegans.

But even one person can do quite a bit. I've influenced my friends to eat less meat. When we go out to eat, if they want to include me, we'll go to s vegan-friendly restaurant.

I think it's worse to admit that you're fine with inflicting that kind of pain on animals and still enjoy the end result. There's a reason they tell parents to be wary of kids who enjoy torture. You're just a step below that.

So then why do you eat meat? Are you just a selfish narcissist who thinks their pleasure is more important than anything else? Or what is it?

Because scientific evidence hates you.

A few seem to be breaking the rules for this specific community too, there was one even going into detail describing a processing facility, and when reprimanded by another user they said they didn't care.

I was hoping to learn something interesting, but maybe another time in a less popular thread

I tried for a while to make those small changes, but I always found it too hard to do, until I finally just decided to cut out all animal products one night, and I never really went back.

I think the difference was how I framed it, mentally. I always saw it as an act of willpower to not eat animal products, like I have to overcome my cravings in the same way I would if I was cutting calories. But quitting animal products altogether allowed me to frame it differently for myself -- instead of telling myself "I shouldn't eat this", I can just say "I don't eat this." Like, it's not on the table as something I have to consider. I don't even have to recognize animal products as food.

Maybe if you cut things out one at a time you could do a similar thing. Though one problem is that it's a series of changes and commitments you have to make, instead of just one thing. I feel like that could be harder, depending on who you are.

• Cut out meat from large animals that have the most environmental impact
• Work your way down from number 2 until all you eat is poultry

On the other hand cutting out smaller animals first would have a bigger impact on suffering because you need more beings for the same amount of meat. So I'd just say to just reduce meat, whichever is easier first.

The biggest hurdle from me going vegan was I thought it would be difficult, so I did something similar. Turns out, however, that it's SUPER EASY to cut out all meat and dairy. Seriously it blew my mind. Just look up a couple recipes, make sure you read ingredient lists on products, and you're done. That's all it takes.

The key is to just commit. Jump off the high board and take the plunge. Sure the water may shock you at first but you'll quickly adapt. Quicker than you'd expect.

Even if you accept the premise that so-called ethically raised meat is ethical, there's just not enough land to farm meat at the scale which people in developed countries demand it, unless it's factory farmed. Ethically farmed, free range animals require much more space than caged up factory farmed animals, and the grass they feed on requires yet more land.

That means that there's a limit on the supply, so I'm pretty sure that if someone tries to solve the whole animal rights issue by buying ethical meat, they'll only push the ethical dilemma on to someone poorer than them (the one who would be priced out, due to the increased demand). That person would then have to be the one to make the decision of whether to go vegan or to buy factory farmed meat.

Admittedly, I could be wrong about this? But I'm pretty sure that increasing land use of meat, whether by regulation or economic demand, would necessarily lead to increased prices, so I don't see how it possibly wouldn't just shift the problem on to the less wealthy.

sadly true..

I think you misunderstood the sign. What does intelligence have to do with this?

Did you just criticize.. having a stance on things? Like the whole concept of believing things are true?

"I just like meat" is a weird point to make I feel. From a moral standpoint, if you feel it is wrong, it shouldn't matter wether or not you like the meat (I too remember meat fondly from when I was still eating it). I'll twist your word into an extreme to illustrate my point, imagine reading this:

"I agree that raping children should be stopped, but I just like children, I don't think that every one should stop, we should just reduce how much we do it".

It probably sound like it's completely ridiculous, but for someone that believe that it is morally wrong to kill and eat animals, this is kinda how you sound.

I'm ok with people not being morally aligned with me, but when they are not consistent in their viewpoint, I can't help but think they are just rationalising their behavior to ease their mind.

I'd be happy if people would just proofread before submitting.

Paragraphs are amazing things

Yeah i always thought that as well. What you are describing are probably not the videos in question here. Try watching Dominion the whole way through. www.watchdominion.org

Animals in farms are usually treated horrendously, don't think we could torture plants at all really. That sign doesn't apply to hunting or humane farming practices, which is a much more ethical optiona that most farms

While I watch those videos

You're trying to draw a moral equivalence between being a migrant farm worker and being tortured, raped, and killed. I'm genuinely at a loss for words.

Animals eat a significant chunk of the plant calories we grow, you know.

Animals eat food, too. If you eat meat, you're actually creating more demand for crops than you would if you ate the crops directly. Furthermore, migrant workers also work on animal farms, in slaughterhouses, etc. I hear it's not always great.

I guess what I'm saying is, I'm fairly sure that going vegan helps both animals and the children of migrant workers.

One caveat is that I'm assuming you'd eat the same classes of crops that an animal would, namely things like corn and grains. But honestly that sounds about right for most people, vegans included. Many vegans eat a lot of processed shit too lol. (me included)

Edit: I should add that the most commonly suggested vegan diet that I've heard from other vegans is to have rice and lentils as your staple foods. I'm fairly sure those aren't typically harvested by hand, but I could be wrong.

What did you expect in /c/vegan? Do you go to /c/cats and complain when people agree cats are cute?

Why shouldn't a community be passionate about their very core topic?

Rabbits are not endangered, in fact they are insanely invasive in many areas, and lead to the destabilization of ecosystems.

Thank you for doing your part!

Hmm. I think it's important to be sceptical and not believe everything you see. But, let's also ask ourselves, is that why there are growing number of states passing ag-gag laws that make it illegal to record actual abuse and mistreatment? Because these actual recordings were 'hit pieces'?

I've never seen evidence that all the videos are doctored. I'm sure some exist and you could point to them, but theres a known mental health issue in the meat industry for a reason. I don't know how the folks who don't have a problem with it keep it up. Makes me actually wonder a bit more about them.

No, they mean the ones that actually do show animals suffering in terrible conditions or being killed on ways that cause suffering that are not uncommon and have lead to more regulations because of the terrible practices. Kind of like the police, there is plenty of terrible behavior even though not every place is as bad as the worst videos, but even if only 10% of animals suffered it would be worth bringing to everyone's attention.

And it is more likely to be the majority of animals to be perfectly honest. I am not a vegan becsuse I think that there is the possibility of humane farming practices, but do acknowledge that the food production industry's largest producers are regularly caught being cruel to animals to save a few bucks and see why someone would oppose it because the system incentivises suffering.

You should really just stop lying to yourself and have a look at what it really is you "love".

The comments responding to you are pretty unnecessarily hostile, but I personally get where you're coming from. I personally think it's best to watch the thing so that you can be best informed, even if it's hard to do. Not even because of veganism being ethical, but because the fear of the unknown is a lot scarier than any documentary could be, IMO. Information is power, and having information (even distressing information) is empowerment.

Also, I loved meat too, but when I went vegan, I never really missed it. I was pretty worried about missing certain foods (one was sushi), but that never really happened to me.