Hail Seitan!
There Are Seven Fundamental Tenets:
I - One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
II - The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
III - One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
IV - The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.
V - Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.
VI - People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any
harm that might have been caused.
VII - Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
Since in the modern age we can obtain all of the nutrition we need from a well-planned plant-based diet, by buying & consuming animal products, we participate in unnecessary cruelty to sentient beings
I can make an argument that being non-vegan in the modern age is violating all seven of these tenets
Tenet I : It’s neither reasonable, nor compassionate or empathetic, to needlessly exploit & take the life of a creature when we have moral agency & alternatives, unlike other animals.
Tenet II : It’s true that it’s legal to exploit & unalive animals today, but it was also legal to own slaves in the past. Just because we’re legally allowed to do something doesn’t mean we should.
Tenet III : One’s body being inviolable and subject to their own will alone should extend to all sentient beings. If it doesn’t, Name The Trait in a way that doesn’t lead to contradiction or absurdity
That is - Name The Trait different between humans and other animals that makes it okay to do things to other animals that we wouldn’t be okay with being done to humans.
I.e. justify the speciesist discrimination and double standard and differential treatment.
Tenet IV : We should be free to tell people they’re hypocrites for loving dogs & eating cows, or even for participating in the exploitative pet industry instead of adopting/rescuing companion animals.
Even if this is offensive to people. It’s freedom of speech and necessary for the activism and the struggle for justice that should prevail above laws and institutions (Tenet II).
To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of other sentient beings, is to forgo your own right to be respected like you would be if you first gave respect to other individuals (animals).
Tenet V : Insisting we need to eat meat or animal products to be healthy despite that disagreeing with scientific consensus, is distorting scientific facts to fit your beliefs,
& not conforming beliefs to your best scientific understanding of the world.
It’s denying reality,
burying your head in the sand to avoid confronting the truth,
& living in ignorance & delusion & the willfull, unnecessary destruction & oppression of others, self, & planet.
Tenet VI : Assuming that we are already perfect & couldn’t possibly be doing anything wrong or unjust, despite every historical society participating in normalized injustice, is not recognizing humans
are fallible.
And, when confronted with your mistake, in the form of what your kind have raised you to traditionally participate in regarding unnecessary systemic exploitation & violence to sentient beings,
if your response is to deflect, close your ears, & refuse to take personal responsibility or change any behavior, is to not do one’s best to rectify it & resolve any harm that might have been caused.
then that is to not right the wrong and fundamentally unjust relationship between humans and other animals and resolve it into one of harmonious and respectful coexistence.
Rather than one of needless exploitation, domination, violence, cruelty, and oppression.
Finally, Tenet VII : To claim that because these tenets do not specifically mention an obligation to not exploit & harm non-human animals unnecessarily & to be vegan, that means it isn’t entailed by
the values underlying them, is to not let every tenet serve as guiding principles designed to inspire nobility in action & thought & not allow the spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice to prevail
over the written or spoken word.
Firstly, if plants are included in creatures, and we’re supposed to be compassionate to them in accordance with reason (as well as animals), then wouldn’t reducing unnecessary harm (and suffering, for sentient beings) caused to all of them by only using plants directly instead of harming much more via animal exploitation, while simultaneously not deliberately exploiting and causing harm and suffering to sentient beings, be entailed by seeking to treat them with compassion? How is it compassionate to either animals or plants to deliberately cause much more harm and to much more of them than we need to just because we don’t want to change despite being able to meet our needs (and even desires, tho they’re less important to us than the lives & basic freedoms & interests to not be exploited & made to suffer & killed are to sentient beings) with alternatives? Seems quite uncompassionate.
Secondly:
creature noun 1. an animal, as distinct from a human being.
Like I said I’m mostly a descriptivist. So you’re free to define “creature” as whatever you want it to mean. Hypothetical future sentient AIs can be considered creatures too, I’m fine with that. But I think TST Tenets are probably using the standard/common definition of “creatures” that means animals - though I can’t say for sure. LaVeyan Satanism, btw, does seem to consider creatures to mean humans and other animals.
(Note that the phrasing of the definition I listed, while it may not be the intent, is speciesist since it implies & upholds the pseudoscientific and religious belief that humans are not animals [and not creatures] and are in some different category, in order reaffirm our belief in human supremacy & devalue non-human animals to make it easier to justify what we want to take from them and do to them).
And yes, it is absolutely a whataboutism to derail a subject about animal rights into accusations of alleged hypocrisy that we would still be harming plants (even if we’d be harming far less plants than we would if we were exploiting animals too), which is a combination of tu quoque and nirvana fallacy, and it’s the most common & clichéd deflection to the arguments in favor of veganism/animal rights.
Even if we were somehow hypocrites for still harming plants, even though we’re choosing the least harmful & most ideal option that’s practically available to us, and are harming the least plants and least animals possible, and avoiding contributing to/participating in systems that deliberately/opportunistically & unnecessarily exploit, harm & kill beings we know to be sentient (non-human animals), and wouldn’t be in favor of harming plants unnecessarily either (even if there’s no evidence they’re sentient like there is for animals); that still wouldn’t make our argument about animal rights wrong, since it’s not about us, it’s about the animals. Address the argument, not the arguer. So all this essentially boils down to various forms of ad hominem against us, the people defending non-human animals and representing their interests, and very little willingness to actually focus on the non-human animals and engage with the arguments we made.
Also, if we’re hypocrites for still harming (a much smaller number) of plants unavoidably because living causes an amount of unavoidable harm (but that doesn’t mean all or any amount of harm is justified unnecessarily, of course, especially deliberate victimization of sentient beings), everyone else is a much bigger hypocrite for claiming to be compassionate to all creatures while paying others to be cruel to those creatures so that you can consume products you don’t need. So you should at least come over to our side first and then we can talk about future sci-fi concepts & hypotheticals of how we can progress to a system where plants aren’t harmed by our lifestyles either, if possible - surely you must be in favor of that if you care about plants (or animals), right?
somehow, i think the lady doth protest too much.
This is a line from Shakespeare and a kafkatrapping fallacy. Someone denying or arguing against something/defending against false accusations doesn’t actually mean they’re guilty. However, I also don’t know how that relates to what I said.
you, yourself, continually attack the arguer instead of what they’re arguing. anyone can see this. i need provide no evidence.
deleted by creator
no wonder you deleted this
I didn’t want to split hairs any longer over what does and doesn’t constitute an ad hominem/attacking the arguer. It’s pointless
The lexicographer’s role is to explain how words are (or have been) actually used, not how some may feel that they should be used, and they say nothing about the intrinsic nature of the thing named or described by a word, much less the significance it may have for individuals. When discussing concepts like creatures, therefore, it is prudent to recognize that quoting from a dictionary is unlikely to either mollify or persuade the person with whom one is arguing.
it’s not clear this is the case, though
Denying basic physics now? Do you dispute the second law of thermodynamics or think you can magically subvert it using magical fantasy meat powers? Typical carnist cope.
https://weizmann.elsevierpure.com/en/publications/the-opportunity-cost-of-animal-based-diets-exceeds-all-food-losse
“This arises because plant-based replacement diets can produce 20-fold and twofold more nutritionally similar food per cropland than beef and eggs, the most and least resource-intensive animal categories, respectively.”
Plants to animals is an inherently inefficient conversion. When you swap animal products for nutritionally equivalent or similar plant foods, cropland productivity jumps: plant replacements can yield ~20× more food per acre than beef and ~2× more than eggs; the implied “opportunity losses” of using land for animal foods are huge (beef ~96%, pork ~90%, dairy ~75%, poultry ~50%, eggs ~40%). That means more plants have to be grown and harvested to support an animal-product diet than a plant-only one, all else equal.
And this isn’t even factoring in that most deforestation is caused by animal agriculture or the subsequent impacts that has on natural habitats, ecosystems, the climate, and the effect of global warming on all life on Earth.
It’s funny that for a group that claims to value scientific fact and not distorting it to suit your beliefs, that’s literally all you can do to attempt to justify how you obviously violate the first tenet of compassion to all creatures, and you clearly don’t actually care about the tenets since you don’t follow any of them.
ad hominem
It’s actually not an ad hominem, even if it seems insulting. I’m saying your argument is a coping mechanism typically deployed by humans trying to justify non-human animal exploitation. And I said it in connection with my argument critiquing what you said, so you’re taking it out of context.
it is. don’t lie
Just because you feel insulted doesn’t make something ad hominem. Calling your argument a “cope”, or a deflective coping mechanism often used by carnists, might not mean much on its own, but combined with my other points and reasoning hopefully it’s clear why I made that assessment.
this is what a cope looks like.
you have no intellectual honesty at all and only a cursory familiarity with academic discussion. instead of accusing others of constantly engaging in fallacies, try actually engaging with what they’re claiming.
fallacies truck us into believing something because they mimic good reasoning. sometimes, some claim or statement might use a phrase you’ve learned to associate with a fallacy, but which is actually using good reasoning.
no citation, probably bs.
These are calculations using data from the study I sent. Just because you don’t like facts doesn’t mean they’re automatically bs. You reject and deny literally any evidence put in your face, the sign of an insecure position.
the one that misused LCA data? definitely bs
No, you clearly didn’t read anything I said and are just dismissing everything by assuming it uses Poore and Nemecek (which did not misuse LCA data and is widely accepted by the larger scientific community, but even if it did, very similar findings are being echoed by many independent studies and reviews like this one), even though many of them don’t at all, and the ones that do also draw on other studies and their own findings too.
This PNAS study does not cite Poore & Nemecek (2018), nor does it depend on Poore & Nemecek’s data or methodology.
It’s an independent analysis, grounded in land-use and nutritional efficiency through linear programming, not life-cycle assessment (LCA) meta-analysis.
you are clearly not qualified to participate in this conversation if you think LCA studies can be combined
why should deforestation be factored in at all? most farmland has been cleared for centuries.
Because deforestation is still happening at an alarming rate, most of it in the Amazon, and most of it for beef pastures and soy for livestock feed (humans consume a fraction of the soy produced, vegans an even smaller fraction (and soy is avoidable - there are soy-allergic vegans), and most of it doesn’t come from the Amazon when fed to humans). This is all going to increase as animal product consumption is currently increasing, not decreasing - though it’s decreasing in more developed countries as more humans who have already had the luxury of animal products for a long time have started to realize all the massive problems with them, and increasing in more developing countries and populations that are becoming wealthier and more able to afford it more frequently. And also, just because the human population is still increasing (and most of those will be raised as carnists), despite dropping birth rates.
And also, the effects of climate change from animal agriculture, which are manifold, but include direct GHGs, and the opportunity cost of maintaining deforestation (in addition to increasing it) instead of taking advantage of the essential carbon sequestration potential of reforestation & rewilding, contribute to climate change and environmental destruction too, which obviously kills far more plants and contributes to the 6th mass extinction event of various species of organisms on the planet in general.
Additionally, even on lands where forests have already been cleared, preventing plants from becoming overgrown there and constantly “maintaining” the land for animal farming still harms a lot more plants than using far less land and requiring far less plants to just give them to humans directly.
And of course with the much higher crop/plant use/harvesting for animal products than plant based foods & products, the number of plants harmed and killed in animal agriculture blows that of plant agriculture - when provided directly to humans - out of the water.
humans use about 93% of the global soy crop. didn’t lie.
We use it on non-human animals. It’s misleading at best to frame that as us using it. Sure, indirectly. Not directly. We consume about 4-7% directly as food, and most of that is consumed by non-vegans. Most people think of us using something like crops as consuming/using them directly because many people aren’t aware how much of global cropland (and pastureland) is used feed non-human animals that we breed to exploit and kill. So you’re drawing on this misconception to perpetuate harmful myths. The fact we use it on non-human animals is why it’s so inefficient.
we press about 85% of the global soy crop for oil. about 7% is fed directly to animals.
no.
no citation, probably bs.
It’s literally from the study I sent.
the one that replies in misused LCA data?
No, you clearly didn’t read anything I said and are just dismissing everything by assuming it uses Poore and Nemecek (which did not misuse LCA data and is widely accepted by the larger scientific community, but even if it did, very similar findings are being echoed by many independent studies and reviews like this one), even though many of them don’t at all, and the ones that do also draw on other studies and their own findings too.
This PNAS study does not cite Poore & Nemecek (2018), nor does it depend on Poore & Nemecek’s data or methodology.
It’s an independent analysis, grounded in land-use and nutritional efficiency through linear programming, not life-cycle assessment (LCA) meta-analysis.
whatever you think you sent, all I’ve seen from you is poore-nemecek and studies tainted by their work
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/search?q=pnas.org&type=All&listingType=All&page=1&sort=New
no.
the fact that you’re myopically focused on animals is exactly what makes your argument wrong.
Oh, my argument is “wrong” now? Are you a moral realist or something?
How does it constitute being “myopically focused” on non-human animals just because those are the individuals I’m advocating for respectful treatment of (entailing not harming/exploiting/killing/violating their interests unnecessarily)? Is BLM myopically focused on Black people, is feminism myopically focused on women, is LGBT activism myopically focused on LGBT people? When there is a group of individuals being ignored and oppressed in society, it warrants & requires specific, focused advocacy on their behalf - either by the group themselves or by others who would be able to speak up for them if they can’t (similar to children, certain cognitively declining elderly, or certain mentally disabled humans, who might not always be able to attend a protest or government meeting for example, but would still be represented and advocated for by those who can). That doesn’t mean you’re saying other groups don’t matter as well, but to say “all lives matter” in response to those movements and to dismiss & object to them, is a whataboutism tactic, and you’re essentially doing the same thing here. And it’s based on a strawman of assuming that we exclusively care about this group just because we recognize they need support, representation & advocacy. A large part of humanity already advocate for humans of various groups to be respected. But almost no one does the same for non-human animals nor respects them themselves, and then whenever anyone does, we get told “why are you focused on this”? It’s insulting to the victims tbh, of whom there are countless more per year and even per month (especially when factoring in marine animals) than any humans have ever existed in history (only 117 billion, which is a fraction of the non-human animals that humans exploit & kill, cause immense suffering and do horrific things to that are about as bad as the worst things ever done to humans by each other).
Again, that doesn’t mean I don’t care about anything or anyone other than non-human animals. I obviously care about humans, I spend part of my time advocating for LGBT rights and women’s rights and immigration rights. But I also care about non-human animals and advocate for them, what’s the problem with that? It also doesn’t mean I don’t care about plants, if that’s really what you’re still getting at, which is a desperate argument. Whenever people make this argument, one thing remains true. They never acknowledge the point that more plants are harmed by animal ag than plant ag and therefore if we want to reduce harm to plants we should be vegan, which renders their whole point moot even if they want to try to claim plants are sentient. All they do is keep repeating or implying that we’re somehow hypocritical because of something vague to do with plants, with no alternative solution provided by them, no recognition that veganism is the least harmful & most ideal option even if nothing is perfect, and of course, no acknowledgement that we should respect the animals, or of their established sentience, or how it’s a win win to help the planet and the animals and ourselves at the same time. Just coping and deflection.
no alternative need be presented. the fact is everyone accepts the necessity of killing plants and animals to live.
So you actually don’t care about animals OR plants, since you aren’t interested in alternatives or solutions that reduce or avoid animal exploitation and harm to all organisms and the environment as much as we can - simply because they aren’t perfect? So you’re still making the same nirvana fallacy?
Just because the majority - not literally all humans, since vegans exist - accepts that we need to kill plants and animals in order to live, doesn’t make that acceptance morally or factually correct. That’s argumentum ad populum. The majority can and has been wrong - in fact they usually have been historically, on many issues and every societal injustice, revolution, evolution, realization, discovery or enlightenment.
Firstly, imagining and working toward a better way of living, even if not possible now, is more of an ethically defensible position than accepting the status quo despite it being cruel and unideal and not seeking to even attempt or investigate or entertain the possibility of changing and improving it.
Secondly, it’s not necessarily true that we need to kill plants and animals to live - at least not inherently in different circumstances and controlled environments. For example, there is veganic farming, but vertical & indoor farming can potentially reduce harm even further, and further still could lab-grown/cultivated/cultured/cell-based, 3D printed, and artificial or alternative food system/production possibilities in the future. We’re also far more likely to get to a system like that if we’re already overhauling it now to shift towards plant based living, and if we promote values like veganism/animal rights in society, which are primed to extend respect even to non-animal, even if non-sentient/non-conscious/non-experiencing, organisms or phenomena, like plants and the environment. Despite all of the talk of plants as a deflection by non-vegans, who quickly reveal they don’t actually care about plants or animals, vegans are far more likely to care about plants since we already extended compassion to non-human animals, the most vulnerable individuals among us and the most different from us, yet still the same in the ways that matter, still thinking, feeling, experiencing, desiring, exploring the world, loving their families, etc. There are vegans who genuinely care about plants and animals equally, even genuine animists, panpsychists, cosmocentrists, EBFs etc who cite protecting plants, other organisms & objects & phenomena harmed, harvested and destroyed by animal agriculture as one of their reasons for being vegan.
So the people who actually care about the things you pretend to care about (like plants) to distract from the arguments about beings you know you should care about (animals) still acknowledge that, even if killing animals and plants were a necessity to live, and we can’t avoid that entirely or be perfect in that regard, that doesn’t mean there’s no moral difference between for example killing thousands more animals and plants than we need to or not doing so, or for deliberately exploiting, causing suffering to, victimizing & killing sentient beings unnecessarily instead of consuming and using plant based foods & products, not intentionally victimizing any known sentient beings, and reducing harm to them, plants & the environment & society overall. Obviously that’s a better option for everyone.
The argument of “we need to kill to live, therefore we’re free to kill as many and also exploit and do whatever we want to as many of any kinds of entities as we want”, can be used to justify going out and massacring humans just because as a society we need to kill some humans who pose an immediate & deliberate threat to others’ safety that can’t be resolved without lethal force etc (like someone who tries to do or continue with a public shooting or stabbing). You could also say “we can’t avoid r word happening in society altogether, so I guess it’s fine to do r word”. It’s a fallacy of converse accident to conclude that because we might need or be forced to do an action in some situations like killing in self defense, we therefore have carte blanche to commit violence to any individuals in a wanton and unrestrained manner.
your accusation of bad faith is, itself, bad faith
even vegans accept this, or they couldn’t consume crops that require pesticides and crop deaths and habitat destruction
It depends on what was implied by your statement.
You seemed to be using it to say “we accept we need to kill animals and plants, and therefore we have no desire to make any effort to reduce the amount that happens, or to avoid doing it on purpose and unnecessarily & opportunistically exploiting & harming animals & causing them suffering, or to reduce the harm caused by that or change the way we do it and attempt to eliminate it where possible, even if it can’t be stopped entirely”. It was being used as a thought-terminating cliche which was implying a nirvana fallacy, as usual. So no, vegans don’t think like that generally. Because obviously we do think there is a better way to do things, which is to avoid exploiting animals, and as a result cause much less harm to both animals and plants and the environment - as a starting point for further transformations to the systems that sustain us that can improve them further and hew closer to that ideal standard of perfection, which you seem to want to use to oppose any reforms or progress on the grounds that they aren’t perfect instead of actually striving toward it and making the changes that are possible now.
Also, if it implies “accept it as an immutable reality and be closed off to the possibility of better ways of living that could avoid unintentionally killing any animals or plants, as well as to the idea of currently not deliberately exploiting or killing sentient animals and reducing the harm to all lifeforms as much as we can in the meantime”, then that is very different from simply accepting or acknowledging the fact that it is a current reality (but not necessarily an immutable, permanent reality) that some lifeforms, including sentient animals, must be harmed unavoidably by us as a cost of living, but that we can reduce that to all lifeforms both now and in the future and not cause it intentionally (or deliberate exploitation/killing etc) to sentient animals, and it’s a reality we should work toward changing and improving as much as we can for all lifeforms sentient or otherwise.
it’s neither a thought terminating cliche nor a Nirvana fallacy. it’s pointing out that everyone accepts this reality, to one extent or another, and so most people are just unlikely to take vegan arguments seriously, since they appear to be hypocrites
Well I don’t know what your point of saying this is, but I largely agree that most people are attached to the status quo and don’t want to change or even believe the reality as long as they get to keep doing what they want and bury their heads in the sand. But it’s also true that most of us are conditioned to make fallacies especially when we start to use the less rational parts of our minds that come up when we’re experiencing cognitive dissonance and feeling the need to defend things that we feel guilty about and know are wrong, but which we feel incapable of changing, causing us to lash out at the messengers who are trying to shed light on the truth and encourage positive evolution. Accusing us of hypocrisy, imperfection, somehow being worse than you in some way (wanting to deny that you’re doing anything wrong by painting the other “choice” to respect animals and reduce your harm to the environment (incl. plants) as being impractical, counterproductive, invalid, etc). For example thinking that we’re hypocrites even though we’re doing the best we can, to reduce harm to animals, plants and the environment and human society, and if the best solution isn’t perfect, there’s not really anything you can reasonably blame anyone for there - and even if we’re not doing the best we can on whatever you think we’re hypocritical for, and there’s something else we can do (let us know what), that fact that we’re hypocritical or imperfect on its own wouldn’t mean we’re wrong about the message that we should move away from animal exploitation and reduce harm to the environment etc as much as we can. And especially opposing that solution just because it isn’t perfect, which ignores that every life matters, every sentient being has a unique perception and experience of the world and they aren’t replacable, so reducing harm to them and not harming them unnecessarily means the world to them, as well as is critical for protecting natural plants and the environment.
bad faith
bad faith
for good reason. non-human animals are not part of society. they are a tool of society.
Gross view. The same was said of human slaves.
comparing slaves to animals is what slavers do. get help.
It’s true that humans who are intending to devalue or oppress other humans often compare them to, or model the treatment of them on, non-human animals. I’ve acknowledged this multiple times. But you need to understand that this is part of the oppressive culture and mindset of human supremacy and speciesism that we’re trying to dismantle. When we compare humans to other animals, we are trying to reclaim that comparison as something positive that allows us to see the similarities between each other rather than focusing on our differences. That reasons to care about humans extend to why we should care about other animals: they feel the same things as us, share very similar life experiences, relationships, etc. Of course we’re not trying to insult or devalue humans by comparing them to other animals, even if you have a socially programmed idea of what that comparison must inherently or always imply; offense, devaluation, demeaning language, etc. We’re trying to redefine what the human-[non-human] animal relationship can be, into something much more positive and respectful. No, I don’t support bestiality.
Furthermore, I said that what you said is the same thing that humans said about human slaves, which it more or less was. Acknowledging that fact isn’t something it’s rational to criticize or try to twist into misrepresenting me as comparing human slaves to exploited non-human animals (not that we shouldn’t make circumstantial analogies like that for the sake of compelling humans to wake up to the injustices committed on non-human animals), or even comparing humans to non-human animals, and especially to knowingly slander me as insinuating that human slaves are less valuable than other humans just because I talked about their treatment or rather the arguments used to justify it in the same context as the treatment of non-human animals and the arguments used to justify their exploitation/harm/killing/etc.
That said, there are very important and powerful comparisons to be made and several parallels you can’t ignore between the treatment of non-human animals (who many contend, are experiencing a form of slavery by humans) and the treatment of enslaved humans, as well as the overall cultural attitudes toward them and toward the people and movements seeking to oppose and abolish them.
https://www.amazon.com/Dreaded-Comparison-Human-Animal-Slavery/dp/0962449334
It’s understandable that people are so offended by this comparison at first glance because of all the deeply ingrained ideas about non-human animals being in a subservient position and how comparing how they’re treated to how human slaves were/are treated is somehow legitimizing the idea that those human slaves (or the usually racist assignment of purposes and discrimination of them) are somehow subservient by nature or something, which obviously isn’t the intention at all. I know it’s hard to believe, but there are actually people who don’t think of other animals as being offensive to be compared to or to have the treatment of humans and justification for human oppression be compared to that of non-human animal oppression. You can keep pretending to be offended or disingenuouslys strawmanning and depicting me as saying or implying something you know I’m not, but it’s clear you’re just being a troll at this point.
why would that even come up? you’re such a weirdo.
All injustice, oppression, domination, violence, hierarchy and inequality are connected. Intersectionalism 101. Whether we’re fighting against racism, xenophobia, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, classism, speciesism, or any other oppressive or unjust system and power imbalance or injustice, we’re opposing the same kyriarchy (master-rule).
Also, the word cattle comes from chattel as in chattel slavery. The enslavement of humans was literally based on the domestication and exploitation of non-human animals. Humans (particulary white European humans) thought they could tame and sophisticate other races of humans like they had done to non-human animals that they farmed - and they employed them both to pull ploughs on farm and do agricultural work. Slavery was always tied to food and agriculture. But no one wants to think about these things or see the connections and how you’ve been tricked into repeating history.
treating livestock like livestock isn’t oppression or unjust.
one of these things is not like the others.
Just because you’ve dictated a purpose for someone’s existence, that doesn’t mean that’s the only way they’re capable of living or the best outcome for them. They are capable of being free and happy and respected and we are capable of giving that to them. And they already are part of our society. Dogs have relationships with humans. Pigs and cows do too. They don’t have to talk or be the same species to be part of our society. There are humans who can’t talk and humans who have different shapes and sizes to us too, those who rely on us to support them, etc. There’s no reason we can’t apply the same mentalities of care and protection to other sentient beings.
it’s fucking gross to compare these people to animals. get help.
Being offended at even comparisons between the circumstances of or actions done to different individuals, or the logic used to justify them (not even comparing the individuals themselves), because you think it’s insulting for a human to be compared to a non-human animal (which wasn’t even done), is the peak of speciesism and human supremacy. When vegans/animal rights activists talk about humans and non-human animals in the same context, you need to remember we have a much higher view of non-human animals than you probably do. So we obviously aren’t intending to insult or devalue humans. We seek to do the opposite and raise the status of non-human animals to deserving and receiving proper moral consideration and respect of their interests. You may think you’re entitled to be offended by whatever you want and that makes it immediately offensive or problematic (Btw, what happened to the Tenet of the right to offend?). But being offended by certain things is actually problematic and just reveals your own bigotry rather than anything about the person who made the comparison. For example, imagine being offended at men being compared to women, white people being compared to black people, or straight people being compared to gay people. This would just expose the sexism/misogyny, racism, and heterosexism/homophobia of the person offended.
Don’t be disingenuous & pearl-clutching. You know I’m not trying to disparage those groups in any way, in fact the opposite. No, comparing the circumstances of different vulnerable groups of individuals that may in some cases need others to advocate on their behalf and represent them, in order to demonstrate that most humans already find that to be appropriate & virtuous or even obligatory to come to their aid & defend the innocent who can’t defend themselves (aside from non-human animals), and that the same logic should be used to support animal rights activism, even if the non-human animals can’t speak up for and advocate their cases in our languages … is not in any way gross or problematic or bigoted. You’re trying to twist my intentions by drawing on common assumptions and painting me as a villain that carnists would love to hate so that they can feel good about their choices toward non-human animals and the planet. If I care about the rights of all sentient beings, why would I be trying to insult groups of humans who hadn’t inherently done anything wrong.
The reality is that many humans find it insulting even just to acknowledge the biological reality that humans are animals, or to be compared to other animals, or even to have the experiences & circumstances of humans, or the logic used to defend them, compared to those of other animals even when they are literally identical or very similar (which has nothing to do with “comparing those [humans] to [non-human animals]”, not that there would be anything wrong with comparing humans to other animals if there is no intention to insult or offend anyone - they are all sentient beings, and we should be comparing them more, highlighting their similarities and asking for consistency and compassion). But, ironically, whenever humans feign outrage over this, it’s almost always humans acting offended on others’ behalves, and the individuals whose groups’ situations or history are actually being referred to are often in agreement because they understand oppression and appreciate humans learning historical lessons from injustices and applying them to other groups to solve further remaining issues in society and avoid making the same mistakes - or identifying when we do.
if only I were worthy.
get
help
What are you talking about? Are you trying to insinuate that I’m saying we have a higher view of non-human animals than we do of humans? I didn’t say that. I said we have a higher view of non-human animals than most humans have of non-human animals. The thing that is being compared is our view of non-human animals vs most humans’ view of non-human animals, not our view of non-human animals vs our view of humans. Reading comprehension 0 (or you’re just being a troll).
The point is you’re incorrectly assuming that just because you (and indeed, most humans) view non-human animals as being inferior to humans and find it insulting to compare humans to them (which I didn’t even do in what you were replying to, I compared their situations and certain actions we might take to either hurt [which I’m opposed to] or help [which I’m in favor of] them), that must mean we also view them as inferior like you do, and that we’re intending to insult or devalue humans by making any comparisons that involve both of them. Obviously the opposite is true if you understand that we’re viewing non-human animals in a different way where we don’t see them as inferior, and we see the similarities between humans and other animals as reasons to extend compassion and care to non-human sentient beings (as they’re the same reasons we care about humans, as can be pretty easily established), and trying to inspire others to view–and treat–them with more respect too.
I have never said any such thing.
Reading comprehension 0 (or you’re just being a troll).
You literally said that the reason it’s okay to unnecessarily exploit and kill non-human animals/sentient beings and not humans is the fact that non-human animals aren’t human. This implies that you view non-human animals as holding lower moral value or deserving of lower moral standards of respect. Additionally, you acted offended at even the suggestion of humans (or the circumstances and treatment and attitudes toward discriminated, marginalized, oppressed, vulnerable etc groups of humans) or anything to do with humans being compared to non-human animals or anything to do with non-human animals - including the circumstances, treatment and attitudes toward oppressed, exploited & victimized non-human animals - which implies that you think that to compare a human to a non-human animal is to devalue them, demonstrating an internalized belief of non-human animals as holding lower value. And you also said that the reason the Holocaust was bad was because humans were treated the way that non-human animals are, but then were unable to acknowledge that the way non-humans are being treated was bad too, meaning you think something that’s extremely bad and an atrocity to do to humans is fine to do to non-human animals.
you are doing so while ignoring definitions of “creature” that are more expansive.
I’m not ignoring them. If you want to use a broader definition of “creatures” that includes plants, go ahead. And I will too if you want (in the context of this conversation - I don’t understand your definition enough [what exactly is included under “creature”?] to know if I’d think it’s a useful definition or not). I think you’re myopically focused on the word creatures, which is really not particularly relevant except that it includes non-human animals - whether it includes other organisms or not. If it does, it’s just more reason to be vegan to respect all organisms as much as we can - which we would do anyway. And that’s all regardless of animals being confirmed sentient.
this is a nonsensical reply. I can’t believe the mods haven’t banned you yet
why? what’s so special about sentience?
I explained it already. Sentient beings have a subjective experience of the world. They can experience phenomena like emotions, thoughts, feelings, suffering, pain, fear, joy, love/familial/maternal bonds, etc. They can either have their experience impacted upon positively (i.e. promoting wellbeing, reducing suffering, saving/sparing life), or negatively (i.e. reducing/depriving of wellbeing/freedom/autonomy etc, taking away life). If you make a sentient being suffer, that violates their inherent interest to not suffer (even if they don’t state this as an interest, it’s reasonable to infer they would want it to not happen since it generates a negative experience in a way that doesn’t benefit them and isn’t necessary). Cutting their life short (a fraction of their lifespans in most animal industries https://www.farmtransparency.org/kb/food/abattoirs/age-animals-slaughtered ) by killing them also violates their interests to keep on living (unless they’re in extreme incurable suffering and it can be true euthanasia) since we can infer - and the safe presumption in most cases is - that they would benefit from living and experience wellbeing that you’d be depriving them of by taking away their existence and ability to experience anything.
Put another way, sentience matters in any being for the same reason it matters in humans. If a human lost the ability to experience anything, for example if they became completely brain dead but their body was still working, we might still owe some obligations to that individual and their body because they were previously sentient, and their loved ones may have preferences about what to do with them/their body, but it’s certainly not the same as if they were still sentient - if you had to take life support off that individual who was already dead mentally with no experience of anything whatsoever, or a sentient human who could continue living and experiencing and raising their family after they recovered, I think most would for good reason save the sentient human. And sentience mattering is also why most agree a human matters more than a plant or a rock.
That said, once again, if we want to shield all organisms from harm as much as we can, being vegan is requisite.
how?
How could a sentient being benefit from living? Because they experience the world, they enjoy the joys of life, they spend time with their loved ones, they experience pleasure and happiness and peace. Obviously there are benefits to continuing to live rather than having your lifespan cut short, including for a non-human animal as well as humans. Do you think a dog benefits from not being killed? Do you think they’d rather keep their life and experience intact or to be forcefully unalived against their will and without their consent? The fact you’re asking “why would they benefit from living”? reveals a really gross and sociopathic attitude tbh.
claimed without proof
Proof has been given and rejected by you based on your attempts at cherrypicking.
you haven’t provided sufficient proof
another unsupported claim
This is a moral claim, not an empirical one. Also, it’s anecdotal based on everyone I’ve talked to, that they do ultimately reveal themselves to care about sentience when they actually engage with the questions instead of dodging and refusing to answer.
that’s not been established. you just claim it.
Which part hasn’t been established?
The moral claim that helping the planet and the animals and ourselves at the same time is good or a win win? Moral claims can’t be proven, but they can be well-reasoned, defensible, and consistent in holding up to scrutiny - and they can extend logically from others’ views.
Or the fact that plant based living (one aspect of veganism/avoiding animal exploitation) is better for the animals, the planet and ourselves at the same time? No, I’m pretty sure that is either implicit in what I said, or proven by the studies and references I shared. But you’re a sealioning troll, so you will deny any evidence in front of your face in favor of your own beliefs, in stark opposition to TST tenets.
the claim that being vegan would help the planet hasn’t been established
Yes it very clearly has, you just don’t like it when the scientific consensus disagrees with you.
no, but creatures obviously has a broader meaning than you are allowing.
that’s not been established. you’re just claiming it.
No, it has been proven, science-denier.
saying it doesn’t make it true. nor does your name-calling
no, but you are artificially narrowing a tenet of TST to focus on animals instead of all living creatures. for all your accusations of “bad faith” i would think you could recognize it.
So that’s what you were talking about.
I’m not “artificially narrowing” anything. I assumed it meant animals when it said creatures because that’s what I understood creatures to mean, and is the most common definition. I acknowledged however that it’s possible they could be using a broader definition (though I think it’s unlikely since it’s made for a public audience who usually think of creatures as = animals).
The idea of considering non-animals, like plants, as “creatures” seems weird to me, but I’m happy to use that definition if you like (I’m not sure what the definition we’re using is, but I guess it includes animals and plants, at least).
If we suppose that they did mean something broader when they said creatures (or we interpret or extend upon it that way), which includes plants, then that’s even more reason to be vegan to spare more plants and animals - and to not deliberately exploit & victimize animals/confirmed sentient beings.
So, it can’t be “just focusing” on animals either way. Because I’ve addressed multiple times how these actions are respecting plants and the environment too.
you’re not a Satanist, and you wanted to evangelize
no, it doesn’t.
How does it not render the point moot? If simply directly using plants/plant based foods & products harms fewer plants than “using” animals (& growing & feeding plants to those animals & clearing & maintaining land [including plants & forest] to grow plants to feed them & for pastures & farming infrastructure & factories to “farm” the animals) then plants being hypothetically sentient would be even more reason to be vegan, wouldn’t it?
Why is this being framed as an argument against veganism when veganism would be better on the issue of reducing harm to plants as much as possible compared to animal agriculture/exploitation etc?
And that’s all in addition to it being kinder to animals and less impactful on the environment as a whole.
So what exactly is the objection? Is it pointing out supposed hypocrisy (tu quoque), or criticizing veganism for being imperfect on the issue of plants (nirvana fallacy), or are you actually making an empirical claim that disputes the science and facts on how many plants are harmed by plant agriculture when it’s used directly for humans, vs animal agriculture and the plant agriculture used to sustain it (which is clear that much fewer plants are harmed by human-directed plant agriculture)?
you would have been able to prove it
that’s not what they’re getting at. they’re getting at this: whatever other creatures we eat is inconsequential. plants or animals. even eating exclusively plants harms animals through habitat destruction and crop deaths. this is acceptable. everyone accepts a certain amount of creature destruction for the purpose of continuing to live.
But that’s simply a false empirical claim. It does make a huge difference to animals, plants and the environment whether we eat/consume/use plants, or animals, or both, or other options, etc. Particularly, if we use plant based/non animal options instead of animal derived options, it causes much less death, suffering and destruction, even if you are the ultimate utilitarian and don’t care about the deontology or intent or circumstances of actions at all (such as that it’s less bad to kill in self defense than it is to kill opportunistically or to exploit and take advantage of and harm deliberately), though most humans do when it comes to humans, dogs & cats but don’t when it comes to many non-human animals who they have less respect for, who they see less as individuals and more as a collective mass (another speciesist double standard). Even if harm is inevitable, that doesn’t mean that taking actions & making changes we can easily do to significantly reduce harm to others and the world (& not cause it on purpose to known sentient beings), as far as possible and practicable, isn’t beneficial, morally positive, or obligatory - factually it definitely is, and morally it very arguably is. Please stop making the nirvana fallacy.
you haven’t surprised this claim, and I didn’t buy it
Some random James Cameron quotes (I know he’s not a scientific authority. I already provided tons of scientific evidence supporting what he’s saying).
"By changing what you eat, you will change the entire contract between the human species and the natural world.” - James Cameron, Vegan Filmmaker who advocates a plant-based diet for the environment, planet & climate
"We couldn’t lecture oil companies and turn around and eat hamburgers.” - James Cameron made sure Avatar used fully plant-based catering so they weren’t being hypocrites.
“It’s not a requirement to eat animals, we just chose to do it, so it becomes a moral choice and one that is having a huge impact on the planet, using up resources and destroying the biosphere.” — James Cameron
none of this addresses what I said
no one is saying “all lives matter”. you can’t seem to engage with intellectual honesty.
I never said you literally said those words. But you are basically saying “plant lives matter too” in response to animal advocacy because they’re the one category of organisms that you can point and deflect to, in order to try to - erroneously, since it does spare them - claim we aren’t respecting or aren’t helping by being vegan - all the while refusing to address the critical plight of the non-human animals. This is the same logic of whataboutism that “All Lives Matter” used. People also often say “What about humans?! Why don’t you focus on them?” which apart from being speciesist, is a false dichotomy and fallacy or relative privation. Just because you think human causes are more important, that doesn’t mean the nonhuman animal cause isn’t important as well, and there’s no reason we can’t focus on both; as a society, and as individuals. But all of these arguments are whataboutisms about other individuals or other situations to try to derail and steer the conversation away from the poor ignored individuals we’re advocating for - who you refuse to acknowledge or respect - and onto us somehow being hypocritical in some other, possibly unavoidable way (making it also a nirvana fallacy), which renders it also all ultimately ad hominem that doesn’t interact directly with the arguments and just jumps all over the place attacking the messenger of the argument.
a little presumptuous
You didn’t read what I said. I didn’t say you said that. I was talking about people who do say that, and was using it as another example of whataboutism in the vein of “all lives matter” or “plant lives matter too” as an attempt to distract from the animal rights arguments - which would anyway entail better treatment of plants and the environment and better situations for humans to be in as a consequence.
this is just dishonest
so you claim, but without sufficient evidence
wrong
strawman
it’s neither.