The bees consent! Veganism is about consent! If a cow could say “Yeah, please take my milk” it would be vegan!
Theoretically domestic sheep wool is also vegan because theyll overheat and die if we dont shave them, and thus are probably pretty happy when we do and dont care what happens with it afterwards, but i dont think vegans are ready for that convo
Sheep wouldn’t need shearing if we wouldn’t breed them to grow more wool, and if we allowed them to live where they are native, instead of “farming” them e.g. in Australia.
Also I am pretty sure that those sheep get slaughtered after a couple of years, instead of being allowed a happy life.
But I don’t think your cognitive dissonance is ready for that convo.
They could just fly north for the summer if they weren’t so lazy.
It feels like there’s a whole debate about honey I’m unaware of, but isn’t the point of veganism avoiding anything made by animals? If yes, why is honey an exception?
Most of are agreed that the point of veganism is to reduce nonhuman suffering. Following absolute rules for no reason is silly. The point is the ethics.
But the other vegans have the wrong opinion about whether eating honey causes suffering.
Ahh thanks. But wouldn’t that make you a vegetarian?
(Not trying to be confrontational or disagreeing with your point, asking out of genuine curiosity)
I’m actually not a vegetarian. I’m a kangatarian.
Kangaroos have evolved over the past 60,000 years to breed in such numbers that their population can sustain hunting by humans. They have no other natural predators, unless you count parasites. Dingos in some places, but not many. The result is that if humans don’t hunt kangaroos, they over-breed. Destroy the local habitat, threatening endangered species, then starve. Some kangaroos must die at human hands for the good of everything else, including the other kangaroos.
So the government uses drone surveys to analyse the population, and then tells people how many kangaroos need to die. Each kangaroo in the quota can either be hunted, or culled. Culled kangaroos will be shot, and their bodies will rot in a ditch. Their meat will benefit nobody. If they’re hunted, then at least some good comes of it. If a kangaroo survives the initial shot, hunters will stun and then kill it. I’m unsure whether the same regulations apply to cullers.
So, I eat kangaroo meat. All kangaroo meat is hunted, there’s not a single kangaroo farm in the world. At least, not the western idea of a farm. Every kangaroo I eat lived a free life in nature, and then died for the good of the ecosystem. No animal slavery.
And I propose a bigger question than honey: is kangaroo meat vegan?
They have no other natural predators
Counterpoint: this is because we killed off most of their natural predators.
No. An animal died for it, it isn’t vegan. Simple as.
Veganism is about consequences or at least should be. If an animal was (and apparently in this case is) killing the ecosystem if you don’t kill it, I’m curious what the rationale for it not being vegan is. Veganism seeks to end cruelty and suffering. Whereas in this case not killing the kangaroo would be a choice that leads to more suffering and that’s not just for humans. If veganism isn’t about applying these “rules” for a purpose and instead it’s just about applying them without taking context into consideration, what’s the point of it?
Notice how your entire argument for ethical behavior applies to controlling the population rather than eating the animals after? The step of eating the animal is the not vegan act.
Control the population, leave the remains in the ecosystem it belongs to.
Notice how you’re not responding to my question?
No. If someone ate no animal products besides honey that doesn’t make them not vegan, it means they don’t share the opinion that honey causes animal exploitation. I do not wish to register an opinion there, I’m just saying what the rationale is.
There are at least a dozen inter-related reasons to be vegan and no hard line of what diets are and aren’t vegan. All vegans check at least one of those boxes, many of us check multiple. Some vegans only care about avoiding the suffering of animals who experience life through a nervous system, therefore will eat shellfish which have no nervous system. When honey is exempted it’s usually utilitarian vegans doing logical gymnastics to claim that the way in which it’s farmed does no harm to the bees, or that while it harms the bees it doesn’t hurt their nervous systems and cause them direct pain. Veganism is no monolith.
Ah, the spirited and rational debate of intelligent human beings
When the bees can engage in the debate, I’ll hear them out.
What’s the buzz about, I say.
Bzzzzzzz, they say back, then they dance.
Bees have deeply philosophical waggle sessions.
Common sense goes a long way. Radicalism is always stupid.
Just eat meat once a week or month. Eat whatever in moderation.
Moderation is key.
Who defines “common sense” and “moderation”? Meat eaters?
If vegans were majority, then you would be, too, called a radical for saying “we should build a slaughterhouse to give people PTSD”
I am not even vegan, but we can’t trust meat eating majority to write the rules on what’s acceptable amount of meat eating. This is just biased and unfair.
Thank you for sharing my views I only murder once every 7 weeks but my friends say it’s not good.
“Murder” is a very strong (and wrong) word for killing animals.
Oh bloody vegans coopting murder. I wanted to make a joke that’d you’d murder (people) in moderation.
be careful. the blood mouths are not ready for your humour.
this is what I like about vegans, they call me the most metal “insults”.
The important thing is that you appreciat it.
Radicalism is always stupid. Moderation is key.
How often do you eat babies?
Personally, I’m radically against eating babies.
Equating human life to non human life is more psycho than meat-eaters tbh
Everything in moderation, including moderation. You’ve got to choose what you’re radical about, lest it choose you.
I only eat them as eggs.
I had no idea there was a market for eating human eggs. Seems like an extremely low Calorie:Cost ratio, but capitalism gonna capitalism I guess.
Don’t know about a market, just snorkeling for clams and find a pearl sometimes.
Can’t confirm nor deny the presence of a single cell in a sea of red.
Does it count if you spit them out?
Either way, those aren’t “babies.”
Well they meet at least 1 or 2 common usage definitions.
A very young child; an infant.
An unborn child; a fetus.
The youngest member of a family or group.
A very young animal.
An adult or young person who behaves in an infantile way.
A lover or sweetheart.
Sweetheart; dear. Used as a term of endearment.
I’m a glutton for fish eggs.
Eat them up yum!
I have got 3 maybe-babies lying in my fridge rn.
A moderate genocide will do, local centrist claims
This approach isnt helping the cause, you can’t conflate that responsibility to everyone. Guilt tripping is a Christian method
I will hold people responsible for their actions, that’s not a radical thing. And about “Guilt tripping”… Well participating in a mass murder of living, feeling beings in a world where you don’t have to do that in order to survive is very much a thing that people should feel guilt about, and I will not stop shaming them for doing so. You see, from my perspective, that would make me an accomplice.
I know it feels bad when you get reminded of the horrors of meat industry. You should feel bad, that’s a good thing. But your feelings have much less weight than the actual countless lives lost for nothing.
Just for curiositys sake: what do you think will help the cause then, if I should not even speak about it because I could hurt peoples feelings? It (participating in the mass murder of living, feeling beings) is an active choice that most people in the world can choose to not do. Like fuck man, if I should just smile and nod in agreement I dunno…
Again, I do realize that blaming feels bad. That is the point.
I never said you shouldn’t talk about it. I didn’t even say you personally shouldn’t talk the way you currently are. But do you understand that cultural change doesn’t happen just because you shout and scream at people who disagree with you? Even when you’re 100 percent right.
You CANNOT blame regular people as much as you do. People are uneducated, evolutionarily primed to be manipulated, and defensive. I personally do not feel bad when I am blamed for that, I know it is bad, I agree. I already know I should eat even less meat than I do now, and slowly but steadily i am doing it. But it wasnt the shame that put me on this, it was the empathy, it was the curiosity, it was the EXACT OPPOSITE of shame that brought me on the path.
Shame is for Christians. It brings Christian results. Us vs them. The radical vegan approach to communication enables the idea that veganism is ridiculous, not because it is wrong, but because it seems like its the only communication that gets through.
You feel righteous anger, rightly so, but that anger when aimed at regular people you are trying (supposedly) to convince,just makes veganism seem a tantrum instead of a mission. The way you speak seems to me like you’re feeding your ego, not like you are saving the world.
And what are you feeding it with? Other people’s shame. By definition, not a vegan source.
Pardon my joke, but I felt like biting back since you took my honest attempt at communicating as just another excuse to bark and release your anger.
Your fight is just, your energy is right. But “making people feel bad” isnt really a method. Just venting. I dont know the blueprint for a better way, but telling you this is my way of looking for help in searching one.
Hey, thanks for responding.
First of all, I admit that I do get emotional on the subject. And I do realize that when I lose the calmness, it really is counterproductive on the cause. Here again was a great example. I don’t think I was unreasonable or “screaming in anger” when I initially disagreed with with the original point that “radicalism is always stupid” (hey, isn’t that a radical thought to begin with :P )
But my second post was just pure barking, as you said, and I was venting at you. Sorry for that. :/
It’s difficult to be calm, when you get constantly made fun of, get challenged and so forth. And it seems like whenever I speak about the subject, it’s always a bad thing. I have opted to not talking about it IRL for a couple of years now, and it’s frustrating, and that frustration sometimes overflows and I’ll get all emotional like here. It feels like I CANNOT say to an individual that “meat eating bad” without then being accused of being an asshole. That feels also wrong, and I’m at a loss as to what to do here.
You had some really good points, and I’ll retreat to contemplate them. Thanks for being reasonable when I wasn’t.
Hey, dont mention it, I totally get it. This society primes us for the reaction you had, we are constantly ready for a fight, and it is not your fault, it is our conditioning. Finding the way to dispel that curse is the way we get to people’s hearts.
Just a side not, I absolutely do not think that radicalism is always stupid, or stupid at all. “Deep roots are not reached by frost”, we need conviction and strong ideals, and to further clarify, I do think that veganism is the end goal for a truly advanced society and a healed world and people.
The point is just that to communicate radical ideas we do not need to be in constant anger. Most people respond well when you engage with them and their differences with curiosity, asking questions instead of directly challenging their ways right away. Our communication must be like water, seeking the path of least resistance, yes, but always ending at the sea or a lake. People already know (in some level) that their lifestyles are wrong. That isnt the Epiphany. The epiphany is helping them build up the idea that it is not to late, that they are not irredeemable, and that change is possible.
People do not want to feel irredeemable and as you said, when talking to Normies abt veganism ppl get defensive. It is largely the fault of propaganda, but more critically, it’s the shame angle that always, always fails. Responsibility is a different concept, and it melds better in the mind
The only way to change is with grace, compassion, and when needed, severity and discipline, distributed sparingly.
You have to imagine current human society as a collective made of children, fragile, sensitive, impulsive. They will mirror what they perceive, despite your intentions
I hope this helps, and thank you for reading my comment and being graceful
You’re doing a moderate genocide every time you change your diet or even the ph of your mouth. Those bacteria didn’t consent to die
Was that an argument?
Getting all meat eaters to cut intake by 50% is easier than getting 50% of meat eaters to turn vegan.
Thats not how world markets work though. 20% of meat eaters turning vegan would compound vegan movement more than 50% less meat consumed. The former grows vegan market explicitly while the latter just maybe shrinks the meat market only. You have consider availability, research and development, service, pop culture and the fact that we massive overconsume food so less consumption does not directly shrink the market in linear fashion.
And that’s a more reasonable way of thinking. I tried being a vegetarian and a vegan. Not compatible with my body and factoring in supplements, too expensive.
Arguably carnivores have already cut meat intake, at least red meat, to greater impact than vegetarians.
While I’m going by anecdote rather than data
- vegetarians/vegans are a small minority so limited impact
- many people I know have cut back on at least red meat for health or environmental reasons.
Basically one fewer burger a week by 100 people has more impact than one person not eating meat at all
Even a switch from beef burger to chicken burger would have a substantial CO2 impact.
I think that’s not true. The easiest would be to ban animal farming, which would cut consumption nearly entirely.
Top down approaches are almost never the answer.
Ah good to know, let’s ignore all laws then, abolish religion and live in Anarchy. Wait that’s actually also fine with me.
Would you be willing to take up arms for that fight? Because meat eaters would be.
Um you know that historically lack of food lead to cannibalism right? … It’s still a thing today, everyday.
You’re aware that there wou’d be more food, not less if we banned meat?
Gimme some of of that listeria, e. coli, salmonella, the parasite thing I had from a salad, etc. There wouldn’t be more food. Diversity is what keeps us alive. You do you, but I don’t think you understand how the world works. And please tell me how rice and beans will keep me alive in -40 degree weather. I guess I should just chug olive oil.
And yeah, sure it was nice when I had my own garden in Vermont. But now I get to play Russian roulette, except 5/6 chambers have rounds. I hate to shit on you since you have good intentions but it’s a naive take.
You know that the e coli on the salad comes from the excrements of farmed animals that get spread on the fields because otherwise it would be expensive to get it all handled?
Also I live in the Midwest and I am fine as vegan, even during winter walking outside. And like most people I have a house and a heating anyways.
I’d actually argue that you’d have more problems cutting out the carbs during winter, than cutting out the meat.
heh there’s the human excrement as well. I mean you do you, if you’re willing to take up that lifestyle than good. I don’t think when it comes to food most of the time. It’s kind of like my buddies that like to hunt deer, they’re all about trophy shots and whatever. Tracking the blood trail. And get pissed when I shot to the back of the head (shutting down all function); no suffering no running away in fear.
“The easiest way is just me fiating this impossible idealistic nonsense in my own head”
You do you, man.
Well easier than cutting everybody’s consumption by 50% lmao
You’d first need to capture the current consumption for everyone, so yes, a ban would be way easier to implement
I agree an authoritarian ban would not be well received, and likely circumvented.
The 50% cut in consumption could be achieved voluntarily through subsidy, tariffs, education and health arguments.
I don’t think fighting a civil war qualifies as an “easy way”.
The government has the police and the military, there’s no way a guy with a rifle is doing something against an F15.
Yes and and the police and military will absolutely just enforce this ban without question … they are quite famously full of vegans.
I actually retract my statement. We’d only be fighting vegans, so we probably could knock out the civil war in a couple of days.
You think somebody would actually ban meat farming in the first place? I like how naive you are.
Probably not in a democracy, no.
I like how naive you are
It’s called a hypothetical, dipshit. Also quite rich from someone that seems to fundamentally misunderstand what a civil war is.
An incremental step would be making it more expensive through taxes or regulation. A possible improvement rather than sitting on an impossible ideal
I’d take that, but is that going to happen? Doesn’t seem more realistic than a total ban.
How is that easy?
Brb, giving up my entire means of livelihood in an environment where I can’t even sell off my assets because they are also banned, all in this job market. Sounds like a good way to quickly block major roadways with tractors, fuck cars should be happy.
I am sure farmers could get free money to compensate, just like they did when trump fucked the soy trade with China. I didn’t hear about tractors on streets when that happened.
I thought Vegans cpuld consume animal things if its done willingly.
Like if a cow walked up and said “Please gopd vegan, butxher me, it is my purpose,” they could totally make.and eat burgers from said cow.
That said, bee vomit feels like it sort of fall into that category.
Dang dude, turn on autocorrect
I would but then the phone is all “I replaced entire words 3 sentnces ago and didn’t tell you! Ha ha ha.”
So fuck it, I will just take my typos.
If there is a way to turn on autocorrect from like, 2019, before it was assy, I would take that.
Why did autocorrect (and swipe predictions) seem to go to shit around 2019? I remember thinking it had gotten really good… and then it got gradually worse. It’s not AI, I think it started going downhill before that, but why? I can’t see a profit incentive and it didn’t make digital communication sufficiently more difficult for conspiracy-sounding reasons.
I feel like it’s just a case of “we must constantly iterate on everything.” So they started adding more and more “predictive” nonsense because where else do you go with autocorrect aside from the branch that is LLMs?
But then the predictive text was basically super duper light LLM. “Autofill the next most likely word or phrase” without realizing the nuance every person has to their phrase patterns.
autpxprrext
The bees don’t want you to take their honey. They don’t make excess, they make what they need and we steal it and replace it with stuff that’s “just as good” according to us. Bees die in the process of harvesting honey.
These are reasons that honey isn’t vegan.
Have you ever kept bees? They make a ton of honey in excess of what they need.
And my cat always keeps an excess of food in her bowl. If I fed her only the amount she actually ate, she would just eat less to still have excess. These are evolved survival behaviors.
Right because cats and bees are the same thing. Are you a bot that gets paid to make vegans look stupid?
Compared to all life on Earth cats and bees are almost the exact same thing. I’m not a bot, I’m a human with ideas that are apparently so challenging to your own that you immediately resort to ad hominem.
A quick web search tells me that bees don’t die when harvesting honey, unless you take more than they need to survive, too often and are careless when harvesting?
Yeah all of those things sound pretty likely in most honey farming settings.
I’m don’t know much about beekeeping, but I could easily see large scale industry doing exactly that. I would have a hard time trusting them to be careful of the bees’ livelihood. It seems like if the farmers are actually careful the bees should be ok though
Me neither lol. But if there’s ethical consumption there’s no need to abstain from all right?
“google ai overview told me exactly what I wanted to hear so I’ve decided to look no further”
“i’ve invented a reason to dismiss what you posted and decided that’s a good enough reason not to think about it any further”
Also a good restatement of the comment I’m replying to, yes.
I’m open to counter arguments
I know some people who keep bees and absolutely none of that is true if you take care of them properly. Bees will try to fill the space they are in with honeycomb even if it is well in excess of what they need because they are anticipating that the colony will grow, but if you harvest regularly and consistently the colony will not grow larger than can be supported by the honeycomb that is left behind.
They work for each other, Morty!
That sounds like slavery with… extra… steps
I told them it means peace among world’s.
Vegans are unwilling to come to terms with the fact that they aren’t special. Taking honey is fine. Bees aren’t going anywhere any time soon. You know what? Taking honey had no downside for society. There is sooo much other stuff to worry about. Have you heard about our Lord’s, and Savior: Corpse Bees! An obscene amount in cemeteries, and grave yards. Can’t wait for some for you to get offended. Yes, the journey of most animals/insects is tragic. I like having the ability to travel cost to coast in hours on a full stomach. Until my belly aches.
I chose a whole food plant based diet for health reasons, and honey just isn’t good for my body.
I chose to plant pollinator friendly plants in my yard because I think bees are cool and I love watching them do their thing.
The real debate is with figs.
And don’t get me started on mushrooms
I’m really interested now
Mushroom aren’t classified as either plants nor animals, with some arguing they’re much closer to animals. I’m not a vegan or vegetarian myself, but that’d be an interesting point to consider.
Not some. They are taxonomically more related to animals than plants. Just a fact.
We’re also technically eating their peepees.
Same with all fruits and some vegetables. The reproductive organs are the tastiest part!
Huh, I’ve not heard any vegan talk about that. In fact mushrooms are a staple in many of the vegan foods I’m aware of
That’s cause we don’t, the only time I’ve ever heard this mushroom fud come up is from non-vegans. “Did you know that grass screams when you cut it?”-tier territory.
No one said any of that here.
I think you misunderstand me, I’m comparing the mushroom claim to an equally silly claim that often rears it’s head in these sort of discussions, not saying it was made here.
soo true
By definition are vegans those that don’t eat or use animals or animal byproducts.
Fungi aren’t animals. If this group doesn’t consume fungi then they should call themselves something else entirely to avoid further confusion. Maybe they should go strictly by herbivores.
Eh, the parts people eat are not the mushroom itself. The mycelium underground doesn’t give a shit if you eat its reproductive organs. Hell, it probably likes it.
Freaky-ass mushrooms… That’s why the shapes are so tantalizing!
Not a vegan.
Honey is a direct animal product. It is meant to feed them, much like milk feeds other cows.
I don’t get how that’s even arguable. I don’t care what you do and don’t eat, vegans, but honey is definitely an animal product. It’s not a product of flowers, it’s a product of bees. Veganism/vegetarianism are both already series of arbitrary lines drawn, though, so, whatever.
Also fish is meat, for those people out there. It’s an animal, you’re eating the animal: it’s meat. You can be a vegetarian that eats fish, that’s fine. You are all illogical to me. Morally right, rationally arbitrary and inconsistent and often hypocrites.
Veganism/vegetarianism are both already series of arbitrary lines drawn, though, so, whatever.
They are not fixed lines. I can’t speak about veganism but not eating red meat is vegetarism, leaving meat out except for holidays is vegetarism, eating fish but not meat is vegetarism. There is many way to be vegetarian. Even if there is one way that is much more popular and much more discutes these days. So I can also image non-fixed lines in veganism.
Most fertilizer contains animal waste, so are you allowed to use it to grow plants? Bees are also pollinators, so many plabts also depend on labor from bees. We live in a biosphere and interact with each other, so everyone needs to decide where their line is.
Yeah it’s about limiting the exploitation of others as much as possible or practicable. We don’t live in a perfect crystal world where we just feed ourselves by inclining our facets towards the sun and nothing ever suffers, but we can stop being such grubby little thieves about how we do feed ourselves.
Well put.
I’ve heard bees are more productive at making honey than they actually need. They’ll make so much that they abandon a hive full of honey and start a new one just to make more.
Dunno if that’s true or not, but the claim gives big “those slaves just love being natural slaves” energy.
Yeah I’ve been convinced by the comments here. There could be ethical honey. Just like theoretically there could be ethical milk/cheese, but the profit motive incentives abuse and exploitation. If you paid money for it, there is a 100% chance that a bee had to work harder than she would have otherwise with no recourse.
It’s not the same as eating meat maybe, but the principle holds.
I think the argument is that bees will do it regardless of consumption so may as well have some nectar/bee barf for sweetener?
The arguments are usually that fish aren’t animals or more clearly insects aren’t animals, similar to how plants aren’t animals even if they react to damage. Very easy to argue.
I’ve seen arguments that whatever sentience fish may have, it’s too low level to be aware of pain. I don’t buy that but clearly fish have a simpler central nervous system than mammals. Also easy to argue.
Same. I’m not vegan, but honey is obviously an animal product, and we don’t get their consent to take it (much like eggs or milk).
Further arguments like bees leaving behind some hives are just self-serving - feel free to eat honey, or even milk and eggs, but then don’t call yourself vegan, because you are not.
I’m not vegan either, but it feels very strange for non-vegans to dictate to vegans what is and is not vegan and who is and is not a vegan.
But veganism at the core isn’t even about refusing to eat animal product. It’s about living a lifestyle that causes the least amount of suffering possible. Like some people would consider cocaine not vegan even though it’s not an animal product since an inconceivable amount of suffering is caused in the production and distribution of the product.
If a Star Trek food synthesizer exists that can make beef burgers out of carbon and hydrogen molecules, those burgers can be considered vegan since no suffering is involved.
I think this kind of obscures the reason people are vegan in the first place. It’s more than just a dogmatic creed against eating anything animal-derived.
For people who do it for moral reasons, the core issue is consent. Animals cannot consent to be eaten and cannot understand why they are born in captivity and made to suffer. Honey can be farmed with almost total freedom for the bees (can be, not necessarily always is), and bees also produce significantly more honey than they need so do not suffer from it being taken.
Others object to the fact that choosing to eat meat when you can reasonably choose not to, is semi-directly deriving pleasure from the death of an animal. Which is the same reason most people are disgusted by blood sports. Again, that clearly doesn’t apply to bees and honey, because honey is not the flesh of a dead animal.
For people who do it for environmental reasons, beekeeping has no significant negative environmental effect, as long as invasive species aren’t being used. If anything it can have a positive impact on local ecosystems if done responsibly (again, can).
Extracting honey fundamentally differs from other animal derived products. Take milk; cows are forcefully separated from their children and hooked up to automatic milking machines. They must be kept confined, and keeping them in this way is generally only economical if they are slaughtered for meat as well. There is fundamentally suffering involved, which is not the case for beekeeping.
All this is to say, if someone wants to strictly abstain from animal products as a matter of principle, that’s their choice! But the vast majority of reasons to be vegan aren’t reasons not to eat honey.
Yeah if there were apiaries around me who harvested honey ethically I might consider it. Same with milk and meat (well, probably not because I just don’t like them now, but on ethical grounds), if it was just the extras from having animals around.
But as soon as there’s money involved that all goes out the window and you get the wall of flesh at the back of every grocery store, which amounts to hundreds of years of subjective suffering from beings that just had the misfortune to be born inside the factory on four legs rather than outside of it on two.
Thanks. I think the single biggest barrier to the population as a whole eating more ethically is the way that veganism as a movement has taken on this absolutist dogmatic stance that makes it a dealbreaker for most people. If you make people feel as though cutting their meat intake by 50% is pointless because you’re still going to call them murderers, why would they make the effort?
The problem with the carveouts that utilitarian vegans make for honey is that they’re largely falsifiable feel-good apologia. The claim that harvesting honey doesn’t harm bees is complete bollocks, really it’s in the same realm of the claim that milking a cow doesn’t harm the cow because she can always make more and just saying it isn’t doesn’t make it so. The hive does need to downsize and drones do have to die to accommodate the loss of surplus, workers do forage further and compete more with other insects for nectar, while honey harvesting rarely harvests at the low extraction levels claimed to be harmless and domesticated bee colonies crowd out native pollinators. If it were harmless the bees would never bother to make it, it takes a shitload of energy for them to produce it. It’s turn-brain-off dissonance territory in the same league as dairy farm propaganda but because vegan utilitarian thought leader Peter Singer said it’s OK they’re all willing to make the huge leap in logic to eat something that could just as easily have been maple syrup or agave nectar.
I’d respect the utilitarians a lot more if they just said they don’t care about bees and shellfish because they’re not fuzzy mammals, instead of performing these unimpressive acts of logical acrobatics.
Also to add another reason for veganism to your list, the more important one for me personally: The reflection on oneself. We are symbolic thinkers, we transpose ideas from one context to the next. eg Slaughterhouse workers exhibit the same elevated levels of domestic violence as cops. When we harm someone else, in another manner we also harm ourselves. If we can understand another entity on some level and we then hurt it, we do ourselves a psychic injury that isn’t just philosophical but has real profound effects on our thought processes, our outlook on the world, our behaviors toward other things. Maybe utilitarian vegans just don’t see any commonality between their bodies and the beehive, but I think the core failure of utilitarianism is it’s inability to respect this very simple but unfortunately intangible concept, in all contexts.
Utilitarian hedonist here. I stopped eating prawns because I heard about them pulling the eyes out to increase breeding rates. I decided to research it by watching a video of a prawn having its eyes removed.
It looked like it was in pain.
That’s enough for Me. I don’t believe in p-zombies, so if something looks like it’s in pain, I believe it. I don’t want the prawns to have their eyes pulled out because it looks like it hurts.
And the meme is actually a lie. I don’t have strong feelings about honey, I’m undecided. I actually posted this bait in part to start an argument so I could read what people have to say. And also because it’s funny and this is lemmyshitpost. Right now in this present moment, I don’t think I want honey in My life.
Gay space communist here. I’m not vegan, not even vegetarian - I do however only eat vegetarian at home, and most of the time vegan, but I’ll eat non-vegetarian food when visiting carnivorous friends or even in restaurants, if the veggie options are unappealing.
Honey is something I stopped buying after hearing from vegans about the cruelty in its production - from what I recall, and I did also watch a video or two of the process, queen bees routinely have their legs pulled off to trigger a hive to be built, and while I don’t know if bees are conscious, I know I would never pull the legs off an insect, so I can no longer in good conscience put a pot of honey in my basket as I walk around a supermarket.
Similar logic should also apply to cheese and ice cream, the non-vegan items that I still buy a lot of, but I did try giving up these items for a couple of months, and man I’m sorry baby calves but I just love those things too much.
Good for you for trying, and at least reducing. For what it’s worth I think quitting {insert animal product} always seems inconceivable until one day it isn’t. Just by thinking about it and considering it and giving it a shot once in a while, you’re doing great.
This thread is actually fantastic, I’ve never seen so much open discussion about veganism between vegans and non-vegans with so little malice so I’d say you hit pay dirt.
I like your utilitarian determination of pain more than most utilitarians, who require a complete nervous system and therefore eat shellfish. Your test has a higher standard than theirs, because shellfish still retract when poked nervous system or not.
Honey can be farmed with almost total freedom for the bees (can be, not necessarily often is)
This is why I don’t eat honey. The profit motive incentivizes unethical practices, so the logical choice is to deprive that industry of its profits.
Also, we will never meet the current demand for honey sustainably, so its necessary for some of us to voluntarily go without. I’m more than capable of being one of those people.
Can honey be produced ethically? Theoretically - but you could say the same for any animal product if you get theoretical enough. The truth is that it frequently isn’t produced ethically, and that’s enough for me to opt out. And I think anyone with the ability to stop consuming animal products ought to do likewise.
The fun part is that this doesn’t even tell me which side of the honey debate you’re on.
Not a vegan but I am surprised to learn there is a debate amongst vegans about honey.
Honey is an animal byproduct, so technically it is non-vegan, but I think that’s kind of pedantic because the bees (ideally) aren’t harmed by the apiaries, and the relationships is more of symbiosis rather than exploitation.
I’ve tried explaining this to vegans and they get really hostile about how apiaries are bee slavery and we need to abolish all forms of subjugation and exploitation, and that I’m a colonialist pig for not seeing it that way.
They also talk about some of the problems with large-scale apiary practices. But those problems are very much known within beekeeping communities, and the average small-time beekeeper is as upset as any vegan about giant corporate monocultures spreading parasites and diseases.
The beekeepers are also very active in trying to solve that problem by regulating large-scale apiary practices, monitoring bee colonies, medicating, funding (and participating in) research, etc… All stuff that most vegans couldn’t be bothered to do.
It’s a bit like being against backyard chickens because Tyson and Perdue are an evil industrial ag duopoly.
So… they saw the bee movie and considered a documentary?
Critical thinking skills are on an all time low
Do/can domesticated bees swarm/rewild?
If so it seems like it would be the best argument that bee keeping was mutually consensual.
It’s a bit like being against backyard chickens because Tyson and Perdue are an evil industrial ag duopoly
Are there apiary industry standards/certifications? It seems unlikely most folks are buying the backyard chicken version of honey.
Do/can domesticated bees swarm/rewild?
It is possible. When a colony grows too large for the hive it produces a new queen and then splits itself in half. Usually beekeepers who monitor their colonies notice this and start a new hive, but if left to do their own thing (and if there’s not a queen trap on the entrance) then one of the queens will take half the colony and go search for a place to build a new hive.
If so it seems like it would be the best argument that bee keeping was mutually consensual.
I generally agree, but how do you define that? You can’t exactly get a bee to sign a legal document. Sure you could opt against using a queen trap, and make your hive as enticing as possible so they stay. A good apiary will provide ideal conditions, and cultuvate botanical and herb gardens in the immediate surroundings. Basically make it a paradise for bees, and give them medicine too.
Just because some people abuse their dogs doesn’t mean pet-keeping as a whole should be damned. Punish the abusers and prevent the abuse as much as you can. But don’t take away granny’s sweet little shitzu just because Dale down the street kicks his pit.
Are there apiary industry standards/certifications?
That unfortunately depends on the state. Some do a better job than others.
It seems unlikely most folks are buying the backyard chicken version of honey.
Yes but try asking a vegan “Is it fine if I only choose local honey?”
Again, can’t tell if that’s because you think it’s an insignificant issue, or if you think the answer is obvious, and if so which answer you think that is. Are you being funny on purpose? If so bravo.
Again, can’t tell if that’s because you think it’s an insignificant issue, or if you think the answer is obvious, and if so which answer you think that is. Are you being funny on purpose? If so bravo.
Again? Have we talked about this before?
As a non-vegan who doesn’t spend much time in vegan spaces I wouldn’t say it’s insignificant, but if it hadn’t been brought to my attention as a topic of debate amongst vegans I never would have considered it. I’ve just had a pretty cut and dry understanding that animal products are not vegan.
You can see in my other comments here, my speculation as to how that could be the wrong take. Not because I think any one side or the other is right or wrong, but just trying to understand each position.
I usually am trying to be funny, but not in this case. I’m mostly just disappointed in myself for not knowing why my comment would be funny 😒
yeah the fda classifies it as a meat product.
That’s just a myth spread around the internet.
Their actual definition is:
Reference materials in the public domain define honey as “a thick, sweet, syrupy substance that bees make as food from the nectar of plants or secretions of living parts of plants and store in honeycombs.” FDA has concluded that this definition accurately reflects the common usage of the term “honey
a definition is not a classification though. how do they categorise it?
As “Honey, jams, jellies, fruit butter, molasses”
ah, neat!
There is far more debate about veganism within veganism than there is outside of veganism. Honestly it makes debates with non-vegans look fucking boring.
I’m not at all, vegan as a personal trait is a bit of a broad church these days.
There’s the people that are mostly motivated by the not-killing-animals thing
Then there’s the ones doing it predominantly for environmental reasons
Then you’ve got the ones doing it for various health reasons
Then you’ve got people doing it predominantly for cost reasons (fewer here, given vegan is still treated as a luxury aspect in a lot of food categories)
Those groups do not have to overlap in views at all. It’s entirely expected for there to be disagreement and purity test drama given that IMO
Yeah, I’m not in any vegan groups but I’ve seen (what is hopefully) a vocal online minority of those who use the label for killing-is-wrong reasons come off as angrier at folks using it for any other reason than they are at folks who do consume animal products, and insisting that the other camps should use “plant-based (diet)” instead.
I’ve known people who called themselves vegan and still ate fish, there are basically no rules
That’s pescatarian, not vegan. Whoever said that was wrong.
But I recognize that confidently saying something is wrong is viewed as arrogant these days. We have to respect everyone’s subjectivity, even if that means not saying anything even when they’re blatantly wrong.
Like “No, don’t keep walking forward. There’s a cliff in front of you.” “DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! YOU CAN’T CONTROL ME.”
Toxic positivity has seeped way too far into the collective unconscious…
Removed by mod
That’s pescatarian, not vegan. Whoever said that was wrong.
(And for some reason, ‘vegetarian’ has gone completely out of fashion…)
Probably because vegans bludgeon anyone who calls themselves vegetarians, because apparently we’re worse than carnists because we see that there’s a problem yet only go partially through with the solution.
Like I’ve tried going vegan before, but after a few days I get really cranky and then the cravings start and I end up crashing. I never made it a full week, and it made it harder to even stick to vegetarian foods.
But apparently I’m a terrible person if I ever call myself a vegetarian within earshot of a vegan…
Also there are some obnoxious asses out there who insist that it’s really “ovo-lacto-vegetarian” because apparently vegetarians only eat plants? I’m like no, that would be vegan.
Not that it’s ever been convenient to be vegetarian. But now you get hit from both sides…
The right side
In Lemmy you have to be on the left side.
The
fungenius* partIf you can make both sides of an issue think you’re on their side, you win both of their support.
Even better: make both hate you.
I did assume vegans would be majority against honey consumption.
Hah! It’s roughly 50-50 but even the 50% that doesn’t mind honey would usually buy some sort of syrup. It’s usually about it being an Ingredient.
Some otherwise vegan sweets are coated in super thin bee’s wax, so they don’t stick together. Many don’t mind, especially if the alternative is wrapping them in plastic.
This wouldn’t get the vegan packaging label in Germany. As well as products with ingredients derived from lac insects (shellac), scarlet scale insects (carmine), lately mealworms/crickets in salty snacks, pasta and bread.
Honey debate this, wool debate that. Here’s a real debate for ya (/hj): is consuming human flesh vegan if the person explicitly and verifiably consented to being eaten?
Yes, obviously.
You don’t even need to go to flesh. Cum is a much more common example. IMO, it’s vegan if its consentual in the practical sense, but technically not by a meaningless strict definition sense.
Yeah but I wanted to know about flesh not jizz
no. veganism eschews exploitation of animals for food
But is it exploitation if they deliberately asked for it?
“use” is a synonym of “exploit”
so, yes
But I didn’t say use. I said eat, consensually. Nobody is being used here just adults doing adult stuff consensually
This is my take now as a vegan: any person who is ok with eating animals should also be ok with eating humans*
.
*ethically raised, free-range humansI’m okay with you eating my flesh, just please not while I’m using it. Wait your turn
I think I would doubt they’re mentally all there if they said hey eat me after I die, but assuming they were then I don’t see a problem with it.
i got banned from a vegan comm for saying that bees tend to leave hives if they’re not satisfied with the conditions, a fact that’s just verifiably true.
Those extremists would be very upset if they could recognize reality
Reality is a social construct defined by the dominant ethnic group and manipulated by the Epstein class to control us.
I’d say it’s defined by the dominant group, but that group isn’t necessarily an ethnic group. For example, Sundar Pichai and Jensen Huang are certainly a part of that group. It’s not limited to white Anglo-Saxons anymore.
We really need to stop looking at the issue by pigeonholing it into racial, gender, or sexual categories, because that does not reflect the reality. There are gay oligarchs. There are women oligarchs. There are oligarchs of every skin tone.
These are counter-examples, of course; deviations from what we might consider the “norm,” which is cishetero white male oligarchs. Pointing out that it’s not limited to the latter isn’t a denial that the latter form a disproportionate majority of oligarchs. That’s the part a lot of people miss when I bring this up.
The fundamental issue though is class disparity, which we cannot lose sight of; even if there are other demographic trends within that disparity. Trying to make it about anything else is overly reductive and harmful.
Here in Australia, there was a genocide for a long time where the goal was to destroy Aboriginal culture. I mean, there was plenty of murder and eugenics in there too, but the culture was a really big thing. Kids were stolen from their parents and put on missions where they couldn’t speak language or practice religion. English and Christianity only. For a long time, Aboriginal people could only be granted citizenship if they renounced their Aboriginality. No more interacting in any way with the community, no language, no culture.
Aboriginal ontology and metaphysics are fundamentally different to European ontology and metaphysics. It’s a different reality. Consensus reality was made by white people, practicing whiteness in their actions. And then everyone else was forced into it, at least in “the west”. I assert that nonwhite people in the anglosphere are only allowed to join the dominant class, if they give up their own culture and its reality, and practice whiteness and white reality instead. Which isn’t that hard for a lot of bougie people of colour to do, because they’ve been colonised and assimilated.
I think the intersections of race and class are really important to understand, because if we rebel against race and not class, we’ll just end up with racist socialism. You know, like China and the USSR. And we’ll be doing “the people’s genocide” against the Uyghurs or whatever.
I propose instead that the revolution must be decolonial. Communism was invented by Turtle Islanders and Aboriginal people. Engels got the idea from reading Lewis Henry Morgan’s books on the Haudenosaunee. We will achieve successful communism, with no state, by working together with Indigenous people as our Elders and teachers, because they’re the experts. They’ve got the social science to do it already.
For example:
HyperNormalisation is a 2016 BBC documentary by British filmmaker Adam Curtis. It argues that following the global economic crises of the 1970s, governments, financiers and technological utopians gave up on trying to shape the complex “real world” and instead established a simpler “fake world” for the benefit of multi-national corporations that is kept stable by neoliberal governments. The film was released on 16 October 2016 on BBC iPlayer.[2]
Anything by Adam Curtis is required viewing.
…I miss the days when radical statements sounded far off and crazy. Now they just sound like statements of undeniable truth.
I agree with you on the fact, but willingness to stay does not equal informed consent.
Informed consent does not exist in the animal world and I’m very saddened that that’s a sentence I had to type.
You cannot apply human standards to animals, they do not understand contract law…again, a sentence I’m just very sad I had to type because they didn’t understand that.
I’ve tried to have this discussion SO many times, and every time I’m treated like there’s nothing I love more than raping goats and torturing pigs.
That cow that lives on the hobby farm, spends its days roaming fields and eating flowers, then gets milked in the evening and petted with genuine love and affection, is not worse off because the farmer didn’t create a formal contract in order to obtain it’s consent to be milked.
It gave its consent by walking to the milking station, and waiting to be milked.
“Nuh uh! That’s not consent! It didn’t learn English and say the words ‘I consent to being milked,’ therefore milking it is evil!”
People who would be angered by this aren’t reachable, ya just gotta block em.
You just gotta stop giving a damn what dipshits think.
Post your initial message so that some passerby might glean some insight and then move on.
The opinions of people whom I will never ever see nor interact with ever again means less than nothing. They can think I’m the biggest fucking idiot in the world, doesn’t matter to me, I’ll sleep just fine.
I have known vegans IRL who are genuinely reasonable and can discuss this stuff. On the Internet, 95% of the time you just cannot even discuss it with someone who identifies as vegan, I would imagine even if you’re a vegan yourself, unless you 100% agree with them on how to apply the philosophy. In this very thread I asked a question and it was all but ignored and I was assumed to be shitting on veganism rather than questioning a specific argument/interpretation of it. I think it sucks because I literally agree with like 90% of everything any vegan says, it’s when they veer away from the facts and more toward personal feelings they have that I cannot talk to them about it anymore. It makes sense on the one hand because if that viewpoint resonates with you it’s gonna make you upset to think about and to be shit on for, but on the other, if it cannot even be discussed without false assumptions, insults, and avoidance of inconvenient facts on their part, they’re just going to lend credence to the anti-vegan prick arguments. Because of this extreme inability to even discuss the topic I have to block a lot of vegans because I’d rather do that than always remain silent for fear of upsetting them. They always seem 100% convinced I’m an evil carnist who hates them and is pretending not to be just to erode veganism, but it’s just not so.
I’m in the same boat. I actually agree with 90% of veganism. Animals shouldn’t suffer needlessly. People should eat less meat and animal products. Factory farming is horrifying and unethical. Where it falls apart is the universal claim of “Therefore, even the smaller regenerative and ethical farms are evil, because ALL animal use is unethical.” Which, if you follow the logic and consequences, requires us to either support millions of animals in domestic environments without ANY method of financial independence beyond donations or government support. Or, we drive dozens of distinct species to extinction, simply because some people feel personally attacked when I make an omelette. If we could ask the animals themselves, I struggle to believe that a happy cow living on a dairy farm would prefer non-existance to getting milked occasionally when they want to.
I have very little respect for anyone who cannot justify opinions, or get offended when beliefs are questions. If you don’t want your beliefs questioned, don’t announce them.
Yeah. I think it comes down to the absolutism. They almost certainly ate some amount of meat/animal products themselves, but once they arrived at their current principles, they have no more understanding for it. Rather than remember that they too had to learn/work to get to their understanding, they see you as an enemy for not sharing it. Of course I mean if you offer even the slightest pushback.
I’ve reduced my meat intake by a lot and I agree with what you wrote here. If vegan food was widely available everywhere I’d probably eat WAY less animal products. But dozens of vegans online have given no shits about that, whereas a reasonable person would, and would have some level of empathy toward not being 100% with them on everything they say in terms of applying the knowledge. I totally get wondering how a person could acknowledge animal suffering and still participate in it. I’ve examined myself over that one hundreds of times now. But it’s the reality, it’s where I’m at. And I should be able to talk about it without an automatic assumption that I’m a thoughtless monster who is trying to tear down their worldview. I’m not. Is this about me personally? I’m talking about so obviously yes it’s sorta personal that I have these unpleasant and unproductive conversations on the Internet sometimes, but I truly would rather them not happen for anyone else either. For the toxic assholes who really do want to tear down veganism, they’re worse people, but I already knew that. For the vegans spewing hatred at all the “carnists” I expect better and I think I’m right to. They changed their lives for a good reason. Now why the fuck can’t they talk about it the majority of the time? It’s frustrating.
I have to imagine that those people are virgins, because no one is signing a 17-page contract prior to getting it on.
Consent is allowed to be simple as long as it’s obvious and real. I shouldn’t need a law degree to suck a dick.
Exactly, feed them sugar and they’ll happily stay, that’s not saying it’s good for them. Plus all the monoculture on which they often feed is detrimental to their survival as a species. It’s funny to me how in this capitalist world, there is a living being that is somehow not immorally exploited.
Exactly, feed them sugar and they’ll happily stay
Guess I’m a bee.
Good news: we’ve found ways to satisfy them with the conditions while also killing the hives.
that makes sense.
completely fair, and a response that would hawe been greatly appreciated at the time.
Honestly, I’m on Team Honey, but that argument has a glaring hole in it.
Which is that many apiaries put an object over the entrance to the hive which lets worker bees pass freely but blocks the queen from escaping. And worker bees bonded to a queen will literally die before abandoning her.
So they can’t just leave. Bees that do that in the while travel as a colony in what’s called a swarm (which is actually very docile because they have no hive to defend). A bee that gets separated from its colony dies.
I’m not an expert by any means, but I have known some beekeepers. Once I was asked to go help because one of their hives had “swarmed”, meaning a group had left the box with the/a queen and had posted up on a neighbors rose bush.
Some areas have a “swam list,” where beekeepers put their name on the list and whenever someone in the area finds a swarm on their property they call someone from the swarm list and they come out to get the bees.
It’s a lot better than the alternative, which is ignorant property owners spraying the swarm with wasp poison… :(
The whole debacle can be easily avoided by just eating the bees directly.
You could probably get out of just about any argument this way.
The whole debacle can be easily avoided by just eating the
beesflowers directly.Pssshhhh!!! Maybe you set your sights that low. You can eat your bee’s, I’ll only be eating A’s!
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) …just tell me where the line starts…
