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But never announce it on social media. The purists will fight you.
Vegans have the worst PR department ever
I’ve never encountered a group I mostly agree with that I want to avoid more
I’ve been a strict Vegan for over a decade now and even i tend to stay away from the crowd. It’s a bit better offline, but depends on how much any person needs to boost their ego by signaling moral pureness.
I’m a bacontarian like in the image, but I love sharing recipes with all folks. This works even for the hardcore vegans.
Baconarian?
The word you are looking for is Murderer, obviously 😉
But honestly, cutting out animal products helps animals, so thanks for that. Should it be all animal products? I’d say yes and live accordingly, but i can accept that other people arrive at other points.
The word you are looking for is Murderer, obviously
And yes, I know. I try to only eat suicidal animals, because I’m a good human!
My initial goal with switching more and more things to vegan was to reduce my ecological footprint.
For the animal products I still consume, I try to buy the fairest and highest quality available. If I’m responsible for their end, the life they had should at least be somewhat pleasant. But I guess they would prefer not to be eaten at all.
I’m just, in this moment, testing a new oat milk, and thus far I like it. It’s a worthy contender against Oatly Barista
Doctor Who fans circa 15 years ago. I enjoyed the show for a while after the reboot. They were insufferable and I stopped watching at some point.
You know, that’s what they act like come to think of it. A toxic fandom. They’ve got something good that I occasionally enjoy. But I’m not as into as they are so I’m not welcome. And that’s fine. With Doctor Who I just stopped. With veganism I’ll make myself some cool ass meals and never share the recipes.
If there’s one group I hate serving more as a waiter, it’s vegans
Every other dietary will put in their booking their dietary in order to allow the chefs time to prepare them something pre service (we usually run a chef’s choice menu, set items)
Even FODMAP, arguably one of the most confusing dietaries, isn’t this bad at it. But vegans will almost always show up unannounced and expect to be fed when the only item on the menu that’s normally vegan is the bloody bread
If it’s bloody, the bread probably isn’t vegan either.
I think this can be said about a lot of the groups focused on some ethical viewpoint. They come out with a lot of rage, which might be justified for their viewpoint but does more to generate opposition than support. One of those “you might be right but you’re still an asshole” situations even for those who agree with them, but the type that provokes “you don’t like that I do this, eh? Well I’m going to do it even more because I don’t like you and I want to upset you” kind of responses in those who don’t agree.
vegans as well as linux users are nowhere near as outspoken and petty as they are made out to be. personally i find jokes about that insufferable and ubiquitous. The ratio of jokes about this to actually people like this existing is like 100:1. my theory is, They get so much shit because them just existing reminds people of their own shortcommings, instead of applauding people doing the effort to pioneer a better world these people decide to make a snarky remark and continue being lazy and annoying with these jokes.
I know quite a few vegans in my life who are amazing, nonjudgmental people. On Lemmy, I’ve been called a “murderer” and a “carnist” for mentioning I’m reducing my meat consumption.
Doesn’t carnist just mean someone who eats meat?
It does. It’s just a word for people who follow the belief that it’s normal, natural, and necessary to consume animals.
Since those people are the invisible majority, it’s often taken as an insult to have their ‘normal’ status get a label. Veganism is the belief that we shouldn’t exploit and harm animals, carnism is the belief that we should.
Which is hilarious in hindsight, because the reverse happens in other topics. Call someone in other circles ‘normal’ and they’ll throw 15 label names at you for why they’re not normal.
Carnism would still technically cover “vegan plus (animal-based) bacon”. That’s kinda like saying you’re an atheist but believe in (insert god here).
Carnism would still technically cover “vegan plus (animal-based) bacon”
And this all-or-nothing approach is precisely what I’m referring to. I consider myself pretty well-read, and the only time I’ve ever seen the word “carnist” used in the wild is when someone who’s vegan is hurling it as an insult
Sorry to break it to you, but if you believe that the Christian god exists yet don’t think there was ever a guy named Jesus that rose from the dead after 3 days, you’re still a theist even if you call it atheist.
And if you think it’s acceptable to kill pigs because you like their cooked bodies, you’re still practicing carnism even if you call it veganism.
“I’m reducing my meat consumption by doing (x).”
“Fuck off, carnist!”
It really isn’t being used that way when the intention is flagrantly insultive.
Yup. I posted the canadian food “plate” in one of the vegan communties as a sanier counterexample to the new US inverted meat pyramid. Canada fought its Ag industry tooth and nail to publish it. The pretty reasonable “protein” section is largly beans, nuts, fish and then red meat, in a way that mirrors actual health recommendations instead of industry demands.
I specifically called it a better version that recommended eating less meat. Immediatly hit with “all meat is murder” and had my comment deleted within the hour.
It doesnt change my personal views on veganism, but it did tell me not to interact with the community here, which is unfortunate. Id like to get more input and perspectives, and hell even recipe recommendations, but nah.
You went to a vegan community and posted propaganda advocating consumption of animals and you’re surprised at the response?
I went to a vegan community, agreeded that the US “EAT ALL THE RED MEAT” food guideline was asinine, then offered a “eat much less meat” option with an explicit statement that “it isnt ideal from a vegan perspective, but better.”
Yes, I was surprised by the poor response. I’m offering support for reducing meat consumption, and was met by “good is not perfect so fuck you” zealotry. Its fine if they dont want non vegans to interact and learn more about veganism, but it would have been better to put that on the sidebar so those of us “interested, but not converted” stay out.
please go ahead and share the discussion with us
Lemmy has plenty of mentally unwell people, who feel identifying strongly with some or another cause gives their life meaning.
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Vegan, is in fact, bacon/Vegan, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, bacon plus Vegan. Vegan is not an diet unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functioning diet system made useful by the bacon, grease and vitals destroying components comprising a full obesity as defined by WHO.
I see what you did there…
I speak from personal experience. I once tried talking about reducing meat consumption and got attacked. Never again.
I got banned from a vegan community for calling someone out for equating meat consumption with domestic violence.
You think violence and violence aren’t comparable?
Comparing eating meat with domestic violence is a laughable comparison and disingenuous at best. It’s attitudes like that that make the average person unable to take vegans seriously.
Comparing eating meat with domestic violence is a laughable comparison
You’re right of course, but not in the way you intend. The scope and scale of violence in animal agriculture is far greater than in domestic violence cases.
I’m perplexed and rather horrified that you are so unable to empathize with your fellow creatures that you think anyone who can is being disingenuous.
most people are chill, but there are people who act like if you aren’t a vegan or a linux user, you are an evil and morally compromised person
which is understandable coming from vegans, imo. bad tactic and all but yeah, animal consumption is pretty messed up.
coming from linux evangelists it’s fucking laughable
All the linux “evangelists” I’ve seen online just shitpost with inside jokes, or talk about the benefits of FOSS, or explain what makes google and microsoft such evil companies, or post genuinely helpful content about software alternatives or advice for making the switch.
I’ve never seen a rabid linux user. On the other hand, some vegans get so rabid that they actually chase people away from their cause. You’re never going to get people to change a core aspect of their lives such as eating habits by insulting them and going on a tirade about why they’re evil.
For what it’s worth, I’ve spent years as a vegetarian, and it took me years before that to gradually reduce my meat consumption to zero. I tried going vegan a few times but I would get grumpy, lethargic, and start craving things like cheese and eggs.
There is no room in vegan spaces online to talk about the process of reducing consumption or the struggle associated with it. That’s pretty detrimental to the goal of a 100% meat-free society.
The only way we’ll ever eliminate factory farming is through slow-incremental change. But the average vegan will never accept that. They’re a classic example of “letting perfection be the enemy of progress.”
idk the amount of times I’ve tried to explain my wife and kid’s dietary restrictions that mean veganism is basically impossible for us in other places I get a lot of hate.
The kids are autistic and have major taste and texture aversions, which maybe we could work around with the right things. My wife though had a malabsorptive bariatric surgery that means she needs to eat Low carb, High protein, and most importantly Low volume meals. When you need like 1.5 cups of beans to get the same protein as like 3oz of ground beef and only have a 6 ounce stomach volume you kinda have to go with the one that gives you the most protein for the least volume.
So I mean this from a place of curiosity not trying to get you all to change anything, I’m not even vegetarian. Is there a particular reason your wife couldn’t do several smaller meals over the day? Like do their organs not allow something like that anymore or more like it would be ridiculous to carry around a bag of beans to snack on over the course of 4 hours?
I’m going to preface this by saying that I’m going to be adding some addendums/emphasis and providing some additional context for some things about her condition in here. I do not mean any of this to say that I believe that you personally are or plan on discounting her condition. It is meant only for emphasis because the particular bariatric surgery she had, the Duodenal Switch is significantly more involved than most other surgeries. A lot of people end up having to have the surgery partially reversed because they can’t keep up with the vitamin supplementation and end up hospitalized and dying of malnutrition.
The malabsorption means that she already has to have many small meals through the day. Then each of those meals needs to hit certain macros while being under that volume.
So like to give an example. She needs at least 200g of protein in a day while staying as far under 50g of carbs as possible (fiber included) to not be utterly miserable. That’s not “the doctor told me to get this much” they told her to go for 150g. That’s the levels she’s found over the years result in her not being in significant gastrointestinal distress and actually having decent energy levels along with the roughly 50 vitamin supplements she HAS TO TAKE TO NOT DIE OF MALNUTRITION because and I cannot stress this enough the malabsorption means she CANNOT properly absorb most of these vitamins from food. They need to be very specific formulations at specific times of day to keep her levels up. Like 125,000IU+ PER DAY of Vitamin A (This is WILL KILL YOU levels for a normal person BTW) to still be partially night blind from deficiency (yes she has seen a doctor about it to make sure it’s nothing else)
That 1.5 cups of black beans is around 22.5g of protein and 60g of carbs. So that’s 2 entire “meals” of nothing but beans to have a little over 1/10th of the protein she needs in a day and 20% over the entire day’s limit for carbs.
One might think “Why get this surgery then?” if it’s like this. Which is a fair question. For my wife in particular she had a condition called pseudotumor cerebri where she was producing too much cerebrospinal fluid and not getting rid of it fast enough so it was compressing her brain and optic nerve much like a brain tumor (hence why it is called pseudo tumor). She was significantly overweight at the time and had this issue before. It resolved temporarily when she lost weight but due to heavy food insecurity and other trauma when she was younger she struggled to keep the weight off. So she had 2 options: Aggressive weight loss from bariatric surgery, or getting a shunt implanted in her skull to drain the fluid. She chose the bariatric surgery that gave her the best chance of not still needing the shunt, which was the DS. Since having severe OCD she knew for a fact she could keep up with the vitamin supplementation and use managing the vitamins as an adaptive outlet for the OCD.
Why specific formulations and times for vitamins? A couple reasons, one is ease of absorption. Certain formulations have to be basically digested a little first to get properly absorbed which because of the surgery her body just doesn’t properly do. This is basically why she needs the supplements to begin with. Since her body only properly digests part of what she eats she doesn’t actually absorb a bunch of the nutrients from it and needs to supplement the vitamins her body can’t absorb well from food. The second is that certain vitamins interfere with the absorption of others, calcium inhibiting iron absorption for example.
They are two very different things to discuss. First, eating is vital, computing with computers is not. People eat to survive and 44% of the people in the world live in poverty, so they probably don’t get to choose what to eat to survive. This statistic takes China into account, outside of China, the fight against poverty is way more ineffective, to put it mildly. The USA has been okay with an increasing amount of poor people, in the range of 10-15% by more than half a century. There are countries with >80% of people living in poverty in Africa.
But even if you can choose, my opinion is that achieving a balanced diet is the goal, not being a vegan.
The purists will hate you, and those that hate the purists will also hate you.
I’m a purist but I appreciate everyone doing their best. Everyone has different challenges and priorities and in the end a bacontarian is much better than eating meat all the time, according to me at least.
For me, I’d love to see the monoculture farms go away. Reduced meat eating would go a long way to that end.
It doesn’t require completely abstaining but even a 10% reduction in the need for feed and other processed items would free up land that could be used in more sustainable ways.
To that end, I’m also a fan of alternative farming methods such as vertical farms and promoting even small balcony boxes that may only produce pretty flowers or herbs.
Every variety of greenery in as many places as possible would combat the poison we’ve pumped into the world over the past few centuries.
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Ah, I guess I’m more of a dietary purist.
Its so refreshing to hear someone just be reasonable like this. Thank you.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
And the enemy of progress. If everyone arrived for “good enough” we’d get further than people who refuse to try for fear of not achieving perfection. And this is problem comes not only from that person, but from the external pressure to be perfect. Fuck that shit. My old man used to get on me as a kid, “You only want to be good enough?” Yeah, that’s fine. I get everything done that I need to, and I can go be good enough at some other shit too, and I think I make the world around me better with all of my good enough shit.
Being overly pushy and judgmental towards people who want to make a change in the right direction is a great way to repel them from your cause. I prefer to welcome them and offer them the proper resources to get started.
It’s entirely possible that once the people who want to go vegan but aren’t ready to give up bacon/cheese/that one other food get used to a vegan diet and substitutions, they will eventually be ready to let go of those last few products on their own.
That applies to any cause. Every time I see people going all in and fighting anyome with 1 inch of different opinion I think “you are only pushing people away”. Once someone is moving is the right direction, let them go. If you still don’t agree 100% it’s ok, people can improve with time. Be tolerant of people and you’ll see a lot of improvement. Radicalism will never, in any areas, be good or make the world better
Being overly pushy and judgmental towards people who want to make a change in the right direction is a great way to repel them from your cause.
Someone who openly eats bacon because they enjoy it and claim themself vegan is far away from the vegan cause. If you don’t like to ear the truth or face simple criticism i would argue you are not really looking to make much change in the right direction.
I would argue that the person willing to give up 95% of their meat consumption cares more about making a change than the one telling them not to bother at all because it’s not the full 100%.
According to one survey, which has some interesting statistics on veganism:
52.1% or 6779 participants said they were vegetarian prior to going vegan.
Research suggests that people are more likely to stick to habits that they adopt gradually rather than suddenly making drastic lifestyle changes, and it’s much easier to reach 100 from 95 than it is from 0. Maybe a better vegan substitute for bacon will be invented in that time and they’ll give it up even sooner.
As another user here says, don’t let perfection be the enemy of good.
You’ve convinced me, I’m going vegan + meat + dairy + animal fat.
Gatekeepers are the fucking worst. Every time I start reading up on something there’s always a handful of miserable condescending shitheads being nasty to people because they’re 'not ‘doing it right.’
Most vegan threads I come across usually has some of these, insulting anyone that’s not 100% on board even if they’re trying to get into it. Audiophiles are pretty much on the same level as hardcore vegans when it comes to being obnoxious (recently saw someone ask why the op was bothering setting up a music system if they didn’t have thousands of dollars to spare, for example). Linux users on support threads is a coin flip of whether they’ll be helpful or insulting.
Let people ease into things, stop demanding perfection right out of the gates!
I think that knowing the definition of veganism is the bare minimum. Gatekeeping is one thing, but you should at least know what the thing you’re trying to join is. If you’ve done zero research, that’s on you.
What I would say to folks is that they should do whatever they want. If they want to eat a 99% plant based diet, then they should do that.
It’s not gatekeeping to say that you aren’t vegan if you eat bacon, but at the same time, veganism is more about ideology than diet.
I think I understand the complaint. It’s shitty when a word with a clear definition gets literally co-opted by the masses. Then you have to go find a new word for something that was already solved.
That being said, I’d rather we dilute the term vegan if it means getting more people to eat less meat. You can invent new words faster than you can convert people.
The problem is when said research runs you straight to a bunch of nasty people over and over. Really dampens enthusiasm when trying to get into something. Veganism is not something I personally want to get into (I’m not opposed, I just read threads to get other perspectives on things in general), but I observe the same behaviour in vegan threads as I do in other communities with die-hard enthusiasts for things that I am into. The same behaviour is also in Linux communities which makes me hesitate to recommend it to people, because it has a toxic shithead problem.
Kinda like when you look up a problem and the first thing you run into is a guy telling the op that they’re a moron and to just google it
You don’t do research into anything by asking random scrubs on the Internet.
Read a book, read a book, read a motherfucking book.
Honestly, most of the mid-range PC motherboards give a good enough sound output that one won’t require a separate cheap music system unless they want to disturb the neighbours.
I make do with my monitors’ speakers, which are pretty cheap. And when I care about sound quality, just use my headphones (which is the only audio thing I put a lot of money on) and having higher fidelity room speakers won’t even help me due to the traffic noise all day.
Monitor speakers are so awful, you can get a big improvement by spending $20 on a set of cheap PC speakers, which you can improve on more with a $100 soundbar.
Just due to the nature of how sound works, you need at least a certain amount of space for your divers and monitors are optimized to take up as little space as possible (over the screen itself). A lot of monitor speakers don’t even drive the sound towards you and sound like whatever is playing was recorded in a tin can.
Drive the speakers from your motherboard, you’re right that it can handle outputting signals that most people couldn’t even tell the difference between that and an expensive sound system (and those who say they can would surprise me if they could consistently do so in a blind test), but going from monitor speakers to dedicated speakers is one of the cheapest and most effective upgrades you can do with a PC IMO.
As I said, when I care about sound, I would just use my expensive headphones.
Just for hearing notification sounds and normal speech, with no particular musical requirements, monitor speakers are good enough.
And I have actually seen some sound systems that are worse than my current monitor speakers (although I can’t say why, considering they were other people’s setups). I even have the old SoundBlaster desktop speakers lying around somewhere and don’t consider them worth the effort.Similarly, laptop speakers work well enough for non-music purposes too.
Why is it that when libs talk about “imperfection” it seemingly is about mass murder? This is how they tried to sell genocide joe, then bomber harris, and now this treatbrained bullshit.
That’s quite an escalation, and you demonstrated my point excellently. You’re not gonna bring more people to your point of view by being nasty, you’re only driving them away.
I am seeing more and more folks go veg simply because the price, and that’s great! Build a culture of veg meals and normalize the epic curries, chillis, soups, stews, spreads, and tofu / seitan/mushroom dishes
I really like Derek Sarno’s YouTube channel for this reason. I feel very welcome watching his content because he doesn’t browbeat folks who aren’t fully vegan, he just presents an epic mountain of some of the most mouth watering vegan food I’ve ever seen.
Instead of purity tests to keep folks out, we need more people like Derek who hold the door open for everyone, so they can smell the amazing food cooking inside.
Can’t upvite this enough. I’m not really vegetarian, but I love the fact that it is gaining traction, since it’s just so much better food. If there is a vegan option of anything, I’ll go for that.
The best burger I’ve ever eaten had a giant mushroom as the main thing in it, sterotypically served by a trans girl at a street food vendor in the gay quarter of Amsterdam.
It literally ruined burgers for me, I’m still chasing that high. I think if you want to be a vegan activist, learn to cook well and open a restaurant. That’s how they got me.
That’s awesome. I’ve had some bad experiences with mushroom burgers. I need a good one like this.
Dont get caught up in labels. If you want to vegetarian but don’t want to give up bacon just do it. Doesn’t matter what you label it it’s just a diet.
This also applies to renewable enrgy btw. Some people seem to think we can’t start with the energy transition before we’ve figured it all out, including storage for the winter and at night.
Let’s just build solar panels and wind mills and see how far we can go with that :D much more productive that way.
Yeah, the “only nuclear will solve the problems” people really just seem to be working to keep fossil fuels at this point.
And so do the “avoid nuclear at all costs” people
Oh, absolutely. While there’s quite a few things to worry about with nuclear, going to coal instead (which is what happened in many places) is a far more destructive thing.
Solar and batteries are here today. They can be installed today. The only thing missing is the political will to make the fake valuations of the fossil fuel companies, which ignore externalities, diminish.
Id love if world could just ditch the fossil fuels and move to renewals, but it often seems people does not account how hard it is to make nation wide electric grid from wind and solar.
I live in a part of the world where during the winter when the electricity demand is on its highest, there are only few hours of sunlight per day at best.
And wind is wind. There is sometimes too much of it so the windmills are not safe to run and sometimes there are too little to generate enough electricity.
Even if there would be enough wind and solafarms to in theory to run the whole country, we have no real means to tranfer the electricity for long distances and we dont have any way to store the generated electricity long term, so it could be used at the times when farms are not producing enough.
Oil and coal on the other hand are easy to stockpile and transfer if needed and the plants can be build almost anywhere. Also the tech is simple enough, so replacement parts are fairly easy to make, so those can be repaired and jury rigged even if there would be situation where trade would halt. I get why some countries want to make sure they have security of electricity supply.
Hopefully the new generations of solid state batteries will live to the hype and help with the transfer and long term storage problems renevables currently have.
I actually work with batteries in the EU. Which is exactly what solves the problems you’re putting here. Solar and wind can both work with large and small batteries, both in front and behind the meter.
Battery tech is already at the point where it can solve the problem. Yes, it will continue to get cheaper and better, and that’s a good thing - but there’s nothing prevent adoption right now.
we have no real means to tranfer the electricity for long distances
What do you mean? Electric grids and high voltage transmission have been around for over a century.
My knowledge is not really on date but as far as i know we still have no battery system good enough for long term electricity storing and what we are using right now are used for short term energy peaks, not storing the energy in summer so we could use it on the winter.
Yes we have HVDC, but it has its problems when electricity is coming from multiple smaller plants, especially when there production and demand is not even. Basically i mean that if there is side of a country that is not producing anything and if there is a other side that is overproducing, the current system we have, is not able to smooth that out. Granted it is a problem that could be solved with tossing money and engineers at it.
And electric vehicles. Series hybrids with 30-50 miles of range of battery and a gas engine for further (Prius Prime, Volt, Clarity) were disliked by gas car people (usually being ignorant about how it works at all, and all made up EV problems), and also disliked by EV purists (not a real EV, hauling around a whole engine, still uses gas, etc)
I’ll admit to being one of those EV purists, but your comment snapped me out of it. Hauling around a whole engine isn’t bad if your electrical grid is clean enough.
The volt was awesome for its time (aka. Opel Ampera in the EU). Even with quite a lot of highway driving we got 1L/100km (~235mpg) with it over its lifetime around 2014. That’s with charging at home of course, but still, it’s at minimum a fivefold reduction in fuel consumption. And that with a 15kWh battery pack, which is a lot smaller than full EVs, making it less resource intensive.
I eat more veggies and less meat than ever
That’s down to iterative changes.
If the only option was a hard-line cold-turkey (lol) approach, I’d very likely have never changed a thing
It’s definitely easier if you do it one format at a time.
Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly
“We do this not because it is easy, but because we thought that it would be easy.”
Not something I want to hear just before going under for my surgery.
Yeah but if you were in the middle of nowhere and just broke your leg, would you rather have a lazy doctor or no doctor at all
Vegan restaurants and tiktok chefs do infinitely more for veganism than posters.
i always wanted to quit smoking, but couldn’t drop the first cigarette with my morning coffee. it took me way too long to make peace with that single cigarette, turns out i can easily forgoe the other 19 I’ve been smoking every day
Last year I nearly quit smoking weed, except when I’m playing Dungeons & Dragons.
that’s fair enough, you probably don’t play d&d every day
even if they do play d&d daily, it’s still less than if they were a morning/noon/night smoker.
Because that’s plant-based plus bacon. Veganism is an ethos, not a diet.
Silly downvoters. You’re absolutely right. Veganism has diet as a component, but at its core is a desire to limit harm to animals in every possible aspect.
If you eat only plants/mushrooms, but still buy leather shoes, down pillows, or wool socks - that’s not veganism, that’s just following a plant-based diet. The two concepts overlap, but they are distinct from each other.
This sort of pedantry also annoys and turns people away from the cause though. Typically when people say they’re vegan, they’re talking about their diet, and it’s easy to infer that based on context. I really hope you don’t go around browbeating self-professed vegans by going “nuh uh, you’re a liar, that’s a leather strap I see on your watch”
Lol, of course not. What would be the point of that? I can acknowledge someone being gifted a leather watch, or continuing to wear old leather shoes they bought from before they went vegan, as a vegan still trying their best.
But pointing out a verbal distinction on a chat board like Lemmy isn’t the same as calling people out in-person. The distinction matters, and this is an appropriate place to make that point. Harassing people for their choices is an entirely different scenario.
There isn’t really a verbal distinction though. “Vegan” is an overloaded word that has multiple definitions, and you can very validly use it to describe your diet. “Correcting” people by telling them they should say “plant based” instead is just pedantry.
The fact that most people don’t think about it critically doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be explained and telling people who belong to a group that they can’t tell you what their group specifically is about is entitled and absurd.
Veganism is not a diet and there are a number of diets you may adopt while being vegan.
I can accept that the harm reductionism that Danielle is advocating for is good compared to the lack of restraint we have as a culture, but this does not make it vegan.
And the fact that you assume people “aren’t thinking critically” when they use a word in a way you don’t like says a lot about you. Makes you seem like the entitled one, actually.
If you can’t accept that saying “I eat vegan” or “I follow a vegan diet” is just as valid as someone saying “I’m vegan” in the context of taking about food/diets, you’re gonna have a tough time, because that’s just how our language is used.
I’m sure you can get away with telling trans people what they are without trans people or defining atheism without atheists. But sure. Sound off like the ignorant ass you are.
It also gets super annoying when people start learning the watered-down meaning.
The number of times people have asked “But you eat fish, right?” because pescatarians call themselves vegetarians instead of taking 3s to explain “It means I eat plants and fishes” is real annoying.
Labels with a specific meaning that have practical applications should not be muddied with use like that.
Not pedantry. Veganism is an ethical position, distinct from carnism, which is also an ethical position. That may not be how the majority use the term, but it is possible for a majority to be misinformed. If vegans yield the term and it comes to mean “mostly eats plants, sometimes eat fish or pig or perhaps bear”, what should they call
“tries to minimize animal abuse as far as possible and practical”? Wouldn’t the new term also be eventually devoured?
So when you go to a restaurant and they say “do you have any dietary restrictions”, you can reply “I’m Catholic” and they should guess what that means?
Vegan is an overloaded word that is both a diet and an ethos. Don’t try and restrict the language. You will not win.
The issue here is that veganism is regarded as a diet by the popular culture and fad dieters, not vegans. Your insistance that we not try to correct the record is like asking middle easterners not to set things straight when people assume all of them are Arabians or Muslim.
Veganism is regarded as a diet by vegans. The diet kind of vegans. You’re doing a No True Scotsman.
You can certainly try to fight language. It doesn’t usually work. Good luck!
- I am vegan. I know what I’m talking about.
- All kinds of people call themselves a vegan without without actually being one.
- It’s not a no true Scotsman because I’m using the actual definition for what veganism is, the one given by the vegan society. You’re making a category error here.
- I will absolutely fight language when language is wrong. I have had several times in my life where I gave up the colloquial definitions that I’ve lived with in order to have my views more accurately reflect the words that members of specific communities use to define themselves. Otherwise I’d think that bisexuals only dated men and women, ace people are incapable of romantic attraction, all feminists hate men, and that trans people can’t be trans without clinically diagnoseable dysphoria.
- Thanks for the luck, but I’m blocking you. Have a lovely day.
mushrooms and yeast aren’t plants though, so it’s also also “fungus-based” as well
An issue with boycotts in general is that people are constantly talking about what not to do and not what to do alternatively or the specifics on how to get there. Eventually it makes you realize that literally anything you do will cause someone to get genocided or abused somewhere, and when they way out isn’t clear or straightforward, now you’re overwhelmed with thousands of things you hate that you do and have to figure out how to change on your own one by one, and those changes result in new problems that overwhelm you or turn out to also be unethical and you have to change them yet again. And in the end you hate yourself because your change attempts made you miserable while you’re still doing doing harmful things and other people hate you because you’re still causing genocides and the rest think you’re an idiot or a hypocrite for trying at all, while meanwhile everyone else around you is just enjoying themselves and not giving a fuck, and you’ll always be a terrible person anyways so you might as well give up.
I think if more people instead of saying “don’t do this” instead said “do this instead” when they talked about what to boycott and why, that would help with harm reduction a lot more.
Veganism is not a boycott. Here’s the commonly-accepted definition of veganism from the Vegan Society:
Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.
It is practically a boycott though, since a purpose of a boycott is to avoid something that is unethical. With veganism you’re refusing to purchase (or obtain in other ways, but 99% of people purchase) products that involve animal exploitation. For BDS you’re refusing to purchase products that involve Palestinian exploitation. For most others you’re refusing to purchase products that involve other forms of human exploitation like slave labor, like with the chocolate industry, battery mining, sweatshops, etc. (Nestle being a common example)
No, a boycott is withholding purchase to get a company to change. For example most people observing BDS would have no problem buying mcdonalds if they are no longer part of the occupation. The problem isn’t the product but how it’s obtained. With vegans the problem is the product and no amout of “free range” or “no chick killing” is gonna have us buy dairy or eggs.
The product is “food”, the problem is animal abuse. Would vegans have a problem with buying a vegan bigmac?
It depends on the vegan and other circumstance I suppose. I would on BDS grounds and that even a vegan bigmac still supports one of the largest cow murdering corporations there is. I don’t understand the point of a “vegan” bigmac and having mcdonalds not be part of the palestinian or cow genocide means it would functionally be a completely different entity bearing only the name due to historical reasons. Like Nintendo the playing cards company and Nintendo the videogames company.
Sure, but that more or less also goes for Israel.
Olives from pissrael or spain are still olives. A “vegan” bigmac is a different product from the “original”.
Getting a business to change is also one of the goals. It pressures restaurants and grocery stores to provide more vegan options and put less focus on animal products.
Remember this always: Try.
Do what you can and don’t regret it. It’s not on you to fix the world but if we all just try, even a little bit, we might succeed eventually. Just remember when you try, I am too and so are millions and millions of others
100%
I don’t judge people who go through the world and bungle things up a bit. I save that for people who don’t even try.
I am only boycotting when I have options or I really don’t need whatever is offered. Also if it is the only option and I need it, the boycott takes a back seat.
I am an activist when it doesn’t inconvenience me
essentially what the tweet in the OP sounds like, thanks for putting it so succinctly.
This is such a conundrum for me because I absolutely support people eating less animals and animal produced products but veganism is not a diet it is a philisophy. You are not vegan if you do this and you should not call yourself vegan. Dilution of the term IS harmful. At its core veganism is the belief that animals should not be exploited for anything under any circumstances. They have every right to this earth as we do and it is our responsibility to insure their lives are not harmed by us.
But the point of this is literally don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. There’s a rather large subset of the population that hears “oh no animals products at all? Forget that.” And they commit to no animal product reduction at all. So then the question is harm no animals, or harm less animals?
I absolutely support people eating less animals and animal produced products
Just don’t call it veganism because that is not what it is
There’s a rather large subset of the population that hears “oh no animals products at all? Forget that.”
Then they aren’t getting the message. The answer to that is not to give up the message. It’s to find a way to communicate that message so that it’s understood.
Give them the gateway to veganism.
trying to wean myself of genocide one bit at a time
the issue here is that it frames veganism as someone trying to become better by denying themselves treats, when in reality it’s someone becoming less of a monster by not denying others the right to life.
vegans are not good people because they’re vegans, veganism is only about not committing evil. It’s literally the absolute minimum. Carnists are evil, but it is so normalized people don’t see it that way.
vegans are not denying themselves cheese, we simply are not denying a baby the right to live.
The focus in veganism, like with every liberation movement, should be on the oppressed and not the treatlerites trying to be a bit less brutal. And that’s my issue with this tweet. Babystepping is for libs and people don’t get a pat on the back for no longer being part of the cow genocide. Either you have solidarity with the oppressed, in which case you’d be horrified at the thought of eating bacon, or you’re still looking at yourself and what you’re ““sacrificing””. Centering once again the humans when its about non-human animal liberation.
Either you have solidarity with the oppressed, in which case you’d be horrified at the thought of eating bacon, or you’re still looking at yourself and what you’re ““sacrificing””. Centering once again the humans when its about non-human animal liberation.
Oof. I want to print this out and frame it.
After being vegan for several years, it just hit me one day. I was thinking about how when I was a carnist, I felt like I had a right to eat a cow or a pig if I wanted to. That sense of entitlement to someone else’s body is insane!
But you’re still “the crazy one” for pointing it out. And don’t you dare break the norms of civility pointing out the mass murder and enslavement that is animal ag.
Fewer.
