There was a post about making cats vegan. The mod then decided that people posting information on why that is a bad idea were antivegan or something. The mod started then removing any information that pointed to cats not being able to be health while on a vegan diet. The Lemmy.world admins them stepped in stating that improperly feeding your cat constitutes animal abuse and is unethical. This made many die hard vegans very mad.
For the record, cats can not be vegan. They can survive on it but they will have shorter more painful lives and they will go blind. There bodies start breaking down without the proteins and amino acids found in meat. I understand why vegans would be unhappy with that answer but it is the way it is.
Interesting enough, that’s not the case for dog. You can put a dog on a vegan diet as long as you are very careful and are constantly monitoring. It isn’t for the faint of heart and can have very sad outcomes. It isn’t something you can arbitrarily do.
It’s bizarre to me that harcore vegans want to own a pet to begin with. Keeping bees for honey is bad, but separating a kitten from its mother at an early age and castrating it for your convenience and deciding how they live (restricted to an apartment or not) is totally fine?
I understand that most pets live a good life, but man, I can’t bring myself to make choices like these. I mean there are ways to circumvent it (get an older cat from an asylum for example) but it doesn’t really remove the “pet dilemma” to me.
Most people I know adopt from rescue shelters and all the vegans I know do that, often even focusing on pets that are somewhat “disadvantaged” regarding getting adopted, i.e. disabled or chronically ill animals. They go to an animal shelter not primarily with the wish of having a pet but providing a better life for an animal (because let’s face it, even the best-intentioned shelters are understaffed and underfunded).
This is a good, nuanced take that I as a vegan have struggled with believing. We don’t want pets, but animals are very much still suffering in this imperfect world.
I wouldn’t say we don’t want pets per se. Some of us do but the difference is trying to find the most ethical way of obtaining and taking care of them.
To be honest, I’ve never seen anyone take a dog from a shelter. With cats - yes, and I only know a handful of people who own a specific type of cat. But everyone I know and all people I meet have specific dog breeds or known mixes that were planned - both in the making and adoption.
That’s just bizarre, I don’t know anyone that has a purebred, their all mixes. Usually part pittie, because I live in an urban area and that’s mostly what’s at the shelters.
It’s probably area and/or country dependent
Well, my family’s dog when I was young was a rescue dog, no purebred (should be illegal anyway) or “targeted mix”. Tbh, no one ever knew exactly which breeds she was from, and I will probably never understand why people are so fixated on this shit.
A friend who had two breds from the same parents (different litter) said that you can predict the personality better in breds, while with unknown mixes you can get a manic dog and that they all have behavioral problems.
As you might have guessed by now, I am very much not a dog person. And I have no place to judge her statement. But I can imagine that there are a lot of dog owners who think like that.
Btw I’m in Germany, so is the friend. There is some Nazi joke in all of this that I am too lazy to make.
“Nature vs nurture” is an old debate that has not yet been concluded and data is hard to obtain. But it seems at the moment that how you training and upbringing has more impact on how an animal develops.
Also, i was more speaking ofphysical traits like a flat back for shepards or stubby noses for pugs etc. Generally, “purebred” pets are far more prone to develop detrimental traits and illnesses, i don’t see it worth the risk and more like torture than anything else.
But it seems at the moment that how you training and upbringing has more impact on how an animal develops.
Is this take based on anything? There are significant and specific behavioral differences between dog breeds.
You do find purebred dogs up for adoption, I have a border collie that was adopted as an adult.
All three of the dogs in my house are rescues that would have been put down if we hadn’t adopted them. I work with The Barking Lot in San Diego, and we routinely drive up to Orange County to rescue dogs that are going to be out down. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with these dogs, they just didn’t get adopted “in time.” There are rescue organizations all over the US, and while you will have to jump through some hoops and pay an adoption fee, that is simply because we absolutely don’t want these dogs ending up in puppy mills or fighting rings.
am not vegan but I’ll point out:
giving a cat a home, and fixing it so it won’t breed further rescue cats, is not a dilemma to me.
Imagine you wanted children and then someone would come along and castrate you because there’s a problem with overpopulation. You take away an individaul’s choice of reproduction for the greater good. And it makes sense, but the lack of consent or even understandment does not sit well with me.
Putting down pets is another thing. You make the decision whether a (sick/suffering) animal is going to die, while we are refusing to allow people to make this decision for themselves in most countries.
I absolutely see your point and I would not say you are wrong about it. But to me these are ethical questions that I just don’t wish to answer because there is not really a right answer.
Imagine you wanted children and then someone would come along and castrate you because there’s a problem with overpopulation. You take away an individaul’s choice of reproduction for the greater good. And it makes sense, but the lack of consent or even understandment does not sit well with me.
You’re anthropomorphizing animals too much. Cats don’t “want” children. Beyond a basic biological need they don’t give a shit about procreation. It’s not even a difficult question, ethically speaking. In almost every environment they exist in cats are considered invasive, reproduce like crazy, and tend to be incredibly destructive to local species. To be clear, I don’t think there is anything wrong with owning a cat, but it’s important to do so responsibly.
Your second paragraph is an indictment on how we treat humans not how we treat our pets.
On the fixing side of things, this is traditionally decided throughout animal husbandry by whether or not it positively impacts the animal’s ability to do it’s job. A housecat’s job is to provide companionship and occasional mouse removal for which fixing positively impacts companionship while have no impact on the secondary role. A dairy goat obviously won’t be able to produce milk if fixed so they generally remain able to reproduce, but goats kept for their wool are fixed more based on behavior and population control needs. Horses might be fixed to prevent behaviors that affect their ability to pull/be ridden, etc. etc.
So ultimately part of the ethics debate surrounding fixing your pets ties straight into the ethics of animal husbandry to begin with. I personally struggled with this when I moved from the city into farm country and saw first hand how the care for cats flipped from “every cat is special” to “yeah they’re just like there and kinda cute plus they kill the mice so I feed them sometimes so they stick around.” And I had to grapple with how there is no consistent line for what animal is special and must be saved and what animals are just there and the circle of life is up to them. I don’t have any easy answers to give on this subject, so I generally go with whatever is socially acceptable balanced out with concern for the animal’s happiness and well-being within the context of them still filling the job(s) they are being kept to fill
In my mind its all about acting in the animals best interest. Childbirth isn’t easy on a cats body and neither is the stress they will obtain if they desire reproduction and are not able to do so. Spay and neuter are therefore in the cats (or dogs) best interest
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely agree that we need to neuter cats and dogs. I just personally cannot bring myself to make this decision for an individual cat that I have to decide for. If I was getting a pet I would absolutely neuter it, but I prefer to just not get a pet to not have my mind wander down that road of “damn, did I just assume what my pet would want and put my values on them or did I do something responsible by interfering with their body”. Same for most decisions.
I get it man. Having to act in the best interest of someone who can’t communicate can be stressful. That’s why I’d never want to take care of a baby or adopt an animal. I would like to volunteer at a shelter, however.
When “keeping bees” you are ever only hosting them. If the conditions are not to the hive’s liking, they will find somewhere else to live. This is a significant problem in North America where honeybees are not native, as they will displace native species. But if you have a productive hive, they are happy and well treated.
My understanding is that the queen bee is generally restricted from leaving the hive by a physical gate. The workers won’t leave without her.
Only when being transported into a hive. Other than the honey super, the queen is given full run of the hive in order to lay new brood. The physical gate is to keep larger things out.
I knew a hardcore vegan girl like a decade ago when it was rather rare to see someone to that extreme, or at least to me. She said she feeds her cat only vegan food, and i was pretty sure that that’s not a thing, but i didn’t really know. Her roommate then told me that she goes through quite a lot of cats, because they either die or run away.
That’s actually really terrible
Yeah, adopt don’t shop. But I’ve met many vegans who don’t want pets at all. Including myself, I find the concept of owning a pet a little strange. But that’s something everyone should decide for themself.
But that’s something everyone should decide for themself.
Honestly I’m not so sure about that. I’m actually annoyed by the lack of regulation. Why is pet breeding still a thing? Owning a pet seems like something that should be phased out (while working on getting the numbers of new born pets down).
Don’t get me wrong, I like animals, I’ve grown up with a cat who lived to 21 years and I consider him more of a brother than a pet, and I love cats, but I wouldn’t want to repeat this again. With cats you are damned if you let them outside and damned if you don’t. Dogs should just not exist in public spaces. A lot of people are afraid of dogs and every dog “doesn’t bite” before he bites one for the first time. I also don’t care if they bite or not, I don’t want an animal touching me or my stuff, period. The trees suffer, the playgrounds are surrounded by shit, and people tense up in a subway or restaurant when there’s a dog. Unless you are a farmer with a huge piece of land you just should not have a dog. (Or need an animal for disability reasons of course.)
Sounds more about bad owners (not having their dog on a leash, not respecting others personal space, or not pickingnup the dog shit) than about dogs.
In a sense I think it is about dogs being in an urban environment. There is just no good place for them to move from a to b. Even if you pick up the poop in the park, there are parts of it left in the grass. The few trees in a city (next to sidewalks I mean) will be peed at and a lot of trees don’t take this well. If I am on a narrow sidewalk and someone with a dog passes they can hardly keep their leashed dog at such a close distance that they wouldn’t end up striving me. And the question is also, is this the life you want for this animal? Having it on a short leash for 99% of the time?
No one would argue that keeping a horse in your city apartment is a bad idea. Yet somehow for dogs it is normalized.
Depends on a dog. Many cities now have dog parks nd you can still take them out of the city.
Dogs are social animals bred for hundreds of years to be our companions. Most will be happy to be inside on a couch with their human, rather than outside alone (obvioualy not exclusively, they need the walks and free time. And every dog may have different needs).
I was just talking about the world we live in. If i could abolish pet animal breeding I would. :)
Cats are also invasive in some areas. Outdoor cats are the leading cause of songbird mortality.
Why would you need to separate a kitten from it’s mom? There are so many cats in shelters, usually castrated already, that need a forever home.
My understanding was always that seeking out new pets was bad, but it was also bad to get rid of one if you already had it. I’m not a vegan, though I did date a couple many years ago and am basing this on what I remember from conversations.
I agree that it seems the obvious choice for a vegan is to not own a pet cat.
I don’t know whether you’re a vegan yourself, but basically all the vegans I know agree with that.
No, they’re hypocrites. These are practices that vegans should not be ok with, and said actions certain don’t constitute a harmonious world view and philosophy. They should be ashamed of themselves. The real actions and ideas they should be putting forward is to not have pets, and to try to reduce invasive species impacts on local ecosystems (in which case cats are neutered to stop reproduction).
I understand why vegans would be unhappy with that answer but it is the way it is.
I don’t. Veganism is about the fact that humans can live without animal products, which is true. Not accepting that actual carnivores exist, even being unhappy with this means you’re well in extremist nutjob territory.
I am a vegan. While my dogs were alive they ate meat as well as veggies. It seems to me that a lot of vegans don’t realise that it’s a scale and not binary. The whole philosophy of veganism is “as much as you are able” so I guess there is extremism everywhere.
I’m vegan and I don’t know why these “vegans” are towing the line to to include non-human species. It’s just as gross for vegan humans to apply their values to values in a dominant manner as it is for non-vegans to. Literally vegans doing this is antithesis to the entire cause.
I’m glad they got slapped. You’ll always have idiots in a movement I guess…
It’s a microcosm for science denial or misunderstanding of all kinds. Vegan cats and antivax may not seem related but the underlying misinformation is not dissimilar.
I tried following up on the vegan cat research being posted and it was very difficult to get a solid answer. There are multiple brands of vegan cat food marketed and sold, and it isn’t outrageous to believe that our industrial society could find an ethical way to source the necessary nutrients and enrich the cat food.
But also there’s very few studies that test the claims of the vegan cat food. What few meta-analysis exist, and anecdotes online, would suggest that all those foods lack certain critical nutrients for long-term feline health. But the anecdotes are drowned out by well-intentioned people who want to believe it works, and the studies are small, rare, hard to read, and locked behind paywalls.
Why do people even try to keep cats on vegan diet? It was your fucking choice, not the cats.
Im vegetarian, my cat eats meat. Im not gonna force anything on him unless he comes to me and tells me he wants to try it.
A lot of vegans will hate this, but YOU’RE NOT A FUCKING SCIENTIST! Drop all the journals and research you want, but your pet is not a lab-controlled experiment. Besides, something being in a journal doesn’t make it true. If it is regularly cited as true, and has swept into general understanding of how to feed a pet, then it’s factual…
I’m all for vegans living their best lives. Don’t force it on a pet that doesn’t know better. Vegans harming animals through their own food choices isn’t a new thing, ask most vets and they’ll have seen the effects of malnutrition from someone that thought that they knew better.
The reason cats can’t be vegan is that they cannot produce an amino acid called taurine, which is something dogs and humans can produce (but which we also get sometimes from dietary sources).
Most dietary sources of taurine are meat. This is why dogs and humans “can be vegan” but cats “can’t”. However, vegan taurine is made and can be bought as a supplement, both for humans (if you want to ensure you get some taurine in your diet), but also in properly made vegan cat food.
It seems to me then that cats can be vegan, just not without intentional effort to ensure proper supplementation of taurine. That is, they couldn’t be vegan in the wild (where the only source of taurine is meat) and you can’t just start to feed them a vegan diet without taurine and expect the cat to be healthy and survive.
In fact, cats fed a proper vegan diet tend to have better health:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10499249/
I think the question is really what you are feeding your “vegan” cat: if you have managed to find (or make) a properly fortified vegan cat food it is theoretically possible to feed your cat a vegan diet.
This all feels a bit like the “controversy” around feeding young children and babies a vegan diet: done poorly it can be catastrophic (pun not intended), but it’s entirely possible to have a healthy vegan diet when enough effort is put into ensuring nutritional needs are actually satisfied.
That said, I also know of two other vegan responses:
- for some vegans, having pets is not vegan to begin with, so a “vegan cat” is a contradiction in terms even if you fed them a vegan diet, you still wouldn’t be an ethical vegan by owning a cat. This is admittedly a less commonly held view which centers ethical veganism on the rights of animals to have autonomy, which if plausible in some ways seems at least impractical in the case of domesticated animals. There are questions of the harm that might be caused by choosing to treat cats not as pets but as autonomy-rights-bearing “wild” animals, but those ethical vegans might rightly point out this doesn’t undo the cat’s rights and the practical questions should be handled separately.
- most vegans I know IRL just feed cats a non-vegan diet, acknowledging it is safer and more reasonable for their cat than trying to figure out a way to feed them a vegan diet. Good vegan cat food isn’t that common or easy to find as far as I know, and I assume it would be outrageously expensive.
Well put. Cats are OBLIGATE carnivores. They do not have anatomy to support extracting necessary nutrition from vegan sources that are available. It IS hypothetically possibly for them to survive and thrive on an engineered food source but, such a thing does not currently exist and the chemical complexity makes it unlikely in the near future.
this is hilarious, and 100% on brand for a vegan community.
Making dogs vegan still doesn’t sound like a good idea to me tho
Disclaimer that I’m not even a vegan but you’re spreading disinfo here to make vegans seem completely unreasonable. I suggest anyone check out the actual discussions instead of trusting this summary.
Cats are obligate carnivores, sparky. That means they can’t be vegan.
I don’t know enough about that topic to argue for or against which is not what I’m trying to argue
Cats are obligate carnivores in the wild. This just means they have dietary needs that would normally require meat. But we can make vegan, synthetic food that meets these needs. In fact, studies have shown that cats on vegan diets tend to be healthier if anything.
they can’t be vegan as that is an ethical choice. they can be plant based and live a perfectly normal life.
tell me where you disagree with this guy:
I suggest anyone check out the actual discussions.
I suggest not checking out some discussions in search for scientific data.
Yea better trust internet randos at face value. Don’t follow up on anything when you can just consume rage bait and hate vegans.
So it’s either “actual” discussions or this particular discussion, we have no other options, right? That’s, my friend, called false dichotomy.
See my above comment that directly pulls quotes directly from peer reviewed primary scientific literature.
Vegans are by their very nature completely unreasonable
I agree.
I’m not a expert so you should read up on it. The problem is that the vegan community was only allowing random studies saying how cats were healthier on a vegan diet. None of those papers were peer reviewed or all that credible. On the other side there is tons of research and articles written by actual experts that say it is a bad idea. I looked it up before making this comment.
Thank you for the summary! I found myself in OP. I am eating mostly vegan, and I have a cat, and I believe people who force a vegan (or even vegetarian) diet on their cats need mental help.
For the record, science disagrees with you. According to an analysis of all current research, there is no statistically significant difference of cat heath when fed a nutritionally sufficient vegan diet. Of there is a similarly high quality study that finds that a nutritionally sufficient vegan diet is worse for cats I would love to see it.
The vegan diet we are talking about isn’t a bunch of vegetables, it’s a manufactured dry food specifically designed to have all the nutrients a cat needs.
People often use the obligate carnivore excuse, but use it in an unscientific way. Obligate carnivores have nutritional needs that can only be meet through meat in the wild, but humans are perfectly capable of manufacturing these nutrients. We are so good at it that we supplement these synthetic nutrients in meat based cat food already.
This is a contentious issue for most people, and it can be hard when you are very passionate about something to look at the evidence and change your opinion. I’ve looked at a decent number of studies on the topic recently, and they all seen to point to the conclusion that a diet without meat can be healthy for cats, so long as it contains all the nutrients they need.
Cats have dietary needs that would require them to eat meat in nature. But we can make vegan, synthetic food that meets these needs. In fact, studies have shown that cats on vegan diets tend to be healthier if anything.
I don’t understand why people upvote summaries that don’t even try to be objective. I honestly think the mods there do notably abuse their power to remove comments, but let people decide that for themselves. This commenter is telling you who to support while being confidently incorrect on the original issue.
Oh fuck. And here I was willing to side with the vegan mods because I assumed people were just shitting on vegans again.
can you tell.me if you know more than this guy, and where he is wrong:
The mod then decided that people posting information on why that is a bad idea were antivegan or something. The mod started then removing any information that pointed to cats not being able to be health while on a vegan diet.
Pets eat pre-processed food, and we’ve had vegetarian protein supplements for a while. How does this work for cats? Idk, ask a vet. But these foods have been around for a while and I’m not hearing about a mass die-off of indoor cats as a result, so I’m willing to give vegan cat owners the benefit of the doubt.
For the record, cats can not be vegan. They can survive on it but they will have shorter more painful lives and they will go blind.
The expected lifespan of feral cats in the wild runs around 2-5 years. House cats routinely live into their teenage years and can hit north of 20. The ideal lifestyle for a cat is indoors, regardless of the precise composition of their diets.
I wish I would understand why people always have to take everything to the extreme. If you get mad about carnivorous pets not being able to follow your personal diet, you’re an extremist asshole who just chose veganism as your religion. You can be vegan without being an extremist asshole, so it must be something else causing this.
making cats vegan
For a second (or maybe longer, until I read the wlhole thing) I thought they wanted to consider eating cats as being vegan.
Vegans argued that cats, which are obligate carnivores, can eat a vegan diet safely. Lemmy.world admin removed the posts for being misinformation, and the vegan community threw a fit over it.
Ask your vet what they think about a vegan diet for your pets. They will tell you “no”. That should really be the end to the discussion, but I guess these guys think they know better than actual experts.
It’s so sad, because veganism is a good force in our culture. Look at all of the vegan meat alternatives and more and more restaurants that have to have at least vegetarian options in certain areas. That wasn’t a thing 20 years ago.
Vegan diets help the environment and improve health. But many vegans get this brain rot, probably a consequence of a superiority complex where they have to police everything around them. It happens in a lot of communities.
I’m not a vegan. But the idea has me eating less and less meat every year.
I imagine most vegans are just ordinary people. And hell, good on them for making the environmentally friendly choice. I’ve been excited that my local stores are starting to carry plant-based alternatives that aren’t expensive as hell. Fuck are the weirdos loud, though.
Impossible burgers are better than beef burgers and I’m fully prepared to die on this hill.
But I still eat meat, I just like that there’s options
I wouldn’t mind switching to a complete vegetarian diet if they can get deep-fried chicken substitutes right.
I’ve made beyond smash burgers that are terrible for you, but sooo tasty.
I’ve had some baller chicken fried tofu.
KFC has a very good breaded fake chicken burger
I really really like Quorn (or however it’s spelled) as a chicken substitute. The flavor has to be added artificially but I think the texture is pretty satisfying and reminds me of chicken.
There was a recent blind taste test for chicken nuggets (not chicken strips/tenders) and all the plant based nuggets, even the cheap ones, beat out the actual chicken ones.
Now, chicken strips, I agree with you, sadly.
Not better…but 95% there. I will order it anytime I can if it’s reasonable price.
Some of it can be really tasty! Cooking vegetarian all the time isn’t as hard as it used to be. Gotta keep that cholesterol down 🤪
Okay, I troll the hell out of vegans online, because it’s easy and always entertaining. So, anyone coming along after this, take that into account.
But, you nailed it. There’s a subsection of vegans that treat it like a religion, and anyone else as infidels. That superiority complex, the smugness is a huge detriment to vegan living and principles.
But (and here’s why I made the disclaimer), they’re a minority overall. I know too many vegans irl that are chill, wonderful people following their beliefs and ideals without being jerks about it. Vegetarians too, though that’s tangential.
It’s really online that the asshole hats get put on the most, and usually only on sites/services that make it easy to be anonymous. Which is a good thing! Anonymous discourse is not just important, it’s vital to part of humans becoming better than what we are. But there will always be people that hide their true selves until they’re anonymous and can feel safe, and that includes people that are smug, arrogant assholes down deep. It also includes people that don’t feel safe being an outsider or dissenter, and people that are awesome down deep, but have to keep up a front irl.
Anyway my point is that we, the non vegans of the world, have to be careful to not forget the human. Vegans are mostly deeply compassionate, kind souls that want the best for anyone and everyone, including animals. We don’t have to agree with them, just remember that the loudest, most obnoxious voices aren’t the sum total of the vegan community.
I think people confuse the Political Based Vegan lifestyle and the Dietary Plant-based Vegan. They are not the same. Most people hate the political wing because they just cannot shut up. I do not want to be subjected to your religion, and you are not helping the animals you claim to. Dietary people just choose healthier options for themselves and don’t evangelize to others.
This checks the Vegan Bullshit Bingo:
Calling veganism a religion sounds like an attempt at discrediting it as unreasonable and irrational, just to not seriously deal with it. As veganism is based on facts, logic and common sense, it is the exact opposite of a religion. Consuming animal products though, mostly means blindly following irrational traditions and ignoring the facts or refusing them by reasoning: “That’s how we’ve always done it”. That sounds more like a religion to me…No one said veganism is a religion, but it IS a political standpoint and philosophical and moral practice.
Just read the first two paragraphs of wikipedia, it makes it clear.
Following a plant based diet is one thing, being a Vegan is different.
You are a carnist. That’s a political standpoint and philosophical and moral practice as well. You might not consider youself a carnist, you think you’re just normal because eating like a handfull of animals and drinking one animals mothers milk was normalised to you from birth. I was raised a carnist too. Yet it’s a decision, not a necessity. We don’t need meat and milk to survive, we choose to kill animals because we are accustumed to the taste. So we keep the system running.
you don’t know what anyone else needs.
we choose to kill animals because we are accustumed to the taste.
almost no one does that at all
I don’t disagree with this
I get the climate change vegans, but not the hurt animals vegans. We live on earth, and in case people haven’t noticed, we have to kill to survive. If you don’t eat meat, you’re still hurting plants to eat, and most of the time we’re eating the sexual organs or the offspring of plants.
My MIL likes to pull out the phrase “indoctornated” anytime a doctor/vet/educated professional disagrees with her hardcore plant based diet views for all people and animals
“indoctornated”
Sovereign: “assuming direct control”
But they Did tHerY owN rEsEaRCH
They’re alumni of FBU.
“But someone who calls themselves a professor made a 4 hour long YouTube essay on how they caaan be vegan come on click the link!!!”
I think it can be done for dog if you are careful and know what you are doing. However, I still wouldn’t prioritize ethical views over the well being of my pets. That is very much animal abuse.
Jeez that is awful! People: if you want a vegan pet, get a rabbit! They are so sweet! There are tons of them in the shelter system, especially after Easter.
I swear they’re the funniest and most affectionate four legged friends around!
I really hate how many people are spreading disinfo for no reason here. We should be better than that.
The vegans stated very clearly that current science shows that the cat would need a fuckton of supplements and attention to be on a vegan diet but it’s functional.
The admins then overstepped and removed such comments.
I’m not going to argue the validity of any of those claims as I’m not a vegan and I don’t care to research, but the vegan mods were a lot more reasonable than they’re being painted here.
The pet sector must die, pet ownership isn’t vegan, pet breeders are the enemies;
We’re not doing “optimal nutrition”, sorry. That biohacking shit to create immortal adopted pets isn’t going to work out. It’s hardly even clear for humans what the optimal diet is, and they pretend that they know what it is for cats??? These fools don’t even comprehend that evolution doesn’t give a shit about longevity. It’s a standard imposed by the marketing agencies of pet foods who want to milk pet owner feelings to have their pets die after they do. It’s a false standard that is great for advertising, but otherwise functions as a Nirvana fallacy machine.
This is just a rephrase, but pet ownership is bourgeois. Well, aristocratic, then bourgeois. Detach. This isn’t about you, you don’t get to annex a sentient being just to keep them as an emotional service slave or as a status symbol. This one is especially for Americans where pets live better than poor people.
Uh. Hardly reasonable.
Are you just posting a random comment to me or what? What relevance does this have to the admin retaliations?
That’s one of the Vegan mods on .world expressing their views on vegan diets for cats. That’s not “The vegans stated very clearly that current science shows that the cat would need a fuckton of supplements and attention to be on a vegan diet but it’s functional.”, that’s outright “Science doesn’t know shit” lunacy.
That’s not the comment which caused this whole issue. It seems to me you’re cherry picking out of context
Alright, since “Things the mods have said” isn’t acceptable evidence for whether or not the mods are pushing ridiculous views on vegan diets for cats, and not just “The vegans stated very clearly that current science shows that the cat would need a fuckton of supplements and attention to be on a vegan diet but it’s functional”, I suppose them saying the ASPCA doesn’t know what they’re talking about, while THEIR simple ‘common sense’ allows them to understand a cat’s TRUE dietary needs is also kosher?
This whole thing comes down to aggressively anti-scientific mods pushing misinformation and removing information to the contrary and getting removed by an admin for their troubles. Or was removing the link to the ASPCA for being ‘misinformation’ also a sign of how reasonable the c/Vegan mods were?
I don’t give a single solitary fuck what happens to Rooki. Whether they were too quick to remove or too uncivil or what. But defending misinformation, or defending mods pushing misinformation as just being reasonable? That gets my dander up.
The commentary you’re pointing is way more reasonable than you make it sound. I implore people to read the context themselves and not to trust summaries with rage bait agendas here.
Stop doing the reddit thing. Making people angry at people more radical than them isn’t helping.
- Someone claims mods were being reasonable
- Post quote showing they are not being reasonable
- “Stop cherry picking”
Wut…
If that’s what the community moderators are saying, I imagine the comment section was far worse than you’re making out.
The context of the convo was vegan admins, that was a comment by one. Are you really having that much trouble following the convo?
Yeah, that’s well and truly off the deep end. This is someone who I’d cross the road to avoid.
Good. I don’t give a shit about what you put in your mouth. But if you think it’s ok to give your pets a shit load of supplements for no reason at all other than forcing your extremism on helpless animals you’re out of your mind.
As a vegan who spends no time associating with other vegans, because it’s not a large part of my identity (other than watching cooking videos), these people are idiots who are getting high on being righteous.
So much so they overdosed and became animal abusers.
Quite ironic. Funny, if it weren’t causing harm.
Until I joined Lemmy I had no idea how militant vegans could be. I sorta just assumed they were a different brand of vegetarian.
I’m not opposed to their ideaology in any way, but after reading the comments on a few posts that found their way into my feed… I had to block their communities. It didn’t seem likely that I’d be reading any productive discourse there.
I was vegan for 8 years and during that time I didn’t talk to anyone about it other than to say, “I don’t eat that.”
I say that to say this - vegans are insufferable and a large reason why I quit the community and went back to omnivore. Even after 8 years, other vegans were still ‘more vegan’ and would nitpick the dumbest stuff.
“Bro, did you eat a date? That killed a bee or something. Not cool.”
Shut up with that. Let me eat my damn fruit.
I was healthier though. But, to be fair, I was younger.
"Bro, did you eat a date? That killed a bee or something. Not cool.”
I’m a level 5 vegan. I won’t eat anything that casts a shadow.
Now it reminded me of Vladimir Sorokin’s “Horse soup”. Time to read it again.
Vladimir Sorokin’s “Horse soup”
https://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-horse-soup/#gsc.tab=0
(Reads blurb. What the actual fuck.)
I’m a level 2 proto-vegan, though it’s functionally equivalent to a level 8 in normal terms I think.
Anyway, our food is cultivated in an open source orchard (the genomes are all fully sequenced) using plea bargains with the surrounding woodland, where we encourage feral animals to aerate and urinate on the soil and we sensually assist in the procreation of the plant reproduction taking a 1%-5% crop yield over what the flies do not touch.
You know what, it’s so much easier to say you’re an omnivore and end up eating meat once a year than to say you are a vegan who makes an exception about once a year. The first label would earn you a “wait so you’re basically vegan?!” vs “you’re not vegan then and you’re a dirty cheater”.
exactly. you choose your labels to best express your positions.
As you might have experienced, it’s pretty hard to be vegan in a carnist world. People talk about animal abuse all the time, they confront you all the time, make fun of you. Most don’t want to talk about it, they want to shut you up. The hate and ignorance is strong and different people react diffrently to that situation. Some stay quiet, like yourself, some get vocal. Some debate, some get angry. Calling vegans insufferable is like calling gays insufferable, or feminists. Some might be. We have recognized a major injustice and we want to change it.
“Bro, did you eat a date? That killed a bee or something. Not cool.”
That’s rage bait and you made it up. Why would anyone say that?
Hey bud you really need to get off the cross. You just compared your eating preferences which are 100% a choice to someone being born homosexual and not wanting to be killed for it or being born/transitioning to a woman and wanting the same basic human rights as the other half of our species. Honestly you need to just shut up and think about that for a hot second.
I oppose racism, sexism, trans- and homophobia. And I oppose speciesism as well. It’s the same system: One group considers another group as less valuable and exploits, abuses or fights them.
You just draw the line at you own species.
Animals are innocent, vulnerable and easy to abuse because they don’t have a voice and don’t understand the situation we put them in. If they were human children or mentally disabled humans, we would protect them from harm because of who they are. Instead, we do the most horrible things to them, we take their freedom, their babies, their lifes. In factories, on an industrial scale. Because a pig is just a pig, right?EDIT: Please reply, don’t just silently downvote. What’s your refutation?
What are you talking about? Don’t you also draw a line when you choose to eat plants? I don’t think they would agree to that. Untill humans develop the ability to photosynthesize, we are going to have to eat other species, there’s no way around it.
Don’t you also draw a line when you choose to eat plants?
I think there’s a reasonable distinction here. You would presumably also draw a line between a conscious human and a brain dead human that won’t ever be conscious again. As far as we can reasonably tell, consciousness requires a brain. Dogs and pigs have brains, so maybe we shouldn’t torture and kill them on factory farms. We can also see them suffering and measure their physical reaction to it.
Of course there’s a possibility that plants have some kind of consciousness too, but 1. that’s speculation and 2. there’s no way around farming them, as you have said yourself:
Untill humans develop the ability to photosynthesize, we are going to have to eat other species, there’s no way around it.
Farming animals will always require far more plant deaths than growing plants for human consumption. These animals have to grow for months before being slaughtered and literally eat tons of animal feed in that time.
Therefore, plant-based food minimizes both animal suffering and deaths as well as plant deaths.
I’m not convinced that plant deaths are an ethical issue in of themselves, but farming has environmental implications so it makes sense to minimize the food that needs to be grown and make the farming as environmentally friendly as reasonably possible.
no one wants to torture animals.
the vast majority of plant matter fed to animals is waste product. they eat parts of plants that people can’t or won’t eat. so those plants are killed first for us, then the animals. and the point of the plant objection is not the amount of suffering, but the fact that no one cares if plants are killed, and only vegetarians and vegans care if animals are killed
PLANTS HAVE FEELINGS TOO
is #22 on the Vegan Bullshit Bingo:No, they do not. There is no serious study to suggest that they do. Plants do not have a brain or central nervous system. At most, they respond to stimuli. If you really care that much about the welfare of plants, you should go vegan, since many more plants “die” for animal feeding. Do you feel bad while mowing your lawn? And would you rather rescue a potted plant than a dog from a burning house? Is docking pig tails the same as branch trimming to you? Question upon question…
If you really care that much about the welfare of plants, you should go vegan, since many more plants “die” for animal feeding.
the point is that they don’t care about the welfare of plants and you don’t either. tehy also eat animals. i think you can put it together.
The comment you responded to says nothing about feelings. Nor does it say that the commenter has any issue with the consumption of plants.
You are not the animals.
At best you’re a shitty white knight for the animals. You’re not even an ally if this is how you conduct yourself.
You just compared your eating preferences which are 100% a choice to someone being born homosexual and not wanting to be killed for it
All the animals on factory farms didn’t choose to be born there and don’t want to be killed either.
It’s not about the sensitivities of humans, but the insane suffering of animals in this system of oppression.
If all yall got off the crosses we could donate all the wood and nails to Habitat for Humanity.
Just goes to show how little you care about others suffering. Social justice for me but not for others (those who I consider interior).
Correct.
You’re not the animals. You’re not even a good spokesperson for the animals.
You don’t give a shit about the animals. You’re just a pathetic histrionic giving into your tendencies here to tank a conversation for a hit.
You’re not the animals.
I literally wrote that this isn’t about me/humans, so yes, obviously.
There are many groups that are suffering and that I’m not part of, and I still care about what’s happening to them and want the suffering to end. It seems like most lemmy users share that sentiment when it comes to oppressed humans, so I really don’t get what’s so hard to understand about that when I extend it to animals.
You might have the opinion that factory farming isn’t a social justice issue, fine. Me having a different opinion doesn’t negatively affect you in any way. Why are you so pissed at me just because I see it differently?
You jumped in on a conversation where a person compared veganism as if it’s a persecution comparable to the LBGTQ.
Veganism is A diet choice. That’s all it is. That is all you’re doing here.
This is not you living as a member of the LBGTQ.
You are not a suffragette.
There will be no pivoting off of it here today and play shitty white knight for the animals.
he is confused with figs. which are pollinated by wasps. and some vegans choose to eat them and some don’t. it’s really not that controversial.
What in the actual fuck. You are comparing yourself to LBGTQ and what they’ve had to endure???
You think your struggle is anything like feminism???
Maybe throw in some slavery there. Ya know, get all your basis of inappropriate covered.
Might as well go whole ass with the bullshit you’re pulling here.
you are choosing a lifestyle. Not even that. You’re choosing what you consume. That’s it. You are not persecuted for something that is NOT a choice you made. You are NOT being persecute for what appearance you were born into.
It is a far cry from being watched out for and spotted and then targetted to how vegans target others.
Stop appropriating an actual minority group that had to defend their rights just to live with the same rights as others.
You talk like you’re the actual cow getting slaughtered for burgers.
you’re not that cow either.
And you’re not even a good spokesperson for that cow. At best you’re just a shitty white knight. You don’t even care about cows that are getting slaughtered cuz you wouldn’t tank a conversation so badly as you had if you actually gave a fuck and wasn’t just stroking off to your own ego for picking dumb fights with shit ideals about your grandeur. Worst ally ever.
Between them and Linux evangelicals, this place can be pretty annoying at times.
Spoken like a meat eating windows user
Do you think that’s an insult?
meat eating windows user (derogatory)
Can I get this on a name tag?
No. If he wanted to insult you, he’d call you a MacOS User /s
Oh you must also be a reddit uaer… Here you go: /s
Lol pretty sure /s has been around LONG before Reddit
reddit is like 20 years old and rose to prominence in the web 2.0 boom. I’m pretty sure you’re wrong
I tried to find historical articles about it, but couldn’t find any. But I swear I used it and saw it all the way back in the AIMs chatroom dialup days
Windows eating meat user
I wish we could take these two comments and have them always show up on the front page.
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as vegan, is in fact, GNU/vegan, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus vegan.
Linux evangelicals
We just want to save your code from eternal damnation
I’ve just discovered a new game: start posting how you love windows, meat and Elon, place bets who will attack you first
My money would be on Elon. Windows users and carnivores are quite common here, but hatred of The Musk is near universal.
It was honestly more fun to irk the “grammer” police on reddit using misspellings and improper vocabulary.
to irk the “grammer” police on reddit
Hmm…
*Squints*
You done messed up.
to irk the “grammer” police on Reddit
FTFY
I see, I still giggle when I do it, on Lemmy to!
Don’t forget to support capitalism as well!
I use arch btw
You know I really hate vegans, but I FUCKING REALLY HATE Linux evangelicals, and they are FUCKING EVERYWHERE HERE.
Anyway, fuck veganism and linux
I stick with Margaret Cho’s advice on vegans from her Assassin tour back in 2005:
And especially, especially, don’t fuck with vegans. Do not look vegans in the eye. If you get into an argument with a vegan, say “I’m wrong” and run away as fast as you can. Do not fuck with vegans because they will fuck you up…BECAUSE THEY’RE HUNGRY.
Every vegan I have met is one form of little bitch or another, without exception
Inflammatory prejudices are only bad when others have them. They’re definitely the hateful ones, so lets spread some hate about them.
I haven’t given out a quarter of the verbal abuse that has been heaped on me by people who feel morally superior over their diet.
I’m sorry to hear that. The thing is, you mainly hear from those who are the most vocal, and those tend to be the most angry and therefore unreasonable. And those probably had their fair share of verbal (and/or physical) abuse from meat eaters, as vegans are hated on by a much, much larger part of society than the other way around. (That doesn’t justify their hate, of course)
It’s all a self reinforcing dynamic of groups riling each other up, unfortunately.
Look, I really dgaf about all of you ‘no really guise veeegans are nice!’ when my entire life has been episode after episode of the opposite.
Exactly my experience. I often heard stories of vegans being like that, but I never ever saw it so I thought it was just made up to belittle vegans.
Then I joined lemmy and found out that I’m apparently in favour of massacres, slavery and rape because I consume meat/milk/eggs from time to time.
I imagine the vast majority of vegans just go about their lives and resprectfully discuss the ethics of animal consumption when the topic comes up, but these loud militant members really make vegans look bad and they sure as hell make it so that even less people consider going vegan
Yes, them calling me a rapist totally made we want to be like them and adopt their ideology.
Their strain of it appears to be poison religion like fundamentalist Christianity or Islam. A fanatic is a fanatic, whatever paint they’re dipped in. Guess they’re just trying to fill a hole in themselves.
any movement will have more or less militant members. that’s life.
I’m curious. You eat meat, but you’re not in favour of massacres. Alright, explain it to me.
I’m not in favor of it, but I’m not going to stop eating meat. The second lab grown meat is available to people in my economic tier I’ll switch exclusively to that.
Ah, so you’re saying you don’t like it, but you find it an acceptable sacrifice to make in exchange for yummy food?
the vast majority of vegans are not represented by a tiny segment that has found lemmy.
Vegans being annoying was a thing awhile ago, but they really chilled out. This is a smaller band of die-hards.
“Chilling out” is of course a terrible metric when animal abuse is on the line but being good to animals would make you vegetarian, not vegan, and yet that was never where the righteousness was coming from.
If Lemmy had its version of r/atheist users, they’re either vegan, Linux obsessed, or politics obsessed.
Hey. Do you have time to talk about our lord and saviour, Linus Torvalds?
Oh yeah, I love Linus Tech Tips, it’s one of my favorite YouTubes.
Savior? Do you mean Terry Davis, AKA King Terry the Terrible?
oh there’s a shitton of r/atheists here too, and some are supermods.
It would have to be the Linux crowd, just by force of numbers.
Quite a bit of their content is antagonizing and alienating. What a shame.
In 5+ decades of living I have never once met a sane vegan, not once.
And I’ve met hundreds…
For the most part, the “unreasonable vegan” stereotype comes from two places.
- Confirmation bias. Veganism makes people uncomfortable with their own decisions, so people spread around the most outrageous stories about vegans as a defense mechanism. This is the same thing that happens in various circles with anyone whose mere existence makes other people insecure; e.g., teetotalers, or polyamorous people.
- Just plain disagreeing with them. There are lots of vegan arguments that are logically valid, but they sound outrageous if you don’t already agree with them. People have trouble looking past their initial emotional reactions, so they respond to logically valid arguments with mere incredulity.
There’s a 3rd source: Trying for 3 decades to have a reasonable conversation with one, with hundreds of attempts made.
I’d be interested in seeing a trace of one of those conversations.
No you wouldn’t, they never go anywhere except to heated exchanges of unpleasant labels.
There’s really no use in talking to them, nor anything to be learned or won. It’s just losses for everyone.
I am a vegan. Is this conversation unreasonable?
Are you talking to the same person, or the same few people, repeatedly? There certainly are people out there who just are unreasonable. You can’t expect individuals to change.
Otherwise, I guess (and I admit that this is biased in my favor) that you simply disagree with each other at a foundational level, and that’s causing you to talk past each other.
I think that most people don’t really know how to discourse with people who have differing ethical foundations, because it can lead to situations where a person who meets all the societal criteria of a “good person” is nonetheless committing (according to whatever ethical precepts) a horrible crime. But, in this context, accusing someone of committing a horrible crime is not unreasonable; in fact, it’s too reasonable; it involves prioritizing reason over tact and politeness.
Are you talking to the same person, or the same few people, repeatedly?
Roughly 10% are repeat conversations, though I’ve rarely had a contact be kept past 3 exchanges, and not a ‘few’ people by any metric.
you simply disagree with each other at a foundational level, and that’s causing you to talk past each other.
I appreciate how you are trying to make this a ‘both sides’ thing, but it really isn’t and I have no way of imparting 30 years of frustrating experience in a way you will find meaningful.
Since you claim to be a reasonable vegan, then maybe this is the best place for this:
-
What are your plans for all the currently living domesticated animals if, hypothetically, meat eating is made illegal?
-
Have you ever considered that being raised by humans for consumption is literally the most wildly successful species survival strategy that natural selection has ever thrown up? Literally no wild animal thrives as well as a cared for domesticated example, and domesticated animals released in the wild have an abysmal survival rate. (it is literally animal cruelty to release most domesticated animals into the wild, with the exception of pigs. They can re-adapt no problems)
-
Meat is one of the most nutrient dense foods out there and is likely the entire reason we were able to develop these incredibly energy and nutrient expensive brains, have you considered what the long term species ramifications are for us if we choose to stop a standard practice that has been with us since before our species was even human yet?
-
What is your stance on pets?
-
Do you not think the critical need for specific supplements to maintain good health is a sign that the diet was never intended for our normal operation?
-
I would like to hear your opinion on parents raising their infants to be vegan from birth.
These are the questions I would usually ask to vegans I meet in the world and online. Most responses are immediate verbal abuse and a refusal to continue communications.
I sincerely hope you are a better person than that and I can FINALLY have this discussion start to finish.
-
Having personally known several perfectly normal and sane vegans, maybe your “reasonable conversation” is a bit more combative than you believe. Vegans are just normal people. Some will be crazy. Some will be normal. If your experience with your hundreds of vegans you’ve met is 100% unreasonable, then you’re definitely the problem. Someone choosing to avoid animal products for personal health or environmental reasons, or any other personal reason, is inherently not unreasonable. They might be unreasonable if they try to force their ideas on others, but defending their own choices isn’t unreasonable. Tone down your confirmation bias and aggression, and you might find that just like every large enough group, people are still people and they vary.
Edit: for the record, I’m not vegan.
Yep, that’s always the response. 'it’s not the inherent radicalism of vegan ideology that is the problem, but the fact that you didn’t talk nice to them (which I am assuming because I wasn’t there).
Reported and blocked.
What radicalism? What part of that ideal is radical? Also, a bizarre reaction. “My beliefs were challenged in the slightest, therefore this person must be silenced.” Weirdo.
Calling a group of people insane is so cool and good 👍🏻
I’m not vegan. But I find it very shady to talk shit about people like this.
Some seeming innocent ideals breed significantly more fanaticism across all class and culture lines, we should all have learned that by now.
I have met 1 and married her. But yo be fair she is just vegetarian whi developed a dairy allergy knocking out the non veg part of her diet
Makes a dumb good steak too
I have to admit, diet restriction vegans (and not the ones that just think meat is icky and can get a doctor to sign off on it) do not fall into the general stereotype but then only one of them ever had a chance to speak to me and she would sneak chicken occasionally so I don’t really consider her vegan as such. Also she was a work associate and I normally never bring up the subject in the office.
There may be reasonable vegans out there, and I have actively sought them on forums and IRL through school clubs and protests. I have never IRL raised my voice, never used a derogatory label harsher than ‘leafeater’ and that only once. Yet I am so ridiculously burned out by the arguments and harsh words I’ve endured that I’m done holding any hope out any longer.
You sound like what I like to call a “debatist.” No one wants to be challenged on their personal choices. You don’t seem to be approaching this concept with an open mind. Can you define what makes anything they say unreasonable? I am not vegan, but I can recognize, definitively, that veganism is better for the environment (by far), healthy (if you make sure you’re getting all the nutrients you need, just like any diet), and less cruel to animals. You can choose to disagree that those conclusions mean you need to cut out animal products, but those aren’t opinions up for debate. Farming meat is far worse for the environment, vegan diets are perfectly healthy, and obviously, killing animals isn’t something the animal wants.
Again, you can disagree with their conclusion that those reasons mean you shouldn’t eat animal products, but denying that they’re true is like denying climate change. I’m not vegan, so clearly I didn’t come to the same conclusion, but I’m not trying to purport that anyone that does is somehow unreasonable.
No one wants to be challenged on their personal choices.
Yet that is what every vegan does to carnists, in many cases very viciously. I am NOT going up to vegans and telling them to stop being vegan, nor am I judging them for their dietary choices. I ask them questions like ‘What would be your plans for all the current living domesticated animals in the hypothetical situation where eating meat is outlawed?’ and they flip their shit on a regular basis. I go out of my way to present everything I ask as neutral as possible but all my effort has never once mattered.
illing animals isn’t something the animal wants.
I think you are attributing human qualities to nonhuman consciousnesses. There’s a lot of evidence that the concept of death doesn’t even exist in most animal minds, as well as the fact that animals in the wild suffer FAR more disease, discomfort, illness and death than domesticated and cared for livestock.
“debatist”
That isn’t even a real word… I’m sorry I can’t take you seriously anymore.
Every vegan
Factually incorrect and anecdotal
the concept of death doesn’t even exist in most animal minds
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8602129/
Good read, though anyone that’s seen a pet mourn their owner or their friend knows that’s not true already.
can’t take you seriously anymore
It’s a portmanteau of debater and statist. Frankly, I don’t care what you think about me. You’re clearly biased beyond any reason as to the motives of others, to the point of making false blanket statements about entire groups. Any time someone says “all _____ are _____,” there is a problem and they should be questioned. Did the vegans you approach solicit your question? If they did not, then mind your own business. If they did, and “flip their shit,” (X to doubt on the reliability of this narrator) then that one person had an issue. The sheer fact that you can easily find very chill vegans online or irl without much effort means you’re a statistical anomaly, an asshole, or misrepresenting the truth.
I call those ideolgical vegans and yes they drive me nuts too
In respect for your wife and those like her, from now on I will try and use ‘ideological vegan’ to describe the specific subgrouping.
Thanks for being the one sane person in this thread.
Crazy, I know tons of vegans and never met an insane one.
‘Plant based’ was a rebrand of veganism because of what vegans did to veganism.
I like how they expect everyone to share there ethical views. Fun fact: most people don’t.
Veganism: Great lifestyle. Wretched, toxic community (mostly).
EDIT: I want to add I’m very much pro-vegan. They’re literally right. I probably will go vegan as soon as I work out a solution to my eating disorder (ARFID). You just won’t see me in any community. They just seem psychologically unhealthy.
You know I’m kinda okay with vegan cats being the most controversial topic on Lemmy. Could be doing a lot worse.
Personally I believe the only ethical way to enjoy a cat steak is if the cat is vegan and that’s the TRUTH here’s a study:
Context: official c/vegan post, lemmy.world admin post 1 of 2
TL;DR: Debate over whether claiming that plant-based diets for carnivorous animals could be safe constitutes encouraging animal abuse + whether an admin’s reaction to demote the entire mod team was justifiedMan, they don’t take kindly to being called out, do they?
vegan ideology is welded directly to their identity.
When you suggest that veganism may not be the eternal elixir of life and the cure to all the worlds woes, you are attacking their identity.
No one EVER rationally responds to identity attacks.
deleted by creator
I have lots of friends that are vegan/have been vegan, or are sympathetic to the cause. IRL I have had some wonderful conversations about veganism and the ethics of our diet. But on the Internet it’s the vegans ironically that need to get out and touch grass. It’s like there’s no nuance to any conversation, like sorry I can be Peter Singer, it’s actually kinda difficult to be that moral.
People started arguing about whether cats can eat vegan, mods on c!vegan got involved, then an admin got involved. People’s personal feelings about veganism overtook any actual discussion about when it is or isn’t inappropriate for Admins/mods to step in, hence the pinned post on the front page.
“Veganism needs to become a protected belief in every country” … I spit my drink out laughing. What in the actual fuck?!?.
Just no. Why? Well beyond it’s idiotic lunacy, I absolutely do not want any other dietary belief systems protected. Good God would that make a living legal nightmare.
Next up we need to officially protect Star Trek fans
Make it so.
Babylon 5 too then.
What if I like both?
And could I register as a member of a sub-belief? Like, I’m a true believer of the unified collective of the Borg?
Lets do that first.
For context, the story I read a similar comment under was about a decades long vegan forest firefighter who was unable to receive vegan meals through his employer (given that they’re very much “in the field” they can’t really bring their own). After complaining, he was suspended without pay by the employer and he tried to fight that, arguing that his vegan lifestyle was a creed.
That context changes things for me at least, maybe not for you.
Not for me, he should have arranged his own meals or not taken the job if his employer won’t cater to his particular snowflakeism.
I’m low carb but I don’t get to complain if all they have in the canteen is chips and candy.
It’s not really possible to arrange his own meals, and they told him they would give him vegan food.
If a person were sent on a work trip where it was impossible to get outside food, and their boss told them they could get them appropriate food, then didn’t, I think they should complain. Especially if it means that they essentially went hungry for weeks while doing a really active job. That’s crappy of their job to do, and they shouldn’t stand for it.
Snacks in the canteen is a totally different deal and I agree that a complaint is not really appropriate, but it’s reasonable to ask if they can supply a broader range of foods.
Ok then breach of contract, he sues and all is good. In the meantime just eat the salad bar and get a big can of mixed nuts shipped to him.
Of course they shouldn’t stand for it but workers protections are only as good as SCOTUS wants them to be and in that environment when it comes to food maybe it’s time to compromise till you can get your documentary on it out. Everything is public opinion now, justice varies based on clout. It is reality and I hate it but it is reality.
Salad bar and shipping at a forest fire? If they have reliable access to those, I’d be very surprised. He also probably won’t be able to digest meat after 25 years of a vegan diet, so he’d be putting everyone in danger if he made himself sick at the scene of a forest fire. It’s not like there’s much to forage in that situation, so he just has to choose between hunger and illness.
The court ruled that his moral veganism doesn’t count as a protected belief system (this is in Canada), so when he did sue, they ruled in favor of his employer. I’m not sure why breach of contract didn’t apply, but his right to vegan food would have been protected by the court had he been vegan due to religious beliefs (the example given is Jainism). That’s why the comparison is to a protected belief.
In order to understand that, you have to realise that veganism is not a diet, but an ethical belief. A huge part that often comes up is diet, of course, since we all eat, and often in a social setting. But it also concerns, for example:
Not using wool and leather
Not visiting for-profit zoos
Not using cosmetic tested on animals
Not riding horses or attending horse-related entertainment
It is an all-round ethical standpoint, and not just a diet fad. You may or may not agree with it, that’s how beliefs work, but ridiculing the thought of it being a protected belief seems narrow minded.
Eh, I’ve lived with vegans, almost married a vegan, and spent a lot of years in Portland. I’m well versed thank you.
I do not believe in ‘protected beliefs’ any more than I do in religious rights. They have no place in the modern world.
Protection from unjust persecution and discrimination for holding beliefs should always be a thing, providing those practicing those beliefs do not in turn subject others who do not hold the same tenets to persecution or discrimination.
People have rights. Ideas, ideals, and beliefs do not, no matter how noble it may seem.
This topic touches a very soft spot in my heart as I’ve had to watch a cat die from being forced on a vegan diet. I’ve seen the results, and it is so very sad. Keep your goddamn morals out of other’s lives. Especially an animal that has no say in the matter. Fuck vegans.
Whoah whoah whoah. Let’s chill with the general fuck vegans statement. Most vegans are just people. Now the psycho vegans who try to make their cats eat vegan. Fuck those people. But broad statements like “fuck this group” tend to stick in people’s heads and promote undeserved hate. “Fuck the Nazi’s”? Yeah. “Fuck Germans”? No.
Don’t even bother.
That person is so obviously full of shit, picking the most obvious and easiest strawman to beat on.
I am vegetarian and know many vegans.
None would even think about torturing our pets to death with food that is not edible for the specific species.On the other hands I have heard multiple omnivores tell stories about how they “know” crazy vegans that would do shit like that.
There are some crazies (like in any big group of people) and I can’t know if OP accidentally ran into one, but the way they generalize makes it clear to me that they are the one with issues, not every run of the mill vegan.
Vegans usually care a great deal about animals, including carnivorous animals. So fuck them right back for spewing their indiscriminate hatred.
Then “most vegans” need to tell those vegans to shut the fuck up. Just like the Germans did the Nazis.
I’m stuck with a memory I can never get rid of because some piece of shit decided to do that to this poor animal. It couldn’t even hold it’s head up because it was infected so bad and didn’t even have to the energy to live. I got to sit there and watch it’s life slip from it’s body and there was nothing I could do. It was withered to bones.
They never saw jail time or even punished in the slightest amount.
So don’t come in here telling me to play nice.
Fuck.
Vegans.
So… you had one experience and now you associate that with all people you think are the same?
I dunno, seems a bit extreme.
I’m am only speaking of the worst instance of things I’ve seen. I’ve been working with/around animals all my life.
Dog breeders, dog fighters, people that get too many cats (or any animal in general) that they can’t take care of, horses that have been whipped so much their entire bodies are covered in scars, and many of the other horrid things I’ve seen. Seeing the look on that cat’s face hurt me more than anything I’ve ever experienced. He wanted to live, but couldn’t because he was too weak at that point to fight. If he had been found a week earlier, he could have been saved.
But you dumb fucks always think you’re in the right because of your “morally superior stance” on all thing animals. Pushing your shit ideals on other creatures because you think you’re right even though science will say over and over again that it isn’t possible for a cat to survive properly on a vegan diet.
Keep denying science all you want, but do it at your own cost, no one else’s.
I have had literally hundreds of irl and thousands of online interactions with vegans, every experience was horrible and toxic no matter how conciliatory I approach the discussion.
So, fuck vegans
Every fucking one of them
You, conciliatory? I find that tough to believe. Are you sure you weren’t yelling and screaming or otherwise hurling insults at them as you seem to be so fond of doing?
The me you see now is bitter and disillusioned after 3+ decades of slowly degrading wide eyed optimism.
It was a death by a thousand sneers and slogans, protests and coups and misplaced ideals.
So I pretty much hate everyone now but this wasn’t always the case, and in the course of my life the degree of bitterness I feel towards nearly every living human has barely been around 5 years. I’m also not sure this is the most misanthropic I will become and people like you test that limit with such blithe abandon.
If I had to make a list that reflects my current spectrum of severe dislike:
- Fascists. Fuck fascists with every fiber of my being and hypothetical non-physical extension of my consciousness in whatever ether it originates in.
B) Vegans. Fuck vegans, seriously. III) Nearly every other human that has ever existed.
The people I do not harbor some degree of hate could fill a small college auditorium and I can guarantee there is no one on this site that is in that group at the moment.
I engaged in sincere and respectful conversation with every vegan I could find at my university, and whenever I began to ask sincere questions, they ALWAYS responded with derogatory labels and for YEARS I did not and just figured I hadn’t found the right vegan to ask and kept trying.
When you go to a stone lined well and get poisoned water for 30 years maybe it’s time to not go to any more stone lined wells, understand?
- Fascists. Fuck fascists with every fiber of my being and hypothetical non-physical extension of my consciousness in whatever ether it originates in.
If a sick cat upsets you so much, then watch out when you learn about the incredible suffering, misery and billions of deaths caused by the global animal industry. I’m vegan because I watched the videos most “animal lovers” refuse to look at. Unspeakable horror, 24/7.
You know nothing of animal suffering at the hands of humans. “I watched a video once and it made me sad!” Call your local animal control and ask to go for a ride along. Only then will you understand what suffering really is.
I’ve seen the videos, multiple times, and I only wish some of the animals I’ve seen were given such a quick suffer free ending.
So animals living a happy life without humans making them suffer is good? We both want that, right?
^ THIS FUCKING THIS
So many vegans claim to not understand why literally the entire world hates them, but then they constantly post whataboutism bullshit like this.
How is this whataboutism? We’re talking about animal rights. A sick cat and a billion suffering mammals are the same topic, no?
It’s not fair to assume a member of a population is guilty until they condemn/renounce the problematic members of their population. I remember there being a problem after 9/11 where some people expected individual Muslims to publicly condemn Al Qaeda or else be assumed complicit. If it wasn’t alright there, it’s not alright here.
Every. Single. Interaction. I have EVER had with vegans was a shitshow, and I’ve been doing this for decades, IRL and on the internet.
Out of 100+irl and literally thousands of online interactions, I know only one thing for sure about vegans: They are the second most obnoxious and ill-informed self-identifying group of people I have ever met, and since the first is LITERAL fascists, that’s saying something.
Don’t bother arguing, you won’t like where it goes.
Wow you are angry. But I’m not easily offended and up for a debate, if you’d like.
Have any good recipes?
Let’s try to sow unity instead of division.
I’ve gone vegan before. Mostly because I think animals are gross and carry disease as opposed to doing it for ethical reasons. I also love steak and feed my snakes mice. Everyone is different. Stupid people will be stupid and people without empathy will be cruel. I grew up in a rough neighborhood where I knew of not one but two different men who beat their dogs and one, I believe, to death. Neither vegan as far as I know. Ostracizing a certain group will only make them band together more strongly. Empirically speaking. I know personal experience can make a ton of self-righteous hate. I can’t speak to what you’ve seen. But the majority of people in any group are just normal folk unless it’s religion or a cult. The broader the group the more normal people within it. You’re criticizing a diet choice for fucks sake. Everyone is going to have different reasons. I know a very cool person (a practicing vet in fact) that is vegan because her body can’t process fats or oils found in almost every animal product.
If you really feel for animals that this happens to you should try to make change and be involved. Educate people. Fuck, there’s no way you’d ever care to, but you could go to vegan events and educate people on why some animals cannot survive a vegan diet.
Make the problem better.
Or just keep spreading hate and exclusion and making the problem worse.
Nah yo, fuck vegans.
Seriously
Every fucking one of them, idgaf if you think some are ‘good’ or ‘nice’ or ‘just keep to themselves’
Fuck _ All _ Vegans
10+ years vegan here. You should not feed plants to a carnivore. Maybe in the future, but not today. I attended a PETA workshop about a healthy plant-based diet a couple years ago and everybody agreed on that. I met a lot of different vegans and not once have I heard this opinion.
Keep your goddamn morals out of other’s lives. Especially an animal that has no say in the matter.
You are on to something here.
You should not feed plants to a carnivore
You can feed plants to a carnivore, just don’t expect it to be enough.
My dog, for example, loves carrots and cucumbers. They make great treats for him. But please don’t substitute real meat food that he has evolved to eat with carrots and cucumbers
Dogs are omnivores like pigs or humans. They can get everything their body needs from plants. Cats are carnivores, their digestive system is completely different, they are designed to eat raw meat.
We are not. If the meat is slightly too old, too warm, not well cooked we get super sick. Pigs eat a rotten squirel and be fine.…
Pigs evolved to eat meat?
are you shitting me right now?
Google search and your comment say they’re omnivores. But given your comment they’re still more resilient to meat than us?
Can we even call ourselves omnivores at this point? We are so much worse omnivores compared to other omnivores, aren’t we just herbivores with a tolerance to meat?
You’re probably right. I’d love to talk about that, but in my native language and face to face. This is exausting. :)
19:30, lucerne main station. you’re from feddit.org, you surely speak german.
7 Stunden mit dem Zug. Ich melde wenn ich mal in der Gegend bin. :)
Aren’t dogs some type of omnivores instead of carnivores?
well, my dog certainly isn’t
but yes, you’re obviously right, they are generally seen as omnivore. Although they lean harder on the carnivore-side than the herbivore-side.
Not general omnivores - there’s a specific type for that category. I’m no biologist though so ill have to look it up and get back to you. I could be wrong. Don’t trust a stranger on the internet lol
I attended a PETA workshop about a healthy plant-based diet a couple years ago and everybody agreed on that.
Yeah, PETA wants to be the only ones who kill housepets. If all the cats are dead from vegan diets, there won’t be any left for PETA to kidnap and euthanize.
/s but not really because PETA habitually steals pets and immediately euthanizes them before the owner can reclaim them.This was one incident a hundred years ago. Kinda strange, I have to admit. But do you know why PETA kills so many animals? And do you know that the whole story was published by the dairy industry?
That did happen, but to call it habitual isn’t fair.
Wow. If PETA think you’re nuts, you’re definitely nuts.
Yeah I see no difference between militant pro-lifers and militant vegans. You don’t get a say in how I choose to interpret the information presented to me. But if you want to teach me things I didn’t know before or hadn’t considered I’m happy to listen. Just don’t tell me my choices are morally reprehensible when they’re my choices
It’s not just your choices alone, you’re ignoring something here: If the animal whose death you pay for every day could speak, it would object. If it could defend itself, it would fight against its death. It wants to go on living just like you. But you kill it anyway, against its will, because you can, because the animal is innocent and because you simply like it’s taste.
In addition to this violence, animal agriculture is also causing great damage to our planet, so your personal choice affects the lifes of other people, living and yet to be born as well. I can hardly think of any parallels to the pro-lifers.If the
animalfeotus whose death you pay for every day could speak, it would object. If it could defend itself, it would fight against its death. It wants to go on living just like you. But you kill it anyway, against its will, because you can, because theanimalfetus is innocentI can hardly think of any parallels to the pro-lifers.
Come on, now you are paying dumb! :)
A foetus is not alive yet. It’s own it’s way, but it can not survive on it’s own, if it could talk it wouldn’t, because it has not a functioning brain, yet. It doesn’t suffer, yet. Plus there is it’s host, the mother, who’s body is hers to decide what to do.
Pigs, dogs, cows and fish, they are sentient beings who we share the planet with, different but equal.Pigs, dogs, cows and fish, they are sentient beings who we share the planet with, different but equal.
i would not say you are equal to a fish.
I took that last line to be sarcastic.
Right and by even just existing as a human, you are making the world a worse place for every single other animal on the planet, yet you continue to keep living your life. You are currently benefiting from human slavery and suffering, so how much do you really care?
I do and I try. Buying beans instead of meat and oat milk for udder milk is a really easy thing to do on a personal level, if you look at the damage you avoid by doing so. Some things can be changed easily, some take efford, some can not be changed at all on a personal level. Buying second hand stuff is rather easy for me as well. Giving up on my car would take much more efford, I’m not ready yet. Getting out of the firm grip of all fossil destroyers is nearly impossible. So, let’s start easy when you shop for groceries next time. :)
Vegans could just get an animal that can be safely put on a vegan diet. They could walk into a vet or animal rescue and ask about vegan animal diets.
Worse case they could get a miniature pony.
And also: Shouldn’t forcing an animal to live you for the lulz be a problem in general for vegans? The animal didn’t choose to live in your cramped studio apartment just to comfort you.
Animal ownership is, in fact, seen as unethical by some vegans.
Sounds more reasonable to me than forcing unnatural diets onto animals that cannot consent.
My condolences but DAMN just look at all the asshole vegans downvoting you
Also: Fuck vegans
Some vegans decide all cats, like all other animals, should join their club, whether they want to or not. Deemed dubious practice by some but not impossible by others.
Admin loses mind, power trips.
You’re caught up.
“we taught a lion to eat tofu!”
I wonder if we need some kind of middle ground like Twitter where you leave the content up, with a big banner saying “this content is bullshit and here is the evidence”?
While I agree that harmful information should probably be hidden so that impressionable people don’t act on it, I also don’t like non-experts being the arbiters of censorship.
Lock the thread with a pinned comment to some actual evidence proving them wrong would be the closest alternative we have.
Yeah, but here the Admins had to step in because the mods would do the exact opposite, so that’s also not really an option.
Yeah, and that’s… Ok.
But I’d like something that was more visible without going into the comments, so people could see it in their feedNot to mention how much it puts on the shoulders of moderators to have to fact check every post/comment and find reliable sources to ensure false information isn’t spread. It would likely be unsustainable without a lot of funding if the platform expands furrher over time.
Ideally the mod should’ve pinned a comment with the risks and a disclaimer about the serious ethical concerns. They instead deleted legitimate information.
One of the pinned posts on the community is literally a list of studies about the topic?
Absolutely, first he lumps dogs and cats together, they have extremely different dietary needs.
Second, I couldn’t find anything specific to cats dietary needs being met by a vegan diet. The video’s sources seem to be based on self reporting surveys. Not science.
I just had a look over there, every post bar one in the last week is about vegan cats.
They’re not handling this well at all.
