Plus, animal farming uses vast amounts more land for crop growing, grazing, feedlots, pens & slaughterhouses compared to plant farming when directed to humans instead of used to facilitate animal ag. So, animals are far more likely to be labelled as “pests” or “invasive” to human farming operations if humans farm animals and intrude on wild animals’ habitat more, since we’re the real invasive pests on Earth.
Exactly. And when they do that, it also can increase the population by allowing more of the weaker members to survive and eliminating the most dominant competitors for resources. So it’s super ironic and counterproductive. Whether it’s to strengthen the population or to lower it, it does neither and often does the opposite.
Been meaning to look into Christine Korsgaard, thanks for reminding me. Multiple vegans have recommended her to me already. I don’t agree with everything Bentham says either, or many ideas associated with utilitarianism for that matter. And I do think veganism is a deontological stance against animal exploitation rather than a utilitarian calculation of how we can do the most good and reduce the most suffering etc. But, Jeremy will forever remain an insightful, pioneering & seminal voice in the animal rights movement, in my opinion - just for some of the specific ideas and thoughts he expressed, not everything.
Ok fair enough, I apologize for assuming you weren’t vegan. In my defense, you sounded quite a lot like what non-vegans often say & it seemed like you were echoing their talking points, but you probably didn’t mean it in the same ways, I’m probably just hyper alerted to it based on my experiences with non vegans. I’m also now assuming you are vegan, even though you didn’t explicitly say you are, and I’m interpreting that when you say you don’t purchase or consume animal products, that includes non-food items as well, and that by extension you don’t fund or participate in other forms of animal exploitation either (even if it’s “fair trade” or “ethical” - to humans, by typical speciesist human standards - which is obviously important, and I respect you for doing your due diligence to try to buy products that respect human rights, but imo it must consider non human sentients also). I also do my best to buy products that treat humans ethically, fairly etc. and buy second hand where possible and I’m all for that.
I wasn’t suggesting that we would put out a listing for accommodation and then deny/turn away everyone who wasn’t vegan (which would likely be the majority or entirety of responses, only because of how few vegans there are period in current society). That seems like a silly plan, and yes probably cruel/unethical or at least morally dubious. I didn’t actually propose any specific method of helping them, in fact one of my questions was asking people how they thought we should help them. Unfortunately I didn’t get an answer from anyone to either of my questions (why there is a substantial overlap between vegans [OR plant based eaters, I guess] and homelessness, and what we can do about it), but I guess I kind of answered myself when people challenged me to justify why I even said anything about it in the first place or questioned whether it was a real phenomenon. And regarding strategies of how to help them, I don’t know, but it wouldn’t have to be like you said. For example, That Vegan Teacher, who now lives in Italy, proposed the idea of the “Pods” system, which other vegans such as Taryn4Animals were looking into organizing and developing and implementing in different locations in the US (but ideally it would be a global community effort). She has talked a lot about it and refined and evolved the idea over the years. After determining that it might be difficult to enact the full scope of her idea physically, she has more recently diverted to a digital version of “Pods” which is more of a general support network for vegans and animal rights activists to help & assist & support & uplift each other, promote each other’s content, motivate each other, etc. But the physical version of the concept would involve vegans who own or rent housing and have the ability to accommodate other roommates/housemates etc, promoting the offer specifically to vegans (in vegan/animal rights spaces, so it’s not advertised directly to carnists etc) for them to come and stay in the building(s) or complexes etc and create kind of a vegan safe house of sorts where vegans could provide each other, including homeless vegans, with a place to stay and maybe vegan food to eat, but also drive each other to keep doing activism (that part could easily be removed and the system would still provide a lot of benefit). Also, as much as it’s virtuous and even obligatory in some cases to help others (including both humans and non human sentient beings), I don’t think anyone should be forced to let others into their home especially who they don’t know. It’s almost like the 3rd amendment of the US constitution where no one can be forced to house soldiers in their home during war. And in some cases, vegans are much more likely to trust and be comfortable with someone else who is vegan (for one thing it demonstrates they’re probably a peaceful nonviolent nonthreatening and respectful person given the compassion they show for animals, ofc not always), and to also be willing to live with them, than to have to potentially violate their values (not saying these values are necessarily inherent to veganism, but can accompany it) of not wanting to be involved with or in close proximity to or even seen as potentially enabling in this case, people doing bad things to nonhuman animals (& the environment & humans etc etc) that they’re morally opposed to and repulsed by. They’re also much more easily and practically able to accommodate that person and live compatibly with them if they’re vegan. So can you really blame a vegan for having a spare flat, and wanting to provide it specifically to vegans? Btw, a vegan did this once during the Ukraine war, advertised a spare flat specifically to vegans on Reddit who were in need of sanctuary from the war, I’m not sure that was the best way to go about doing that or best situation to do it in but they did explain their reasoning and it made sense. They really wouldnt have been able to provide for anyone who wasnt vegan.
Yes, humans are animals. I apologize for when I often accidentally say “humans and animals” or just “animals” to refer to non-human animals. I try to remember to not use language that implies humans aren’t animals, or are in some separate pseudoscientific category, and instead say things like “other animals”, “non-human animals”, “our fellow animals”, “OTHAs (Other-Than-Human-Animals)”, or “non-human sentient beings” (when referring specifically to all animals or all sentient beings who aren’t human, and “sentient beings” or “animals (including humans)” when referring to all animals or all sentient beings).
I largely agree with your take. Could you possibly elaborate on what you meant by the category of human is problematic and largely pseudo scientific? I know only a little bit about posthumanism (and transhumanism, though I know that’s different), but I don’t really immediately see how these ideas connect. I’d love to know more, because this reminds me of concepts I’ve thought about for a long time. I’m developing a theory I call critical species theory - based of course on critical race theory. So this is right up my alley.
Damn, I disabled the VPN restriction too. Dumb site.
I’ll add your vote in mentally.
Interesting. You seem to echo some of Kant’s thoughts on the topic (though he was not explicitly against exploiting and slaughtering animals, but just believed it should be done painlessly [which is obviously still violating the animals’ interests & is an act of violence & brutality by humans, and ignores all the other cruelty in the process of farming them & animal exploitation in general], so not entirely, but perhaps he didn’t even consider meat and animal product eating/using/animal use was unnecessary, and I think a form of “veganism” would be a logical extension of what he said when applying those values consistently and factoring in modern evidence and circumstances):
Immanuel Kant — ‘He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.’
Basically he thought that non-human animals didn’t have intrinsic value or rights, but that their value or rights were extrinsic/instrumental to preserving and protecting human rights - sorry if this isn’t what you meant.
Immanuel Kant believed that while humans have no direct duties to non-human animals, mistreating them can be morally wrong because it can harm one’s own moral character. He argued that actions like cruelty to animals can desensitize individuals to suffering/violence and potentially lead to harmful behavior towards other humans (a lot of more recent psychological research and statistics support these assessments). Therefore, while he considered that non-human animals lack the moral status of “rational beings” (which he considered exclusive to humans, though it’s unclear if believed it to be universally true of all humans ‐ he did describe children, people with certain intellectual disabilities, cognitively declining elderly, and more prejudicially, women and non-Europeans as being less rational…), their mistreatment is still indirectly wrong due to its impact on human morality and the subsequent spillover effect that can have on how humans treat each other. I’m sure he would also be against what slaughterhouse workers are forced to deal with and what happens to those communities of people if he knew about it too (including domestic violence, aligning with the somewhat intersectionalist view of “violence begets violence/oppression/injustice/harm etc”), based on his values.
Of course, the argument from marginal cases which was proposed by people like Roman philosopher Porphyry and Jeremy Bentham - known for the frequently cited animal rights quote “The question is not can they reason, nor can they talk, but can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?” (and later, in modern vegan/animal rights discourse, the argument from marginal cases evolved into the Name The Trait argument, for which we have Isaac Brown AKA “AskYourself” to thank), criticized this stance and challenged its ability to remain consistent in its reasoning without taking away human rights from certain humans who possessed similar mental capacities to the non-human animals whose exploitation was attemptedly justified based on their supposed lack of rationality or lower intelligence.
Sorry to go off topic in critiquing Kant, I know you don’t agree with everything he said, but just some of the things you said reminded me of it - and those are valid points. How we treat non human animals definitely does backfire significantly on humans in a variety of ways. Where I would disagree is that I think non-human animals have innate moral value, deserving of intrinsic rights and protections, even if harming them hypothetically wasn’t going to negatively impact humans - and arguing that it does, even if true, is much harder to prove, in some cases, than recognizing the undeniable direct actions to the non-human animals. Not to be rude, but veganism to me is about animal rights (because I think non-human animals need & deserve their own movement and this is it), not human rights (even though it has positive side-effects for human rights, and human rights obviously matter, equally in my opinion, or the rights of sentient beings in general), and the idea of not exploiting animals just because of its utility in helping humans to not do so, is a very nuanced view (even going beyond plant-based environmentalism, since there are forms of animal exploitation which may not negatively impact the environment necessarily but which are still cruel to the animals, which could be opposed on the basis of it contributing to negative behaviors between humans), but I think some might consider it a form of “plant-based humanism” or “intersectionalist humanist ahimsa” or something, not sure. But, I’m fine if you consider yourself vegan (you are of course by multiple definitions), after all you’re leaving the animals alone, so that’s what matters and I respect your view :)
Good point. I should have specified I meant discounting other factors that might make you care about someone more or less. So, all else being equal. Let’s say that, for sake of example, a human and a non human animal were both unknown to you, you didn’t have any relationship with either of them, and they were both just as “moral” of individuals, and even had the exact same impact on those around them and the environment, etc (hypothetically, even if that isn’t realistic, to get a sense of where our values lie if the only relevant difference is the species of the individual, and the traits that would entail). We can either equalize those traits or not, either way it should ultimately lead to the same answer, for most people anyway. Btw I’m not asking you what you would do in that situation, just explaining more accurately what I meant.
Hi, i’m going to just send the comment that I sent to someone else here who was also thinking that price was an obstacle to being vegan:
In terms of the cost of plant-based diets, they’re generally found to be cheaper on average than diets containing animal products. Here’s one such study https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-11-11-sustainable-eating-cheaper-and-healthier-oxford-study that found people were able to cut their grocery bills by up to 1/3 by going plant-based, and there are several others finding the same things. Plant-based whole foods are typically the cheapest foods available to buy, and when we look at production costs, it’s even better since animal products are only made affordable by artificial price lowering as a result of how much more government & tax subsidies are disproportionally given to animal agriculture than plant-based foods. Without those bail outs, it wouldn’t be affordable to the average consumer, and as it is, not only is it inherently expensive & inefficient to produce animal products compared to plant-based foods, but it’s also usually more expensive to buy for the end consumer than plant-based foods. This is why wealther nations typically consume far more animal products, and poorer nations - as well as poorer communities within wealther nations - often consume fewer animal products and more plant-based foods. There is a reason why legumes, grains, vegetables etc are often seen as the food of a “poor man’s diet” or “poor people food” - despite them being terrific foods, healthy, nutritious, ethical & sustainable, so it’s a win win that they’re cheap. Plant-based foods have been the staples of quite lower income countries and communities for generations. People often can’t afford to buy meat & animal products, and are plant-based out of necessity of affordability. The people who think plant based diets are expensive are ironically usually wealthier people who haven’t been in a situation where they’ve been forced to buy the cheapest food possible, because if they were they’d know it’d mostly be looking at plant based foods.
One notable exception to this and what often drives the common misconception that plant-based diets are expensive, is the fact that they CAN be if you eat novel plant based mock products or other expensive plant based foods - but you can also buy high-end expensive animal products and they would be the most exorbitant foods you can possibly buy. These plant based products are relatively new and haven’t reached economies of scale yet - not to mention the lack of support from governments compared to animal products, and heavy opposition from the animal agriculture industries, societal misunderstandings/misinformation, etc. In theory, they should be cheaper to buy since they’re cheaper to produce - and eventually they will be if more people buy them, and especially if also fewer people buy animal products - which would eventually become unaffordable if subsidies are removed, which are increasingly harder to justify given increasing environmental costs associated with animal agriculture and other issues threatening the industries. For now, it depends on where you are - regarding novel plant based mock products, not plant based whole foods or other traditional plant based staples like tofu, tempeh, TVP, falafel, seitan etc & ofc starches and other plant based foods - and in some cases plant based meats, plant based cheeses, plant based milks etc have achieved price parity with their animal derived counterparts, or are relatively affordable - sometimes actually cheaper already, especially in parts of Europe. But of course these are not essential products, and it’s perfectly possible for most people to be plant based even if they don’t have access to them.
deleted by creator
I saw a perfect short video by Arvind Animal Activist that summarized this type of argument about all the ways in which we cause harm and then cause even more harm trying to manage that harm ultimately all as a consequence of animal exploitation including animal agriculture . I can’t find it, any idea?
Guessing you aren’t vegan based on this comment. Veganism isn’t about what someone eats, it’s not a diet but rather an ethical stance against animal exploitation, which extends beyond food into clothing & other products or any other services or activities that someone participates in that might involve animals. A plant-based (animal-free) diet is just one application/implementation that is entailed by veganism.
Having this stance is free, the only thing that costs money is certain practical implementations of the stance. Also, even if the practical implementations most commonly associated with vegans aren’t possible, there’s always a “more vegan” and “less vegan” option that you could choose from, and the vegan action is to choose the option that most closely aligns with vegan/animal rights values. It’s not all or nothing. It’s about doing your best to avoid contributing to or participating in animal exploitation.
In terms of the cost of plant-based diets, they’re generally found to be cheaper on average than diets containing animal products. Here’s one such study https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-11-11-sustainable-eating-cheaper-and-healthier-oxford-study that found people were able to cut their grocery bills by up to 1/3 by going plant-based, and there are several others finding the same things. Plant-based whole foods are typically the cheapest foods available to buy, and when we look at production costs, it’s even better since animal products are only made affordable by artificial price lowering as a result of how much more government & tax subsidies are disproportionally given to animal agriculture than plant-based foods. Without those bail outs, it wouldn’t be affordable to the average consumer, and as it is, not only is it inherently expensive & inefficient to produce animal products compared to plant-based foods, but it’s also usually more expensive to buy for the end consumer than plant-based foods. This is why wealther nations typically consume far more animal products, and poorer nations - as well as poorer communities within wealther nations - often consume fewer animal products and more plant-based foods. There is a reason why legumes, grains, vegetables etc are often seen as the food of a “poor man’s diet” or “poor people food” - despite them being terrific foods, healthy, nutritious, ethical & sustainable, so it’s a win win that they’re cheap. Plant-based foods have been the staples of quite lower income countries and communities for generations. People often can’t afford to buy meat & animal products, and are plant-based out of necessity of affordability. The people who think plant based diets are expensive are ironically usually wealthier people who haven’t been in a situation where they’ve been forced to buy the cheapest food possible, because if they were they’d know it’d mostly be looking at plant based foods.
One notable exception to this and what often drives the common misconception that plant-based diets are expensive, is the fact that they CAN be if you eat novel plant based mock products or other expensive plant based foods - but you can also buy high-end expensive animal products and they would be the most exorbitant foods you can possibly buy. These plant based products are relatively new and haven’t reached economies of scale yet - not to mention the lack of support from governments compared to animal products, and heavy opposition from the animal agriculture industries, societal misunderstandings/misinformation, etc. In theory, they should be cheaper to buy since they’re cheaper to produce - and eventually they will be if more people buy them, and especially if also fewer people buy animal products - which would eventually become unaffordable if subsidies are removed, which are increasingly harder to justify given increasing environmental costs associated with animal agriculture and other issues threatening the industries. For now, it depends on where you are - regarding novel plant based mock products, not plant based whole foods or other traditional plant based staples like tofu, tempeh, TVP, falafel, seitan etc & ofc starches and other plant based foods - and in some cases plant based meats, plant based cheeses, plant based milks etc have achieved price parity with their animal derived counterparts, or are relatively affordable - sometimes actually cheaper already, especially in parts of Europe. But of course these are not essential products, and it’s perfectly possible for most people to be plant based even if they don’t have access to them.
Now… with all of that aside, which was fairly unrelated to my post, I obviously agree that everyone should have a home who wants one. The fact that plant based foods are usually cheaper as I said is one reason that homeless people often are plant based not by choice, but often also by choice for ethics (veganism) while it coincides with being the easier option for their situation. I’m obviously highlighting that this specific community should help itself and support each other because, while ideally we would help everyone to have a home, people are more likely to help people in their own community, especially when there’s shared values that create an immediate bond/connection & understanding between us. I would say the same if for e.g. there were a lot of LGBT people who were homeless - there may well be - and because LGBT people know they are a minority in society and the community needs support and advocacy and empowerment in general - as do vegans/animal rights activists (and obviously by extension the nonhuman animals) - they may feel more of a passion, drive & motivation to want to help each other. I mean, let’s face it, transphobes aren’t going to be particularly interested in housing trans people, and non-vegans (especially anti-vegans, which make up an increasing population in society) probably aren’t particularly going to be interested in housing vegans. But vegans can look out for each other, even if no one else does. I don’t see a problem with this. Also, you could make an edgier ethical argument that there’s more utility in helping to support a vegan in order to help protect & develop the vegan community & ultimately the animal rights movement, which arguably has the greatest potential to reduce overall suffering on the planet of sentient beings (both non human and human), rather than helping people who are just going to keep exploiting and killing animals and contributing to the destruction of the planet and society, if you can only help one. And obviously we can’t help everyone, unfortunately - but I’m not saying we shouldn’t.
Sadly too many are. I think the vegan community should come together and provide homes for these people. They need support.
Another fact is plant based food is generally cheaper so its possible homeless people find it easier to become vegan if theyre already used to eating that way
I guess I’m just noticing a trend of a lot of vegans being homeless. I have theories but nothing solid. I think maybe people who face hardship like homelessness are more likely to empathize with other unfortunate individuals like the nonhuman animals that humans kill & exploit. In that case I guess it would be a matter of “why are so many homeless people vegan” rather than vice versa. But I think it’s also unfortunately possible that ethical vegans can end up isolated or struggling socially given how people around us don’t tend to understand our view and it can lead to conflicts or in some cases parting ways with family & friends who we can’t get along with anymore. Luckily that hasn’t been the case for me but I know several vegans for whom that has happened. Also, it’s a counterculture movement of sorts so I think it can tend to attract people who don’t fit into mainstream society and some live unconventional lives or career choices in general. Another real consideration is that some vegans try to pursue a career in animal rights and fail to find proper employment given the limited options, or don’t want to work anywhere that serves animals which rules out a lot of food & hospitality jobs.
Just personal experience. I know a lot of homeless vegans. Maybe the proportion isn’t higher than that of non vegans, but I feel like it might be given how few of us there are and how many seem to be homeless or end up homeless.
We would decrease plant cultivation as a result of decreasing animal exploitation within the agricultural sector. Far more plants are needed, and land cleared, in an animal based system than a plant based one. There would be no offset. Plant agriculture is, in part, a downstream effect of animal “agriculture”.
Don’t forget the wildlife issue is multifactorial. You have the impact of animal agriculture on the climate & Earth’s natural ecosystems, ghgs, pollution, land/water/crop/resource use, deforestation, habitat destruction, species extinction, etc (all of which harms and threatens most life on Earth including humans)… but more directly not only do humans wipe out wild animal populations in order to protect “livestock” farming operations (that disturbing irony of “farmers heroically saving the animals from danger so that they can kill them later”…) but then also use that to vindicate the killing of the other animals that become more densely populated as a result of humans’ prior disruption to the balance of the various species within the ecosystem. So it’s literally… killing animals to kill animals to kill animals. E.g. killing the deers in order to kill the foxes/bears in order to kill the cows/pigs/chickens …violence begets violence
What nonsense. Hunters do in most cases actively target bigger/stronger animals, not children or the weakest ones. The fact they don’t have complete carte blanche/freedom of choice over which animals to target as they’re limited by the animals in the area and immediate proximity, and may not be able to kill/“catch” the absolute most resilient, fastest & strongest animals in their species (though they of course could if they really wanted to, but it would be a waste of effort and time), and that there are natural ecological and biological forces (namely Darwinism) that generally favor the survival of stronger animals, doesn’t change the fact that humans can counteract that and subvert the “natural order” (and have regarding basically everything we do with animals) and “override” the usual phenomena we see (Btw, I’m not appealing to nature. Nature is brutal. But it’s just a fact that what humans do to/with other animals nowadays is mostly unnatural, under most common construals or notions of what “natural” means). There’s nothing stopping a human with a gun from choosing to shoot the bigger deer in front of them rather than that deer’s child standing next to them, regardless of any other factors at play in a natural setting. So, is it 100% “perfect” in exclusively targeting the strongest animals? Obviously not. But it does obviously have an impact and does contribute to the effects we described if in any situation, stronger animals are being targeted first, which they are.
That’s a pretty big, crucial point and kind of the main thrust of what I’m saying. Also, you didn’t provide citations for your claims either, but they’re also easily debunkable through basic logic by just thinking for a second. And similarly, most of what I said is logic- and morality-based (which I said it would be near the beginning), not about empirics/facts. Like the fact that hunting predator animals leads to an increase in the population of their prey animals who humans then justify killing to counteract that effect; because if you kill someone, they can’t kill others, and then those others are more likely to survive and reproduce. Sometimes proving a claim, and even what can be considered forms of evidence or truth, doesn’t require external sources or empirical observations or experimentation. A priori reasoning (not a posteriori) allows us to conclude things like “1+1=2” based on an internally established logical system without needing to provide some other form of additional evidence. I don’t know if you know but it’s become kind of a meme to mock people who say “wHaT’s YoUr SoUrCe?” after someone makes a completely obvious or self-proving, self-evident statement, regarding which a source is unnecessary and often not even applicable or possible. It’s an absurd nonsensical attitude to have that everything must be measured on paper and documented (so to speak) or else it can’t be accepted or considered valid & sound evidence & reasoning, or truthful. We wouldn’t have made many of the leaps of progress that we have by thinking that way.
That said, the points I made that did involve empirical claims that would require external evidence to verify are in fact supported by wildlife conservation orgs and well documented. As I said I don’t have time to research this again and cite sources that I’ve observed/read previously. So “don’t take it from me, do your own research”. But to completely reject everything that doesn’t have a source attached, even if it would require one in order to prove it, is pretty ridiculous. To recognize that it’s an incomplete proposition and reserve judgment until/unless further evidence is provided is reasonable, and even to research it yourself based on the information conveyed. What’s more, to argue that something is false simply because there’s no evidence provided for it is known as an argument from ignorance and is a logical fallacy that I doubt anyone would hold consistently (you seemed to suggest this, I apologize if I misinterpreted). And yes, what someone is saying isn’t immediately wrong simply because it’s fallacious or contains a fallacy, but if it makes arguments that hinge on a fallacy, it can fail to successfully prove its point.
You’re basically just making a utilitarian greater good argument, desirable ends justifying morally despicable means that violate important deontic principles. And again, I doubt you would apply this logic to humans, or else most other humans would consider you a psychopath and maybe even a danger to society. It also reeks of eugenicism. Further, this is not why they’re killed and doesn’t even achieve that effect/outcome (you’re implying that the species would go extinct if humans didn’t hunt them, despite the fact that many wild animal species have gone extinct or been rapidly diminished and endangered through hunting and animal farming, and no explanation for how the species would go extinct if humans didn’t hunt them). [Additionally, I don’t believe a species matters more than an individual. Does a race matter more than an individual member of that race? Is it ok to kill supposedly weaker members of a race to that end?] What you probably mean is you prioritize the “strength” of the population, which is actually weakening it, in most cases completely unnecessarily or to reverse the damage of other human actions toward animals (e.g. hunting predators in order to protect cattle farming operations). Or that you basically just care more about arbitrary qualities like the animals being strong than their actual lives and experiences.
But let’s be real, that’s not why you’re defending this. In all likelihood, it’s because you’re not vegan and you feel threatened by the arguments against animal exploitation and killing because you participate in it unnecessarily, so you feel the urge to attack any and all pro-animal arguments by proxy even if they’re opposed to actions that you don’t even do yourself. Please consider watching www.DominionMovement.org