Normie questions for vegans

HardQs

Hi all.

Im not vegan, my wife got us both on a vegitarian diet about 10 years ago and it didnt suit me at all and i gave up after 6 months. I felt lethagic and ill. Despite eating tonnes of lentils and amarath etc.

So i mde a new friend recently who is vegan. He is a lovely guy who went vegan to help with anxiety and depression. Then got totally into the environmental and ethical side and attends activist events.

He was asking for help with how to convince the public and how to influence his family. Communication is not his strongest point. And since i am very articulate and love a good debate he is using me as his target practice. If he can convince me then he can convince anyone.

We watched some activist youtubes. And it would appear that the health benefits may not be for everyone but the ethics surrounding the meat industry practices seem to be the best argument.

To aid him(us) in our project, gimmie your best answers to the following.

Unnecessary suffering of animls in the farms and abatoirs is easy to concede as wrong. But "happy farms" get the same treatment under the argument that killing them is obviously against the animals wishes and since we hve plant bassed alternatives its still immoral.

However.... i would argue that abortion is far worse, and maybe a better place to make improvements. If we can get ppl treating other humans humanely we have a better chance of progressing that to animals.

Also death is 100% natural. And a humane slaughter is way more than any animal could expect in the wild. Why is it less moral that I chose the moment of death for the chicken rather than the fox. Or let the cow develope arthritis and die in pain.

Thanks for reading and any input would be fab.

DoozerT6

Honestly, people generally don't like being lectured to. IMO, it's as likely to give them the hump and make them go out and buy bacon just to spite you, than convert them to veganism.

Lead by example. Your friend should eat the healthiest damn vegan food he can prepare, present it attractively, and if people ask about his delicious-looking food, he can tell them about what he's eating and how he prepared it. Ask people if they'd like to try a taste. Don't lecture. Don't preach. Lead a healthy vegan lifestyle. If people are interested, they'll ask about it. If they're not interested, they'll become defensive if they're hectored about it. If people do ask confronting questions, be able to answer calmly and factually. If your friend isn't the best at speaking about these things, he should think about some FAQ's he gets asked about veganism, research good answers and be able to present them confidently and rationally. Rehearse these answers in his head if necessary.

I'm not against activism per se, although it wouldn't be my bag. It can be important in helping to bring about change. It's been used the world over to great effect for many different causes. However, when you're campaigning against the lifestyle that people lead, the very food they give their children, there will be resistance to that. I don't agree with vegans who go into restaurants and hassle people trying to enjoy their meals etc.

What I'm saying is, you and your friend should chose your methods of activism wisely, to inform and educate. Otherwise you/your friend run the risk of alienating friends and family and being known as a 'preachy vegan' not someone they know as a 'sound lad', who lives a normal life, but chooses a vegan lifestyle.

Mark Hamill

HardQs wrote: »

Unnecessary suffering of animls in the farms and abatoirs is easy to concede as wrong. But "happy farms" get the same treatment under the argument that killing them is obviously against the animals wishes and since we hve plant bassed alternatives its still immoral.

However.... i would argue that abortion is far worse, and maybe a better place to make improvements. If we can get ppl treating other humans humanely we have a better chance of progressing that to animals.

Firstly, this is whataboutery. Even if we were to concede that abortion is worse, it still doesn't make eating animals moral.
Secondly, a foetus is not a person, so abortion is not the same as the killing of an animal for food or sport.

HardQs wrote: »

Also death is 100% natural. And a humane slaughter is way more than any animal could expect in the wild. Why is it less moral that I chose the moment of death for the chicken rather than the fox.

So you save the chicken from possibly being killed by a fox and your reward is to kill the chicken yourself? My child wouldn't exist without me, I protect it from the death it would find if left alone in the wild, therefore I can choose to kill it myself?

HardQs wrote: »

Or let the cow develope arthritis and die in pain.

Are you saying you support euthanasia for people with arthritis?


To boil these down to two simple points:
-Pointing out worse things than eating meat is irrelevant (whataboutery), none of them make eating meat right or wrong.
-Pointing out how much worse the animals would have it in nature is irrelevant, we are not wild animals and should hold ourselves to a higher ethical standard than wild animals or else we are equally subject to any arguments in favour of eating animals as any farm animal.

Chris_Heilong

I dont mind Vegans as long as it is a private affair that an individual choses(like religion) however I cant stand activists.

lordgoat

Don't want to start a new thread (or a row) but wondering how some vegans deal with not using medicines?

HardQs

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Firstly, this is whataboutery. Even if we were to concede that abortion is worse, it still doesn't make eating animals moral.
Secondly, a foetus is not a person, so abortion is not the same as the killing of an animal for food or sport.


So you save the chicken from possibly being killed by a fox and your reward is to kill the chicken yourself? My child wouldn't exist without me, I protect it from the death it would find if left alone in the wild, therefore I can choose to kill it myself?


Are you saying you support euthanasia for people with arthritis?


To boil these down to two simple points:
-Pointing out worse things than eating meat is irrelevant (whataboutery), none of them make eating meat right or wrong.
-Pointing out how much worse the animals would have it in nature is irrelevant, we are not wild animals and should hold ourselves to a higher ethical standard than wild animals or else we are equally subject to any arguments in favour of eating animals as any farm animal.

Thanks for your input. We have discussed it and here is our best rebuttals.

The abortion point was to assert hypocrisy on the morality argument. Since the later term abortions have hands and a heart etc and a nwrvous system capable of suffering. . But yes, a viable strategy would be deflect to when a feotus becomes a real peraon worthy of rights. And thus remove the morality feom the analogy.

Since we cannot prevent animals from dying. The chicken's only options are really me or the fox.

Or we can choose to protect the chicken and let it die when it's ready. But this posea lota of secondary queations with equally as problematic moral ossies

Can i eat it then? Do we let the chickens breed naturally? That would be about 30 chicks per year per female.
Same for the cows but 1.5 calves.
Should we regulate the cocks? 50% of the chicks adw going to be male and are going to rip each other to shreds after 6 months if not seperated. Each cock needs ita own hens.
Same with bulls.

You see nature is actually way.more vicious than we are.

The list of problems is long.

And yes i support euthanasia for mentally sound people. Especially those with chronic pain. And cows who get arthritis with age are in agony.

Mark Hamill

HardQs wrote: »

Thanks for your input. We have discussed it and here is our best rebuttals.

The abortion point was to assert hypocrisy on the morality argument. Since the later term abortions have hands and a heart etc and a nervous system capable of suffering. . But yes, a viable strategy would be deflect to when a feotus becomes a real peraon worthy of rights. And thus remove the morality feom the analogy.

Since we cannot prevent animals from dying. The chicken's only options are really me or the fox.

Or we can choose to protect the chicken and let it die when it's ready. But this posea lota of secondary queations with equally as problematic moral ossies

Can i eat it then? Do we let the chickens breed naturally? That would be about 30 chicks per year per female.
Same for the cows but 1.5 calves.
Should we regulate the cocks? 50% of the chicks adw going to be male and are going to rip each other to shreds after 6 months if not seperated. Each cock needs ita own hens.
Same with bulls.

You see nature is actually way.more vicious than we are.

The list of problems is long.

And yes i support euthanasia for mentally sound people. Especially those with chronic pain. And cows who get arthritis with age are in agony.

The abortion point is still whataboutery, no matter what failed anti-abortion arguments are used. Even if we accept that it is hypocrisy, it is hypocrisy according to your arguments because the person should be as against abortion as they are against eating meat. You are agreeing that meat shouldn't be eaten in order to show their hypocrisy in accepting abortion, so assuming it is meat eating you are trying to justify, you are working against yourself.
Also even if we look at late term abortions, they are done for medical reasons, not social reasons, so they still don't apply here.


We can neuter a sufficient number of animals to keep the population manageable - problem solved for keeping these animals alive in our care. That's the same solution proposed by many pet charities to help us manage and protect our cats and dogs without eating them. If the response is that we don't want animals in our care if we can't eat them then why not return them to the wild? Or stop breeding them and let them die out if that is too hard?
The whole notion that we are doing these animals a favour and therefore we get to eat them is virtue signalling crap. It would be like adopting a bunch of kids and putting them to work in a mine because "hey, if it wasn't for me adopting them, they wouldn't have been adopted".
Besides, why should our attempts at being ethical stop at "slightly more ethical than random animal nature"? None of the "nature is harsh" arguments work if we apply them to people, so why animals?


Over 1 in 5 people in Ireland have arthritis, are you suggesting we euthanise the lot of them? There are many types of arthritis with many levels of severity. Now,I can understand putting something out of its misery if it is in complete agony, but the percentage at that level is tiny, certainly far less than what would be required to support the meat industry (and you can do that without eating them). Therefore the "putting animal out of its pain argument" is more virtue signalling.
And think about the implication if we did accept that justification, that it's ok to eat animals if we are putting them out of their misery. Well, farm animals aren't normally in pain, not until in they get old and for most of them they will die without being in the levels of pain that would justify non-consented euthanasia. So how do we continue to get that same amount of meat we get now? We would have to breed animals to be in pain all the time, wouldn't we? Would that be ethical?


Before you bring up any argument that boils down to "I'm doing them a favour, therefore I can eat them", question both whether that argument would work if we used it to justify doing the same to people, and then question if the hypothetical works if we apply to the current meat industry scale. If the argument fails either one (and they usually fail both) then it's not an argument to ethically justify eating meat, it's one to make people feel like that are doing good by eating meat.

HardQs

Mark Hamill wrote: »

The abortion point is still whataboutery, no matter what failed anti-abortion arguments are used. Even if we accept that it is hypocrisy, it is hypocrisy according to your arguments because the person should be as against abortion as they are against eating meat. You are agreeing that meat shouldn't be eaten in order to show their hypocrisy in accepting abortion, so assuming it is meat eating you are trying to justify, you are working against yourself.
Also even if we look at late term abortions, they are done for medical reasons, not social reasons, so they still don't apply here.


We can neuter a sufficient number of animals to keep the population manageable - problem solved for keeping these animals alive in our care. That's the same solution proposed by many pet charities to help us manage and protect our cats and dogs without eating them. If the response is that we don't want animals in our care if we can't eat them then why not return them to the wild? Or stop breeding them and let them die out if that is too hard?
The whole notion that we are doing these animals a favour and therefore we get to eat them is virtue signalling crap. It would be like adopting a bunch of kids and putting them to work in a mine because "hey, if it wasn't for me adopting them, they wouldn't have been adopted".
Besides, why should our attempts at being ethical stop at "slightly more ethical than random animal nature"? None of the "nature is harsh" arguments work if we apply them to people, so why animals?


Over 1 in 5 people in Ireland have arthritis, are you suggesting we euthanise the lot of them? There are many types of arthritis with many levels of severity. Now,I can understand putting something out of its misery if it is in complete agony, but the percentage at that level is tiny, certainly far less than what would be required to support the meat industry (and you can do that without eating them). Therefore the "putting animal out of its pain argument" is more virtue signalling.
And think about the implication if we did accept that justification, that it's ok to eat animals if we are putting them out of their misery. Well, farm animals aren't normally in pain, not until in they get old and for most of them they will die without being in the levels of pain that would justify non-consented euthanasia. So how do we continue to get that same amount of meat we get now? We would have to breed animals to be in pain all the time, wouldn't we? Would that be ethical?


Before you bring up any argument that boils down to "I'm doing them a favour, therefore I can eat them", question both whether that argument would work if we used it to justify doing the same to people, and then question if the hypothetical works if we apply to the current meat industry scale. If the argument fails either one (and they usually fail both) then it's not an argument to ethically justify eating meat, it's one to make people feel like that are doing good by eating meat.

Lots here to think about. Thanks for the response

s7ryf3925pivug

Farm animals have been domestucated and bred for traits that make them good for farming. Many of them are unsuitable for life outside a farm.

An example is layer chickens that disregard their own eggs. This makes it easy for us to collect them, but also means they generally need to be hatched in an incubator.

There are lots of other considerations too, with the notion of releasing farm animals into the wild, such as impact on local and global environment. In most cases I don't think this would be a good idea. Discontinuing animal farming would usually involve allowing the numbers of the animals being farmed to drop to small numbers, kept as pets or park features where suitable.

It's a non sequitur really though. The compelling reasons dor veganism are that animal farming involves a level of cruelty, it's less efficient in terms of raw amount of food produced compared to vegetable farming, and it involves greater greenhouse emissions and water consumption.

s7ryf3925pivug

But yeah lecturing peole is a bad idea. If you want to encourage uptake of veganism, then just be healthy and eat nice food and don't feed negative stereotypes of self righteous preachiness.