End Suffering
(midwest.social)
Memes of ProductionThat makes no sense. From my experience, left wing people are much more likely to be vegan than the average person.
Leftists being more likely to be vegan than others, does not mean the majority of leftists are vegan.
So what, 1% vs 0.5%? So what?
Are they really left wing? Vegan teacher is one of the most racist ppl out there. I've met a bunch of vegan right wing religious nuts. (India)
So many people are inconsistent it's not even amusing.
That being said, the idea of extending our compassion to other sentient beings is not often received with immediate cheer by people who are otherwise against oppression in general, sadly even by those who value moral consistency.
From an anti-speciesist perspective, watching anti-racist, anti-sexist, queer positive folks hand wringing and bumbling while trying to explain why "no, wait, here's why this opresssion is OK" is both sad and disheartening.
The central analogy to the civil rights movement and the women's movement is trivializing and ahistorical. Both of those social movements were initiated and driven by members of the dispossessed and excluded groups themselves, not by benevolent men or white people acting on their behalf. Both movements were built precisely around the idea of reclaiming and reasserting a shared humanity in the face of a society that had deprived it and denied it. No civil rights activist or feminist ever argued, "We're sentient beings too!" They argued, "We're fully human too!" Animal liberation doctrine, far from extending this humanist impulse, directly undermines it.
Speciesism is not merely plausible; it is essential for right conduct, because those who will not make the morally relevant distinctions among species are almost certain, in consequence, to misapprehend their true obligations.
You can be leftist and racist. Look at the soviets.
It's so frustrating. Such a massive blind spot for people who want to see themselves as progressive and compassionate.
"We need to do praxis to materially help the working class!"
"Cool. We can start by simply not eating certain foods in order to free up land, reduce pollution, and slow down climate change."
"Nuh uh!"
Because clearly, these problems are solved by our individual actions.
Yes. It's called 'organizing'.
This kind of pithy throwaway comments are depressing. No one is saying that it's all down to individual choices. At the same time, individual choices add up into collective movements.
It's like refusing to recycle because environmental threats require collective will and action to be solved. Sure, but at the same time, do your part and recycle your crap.
The need for collective action and solutions does not absolve us of individual responsibility.
This must be a cultural thing. Over here even most libs are trying to cut down on meat consumption.
You can tell it's bourgeoise because it thinks paying extra 50-100% for alternatives is a choice and not a consequence of the lack of political will. The bourgeoise's children are the death of left idealism as they contaminate the movement with nonsense that detracts from the class struggle.
What are you on about.
It sounds like your saying vegan sausages distract from building class consciousness. Surely not, because that sounds as dumb as a bag of bricks.
We're all too broke to be spend 50-100% more on vegan food when we are stuck in a capitalist hellscape.
Eating is a need, eating ethically is a nice idea when rent/mortgage, utilities aren't taking up 70-80% of people's paychecks.
How dare you demand i change my consumption habits? /s
Well good news my apparent leftist hating vegan friend, the best way to end animal suffering is destroying capitalism. So we don't got to be opposed at all. Unless you care more about capitalism than you do about ending animal suffering of course.
People were eating meat before capitalism, and will eat meat after capitalism. Capitalism is not the problem here.
And I'm an Anarchist, so take your 'leftist hating' nonsense elsewhere.
Woof. Says capitalism isnt the problem while claiming to be an anarchist. Not sus at all...
The more we R&D fake meats, plant based or lab grown, the sooner we can achieve this
Bullshit. If people are not willing to change now, fake meat isn't going to change their mind. They are literally committing ATROCITY. Because they are unwilling to change or examine themselves. Until that is addressed, there is no amount of consumerist bullshit that will solve the problem. "Lab meats will save us!" is the same vibes as buying a gym membership because you're concerned about your health and then never going.
God no. Lab grown meat to compete with the normal meat will have to be cheaper than it. See how the capitalist leeches enshittified every other food (like meat), imagine how will they enshittify something that has to be cheaper...
List Of Meat Substitutes from Wikipedia:
Vegetarian bacon – sometimes made from tempeh.
Vegetarian sausage
Vegetarian hot dog
Carrot hot dog
Vegetarian burger
Vegan chicken nuggets – made from pea protein, soy protein, textured vegetable protein, and wheat gluten
Tofurkey – faux turkey, a meat substitute in the form of a loaf or casserole of vegetarian protein, usually made from tofu (soybean protein) or seitan (wheat protein) with a stuffing made from grains or bread, flavored with a broth and seasoned with herbs and spices
Cauliflower – coated in flour and baked or fried to imitate chicken wings or steak
Leaf protein concentrate
Meat extender – sometimes but not always soy-based
Mock duck
Nut roast
Seitan – a food made from wheat gluten, with wheat being a grain.
Glamorgan sausage[2] – a traditional Welsh vegetarian sausage named after the historic county of Glamorgan in Wales.
Paneer[3] – for example in such dishes as Paneer tikka
Edible mushrooms[4]
Mycoprotein – a form of single-cell protein, also known as fungal protein, it is able to provide greater satiety than traditional protein sources such as chicken, while also being rich in protein and low in caloric content
Fistulina hepatica – a common mushroom known as beefsteak fungus
Fusarium venenatum - a microfungus of the genus Fusarium that has a high protein content
Laetiporus – a mushroom which is also named chicken of the woods
Lyophyllum decastes – a mushroom known as fried chicken mushroom
Neurospora crassa - a type of red bread mold of the phylum Ascomycota
Pleurotus ostreatus – better known as the oyster mushroom, famous in the vegan community as one of the best substitutes for fried chicken
Breadfruit – used similarly as jackfruit in savory dishes
Coconut burger – made from sapal, the coconut pulp by-products of traditional coconut milk extraction in Filipino cuisine
Eggplant – semitropical/tropical plant with a highly textured flesh[5]
Grapefruit – during the course of the Special Period economic crisis Cubans prepared steaks made out of breaded and fried grapefruit rind known as "bistec de toronja".[6]
Jackfruit – a fruit whose flesh has a similar texture to pulled pork when cooked
Burmese tofu – made from water, chickpea flour and turmeric
Falafel – a traditional Middle Eastern bean fritter, believed to have been created by ancient Copts as a meat substitute during Lent
Härkis – a brand of processed ground fava beans
Tofu, made from soy/soybeans.
Textured vegetable protein – a defatted soy flour product that is a by-product of extracting soybean oil.[7] It is often used as a meat analogue or meat extender. It is quick to cook, with a protein content that is comparable to certain meats.[8]
Ganmodoki – a traditional Japanese tofu based dish similar to veggie burgers
Tempeh – a traditional Indonesian soy product in a cake form, made from fermented soybeans
Injo-gogi-bap – a Korean steamed rice wrapped in leftover soybean paste and dressed with a chili sauce.
Oncom – one of the traditional staple foods of West Java (Sundanese) cuisine of Indonesia, there are two types: red oncom and black oncom. Oncom is closely related to tempeh; both are foods fermented using mold.[9]
Koya dofu – a freeze-dried tofu that has a taste and texture similar to meat when prepared, common in Buddhist vegetarian cuisine
We don’t need fake meat to go vegan today. That’s a luxury.
Just one more new plant protein bro, then I'll switch. For real this time bro, just one more fake meat, it's the only thing preventing me from going vegan bro. Trust me.
If we get good at making it, it will be cheaper than animal meat, and that will get people's attention
Protein isn't a thing that humans need to be concerned with. The whole category is made up. If you are getting enough calories from whole plants, you are automatically getting enough protein. This whole thing is a distraction from animal mercy, you're intentionally concentrating on all the wrong things so you don't have to deal with the right ones.
It's still cheaper for me to get a pepperoni pizza than one without. The raw material cost of the meat isn't always that significant especially when distributors get involved.
Its a luxury many would not go without
They would if they gave a single shit about the atrocity they committed. They would in an INSTANT. Source: the personal history of every fucking vegan I know
Common sense. To end suffering you need a huge amount of resources. More than realistically can be acquired. So prioritizing must be made. And of course animals would be lower in the list than humans.
Do you not understand what the role of animals is in all this?
Ever since the invention of agriculture, we have had the capacity to grow more food than humanity can consume. But agriculture is business, and business must grow. So when that limit is hit, we have to find ways to create artificial scarcities to continue growth. We do that by refining plant products into increasingly scarce luxury products. Animals are treated as nothing more than machines for refining save, cheap, sustainable plant products into toxic, polluting, addictive and unsustainable animal products.
Back to your premise: we are not dealing with a lack of resources!!! We are drowning in food!!! We are dealing with nothing more than greed and inhuman cruelty.
A huge amount of resources to . . . do less and consume less resources?
End deliberately human caused suffering is not the same as end all suffering.
End all suffering implies preventing all animals starving or eating each other. Or animal genocide so nothing is left to suffer.
I think that's a pretty hyperliteralist take.
So is the original meme.
They are a bit rather literalist, but they have a point.
Only "do less and consume less resources" won't end suffering. It will limit certain kinds of suffering.
Feeding those without enough healthy food may require more resources (many reasons people don't have enough food, sometimes those reasons are "war".)
There are other kinds of suffering as well. Bad governments abusing people. Weak governments not protecting people. Not enough medical care, or the wrong kind of medical care. Unsafe neighborhoods, and unsafe homes.
Undoubtedly, there are hundreds of ways humans are suffering right now that I am not touching on.
I was more thinking of the PETA-style can't-harm-one-animal-hair issue. The people who get upset if you trap rats that are eating native birds; that kind of thing.
In rough order of plausibility:
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End human-caused human suffering
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End human-caused human-or-animal suffering
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End anything-caused human suffering
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End anything-caused human-or-animal suffering
You just inserted the word "all" and hoped, we wouldn't notice but I did
I would argue that 'end' implies 'all', aka 'eliminate suffering'.
If it said 'reduce suffering' or 'minimise suffering' that would be different.
But on the other hand, ending all suffering is such an unrealistic demand that no one would say it seriously. Stubbing your toe is suffering but would anybody prioritize ending it? You can read it as a hyperbole if you will.
So given the choice between a reading with addressable solutions, and one that can never be achieved and so no one would ever argue for, you intentionally selected the second interpretation. Because this allows you to reduce the argument to an absurdity, and then disregard it. But you're just fucking lying to yourself, you're not really achieving anything except finding a way to arrive at the conclusion that you had pre-selected.
