I’ve had an unreasonable number of arguments against people who seemed to think animal was a synonym for mammal. Thankfully, we’re now in an era where you can look it up and show them now mobile data is cheap, so it’s become a winnable argument.
Except they still don’t care, and resent you for edumacating them. Whatever you say, they “win”. Welcome to the post -information age.
I rarely judge someone for ignorance unless it is wilful. I pretty harshly judge people who cannot assimilate new information. Over time I think I might be evolving from INTP->INTJ as I age. I used to have more patience and would try to encourage people to learn and adjust.
I was very on board with your comment until the Meyers-Briggs pseudoscience BS and then you lost me
I think it means that as people get older, they get crankier and thus more prone to rush to judgement, just to move things along quicker, rather than take the time necessary to figure out all the nuances and expend patience in trying to actually change things. Though I might be putting words into their mouth.
Although either way I definitely have noticed this trend within myself, especially when I was on Reddit, so it’s a real shift imho. And it needs to be fought against vigorously, bc talking rather than listening usually does not lead to the most ideal outcome. That’s what I got out of that anyway.
And there’s a MAJOR caveat: sometimes judgementalness should be embraced - e.g. patience to tolerate a tanky will never work out well… (The only thing we must never tolerate is intolerance). Young people tend to be too patient sometimes, even as old people trend towards being too judgemental. Young people need to learn more and realize what is known vs. not known yet, and old people need to aim to practice discipline to avoid their feefees from taking over logic as they are always wont to do if given half the chance. imho ofc, which is surely incomplete!:-P
I’m in the same camp, but wording it as “unable to assimilate new information” might actually help me have more sympathy for the willfully ignorant. That sounds awful to deal with.
I get you - and am the same. I hold little to nothing against someone unable to learn… but that’s not what I am talking about. Imagine someone with an IQ of 50, who decides to pass themselves off as a doctor - you go in for brain surgery and, whoopsie, you get your event taken care of “at a reduced price”. Nobody blames someone who is authentically stupid - and if that sounds bad, note that I include myself first among that category:-) - until and unless they step up and decide to become a LEADER. The latter carries with it a societal obligation to do better, than us mere peasants.
Put another way, if you are going to perform literal and actual and fully physical violence against an establishment such as the government of the United States of America (i.e. becoming one who acts rather than being acted upon), then you might want to start with actually reading the document that you are about to overthrow. It does no good to sleep with it under your pillow - you need to pull it out and actually READ it for it to do any good! Although many who were there have self-admitted that they have not in fact read it, even so much as once.
Likewise, more people died in the USA from the recent pandemic than all wars combined. Much of that was preventable, and quite frankly we don’t even (nor will ever) know precisely how many are directly attributable to that, b/c those stats were deliberately fudged and forbidden to be counted. The same with school shootings - we counted at one point that there were more “mass events” (involving 5+ people) than there were calendar years, but the government is specifically prohibited from collecting this data, so once again we’ll never truly know the extent, only lower-bound estimates (which are already shockingly high). Also people have already died from the ham-handed prevention of “abortion”, that somehow includes cancerous masses, dead fetuses (from natural miscarriages) with necrotic tissue rotting away (but can’t remove either b/c that could be considered an “abortion”), ectopic “pregnancies”, and other life-threatening situations, which are nowhere close to the medical definition of “abortion”, yet to the lawmakers (some of whom claim that babies cannot be produced from a rape - I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP - b/c “God has a way of shutting that whole thing down there in the case of rape”) are too unintelligent to understand anything at all about what is going on.
However, nobody is that stupid, as to e.g. see Trump wear a mask, then turn around and claim to others that he does not wear masks. We have long ago crossed that line, from “stupidity” to “obstinacy”. This is cognitive dissonance, yes likely imposed upon people from others (e.g. Putin), but also willfully held onto by many.
And here is proof: a video by Kurzegatcht that is only 11-minutes long that explains why people should take the vaccine. This is VERY understandable. Anyone who watches this would INSTANTLY understand the situation fully - and it’s only 11-minutes long, so for something that could save a life, and possibly that of every one of your family members - is not too much to ask. And yet… people did not do it.
Moreover, much of the subject matters involved in all of what I mentioned above don’t even need a video of even 1 minute to explain - e.g. to say that “kids getting shot in schools all across the nation” is… what is is again? good? no wait, bad, yeah, that’s it, that’s a bad thing!.. right?!
That’s not stupidity - that’s stubbornness.
P->J completely inverts the orientations of the cognitive functions (Ti Ne Si Fe -> Ni Te Fi Se), it wouldn’t reflect a singular change but a wholesale shift in how you take in and act on information (also J doesn’t mean judgmental).
Or they don’t care because they’re using it in a colloquial sense and 90+% of people they talk to would understand their intended usage, so they resent being lectured on semantics rather than responding to the meaning behind their words.
That’s a launching point for a really interesting discussion, which I doubt you wanted so I’ll cut it short. The gist is: do words have any meaning at all, and if so, is there such a thing as objective truth, and then shouldn’t the former be reflective of the latter?
“Mammal” means something, and all the Reddit-esque “acktwually” aside, it means something different from “animal”. But rather than say “thank you for the correction, yes that is what I meant, what you said”, the implication being that we all stand together side-by-side in front of Truth, with those closer to it being the ones considered “correct”, many instead would hold onto pride and say like “nuh-uh, I know you are but what am I?” One fosters a sense of community, while the other divides it into those who enjoy shitting onto others and those who (surely) enjoy being shat upon.
There is a saying that pride goes before a fall. And with planes having parts falling off of them inside the US, and literally falling from the sky into the ocean (that one off the coast of Africa, in at least one case), I’d say that we could definitely use more of the former where we consider 1+1=2 as a more worthwhile goal than “everyone is always correct, bc even if not, they surely meant to be and that’s enough”.
Of course if not, then surely you agree with me anyway, since I am responding to the meaning behind your words? ;-)
Or if still not, then you may want to block me, since I have a feeling you may not enjoy much of what I will have to say across the Fediverse.
Sure in some cases there can be an objective truth probably, although i doubt any of us is as close to it as some people seem to enjoy thinking they are. But i think what you’re missing (possibly intentionally) about my point is that if you know what someone meant then they achieved the objective of communicating, and by choosing to ignore what they meant and instead focus on what they incorrectly said then i feel like you’re consciously choosing to move the conversation away from ‘truth’ and toward ‘correctness’ out of some need to feel superior. There is a time and place to correct people, but lots of people (and you may or may not be one of them) seem incapable of distinguishing when it is not the right time or place.
I acknowledge that there is that as well:-). The hard part is that the OP is a joke, somewhat, so all answers seem to work within that context.
And Truth is such a very slender path between extremes - e.g. 1+1= neither 2.1 nor 1.9, but exactly 2 in-between.
So if I say that Truth matters, generally speaking, and you say that it depends on the context, then strictly speaking your argument must win. e.g. in a discussion between literally toddlers the facts would not matter, hence you are most definitely correct that there exists some scenarios where it does not.
I was bemoaning how society in general chooses for it not to matter, more often than the reverse - yes, definitely the road less traveled for sure. We all exist on that spectrum, with choices as to when and where and what and why and how.
And how ironic that we are nitpicking on these points to find the real Truth - that was supposed to be my schtick! But instead we will share it together:-). And here I am not joking: since I do value Truth, I enjoy both of our POVs here: sometimes Truth matters, sometimes it does not, but in general I wish people would value it more often than happens currently, even though sometimes indeed it can get in the way of other things too, like friendships.
Okay but words are not math. Language exists solely for the purpose of communicating ideas, and if you understand the idea that someone is trying to convey and that idea is not false, but their word choice is inaccurate then you most definitely are just nit-picking, and its not in search of some greater ‘truth’ because the actual truth of the conversation is what they were intending. I feel like you’re conflating truth with accuracy. Misusing the word animal when you mean mammal is not false in the same way as saying the sky is green or the covid vaccine gives you aids. Words can also have multiple meanings, which lends itself to more than one truth. Theres the scientific definition, and as i mentioned, the colloquial usage. So if a majority of the population understands a word to mean one thing in one context and another thing in a different context, and you willfully ignore that societal understanding in favor of ‘scientific validation’, then you are again ignoring a form of truth.
Historically I still “lose” these types of arguments as my willfully ignorant interlocutor spams potential strawman and ad hominem “arguments” until they feel sufficiently convinced that my pesky facts and I are safe to ignore.
In my experience there are very few people worth arguing with, as there are very few people willing to argue in good faith. Most people see arguing as a battle to be won or lost rather than a mechanism by which to vet assumptions. How can you expect to argue with a person who is unable to argue with themselves?
I feel like a lot of these posts are people just “poking the bear” and others end up taking them seriously. I understood this concept fairly early because of my family’s heavy use of sarcasm and seeing Calvin’s dad (of Calvin and Hobbes) explain things. Sometimes your best bet is to just not give the lesson and leave it alone so it doesn’t get unnecessary attention.
I’ve deleted so many half written comments thinking “If this is what they think, do I really want to deal with the absolute garbage response I’ll inevitably get back?”
First, let me agree that everything in the kingdom Animalia is, in fact, an animal.
But now let me point out that many of the people who say shit like this might not speak english as their first language. Many languages have different words for animal for different types of animals. I tried to find out what I’m half remembering but I can’t find it quickly and I have to get to work. But I vaguely remember that some word that’s usually translated as animal into english actually doesn’t include insects. Just like the english “deer” at one point in time refered to all wild beasts (but not fish or fowl) and now only refers to Cervidae.
I’m referring to arguments I’ve had in person against native English speakers. If they were online arguments, the ability to use mobile data to show someone a citation wouldn’t be a new development.
I feel like bees are a bit of a grey area. We’re not eating them, we’re kind of like landlords that give them a nice place to stay and they pay rent in honey. I’m not vegan so I’m not quite sure what the rationale is for bee stuff.
Best friend’s a vegan who raises bees. He doesn’t clip wings or use smoke. From what I gather he basically just maintains their boxes, feeds them sugar when it’s too cold for em, and collects honey when it’s time. Someone is about to come along and say “he’s not a vegan. Sounds like a vegetarian” and then I’m going to think “sounds like you’re gatekeeping a lifestyle like it’s a religion, and not even all vegans who don’t use honey agree on whether or not a vegan can use honey” but I won’t, because I don’t wanna get wrapped up in the nonsense.
But either way, yes, some vegans do use honey. And some, like that theoretical commenter, don’t eat anything that casts a shadow.
don’t eat anything that casts a shadow
Anyone who doesn’t exclusively survive on naturally dried up lichen ain’t no real vegan in my book!
Hmm… Some lichen make use of orobatid mite labour in order to disperse the cells of their photobionts. Are those still ok?
That’s why I specified naturally dried up. The mites will have moved to greener pastures, I mean lichens.
also - does this distinction matter? Is someone who runs 100m dash vs an ultra marathon runner both runners? When I run for the bus I’m also running. Sonic the Hedgehog also runs. They have distinctions in context that make sense - but they are all running.
Personally I’m not sure the gate keeping you’re observing is all that much of an issue. I think it’s useful to remember many vegans are also public advocates for veganism. It’s important to them that people generally know what they mean when they advocate for veganism.
However, the definition of all words are always in flux. It’s not uncommon to see people call themselves vegan when a more apt description of their lifestyle would be plant based, flexitarian, vegetarian, etc. As such, I think edge cases like your friend take on an outsized importance that goes beyond the morality of your friend eating honey.
Basically, the goal may not be the social exclusion of your friend which is what I think is usually the problematic aspect of gatekeeping.
Beekeeping family here: who the fuck clips bee wings?
Takes forever to find the flight feathers on the little guys and it’s very intricate work.
Iunno, never personally seen it. Just heard about it online when I first started looking into beekeeping (which I ultimately did not take up).
Still interested in doing it (the keeping not the clipping), if you have any advice on getting started for someone with like 18 dollars between paydays. Lol
People who don’t understand bees and think that the queen is ruling the hive – if the queen can’t swarm then they’re going to dispose of her and raise a new one. All you’re doing is weakening the hive without actually preventing it from swarming. You might even kill it off.
You let them swarm, you let them get their rocks on, and you also have a nice property ready for them to settle back into.
I read that in Kerrigan’s voice.
I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with my landlord harvesting my vomit as rent.
“I’m eating it, I promise it’s not a sex thing.”
If my bank accepted vomit as mortgage payments, they could smack my ass and call me bulimic, I don’t care what y’all do with my vomit, let’s talk about pool house options and a second car.
I’d be cool with creaming their coffee twice a week if it meant I got my house for no money.
I don’t think many would accept their gardens being pilfered either, though they might be more accepting if that’s how they paid rent.
Not just vomit but a snowball train of vomit.
Well landlords are the badguys so…
What if the hives are rent controlled?
Sounds spooked with extra steps
Couple of reasons. One, honey is made not from local pollinators but from European honey bees. Two, European honey bees are really good at producing honey, which means they’re more efficient at removing pollen and nectar from flowers, denying food for native pollinators. Three, while only a few bees are directly harmed during honey harvesting, the need for their honey to be harvested means that they’ve been bred to make big, uniform honeycombs and a glut of excess honey. This makes them more susceptible to diseases, even before you factor in the monoculture nature of their existence.
Essentially, it’s not that eating honey is harmful to bees. It’s that the creation of honey at scale is cruel both to the bees producing the honey and the native pollinators who get pushed out by them. We (my household) do have honey on occasion, but only from local, small scale honey producers.
Here in Brazil we have Meliponiculture, farming honey from native stingless bees.
Wow, that’s interesting! Does the honey differ from the honey bee one?
Depends on the species, but in general the honeys have variation in the nutrients, some considered even more medicinal than that of European Honey Bees.
They usually also have more water content, so unlike “regular” honey, they can more easily spoil.
So jealous.
Do you think there are no vegans in Europe?
Probably yeah. But also the European honeybee is not the only European bee nor pollinator so the argument holds true to some extent.
However I’m not convinced the impact is worse than the monocultures which makes up the majority of our calorie intake. Thousands of hectares of nothing but beets or corn probably does more for killing insect diversity than a handful of beehives, but what do I know.
So my wife went vegan for a bit and the logic is basically any living thing we take advantage of or make their lives more of a labor. So eggs, honey, milk aren’t vegan because companies put those animals in situations they normally wouldn’t be in in the wild to take advantage and harvest products from them.
Yeah, some vegans draw the line at the animal kingdom. (Plants, algae, mushrooms - these are all living things as well, but one has to eat something.) Some vegans I know do eat honey though. It depends on what feels like animal exploitation to the person.
Can’t eat bread or drink alcohol, because that’d be making yeast our slaves!
Can’t digest food. The only reason those trillions of living organisms in your gut microbiome are doing it is you’re keeping them enslaved by being their sole food source. Way to practice monopolistic practices on a entirely isolated living ecosystem!
I find vegan intellect fascinating. I love hearing their responses to my epistomology. They all make it up as they go along. It’s very similar to religious beliefs in the way it is personal. Each has their own set beliefs on where to draw the line of what is vegan and what is not.
My personal understanding of the world is that plants aren’t so different from animals that they can be classified separately from other food sources. For example, how much different is r-selected reproduction from a fruiting plant. Plants react differently to different colors of light and so do we.
It helps to understand the goal of a vegan. The extent to which we are tied to every living thing on Earth means that many vegans have set impossible goals.
Just fascinating.
I’ve always wondered if vegetables from a farm that uses horse-drawn tills instead of tractors would be vegan… It’s a real question, but everyone I ask thinks that I’m trolling.
Or animal manure, or pesticides
Here’s my weird question: if faux leather is plastic and someone is vegan for environmental reasons, would leather be preferable? What if it’s a byproduct and would otherwise be trashed? These are things I think about as someone who tries to reduce my impact on the environment as much as I feasibly can in a capitalist society.
Each vegan will have their own answer. If you are truly curious, and a vegan is sharing their mindset with you, ask them.
If insects are animals then are vegans getting all of their food from 100% organic gardens that grow in a cooperative manner?
Oooooooh, even using tractors could be considered non-vegan, if they’re powered by fossil fuels, then they’re powered from the remains of dinosaurs, which were very much animals
I mean I think it can be boiled down pretty simply: cause the least harm to living things that you can personally manage, according to your definition of harm. Having impossible goals isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If your impossible goal is to make a billion dollars ethically, and you get to 50 million being 95% ethical, you could still consider that a win, even though you didn’t reach your impossible goal.
Even the simple goal of “always being a good person 100% of the time” is probably impossible to achieve over an entire lifetime while meeting every person’s definition of it. That doesn’t mean it’s useless for someone to strive for that within their definition of “good person”.
In fact I’d say the vast majority of meaningful, non trivial goals could be considered “impossible”.
It’s easy to judge down from that high horse of i-dont-care.
I’m no vegan (nor vegetarian), but the mission of an animal-rights-activist (that is also logically vegan in consequence) is surely to minimize any harm (s)he knows of. It’s very simple. The limits of a dietary or fashin-trendy vegan is not so clear. As they usually don’t really have spent a lot of time reflecting about it, but just follow some basic idea they’ve found somewhere. And maybe try to “adapt” it a lil.
Also your plant-argument was had like 30yrs ago already. Makes you sound super-intelligent, having figured out their major flaw all on your own :-)
The goal is not impossible. The goal is (or probably just should be) to minimize suffering if its existence is not unbeknownst to us. That’s really a very basic logic that doesn’t require much computing power.
There was no tone of judgement in my response. I hope that’s not what you got from it. I said I find it fascinating the way they think. This is not limited to vegans but it is easier to get someone to talk about this than other beliefs.
I have no doubt that minimizing suffering is the higher goal. I meant that if their goal is to to use no food or product that involves using animals (within their personal definition) that they will find nothing in this world that is without impact from or to animals. That’s what makes it impossible.
True to that. Easier to talk with people about veganism than their religion :-)
I get your sense of logic, but it’s inherently flawed. So you’re saying, if there’s no way to 100% an ethic, it’s better to just totally skip it? Of course you can’t 100% live in this world without somehow touching an animals life by some degree. But it’s about what one CAN do. The more one knows about this world, the more one could avoid. Ignorance is bliss, the evil I don’t know is the evil I must not fight. But the moment I get knowledge of unjust X, I can do my best do avoid unjust X to the best of my abilities. Not even judgin in, us just being flawed humans. If I do 99% of everything I know right, and just fucked up the 1%. Am I still a bad person and suck at my ethics?
I was unaware that my message implied a 100% requirement. That part of the comment was meant to be about how I see them trying to define the line between what is vegan and what isn’t. I see now how this is being interpreted and it is my fault for being unclear.
It’s an all well and good philosophy, but i think it’s just attempts to feel better about oneself. There’s no reason you can’t be satisfied with not eating meat and at least feel like you’re doing your part, but NOO the dogma must be pushed onto everyone else.
The truth is a lot of meat eaters simply don’t care about farm animal suffering, so arguments don’t even matter because if every single argument from a meat eater were to be undeniably refuted, many would still not be converts. So many of these vegans want to go the communist route and revolt. Does this seem like a healthy philosophy to you?
It would start making sense to you, if you’d see the analogy in racism et al (unless of course you are one, then it won’t). An animal-rights-activist-vegan sees it that way and hence has a hard time to “shut up” about it. Like you would when you’d enter some nazi-meeting. Can’t just sit there, doing nothing, and thus invoking the feeling you’re part of it.
It’s not vegans per se, it’s those that are just vegans as a direcr consequence, not those that follow a dietary decision.
Your analogy makes sense
That means a lot, coming from the grammar-police 😁
ethical vegans (and not people who eat plant-based for nutritional reasons, and often get conflated with people doing it for ethics reasons) generally agree on one very simple rule:
To reduce, as much as possible, the suffering inflicted upon animals.
That’s it.
Where that line is drawn of course depends on your personal circumstances. Some people require life-saving medicine that includes animal products, and are generally still considered vegan.
I’d like to see what about this confuses you and your epistomology [sic, and that word doesn’t mean what you think it means]
I am not confused. I am curious and fascinated on how people come to their conclusions. I know exactly what epistomology means. I have used it for conversations with many vegans about their choices as well as on other personally held beliefs. I could be a lot better at it but it has helped me show that I am curious and respectful.
I’m curious, how do you use a branch of philosophy, that’s concerned with the abstract theory of knowledge and the limits of human reasoning, in conversations?
it’s epistemology, btw
Thank you for the correction. It can be applied in the Socratic method. I ask questions to understand someone’s position and continue into how they came to those conclusions. At no point do I pressure for answers though. The idea is just to keep the person talking so you can understand their poimt of view to the best of your ability. It has a side effect of healthy personal reflection for all parties involved.
Alright, fair enough. The Socratic method I know and can respect. I still wouldn’t call it epistemology, but at least I know what you mean now c:
What a word salad. Your comment can be applied to anything because people are different lol. All my friends who are dads have different ideas on how to be a dad. Fascinating. It helps to understand the goal of a parent. All my friends with jobs define success in different ways. It’s like they’re all making it up as they go along. Fascinating. It helps to understand the goals of a worker.
It’s ok to set “impossible” goals if you view them as directions rather than destinations.
Fascinating huh?
Yes, it is fascinating indeed, how applicable to many different actions and intentions that statement was. Thank you for pointing it out.
Reacting to stimuli like the colour of light is irrelevant. My phone camera would fall into the same category, then. A light switch reacts to getting pressed and turns on a light, it’s reacting to a stimulus.
What matters is sentience, which plants cannot possess, since they don’t have a central nervous system. And even if they did, a diet that includes meat takes more plants, since those animals have to be fed plants in order to raise them.
They all make it up as they go along. It’s very similar to religious beliefs in the way it is personal. Each has their own set beliefs on where to draw the line of what is vegan and what is not
The extent to which we are tied to every living thing on Earth means that many vegans have set impossible goals.
Regarding these two, is this any different from human rights? Where people draw the line regarding slave labour, child labour, which type of humans they care about (considering racism, homophobia, trans phobia, ableism etc). I’m sure lots of people have impossible goals regarding human rights, but working to get as close to those as possible is still sensible.
The response to light color does not stand on its own. That is merely one parallel from many. It is true plants do not have a nervous system like animals, but they do have similar responses to stimuli. Parallels can be drawn to sight, sound/touch and smell/taste.
Sentience is another topic that is defined subjectively. From context it is clear you make a central nervous system a foundational requirement. I could also apply this to technology, so I would need clarification from you to understand what it means to you. I do not hold to a personal definition for sentience because I have found neither a universal nor scientific understanding of the idea.
As for the last paragraph: yup.
Again, all of these reactions to stimuli can be explained as direct, chemical reactions, not signals that get sent to a central unit, are processed, being “felt”, and then being reacted to. There is no one thing or being in plants like the central nervous system of animals that is capable of feeling something.
Regarding the topic of sentience, I propose looking at it like this:
There’s a range of definitions that is somewhere around it being the capacity to perceive, to be aware, to be/exist from ones own perspective. However you define it, a central nervous system or other type of similar central unit would have to be a requirement, because that is what would actually be sentient. You are your brain, your hand is just part of your body, if it was chopped off, it by itself is not sentient.
And whatever vague definition of it you go with, there’s two options: Either sentience is real, or it isn’t. If it isn’t real, literally nothing matters, gg. If it is real, non-human animals with central nervous systems, and therefore sentience and the capacity to suffer, deserve ethical consideration, and we should do what is reasonably possible to reduce their suffering and death.
Since we don’t know the answer to the existence of sentience, we should err on the side of caution. If we’re wrong, and we’re all as sentient as a rock, the inconvenience we’d have suffered in our efforts to protect fellow sentient-but-actually-not beings can’t be felt by us, no harm done. If we’re right, the suffering we’ll have prevented, in both scale and intensity, is indescribable.
However you define it, a central nervous system or other type of similar central unit would have to be a requirement, because that is what would actually be sentient
Without CNS there would be something else sophisticated enough to show sentience that would have been sentient. So to me it looks like this is not really a requirement, albeit it’s simpler to say that it is.
As a side note, I think that given how human-centric humans are (which is to be expected, really) even if we were living with another sentient species on the same planet we would argue they are not sentient for whatever reason we could come up with, and change sentience definition accordingly
I feel so kindred with the way you see things. You’re making an observation and you’re curious about the “why” of everything. I feel people often read my similar interest in a subculture as critical. Kind of like how bluntness can be perceived as rude, I guess. Do you ever have a similar response happen to you?
Just look at the other responses to my comments.
In real life it can be better or worse. Some of the closest people in my life get immediately defensive. It’s sometimes easier to talk with strangers. More often than not, I will find a passion point that is the limit of conversation. At those times I just listen as much as possible. How much I engage depends on how they rect to my questions.
Veganism has and always will be just dogma. I find it quite annoying how individuals can so freely push their moral philosophy onto others. Veganism should always be a personal philosophy.
Also, there are now many vegans (considered bottom-up vegans) taking the communist route and basically advocating for revolutions in order to cease animal food production.
I have conversed with quite a few vegans and none of them have pushed their morals on others. Some of them have been very upfront about their veganism. I am wondering where you are that you see vegans being so revolutionary.
When i speak of ones that push their moral philosophy on others (rather aggressively i might add), I’m talking about the vegans that walk into restaurants to cause a fuss. I’m talking about the ones that criticize and talk down on meat eaters for their habits. There are many who do practice veganism as a personal philosophy. I guess dogma always attracts “bad apples”
Also, i never claimed all vegans were revolutionary. I’m specifically referring to “bottom-up vegans” who advocate for more aggressive and hands-on methods in preventing animal farming rather than waiting for government reforms akin to a revolution.
Don’t you feel that you just see it that way because you’re on the opposing side on this? This sounds to me exactly the same as how a homophobe for example would describe gay rights activists.
Just go through all the points you mentioned in this and your previous comment, and replace those scenarios with the issues of various types of bigotry and ethical issues like transphobia, racism, child labour, slave labour etc.
Don’t get hung up on how bad these are in comparison to each other, that’s not the point. Just look at how they’re all ethical issues where a group of sentient beings are being harmed, and what kind of advocacy you’re in favour of to prevent that harm. And why you would see the one issue you might be on the side of the harm being carried out so differently.
Eh, I doubt most people care about being vegan for the sake of being vegan, but as has been said, honey bees are bad for pollinators, so from a moral viewpoint, you get to the same conclusion.
Ultimately, though, honey isn’t hard to give up. Certainly nothing that I felt was worth contemplating whether it’s grey area or not.
At best, it’s annoying, because the weirdest products will have honey added. One time, I accidentally bought pickles with honey, and they were fucking disgusting.honey bees are bad for pollinators
Hm? What do you mean?
From this paper:
A. mellifera appears to be the most important, single species of pollinator across the natural systems studied, owing to its wide distribution, generalist foraging behaviour and competence as a pollinator.
This is a genuine question btw.
I read an article on this a while back that made me refrain from actually getting bees. I can’t find it right now, but the gist is that domesticated honeybees will compete with a lot of other pollinators (mainly solitary bees) over the exact same food sources.
However, the honeybees have a gigantic advantage in being supervised, housed and generally looked after by the apiary. Which will also employ methods to stimulate hive-growth, driving the hives demand for food.
That is something a solitary bee - or another pollinator depending on the same nutrition - cannot compete with, driving them away.
So, in a nutshell: adding bees to a place already rich in honeybees? Whatever. Adding honeybees into a local ecosystem not having them rn? That will drastically lower biodiversity
Most honey bees are of the European variety, they have a habit of displacing native bees when they are farmed
I’m no biologist, but as for why they’re bad for other pollinators, yeah, what @frosch@sh.itjust.works said sums it up quite well.
I’d like to add that, to my understanding, they’re actually relatively ineffective pollinators, too. They might do the highest quantity in total, but I’m guessing primarily because of how many honeybees there are.
I believe, the paper you linked also observes this, at least they mention in the abstract:With respect to single-visit pollination effectiveness, A. mellifera did not differ from the average non-A. mellifera floral visitor, though it was generally less effective than the most effective non-A. mellifera visitor.
…but I don’t understand the data. 🫠
As for why this is the case, for one, honeybees are extremely effective at collecting pollen, with their little leg pockets, which reduces the amount of pollen a flower has to offer.
But particularly when they’re introduced into foreign ecosystems, pollinators that are specialized for local plants get displaced.
This may mean just a reduction of pollination effectiveness, or it could mean that the honeybees turn into “pollen thieves”, i.e. they collect pollen without pollinating the plant.
Here’s a paper, which unfortunately no one may read, but the abstract describes such a case quite well: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20583711/
I don’t think comparing beekeeping to landlordism makes it sound very ethical at all
Same reasoning like in fish and christianity.
One of my best friends is vegan. They won’t use anything that comes from animals. Nothing. That includes wool, even though the sheep is harmed in the process. They’re absolutely opposed to any animal products or bi-products.
even though the sheep is harmed in the process
This is such a funny typo
The dark vegan. Eats only food that causes as much suffering as possible.
so they’re vegan
So honey is not a grey area, it’s not for human consumption according to vegan values.
Pretty much since it’s animal-derived
It’s not like that bees are being strapped down and milked. It’s silly to not eat honey cause of veganism. If you’re that vegan move to the woods cause every product or archive you use in life has involved an animal in some way.
Bees produce honey. Chickens produce eggs. Can’t eat eggs. Can’t eat honey.
Idk I’m not a vegan either.
Chickens. Google what happens to male egg-laying chickens and you probably can figure out why it’s not vegan.
Usually things aren’t vegan due to the horrors of factory farming practices, even before any potential death occurs.
I mean anything commercial comes out to be pretty inhumane. They cut off the queens bees wings in commercial honey harvesting.
I guess bees aren’t as animal as chickens are?
They are, which is why honey isn’t vegan, and you brought a very good argument for that yourself, namely that the industrial process behind it all tends to be quite brutal.
I keep my own bees for honey and I have chickens for my eggs. I’m trying to cut off the industry from my life. Not that I’m vegan, the industry tends to remove a lot more from the end result than just the humanity.
I feel like instead of a giant push for veganism, there should just be a push to eat what’s sustainable.
Beef and dairy? Causes huge amount of greenhouse gasses and with current methods of production, it is not sustainable
Blue fin tuna? These things have been way over fished and are endangered. Not sustainable, just try it once and move one with your life.
Tilapia ? These things grow like weeds and can be fed efficiently. Go ahead, good source of protein for your diet.
Honey? We need bees and they are an important pollinator for crops. Go nuts (just watch your sugar intake}
Almonds? Takes huge amounts of water to grow and exacerbates droughts in the areas they are farmed. Eat less of these.
Potatoes? Grow stupid easily in all sorts of conditions. Go nuts.
I’d already be very happy if everyone took your approach, but it’s not the entire story for veganism. Sustainability is an important factor for myself and many others, but so is animal welfare.
It’s a bummer that animal welfare is pretty much inversely correlated with emissions. Packing chickens together and making their lives miserable is much better for the environment than having them roam free.
Veganism happily aligns with environmental sustainability. But when you believe we shouldn’t exploit animals at all, just pushing to eat what’s sustainable ignores a lot of pain and cruelty.
I think “exploitation” is the wrong word to be used. I’m not vegan, so I really have no bearing on this, but exploitation doesn’t equal harm.
This post for example is about bees. They’re being exploited (in that we’re using them to get resources), but is it harmful? I have trouble saying yes. It seems somewhat ideal for them. They get to go about their lives like normal, though usually in a place with a lot of flowering plants, and they get taken care of. Occasionally honey is gathered from them, but this doesn’t actually harm any bees.
I think vegans follow dogma too much. They should consider their reasons for themselves, and consider what food sources fall into that. The dogma is useful for quick communication and sharing of information, but I would suspect honey farming is a lot better for the living things involved than even a lot of plant farming, which requires large swathes of land to be dedicated to farming, which certainly isn’t good for native species and arguably plants can feel too.
This is probably a hot take but I have the opinion that nature isn’t any more merciful than we are. Existence is suffering and every animal ends up as feed for another.
Is it better to be raised in horrid conditions in a farm, or to spend every moment of your life scavenging for food, running for your life, while probably infested with parasites just to be torn to pieces, alive, by a wolf or other predator?
Humans at least have the decency to sedate or knock unconscious our food. Wild animals have to experience being eaten alive.
This is a false equivalence; the answer is “neither”.
Veganism doesn’t seek to end all animal suffering, but not to exploit animals for humans’ sake. We don’t need animal products to survive, so we shouldn’t add to whatever misery already exists naturally.
In the case of livestock, we should just stop breeding them. No vegan is arguing for dumping all cattle in the savannah to be hunted by lions.
False equivalence is the anthropomorphism, animal farming misinformation agendas and generalisations being thrown like it has meaning…
This guy would own slaves
Potatoes are kinda OP imho.
(I also agree with you btw).
Yeah exactly, people arguing whether dragon fruit or some shit is a “super food”. The super food is right in front of us, potatoes (and onions).
What other food has been so vital to our survival that its disappearance could ravage a population (Irish potato famine)
No offense to dragon fruit, blue berries or whatever exotic fruit, but if they went extinct, not that much could change.
Obligatory Irish potato famine was a result of British policy. But I agree with your sentiment
Potatoes OP must nerf
The last time it was nerfed, the Irish were pissed to say the least
Why you wanna starve Captain Blond Beard Mark Watney? Uncool.
About honey: we do need bees. But taking away their honey which they work really hard for to sustain their colony during the winter and replacing it with sugar water is really bad for them and makes their colony weak. They can get viruses, bacteria and fungi much faster, which they can spread to other colonies or when splitting up when their queen dies.
Next to that, bees we use for honey are a very aggressive territorial species. They claim their territory and all the other bee and whasp species are killed and pushed out. There are many bee and whasp species who do not live in colonies but are very important for the biodiversity. Replacing them with our bees, which will die and get sick faster because we take away their nuteician rich honey, is a bad idea.
We do need our bees, but in reduces quantities to keep the balance. But we shouldn’t take their food.
I agree for the most part. I would like to point out that fish farms are actually very damaging to the ecosystems that they sit in. The excrement ends up dropping down in single locations, burying the seafloor in it. IIRC, this often leads to the oxygen levels in the water dropping, which further kills off the surrounding aquatic life.
Turns out that what’s sustainable is often what is vegan. Vegans are constantly discussing the edges of all this stuff trying to come to a better understanding, its somewhat natural that they would provide some of the most well-reasoned and substantiated arguments.
Honey and tilapia are not sustainable currently. Its a demand issue. Rules and regulations will never prevent an industry from meeting demand. Thats why we currently use practices at large scale we never would at small scale.
We do need bees, but that doesn’t mean the honey industry is sustainable.
https://www.greenmatters.com/p/how-honey-industry-affects-environment
Beef and dairy? Causes huge amount of greenhouse gasses and with current methods of production, it is not sustainable
what makes you think this?
Stupid discussion. It does not matter whether something is in the box “vegan”. Ask yourself why you would or would not eat something. If you don’t want to eat(/drink) dairy because of the way the animals that produce the dairy are treated, would you be ok when they are treated differently? Are bees treated in the same way? Does it matter if you treat them in this way? Those should be your questions, not “does it belong in this box?”.
But it will ruin the achievement badge I want to show in my profile!
Animal ethics isn’t just about whether other animals are being harmed or killed, it’s also about being against exploitation. They might not be able to think in quite the same way that we do, but it’s still clear that they have their own wills and lives of their own that they want to live. It’s worth asking ourselves if we really want a society that’s willing to exploit and turn other thinking beings into commodities, even the ones whose thinking appears to be so much more rudimentary than our own.
It’s easy to dismiss them because they’re “just bugs”, but presently bugs of all species are facing radical population declines with all the ecological instability - maybe even looming collapse - that brings. Maybe we collectively might be more willing to protect bug populations and do more to protect our environments if more of us stopped to analyze our anti-bug bias and considered that they have a natural right to life like we do. The planet does not exist solely for us.
Also, honey is essentially a refined sugar that’s no better healthwise than table sugar. Date sugar/powder is a sweetener made of whole fruit and is a much better choice. Plus, it’s just weird to want to eat the vomit of other species anyway.
As for the exploitation, all living things have their own lives. Even plants seem to be able to communicate to some degree and can be stressed and stuff. Either you’re OK exploiting living things to some degree or you die. The level of exploitation is what should be discussed. Is beekeeping harmful to bees? I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem like it.
As for it being sugar, sure. Sugar isn’t bad though. Sugar is bad when consumed in the quantities the average American consumes it. It also has other properties that make it pretty good for your health. For example, I think it’s good for preventing allergies because it contains pollen (I might be making this up, but it seems like I’ve read that somewhere).
Plus, it’s just weird to want to eat the vomit of other species anyway.
Do you realize that fruit is the ovary of a plant? Life is weird. Get over it. Weird is not a word that should come into a discussion of ethics.
The “what about plants” argument is such a thoroughly debunked joke argument that it’s amazing anyone would continue to make it. Eating animals and their secretions requires harming significantly more plants than eating the plants directly because animals need to be fed too, and animals as food is by far the least efficient and most environmentally destructive way to have a food system.
It’s not an argument. It was a consideration that should be weighed if you’re being consistent. Your response is not accurate though. You’re referring to most farmed animals. Bees do not require this and is what the post is about. There are many animal products that do less harm than plant products. Farming plants requires large areas of land to be cleared for farming and replaced with what is likely not a native species. This can’t be good for native animals. If you’re comparing the harm done by almonds and honey, honey is almost certainly better for harm reduction, yet it’s an animal product, not a plant product.
many animal products that do less harm than plant products
Can you cite some other than honey? Animal products require animals which mostly require, well, plants. Plants that cause harm in the exact way you described. And more of them than just humans eating the crops directly. More than 60% of animal biomass on the planet right now is livestock, so bees seem practically irrelevant to the issue.
I would say probably free-range goat milk is pretty harm free, where the goats just eat grasses that are already there natively. Probably some other milks too. The quantities that this exists in is much lower than factory cows milk, or even milk alternatives, but they can exist. I can’t think of any other animal food item that doesn’t require butchering, which I’m sure you wouldn’t consider regardless of how well the animal is treated before death, but I’d consider comparing it to other sources of food.
Bees are relevant because it’s what the thread is about. The conversation was about bees and honey. Sure, most other farmed livestock isn’t good. We aren’t in disagreement about that so I don’t know why you keep referencing that. My point was harm should be the consideration of vegans, not where it comes from. Who cares if it’s from an animal, plant, or fungus if the net harm is worse than other sources?
Bee point taken, I should have said something like ‘a drop in the bucket’, the point I intended to convey is that they don’t really advance the argument that there are many such animal products. Nor does saying oh and some goat milk. That statement of yours is what I specifically disagreed with.
The point about quantities, that’s my point too. Farmers in the Patagonia region may be able to sustainably eat meat, drink ethical milk, whatever. Not people in the US, not in most of Europe. Yeah, so I actually just bought a huge container of local honey from our local grocer, maybe two hours ago. I don’t cut honey out. But that’s not grounds for me to claim there are a bunch of other animal products that are also better than eating some nuts and beans for protein. Honey seems more like the exception that proves the rule.
If you need to force impregnate the goats and then take their children away so you can take the milk instead, then its not harm free.
How would you consistently get milk from wild goats who happen to be have given birth but somehow don’t have children that need it?
Not with bees not.
Eating plant based sugar will kill and harm more animals that bee produced sugar.
Or do you think that agricultural process does not kill bugs?
I would argue that eating honey instead of plant based sugar would be more vegan.
In general drawing the line of veganism with bugs is… Complicated. As you really cannot have agriculture without killing bugs.
You need pesticides, or some form of plage control. You need to harvest plants that surely will have animals in them. And you’ll need to clean the vegetables of bugs before consumption.
The answer they gave is the gotcha answer. The real answer is that vegans currently don’t consider plants worth moral consideration. Its a non-issue, although I’m sure you could find some vegans who are concerned they are harming plants.
To put it another way, you can harm a plant as much as you can harm a rock. Of course our understanding might change as time goes on.
Eating animals and their secretions requires harming significantly more plants than eating the plants directly because animals need to be fed too,
and they are mostly fed parts of plants that people can’t or won’t eat. the same field that grows soybeans for human consumption is growing animal feed, it’s just different parts of the plant.
Don’t we help bee populations by building homes for them?
Also, and I did wonder about this, what do homestock want out of life more than food, getting laid, and taking a walk or run? I think even the smarter ones like octopuses just want to get food and live until making kids.
Unfortunately, honey bees aren’t the bees we need to bee helping
Honey, the food of the gods by ancient opinion, is suddenly weird?
I will never like vegans.
Context matters. In the ancient world starvation was a constant threat, so a source of concentrated calories like honey could in some cases be a matter of life and death despite the dangers of getting that honey. In industrial society we have in many cases the opposite problem - the majority of the top causes of death are lifestyle diseases which ultimately come down to overconsumption and sedentary lifestyles. Too much dietary fat, especially too much saturated fats, too much sugar, too much refined foods, too much concentrated calories, too much easily consumed liquid calories.
By contrast vegans by far have the easiest time maintaining balanced bodyweight levels.
If you all could learn to let go of your prejudice you might learn to recognize that doing the right things for animal’s rights is also some of the best things you could do for yourself. These “vegans” you hate so much are just trying to get you to stop self-harming.
I think they’re making a comment on the way vegans communicate their worldview to others, not necessarily a fixation on honey.
There’s also an argument that diet should contribute to thriving, not simply existing in the most convenient way to balance bodyweight.
If your goal is to build strength and muscle, an all vegan diet will be less effective than supplementing a similar diet with animal proteins. Every few years, a top contact sport athlete will give a full vegan diet a go, but they invariably fall back on animal protein because they can’t build the mass required.
Ultimately, it’s all individual choice and body chemistry.
I’ve come to understand that the healthiest people aren’t vegans.
It’s just that despite often lacking certain nutrients, vegan diets tend to enforce being at least kind of healthy unless you go ridiculously overboard on fruit or vegan junkfood.
But eating beef/honey/eggs being “self-harming”? Fuck you very much.
I am completely disinterested in your arguments, and will continue buying ridiculously good foods from abusive sources. Sources that I’d prefer to regulate in terms of animal rights, but every time that comes up, you people divert the conversation to “if you’re not gonna be vegan you’re evil either way so it doesn’t matter” and everyone tunes out.
Sources that I’d prefer to regulate in terms of animal rights, but every time that comes up, you people divert the conversation to “if you’re not gonna be vegan you’re evil either way so it doesn’t matter” and everyone tunes out.
Pack it up, vegans. This person was going to wish upon a star to regulate animal agriculture, which would’ve done it, but we just had to go and advocate for making material changes on a level we have control over, and that forced them to be explicitly fine with abuse. If only we had your thoughts and prayers, what a horrible miscalculation on our part.
Thoughts and prayers? No. Fines. Potentially jailtime. Potentially forcing them to sell farms and factories.
But you do not want it. You’re delusional and thinking the animals will just have to endure for a little while longer while you’re working on getting the entire planet to switch to a vegan diet.
Besides, you need the worst cases to stay around.
You need to film conversion content, and it’ll have to be fresh and gruesome content to be effective.
Thoughts and prayers? No. Fines. Potentially jailtime. Potentially forcing them to sell farms and factories.
And how do you intend to implement those things? Thoughts and prayers.
Entirely true. My favorite stupid argument is about lab-grown meat. People don’t seem to understand that veganism is practiced for a variety of reasons. Is lab-grown meat vegan? It depends on the vegan.
My rule of thumb is that I’ll eat it as long as nothing was permanently injured or killed to make it. Factory farmed eggs? Nah, I’ve seen videos of macerators. My neighbor’s chickens’ eggs? Hell yeah, I’m friends with those chickens
ETA: then there’s the breast milk “debate.” Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen numbskulls try to argue that breastfeeding isn’t vegan because “milk is an animal product”
Like all ideologies idiots stick to the rules while forgetting the actual meaning behind them. Compare how Christians act to what their Christ taught.
Sorry, is this post satire or are you talking about satire you did not recognize? NEVER seen a vegan call breast milk non-vegan and have in fact actually seen more discussion about whether vegans should be breastfeeding children at all, I.e. is it healthy to do so with their diet.
You’ve put the word debate in quotation marks flippantly like there’s an obvious answer, but I’m pretty sure you just misunderstood a conversation rife with sarcasm or taken out of context (or straight up made it up).
I think the point was that some numbskulls try to pull a “checkmate vegans” claiming that. You probably know the type, obnoxiously trying to butt in on vegan discussions and go “but if you’re fine with breastfeeding, you’re not really vegan”, misunderstanding (or misconstruing) the motivations in the same vein as mentioned before.
It just struck me as weird. Really strange thing to add in an edit considering the rest of the post, just extremely confusing in context.
Yeah, I’ve never seen a vegan say that either. Didn’t say I did. It’s always carnists trying to catch vegans on some imagined technicality so they can pretend they’re hypocrites. I put the word “debate” in quotation marks because there isn’t one—it’s not a debate if one side is founded entirely on ignorance of the other’s position
This question is still valid from a marketing standpoint. If you’re selling honey, are you able to advertise it as vegan?
True. Though marketing is a cancer in itself. But I guess that’s a different discussion 😬
I’m no vegan, but I think a large incentive for veganism or at least being vegetarian is the carbon footprint as well. A plant-based diet is much more sustainable than with meat, as in vertebrates. I think invertebrates would be great alternatives but the west-influenced culture is not very fond of eating invertebrates except for crustaceans.
If you can explain a vegan way to get milk, meat, or honey then I’m all ears. You seem to be implying there is some gray area here.
No he’s implying that eating something just because it is “Vegan” is not understanding the point. Vegans usually don’t eat stuff because it’s bad for the environment or because they see animals as equal lifeforms and don’t want to cause them harm. If you don’t eat most animal products because of the environment then you might be ok with eating oysters on occasion. They have a similar co2 footprint as most vegetables. Similarly honey has an even smaller footprint.
That would make them an environmentalist then.
Veganism is about reducing the harm our actions cause. You can’t pick and choose pieces of it you like and say you are a vegan.
My point is that there is no real way to explain what “vegan” really is, since it means different things to different people and all of these people have the best intentions. And actually there is no real need to define “vegan” either. Instead of focussing on what to call “vegan” and what not, the discussion should be about bees.
For instance, do they care if you take their honey? Are they harmed? And should I care about whether they are harmed?
Does that mean that goddamn tomatoes are sea creatures??
I dunno but sea’s got cucumbers. 🤔
Someone once told me “meat is murder, but fish is justifiable homicide”. I hope that helps.
Man, I have religious people in my family that say “you can’t eat meat on Fridays” during lent. But then fish is 100% okay to them. Makes no sense to me.
Why do you have contact with such …things? How could you take a human being somehow serious if it says things like that, especially due to being brainwashed in a fucking sect?! We don’t seem to have a collective tolerance to nazis or pedos, why do we have it for religious nutjubs?
A lot of religious people aren’t inherently dangerous, whereas an active nazi or pedo is likely going to end up hurting someone.
Not that I overly disagree, fuck religion.
Sure, not every nutjob is a danger in itself. But it’s still a cog in the machinery of a retrograde force. A +1 that helps normalizing what should be shunned. But yes, fuck religion. If people wanna believe stuff, great. The universe is a mystery. But the moment they gather and start having to believe what the cult-douche says, shit gets dangerous.
Ever since a chicken killed my pet hamster, my name has been vengeance and Popeyes has been my hunting grounds.
You’ve summed up my position as a pescatarian quite well
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Some folks believe that fish aren’t animals, either.
The state of California consider bees as fish.
I thought you were kidding but no, they do and the reason is otherwise they wouldn’t fit under environmental protection laws.
Northern Cardinals are protected by the Migratory Birds Act even though cardinals are not migratory.
And that eating fish doesn’t count as eating meat…
Also, beavers are fish. Clearly.
fish isn’t anything but a menu description
Reasons that I, as a vegan, do not use honey:
-
I cannot guarantee that the bees consented to their product being harvested. Some beekeepers clip the queen’s wings, which can prevent the colony from leaving.
-
I cannot guarantee that bees were not harmed in the process of harvesting (potentially getting crushed by the honeycomb frames, for example) or in the process of controlling the colony (like clipping the queen’s wings).
Regarding your second point, you also cannot guarantee that small animals like rodents are not harmed in the process of harvesting plants.
But renouncing honey is very easy, while not eating plants would mean starving to death. Since veganism is about reducing harm as far as possible, unavoidable suffering doesn’t make anything non vegan.
(Strawman)
Killing a few bees when collecting honey
Vs
Killing a lot of insects and rodents when plowing/tilling land to grow sugarcane/corn(sirup).
Why discount one but not the other if they are equal?
I assume that for many vegans the specifically exploitative element of farming honey does make a difference to the rather unavoidable collateral damage of agriculture in general (since if we don’t want to starve to death; each and everyone of us, vegan or not, will have to accept that those are happening) - but if you assume that honey comes with less suffering than corn syrup you’re very welcome to replace them accordingly. Based on your tone I assume you’re not a vegan and not actually interested in reducing animal suffering, but I could be wrong.
I am not vegan, but simply trying to understand how honey is bad, but as you say “unavoidable collateral damage of agriculture” or not.
There are many ways agriculture could be less harm, less pesticides, less monotone growing practices, more spread out growing. We do not have to accept these practices to not starve.
I don’t think honey collecting is worse than agriculture (even of direct plants for human consumption), so I don’t think vegans should discount honey.
I am not vegan, but simply trying to understand how honey is bad, but as you say “unavoidable collateral damage of agriculture” or not.
Is bad as well, we simply have no good way of avoiding it.
Think about it this way: Beekeeping is bad, agriculture is bad. Can we avoid both? No. But can we avoid at least one of them? Easily so. So let’s do that - half a win is better than nothing.
There are many ways agriculture could be less harm, less pesticides, less monotone growing practices, more spread out growing. We do not have to accept these practices to not starve.
I agree, which is why many (if not all) vegans strive to support those more sustainable forms of agriculture. But economic constraints are a real thing for many people. Not everyone can always decide to buy the higher quality produce. If we can - good, let’s do that. While and if we can’t, same thing with the honey: Can we avoid all the problems at once? No, but at least we can do as best as reasonable possible, so let’s do that. That’s veganism for many people.
I don’t think honey collecting is worse than agriculture (even of direct plants for human consumption), so I don’t think vegans should discount honey.
Even if it’s just 1% worse than agriculture wouldn’t we reduce a bit of suffering by replacing it? And I mean it’s not even like we need honey for anything. We consume too much sugar anyway. Even if honey is exactly as harmful as sugar cane farming (which is debatable), by omitting it we would save not only agricultural resources but animal exploitation as well. Not consuming it is better than consuming it in terms of animal suffering. Since we don’t need to consume it, from a vegan perspective I think it’s understandable why that’s seen as preferable.
Bees can kill their queen and make a new one no problem.
If the colony would want to move away they would just do that. I don’t think clipping the queen wings would do nothing.
But I doubt any beekeeper colony would want to move as they are keep at a perfect environment so they can produce more honey that they would actually need to survive. Even industrial ones. It’s part of basic beekeeping that bees must be in a good place so they produce the most honey.
Hurt of mistreated bees would not produce honey. If they are mistreated the try to leave (and as stated they can just kill their Queen if she is crippled), they eat all the honey, or just die.
Bees are really complicate to get advantage of. Our relationship with them need to be symbiotic to work.
Not trying to convince anyone to consume honey if they don’t want to. As it’s basically just sugar so whatever.
Bees can kill their queen and make a new one no problem.
This doesn’t make the mutilation of the queen bee any less bad. It’s still harming the bee. I am not aware if a bee has the ability to make an informed decision on whether to kill the queen and relocate, so I cannot make an informed decision about whether the bees actually want to be in their current hive.
If the colony would want to move away they would just do that.
I don’t know if this is true. It’s possible the bees are being manipulated into staying at their current hive in some way.
I don’t think clipping the queen wings would do nothing
It would hurt the queen, which is more than I want to be involved in.
But I doubt any beekeeper colony would want to move as they are keep at a perfect environment so they can produce more honey that they would actually need to survive. Even industrial ones. It’s part of basic beekeeping that bees must be in a good place so they produce the most honey
Making an assumption about what the bees want is not strong enough of an excuse for me to be ok with their exploitation. I don’t believe we should have the right to make decisions for other organisms, and the bees are not able to tell us how they want to be treated, so we should not try to control them or take what they produce.
Hurt of mistreated bees would not produce honey.
This appears to also be an assumption. I do not know if it is true, so I cannot use it to make a decision
If they are mistreated the try to leave (and as stated they can just kill their Queen if she is crippled), they eat all the honey, or just die.
If this is true, there is likely to be a minimum amount of mistreatment before they take action. I do not know how much mistreatment a bee can take, so I cannot use this to make a decision.
Bees are really complicate to get advantage of. Our relationship with them need to be symbiotic to work.
I do not know if this is true. We take advantage of many animals without giving them much in return, so I am not sure if the bee-beeker relationship is actually symbiotic.
Now I’m just curious.
How do you manage the amount of animals that are hurt during agricultural process then?
Tons of invertebrates are killed by pesticides, while harvest or during the cleaning process of the vegetables.
It seems to me that being killed by pesticides or drown with water is worse fate that beeing in a nice artificial honeycomb where they may or may not clip the wings of one queen or make you a little sleepy once in a while with smoke.
On matter of animals hurted/killed during production process honey seems more vegan that most vegetables.
This comment section has led me to more deeply consider the effects that all types of food production have on animals. I previously have just been ok with any non-animal product, but I now realize that this is not enough, and I am still causing harm to animals with the products that I do use. I will try to ensure that I buy the lowest-impact food available in the future, but I don’t think it is even be possible to stay alive without causing harm to some animals.
I think using products produced by animals is generally going to be worse than harming animals to stop them from destroying crops, but I will need to consider this more deeply to make the best choice I can.
That seems well thought out to me, thank for this explanation.
Do you personally grow everything you eat? If not, animals (and humans) are absolutely harmed in the process. Commercial agriculture, even organic, kills huge numbers of small animals and destroys habitat just to prepare the soil, not to mention all the insects killed by pesticides. Farmers will also kill deer, wild pigs, birds, etc. to protect their crops. And agriculture in some places still relies on child and/or slave labor.
You are correct. There is more that i can and need to do. That still does not make it good to use honey.
Hey no wait you’re supposed to throw your hands in the air and just eat industrially farmed animal corpses because there are also negative outcomes of vegetable production so obviously the two are completely equivalent
Nice strawman, strawberry. The point is that avoiding honey to reduce possible harm is vain at best.
But since you want to talk about meat, I’m curious about your opinion of hunting.
Do you know how animals die in the wild? The lucky ones get hit by a car and die instantly. The rest die from disease and starvation, both agonizing slow deaths, or they are literally eaten alive by predators.
If the aim of veganism is to reduce animal suffering, surely you would support ethical hunting, right?
the goal of veganism is to reduce animal exploitation.
Do you avoid all sugar products, or just honey?
Sugar growing also kills animals. You cannot avoid all harm, so why discount honey for the harm you know, but not discounting harm from growing sugar?
Reducing harm, sure, but it seems selective to discount honey for small amount of harm, when other things you (assumed) eat do equal (potentially unknown to you) harm.
Do you need to know every process of growing/transporting something to eat it? Or does you list of edible products shrink as you learn every new form of harm?
The list of edible products shrink as I learn of new harm. As a modern human, I am addicted to sugar, but I do need to make more of an effort to use less of it, as well as lessen the impact of what I do use.
How much awareness of it’s existence do you think a bee has?
We have no way of knowing don’t is best to be on the safe side. Veganism isn’t about awareness it’s about respect.
I dont care. In my opinion, the best way to live is to do as little harm as possible, and it appears that bees are harmed by the human collection of honey, so I will not use honey.
of its* existence
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Kinda tongue-in-cheek questions, but: Honey isn’t an animal body part, it isn’t produced by animal bodies, so if it is an animal product because bees process it, is wheat flour (for example) an animal product because humans process it? How about hand-kneaded bread? Does that make fruit an animal product because the bees pollinated the flowers while collecting the nectar?
Bees make honey for their hive. Honey also does indeed contain bodily fluids from the bees.
The bread making human consents to you taking the bread (presumably). Breast milk and other human bodily fluids can be vegan for the same reason.
And insects pollinate plants not because they use the fruit, but for the nectar. They don’t care what happens after they leave the flower.
“and other bodily fluids”
I didn’t want to go into it in the original comment, but yes. It is a relevant debate whether it’s vegan to swallow another humans semen, or even saliva. And yes, it is, if the human consents. Consent is the more or less the basis of whether vegans find it moral to consume something. Humans can give consent to sharing their fluids. Other animals cannot.
I’ve always found it interesting that using animals is a bad thing, but using plants in similar ways is fine. I guess there has to be a line somewhere, otherwise such a person would simply starve to death.
Animals aren’t just used, they are tortured on a industrial scale. That’s mainly why vegans oppose animal products.
Are bees tortured to get honey?
yea of course, never heard of the bee grinder?
We’ve been keeping them improperly in the winter since the mid 20th century, leading to unnecessary bee mortality within hives. Whether that’s torture or not is up to you, but it’s definitely unnecessary harm.
This is suggesting that we should be using hive covers. What exactly changed in the mid 20th century?
We stopped using hive covers because they’re more expensive than the increased mortality. They naturally nest in tree hollows in winter, whose thicker walls (and living material) allow the hive to maintain a higher internal temperature than uncovered hives (or covered hives).
They’re certainly exposed to a very different living situation than would be typical for them in most cases, to their detriment. For example, bees that make their combs in frames lose substantial heat from their hives, which usually helps protect against disease and even predation. They’re also often given a sugar water substitute to eat when their honey is drained off for human consumption, which is nowhere near as nutritious. They’re also moved around on the bee keeper’s schedule, which may be a substantial stressor compared with a hive that stays in one place. Never mind that they may be exposed to climates that substantially differ from where that particular variety of honey be evolved.
Given issues like colony collapse disorder, it’s pretty clear that many forms of bee keeping aren’t really great for bees. Does that constitute torture? That’s hard to tell, but it certainly does put pressures on them in multiple aspects of their lives and the lives of their hives as a whole that they wouldn’t be dealing with otherwise, and which probably aren’t pleasant.
Would you consider it torture, or at least cruel, to forcibly relocate the population of a city to an area that’s freezing cold, force them to live in poorly insulated homes, make them eat food that isn’t healthy for them, and steal the product of their labor in exchange for their efforts?
Well bees are definitely objectified and seen as industrialized honey producing machines. They’re starved of their own resources and are given mostly sugar water in return. Bee keepers are not concerned with their well-being other than for production yields. It is a form of factory farming. Isn’t this reason enough?
As a local beekeeper, I take offense to your sentiment.
Maybe time to think about life choices then?
Quite happy with my life, thank you. And the bees.
your offense has been duly noted and taped to the refrigerator for all to see
One good argument for this: A vegan diet not only minimizes animal deaths but plant deaths as well, since livestock obviously has to be fed on many, many individual plants before they can get slaughtered. So even if we for some reason prioritized saving the lives of plants going vegan would still be the way to go.
I respect this argument. I would like to know how Humans fit into the ecosystem.
Humans tend to remove predators from population centers to prevent Humans from becoming prey. The culling of predators allow more prey animals to survive. Humans find themselves competing with prey animals for fruits and vegetables. Humans hunt prey animals to increase yields of fruits and vegetables.
How do we reconcile that our population centers are built on the culling of predator and prey species?
How do Humans balance protection and food production with the morality of minimizing animal and plant death?
What should Humans do with the bodies of culled predators and prey?
I think if you ask 10 people this questions you will get 11 opinions, at least.
I personally would prefer the reintroduction of predators into their native habitats because the human tendency to squeeze economic profit out of every square centimeter of the planet we inhabit reads absolutely bizarre to me. This kind of instrumental world view where everything has to have a purpose for us is in my opinion an epoch in the development of humans we should strive to leave behind, because although for a time it shaped our progression as a species like nothing else, it’s also about to destroy the world we live in and come crushing down on us if we find no better way forward. I believe that in the long term we will have to withdraw from at least some parts of the ecosystem and let the predators do their thing. Our population centers can be (and for a good part already are) so sealed off to them that it should very well be possible to do our thing without being mauled by wolves.
…All this does go a bit beyond the question of honey though. Sorry for the rant there.
Bees and other insects are pollinators allowing food to grow. Say humans succeed at sealing themselves off in such a way that we can grow the food we need without impacting outside ecosystems.
Would humans still need pollinators? Would human pollinator populations be separated from outside populations?
The idea could inspire some entertaining science fiction. The best writer would probably have a background in Entomology and Horticulture.
Being sealed off wouldn’t have to mean having zero contact with the surrounding nature. I think we can coexist with predators while still using some land for agriculture - just not all of it.
There are varieties of Jainism that won’t pluck fruits (will only eat what has naturally fallen) and many mainstream varieties of Jainism that won’t eat any root vegetables (because digging them up would harm insects), or seeded vegetables (eating it harms the plants ability to reproduce).
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Naturally fallen fruit has ground bugs enjoying them like slugs. If a slug is already enjoying the fruit, that would violate Jainism?
I’m not a Jain so take this with a grain of salt. Their philosophy of nonviolence believes in two sets of rules - one for ascetics and one for “householders”. The former renounce everything in service of nonviolence (they often wear masks to prevent breathing in any organisms, carry canes that they use to tap the ground when they walk, etc). The latter have more “reasonable” restrictions (but are still pure vegetarians, etc). So maybe for the former group?
It is really tricky to genuinely discuss this topic. Many omnivores use this as a straw man argument to discredit vegans for not being fully consequential. On top of that, reasons for being vegan and where people draw the line also vary hugely.
Anyways, I would argue that eating plants and also fungi is very different to eating animal products. First of all, if you are vegan for ethical reasons (as I am) then usually the argument is that one can infer from one’s own feelings onto other animals. Sure, this isn’t always that easy and we will never know how other animals really feel. This includes fellow humans btw. But it is certainly very definitive that many animals feel pain, discomfort and many other emotions not unlike we feel them.
Plants and fungi on the other hand have completely different body plans. Plants are modular organisms and you simply cannot relate cutting your arm off with cutting a branch. We may deepen our understanding on plants and maybe we will find some form of conscience one day. But this is still far off and for now we can only speculate. Fungi are very different as well and we usually just eat their fruiting bodies anyways.
Secondly, as someone else pointed out, for ecological reasons and for the sheer quantity that is necessary to sustain humans, going vegan is always the better choice. Animals live on plants, too, and just use a lot of the plants’ energy on their own metabolism.
it isn’t produced by animal bodies
Sure is, it’s concentrated bee spit with sugar. And spit is made of water and body cells.
Think about it as if its about consent. The bees don’t consent to their honey being taken. Cows don’t consent to be repeatedly impregnated and milked. Pigs don’t consent to their butts becoming bacon. Chickens don’t consent to their eggs being taken.
However, the miller and the baker both consented to milling/kneading, and later selling their wares.
Human breast milk can be vegan, though, if given freely. If you forcefully take human breast milk, then it is no longer vegan.
Can human meat be vegan?
Well basically yes, tho would need to get into the topic of exploitation and all that if we are talking about if something is viewed as acceptable to consume.
Beekeeping is exploitation, but don’t the bees benefit from it too vs. being in the wild?
Is it exploitation? I’d argue slave or prison labor is exploitation because the workers have no freedom of choice. Bees are free to leave, and the queen will in fact do so if not content with the conditions in the hive. If the queen leaves, all of the bees will swarm with her and you’d be left with an empty box.
Beekeeping strikes me more as symbiosis. The beekeeper provides ideal conditions, far better than the average location that would be found in the wild, and can help protect the hive against threats like mites. In exchange the beekeeper receives a share of the honey produced by the hive.
No beekeeper takes all of the honey from the hive. Only the top box (the “honey super”) of a typical hive stack is harvested. A grate below the top box (a “queen excluder”) prevents the queen from entering it so no larva are laid in the top box. The workers bee are smaller and can pass through the grate to build out comb and produce honey. The comb and honey in the bottom boxes are left to the hive to feed its workers and produce the next generation of bees, ensuring the survival of the hive.
A queen excluder cannot be used to prevent swarming long-term as the drones that gather the pollen also won’t for through the grate! An excluder might be used to delay swarming and buy time so the beekeeper can offer another solution, like adding more boxes to the hive or splitting it into two hives. Better beekeepers proactively manage their hives, e.g. by setting up an empty hive in advance to essentially offer a swarming hive a new ideal home whenever they’re ready for it.
it’s also important to differentiate between someone with a backyard hive, vs industrial scale beekeeping where they might do all kinds of terrible shit because $$$$$$$$$$$$
we live in an age where if you’re willing to spend some dosh on a fancy hive, you don’t even have to open it to drain honey, you can just turn a lever and it uncaps the back of the cells and the honey flows out through a pipe.
What’s fair compensation to the honey bee? Humans aren’t allowed to speak on behalf of the honey bees. We don’t actually know if this is a fair trade on the side of the honey bee, we can only look at it from our very biased opinion.
Honey is a by-product of bees, the same way that all human made food is a by-products of humans.
Bees are gubbermint drones, and honey is simply concentrated 5G chemtrail juice that gives you super autism.
That was rough.
Yeah, but, did you ever see an ape turn into a human being?
That shit went dumb REAL fast
Not as fast as an ape turning into a human being.
Jesse Lee Peterson always cracks me up. I feel like his whole thing has to just be an act, but he never cracks it’s amazing really
The fact that he thought he won this “debate” and uploaded it is so embarrassing…
Can you milk a bee? I didn’t think so!
Honey can be vegan. I have a friend who keeps endangered bees and as an unintended side effect of fostering their growth has honey that she has to give away because she doesn’t want it
Genuine question, I would like to know if there is a reason. Why doesn’t she just let the bees keep it?
The bees make more than they need. They’ll keep filling up cells till there’s no room for larvae then swarm. That takes a while but in a meantime, the honey sitting there attracts pests and predators that can harm the colony.
And this is where I have problems with strict veganism. Animal husbandry can be ethical and beneficial to the species. Animals do produce excess nutrients that can be reused for other animals (culling chickens to feed carnivores for example) and some byproducts can benefit humans in a non exploitative manner.
The real issue is capitalism. Or the exploitation of others for personal benefits.
I believe it’s to encourage them to increase numbers, but I haven’t discussed that with her. She’s the type of nerd I know probably has a good reason so I never asked
Isn’t that vegetarian, not vegan though?
“It’s complicated”.
It’s the same category of dispute as the “eggs or milk can be vegan under certain circumstances” one. The argument is that rescued farm animals have been so warped by human intervention that it’s actively harmful for you to not use their produce - dairy cows can in rare cases die, and otherwise will just be miserable, if left unmilked. Chickens lay too many eggs, and leaving unf. chicken eggs in the coop can lead to the chickens learning to eat their own eggs, so you have to remove them. (I don’t hold a position on these claims, I’m just reporting what I see come up in the argument.) Bees fall into the same sort of category, they’ve been so selectively bred that they now produce far more honey than they can possibly use, so removing and eating some of it helps to mitigate the negative impact that humans have had on the creatures.
Regardless though: cows, chickens and bees are all still animals. I don’t think any vegans are gonna argue that one.
Seems like a weird thing though. A lot of domesticated animals can’t survive in the wild. And even the ones that can, it would only be in certain parts of the world, and they’d be an invasive species.
So do we want all of those animals to go extinct? If you eliminate all farm related activities with these animals, give them a place to live out the rest of their lives, but then what? But do you not allow them to breed? Or just let them all die off so they go extinct?
Or do you keep some of them in zoos? Given they’ve been bred to live on a farm, does that mean you have zoos that are identical to farms? And if you can get milk, eggs and honey from these animals if they’re technically living in zoo (which is exactly like a farm in every way) what’s been accomplished?
This is a very common argument and it’s a little shortsighted, because the answer is broadly “yes”. Reducing the number of cows/chickens/etc in the world is a net positive, and would only require us to stop force breeding them like it’s some kind of degenerate poultry hentai. Allowing the species to reduce in population is only of benefit to the species (cough humans cough) and is overall desirable. Keeping some in zoos would be fine, maintaining the native wild populations is also a good plan, small scale farms (“family” or “hobby”) farms where they don’t brutalize the animals is also a feature of most vegan utopias. Take india, where most of the population is vegan: there are still cows on farms, cow-derived produce is still available, it’s just the cows aren’t kept in American-style stock farms.
YMMV, and like any ideology there are other opinions with equally valid outlooks, this is just what I see most often. (full disclosure, I am not a vegan (there’s plenty of evidence to that in my post history), I just sleep with a lot of vegans and quite like chana masala)
(There’s also a pretty… sane… subgroup that proposes ‘corrective breeding’; a process wherein we undo the destructive changes humans introduced to the species and return them to what would be found in their ‘natural’ state. “Contentious” is probably the best description.)
Degenerate poultry hentai
Excuse me sir/madam, but I’d request that you respect the preferred literary sub-genre of some without resorting to terms such as “degenerate”. Poultry Hentai may not be overly popular and only have a niche following, but it truly is an art form in and of itself. Whether it’s “2 hens, 1 cob” or the better-known “Lady Chookerlee’s Lover” it truly does represent a formidable contribution to the art.
I cherish you.
But probably from a distance. Chickeboos aren’t the best for, you know, close-up cherishing.
You know why.Don’t even get me started on Bawk-kake…
Damn. That’s a good one!
Most indian population is definitely not vegan. there have been various surveys that show the percentage of the vegetarian population is between 23% and 37%. That means 63% to 77% are non-vegetarian. It’s a myth, a big one, that India is mainly a vegetarian country.
Not even the majority of Indians are vegetarians, much less vegans.
Very poor word choice on my part, I will freely admit that. The veg population of inda in is roughly larger than the entire US population, which is the much more useful statistic. I’m also aware that the vast majority of people who eat a vegan diet do so for economic reasons. Sorry about that.
There’s also a pretty… sane… subgroup that proposes ‘corrective breeding’; a process wherein we undo the destructive changes humans introduced to the species and return them to what would be found in their ‘natural’ state
Yeah I feel like that is just forcing animals to live in the way humans want them to live under a weird assumption that we know what they want.
I could live out in the wild if I really wanted to, but I don’t because living in a heated home, having access to healthcare, and having a grocery store nearby is way better than starving to death, getting frostbite, dying of a disease, or getting eaten by wolves. I don’t know how an animal wants to live their lives, so who knows, maybe they’d rather die of disease over being poked by a few needles by a veterinarian, starving because there’s no mangers filled by humans, or getting eaten alive by a pack of wolves. Maybe animals want that, but there’s no way of knowing and it’s a really weird thing to assume given humans don’t want to live that way. We live happy an fulfilling lives without having to constantly worry about being eaten by wolves, why would that be a requirement for an animal to be happy?
I think people see nature from a Disney cartoon perspective where the only danger is a human hunter. But the reality is nature is extremely brutal.
I don’t think a perfect ethical solution to domesticated animals really exists. Best we can do is just treat animals better. If they seem like they’re happy enough, then that’s probably alright.
Indian economics and laws regarding dairy produce their own sort of hell. If the unwanted non producing animals aren’t smuggled across the border for slaughter, they’re abandoned and left to starve due to laws about culling. Nobody’s really feeding unproductive animals except for the goshalas and there’s nowhere near enough of those for India’s dairy cattle production.
Yeahhhh… I was drunk and I probably could have thought that example through better. My apologies.
Playing devil’s advocate, this could be sidestepping the issue, because the honey is only an unintended side effect from your friend’s POV, not the bee’s.
So, if they were endangered cows and your friend didn’t like milk, the milk would be vegan…?
Well veganism is about reducing suffering. If the cows didnt suffer to produce that milk, like no forced insemination, calfs aren’t separated from their mother, male calfs aren’t slaughtered, the cows don’t have unnaturally large udders, you only take the over production and not steal the food from the calf and the cows live a good life then you could argue that the milk is vegan. But milk is not produced like that so milk is not vegan.
fungi?
Non vegan here. 🤔
Soooooo honey is not extracted directly from the bees, so that would be an argument to declare honey vegan.
On the other hand, even with modern beekeeping tech and modular hives, one could argue the act of taking honey to be a serious intrusion on the bees’ life, so that could be an argument that honey is not vegan.
One could argue where the line lies with eusocial organisms. Do you consider the individual bees or do you consider the whole hive? Whole hive? Honey may not be vegan. Individual insects? Honey could be vegan.
It really depends on your standards. One vegan friend of mine does drink mead (honey wine, for the uninformed) for instance.
