You’re vegan, yet you don’t think speciesism is bad, and you don’t care about morals… right… 🤨

Okay I believe you (Not all vegans are the same after all. For example some people call themselves vegan when they’re really just eating a plant-based diet, still buy other animal products, or don’t have very strong views about animal rights. Not saying that’s the case here but when there are fewer vegans in a community, there can be more of that.)

But what confused me is that rather than just answering the question of whether it’s speciesist to prefer one animal species over another (even when respecting both of their rights by being vegan), you mostly went on a tangent about rejecting the comparison between racism and speciesism, even though vegans typically stress the fact that both forms of discrimination of individuals are comparable to each other, and it’s usually people who are against the vegan movement who try to argue they aren’t, and say things like “Considering humans and non-human animals as the same is problematic” (even though that’s a strawman since the vegan position acknowledges the differences between species but advocates for moral treatment of all species regardless).

I just don’t really understand. Do you for example think that it’s wrong to compare immoral treatment of humans to immoral treatment of non-human animals? Because that’s the vibe I’m getting.

Why is it that the one person who responded who seemed to actually be vegan had their messages deleted? Are the mods here not vegan? Or are higher up Lemmy mods brigading this sub?

All of your talking points are very much what non-vegans and anti-vegans say. So please just be honest and tell me if you’re vegan or not.

Vegans compare racism and speciesism all the time. And non-vegans are the ones who usually reject the comparison. So, I ask, are you vegan?

I had reason to believe that would happen if I didn’t specifically ask for only vegan replies, which you did not respect. I was right. And no it’s not a self fulfilling prophecy. I’ve tried asking things on vegan communities on Lemmy before without that preface, and just got non-vegans trolling. At least this might reduce it. But the trolls are abundant. You are absolutely a troll. Please go away.

I’m trying to talk to vegans about this topic. That’s all. This question is discussing things that vegans focus on in particular. If I was asking another question geared toward all people that would be different. Please leave me alone now.

I’ve already gotten 2 non-vegans trolling. Please respect the nature of this question and only answer if you’re vegan and want to engage seriously.

I never said what you said pretty sure. But I edited it literally immediately. I meant that often only vegans can truly understand a topic about veganism, which makes perfect sense.

I said often only vegans can truly understand a vegan topic. And you’re just proving my point. Would you think that only a Christian can truly understand Christian topics for example? Why should they not be allowed to speak to Christians? I’m seeking responses from vegans since this question is very much geared towards topics that only vegans really discuss. That should be perfectly fine.

And of course I’m not going into carnivore communities and trolling. But you’re clearly coming into this vegan community and trolling for some reason.

Finally, as the numbers of vegans increase on this platform, there won’t be as much pushback from non-vegans whenever a vegan says something on a vegan community, as you can see on the Reddit vegan community that is well-established.

Now please kindly read the question that I’m here to talk to vegans, not non-vegans. This is question seeking a vegan’s perspective.

That seems reasonable. We want a vegan community of actual vegans to communicate about topics with. Likewise “carnivore” dieters (I wasn’t aware there was a presence of them on Lemmy) probably want actual carnivore dieters to talk to. I don’t see the problem with this. If I ask a question directed toward vegans and all I get is responses from non-vegans, it defeats the purpose of my question. Only vegans can truly understand where you’re coming from about certain things to do with vegan topics. Guessing you’re not vegan based on your phrasing.

Well primarily vegans don’t eat honey because it’s a form of exploitation of animals (bees). This can carry ethical as well as environmental issues.

This goes into some of the reasons why vegans typically avoid honey:

https://www.careelite.de/en/why-vegans-dont-eat-honey/

TL;DR:

▪︎ Bees make the honey for themselves ▪︎ Honey production is exhausting ▪︎ We manipulate the animals for the honey ▪︎ Honey bees are exploited in mass breeding ▪︎ Bees are injured and die ▪︎ Honey is not particularly healthy ▪︎ There are plant-based alternatives ▪︎ Wild bees are important for biodiversity ▪︎ Bees are living beings and not commodities ▪︎ Wild bees are essential for the survival of us humans

And here is the Vegan Society’s page on honey:

https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/why-go-vegan/honey-industry

Hope that helped :)

I understand and I respect that. I get that Thanksgiving is important to people. But as someone who cares a lot about animals, it’s really hard to see people all eating a turkey as a tradition. I hold my tongue and don’t speak out against it, symbolic day and all, but I feel sadness inside and sometimes it’s hard to prevent that coming out in how I carry myself on the occasion.

Yeah :/ On the bright side, they’re presented as a pretty “cool”/attractive character and it also exposed a lot of people to the idea of veganism in the first place. I liked the fact that a lot of people heard this line said by a vegan character in a mainstream movie: “I partake not in the meat, nor the breast milk, nor the ovum, of any creature with a face.” (The ‘with a face’ part was unnecessary, since there are faceless animals we don’t eat/exploit either, but good enough)

This anime doesn’t particularly interest me otherwise (it’s multiple episodes), I already saw the movie and it was just ok. The “vegan powers”, “vegan police” stuff is something I never hear the end of from other people, though. “You get 3 strikes before the vegan police catch you!” “Vegan police!” “No vegan diet, no vegan powers.” “Chicken parm isn’t vegan?! Gelato isn’t vegan?! It’s milk and eggs b-” “Being vegan makes you better than most people” yada yada. That movie (Scott Pilgrim vs the World) is honestly where a lot of people get their first exposure to veganism from, and something they gravitate to whenever the subject comes up. In my experience anyway

Does it have any one-liners likely to be referenced by people? Like the ones from the movie

That’s fair, I guess I would just hate for people to read it and take the absence of any description of how the dairy cow-human relationship is a horrific, unjust, exploitative and oppressive one to mean that dairy farming is acceptable.

If we really are exploring that relationship genuinely and without obscuring facts, the suffering dairy cows experience at the hands of humans must be acknowledged.

To be honest I shared this with vegans who I thought might relate, it wasn’t something I typically say to non-vegans, because in my experience, they make fun of vegans before they would allow themselves to truly engage with the idea of animal suffering/exploitation/killing etc by humans. So I would probably modify my language to be more facts-based and make them aware of the problems with animal farming/exploitation. If I see a living, conscious animal, that’s immediately a “friend” to me and I respect them, so all animals are friends. I hope this inspires more kindness to them. But for others, the idea of that might seem worthy of ridicule.

I understand the resistance to “appealing to emotion”, but I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing as a whole; if we’re sure that being vegan is the right thing to do, then appealing to people’s emotional side with how they view animals could be a useful tactic. Perhaps it would need to be less vague however, such as “animals are sentient, complex beings” rather than friends.

I would argue saying “think of the children” while holding up an image of an aborted fetus might be a bit of a misrepresentation of reality rather than just an appeal to emotion, at the risk of offending someone. Undeveloped, unconscious fetuses aren’t equivalent to “children” or fully formed, conscious humans in the sense we typically understand it (e.g. a sentient human woman who would truly suffer from an enforced pregnancy), but it might lead people who don’t know to believe they are. I don’t think anyone really thinks I’m personally friends with every farmed animal who gets abused and slaughtered as a result of people’s animal product purchases, so I don’t think it’s misrepresentative to call them friends as a general term of endearment for all sentient life.

But I take your point, I really do.

“Hello my friends” (says to complete strangers), or “My friends over in x country” (where you don’t actually know anyone), for example. Wouldn’t it also work in the human context, even if you don’t know the individuals personally? Just wondering. I’ve heard “friends” used to refer to people you care about simply because they’re humans and you acknowledge their (even theoretical) existence. So why not non-human animals as well?

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