Why i am not a vegan ?

[Something Funny]

@Schizophonia I am not sure if I agree with you or not but this is not what my question is about though.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 01:19 PM by Something Funny

[Schizophonia]

1 minute ago, Something Funny said:

@Schizophonia I am not sure if I agree with you or not but this is not what my question is about though.

 

 

I meant that use value determine the relationship to objects.
A carrot or a chicken, even though they are very different by nature, technically a bigger difference that between a human and an animal indeed, have a similar type of use that will condition a weak empathy relationship.
Vice versa for humans.

[Schizophonia]

Actually many people have more empathy for pets than for humans.
Because their use value is exclusively as pleasant companionship, whereas humans are competitors, people who have induced trauma in us, and generally more important mirrors of our shadow.

Otherwise, a more complex and ambivalent relationship with "humans" than with "pets" in general, which can condition a lower level of empathy.

[Something Funny]

14 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

I meant that use value determine the relationship to objects.
A carrot or a chicken, even though they are very different by nature, technically a bigger difference that between a human and an animal indeed, have a similar type of use that will condition a weak empathy relationship.
Vice versa for humans.

I understand what you mean. I am saying that I am not sure if this is true but regardless, my question is specifucally about anions reasoning.

In your case, your theory might be factually incorrect (as in this is not how emphathy actually developed) but at least it seems logically sound at first glance.

His logic is just not logicking, lol.

[Basman]

57 minutes ago, AION said:

Sub conscious dialogue/battle between vegans and non vegans is this: vegans have this subconscious shame to be alive and project it on everybody to cloak their shame to be alive.

Your arguments is that they hate themselves. That is frankly ridiculous 😂. You don't have to hate yourself to care about animals.

Vegans just tend to be a bit out of touch with reality at times.

[Schizophonia]

32 minutes ago, Basman said:

Your arguments is that they hate themselves. That is frankly ridiculous 😂. You don't have to hate yourself to care about animals.

Vegans just tend to be a bit out of touch with reality at times.

Anti-vegans are actually the ones who hate themselves the most, hence the argument "death and suffering are part of life, it's normal."

Pro-vegans are actually the most selfish; rather than giving value to the object (the "it"; the taste of meat, the convenience, etc.), they give it to themselves (I'm ethical, I eat like this because it makes me someone who isn't a hypocrite, I'm saving the planet, etc).

Mirroir effect 101  👀

Edited Thursday at 06:06 PM by Schizophonia

[Emerald]

43 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

Pro-vegans are actually the most selfish; rather than giving value to the object (the "it"; the taste of meat, the convenience, etc.), they give it to themselves (I'm ethical, I eat like this because it makes me someone who isn't a hypocrite, I'm saving the planet, etc).

Certainly, there are many Vegans that operate that way.... as anything can be crafted into an identity of goodness. (Yet again, even being an anti-Vegan can be crafted into an identity of goodness... and you see tons of anti-Vegans building an identity out of their opposition to Veganism.)

But personally, I really don't care that much about Veganism as an identity... as I tend to have a lot of the culture's negative associations with Veganism and it isn't something I broadcast unless I'm being directly challenged on it or if I need to tell a server at a restaurant about it... or if I'm arguing on the internet about it.

Like, when I think of the word Vegan... I too think of a pretentious person who only eats artisanal foods and who gloats about their lifestyle. This is in spite of being Vegan and knowing many Vegans who aren't like that.

It actually makes me cringe a little if people were to perceive me that way.

The reason why I went Vegan is watching videos of animals being slaughtered and abused in the meat and dairy industry and having a visceral response to the suffering.

Then, I became viscerally aware of how my actions were incongruent with my values. And I realized that, if it weren't for the dirty work being done for me outside of the scope of my awareness, I would not be okay with harming or killing animals to continue eating meat if I didn't absolutely need it to sustain my life.

I just have a really strong reaction to the suffering of sentient beings... both human and non-human sentient beings as I see that they are capable of suffering.

Like, the other day I was mindlessly scrolling on Instagram and I ran across this video that I first mistook as a video of a frail new-born baby bird resting in someone's hand.

But when I watched it for a little bit longer, the person holding the bird balled up some kind of food (maybe bread?) in a tiny ball and opened the bird's mouth and shoved it down the bird's throat and then pinched the throat a little bit down and down and down to make sure that the bird swallowed the bread.

And I was like... is this person trying to feed the baby bird? Or is this person stuffing the bird to eat it?

And I eventually realized that the person was stuffing this frail, near-death bird and that they were about to eat it alive... similar to how in some cultures, octopus is often consumed live.

Then, I imagined myself as this frail bird... powerless and my importance negated, with my suffering and frailty being exploited and demoted in importance in favor of a more powerful being's momentary desires.

And then I started feeling this sense of injustice but with no authority figure to stop in to assure me that what is happening to me is wrong as reality just is and there is no absolute sense of right and wrong. And then it's like a "What if the law of the jungle is what is moral and correct?" and "What if badness is good and goodness is bad?"

And it creates this sense of chaos of tumbling end over end in a meaningless unjust universe where there is no way to say in the absolute sense "This is wrong." And that is true.

A serial killer could come and torture and kill you and all your family members... and even that would be just a matter of perspective to determine what is right or wrong. Certainly, there have been eras where the just thing under the law would be to kill many innocent people.

Then, the only way to sit in my own sovereignty and to find a center point within the chaos is to realize the truth is "From my perspective, exploiting the suffering of animals for pleasure is wrong." And in order for me to feel anchored into my own subjective truth and subjective sense of justice, I have to bring my actions into alignment with those values.

Otherwise, I just feel out of integrity and unstable in myself.

 

 

Edited Thursday at 06:48 PM by Emerald

[AION]

1 hour ago, Basman said:

Your arguments is that they hate themselves. That is frankly ridiculous 😂. You don't have to hate yourself to care about animals.

Vegans just tend to be a bit out of touch with reality at times.

Shame can lead to self hate and hate of their own species but not necessarily. Everybody deals with shame in their own way. Most of them develop some mental gymnastics to cope against the necessary brutality and selfishness of survival. 

If you don’t live in the west this survival is pushed in your face very much. If you live in average western country you can live in laa laa land and create these certain ideologies. 

The fact is that everybody who is alive has a toll on the ecosystem. One should come eye to eye with this and have peace with it. Go from denial to acceptance. I’m trying to do this and it is very taxing. 

Edited Thursday at 07:02 PM by AION

[Basman]

18 minutes ago, AION said:

If you don’t live in the west this survival is pushed in your face very much. If you live in average western country you can live in laa laa land and create these certain ideologies.

It's true that vegans tend to be largely urban (and middle/upper class) and that the cushiness of modern life makes it so you can get away with living in fantasy, but that is more on an individual basis and doesn't necessarily say anything about the merits of the ideology itself.

Being vegan is both possible and healthy (due to modern imports), though generally harder and less convenient. It's a matter of values whether or not to be vegan. You don't have to be crazy to want to be vegan.

[Majed]

@Emerald

On 5/14/2025 at 5:30 PM, Emerald said:

My issue is NOT that we think about this issue differently. If you really didn't care about the deaths and sufferings of animals, you wouldn't bother to make these bullcrap defensive arguments that you don't really care about.

The issue is that, you are a non-Vegan with Vegan values. And you are clearly not okay with your own choice to eat meat, as your argument has guilty all over it and the desire to assuage that guilt.

But because you want to maintain the status quo of your diet and keep enjoying the pleasure of eating meat, you have to find a way to go into cognitive dissonance and square the circle. Hence, why you create this narrative.

And I just want you to be honest about what you're doing when you're making that argument about "preserving culture" and so "I'm the good guy" and "Vegans are the true bad guys".

It's just mental gymnastics to create a narrative to maintain cognitive dissonance and assuage your own guilt about eating meat.

Just be honest and say, "I like the taste of meat. And the pleasure that I get from eating it is something that I value more than the animal's life. And I am okay with animals suffering as long as I can get the momentary pleasure of consuming them."

I disagree, i just stated why veganism will not work. Because there are thousands of years of culinary experience, cultures, traditions... Diverse and all around the world. Veganism won't beat this. It is impossible.

[Tudo]

@AION Are you seriously comparing plants to complex animals with nervous systems and significant consciousness?

That doesn’t make any sense.

[Yimpa]

3 minutes ago, Tudo said:

 

That doesn’t make any sense.

[AION]

21 minutes ago, Tudo said:

@AION Are you seriously comparing plants to complex animals with nervous systems and significant consciousness?

That doesn’t make any sense.

I was kind of trolling lol

[Emerald]

5 hours ago, Basman said:

It's true that vegans tend to be largely urban (and middle/upper class) and that the cushiness of modern life makes it so you can get away with living in fantasy, but that is more on an individual basis and doesn't necessarily say anything about the merits of the ideology itself.

Being vegan is both possible and healthy (due to modern imports), though generally harder and less convenient. It's a matter of values whether or not to be vegan. You don't have to be crazy to want to be vegan.

First off, I went Vegan when I was squarely in the working class... working for $12 per hour as a substitute teacher and my husband was a server at a restaurant.

So in a first world nation, you need not be super wealthy to go Vegan. In fact, a whole food Vegan diet is cheaper than a whole food diet that includes meat, dairy, and eggs.

It's just that an unhealthy processed Vegan diet is more expensive than an unhealthy processed omnivorous diet... and the cheapest diet possible is the unhealthy processed omnivorous diet.

But the whole thing with Veganism is specifically about abstaining from meat and dairy when you don't need it to sustain life.

So, I see Veganism as a dietary and lifestyle choice that is only available to people who are in a well-resourced enough and technologically developed enough society to exercise that level of compassion with their choices.

And I see the increase in the commonality of Veganism as a wonderful fruit that grows from the tree of collectively moving up the Spiral Dynamics spiral towards a more loving, connected, and compassionate world.

And I see it as a great privilege/responsibility combo for people who are living in well-resourced, technologically developed societies where we have the means to consider the impacts of our choices... and therefore a responsibility to consider the impacts of our choices.

But it's always some middle class person form a wealthy nation arguing against Veganism like, "Veganism is only those with a cushy modern lifestyle who don't have to worry about eating meat to survive.".

And I'm like "Yeah, that's you buddy!"

[Emerald]

12 hours ago, AION said:

Sub conscious dialogue/battle between vegans and non vegans is this: vegans have this subconscious shame to be alive and project it on everybody to cloak their shame to be alive. There is nothing wrong to stay alive at the expense of earth. Just you being alive totally destroys the environment and we all have to accept this fact. Just eating the metaphorical banana and two avocados, falling on your knees and crying for the chickens and doing all these virtue signalling is not changing this visceral and ruthless fact of survival.

I don't feel shame about being alive, though I would like to lessen the impacts of suffering that my lifestyle causes.

I just don't want sentient beings to suffer and have a premature death... as I have a strong visceral reaction to it and a sense that I want to make it stop.

It's a bit like if you're watching a really gory horror movie and you squirm and hide your eyes because you don't want to see such a tragedy happening and you're hoping that the victim will be okay. 

The main difference is that the horror movie is real in this case.

Can you not understand how a person might have such a reaction that doesn't come from shame... but instead comes from empathy and the ability to feel the feelings of others who are in pain?

Is that really too abstract of a concept for you to consider that someone might recoil at such things and change their own behaviors as a result?

[Emerald]

4 hours ago, Majed said:

@Emerald

I disagree, i just stated why veganism will not work. Because there are thousands of years of culinary experience, cultures, traditions... Diverse and all around the world. Veganism won't beat this. It is impossible.

Are you making the claim that, if you went Vegan personally, it would undermine all these culinary traditions?

Or are you making the claim that you disagree with adopting Vegan diets because it will eventually lead to some pattern or another of undermining culture?

Either way, both of these perspectives are clearly empty defenses that you've given as there is no threat that Veganism is going to wipe out cultural practices... and also no one even challenged you on your choices.

You're just using these as shields because you feel guilty and needed to come up with a narrative to square the circle of your own cognitive dissonance.

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, AION said:

I was kind of trolling lol

It's actually a really common defense that meat eaters use to justify their dietary choices to themselves.

Like, "How selfish are you for prioritizing the life of a cow over the life of a carrot? Shame on you for not being conscious enough to see that those two things are no different?"

But deep down, they know it's a bullshit argument that they themselves don't even agree with.

[AION]

7 hours ago, Emerald said:

It's actually a really common defense that meat eaters use to justify their dietary choices to themselves.

Like, "How selfish are you for prioritizing the life of a cow over the life of a carrot? Shame on you for not being conscious enough to see that those two things are no different?"

But deep down, they know it's a bullshit argument that they themselves don't even agree with.

Vegans and non-vegans tend to gaslight each other so I wouldn't take everything that is being said serious. Obviously a cow has more sentience than a daisy flower but that doesn't mean a cow should get the same rights as a human, because a cow is an animal while a human is a human. I think humans tend to project their own paradigms on animals. Animals experience reality in a different way. In one of my psychedelic trips I discovered this.

 

7 hours ago, Emerald said:

I don't feel shame about being alive 

 

Edited Friday at 08:33 AM by AION

[Majed]

@Emerald I'm making the claim that we will never have a vegan world, because of thousands of years of culinary cultures and traditions. 

[integral]

@Majed the moment 3d printing meat becomes cheaper than growing a full cow. It will replace the world production of meat.

Edited Friday at 12:30 PM by integral