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comment by no-cheating
no-cheating  ·  3662 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Becoming a vegan. Where to start?

Thanks for that advice. You aren't a vegetarian no more, are you? Why did you stop?

As for people asking me ridiculous things, I hope they will! There's a lot people around me don't know about that I can tell them. It's one of the reasons I think such a decision can really make a difference.





kleinbl00  ·  3662 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    There's a lot people around me don't know about that I can tell them

Careful with that. I've found that many vegans and vegetarians assume the rest of us aren't vegan or vegetarian because we don't know the impact of our choices on the animal kingdom... when in fact, we don't care.

Starting the conversation necessarily requires you painting us as either (A) ignorant or (B) callous. Meanwhile, we're just trying to have lunch. I have several friends who are vegetarian. We can share a table without any problems - we've even had conversations about vegetarianism. Vegans are trickier. There's more of a moral judgement in veganism that tends to color any conversations about food.

thundara  ·  3662 days ago  ·  link  ·  

To add to this, "care" can mean many things. I may care about the wholesale pollution of the environment, overfishing of oceans, seas, and gulfs, and excessive CO2 production from an over-consumption of meat while also not caring whether or not I indulge in taking the (delicious) profits away from the (literal) worker bee.

Then there's also "care but don't think it'll change anything" camp, which I can never decide if I'm actually inside or not...

Or hell, "care, but am incapable of being a purist for one reason or another".

kleinbl00  ·  3662 days ago  ·  link  ·  

A good point. Many dimensions to the issue, many reasons for many viewpoints.

organicAnt  ·  3658 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Hi kleinbl00, it's been a while.

I think we can all agree that murder and rape of human beings is morally wrong. There's no question about that. Every civilized society agrees that violence towards human beings is absolutely disgusting and should be avoided and prevented. There are not "many dimensions" to it.

Yet, when it comes to beings which are totally defensiveless and speechless, because we happen to not be in the receiving end of their abuse, all of the sudden morality has "many dimensions".

I say, there are only as "many dimensions" to animal rights as there are excuses to keep on doing something for personal pleasure which is in essence abusive and repugnant.

user-inactivated  ·  3662 days ago  ·  link  ·  

see below for a perfect example.