The other thing about Yourofsky is that he has seen a lot of animal cruelty up close first hand due to his activism, and I think this has really affected him (eg. evidenced by his misanthropic rants and reclusiveness), and my heart goes out to him.
Dr Melanie Joy talks about Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder (STSD) in her speeches on Carnism, and warns of the dangers of over-witnessing animal cruelty. For that reason, I'm moving on from the "why" of veganism and on to the more positive and constructive "how" -- educating myself, and maybe later educating others.
Francis from Costa Rica in Central America
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Re: Francis from Costa Rica in Central America
So I've gone ahead and listened to Yourofsky's best speech ever and I think I'd agree that he's mostly consequentialist. The speech was pretty powerful and interesting as well. Here are my main qualms with him based on his speech:
• Like brimstoneSalad pointed out, his pride and willingness to violate the law shines a negative light on veganism. His violation of the law, even if it led to the rescue of some animals, likely turned away many from veganism by allowing to dismiss vegans as radicals.
• He seems to have some dogmatic concern with the use of animals as property. If they show now signs of caring about being property (because a majority if not all of them have no conception of the idea of property), I do not see why it matters.
• He argued that all children are animal lovers. I have a hard time believing this, as if my memory serves me, many of my elementary peers enjoyed tormenting insects and chasing after birds and squirrels.
• He committed a few Appeal to Natures.
• He makes the pseudo-scientific claim that dairy is physically addictive.
• He claims that animal protein destroys bones. Does anyone have a citation for this? I'm not really sure what to Google to verify it.
• Like brimstoneSalad pointed out, his pride and willingness to violate the law shines a negative light on veganism. His violation of the law, even if it led to the rescue of some animals, likely turned away many from veganism by allowing to dismiss vegans as radicals.
• He seems to have some dogmatic concern with the use of animals as property. If they show now signs of caring about being property (because a majority if not all of them have no conception of the idea of property), I do not see why it matters.
• He argued that all children are animal lovers. I have a hard time believing this, as if my memory serves me, many of my elementary peers enjoyed tormenting insects and chasing after birds and squirrels.
• He committed a few Appeal to Natures.
• He makes the pseudo-scientific claim that dairy is physically addictive.
• He claims that animal protein destroys bones. Does anyone have a citation for this? I'm not really sure what to Google to verify it.
Do you think these things are justified or productive for veganism?ma3xiu1 wrote:eg. evidenced by his misanthropic rants and reclusiveness
That's great! Make sure to participate in talks about effective altruism here on the forum! Unnatural Vegan also does quite a bit on the subject as well. I'd consider checking out her channel.ma3xiu1 wrote:I'm moving on from the "why" of veganism and on to the more positive and constructive "how" -- educating myself, and maybe later educating other
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Re: Francis from Costa Rica in Central America
Yes, this sort of activism may reflect poorly on veganism, and cause people to dismiss vegans as radicals, which is especially bad in these times when "radicalisation" is the new evil buzzword in the media. I wonder though if he hadn't engaged in these criminal activities whether he would have gotten so many interviews on his tour in Israel, for example.Cirion Spellbinder wrote:So I've gone ahead and listened to Yourofsky's best speech ever ... Here are my main qualms with him...:
• Like brimstoneSalad pointed out, his pride and willingness to violate the law shines a negative light on veganism. His violation of the law, even if it led to the rescue of some animals, likely turned away many from veganism by allowing to dismiss vegans as radicals.
I don't think it so much is the "owning" per se that is a problem, rather it is the actions that someone takes as a result of this ownership mindset that impinge on the freedom of the animals and the entitlement the "owner" feels to exploit their property as they see fit.Cirion Spellbinder wrote: • He seems to have some dogmatic concern with the use of animals as property. If they show now signs of caring about being property (because a majority if not all of them have no conception of the idea of property), I do not see why it matters.
I agree that this is not necessarily universal. While there is probably some genetics at play that make the human species predisposed to empathy and coorperation that gave the species an evolutionary advantage, do some degree these social (or anti-social) behaviours are learned.Cirion Spellbinder wrote: • He argued that all children are animal lovers. I have a hard time believing this, as if my memory serves me, many of my elementary peers enjoyed tormenting insects and chasing after birds and squirrels.
Was he making appeal to nature, or was he countering the appeals to nature made by meat-eaters that humans eating meat is natural by presenting observations that the human anatomy is more closely alligned to herbivores rather than carnivores? I can't quite remember, I'd have to go back and check.Cirion Spellbinder wrote: • He committed a few Appeal to Natures.
Are you sure there is no scientific basis for this? For sure he didn't provide any references. While this may be an interesting factoid, I think it is ultimately irrelevant to the case for veganism.Cirion Spellbinder wrote: • He makes the pseudo-scientific claim that dairy is physically addictive.
Ok, this claim is one that I've heard from a few vegan sources, and it seems to stem from a study where it was observed that meat eaters were excreting more calcium in their urine than vegetarians, and they concluded that this calcium was being leeched out of the bones in an attempt to neutralise the metabolic acidosis from consumption of animal protein. Dr Michael Greger from nutritionfacts.org made a video where he noted a more recent study used radioactive tracers to try to narrow down the source of the calcium in the urine, and the conclusion was that it was actually dietary calcium that had been ingested rather than calcium from the bones. One hypothesis is was that the consumption of meat was inhibiting the absorption of dietary calcium, which was that excreted in the urine. So, I think vegans need to be very careful before making this claim that animal protein destroys bone health.Cirion Spellbinder wrote: • He claims that animal protein destroys bones. Does anyone have a citation for this? I'm not really sure what to Google to verify it.
Justified? Well, understandable at least. However, productive for veganism? I think not. One video that was really pivotal in helping me to question whether I was ethically justified in eating meat was produced by YouTuber 43alley, who produced the video to explain why religious believers have a hard time "seeing the light" of reason and critical thinking, and used veganism as an example to illustrate his point:Cirion Spellbinder wrote:Do you think these things are justified or productive for veganism?ma3xiu1 wrote:eg. evidenced by his misanthropic rants and reclusiveness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-iaon3cEa4
I'd spoken to vegetarians before, but I really see this video as the first time I really started to question carnism -- it was really the "pebble in the shoe" so to speak that eventually moved me to explore the issue further.
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Re: Francis from Costa Rica in Central America
It's great to see, that these popular challenges actually works and people stay vegan after them. What was your motive to do Veganuary and what convinced you to stay vegan?perezsfrancis wrote:I did Veganuary this year, and then Vegan challenge, and then I have stayed vegan