Things I don't like about some vegans

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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Things I don't like about some vegans

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Cloppy wrote: Fri Apr 21, 2017 9:20 am Meat isn't as bad as smoking, you can be healthy even if you eat meat and while your risk of cancer or heart attack are higher you can still avoid that if you don't eat too much meat. The average life expectancy is still pretty high and most people are meat eaters.
That's incorrect. It's all about how much you eat, or how much you smoke.
Eating less meat is like smoking fewer cigarettes a day. You can not avoid cancer from eating meat by eating less meat any more than you can avoid cancer from cigarettes by smoking fewer. When you get cancer, it was one cigarette that did it, or one bite of meat, or one xray, etc.

Either way, your chances of getting cancer are lower if you smoke less or eat less meat, but you can still get cancer from one puff or one bite. It's all down to chance.

It's like if you roll dice, you have a chance to roll snake eyes. You could even do it on your first roll. You never know. Or you could roll a thousand times and never do it.

That's the thing about cancer, and what makes it so scary: it's very random.

Heart disease is different. That builds up over time. It's much easier to avoid heart disease. If you only eat meat once a month, and otherwise exercise and eat a healthy plant based diet, you probably won't get heart disease.

It's the difference between something that's very random, and something that's a more gradual buildup of damage.
Heart disease can even be reversed. Cancer is a totally different kind of thing.

Cloppy wrote: Fri Apr 21, 2017 9:20 am The thing they don't understand is that capitalism is what got the biggest amount of people out of poverty.
Well, capitalism with a progressive taxes and a strong welfare system. :)
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Cloppy
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Re: Things I don't like about some vegans

Post by Cloppy »

brimstoneSalad wrote: Fri Apr 21, 2017 3:44 pm
Cloppy wrote: Fri Apr 21, 2017 9:20 am Meat isn't as bad as smoking, you can be healthy even if you eat meat and while your risk of cancer or heart attack are higher you can still avoid that if you don't eat too much meat. The average life expectancy is still pretty high and most people are meat eaters.
It's the difference between something that's very random, and something that's a more gradual buildup of damage.
Heart disease can even be reversed. Cancer is a totally different kind of thing.
Well, yeah about cancer I think you're right you can have someone who get cancer after his first cigarette and someone who get it after smoking for a year or someone who get it after smoking for 40 years while heart attack you get it from what you eat or you can get it from smoking until one day it's too much and you get a heart attack.
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Sapphire Lightning
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Re: Things I don't like about some vegans

Post by Sapphire Lightning »

Jebus wrote: Wed Apr 19, 2017 3:30 pm
Jamie in Chile wrote: Wed Apr 19, 2017 2:38 pmWhen a person becomes a vegan, it means that animals that would have had a chance to live a crappy life will now not be born and have no life at all. They are "saved" from suffering by not existing at all. Hooray
Absolutely true, although I suspect sarcasm in the "hooray" addition. The way things are going today I actually think this is worthy of hooray.
The whole "Well they would not exist if we did not breed them, therefor it is better to bring them in to existence so they can exist" argument I always thought was an odd point. If a being is brought in to existence and really only experiences horror, then it is not a life worth existing as. Basically it boils down to, "Well they wouldn't exist otherwise, so it is ok to do horrible things to them.".
Carnist: Kills animals and then takes from their bodies
Vegetarian: Takes from animals' bodies, and then kills them when they are no longer profitable
Vegan: Avoids unnecessary harm to animals as much as is possible and practicable
Limetree
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Re: Things I don't like about some vegans

Post by Limetree »

Here's my problem with number 9. Baby steps are for babies. If you go vegan slowly, you're just hurting animals in the process, though as someone trying to go vegan opposed to an omnivore you're now aware of how much suffering you're contributing to. As someone who cares about animals you would think that would be enough motivation to stop eating animal products.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Things I don't like about some vegans

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Limetree wrote: Wed Sep 06, 2017 12:01 am Here's my problem with number 9. Baby steps are for babies.
Maybe some people are babies instead of badasses, but we still want everybody to be able to go vegan :D . Better slow and steady than failing. Statistics show that the slower somebody transitions, the more likely he or she is to stick with it long term.

Maybe a slow transition helps people learn more and build up motivation. Or maybe it just helps them work out cravings one by one.
A quick change might be like trying to quit smoking and alcohol and gambling all at once, when perhaps will power has limits for people who are strongly addicted.
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Re: Things I don't like about some vegans

Post by rizumu »

I hope necroposting is okay.
Sapphire Lightning wrote: Sat Apr 22, 2017 2:17 am The whole "Well they would not exist if we did not breed them, therefor it is better to bring them in to existence so they can exist" argument I always thought was an odd point. If a being is brought in to existence and really only experiences horror, then it is not a life worth existing as. Basically it boils down to, "Well they wouldn't exist otherwise, so it is ok to do horrible things to them.".
It's a strange point to me, as well. I'm curious what the defense would be to "well they wouldn't exist otherwise, so it is okay for some to no horrible things to happen to them, as long as they have a 'net positive' life"? This was the ethical argument for "happy, humane" meat put forward by Sam Harris on his podcast while he was discussing his quitting vegetarianism. You would sound insane to argue that such an act is ethical for a human - i.e. to breed a human, hold them in captivity, and ultimately kill them even if you were to provide them a cushy, relatively painless life (and painless death). I don't know how useful that is to deploy here, though, if one holds different ethical standards for humans and non-human sentient animals. I've seen AskYourself throw "NameTheTrait" at Harris, but I'm curious what others' thoughts are on the matter.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Things I don't like about some vegans

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Necroposting is allowed and even encouraged if you see something you want to reply to.

You might find this thread interesting, there's a little more extensive analysis using a thought experiment: http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2583&p=26377#p26377
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Re: Things I don't like about some vegans

Post by rizumu »

brimstoneSalad wrote: Thu Oct 12, 2017 9:27 pm Necroposting is allowed and even encouraged if you see something you want to reply to.
Oh good! My first post was not a flub.
You might find this thread interesting, there's a little more extensive analysis using a thought experiment: http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2583&p=26377#p26377
Thanks for the direction! Exactly the thread i needed.

Your clarification of "classical utilitarianism" vs. utilitarianism that considers preference/interest helped a lot. As did the thought experiment elucidating that if it's unnecessary to stop an animal from living out its life vs. to keep letting it live its life, then we'd really be cruel in doing so. And that we can say something is wrong relative to an alternative, rather than outright wrong. That made a lot of sense to me.

I was mainly concerned with the philosophical issue. It's obviously fairy tale land once you consider the economics and practicality of such a "happy meat" system. Cultured meat seems by far the better thing to support and rally behind.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Things I don't like about some vegans

Post by brimstoneSalad »

rizumu wrote: Thu Oct 12, 2017 10:58 pm I was mainly concerned with the philosophical issue. It's obviously fairy tale land once you consider the economics and practicality of such a "happy meat" system. Cultured meat seems by far the better thing to support and rally behind.
Right, philosophically it may be conceivable, but economically it's not. Clean meat (in-vitro meat) is the most promising.

I hope you'll post an intro.
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Re: Things I don't like about some vegans

Post by NindriIndri »

Regarding the worldview thing - I have experienced a lot of grief from certain vegans because (due to specific historical circumstances of my country) I do not vote left generally. I think some would actually rather see an omnivore voting left than a vegan voting right. I don't find this type of exclusion helpful.

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't see the thread has 3 pages and this discussion has moved past the worldview thing, nevermind.
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