Convince me to go vegan

[vdofthegoodkind]

Is this a joke or a late entry for the idiot of the month awards?

Calling something a joke and someone an idiot and providing no arguments that back up WHY, only makes YOU look like a fool

I have already said that (rational) vegans know very well that being ethical doesn’t stop at avoiding to eat meat. Look into the recent “quinoa” and “palm-oil” discussions.

If you already agreed with the broader point, then why get all technical about the potato-rice-wheat thing when it was just an example of that broader point. (and this is a rhetorical question)

If you already accept that non-human animals can have moral value ( and that the fact that you like to eat them is not a good argument), then it becomes a matter of gradation. Growing plants and killing animals for food strongly differ in magnitude (fewer and less sentient animals are killed in the former case). And we aren’t even talking about environmental issues. Of course, the less meat you eat, the less amount of suffering you cause. This has never been controversial.

As for the supposed gradation difference... All kinds of animals are effected by pesticides. From the very basic like insects, all the way up to larger mammals. Not to mention the TYPE of suffering involved. The type of animal agriculture that is compatible with a reducetarian lifestyle like mine would have minimal suffering compared to the type of suffering brought about by pesticides. Even the number of victims would probably be lower.

As for "the less meat you eat, the less amount of suffering you cause". This is only not controversial when talking about CURRENT practices. Practices that I dont agree with and that are not a requirement in order for everyone in the world to have a lifestyle like mine.

’m comparing options that differ in the amount of suffering they cause. You didn’t even properly define what kind of reducetarianism you are talking about (you just said you don't drink milk and you eat mock meats a couple of times per week), nor you said that you wished the world to adopt it.

Is that my responsibility to say that? You're the one who immediately started comparing numbers from veganism vs numbers from standard animal agriculture. Unless you wanna take the position that any kind of reductarianism will bring about similar numbers than modern day animal agriculture, what I said was more than sufficient.

Would it be worse though? And if so, why shouldn't we just go vegan?

You may want to start a thread about the kind of reducetariasm you would like to promote ( it has already been done, by the way). As of yet, you have not provided any argument. Vaclav Smil had to write a book in order to show that strict veganism may not be the ONLY way to care about the animals and the planet. And even he acknowledged that it is still the best option at our disposal.

I couldn't say if it would be worse. Given the profit incentive that will always be there in all industries and the increased difficulty to regulate pest control compared to the difficulty of regulating animal welfare in animal agriculture, it would not be a long shot to assume that some forms of animal agriculture would actually result in less suffering than plantfood cultivation.
I cant prove it ofcourse, but neither can you that veganism would be ethically superior to all forms of animal agriculture.

It’s different in magnitude. It’s just the most ethical decision of the lot – this doesn’t make the other diets worthless, just less efficient. It’s the difference between a kick in the groin and a slap in the face.

Bald assertion. It's only ethically superior to CURRENT modern day animal agriculture.

Yes, I was quoting you.

No you werent.

Veganism has never been as monolithic as you think it is. Vegans have always tried to choose the most ethical food choices. Again, it’s a matter of gradation.

Im going off the definition of:
"A philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."

If you are talking about something other than dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals dietarily speaking, then don't call yourself a vegan, but a minimalist or something else.

And you failed. You made an argument in favor of a strict form of veganism that you are unwilling to embrace. You just assumed I was not ready to acknowledge the fact that plant-based diets can differ in the amount of suffering they cause, but – as I have said – it’s even in the textbook definition of veganism.

No, first of all, calling this veganism is giving veganism more credit than it deserves, as explained just above here. Yes this minimalist-jainist type diet involves abstaing from plants, but calling it a vegan diet does a disservice to the type of people who follow this type of diet and gives credit to vegans were credit is not due. This type of diet is also a vegetarian diet, because it involves abstaining from meat. This type of diet is also a reducetarian diet because it involves reducing your impact.
It's like equating a thumb to a finger. Yes a thumb is a finger, but it's way more specific than just a finger. Just like a thumb is also a bodypart, but it's a very specific type of bodypart.
Second, like I said, I'm not even sure that a completely plantbased diet is in fact more ethical than some forms of animal agriculture. The only thing I KNOW, is that THIS restricted type of vegan diet is more ethical than a standard vegan diet. I dont know how either holds up to a reducetarian diet when a more benign form of animal agriculture is in play.

Let me get this straight. You think it’s arbitrary because plant-based diets may differ in how ethical they are, something that we all acknowledge and is even in the textbook definition of the term?

Which textbook definition is that? The one I'm going off of is that of vegansociety.com, which falsely equates dispensing with animal products to excluding cruelty as far as is possible and practicable.

[vdofthegoodkind]

Hi vdofthegoodkind, there's a reducetarian option under diet, do you want that changed?

Nah, doesn't bother me, I dont take it on as an idenity

Right. The issues with plants vs. animals as broad categories is that within and between plants there are much smaller differences than between plants and animals, and because of the smaller differences there's a lot more room for margin of error.

The bottom line is that we just don't have a lot of good data on which vegan diet would certainly be the most sustainable while still being good nutritionally.

I imagine reasonable estimations could be made that for all intents and purposes could be considered reliable until new data became available. The amount of kg pesticides used per acre for each crop would for instance be a VERY powerful estimator I imagine...

We DO know that eating large amounts of fresh vegetables/lettuce (unless you grow it yourself) is less sustainable, as is eating a diet based on fruit (because you have to eat so many calories to meet nutritional needs, which is wasteful).

Voila, why not incorporate that into the definition of veganism, if this data is already available.

However, from a nutritional perspective is it a good idea to eat a fair amount of fruits and vegetables, rather than a strictly grain and legume based diet. Nuts are also a very healthy addition.

Sure, but you could cap it off at a reasonable proportion that will still guarantee a healthy life, instead of not even mentioning at all. "Veganism way of life... exlude cruelty to... In dietary terms it denotes the practice of abstaining from products wholly or partly derived from animals, and having a maximum of x% less-sustainable foods make up your daily caloric intake".
Easy, doesn't require a lot of extra space even.

The same argument doesn't apply to meats, with the arguable exception of some kinds of fish.

This is why I think minimal pescetarianism has some weight to its defense: mainstream opinion recommends fish of certain kinds twice a week, and it is reasonable for people to accept that if they haven't spent a lot of time understanding why those recommendations are made (DHA etc.).

Despite the larger harm, increasing the proportion of veggies in the diet and eating fish twice a week makes sense on some level (based on uncertainty, for example); it not simply a hedonistic argument.

Given how stupid and negligeant a lot of people are (for example vegans/vegetarians that fall off the wagon, claiming a vegan/vegetarian diet is not nutritionally complete, allthewhile they were just not eating enough kcal or just eating all the wrong foods), from a nutritional standpoint taking human psychology into account, an argument for SOME meat could also be made.

Now beyond that, we can make GOOD arguments against some specific plant foods that we have data for, and the degree of harm is large enough that it allows the signal to show through the noise. Particularly when those plant foods have superior alternatives.

Normal "Unsustainable" palm oil, for example, is pretty uncontroversially bad, and most vegans seem interested in avoiding it. I've argued "sustainable" palm oil is a marketing gimmick, but I wouldn't be that critical of the ethics of somebody who didn't agree with that. It is a nuanced argument (like the argument against fish).

Likewise on the animal side, rope grown oysters are pretty uncontroversially good for the environment, and vegans are increasingly accepting ostroveganism as morally equivalent. Even if oysters aren't really good for you, they seem to be a sustainable source and because oysters probably aren't sentient it would seem harmless.

We can point at examples like this to show the vegan line itself is arbitrary, and to construct a more consistent position.

That's all good to hear, that at least shows some nuance. Too bad you don't really see that anywhere else on the vegan side of the internet (or I've just been looking in the wrong places XD)

But to circumvent that reasoning, call vegan arbitrary, and then arbitrarily eat things you know are harmful without any compelling health argument... I don't think that's the way to go about things either.

I think you should work on codifying your form of reducetarianism, establishing general guidelines based on evidence. There's no need to appeal to anything arbitrary.

As I said earlier to Darlbundren, I'm not even sure that veganism is superior to all forms of animal agriculture, given the difference in difficulty to regulate pest control vs animal welfare in animal agriculture.

OK, but if we aren't currently practicing that kind of agriculture, that calls for something like tentative veganism -- or at least tentative fish twice a week palm-oil-free ostrovegan at home & flexible vegetarian while eating socially and there are no good vegan options... ism.

You don't have to fall into arbitrary behavior just because you think the existing labels are not always entirely consistent. You can fix them and build a system you find consistent. I don't think you could argue that should include factory farmed meat, with the possible exception of "whatever grandma cooks on Christmas".

That's kind of irrelevant that we currently arent practicing that kind of agriculture. Either people will want change, and things will change, or people will not want change and things wont change. And I quite firmly believe that a substantially greater amount of people would be willing to adopt my diet than a vegan diet, so I'm never gonna advocate for a vegan diet. As for following one myself, we're talking about macro-level supply and demand. My individual choice literally has no effect on how many animals get killed. It is only collectively that this difference in suffering will shine through. So I only have a moral responsibility to follow a diet that leads to that collective solution, and I'm already following that diet. So I dont agree that it calls for something like tentative veganism.

I'll respond to the rest of your post later. Gotta go, and didn't think it would take this long

[vdofthegoodkind]

Maybe not, but you can do better still. As we try to do better too. We're not arguing vegan as the moral baseline, we're arguing it as one thing to do.

And if you think that's a slippery slope into becoming a saint, I'd say:
1. What's wrong with that?
and :

2. Not necessarily, because we want to model behavior that other people can actually imagine following (thus the argument for eating vegetarian while out in social situations if there aren't good vegan options, or eating whatever grandma cooks on Christmas).

Vegan strategist had an article on this where he recognized it might be better if it certain social situations if he wasn't as strict, to make veganism more approachable, I can't find it right now.
Even PETA (for all of their bullshit) has an article on this about minor ingredients:
https://www.peta.org/living/food/making-transition-vegetarian/ideas-vegetarian-living/tiny-amount-animal-products-food/

The goal of sticking to a vegetarian or vegan diet is to help animals and reduce suffering; this is done by choosing a bean burrito or a veggie burger over chicken flesh, or choosing tofu scramble over eggs, not by refusing to eat an otherwise vegan food because it has 0.001 grams of monoglycerides that may possibly be animal-derived.

We discourage vegetarians from grilling waiters at restaurants about micro-ingredients in vegetarian foods (e.g., a tiny bit of a dairy product in the bun of a veggie burger). Doing so makes sticking to a vegetarian diet seem difficult and dogmatic to your friends and to restaurant staff, thus discouraging them from giving a vegetarian diet a try (which really hurts animals).[...]

This is not an uncommon sentiment among pragmatic vegans. (It's maybe ironic for PETA because they do a lot of non-pragmatic bullshit, but still the point stands).

As I stated earlier, I'm not even sure that veganism is ethically superior to ALL forms of animal agriculture. So as for (1), while there is nothing wrong with "being a saint", it's not even necessarily an applicable question to the topic at hand. And as for (2), a whole lot of people cant imagine living a life without animal products. So appealing to that as a reason to not go to the most ethical extreme dietwise, is not really a useable argument in my opinion.

It doesn't always. Such as with certain methods of rice production: it's very land efficient, but there's a lot of methane output.
Likewise, when you're growing with trees it's often a little more land inefficient, but it's more sustainable for a number of reasons to do with the root structure and the lifespan of the plant.
There's more complexity than a single variable (although that variable is a very important one). This is why I say there's a lot of noise and not a lot of good data on this.

It's only clear that most animal and a few specific plant foods are uniquely unsustainable. Beyond that there's a lot of unknown.

At this point it makes sense to focus on veganism, or something like it with a few additions or subtractions. While more research is always great, I think we should spend more time promoting what is already clear rather than fretting about the minutiae.

I dont think it's necessarily even true that we dont have good data on this. It depends on how you are interpreting my "stricter diet". I'm not saying that we need to find the most optimal diet IN EXISTENCE. I'm saying that the argument that was presented to me for going vegan leads to a diet that is much stricter than a standard vegan diet. Aka a diet that we CAN conclude is the most ethically optimal, GIVEN the limited data we do possess.
If you were to group plantfoods in lets say staple foods, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. Then in each of those categories rank them according to land efficiency (& by extension pesticide use). There's definitely LOADS of data available on land efficiency per crop (probably also on pesticide use directly).
If you then take the 3 or 4 top ranking products in each category (potentially supplementing with 1 food in each category disregarding efficiency if certain nutrients/vitamins are missing in your diet), instead of allowing yourself to eat whatever you want, I'm quite sure that you could conclude with reasonble certainty that your diet is more ethical than a standard western vegan diet.

Another very important thing to note is.. WHY? Why is there no good data available on the 'most optimal one in existence'? Seems to be quite simple to develop decent heuristics on this subject? Especially given our heuristic prediction power in LOADS of other fields (some that are WAAAAAY more complex than this field).
I'm pretty sure if all vegans were not arbitrarily excluding animal products, and REALLY cared about "excluding cruelty to animals as far as is possible and practicable", this kind of thing would have been investigated thoroughly a looooong time ago? Or am I missing something?

[brimstoneSalad]

I imagine reasonable estimations could be made that for all intents and purposes could be considered reliable until new data became available. The amount of kg pesticides used per acre for each crop would for instance be a VERY powerful estimator I imagine...

A significant amount of pesticide is herbicide.
Beyond that, fungicide.
Insecticides also mostly target eggs (some target adults if there's a large infestation, but it's more efficient to target the eggs).

There is some straight up poisoning/trapping and shooting of mammals, mostly rodents, but I don't think we have much data on that outside Australia where mouse plagues were a problem (and have been mostly solved by better monitoring and control of mouse populations).
There's a certain death toll involved, but most involves grain which is also the most efficient kind of crop.

We don't have any very powerful estimators on hand. It would be a serious research project.

Beyond exceptions like palm oil where it's public knowledge and there has been a lot more research on it, most animal agriculture is just obvious.

Rope grown oysters are the only obvious exception.

"Sustainable" fishing could be argued for on environmental grounds (on animal death/suffering grounds its less clear), but has fungibility issues.
100% grass fed beef could possibly be argued for over grain protein from Australia during a mouse plague on an animal death metric, but it's still a serious environmental problem.

Voila, why not incorporate that into the definition of veganism, if this data is already available.

Maybe we should, or may be shouldn't.
It is implicitly included (many vegans consider palm oil not vegan, and there's argument to be made there). It's a heuristic with recommends other general action... it could be useful to state it explicitly IF most people going vegan were subsisting on vegetables, but I think most vegans already self-limit vegetables because they're expensive and most people don't want to just eat vegetables. Grain products are delicious, and legume products in particular are satiating.

I don't eat a huge amount of vegetables and fruits. I try to focus on sustainable staples.
I also avoid rice for environmental reasons and because I don't think its nutritional quality makes up for them. Potatoes might make up for the environmental issues since they are more nutrient rich and good source of potassium; I'm unsure on that.

I mostly eat whole grain and bean products, partially for practicality, partially for environmental reasons.

However, there is a very good reason not to throw these things at people right away with "vegan": it can be overwhelming.

We could make new labels, like "sustainatarian" or something if we wanted, and I think a proliferation of labels IS helpful, because it gives people more to think about and consider.

My point is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We can be vegan, or ostrovegan (if you like oysters and don't care about the health consequences), and do other things in addition to that.
The more labels we can add gives people more concepts to mull over and more steps to take as they work on self improvement (we definitely don't want to throw things at people all at once).

Sure, but you could cap it off at a reasonable proportion that will still guarantee a healthy life, instead of not even mentioning at all.

We could, but again, that might be overwhelming.
It's better to help people add on more concepts gradually.
It still makes sense to argue vegan sometimes, it has cultural capital, but there are other important things too and those are things we can introduce people to over time as they become accustomed to the first thing.
We should not limit ourselves to arguing for veganism, and I usually make it clear that reducetarianism is a good thing to argue for too.

Given how stupid and negligeant a lot of people are (for example vegans/vegetarians that fall off the wagon, claiming a vegan/vegetarian diet is not nutritionally complete, allthewhile they were just not eating enough kcal or just eating all the wrong foods), from a nutritional standpoint taking human psychology into account, an argument for SOME meat could also be made.

And maybe we should tell people to eat Oysters, since it would avoid those pitfalls.
But if you aren't stupid or negligent, that's not a personal reason to eat meat.

We want as many people who are capable to go vegan as possible.
Maybe we want them to go reducetarian first, then vegetarian, then vegan so they're most likely to do it right and sustainably.
Then we don't want them to stop at vegan.

That's all good to hear, that at least shows some nuance. Too bad you don't really see that anywhere else on the vegan side of the internet (or I've just been looking in the wrong places XD)

That's why were're trying to get this forum to the top of the Google rankings, so people see a more nuanced understanding.

A lot of vegans excuse animal deaths in plant agriculture as accidental, but then don't accept the same excuses for the accidental misses in animal slaughter (which are traumatic to watch) or the terrible infections many animals suffer from (which also aren't intentional). We can't hold a double standard

As I said earlier to Darlbundren, I'm not even sure that veganism is superior to all forms of animal agriculture, given the difference in difficulty to regulate pest control vs animal welfare in animal agriculture.

Maybe not rope grown oysters. Exceptions are rare, however.

That's kind of irrelevant that we currently arent practicing that kind of agriculture.

It is relevant, because of what you're supporting.

And I quite firmly believe that a substantially greater amount of people would be willing to adopt my diet than a vegan diet, so I'm never gonna advocate for a vegan diet.

That's fine. I usually advocate reduction. People are also more likely to go vegetarian than vegan.
http://www.mercyforanimals.org/v-word

As for following one myself, we're talking about macro-level supply and demand. My individual choice literally has no effect on how many animals get killed.

That's not true, but it's a common misconception.
I explained this here:
http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?t=2806

[brimstoneSalad]

Regarding the second post, think I already covered your first points in the last one so I'm going to skip those (let me know if you want me to come back to them or I missed something).

I'm not saying that we need to find the most optimal diet IN EXISTENCE. I'm saying that the argument that was presented to me for going vegan leads to a diet that is much stricter than a standard vegan diet. Aka a diet that we CAN conclude is the most ethically optimal, GIVEN the limited data we do possess.

Then why not follow that diet? Or work on it.

There's definitely LOADS of data available on land efficiency per crop (probably also on pesticide use directly).

You can do this with a pretty simple heuristic: buy stuff that's cheap.
You have to exclude certain obvious outliers (like palm oil, and things that get government subsidies) but it usually works for yield and agricultural input.

If you then take the 3 or 4 top ranking products in each category (potentially supplementing with 1 food in each category disregarding efficiency if certain nutrients/vitamins are missing in your diet), instead of allowing yourself to eat whatever you want, I'm quite sure that you could conclude with reasonble certainty that your diet is more ethical than a standard western vegan diet.

Sure, and trying to do that most of the time makes sense.

Like I said, I mostly eat bean and grain products as the most efficient and tend to avoid rice as one of the worst offenders.
I eat a fairly large amount of nuts and seeds for nutritional reasons. Nuts are less efficient by land use... but they also come from trees, which tend to take less input. So it's complicated.

Another very important thing to note is.. WHY? Why is there no good data available on the 'most optimal one in existence'? Seems to be quite simple to develop decent heuristics on this subject? Especially given our heuristic prediction power in LOADS of other fields (some that are WAAAAAY more complex than this field).

I think there would have to be a commercial incentive. I think that beyond the obvious outliers like most animal products or palm oil, t's more complicated than you imagine it is. I don't think the incentive to do it exists because it's already hard enough to just convince people to stop eating feedlot finished beef, pork and chicken.
If we ever reach the point where most people are veg. I think there will probably be more incentive to do this kind of research.

What we really need is a new farming standard, something like organic but not faith based arbitrary and chemical-phobic.
We need a label that instead uses an evidence based approach to sustainability. That will make it easy for consumers to choose things with that certification.

I'm pretty sure if all vegans were not arbitrarily excluding animal products, and REALLY cared about "excluding cruelty to animals as far as is possible and practicable", this kind of thing would have been investigated thoroughly a looooong time ago? Or am I missing something?

I just don't think it's that easy to do. I've actually tried for some things, and it's a nightmare to find and analyze this data. It would be an enormous undertaking. It's practicable to follow some general rules that are 99% accurate. Beyond that I think we should focus our efforts on outreach just to get ordinary people to do a little less harm, and personally we should focus on things like at home energy efficiency, avoiding waste, and starting small personal gardens (even balcony gardens) to replace some of our least efficient commercial vegetable and fruit purchases.

I see grass lawns as a bigger ethical issue than that remaining 1% discrepancy that comes from unknown variables in otherwise mostly vegan diets based primarily on grains and beans with moderate amounts of nuts fruit and vegetables.

[Jamie in Chile]

vdofthegoodkind, the rice/pasta comparison - the issue here is that

a) the difference in animal suffering between eating meat and eating plants is large, whereas the difference between eating different types of plants is (usually) smaller. We cannot be ethically perfect, therefore we chose to find the areas of biggest gains rather than the smallest.

and

b) there is a moral difference between deliberate cruelty and suffering (e.g. paying for chicken means that you are expicitly paying for someone to be killed) vs accidental harm caused by plowing a field of plants. Killing someone accidentally in a car accident due to driving carelessly while tired is not the same as deliberately swerving onto the sidewalk and mowing down a person for the fun of it. 1 person dies in both cases, but morally the second case is worse.

Yes, it is true that vegans could do more ethical good by going beyond veganism and looking at plant foods that are more or less destructive, but this does not work as an argument in favour of eating meat.

I'm not going to try and convince you to be a (strict) vegan, but I think you should get very close. Well done for already taking some steps in that direction, by the way.

[brimstoneSalad]

b) there is a moral difference between deliberate cruelty and suffering (e.g. paying for chicken means that you are expicitly paying for someone to be killed) vs accidental harm caused by plowing a field of plants. Killing someone accidentally in a car accident due to driving carelessly while tired is not the same as deliberately swerving onto the sidewalk and mowing down a person for the fun of it. 1 person dies in both cases, but morally the second case is worse.

This is a complex issue, we're dealing with several things.

1) In terms of consequences, your guilt is proportional to the probability.
A reckless driver who had a 10% chance of killing somebody is 10% responsible for killing somebody whether it happened or not. Treating people who, through bad dumb luck, either killed or didn't kill anybody differently doesn't make much sense.

2) In terms of motives, it makes a difference that one person had to go out of his or her way to kill somebody with no apparent personal gain, while we presume the tired driver was driving for a good reason. It could just as well be that the tired driver was taking a joy ride, though, and killed somebody for the same reason as the sadist: pleasure.
Probability of killing somebody still comes in here, but it's important to look at the justification at hand.

If you establish the probability is the same and that the motivation is the same (pleasure), it's much harder to draw a moral distinction.

[vdofthegoodkind]

A significant amount of pesticide is herbicide.
Beyond that, fungicide.
Insecticides also mostly target eggs (some target adults if there's a large infestation, but it's more efficient to target the eggs).

As far as I'm aware herbicides are, if not directly deadly, also significantly harmful to some forms of animal life. So then instead of weighing the interest of the animals life vs humans interest of taste, you'd have to weigh the interest of the animals health vs the humans interest of taste. Still the same outcome...

There is some straight up poisoning/trapping and shooting of mammals, mostly rodents, but I don't think we have much data on that outside Australia where mouse plagues were a problem (and have been mostly solved by better monitoring and control of mouse populations).
There's a certain death toll involved, but most involves grain which is also the most efficient kind of crop.

We don't have any very powerful estimators on hand. It would be a serious research project.

That was my point with the "why" question. We have what? 5% of the world already being vegan? And by extension thus purport to claim to want to exclude cruelty to animals as far as is possible and practicable... That means that there's over 350 million vegans, and somehow there nothing underway to gather funds and gather such data.
Willfull ignorance if you ask me...

Beyond exceptions like palm oil where it's public knowledge and there has been a lot more research on it, most animal agriculture is just obvious.

Most forms of animal agriculture currently in existence yes. A form of animal agriculture where a good life is guaranteed, the animals are completely pasture-based (aka no pesticides used for bringing them up), followed by a painless death... Not so sure. Even if the numbers were greater, a case can definitely be made that an animals interest in life per se is outweighed by an animals interest in health. Making animal agriculture ethically superior to plant agriculture.
On top of that I'm not even sure that the number WOULD be greater. There hasnt ever been decent research done into the effects of harvesting itself for instance. Blindly driving with a harvesting vehicle into a field and killing animals that way is in my opinion completely equivalent to putting on a blindfold and going joyriding in a place where there's generally a bunch of humans. And I consider both of those to be plain old murder. (not speaking in the legal sense ofcourse)
I know of this one study where they tracked like 33 mice during harvest, and then only 1 of them died directly in the combine and like 17 died due to predation. I've had vegans cite this study to me as "proof" that it's negligeable, but in my opinion it's exactly the opposite.
Suppose I place a walking rack of mine at a crosswalk while entering a shop on that corner. Lets say at some point a less mobile old lady will definitely lean on it while waiting for the light to change. If I take it away there's a good chance that she will lose her balance, fall into traffic and die. Is it murder for me to take away my property, property that she is now using for stability and protection from things that are "out" to kill her? Property that I dont need for survival or health at all? I think it is. Same as when taking away the shelter of a bunch of animals that they've been using for stability and protection from things that are out to kill them for property (i.e crops) you dont need for health and survival.

(and if you're not happy with the analogy due to it being possible to just ask the old lady for it back and/or just wait 2 minutes for the light to change, let's say you get contacted by highly advanced aliens that give you a remote teleporter for the rack and tell you either you teleport your walking rack back to you into the store now, or they'll disintegrate it the moment the old lady lets go of it and you lose it forever)

Rope grown oysters are the only obvious exception.

"Sustainable" fishing could be argued for on environmental grounds (on animal death/suffering grounds its less clear), but has fungibility issues.
100% grass fed beef could possibly be argued for over grain protein from Australia during a mouse plague on an animal death metric, but it's still a serious environmental problem.

Voila, you're even putting forward things yourself that allow for a reducetarian lifestyle.

Maybe we should, or may be shouldn't.
It is implicitly included (many vegans consider palm oil not vegan, and there's argument to be made there). It's a heuristic with recommends other general action... it could be useful to state it explicitly IF most people going vegan were subsisting on vegetables, but I think most vegans already self-limit vegetables because they're expensive and most people don't want to just eat vegetables. Grain products are delicious, and legume products in particular are satiating.

Don't know about that, given the whole raw-till-four cult and whatnot. I see so many vegans on youtube eating ridiculous amounts of fruits and vegetables, and given their subcount and their comment sections, it's reasonable to assume they influence a lot of their followers into similar diets. Having had that incorporated into the definition of veganism would've stopped shit like that dead in its tracks before it ever came to be.

I don't eat a huge amount of vegetables and fruits. I try to focus on sustainable staples.
I also avoid rice for environmental reasons and because I don't think its nutritional quality makes up for them. Potatoes might make up for the environmental issues since they are more nutrient rich and good source of potassium; I'm unsure on that.

I mostly eat whole grain and bean products, partially for practicality, partially for environmental reasons.

However, there is a very good reason not to throw these things at people right away with "vegan": it can be overwhelming.

We could make new labels, like "sustainatarian" or something if we wanted, and I think a proliferation of labels IS helpful, because it gives people more to think about and consider.

My point is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We can be vegan, or ostrovegan (if you like oysters and don't care about the health consequences), and do other things in addition to that.
The more labels we can add gives people more concepts to mull over and more steps to take as they work on self improvement (we definitely don't want to throw things at people all at once).

fair enough

We could, but again, that might be overwhelming.
It's better to help people add on more concepts gradually.
It still makes sense to argue vegan sometimes, it has cultural capital, but there are other important things too and those are things we can introduce people to over time as they become accustomed to the first thing.
We should not limit ourselves to arguing for veganism, and I usually make it clear that reducetarianism is a good thing to argue for too.

Ok then.

And maybe we should tell people to eat Oysters, since it would avoid those pitfalls.
But if you aren't stupid or negligent, that's not a personal reason to eat meat.

Point.

We want as many people who are capable to go vegan as possible.
Maybe we want them to go reducetarian first, then vegetarian, then vegan so they're most likely to do it right and sustainably.
Then we don't want them to stop at vegan.

Fair enough.

That's why were're trying to get this forum to the top of the Google rankings, so people see a more nuanced understanding.

A lot of vegans excuse animal deaths in plant agriculture as accidental, but then don't accept the same excuses for the accidental misses in animal slaughter (which are traumatic to watch) or the terrible infections many animals suffer from (which also aren't intentional). We can't hold a double standard

Quite sure that's mostly in part due to the lack of animal welfare regulations in the current industry. And by the way, which 'misses' are you talking about? Boltguns to the head? Quite sure if you dont immediately die from a boltgun to the head, you're not really gonna feel a lot of pain from the 'miss' either. Headinjuries generally stun victims enough to make the immediate experience of pain pretty much nonexistent as far as I'm aware.
So the majority of the stupidity of that argument would be attributed to them again conflating modern day animal agriculture with a form of animal agriculture compatible with reducetarianism, rather than just accepting and rejecting the same reason in two different contexts.

Maybe not rope grown oysters. Exceptions are rare, however.

As explained here in this post more in depth, not sure it only applies to rope grown oysters.

It is relevant, because of what you're supporting.

Not relevant as long as my actions themselves dont have an effect on these practices being or not being performed, which they don't as I'll explain below.

That's fine. I usually advocate reduction. People are also more likely to go vegetarian than vegan.
http://www.mercyforanimals.org/v-word

Smart move on your part.

That's not true, but it's a common misconception.
I explained this here:
http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?t=2806

I said: "My individual choice literally has no effect on how many animals get killed. It is only collectively that this difference in suffering will shine through."
'Literally' these days can be used as both 'literally' and 'figuratively', mine was the latter obviously. Ofcourse you have a statistical impact. But we're talking about 3 billion people that eat meat on a regular basis. Probabilistically my behavior will have no effect on how many animals get killed. Or better yet, on how many animals have to suffer through what animals currently have to suffer through in modern day animal agriculture.

Maybe it's worth to add something to this to make things a little more clear. I don't think it's ethically neutral in the absolute sense. I just have no intention to "be a saint" as you put it earlier, even though there's nothing wrong with being a saint obviously.
I already know the argument for a minimalist/non-consumerist/jainist type lifestyle, and that's wanting to be the ethically best person you could possibly be, and literally seek to exclude suffering as far as possible and practicable. I'm asking here in this thread for the argument for veganism, which is abstaining from products derived wholly or partly from animals (with a little special sidenote reserved for palmoil). If you use the jainist argument for just accepting that and reject it for going even further, it would again fall into the arbitrary category.

But as made clear repeatedly by you, you dont seem to see veganism as this black and white, dogmatic, cultist thing, like most vegans on youtube and like the actual definition of veganism, so that kinda nullifies the use of this topic

[Jebus]

You clearly have no interest in becoming a vegan. You are simply trying to find holes in the vegan argument (something you have failed at miserably). If ever you do become interested in becoming a vegan, do some research and come back with specific questions. This whole thread is absolutely ridiculous.

[vdofthegoodkind]

Then why not follow that diet? Or work on it.

Because of a mix between me personally me personally not accepting some of the arguments that most vegans do consider to be accurate that should compell them to adopt such a diet, and me not striving to be a saint

You can do this with a pretty simple heuristic: buy stuff that's cheap.
You have to exclude certain obvious outliers (like palm oil, and things that get government subsidies) but it usually works for yield and agricultural input.

Probably yeah, you could even be a little more thorough than that, but that would be a good start for most vegans yeah.

Sure, and trying to do that most of the time makes sense.

Like I said, I mostly eat bean and grain products as the most efficient and tend to avoid rice as one of the worst offenders.
I eat a fairly large amount of nuts and seeds for nutritional reasons. Nuts are less efficient by land use... but they also come from trees, which tend to take less input. So it's complicated.

All true.

I think there would have to be a commercial incentive. I think that beyond the obvious outliers like most animal products or palm oil, t's more complicated than you imagine it is. I don't think the incentive to do it exists because it's already hard enough to just convince people to stop eating feedlot finished beef, pork and chicken.
If we ever reach the point where most people are veg. I think there will probably be more incentive to do this kind of research.

What we really need is a new farming standard, something like organic but not faith based arbitrary and chemical-phobic.
We need a label that instead uses an evidence based approach to sustainability. That will make it easy for consumers to choose things with that certification.

Totally agree. The majority of people that already went vegan (on the internet at least) dont wanna get told they need to do more, and are happy just claiming to "exclude cruelty as far as is possible" and dont wanna hear about anything that challenges their morally innocuous position. (again, you dont fall under that category, talking about the average vegan on youtube and the bulk of their followers in their comment sections)

I just don't think it's that easy to do. I've actually tried for some things, and it's a nightmare to find and analyze this data. It would be an enormous undertaking. It's practicable to follow some general rules that are 99% accurate. Beyond that I think we should focus our efforts on outreach just to get ordinary people to do a little less harm, and personally we should focus on things like at home energy efficiency, avoiding waste, and starting small personal gardens (even balcony gardens) to replace some of our least efficient commercial vegetable and fruit purchases.

I wasnt talking about "googled by one or two vegans" here, I was talking about collection of funds by donations within the vegan community and setting up an actual research project into the matter.

I see grass lawns as a bigger ethical issue than that remaining 1% discrepancy that comes from unknown variables in otherwise mostly vegan diets based primarily on grains and beans with moderate amounts of nuts fruit and vegetables.

You dont have the numbers. Dont assert a 1% discrepancy then