Plant-based capitalism

[Red]

BTW, I'm a member of the VCJ server as a lurker, I saw you talking shit about me (I'm under a different name of course). Feel pretty disrespected, but that's not relevant.

I prefer these types of debates where I can take my time with each argument. I only have time to make one more quick response tonight, hopefully other members will add.

Reducing what? You can reduce meat purchases by just not buying meat, you literally don't have to buy any alternatives.

Are most people going to do that though? A lot of vegans have a difficult time with that already (recidivism rate is about 85%), the point is making it as easy of possible.

I know you're pretty radical with this so you'd probably disagree, but it's easier and probably better to convince 10 people to cut down on meat consumption than convince 1 person to go vegan.

In fact, you can create negative demand, by taking a frozen or refrigerated meat item in a grocery store and placing it somewhere where it's no longer refrigerated.

This is speculative, but don't you think that there's the possibility of increasing the demand to replace the meat that went bad?

What omnis do has nothing to do with the goal of veganism, but buying alternatives from the animal murderers themselves doesn't NOT fund the animal murdering endeavor.
Take Field Roast/Lightlife/Chao for instance, they're owned by Maple Leaf Foods.


https://seekingalpha.com/article/428105 ... all-slides
Here's a slideshow on their quarterly earnings, and if you peruse through it further, you'll see that their intentions with Field Roast and such, is to fund more animal murder houses, so-to-speak.

Let's quote that prompt for a moment here: "we believe the drivers of growth will be protein consumption and diversification; not material substitution" "sustainable meat continued to grow at double-digits"

This isn't a sign of plant-based alternatives shrinking the meat industry, it's actually growing. The slides also show $660M spent on new poultry options and $406M on PB overall f
or two new facilities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlati ... _causation

There can only be an increase in meat protein profits if there is an increase in a demand for it. How does buying plant proteins does NOT increase that demand.

I don't have too much time to spend on this (and economics is not my strong suit (and neither is it for you)), but I'm sure brimstone knows enough about economics to explain this to you.

Funding non-vegan companies makes the non-vegan companies bigger,

Yes, and they're the ones who have a significant hand in the markets. Small companies try to imitate bigger ones.

funding actual vegan companies gives them a better chance at becoming bigger, so they can do more.

I said you should still buy from small companies.

You don't offer alternatives alongside meat, that's for getting people who wouldn't normally buy your product to buy it moving forward. Vegan companies aren't involved in that. All these fast food megacorps factor the plant-based items into their regular fiscal quarters and that ends up funding a new McDonalds in a place where they're likely to get more people interested in plant-based items, or just locations where people have literally asked for a Mcdonalds.

The primary target for these alternatives are non-vegans.

Pinnacle Foods is an animal agriculture group. Gardein belongs to them. Money going into Gardein goes into Pinnacle Foods. Next question.

I don't know how else to explain this to you. Maybe someone else can.

You do realize that 188 rats were killed for Impossible Whopper to be cooked on the same grill as the regular whopper, picking up beef tallow and gristle while people fund Burger King, one of the largest bovine murdering groups in the world right? You don't see any issue with this kind of behavior? Do you think that somehow cross contamination and animal testing is vegan?

You should look into something called Freeganism:
wiki/index.php/Freeganism

I agree cross-contamination is an inconvienence (I hate having to use the same kitchen utensils as my meat eating family) but how does it involve more animals being killed?

"No, I've already explained this." This is in response to me making it absolutely clear that giving animal ag megacorps money = funding animal exploitation, rape, and murder.

Still a moot point.

100% of the time? No matter what? Companies can't shift from old ways to new? Never?

Let's use this example as the Beyond KFC stuff (that isn't even vegan) is still relatively fresh. Burger King's CEO actually talked about how all the Impossible Whopper did was give them more money from people who would not normally go to Burger King and that it made no negative impact on people buying regular whoppers.

Well of course it made him more money, that's capitalism.

The Impossible Whopper is still a bit more expensive than the original thing, which is probably why some people still aren't buying them as much. But it isn't like we can't get those people to buy the impossible version. We just have to make it cheaper by increasing demand and competition (though I know this is pretty alien to you).

Is it not possible that the people who ate those Whoppers are people who don't eat Burger King because they're more health conscious (not necessarily vegans), but understand that a plant based alternative is better?

There is chicken fat in the fryers, because there is chicken in the fryers. Just like how mcdonalds cooks their fries in a mixture of beef tallow and some dairy derivative. You don't not get food contamination from being cooked in oil that animal flesh was soaked in. It's part of the cooking process, and as such, becomes an ingredient in the end result. KFC and the Vegan Society are both saying this isn't even vegetarian friendly, and you're holding onto the idea that somehow an animal didn't suffer just because the item itself is plant based? Completely ignoring that an animal that suffered is cooked in the same fryer, in the same oil, at the same time, with its oil and fat coming off into all the other food items cooked in said fryer? Veganism isn't just about not harming animals.

If I'm understanding you correctly, by this logic, if I use the utensils and cooking equipment that my family uses to eat meat so I can cook vegan food, does that make me not vegan?

Allow me to quote the definition of veganism from said Vegan Society: Veganism is a 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. There are many ways to embrace vegan living. Yet one thing all vegans have in common is a plant-based diet avoiding all animal foods such as meat (including fish, shellfish and insects), dairy, eggs and honey - as well as avoiding animal-derived materials, products tested on animals and places that use animals for entertainment.

And you leave off this part of that definition:

and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment.

If you're taking a utilitarian outlook on Animal Liberation by musing that some animal exploitation is good as long as you have the hopes that 30 years later KFC will be Kentucky Plant Based Mock Chicken, you're a plant-based dieter, not a vegan. At least not by the Vegan Society's standards.

I'm not a utilitarian, I'm an altruist.

[oakleyannie]

But as you said - this is a gateway to plant-based eating, not veganism. Are *fewer* animals harmed, sure. But is it fully rejecting and abstaining from animal harm to the extent possible, no.

[Red]

But as you said - this is a gateway to plant-based eating, not veganism. Are *fewer* animals harmed, sure. But is it fully rejecting and abstaining from animal harm to the extent possible, no.

Even the decceleration of a negative is still a positive though, right?

I've discussed this before, how many people don't see themselves as being vegan, but see reducitarianism as a much more manageable thing; it's a step towards the goal.

Most of us here reject the concept of just freeing the animals; Not only is that not a realistic prospect, but that also can be problematic for the animals.

I've lurked around VCJ's Discord and Reddit, they seem to have locked themselves in an echo chamber, where any one who eats meat that wants to debate veganism is banned, as well as people who support 'Plant Based Capitalism.' All this does is reinforce the stereotype that vegans are close-minded and dogmatic about animal rights, and to add to they oust vegans who aren't as radical as them (that is, vegans who don't support ALF or reducitarianism can't be 'Real Vegans'). They also seem to be proud deontologists, given their various negative claims about utilitarianism (I'm not a Utilitarian, but I do acknowledge it as a mostly sound ethical principle).

I'm not saying you're one of them, mind you, given how you're conducting yourself you seem much more level-headed.

These people are probably going to grow out of it though; I assume most of them are very young and have been inflicted with the disillusionment that comes with becoming vegan, but as they get older, they'll become less dogmatic and more pragmatic about veganism (assuming they'll still be vegan at that time).

[NonZeroSum]

Yeah @aph0t1c is insanely counter-productive to the animal rights movement.

Tell them you don't think it's productive to define veganism as exclusively deontological for the number of great consequentialists we can win over to rescuing animals and get involved in great campaigns and they'll say... you "don't represent animal liberation" and no essentially because consequentialists treat 'animal lives as expendable.' When asked how? They have no answer, only that they would rescue the dog from the burning building rather than their own child for it not causing as much harm (possibly meaning not causing as many rights violations or just a self-own about how they misunderstand consequentialist respect for interests).

Tell them you think we should first win people over to boycotting animal products, then advocate boycotting certain evil individual companies as a seperate boycott like how we should encourage boycotting palm oil as it's own issue and they'll tell you... "their range of thinking was probably, uhhhh save orangutans and the rainforest! High five! Fuck all those factory farm animals though."

The whole discord loves to bath in their own ignorance of outside arguments, such brain worms.

Oh yeah and they try to push far-leftists further right by calling anyone who disagrees with their philosophy a liberal, doesn't matter if you've had 10 years of fighting anarchist campaigns and written 100s of anarchist total liberation inspired articles.

[brimstoneSalad]

@Red & @NonZeroSum Looks like a good video topic!
I made a reply in one of the intro threads pointing out one apparent contradiction in their reasoning, but I'll leave this to you since I don't have time to get drawn in.

[Red]

@Red & @NonZeroSum Looks like a good video topic!
I made a reply in one of the intro threads pointing out one apparent contradiction in their reasoning, but I'll leave this to you since I don't have time to get drawn in.

I hope I'm doing a good job of addressing the arguments. I may also make a wiki article on this as well.

If I need your assistance on something, I'll summon you. However, I looked on the VCJ Discord and aph0tic doesn't seem like he's gonna respond back. Hopefully the ideas of VCJ's members die in their echo chamber.

[Red]

Oh yeah what about this:
https://vegnews.com/2020/9/92-percent-o ... nimal-meat

[boitatá]

I hadn't heard about this concept before I saw it on r/vegancirklejerk's Discord where it's written into the rules:

Note: Plant-Based Capitalism is not ethically vegan. PBC includes but is not limited to Fast Food Megacorporations (McDonalds/Subway/KFC/Burger King/Carl's Jr etc.) that are making money for the Animal Agricultural Lobbyists by following the plant based trend.

The person behind the idea explains:

Gardein is owned by the meat industry, are they not? That's not vegan. That's plant based capitalism for you. It's more of trends in animal ag megacorps that are offering plant based items as a way to make more money that we're cracking down on. We should be investigating the impact of each company we support, but there's no reason to buy Beyond and Impossible knowing animals were killed in order for them to have their finished product. These are plant based companies, not ethically vegan ones. The vegan community as a whole only found out within the last few weeks for beyond at least. If it's bought out by a company that makes a living killing animals, adapt and support something else. Same with what happened with Daiya in 2017

The idea does make some sense. We want to support companies that do less bad things than other companies, but it seems a bit simplistic. What if the companies are incentivized to do less harm in other areas because we buy their plant products? Also it's going to be near impossible to convert people to this definition of veganism.

What do you think?

Consumer choice and free market capitalism look pretty much inseparable, so there seems to be a contradiction there at least in the way the issue is being expressed.

Consumer choice seems to be essential for a plant based market to keep growing but what is being expressed may not always be viable like other poster mentioned. And it is not just with food. What about dieticeans and doctors who advocate a plant based diet but will have to compromise with non vegan patients in order to make a living?

[joji]

Consumer demand drives change. I feel an imperative to support these plant-based alternative to show there's a market for them in the hopes these companies invest in even more plant-based alternatives. Surely, short to medium term, utilizing the system as it stands (the free market and capitalism) to reduce suffering is sensible and logical?

However, I can't help but wonder: there is a scenario in which the money I spend goes towards opening new establishments which would actually increase the amount of animals suffering. Is there any way to determine these outcomes? Or can we assume companies would most likely reinvest their plant-based profits back into plant-based research?

https://vegnews.com/2020/9/92-percent-o ... nimal-meat

Very encouraging!

[Red]

I think it's also important to add that going with the principle of not buying anything from a company that sells meat makes going vegan absurdly more difficult; Most people don't have access to Grocery Stores that sell nothing but Plant based foods (and AFAIK in the US there aren't any vegan grocery store chains, the closest we got is Trader Joe's or Whole Foods). Sure, you can order things online, but that can get very expensive.