starelfsc2 comments on Veganism is Leftism

[–] starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 months ago (6 children)

I mean the reason they implied you were being obtuse is clearly they are not talking about people in poverty or people who have no other choices. About 70% of people in the US have the option to eat at least 5x less meat, if any at all, yet look for any excuse they can get to not do it. I grew up with people on very low incomes who were vegan, and this was 18 years ago when vegan options were far less available than they are now. They were not "privileged" by any stretch yet they saw it as a moral wrong and sacrificed to follow their morality.

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[–] Senal@programming.dev 4 points 6 months ago (5 children)

I mean the reason they implied you were being obtuse is clearly they are not talking about people in poverty or people who have no other choices.

That is in no way clearly understood from that single absolutist statement or the context around it.

They additionally went on to reply with

Maybe the Inuit had to 300 years ago. You have a Walmart near you. Be real.

That's not a reply (either literally or in context) that is considering poverty.

It's not quite a "let them eat cake", but it's in the same general vicinity.

Regardless, i suspected it wasn't as absolutist as it seemed, which is why my reply was prefaced with "If you truly believe that statement applies 100% of the time (in this context),"

My issue, as i very explicitly explained, is that using such absolutist statements gives the impression of mental inflexibility which subsequently weakens the perception of any surrounding statements (for me at least).

If I’m having a conversation about science with someone and they opened with "The world is flat" I’m for damn sure going to scrutinise everything else they say after that, even if it sounds reasonable.

About 70% of people in the US have the option to eat at least 5x less meat, if any at all, yet look for any excuse they can get to not do it. I grew up with people on very low incomes who were vegan, and this was 18 years ago when vegan options were far less available than they are now.

Sure, I’m not arguing against any of that, it sounds plausible.

I'd argue there's a conversation about the difference between "vegan options" and the general availability and accessibility of food that qualifies as vegan (and how that has changed over nearly 20 years) but that's a different subject.

They were not “privileged” by any stretch yet they saw it as a moral wrong and sacrificed to follow their morality.

Privilege is relative , people scraping by on 3 full-time jobs just to get food and pay rent aren't rich or affluent but (subjectively) they are more privileged than the unassisted mentally ill person living on the streets.

I assume the people you knew made their choices after weighing their options and that's all anybody can ask.

If they subsequently harmed themselves or their loved ones in the short or long term then that's their sacrifice to make.

However, judging someone else for feeding their family with the food the can afford rather than taking the "moral" high ground isn't something i can get behind.

And "You live near a walmart" isn't an argument made by someone who's considering their relative privilege.

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[–] starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works 1 point 6 months ago (4 children)

They never implied 100% of people, they said if your personal choice can be criticized if it has victims. Most people don't view "buy food I can afford or I/my family starve" as a personal choice. It is not even close to "let them eat cake." 8/10 people are not in poverty, and 7/10 could without much hardship reduce their meat consumption to near zero. 9/10 peasants could not eat cake.

"You live near a walmart" is true for the majority of Americans, and probably 99.9% of people on lemmy. The implication is almost anyone reading that statement has no excuse, and that if you don't live near anywhere you can get vegetables, then you are one of the exceptions implied by you not starving not being considered a "personal choice." Arguably you could consider that a personal choice, but when their example is "which T shirt to pick" I don't think that's their implication.

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[–] Senal@programming.dev 1 point 6 months ago (3 children)

TL;DR;

My entire original point can be summarised as:

Check your privilege, not everyone has the same circumstances as you.

Starting with unfounded absolutist proclamations weakens anything that surrounds it.

They never implied 100% of people

As i said:

ME: Regardless, i suspected it wasn’t as absolutist as it seemed, which is why my reply was prefaced with “If you truly believe that statement applies 100% of the time (in this context),”

they said if your personal choice can be criticized if it has victims. Most people don’t view “buy food I can afford or I/my family starve” as a personal choice.

Generally that's a reasonable point to make, which then leads in to the conversation about what constitutes a choice.

like your example of people making a "sacrifice" for their ideals, at which point does a conscious sacrifice no longer qualify as a "choice".

Is it choosing to starve ? long term malnutrition ? Heating vs food ?

It is not even close to “let them eat cake.” 8/10 people are not in poverty, and 7/10 could without much hardship reduce their meat consumption to near zero. 9/10 peasants could not eat cake.

Just to be clear, are those ratios legit or just an example?

Either way the way you are using them doesn't make sense.

The "let them eat cake" reference was to imply they were making statements without any consideration of their relative privilege.

Not to the same degree as a royal that doesn't understand the peasantry, but in the same vein.

“You live near a walmart” is true for the majority of Americans, and probably 99.9% of people on lemmy.

I can't even begin to address that level of ...i'm not even sure what to call it.

I'm just going to assume you don't really believe that 99% of ALL people on lemmy live "near" to a walmart.

The implication is almost anyone reading that statement has no excuse, and that if you don’t live near anywhere you can get vegetables, then you are one of the exceptions implied by you not starving not being considered a “personal choice.”

As i said previously, physical accessibility is only one factor affecting the ability for impoverished people to access enough food for a nutritionally healthy diet.

I'll quote it here for you :

ME: Assuming you have a home, even if you lived next door, that’s not even close to a guarantee you’d be able to afford a continuous level of food that matches your ideal and also reaches a level of healthy nutrition.

If you need examples of another, there is fiscal accessibility (affordability).

Even if you can physically get to it, if you can't afford it , it's not accessible.

This includes :

outright not being able to afford something
having to choose between the cheaper (and nutritionally more acceptable) meat options vs the more expensive non-meat option.
being able to consistently afford this level of food without detrimental effects on your overall fiscal situation.

There's also temporal accessibility, can you get to the food in the time around your 3 jobs ? do you have the time and mental bandwidth to prepare a meal rather than microwave something.

And before you start in, yes prep and shopping time apply to all types of foods, I’m saying this is a exacerbating factor when taken with the other two.

Regardless of how you feel about it, the meat industry is big enough in scale and reach that they can price their meat mush at a lower price point that non-meat alternatives in a non-trivial amount of situations.

I'm not even making the argument that it's a majority, I’m saying it exists and shouldn't be disregarded.

Arguably you could consider that a personal choice, but when their example is “which T shirt to pick” I don’t think that’s their implication.

It was, they mention personal choice and them immediately follow up with this:

THEM: If your personal choice has victims, claiming it’s a personal choice ceases to be a valid reasoning to do it

They follow up with hyperbolic examples of when someone might get a "pass".

THEM: This is the “what if you were on a deserted island and there was only a single cow in it. Would you eat it”

Then follows up with a reply with "vast majority" and "Maybe the Inuit had to 300 years ago. You have a Walmart near you. Be real."

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[–] starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

Personally I would consider the extreme harm of animal agriculture against all of the sacrifices. I would consider long term malnutrition morally better than continuing the extreme harm against animals, but that's a hard call that they didn't make any statement on.

Evidently 47 million / 330m Americans are food insecure, so about 1/7 actually have to make a tough choice and I wouldn't fault them nearly as much as the huge majority that eats meat just because they think it's yummy. The reason let them eat cake is ridiculous is because it's unbelievably out of touch with the common person. In this case 80+% of people have access to the "cake" (having a choice). It's like saying "touch grass" is a sign if privilege because not everyone has the capability of moving around outside on their own. You are technically correct, but the implication is "if you are in the small minority that cannot do this, you are not who I am referring to." And even then, the implication with "personal choice" is that it's not a tough moral decision where you are massively hurt by it. Technically it is personal, and it's a choice, but people don't usually say "oh yeah I decided to give up not being freezing in the winter as a personal choice." That's a hard moral decision.

There is absolutely no shot that at least 95% of people on lemmy do not have access to some sort of grocer in some way. 83% of Americans have access to it, and lemmy skews heavily towards people in tech / more well off people. Even having the time to look into alternatives to reddit and be knowledgeable enough to actually engage in it is a privilege which most people do not have. I might make a post about it just to see, but that sounds so unlikely that more than 1/20 people that educated with the time to invest into learning how to use lemmy would be in the <20% who are food insecure

I think all of what you showed they said was fair. 83% of people having a choice is the vast majority, and bringing up food deserts and people who can't afford anything else, without starving or great hardship, is something they (implied) they would obviously concede.

A revelation to me, evidently plant based diets are just on the whole cheaper compared to meat, though this may not be true in food deserts. As for meal prep time, yes that is very fair but can be alleviated heavily with getting a 2nd hand instant pot and making meals in that which take unironically 30 seconds, which is shorter than a drive-thru.

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[–] Senal@programming.dev 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

Personally I would consider the extreme harm of animal agriculture against all of the sacrifices.

A sensible approach

I would consider long term malnutrition morally better than continuing the extreme harm against animals, but that’s a hard call that they didn’t make any statement on.

A subjective opinion i happen to agree with.

Evidently 47 million / 330m Americans are food insecure, so about 1/7 actually have to make a tough choice and I wouldn’t fault them nearly as much as the huge majority that eats meat just because they think it’s yummy.

I think this is on a sliding scale depending on the level of insecurity, but i think we generally agree on this also.

The reason let them eat cake is ridiculous is because it’s unbelievably out of touch with the common person.

Which was exactly my point.

To someone struggling with feeding themselves and/or their family "If your personal choice has victims, claiming it’s a personal choice ceases to be a valid reasoning to do it." sounds a lot like someone talking down to you.

In this case 80+% of people have access to the “cake” (having a choice). It’s like saying “touch grass” is a sign if privilege because not everyone has the capability of moving around outside on their own.

Agreed, See response directly above.

You are technically correct, but the implication is “if you are in the small minority that cannot do this, you are not who I am referring to.”

That is not at all clear from the reply that i originally responded to. i think we might also disagree on what "small minority" means ( i wouldn’t consider 20% a small minority, but that’s subjective i suppose).

And even then, the implication with “personal choice” is that it’s not a tough moral decision where you are massively hurt by it.

Another implication not clear from their original reply.

Technically it is personal, and it’s a choice, but people don’t usually say “oh yeah I decided to give up not being freezing in the winter as a personal choice.” That’s a hard moral decision.

I agree, but :

THEM: Personal issues end where others right to exist begin. A personal choice is what color choice you wanna be wear in the morning.

THEM: If your personal choice has victims, claiming it’s a personal choice ceases to be a valid reasoning to do it. And yes. Choosing to eat meat has victims. You’re eating your victims.

Doesn't convey that nuance ( for me at least )

There is absolutely no shot that at least 95% of people on lemmy do not have access to some sort of grocer in some way.

Not what i said, or what either of you said, though i will admit to probably taking the "walmart" part of that statement too literally.

Even so , access to a grocer isn't the same as access to enough food which is explained in my previous replies.

83% of Americans have access to it, and lemmy skews heavily towards people in tech / more well off people.

I'm not sure where that number comes from but assuming it's true it's still a far cry from the 99% you claimed (though now I’m thinking that was possibly hyperbolic on purpose and i missed it)

and lemmy skews heavily towards people in tech / more well off people.

Agreed.

. Even having the time to look into alternatives to reddit and be knowledgeable enough to actually engage in it is a privilege which most people do not have.

Agreed.

I might make a post about it just to see, but that sounds so unlikely that more than 1/20 people that educated with the time to invest into learning how to use lemmy would be in the <20% who are food insecure

I'd also be interested to see the results of that but generally agree.

I think all of what you showed they said was fair. 83% of people having a choice is the vast majority, and bringing up food deserts and people who can’t afford anything else, without starving or great hardship, is something they (implied) they would obviously concede.

Disagree on this one for several reasons.

i wouldn't consider 83% a vast majority in this context, certainly a majority though, but that's obviously subjective.
83% of americans is not 83% of people, you've stated both in your reply like they are the same thing, they are not.
The implication was not apparent from their original reply(the one i responded to), they sort of clarified later, but still in a way that implied they assumed physical location was the only issue.

A revelation to me, evidently plant based diets are just on the whole cheaper compared to meat, though this may not be true in food deserts.

I'm not sure enough about this to claim on the whole for either direction, best i can say (anecdotally) is that the meat industrial complex has the capability to undercut the agricultural industry in some cases (on a calorie to calorie basis and including nutritional balance).

The link is interesting though, there's more to the fiscal accessibility of non-meat food than i realised, it doesn't cover opportunity cost, but as a general study of fiscal access it has a lot of information that's new to me, i'll have a proper read.

As for meal prep time, yes that is very fair but can be alleviated heavily with getting a 2nd hand instant pot and making meals in that which take unironically 30 seconds, which is shorter than a drive-thru.

There's a few caveats/assumptions to that statement.

Access (in a fiscal and physical sense) to 2nd hand pressure cookers is not something i'd assume is widely possible with the kind of demographics that have been mentioned.

Not to say there would be no access, just that i'm not sure it's as much of a game changer as you make it sound.

I'm genuinely not sure what 30 second pressure cooker meals you are talking about but it sounds like magic, i don't mean this in an insulting way, if you could send me some examples i'd appreciate it, that would be very helpful to me personally.

Pressure cookers are arguably more dangerous than most other kitchen appliances, in that they are essentially bombs with a lot of safeguards, i'd be wary of purchasing a 2nd hand one of dubious origin, but i know that's partly a privilege thing on my part so it's possibly not as relevant as the other points.

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[–] starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works 1 point 6 months ago

The 83% was because 30m food insecure/ 330m Americans ~=83%. 17% is maybe not a "small" minority, but I think it's heavily implied that's not who they're talking about. The person they responded to said "food is deeply personal" and "if we moralize food, we will lose people." Veganism isn't going to "lose people " who have the options of "eat meat or starve" because those people have essentially no choice anyway. Personal implies it's part of their personality/culture/important to them in a way that isn't just about survival. Neither person mentioned extreme circumstances, and it is exceedingly rare for someone to use "personal choice" when referring to something that is at or close to life or death. I would never say "I cut off my leg as a personal choice since there was a risk I could die from infection." That is however the exact language I would use for things I really don't want to give up, like "eating dinner with my friends is deeply personal." I wouldn't say "not starving is deeply personal," it just doesn't really make sense.

I do think for 95% of people on lemmy it is a personal choice whether they are vegan or not, 99% was maybe an exaggeration but I wouldn't doubt that either. I'm specifically talking about the generally tech literate, educated people that figured out how to get and use lemmy with that 99%, not the average American or the average person.

Their implication was that "you live in a first world country and realistically are not impoverished (inferred from you using lemmy), as are most people making this argument, therefore you have a grocery store you can access and can choose to not eat meat." I was using America's poverty numbers because that's where I and most people using lemmy live, but many other countries have better social safety nets so there would be even less of a reason to not be vegan.

The meat industry has massive subsidies, at least in the US, which is why it is so incredibly competitive fiscally with plant based diets. I think also to mention these are staple foods like rice lentils etc, fruits and vegetables still might end up being more expensive, meaning it would still be harder/more effort to do a nutritionally complete vegan diet.

Here's an example for a 30 second instant pot recipe, it's basically how fast can you dump the cans and spices into the cooker (and coarsely chop a tomato). Just replace the chicken broth with anything else, like vegetable broth. If someone's worried about second hand some of the cheaper ones are $60, or just put it in another room and let the pressure naturally escape overnight, which is what my brothers all do when they use one. The pressure is high but it's not going to do anything crazy to your house.

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