https://www.wikiart.org/en/giotto/st-francis-preaching-to-the-birds-1299
This is a proposal for an internal moderation alignment: recurring forms of anti-vegan discourse that exhibit anti-scientific reasoning patterns should be treated analogously to other forms of science denial (such as antivaccination rhetoric), and understood as incompatible with anarchist commitments to opposing domination and systemic harm.
The intent is not to prohibit disagreement with veganism as such. The distinction is between isolated critique and recurring patterns of reasoning and rhetoric that degrade discourse, misrepresent evidence, and function to stabilize harmful systems.
(Panthers of Bacchus Eating Grapes)
Epistemic Pattern: Directional Skepticism
Both anti-vegan and antivaccination discourses frequently follow a recognizable epistemic pattern. Skepticism—while foundational to scientific inquiry—is applied asymmetrically. Well-established scientific consensus, such as nutritional research on plant-based diets or immunological evidence around vaccines, is subjected to disproportionate scrutiny. At the same time, anecdotal evidence, marginal dissenting views, or non-expert commentary are elevated beyond their evidentiary weight.
This results in a consistent structure: systematic distrust of research institutions, selective reliance on outlier studies, and the framing of scientific consensus as ideological rather than evidence-based. What presents itself as skepticism is, in practice, a form of contrarianism that is not applied consistently.
From a moderation standpoint, this pattern is already widely recognized in other domains as characteristic of science denial. The proposal is to apply that same recognition consistently when it appears in anti-vegan discourse.
(The Large Blue Horses, by Franz Marc)
Anarchist Framework: Domination and Structural Harm
From an anarchist perspective, the issue is not only epistemic but material. Industrial animal agriculture constitutes a clear system of domination: it exerts total control over sentient beings, depends on exploitative labor conditions, and contributes significantly to environmental degradation. It is also a highly centralized and industrialized system that concentrates power while externalizing harm.
Anarchism is fundamentally concerned with opposing unjustified hierarchies and systems that reproduce coercion and suffering. On that basis, critique of animal agriculture is not peripheral but aligned with core anarchist commitments.
Anti-vegan discourse, particularly when it dismisses or derails these critiques, often functions to normalize and defend this system. By shifting attention away from structural harms and toward dismissal or trivialization, it reduces the visibility of domination rather than challenging it. In this sense, it is not merely a neutral disagreement but a position that frequently operates in tension with anarchist principles.
(Marc Chagall – I and the Village)
Convergence with Other Anti-Scientific Discourses
The comparison to antivaccination rhetoric is instructive at the level of function. Antivaccination discourse undermines collective health infrastructures that rely on cooperation and shared trust, disproportionately harming vulnerable populations. Anti-vegan discourse, when it follows the same epistemic patterns, undermines critique of large-scale systems of harm and redirects attention away from structural analysis.
In both cases, the effect is not to challenge power but to fragment collective capacity to respond to systemic issues. These forms of discourse tend to weaken coordinated responses to harm while leaving dominant structures intact.
(Henri Rousseau – The Dream)
Rhetorical Dynamics: Whataboutism and Derailment
A recurring feature of anti-vegan discourse is the use of whataboutism. Rather than engaging directly with ethical, environmental, or scientific claims, discussion is redirected toward unrelated or superficially comparable issues. These comparisons are rarely subjected to the same level of scrutiny or concern.
This produces a moving target that prevents sustained engagement and diffuses accountability. While it can resemble critique on the surface, in practice it functions as derailment. When used persistently, it disrupts evidence-based discussion and can reasonably be treated as a form of bad-faith engagement.
(Sue Coe – Dead Meat series)
Moderation Implications: Epistemic Integrity and Opposition to Harm
Moderation should not target viewpoints in the abstract, but it must address recurring patterns that degrade discourse and reinforce harmful systems.
Content that persistently misrepresents scientific consensus, elevates anecdote over reproducible evidence, dismisses expertise without substantiation, or relies on bad-faith rhetorical tactics should be treated in line with other forms of science denial when these patterns are clear and repeated.
From an anarchist standpoint, there is an additional justification for intervention. Allowing discourse that consistently functions to normalize or defend systems of domination—such as industrial animal agriculture—undermines the broader aim of opposing coercive and harmful structures. Similarly, tolerating anti-scientific reasoning that erodes collective understanding weakens the capacity for coordinated action against those systems.
Rebecca Horn – Unicorn (1970 performance/sculpture)
Implementation Approach
This framework does not need to be codified as an explicit or user-facing rule. It can function as an internal alignment principle guiding moderation decisions.
In practice, content that clearly reflects these patterns may be removed, and repeated engagement in such patterns may lead to escalating moderation actions, including bans. Isolated disagreement or good-faith critique remains permissible; persistent anti-scientific reasoning and bad-faith derailment do not.
The goal is consistency across domains: similar epistemic and rhetorical behaviors should be treated similarly, particularly when they contribute to the normalization of harm or the degradation of discourse.
Anubis as Defender of Osiris / Dionysus (?)
Some vegan comms that will offer you better info than I can:
- https://anarchist.nexus/c/vegan([!vegan@anarchist.nexus](/c/vegan@anarchist.nexus))
- https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/vegan@slrpnk.net (!vegan@slrpnk.net)
- https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/vegan@hexbear.net (!vegan@hexbear.net)
Some theory etc:
- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-veganism-is-a-consumer-activity
- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/gerfried-ambrosch-defending-veganism-defending-animal-rights
- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/carl-tobias-frayne-the-anarchist-diet-vegetarianism-and-individualist-anarchism-in-early-20th-c
- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/brian-a-dominick-animal-liberation-and-social-revolution
- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/animal-liberation-is-climate-justice
- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/flower-bomb-what-savages-we-must-be-vegans-without-morality
- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-veganarchist-underground-veganarchy-anti-speciest-warfare-direct-action
- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/len-tilburger-and-chris-p-kale-nailing-descartes-to-the-wall-animal-rights-veganism-and-punk-cu
Fundamentally opposed to both the philosophy that non-human chattel deserve to be considered victims within human hierarchies, and to the whole vegan framework on agriculture and animal husbandry. It's not anti-science to point out that ecosystems REQUIRE trophic energy transfer to persist, which REQUIRES humanity to offset our destruction of natual habitat for our own purposes, both conservationist and extractionist. It's also not anti-science to point out vegan sophistry with respect to industrialized agriculture and the ecological damage that it does to all systems. Luckily, animal husbandry is concerned with the maintenance of livestock which are fed grains and hay which are regenerative and don't require mountains and mountains of pesticides which cause cancer and deplete insect biomass.
I don't care to point all of this out every time I interact with a vegan because frankly it's not my job to discuss agriculture and veganism on a philosophical and scientific level. I personally do what pleases me: I avoid vegan spaces and scroll past vegan posts and comments. Stop trying to impose ideological conformity with your minority view and let us meat-eaters exist in peace.
how about you let them animals exist in peace? Also loving this use of "minority view" in derogatory way on an anarchist forum.
I don't let animals live in peace because they kill each other and eat each other all the time. We're animals, just like them. Given the opportunity, they would eat us too. Polar bears specifically prey on humans. Oh and, left unchecked by hunting or predation, herbivores will destroy ecosystems by eating all the plants, overpopulating, and then starving to death. I don't want there to be plagues of deer or locust all over destroying all of our food supplies.
so it's cool if I kill you too right?
uh-huh please check in with reality where your meats and cheeses actually comes from.
the farmer thanks you for your service (this should be cause for alarm)
https://chamomilewitch.substack.com/p/deer-hunting-effortpost
And what a lot of vegans try to argue is that heterotrophic energy transfer is unnecessary. We can go straight to autotrophic energy transfer while reducing harm as much as practically possible.
But more broadly, this post isn't about forcing one ideal on others.
This post is about combatting anti-science rhetoric and bad faith arguing specifically applied to the vegan discourse just as FAF mods would want to apply the same principles to climate change, vaccination, other conspiracy-led beliefs, etc., and equalizing moderator responses to FAF users that engage these ways. Evidence in the form of scientific consensus is at the forefront of moderator action here, only applied to a vegan context.
Then the policy should be about standards for evidence and how to participate in good faith.
Consensus isn't science, if it were so then we would be still be based on geocentrism. Science is a model that makes falsifiable predictions. If a better model comes along that predicts better you leave the old model behind. A policy that moderates anything against consensus is anti-science by its very nature.
Agreed.
But there can be consensus in science, with the underlying belief that any consensus can and should be challenged according to new evidence.
Social organizations need some source of truth in order to govern their operations. Scientific consensus is the best tool we have for that, so long as the governance also follows the science should the prevailing consensus be scientifically dismantled.
Very much agreed.
The trouble is we are not talking about a organizations guiding philosophy, we are talking about moderating people who don't follow the consensus as 'anti-science'
In my postings here on lemmy focusing on metabolic health I've been called anti-science many times, I hold little faith the nuance you are demonstrating here will apply to a policy over a long enough time horizon.
Humans consuming plant matter constitutes heterotrophy. Until you sprout leaves and start photosynthesizing (no shade to any plant therians) you will always need heterotrophic energy transfer. Keeping animals as pets, or even just letting animals exist requires heterotrophy. Animals eat plants. Plants eat animals. Animals eat other animals. Obligate carnivores would cease to exist if they were prevented from eating other animals. You've created a moral system here that demands the extinction of any heterotroph, including humans. Personally, I'm not a misanthrope, and I also like seeing birds of prey out in the wild.
Yes but there is a difference between first order heterotrophy, where organisms feed off autotrophs directly, and higher order heterotrophy, where organisms feed off other heterotrophs.
Higher order heterotrophy is unnecessary with today's advances in technology.