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trolley problem
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this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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I cant really empathize with animals like how i can people. I hit possums with my car on the way to work all the time (once a month or so). Its unavoidable because they charge into the road and its too windy to move out of the way usually.
If i hit even one person id never live with the guilt and quit my job. Its unfair to expect 1 possum to equal 1 human. I understand you dont expect that. However, how many possums would i have to hit before it was enough for me to care much? It would have to be like when the cicadas come out - piles and piles of them for miles. I just value my husband having nice things more than the lives of those rodents, even though i like rodents a lot.
So the meat industry is basically a giant concentration camp of suffering, but im unsure if the suffering outweighs all the workers it employs, or evsn ths fact that they taste good.
At the same time, their suffering has value. Im excited for clone meat and i eat a lot of vegetables. It could easilly be that i cant empathize with them because of class consiousness similar to poor roman citizens not caring about the plight of slaves.
So, if veganism benefitted my class id be more enthusiastic in becoming a vegetarian instead of just using meat in moderation. It would have to be something about how me not eating meat or doing local activism for animals helps. I cant change society and me not buying meat wont actually help animals.
For example, my local activism was beneficial to people like me because it gave them a support network and community.
Liberals are always saying things like this. "We can't get rid of the death camps because people work there"
Ok we can get those people to do other jobs
Said this elsewhere before, communists will pull out every liberal excuse when being criticized from the left about veganism.
"They're mean" "Acktshually it's not as good for x as you think" "What about x group of people that this will impact" (who haven't even expressed opposition or concern about the issue) "You just care too much"
Same vibes as supposed progressives who are sharing pro-Israel PragerU vids after criticizing PragerU on other topics.
Ideally every comrade is vegan, but if for whatever reason you cannot be or are working towards it then at the absolute least you can support those who are and accept that it is the morally correct position instead of all this hoop jumping
“I dream of a world in which I would be executed as a reactionary.”
"wait, no"
Sorry for the cliche response, but really. This.
Okay veganism is one thing but moral realism is where I draw the line.
Can you explain how the continued mistreatment and exploitation of animals is moral?
Would you make the same claim if this were instead some trans rights debate and I claimed supporting trans people is the morally correct position even if you are certainly Cis and do not know a single trans person?
It's not a 1:1 analogy for sure, but I think it captures a similar idea
I'm denying the existence of objective moral facts in a tongue-in-cheek fashion not calling into question any particular one.
Think of all the children in the American meat industry who will go unemployed
it's okay that sentient beings suffer because you think they taste good. you must realise how genuinely fucked up that thought is, right? what gives you any right to decide your favourite treat is more important than a life? animals feel pain. they have wants that aren't purely instinctual. their right to autonomy is more important than your desire for treats or a paycheck for workers - paycheck that comes at a heavy price, mind you. a job that requires mass killing has negative psychological and sometimes even physical effects on people.
at the end of the day, we're leftists because we believe that pushing suffering on the innocent is wrong. pigs, cows, chickens have done nothing to deserve death. buying their corpses to eat is completely out of step with the values communists and anarchists claim to hold.
My leftism is about better human social organisation for every human's benefit and reduced suffering. Beyond the practicality of ensuring a sustainable planetary ecosystem, it has nothing to do with other animals.
"My leftism has nothing to do with empathy or recognizing the suffering of others, it has only to do with benefiting those that I deem enough "like me" to be worth my consideration! Leftism is all about making things better for me and my kind! No, that's not reactionary! I'm not a chud! I'm a leftist, really!"
Animal agriculture is a disgustingly exploitive industry with awful environmental practices. Even if you only care about the human side of it you should want it to end.
if your empathy and concern for suffering ends at humans, i don't think you're a proper leftist and you should take your belief in autonomy and freedom from oppression to it's logical conclusion (animal liberation)
i thought hexbear didn't allow sectarianism
it's not sectarian to advocate against suffering
you are the one true leftist, further left than any AES, the soviet union, and everybody the CIA overthrew.
Liberals here made the same comparisons so that they could continue to be transphobic.
This is a reactionary pattern. Go do self-crit.
Would it be sectarianism if some people here supported slavery and other people pointed out that that makes them objectively garbage human beings?
"I'm about as far left as they get but [Cognitohazard Take]"
Very good utilitarian way of thinking you're employing here, which can be used to justify everything else too
I know slaves are suffering, but their suffering doesn't outweigh the money they're bringing to the empire, or even the fact that the shirt made from the cotton they picked is nice.
The workers employed in that industry very often end up with PTSD because of all the horrors they experience every day. Stopping the support for the animal holocaust is the best way to help those fellow workers possibly find a better job in the processing of plant based food, possibly saving their lives.
And yes, the suffering of others absolutely outweighs 15 minutes of sensory entertainment, how is that even a question?
My first point already explained why it benefits your class, but I will also add that a vegan diet is the single most impactful thing someone can do to reduce their carbon footprint. So, if your class will suffer from climte change (it will) then going vegan is a necessity.
And also this: Veggie-based diets could save 8 million lives by 2050 and cut global warming
the idea of the personal carbon footprint is propaganda created by BP to distract from real environmental issues, much like the idea of the litterbug was corporate propaganda created to distract from actually meaningful pollution by industry.
Yes, the personal carbon footprint is tiny compared to corporations, but that shouldn't be an excuse not to care about our individual impact. Getting people invested in the problem of the climate crisis is essential to get some regulations from our governments. We will get nothing if everyone just doesn't seem to care.
No one has addressed that that’s a shit ton of dead possums
Like yeah what the fuck, once a month ?
Possums are marsupials, the only marsupial native to North America, actually. Just a fun fact.