I read an interesting discussion on someone claiming that they ate plant based food rather than being vegan, as veganism is a loaded term these days. Suggesting people eat a more plant based diet is an easier concept to internalise than veganism.
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
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That's a good idea :)
Whether it's true or not, veganism is associated with self righteous people, and also with complicated diets and the lack of nutrients nonsense. Plant based food isn't, and sounds like it's something that you can just pick up while you're shopping, rather than trying to figure out what you're supposed to do with quinoa and tofu.
I'm a bit fan of flexatarianism, aka half vegetarian. It's a lot easier on my body (which can barely digest red meat) and the environment.
It just means you mostly eat plant based with the occasional meat. For me it's mostly sausage or chicken when I do eat meat.
With "use Firefox" people tend to interpret as "try this thing instead, it's better or will do the thing you're looking to do"
With "go vegan" people tend to interpret it as "you're doing something wrong and need to change your habits".
Essentially, one is seen as a suggestion and the other an attack.
People don't really love chrome, but they do love meat. Go vegan suggests we get rid of something we love.
The simple reason is that most people here already use Firefox, but not most people here are already vegan.
Go vegan.
Use FOSS.
Use public transport.
Reject flying.
Punch Nazis.
Tone. Use Firefox/Linux/whatever posts also get downvoted when they are to preachy.
Wrong: "If you use Windows/eat meat you are evil, repent now !!11! There are no reasons for any person to be doing it, if you don't understand that you are a monster as well."
Right: "I/my company/my dog were using Windows/eating meat and it's not all bad but the negatives outweight the positives. That's why I switched to Linux/not eating meat. If anyone else wants to try this is a good way to start: .... "
Yup. This is not a rule, of course, and is just my humble observation, but vegans tend to be really agressive about that stuff. You will never be able to propagate your ideas if you pressure people right from the start of the conversation.
You're right but in my experience on Lemmy so far, it need way more for Firefox or Linux comments to be considered preachy while pointing out facts like "producing meat leads to animal abuse" is considered too preachy.
I'm not really biased in this since I'm biased towards both equally. Just wondering why everything mentioning veganism in any way on Lemmy (like this post) keeps getting downvoted.
This is not exclusive to Lemmy, this happens the same way in real life - when you critique their food choice people tend to get in the defensive. This happens whether it's about their health, ecology or ethics and of course it gets worse when you are implying that their choices hurt others.
Of course this is not exclusive to food. Everything that is seen as part of your identity leads to this defensive reaction (see politics, sports teams etc.) and they double down on their current stance. I bet vegans would be a LOT more successful if they would be more empathetic toward non-vegans and would approach this topic more tactically.
Often times it's no different than someone preaching about religion. "You're going to burn in hell if you don't accept Jesus into your heart!" isn't too much different than "you're a murderer if you eat meat!"
It just comes across as self-righteous posturing.
Itβs not my experience that anyone mentioning veganism ends with a negative score.
How do you know youβre not just encountering sampling error? Maybe youβre in different communities than where Iβm seeing veganism discussed.
Better: Bless the meat, damn the skin, open your kisser and cram it in.
Leviticus in a nutshell
you should do both tbh
Because meat tastes good, and browsers donβt taste like anything?
Downloading firefox is easy.
Wish I could download a chili sin carne
Use Vegan Fox.
Is using a vegan fox, vegan?
That depends on what precisely you mean by "use", buddy.
Go Fire.
Find a thread where someone is looking for a piece of FOSS software and someone comes in saying "I've tried all the FOSS projects, but I find X [paid or not open source] just works better for me" and you will see the reaction you want to see.
Like vegans, FOSS people are a minority community with stiff moral stances and they hold their beliefs for very specific personal reasons. To the FOSS people, suggesting they use closed software is likely the same as when people tell you that you must not be getting enough Vitamin B or whatever because you don't eat meat.
As someone non-vegan and not overly concerned about FOSS, I've had guys and bad interactions with both groups. I've had bad reactions when I've suggested free but closed source solutions and gotten bad reactions in return, and I've shared things with vegans who liked my original things I've shared about meat and dairy alternatives and their opinion of me changes when they learn I hunt for food.
People get defensive when you either question their morality or people question your morality. We can attempt to understand others' actions and beliefs, but we truly only understand our own, and that can make us all act out irrationally. It can be hard to not try to show others why you made your personal moral decisions, and it's fine to try to share or teach others your values, but there's a fine line between sharing beliefs and getting pushy about it, and it's different for everyone.
Because on here, just like on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, people want to feel self superior without actually interrogating their own behavior.
Seems like you're describing both sides of this argument.
People who went vegan after decades of eating meat already did the self reflection part.
Not the ones who make comments like this.
Nah, I make comments like that and I only went vegan at 28 and after having thought about animal ethics and my consumption behavior. It really does seem like you are saying these things to make yourself feel better.
And that's what gave you a superiority complex? It doesn't sound like your self reflection was very beneficial.
See, it's that knee-jerk accusation that makes people think you are acting this way to not have to actually think about it π€·
Right. I haven't made the same choices as you, so I obviously haven't reached the next stage of human evolution like a superior individual such as yourself.
Vegan is a tradeoff. Replacing highly bioavailable food with lectins and other things. It can be done in a healthy way, but there is lots of nuance and discussion and it's a deeply personal choice.
Just because people agree on the tradeoffs of one thing, doesn't mean they agree with the tradeoffs of another.
Your examples would have more similarity with suggesting a vegetarian diet as an alternative to a mix or most meat diet. That would be a functional alternative, like suggesting a different OS or Browser.
Veganism more like a political statement that if you eat meat your are a bad person for harming animals. All vegans may be vegetarians but not all vegetarians are vegan.
I will admit there are many OS and Browser purists that might be more like vegans telling you, you are bad for choosing the one you currently use. There are FOSS purists that only tell you to use FOSS because it is NOT commercial not because the software is better for what you need.
However thereβs a huge moral charge on veganism that isnβt there on FOSS stuff unless a personβs very eagerly drawing connections to AI apocalypse or something like that
it's two very different things and there are more lemmy users using free software than vegan lemmy users
Suggesting a browser or bashing a corporate brand are not the same as encouraging morally driven life choices. Is that not obvious?
Not really obvious to me. I'm bashing corporate brands as a "morally driven life choice" as well.
That's fair enough, but it seems it should be obvious that the weighting of browser choice, not moral for most, it's a browser, and massive diet change based entirely on subjective morality are just not comparable.
Most people going vegan are doing this for ethical reasons, which is the opposite of subjective morality, since the entire point of ethics is, that it does not allow subjective morality.
My point is, that everything about veganism on Lemmy (even in vegan communities) keeps getting downvoted for "too preachy", even though it often just points out facts, while the same people are literally preaching the Word Of Richard Stallman.
This comment might be a good opportunity for self reflection. You asked a question as if you were interested in good faith dialog, but then instead of trying to understand others point of view you're just arguing that you're "objectively" right and they're wrong. You even admit at the end of this comment that you weren't really interested in hearing what others had to say, you just wanted to shout your "point". Another word for that is preaching.
Regardless of the topic, that kind of approach is going to rub people the wrong way. To answer your original question that is why people get annoyed when veganism comes up - because it's often brought up in the hostile and preachy manner you're employing in this comment.
Based on my past interactions with people who want to talk about veganism on the internet, I'm guessing you'll just jump down my throat again in a response rather than consider what i said, but just maybe this will get through to you. Since you weren't interested in dialog, I'm not either - I won't respond so don't bother trying to tell me what you think in a response.
Of course I had a few assumptions before but I asked as some form of discussion to see if I am wrong. Some people had good explanations and I upvoted them, even though I don't agree.
With this objectivity thing: I was just pointing out that there is a HUGE difference between ethics and morality. So most vegans I know draw conclusions from general concepts (e.g. life itself has some value so killing is bad in general) but I do think other people might draw other conclusions from these or other concepts (and I want to argue with them about their conclusions) so it's not about being objectively right at all.
Can you link to some examples of comments that got downvoted unfairly in your opinion?
The decades of propaganda about veganism by the meat and dairy industry is deeply embedded in cultures at this point, conservative culture especially.
People have been trained so thoroughly that they literally have a visceral, irrational response to the word veganism. It's been made impossible to actually talk about in a coherent way with most people, and lemmy has a lot of redditor refugees who carry that kind of thing with them.
This is a good answer. Too bad people are downvoting it for the reasons mentioned.
This comment borders on some conservative talking about how they're "being censored for speaking the truth" after rambling about some conspiracy theory or saying something racist.
The person you responded to is basically saying that anyone who eats meat is a brainwashed moron without any agency. I rarely ever see anyone have such a visceral reaction toward someone who claims to be vegetarian. Why do you think that is?
Couldn't be because vegetarians are kinda chill instead of militant assholes pushing "morality" like christians, no waaaayyyy! /s
Because nobody is calling you a murderer and rapist for using chrome, they're just calling you "spied on."