I know I know… “obligate carnivore”
Well I mean the loud/extremist vegan minority are quick to call meat eaters as abusers (“rapist enablers” even because we’ll drink milk a “rapist” (farmer) got from a cow) just for eating meat, even though most of us are far removed from the entire process.
But here they are, making a direct immoral action to force their chosen diet on another being who in all likelihood would NOT choose themselves. And that’s on top of the fact they should probably not have a pet at all based on their strict interpretation of vegan.
Nah, they deserve the call out.
This entire drama has had me thinking about that one talk show clip that has a vegan guest and was talking about how their dog “Is totally vegan now and won’t even choose meat if it’s in front of her”. When the hosts tested the dog by bringing out a vegan dish and a meat dish, the dog devoured the meat dish lmao
Why do you think direct immoral actions are worse than indirect immoral actions? I don’t buy that. Hell, you are even saying that you are absolved of responsibility for animal abuse completely just because you are paying someone to do it, and not doing it personally. Most people just deny animal abuse happens at all, but you admit it is immoral, yet shift the blame on others along with the responsibility for murdering them, which they do for your pleasure.
This is like saying "x has hired hitmen to killed seven people, but my parent forces me to eat broccoli every day, so since x is commiting a indirect immoral action, my parent is the worst one of them.
I am not a moral person. I, quite frankly, do not care about animals, and I would like to think I would be able to murder an animal myself(for food), since I am doing it now, albeit indirectly, and if you can’t live with the consequences of your decisions, why make them? Weigh the consequences of your actions. Do not run away from them like a coward(a lot of moralizing for a self-proclaimed immoral person).
I respect vegans. If you care about animal welfare, and are opposed to cruel treatment of animals you should not eat meat, and that’s what they do.
First of all, the mere death or killing of an animal isn’t immoral or wrong or murder, it’s simply the way of life in the animal world. The animal world knows nothing of morals and ethics, this very discussion is a wholly unnatural and human unique thing to have. Do you call a lion a murderer when it hunts down and eats a zebra?
Second, a direct immoral action is worse because it involves a clear, intentional act that directly causes harm. In contrast, buying meat is far less worse because a) it’s more like paying someone to solve a problem for you who doesn’t tell you how they solve it and in turn pays someone else who in turn pays someone else who in turn pays the actual person/company taking the action who in turn is spending millions upon millions to keep the majority of people thinking “Everything is fine, no abuse here” and b) the mere consumption of meat isn’t immoral, like I said its just how the animal kingdom works it’s natural. But rather the way that meat is made, the conditions the animals are subjected to that are immoral and wrong.
Firstly, I would like to say that what happens in the animal world has no bearing on morality. You said it yourself, morality is a human thing. So a lion is not a moral agent, I would not judge it for eating a zebra, nor do I believe that we should try to prevent it from doing so. However, just because animals do something, it does not mean it is not immoral for us to do so, it is as natural for certain animals to eat humans, as it is to eat other animals. That does not mean that murder is moral now, suddenly. Similarly, it is not the case that because it is not immoral for animals to kill other animals(they are not moral agents), it is ok for us to do so.
Secondly, the words direct/indirect do not mean intentional/unintentional. I do not think it is sensible to claim that the more removed you are from the consequences of your actions, the less moral responsibility you bear, but it seems to me like you are excusing the behavour of carnists(that word is, as another commenter put it, metal as fuck) by claiming that most of them are ignorant of the consequences of their actions, but this has nothing to do with how “direct” the act is. I would like to add that the reason for the ignorance of most meaters(meat eaters) with regards to how the animals are treated is their characters, they are keeping themselves in ignorance and are resistant to attemps to enlighten them.
, it is not the case that because it is not immoral for animals to kill other animals(they are not moral agents), it is ok for us to do so.
right but this is not enough evidence to assume it is immoral. we need some reason to believe it is immoral, or it is probably ok
Ah, the classic diffusion of responsibility under capitalism.
The consumer is blameless because they have no control over the production process. The people committing abuse are blameless because they’re just doing what they’re paid to do, and if they didn’t do it someone else would. The CEO is of course blameless because they have a feduciary responsibility to maximize profits for their shareholders. And so, the real villains are the shareholders, like granma who has a S&P 500 retirement fund with 0.00001% of the company.
If you accept that when it comes to meat, then what’s the difference when it comes to something like slave labor, or sweatshops? A company sets up in a third world country with deplorable, illegal conditions, which are necessary to compete in the market and secure a contract with a multinational corporation, if their practices get exposed, the big corporation pleads ignorance, some low level manager takes the fall, and they set up another company to do the exact same thing. Once again, everyone’s just responding to price signals and doing what they’re told or what they need to to keep their job.
It’s a wonderfully designed system that ensures that the evil necessary to keep the machine running can be performed without the hindrance of those peaky little consciences. But I have to question whether it’s more moral to make sure everyone can pass the buck for doing something wrong, rather than one person directly doing the same thing and being responsible for it.
Is it more “moral” to kill someone if you do it via firing squad where only one gun is loaded than just having one person shoot them? Is it more “moral” to be 1% responsible for abusing 100 animals than 100% responsible for abusing 1? I’m not sure I understand the moral framework you’re using to arrive at your conclusions.
You don’t call a lion immoral because lions can’t comprehend morality. That doesn’t mean that humans can do the same actions without being judged morally. Lions can also kill other lions which would be more comparable to murder than your hunting example and still they wouldn’t be held morally responsible and yet humans would if they killed another human. A lot of animals rape too, doesn’t mean it’s moral for humans to do.
The difference is that we CAN understand morality which is why we are held to moral standards and animals aren’t. This is like, pretty basic stuff and shouldn’t be at all confusing. Maybe read a book or two before having loud opinions?
you are absolved of responsibility for animal abuse completely just because you are paying someone to do it
no one is paying someone to abuse animals
But you are when you buy the animal products. You are paying them as indirectly as you are supporting the animal abuse indirectly.
You pay the store for the milk, the store pays the wholesaler and the wholesaler pays the farmer who is committing “animal abuse/ rape”.
At least that is the logic flow they are using. I personally agree that there is no problem with this as long as it is done as humanely as possibly.
They main problem is that its currently as humane as is commercially viable. Which sorta means profits come first, animal welfare second.
Also people need to talk about the people who work in that industry and the effects it has on their mental health. If you care about people then you wouldnt want anyone exposed to such a workplace.
paying them as indirectly as you are supporting the animal abuse indirectly.
no, you’re not. if someone is abusing livestock, they are paid by someone who isn’t me and long before I walk into the grocery store.
That isn’t how supply/demand works. If you are creating a demand, which you are when buying the product, you are incentivizing someone to create a supply.
If enough people didn’t buy the product then there wouldn’t be a demand and the person that pays the “milker” wouldn’t pay them anymore.
I believe that’s in the laws of macroeconomics (?)
That isn’t how supply/demand works. If you are creating a demand, which you are when buying the product, you are incentivizing someone to create a supply.
supply and demand is a price seeking theory. you are misapplying the term to use it this way
If enough people didn’t buy the product then there wouldn’t be a demand and the person that pays the “milker” wouldn’t pay them anymore.
we made milk before we had money. there is no reason to believe it will ever stop
You pay the store for the milk, the store pays the wholesaler and the wholesaler pays the farmer who is committing “animal abuse/ rape”.
but I’m not paying the store to pay the farmer. I’m paying for a product.
further, artificial insemination is a veterinary procedure. it is not rape.
Buying the product increases the demand for the product making the store want to provide the product so they purchase it from the farmer. If nobody bought cow milk from the store then the store wouldn’t buy from the farmer and then the cows wouldn’t be milked.
And I believe the “rape of animals” vegans refer to is taking their milk without consent. I’m not an expert on either side of the argument so I may be wrong.
I stopped consuming animal products for three years waiting for this utopia everyone parrots but every time I went to the grocery store the shelves were stocked exactly as they were before I stopped before waking up and realizing it was a pointless escapade of dealing with a situation akin to burying your head in the sand about global warming because you ‘recycle’.
And I believe the “rape of animals” vegans refer to is taking their milk without consent.
milking isn’t rape, either.
Buying the product increases the demand for the product making the store want to provide the product so they purchase it from the farmer.
the. store makes their own decisions. I don’t decide for them
Yes you do. But you are either being dense or a troll. Have a good day
But here they are, making a direct immoral action to force their chosen diet on another being who in all likelihood would NOT choose themselves.
This is the single worst argument you could make.
Every single pet owner does that. Would any animal - including farm animals - choose to eat what humans provide them? Surely [cheapest store brand] wouldn’t be popular if they had a choice.
Why can’t ppl just be a “vegetarian that does not drink milk”, instead of making a whole new ism?
It’s because ism is a syllable of power! They shall cast it when the time is right and have control over the massesssss!Because it’s more than just not drinking milk. Vegans avoid all products that result from the direct exploitation of animals, including eggs and honey. It also includes not using animal products like leather; you can be a vegetarian and still wear leather.
Honey always seemed a stretch to me, as apiaries benefit bees, but veganism is pretty significantly different from vegetarianism; having a different term for it makes sense.
I think part of the honey thing is its not so clear if we are hurting or harming them, so its best to play it safe until then. Ive also heard it argued that bees don’t make extra honey, so thats another reason but I’m not sure the validity.
Honey is for bees only. They made it for themselves.
Very true. Similar to cow milk, there is a public perception that there is no cost to take it, or to induce a female cow into pregnancy to cause it in the first place.
Taking honey from bees starves their population and the bee enslavers murder their queens. It is not ethically to steal someone’s resources for your own ends.
I didn’t know “eggs” were considered vegetarian.
Very /s apologies for my misunderstanding, which stemmed from vegetarian packets being marked with a green circle and eggs being marked with a black one, clearly stating not vegetarian.It’s called ovo-vegetarianism
Seems to me like this just has Vegetarian replaced with Vegan, because, as you see there is no row labelled vegetarian without the prefixes.
Meat + Eggs + Dairy + Veg = Carno-ovo-lacto vegetarianism
Same species (human meat) + meat + eggs + dairy + veg = Homo-carno-ovo-lacto vegetarianism.
If you equate vegetarian with prefix to vegetarian without prefix, then everyone who eats anything vegetarian even once i their life is a vegetarian.
That’d make Hannibal Lecter a vegetarian because he decorated his raw human with some basil leaves.
Veganism isn’t a diet.
I can do two things, ya know.
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I just find it wild that vegans can simultaneously come to the conclusion that all forms of animal farming is unethical but still accept that keeping pets is ethical. My wife grew up on a milk goat farm, every single goat had a name (and they had hundreds of goats), and the goats generally lived lives as good as the average pet. They’d run around and play, get attention from the people who lived and worked there, and every once in a while escape the pens just to prove that they can (they’d literally be standing around the yard waiting for their escapades to be discovered)
Even if the concern is “some farms are unethical and I’m not able to validate where my food comes from to make sure its a farm that isn’t abusive to its animals” there’s ways around that, like buying from your local coop (in the case of meats, buying from a local butcher) or buying direct from the farm. Usually when you’re that close to the farm its really easy to trace your products back to a specific farm, or even make a deal with the butcher/coop to only buy products from a specific farm
Honestly at that point I think it’s lower effort to just go vegan. You’re already avoiding meat in every situation where you can’t investigate the supply chain, so no meat at restaurants, fast food, friends’ houses, etc. I guess if you really crave the taste of meat or something or if you live on a farm already I could see a case for it. For me, the case of going to the grocery and making a meal at home was always the easiest case to have a vegan diet (and avoiding all the extra prep and cleanup from preparing meat were nice perks), the parts that were actual hurdles were the convenience of fast food and not wanting to assert myself in group meals.
Personally, I figure that the tiny sliver of meat that’s produced ethically can go to the tiny sliver of people with weird dietary restrictions, and to cats, I guess. We still need to see a massive reduction in meat consumption if we want to address the abuse that’s rampant in the vast majority of meat production.
There are many different vegans with many different viewpoints. I am not vegan, but I come pretty close - I do still consume a limited amount of dairy, but otherwise I don’t buy animal products. This is for the reasons you say - I don’t want to support factory farming. I also have a limited amount of time in my life for investigating everything I eat, however - I don’t honestly have the stamina to check every egg-containing product to see if it used battery eggs or not. I really don’t have the time to check if the “free range” eggs I’m buying are really free range or if they have sneaked around the regulations and it’s battery farming in disguise. It’s just easier not to buy any eggs.
I will accept eggs from people I know who keep chickens - no problem from me there. I think that humans having relationships with domestic animals is fine, generally we both benefit - the animals because they are protected from predators, they get fed, etc, and us because we gets eggs.
Some vegans would not agree with me. Some vegans don’t believe humans should keep any animals, including pets. I don’t believe there’s an issue with keeping some pets though. Domesticated animals wouldn’t even exist without us… Like it or not their “natural” habitat is living with humans. You couldn’t release all the dogs and expect that to be better for us or them.
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What does adopting vs. buying from a breeder have to do with this person’s point?
feeding a cat a diet that is biologically incapable of meeting a cat’s dietary needs
We’ve been putting supplemental taurine in cat kibble for decades.
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There’s a world of difference between supplementing taurine and engineering a synthetic meat-free diet for a cat
What do you think the supplemental taurine is intended to accomplish?
This just reminds me of people who lost their fucking minds when they found out a big chunk of McD’s hamburgers were soy protein. This is a cost-cutting measure as often as it is any ethical consideration. Your cat may be far closer to vegan than you even realize.
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You people are going to kill your cats.
My cats lived to the ripe old age of 16, before they passed. Somehow, the vet never seemed to find all these maladies during their annual checkups.
But hey, maybe the random haters on the internet know more than a couple of trained professionals.
If I met a human who needs constant blood and urine tests, I’d assume said person is ill.
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Cats are bad, generally.
They’re killing machines that have a big impact on local wildlife.
A vegan that keeps cats isn’t exactly approaching the situation from a purely vegan-based mentality.
A vegan that
keeps catsallows cats outside isn’t exactly approaching the situation from a purely vegan-based mentality.There, FTFY.
Absolutely nothing wrong with cats that are 100% indoors, not only do they have no effect on the wildlife, but their lifespans are something like ⅓ to ½ longer due to the lack of accidents or conflicts.
their lifespans are something like ⅓ to ½ longer
Outdoor cats have a life expectancy of 2-5 years. Indoor cats routinely hit teenager status and can push past 20 with quality care and a bit of genetic good fortune. Its crazy what a steady diet, low stress, protection from the elements/predators, and even middling modern veterinary health care can accomplish.
Now, imagine what this change in condition can do for homeless people.
They’re killing machines that have a big impact on local wildlife.
Saying this to my friends as I drive in my 2 ton steel box powered by liquid dinosaurs across the cemented remains of an old growth forest on the way to my job at the bitcoin mill.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
! We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals. !<
Unless, of course, you’re saying that we shouldn’t stop one bad thing because we do other bad things.
We should rethink our attachments to miniature tigers.
Or just keep them indoors
Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality
I’m not sure what the solution is here.
We should rethink our attachments to miniature tigers.
And do what? Its not the pets that are doing the bulk of the killing.
Please be serious. I read the source that I posted; you’re not being clever. Cats don’t magically show up from nowhere. Our culture around cats enables and feeds the feral population. If we didn’t keep cats as pets, and animal control treated them the same way they treat raccoons, then this problem would be dramatically reduced. Probably eliminated, but they might turn into an intractable urban pest.
But you need a job, you don’t need a pet. (Not counting service animals)
You can have both. In fact, you can hire a pet-sitter, which creates two jobs for the price of one.
That is, of course, only a problem with outdoor cats and feral populations. Indoor cats are fine. Personally I keep my cat indoors for a bunch of reasons, but I also think that reasonable human beings can feel otherwise. I’ve noticed that there are a lot of people online who have decided that not only is keeping an outdoor cat bad, it’s a form of animal abuse. And therefore they not only berate people who allow their cat outside, they also encourage people who stumble upon outdoor cats to take possession of them since they’re being abused. This is a pretty extremist position that probably doesn’t reflect the views of most cat owners, but it tends to get magnified in cat communities that rely on upvotes, since upvotes encourage echo chambers.
There’s a metaphor here.
But cat
Who knew that so many Lemmy users were experts in the science of dietary nutrition?
Carnivore, herbivore, omnivore, ITT apparently a lemmy user invention. You can feed your cat a “vegan diet”, you will just have to feed them a god level amount of artificial supplements like taurine, arachidonic acid, EPA and DHA omega 3, vitamin A, etc. It will also increase their risk of urinary tract disease due to alkaline. Or much more likely, your cat will go out on their own and eat normal food. But I must be pulling these terms out of my ass, since I’m a lemmy user.
If only there were pets that were herbivores. Could you imagine that, not being hypocritical by extending the existence of carnivores and the suffering they bring to other animals within your personal ecosystem and actually having herbivore pets?
While we’re philosophising, is the concept of pet ownership at all vegan? I mean, if milking a cow is rape and eating it is murder, owning a dog (et cetera) is forcible detainment (or rather false imprisonment, unless the dog was convicted in a court of law by a jury of its peers) of an animal that deserves autonomy just the same. Dog can’t consent to being owned, but if it understood the concepts of ownership and autonomy I have my bet placed on what it’d say on this matter…
I’m just saying, I don’t think vegans imprisoning innocent creatures for their enjoyment, be they vegan creatures or otherwise, is ideologically consistent.
unless the dog was convicted in a court of law by a jury of its peers
Give me that movie now, please!
There are, many turtles/tortoises are herbivorous. Also rabbits, rodents, and a few lizards.
gasp
Frankly, you may as well be pulling all that out of your ass since the information you just provided is as good as useless without any reliable sources backing it up (and don’t bother providing any, I’m not here to educate myself on cat diet requirements. If I cared, I would ask a qualified professional not a Lemmy user).
I’m just calling out the hypocrisy in this whole controversy. People do a quick Google search, read “obligate carnivore” in the title of some document and act as if they’ve got a college degree on the subject.
It’s ok, you only need to question the information you disagree with as made up, everything you want to hear is obviously implicitly true. Kudos on asking for evidence while saying you don’t really care for it in the same sentence.
It’s true, I’ve now changed my resumé to that of a cat veterinarian. Some people might say extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof, but you’ve really touched on the reality of it, that extraordinary claims, well, you are just pulling your criticism out of Google search and absurd common knowledge you might have been taught in biology class, clearly you consider yourself knowledgeable far beyond your means.
You seem to assume I’m arguing in favor of vegan cats.
Whether or not a cat can thrive on a vegan diet is irrelevant to me as I don’t own a cat nor do I advise people on how to feed their cats. However, I do have a bias (as we all do) that tells me there is likely more nuance (which you did allude to in your original reply) than the general absolutist sentiment against the idea.
That bias is informed by half-a-lifetime of experience maintaining a loosely plant-based diet myself and witnessing first-hand the fierce compulsion people have to push their uneducated opinions at the mere mention of a plant-based diet. In my experience, there are few other things that can so reliably stir people into a vitriolic frenzy than the suggestion of a plant-based diet.
And to back up that bias, I now have my first negative comment after almost a year on Lemmy :-)
It’s fun to find people who are trying to make ethical personal life choices and start screaming “Murderer! How could you do that to your pets?! Are you stupid? Are you brainwashed by the vegan lies?! Your beloved animal friend is going to DIE IN SCREAMING AGONY!”
You mean vegans don’t like it when people treat them with self-righteous judgement?
How about that.
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Random user: Free Gaza!
Free? I’ll take two
This whole controversy has been a real boon to my blocklist.
Dear Christ. Every thread on this turns into a shit show. Locking.
Did I miss something recent?
Yeah c/Vegan had mods removed by a Lemmy.world admin because of controversial posts and opinions on a vegan diet for cats.
The removal was justified because that constituted animal cruelty, but it was reversed because scientific evidence was provided for the possibility of a vegan cat diet.
The vegan community I think said they were going to move to hexbear or some shit, lol.
Yeah c/Vegan had mods removed by a Lemmy.world admin because of controversial posts and opinions on a vegan diet for cats.
Lol, after years of reddit and other big websites I forgot that admins can also get involved in dramas on their platforms. Reminds me of the internet 15+ years ago.
Gotcha, ty (seems someone is going thru and downvoting everything lol)
Hexbear manages to have the vegan discourse without banning everybody involved. I’ve heard this proves they’re fascist or something idfk.
Idk about traditional bans but my comments absolutely cannot be seen on their instance.
Also, refusing to moderate isn’t a flex.
Some people say you can feed your cat vegan food like you can with dogs. Others say you cant.
Dogs also suffer without taurine or while on high carb diets, and dogs also cannot digest many fruits and vegetables: grapes cause kidney failure for example.
Nothing even slightly interesting or worth your time
How can vegans even justify having pets? It’s not okay to milk a cow but it is to keep a cat? Indoor cats are deprived of basically all of their normal cat activities. They can’t range or roam, they can’t socialize with other cats, they are denied their natural predator instincts. As much as I love my kitties, like keeping a predator as a pet is basically kind of a dick move. I don’t care how good you treat your slaves, they’re still slaves.
If vegans can keep cats, they can eat cheese if the cow is well cared for or eggs if the farmer isn’t a dick to the chickens.
Not a good comparison. To produce milk regularly cows must give birth. These calves are often sold to be slaughtered as veal. Likewise situation for eggs. To produce hens farmers typically wait until the chicks hatch and throw the unwanted male chicks in a grinder.
I agree with a lot of your points, however, outdoor cats are really bad for local wildlife, so from a purely utilitarian standpoint there’s less animal suffering by keeping them inside. And they’re not slaves, we don’t force them into labor under penalty of death. You could argue for prisoners i suppose.
We fostered some feral kittens and I was worrying about the same stuff, restricting freedom and such, and then there was a big storm w hail and I went down to check on the kittens and they were cozy as hell.
There’s more to it than just deprivation. One of ours is the baby of a feral momma but our lil girl has never seen a hard day in her life, no outside, no shelters. And seeing how much personality she has just melts my heart.
I’ve heard some pretty weird ass views from vegans about the diet of Indigenous people who’ve traditionally relied on hunting and trapped.
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Are these vegans forcing cats vegetarian diets in the room with us?
They are tho
No, they’re in c/vegan
thank god, I don’t want to be anywhere near them
Closed-minded people are smart to keep to themselves.
So y’all are feeding your cats a natural diet of small game?
Which animal in cat food would they ever eat in real life? Which cat is going to go find synthetic taurine to eat? What about the herd of cats that exclusively eats the diseased and rotted meat that isnt fit for humans?
If you are looking for someone to blame for vegan cat food then look at the quality of commercial cat food.
Which animal in cat food would they ever eat in real life?
Most of the cat foods I’ve looked at are primarily poultry which cats famously eat a ton of. Sure your average feral cat might not be taking down turkeys, but I honestly don’t find it at all hard to believe that it happens from time to time that a feral cat is eating some turkey, whether its roadkill or catching a young turklet itself
Cats in the wild won’t hunt anything too large, but they do like chunky animals that have as much meat as they can hunt. Rabbits are one of the biggest animals they hunt. In areas that have rabbits, its usually their main source of food. Any small game that size or smaller is a target though, including birds.
Duck, Turkey, cow, pig, deer, and bison all are not on the table for a cat to hunt. Cats will only scavenge if they are starving and otherwise will prefer to hunt for their food.
Your vague belief that it might be possible a cat stumbles upon a bison that just has died of natural causes does not make standard cat food natural or inline with the cats personal choices.
ITT: people with big hurt feewiingssss
its okay babies, you eating meat doesnt hurt anyone! Youve never done everything wrong! Its no worse than how most of us innately benefit from imperialism, we’re so far removed! Phew!
lol, we’re all always so quick to start crying about hoe annoying and rude veeeegans are. We could all consume less animal products. Its ultimately not an issue of personal responsibility, its systemic and engrained in our society.
getting all pissy because someones telling you the truth and it makes you uncomfortable is embarrassing, I’ve been there. I still eat meat more regularly than I’d like to. I dont need to justify it, I think its bad that I do, I’m doing my best over here.
Obligate carnivore! I dont give my cats water! Only meeeeeat, rahhhh I’m a big man-or-similar!
inB4, hurt feeling downvotes 😳
You ok dude? Kinda seems like you’re just screaming into the wind here.
