Comment on Why do people still eat beef when we know it's terrible for Earth?
CursedByTheVoid@lemmy.world 7 months agoPotatoes, pasta, bread, legumes, nut butters, vegetables, fruits, jelly, jam; all things that many people already eat with some regularity.
Time and resources are hardly an excuse, you don’t have to spend two hours a night preparing some 5 Michelin star meal with the most organic, non-GMO, [insert buzzword] ingredients in order to make better dietary choices, at least not in the first world where we have ample options… Shit, even just reducing your meat intake by 10% is a net harm reduction that adds up.
The slave labor thing is valid to an extent, but not entirely analogous. For better or for worse, modern society is increasingly dependent on technology; folks rely on it, in some form, to find/perform work, pay the bills, stay in contact with friends and family, survive the climate they live in, travel, etc… This typically isn’t the case with meat, it’s pure carnal desire which results in the death of something to the tune of ~90 billion, with a “B”, animals every year that didn’t truly need to be slaughtered.
People absolutely should be upset about the conditions of workers being exploited anywhere in the world and advocate on their behalf where possible, but our position shouldn’t be: “Oh, some bad shit happened over here; so I guess it’s fine to allow this bad shit over here to proliferate as well”, just sayin’.
CopernicusQwark@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I’m genuinely curious: what’s the vegans’ answer to the question of “what happens to the cattle and other livestock if everyone on the planet turned vegan tomorrow?”. It’s not like they can just be let loose…
Realistically the amount of livestock is not sustainable and they’d need to be culled in gargantuan numbers so that they don’t go from a “managed” ecological disaster to an “out of control” ecological disaster. And then you get the slaughter without the benefit of feeding billions of hungry people.
CursedByTheVoid@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I mean the premise already feels a bit absurd, but I’ll play…
I’m not a vegan and don’t really hang out in vegan spaces too much, so my answers may differ from your typical vegan, or not… who knows. But I suppose if the general goal is to preserve life where possible, then you should absolutely try to find some place for the animals to live out their days in peace. If we can manage to stuff them all in neat little boxes on the land we have now, I doubt it’s some insurmountable problem. You don’t have to let 'em run free and “out of control” per se, repurpose the land of the now defunct factory farms and slaughterhouses, build a number of sanctuaries all over the place, and plop 'em there. 'course, I can’t possibly know all of the variables involved, so I’m not saying this is a well thought out solution, I’m just spitballing… but we’re not exactly hurting for land.
However, suppose I granted you:
Why the fuck would people do this?
Veganism isn’t some virus that physically prevents you from eating meat, and plenty of vegans have been meat eaters at some point in their lives. If it came down to it, I imagine there would be a steady supply of folks who would opt to revert temporarily instead of letting it go to waste. Vegans may disagree with me here, but I think it’s certainly a more ethical choice if the animals are already dead, can’t let the sacrifice be for nothing.
That being said, I think a more realistic transition scenario would be something like the meat industry halting slaughter operations, exhausting their existing supply until either there are no animals left to kill, or there are a small enough quantity to where we can just yeet the rest onto some farms somewhere. Not that vegans would get behind that, being anti-slaughter and all, but it’s at least a more believable way for things to play out… I think.