Comment on Asking for moderator Rooki's removal for misconduct

• Oisteink@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Thank you for your service.

  Feeding your cat an artificial diet because of your own conviction is animal abuse. At a minimum it needs access to both vegan and carnivorous food, and make the choice itself.

  Are there any cats in the wild that are vegan?

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  • snooggums@midwest.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Are there any cats in the wild that are vegan?

    No, because they must have meat to survive due to being obligate carnivores. This is different than dogs, which are omnivores.

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• Rose@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  For one, I don’t see the moderators “denying any risks”. The very first one seen at the archived link and in the mod log says “There are some scammy and not nutritionally complete vegan cat foods or there, so it’s important to do a bit of extra research”.

  Regardless of any of that, the job of a moderator isn’t to fight what they believe is misinformation, as that view leads to total censorship, as I already explained. What if you believe that abortion kills? Would you then go and remove moderators that say otherwise? The same question stands for the other examples provided in my OP.

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• Carrolade@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  From a strictly scientific perspective, it is inappropriate to use where something fits into a recognized classification system as some indication of broader scientific fact. That’s an oversimplification that takes what is a simple teaching tool for lower-level science education that, by necessity, smooths over the details and nuance of our actual physical world, and tries to more broadly apply it to the actual practice of the science by specialists who actually work with that detail.

  You cannot actually say that because something is classified as an obligate carnivore, it must consume meat to remain healthy. The classification system is too flawed for that, and exists merely to teach some basic principles in biology to new students. Our classification systems are not based in immutable fact and intended to be the end-all-be-all for drawing conclusions. Instead they are working tools with imperfections, designed for a specific teaching and communication purpose.

  The fact of the matter is that a living organism requires certain chemical inputs, and if those inputs are provided, it can potentially remain healthy. If we simplified this down to some carnivorous bacterium, I think you could see a little more easily how we can very likely engineer around any classification of obligate carnivorousness if we so desired. It’s classification would not necessarily be accurate as described anymore, though that would not mean we should necessarily discard the system when it still serves a useful purpose for analyzing animals living within their natural habitats.

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