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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • You’re not the animals.

    I literally wrote that this isn’t about me/humans, so yes, obviously.

    There are many groups that are suffering and that I’m not part of, and I still care about what’s happening to them and want the suffering to end. It seems like most lemmy users share that sentiment when it comes to oppressed humans, so I really don’t get what’s so hard to understand about that when I extend it to animals.

    You might have the opinion that factory farming isn’t a social justice issue, fine. Me having a different opinion doesn’t negatively affect you in any way. Why are you so pissed at me just because I see it differently?


  • Don’t you also draw a line when you choose to eat plants?

    I think there’s a reasonable distinction here. You would presumably also draw a line between a conscious human and a brain dead human that won’t ever be conscious again. As far as we can reasonably tell, consciousness requires a brain. Dogs and pigs have brains, so maybe we shouldn’t torture and kill them on factory farms. We can also see them suffering and measure their physical reaction to it.

    Of course there’s a possibility that plants have some kind of consciousness too, but 1. that’s speculation and 2. there’s no way around farming them, as you have said yourself:

    Untill humans develop the ability to photosynthesize, we are going to have to eat other species, there’s no way around it.

    Farming animals will always require far more plant deaths than growing plants for human consumption. These animals have to grow for months before being slaughtered and literally eat tons of animal feed in that time.

    Therefore, plant-based food minimizes both animal suffering and deaths as well as plant deaths.

    I’m not convinced that plant deaths are an ethical issue in of themselves, but farming has environmental implications so it makes sense to minimize the food that needs to be grown and make the farming as environmentally friendly as reasonably possible.


  • I’m sorry to hear that. The thing is, you mainly hear from those who are the most vocal, and those tend to be the most angry and therefore unreasonable. And those probably had their fair share of verbal (and/or physical) abuse from meat eaters, as vegans are hated on by a much, much larger part of society than the other way around. (That doesn’t justify their hate, of course)

    It’s all a self reinforcing dynamic of groups riling each other up, unfortunately.




  • You just compared your eating preferences which are 100% a choice to someone being born homosexual and not wanting to be killed for it

    All the animals on factory farms didn’t choose to be born there and don’t want to be killed either.

    It’s not about the sensitivities of humans, but the insane suffering of animals in this system of oppression.



  • DarthFrodo@lemmy.worldtomemes@lemmy.worldcrops
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    4 months ago

    For things like steak, I agree. Unfortunately it will take many years to become affordable for the average person, but when it happens, it will be awesome.

    For many other categories, plant-based alternatives are already close enough for me. I recently tried the store brand plant based Schnitzel from Lidl (a supermarket/discounter chain here in Germany) and it was surprisingly tasty, given that it doesn’t even cost more than factory farmed meat by now.

    There are decent burgers, nuggets, kebab, chicken and salami alternatives around as well. It’s crazy how much the taste, price and availability of these products have improved in the last 10 years alone. I don’t miss real meat by now.


  • DarthFrodo@lemmy.worldtomemes@lemmy.worldcrops
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    4 months ago

    I heard about studies that successfully used algae to inhibit methane-producing microbes in the short term, but I couldn’t find any studies that prove its long term efficacy yet. It’ll be interesting to see whether the microbes can adapt to the algae in the long term or not.


  • DarthFrodo@lemmy.worldtomemes@lemmy.worldcrops
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    4 months ago

    The issue with using byproducts as animal fodder is that ruminants produce a lot of methane while digesting them. This enteric fermentation in their stomachs accounts for around 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions, while the entire aviation industry sits at just 2-3%. If we give them more food that is harder to digest, they’ll emit even more methane per animal.

    Biofuels make a lot of sense though. After extracting the fuel, the remaining digestate can be used to produce biochar or be put directly on fields as fertilizer, which is nice because synthetic fertilizers account for 1-2% of greenhouse gas emissions.

    Another option is to burn the byproducts for heat or electricity in winter during short periods when there’s not enough wind and solar power to cover energy demand.



    1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering

    I don’t know, life before the industrial revolution was pretty shit for regular people too.

    I’d rather not have to worry about my family (and friends) starving to death during the next famine. 40-60% of children in medival europe died before adulthood. I can’t even imagine the psychological suffering caused by this alone. Then there was frequent war and disease outbreaks, basically no healthcare, and so on…

    I’m not saying that everything’s great nowadays, we urgently need to fix many issues. But many things were way, way worse before modern civilization.





  • BP and Shell only have that much power exacly because people buy fossil fuels from them. If demand would drop, their profits and political power would drop accordingly. As long as we don’t even hold the biggest financiers of these companies responsible, how can anything change? Demand drives supply.

    It’s like saying “As long as hitmans exist, I won’t give a shit about the people who pay hitmans, all consumption under capitalism is unethical anyways so anything goes.” As long as we ignore those who actually fund the problem, we won’t be able to fix anything.