This might sound weird, but why is vegetarianism invalid while "piracy" isn't? - eviltoast

I’ve had a certain debate a few times where you might say we argue over the “semantics” of the meat industry.

I am what you would call a vegetarian. While vegetarians won’t eat things that caused harm to produce, a vegan won’t eat anything having to do with an animal. A lot of those who would fall under the latter category hate us because they say anything that remotely resembles someone enjoying an animal product is supporting the meat industry which then kills animals, which means merely eating an animal product makes someone a murderer.

Meanwhile, there’s this concept many call piracy. It’s the idea that, as the meme proverbially puts it, “you can download a car”. The idea here, which I say in the way I do because there’s still an ongoing debate about it, is that it affects nobody. But then there’s the whole industry thing I mentioned. People on the other side of the debate often say “well what about the industry”. I’m not sure where on the scale in this topic you might put me, but I feel like there’s a glaring contradiction here. When it comes to animals, people think of the industry, but otherwise that’s not a factor.

My question is… why?

  • Pantherina@feddit.de
    5·
    1 year ago

    A vegan doesnt eat things causing harm to produce.

    A vegetarian doesnt eat meat.

    Lol hahaha, did you know how much chicken and cows suffer, or how extremely harmful for the climate butter is (as its extremely condensed milk, nearly 50 times afaik)

    I think I kinda get your point? So you still embrace the product of for example Netflix, even though you dont give them a cent? So I would argument against:

    1. Movies are not a product of harm themselves. Only huge companies in the end have negative effects. But its not like the byproduct of murder, directly (most meat cows were formerly dairy cows, e.g.)
    2. Pirating movies is like stealing butter. If you did that, still 1. would apply, but you wouldnt support the industry (actually hurt it, as with physical products the resources are limited, even though you could argue that our industries dont give a damn about food waste = product loss.) Its funny how opposed supermarkets are to dumpsterdiving or even foodsharing. So stealing butter could be better than pirating movies haha.

    So no, if you pirate movies you may embrace a product of capitalism (which is only bad for you if they like integrate Netflix ads, looking at you, “Streamberry”). But the product is not bad on its own.

    At the same time, being vegetarian is only about 50% there. Some products like “vegetarian meat” made of egg protein (that are simply a trick by the animal exploiting companies to trick you) kill even more animals, as so many chicken die in the egg factories, compared to chicken meat.

    Ita fucked up, people that like need to fish to survive can do that, the rest should just stop. N2O and Methane are so extremely bad for the climate, animal agriculture is huge. Its the area where planetary boundaries are already far surpassed.

    image of the planetary boundaries being surpassed mainly in diversity, nitrogen and phosphorous

    Link to a way more accurate and recent study

    This is the actually true image

        • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Suppose I go to a friend’s house. They’re thinking of having chicken or eggs for dinner. They ask if I would eat some if I stayed over. I don’t loom forward to eating meat, but in my mind, it’s not like the circumstance of having it for dinner didn’t fall in place in front of me, so I say sure.

          Later, I talk about it in hindsight. A vegan would come and ask me why I did that. The ones I’ve spoken to have often said that eating eggs, despite them not harming the chicken, can be traced back to the store which can be traced back to the meat industry which they say kills animals absolutely and out of necessity, and that this is all direct and absolute enough that I’m a financer of the animal’s suffering. All because here I am eating eggs.

          BUT… then there is the other issue. There are those on the “con” side of the piracy debate, who say “piracy can be traced back to X which can be traced back to Y which means you’re ruining someone’s livelihood”. But these people, using the above “logic”, are few and far between. And the same people who supported that then say here “I don’t see how it’s that directly traceable.”

          • Pantherina@feddit.de
            3·
            1 year ago

            So to the first paragraph. Thats called freegan and not vegetarian I would say. Its debatable because if you said “no I dont want to eat animal products out of ethical reasons” while still having a good contact with the people offering you that, you might move them to being more ethical. If you dont mind in this case, they dont even see that you would not really do that, so they think you do nothing big, your influence on them is not existent. At the same time you are actively socially strengthening their believes, as “even a vegetarian eats animal products sometimes” and thats “just human, we are not perfect” bla bla.

            So even though its tempting, freegan is a difficult construct.

            Then to the piracy. Do you really pirate movies or games made by 3 people in some garage? I would just buy those lol. And not giving people money, so exploiting their selfchosen work, is not comparable with killing living beings.