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?
Vegans avoid animal products because modern factory farming is the torment nexus given form. If organized religion wasn’t bunk, pastors across the US would call the food industry satanic.
Meanwhile, people do in fact boycott products from other industries which they perceive to be engaged in harmful and anti-human activities. If a studio executive donated money to transphobic causes, I’d pirate whatever they put out that interest me.
There’s no contradiction whatsoever. Both cases are about industry and the harms thereof.
I was talking along the lines of industrial support and disruption, not necessarily harm.
Of course you’re talking about harm. We all are. It’s even in the OP: ‘vegetarians won’t eat things that caused harm to produce’. Well, that’s a generalizing statement. Do the vegetarians in question eat eggs? Quite a few do, and that’s factory farming. Do they consume animal products that purport to be from ‘free range’ farms, that in itself is a cope to be quite honest. Are they vegetarians for religious reasons? Then there’s a lot of variety there. And then there’s the world of crafts, as every single inch of a cow is used in industries other than the food industry. The idea of abstaining from animal products is always tied, somehow, to harm reduction. Even in a spiritual sense.
The parallel to IP breaches is, frankly, not very convincing at all. Not eating an egg because it comes from a tortured chicken has very little to do with wether downloading a movie hurts the studio’s bottomline. The consensus is that piracy is a service issue because IP monopolies are not breached by literal theft. Not every pirated download is a prospective client. Many plain don’t have the money to pay the tithe. Many others plainly just pirate to test and then buy it anyways. Others still will download cracked games because of the damaging software that comes with the paid versions.
Regardless, as I said, even if you estabilish a parallel between abstaining from animal products to boycotting entertainment then that parallel only strengthes the retort. Just as a vegan abstains from anything related to factory farming, a person might refuse to studios who take a deleterious ideological stance with their money. Ultimately, the only thing that binds these two worlds together is the idea of ‘voting with their wallet’, which actually strengthens the vegan position. This I say as someone who actually does eat meat.