Philosophical Vegan Forum

Roman0vmarisa wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 3:26 pm Please stop suddenly “caring” about bees.

If someone wants to avoid honey, why not? Just because some insects are pollination slaves for fruits, does that mean that a vegan should be okay eating both fruits (that exploits bees) AND honey (that exploits bees)? Obviously, fruits are harder to avoid, so why not avoid the easiest one and help out some bees rather than none? You’re boring.

When have I express "caring" for bees as individuals? Bees are important as a collective, as individuals they are nothing of importance.

Your comparison is flawed. Your comparing a single product (honey) to a class of foods (fruit). Picking honey as something to avoid instead of some specific fruit (or nut) that utilizes exploited bees in its product is an entirely arbitrary choice. Also does exploiting animals become morally justified when avoiding the products because "harder" than some baseline? And what is the baseline and what justifies it?

Sorry you find ethics boring. I know, its a lot easier to just repeat dogma on go on with your day.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 4:19 pm He's always making the same appeal to futility fallacy. If memory serves correctly he's also already made this argument about honey multiple times. That we use them to pollinate, so why not steal their hard earned honey too?
Carnap is a broken record stuck on a song that has already been played to death.

Except that wasn't the argument, nor is this a refutation of anything I argued.

Once again you do little more than spite out personal attacks while systematically avoiding any reasoned response. With this level of incompetence its no wonder you have to isolate yourself to an echo-chamber where you actively censor people.

It is amusing coming here from time to time, but I'm afraid soon its just going to be you masturbating to your own words.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:54 pm Bees are presumed to be significantly more intelligent than most other insects. Other insects are likely barely sentient, if at all.
The philosophical significance of hive minds is an interesting topic, but even individually bees seem to demonstrate a level of intelligence and awareness that most other insects lack.

Presumed by who? You? This just begs the question. You'd need to establish that bees have greater "sentience" than other insects commonly killed in agriculture and compare the amounts killed. Simple insects are by no means the only insects killed in agriculture, in fact, some of the biggest pests are more intelligent insects.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:54 pm The same reason to believe more animals are harmed in animal agriculture. Bees, like chickens, are not magical creatures that generate calories from thin air.
Chickens are fed plant calories, and so are bees: when the honey is taken it must be replaced. There's only a slim margin of excess produced from the flowers that can be taken without replacement.

Except this isn't true. Bees are not fed harvested crops, they collect nectar from wild sources or from crops growing for other purposes.

The rest of your comment is just something you're making up, you can take large portions of honey without replacement and that is often done by beekeepers.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:54 pm When you buy honey, you're also buying the sugar that's fed to the bees to replace the honey you took.

You are, and that ranges from none to small amounts depending on how the colonies are being managed. So you'd have to do the math and make a comparison. Have you do it? Has any vegan? I've yet to see anybody provide an analysis that shows that more insects (or intelligent insects) are killed in the case of honey production than they are for alternative sweeteners. Also since insects are killed in all cases, you'd need to define a threshold and anything above that threshold would be then non-vegan. Otherwise you're back to the same arbitrary dogma.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:54 pm Certified vegan products are only going to contain things that nearly all vegans are OK with and follow the definition to the letter so nobody is confused. Other things may be ethical to consume, but there are also implications for allergies, etc.

It has nothing to do with what "nearly all vegans are okay with", nobody is doing surveys to determine that. Its based on the original dogma has created by the vegan society. Honey isn't vegan because it was deemed so by the vegan society.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:54 pm Honey, Oysters, and Palm Oil are all common debates among vegans.

Nope, they aren't. Go into any vegan group on Facebook, etc and suggest Oysters are vegan and you will get attacks by virtually everyone in the group. These are marginal debates by small number of vegans that seem to be trying to reconcile following a dogma with a more reasoned based approach.

Your little echo-chamber here isn't representative of the vegan community.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:54 pm They can consider themselves beegans, which is also good.

This, of course, misses the point. A shifting point view on bees starts to break, cognitively speaking, the dogmatic hold of veganism which will often lead to more free thinking.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:54 pm More of your dishonest anti-vegan rhetoric. Couldn't be further from the truth.

Dishonest? You prove it here yourself. You rely on censorship as a means to silence argumentation against veganism. But the issues are, of course, far more wide spread. As I mentioned before, go into any standard vegan group and start talking about eating oysters and still how long you last before getting banned.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:54 pm Beegans, ostrovegans, even pescetarians and all manner of reducetarians are respected and welcome here as friends and allies.

By who? Certainly not by the vegan community in general. A small fraction of vegans? Sure.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:54 pm Anti-vegans, particularly the intellectually dishonest ones who have no other purpose than to advance an agenda of fear mongering and discourage people from being vegan with pseudoscience,

You deem anybody that argues against veganism to be "anti-vegan". This is just circular nonsense that you use as an excuse to censor debate.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:05 am Except that wasn't the argument, nor is this a refutation of anything I argued.

It was principally an appeal to futility, it didn't merit much refutation, and yet I did anyway to the claims I could find.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:05 amOnce again you do little more than spite out personal attacks while systematically avoiding any reasoned response.

I see two long posts, from me to you then you responding point by point. You seem confused.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:05 amWith this level of incompetence its no wonder you have to isolate yourself to an echo-chamber where you actively censor people.

Mmm... the venomous anti-vegan troll who hasn't been banned despite his bad behavior complaining about censorship?
We openly welcome and encourage non-vegans to come here because an echo chamber isn't interesting.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:33 am Presumed by who? You? This just begs the question.

It's widely claimed based on their social behavior and communication.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/i ... -the-world

If you haven't heard that you've probably been living under a rock... and missed elementary school too.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:33 am Simple insects are by no means the only insects killed in agriculture, in fact, some of the biggest pests are more intelligent insects.

Most insects killed in agriculture are actually insect eggs, since that's what the most effective insecticides target. Sometimes larvae are the target.
Aside from that, most major agricultural pests are "true bugs" like aphids and leaf hoppers, beetles (mostly in their larval stages), various kinds of flies and locusts. None regarded as very intelligent.

I can understand fully why people are concerned with bees but not with any of these pests. Again, most of which are killed as eggs or newly hatched larvae.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:33 am

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:54 pm The same reason to believe more animals are harmed in animal agriculture. Bees, like chickens, are not magical creatures that generate calories from thin air.
Chickens are fed plant calories, and so are bees: when the honey is taken it must be replaced. There's only a slim margin of excess produced from the flowers that can be taken without replacement.

Except this isn't true. Bees are not fed harvested crops, they collect nectar from wild sources or from crops growing for other purposes.

It's like you didn't read what I wrote. Bees are fed sugar and even harvested pollen and simulated pollen mixes.
https://www.dadant.com/learn/feeding-be ... he-winter/

Beyond that, for many honey operations the flowers themselves are a crop which don't always have any other purpose.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:33 am The rest of your comment is just something you're making up, you can take large portions of honey without replacement and that is often done by beekeepers.

I didn't say you can't take any at all.
But large commercial operations often just let the bees die in the winter then buy new bees because it's cheaper than feeding them.
If you would like to give your colony a chance to survive the winter, they need to be fed or keep a large amount of their honey (unless you had an incredibly productive season).

Many beekeepers keep bees for one reason, honey. Therefore, most of us have been guilty of removing too much honey from the hive, leaving the colony to perish from starvation during the winter.

http://basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com/201 ... ve-on.html

I've seen anecdotal discussion from hobby bee keepers about being able to take a couple hundred pounds in a good season and leave around a hundred (or less) for winter, but other seasons being able to take almost nothing or risk a collapse because they'd only been able to make enough for themselves.
What's the average excess, and is that excess due to nearby planting of flower crops? This is not clear.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:33 amSo you'd have to do the math and make a comparison. Have you do it? Has any vegan?

None of that is relevant to large commercial operations, and I don't think there's any good data on small operations that attempt to overwinter their bees.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:33 amI've yet to see anybody provide an analysis that shows that more insects (or intelligent insects) are killed in the case of honey production than they are for alternative sweeteners. Also since insects are killed in all cases, you'd need to define a threshold and anything above that threshold would be then non-vegan. Otherwise you're back to the same arbitrary dogma.

Insects killed in sugar production tend to be the non-or-barely sentient sort, like boring larvae and small flies. And given the high yield of sugar production even this is likely to be insignificant. It seems very unlikely that those could outweigh the harm to even a small number of bees.

In theory could an ethical honey operation take place? Absolutely. Taking only the extra and leaving a large margin, and finding a way to do it that doesn't stress or injure the bees, and more not planting anything FOR the bees, but relying on them only for pollination of other human crops so it's purely a byproduct.

It could happen, and I don't think anybody is ruling that out aside from the irrational "use is always abuse" crowd, but the probability of that happening in any commercially viable way is small and not worth the risk.

Vegan isn't an arbitrary dogma, it's a heuristic that's right 99% of the time. I've discussed this elsewhere AND with you before. That you can not grasp that speaks only to your hateful anti-vegan bias.

Just like the heuristic that "war is bad", it's usually right, and it's right to oppose war as the default position. Particularly foreign wars fought as proxies for political battles with other countries.
If you want to argue for your particular pet war, then you're welcome to offer evidence that your war is a true war of liberation and will actually have good consequences, but until you prove your point it remains the correct position to oppose all war on the basis that they're almost certainly bad.

Likewise with animal agriculture; it's not vegans who need to run the math to support the heuristic, it's the person selling this "ethical honey" who needs to put in the time and research, and should also have the necessary industry knowledge and access to do so, to prove their honey is equal to or better than sugar. Until such information is furnished the position of skepticism and default opposition is the reasonable one.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:33 amIt has nothing to do with what "nearly all vegans are okay with", nobody is doing surveys to determine that. Its based on the original dogma has created by the vegan society.

There are more groups certifying things as vegan than the vegan society, and it is based on what most vegans are OK with; there are plenty of edge cases, and if there were a broad appeal on something it would be added or possibly removed as a prohibition.
They're looking at their market and credibility here.

Are figs vegan? They might have some kind of wasp larvae or eggs in them. Plenty of products are contaminated with insects, and beyond that there are many levels of purity when it comes to manufacturing and sourcing. Then there's the GMO issue (animal genes), and issues of animal testing which may or may not be taken into account. Then animal inputs in agriculture such as for organic farming, and even straight up ritualistic animal sacrifice in biodynamic farming.

If we started a petition and made enough noise about it, certifiers would be pushed to exclude something like biodynamic farming for consideration for vegan certification based on its advocacy of animal sacrifice. It is ultimately a popularity contest, and that's driven by vegan consumer confidence in that label.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:33 amHoney isn't vegan because it was deemed so by the vegan society.

While the coiner of a term has a large influence on its definition, words are to some extent influenced by general usage. Much more so with these trademarked logos; they can include or exclude whatever they want.
However, honey is Beegan and that's fine as an alternative to technical vegan-ness.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:33 am

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:54 pm Honey, Oysters, and Palm Oil are all common debates among vegans.

Nope, they aren't. Go into any vegan group on Facebook, etc and suggest Oysters are vegan and you will get attacks by virtually everyone in the group. These are marginal debates by small number of vegans that seem to be trying to reconcile following a dogma with a more reasoned based approach.

Your little echo-chamber here isn't representative of the vegan community.

You insult us for trying to be reasonable, then call us an echo chamber... for excluding extremists?

Those vegan facebook groups are not representative of real vegans. If your exposure has been only to radicals on facebook, you don't know much about the general vegan population, most of whom are pretty chill and reasonable, and recognize edge cases like that as legitimately controversial.

It's one thing to say they are or aren't vegan because they're plant or animal products and that's how the heuristic works, but it's another to dismiss the ethical questions which are what the debates are principally around.

Honey is Beegan, Oysters are Ostrovegan. None of these things need to be potentially pure "vegan" proper to remain controversies in the overall vegan community.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:33 amThis, of course, misses the point. A shifting point view on bees starts to break, cognitively speaking, the dogmatic hold of veganism which will often lead to more free thinking.

Or don't be an idiot and just recognize it's a heuristic.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:33 amDishonest? You prove it here yourself. You rely on censorship as a means to silence argumentation against veganism.

Ah, another lie.

We have requested that you start threads rather than derailing things all of the time with literally the same claims then not backing it up.
See this discussion? It's principally on honey and in a thread devoted to discussing... honey.
There's a reason some of your other posts are moved but this one has not been.

If you can't understand the difference we'll just keep moving your posts for you until you figure it out.
And it's very interesting that you haven't been banned if this is such an echo chamber.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:33 amAs I mentioned before, go into any standard vegan group and start talking about eating oysters and still how long you last before getting banned.

Well, given your behavior I'm skeptical that they're all banning you because of what you're saying. You think *this* forum is censorship happy, which kind of discredits all of your observations.

However, most of those are not standard vegan groups, those are dogmatic echo chambers. Some of them literally with rules that exclude non-vegans unless they're coming to learn how to go vegan. Many with controversial topics (like oysters) that are banned from discussion because they don't want arguments.

We try to limit things as little as possible without discussions devolving. Like we don't let people keep making nonsense claims like breast feeding isn't vegan, and we try to keep particular claims to their own threads, but it doesn't go much further than that. Actually interesting discussions are encouraged. If you haven't always felt encouraged it might be because many of your claims aren't interesting and don't cultivate discussions. You can't start out claiming vegan is just a dogma and ignoring protests that it's a heuristic. There are people who treat it as one, but that's not how we do here. That's not an interesting discussion, it's a bald assertion that's not going to go anywhere.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:33 am

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2019 2:54 pm Beegans, ostrovegans, even pescetarians and all manner of reducetarians are respected and welcome here as friends and allies.

By who? Certainly not by the vegan community in general. A small fraction of vegans? Sure.

Read what I wrote.
I'm not super interested in hearing complaints about certain echo chambers of extremists that are out there on the internet, and having that somehow implicate us as guilty by association. They don't represent us, and there's no evidence they represent most vegans.

carnap wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 6:33 amYou deem anybody that argues against veganism to be "anti-vegan". This is just circular nonsense that you use as an excuse to censor debate.

Not at all. Let me direct you to this quote:

carnap wrote:I'm here to exploit you schmucks into demonstrating the blatant anti-intellectualism in the vegan community and the reality of veganism. But I can do that with any user name.

It is a testament to this forum's openness that you aren't banned after your repeated bouts of bad behavior here.

I'm an invertebratarian, because I don't see anything wrong with killing invertebrates (including bees). I think taking their honey is okay, but we should probably try to adhere to welfare standards to make sure they don't suffer too much (not that I necessary believe they can suffer).