Philosophical Vegan Forum

So last night I was on the Seitanism VC (an action I do not endorse under any circumstances) via Discord after Near invited me to join, and Tristian and Zycron started to get into a debate (about veganism, duh) while I just sat there and listened with the others who were muted. The debate didn't last too long, and it ended abruptly when Tristian saw it wasn't going anywhere (and it wasn't, it was just the same points being regurgitated over and over. One of the biggest reasons why I don't prefer live debates). I honestly wished I recorded it, since I don't remember all the details, but I think I remember the key points. Please note that these are cited from memory and my interpretations.

I'm not sure how the debate started, but it largely consisted of utility monster quandaries (that term wasn't used in the debate), with, if I recall correctly, Zycron discussing how that he himself being a vegan is not an effective way of achieving widespread veganism so, therefore, it is not in his best interest to be vegan. From what I gathered, he does hope for veganism to become the norm and acknowledges the negative effects of factory farming, and how it fucks over not just the animals, but all life on Earth, and the Earth itself. Zycron's a 'Do as I say not as I do' type of guy, apparently.

I'll give my thoughts on it, though I'm sure @Lay Vegan and @brimstoneSalad will do far superior jobs of addressing the argument at hand, but here it goes. Note that my ignorant-ass is fumbling to climb to the shoulders of giants from what they've offered to me (I generally stay away from the veganism topics; I don't know enough about the specifics such as nutrition or offering advice that hasn't been given already more effectively).

While I'm not claiming for certain, I think this is mostly just laziness on Zycron's part. It reminds me of that quote Miniboes (I miss you pal) had a while back
"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."

Colloquially, the expression is used to show how the culmination of all actions can lead to something devastating, and in the context of the quote, usually refers to wars. However, I think we can push it the other way, and show every small good action can add up to something truly great. Like with voting (which Tristian did bring up). Since utilitarianism tries to maximize utility, if you want others to go vegan yourself, as insignificant as it is, every person counts, and you're ever so slightly decreasing utility when you choose not to be vegan. Not to mention, when it comes to activism in veganism, or just a simple one on one discussion with a meat eater, it doesn't really help your case when you openly eat meat and not acknowledge the immorality of it. They'll point out your hypocrisy (and rightfully so) if you don't point it out yourself, and, given human psychology, no matter how sound or reasonable your case is, people will likely be less inclined to become vegan, thereby decreasing your overall utility.

Zycron seems to be arguing from a Utilitarian point of view, which doesn't always go hand in hand with the Golden Rule or effective Consequentialism (altruistic consequentialism is probably best). But honestly, it seems to be more an argument from egoism the way I see it. He even admitted that he doesn't think that he should have to go through the trouble of not purchasing meat (even though it honestly isn't difficult at all, unless you're a picky eater like me (but you learn over time to love veggies) but I think Zycron just wants to eat meat).

There was also a moral dilemma of sorts, I don't know who brought it up, about either spending money on an item or spending the money on an effective charity for a wee African Child (there was something about how if you spend the money, the child will die, but that's an obvious moral dilemma. Well, at least more obvious than this, so we'll cut that part out). Of course, morally speaking, it'd be best to give the money to an effective charity so a family an Africa can have water for a week (all it takes is just 25 bucks to supply someone with a lifetime of clean drinking water apparently, according to Water.org).

I don't think there has ever existed such a person where everything they've done is dedicated to charity and moral deeds, and life truly sometimes is about "Can I do more?" While it definitely is important to dedicate a good part of your life to charity and goodwill, it's also important to remember how precious life is. Sure, we want to improve the affairs of others, but we also have primitive brains that desire some gratification, and there is nothing wrong with that as long as you do the former. We all like reading, movies, video games, web browsing, and overall comfortable lifestyles, and we should enjoy them while we're here. Just make sure that gratification doesn't happen at the cost of another sentient being's overall wellbeing. Hell, try extending those benefits to those who have none.

You can't be perfect, but there's no reason not to strive to be.

Wasn't expecting the post to be this long but oh well. Kinda got a bit sentimental about it at the end.
Oh yeah, and Happy New Year Everyone! I'll make a new thread on this.

I voice chatted with Zycron on discord a while back, and at the time he was vegan. So that’s surprising.

Red wrote: ↑Mon Dec 31, 2018 11:38 pm From what I gathered, he does hope for veganism to become the norm and acknowledges the negative effects of factory farming, and how it fucks over not just the animals, but all life on Earth, and the Earth itself. Zycron's a 'Do as I say not as I do' type of guy, apparently.

That's cute. Does he think that uttering depressing platitudes and voicing mild complaints over voice chat (all the while continuing to profit the animal agriculture industry) will have any effect?

Red wrote: ↑Mon Dec 31, 2018 11:38 pm I recall correctly, Zycron discussing how that the himself being a vegan is not an effective way of achieving widespread veganism so, therefore, it is not in his best interest to be vegan. From what I gathered, he does hope for veganism to become the norm and acknowledges the negative effects of factory farming, and how it fucks over not just the animals, but all life on Earth, and the Earth itself. Zycron's a 'Do as I say not as I do' type of guy, apparently.

Admittedly, I don’t understand his argument, so I hope my reply is at least somewhat relevant.

First, I wouldn’t say that our goal should be to “spread veganism” but rather to reduce our contribution toward animal suffering and to persuade others to do the same (and by extension, reducing environmental damage as well as the risk of antibiotic resistant superbugs from developing in factory farmed animals etc). As UV once put, veganism is a good heuristic because 99% of the time, it’s right. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t work on going beyond veganism. And it doesn’t mean that we should be critical of non-vegans who are following a different heuristic. That includes reducitarian, vegetarian, pescetarian, invasovorian, freegan and many others. I understand that going vegan introduces practical problems for many people, which is why I don't typically tell people to “go vegan.”

Is merely being a consumer vegan a good way to spread veganism? I think a compelling case could be made that it can. Simply buying plant-based products has a measurable impact on demand, which increases their market share, allows those companies to widen its distribution channels, and access a broader audience of people. This is pretty basic economics. No individual has significant impact on demand. Any amount that would be contributed to demand (in transactions) is the same amount reduced if one no longer purchases animal products (even if the amount is only statistical). At the macro level, this can be amplified by encouraging larger non-vegan corporations (with even wider distribution channels) to acquire smaller vegan companies, thus increasing funding towards advertising and reaching an even wider demographic.

Is being a vegan "the only way" to spread veganism? Absolutely not. Other methods could work. Like investing in cellular agriculture technology, or creating delicious plant-based foods that are similar in taste to animal products, as these products typically extend well beyond vegan consumers. 1 in 5 Canadians identify as vegetarian, yet more than half of Canadians eat meat alternatives.
http://www.mintel.com/press-centre/food ... ternatives

Am I somewhere in the ball park with this reply? If not, do you think you can get him here on the forum to present his own argument?

I was inexplicably booted from the Seitanism discord.

Lay Vegan wrote:I was inexplicably booted from the Seitanism discord.

Oh that was CriticalThought doing a Thanos, booted half the server for jokes, just after I’d gone to a bunch of effort to partner with other servers to draw in numbers

FlemFace’s is the only one can really recommend for best chances of collaboration. I’m trying to build up a collaborating space of my own slowly, like rather than try desperately to get people to stick around, I’ve made a list of other servers front and centre, so I know anyone left engaging with the space are there because they see it serving a specific purpose.

Community Discord Directory:
https://activistjourneys.wordpress.com/discord/
http://discord.gg/SUKvSEK

@Lay Vegan That's a pretty strong response to Zycron's position, I'd say. I'd love to invite him here, BUT past attempts with inviting others have failed.

@NonZeroSum Looks like CriticalThought wasn't implementing Critical Thought when he banned everyone amirite?
Seriously he's like in his 20s and he's doing stupid crap like this?

This might be slightly off-topic to what @Red proposed, but I want to gather some input on this particular objection that I came across. If you guys do not mind sharing your thoughts on the matter I'd like to read what you have to say.

The following objection is from a user known as "Wlof25", and I just so happen to recognise this guy from a predominantly ant-vegan-esc discord server that he and I share (The Slaughter House). I only joined the server because there was an open link available, and there just so happens to be a decent amount of vegans collecting in there for debate. Regardless of that, here is what he states in the following:

Using mentally disabled in place of non human animals is category mistake fallacy. Not functioning properly and being unable to build a civilization is not the same as functioning properly and being unable to build a civilization.

If you are for animals to have fundamental rights, like right to life, then level of sentience is redundant, because all bearers of the rights must have the same privileges those rights grant.

For further context: He is raising this objection in accordance to what Ask Yourself initially stated against Hasan Piker. He argued that the "trait" that animals lack is the "capability to building civilisations" (correct me if I'm wrong), and moments later he appealed to the normality of humans to justify why killing marginal cases is wrong.

Isaac tried to appeal to the marginal case examples whom were lacking and failing to meet Hasan's initial criteria [building civilisations], but this is where Wlof25 is objecting. He believes that there exists some sort of fallacious categorical error when the likes of Isaac draw their conclusions, and the reasons he offers are provided in his very short exchange.

If you guys are curious to read his comment for further analysis then here's the link. He's trying to argue that vegans commit a categorical mistake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oz6vJTZbf8

Are vegans committing this categorical mistakes, in your view? Or is Wlof25 mistaken somewhere?

Frank Quasar wrote: ↑Thu Jan 03, 2019 10:17 am Are vegans committing this categorical mistakes, in your view? Or is Wlof25 mistaken somewhere?

Wlof25 is mistaken. His or her incorrect assumption is that civilization is some magical binary state that exists, when it's really not.

What is a civilization? Do termites have civilizations? They build cities and are social animals with better functioning social structures and roles than even humans have. They're also more successful than humans in terms of number of individuals in existence.
Claims like these require arbitrary definition clarification and line drawing. Thus, by some definitions, if we arbitrarily draw the line above humans and below termites, then termites have moral value and humans lack it.

Any metric by which you define it you'll find a spectrum, and end up having to draw lines if you want absolutes (line drawing is nonsense of course).

Not functioning properly and being unable to build a civilization is not the same as functioning properly and being unable to build a civilization.

There's also no such thing as "functioning properly". Is this person a creationist or something? Because things only function properly relative to a design specification, and humans were not created by a designer.

In evolution, we're all mutants of something that came before. If you want, we're all just malfunctioning copies of the first self-replicating primordial molecules.

This sort of argument really just demonstrates a profound level of metaphysical and epistemological ignorance in those making the arguments.

If you are for animals to have fundamental rights, like right to life, then level of sentience is redundant, because all bearers of the rights must have the same privileges those rights grant.

That's why few people take fundamental rights in morality seriously today. It's deontology, and it's not a coherent or useful system of ethics.

Vegans don't believe in fundamental rights that place the right to life of a dust mite on par with an elephant.

It sounds like all he or she has to argue is an assertion of magical platonic realism of an "ideal human" as designed by god, and a strawman of vegan beliefs.

I don't think much of Zycron since he won't defend his views by text and has been trying to bait me into voice chat with him.
Thanks for summarizing his issues here.

Red wrote: ↑Mon Dec 31, 2018 11:38 pm Zycron discussing how that he himself being a vegan is not an effective way of achieving widespread veganism so, therefore, it is not in his best interest to be vegan.

Each individual going vegan is important, since it saves some hundreds of animals a year from a life of suffering and an early death.
He might be denying this too, in which case:
wiki/index.php/Individual_Responsibility

Is he interested in doing the right thing?

That's like saying not raping somebody isn't going to end rape everywhere in the world so it's not in your interest to abstain from.
If he doesn't want to be a good person, that's on him. He can't say something is only a good thing if it literally ends all evil in the world forever.

That said, beyond personal effect going vegan can be an important part of the critical mass that will make it easier for vegan to go mainstream and change the norms. So it is contributing to ending it world-wide, it's just not magic.

Red wrote: ↑Mon Dec 31, 2018 11:38 pm Not to mention, when it comes to activism in veganism, or just a simple one on one discussion with a meat eater, it doesn't really help your case when you openly eat meat and not acknowledge the immorality of it. They'll point out your hypocrisy (and rightfully so) if you don't point it out yourself, and, given human psychology, no matter how sound or reasonable your case is, people will likely be less inclined to become vegan, thereby decreasing your overall utility.

Yes, I think that might be an argument for veganism rather than reducetarianism. Some people view reduction as hypocritical, but it's not too clear. Of course not even trying to reduce but telling other people to do it is pretty bad.

Red wrote: ↑Mon Dec 31, 2018 11:38 pm You can't be perfect, but there's no reason not to strive to be.

Absolutely, we can try to be better. Not being perfect isn't an argument to do more harm.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:59 pm I don't think much of Zycron since he won't defend his views by text and has been trying to bait me into voice chat with him.

Yeah, he isn't the most polite person (once, Near and I were in the voice chat, then Zycron comes in, tells us about the chicken hot dogs he's going to eat, then leaves. I think he's also seeking a reaction, but we didn't give him much of one).
I don't think he's stupid, but I do think he greatly overestimates his ability, to put it nicely.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:59 pm Each individual going vegan is important, since it saves some hundreds of animals a year from a life of suffering and an early death.

He'd still probably make the case that it's too insignificant for himself to go Vegan.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:59 pm Is he interested in doing the right thing?

Good question.

I think only when it's convenient for him. He was a Vegan at one point as I think you know, but his moral motives are up in the air.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:59 pmIf he doesn't want to be a good person, that's on him. He can't say something is only a good thing if it literally ends all evil in the world forever.

It's like those Nihilists who believe that only the future holds any value. That in billions of years after the heat death of the universe, everything humanity has done will amount to nothing, and the culmination of all human advancement holds no value.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:59 pm Yes, I think that might be an argument for veganism rather than reducetarianism. Some people view reduction as hypocritical, but it's not too clear. Of course not even trying to reduce but telling other people to do it is pretty bad.

Do you think reducetarianism is hypocritical? I don't think it's too bad as it's better than regular meat consumption, and it's usually a stepping stone between meat eating and vegetarianism, and eventually veganism.

Oh yeah, and I should mention that Zycron is in a way reducetarian. He doesn't eat pork, since the piggies are too cute (which I don't disagree, but is not a rational reason to not eat them).

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:59 pm Absolutely, we can try to be better. Not being perfect isn't an argument to do more harm.

That's why I think Zycron is possibly an egoist from the ways he defends his argument (even though veganism would actually be better in the long term since it's better for your health. Maybe just a hedonistic egoist?).

As always, brimstone did I better job than I could have at addressing this. Thanks for the post, I'm well aware of that Slaughter House Server (I think I was one of its first members before it exploded in popularity), and the owner, SD seems like a nice guy, but he's kind of a dick when he says he wins debates.

SD wrote:Happy New year to my @ Vegan friends who I have fucking REKT to the point of cuckery. Those include but are not limited to Strat, exo, OG Mizen, Vohan (the drunk vegan), Thighosphini, the vegan kira (goes by some other names too) - it was a pleasure shafting your arguments so hard you started bleeding. This year TSH has a YouTube rep to plough you even further into the ground. Let's go

He even banned one of the people he appointed as Moderator, Stratosphini, who's a pretty nice guy. Recently he opened up a more private server which I try to go daily. He's also a physics student, and says he may want to teach physics one day as a professor, so he created his own types of lectures and, as someone who wants to try physics one day, listen to when I get the chance.

But yeah, a lot of those members on that Slaughter House Server are pretty coxic, I'd suggest staying away from it. Some of them are huge Ayn Rand fans and are hostile to those who are critical of her. I've seen PV on there debate some of the members, which is a pretty edutaining experience. Most people on Discord aren't really skilled debaters, and usually resort to one or two sentence answers, while PV always writes paragraphs just to address them (and I wonder if it's even worth the trouble ).

As much as I love Discord, it isn't a very great place to gain knowledge or find intelligent people, and a lot of communities, in my experience, are pretty shit. As for my own server, I've been trying to set up a working democracy before I invite any members (so far it's just @Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and a few friends), and have been slowly but surely working on the Constitution for it.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SOK ... sp=sharing

Also, the PV server is dead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyFyAqLtHq8

Red wrote: ↑Thu Jan 03, 2019 10:19 pm As always, brimstone did I better job than I could have at addressing this. Thanks for the post, I'm well aware of that Slaughter House Server (I think I was one of its first members before it exploded in popularity), and the owner, SD seems like a nice guy, but he's kind of a dick when he says he wins debates.

I had an exchange with him a long time ago, perhaps close to a year now, and the exchange was somewhat interesting. He seems like a nice guy, and over the months I've only grown to hear his reputation take shape. I've heard that he has proven to counter an array of vegans, and now he's seeking the possibility of debating Brim. I'm not sure how that's going given the fact that most of the dialectic is taking place in private. Perhaps Brim will fair better than most of the vegans that came before him.

From my memory it seems to me that SD particularly likes to focus on crop-harvest-based argumentations, and quite specifically a select niche of crops and the slaughter that follows. It's a bit of a trickier position to tackle for most vegans, especially for some deontological-based vegans whom take the whole "right to life" position really seriously.

In fact, the reason why I'm even writing this is because I found an incredibly interesting take by a particular user that I ran into several months ago. His name is Death Valley Druids, I shared a critique that he had of Peter Singer's argument from marginal cases (the post is called "Fair Critique of Peter Singer, or something like that if you're curious) because I didn't really know how to tackle his position in the most effective manner.

Anyways, I randomly found a new comment that he left on a video by AJW (someone Ask Yourself had gripes with), and in this comment he makes a relatively interesting "refutation" to Ask Yourself's position and the deontological-esc reasoning that is employed by the NTT proponents. I consider this guy to be a relatively competent meat-eater, at least by the standards that we're used to seeing on display from most people, and his objections are quite interesting.

If you guys are curious to read it then follow the link. That idiot Bearded Devil (and ironically enough, Wlof25) happen to be lingering near those depths too.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2UgptZZSiw] -- Look for the user named "Death Valley Druids", his comment is located beneath this video and it has accumulated up to 28 - 29 comments in response. He develops his critiques in the provided supporting comments.