I spent this morning climbing a mountain and really wishing my camel back had enough room in it for a decent meal

Loads of fresh deer and elk droppings, would be a great place to come once I get my hunting license

@scathach killing innocent animals for fun sounds like a great idea

@georgia For food not fun

@georgia @scathach

You can freeze meat from game or a whole cow that's purchased from a farm to feed an entire family for a year.

@scathach much better but still not great tbh

@subnetter @georgia A big part of why I want to get into hunting is being able to guarantee that none of the meat I eat came from a factory farm without having to go into debt by only shopping at the fancy local organic coop

@georgia I was basically vegan for a while during covid (lived with vegans) and it didn't work well for me, I feel a lot better when I eat meat regularly

@scathach @subnetter oh I admire that. fishing would be good too

@scathach tbh I feel better as a pescatarian than a vegan

@scathach @georgia

People are so disconnected from where their food comes from and it is extremely disingenuous to pretend that agriculture as a whole isn't propped up by slave labor and the exploitation of farmers and migrants.

Which is why I wholeheartedly believe that Veganism is a bourgeois belief system that is supported by anti-Indigenous sentiments.

I am likely to go back to being vegetarian due to the issues with food in EE.UU but I will never shame someone for their dietary needs or choices, let alone act superior for simply not eating meat. The moral argument that animals eating each other is wrong is contradictory to life itself.

@subnetter @scathach i agree with some of this, veganism in the west is far from perfect, it tends to care about animal suffering while diminishing the importance of human suffering (just like opposition to animal testing, where testing on animals is bad but testing on the desperately poor and prisoners is somehow preferable), but it is a form of harm reduction. its better to criticize carnists who eat meat AND the products of exploited migrant agricultural labor because they simply dont give a fuck if other beings suffer if the food is cheap and pleasurable, than it is to shame someone for being a vegan when they care if other beings suffer and often do try to eat fair trade etc.

veganism being practiced by the bourgeoise is not a very good argument. that doesnt make it a bourgeoise ideology. veganism practiced badly where lots of processed food and fake meat is eaten requires wealth, veganism practiced like it is in societies that eat no or less meat is quite cheap. meat is expensive, beans and tofu are cheap. one could call communism bourgeoise, it being mostly favored by the intellectual class. but, this ignores communism as practiced in other societies (many jains are becoming vegan for instance, and veganism is becoming popular in east asia), and it ignores the more important question--is it good for society/the world?

veganism isnt the only form of reducing reliance on factory farming, of course. the necessity of ending factory farming not just for ethical reasons but for the health of the earth is beyond dispute in my opinion. if veganism is taken to mean "veganism as practiced by most in the west", its less than ideal, but if just taken to mean "not exploiting any animal for selfish purpose" it is very noble. although, I personally believe that the notion that a beneficial relationship with animals under a power imbalance is inherently exploitative as a reflection of a modern western myopia, where we are far removed from a time or from societies when/where people genuinely loved non-companion animals. at its worst you get vegans who say even having a companion animal is exploitation. humans can have a mutualistic relationship with animals, like the vedic relationship with cows.

while I do think you have good intentions, your arguments are frequently used by people who simply dont care to justify not caring while thinking themselves superior to people who actually do care. "ethical consumption is impossible, even veganism is unethical, therefore I will eat and enjoy", is how it tends to go. also "its natural to eat meat" is as flawed as any appeal to nature. "the moral argument that animals eating eachother is bad is contradictory to life itself" is such a typical carnist argument. put it with "we evolved to/evolved by eating meat". factory farming isnt natural, for one, but you know that. but also, hunting for yourself is still usually wrong, causing harm to other beings for ones benefit is natural, but its still wrong. the unique privilege and purpose of human beings isnt to be part of the planet as one animal among many, its to act righteously and know God. "I will eat meat because the lion does and I'm an apex predator" is a bad argument. the lion doesnt know right from wrong, and thus always does the will of God. humans have the responsibility to know dharma from adharma and thus do the will of God. devoutly respecting the earth including the hunted animal as part of hunting diminishes or can even erase the sin of hunting, but almost no one today who fishes or hunts for themselves does more than superficially respect the animal and use most of it. revering the animal and the earth means religion, it means being without selfishness or redirecting selfish need to a higher purpose. if an act is devoted to God, it is nishkama karma. for the same reason, religious animal sacrifice without expecting a benefit but merely done as a form of worship is not a sin. but, if ahimsa isnt part of your religion, then you can't be said to really know God. so few societies have truly practiced nonviolence, but that doesnt make nonviolence bad.

@georgia @scathach I'm sorry, but the first and only thing I will say left on this topic is that your arguments in favor of Veganism are often ahistorical or misrepresenting vegetarianism or Jainism as equivalent to Veganism when it's not.

The rest of the world and history frankly disagrees with vegan ideology and the idea that individual choices as "harm reduction" is an actionable plan against all human and animal exploitation, is frankly delusional and reeks of liberalism.

@subnetter @georgia @scathach get that 1.50 hot dog in you

@georgia @scathach and before you want to try dismissing Indigenous cultures that have practices similar to "communism" I would suggest that being a hinduboo does not grant you any lived experiences from that culture.

The way you are speaking about animals in this sense reeks of someone who hasn't left the United States. I am not arguing about this as someone whose family has sustainability fished on this land for centuries.

Just because eating meat and living off the land is a problem for you, doesn't mean you can impose it on others when I seriously doubt you're actually doing anything to change the conditions related to animal agriculture or migrant exploitation. Like honestly, what are you doing about this in your free time other than arguing that being vegan is the more moral choice ?

Once again you're ignoring that exploitation occurs when your vegetables and fruit are harvested. This is why most leftists laugh at vegans. Once again, what are you doing to rectify this? What resources and labor do you put into your free time to help migrants in need?

Last thing I'll say is that imposing your religion and God on people is weird. I do not like that shit as someone who endured this bullshit before. Please stop, I am not interested.

@subnetter @georgia @scathach Why do you consume other animals for food to survive? Why don't you pretend you're better than that as a species like we do in NEOLIBERALISM?

@meso @georgia @subnetter @scathach

Why do you eat animals? We don't do that in Germany.

@subnetter @scathach when you speak of veganism you mean a specific western veganism as promoted by groups like peta. when I speak of veganism I mean consuming no animal products, the literal definition of veganism. so yes, jains who are lacto-vegetarians can be said to be becoming vegan, even though their food restrictions are more extensive and rooted in distinct ontologies. you say you will eat vegetarian in europe, eating vegan is only also refraining from eating milk and eggs, and milk in europe almost always involves animal suffering, forced insemination, and calf killing (while vegetarian eggs can be produced relatively easily with chickens that are happy and often are produced this way in europe, milk production is much harder. I know of only a few farms in europe where the calves get their fill of milk first). you see veganism and vegetarianism as separate (with no justification for why vegetarianism is virtuous and somehow addresses exploitation of humans where veganism doesnt), when they exist on a spectrum of ethical actions within the societies where they are practiced. the reason jains are becoming vegan is because in the jain religion, non-violence is the highest dharma, and milk isnt produced non-violently anymore in india for the most part. so when you say
"the rest of the world and history disagrees with vegan ideology" it is both a fallacious argument from popularity and the past and is frankly untrue, as I said, unless you mean the vegan ideology that all relationships where a person derives benefit from animals are inherently exploitation, which I said I also strongly disagree with. forms of veganism (if they dont eat or use any animal products, they are vegan) are becoming popular or have been popular in east asia and south asia among certain practitioners of the dharmic religions. and western veganism is becoming popular worldwide. to address this to a pernicious western influence instead of it being something that addresses universal concerns is myopic.

you called me calling veganism harm reduction liberal, when its rooted in dharma. why shouldnt a person minimize their himsa towards animals by acts like not partaking in eating them? vegan activism (on the one hand you treat veganism as an impotent series of personal choices, on the other hand, you dismiss the worldwide vegan activism which has led to so many animal rights concerns being addressed by saying "no one agrees with vegan ideology") is just an ethical action a person can take just like a vegan diet. to view not eating meat as separate from freeing an animal as separate from promoting an ideology of freeing animals is wrong. they are all ways a person can do their part. is veganism a systematic plan for healing the world? no, but like I said, one cannot deny that part of healing the world must be ending reliance on eating meat to the extent it is eaten for ethical and environmental reasons.
the land cannot support everyone's current desire for meat, species would go extinct as they did in the past. one must also eat less meat. and so veganism isnt the solution, but its part of it. by making the perfect the enemy of the good, you encourage people who simply do not care at all. also, you contradict yourself in viewing veganism as simultaneously impotent to cause benefit and in causing actual harm to migrant workers. if the choice to not eat meat doesnt address the harm to all animals, then how does the choice to eat more plants harm exploited agricultural workers? and isnt exploited migrant labor also a key part of running slaughterhouses?

you also merge a universal defense of eating meat ("its natural", of course, factory farming is unnatural) with a defense of living sustainably off the land which you claim i have a "problem" with. while you seem to think i have contempt for people who live off the land, completely misreading my post, i said i respect living sustainably off the land as long as its done with proper respect for the animal and the earth. you called this injecting my religion into things, but its not my religion, its respect for religion itself. almost all the traditional hunter gatherer societies were originally animistic, and all that I know of are still religious to some degree, killing for your food without this reverence is capricious. you can still hunt sustainably, but if done irreverently, you are not actually being authentic to the culture you claim to represent.

you say of me "being a hinduboo does not grant you any lived experiences from that culture." actually, I'm not a hinduboo (nice personal attack there), I'm a hindu, and my lived experiences comport with hinduism, though obviously its the hinduism of a convert, not of someone raised hindu. while I definitely can't speak for the diverse experiences of hindus raised that way, I know a lot more about them than you do, and thats how i know that some are taking to (traditional for many yogis and brahmins) lacto-vegetarianism or to a form of veganism based on indigenous ontologies. veganism doesnt have to be western! just like feminism doesnt. in india, feminism is often explained by reverence for the Goddess, while veganism is explained by ahimsa. both are associated with western ideologies but given support by non-western understandings. as for my lived experiences, though they are definitely not the same as a desi hindu, I object to you insinuating I have no authentically hindu lived experiences as a mere "hinduboo". hinduism is the reason I became vegan in the first place, and its why when I stop being depressed and self-interested, I'll be an ahimsa lacto-vegetarian. you claim I'm motivated by western ideology (peta veganism) when I'm motivated by an eastern one (ahimsa). and even though I live in america and this influenced me to become vegan, what so? when one lives in a place where all animal products are produced with cruelty, and this person decides not to partake of these cruel products, are they suddenly a villain for being a vegan and living in that place? they are virtuous for acting more righteous than most of their peers within their circumstances. when I was vegan, I also ate fair trade or avoided products associated with slave labor. we all make the best of our circumstances. one only becomes villainous when they try to apply their circumstances over anothers circumstances where they dont fit. many vegans do this, and I disagree with this. this is why I have defended both veganism, lacto-vegetarianism (traditionally done with reverence and care for cows), and sustainable hunting (traditionally done with reverence for the animal and the earth) under one ontology that is appropriate to all of them. non-violence and when harm must be done, reverence that negates it. it is a distinctively eastern ontology, and it definitely surpasses your ontology of leftism which produced your incoherent views that veganism is both impotent and a source of evil, and that vegetarianism which doesnt address harm to humans is good while veganism which doesnt address it is bad. would you criticize a jain for eating the products of agriculture produced by the labor of the low-caste and casteless, and thereby ignoring casteism?

i for one am not ignoring that exploitation (or, as dharmics say, harm) occurs from vegetable harvesting. like i said, migrant labor is exploited as part of both meat processing and vegetable harvesting, and the western carnist consumes both unethical meat and unethical vegetables, while the western vegan consumes only unethical vegetables, and one needs vegetables but not meat to live, so who is better? to say it again, to care even a little is better than to not care. I also pointed out earlier a way I disagreed with vegans for considering human testing universally better than animal testing, so clearly I am not ignoring harm to exploited humans. anyway, it should be noted that the labor of the desperately poor is involved in all areas of food production and service, not merely vegetable picking by migrants, but still I would never condemn you as "ignoring this exploitation" by supporting migrant vegetable pickers. my personal belief system condemns harm to humans and harm to animals in the same breath, all are conscious creatures with souls. ahimsa means ahimsa both to animals and to humans. all himsa (harm) is bad. in light of this, truly living off the land anywhere is better than veganism as largely practiced in western countries. better for migrants and for the soil. I won't deny that. read what I just said again. but superior to living off the land is living off the land as a vegan, like in shojin ryori.

"What resources and labor do you put into your free time to help migrants in need?" i will ask you, what resources and labor do most leftists put into defending animals? everyone has their preferred causes and their blindspots. I have actually donated to immigrant causes before, though, as well as animal causes. I am not merely here suggesting western veganism is better than western carnism on the internet, a position which is incontrovertible I believe.

I should also note that if what you are defending is hunting for food in the west, that most people in the west who hunt to eat are not living off the land, getting some meat and almost all of their plants from farms. it is incredibly difficult to survive off ones garden unless the person has acres of land and devotes all their time to maintaining it. some people do live this way, but most people do not.

your last position, about "imposing [my] religion and God on people", is quite weak.
there is no barrier between religious truth and other truths where one must stay personal and the other should not, this is a western conceit. its all just truth, its all just ways people understand the world. is a true appeal to God really worse than an appeal to nature, or an appeal to leftist politics? and what that I said do you disagree with from a rational perspective? my religion is very rational and very pluralistic. and finally, imposing irreligion is just another form of religion, except it's one that is overwhelmingly unpopular if you want to appeal to that.