People consider vegans on Lemmy as too preachy. Even in vegan communities here, mods have to remove soooo many inappropriate comments (I read a few of these and they keep getting removed for good reasons). Comments that suggest going vegan on posts about animal abuse are downvoted.
At the same time, whenever there is something about Windows or Chromium based browsers, people here are doing exactly the same. “Just use Linux/Firefox/whatever”.
Use Vegan Fox.
Go Fire.
Is using a vegan fox, vegan?
That depends on what precisely you mean by “use”, buddy.
Because on here, just like on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, people want to feel self superior without actually interrogating their own behavior.
Seems like you’re describing both sides of this argument.
People who went vegan after decades of eating meat already did the self reflection part.
Not the ones who make comments like this.
Nah, I make comments like that and I only went vegan at 28 and after having thought about animal ethics and my consumption behavior. It really does seem like you are saying these things to make yourself feel better.
And that’s what gave you a superiority complex? It doesn’t sound like your self reflection was very beneficial.
See, it’s that knee-jerk accusation that makes people think you are acting this way to not have to actually think about it 🤷
Right. I haven’t made the same choices as you, so I obviously haven’t reached the next stage of human evolution like a superior individual such as yourself.
The decades of propaganda about veganism by the meat and dairy industry is deeply embedded in cultures at this point, conservative culture especially.
People have been trained so thoroughly that they literally have a visceral, irrational response to the word veganism. It’s been made impossible to actually talk about in a coherent way with most people, and lemmy has a lot of redditor refugees who carry that kind of thing with them.
This is a good answer. Too bad people are downvoting it for the reasons mentioned.
This comment borders on some conservative talking about how they’re “being censored for speaking the truth” after rambling about some conspiracy theory or saying something racist.
The person you responded to is basically saying that anyone who eats meat is a brainwashed moron without any agency. I rarely ever see anyone have such a visceral reaction toward someone who claims to be vegetarian. Why do you think that is?
Couldn’t be because vegetarians are kinda chill instead of militant assholes pushing “morality” like christians, no waaaayyyy! /s
You are in the fedi, a fringe social space generally uses by IT focused people. People love their linux here because these instances are probably all hosted on Linux. People are here because they left traditional social media.
I’m not saying veganism isn’t welcome here. You just have a ton of tech people here. If reddit tried to ban vegans instead of punch advertising down people’s throats you would have more vegans instead of people who use Firefox.
Because meat tastes good, and browsers don’t taste like anything?
you should do both tbh
With “use Firefox” people tend to interpret as “try this thing instead, it’s better or will do the thing you’re looking to do”
With “go vegan” people tend to interpret it as “you’re doing something wrong and need to change your habits”.
Essentially, one is seen as a suggestion and the other an attack.
People don’t really love chrome, but they do love meat. Go vegan suggests we get rid of something we love.
Because nobody is calling you a murderer and rapist for using chrome, they’re just calling you “spied on.”
Find a thread where someone is looking for a piece of FOSS software and someone comes in saying “I’ve tried all the FOSS projects, but I find X [paid or not open source] just works better for me” and you will see the reaction you want to see.
Like vegans, FOSS people are a minority community with stiff moral stances and they hold their beliefs for very specific personal reasons. To the FOSS people, suggesting they use closed software is likely the same as when people tell you that you must not be getting enough Vitamin B or whatever because you don’t eat meat.
As someone non-vegan and not overly concerned about FOSS, I’ve had guys and bad interactions with both groups. I’ve had bad reactions when I’ve suggested free but closed source solutions and gotten bad reactions in return, and I’ve shared things with vegans who liked my original things I’ve shared about meat and dairy alternatives and their opinion of me changes when they learn I hunt for food.
People get defensive when you either question their morality or people question your morality. We can attempt to understand others’ actions and beliefs, but we truly only understand our own, and that can make us all act out irrationally. It can be hard to not try to show others why you made your personal moral decisions, and it’s fine to try to share or teach others your values, but there’s a fine line between sharing beliefs and getting pushy about it, and it’s different for everyone.
The simple reason is that most people here already use Firefox, but not most people here are already vegan.
Can you link to some examples of comments that got downvoted unfairly in your opinion?
Go vegan.
Use FOSS.
Use public transport.
Reject flying.
Punch Nazis.
Tone. Use Firefox/Linux/whatever posts also get downvoted when they are to preachy.
Wrong: “If you use Windows/eat meat you are evil, repent now !!11! There are no reasons for any person to be doing it, if you don’t understand that you are a monster as well.”
Right: "I/my company/my dog were using Windows/eating meat and it’s not all bad but the negatives outweight the positives. That’s why I switched to Linux/not eating meat. If anyone else wants to try this is a good way to start: … "
You’re right but in my experience on Lemmy so far, it need way more for Firefox or Linux comments to be considered preachy while pointing out facts like “producing meat leads to animal abuse” is considered too preachy.
I’m not really biased in this since I’m biased towards both equally. Just wondering why everything mentioning veganism in any way on Lemmy (like this post) keeps getting downvoted.
It’s not my experience that anyone mentioning veganism ends with a negative score.
How do you know you’re not just encountering sampling error? Maybe you’re in different communities than where I’m seeing veganism discussed.
This is not exclusive to Lemmy, this happens the same way in real life - when you critique their food choice people tend to get in the defensive. This happens whether it’s about their health, ecology or ethics and of course it gets worse when you are implying that their choices hurt others.
Of course this is not exclusive to food. Everything that is seen as part of your identity leads to this defensive reaction (see politics, sports teams etc.) and they double down on their current stance. I bet vegans would be a LOT more successful if they would be more empathetic toward non-vegans and would approach this topic more tactically.
Often times it’s no different than someone preaching about religion. “You’re going to burn in hell if you don’t accept Jesus into your heart!” isn’t too much different than “you’re a murderer if you eat meat!”
It just comes across as self-righteous posturing.
Better: Bless the meat, damn the skin, open your kisser and cram it in.
Leviticus in a nutshell
Yup. This is not a rule, of course, and is just my humble observation, but vegans tend to be really agressive about that stuff. You will never be able to propagate your ideas if you pressure people right from the start of the conversation.
Your examples would have more similarity with suggesting a vegetarian diet as an alternative to a mix or most meat diet. That would be a functional alternative, like suggesting a different OS or Browser.
Veganism more like a political statement that if you eat meat your are a bad person for harming animals. All vegans may be vegetarians but not all vegetarians are vegan.
I will admit there are many OS and Browser purists that might be more like vegans telling you, you are bad for choosing the one you currently use. There are FOSS purists that only tell you to use FOSS because it is NOT commercial not because the software is better for what you need.
However there’s a huge moral charge on veganism that isn’t there on FOSS stuff unless a person’s very eagerly drawing connections to AI apocalypse or something like that
Well there are almost religious Richard Stallman GNU/Linux followers.
Downloading firefox is easy.
Wish I could download a chili sin carne
