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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • In these conversations I always get to an impasse because yeah, capitalism is very flawed and produces many horrible outcomes. But communism has failed to work at all (as far as I know). Last I spoke to a communist as passerby was asking for what my conversation partner thought was a example of true communism, to which the answer was “the very start of the Russian revolution”. I won’t pretend to be the most informed about history, and I know that there has been much interference from capitalist countries, but if communism were so clearly a better system would it not have stably worked at least once? I’m having a hard time understanding why that’s a better goal than the countries that seem to reign in capitalism with at least some success.



  • As horrible as those people are, it’s not like they’re just belching carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for fun. They’re fulfilling demand. That 40% wouldn’t disappear just by spreading ownership of the factories to more people. That’s not to say that individual action is the only thing that works. Regulations need to be put in place to curb emissions, incentives should reward producers for investing & transitioning to more sustainable practices, and yes, monopolies need to get split up.

    But the fact remains that some products are just bad for the environment. As as long as people continue buying those products they’ll keep being produced. And when animal agriculture accounts for about as many emissions as the entire transportation industry, this seems like one of the easier steps to make.

    The “my actions won’t end this problem so I don’t need to do anything” mentality never comes up in any other field (politeness, crimes, social change, voting). Yeah, choosing to never hold open doors for others wouldn’t noticeably affect the global rate, but I doubt you’d use that logic to justify being rude.




  • There are high caloric tasty vegan foods available, and when they are not it’s usually because they aren’t in high demand. How is the onus not on the consumer for picking animal products over those?

    I’m all for vilifying the Animal Agriculture industry, they do some terrible stuff that goes way beyond the harm intrinsic to factory farms. But how exactly would they meet demand without factory farming, a brutally efficient way of producing animal products?

    Governments should cease subsidizing animal products (maybe help their producers transition to other production), subsidize other foods more, and enact many other policy changes besides. But in most places it can be cheap and delicious to be vegan now. I don’t see how you get around personal choice being the main driver.


  • There are many problems in the world. Some people like to focus on the ones with the largest impacts, where you can personally do something about it (like veganism). Others like to focus on those where few cause grossly disproportionate harm, as they seem more addressable (like private jets).

    Debating the merits of focusing on one problem over another is interesting, but in my mind the time for it is not when media is being shared that bolsters a cause without coming at the expense of any others. It hurts all movements when people always undermine issues, pointing to another more important from their perspective.

    I highly doubt that most people think you aren’t doing enough for the environment. And I don’t understand why you’d assume that as the implication of this article.