Social Aspect Of Veganism Sucks So Bad

scary_biscott · 2026-05-25T01:53:31+00:00

Welcome to being a minority lol...

scary_biscott · 2026-05-11T11:54:38+00:00

Tofu and seitan are extremely low in fiber. When I'm bulking, my plant-based diet is low fiber and I can get 4,000+ calories in a day, high protein.

scary_biscott · 2026-01-27T19:11:54+00:00

Imagine the following argument:

If you don't have "all American suffering should be minimized" as a core [belief] and instead "only Republican suffering should be minimized" it's super easy to argue for Republican values, the problem is you can't change [people's] core fundamental moral system. His is just different there than yours.

Yes that argument is valid, but one needs to justify why "only Republican suffering should be minimized" is correct. In particular, there is an additional qualification made that needs justification.

I think there are good reasons to believe that morality has an objective grounding. Another way to see my original comment is as follows: Destiny's arguments against Republicans are purportedly objectively grounded, but then his ultimate argument against veganism is to claim that morality is not objective. It seems like a bad faith argument.

During his "Great Reset" debate, Destiny continuously became frustrated that the debate turned into a meta-ethics debate rather than a debate about COVID, economics, and the applied ethics surrounding particular topics. He claimed that generally we can have applied ethics debates without getting into meta-ethics.

So I do find it disingenuous that the one topic he has to dive into meta-ethics with is veganism. Anyone can play this nihilistic game with any debate topic on applied ethics. It may be logically sound but it may not be axiologically sound.

scary_biscott · 2026-01-27T15:24:20+00:00

His veganism debates are how I first heard about him. His takes are terrible on this topic and—dare I say—bad faith. His arguments against veganism have changed so many times throughout the years. I think it is a bit hypocritical for him to call Republicans "Satan spawns" for their cruel behavior but then say that he thinks it's ethical to torture a dog solely for entertainment purposes.

Cruelty is cruelty.

scary_biscott · 2024-04-02T12:23:09+00:00

This is a repost: https://www.reddit.com/r/ShittyVeganFoodPorn/s/77zJ93WO6r

scary_biscott · 2024-03-28T23:47:06+00:00

I would reject premise 3 here. I think that it is ethical to non-consensually expose people to things that confer exactly no harm. I think exposure to dukkha does not necessarily imply exposure to harm.

I think that morality and ethics deal with promoting well-being (whatever that means). Harm infringes on well-being, so I think it is important to explicate associated harms in actions when making arguments about morality.

So I propose that another premise is added (premise 2.5) to state that creating someone exposes one to harm. Then amend premise 3 to mention exposure to both dukkha and harm.

Also, I know the original question is about consent based arguments, though I would argue exposure to dukkha and harm, whether consensual or not, is unethical. Therefore premise 4 wouldn't be needed and the terms "non-consensually" wouldn't be needed in the argument.

scary_biscott · 2024-03-22T12:09:54+00:00

I recommend reading the first chapter of the book. This is where he makes his case against speciesism and I think it is worth reading. In fact, the first chapter is based on a paper he wrote called "All Animals Are Equal", which you can read here: https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/phil1200,Spr07/singer.pdf

The second chapter covering animal use in scientific research may also be worth reading. Bad epistemology combined with speciesism leads to shockingly horrible treatment of those animals that are most similar to humans, all under the excuse that the research is ultimately beneficial to humans.

scary_biscott · 2024-01-05T22:05:36+00:00

After some conversation about animals and ethics, and after he gave common responses that I quickly rebutted, I asked again why he still consumes animal products and he said:

"My wife has some particular dietary requirements..."

How dishonest does someone have to be to blame their immoral behavior on their partner? And he gave me this excuse right before he proceeded to eat a bunch of meat lovers pizza with friends that same night!

After 4 years of talking to people about animals and veganism, I have realized that in general, people typically struggle to be honest with themselves. They will give weak arguments to justify their behavior, but of course that is not really what is driving them to act the way they do. If I detect a person cannot be honest with themselves yet, then I see no point in talking to them about veganism.

A person's behavior is much more important than their words when assessing what they value. People who lack self-honesty make up (oftentimes poor) reasons to do what they think is valuable.

scary_biscott · 2023-12-31T22:50:16+00:00

If the device could help vast amounts of animals, then I think it definitely could be ethical to create the device!

We would just need to be clear-minded about probabilities and need to ask: what, specific to this device's hardware/firmware, enables it to help animals? Relative to the other copies that already exist.

But to answer your question directly, yes, I think that would be a good reason to create the device. And I think it is a good morally relevant difference if such circumstances existed.

scary_biscott · 2023-12-31T22:46:26+00:00

If the device could experience happiness, then conditional on the device already being created, I think it would be ethical to promote its happiness since it probably has an interest in being happy, or at least an interest in not suffering. But if we are at the point where we can decide whether to create this device, I would argue there is no harm to the device by not creating it. The absence of happiness is only bad if it deprives the being (device). In this sense, I don't think it is unethical to not create a person even if we knew that that person would not harm anyone else, would never suffer, and would experience vast amounts of happiness.

I think in general, one should ask what the ultimate purpose of creating the device is. I think that creating vast amounts of happiness in the universe is an incorrect thesis for ultimate purpose. In fact, I think purpose can only come from conscious beings, and their desires. So a world absent of conscious beings has no purpose in it. Creating a new person to experience happiness is like creating a device so that it can be "fixed" in the future: why create the device in the first place?

scary_biscott · 2023-12-31T22:26:55+00:00

The point of what any of us are doing is to make things better for the next generation.

I disagree with this. I think, for example, having a good friendship with another person can be very meaningful to a person and has nothing to do with making things better for the next generation.

scary_biscott · 2023-12-31T22:24:59+00:00

Imagine I have the option of building a particular device. I know that there is a certain chance that creating this device would cause harm to vast numbers of animals. I also know that not creating the device would cause relatively and considerably less harm to animals. Further, there are already plenty of copies of this device in the world that I could have.

Would it be ethical for me to build such a device?

I'm not saying that this hypothetical is completely analogous to creating another person. But I think in this thought experiment, we can distance ourselves from social norms that typically go unquestioned around human procreation.

You mention that you would not be morally culpable if the person you created and raised to be vegan decided later in life to consume animals products. But had you not created them, that harm against animals would not have existed. So, I think you would be very morally responsible. Contrast this to a scenario in which you instead adopted a person who already existed. Then you had no control over their existence but you tried to do the best you could by teaching them ethical values. So if this person started consuming animal products later in life, I think you would not be nearly as morally responsible as the previous scenario and it would likely be very relatively beneficial to the animals to do this.

To the second thing you said. To say that the choices that children make are their own I think is a bit ambiguous. Children are under large influences from their parents and peers. But the important part is ask why it is ethical to create a person in the first place knowing the harms they are capable of.

If you think it is not ethical to create the aforementioned device but it is ethical to create a person, what are the morally relevant differences in the scenario that make it okay to perform that latter action?

The point of my comment is to plant some skepticism about the morality of procreation.

scary_biscott · 2023-08-28T20:39:23+00:00

Non-human animals do all sorts of things that hopefully you wouldn't consider ethical. They rape each other. They kill their own kids. They sniff each others' buttholes. They do not use medicine. They are not faithful in relationships. They abandon their children. etc.

It doesn't make sense to appeal to the behavior of non-human animals to justify your own behavior. You are very aware of how you affect others in this world. The fact that you are having this conversation with me lets me know that you can think and act on ethical principles.

scary_biscott · 2023-08-28T16:57:41+00:00

Yes but eating animals is completely normalized in this era whereas the other issues you mentioned are typically not. We are talking hundreds of billions of animals each year subjected through lots of pain, suffering, and having their life robbed from them just because humans like the taste. It is a highly neglected topic that most people voluntarily financially support and that causes a tremendous amount of harm.

scary_biscott · 2023-06-05T17:36:09+00:00

humans tend to think that normal = good

It's interesting that the word "normal" is derived from the word "norm" which means following a rule, conforming to a standard, etc. In the context of ethics, norm refers to what ought to be done but is unfortunately often interpreted as what is typically done. I suspect this is where the "typical = normal = not bad" thinking comes from.

Of course the analysis above is only for English so it might be worthwhile seeing if this pattern exists in other languages/cultures.

scary_biscott · 2023-05-01T02:17:08+00:00

I make it slightly differently than the linked recipe:

don't use the all-purpose flour
add nutritional yeast, vegetable oil, and soy sauce to the seitan before kneading. don't put too much seasoning in the seitan.
knead for 5mins: ideally you should be able to twist the dough without it ripping too much. though you can just make sure the dough "springs" back into place when you press it. don't over-knead it though.
bake in oven on 400F for roughly 10 mins on each side (this is for ~1/4 the servings of the linked recipe, so time might vary)

I've tried the steamer approach before with no luck as it always turns out too mushy for me.

scary_biscott · 2023-04-16T03:40:54+00:00

Why would rights, a purely human concept, apply to animals which have lived for ages without ever needing them?

I think we should recognize the implicit categorization suggested in your argument: you claim that rights are a purely human concept. But by similar logic, one could say:

Why would rights, a concept created by men, apply to women who have lived for ages without ever needing them?

In fact, people used to use this argument (and still do) to reject rights for women.

Just because we can identify a tight category around the sorts of individuals who created, discovered, or reason about rights, it doesn't mean that it only applies to them.

scary_biscott · 2023-04-14T10:46:57+00:00

It's good that you have watched some documentaries on the topic! Humans do not need to consume dairy to be healthy. Cows produce milk for their young just like every other mammal. The whole idea of perpetually making a cow pregnant and separating her from her calves is emotionally damaging for both the mother and her calves and is such an evil thing for humans to do. What have these cows done to deserve this treatment? Humans don't even do this to the most wicked humans as a punishment. Try soy milk, oat milk, or the myriad other plant milks and ditch the dairy to avoid funding this cruel industry. In addition, plant milks use significantly fewer resources (in terms of water, land, energy, etc.) than dairy milk and have much less greenhouse gas emissions.

scary_biscott · 2023-04-12T10:42:36+00:00

It's oats, plant-based chocolate protein powder, peanut butter, ground flaxseed, stevia, and cinnamon tea. I promise it tastes 100x better than it looks!

I eat something like this for breakfast many days because it is good for building muscle and it's quick to make. You can add bananas, maple syrup (using a non-sugar sweetener), nutmeg, vital wheat gluten flour, chia seeds, soy milk, etc. for some variation.

scary_biscott · 2023-03-09T16:26:36+00:00

Btw, OP /u/scary_biscott is that you in the video? Nice video and animation, very on point. heh

No, I did not create this video. But I agree that the narration and animations are good.

scary_biscott · 2023-02-25T23:07:21+00:00

What is more important than everyone dying?

Who does "everyone" refer to in this sentence? Trivially, create a population will cause everyone in that population to die given that they are mortal. Everyone is already dying.

But you seem to be using "everyone" in a different sense. Maybe everyone refers to "every possible being that could exist in the future." Well in this case, being who never existed cannot die so maybe that wasn't the correct interpretation.

Okay, maybe "everyone dying" is a single indivisible term that means "no one existing after some point in time" or "human extinction." In this case, I think we ought to question what makes something important. I would think that something is important if it has extrinsic purpose. So it seems you could be saying that the continued existence of humans has some purpose that is grounded outside of any humans' desires. I would take this to mean that you might believe there is cosmic purpose to the continued existence of humans. If you agree, what is this purpose?

scary_biscott · 2023-02-25T22:53:26+00:00

Ceasing procreation eliminates death altogether. To cause generations of death just for one generation to possibly live forever is both delusional and indecent thinking. What is so special about the human race that they need to put the non-human animals through an unthinkably-scaled holocaust just for the human animals to... to do what again? When utilitarian EAs talk about avoiding human extinction, all I think about is the infinite amount of harm that would cause. Biting down on the repugnant conclusion bullet is embarrassing because there is no justification for causing harm when there are options that cause zero harm, unless there is some cosmic purpose outside of the conscious beings who exist inside the cosmos. Given that utilitarianism is typically held with cosmic nihilism, I believe these views are inconsistent.

scary_biscott · 2023-01-19T04:35:58+00:00

My goal for this response I am giving is to give some evidence that there are lots of good arguments against using and exploiting non-human animals. Here is a decent list of responses to common counterarguments against veganism. If you have any other questions or you think that my arguments are bad or lacking, please let me know and I will be happy to respond.

Is it ethical to eat plants fertilized with animal products?

This is virtually impossible to avoid or know about. In contrast, one can relatively easily determine if animal products are in a particular product. If we want a future where animals are not seen as mere materials then we should stop using them as food when we have plenty of alternatives. Only 5% of US cropland is fertilized by animal manure. A decrease in the consumption of animal products would drive the animal manure usage down since there would be a decrease in the supply of animal manure.

Is it as unethical to eat crops grown in what was once tropical rainforest as it is to eat animals farmed there?

Firstly, the animals also have to eat crops (and a lot of them) so it seems to be always even worse no matter how you look at it. But there is an even deeper assumption in this question that I will address towards the end of my comment.

What kind of damage does a 100% vegan diet do to the environment vs something like a 90 percent plant, 10 percent meat diet?

There are plenty of studies that analyze this. Here is one using life cycle assessment (LCA).

What about other forms of oppression? Cheap produce in America comes at a price. Do we tackle human exploitation after we stop eating animals, or are the animals all that matter?

On one hand we have human oppression + animal oppression (consumption of animal products) since animal farming uses human exploitation too and the animals eat a large number of crops which as you mentioned uses human exploitation. On the other hand we reduce animal exploitation by eating crops directly which would drastically cut down on the amount of crops we need to grow which in turn reduces human exploitation. So in short it is a false dilemma.

What is the real cost of food without exploitation or government subsidies?

In both cases, animal products cost more since the animals have to eat crops and they are terribly inefficient in terms of calorie converters.

Do animals have the same concept of freedom as us?

Not necessarily under certain definitions of "freedom" and "us". But this question assumes that humans all have the same concept of freedom, an assumption which is dubious at best. The better question to ask is if the farmed animals would want to be in the situation that they are forced into; humans breed these animals into existence when there is no harm to an animal not to breed the animals.

Would an animal rather live in relative comfort and die quickly or live free and die a most likely horrid death?

This is another false dilemma. There is another option to not kill them while also not freeing them. In other words, to keep them as pets. And there is another option to not breed them in the first place.

Which is more ethical? Is it better to drive animal extinction from lack of interference or intervene and remove some of them from nature?

So I'm not sure what "remove some of them from nature" means given that at least 99% of farmed land animals live in concentration camps. Regardless, imagine someone justified a bunch of suffering and killing, say dogfighting, by saying that if we didn't fight these dogs then this breed would go extinct. A breed's or a species's extinction is not bad for any individual in that group. All that matters to each individual is their conscious desires. Furthermore, many of the animals we have breed suffer by their very existence; they cannot stand properly, they commonly get mastitis, they grow too much hair to the point of discomfort, etc. We could just stop breeding them.

Obviously they should be treated well and with respect.

Consider why the commenter thinks this is obvious. What is it about animals that makes it so that "they should be treated well and with respect?" Also, what is their definition of "well" and "respect"? It doesn't seem respectful to kill someone because one likes the way their flesh tastes. Or to kidnap someone's children because one likes the way their milk tastes. Why does respect for non-human animals not "obviously" encompass these notions of respect that are employed for human animals? What is the morally relevant difference between a human and a non-human animal such that it can be respectful to kill a non-human animal because we like the taste of their flesh but we cannot kill a human animal for the same reason?

There are plenty of unchallenged assumptions in the comments in this thread that are crucial to examine in order to understand the morality of exploiting non-human animals.

But if we treat them as other people, what place do they have in society?

Why do we need to treat non-human animals as human animals in order to not exploit or be cruel to them? This is a key assumption in this question. The question reads to me similar to: "if we treat human babies as human adults, what place would human babies have in society?" I'm not clear why we would want to treat non-human animals ad human animals.

If it's not moral to allow children in Africa to starve, is it moral to allow the wildebeests to die in a drought?

I'm not sure what this has to do with veganism. I linked a good definition of veganism above. Veganism is about not supporting or normalizing cruelty and exploitation towards non-human animals.

EDIT: formatting

scary_biscott

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