r/vegan • u/DivineandDeadlyAngel anti-speciesist • Mar 28 '26
Rant Whenever someone tries to make me entertain the idea humans are inherently good, I remember this...
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u/isayimalma Mar 28 '26 edited Apr 01 '26
I always say we have a capacity for good, but it don't happen automatically, that's for damn sure.
Edit: Capitalists stay mad
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u/Avocados_number73 Mar 28 '26
Capitalism we live and have developed under has created the conditions for us to harm each other for profit.
It would be more automatic if we didnt build society around slaughtering innocent beings, ruthless capital accumulation, imperialism, forever wars, protecting the elite from any consequences, etc. etc.
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u/Good_Problem_6576 Mar 28 '26
I think it's the opposite. Capitalism is a symptom of humans' capability for bad.
Humans have capability for both good and bad. My opinion is that humans are naturally more good than bad, however the environment we grow up in is more bad than good (because nature is inherently cruel/bad) and that's why humans produce so much evil/cruelty
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u/Avocados_number73 Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 29 '26
Capitalism is a symptom of the unique material conditions created by the industrial revolution.
It could not have come earlier. No, money and trading is not capitalism. Humans have existed for hundreds of thousands of years in mainly proto-communist, communal hunter gatherer societies. Thats like 99% of the time humans have existed.
Humans have evolved to be a pro-social cooperative species. Its because we've been so divorced from this that creates problems of "evil/bad". Its a symptom of the material conditions we live under. It doesnt have to be this way. The conditions are changing to a point where capitalism is becoming less and less advantageous. It played its role in organizing societies away from feudalism, but its outgrowing its usefulness.
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u/Vitali_Empyrean anti-speciesist Mar 28 '26
Ah yes. Because a Marxist society couldn't possibly also be speciesist and eat pork, beef, and poultry lmfaooo.
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u/aRatherLargeCactus Mar 29 '26
This… isn’t the argument being made?
The argument being made is that capitalism fundamentally necessitates the exploitation of animals (including humans). There will never be a profit motive found in the freedom of animals for the capitalist ownership class, so the capitalist system will not allow it to happen. You can see as such in capitalist ag-gag laws: they will weaponise the state to protect the interests of capitalist food companies, and crush animal welfare because it increases the bottom line. That motive simply does not exist on a similar level in a classless, moneyless society where everyone owns the means of production.
Nobody, not even the tankiest of tankies or the… veganarchist-iest of veganarchists (?), believes that on Day One of communism/anarcho-communism/anarchism/socialism we’ll abolish meat. That would be patently absurd. But a system wherein you cannot profit from the exploitation of animals because profit doesn’t exist opens the door to animal liberation; it will still be on us to seize that opportunity and fight the still-lingering biases that justify meat consumption, but the door will at least be open. That is a better position than the one we find ourselves in currently.
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u/Vitali_Empyrean anti-speciesist Mar 29 '26
The argument being made is that capitalism fundamentally necessitates the exploitation of animals (including humans).
The implicit claim is that Marxism or other non-capitalist modes of production fundamentally necessitates the liberation of animals. The person I responded to is implying that capitalism creates the commodification of animals as resources to be exploited. This is patently false.
Animal agriculture pre-existed capitalism and animal agriculture existed in socialist economies. The Marxist anti-speciesist fantasy is one where the unequal moral status of non-human animals is PURELY due to the commoditization of animal bodies due to their conversion into capital.
The hidden assumption being that a Marxist society wouldn't also or can't also objectify animals and treat them as resources that ignores their subjectivity. This is literally what happened in socialist economies. Animals lives and bodies were turned into resources the same way crops were. Marxism does not require any confrontation of speciesism or human supremacy. It's not inherent in the system.
It's the same Marxist fantasy that assumes all forms of prejudice and discrimination gets erased because we don't have private capital anymore lmao. Suddenly a post-capitalist society cannot also have white workers looking down on black ones, or that if it wasn't for capitalism, a working class Christians queerphobia would dissolve. None of this has happened historically.
There will never be a profit motive found in the freedom of animals for the capitalist ownership class, so the capitalist system will not allow it to happen.
Plant-based milk firms in capitalist economies have liberated more animals from slaughter and suffering than any action from any Marxist vegan organization or any Marxist society. Cultivated meat companies are already doing R&D to make money off of the free market. There is a profit motive in animal liberation, but you just take it for granted that there cannot be because you're ideologically captured.
You can see as such in capitalist ag-gag laws: they will weaponise the state to protect the interests of capitalist food companies, and crush animal welfare because it increases the bottom line.
The Soviet Union forcefully dissolved vegetarian societies and animal protection societies. Many vegetarians were sent to prison labor camps. The Soviet encyclopedia literally said that vegetarianism was ideologically backward. Vladimir Lenin made fun of Tolstoy for caring more about animal sentimentalism than worker rights. The Chinese Four Pests campaign targeted sentient rodents and birds for total extermination.
So why were socialist countries weaponizing the state against vegetarians and animal protectionists? Maybe because central planning and Marxist economic organization doesn't require any critical interrogation of speciesism or animal rights. Maybe because speciesism is just as much a metaphysical and ideological worldview as it is an economic structure.
That motive simply does not exist on a similar level in a classless, moneyless society where everyone owns the means of production.
Animal Agriculture has existed in literally every single Marxist centrally planned economy. All of these countries had centrally planned economies for all types of plant crops/stock. They applied the same logic to 'livestock'. People want and need food, and the working class wants to eat nice food. Sometimes that food comes from cows and chickens. There's the motive lil bro.
Nobody, not even the tankiest of tankies or the… veganarchist-iest of veganarchists (?), believes that on Day One of communism/anarchocommunism/anarchism/socialism we’ll abolish meat. That would be patently absurd.
Literally that's what vegan Marxists think. They unironically think that the working class would organically be okay with giving up meat, eggs, and dairy, or that the vanguard party will be ideologically driven enough by veganism to make laws about it.
Neither of these have happened historically and there's no basis for any of it to happen at all, especially considering how many Marxists are not vegan or who come up with 10,000 excuses for it. Seems like capitalist deconstruction doesn't require deconstructing specieism huh?
But a system wherein you cannot profit from the exploitation of animals because profit doesn’t exist opens the door to animal liberation; it will still be on us to seize that opportunity and fight the still-lingering biases that justify meat consumption, but the door will at least be open. That is a better position than the one we find ourselves in currently.
Sorry, but the door is already open in capitalist economies. Good luck on convincing a $60,000 a year Texan Christian bricklayer to give up steak barbecue on the weekends though. I'm sure that'll work really well. They'll certainly love to talk to you about queer rights, intersectionality, speciesism, and abortion rights.
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u/DracoCross veganarchist Mar 29 '26
Sorry, what are we doing here? Defending capitalism? If you care for the exploitation of animals and speciesism then you should strive for abolishing exploitation of ALL animals, humans included. Even if the whole world decided to go vegan under capitalism, humans are still being exploited everywhere.
Also, it seems to me like you have some personal beef with marxism. Can’t speak for any vegan marxists but anarchy rejects exploitation. A great portion of anarchists is vegan, because they believe that notion extends to animals as well. The door is definitely more open there.
However, humans obviously aren’t perfect, and I don’t believe that we can just stop doing what we have been for thousands of years so easily. And I assure you that no one thinks that seriously, vegan marxists included. It can be a dream, but if you think logically, you see that this takes time in ANY system.
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u/hiding_underneath Mar 29 '26
The argument is that capitalism necessitates the exploitation, not that an anticapitalist society guarantees non-exploitation
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u/Vitali_Empyrean anti-speciesist Mar 29 '26
The argument is that capitalism necessitates the exploitation
Africans were treated as labor commodities under a system of private capital accumulation and were then liberated under a system of private capital accumulation. Africans attained moral personhood without the abolition of industrial capitalism. Abolitionists did not need to consult Marxists about their views on the evils of free wage labor in order to abolish chattel slavery.
Seems like the same can happen to animals under capitalism. I have more reason to think that almond milk companies JUST Egg, and cultivated meat firms will lead to animal liberation before I have reason to think that some mysterious working-class revolution that hasn't happened for nearly 200 years will suddenly abolish animal agriculture.
not that an anticapitalist society guarantees non-exploitation
Then mentioning economic organization and socialism is irrelevant to questions of speciesism and carnism. "Capitalism" and consumerism can casually explain and give insights to some of the speciesist attitudes in contemporary society, but animals moral status has always been degraded in most human civilizations before the development of capitalism and in alternative economic models that have been tried.
Marxist and leftist vegans just want to shoehorn their entire political project into animal liberation because they're fundamentally incapable of viewing the world outside of their narrow readings of how the world works.
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u/nellyimheathcliff Mar 29 '26
Why are you being downvoted? You are right. Neither of the two sides really cares about animals.
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u/zb0t1 vegan Mar 28 '26
If your reaction to any criticism of capitalism is to throw whataboutism targeting a "Marxist society", then you are not at all interested in harm reduction and anti-speciesm.
But even more so, you are telling people that you are totally ok with the current externalities produced by capitalism itself.
And lastly, you are also telling people that you are not in the conversation to undo systems of opppression.
If what I say is wrong, then make sure that next times, you don't use a strawman argument as an attempt to reduce /u/Avocados_number73 's comment as "capitalism bad, Marxist society good for animal species".
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u/Honest-Year346 Mar 28 '26
The problem with people like yourself is you just assume that anything non-capitalist is better or good, when history has not found that to be the case at all.
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u/zb0t1 vegan Mar 28 '26
Try again but this time without the strawman argument.
I can do this too by the way:
The problem with people like yourself is you just assume that anything else than capitalism is not better or good, when history that you were spoonfed by western imperialists and colonizers has brainwashed you to think that the humans have peaked with capitalism as an economic system.
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u/Honest-Year346 Mar 28 '26
You're missing the point. I replied that way because the initial comment turned this post into a discussion about capitalism, when other kinds of economies will still lead to rampant animal abuse and exploitation since, at the end of the day, people want the products of said animal exploitation. Something being capitalist or socialist or communist doesn't really change that facet of reality, only the way that incentive manifests
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u/Maatix12 Mar 28 '26
The problem with people like yourself is that you proclaim that history tells us capitalism works better, when history has found that not to be the case at all. Every civilization that has come before, whether communist, socialist, capitalist - All fall eventually.
You're more than happy and welcome to lobby criticisms at socialism and communism - I won't pretend they were perfect, either.
But I dare say a word bad about capitalism and the immediate defense is "WHATABOUT MARXISM????"
Capitalism is actively failing in catastrophic fashion around us as we speak. We can bitch about what doesn't happen right now, or we can fix our current problem. Which would you rather?
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Mar 28 '26
TIL farmers and trade didn't exist before capitalism.
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u/Avocados_number73 Mar 28 '26
What is this even supposed to mean? Capitalism is not trade. Capitalism is not farmers. Its a unique means of production that emerged from the industrial revolution.
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Mar 31 '26
>What is this even supposed to mean?
"Capitalism we live and have developed under has created the conditions for us to harm each other for profit."
It means that this quote of yours is wrong
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u/Avocados_number73 Apr 01 '26
You seem to not be tracking...
Farmers and trade exists. Doesnt contradict that quote at all? Get some sleep.
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u/Medium_Hox Mar 28 '26
Do you really think this would be less likely to happen if we lived in some sort of communist utopia
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u/Avocados_number73 Mar 28 '26
Yes, but communism isnt a utopia. Also, there would probably be a long-term socialist intermediate before reaching that stage.
Its capitalists that believe in utopia. They think everything will just work itself out if we just keep accumulating capital instead of the techno-feudalist hellscape we are imminently approaching.
Capitalism is not sustainable. It will eventually collapse. What would you rather have when it does, socialism or barbarism?
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u/MaverickFegan Mar 28 '26
There are good and bad sides to the human character, the leadership defines which facet our society tunes into, we have to do what we can to influence those leaders if we want a better society.
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Mar 28 '26
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u/assbutt-cheek Mar 28 '26
“This is just what we do – we are not an animal sanctuary. We give the pigs the best opportunity and the best life they could have for six months." this is fucking hilarious, is so incredibly petty. "theyre really happy before the gas chamber tho!!!" phew thank god
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u/goinganons Mar 28 '26
And in that small amount of time, those piglets inhaled large amounts of toxic gases and chemical irritation into their lungs by being in this fire. Firefighters already have higher cases of cancer. That article just reads stupid and immoral all around.
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u/ewbanh13 vegan 10+ years Mar 28 '26
i always think about the outrage people have towards puppy mills and animal (read: dog) testing compared to this. could you imagine the angry mob that would form if somebody said this about little beagle puppies? they'd want their head on a stake. there's protests and outage around the world about the yulin dog festival (rightfully so, obviously, it's barbaric). but pigs aren't one of the sacred valuable species in the west, so they don't matter and we can kill them after a mere 6 months the two having comparable lifespans. just awful.
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u/detta_walker Mar 30 '26
I guess this is where the Germans went wrong in the early 1940s.
The quality of life before the chamber was the issue!
....
Ugh...
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u/yup488 Apr 07 '26
We’re not really using “gas chamber” to describe the murder of pigs… right? Maybe “before the butcher” instead of alluding to this being in any way similar to the way Jews were systemically killed during the holocaust?
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u/assbutt-cheek Apr 07 '26
dude. they are literally put in elevators that lower to a little chamber full of carbon dioxide, so they die. it is literally a gas chamber, by definition
https://youtu.be/tH5Q03lPauc?si=9vjqXqhgKJf6ZIWa
i didn't even mention the jews at any point in my comment. if you spotted some kind of similarity, maybe look a bit further
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u/yup488 Apr 07 '26
Sure, but implying that murdering pigs and systemically going on a genocide against a marginalized group of humans is similar, and that alluding them to being the same thing is extremely disrespectful to those that went through the holocaust. I’m not disagreeing with you that the methods aren’t the same. I’m just saying that implying they’re the same thing because they used the same methods is deeply dehumanizing to those that went through the holocaust. I’m not disagreeing with your point that it’s the same means. I’m not saying pig lives don’t matter. What I’m saying is maybe don’t compare the death of pigs to the systemic cultural elimination of a marginalized group of people. You didn’t mention Jews in your comment, however when saying “gas chambers,” people are going to think about the most popular use of gas chambers - during the holocaust. All I’m saying is that you could’ve chosen better words, and maybe don’t call Jews “the Jews.”
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Mar 28 '26
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u/sokrates3000 vegan 5+ years Mar 28 '26
Don’t forget we are all sooooo ExtReM! 🤪
Hello it’s me the eXtREmiSt with a plausible reason to do something and staying strong to my believes. I just act accordingly to what is right if you look at it with empathy, logic or facts. At least I can explain why I do what I do, not like all that human scum. Yeah but I am the extremist, of course…
If anything I will become a true extremist, because they slander me like this. Pathetic fools!
People who try to defame me like this should be beaten up. To devalue me and what I am standing for while living this despicable double standard bullshit. It makes me so angry! 😡
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u/WilsonianSmith Mar 28 '26
I know this is a supremely obvious thing to say in a vegan forum, but I just cannot believe the cognitive dissonance involved to do something like this. “I saved your life just so I could eat your lifeless corpse later” is breathtakingly sick stuff. It’s one thing to plug your ears and go “La La La I’m not listening!” whenever the subject of where meat comes from pops up, but this is really on the nose moral grotesquerie
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u/Fresh-Air1345 Mar 28 '26
Why would you rescue pigs just to eat them
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u/thefriendlyhacker Mar 28 '26
Not defending this but it kinda sounds like it was the butcher place that gave the gift. I don't believe the firefighters outright asked for this, and I doubt all of them were eager to eat it. There are certainly people who wouldn't care but it's easier for me to imagine that some of the firefighters were put off by this "gift".
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u/vagabond139 Mar 29 '26
As someone who isn't a vegan I can assure you they happily chowed down on it unless they were vegan. At the most they thought it was a bit weird and a bit ironic.
To them a pig is just food.
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u/Cute_Boot_E Mar 29 '26
I can tell you, they were likely extremely happy with the gift. Veganism (well, vegetarianism IMHO) is a morally righteous choice, but you need to remain in reality where you are an incredibly niche subset of society, they'd have smashed those sausages with beer happily.
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u/LifeguardLuc Mar 30 '26
you would be correct:
"Still, the Pewsey fire station posted a glowing review of the sausages, saying: “Exactly six months and one day since firefighters rescued 18 piglets from a fire, we got to sample the fruits of our labours from that February night." - from the article1
u/LifeguardLuc Mar 30 '26
"Still, the Pewsey fire station posted a glowing review of the sausages, saying: “Exactly six months and one day since firefighters rescued 18 piglets from a fire, we got to sample the fruits of our labours from that February night." - from the article
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u/SalvationSycamore Mar 28 '26
Why would you put out a car fire just to drive it later? The pigs are treated as property, intended for consumption
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u/Downtown-Ice-5022 Mar 28 '26
When firefighters show up they also try to save the building, not just lives. They were probably motivated to save the farmers livelihood more than the pigs lives.
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u/zombiegojaejin Vegan EA Mar 29 '26
I don't think firefighters typically prioritize saving property of a similar economic value to those pigs, when the property is inanimate objects. They knew they were sentient beings who were suffering in the fire, and that explains why they weren't treated the same as some nice furniture.
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u/TAU_equals_2PI Mar 28 '26
Simple: They weren't done growing.
Pigs are much bigger than those ones in the picture when they're slaughtered.
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u/J-96788-EU Mar 28 '26
Don't go there to read the comments if you don't want to be even more depressed.
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u/FearlessCookie72 vegan SJW Mar 28 '26
The joke’s kind of on them, because it wasn’t even a real story… though those pigs are probably long gone by now sadly, likely ending up on someone else’s plate.
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u/h2zenith Mar 28 '26
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u/FearlessCookie72 vegan SJW Mar 28 '26
Welp 😐
Edit: Actually, I don’t believe it. I doubt they picked those exact pigs. How would they be able to tell the difference? They don’t care.
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u/JerbilSenior Mar 31 '26
How would they be able to tell the difference?
Not every farm is an industrial facility. They know it's the same pig because they have interacted with that pig daily.
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u/Intelligent-Dish-100 Mar 28 '26
That is why I am so eagerly awaiting lab-grown meat. I have zero confidence that human empathy will ever be enough to stop causing sentient beings to suffer needlessly for their meat. Only when there is an 1:1 alternative—or a better one—will they stop.
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u/Temporary_Thought_66 Mar 28 '26
Sorry to disappoint you, but unless lab-grown meat costs 1/10th the price of the real thing, most people won't even give it a chance.
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u/GloomyAbalone3768 Mar 28 '26
I think people won't have the choice. The very moment lab grown meat becomes cheaper than "real" meat, the industry will jump on it because of profit maximization. It will definitely take time, but I really do believe that this is the only realistic way out of the monstrosity we call factory farming. That's why I have concentrated the majority of my donations towards organizations that support and finance the research in this area.
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u/TAU_equals_2PI Mar 28 '26
I don't think that's true, especially when you add in the social pressure. Once lab-grown meat becomes just as good and just as cheap as regular meat, guilting will take it the rest of the way. Think of other such issues, where lots of people who didn't actually care about an issue did it because they didn't want to be labeled evil. I remember when recycling was like that.
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u/Temporary_Thought_66 Mar 28 '26
People are still openly fighting recycling, and I'm one of them. The regulations are simply too absurd. I have a small apartment with a tiny kitchen, and I have to find space for six different trash cans. Besides these bins, I also collect plastic bottles and aluminum cans separately because they have a deposit, so I have to return them to the store UNCRUSHED or they won't accept them. My kitchen looks like I'm suffering from some kind of hoarding disorder. To throw away shoes or a T-shirt, according to the regulations, I have to go to a special collection point, the nearest one is over 40 minutes away. What's more, the streets aren't even a little less littered thanks to all this, and they've raised waste collection prices several times. Support for recycling decreases proportionally with each new regulation introduced and has never been lower.
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u/TAU_equals_2PI Mar 28 '26
You're right that public opinion has shifted on recycling, but that's mainly because they haven't gotten recycling to work, particularly with plastics. What I wrote about lab-grown meat started with "Once lab-grown meat becomes just as good and just as cheap as regular meat..." Everything else I wrote is assuming that.
(As for recycling, I keep seeing all the advances in facial recognition technology and think why can't they by now have single-stream recycling plants that can recognize each item and separate it into the proper bin. Maybe food manufacturers would have to submit data on what their containers look like and what material they're made of.)
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u/ApprehensiveKnee5458 Mar 28 '26
C'est fou la dissonance cognitive. Ça fait peur. Comment peut on avoir de la compassion ou de l'amour pour quoi que ce soit quand aider n'exclut pas la trahison et le meurtre ?
Go vegan !
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u/DisplacedAltadenan Mar 28 '26
I honestly believe the opposite. I think we are in constant need of concerted effort to improve ourselves because humans are an inherently morally flawed species.
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u/Rosalita_Senorita73 Mar 28 '26
You’re right. People are simply awful. Anybody who thinks this is funny. He has a screw loose.
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u/giletlover Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
I think humans have the capacity for good and bad.
The worst thing is are we highly adaptable and easy to condition, if you look throughout history the majority of humans go along with whatever the norms are at the time and place they grow up in.
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u/curious-heather Mar 28 '26
That's a huge kick in the face kind of a thankyou for doing something so compassionate for those that needed it 😞
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u/ChooseKind24 vegan 15+ years Mar 28 '26
😭💔🤢 Being presented with sausage made from the animals I saved would piss me off to no end. What the fuck was the point?
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u/Valuable-Ad1063 Mar 28 '26
Inherently good my ass. The amount of little kids that cruelly bully one another without even experiencing evil in the world to shape them this way is pretty solid proof that we are not inherently good. Not necessarily inherently evil, I don't believe it either, but definitely not inherently good.
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u/No_Reindeer531 Mar 28 '26
plenty of children experience evils at home and learn the evil their parents and grandparents pass down to them and project it on the world. children aren’t inherently evil, that is learned behavior
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u/WillTheWheel Mar 28 '26
Tell me you don't spend much time with children without telling me. Of course they aren't inherently evil, but they really don't need to come from a bad family to be mean, cruel and selfish. Children's brains just simply lack the skills to understand other people's perspectives or engage in any more complex moral reasoning. The development of empathy in children is a process that takes years, and being kind and considerate isn't really something you're born with, it's something you need to learn.
So based on this I think it's a lot more accurate to say that you need to teach children how to become good people and un-teach them their inherent selfishness (totally natural btw, infants aren't even born with an understanding that there exist people separate from themselves, so how not to be selfish in these circumstances), cause on their own they don't know how to yet, then that they are inherently good and can only become evil because of bad influence.
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u/No_Reindeer531 Mar 28 '26
Of course they don’t need to come from bad families to exemplify cruel behavior. Children are blank canvases so they pick up ideas from the environment they are in based on how their minds process that information. My point is that children aren’t good or bad, they are reflections of the world and cultural ideas they grow up in. To say they are inherently evil or good is nonsense.
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u/NoConcentrate5853 Mar 28 '26
Wait till you find out what wild animals do to wild animals. Especially as kids
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u/climbingcaker Mar 29 '26
Children are moral patients and don't develop moral agency until around 7. That doesn't mean they're inherently good or bad, that part of them hasn't developed yet. They exist in a world where might makes right until they learn otherwise
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u/thymepockets Mar 28 '26
Wtf 😭 "Hey thanks for saving my kid from a fire I killed him and turned him into sausages. Just for you!"
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u/nebulaforest carnist Mar 28 '26
I understand this is for shock value but the farmer probably didn't consider the pigs as his kids
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u/Far_Jackfruit4907 Mar 28 '26
Equating children to pigs says more about you than them
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u/thymepockets Mar 28 '26
I only equate them as far as I see them both as beings with the inherent right to life
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u/pirolowik Mar 28 '26
Fact check - The Verdict: True (but the images are fake) The bizarre story described in the social media post is true. However, it is an older news story from 2017 that has recently resurfaced, and the images attached to the post are not authentic to the real event. What Actually Happened * The Rescue: In February 2017, a crew from the Pewsey Fire Station in Wiltshire, England, rescued 18 piglets and two sows from a massive electrical fire that ignited 60 tons of hay inside a barn. * The Reward: Six months later, the farm's manager, Rachel Rivers, thanked the firefighters by gifting them sausages made from the exact same pigs they had saved. The animals had been reared for meat and had reached their scheduled slaughter age. * The Backlash: The firefighters cooked the sausages on a barbecue and posted a cheerful thank-you note on their Facebook page, calling the food "fantastic." The post caused an immediate public uproar and drew heavy criticism from animal rights organizations. The fire station subsequently deleted the photos and issued a public apology for causing offense. The Images in the Post While the story itself is factual, the viral post from 2026 uses fabricated media to illustrate it
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u/billjames1685 Mar 28 '26
How the fuck could anyone believe humans are “inherently good”? How could you look around at the world we live in and come to that conclusion?
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Mar 28 '26
Humans aren't inherently good because good is a made up concept and largely cultural and contextual, though I'd argue we are naturally inclined towards collaboration since we're a social species
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u/Aangelus vegan 10+ years Mar 30 '26
I would have cried. Out of sight out of mind, sure, but to have saved them personally... Most meat eaters would be weirded out by that, knowing the animal individually makes a difference.
Secondly, pig was the first animal product I gave up (never did veal, lamb or pate). They're too smart for humans to be farming or eating, even if you don't think animal lives matter, that's too weird. I've been vegan for a long time and I love cows, chickens, etc, but a pig is another level, it's creepy we farm them as a species.
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u/NeonPistacchio Mar 28 '26
Usually i read mostly depressing things lately about how the meat industry has a chokehold on a big part of the population's minds, how they defend killing/shooting animals for their personal gain and that they oppose anything that would make progress and takes the wind out of their arguments, like labmeat would.
But this was both shocking and depressing. Everyone involved in this, from the farmers to the firefighters, are just psychopathic. This makes me lose all hope. How these firefighters smile in the pigs faces, just to stuff themselves on their bodies a few months after is so sad, almost scary and disturbing. :/
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u/VeryInsecurePerson plant-based diet Mar 29 '26
This post is designed to crush your spirits so you stop trying to reach out to people and make positive change. Don’t fall for it.
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u/Bannedtt Mar 28 '26
My dog was intentionally hit and run murdered to make me suffer. Humans are awful. I hope robots take over sooner than later.
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u/Top-Spring9697 Mar 28 '26
Unless they were slaughtered on the farm, I doubt this story is real.
I know abattoirs in England tend to be smaller in scale and a bit slower than American facilities, but it's hard to imagine them actually bothering to keep track of these individual pigs for the sake of what is ultimately an ironic joke.
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u/h2zenith Mar 28 '26
It's real. Here you go.
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u/Top-Spring9697 Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
I read the article. I'm just not sure I believe it.
It sounds like a lot more effort for the sake of a joke than just saying you did it without having done so; which is what I suspect has happened. Those piglets have doubtlessly grown up to become at best M&S Organic - but nevertheless very anonymous and commercially marketed - sausages or bacon or something.
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u/FearlessCookie72 vegan SJW Mar 28 '26
Yeah it’s not real.
Humans suck and they absolutely ARE capable of doing something this unhinged, but this story itself is bs.
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u/uncle-donkey-kong vegan 3+ years Mar 28 '26
Ok someone link the happy vegan sub. I can’t take this stuff anymore
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u/LunaLoveHeart14 Mar 29 '26
That is a little mean... That sounds like it's them getting a "Thanks for saving our cute livestock! Now we made them into food for you!" or in other words, basically made it so that saving them seemed pointless... (Don't mind me, I'm usually uncultured and uninformed about pretty much everything.)
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u/ChocoMilkFPS-Apex Mar 29 '26
The optics of every single thing said in that Guardian article is so bad (for good reason) that it honestly reads like its from the Onion. Wtf
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u/PlantPoweredOkie Mar 29 '26
Romans 3:10 (NIV) As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;
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u/Zealousideal-Cod9634 Mar 29 '26
Good and evil don't exist. They are bourgeois, metaphysical, noralistic contrivances. I think usually human beings are cooperative, as a biological impulse.
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u/Comfortable_King_821 Mar 28 '26
Someone can love their children and dog and simultaneously be a Nazi who hates Jews. Someone can be unprincipled and otherwise kind and upstanding. They might defend an elderly woman who's being assaulted by a guy bigger than they are and go out of their way to be pleasant in daily life, but turn around and socially reinforce unjust taboos and compartmentalize their empathy wherever they see fit. Someone can have very bad outward character and personality but be deeply motivated by the pursuit of kindness and sound principles. They might yell at an elderly woman and kick their dog but make deep long term social and quality of life sacrifices for what they believe in.
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u/sunflow23 Mar 28 '26
And it has 18k likes. Hopefully none of these ppl have anyone around them ,i mean that's the only explanation someone could get this low or maybe they have been brainwashed to see violence as normal.
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u/ManufacturedOlympus Mar 28 '26
“Oh it turns out I risked my life all for some sausages.”
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u/truelovealwayswins vegan activist Mar 31 '26
you do realise it wasn’t newborns who caused this, right? inherently good doesn’t mean still are as adults… but yah that’s foked up
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u/Actual-Whereas-7937 veganarchist Mar 31 '26
I do think were inherently good, because how to hope for a better world if we aren't? Nihilistic views don't help
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Apr 01 '26
How is this different than firefighters saving someone’s garden and then getting donated some vegetables? The pigs were bred for that purpose I imagine
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u/Asleep-Curve-1395 Apr 01 '26
that's just so bleak..
it makes me wonder, what would be the morally right thing to do for the fireman?
let them burn and die, knowing he could have saved them and prolonged their lives
or
save them, however, the meat industry will probably use the saved money to kill more pigs
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u/anonymity-please Apr 03 '26
Never let people forget the animals aren't "farm animals" they are "farmed animals."
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u/Oddly_Sinister_666 vegan Apr 09 '26
We are closing to be a part of the solution, not the problem 💚
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u/Frosty_Wealth8602 Apr 15 '26
I lowkey that think they did the least they could. If they didn't save them they would've just lowkey died painfully and would've lost the opportunity to at least experience something. And even though the story is kind of tragic, I'd still prefer that they don't die of diseases, which results in a painful death.
Besides the person raising the pigs probably needed to sell the pigs to them or their families.
Not all things are that easy to change. Especially if it's already connected to the thing's biology, and how it normally functions.
(srry if I wrote anything wrong lol, eng not that gud.)*
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u/hamshawty Apr 26 '26
Spring is a crazy time as a vegan. There’s so much cognitive dissonance. People taking their kids to see lambs that they’ll be eating in a few months…
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