• Blackout@kbin.run
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    5 months ago

    You know that scene in mad Max fury road where women are pumped for their breast milk? Turns out we’ve been doing the same thing to cows for a while.

  • NickwithaC@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    What is with all the anti-meat industry posts popping up recently? It’s starting to feel like an astroturf campaign…

    • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
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      5 months ago

      Most likely more people being aware of it, and then people seeing those posts doing well leads to more posts like that

      Arguably, you should be moreso concerned about the opposite. The industry runs well known astroturfing campaigns:

      NCBA [National Cattlemen’s Beef Association] calls it “proactive reputation management”: a strategy that entails monitoring the internet for messaging opportunities, then leaping in to burnish beef’s image whenever it’s advantageous

      https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/03/beef-industry-public-relations-messaging-machine

      The meat industry has helped fund research and communications initiatives to minimize its links to climate change. And it has organized astroturf attacks on initiatives like EAT-Lancet

      https://newrepublic.com/article/177575/never-trust-green-meat

        • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
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          5 months ago

          There are plenty of other people posting about the meat industry. I’ve seen people making the same comments on places. It’s also in part because many people are just seeing the vegan circle jerk community posts on the all feed. That also shapes perception too

          One example of someone complaining about just that on someone else’s post (comment ended up getting removed by a mod because of other parts of their comment, but you can infer based on replies) https://lemmy.ml/post/16139346/11287396

          • Clent@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Yes. Mostly one topic posters.

            Vegans posting about the meat industry are the like non-gamers posting about the evils of the gaming industry with a dash of moral superiority.

            It’s weird for someone to center their entire online personality around something they do not do.

            • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
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              5 months ago

              The example honestly doesn’t make much sense to me. You take issue with someone daring to want to talk about the worker abuses in the gaming industry? Are we to forbid someone from being passionate about an issue?

              Someone caring about the harm in an industry doesn’t make them think they are “morally superior”. Posting about the harms in an industry is to raise awareness of that harm. It’s not about one self at all

              • Clent@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Your passion is no different than that of the antiabortionists.

                You won’t accept nuance, you don’t want to have a discussion, you want your agenda to be heard and the world to bend to your view of how things ought to be.

                • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
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                  5 months ago

                  I do accept discussion, and rely heavily on source based discussion. I cite nearly everything I say. See how I cited two sources earlier when I made a claim about meat industry funded astroturfing

                  When people have critiques based on their own sources, or methodological/other critiques of the sources I provide, there is a good back and forth.

                  Even when other people never provide a single source, I still converse and provide sources for my claims

                  I qualify my claims to reflect what the data and research actually says. That’s what nuance looks like. When people argue for a specific claim that makes things more complicated, I respond to their claim about that specific issue. That’s also what nuance looks like

                • TheCheddarCheese@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  Look at it another way - do we REALLY need that much meat production? Probably not. Vegans have been living just fine this whole tome, and meat is very resource intensive to produce anyway, so one could argue you’d get even more food from stopping.

                  Is it causing massive issues even aside from the suffering of animals? Yeah, agriculture plays quite a significant part in CO2 emissions. Not to mention the polluting of rivers.

                  Also, I don’t really see your point of ‘they don’t want to have a discussion’. You’re literally having a discussion with them right now.

                • 5C5C5C@programming.dev
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                  5 months ago

                  Your idea of nuance would have us all sitting on our hands while unsustainable industries make the world we live in uninhabitable and put an end to humanity as we know it.

            • Martineski@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              5 months ago

              I don’t commit genocide in ukraine and I very much don’t support it. Why would that be different for animals that are treated even worse?

            • dinkusmann@feddit.rocks
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              5 months ago

              Yeah, and those abolitionists man. Like, I get it, you don’t own slaves. Can’t they just shut up and lay off the slave owners?

              • Clent@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Are you comparing animal husbandry to owning slaves?

                Militant vegans are a silly people.

                • dinkusmann@feddit.rocks
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                  5 months ago

                  Of course not. Animals are inferior by nature and were made to be owned by humans. It’s just the natural order of things. We even have a special word for it. We call it husbandry, isn’t that cute? Just like how a husband owns his wife, women being creatures that act on instincts and emotions instead of reason.

    • 5C5C5C@programming.dev
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      5 months ago

      Astroturfing implies that a corporation or government agency with large amounts of funding are paying individuals or bots to spread misinformation for their employer’s financial or strategic benefit.

      You might not know this, but there isn’t a “Big Vegan” industry with deep pockets to financially support astroturfing. Agrobusinesses that grow vegetation make more money off the meat industry than they would if they centered their produce around vegetarian or vegan diets. Businesses that do cater to vegans barely manage to scrape by and have no margins to support social media manipulation; they barely even have budget for conventional marketing.

      What you’re actually witnessing is legitimate grassroots efforts to inform people about the harm that the meat industry causes. You see “astroturfing” doesn’t mean “a lot of people are saying things I don’t like”. It actually means “grassroots campaign but fake”, hence the name “astroturf”, which is a fake kind of grass.

      • Nimrod@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        but there isn’t a “Big Vegan” industry with deep pockets to financially support astroturfing.

        Well then who keeps sending me all this free tofu with envelopes of cash taped to it whenever I upvote a pro-vegan meme?

      • Riker@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Astroturfing is not exclusive to corporations or government agencies. As you said, it means a fake grassroots campaign. That is it. Normal people can do the same too.

        I’m not weighing on on whether THIS is astroturfing, just saying that is blatantly wrong to say it’s exclusive to corporations or government agencies when human beings will also willingly put themselves into idiotic groups that do idiotic things.

        • Rozaŭtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          5 months ago

          That is it. Normal people can do the same too

          To gain what, exactly?

          Is it really that hard for you to accept that some principled people may be genuinely against something that you tolerate?

          You’re seeing more of it recently because veganism is actually on the rise, both because awareness about speciesism is rising and because of climate concerns. Plus you’re on the fediverse, where the concentration of principled radical leftists is higher than other platforms.

          when human beings will also willingly put themselves into idiotic groups that do idiotic things

          And is this one of those idiotic things? Are you implying trying to reduce animal cruelty in the world is idiotic?

          • Riker@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Is it really that hard for you to accept that some principled people may be genuinely against something that you tolerate?

            All I said was that astroturfing is not exclusive to governments or corporations.

            And is this one of those idiotic things? Are you implying trying to reduce animal cruelty in the world is idiotic?

            Again, all I said was that astroturfing is not exclusive to governments or corporations. The only person implying anything here is you. I even went out of my way to say that I was not weighing on the current situation and was only elaborating on the “definition” that was put forward otherwise.

            If you could stop shoving stances and opinions down my throat that would be great.

        • 5C5C5C@programming.dev
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          5 months ago

          Just because you personally disagree with the goal of a grassroots movement does not mean it is a fake grassroots movement.

          A grassroots movement is very simply a collection of people, usually belonging to a community with a shared interest, who work together to publicly advocate for a particular cause. This is contrast to a powerful or moneyed interest that lobbies for a cause that usually only benefits a small group. When a powerful or moneyed interest is paying large groups of people (or alternatively bot farms) to manufacture the appearance that a grassroots movement is supporting their cause, THAT is astroturfing. The agreeability of the cause has nothing to do with how the strategy gets labeled.

          You have such a tenuous grasp on the meanings of such basic words that you might want to consider hesitating before referring to other people as idiotic.

          • Riker@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            And you might want to read someone’s full message before having a conniption over your own failure of comprehension. I never said I agreed or disagreed with this. My issue was with your definition. I explicitly said that I was not weighing in on this. You were being disingenuous then and are being worse now by attacking me for a stance that you yourself invented.

            It is astounding how you say that I have a tenuous grasp on anything when you openly shove stances and opinions down someone else’s after they already said that they have no opinion

            Flagrantly pathetic.

            Grow up.

            • 5C5C5C@programming.dev
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              5 months ago

              You aren’t weighing in on it while blatantly implying that the group in question is “idiotic”, okay buddy 🥴

              You’re also asserting that my definition was wrong without saying anything about how it was wrong or what would be correct.

              What are you even contributing to the conversation? Why did you waste the electricity to transmit any of the utterly worthless bytes that you did? And why am I wasting my time responding?

              The last question has an easy answer: I have nothing better to do while I poop. But the rest of the questions are truly a mystery.

              • Riker@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                You aren’t weighing in on it while blatantly implying that the group in question is “idiotic”, okay buddy

                Again, I didn’t imply shit. You decided to make that all up on your own. So lemme get the crayons and help you out here, okay kid?

                I’m not weighing on on whether THIS is astroturfing, just saying that is blatantly wrong to say it’s exclusive to corporations or government agencies

                Look at that, wow. Almost like it’s what I said and that I’m not weighing in, huh? Kinda crazy right?

                But nah. You had to ignore that so you could hyper focus on this next part and misunderstand. Then you decided to broadcast your misunderstanding and act like I was saying something else. Instead of asking for any clarification whatsoever, you immediately assumed and acted based off of it. Acted like a child no less. So like I said, here come the crayons.

                when human beings will also willingly put themselves into idiotic groups that do idiotic things.

                Yeah. What part of that implies anything about the current situation? Nothing, right? Right. My bit about saying idiotic groups that do idiotic things was an abstract and not weighing in on the current situation as I stated. I was talking about the act of astroturfing in general with people who group up into moronic little groups and decide to astroturf. Nevermind the fact that I said explicitly that I wasn’t talking about this situation. Just that groups of people can get together and do stupid things.

                Now I’m going to block you because I have zero interest in having any sort of conversation with some backhanded redditor bullshit of “Oh I actually know what you’re really saying. You can’t fool me. I know what you actually meant, not those words that you said, but the imaginary words in my head that I have clearly seen coming from your mouth.”

                You are pathetic. But let me answer your dumb fuck questions now that you have actually asked for clarification. You know, after multiple ad hominem attacks and slew of words being shoved down my throat.

                What are you even contributing to the conversation?

                Well, like I said, I took issue with your definition of astroturfing. It is not exclusive to governments or to corporations. That is it. That is what I contributed. A fleshing out of your disingenuous definition. I didn’t care about anything else other than you acting like people can’t do this type of shit and the only people on the planet who can are corporations and governments. We have seen numerous groups of people go ahead and do this shit. Want an example? Look to literally any election or group of die hard fundamentalists. Neither of those are governments and neither of those are corporations. What they are is a group of people who are neither of the things that you originally claimed were the sole groups that could astroturf.

                Why did you waste the electricity to transmit any of the utterly worthless bytes that you did?

                Again with your absolutely fucking insane levels of delusion. Because I don’t agree with you, it’s worthless. Because you’ve shoved every opinion down my throat other than what I EXPLICITLY STATED, it’s worthless. Not because you are a shitty person who immediately started attacking someone who disagreed with you. Again, you could have asked for clarification at any point (much like you half assed are now) but didn’t. You doubled down on being an asshole.

                And why am I wasting my time responding?

                Because you know I’m right and you are terrified of being proven wrong. You have a serious ego issue where any time someone challenges you, you have a full on fucking meltdown. You are incapable of letting someone disagree with you because you have to have the last word at every possible cost, even if it means you look like an absolute fool and lying about everything that’s been said prior while openly insulting anyone who dares oppose you.

                Like I said. Grow up. Now I’m going to go back to not knowing you exist and living in reality instead of whatever fairytale nonsense you’ve carved up for yourself where you’re the main character who’s always right.

                • 5C5C5C@programming.dev
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                  5 months ago

                  I can’t be bothered to read any of that unhinged raving in detail but this line jumped out to me and the irony is just delectable:

                  You have a serious ego issue where any time someone challenges you, you have a full on fucking meltdown.

                  Clearly I’m the one having the meltdown here 😂

        • 5C5C5C@programming.dev
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          5 months ago

          One person posting a lot is not astroturfing. Astroturfing is about faking the appearance that many different people support the same cause. If it’s the same account doing all the posting then they’re not trying to give the appearance of being many different people.

          At worst you could call it spamming. But personally I hope they keep up the spamming because seeing all troglodyte meat industry shills make asses out of themselves is giving me a new lease on life.

    • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The fediverse is just hugely left-wing and with a lot of far-flung left wing posters to boot. It’s not an astroturf campaign just a place a lot of outsiders gather.

      I don’t know who would pay for this, there isn’t really any moneyed interest that would gain from turning public opinion against meat

    • ArmokGoB@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      Trolls that primarily are active on vegan communities learning they could troll here without the mods telling them to pack it up.

      • 5C5C5C@programming.dev
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        5 months ago

        TIL caring about issues that cause unimaginable degrees of unnecessary suffering and also threaten to end human civilization as we know it is trolling.

  • BigBenis@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    For most of the decade I was on Reddit, vegan support was always met with vitriolic opposition unless it was on a vegan-friendly sub. But the last year or so I was on that platform I remember being really surprised to see a trend towards anti-vegan sentiment becoming the unpopular opinion. I was surprised again once I joined Lemmy to see that anti-vegan culture seems to be the popular opinion here, though I’m noticing there is also a stronger pro-vegan culture than there had been for most of my time on Reddit.

    • volvoxvsmarla @lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      You don’t have to be vegan to agree that animal farming of the 21st century is cruel and we could do better than that

      • trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        5 months ago

        But it’s easier to whinge like a reactionary at the people demanding an end to the systematic breeding into existence of animals for the sole purpose of exploiting and killing when ending that unfathomably cruel system gives me the ickies 😭

        • rbesfe@lemmy.ca
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          5 months ago

          Animals don’t inherently deserve ethical treatment. My only gripe is the carbon emissions, so I just eat lots of chicken

      • trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        5 months ago

        Actually, it’s quite surprising and disappointing how most leftists (or ostensibly left-leaning people) correctly shape their political views around being anti-exploitation and pro-liberation, only to immediately become reactionaries when it comes to ending animal exploitation.

  • doingthestuff@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    More than a third of US children do not live with both of their biological parents. If we are okay with separating human children from their parents, why should we treat cows better?

    • 5C5C5C@programming.dev
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      What an absolutely bizarre whataboutism, so vapid and self-evidently disingenuous that I can’t believe I’m about to waste my time picking it apart, but here we go:

      First of all, rescuing children from traumatically abusive environments is not the same as what the meat industry does to calves. Separation from parents is inherently traumatic itself, but that needs to be weighed against the degree of harm that the abusive parent might do, on a case-by-case basis.

      Secondly, there are certainly cases of the government separating children from their parents that should be protested. Like when Texas defines transgender-affirming households to be committing child abuse and uses that as a reason to forcibly separate the child. Or when immigration control separates migrant children from their parents.

      This might come as a shock to you, but it’s possible to care about and advocate for more than one issue at a time. I don’t know if your emotional capacity might be limited to just caring about one thing, but most people don’t suffer from that limitation.

    • Rozaŭtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      5 months ago

      What a braindead argument. Sometimes bad things happen to human children so we can excuse animal cruelty on an industrial scale.

      And it’s not just the separation, 99% of male calves are killed immediately after being born, while females are either filled with hormones so they can be grown for meat, or they are raped year after year so they keep producing milk.

      • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
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        5 months ago

        For some sources to back that up

        Some of their claims are beyond dispute: Dairy cows are repeatedly impregnated by artificial insemination and have their newborns taken away at birth. Female calves are confined to individual pens and have their horn buds destroyed when they are about eight weeks old. The males are not so lucky. Soon after birth, they are trucked off to veal farms or cattle ranches where they end up as hamburger meat.

        The typical dairy cow in the United States will spend its entire life inside a concrete-floored enclosure, and although they can live 20 years, most are sent to slaughter after four or five years when their milk production wanes.

        https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/29/science/dairy-farming-cows-milk.html

    • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
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      5 months ago

      Not living with biological parents is different than being seperated, living alone in small veal cages, and ultimately being killed as a child for veal as happens for male calves

      We also do not intentionally seperate all child from their parents regardless of circumstances. Maybe a tiny amount from child protective services for abusive parents, but it’s not like the dairy industry is doing so because of abusive cow parents