I’ve had a certain debate a few times where you might say we argue over the “semantics” of the meat industry.

I am what you would call a vegetarian. While vegetarians won’t eat things that caused harm to produce, a vegan won’t eat anything having to do with an animal. A lot of those who would fall under the latter category hate us because they say anything that remotely resembles someone enjoying an animal product is supporting the meat industry which then kills animals, which means merely eating an animal product makes someone a murderer.

Meanwhile, there’s this concept many call piracy. It’s the idea that, as the meme proverbially puts it, “you can download a car”. The idea here, which I say in the way I do because there’s still an ongoing debate about it, is that it affects nobody. But then there’s the whole industry thing I mentioned. People on the other side of the debate often say “well what about the industry”. I’m not sure where on the scale in this topic you might put me, but I feel like there’s a glaring contradiction here. When it comes to animals, people think of the industry, but otherwise that’s not a factor.

My question is… why?

  • Pantherina@feddit.de
    0·
    1 year ago

    So to the first paragraph. Thats called freegan and not vegetarian I would say. Its debatable because if you said “no I dont want to eat animal products out of ethical reasons” while still having a good contact with the people offering you that, you might move them to being more ethical. If you dont mind in this case, they dont even see that you would not really do that, so they think you do nothing big, your influence on them is not existent. At the same time you are actively socially strengthening their believes, as “even a vegetarian eats animal products sometimes” and thats “just human, we are not perfect” bla bla.

    So even though its tempting, freegan is a difficult construct.

    Then to the piracy. Do you really pirate movies or games made by 3 people in some garage? I would just buy those lol. And not giving people money, so exploiting their selfchosen work, is not comparable with killing living beings.