#cognitive disonance

[acti-veg]

I can't understand how some people can raise animals to be killed & spare a few of those animals bc they like them & even treat some of them as pets. I've seen this with dairy cows (not caring when their male sons are sell for slaughter) and with rabbits bread for meat and fur. How can one treat some of them as beloved individual but not the others ? How does this cognitive dissonance last ? (To be clear I'm talking about people who chose to do this, not when it's for survival) 1/2

When I got a rabbit it was the final push to become vegan: rabbits are still eaten by (usually) older people in my area. But here I was loving and bonding with this individual of a species that some people only consider as food and who bread them in tiny dirty cages in their backyard. If you become friend with one of them, how can you disregard the rest of them ?? 2/2

I find it very interesting that there are so many articles articles and discussions on how ‘not to get attached to your farm animals,’ and much of it bares a startling resemblance to advice that is given to people managing human prisoners. This is what 4H encourages for kids as young as five. It turns out that humans will naturally connect with animals, you have to actively work to prevent them from doing so.

For non-farmers what tends to happen is that people stick to pretty rigid categories in their head, rabbit = pet vs pig =food. This is why we see so many of those comments on every video showing a farmed animal just bring their normal fun selves, about how ‘omg that cow things they’re a dog so cute 🥰🥰🥰.’ With members of the same species it’s definitely much harder to understand how that is maintained.

Prolonged exposure to the animals they think of as just being food is problematic for maintaining these strict categories, and there are so many instances of actors/writers/workers going vegetarian or vegan after working with farmed animals and recognising their rich emotional lives. For everyone else, it honestly makes me a little sad to think how they really can’t let themselves have an emotional connection with the animals they want to eat, because they’re missing out on something truly transformational.

[modern-day-psychics]

Happy Valentine’s Day!

[sweetiepie08]

Me: I like movies with an intriguing, well-thought our plot, deep character development, and gorgeous cinematography/animation.

Also me: Wanna see The Meg bc big shark! Big big shark! Shark big! Big big shark! 🦈🦈🦈🦈

[acti-veg]

I saw this tiktok that was like "no ethical consumption" doesn't mean you should make the worst choices you possibly can w no accountability or self-reflection. Even you can't entirely divest from fast fashion, you still need to do what you can to make less-harmful choices, and it had thousands of likes. Someone in the comments was like "this applies to animal products too" and ofc it had well below 100 likes and most of the replies calling them classist/racist/ableist, etc. (1/2)

(2/2) the cognitive dissonance must be making their heads spin.

There is absolutely nothing left-wingers despise more than someone has their own values and logic to speak up for a cause they don’t care about. This is why veganism is so hated in left wing spaces specifically, because they are dominated by leftists who still choose to eat animals, while calling themselves environmentalists and animal lovers. They recognise that veganism is precisely in line with their own values and that eating animals is not. Cognitive dissonance is the only thing protecting them from having to reflect on that fact.

[acti-veg]

Whaling in Japan

There has been an international outrage over the fact that Japan could resume whaling as early as next week, as well there should be. It’s interesting to note though, that Japan has essentially just been making the exact same argument that hunters, fishermen and meat eaters themselves have been making for decades: It is part of our culture.

Really, how is this any worse than commercial fishing? The Japanese whaling fleet is comprised of five vessels employing only 300 people, compare that to the fishing industry, with trillions of fish killed and an estimated 300,000 dolphins, and porpoises dying from entanglement in fishing nets each year, making this the single largest cause of mortality for small cetaceans. The fishing industry is far, far worse for whales than whaling itself is, it is emptying our oceans and causing catastrophic environmental harm. Even in terms of raw impact, whale meat comes at a substantially lower carbon cost than beef, which a fact that Japan themselves are pointing out in their own defence.

It is right that the Japanese government and whaling industry should face heavy criticism over this, but it’s deeply problematic that they can pretty much blunt all of this criticism on the basis that the rest of the world is doing the exact same thing, for the same reason, just to different animals. This, alongside the dog meat industry, is the sort of activity which can’t reasonably be argued against if you’re already eating other animals. While the whaling industry absolutely should be opposed, I think that we in the West should be less concerned about what other cultures are doing and worry far more about the animals on our own plates.

[modern-day-psychics]

Alas, he lives!!

(Alin is open for questions)

[modern-day-psychics]

Hi Alin! Where are you from? :)

[modern-day-psychics]

That is NOT paint