Mine is retail work. Yeah I get it. You hate it. There isn’t anything that I hadn’t heard before about it by now that hasn’t already been said. Yup, people suck.
But on the same token, I don’t really appreciate the level people go to, to dissuade people from getting into retail work. Job is a job and income is income. You’ll need both of these things. I’ve learned that a lot of the time, people just happen to be employed by shitty stores that are managed by power-tripping people or maybe the team they work with are annoyingly incompetent.
Yet if you manage to find a store that’s worth working in, it’s worth it for however long you want to be there for. I chose to work for retail. I don’t mind the labor. I don’t want a sit-down desk job.
And yeah I work for a big company that has questionable values and has destroyed communities. But that’s really out of my control and because that I work for said company, does not necessarily mean that I agree with it or side with the corporate standards. If I wanted to, I’d go back to school and find something else to do.
And that’s what I advise people to do if they’re so tired of their retail job. Go back to school, it’s really all you can do other than go to trade school to get skills and branch into different careers. Just removed about it all day is not going to do a thing. I used to be like that but all it does was just make me hate everything and there were a couple points where I could’ve gotten fired over it. It’s not worth getting fired over something you don’t really have an investment in.
My two-sided opinion is that as a defence for veganism/vegetarianism, animal suffering is inconsequential. I used to use the example of flies. Would you hurt a fly? If you would, then what gives you grounds to claim that the lives of any “higher-order functioning” animal is more valuable.
My opinion on this became two sided when i learnt that most insects don’t experience pain the same way most mammals do.
Regardless of pain perception: Assuming someone is okay with killing a fruit fly but not a human, they have to draw the line somewhere. And a pig for example is WAY closer to human than to a fruit fly. It’s a sentient being with a brain that’s not really so far from human, compared to the fruit fly which is essentially a tiny biological robot.
In fact, it’s kinda weird to draw the line at humans, especially when there’s such a big overlap between other animals and human children in terms of cognitive capabilities.
I think it’s very reasonable to draw the line after insects, where we can be reasonably certain that there’s no complex thought or sentience. The value and subjective experience of an insect versus a farm animal are hardly comparable.
This, and if you eat vegan, it will also limit the damage done to bugs as a result of smaller land use. I’m vegan with no exceptions, but I don’t really give a fuck about being vegan in some weird absolute way like “can I sit on leather chair at my friends”. Instead of that, veganism is just an attempt to reduce suffering, with full understanding that it is never going to remove it, and that there are other ways to to reduce suffering in the world without being vegan, which I also try to implement in my life.
That’s a fine way of viewing it. I feel like the entire argument is just an attempt at rationalizing one’s indifference to animal suffering (particularly those of farm animals), so iterations of this argument don’t even matter as i doubt many who use this argument would convert if it were proven to be false.
The truth is many meat eaters don’t really care for the suffering of animals that much to stop eating meat which in and of itself could be considered an argument, but that usually results in ad hominem attacks from vegans. I don’t see myself or any other meat eater as actively trying to bring about suffering. It’s just people trying to have a good meal, and killing animals is an unfortunate consequence of that goal.
This is something I think about from time to time and essentially get nowhere.
I try and live-capture and release bugs from my house (the only things I actively kill in this regard is mosquitos).I also hunt/fish.
If I saw a deer trapped on a frozen lake I’d go out and rescue it, yet I’d shoot that same deer in a different place under a different context. It’s not really consistent, except in intentionality I suppose.
I do place a higher value on the life of animals that are more “intelligent” (in a way that feels more human) compared to other animals. For example, I’m not upset at all when I use hand sanitizer and presumably wipe out a whole swath of life, but I’m sad if a bird hits a window and dies. Part of that is the intentionality again maybe? The bacteria “had” to die, and the bird didn’t; I’d feel less bad about the bird if I saw a natural predator take it down but it’s still more upsetting than even unintentionally killing an insect.
I recruit spiders as mercenaries. Don’t want mosquitoes in the shop
I’m not vegan, I’m just trying to eat less meat, but I see this discourse pop up from time to time in vegan communities.
A similar argument is often made regarding what would happen to vegetarians if they learned that plants can feel pain. This is often posed as a hypothetical, but I’ve heard that some studies suggests plants and fungi especially may be aware of when they’re being eaten. Whether or not that equates to pain, I don’t think a consensus has been reached.
But for the sake of argument, let’s say that plants do feel pain while you eat them. If your ethos is to reduce overall suffering in the food chain, then it’s still logical to abstain from meat. Livestock living a vegetarian life eat a lot of plants.
You might alternatively come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as ethical consumption. An extreme position you might take is that the best way to reduce suffering is to remove yourself from the food chain. If you starve yourself, you’ll be consuming less, your greenhouse emissions become zero, and you lessen your impact on social services and infrastructure that is often strained to the breaking point.
Obviously, the solution is not to just kill yourself. But advocating for more ethical consumption seems like a noble cause.
What does ethical consumption look like?
Gosh, that’s actually a big question and not one that I’m sure anybody could come to a definitive, absolute answer.
Ultimately, I think it depends on an individual’s ethics. Some people believe there’s nothing wrong with hunting because it’s just predation happening in the ecosystem. Some people avoid certain ingredients or produce like palm oil or avocados because of the ecological harm. For some people, it’s eating only locally sourced food to minimize the impact of emissions from the global supply chain.
For many people, it’s a murky line between doing what’s right and doing what’s achievable. And as people get pushed to their limits they might not be able to afford the luxury of choosing what’s good.
For my part, I’m trying to do the best I can. Our grocery budget is quite frugal and we’re getting squeezed. Eating vegetarian is often a financial necessity. My wife craves meat, and I’m not going to argue with her body’s natural impulse. So if there’s a bargain or leftovers, we won’t pass up an opportunity.
The sad thing is, I live in a first world country and I know people who are way less food secure than I am.
Another one that kills me is eggs. I pay a little more for the free-range eggs from a factory farm, but I’m still buying from a factory farm. I have no illusions that the conditions of a factory chicken are good, but at the least they’re not battery-caged, so they must be suffering less. But if we were buying from a local farmer, they’d either be too expensive or not able to keep up with demand. We’d be kind of hard pressed to meet our nutritional needs without eggs, so I have to live with the fact that I’m supporting a factory farm
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For that matter while just walking around you will be killing bugs like ants and spiders by stepping on them. Just by taking a shower you will kill microorganisms that live on your body.