Vegans being banned and comments being deleted from [email protected] for being fake vegans.

From my perspective, the comments were in no way insulting and just part of completely normal interaction. If this decision reflects the general opinion of the mod team, then from my perspective, the biggest vegan community on Lemmy wants to be an elitist cycle of hardcore vegans only, not allowing any slightly different opinion. Which would be very unfortunate.

PS: In contrast to the name of this community, I don’t want to insult anyone here being a ‘bastard’. I just want to post this somewhere on neutral ground. I would really appreciate an open discussion without bashing anyone.

Linking the affected users and mods: @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

  • rbn@sopuli.xyzOP
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    10 hours ago

    There is no debating on the side of allowing a restaurant to serve meat on a vegan messaging board.

    In an ideal world I’d love to have only vegan restaurants and everyone being vegan globally. As this is not within my power, I am looking for a way that benefits veganism the most.

    I think the easier it gets to be vegan, the more people will get on board. If you get vegan options only in specialized places in big cities, that will make it hard for anyone not living close to that or being part of social cycles not 100% vegan.

    If a purely vegan restaurant survives economically, I am more than happy. But if they don’t, I definitely prefer them to add a few omnivore dishes rather than closing completely and getting replaced by another steakhouse.

    I don’t think having this opinion makes me any kind of bad vegan or fake vegan but I’m happy to hear your points if you think otherwise.

    • arcane potato (she/they)@vegantheoryclub.org
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      10 hours ago

      I think the piece of information that is being missed is that VTC is inherently anti capitalist and therefore the concept of “supporting businesses” so that they can survive doesn’t really make sense in that context. (See link Hamid posted)

    • jet@hackertalks.com
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      10 hours ago

      Just in the context of trying to get a work group to go to lunch, finding a place that fits everyone’s diets is tough, so if a place exists that is one, and only one, diet type then big groups wont be able to go there for business events or catering. Depending on the location, that could be a huge revenue source missed.

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        7 hours ago

        Is there anyone who would genuinely be unable to find something they can eat at a vegan restaurant?

        • Zagorath
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          6 hours ago

          “Can eat” is different from “would want to eat”.

    • 🏴 hamid the villain [he/him] 🏴@vegantheoryclub.org
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      10 hours ago

      Veganism is in its core a boycott, so that is the default take. I don’t live in a big city so I don’t go to restaurants. If you read the link I posted, I think there are a lot of problems with restaurants that go beyond veganism and they are offensive to me as an anarchist. I strongly dislike businesses, business owners and I like to do things for myself. To that end the more I lean on a life of compromise the less I feel is being done. By organizing pot lucks, friends dinners, participating in my local Food Not Bombs and promoting home cooking I am building an alternative to the carnist structures in our world that is more meaningful than making an individual decision to go to a carnist business and give them money that they then invest in more carnist businesses. This is also why I don’t really like buying products labeled “vegan” from meat companies or buying impossible burgers from Burger King, we aren’t convincing them to switch, we are participating in horizontal segmentation where they carve out two markets from one that don’t cannibalize each other. I used to have the meeting notes from an shareholder meeting at Burger King where the CEO explains this but I lost it in my international move a few years ago among all my boxes of computer stuff. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/horizontalmarket.asp

      I think adding meat dishes to a vegan restaurant and still calling it vegan is offensive and anti-vegan. If you want to go to restaurants then I guess that is a compromise you have to make for your own reasons but I don’t think that it is vegan decision in scope. I don’t attack people online or in person for it but I don’t think you’d be a good fit for a community of radical vegans and anti capitalists. I probably wouldn’t remove your comments from a message board like he lemmy.world one which is basically a vegan news community and appeals to beginners and transitioners but I would remove it from my instance. There is no requirement to go to restaurants in this world and my life got more interesting when I stopped going to places like that.

      I think the easier it gets to be vegan, the more people will get on board.

      But if they are not participating in the vegan boycott, are they on board? I’ve been a vegan for a long time and understand people are at different places, that said the biggest problem is recidivism. The longer you go as a vegan making compromises the less likely that you’re going to stick with it. For me this meant that at one point I needed to actually change my life and social groups to align with what I believe instead of forcing what I believe into a world that doesn’t agree and is hostile. For me this was a good decision, I made new friends, I have new things to do and I’m far more socially active as a mid 40s vegan in my vegan world than most of my old friends and coworkers are.

      • rbn@sopuli.xyzOP
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        29 minutes ago

        Veganism is in its core a boycott

        Yes, it’s about boycotting animal products and abuse of animals. But from my perspective, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you must boycott everything that is indirectly related to it. Of course you are free to do that but if your moral compass only considers 100% vegan restaurants acceptable, wouldn’t the same rules apply to supermarkets, hardware stores, workplaces, service providers, friends, family etc.?

        If you cut all ties to the non-vegan world, you’ll… a) find yourself pretty isolated and b) will be having a hard time to inspire non-vegans to jump on board

        offensive to me as an anarchist. I strongly dislike businesses, business owners and I like to do things for myself

        That’s fine and I’m also on board with many of these things. Still, being an anarchist or anti-capitalist isn’t a prequisite to become vegan. IMO also Donald Trump can (and should!) become vegan, independent of his political world view. I guess we both agree that his other political world view is pretty fucked up but that should be seen independent of his veganism status.

        I think adding meat dishes to a vegan restaurant and still calling it vegan is offensive and anti-vegan.

        100% agree. But from my perspective, neither myself nor any of the other commenters did call that restaurant vegan. That was never up for debate.

        I don’t think you’d be a good fit for a community of radical vegans and anti capitalists

        If the community was called ‘c/radicalanticapitalistvegans’ I’d agree. But neither the title nor the description nor the community rules imply that ‘c/vegan’ is adressing only this target audience.

          • AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works
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            7 hours ago

            Isn’t that akin to saying ‘Muslims boycott pork’. A boycott implies you’re doing it temporarily with the purpose of achieving some change in the boycotted party. If something is a core way of life to you, it’s no longer a boycott, as there is nothing the boycotted party could do that would change your mind.

            • 🏴 hamid the villain [he/him] 🏴@vegantheoryclub.org
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              6 hours ago

              there is nothing in the definition of boycott to say it is temporary https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/boycott

              Verb

              boycott (third-person singular simple present boycotts, present participle boycotting, simple past and past participle boycotted) (transitive) To abstain, either as an individual or a group, from using, buying, or dealing with someone or some organization as an expression of protest.

              Muslims are absolutely boycotting pork and everything that is haram. If they could they would make the whole world Muslim and prevent pork from being produced. This is a boycott.

              • AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works
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                5 hours ago

                Temporary, in the sense that if your goals were achieved, you would cease your boycott and return to your normal habits. In your case, these ARE your normal habits, hence there is no boycott to speak of.

              • Zagorath
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                6 hours ago

                I agree with you that a boycott need not be temporary. But it does need to have the goal of ceasing the thing being boycotted or something related to that (e.g. secondary boycotts). Muslims and Jews don’t think pork should be prohibited. They simply make a personal choice not to partake. That’s not a boycott, any more than me not eating shellfish because I don’t like the taste is a boycott.

                  • _cnt0@sh.itjust.works
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                    3 hours ago

                    At least it is apparent that you misname and follow veganism with as much zeal as any religious zealot. Feel free to block me, too ;-)

                    On a more earnest note, and with as much compassion as I can muster for a divisive extremist like you, your usage of the term “veganism” is a perversion of what a majority of people associate with it. I’d strongly recommend you to always prefix it with “political” or “extremist”, or you’re always bound to lose by default in any argument with anybody outside your bubble because you’re pretty much talking a different language.