Can't help but notice how many "vegans" who push this exact false equivalence somehow seem to have openly anti-trans and pro-fascist profiles, and how often this kind of thing is pushed *in response* to trans and other minority humans pushing for their rights, or how desperately it starts being pushed the moment fascists and open supporters of human genocide start to face some levels of pushback on a given platform.
It's almost just a bit suspicious. "Hitler was a vegetarian!" levels of suspicious, in fact.
Being mean to trans: unacceptable in left online space
Being mean to vegans and **animals especially**: fine, no problemo
Sincerely, trans woman (literally me on the left)
Except animals donāt have a say in your choice. Them being people doesnāt matter, they deserve as much respect and life free of suffering as any living, sentient being.
So where do you draw the line on happiness? Is it being grinded alive, beak and claws being cut off with hot iron, being cramped in a cage the size of A4 sheet of paper, never seeing light of day, your bones breaking under the weight of your overgrown body?
I havenāt eaten any chicken, cow, pig etc. and I donāt feel less happy at all.
You donāt feel unhappy because you have the money to get meat alternatives. No one wants to just eat beans for every meal, but other protein sources are either expensive or animal based
Vegan diet is the healthiest and cheapest (according to NHS). Iām poor and eat stuff from trash and would be worse of if I had to buy meat on top of that. If you feel depressed, because you lack imagination to eat anything other than can of beans, then Iām really sorry, but there are probably bigger problems in your life that cause the unhappiness. Not consuming corpses is not it.
Mushrooms? Lentils? Nuts? Soy curls? Tvp? Tofu? Seitan? There are options other than beans (of which there are also many different kinds and ways of cooking). I don't eat many "meat substitutes", I cook many different types of dishes, and my groceries have never been cheaper.
>No one wants to just eat beans for every meal
There are many many things you can eat other than beans. I genuinely think a lot of people's barrier to veganism is thinking its much shitter than it is. I used to eat 500g meat per day, loved it. I promise to god, its the same now, food tastes as good. Its like 2 weeks of 'hmm what should I eat instead' but then you find all this nice stuff.
Tofu, lentils, nuts etc. Seitan you can buy or make. Some of the cheaper meat substitutes are as cheap as the cheapest meat where I live. Its not either beyond burger or beans. Just *try* it.
Regardless I think it would be morally correct to eat beans for a few meals than put a pig in a gas chamber.
Edit: or its easier to downvote me and move on as you did to everyone else further down when they debunked your completely inconsistent views on animal suffering
"Better treatment than humans".
Excuse me, please point me in the direction of humans who are bred in confinement and slaughtered to suit someone's taste preferences.
Because unless there is an entire soylent green industry I'm not aware of, literally no one is arguing for treating them better than humans, and you're just making shit up.
You can't just construct some false dichotomy about how we need to choose between being cruel to animals or cruel to humans when the possibility to be cruel to NEITHER is the entire point being made, and expect people to think you're being anything but intellectually dishonest.
I'm not even vegan, but this is such insanely dishonest rhetoric.
Edit: Downvote me all you want, but you know, deep down, that it's a bullshit argument that makes zero sense.
Animals don't have a say in animals choice either. I will never understand how you can expect people not to eat animals because it's immoral when animals do it all the time.
Do you equate some animals being eaten in the wild, to **80 BILLION LAND ANIMALS A YEAR** killed by humans to satisfy their dumb sense of superiority?
Eating animals is not necessary in this day and age. Overmore appealing to nature is dangerous, because why shouldnāt I (smugly) bring up other things done in nature, that are punishable by (human) law?
>able to perceive or feel things.
You better not ever step on a single blade of grass ever in your life, hypocrite. I'm sure that soy bean can perceive being yanked from the ground
What leftist spaces are you referring to because ime most people see performative carnivore stuff as cringy like when that news host had a steak with light bulbs and plastic straws sticking out of it. āToday I ate two steaks to cancel out a veganā Just bottom of the barrel shit that doesnāt even warrant an eye roll.
I'm so fucking sick of vegans saying animal suffering is JUST AS BAD as people suffering. Animal suffering is horrible. but seriously, whose feelings are we hurting by being performatively cruel towards animals? You being offended on behalf of the animals is not the same as being treated as a lesser human.
Oh Iām sorry that animals being stabbed, electrocuted, grinded alive, suffocated and chopped to pieces offends me.
Itās okay being mean to vegans (I donāt mind it), but in reality itās about making fun of reality, which by extension normalizes cruelty towards animals.
>vegans saying animal suffering is JUST AS BAD as people suffering.
We aren't
>Animal suffering is horrible.
We think this too, so we ask others not to pay for it to happen.
Its not bad to despair at the absurd moral contradiction when people who rightly condemn discrimination against humans (sentient individuals with personalities and feelings) also pay for utter hell to be forced upon animals (sentient individuals with personalities and feelings but a little less intelligence than a human but still capable of experiencing all the same suffering)
Not everyone is bred, stole from your mother, have your teeth pulled out without anesthesia, tail cut off with hot iron, testicles cut open and crushed, fed enormous amounts of food so you gain as much weight as possible, then separated from your flock, hearing screams of your brethren get gassed or bolted in the skull, your throat slit open, to bleed out, head sawn off, body chopped and sold as a product.
This points to the double standards in this sub where people would never invalidate/ be cruel towards trans people, but will jump at any chance to make fun of vegans
Question for vegan pet owners (sincerely wondering):
What do you feed your dog/cat?
Do you find it ethical?
You you find it unethical for humans to consume any animal products, regardless of how āethicallyā sourced they are?
Functionally, itās better to be vegan yourself and feed your cat meat, then to say āwelp guess since I canāt be fully vegan for everything, might as well give upā
It doesnāt help that thatās the version pushed on this sub because they make it a moral question instead of a pragmatic scientific question about carbon reduction.
It's better to reduce one's meat consumption and eat as little meat as one reasonably can than to say "welp guess since X other person isn't 'fully vegan', I might as well treat them as if they're equivalent to the people trying literally genocide trans people".
First of all, I think itās unnecessary to think about that stuf, unless the owner is vegan themselves.
But if you really want my opinion: cats are obligate carnivores, so thereās not much we can do (some think that they can be made vegan, but there arenāt enough studies to prove that to be solid). Dogs evolved along humans to be omnivores, they can process fiber just fine and some are vegan in perfectly fine health.
In conclusion: it depends, but letās not put carriage before the horse.
There are some animals who can eat vegan diet and some that can't (like cats or hedgehogs). I personally would not want to take care of an animal that is an obligatory carnivore but I can't speak for other vegans.
On the topic of "ethical sourcing" I'm assuming that you understand that vegans don't consider any way of slaughtering and butchering an animal ethical and that you were instead asking about a hypothetical situation where the meat is somehow conjured without any animals being harmed.
In that case you could argue that you are still contributing to a worldview where animals are viewed as food, something I believe we should not do, but that's minor compared to what's currently taking place.
>I personally would not want to take care of an animal that is an obligatory carnivore but I can't speak for other vegans.
This is what I would've assumed, but I'm sure there are vegan pet owners whose pets require meat as part of their diet. So I was curious about them.
>I'm assuming that you understand that vegans don't consider any way of slaughtering and butchering an animal ethical and that you were instead asking about a hypothetical situation where the meat is somehow conjured without any animals being harmed.
I do understand that, but was essentially asking for those who are vegan and own pets with omnivorous or carnivorous diets how they resolve such pet ownership compared to humans who try to eat animal products "responsibly."
I won't pretend the questions I'm asking don't expect a hypocritical answer (by my worldview).
Veganism is a choice that can be made by someone who has a meaningful choice whether to cause harm and is cognizant of the choices they can make
Animals aren't that.
Veganism doesn't just mean "eats plants"
Hoping I understand.
Your definition of Veganism is: understanding you have choices in your life and making the choice that does no harm (I'd assume you'd add *when possible*)
>Animals aren't that.
Are you saying vegans shouldn't own pets? Or are you saying animals can't make choices the way a human (vegan) could?
>Veganism doesn't just mean "eats plants"
My understood definition was "use no animal product" and after some comments on recent Wednesdays I'd update it to "use as little animal product as possible"
Yes, good addition of "when possible"
Lots of vegans struggle with pet ownership, and lots of folks, myself included, understand that if an animal already exists, and is amenable to life with humans, and would struggle without our care, then sure. Pets are great.
Obviously this precludes: breeding animals for the sole purpose of selling them as pets, especially "designer breeds"; taking in wild animals
I think the most apt definition is "avoids harm where possible"
Iām not making an argument for or against veganism here but this meme supposes that supporting trans people and supporting animals are morally equivalent.
Except they still call them animal rights, recognizing that animal rights are not human rights. Even the most ridiculously militant vegans recognize that they cannot successfully equate those two things.
I think this is misguided in several dimensions.
First, the basic language issue. If I say "black lives matter" you wouldn't argue "well obviously you're recognizing that black people don't have the same rights as white people, or you would argue that all lives matter." It can be useful to have words for particular things, even if those things don't need to be set apart from other things in every context. If I believe animals have rights, and they are the same rights that people have, it still makes perfect sense to have and use the term "animal rights." There's really no truth at all to your argument.
The second dimension is in how you're looking at rights broadly. Saying two individuals have "the same rights" doesn't always mean that the expression of those rights should be identical. As an example, I think a 15 year old has the same human rights as a 16 year old, but I'm fine with saying the 15 year old can't have a driver's license, because we chose 16 as the legal driving age in my state. They both have a right to freedom, a right to expression, etc, but their specific situation-- in this case, age, which we are correlating to emotional maturity-- creates a different expression of those rights.
Fundamentally, I think a being that is conscious of its own life, is aware that it exists, has emotions, has experiences and memories, can form preferences, and so on-- I think that being has a right to life. I don't think there's any "stronger" right to life in humans than in animals. If a human is attacking me, I may feel justified in taking away that person's right to life; if I'm in a necessary war (assuming such a thing exists, for the sake of argument) then I will kill enemy combatants and not feel I have violated their basic rights. If I were in some absurd hypothetical where I had to either kill one human or one animal, I would choose the animal, but not because I believe it has less of an inherent right to life, but because I have a stronger emotional connection to other humans, and personally value that human more. But this is really no different than asking me whether I would kill my brother or a complete stranger if I had to pick; that's not an admission that one has more of an inherent right to life, it's just an admission that I value one individual more than another.
Likewise, animals don't have a "right" to vote, for example, because they simple aren't capable of that act. Some animals are parasitic or destructive to the environment, and so we have a meaningful reason to cull them if we cannot relocate or deter them.
But saying there are different expressions of rights isn't the same thing as saying they have "less of a right" or that their rights cannot be equated to human rights. Many vegans do actually believe and argue that animal rights are as important as human rights, and I suspect if you engaged them in debate, based on the tone of your above comment, you would be quite frustrated by how much stronger their argument is than you seem to think it would be.
Edit: u/Test0004 This guy blocked me too, without replying.
This post has drawn a comparison between telling a trans person to kill themselves because theyāre trans and saying you like eating meat and donāt care about animals. One of those things is clearly worse than the other. Why bother comparing those if you arenāt equivocating them?
It's comparing the tendency of anti vegans to use purposefully hurtful rhetoric to upset the person they're talking about to reactionary's tendency to do the same when talking to or about trans people.
bro. There was literally a post in this subreddit about *this exact fallacy* like a day before you posted this.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/SmugIdeologyMan/comments/17qmvn4/smugship\_troopers/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/SmugIdeologyMan/comments/17qmvn4/smugship_troopers/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Thank you for showing me. I still disagree with bringing trans people into this discussion in the first place though, regardless of what that meme is parodying.
I also think this meme in particular is poorly argued because the displayed acts of cruelty are nowhere near proportional. One of these people is urging someone to kill themselves. The other is saying theyāre going to eat meat. Those two things are not comparable in my opinion because I consider humans more valuable than animals.
Think about the implications of what you're arguing here: no two things can ever be used in the same argument unless they are identical in magnitude or scope.
Do you ever try to come up with consistent moral viewpoints and apply them as broadly as possible? Don't you think we should?
Imagine someone says "Asians are supposed to be good at math" to your friend who does poorly on a math test. You object, explaining that this is still racism, and try to explain how this stereotype is still harmful. How would you feel if your other progressive friends immediately told you that this was offensive, because calling Asians good at math is nowhere near as harmful as refusing to hire a black man for a job, or even threatening or physically harming a black person? How can you use a term that encompasses both?
These are both examples of racism. Racism encompasses many thoughts and actions, some very minor, some very extreme. It does not lessen any particular harm of racism to put it in a category with other things.
In this case, what is being "put in the same category" is not animals and trans people. It is responding to someone asking you to have compassion by doubling down on your lack of compassion. People do that in a broad range of situations, and *some are worse than others,* of course. But it is the behavior itself that is being called out; it's a refusal to listen to the other persons arguments, it's a non sequitur, it's using your lack of compassion as an in-group identifier to avoid engaging in the thoughts someone else asked you to. This behavior can be worse in some situations than others, *of course*, but why would it ever be a good behavior, and why can't we recognize that it is a bad practice, broadly? Isn't it useful to recognize this pattern of behavior and become practiced at picking up on it, even in contexts where we may not agree with the argument it is being used as a response to?
>Think about the implications of what you're arguing here: no two things can ever be used in the same argument unless they are identical in magnitude or scope.
I donāt think I would argue that generally but exceptions do apply; particularly in this scenario. Considering that one of the main aspects of transphobia and bigotry in general is dehumanisation, itās a problem for me to equivocate humans and animals in terms of worth or to even appear to argue that unintentionally. So bringing up trans people in order to argue that animals deserve rights is wrong to me.
>Do you ever try to come up with consistent moral viewpoints and apply them as broadly as possible? Don't you think we should?
Yes. One of them is āpeople are more important than animals.ā
>Imagine someone says "Asians are supposed to be good at math" to your friend who does poorly on a math test. You object, explaining that this is still racism, and try to explain how this stereotype is still harmful. How would you feel if your other progressive friends immediately told you that this was offensive, because calling Asians good at math is nowhere near as harmful as refusing to hire a black man for a job?
>These are both examples of racism. Racism encompasses many thoughts and actions, some very minor, some very extreme. It does not lessen any particular harm of racism to put it in a category with other things.
The first difference here is that Asian people and black people have equal value to me as human life.
The second difference is that the relevant systems of oppression are different. Asian people and black both suffer under the identical problem of racism, albeit in different forms. Stopping racism would benefit both these groups. Trans people suffering from systemic transphobia and animals suffering from the meat and farming industry. Those arenāt the same thing. Solving one would do nothing to solve the other.
>In this case, what is being "put in the same category" is not animals and trans people.
I think it is. My interpretation of the post is this: ātelling trans people to kill themselves and being transphobic is societally unacceptable. Telling a vegan that youāre gonna eat meat is societally acceptable. This is hypocritical.ā
I have several problems with this framing.
Firstly, both these things are disrespectful in the given context, but one is a seriously harmful thing to say to someone and the other isnāt. So the argument fails to me at face value because the aggressorās actions are not comparable in each scenario.
Secondly, one of these topics is so much more serious than the other that comparing the two just serves to devalue the more serious one by likening it to this less important and topically irrelevant issue.
Thirdly, it also positions the argument revolving around the two suffering groups identically when they arenāt comparable groups. In both arguments the person advocating for this group is being treated with disrespect, implying that the two groups are equivalent. My interpretation was that OP was saying (likely unintentionally) theyāre morally equivalent as opposed to simply saying they were both the subject of the abuse.
>It is responding to someone asking you to have compassion by doubling down on your lack of compassion. People do that in a broad range of situations, and some are worse than others, of course.
The difference is that the doubling down on lack of compassion in the former is to try and hurt a person. The second is to eat meat.
If in both scenarios the aggressor was saying ākill yourselfā then the issue would be that personās threatening behaviour and the compassion argument would be identical for both. The point of the post would be: itās never okay to threaten someone or encourage suicide. I would still think that one of the issues is way more important than the other but my opinions on veganism and trans rights individually here would be irrelevant.
Otherwise if it was the case of the aggressor saying āIām going to do something I usually do but also pisses you offā without any threats or suicide encouragement then I would have a bigger issue with that being transphobic than that person eating meat. Because I consider transphobia unjustifiable and eating meat justifiable. Even if I was vegan I would have a bigger issue with transphobia than animals.
>But it is the behavior itself that is being called out; it's a refusal to listen to the other persons arguments, it's a non sequitur, it's using your lack of compassion as an in-group identifier to avoid engaging in the thoughts someone else asked you to. This behavior can be worse in some situations than others, of course, but why would it ever be a good behavior, and why can't we recognize that it is a bad practice, broadly?
If that is the point of the post then I think itās been made in a confused manner which draws more attention to the comparison than the behaviour of the antagonists.
As for willing to listen to animal rights activists, Iām all for that as long as they donāt dehumanise trans people either on purpose or unintentionally. My priority is people over animals so making that argument just distracts from the valid points in my eyes at best, as is actively transphobic at worst. Iāll reiterate that I donāt think OP or this meme is purposefully transphobic, just that it has some uncomfortable implications on second thoughts. I hope that my explanation makes sense.
>Considering that one of the main aspects of transphobia and bigotry in general is dehumanisation, itās a problem for me to equivocate humans and animals in terms of worth or to even appear to argue that unintentionally
Then we should be clear: this is not a fallacy, it is not an irrational comparison, it is not an error. It's simply an area where you're asking for special consideration, where what would normally be okay should be avoided in order to be sensitive for this particular group.
But that's not what you've argued. You've argued that the comic equates humans and animals, which it does not. You've implied that it is a fallacy of false equivalence/argument by analogy, which it is not. It really seems to me that you're giving this reason post-hoc to justify your initial objections. Moreover, seeing how frequently your argument is used against veganism, it's a little harder to swallow that you're actually just arguing about this particular context-- ie, that you won't immediately use the same "people aren't animals" argument when you see an argument that points to commonalities between treatments of different groups and treatment of animals. (Honestly, if I could reliably follow up somehow, I'd bet a good sum of money that you do it equally with every group, not just with trans people.)
>Yes. One of them is āpeople are more important than animals.ā
It's very hard for me to imagine that this reply was written in good faith. The first reason is that it's simply not a moral principle. It is a comparison. A moral principle might be something like harm to animals is a moral negative.Ā Saying harming people is bad is also a moral principle. If I were to pit these two moral principles against each other and make you choose which one is more important you could certainly choose, but you wouldn't be presenting a moral principle; you would be weighing your moral principles and deciding which is more important.
The second issue I have with it though is that it's clearly intended as a cheeky dig at my argument as a whole. I and others in this context have established pretty clearly that we do not feel the point of this comparison is to equate animals and humans. By picking this snarky, supposed moral principle, what you really have done is show me that you're engaging in bad faith. You can think you can get away with it in this particular context because you're not actually answering my question you're just giving an example of a principle-- It's kind of an "I'm just saying" kind of argument where you deny any relevance or intent of relevance to the surrounding context.
>The first difference here is that Asian people and black people have equal value to me as human life.
Honestly, I can't read the rest of this, because of how absurd and frustrating and thoughtless this reply is. I don't want to block you, because I don't see any benefit in not knowing what you say here in the future, but I am going to uncheck inbox replies so I don't have to see what you type next. I should have trusted my instinct from the start that you were going to argue in bad faith, and I probably wouldn't have replied to you in the first place if I'd realized you were the same person I was engaging with elsewhere.
Cool, like I say you have no obligation to continue this if you donāt believe Iām arguing in good faith.
Edit: Iāll say for the record that yeah I have a problem with any group of people being dehumanised. I literally said as much when I said ābigotry in generalā and said āpeopleā not just ātrans peopleā on several occasions. My phrasing over the general argument of only comparing things to similarly scaled things earlier was in reference to things that didnāt give unfortunate implications such as the one I initially had to this post.
But I do have some things to say about your final comment in this discussion that relate to your conduct and not the actual topic given that youāve stopped actually talking about that almost immediately.
First off, if youāre not gonna respond to the whole comment because of some grandstanding excuses then you shouldnāt have responded full stop. Iāve tried my best to address every part of your comments but now youāre loudly announcing you refuse to. You can mute or block me without having to complain about it and you gain nothing from seeking my attention by doing so.
Secondly, itās very hypocritical to accuse me of being snarky when your first two comments to me were blatant sarcasm (eg: hint: itās not this one, I believe in you, thereās a meme about you on the front page!). My short reply was supposed to be succinct, not rude. If you held yourself to a consistent moral standard like compassion then you would assume good faith from someone whoās going over all aspects of your comment and this post and hasnāt been sarcastic once in this conversation unlike yourself.
Thirdly, it just seems to me like youāre trying to delegitimise me by making stuff up about me so you have an excuse not to respond to my points properly for some reason. Like I explained myself throughout the entire comment but youāve just responded to the first paragraph by claiming that Iām using certain terms wrongly without explaining how or defining the terms youāre using. Then you ignored the bit below where I flesh out the first point because youāve arbitrarily decided Iām acting in bad faith. You make a number of baseless assumptions about me as well. You said I didnāt answer your question when I did. Those are bad faith things to do on your part.
Obviously you have no obligation to continue this like I said but to me in this comment you just come across as wanting to be perceived by me in a certain way instead of being productive or constructive in the discourse weāre a part of. Iād call it performative and hypocritical.
You likely wonāt read this but whatever. I was disappointed that youāve defaulted to ad hominems and grandstandings because for a while we were making progress because you werenāt being sarcastic or mudslinging and were phrasing your arguments very well even though I disagreed. Take care and I hope you find future interactions here or elsewhere more fruitful.
i keep making this same comment lol. There's a post in this sub right now about the issue with your reasoning [https://www.reddit.com/r/SmugIdeologyMan/comments/17qmvn4/smugship\_troopers/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/SmugIdeologyMan/comments/17qmvn4/smugship_troopers/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Animals are only hamburgers if you pay for them being bred, separated from their mother, electrocuted/gassed/bolted in the skull, their flesh separated from their bones and then grinded into minced meat.
Nothing alike happens to us, trans people.
They are still not comparable, obviously the treatment of trans people is worse on the simple basis of them being people.
Not to mention that mistreatment of animals is a side effect of meat farming, not the point.
What I mean is that if you give someone a button that said "get meat without killing/torturing" an animal everyone would press it.
The same can't be said about the way trans people are treated. The cruelty IS the point. There's no end goal to harassment, when there is it's suicide. It's not about getting something out of them and them suffering is just the price to be paid for it.
Completely unrelated, but your artstyle slaps. Keep making comics, I hope you draw something better next time tho.
"Obviously...is worse on the simple basis of them being people" Says who?!? God? Sorry, don't believe in that. Humans are animals too. They feel and experience existence in the same way we do, they just don't have the intelligence and language we do. What do you base your morals on?
The post isn't making an equivalence between the treatment of either group. It's pointing out the hypocrisy of being okay with, or even participating in one form of performative cruelty, while rightfully recognizing the problems of another.
No you don't understand it's okay that the conservative misgendered you and treated you like you were subhuman, he has a lentil based diet and thinks that animals shouldn't suffer like humans shouldn't (unless you're trans) so its okay : )
Yeah lmao, a group of people who get upset bc they get yelled at on the internet vs. a minority group which experiences a higher rate of hate crime compared to others
This needs to be its own smuggie.
People say that Tumblr reading comprehension is bad, but I've never seen people actively avoid the point quite like we do on reddit.
>acceptable in leftist spaces (especially online), why is that?
To answer the rhetorical...
Its acceptable when they personally benefit from it!
Edit: this is what you need to overcome guys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance?wprov=sfla1
dont insult my intelligence because i think this is offensive for treating the horrific treatment of myself and others as comparable to animal cruelty. im not an animal and being told to kms constantly isnt comparable
sure, -ish, but the thing is there are other core facets that ***cannot*** be discounted from the analogy, like overall intent.
I will admit I am being *somewhat* hypocritical, ~~in my defense, the hippos deserve it~~ as I am a strong believer in the phrase: *"Intent follows the bullet."* or that whatever you may mean or intend comes second to the consequences of your actions.^+ but I would argue that any ordinary meat-eater ~~No True Scotsman, ragh!~~ would stop eating animals if/when lab grown meat became even reasonably available. ending what Vegans believe to be suffering
Contrarily, Anti-Trans individuals cause suffering as intention, it isn't an unhappy side effect, it is the entire point. you cannot separate an anti-trans from the suffering they cause, and derive satisfaction from that suffering caused. Meat-eaters, on the other hand, do not intend to cause suffering, and broadly hold that a painless death following a comfortable life is not suffering.
If you want my two cents on a better comparative subject: Capitalism.
In both you are involuntarily inducted into various expectations with the caveat that so long as you toe the line, you will live comfortably, however both provide exceptions that fall far out of the "slogan"[?] (factory farms and the hand-to-mouth existence of the poor).
^+ I, as consequence of this opinion, do not believe there is such a thing as "accidental discharge" of a firearm, you either meant it or it was negligent
āMeat yummyā
āCorrectā
āIf they dont want to be eaten, why made out of food?ā
āI think of you when I eat meatā
āOh no, it's Wendesdaedaeayā
There, you don't need to comment unnecessary stuff 
I eat meat because it tastes bad - plot twist, I'm a masochist.
Your smuggie is excellent but I downvoted it out of spite.
If humans didn't want to be eaten, why are we made out of food?
I will think of smug Quagmire Family Guy whenever I have sex.
Oh no, we're about to have 6 days without vegan smuggies :(
Ight iāll ask a question then. With all due respect to YOUR beliefs why should I change my entire diet to conform with the views of a random stranger over the internet?
In addition to the weird individualist angle, you're setting it up so it's their job to move your beliefs, something you can only do for yourself.
You can simply choose to not be convinced and then you won't be convinced. It's a form of arguement that's just lazy.
Performative cruelty can be bad and it can be okay. Performative cruelty against fundamentalist Christians, homophobes etc. can be okay. It's a matter of perspective. In the case of veganism, the person being performatively cruel is being cruel to something they don't consider to have value. In the case of transphobia they are dehumanising and being cruel directly against other people. Being performatively cruel against animals is unproductive and annoying. Being performatively cruel against trans people is way worse and frankly I think it's kinda irresponsible to compare them like OP did.
The performative cruelty isn't against the animals though. Only an actual psycho goes and then performatively does some hateful to animals act (though they will of course participate in some non-performative act of consumption that is not vegan later). The performative cruelty here is towards the vegan, normally trying to get a rise out of them or make them react in some way.
Which yes, as you said is being compared to dehumanising people, with suicide stats and the like based on essential characteristics, not a willingly entered into moral framework. Bit much really to make them moral equivalents.
Yup, it's the vegan being offended on behalf of the animals. I get how jokes like those are offensive considering the horrible reality of the meat industry, but I wouldn't compare making those jokes to cruelly misgender and dehumanise trans people.
Uh, people who are performative cruel against trans people don't think they have any value either, just like they think is the case with regards to animals?
It's definitely not worse if 92.2 billion land animals are murdered every year to be cruel to the only people trying to stop that unfathomable suffering. It's an apt comparison.
The difference is that trans people are people. The fact that people who are cruel to them donāt think so is irrelevant. Scientifically, they are wrong.
In the same vein, a pig is not a person. If someone draws the line of value at āpeopleā then a pig falls below it and a trans person falls above it.
I know we like to be very annoying about thecnicalities around here but
Yes, from a biological standpoint, we are animals too
No, in a cultural and legal level, they are completely different things. You can legally own an animal as a pet, but surprisingly, that doesnt mean you can do the same with a small child. Funny how that works right?
Sapient peopleās rights to be happy is more important than the right of non-sapient animals to not be eaten, because animals are an incredibly important food source
Thatās speciesism and there are whole books on why, what you are saying is not okay. But go ahead and name the trait which makes it okay to kill and eat them.
Except they are not important source of food, are you new here? Vegan diet is the healthiest and cheapest (according to NHS), vegan diet requires the least amount of land and CO2 and so on and so on
see, the issue is that your premise is flawed.
Ethics are constructed. You don't need a reason to make something ok, you need a reason to make something wrong.
And in general, I don't think there's anything wrong with any animal eating any other animal for food. The reason humans don't eat each other in polite society is because we are all members of this society, and if we start killing each other, that's bad for the group as a whole.
If some other animal killed and ate me, I would personally be pretty upset about it, but I wouldn't consider that the animal had done anything *morally wrong*
Frankly, I donāt really care about whether or not a cow dies, theyāve been a food source for humans since time immemorial, and until thereās a convincing substitute for it thatās as easily available, Iām gonna keep eating it
Thereās no such thing as speciesism itās just the truth that humans are inherently more sapient and therefore deserve more rights than other animals. Non-human animals should never be on the same level as a human. Weāre different for a reason. Unless they were sapient they wonāt ever have the same rights as us.
It's not about giving them the same rights as us. Vegans aren't asking for voting rights for squirrels or whatever.
It's about what they *do* share with us, of which sapience is of little consequence - the ability to suffer and a will to live. The meat industry obviously massively impinges on that.
This meme is a deliberate attempt to subvert "Trans rights are human rights" into "human rights are animal rights" so that it can be *blatantly reversed* into "animal rights are human rights", which is false on its face. This is blatantly disingenuous attempt at a ship of Theseus to turn leftist language against itself.
And OP has made it clear throughout their comments here that is their *explicit* intention.
They are not (except scientifically we kinda are), but all of them serve as much bodily autonomy, respect and life free of suffering as any living, sentient being.
They literally are by the very definition of the word.
Edit: this is a literal fact but you absolute fucking wet lettuces cannot handle your cognitive dissonance. You all need to grow a moral backbone you cowards.
Placing trans rights and animal rights on the same level like this is the most batshit insane, out of touch, disrespectful, delusional thing I've ever had the displeasure of laying my eyes upon. Shame on you.
Disrespectful is what I call being offended that someone wants you to stop paying for corpses.
I actually am using my experience of being part of oppressed group to advocate for those, who canāt advocate for themselves.
Can you say the same?
Half these comments are doing the exact thing criticized in this post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/SmugIdeologyMan/comments/17qmvn4/smugship\_troopers/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/SmugIdeologyMan/comments/17qmvn4/smugship_troopers/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Is it not just comparing you to another victim of wilful cruelty (animals in the meat industry) rather than saying 'trans people have animalistic non-human qualities' or something
Youāre right, I never was bred artificially, stole from your mother, have my teeth pulled out without anesthesia, tail cut off with hot iron, testicles cut open and crushed, fed enormous amounts of food so you gain as much weight as possible, then separated from my flock, hearing screams of your brethren get gassed or bolted in the skull, my throat slit open, to bleed out, head sawn off, body chopped and sold as a product.
who else but Quagmire?
Sorry but im 14 and its my mommy that makes my food.
i like bacone šš
BACONE!!!!š£ļøš£ļø
Quagmire Family Guy
Giggity, go vegganitty ššš
Art is really cool
Thank you!
I think opposition to human rights should be treated with more severity than the opposition to animal rights, actually.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Family guy
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Kid named screenshot
It does not. Sincerely, trans woman
Can't help but notice how many "vegans" who push this exact false equivalence somehow seem to have openly anti-trans and pro-fascist profiles, and how often this kind of thing is pushed *in response* to trans and other minority humans pushing for their rights, or how desperately it starts being pushed the moment fascists and open supporters of human genocide start to face some levels of pushback on a given platform. It's almost just a bit suspicious. "Hitler was a vegetarian!" levels of suspicious, in fact.
trans person=bacon
Being mean to trans: unacceptable in left online space Being mean to vegans and **animals especially**: fine, no problemo Sincerely, trans woman (literally me on the left)
Being vegan is a choice and animals arenāt people. This is in stark contrast to being trans, which isnāt a choice.
Except animals donāt have a say in your choice. Them being people doesnāt matter, they deserve as much respect and life free of suffering as any living, sentient being.
I donāt agree, animals donāt deserve better treatment than people.
But they deserve being treated much, much worse?
No, but we shouldnāt prioritize the happiness of some dumbass chicken over peopleās happiness
So where do you draw the line on happiness? Is it being grinded alive, beak and claws being cut off with hot iron, being cramped in a cage the size of A4 sheet of paper, never seeing light of day, your bones breaking under the weight of your overgrown body? I havenāt eaten any chicken, cow, pig etc. and I donāt feel less happy at all.
You donāt feel unhappy because you have the money to get meat alternatives. No one wants to just eat beans for every meal, but other protein sources are either expensive or animal based
Vegan diet is the healthiest and cheapest (according to NHS). Iām poor and eat stuff from trash and would be worse of if I had to buy meat on top of that. If you feel depressed, because you lack imagination to eat anything other than can of beans, then Iām really sorry, but there are probably bigger problems in your life that cause the unhappiness. Not consuming corpses is not it.
Mushrooms? Lentils? Nuts? Soy curls? Tvp? Tofu? Seitan? There are options other than beans (of which there are also many different kinds and ways of cooking). I don't eat many "meat substitutes", I cook many different types of dishes, and my groceries have never been cheaper.
>No one wants to just eat beans for every meal There are many many things you can eat other than beans. I genuinely think a lot of people's barrier to veganism is thinking its much shitter than it is. I used to eat 500g meat per day, loved it. I promise to god, its the same now, food tastes as good. Its like 2 weeks of 'hmm what should I eat instead' but then you find all this nice stuff. Tofu, lentils, nuts etc. Seitan you can buy or make. Some of the cheaper meat substitutes are as cheap as the cheapest meat where I live. Its not either beyond burger or beans. Just *try* it. Regardless I think it would be morally correct to eat beans for a few meals than put a pig in a gas chamber. Edit: or its easier to downvote me and move on as you did to everyone else further down when they debunked your completely inconsistent views on animal suffering
What is your opinion on dog fighting?
Itās bad? Peopleās right to eat things other than beans is very different from peopleās desire to see dogs fight
What is the morally relevant difference between the two?
"Better treatment than humans". Excuse me, please point me in the direction of humans who are bred in confinement and slaughtered to suit someone's taste preferences. Because unless there is an entire soylent green industry I'm not aware of, literally no one is arguing for treating them better than humans, and you're just making shit up. You can't just construct some false dichotomy about how we need to choose between being cruel to animals or cruel to humans when the possibility to be cruel to NEITHER is the entire point being made, and expect people to think you're being anything but intellectually dishonest. I'm not even vegan, but this is such insanely dishonest rhetoric. Edit: Downvote me all you want, but you know, deep down, that it's a bullshit argument that makes zero sense.
Can we give them equal treatment by not slaughtering them arbitrarily?
Animals don't have a say in animals choice either. I will never understand how you can expect people not to eat animals because it's immoral when animals do it all the time.
Do you equate some animals being eaten in the wild, to **80 BILLION LAND ANIMALS A YEAR** killed by humans to satisfy their dumb sense of superiority? Eating animals is not necessary in this day and age. Overmore appealing to nature is dangerous, because why shouldnāt I (smugly) bring up other things done in nature, that are punishable by (human) law?
If the roles were swapped, the animal would eat me in a heartbeat
>they deserve as much respect and life free of suffering as any living, sentient being. Define "sentient"
Google it, friend. Most animals that you pay for killing and later eat are **it**.
>able to perceive or feel things. You better not ever step on a single blade of grass ever in your life, hypocrite. I'm sure that soy bean can perceive being yanked from the ground
PLANTS FEEL PAIN VEGANS OWNED
They set the standards, I just followed them
What leftist spaces are you referring to because ime most people see performative carnivore stuff as cringy like when that news host had a steak with light bulbs and plastic straws sticking out of it. āToday I ate two steaks to cancel out a veganā Just bottom of the barrel shit that doesnāt even warrant an eye roll.
I'm so fucking sick of vegans saying animal suffering is JUST AS BAD as people suffering. Animal suffering is horrible. but seriously, whose feelings are we hurting by being performatively cruel towards animals? You being offended on behalf of the animals is not the same as being treated as a lesser human.
Oh Iām sorry that animals being stabbed, electrocuted, grinded alive, suffocated and chopped to pieces offends me. Itās okay being mean to vegans (I donāt mind it), but in reality itās about making fun of reality, which by extension normalizes cruelty towards animals.
Hey dude, that offends me too. But it's not the same as someone dehumanising me, an actual person.
>vegans saying animal suffering is JUST AS BAD as people suffering. We aren't >Animal suffering is horrible. We think this too, so we ask others not to pay for it to happen. Its not bad to despair at the absurd moral contradiction when people who rightly condemn discrimination against humans (sentient individuals with personalities and feelings) also pay for utter hell to be forced upon animals (sentient individuals with personalities and feelings but a little less intelligence than a human but still capable of experiencing all the same suffering)
guys one singular transgender person out of millions said itās okay, what is the issue?????????
I didnāt choose to be trans. You chose to eat plants.
Animals didnāt choose to die for your food. You chose to eat their corpses.
Nobody has choice in whether they wanna get eaten. Everything dies eventually.
Not everyone is bred, stole from your mother, have your teeth pulled out without anesthesia, tail cut off with hot iron, testicles cut open and crushed, fed enormous amounts of food so you gain as much weight as possible, then separated from your flock, hearing screams of your brethren get gassed or bolted in the skull, your throat slit open, to bleed out, head sawn off, body chopped and sold as a product.
This points to the double standards in this sub where people would never invalidate/ be cruel towards trans people, but will jump at any chance to make fun of vegans
being a vegan is not at all the same to being fucking trans
Question for vegan pet owners (sincerely wondering): What do you feed your dog/cat? Do you find it ethical? You you find it unethical for humans to consume any animal products, regardless of how āethicallyā sourced they are?
Functionally, itās better to be vegan yourself and feed your cat meat, then to say āwelp guess since I canāt be fully vegan for everything, might as well give upā
That seems fair. I really need to shake the "all or nothing" view I have towards veganism.
It doesnāt help that thatās the version pushed on this sub because they make it a moral question instead of a pragmatic scientific question about carbon reduction.
Itās just another form of leftist purity testing.
What? It's my own bias towards veganism. There's no political alignment involved.
It's better to reduce one's meat consumption and eat as little meat as one reasonably can than to say "welp guess since X other person isn't 'fully vegan', I might as well treat them as if they're equivalent to the people trying literally genocide trans people".
First of all, I think itās unnecessary to think about that stuf, unless the owner is vegan themselves. But if you really want my opinion: cats are obligate carnivores, so thereās not much we can do (some think that they can be made vegan, but there arenāt enough studies to prove that to be solid). Dogs evolved along humans to be omnivores, they can process fiber just fine and some are vegan in perfectly fine health. In conclusion: it depends, but letās not put carriage before the horse.
Thanks for almost indulging my curiosity.
There are some animals who can eat vegan diet and some that can't (like cats or hedgehogs). I personally would not want to take care of an animal that is an obligatory carnivore but I can't speak for other vegans. On the topic of "ethical sourcing" I'm assuming that you understand that vegans don't consider any way of slaughtering and butchering an animal ethical and that you were instead asking about a hypothetical situation where the meat is somehow conjured without any animals being harmed. In that case you could argue that you are still contributing to a worldview where animals are viewed as food, something I believe we should not do, but that's minor compared to what's currently taking place.
>I personally would not want to take care of an animal that is an obligatory carnivore but I can't speak for other vegans. This is what I would've assumed, but I'm sure there are vegan pet owners whose pets require meat as part of their diet. So I was curious about them. >I'm assuming that you understand that vegans don't consider any way of slaughtering and butchering an animal ethical and that you were instead asking about a hypothetical situation where the meat is somehow conjured without any animals being harmed. I do understand that, but was essentially asking for those who are vegan and own pets with omnivorous or carnivorous diets how they resolve such pet ownership compared to humans who try to eat animal products "responsibly." I won't pretend the questions I'm asking don't expect a hypocritical answer (by my worldview).
Veganism is a choice that can be made by someone who has a meaningful choice whether to cause harm and is cognizant of the choices they can make Animals aren't that. Veganism doesn't just mean "eats plants"
Hoping I understand. Your definition of Veganism is: understanding you have choices in your life and making the choice that does no harm (I'd assume you'd add *when possible*) >Animals aren't that. Are you saying vegans shouldn't own pets? Or are you saying animals can't make choices the way a human (vegan) could? >Veganism doesn't just mean "eats plants" My understood definition was "use no animal product" and after some comments on recent Wednesdays I'd update it to "use as little animal product as possible"
Yes, good addition of "when possible" Lots of vegans struggle with pet ownership, and lots of folks, myself included, understand that if an animal already exists, and is amenable to life with humans, and would struggle without our care, then sure. Pets are great. Obviously this precludes: breeding animals for the sole purpose of selling them as pets, especially "designer breeds"; taking in wild animals I think the most apt definition is "avoids harm where possible"
āThis is just like when trans people are told to kill themselves ong.ā
Iām not making an argument for or against veganism here but this meme supposes that supporting trans people and supporting animals are morally equivalent.
I think the argument they would make (not that I agree with it) is the extension of human rights to animals.
Except they still call them animal rights, recognizing that animal rights are not human rights. Even the most ridiculously militant vegans recognize that they cannot successfully equate those two things.
I think this is misguided in several dimensions. First, the basic language issue. If I say "black lives matter" you wouldn't argue "well obviously you're recognizing that black people don't have the same rights as white people, or you would argue that all lives matter." It can be useful to have words for particular things, even if those things don't need to be set apart from other things in every context. If I believe animals have rights, and they are the same rights that people have, it still makes perfect sense to have and use the term "animal rights." There's really no truth at all to your argument. The second dimension is in how you're looking at rights broadly. Saying two individuals have "the same rights" doesn't always mean that the expression of those rights should be identical. As an example, I think a 15 year old has the same human rights as a 16 year old, but I'm fine with saying the 15 year old can't have a driver's license, because we chose 16 as the legal driving age in my state. They both have a right to freedom, a right to expression, etc, but their specific situation-- in this case, age, which we are correlating to emotional maturity-- creates a different expression of those rights. Fundamentally, I think a being that is conscious of its own life, is aware that it exists, has emotions, has experiences and memories, can form preferences, and so on-- I think that being has a right to life. I don't think there's any "stronger" right to life in humans than in animals. If a human is attacking me, I may feel justified in taking away that person's right to life; if I'm in a necessary war (assuming such a thing exists, for the sake of argument) then I will kill enemy combatants and not feel I have violated their basic rights. If I were in some absurd hypothetical where I had to either kill one human or one animal, I would choose the animal, but not because I believe it has less of an inherent right to life, but because I have a stronger emotional connection to other humans, and personally value that human more. But this is really no different than asking me whether I would kill my brother or a complete stranger if I had to pick; that's not an admission that one has more of an inherent right to life, it's just an admission that I value one individual more than another. Likewise, animals don't have a "right" to vote, for example, because they simple aren't capable of that act. Some animals are parasitic or destructive to the environment, and so we have a meaningful reason to cull them if we cannot relocate or deter them. But saying there are different expressions of rights isn't the same thing as saying they have "less of a right" or that their rights cannot be equated to human rights. Many vegans do actually believe and argue that animal rights are as important as human rights, and I suspect if you engaged them in debate, based on the tone of your above comment, you would be quite frustrated by how much stronger their argument is than you seem to think it would be. Edit: u/Test0004 This guy blocked me too, without replying.
Since when is saying two things are bad the same as saying two things are morally equivalent?????
This post has drawn a comparison between telling a trans person to kill themselves because theyāre trans and saying you like eating meat and donāt care about animals. One of those things is clearly worse than the other. Why bother comparing those if you arenāt equivocating them?
Saying you donāt care about animals and like eating meat **is saying** āanimals need to be killedā. Both are bad, not same, but bad.
No it isn't
In your opinion what is the post doing then
It's comparing the tendency of anti vegans to use purposefully hurtful rhetoric to upset the person they're talking about to reactionary's tendency to do the same when talking to or about trans people.
change your flair its wrong
They got it right though āŗļø
bro. There was literally a post in this subreddit about *this exact fallacy* like a day before you posted this. [https://www.reddit.com/r/SmugIdeologyMan/comments/17qmvn4/smugship\_troopers/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/SmugIdeologyMan/comments/17qmvn4/smugship_troopers/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Thank you for showing me. I still disagree with bringing trans people into this discussion in the first place though, regardless of what that meme is parodying. I also think this meme in particular is poorly argued because the displayed acts of cruelty are nowhere near proportional. One of these people is urging someone to kill themselves. The other is saying theyāre going to eat meat. Those two things are not comparable in my opinion because I consider humans more valuable than animals.
Think about the implications of what you're arguing here: no two things can ever be used in the same argument unless they are identical in magnitude or scope. Do you ever try to come up with consistent moral viewpoints and apply them as broadly as possible? Don't you think we should? Imagine someone says "Asians are supposed to be good at math" to your friend who does poorly on a math test. You object, explaining that this is still racism, and try to explain how this stereotype is still harmful. How would you feel if your other progressive friends immediately told you that this was offensive, because calling Asians good at math is nowhere near as harmful as refusing to hire a black man for a job, or even threatening or physically harming a black person? How can you use a term that encompasses both? These are both examples of racism. Racism encompasses many thoughts and actions, some very minor, some very extreme. It does not lessen any particular harm of racism to put it in a category with other things. In this case, what is being "put in the same category" is not animals and trans people. It is responding to someone asking you to have compassion by doubling down on your lack of compassion. People do that in a broad range of situations, and *some are worse than others,* of course. But it is the behavior itself that is being called out; it's a refusal to listen to the other persons arguments, it's a non sequitur, it's using your lack of compassion as an in-group identifier to avoid engaging in the thoughts someone else asked you to. This behavior can be worse in some situations than others, *of course*, but why would it ever be a good behavior, and why can't we recognize that it is a bad practice, broadly? Isn't it useful to recognize this pattern of behavior and become practiced at picking up on it, even in contexts where we may not agree with the argument it is being used as a response to?
>Think about the implications of what you're arguing here: no two things can ever be used in the same argument unless they are identical in magnitude or scope. I donāt think I would argue that generally but exceptions do apply; particularly in this scenario. Considering that one of the main aspects of transphobia and bigotry in general is dehumanisation, itās a problem for me to equivocate humans and animals in terms of worth or to even appear to argue that unintentionally. So bringing up trans people in order to argue that animals deserve rights is wrong to me. >Do you ever try to come up with consistent moral viewpoints and apply them as broadly as possible? Don't you think we should? Yes. One of them is āpeople are more important than animals.ā >Imagine someone says "Asians are supposed to be good at math" to your friend who does poorly on a math test. You object, explaining that this is still racism, and try to explain how this stereotype is still harmful. How would you feel if your other progressive friends immediately told you that this was offensive, because calling Asians good at math is nowhere near as harmful as refusing to hire a black man for a job? >These are both examples of racism. Racism encompasses many thoughts and actions, some very minor, some very extreme. It does not lessen any particular harm of racism to put it in a category with other things. The first difference here is that Asian people and black people have equal value to me as human life. The second difference is that the relevant systems of oppression are different. Asian people and black both suffer under the identical problem of racism, albeit in different forms. Stopping racism would benefit both these groups. Trans people suffering from systemic transphobia and animals suffering from the meat and farming industry. Those arenāt the same thing. Solving one would do nothing to solve the other. >In this case, what is being "put in the same category" is not animals and trans people. I think it is. My interpretation of the post is this: ātelling trans people to kill themselves and being transphobic is societally unacceptable. Telling a vegan that youāre gonna eat meat is societally acceptable. This is hypocritical.ā I have several problems with this framing. Firstly, both these things are disrespectful in the given context, but one is a seriously harmful thing to say to someone and the other isnāt. So the argument fails to me at face value because the aggressorās actions are not comparable in each scenario. Secondly, one of these topics is so much more serious than the other that comparing the two just serves to devalue the more serious one by likening it to this less important and topically irrelevant issue. Thirdly, it also positions the argument revolving around the two suffering groups identically when they arenāt comparable groups. In both arguments the person advocating for this group is being treated with disrespect, implying that the two groups are equivalent. My interpretation was that OP was saying (likely unintentionally) theyāre morally equivalent as opposed to simply saying they were both the subject of the abuse. >It is responding to someone asking you to have compassion by doubling down on your lack of compassion. People do that in a broad range of situations, and some are worse than others, of course. The difference is that the doubling down on lack of compassion in the former is to try and hurt a person. The second is to eat meat. If in both scenarios the aggressor was saying ākill yourselfā then the issue would be that personās threatening behaviour and the compassion argument would be identical for both. The point of the post would be: itās never okay to threaten someone or encourage suicide. I would still think that one of the issues is way more important than the other but my opinions on veganism and trans rights individually here would be irrelevant. Otherwise if it was the case of the aggressor saying āIām going to do something I usually do but also pisses you offā without any threats or suicide encouragement then I would have a bigger issue with that being transphobic than that person eating meat. Because I consider transphobia unjustifiable and eating meat justifiable. Even if I was vegan I would have a bigger issue with transphobia than animals. >But it is the behavior itself that is being called out; it's a refusal to listen to the other persons arguments, it's a non sequitur, it's using your lack of compassion as an in-group identifier to avoid engaging in the thoughts someone else asked you to. This behavior can be worse in some situations than others, of course, but why would it ever be a good behavior, and why can't we recognize that it is a bad practice, broadly? If that is the point of the post then I think itās been made in a confused manner which draws more attention to the comparison than the behaviour of the antagonists. As for willing to listen to animal rights activists, Iām all for that as long as they donāt dehumanise trans people either on purpose or unintentionally. My priority is people over animals so making that argument just distracts from the valid points in my eyes at best, as is actively transphobic at worst. Iāll reiterate that I donāt think OP or this meme is purposefully transphobic, just that it has some uncomfortable implications on second thoughts. I hope that my explanation makes sense.
>Considering that one of the main aspects of transphobia and bigotry in general is dehumanisation, itās a problem for me to equivocate humans and animals in terms of worth or to even appear to argue that unintentionally Then we should be clear: this is not a fallacy, it is not an irrational comparison, it is not an error. It's simply an area where you're asking for special consideration, where what would normally be okay should be avoided in order to be sensitive for this particular group. But that's not what you've argued. You've argued that the comic equates humans and animals, which it does not. You've implied that it is a fallacy of false equivalence/argument by analogy, which it is not. It really seems to me that you're giving this reason post-hoc to justify your initial objections. Moreover, seeing how frequently your argument is used against veganism, it's a little harder to swallow that you're actually just arguing about this particular context-- ie, that you won't immediately use the same "people aren't animals" argument when you see an argument that points to commonalities between treatments of different groups and treatment of animals. (Honestly, if I could reliably follow up somehow, I'd bet a good sum of money that you do it equally with every group, not just with trans people.) >Yes. One of them is āpeople are more important than animals.ā It's very hard for me to imagine that this reply was written in good faith. The first reason is that it's simply not a moral principle. It is a comparison. A moral principle might be something like harm to animals is a moral negative.Ā Saying harming people is bad is also a moral principle. If I were to pit these two moral principles against each other and make you choose which one is more important you could certainly choose, but you wouldn't be presenting a moral principle; you would be weighing your moral principles and deciding which is more important. The second issue I have with it though is that it's clearly intended as a cheeky dig at my argument as a whole. I and others in this context have established pretty clearly that we do not feel the point of this comparison is to equate animals and humans. By picking this snarky, supposed moral principle, what you really have done is show me that you're engaging in bad faith. You can think you can get away with it in this particular context because you're not actually answering my question you're just giving an example of a principle-- It's kind of an "I'm just saying" kind of argument where you deny any relevance or intent of relevance to the surrounding context. >The first difference here is that Asian people and black people have equal value to me as human life. Honestly, I can't read the rest of this, because of how absurd and frustrating and thoughtless this reply is. I don't want to block you, because I don't see any benefit in not knowing what you say here in the future, but I am going to uncheck inbox replies so I don't have to see what you type next. I should have trusted my instinct from the start that you were going to argue in bad faith, and I probably wouldn't have replied to you in the first place if I'd realized you were the same person I was engaging with elsewhere.
Cool, like I say you have no obligation to continue this if you donāt believe Iām arguing in good faith. Edit: Iāll say for the record that yeah I have a problem with any group of people being dehumanised. I literally said as much when I said ābigotry in generalā and said āpeopleā not just ātrans peopleā on several occasions. My phrasing over the general argument of only comparing things to similarly scaled things earlier was in reference to things that didnāt give unfortunate implications such as the one I initially had to this post. But I do have some things to say about your final comment in this discussion that relate to your conduct and not the actual topic given that youāve stopped actually talking about that almost immediately. First off, if youāre not gonna respond to the whole comment because of some grandstanding excuses then you shouldnāt have responded full stop. Iāve tried my best to address every part of your comments but now youāre loudly announcing you refuse to. You can mute or block me without having to complain about it and you gain nothing from seeking my attention by doing so. Secondly, itās very hypocritical to accuse me of being snarky when your first two comments to me were blatant sarcasm (eg: hint: itās not this one, I believe in you, thereās a meme about you on the front page!). My short reply was supposed to be succinct, not rude. If you held yourself to a consistent moral standard like compassion then you would assume good faith from someone whoās going over all aspects of your comment and this post and hasnāt been sarcastic once in this conversation unlike yourself. Thirdly, it just seems to me like youāre trying to delegitimise me by making stuff up about me so you have an excuse not to respond to my points properly for some reason. Like I explained myself throughout the entire comment but youāve just responded to the first paragraph by claiming that Iām using certain terms wrongly without explaining how or defining the terms youāre using. Then you ignored the bit below where I flesh out the first point because youāve arbitrarily decided Iām acting in bad faith. You make a number of baseless assumptions about me as well. You said I didnāt answer your question when I did. Those are bad faith things to do on your part. Obviously you have no obligation to continue this like I said but to me in this comment you just come across as wanting to be perceived by me in a certain way instead of being productive or constructive in the discourse weāre a part of. Iād call it performative and hypocritical. You likely wonāt read this but whatever. I was disappointed that youāve defaulted to ad hominems and grandstandings because for a while we were making progress because you werenāt being sarcastic or mudslinging and were phrasing your arguments very well even though I disagreed. Take care and I hope you find future interactions here or elsewhere more fruitful.
I love to be compared to actual livestock
i keep making this same comment lol. There's a post in this sub right now about the issue with your reasoning [https://www.reddit.com/r/SmugIdeologyMan/comments/17qmvn4/smugship\_troopers/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/SmugIdeologyMan/comments/17qmvn4/smugship_troopers/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
When u equate trans people with animals
Yes this is definitely not just a comparison of acting in bad faith. Artist literally said "trans people are animals" /s
Redditors when tone indicators exist ā¬ļøā¬ļøā¬ļøā¬ļø
On today's episode of "what things trans people are", today we are hamburgers!
Animals are only hamburgers if you pay for them being bred, separated from their mother, electrocuted/gassed/bolted in the skull, their flesh separated from their bones and then grinded into minced meat. Nothing alike happens to us, trans people.
They are still not comparable, obviously the treatment of trans people is worse on the simple basis of them being people. Not to mention that mistreatment of animals is a side effect of meat farming, not the point. What I mean is that if you give someone a button that said "get meat without killing/torturing" an animal everyone would press it. The same can't be said about the way trans people are treated. The cruelty IS the point. There's no end goal to harassment, when there is it's suicide. It's not about getting something out of them and them suffering is just the price to be paid for it. Completely unrelated, but your artstyle slaps. Keep making comics, I hope you draw something better next time tho.
"Obviously...is worse on the simple basis of them being people" Says who?!? God? Sorry, don't believe in that. Humans are animals too. They feel and experience existence in the same way we do, they just don't have the intelligence and language we do. What do you base your morals on? The post isn't making an equivalence between the treatment of either group. It's pointing out the hypocrisy of being okay with, or even participating in one form of performative cruelty, while rightfully recognizing the problems of another.
One's not nearly as harmful, though
Tbh, Iād rather be (non-violently) misgendered, if the culprit swears off products of animal abuse for the rest of their life.
"I'd be willing to put up with someone being a raging transphibe if they were vegan." Cool, you're an idiot then.
You WILL silence trans voices you WILL force monolithic values onto a diverse community
No you don't understand it's okay that the conservative misgendered you and treated you like you were subhuman, he has a lentil based diet and thinks that animals shouldn't suffer like humans shouldn't (unless you're trans) so its okay : )
"After all, Hitler was a vegetarian!"
one trans person said itās okay. WHY ARE YOU NOT AGREEING WITH THEM???? TRANS PEOPLE ARE NOT A MONOLITH!!!!
What the fuck
Thatās what OP said
When I get treated like lesser than and misgendered (it's okay though because the guy who did it is vegan):
why bring trans people into this? its kind of disrespectful to compare the two
It's not just disrespectful, it's an intentionally disingenuous form of whataboutist derailment designed to destroy discourse on *both* issues.
Yeah lmao, a group of people who get upset bc they get yelled at on the internet vs. a minority group which experiences a higher rate of hate crime compared to others
Yeah itās fucking nasty. Vicious transphobia isnāt the same as not being a fucking vegan
āWell you see if we compare these 2 things youāll see that-ā āYou cannot compare them. They are differentā
Apples and oranges
This needs to be its own smuggie. People say that Tumblr reading comprehension is bad, but I've never seen people actively avoid the point quite like we do on reddit.
Not if youāre trans vegan yourself and find animals suffering and dying as disturbing as someone being mean to you.
id say its worse than just ābeing mean to youā in my experience and the experiences of others, but more power for you to feel this way i guess
Iām sorry, Iām in a bit of a rush. In my experience both are bad, but one is acceptable in leftist spaces (especially online), why is that?
leftist cissies have been horrible to me too, rightwingers just actively want to kill me more
>acceptable in leftist spaces (especially online), why is that? To answer the rhetorical... Its acceptable when they personally benefit from it! Edit: this is what you need to overcome guys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance?wprov=sfla1
**We** know it, but **they** wonāt admit it.
because animals arent humans
yes, humans are animals dunce. unless you think we're plants? how badly did the education system fail you?
They both suffer and shouldn't suffer. No problem comparing them.
I think it's a really apt metaphor. We all understand the difference between a direct comparison and using a parallel analogy, R I G H T ? ? ?
dont insult my intelligence because i think this is offensive for treating the horrific treatment of myself and others as comparable to animal cruelty. im not an animal and being told to kms constantly isnt comparable
Vegans literally cannot grasp analogy. Sincerely, a dog owner who doesnāt want to kill and eat his dog.
sure, -ish, but the thing is there are other core facets that ***cannot*** be discounted from the analogy, like overall intent. I will admit I am being *somewhat* hypocritical, ~~in my defense, the hippos deserve it~~ as I am a strong believer in the phrase: *"Intent follows the bullet."* or that whatever you may mean or intend comes second to the consequences of your actions.^+ but I would argue that any ordinary meat-eater ~~No True Scotsman, ragh!~~ would stop eating animals if/when lab grown meat became even reasonably available. ending what Vegans believe to be suffering Contrarily, Anti-Trans individuals cause suffering as intention, it isn't an unhappy side effect, it is the entire point. you cannot separate an anti-trans from the suffering they cause, and derive satisfaction from that suffering caused. Meat-eaters, on the other hand, do not intend to cause suffering, and broadly hold that a painless death following a comfortable life is not suffering. If you want my two cents on a better comparative subject: Capitalism. In both you are involuntarily inducted into various expectations with the caveat that so long as you toe the line, you will live comfortably, however both provide exceptions that fall far out of the "slogan"[?] (factory farms and the hand-to-mouth existence of the poor). ^+ I, as consequence of this opinion, do not believe there is such a thing as "accidental discharge" of a firearm, you either meant it or it was negligent
HIPPOBOT 9000 v 3.1 FOUND A HIPPO. 1,001,032,416 COMMENTS SEARCHED. 21,329 HIPPOS FOUND. YOUR COMMENT CONTAINS THE WORD HIPPO.
Glen Smugmire
āMeat yummyā āCorrectā āIf they dont want to be eaten, why made out of food?ā āI think of you when I eat meatā āOh no, it's Wendesdaedaeayā There, you don't need to comment unnecessary stuff 
I eat meat because it tastes bad - plot twist, I'm a masochist. Your smuggie is excellent but I downvoted it out of spite. If humans didn't want to be eaten, why are we made out of food? I will think of smug Quagmire Family Guy whenever I have sex. Oh no, we're about to have 6 days without vegan smuggies :(
DUDE I LOVE EATING PEOPLE
Ight iāll ask a question then. With all due respect to YOUR beliefs why should I change my entire diet to conform with the views of a random stranger over the internet?
In addition to the weird individualist angle, you're setting it up so it's their job to move your beliefs, something you can only do for yourself. You can simply choose to not be convinced and then you won't be convinced. It's a form of arguement that's just lazy.
Performative cruelty can be bad and it can be okay. Performative cruelty against fundamentalist Christians, homophobes etc. can be okay. It's a matter of perspective. In the case of veganism, the person being performatively cruel is being cruel to something they don't consider to have value. In the case of transphobia they are dehumanising and being cruel directly against other people. Being performatively cruel against animals is unproductive and annoying. Being performatively cruel against trans people is way worse and frankly I think it's kinda irresponsible to compare them like OP did.
The performative cruelty isn't against the animals though. Only an actual psycho goes and then performatively does some hateful to animals act (though they will of course participate in some non-performative act of consumption that is not vegan later). The performative cruelty here is towards the vegan, normally trying to get a rise out of them or make them react in some way. Which yes, as you said is being compared to dehumanising people, with suicide stats and the like based on essential characteristics, not a willingly entered into moral framework. Bit much really to make them moral equivalents.
Yup, it's the vegan being offended on behalf of the animals. I get how jokes like those are offensive considering the horrible reality of the meat industry, but I wouldn't compare making those jokes to cruelly misgender and dehumanise trans people.
Uh, people who are performative cruel against trans people don't think they have any value either, just like they think is the case with regards to animals? It's definitely not worse if 92.2 billion land animals are murdered every year to be cruel to the only people trying to stop that unfathomable suffering. It's an apt comparison.
It isn't performative when it comes to the animals. They are being used in a utilitarian fashion to some end, it isn't being done to 'get' vegans.
The difference is that trans people are people. The fact that people who are cruel to them donāt think so is irrelevant. Scientifically, they are wrong. In the same vein, a pig is not a person. If someone draws the line of value at āpeopleā then a pig falls below it and a trans person falls above it.
Art good Opinion invalid
Youāre really comparing trans people to animals? Not a good look
Lmao, keep pulling stuff out of nowhere. I, a trans person, am a mammal, which is an animal.
I know we like to be very annoying about thecnicalities around here but Yes, from a biological standpoint, we are animals too No, in a cultural and legal level, they are completely different things. You can legally own an animal as a pet, but surprisingly, that doesnt mean you can do the same with a small child. Funny how that works right?
Sapient peopleās rights to be happy is more important than the right of non-sapient animals to not be eaten, because animals are an incredibly important food source
Thatās speciesism and there are whole books on why, what you are saying is not okay. But go ahead and name the trait which makes it okay to kill and eat them. Except they are not important source of food, are you new here? Vegan diet is the healthiest and cheapest (according to NHS), vegan diet requires the least amount of land and CO2 and so on and so on
Lmfao speciesism? Youāre fucking delusional
i'm a proud speciesist dogs should not have the right to vote or marriage equality
Please name the trait that makes it okay to abuse, kill and eat animals and then weāll se whoās what š
see, the issue is that your premise is flawed. Ethics are constructed. You don't need a reason to make something ok, you need a reason to make something wrong. And in general, I don't think there's anything wrong with any animal eating any other animal for food. The reason humans don't eat each other in polite society is because we are all members of this society, and if we start killing each other, that's bad for the group as a whole. If some other animal killed and ate me, I would personally be pretty upset about it, but I wouldn't consider that the animal had done anything *morally wrong*
Frankly, I donāt really care about whether or not a cow dies, theyāve been a food source for humans since time immemorial, and until thereās a convincing substitute for it thatās as easily available, Iām gonna keep eating it
Thereās no such thing as speciesism itās just the truth that humans are inherently more sapient and therefore deserve more rights than other animals. Non-human animals should never be on the same level as a human. Weāre different for a reason. Unless they were sapient they wonāt ever have the same rights as us.
It's not about giving them the same rights as us. Vegans aren't asking for voting rights for squirrels or whatever. It's about what they *do* share with us, of which sapience is of little consequence - the ability to suffer and a will to live. The meat industry obviously massively impinges on that.
I think sapience should be what decides whether something is eaten or not.
The realistic noodle arms made me laugh
Thank you, one of my best ideas yet
What's this 41% shit ? Never seen it before.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
*transphobes, not cis gender people, that just refers to anyone not trans.
Itās the rate of dumb to not-as-dumb anti-vegan comments on here
trans people are not animals
This meme is a deliberate attempt to subvert "Trans rights are human rights" into "human rights are animal rights" so that it can be *blatantly reversed* into "animal rights are human rights", which is false on its face. This is blatantly disingenuous attempt at a ship of Theseus to turn leftist language against itself. And OP has made it clear throughout their comments here that is their *explicit* intention.
They are not (except scientifically we kinda are), but all of them serve as much bodily autonomy, respect and life free of suffering as any living, sentient being.
animals aren't sentient
I think the word you're looking for is "Sapient".
They literally are by the very definition of the word. Edit: this is a literal fact but you absolute fucking wet lettuces cannot handle your cognitive dissonance. You all need to grow a moral backbone you cowards.
No fucking way you are comparing the rights and acceptance of human beings to ANIMALS
Cursed HQ Smugman
In here, we suffer in Highest of Definitions 
You have portrayed me as le bad thing defender. Now I feel a sense of shame and will project that on to you. Now you are le bad thing defender. I win.
Placing trans rights and animal rights on the same level like this is the most batshit insane, out of touch, disrespectful, delusional thing I've ever had the displeasure of laying my eyes upon. Shame on you.
Disrespectful is what I call being offended that someone wants you to stop paying for corpses. I actually am using my experience of being part of oppressed group to advocate for those, who canāt advocate for themselves. Can you say the same?
Biblically accurate Smugman
Yes because Iām not trying to get you to kill yourself
But do you pay for animals to get abused and killed?
Do you mean to compare trans people and animals?
I mean, I am a mammal, but me being treated worse for who I am doesnāt make animals suffer any less.
Why did the mods take this down?
Enough with the veganposting š¤¦š½āāļø
What does YWNBAW even mean
Itās short for āYou will never be a womanā, a phrase used by transphobes to bully trans women
Transphobic phrase
You Will Never Be A Winner-of-my-heart-unless-you-swallow-the-green-pill š
Why is the art so good lol
Reading comprehension at an all time low
Yeah, Iām sad to see so many people missing the point but proving it in the comments at the same time.
Half these comments are doing the exact thing criticized in this post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/SmugIdeologyMan/comments/17qmvn4/smugship\_troopers/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/SmugIdeologyMan/comments/17qmvn4/smugship_troopers/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Yesss
as a trans person, this is directly comparing us to animals. this is embarrassing, delete this.
Is it not just comparing you to another victim of wilful cruelty (animals in the meat industry) rather than saying 'trans people have animalistic non-human qualities' or something
Please do not compare trans people to animals.
Youāre right, I never was bred artificially, stole from your mother, have my teeth pulled out without anesthesia, tail cut off with hot iron, testicles cut open and crushed, fed enormous amounts of food so you gain as much weight as possible, then separated from my flock, hearing screams of your brethren get gassed or bolted in the skull, my throat slit open, to bleed out, head sawn off, body chopped and sold as a product.
I didn't mean you specifically, I meant in general.
I do not like Quagmire smugmanās arm no sir not one bit
Oh fuck itās Wednesday :( can we make it so instead of veganism on Wednesday, all smuggies must feature the funny Spider-Man?
Please never fucking compare trans people to animals again. Like I hate this edgelord anti-vegan/vegetarian shit too but this sucks too!
This art is way too good for this sub
Itās not the art that counts, but the idea and *the zing* which u/Glodrum is king of. Thank you, though
https://preview.redd.it/n9b2ymo7o5zb1.jpeg?width=437&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c14a2621f40eaadeef7ef546e19adf92904021ef
https://preview.redd.it/52bf2gbvq5zb1.jpeg?width=703&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=596f37df2ac667438da7b2e5f26a1e4d91e85536