Id like to know what specifically you have issue with?
I take most issue with the fact that you just donāt seem to really understand the conversation youāre having or the arguments people are making. No one thinks you are personally attacking veganism. Not that Iāve seen, at least. What people find frustrating is the fundamental fact that they are arguing that suffering, the act of profiting from it, and the āguiltā that comes with that does not have some kind of transitive property, and you are, it seems, arguing that it does, and you canāt seem to understand the fact that the discussion and difference of perspective deadlocks there.
In other words, you donāt seem to realize that you and the people to whom you are speaking are operating on different (and this is a very important concept in any kind of debate) foundational premises. These are things that are core ideas on which any argument sits. Most of the time theyāre incredibly philosophically or ideologically basic, like 1 + 1 = 2, or āa child should not be held responsible for the crimes of their parents.ā To make matters worse, you also seem to be coupling this foundational premise with a definition of veganism which most people in the thread simply find to be objectively incorrect at worst, or remarkably obtuse at best. Honestly, if it seems like people are pissed at you for how you talk about veganism, it might be the fact that your understanding of it seems superficial, because your argument about fly traps comes across as an attempt at deconstructing the ārulesā of veganism while ignoring the ethical intent behind it as a lifestyle.
This leads to a just awful discussion, because you 1) have your own definition of veganism that fundamentally differs from nearly everyone elseās and 2) that definition is premised upon an understanding of animal suffering and what constitutes a human being āprofitingā from it with which almost everyone here also disagrees. The worst thing, however, and which I personally find the most frustrating is that your reading comprehension skills are just frankly abysmal. Youāre probably going to read this comment, have a hard time following it, and not really understand the argument being made, and instead latch onto small details that are superficial at best to this reply, probably doubling down on your belief that you are unjustly maligned because people refuse to acknowledge your extremely illogical perspective as more reasonable or intelligent than it really is.
So, summing it up, what I specifically have issue with is that you, from doing the above, have managed to craft a perfect storm of completely useless and unproductive debate. Everyone here is dumber for having partaken in this discussion. Me included. Actually, probably especially me.
The literal first thing I did was acknowledge that everyone has a different version of veganism, explained one Iāve heard from plenty of vegans Iāve spoken with, so your whole thing about foundational premises is pretty moot. I defined a clear scope of my arguement and stuck to it, most of that critique is you being mad I stayed within the scope I defined instead of letting off topic points detract from what I said and then the fact that I still donāt buy your arguements. God forbid we donāt agree on a hypothetical, sorry that upset you enough to want to be snide in your critique. I find your critisim to any lack depth or relevance to actual things I said, and contain little substance but veiled personal attacks about making everyone reading it dumber. Im sure it did make you dumber so at least we agree on that.
My first comment verbatim with emphasis added:
"If a plant has to eat animals to survive then that plant is a product of animal suffering. Thats why vegans donāt drink milk or eat eggs too. So if thatās the definition of vegan that someone subscibes to then the flytrap is not Vegan "
I set pretty clear conditions of my arguement, donāt be upset I didnāt let people detract from what I actually tried to argue instead of what they perceived I was arguing.
The literal first thing I did was acknowledge that everyone has a different version of veganism
In that case, since the definition of vegan is relative, what did you hope to get out of this discussion beyond people agreeing with you?
your whole thing about foundational premises is pretty moot
Itās really not, though, and the fact that you think it does strongly supports what Iāve said about reading comprehension.
I defined a clear scope of my arguement and stuck to it
Itās not an āarguementā (also, not how argument is spelled), itās an opinion you are voicing. You think itās not vegan. Other people think it is. Itās a discussion purely couched in competing definitions. You never try to work beyond those competing definitions so whatever it is youāre āarguingā for is DOA.
veiled personal attacks
They arenāt veiled.
"If a plant has to eat animals to survive then that plant is a product of animal suffering. Thats why vegans donāt drink milk or eat eggs too. So if thatās the definition of vegan that someone subscibes to then the flytrap is not Vegan "
And if my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike. Pretty much everyone here already said āthatās not really the definition of veganism.ā And you proceeded to argue with them about it. Thatās not productive discussion or ālively debateā - itās just bickering.
Once again, you donāt understand the argument I made. You are not doing anything to move beyond competing foundational premises and competing definitions, so thereās no point to the hypothetical you posed. Either people agree with you without argument, or they wonāt, and thereās nothing beyond that. And thatās because of how you chose to frame the discussion.
How does you ignoring my foundational premise make you the arbiter of whos talking in good faith and, but me refusing to justify points I didnāt make makes me the bad guy? Perhaps I framed it the way I did because thats the way it made sense to me.
Of course im not moving beyond that definition because my whole premise was dependent upon that definition AS I SAID IN THE FIRST COMMENT COMPLETE WITH A BIG āIFā. Youāre whole arguement is that itās wrong of me to not change the definition that I already stated my arguments depend on because then people either agree or wonāt. Thats probably because I did nothing but follow logical steps from a definition I know is still common. And I donāt know how many times I have to say that I know and have spoken with plenty of vegans who use that definition so Im not really concerned that a handful of people on lemmy use a different one, especially when they go out of their way to continue ignore my premise, without proving any type of evidence that no vegans use the definition Iāve started with other that saying āno they dontā after hearing that Iāve heard these definitions right from real people. Some Iām even related to. Or do you really think your definition is the only way someone can be a vegan? Because what I think is your definition is the only one where you can keep arguing. You even tacitly admited to that saying that within the framework I chose, one can only agree or disagree. No wonder youāre so desperate to move away from that
No one forced anyone to respond to my comments but if I make a point completely within a common framework, the least one could do is not ignore the framework simply because itās easier to respond that way. Hell Iād even accept any kind of data on how people define their own veganism, but short of that my anecdotal evidence from the vegans I know is by definition just as good as any anecdotal evidence provided against it, and thatās all thats been provided. Tell me if theres any things youāve heard from people you trust that someone could change with anecdotal evidence online?
What kills me is you still wonāt even acknowledge theres not simply one type of vegan with only one definition despite the fact that its the first thing I did before making a point on a clearly defined subset of vegan. And if you look through my comments elsewhere on this post, not in this chain, youll also find me aknowledge a differnt definition of vegan and come to a different conclusion, so if thats all you wanted youāve been wasting a lot of your own time. So only one of us is even stuck on there only being one way to be vegan. Thinking I havenāt been the flexible one is hilarious.
Iām not ignoring your foundational premise. Iām pointing out to you that your foundational premise is at odds with that of the people with whom you are speaking, and that at no point have you attempted to address those differences. What is happening is that you are basically saying āI think eating Venus fly traps is non-vegan becauseā¦ā and other people saying, āokay, I disagree with that perspective.ā Thereās no synthesis to take place. You just have thesis and anti-thesis and no attempt at making anything new from that difference of opinion.
Of course im not moving beyond that definition because my whole premise was dependent upon that definition AS I SAID IN THE FIRST COMMENT COMPLETE WITH A BIG āIFā
Iāll reiterate my initial question: if this is the case, then what did you hope to get out of this discussion? Because as Iāve already said: either people agree with you or they donāt. Thereās no wiggle room, here. The best course scenario was people going āI agreeā or āI disagreeā and then never talking to you ever again.
Youāre whole arguement is that itās wrong of me to not change the definition that I already stated my arguments depend on because then people either agree or wonāt.
No, my whole argument is that you came into this thread with that and seemed to be expecting people to agree with you when they had different definitions. But once again, like I said before, if my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike. So, once again, what were you expecting to happen? Either people are going to agree with you or not, and if they donāt, then theyāre going to tell you why. And they did. And then you got upset when they did. So, once again, what did you expect to happen?
I know and have spoken with plenty of vegans who use that definition
I cannot emphasize how little your personal experience or relationship with āplenty of vegansā matters to a discussion like this. One one very basic level, itās because your sample size is so astronomically low as to be meaningless. On another because itās the internet and lying is trivially easy. I could also point to websites that define veganism as something different from your definition, but that would be equally worthless because you wouldnāt care and because you would say your personal knowledge of people with the definition youāre using carries more weight. Which, it doesnāt, but you probably believe that it does.
Or do you really think your definition is the only way someone can be a vegan?
I donāt really care about veganism or how itās defined. What I care about is how arguments are structured and the mechanisms of language. Language is a descriptive tool and veganism is a complex lifestyle choice whose goals are tied to equally complex ethical values. Thereās probably multiple different and equally āvalidā ways of practicing veganism, but your argument is founded upon a very specific, very narrow definition of that label. Your discussion with most people here can be summed up as you saying āaccording to this narrow definition of veganism, this act is not veganā and multiple people responding with āthat isnāt my definition of veganismā and you responding with āyes, but I know a lot of vegans who have that as their definition, therefore it is more legitimate than your definition, and, also therefore, it wouldnāt be veganā and people responding again with, āI donāt believe you, but, yes, changing the meaning of words will fundamentally alter the outcome of a hypothetical syllogism that relies on specific definitions of those words. What is your point?ā
And what is your point? Like, I am serious, when you went into this discussion, what, in your mind, did you want to get out of it? It feels like you just wanted people to blindly agree with your position without providing their own perspectives on the hypothetical.
You even tacitly admited to that saying that within the framework I chose, one can only agree or disagree.
Yes, but that point is that that isnāt productive as far as discussions go. If you frame a hypothetical in narrow conditions around a binary label, such as āveganā or ānot vegan,ā such that someone can either agree or disagree with the applicability of that label, there is no point in having that discussion. Itās like if I said, āif I define good food as food I like, then pizza is bad food, because I donāt like pizza.ā Thatās a completely useless statement. There is no reason to voice it because it leads to nothing.
No one forced anyone to respond to my comments but if I make a point completely within a common framework, the least one could do is not ignore the framework simply because itās easier to respond that way.
Here we are again with competing foundational premises: you believe the definition of veganism you are applying is valid, common, and, in some ways, universal. The people responding to you think differently and have provided their own perspectives, which you have largely dismissed, in much the same way you feel like yours has been dismissed. Itās a conflict of foundational premises, and the premises are so entrenched and inflexible as to prevent any kind of meaningful discussion. Competing definitions are fairly common in any kind of ideological debate, but theyāre also fairly useless and ultimately dissolve into No True Scotsman fallacies. So, once again, you came in here, said something people thought was dumb and incorrect, and then got defensive when they told you as much. So, yeah, you didnāt force anyone to respond, but nobody forced you to post your inane question in the first place, either, did they?
but short of that my anecdotal evidence from the vegans I know is by definition just as good as any anecdotal evidence provided against it, and thatās all thats been provided
Yeah, but that means your anecdotal evidence is as equally worthless, not as equally valuable, because neither has any real value. Itās an ideological label whose edges are innately fuzzy or fluid. Itās not like youāre a radical empiricist debating the geometric definition of a triangle. Youāre debating whether or not a very specific act is itself āallowedā by a lifestyle choice. Let it go. If you donāt want to eat Venus fly traps, I think youād be hard pressed to find someone who wanted to force you.
you still wonāt even acknowledge theres not simply one type of vegan with only one definition
Remember that part of my previous comment that said you wouldnāt actually understand the argument being made and instead narrowly focus on a very small part of the reply while ignoring every other part of it? Because I remember that. My entire argument is founded on two points: one is that the definitions of veganism are fluid and open to interpretation and that the particular definition of veganism to which you subscribe is so central to your hypothetical as to render the hypothetical largely pointless as a topic of debate.
Iāll reiterate my initial question: if this is the case, then what did you hope to get out of this discussion? Because as Iāve already said: either people agree with you or they donāt. Thereās no wiggle room, here. The best course scenario was people going āI agreeā or āI disagreeā and then never talking to you ever again.
I thought this comment chain would go a lot like the other comment chain I made in this exact thread, where it was civil and constructive instead of targeted critique of the way I decide to present what I know without so much as attempting to offer things that could change my mind, because you so deeply think āi wouldnāt listen anywayā which to me sounds like you got nothing to say except you donāt like how I speak, yet you choose to keep engaging which is the funny part to me.
and you responding with āyes, but I know a lot of vegans who have that as their definition, therefore it is more legitimate than your definition,
Never said it was more legitimate, only that it was legitimate. And as long as itās legitimate the qualified statements holds up. People even pointed out land clearing and we went back and forth on that, you make it sound like there was no argument to be had whatsoever but the thread tells a different story, and you sure donāt suffer of picking out things that are unacceptable to you.
you believe the definition of veganism you are applying is valid, common, and, in some ways, universal.
Because any evidence anyone has given me to the contrary has been as worth, or worthless as the evidence I gave that it was. Would you like me to imagine a definition I havenāt heard before on the basis that you donāt like the one Iām using but refuse to supplant it? I really donāt know what it is you want me to do with conflicting evidence of similar origin? I dismissed it as quick as you dismissed my anecdotal stuff, is that not fair? Especially when I qualified my whole comment on that definition. If you really think the premise is such an issue then challenge me to change it instead of just repeating itās an issue. I said what I said, within the bounds I said, because thatās how I can be sure of my conclusion, within those conditions. Sorry you seem to take such offense to narrowly defined declarations on a hypothetical question online.
My entire argument is founded on two points: one is that the definitions of veganism are fluid and open to interpretation and that the particular definition of veganism to which you subscribe is so central to your hypothetical as to render the hypothetical largely pointless as a topic of debate.
If you really think the definition of vegan is so fluid then thereās no answer to the question at all, because for some it will be and some it wont be. My narrow qualified statement pointed out a subset of Vegans for whom it wouldnāt be okay, did it not? Then I proceed to defend it with things like how Vegans know land clearing kills animal, so in practice many make the choice to reduce animal suffering wherever possible, to imply that it logically follows that many vegans would not eat human farmed fly traps because that would almost necessarily imply they were human fed for disease control reasons. Even there I qualified my statements, at every turn I was acknowledging that there is no one way to be a vegan which you āsupposedlyā agree with, but still think itās problematic when I talk about one of those definitions to analyze a hypothetical.
I just donāt understand how if your premise is that veganism is fluid youād have such an issue with a statement that outright says its not about every vegan. You already know, or claim to know, the definition is fluid, and you know my conclusion logically follows my premise, which is why you attack the premise. So let me ask you this, do you believe my premise, the definition of veganism I gave, somehow falls outside of your spectrum of veganism? Because unless you do, to me it seems the biggest thing your mad it is that I phrased a comment in a way that didnāt invite argument or logical fallacy, but oh boy that didnāt stop you now did it.
I made a narrowly defined claim and responded logically to counter arguments. Why are you so upset with my specificity? What does the thread gain from me making a claim that obviously overreaches and is not correct other than giving you an opting to say that itās wrong? Because for the life of me it doesnāt sound like you want discussion, it sounds like you want to say someone else is wrong. If you wanted discussion Iād imagine weād be talking about definitions of veganism in any capacity other than an anecdotal rebuttal of an anecdotal assertion, or that weād be talking about the land clearing, how many flies these things actually eat, basically anything but what youāre actually talking about. Instead, you refuse to give a definition even just as a framework to speak within, say the definition of veganism is fluid, however my definition which I from the start said was simply one way of many, is a problem and somehow outside your spectrum?
I canāt in good faith believe youāre upset that thereās no discussion to be had, when your objection to my framework contradicts your supposed first point of your argument and youāve been pulling discussion out of semantic and linguistic composition rather than focusing on any kind of substantive arguments about veganism and flytraps. The only inference I can walk away with is you have much more to say about semantics and linguistics than you have to say about veganism and flytraps which brings me back to the question what is you really want to talk about?
yet you choose to keep engaging which is the funny part to me.
Yeah, because I like arguing with people on the internet. Iām fairly up front about that.
you donāt like how I speak
Indeed I do not. I donāt think youāre very good at it. But lifeās all about the destination, not the journey, and we all have to start somewhere.
People even pointed out land clearing and we went back and forth on that
This seems tangential to the initial topic. Iām glad you got something productive out of it but if you wanted to talk about industrial farming and the impact of human agricultural practices on the environment, which is a fine topic of discussion, you could have, yāknowā¦lead with that.
there was no argument
There were plenty of arguments to be had, but they werenāt good arguments. Nobodyās perspective or understanding of the world was improved by it, and Iām pretty sure nobodyās mind was changed.
I dismissed it as quick as you dismissed my anecdotal stuff, is that not fair
Of course itās fair. But itās also a waste of everyoneās time because you should have known before starting the discussion that this was what was going to happen. Like, this is so obviously going to occur and itās going to waste most peopleās time. If you ever go into a debate, you have to anticipate your opponentās responses and have arguments prepared ahead of time. What was your plan for dealing with the obvious response to your hypothetical for āI have a different definition of what constitutes veganism?ā Because you either didnāt anticipate that, or didnāt care. You also didnāt provide a lot in the way of initial details of the hypothetical. Seriously, you know you can fill out the body of a text post with quite a lot of text, right? You literally just asked the question in the title āSettle a debate: would eating a Venus fly trap be considered vegan?ā and then, in the comments, clarified that your hypothetical was couched in a definition to which most people did not subscribe. If you had lead with āSettle a debate: would eating a Venus fly trap be considered vegan [if your definition of veganism is this specific definition of veganism]ā we wouldnāt be having this discussion. Because the entire argument Iām making is that you went about engaging with this topic in a way that is, quite frankly, annoying. You posed a hypothetical and then moved the goal posts in the comments by adding additional criteria after the fact. Just ask the entire question up front next time.
the biggest thing your mad it is that I phrased a comment in a way that didnāt invite argument or logical fallacy
You literally asked a question with the intent of āsettling a debate.ā Of course itās annoying that you phrased your comment in such a way that didnāt invite argument, because it reduces the debate to a pure difference of subjective definition. It seems like you just wanted to be right, so you moved the goal posts to include your definition, saying āwell, if you look veganism like this, itās not okay to eat this particular plant or other plants grown as a result of industrial farming.ā Whichā¦yes, we are all culpable for the iniquities of the world in which we live. Thereās a reason so many vegans are also anti-capitalists. This is not a new perspective. Fuck, the t.v. show The Good Place has this facet of modern human life as one of its foundational premises in the later seasons, that people are so wrapped up in a web of causality that their actions have innumerable unforeseen and unintentional negative affects on the world, rendering all of us incidentally guilty of a host of accidental evils. And having a discussion about that topic is all well and good. But you didnāt do that. You asked people if venus fly traps as a food would be considered vegan. Which is, by comparison, a stupid fucking question.
If you wanted discussion Iād imagine weād be talking about definitions of veganism in any capacity other than an anecdotal rebuttal of an anecdotal assertion. Not even a proposed definition in it stead, simply āthatās not a correct definitionā which is a really weird thing to say for someone who thinks the definition of veganism is on a continuum
Do me a fucking favor: cite me. Seriously. Quote the exact phrase where I say your definition of veganism is objectively wrong in ANY reply Iāve given to you. In fact, I will do you one better. I will give you the links to my replies in this thread.
Iāve commented on my perspective of how youāve expressed your understanding of the lifestyle. Iāve said it seems superficial. Thatās my reading of it. But something being superficial or shallow and being āobjectively wrongā are fundamentally different. You canāt have an āobjectively incorrectā opinion on a topic like this. You can have one that comes across as underinformed or which others think is weird, but those are themselves just opinions about your opinion, and they canāt be objectively right or wrong, either.
In fact, I think we should try to make something very clear: I am not talking to you at any point about the actual topic of debate (which is to say the nature of veganism or, for some reason, venus fly traps). I agree that veganism is a fluid concept and its definitions muddled. But, once again, thatās irrelevant.
Rather, think of me more as an English teacher commenting on how you have elected to construct (or perhaps more accurately, failed to construct) a logical argument or provide a well structured discussion, at the very least, of a particular topic that you yourself chose. You are approaching this like a student who thinks that your teacher disagrees with your conclusions: maybe you didnāt like the book you were writing about and said as much and you feel you got a bad grade on your essay because the teacher disagrees with your criticism because itās a book she really likes. The reality is that she doesnāt really fucking care what you think; she cares how you think, and how you construct and present your ideas. Nobody likes reading a shitty paper. Iām similarly annoyed by someone who starts a thread and fails to present a full argument up front and then proceeds to add additional qualifying information when they get responses that they donāt like because they (presumably) just assumed everyone would be working off of the same definitions as them.
I did not add qualifications later to the statements I made, they started like that,. how many times can I say that from the beginning I was talking about one type of Vegan. I also never assumed everyone was working off the same definition, only that the one I used was eqully valid. Again you seem upset I started with a clearly defined a scope, and i donāt think youād find an actual teacher that would take issue with that. Knowing you like to argue online makes plenty of sense for how much issue you take with that. Thers absolutely nothing wrong with speaking within a scope youāve defined from the very beginning.
I did not add qualifications later to the statements I made, they started like that
Text posts on Lemmy have a āBodyā field to them. You did not put anything in the body of this text post. Ergo, you added qualifications later to the question in comments. Which is classic goalpost moving, by the way.
I also never assumed everyone was working off the same definition, only that the one I used was eqully valid.
If you pose a question like āIs doing X veganā and you donāt immediately provide a working definition, you are implicitly assuming everyone shares the same definition as you. Thatās how language tends to work. Like, imagine if someone asked you āwhatās the largest planet in our solar systemā and you said āJupiterā and then they responded āActually, no, the largest planet is the Sun,ā you would probably say āthe Sun is not a planet.ā If they said, āwell, my definition of a planet is anything round and in space, so according to my definition the Sun is a planet,ā then you would probably say, āokay, then we have different working definitions of what constitutes a planet. Maybe you should have lead with that.ā
Again you seem upset I started with a clearly defined a scope
Iām annoyed by the fact that you clearly didnāt and made it up as you got push back from people who gave you an answer you didnāt like.
Thers absolutely nothing wrong with speaking within a scope youāve defined from the very beginning.
Except, you didnāt. You added that in replies after people answered your question in a way you didnāt like. Like I know taking criticism is hard, especially from strangers on the internet, but you didnāt frame this conversation correctly initially and then added important details after the fact, which is just not productive. You may not like it, but Iām trying to help you be a better conversationalist. Also, if you wanna have real discussions, donāt do it on mobile. Bust out something with a real keyboard.
I take most issue with the fact that you just donāt seem to really understand the conversation youāre having or the arguments people are making. No one thinks you are personally attacking veganism. Not that Iāve seen, at least. What people find frustrating is the fundamental fact that they are arguing that suffering, the act of profiting from it, and the āguiltā that comes with that does not have some kind of transitive property, and you are, it seems, arguing that it does, and you canāt seem to understand the fact that the discussion and difference of perspective deadlocks there.
In other words, you donāt seem to realize that you and the people to whom you are speaking are operating on different (and this is a very important concept in any kind of debate) foundational premises. These are things that are core ideas on which any argument sits. Most of the time theyāre incredibly philosophically or ideologically basic, like 1 + 1 = 2, or āa child should not be held responsible for the crimes of their parents.ā To make matters worse, you also seem to be coupling this foundational premise with a definition of veganism which most people in the thread simply find to be objectively incorrect at worst, or remarkably obtuse at best. Honestly, if it seems like people are pissed at you for how you talk about veganism, it might be the fact that your understanding of it seems superficial, because your argument about fly traps comes across as an attempt at deconstructing the ārulesā of veganism while ignoring the ethical intent behind it as a lifestyle.
This leads to a just awful discussion, because you 1) have your own definition of veganism that fundamentally differs from nearly everyone elseās and 2) that definition is premised upon an understanding of animal suffering and what constitutes a human being āprofitingā from it with which almost everyone here also disagrees. The worst thing, however, and which I personally find the most frustrating is that your reading comprehension skills are just frankly abysmal. Youāre probably going to read this comment, have a hard time following it, and not really understand the argument being made, and instead latch onto small details that are superficial at best to this reply, probably doubling down on your belief that you are unjustly maligned because people refuse to acknowledge your extremely illogical perspective as more reasonable or intelligent than it really is.
So, summing it up, what I specifically have issue with is that you, from doing the above, have managed to craft a perfect storm of completely useless and unproductive debate. Everyone here is dumber for having partaken in this discussion. Me included. Actually, probably especially me.
The literal first thing I did was acknowledge that everyone has a different version of veganism, explained one Iāve heard from plenty of vegans Iāve spoken with, so your whole thing about foundational premises is pretty moot. I defined a clear scope of my arguement and stuck to it, most of that critique is you being mad I stayed within the scope I defined instead of letting off topic points detract from what I said and then the fact that I still donāt buy your arguements. God forbid we donāt agree on a hypothetical, sorry that upset you enough to want to be snide in your critique. I find your critisim to any lack depth or relevance to actual things I said, and contain little substance but veiled personal attacks about making everyone reading it dumber. Im sure it did make you dumber so at least we agree on that.
My first comment verbatim with emphasis added:
"If a plant has to eat animals to survive then that plant is a product of animal suffering. Thats why vegans donāt drink milk or eat eggs too. So if thatās the definition of vegan that someone subscibes to then the flytrap is not Vegan "
I set pretty clear conditions of my arguement, donāt be upset I didnāt let people detract from what I actually tried to argue instead of what they perceived I was arguing.
In that case, since the definition of vegan is relative, what did you hope to get out of this discussion beyond people agreeing with you?
Itās really not, though, and the fact that you think it does strongly supports what Iāve said about reading comprehension.
Itās not an āarguementā (also, not how argument is spelled), itās an opinion you are voicing. You think itās not vegan. Other people think it is. Itās a discussion purely couched in competing definitions. You never try to work beyond those competing definitions so whatever it is youāre āarguingā for is DOA.
They arenāt veiled.
And if my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike. Pretty much everyone here already said āthatās not really the definition of veganism.ā And you proceeded to argue with them about it. Thatās not productive discussion or ālively debateā - itās just bickering.
Once again, you donāt understand the argument I made. You are not doing anything to move beyond competing foundational premises and competing definitions, so thereās no point to the hypothetical you posed. Either people agree with you without argument, or they wonāt, and thereās nothing beyond that. And thatās because of how you chose to frame the discussion.
How does you ignoring my foundational premise make you the arbiter of whos talking in good faith and, but me refusing to justify points I didnāt make makes me the bad guy? Perhaps I framed it the way I did because thats the way it made sense to me.
Of course im not moving beyond that definition because my whole premise was dependent upon that definition AS I SAID IN THE FIRST COMMENT COMPLETE WITH A BIG āIFā. Youāre whole arguement is that itās wrong of me to not change the definition that I already stated my arguments depend on because then people either agree or wonāt. Thats probably because I did nothing but follow logical steps from a definition I know is still common. And I donāt know how many times I have to say that I know and have spoken with plenty of vegans who use that definition so Im not really concerned that a handful of people on lemmy use a different one, especially when they go out of their way to continue ignore my premise, without proving any type of evidence that no vegans use the definition Iāve started with other that saying āno they dontā after hearing that Iāve heard these definitions right from real people. Some Iām even related to. Or do you really think your definition is the only way someone can be a vegan? Because what I think is your definition is the only one where you can keep arguing. You even tacitly admited to that saying that within the framework I chose, one can only agree or disagree. No wonder youāre so desperate to move away from that
No one forced anyone to respond to my comments but if I make a point completely within a common framework, the least one could do is not ignore the framework simply because itās easier to respond that way. Hell Iād even accept any kind of data on how people define their own veganism, but short of that my anecdotal evidence from the vegans I know is by definition just as good as any anecdotal evidence provided against it, and thatās all thats been provided. Tell me if theres any things youāve heard from people you trust that someone could change with anecdotal evidence online?
What kills me is you still wonāt even acknowledge theres not simply one type of vegan with only one definition despite the fact that its the first thing I did before making a point on a clearly defined subset of vegan. And if you look through my comments elsewhere on this post, not in this chain, youll also find me aknowledge a differnt definition of vegan and come to a different conclusion, so if thats all you wanted youāve been wasting a lot of your own time. So only one of us is even stuck on there only being one way to be vegan. Thinking I havenāt been the flexible one is hilarious.
Iām not ignoring your foundational premise. Iām pointing out to you that your foundational premise is at odds with that of the people with whom you are speaking, and that at no point have you attempted to address those differences. What is happening is that you are basically saying āI think eating Venus fly traps is non-vegan becauseā¦ā and other people saying, āokay, I disagree with that perspective.ā Thereās no synthesis to take place. You just have thesis and anti-thesis and no attempt at making anything new from that difference of opinion.
Iāll reiterate my initial question: if this is the case, then what did you hope to get out of this discussion? Because as Iāve already said: either people agree with you or they donāt. Thereās no wiggle room, here. The best course scenario was people going āI agreeā or āI disagreeā and then never talking to you ever again.
No, my whole argument is that you came into this thread with that and seemed to be expecting people to agree with you when they had different definitions. But once again, like I said before, if my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike. So, once again, what were you expecting to happen? Either people are going to agree with you or not, and if they donāt, then theyāre going to tell you why. And they did. And then you got upset when they did. So, once again, what did you expect to happen?
I cannot emphasize how little your personal experience or relationship with āplenty of vegansā matters to a discussion like this. One one very basic level, itās because your sample size is so astronomically low as to be meaningless. On another because itās the internet and lying is trivially easy. I could also point to websites that define veganism as something different from your definition, but that would be equally worthless because you wouldnāt care and because you would say your personal knowledge of people with the definition youāre using carries more weight. Which, it doesnāt, but you probably believe that it does.
I donāt really care about veganism or how itās defined. What I care about is how arguments are structured and the mechanisms of language. Language is a descriptive tool and veganism is a complex lifestyle choice whose goals are tied to equally complex ethical values. Thereās probably multiple different and equally āvalidā ways of practicing veganism, but your argument is founded upon a very specific, very narrow definition of that label. Your discussion with most people here can be summed up as you saying āaccording to this narrow definition of veganism, this act is not veganā and multiple people responding with āthat isnāt my definition of veganismā and you responding with āyes, but I know a lot of vegans who have that as their definition, therefore it is more legitimate than your definition, and, also therefore, it wouldnāt be veganā and people responding again with, āI donāt believe you, but, yes, changing the meaning of words will fundamentally alter the outcome of a hypothetical syllogism that relies on specific definitions of those words. What is your point?ā
And what is your point? Like, I am serious, when you went into this discussion, what, in your mind, did you want to get out of it? It feels like you just wanted people to blindly agree with your position without providing their own perspectives on the hypothetical.
Yes, but that point is that that isnāt productive as far as discussions go. If you frame a hypothetical in narrow conditions around a binary label, such as āveganā or ānot vegan,ā such that someone can either agree or disagree with the applicability of that label, there is no point in having that discussion. Itās like if I said, āif I define good food as food I like, then pizza is bad food, because I donāt like pizza.ā Thatās a completely useless statement. There is no reason to voice it because it leads to nothing.
Here we are again with competing foundational premises: you believe the definition of veganism you are applying is valid, common, and, in some ways, universal. The people responding to you think differently and have provided their own perspectives, which you have largely dismissed, in much the same way you feel like yours has been dismissed. Itās a conflict of foundational premises, and the premises are so entrenched and inflexible as to prevent any kind of meaningful discussion. Competing definitions are fairly common in any kind of ideological debate, but theyāre also fairly useless and ultimately dissolve into No True Scotsman fallacies. So, once again, you came in here, said something people thought was dumb and incorrect, and then got defensive when they told you as much. So, yeah, you didnāt force anyone to respond, but nobody forced you to post your inane question in the first place, either, did they?
Yeah, but that means your anecdotal evidence is as equally worthless, not as equally valuable, because neither has any real value. Itās an ideological label whose edges are innately fuzzy or fluid. Itās not like youāre a radical empiricist debating the geometric definition of a triangle. Youāre debating whether or not a very specific act is itself āallowedā by a lifestyle choice. Let it go. If you donāt want to eat Venus fly traps, I think youād be hard pressed to find someone who wanted to force you.
Remember that part of my previous comment that said you wouldnāt actually understand the argument being made and instead narrowly focus on a very small part of the reply while ignoring every other part of it? Because I remember that. My entire argument is founded on two points: one is that the definitions of veganism are fluid and open to interpretation and that the particular definition of veganism to which you subscribe is so central to your hypothetical as to render the hypothetical largely pointless as a topic of debate.
I thought this comment chain would go a lot like the other comment chain I made in this exact thread, where it was civil and constructive instead of targeted critique of the way I decide to present what I know without so much as attempting to offer things that could change my mind, because you so deeply think āi wouldnāt listen anywayā which to me sounds like you got nothing to say except you donāt like how I speak, yet you choose to keep engaging which is the funny part to me.
Never said it was more legitimate, only that it was legitimate. And as long as itās legitimate the qualified statements holds up. People even pointed out land clearing and we went back and forth on that, you make it sound like there was no argument to be had whatsoever but the thread tells a different story, and you sure donāt suffer of picking out things that are unacceptable to you.
Because any evidence anyone has given me to the contrary has been as worth, or worthless as the evidence I gave that it was. Would you like me to imagine a definition I havenāt heard before on the basis that you donāt like the one Iām using but refuse to supplant it? I really donāt know what it is you want me to do with conflicting evidence of similar origin? I dismissed it as quick as you dismissed my anecdotal stuff, is that not fair? Especially when I qualified my whole comment on that definition. If you really think the premise is such an issue then challenge me to change it instead of just repeating itās an issue. I said what I said, within the bounds I said, because thatās how I can be sure of my conclusion, within those conditions. Sorry you seem to take such offense to narrowly defined declarations on a hypothetical question online.
If you really think the definition of vegan is so fluid then thereās no answer to the question at all, because for some it will be and some it wont be. My narrow qualified statement pointed out a subset of Vegans for whom it wouldnāt be okay, did it not? Then I proceed to defend it with things like how Vegans know land clearing kills animal, so in practice many make the choice to reduce animal suffering wherever possible, to imply that it logically follows that many vegans would not eat human farmed fly traps because that would almost necessarily imply they were human fed for disease control reasons. Even there I qualified my statements, at every turn I was acknowledging that there is no one way to be a vegan which you āsupposedlyā agree with, but still think itās problematic when I talk about one of those definitions to analyze a hypothetical.
I just donāt understand how if your premise is that veganism is fluid youād have such an issue with a statement that outright says its not about every vegan. You already know, or claim to know, the definition is fluid, and you know my conclusion logically follows my premise, which is why you attack the premise. So let me ask you this, do you believe my premise, the definition of veganism I gave, somehow falls outside of your spectrum of veganism? Because unless you do, to me it seems the biggest thing your mad it is that I phrased a comment in a way that didnāt invite argument or logical fallacy, but oh boy that didnāt stop you now did it.
I made a narrowly defined claim and responded logically to counter arguments. Why are you so upset with my specificity? What does the thread gain from me making a claim that obviously overreaches and is not correct other than giving you an opting to say that itās wrong? Because for the life of me it doesnāt sound like you want discussion, it sounds like you want to say someone else is wrong. If you wanted discussion Iād imagine weād be talking about definitions of veganism in any capacity other than an anecdotal rebuttal of an anecdotal assertion, or that weād be talking about the land clearing, how many flies these things actually eat, basically anything but what youāre actually talking about. Instead, you refuse to give a definition even just as a framework to speak within, say the definition of veganism is fluid, however my definition which I from the start said was simply one way of many, is a problem and somehow outside your spectrum?
I canāt in good faith believe youāre upset that thereās no discussion to be had, when your objection to my framework contradicts your supposed first point of your argument and youāve been pulling discussion out of semantic and linguistic composition rather than focusing on any kind of substantive arguments about veganism and flytraps. The only inference I can walk away with is you have much more to say about semantics and linguistics than you have to say about veganism and flytraps which brings me back to the question what is you really want to talk about?
Yeah, because I like arguing with people on the internet. Iām fairly up front about that.
Indeed I do not. I donāt think youāre very good at it. But lifeās all about the destination, not the journey, and we all have to start somewhere.
This seems tangential to the initial topic. Iām glad you got something productive out of it but if you wanted to talk about industrial farming and the impact of human agricultural practices on the environment, which is a fine topic of discussion, you could have, yāknowā¦lead with that.
There were plenty of arguments to be had, but they werenāt good arguments. Nobodyās perspective or understanding of the world was improved by it, and Iām pretty sure nobodyās mind was changed.
Of course itās fair. But itās also a waste of everyoneās time because you should have known before starting the discussion that this was what was going to happen. Like, this is so obviously going to occur and itās going to waste most peopleās time. If you ever go into a debate, you have to anticipate your opponentās responses and have arguments prepared ahead of time. What was your plan for dealing with the obvious response to your hypothetical for āI have a different definition of what constitutes veganism?ā Because you either didnāt anticipate that, or didnāt care. You also didnāt provide a lot in the way of initial details of the hypothetical. Seriously, you know you can fill out the body of a text post with quite a lot of text, right? You literally just asked the question in the title āSettle a debate: would eating a Venus fly trap be considered vegan?ā and then, in the comments, clarified that your hypothetical was couched in a definition to which most people did not subscribe. If you had lead with āSettle a debate: would eating a Venus fly trap be considered vegan [if your definition of veganism is this specific definition of veganism]ā we wouldnāt be having this discussion. Because the entire argument Iām making is that you went about engaging with this topic in a way that is, quite frankly, annoying. You posed a hypothetical and then moved the goal posts in the comments by adding additional criteria after the fact. Just ask the entire question up front next time.
You literally asked a question with the intent of āsettling a debate.ā Of course itās annoying that you phrased your comment in such a way that didnāt invite argument, because it reduces the debate to a pure difference of subjective definition. It seems like you just wanted to be right, so you moved the goal posts to include your definition, saying āwell, if you look veganism like this, itās not okay to eat this particular plant or other plants grown as a result of industrial farming.ā Whichā¦yes, we are all culpable for the iniquities of the world in which we live. Thereās a reason so many vegans are also anti-capitalists. This is not a new perspective. Fuck, the t.v. show The Good Place has this facet of modern human life as one of its foundational premises in the later seasons, that people are so wrapped up in a web of causality that their actions have innumerable unforeseen and unintentional negative affects on the world, rendering all of us incidentally guilty of a host of accidental evils. And having a discussion about that topic is all well and good. But you didnāt do that. You asked people if venus fly traps as a food would be considered vegan. Which is, by comparison, a stupid fucking question.
Do me a fucking favor: cite me. Seriously. Quote the exact phrase where I say your definition of veganism is objectively wrong in ANY reply Iāve given to you. In fact, I will do you one better. I will give you the links to my replies in this thread.
https://lemmy.ml/comment/5331374 https://lemmy.ml/comment/5331573 https://lemmy.ml/comment/5338345 https://lemmy.ml/comment/5344857 https://lemmy.ml/comment/5376311 https://lemmy.ml/comment/5385702 https://lemmy.ml/comment/5397623
Iāve commented on my perspective of how youāve expressed your understanding of the lifestyle. Iāve said it seems superficial. Thatās my reading of it. But something being superficial or shallow and being āobjectively wrongā are fundamentally different. You canāt have an āobjectively incorrectā opinion on a topic like this. You can have one that comes across as underinformed or which others think is weird, but those are themselves just opinions about your opinion, and they canāt be objectively right or wrong, either.
In fact, I think we should try to make something very clear: I am not talking to you at any point about the actual topic of debate (which is to say the nature of veganism or, for some reason, venus fly traps). I agree that veganism is a fluid concept and its definitions muddled. But, once again, thatās irrelevant.
Rather, think of me more as an English teacher commenting on how you have elected to construct (or perhaps more accurately, failed to construct) a logical argument or provide a well structured discussion, at the very least, of a particular topic that you yourself chose. You are approaching this like a student who thinks that your teacher disagrees with your conclusions: maybe you didnāt like the book you were writing about and said as much and you feel you got a bad grade on your essay because the teacher disagrees with your criticism because itās a book she really likes. The reality is that she doesnāt really fucking care what you think; she cares how you think, and how you construct and present your ideas. Nobody likes reading a shitty paper. Iām similarly annoyed by someone who starts a thread and fails to present a full argument up front and then proceeds to add additional qualifying information when they get responses that they donāt like because they (presumably) just assumed everyone would be working off of the same definitions as them.
I did not add qualifications later to the statements I made, they started like that,. how many times can I say that from the beginning I was talking about one type of Vegan. I also never assumed everyone was working off the same definition, only that the one I used was eqully valid. Again you seem upset I started with a clearly defined a scope, and i donāt think youād find an actual teacher that would take issue with that. Knowing you like to argue online makes plenty of sense for how much issue you take with that. Thers absolutely nothing wrong with speaking within a scope youāve defined from the very beginning.
Text posts on Lemmy have a āBodyā field to them. You did not put anything in the body of this text post. Ergo, you added qualifications later to the question in comments. Which is classic goalpost moving, by the way.
If you pose a question like āIs doing X veganā and you donāt immediately provide a working definition, you are implicitly assuming everyone shares the same definition as you. Thatās how language tends to work. Like, imagine if someone asked you āwhatās the largest planet in our solar systemā and you said āJupiterā and then they responded āActually, no, the largest planet is the Sun,ā you would probably say āthe Sun is not a planet.ā If they said, āwell, my definition of a planet is anything round and in space, so according to my definition the Sun is a planet,ā then you would probably say, āokay, then we have different working definitions of what constitutes a planet. Maybe you should have lead with that.ā
Iām annoyed by the fact that you clearly didnāt and made it up as you got push back from people who gave you an answer you didnāt like.
Except, you didnāt. You added that in replies after people answered your question in a way you didnāt like. Like I know taking criticism is hard, especially from strangers on the internet, but you didnāt frame this conversation correctly initially and then added important details after the fact, which is just not productive. You may not like it, but Iām trying to help you be a better conversationalist. Also, if you wanna have real discussions, donāt do it on mobile. Bust out something with a real keyboard.