Why isn't it considered vegan to harvest animals who die naturally?

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• Ephera@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Veganism isn’t a hivemind. We’re all individuals that came to similar conclusions. And we will have different opinions on the details.

  Some folks will say consuming those that died naturally is a-ok. Others will argue that it incentivizes creating conditions under which animals die “naturally” to harvest them.
  Personally, I’m part of the group that is probably the largest by a long shot, whose opinion is: Why are we even thinking about that?

  The vast majority of vegans find corpses gross, much like anything you might derive from corpses.
  It also seriously does not happen often, that animals drop dead in front of you. And there’s nothing on an animal’s body that you can’t find a different alternative for. So, it really just is not a relevant question in our lives…

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• toomanypancakes@piefed.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Hi, ive been vegan for a bit over 10 years. I don't think animal parts are for us to use at all. I'm not really sure why you'd harvest animals at all, I don't think normalizing the commodification of others' bodies is a good thing to be doing. If you really can't live without animal parts, that's probably the least harmful way of acquiring them. I wouldn't recommend eating anyone you find lying on the ground though, that sounds like a good way to contract horrible diseases.

  Veganism is about doing the most that is possible and practicable. We probably kill insects just by walking, but it's not reasonable to never move again to avoid that. Similarly, driving a car for many people is a necessity to be able to access goods and services, and its not at all practicable to avoid driving for them.

  Ultimately, veganism is a moral stance about reducing harm to others as much as you can. It's not a competition, so don't feel like you have to be perfect at it to do good.

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  • OfCourseNot@fedia.io ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    We probably kill insects just by walking, but it's not reasonable to never move again to avoid that.

    There's this Hindu sect whose adherents wear veils, sweep the floor before them, and/or tread very slowly and carefully to avoid injuring, killing or eating any small insects. As you said, it's about doing as much as you can, but if it were a competition they'd win for sure.

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    • FoxyFerengi@startrek.website ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I think you mean Jainism? It isn’t Hindu.

      They also have a very strict vegetarian diet, they won’t even eat root vegetables so burrowing insects aren’t disturbes

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  • UntitledQuitting@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Thank you for your well rounded and ernest perspective. That final sentence really gave me pause. And it’s nice to find a corner of the internet where vegans aren’t vilified immediately for existing

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  • baggins@lemmy.ca ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Thank you for this perspective!

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  • kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    If you don’t make a moral distinction between humans and other animals, it seems difficult to justify scavenging with any logic that couldn’t also be used to justify grave robbing or even necrophilia.

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  • QuinnyCoded@sh.itjust.works ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    i saw a really interesting video about biking jackets and the design of them, the conclusion is that molecularly leather is the safest material for abrasion and there’s not really any synthetic replacement that comes close.

    What does your perspective (in regard to veganism) have on this subject?

    youtu.be/xwuRUcAGIEU
    Btw this channel is REALLY entertaining and well written, I’d recommend watching this channel if you get bored sometime

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    • toomanypancakes@piefed.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I'd take the risk with synthetic materials, personally. I don't think any amount of danger I put myself in would justify killing someone else for their skin. I have a synthetic jacket with elbow and shoulder reinforcement for when I ride, and that's good enough for me.

      I'll definitely check out the video later when I have more downtime though.

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  • SolidShake@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Back in the way way way way way way way day. Human used animal fur for warmth, and the meat to eat.

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• Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  To me it’s not a matter of ethics but a matter of health. Unless you saw the animal die from something that clearly isn’t disease I wouldn’t trust meat I just found laying around.

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  • tyler@programming.dev ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    It doesn’t have to be edible. Glue, gelatin for skin mimicry, clothing, and bones for weapons, etc are all non-edible uses of animals.

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    • Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Good point. I forgot vegans included all that stuff and not just eating animal products.

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    • UndergroundGoblin@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      For me personally: Veganism is also about signaling to the outside world. Suppose I were to skin an animal that died naturally and make a jacket out of it, this would probably be the most ethical way to produce a leather jacket. But I still wouldn’t wear it, because by doing so I would signal to the outside world that it’s okay to wear the skinned hide of animals. Outsiders can’t know under what circumstances I got the leather.

      It’s perhaps a bit more radical, but I also throw away non-vegan foods that I get unintentionally. Simply because I don’t want to project to the outside: “Here you go. I would never eat it because I find it unethical, but if you eat it, then that’s okay.”

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  • baggins@lemmy.ca ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Neither would I but what about the hide?

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  • tanisnikana@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I trust old meat I find lying around. It may be a different color, but it still spends the same.

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• toebert@piefed.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I’m not vegan myself but I had asked a similar enough question to a vegan friend a while ago and liked his answer:

  He said for him it’s 2 parts, 1 is that while the animal that died may not have been harmed by humans, the ecosystem that relies on scavenging carcasses will be hurt if humans effectively start removing their entire food source (same way we have driven species to extinction by hunting).

  The 2nd part is that with humans everything with even the tiniest loop hole will get abused.. Imagine that we say this is okay. Today it may be the odd naturally deceased animal, in a month it’ll start including animals “killed accidentally”, in a year it’ll be someone farming animals with some weird way of culling them so they can claim it’s still natural causes by some twisted logic.. at the end of it we’d just not be able to trust any of it anyway so it’s easier to not even entertain the thought - the energy to figure it all out would be better spent on improving alternatives.

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• IronKrill@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I think it would depend who you ask. I consider myself vegan and would have no major issue with someone using roadkill for parts. I mean, I would find it disgusting and could never myself, but if they want to and still call themselves vegan, I see no problem with it as the harm has already been done to the animal. Seems the same as harvesting bones from the forest - what’s dead is dead.

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  • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Seems the same as harvesting bones from the forest

    Umm… Wut? Why are you being a bone harvester, what do you need them for??

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    • rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Bone stuff, why are you asking so many questions?

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    • blarghly@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Lots of people like to use things like antlers or skulls as decorations

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    • Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Whatever I want.

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• JustARegularNerd@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  From my end, I’m a registered organ donor because I feel that I won’t need this body once I’m done with it, and if anything is useful off it for someone else, then hell, let them have my liver.

  However, an animal can’t consent to that and yeah, an argument could be made that who gives a fuck, it’s a pig/chicken/cow, it’s not gonna give a shit, but death is unfortunate for anything and I’d feel more at ease that the carcus is treated respectfully and buried than me harvesting it for food.

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  • Beacon@fedia.io ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    It is going to be eaten no matter what. The chance of it being eaten is essentially 100%. So i can't see how that's part of the equation.

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    • samus12345@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Sure, but a person can choose to not be the one who does it.

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  • baggins@lemmy.ca ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Interesting. I guess that’s one perspective on death, but in nature it’s more of the decay and vultures no? Humans are a bit unique when it comes to how we handle our dead and how we try and preserve them and remove them from the natural cycle of life.

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    • JustARegularNerd@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      And such is the circle of life right. I also feel that if we as a species can move beyond meat, then we should. I can live a perfectly normal life on my current vegan diet, and if that carcus is then left for other animals and fauna to have, thus leaving the cycle undisrupted.

      I suppose what I’m getting at is that I’d rather let the animals that need those nutrients have it, as I’m already sorted.

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• givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  You can do pretty much whatever you want man…

  Like “vegan” isn’t even a century old yet, it was made up in the 1940s by some guy who thought vegetarians weren’t good enough, and he set whatever rules he wanted to.

  You can just keep using his word, but not care about his rules.

  Or you can make up your own rules.

  People searching for labels they like and then conforming to every fucking aspect of that label and nothing else, doesn’t work out well.

  So please, if you want to eat roadkill just do it.

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  • Chozo@fedia.io ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Like "vegan" isn't even a century old yet, it was made up in the 1940s by some guy who thought vegetarians weren't good enough, and he set whatever rules he wanted to.

    [citation needed]

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  • baggins@lemmy.ca ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Cool comment but did you want to answer the question, or just bitch about nothing?

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    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      but did you want to answer the question

      I did…

      it was made up in the 1940s by some guy who thought vegetarians weren’t good enough, and he set whatever rules he wanted to

      Every reason why you can/can’t do something and be Vegan, is because the guy who made the word up ~80 years ago decided it should be like that

      You’re acting like it’s a math or science, like it’s based on logic or something…

      It’s not, so the answer to “why” is essentially “because the founder said that”?

      Does that make sense now?

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• sem@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  They call themselves freegans

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• allo@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I have the same repulsive reaction to eating the body of a someone, of any species, as you probably do to eating insects or humans or literal fecal balls of steaming dung.

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• notreallyhere@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  seriously the graveyard is full of them

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• ordnance_qf_17_pounder@reddthat.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  From a materialist point of view, I can’t see any harm in harvesting the hide of an already dead animal. However, wearing a real fur coat and calling yourself a vegan is never going to be an easy thing to explain lmao

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• sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Idk much about vegan philosophy but it is a philosophy not a diet to be clear. However, personally I see it as stealing from the vultures. The vegan solution is of course, to limit roadkill to negligable levels by making cars a redundant and antiquated form of transportation.

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• CannedYeet@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  For the sake of argument I think you could say that you’re depriving a scavenger of a meal. I don’t know if that’s how veganism is usually framed.

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  • samus12345@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Won’t someone think of the bacteria??

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    • Manjushri@piefed.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      …and crows and vultures and eagles and bears and assorted rodents and foxes and beetles and many, many more. There is actually a rather robust eco system out there, you know. And when you gut part of it, you are just asking for trouble.

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• MisterNeon@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  shouldn’t it be considered vegan to harvest any of the useful parts from it, since there was no human-caused suffering involved?

  What the fuck are you talking about? The corpse is still made up of animal parts. For the record I’m a vegetarian because I hate animals and I think they’re gross.

  I’m agitated by this post not because of whatever morality question you’re trying to pull, but for linguistics sake.

  Definition of Vegan from Merriam - Webster:

  a strict vegetarian who consumes no food (such as meat, eggs, or dairy products) that comes from animals

  also : one who abstains from using animal products (such as leather)

  People like you are the reason why the word “literally” doesn’t mean “literally” anymore and we don’t have a replacement.

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  • baggins@lemmy.ca ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’m referring to veganism the moral philosophy, not the deit.

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    • MisterNeon@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      That’s not the question you asked

      shouldn’t it be considered vegan The answer is no, because the definition of the word. I’m sick of “vibe” people. Words have meanings.

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  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    why the word “literally” doesn’t mean “literally” anymore and we literally don’t have a replacement word.

    Literally still means literally, it just ironically also means figuratively now too.

    But it’s literally always meant literally.

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    • meco03211@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Literally used to mean literally. It still does. It just used to a well.

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• Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  For the second question, one could argue driving a car isn’t vegan (unless it’s electric) because gas and oil are technically animal products, even if that animal was a dinosaur

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  • Arghblarg@lemmy.ca ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’m gonna be that “acktually…” guy for a sec here. Oil & gas (mostly) are not dinosaurs… the vast majority of petrochemicals are from compressed dead algae, planktom and plant matter long pre-dating the dinosaurs: chevron.com/…/explainer-where-do-oil-and-gas-come…

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    • Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Where does this notion that oil&gas are dead dinosaurs come from? I know what you said is the truth, just as coal is the remainder of the huge forests that existed before bacteria could break down cellulose, but i would really like to know where this wrong factoid comes from - it’s literally everywhere

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  • baggins@lemmy.ca ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    So veganism isn’t about not causing harm to animals? Just blindly refusing to use animal parts?

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    • neatchee@piefed.social ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      It’s mostly about consent. We can debate when and where sentience begins, but it begins somewhere and vegans hold a moral philosophy that says using another sentient being’s work product or body without their consent is immoral.

      Note that I am not vegan myself but understand, if not agree with, their moral position.

      And as another reply said, most vegans recognize it as a “best effort” philosophy, as they appreciate the impracticality of an absolutist stance. They are focused on “harm reduction”.

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