Some of the replies here are absolutely vile: if you’re going to endorse locking people in cages for years if not decades and pretend that’s a justified response to anything short of their being an immediate physical danger to the people around them, then the least you can do is accommodate their most basic needs and ethical positions.
Prisons are pitched to us as places of rehabilitation - somewhere to pay penance and right wrongs before returning to the community, better for having served the time. I think it’s a deeply disingenuous characterisation which serves mainly to let people avoid facing up to the reality which is prison’s purposeless and ultimately harmful cruelty, but it is the dominant characterisation nonetheless.
But, if we blindly accept the rehabilitation narrative, then how exactly do we expect to rehabilitate people by fracturing them psychologically? By forcing them to violate ethical commitments which are sacrosanct to them, by alienating them from their communities and forcing them to abide by a clockwork dictatorial regime without any semblance of comfort or dignity, by leaving them to rot miserably for years?
No, and no wonder prisons are factories for broken people and recidivism if this is how people think about them. Get a hold of yourselves.
Also, before anybody retreats to the flimsy position of “but prisoners shouldn’t eat better than schoolchildren” or “but what about the poor” - yes, those people are also underserved, and we have resources available to improve conditions for all of them too. All that’s lacking is will.
Last but not least, if you concede that you care about neither the incarcerated nor the society they come from and will return to in time - then there’s also the question of why animals should suffer? If people aren’t even worthy of being afforded their basic preferences, then why should the default be the option which necessitates the lifelong suffering of sentient beings on an industrial scale?
Glad to know veganism is more important than justice.
He doesn’t have the right to be a vegan in prison. He’s in PRISON. Being justly punished. When you’re in prison, you don’t get to live the way you want barring basic human rights, and being vegan isn’t a human right, it’s a lifestyle choice.
Get over that fact and take your cultists out of the thread
he already has PBJs and PBJs are given specifically as a vegan option.
he doesn’t have the right to be vegan when he’s locked up
you don’t have the right to exploit crime threads to push your shitty political agenda.
This thread is not about you, not about vegans, and you coming in here brigading and unethically deciding the fact that a dude who stole billions is claiming to be vegan (whether that claim is true or false) is more important than justice and literally everyone else is unacceptable, get the fuck out of the thread
You. Unless you think we haven’t noticed you’re hiding behind a debate about the importance of punishment, the viability and legitimacy of the prison system and abuses of the U.S. prison system in a situation that has nothing to do with them because you’re trying to promote veganism.
It’s weird though. It’s literally just the guy you were talking to, and another who’s account is only a couple hours old and solely has comments on this post.
It’s weird that every single comment he made would have exactly 3 upvotes only an hour after posting on a 2 day old thread, deep within a comment chain of nearly 20 back and forths.
But maybe not, honestly it’s possible you’re right. It was just pretty suspicious.
I don’t especially care whether there’s a formally enshrined right for incarcerated people to be vegan - I’m saying that if we continue to insist upon locking people in cages with an ostensible objective of rehabilitating them and not simply performing retributive cruelty for its own sake, then we must treat the incarcerated people with diligence and respect as baseline. You can’t expect for well-adjusted people to emerge from a system of institutionalised dehumanisation, cruelty, and uncaring indifference.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to respect an incarcerated person’s ethical commitment to not exploiting animals, and to be diligent in providing food of a reasonable nutritional standard which doesn’t violate those commitments to consume. Peanut butter sandwiches do not fulfil that criteria by themselves.
I’m not sure what you mean by “my cultists” - I didn’t bring anybody here, and I found this thread independently through my own feed.
In order to preemptively address some of your assertions in reply to another person in this comment thread:
This thread is not about you, not about vegans
It’s not about vegans, no.
It’s about respect for a person’s ethical commitments in a scenario where you’ve deprived them of the ability to satisfy those commitments themselves. My argument would not have to substantively change in order to comment on a person whose religious dietary restrictions aren’t being respected by the available options, to give an alternative example.
It’s true that the final paragraph of my original response speaks specifically to animal liberation, but that’s because I’m passionate about that issue independently of this one. That said, I think my original reply would remain perfectly sound with that paragraph removed if you’d prefer to take it that way.
the fact that a dude who stole billions
I don’t think the crime or characteristics of the incarcerated are especially relevant here. My argument would remain unaltered if the incarcerated person was poor, from a marginalised background, and in prison for much less exceptional reasons.
is more important than justice and literally everyone else
I don’t think that whatever justice there is to be found in the prison system is nullified by respecting incarcerated people’s ethical commitments, and I think that applies to all incarcerated people.
Unless you think we haven’t noticed you’re hiding behind a debate about the importance of punishment, the viability and legitimacy of the prison system and abuses of the U.S. prison system in a situation that has nothing to do with them because you’re trying to promote veganism.
I’m a prison abolitionist first and foremost, and I thought that’d be clear from the overall thrust of my original post - but apparently not. Respect for the incarcerated, their humanity, and their ethical commitments is very much the compromise position.
Well, good news: prison absolutely is for punishing people, not rehabilitation. And it never should be. Prison should never go away, specifically to spite disgusting monsters like you who want to do away with justice, ensuring that no one who does evil things will ever see meaningful life-rendering consequences for their actions.
You’re the kind of person who ruins the lives of abuse victims. Who tells rape victims that they need to put aside their emotions for your idea of a greater good while nothing is ever expected of their rapists or of you. People like you destroy millions of lives peddling this shit – there’s even a CSA survivor in the comments calling out another one of your ilk.
I’m a prison abolitionist first and foremost, and I thought that’d be clear from the overall thrust of my original post - but apparently not. Respect for the incarcerated, their humanity, and their ethical commitments is very much the compromise position.
No, what you are is an apologist. The idea of doing away with punishment, even prison, is nothing more than cheap apologia, anti-survivor, anti-justice, completely immoral and anti-human. Though given veganism is being used as the main driver for you to peddle your evil political agenda in this thread, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if you truly did not give a fuck about any of that.
I nor anyone else with decency, goodness and common sense are going to give you or your evil ideas any quarter nor should they. The very idea of doing away with punishment or even prison given the horrific reasoning you hold for it is morally repugnant and can be dismissed on its face.
You are disgusting. Get away from me. I hope you never get what you want.
I don’t care about sharp words from a brutish authoritarian.
You’re free to continue endorsing an institution and approach which generates further undesirable behaviour as recidivism whilst preventing little wherever it’s implemented. You can continue to pretend that criminality is a phenomenon completely local to the actor and not a reflection of broader social and structural issues which we need to address. You can proceed with turning out more victims by proxy of the traumatised ex-incarcerated continuing to deal harm if it’ll satisfy the sadistic streak inside of you demanding that infractions incur the infliction of suffering and trauma in turn.
Regions which engage with mass incarceration and operate more sadistic prison regimes overlap with those regions with the highest rates of repeat offending. That’s not a coincidence, but a product of thinking like yours.
Prisons which exist with actual commitments to rehabilitation, and which respect the dignity of the incarcerated, while imperfect, turn out far fewer repeat offenders than those who don’t.
If you care about victims of abuse, as I do, then you’ll turn instead to approaches which result in fewer of them to be counted: alternatives to incarceration, and the pursuit of relative normalcy within the institution for the incarcerated where it still exists.
I hope for a future without coercion, abuse, violence, or pain. I would hope that we all do.
I don’t care about sharp words from a brutish authoritarian.
But you do care about writing a half-page’s worth of the most obscene, arrogant, self-satisfied, apologist garbage you can muster because ultimately, this is about the lack of respect you have for other people, especially abuse victims who you step all over to get what you want. Like here:
If you care about victims of abuse, as I do, then you’ll turn instead to approaches which result in fewer of them to be counted: alternatives to incarceration, and the pursuit of relative normalcy within the institution for the incarcerated where it still exists.
Who, in the world, would reasonably listen to someone like you? Someone who thinks like that? You know there are actual CSA survivors in this thread, right? Possibly even rape survivors? And you’re here talking that kind of shit thinking you know them better than the rest of humanity and have the right to speak for them?
Did you know I am an abuse survivor? That most of my friends are? Did you ever even think to emphasize with me, or ask me who I am or why I feel the way I do?
No. You absolutely did not. It didn’t even cross your mind to, because you’re a disgusting abuse apologist who doesn’t give a shit about anyone other than yourself. You likely only support getting rid of punishment specifically because you know it will hurt everyone else.
Don’t listen to him, pretty sure he’s a troll. Also looks like he has alts, as every one of his comments immediately gets upvoted two or three times, while comments like yours get downvoted. It’s pathetic.
Prisons are pitched to us as places of rehabilitation - somewhere to pay penance and right wrongs before returning to the community, better for having served the time
In America? many states don't even pretend with that pitch. They want to be "hard on crime" and "give justice to victims". And voters vote for that.
Corporations respond to consumer demand. Don’t buy beef and there won’t be massive deforestation and insane methane emissions. Every dollar you spend on beef is supporting the 1% and the corporations you claim to hate.
I wasn’t even alive in the 1970’s when Exxon knew about climate change and lied about it to the entire world. Those rich fucks have been exploiting the climate for their personal gain for many decades before either of us were likely even born. I won’t be giving up the few small liberties I have so that the rich can continue doing whatever they want.
And good luck getting every single consumer to agree with you. I suspect you’re going to be waiting a long time for your plan to work.
As horrible as those people are, it’s not like they’re just belching carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for fun. They’re fulfilling demand. That 40% wouldn’t disappear just by spreading ownership of the factories to more people. That’s not to say that individual action is the only thing that works. Regulations need to be put in place to curb emissions, incentives should reward producers for investing & transitioning to more sustainable practices, and yes, monopolies need to get split up.
But the fact remains that some products are just bad for the environment. As as long as people continue buying those products they’ll keep being produced. And when animal agriculture accounts for about as many emissions as the entire transportation industry, this seems like one of the easier steps to make.
The “my actions won’t end this problem so I don’t need to do anything” mentality never comes up in any other field (politeness, crimes, social change, voting). Yeah, choosing to never hold open doors for others wouldn’t noticeably affect the global rate, but I doubt you’d use that logic to justify being rude.
To say Exxon was just, “fulfilling demands” makes them seem like good people. They KNEW they were causing climate change 50 years ago. They suppressed the information. Many Americans are dependent on their oil. It’s all part of the design of our roads, infrastructure, jobs, etc. These corporations only care about their revenue streams, not the streams of water and how clean they are. Hoping the majority of consumers band together to do the right thing simply will not work. The corporations and the executives need to be held accountable or we will continue to flounder on climate change.
Unfortunately it goes back further than that. We knew anthropogenic climate change was a thing in the late 1800s, and the oil companies started doing the research in the early 1900s. They knew by 1910 that they were flirting with disaster. Which just allows everyone to say, “nope, not changing anything personally, because those decisions were made before I was born.”
I agree that it’s unfair that we have to modify our consumption when it makes so little impact. Hopefully meat in vats is actually better for the environment, but I’m not counting on it for the first generation. It is finally being served in a couple restaurants so that’s a first step
It has nothing to do with fairness. Modifying consumption at an individual level doesn't help and isn't even a step to solving the problem. It's literally propaganda to shift blame and make sure nothing is ever done to address the issue.
If you're relying on individuals you may as well just give up. There needs to be systemic change forced by legislation.
Modifying consumption at the individual level unintentionally creates boycotts that the local consumer isn’t even aware they are involved in. This compounds when the local consumer happens to be an upper manager, because they will carry their biases against corporations, such as Nestlé, into the corporate world, and continue their own boycott of services that are undesirable.
Again, totally unfair to the individual since we carry so little responsibility, but we also carry the ability to crush corporations that refuse to follow the people’s will. Look a bit deeper into why Enron, or Sears-Roebuck collapsed. You’ll find that your real power is burying corporations that have no value.
That was sort of my point. I guess it would be better stated as putting the decision making at the individual level doesn't help, or something like that.
Many Americans are dependent on their oil. It’s all part of the design of our roads, infrastructure, jobs, etc.
No, it’s all because America ‘needs’ to be competitive with the world on a military level. This means that whatever will make us progress the fastest is the route we’re going to take.
Operating without oil will severely hinder US military progression, which is why we don’t do it. It’s the same reason why no nation does it that has a stake in world affairs. Slowing down to save the environment gives your enemies an advantage.
I’m not defending fossil-fueled energy production. When the product is energy it’s inexcusable to produce it in such a grossly irresponsible manner.
But if “coal energy” specifically was the product, and consumers overwhelmingly directly choose it rather than available renewable energy, then yeah I’d cut companies a bit more slack. When the harm isn’t in method but the product, and people are choosing that product instead of alternatives, then much of the blame rests on them.
Thats because we all have been raised to be polite and hold doors open. We have also been raised to consume anything and everything to satisfy our greed because it is our right as rulers of earth. It is the standard and noone criticizes you for it, so why not keep that privilege? It is apparently very hard and takes a long time to get rid of this mentality in the whole population, especially since the most influential ones fight for keeping it.
Do you really only do good things when you’ve been conditioned to do so? You don’t ever try to grow past what society tells you? I’m not asking you to solve everything. I’m asking you not to be a part of the problem. Defending your behavior by pointing to that of others has not been a historically sound position.
The reason why we will fail when it comes to the climate: we can’t even agree on who to blame and who to punish and how to change the situation to solve the problem.
I don’t have a car, but yes I’m a little bit at fault. I never said I wasn’t.
But only an idiot would think I’m just as bad as people who made millions of dollars making the climate problem substantially worse. I didn’t get rich by fucking our planet. I’m just trying to get by unlike the executives exacerbating climate change so they can make a couple million more.
Noone is saying we shouldnt punish corporations. We should, but how does that give us a free pass to keep exploiting the environment? How can you demand change from others when you decline changing yourself from the start?
The goal is to reduce emissions. If you want to reduce emissions significantly, you must massively reduce or eliminate meat consumption.
And so any solution, no matter where it comes from, will result in meat being either banned or becoming absurdly expensive. So why not get ahead of that and learn to live without meat?
One thing that has always bothered me about veganism is how freaken privileged it is. Cooking without animal products is more work and just has less reward. It is a privilege of the rich or at the least a full-time homemaker. I am upper middleclass now but I have been poor. Animal products are a hit of happiness with low effort.
“China isn’t doing their part, why should we?” Ok, GOP talking head.
That’s the excuse every conservative in the USA gives for ignoring the climate crisis. The fact is that our efforts ARE working in Western countries. That doesn’t mean we should stop.
I never said they were mutually exclusive. The problem is that the majority of people have to make sacrifices because some rich assholes caused the lion’s share of the problem. The funny thing about being a rich asshole is that they’ll get away scot-free while the rest of us have to pay for their greed.
Going vegan isn’t “making sacrifices”, it’s the right thing to do. Rich people aren’t the ones consuming all of the meat, it’s everyday schlubs like you.
Here’s the problem that schlubs like you don’t understand: The rich people who profited from causing most of the problem aren’t making any sacrifices and expect everyone else to do it for them.
No but making yourself miserable for no reason won’t either. Look, I am personally trying. Got meat down to about one meal a week (oh Lord that one meat meal a week is so awesome), only driving when there isnt another option, and not blasting my AC. This doesn’t change the fact that there are big big problems that individuals making themselves feel like shit won’t solve. All my effort can be undone in a single day by anyone on earth and they don’t even have to plan it out, it could just happen.
Lololololol, painting the sales of a product (eg gasoline) as personal usage and then aggregating it as a metric is just about one of the most disingenuous use of statistics I regularly see spouted.
So tired of any personal responsibilities. Fuck those oil producers heating my home polluting the planet!
rich assholes fly around in their private jets fucking up the world
Funny you mention this because the article specifically calls out people who think air travel is a more meaningful contributor to climate change than their own diet preferences.
Also your entire take is based on the idea that these 1% corporations just like, burn fuel for funsies, instead of selling products to people which are then consumed.
This take, for instance, is pants-on-head stupid:
A household making $980,000 from [investment in] certain fossil fuel industries, for example, would be considered a super-emitter, according to the report.
Might wanna rethink your entire worldview there bud.
America’s richest 10% are responsible for 40% of climate change. You’re butthurt that I’m using living modestly while rich assholes profit from making the climate problem exponentially worse. I would say don’t bootlick for the rich, but I’m not sure you’re intelligent enough to change your worldview “bud”.
You’re sharing the same article I’m quoting from, which is making a stupid argument.
If you want to fight climate change, you must understand that aggregate demand is the driver of climate change. Companies don’t get rich by fucking up the planet. Companies get rich by selling people shit. The shit they sell is fucking up the planet. Cut the demand and you lessen the fuckening.
The way forward is by tackling aggregate demand, ideally through carbon taxes and investment/subsidies in green technologies.
I am a literal climate lobbyist, and this is the angle actual people involved in fighting climate change work from.
I’m a climate scientist and a sociologist. If you think that we can get everyone on the same page about giving up their personal liberties and small pleasures (like eating meat) so the rich can continue to exploit the problem further for their own profit, we’ve already lost.
The only path forward is to jail the corporate executives and rich assholes causing the lion’s share of the issue, but instead we get bootlickers arguing for an impossible goal of herding a bunch of cats to stop doing something they love to make up for problems mostly caused by the richest 10%.
If you think that we can get everyone on the same page
I literally say the opposite of this
The only path forward is to jail the corporate executives and rich assholes causing the lion’s share of the issue
In addition to being completely unhinged, this does not address demand at all and someone else will simply start selling those fuels and products/services
I can see you’re having trouble understanding basic logic. Let me explain it to you this way:
If I started a business throwing used motor oil into the ocean, I could charge people next to nothing to take their oil. I would make huge profits by destroying our planet. Your strategy would be to convince all the poor people in America not to use the cheapest option to dispose of their oil. Many Americans don’t have a choice between using an expensive “good for the Earth” option and my business that throws it into ocean for cheap.
You lack an understanding of the people you’re trying to coordinate. Many Americans lack the time and the money to correctly choose the most environmentally friendly option. You will never get everyone on the same page. The only path forward is to punish the rich assholes actually causing the lion’s share of the problem.
The reality is, fossil fuels companies are constantly listed as “top contributors” because they fucking sell fossil fuels.
Until we remove the present need for fossil fuels by disincentivizing them in favor of green technology, then we will continue on this path. Fossil fuels aren’t burnt for fun. They are used to power homes, transportation, etc. That’s what we need to tackle.
I understand it is attractive to have a “villain” to point at. It makes things much easier for you and absolves you of your role. However, this is both non-productive and, ultimately, objectively incorrect.
You’re correct that voluntary abstinence is not enough to be meaningfully impactful, that’s why we lobby for government subsidies and, ideally, carbon taxation.
I know you, personally, are a lost cause - you’ll fight anything that will “disadvantage” you. I’m writing this because some lurker will see it and that’ll be one more vote. One vote at a time is how we win.
I see you were unable to refute any of my points. Instead you continue to bootlick for the rich just like every other lobbyist. Fuck off plutocrat parasite.
If anyone is interested in meaningfully fighting climate change, I highly recommend you get involved.
It’s free, volunteer work, doesn’t take a lot of your time, and you’ll speak face to face with representatives. You can be involved on any level you’d like
Yep, he was three years into a ten year contract so if he does in fact end up being fired with cause that vast majority of that money disappears. And from the article it sounds like “with cause” is left to the sole judgement of MSU.
On the other hand, conservatives (in the US, maybe elsewhere) are so consistently and universally wrong, if they all died we’d be better off.
The disagreement isn’t like “Should we get pizza or tacos”. It’s like “Should gay people exist?” “Is climate change a thing?” “Is slavery good, actually?”
Pretty much every problem we have is made worse by conservatives fighting to keep the status quo or reverse progress.
Fuck them. We would be better off if they were dead.
Well, Maricopa county (and Arizona as a whole) was pretty much evenly split last election, and in the end it came out as blue, so I think it’s not that much of a leopards situation.
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