History

I am of the opinion that consuming something is ultimately low on the scale of bad actions you can take in a capitalist economy.

This may be logic dependent in alienation. At the end of the day, it is an animal dying for the purpose of capitalism and your personal eating of it. That latter part has been the case since domestication. But due to industrialized farming and advancea of science, it is possible to thrive without it and to know that it is possible to thrive without it. At our level of discussion it is of course just an individual thing and it takes into the system of production, but that is the case for all struggle.

Consider this: consumption, now, is just an act of buying what is sold under the capitalist system. It is amoral relative to that process and the humans involved in it. It will sell whatever it can relative to what is socially possible and its historical embedding. But this does not resolve the moral question, and it does not change the scale of personal involvement. Killing to eat an animal now is not lesser than killing to eat an animal 2000 years ago so far as the act against the animal is concerned. What has changed is the productive system that makes it even less necessary. As Marx noted, capitalism is itself a revolutionary evolution of class conflict, it has displaced older systems. We are embedded in it and can take stock of our current situation in it, in all its multitudes.

but that doesn't mean there aren't reasonable things you could do to reduce your cobalt usage either.

No doubt. In addition to your example, reducing one's own direct consumption overall is a good rule of thumb for slightly removing oneself from particupation in the horrors of the economic system. It is just one step removed, but focusing on second hand items is one way to do this, including re: cobalt. For this reason I usually thrift, yard sale, ebay, etc my things. Or go through Chinese sellers (or manufacturers) whose productive sources are reasonably determined. For example, a Chinese seller of a Titanium item is getting that thing sourced 100% through China except in the rare of cases. Being sourced from China is not an inherent good, it is a country with good and bad things, but it is a socialist project and I can be confident that Chinese titanium things is unlikely to involve child laboe and will contribute to the productive forces of China. I hope they will de-dollarize my dollars eventually, lol.

But to self-crit, I so not expecr everyone to so this and I don't think it is a something to build into any kind of movement at the moment. But veganism can be. It is simple enough to describe and attempt to follow. Sometimes, a concordance between what should be and what can be done now is empowering.

If it is relevant at all, I have a steam deck that I upgraded with an aftermarket SSD and I plan to use it for a long time so as to reduce my consumption while still enjoying my hobbies, which give me strength to organize and socialize. It offers a way to avoid building a gaming machine for dealing with graphics cards or an endless upgrade cycle. Though I am not overly invested in trying to navigate electronics supply chains, just avoiding new HP purchases due to BDS.

If I were to knowingly buy this graphics card anyways, how would that compare to knowingly eating meat? or even just cheating on my diet to eat meat?

This can't be quantified. The two things aren't directly comparable and the computer stuff has murky supply chains. We can't make perfect or good consumption choices and shouldn't spend too much time worrying about them. I just think most vegan stuff is fairly practicable and changes one's relationship with animals for the better, and as we grow in number, communities' relationships with animals for the better, serving the cause of animal liberation.

In my view, I think both make you a less morally good person, but not by that much

Haha, this is basically the moral accounting system of a particular popular show that ended a few years ago. I think the question of being a good person is so poisoned by capitalism that I would avoid even thinking about it outside of ensuring one sticks to their principles as best they can while seeking knowledge and empathy.

But I can say that avoiding animal products is usually practicable, can be done in any way that is amenable to you and ensuring your well-being, and that upon adopting this you will find an additional level of moral consistency that can help ready you for further struggle.

without moralism you lack passion and drive and without cold hard self interest and rationalism you can lose sight of the bigger picture in my view.

Ye, exactly. Our modes of communication do not allow for a cohesive form of rhetoric that ticks all boxes, so we make do with people using different strategies simultaneously. Sitting down and reading books together is the way to be thorough. But nobody does that without agitation.

the reason I think it's a poor analogy is the level of activity in what you are doing in the situation.

I don't think level of activity is something that changes morality or practicality. If sitting on a couch meant 2 million kids died we would just avoid sitting on couches. No real activity required, just a conscious choice based on understanding what the small action led to. Luckily it is straightforward to not sit in a couch and it is straightforward to avoid animal products.

The correlation is that a person does actively buy and personally eat an animal product when they could just not, just like a person does actively "buy" the house and fo live in it when they could not. Cheap housing is even an incentive! But the cost...

because I personally decided to kill the bird and pulled the trigger. When I'm eating meat, the animal is already dead.

In a way, these things are only really different through capitalist alienation. If you knew that Bob from down the street did it at your request it wouldn't change very much about the equation, and would depersonalize it less. The decision to kill and eat the animal is the same but its comodification through a market has made appear as something else, socially.

the analogy in the Israel-Palestine situation is someone who just moved to a random apartment built in Tel Aviv vs a settler personally kicking someone out of their house.

In my example the person had already been kicked out by the Zionist entity, ghus completing the analogy of depersonalization even though everyone knows it is, in reality, incredibly personal and a form of disposession.

hmm so like my point as you've seen is that I don't think individual consumption choices really do not matter much.

Let me counter with this: personal organizing efforts also do not matter much compared to what is necessary. It is only in aggregate and by following a correct course that we reach viable methods of liberation. If we value our own contributions at all, then these kinds of things do become comparable. Because we know what is necessary, we dedicate our lives to revolution, even knowing we are just a part of a whole.

Basically, if you aren't going to participate in the boycott, you better keep your goddamn mouth shut about it.

Yes, this is basically describing one-person PR. It is why I vote. I don't really care about bourgeois electoralism on a personal level bit the liberals I interact with cannot understand my meanings unless I can viably relate.

Similarly, I've always wondered why a similarly cold calculation hasn't been made about veganism

I think it is more likely that they don't think about it at all. Or that they adopt the predominant social view of it. Veganism is not strong enough to elicit any kind of response from a political class.

It's not that the party leaders would be vegan in any capacity, it's that to be able to feed everyone and keep resentment about treats down they could cynically push veganism in schools.

But veganism is a moralistic position that does not have a strong social movement in any country, so it would be an imposition without justification. Naturally, countries promote what is foreseeably practicable in their current social context. More efficient animal ag, an expansion of plant-based foods that are more efficient (soy is ubiquitous!), questions of how to make industrialized agriculture sustainable, etc. I can tell you, definitively, that at least one socialist country advances by promoting conferences and research around these kinda of things and lets the nerds sort it out.

elon musk should be shot etc etc. And yes, sounds very nice to live in that world doesn't it 😭

Comrades too comrade telepathy, lol. I did think about neuralink at one point while writing that. Though unflrtun even the most boring run-of-the-mill NIH stuff also falls into this category.