this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
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I actually find that a lot of the vegans I know don't consider worker rights or mineral extraction when they make choices. As a leftist that has recently been trying very hard to go full vegan find there is a stark trade off I am forced to make when it comes to meeting a budget and also considering the imperialist extraction of the earth usually by exploited workers.
To me the worst part of being fully vegan is that there's no great, mainstream, non-plastic alternatives to leather and wool. Almost all faux leather is made of oil or some vegetable oil, and almost all vegan wool sweaters use synthetic wool.
That seems wild to me. I get some vegans being a bit apathetic towards humanity, but it seems crazy to turn a blind eye to human issues. I see the way we treat other animals as being directly intersectional with the way we treat humans. All sentient beings deserve compassion.
I think from a practical standpoint, it's easier to check a list of ingredients than to keep track of which brand is owned by whom and how much they suck, especially when most of them do suck. Not to mention that the who-owns-who chart is more convoluted than the English monarchy's family tree.
I definitely get where you're coming from. It's almost impossible to live in modern society without unintentionally exploiting someone. What matters is we're doing our best.
Oh yeah, with the system we've got, there is too much separation between consumption and production of commodities. It is so much leg work to try to have some semblance of ethical consumption, but we'll just keep trying to make the moves in the right direction. The left certainly has a past with animal exploitation and even geoengineering. I think it is just promethian-ism that is the problem really, the domination of nature.
I think there's an underdog effect at play there. I recognise shades of that in myself. If you're sensitive to the kind of highly industrialised violence at scale that modern farming operates under, then I can understand how exploitation of human workers might seem vastly les important.
It's not my view, but I can see it.