Vegan

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An online space for the vegans of Lemmy.

Rules and miscellaneous:

We take for granted that if you engage in this community, you understand that veganism is about the animals. You either are vegan for the animals, or you are not (this is not to say that discussions about climate/environment/health are not allowed, of course)
No omni/carnist apologists. This is not a place where to ask to be hand-holded into veganims. Omnis coddling/backpatting is not tolerated, nor are /r/DebateAVegan-like threads
Use content warnings and NSFW tags for triggering content
Circlejerking belongs to /c/vegancirclejerk
All posts should abide by Lemmy's Code of Conduct

founded 5 years ago

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How do we grow? (self.vegan)

submitted 1 year ago by treeofnik to c/vegan@lemmy.ml

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi all, thank you for the community and hope you are all doing well.

I feel like the vegan presence on lemmy is quite small compared to what it was on the other site and I’m curious how we can build our community here.

I’ve been vegan for over 7 years and am generally a lurker on sites like this but think that due to all the climate awareness I would rather be the single person “enlightening” others to a different worldview than someone solely upvoting others who have the wherewithal to post and put their voice out there.

Maybe this isn’t necessarily the vibe people like but awareness is everything. What do you think?

top 7 comments

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[–] lalo@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel that people are on Lemmy because of their convictions and are more willing to boycott something they condone.

We can just keep posting motivating stuff and it will reach c/all. Showing the truth about the way we exploit animals will convince the ones who truly care about them.

Recently I saw another topic here with lots of comments from c/all and it was a shitshow, with lots of vegans calling people narcissists and generally putting people in a defensive position. That is something we should really avoid.

We should make compelling arguments so people can read them and change their minds about what they're supporting. Try to be thoughtful even if the other person is not. Lots of people will end up reading your comment anyway.

If you find someone who really don't care about animals, the best option is just not engage. Making a negative comment is awful and off-putting.

[–] treeofnik 2 points 1 year ago

Agree, arguments don’t really get anywhere and typically just lean towards many people chiming in about how they don’t want to be told what to do. The discussion and comments I like to provide are more about bringing a different perspective than telling anyone what to do, but people generally respond the same way (defensive/negative).

Appreciate your feedback, mostly curious because I was more of a lurker in the past but feel like I could always do more.

[–] Haggunenons@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Roger Payne introduced much of the world to humpback whale songs and as a result much whale population decline began to reverse. He predicted that this would happen if people could just see that they communicate with each other. This reversal happened despite us being unable to even begin to understand what they were saying to each other.

With this recent explosion of AI technology, leaps and bounds are being made to actually begin to decode the communications of some other animals. This new emerging field is being called Digital Bioacoustics. For instance, a study has just recently come out that elephants call each other by names. I think there is a decent chance that this deeper understanding of animal communication may possibly lead to a paradigm shift in how humans see the other living creatures that we share the planet with, in the very least, I can hope so!

[–] yazgoo@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

i think exposing our best arguments in an accessible way is the best way to grow. In France there is Florence Dellerie who produces great fact sheets, that could be an inspiration https://questionsanimalistes.com/fiches-info/

[–] JoYo@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel like this kind of post always devolves into people calling moderates "pickmes" and the radicles just expecting everyone to agree with them already.

no offense, your intentions are good.

[–] treeofnik 2 points 1 year ago

Fair enough, I get it. Not trying to only start arguments with no real learning. There are many ways to execute activism, and I’m curious about everyone’s perspective on how we might do this differently on lemmy.

Generally it seems like this is not really the place for it. Having conversations with real people in real situations usually provides a much better response and opportunity for growth.

[–] PuddingFeeling907@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

Haha it’s much smaller here, 1.3 million people there is a lot.

I’m just glad the mods didn’t participate in the blackout protest because it would be been a massive mess if those temper tantrum carnists had their ways becoming mods.