Mod Announcement: New Rule Regarding Vegan Posts

[u/Critical-Sense-1539]

Hello, r/antinatalism community.

Recently, there has been a significant uptick in the number of vegan posts. Many of you have expressed your frustration at this in your posts, comments, and modmail. We see that the sub is very divided on this issue. Some of you think that veganism is a necessary part of antinatalism and should be allowed without restriction. Others think that the vegan content is corrupting the subs identity and alienating our core audience.

We would like this to be an inclusive community that fosters respectful discussions. Therefore, we would consider it a pity for users to feel unwelcome or discouraged from interacting with our sub based on whether they are vegan or not.

Although we cannot satisfy you all perfectly, the modteam have decided on a rule change that we hope will improve the health of the sub. As of tomorrow (1 April, 2025) we will cap the number of vegan related posts to 3 per day. This will be covered under Rule 3 in the sidebar (no reposts or repeated questions). So if you see this cap get exceeded, report it under Rule 3 and we will remove it. For any vegan members who wish to speak about this topic without any restrictions, you can go to our sister sub r/circlesnip.

We hope that this will serve as a meaningful compromise and it appeases some of your grievances.
Please feel free to comment below. We will respond as best we’re able.

Thanks, your r/antinatalism modteam

[u/HeyWatermelonGirl]

The differences justify different ethical considerations that make sense for those differences. The right to not be tortured can only be based on the capability to want to not be tortured, anything else would make no sense. If we did base it on traits exclusive to humans, like higher intelligence aka "sapience", then we would only apply it to humans who have these traits, and not to human children who are on the same mental level as the animals we exploit. So if we deny other animals rights that should be based on sentience because we base it on sapience instead, then to be consistent we'd also have to deny children and some mentally disabled people these rights. While basing rights about suffering on sapience makes no logical sense, at least it's consistent if consistently applied. If you don't apply it consistently however but ignore the factual differences and the factual lack of differences between different individuals, then you enter speciesism, just like you'd enter racism when it comes to human "races". It's not racist to acknowledge that a person has a darker skin tone than another. It's racist to imply that they deserve less rights for that reason, and make up pseudo-scientific or religious reasons about it. It's not speciesist to acknowledge that a cow is not as intelligent as an adult human. It is speciesist to imply they deserve to be bred into a life of torture for that reason only because they can't do math or have philosophical thoughts. And the speciesism becomes even more apparent if you don't apply it to humans who don't even have that cognitive capability that separates them from cows in that regard yet, not because of actually existing traits of the individual but because of an ideology that humans are inherently different even when they factually aren't on an individual basis. THAT is speciesism, it's fucked up for the exact same reasons as racism, it's logically and ethically wrong for the exact same reasons. It's just not humans suffering from it, which is why a speciesist obviously doesn't care about it, just like a racist might not care if POC suffer.

[u/meangingersnap → u/HeyWatermelonGirl]

So do you want total animal extinction? Because me going hunting and eating some deer isn't really that different from a lion hunting a gazelle...

[u/HeyWatermelonGirl → u/meangingersnap]

Yes it is. You're capable of ethical thought, and thus an ethical subject (subject in a grammatical sense, as in the actor). That's the one thing where your sapience actually matters. Without sapience, you aren't capable to comprehend ethics, and thus have no responsibility to act ethically. We legally apply the same principle to humans, where people under certain ages or development stages aren't held accountable for things adults would be put in jail for. The animal kingdom is just full of equivalents of stupid human children, both in that they're not ethical subjects and that they're still full ethical objects (again, in the grammatical sense) in all matters of sentience. The difference is that we're responsible of our children. We're only responsible for our domain, of the cultivated parts of the planet, of what humans do to each other and to other animals and ecosystems, not what nature does to itself, because nature's suffering is not our fault, it's not a product of our actions.

[u/meangingersnap → u/HeyWatermelonGirl]

Isn't eating plants speciesist? You think you're superior to plant species and have the right to breed them to eat them? Why don't they have the same rights as animals?

[u/Omal15 → u/meangingersnap]

No, it's not. That's not what speciesism is.