Goldfishlaser

Personally, people with backyard chickens getting offended at vegan speech isn't something I'd concern myself with as a mod.

The above statement that I made was specifically in response to someone asking why some vegans use language like Holocaust and slavery and motivations for doing so.

This isn't the place to argue about whether its ok to have a backyard chicken, though, because the thread topic is what speech should be regulated. We can go over to debate a vegan on that if you want.

You suggest that people offending other people should be regulated and thats a different philosophy than I have about moderation. You suggest only large scale agro can be criticized. I think its overly censorious and that you will create a blindspot for this community by preventing ideas you agree with from getting challenged. But the joy of a federated platform is that people can choose where they associate and escape such echochambers whenever they want. You've at least been transparent with us. These shall be my concluding thoughts on the matter.

This thread is just becoming people arguing about what type of vegan speech is effective and failing to understand the concept of the seriousness with which vegans promote and believe in animal rights. To vegans, animals are individuals and their sentience is respected and taken very seriously.

I can't speak to "off topic" or "bundled insults" but if something is "off topic" or "bundled with insults" then it can be moderated accordingly.

A lot of vegans who have had enslaved ancestors are still ok with the analogy and a lot of vegans who ancestors in the holocaust are still ok with the holocaust analogy. Since there is a wide spread of people with this very common opinion, if you censor it, you're ok censoring vegan speech which is hostile to vegans.

I've already said - people compare animal agriculture to slavery because we captivate, force impregnate, mutilate, steal their children, and economically exploit animals. We violate their rights for mere taste pleasure because today, in most parts of the world, it isn't required to do this to them.

People compare it to the holocaust because every year billions are killed, in gas chambers and in abattoirs. They're led to their deaths packed on top of each other in trucks, breaking their legs on floors of shit, dehydrated, and terrified.

When people say this, it's not TRYING to get an emotional response, this is just WHAT happens and WHAT you contribute to if you consume animal products. And some people really wish you'd stop and sometimes emotions get in the way and ok, if someone crosses a line, moderate that shit.

It looks like what's really going to happen here is that because vegans are a minority, even here, the sensibilities of people who get offended by the animal rights point of view is going to blind them to the fact that they're being incredibly censorious. Enjoy your echo chamber if you want, I guess. Disappointing.

Context matters here when we're talking about what speech you're going to outlaw on this platform. You can have whatever opinion you want on whether its ok to exploit a backyard chicken but if you ban someone for this, that's quite censorious. Why don't you just say to them what you said here and let the people suss it out.

Forbidding the comparison of animal captivity, forced reproduction and child stealing, and economic exploitation to slavery would be a clear example of indulging a censorious impulse.

I rarely use this comparison personally because it's subject to this kind of confusion (thinking comparison to human slavery is equating to human slavery). Nevertheless it's my personal opinion that when you account for the massive scale of the suffering, billions of animals yearly, a comparison of severity can still be drawn, even with any inspecies prejudices about the richness of human lives and experience potential compared to animals.

So it seems you're automatically defensive about wanting to moderate vegan speech (preempting with "don't feel personally attacked) and deep down I think you know why.

I understand you're just trying to make a space where everyone feels welcome. But harrassment policy and other conduct policy should cover people getting out of bounds and requires no vegan specific clause. Making a vegan specific clause is a little hostile.

Unless you are truly aiming to ban people for having the opinion that it's not ok to not be vegan. That would be tone policey and censorious, in my opinion. If a vegan is actually harassing someone that calls for moderation, but its already a rule to refrain from harassing. If you want to make a rule on harassment and include several examples, and one of them is a vegan example, that would be fine.

It just reminds me of other contentious issues like racial justice or gender issues. Sometimes people didn't like getting called racist, but do you censor a racial minority because their message is intense and makes someone a little uncomfortable? People have the right to decline interactions that arent going well but they shouldnt expect to always be perfectly comfortable when writing in the public square.

I talk about my cycle so much that any men I'm with are going to learn eventually. I even make my guy friends hear about it.

I'm sure this varies with age, and some younger men may be more immature or resistant at first and I wouldn't consider it a huge red flag unless they were stubborn about it. But I would keep an eye out for other symptoms of toxic masculinity/misogyny at play and start a conversation.

But I'm in my 30s now and if a man is in their 30s and can't follow conversations about menstruation, that's a no-go for me. It would reveal a willful ignorance that I wouldn't be able to abide.