hello folks!
with our backlog cleared and many new people around, now’s a good time to do our first-ever Beehaw Community Survey–the first of what will likely be(e) many to come. this survey should take no more than 5 or 10 minutes to fill out, so we strongly encourage you to do so when you are able to. you can find it at the following link:
Beehaw Community Survey
the survey is comprised of seven optional demographic questions to help us assess the overall identity of our community and three questions relating to Beehaw and the Fediverse. it also asks you about 17 possible communities we are considering and whether you would actively participate in them if made.
the survey will be open for approximately a week. we’ll definitely close it before July 1, so please get your responses in before that date. it’ll also be locally pinned for at least the next three days or so, so please mind that. thanks!
results will also be aggregated and posted on here in a summary sometime thereafter. no ETA on that though.
Just over a year into going veggie, perhaps as a stepping-stone, and didn’t realize the term was that broad. Tentatively I’m of the mind symbiotic relationships can exist, w/ bees & cage-free chickens specifically, though I’ve yet to research the plight of dairy cows (no enzymes for that, but I am curious). If you have some persuasive materials I could ingest on these creatures handy, I’d appreciate. <3
Well, the thing is that symbiotic relationships between beings of different ‘intelligence’ levels are difficult to measure.
For me an easy way of understanding this is thinking for example about the relations between adults and children or adults and people with mental issues. It is very easy for an adult to exploit/abuse them and how do we know if the ‘exploited’ part is being happy about it or if they understand what’s happening.
For me this is impossible because like them, animals cannot give us consent and they don’t understand what we are doing to them.
And of course the abuse goes beyond the ‘rational’. Animals are systematically bred to be tortured during a certain amount of time and then horribly killed. Again and again for billions of animals every year.
Veganism can be summarized as ‘Through my actions, I will directly and indirectly avoid to contribute to animal suffering in all the ways and as much as possible’. This means being against anything that was produced as a result of animal exploitation: consumption of animal parts or the result of animal labor, leather, wool, circuses, zoos, horse riding, animal experimentation and many others.
It could be considered an evolution from anti-racism to anti-speciesism.
For these and many other reasons, veganism is vastly different from being vegetarian and putting them in the same sack is a mistake.
Regarding materials, there are a ton on internet but since you mentioned bees:
https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/why-go-vegan/honey-industry
There is also a quick view of the dairy industry in youtube called ‘Dairy is Scary’.
But the ultimate compendium of animal abuse is the documentary ‘Dominion’ narrated by Joaquin Phoenix.
I think there is already a vegan community in another instance, I’m pretty sure that they will answer any questions you may have and provide guidance on how to transition if you are interested.