Unpopular Opinions Society

[RabbitLuvr]

Is the packaging the reason why it's so expensive and popular? I've never tried it because of the price but every single movie that has a scene with someone drinking bottled water , it's always Fiji water. Plus on all those celebrity home shows like Cribs, all the celebrities have their fridges stocked with Fiji!

From what I understand, the packaging is imported to Fiji, filled with water, then exported from Fiji. This drives the cost up quite a bit. They may also charge a premium for the "cool" factor.

 

[Freesia]

I got some non leather nikes a few weeks ago for my latest attempts at fitness. I really like them now, though at first they were a bit tight. They are black and I realise now how great black sneakers are: i can wear them with black socks.

 

[Freesia]

The Fiji water thing is not a craze here . Anything Fiji here is kind of, been there, done that etc. It is so close to here and everyone has been there and so many people here are from there.

 

[das_nut]

I don't think veganism is a holistic approach to the world that seeks to limit even very abstract animal suffering, because this **** is complicated enough without making it completely undefinable.

I dunno. It seems to me that there are two competing definitions of veganism.

One seeks to define vegan as someone who doesn't consume or use animal products (for all practical purposes).

The other definition is to define vegan as someone who seek to reduce and eliminate suffering of sentient beings (for all practical purposes).

The latter definition doesn't seem to be too complicated.

 

[kazyeeqen]

I dunno. It seems to me that there are two competing definitions of veganism.

One seeks to define vegan as someone who doesn't consume or use animal products (for all practical purposes).

The other definition is to define vegan as someone who seek to reduce and eliminate suffering of sentient beings (for all practical purposes).

The latter definition doesn't seem to be too complicated.

It certainly does seem complicated. If it includes something that seems purely environmental like not drinking imported bottled water for the animals somehow. I guess it's gonna include all environmentally responsible actions?

 

[Wolfie]

From what I understand, the packaging is imported to Fiji, filled with water, then exported from Fiji. This drives the cost up quite a bit. They may also charge a premium for the "cool" factor.

The bottles are also pretty.

 

[Blobbenstein]

I sometimes get bottled water from Scotland.....I probably shouldn't....I just want to drink fresh water sometimes.

 

[das_nut]

It certainly does seem complicated. If it includes something that seems purely environmental like not drinking imported bottled water for the animals somehow. I guess it's gonna include all environmentally responsible actions?

Well, it depends. Should a vegan be against human-caused animal suffering? If so, I think treating the environment like does harm animals.

If a vegan simply is a person that doesn't consume or wear animal products, then things are a lot simpler. That vegan could technically hunt on the weekends and still be vegan, as long as they leave the bodies of anything they kill to rot in the field.

 

[ledboots]

I drink bottled water because no amount of filtering can make Florida water taste drinkable to me. We recycle and compost and try to buy local, don't use chemicals on the plants and yard. I'm sure we could do more, there's always more.

 

[kazyeeqen]

Well, it depends. Should a vegan be against human-caused animal suffering? If so, I think treating the environment like does harm animals.

If a vegan simply is a person that doesn't consume or wear animal products, then things are a lot simpler. That vegan could technically hunt on the weekends and still be vegan, as long as they leave the bodies of anything they kill to rot in the field.

That seems like an extremely unlikely scenario that you are describing. It also seems like what you are describing means that morality comes from the veganism label, as if using the broader, vaguer definition will keep the psycho animal killer vegan from hunting for sport and leaving the bodies to rot.

In complicated issues like non-native animals proliferating in an area and out competing the native species, how would a 'vegan' feel about the situation? Kill the non-natives to save the natives? Let them be? It's a complicated issue for environmentalists, and there's just no reason for veganism to be a part of it.

The amount of bickering within the AR movement about what constitutes a vegan is already excessive to the point of tedium, embracing a more vague definition is just more divisive.

Or maybe not. I guess you can't really get more divisive that the current AR movement, because here we are in it arguing about which definition of veganism is more appropriate. And there's always honey.And the trace ingredients nazis and the fish eating vegetarians and the health vegans who use leather and

**** it.

 

[mlp]

I don't think that one can realistically separate what happens to the environment from what happens to animals. I would suspect that what we do to the environment costs, on an annual basis, as many animal lives as meat, egg and dairy production does.

I think it could be shown that someone who lives a very simple lifestyle, does subsistence farming (including slaughtering and/or hunting animals) would be reponsible for fewer animal deaths annually than the average veg*n living an average consumerist lifestyle.

 

[FortyTwo]

Yes, the definition of a vegan extends the principle of no harm to whenever it is "practical or possible."

Yes, you can skirt around and stretch the definition in whatever way you like to make yourself feel better about things.

No, your heart's probably not in the right place if you have to do that to justify your own actions.

In the end, labels are labels, completely superficial and unimportant on anything other than a petty social scale, do whatever you want. But misusing them and contorting them to your own benefit simply because you want to be included under them will simply make it harder for others who choose to include themselves under those labels and actually fit their definitions.

Not accusing anyone in this thread of doing that, the current discussion just brought that to mind.

 

[Lord Snot]

I don't like it when people add things on to the "basic" definition of veganism such as saying to be vegan you have to eat healthily, or to be vegan you have to take unusual care for the environment. Not consuming or using animal products is really enough without tacking on all these other things. A junk food vegan is a vegan, a vegan who doesn't recycle and who has a big car is a vegan. Like someone (kayzeeqen?) said there are other very good reasons to recycle, eat healthily and use an environmentally friendly mode of transport but they do not make or break you as a vegan and IMO they should be separate from veganism.

 

[Wolfie]

I drink bottled water because no amount of filtering can make Florida water taste drinkable to me. We recycle and compost and try to buy local, don't use chemicals on the plants and yard. I'm sure we could do more, there's always more.

Same here. People who say tap water is fine have never tasted the water in my city. I've heard reverse osmosis filters work wonders but that's a bit out of my price range.

 

[mlp]

Sure, someone who lives in a multi million dollar mansion, eats only imported food, owns all of the latest gadgets, many cars, etc. and travels everywhere by private jet, but doesn't eat or directly use animal products is by definition vegan, while someone who is by choice a subsistence farmer with a minimal environmental footprint isn't.

That doesn't change the fact that the former causes pain and suffering and death to more animals than the latter.

It's much like the way a multi millionaire self aggrandizing televangelist is by definition Christian, while a nonbeliever who spends his time and resources helping the poor and living a good life isn't a Christian.

That doesn't change the fact that the latter is living a life according to the teachings of Chist, while the former isn't.

I guess it comes down to whether the label is more important, or the actual impact.

 

[Lord Snot]

People who fit the actual definition of veganism but don't do the things that you think should be included (like not eating imported foods) aren't doing it for the label (at least, not many of us!) but because they want to reduce their contribution to animal exploitation. For me, the person who raises and then kills their own herd of cows for food is certainly not doing more for the animals than a vegan who drinks Fiji water and drives an SUV. Collectively the "vegan community" have come up with their own standards of what is practical and possible (not eating anything with animal in it, not buying leather and fur, not going hunting for fun) and what is a grey area and MIGHT be practical, might not be, or might not be so important even if it is practical (wearing old/second-hand leather, buying carnivorous pet food, eating vegan food that's been cooked with non-vegan foods on the same grill).

There is a reason the "label" is what it is, because those are the best ways we can directly minimise harm to animals as well as doing a bit of activism, even if that activism is just showing people that vegan food is tasty and easy to find. There's a reason that not eating imported foods has not become part of that definition, because it's not only impractical for most of us but because if we focus on the bigger picture and spread veganism then environmental impact will be reduced as a side effect anyway. I'm pretty sure more grain is flown around the world to feed animals than is flown around to feed humans.

Nobody can avoid all of the things that are linked with animal exploitation so we've decided on the most important ones, the core requirements to join the club - if you want to phrase it that way. Any extra-curricular activities are great but promoting the club is greater.

Anyway to talk about the subsistence farmer, is he really being kinder to the environment that someone who eats bananas flown in from Brazil? Where is the animal food coming from, where are the pesticides going, what machinery is he using to be able to produce enough to sustain himself? And if he's not self-sufficient which, let's face it, is virtually impossible - is he not eating imported foods along with his home grown stuff? Seems to me he'd be better off focusing on eating the grain himself, giving up the meat and not contributing to the dairy, egg or fur industries along with it.

 

[mlp]

Actually, it's quite possible to grow enough food to feed oneself on a small plot of land, without use of herbicides, pesticides or machinery. You may not be able to eat everything you're used to, but it's possible to survive. I don't know whether it's possible for everyone to do that, with the current world population, but it can be done on an individual basis. And it doesn't mean maintaining and slaughtering a herd of anything; that much flesh consumption is neither practical or sustainable.

The point I'm making, and that I think das_nut was first making, is that consumption of non-animal products also adversely affects animals: it decreases the amount of the resources available and necessary to animals (the land used up to grow cotton for a larger wardrobe than one needs, the impact of mining the metals used to make our gadgets, the land taken up by factories, malls, landfills, the pollution of water, etc.) and the harvesting and use of those resources kills animals directly.

I'm quite sure that a poor woman in a third world country who is using the bare minimum for survival is responsible for (probably substantially) fewer animal deaths than I am, as someone who doesn't eat meat, wear any portion of a dead animal, and doesn't eat dairy or egggs other than trace amounts, but uses considerably more than I need to survive.

Ignoring the effect of consumerism on animals is a lot like ignoring the fact that while vegetarians aren't eating dead animals, they are contributing pretty directly to the deaths of cows and chickens by eating dairy and eggs.

I used to think that concerns about the environment was a separate issue, but thinking about it, you really cannot logically divorce environmental concerns from animal welfare/rights concerns - it's like saying, "I care about animals, but I don't care whether they have air to breath, water to drink, food to eat, or space in which to live. I don't care how many more will die because I want something that's grown/produced halfway around the globe." (And yeah, I'm guilty of buying nonlocally, buying and using more than I need, etc. - I'm trying to work on it.)

 

[das_nut]

I agree that poor people in poor countries are probably responsible for fewer animal deaths than vegans, but I wouldn't call them vegan, since their choices aren't made with the concern of reducing and eliminating animal suffering.

But I wouldn't call someone who chooses to eat a vegan diet and wear only vegan clothes, while ignoring all the myriad ways that their lifestyle encourages and contributes to animal suffering a vegan either.

I'd say that veganism is all about living your life in a way that reduces and eliminates human-caused animal suffering to the greatest practical extent. How to accomplish this depends on the person. I'm personally not going to encourage the wasteful production of new items when used items are as functional, even if some of the used items contain animal products. Others may not want to wear dead parts of animals. I understand the squeamishness and I won't disagree with it.

But I will disagree with a definition that only concentrates more on personal purity and excludes even the possibility of a definition about animal suffering.

 

[das_nut]

I'm also going to add that this forum is going to turn a lot of people off of veg*nism if any new veg*ns come in talking about how they just became veg*n, and we start to tell them that unless they get rid of everything non-veg*n in their wardrobe, they aren't really veg*n.

 

[mlp]

I agree that poor people in poor countries are probably responsible for fewer animal deaths than vegans, but I wouldn't call them vegan, since their choices aren't made with the concern of reducing and eliminating animal suffering.

But I wouldn't call someone who chooses to eat a vegan diet and wear only vegan clothes, while ignoring all the myriad ways that their lifestyle encourages and contributes to animal suffering a vegan either.

I'd say that veganism is all about living your life in a way that reduces and eliminates human-caused animal suffering to the greatest practical extent. How to accomplish this depends on the person. I'm personally not going to encourage the wasteful production of new items when used items are as functional, even if some of the used items contain animal products. Others may not want to wear dead parts of animals. I understand the squeamishness and I won't disagree with it.

But I will disagree with a definition that only concentrates more on personal purity and excludes even the possibility of a definition about animal suffering.

I agree with all of this, other than that I don't particular care about the definition of vegan - it's just a label. For me, what people do, and to a somewhat lesser extent, why they do it, is what's important.