4w ago

Asking for a friend

From discord, when I started aggressively mentioning how I use Linux regardless of current topic 🤣

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No Linux distro can be vegan because none of them can be produced without any suffering
- Pretty sure that suffering is consensual, so it's fine. It's like how vegans can drink human breast milk or eat people who want to be cannibalized.
  
  I would say that most vegans, even if they've never heard it, at least approximately follow the Vegan Society's famous definition:
  Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.
  Striking the parts that seem irrelevant to this specific question:
  Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for [...] any [...] purpose [...]
  Keep in mind that "animals" in that first part is widely treated as "humans and non-human animals". So you would have to decide 1) to what extent cruelty was inflicted to create the distro, 2) to what extent people and non-human animals were exploited to create the distro, and 3) if there exist practicable alternatives that meaningfully reduce (1) and (2).
  
  by that definition do vegans have to grow their own vegetables? you know, capitalism and exploitation of labor and such.
  
  Basically what @meekah@lemmy.world said: the idea is to be practicable. Here's a stream of disconnected thoughts about this:
  What you pointed out is actually consistent with how a disproportionate amount of vegans are staunchly anticapitalist.
  A cut-and-dry example of someone who's still vegan but eats animal products based on "practicable" is someone whose prescription medication contains gelatin with no other pill type; vegans aren't going to say "lol ok too bad bozo you're not vegan anymore".
  The core focus of veganism has traditionally been non-human animals with the idea that a reduction of cruelty and exploitation toward humans is, at most, peripheral. This is changing in my opinion, especially when questions like "vegan Linux distro" don't involve animals short of what the devs eat.
  Based on what you say (as someone else pointed out), a distro based solely on FLOSS would probably be regarded as "the most vegan" if that were ever measured by anyone (it never would be).
  It's a weird analogy, but after you're done using and purchasing products derived from animals, what's "practicable" from there is kind of like a vegan post-game. Many vegans, for example, won't eat palm oil because of how horribly destructive it is to wildlife.
  Growing all your own food is in that post-game area of "practicable". It's up to you to decide if that's practicable for you. It's up to you to implement that if you think it is or, if it's not, to maybe think about how else you can reduce harm with how you buy vegetables. It's up to you if you want to share that idea and help other people implement it themselves. It's widely accepted that it's not up to you to determine if it's practicable for others.
  
  as far as is possible and practicable
  Its not really practicable to grow all the vegetables you eat on your own. So, to answer your question, no.
  
  It absolutely can be. You're just not trying hard enough.
  
  Reminds me of the episode in Good Place where the dude gets like a lifetime worth of bad karma for buying a tomato in a grocery store
  
  Consensual suffering is still suffering. Usually the alternative is just… more or different suffering
  
  BDSM is not vegan, then? Can I get an expert's opinion?
  
  ROFLOL
  
  You’ve got me thinking about how the distinction is what the incentive is. Still not black and white, but if you want to suffer because you have only personal enjoyment to gain and your needs are all met, that’s better than consenting to suffering to pay the bills.
  
  I think the problem lies with the definition of consent more than with the definition of suffering. If the alternative is something worse, then that's not consent. That's coercion.
  Now, whether it's still appropriate to still call it suffering when applied to someone enthusiastically consenting, I'm not sure.
- This the real answer right here.

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