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UK Kat Von D

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I don't know the ins and outs but I'd imagine switching between retail jobs and switching from agriculture you've likely done all your life to a different sector or different farming methods would be pretty different.

If I was let go by Blockbuster, I could work at CEX with no real difficulty.

Edit: wasn't even taking into account the factories.

Edited by Sphinx
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If suddenly my industry was destroyed practically overnight, I'd be fucked. The job market would be flooded with people, and a large portion will have a similar skill set to myself, so I'd have great difficulty finding work, let alone a job that paid the same wage that I was on. I have a house and bills to pay for, but now I'd be fucked as I'm one out of thousands of ants scrambling for the scraps.

Again, change is good, possible and needed, but it has to be steady and calculated to help the innocents who will be affected.

 

 

 

Edited by Accident Prone
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7 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Industry changes and people get new jobs.  I mean, when the coal mines were closed, you didn't see towns and villages decimated by it.  They all simply retrained and got new jobs.  You could hardly notice.

Exactly this. 

I appreciate Max' standpoint from an environmental perspective, and I certainly think it's worthwhile, but the failure to take into account the human cost is one of the reasons why the climate change denial lobby has been able to have more influence than it should have: they've been able to exploit people's fears about being put out of work, and bring them to fever pitch. Additionally, there's also a part of that lobby that has been exploiting the fears of what damage it would do to the developing world: there are already academics trying to claim that environmentalism is simply another Western scheme to implement neo-colonialism by pressuring African, Asian and South/Central American countries to adopt high-tech, expensive environmental solutions that they can't afford. 

If you're going to convince people of the virtues of veganism (especially people like the Maasai, who've been a pastoral culture for centuries, if not millennia, and who have been documented as an example of how human systems can and do fit into nature's ecosystems) you don't start by telling them that they're immoral and they deserve to be destitute, particularly not those in countries where people have already been shat on by the West and probably aren't up for being lectured to by Westerners.

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18 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

But morality isn't legislated, what is moral to you isn't moral to another and vice versa.  It can't be used as a measuring stick.  For instance, I'm sure you use vegan friendly tattoo ink but not every artist does.  Should they go out of business?

All the good inks are vegan anyway, it’s only cheap shit from China that isn’t and that’ll fuck up people’s skin. So they should go out of business, but I get your point. I’ve never used legislation as a measure for morality. Slavery was legal at one point, and some people didn’t consider that immoral while they profited from it. Laws should be based on morality, not morality based on laws.

18 minutes ago, Accident Prone said:

This isn't a single retailer we're talking about here, this is a whole slice of the pie. 

There's a lot of dangerous ideas here. Saving the animals and promoting a healthier way of living that is affordable for all is great, but not giving a fuck about the working class people who will be financially affected is cold-blooded misanthropy. Do you think Sharon who works in a Ginsters facotory will just be able to jump into a new job along with all the other people who have been greatly affected. Change is good; steep, radical change at the expense of people's lives is not.

There isn’t a lot of dangerous ideas, it’s one idea that as society moves forward people need to move with the times. Keeping jobs for the sake of it isn’t going to work. Society has already dictated that the business and sectors I listed have become obsolete. That wasn’t my idea. Consumers found a better way of doing things and that is what causes change. You are wording it like I personally decided to fuck Toys ‘R Us off. I didn’t, people started buying what they want online. Pretending you only care about workers in the meat industry while not caring about any other industry is totally flawed. 

Most jobs are going to be obsolete eventually as technology advances, which is why I’m a believer in Universal Basic Income. 

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1 minute ago, Chest Rockwell said:

Does anyone have links to any good articles about the environmental impacts of veganism? It'd be great to get a true understanding of the benefit. I don't feel like I have a good enough understanding of it.

Most people usually go for a film called Cowspiracy 

 

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1 minute ago, UK Kat Von D said:

All the good inks are vegan anyway, it’s only cheap shit from China that isn’t and that’ll fuck up people’s skin.

Ah didn't know this.  As always, thanks for the info.  I have no tattoos but love reading when you share your knowledge.  As you pretty much said, I agree that the meat industry is centred on "But we've always done it" and it's habitual.  I have many a meat free day, it's surely better to have it 3 or 4 days than 7.

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27 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Industry changes and people get new jobs.  I mean, when the coal mines were closed, you didn't see towns and villages decimated by it.  They all simply retrained and got new jobs.  You could hardly notice.

Brilliant post Keith! My local area is still recovering from the mines being closed.

As for profiting from "immoral" job choices, There wont be many people who wouldn't jump head first into an abattoir job(for example) if it meant the difference between their family being on the street or having a roof over their head. Veganism/Vegetarianism doesn't pay the mortgage....

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I've been vegetarian for more than 20 years, and last month all but cut dairy out of my diet on health grounds - I discovered I was lactose intolerant. I still wouldn't say I'm completely vegan - I still have butter in the fridge that I'll use up before replacing with a dairy-free alternative, and if I don't have time to make myself lunch for work I might have to resort to picking up a cheese sandwich in the canteen (always tend to have my Lactase tablets on me in case of that eventuality), but I think I'll be vegan for all extents and purposes by the end of the year, as I don't really eat egg anyway.

I've seen a huge change in the time I've been vegetarian, though, in terms of acceptance and availability - I was living in North Humberside/East Yorkshire when I made the decision, and while it wasn't too tricky finding Quorn or Linda McCartney veggie burgers, that was about the extent of it. We never really ate out in restaurants or anything, but Dad would treat us to a pub lunch from time to time, and I remember many miserable days of traipsing around different pubs looking for somewhere that did at least a veggie lasagne.

Nowadays pretty much everywhere does at least one token veggie option, barely anywhere still marks fish as vegetarian on their menu, and so on. We're not quite there with veganism, but even living somewhere that's not got a lot of choice in that area (most Jersey restaurants are seafood-heavy with a side of Portuguese cuisine which, like a lot of European countries, haven't really grasped the whole "vegetarian" concept all that well), I can tend to find somewhere to eat, and somewhere to grab quick snacks or whatever. I can see the change happening just over the last couple of years. I'm in England quite often - for work, to visit family, and for gigs and wrestling shows - and I more or less have eaten vegan there for years; in London, there's so much choice that I couldn't really justify not doing it.

 

My main stumbling block for me is around my essential laziness around food. I wouldn't make lunch for work unless I was skint - there's a canteen five minutes from my office, it's one less thing to worry about. I'd come home pissed and not want to think about cooking, so I'd always have a pizza or a bit of KWESH in the fridge to have something quick to throw on. I'm just having to get into the habit of thinking ahead a little bit more than I'm used to, which is a learning curve, but a welcome one. In the long run, it'll save me money, as it's harder for me to rely on buying food at work, or getting takeaways when I can't be arsed.

I still have inconsistencies - I wear leather, though my caveat there is that I only buy second-hand, which is a fairly murky moral compromise, and I'm not yet at the point of considering vegan options in booze, or tattoo ink whenever I get my next one done.

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Fun little conversational rabbit hole you've all dived down on the back of Max throwing the bait down there, but let's get a little perspective here- meat isn't going away. Nobody's uncle is getting put on the dole because Richmonds are closing their doors. The farming industry will change for the better, because it has to. Vegan and vegetarian diets will become commonplace, which will facilitate those improvements as pressure on meat supply eases.

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1 minute ago, Arch Stanton said:

Fun little conversational rabbit hole you've all dived down on the back of Max throwing the bait down there, but let's get a little perspective here- meat isn't going away. Nobody's uncle is getting put on the dole because Richmonds are closing their doors. The farming industry will change for the better, because it has to. Vegan and vegetarian diets will become commonplace, which will facilitate those improvements as pressure on meat supply eases.

This is sort of where I'm at, and it covers the "but cows and sheep will go extinct!" argument that was mentioned earlier (and which I was confronted with a lot while I worked in conservation, as if they were appealing to my better conservationist instincts to try and encourage me to eat meat).

The meat industry will shrink, and adapt, and over time meat consumption may even become the minority (though this is unlikely - meat consumption may be declining in the West, but it's increasing in cultures that traditionally ate less meat as they become more economically powerful), but it's not going to go away. And if it does, it will be such a long, gradual process that the changes won't be felt by any one generation. It's not going to be a case of mass lay-offs and job losses, and slaughterhouse workers being retrained to work the tofu plantations.

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10 minutes ago, UK Kat Von D said:

There isn’t a lot of dangerous ideas, it’s one idea that

as society moves forward people need to move with the times. Keeping jobs for the sake of it isn’t going to work. Society has already dictated that the business and sectors I listed have become obsolete. That wasn’t my idea. Consumers found a better way of doing things and that is what causes change. You are wording it like I personally decided to fuck Toys ‘R Us off. I didn’t, people started buying what they want online.

Most jobs are going to be obsolete eventually as technology advances, which is why I’m a believer in Universal Basic Income. 

That's all well and good fella, but it has to be at a steady pace to ensure minimal casualties.

Also, this; "Pretending you only care about workers in the meat industry while not caring about any other industry is totally flawed" is bait that I'm not falling for. In no way did I insinuate this. I'm very passionate about the work force of this country, especially the working classes, and the idea of just sacking them all off in one massive, blind cut is angering. 

Your ideology is sound but the collateral damage and rapid nature that you want it implemented isn't.

And yes, I'm well aware I fell for the bait. I'm an emotional sap.

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7 minutes ago, UK Kat Von D said:

 

ï»ż Yesï»ż it can, Vegans still eat food. Other jobs will be created as that sector grows and the meat industry continues to becomeï»ż less in demand 

But would both industries pay the same? I mean, would picking/cleaning/preparing vegetables pay the same as a skilled job butchering a cow for example. I have a friend who was a butcher but was laid off about 10 years ago and still hasn't been able to find a job which paid anywhere near his old job. He even had to sell his house to one of those wanky companies that buy your house for a fraction of the value and rent it back to you.

Edited by Cod Eye
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