Creating demand for vegan products

[Kerry Baker]

I was doing an Internet search to see if there are such things as vegan building materials for house construction.  I came across this site;

http://fitvegan4life.tumblr.com/post/18396925380/i-see-this-graphic...

It occurs to me that being vegan is a Catch 22 issue.  People don't ask for vegan products because it doesn't occur to them that building materials, for example glues, may contain animal products.  But unless people start demanding vegan products the options will remain largely unsuitable for the vegan lifestyle.

Perhaps a website that does take people through alternative options for things like building materials could start a greater demand for cruelty free products.  The slow pace of change has been commented on in other discussions and blogs on this site.  I'm wondering if there may be a way to firstly get something on the Net and secondly to make sure it comes up on the first page when people use a search engine to find suppliers of goods and services.

A huge task, perhaps can be done along industry lines, but it might start people becoming aware of how much animal products are unnecessarily used in manufacturing that can be replaced by equally effective goods.

Having said that, I have absolutely no IT skills and wouldn't have a clue where to start.  I wonder if AR Zone people may be able to collectively do something by using the community to research and build websites? 

This may be unrealistic, but I'd be interested to see what others think.

[Jacob Edward]

There are definite solutions to that sort of thing, no problem.  

Now I'm just looking for someone who would be willing to donate a machine to host the site, I don't have a spare computer and it's not always connected to the internet (the OS is still very limited as well)... if you would be willing to help with that or know someone who would, that would be great :-).

[Kerry Baker]

Hi Jacob

I wonder if a crowdfunding campaign might be useful? I think if you can get some decent funding you will be fine to do something on a really decent scale without having to worry about capacity.

This might be a good start: http://www.gofundme.com

This isn't a rejection of help BTW. However as Secretary for Australian Society for Kangaroos we need to raise quite a bit of money to fund legal bills and we are all a bit cash strapped at the moment.

Perhaps if you can outline what you think in an ideal world you'd need and we can think about where to go to from there. I'm sure there might be some vegan businesses who would be happy to help out in return for some free advertising.

Cheers

Kerry

[Jacob Edward]

Crowdfunding might be a good idea after we've got a site up to show people what we're doing and only when we have a need for more resources to keep up with the organic growth of the site (which would take a little while).  I've found someone who said they might be willing to host the computer, though there might be power issues every once in a while...

An ideal situation for this sort of project would be a new machine with plenty of processing speed and RAM (storage shouldn't be an issue for a very long time) that has a relatively fast internet connection, a reliable power source and a cooling system with good ventilation...  Definitely isn't absolutely necessary in the beginning, but if there were ever to be a point where there was a lot of traffic to the site, physical upgrades would be needed.

Btw, just curious but what are your thoughts on the abolitionist vs welfarist debate?

[Kerry Baker]

Thanks Jacob and that sounds like a great start.

On the welfarist V abolitionist, I guess I'd place myself more abolitionist. It does disappoint me to see abolitionists being condemned by vegans, as ultimately this is where we all should be heading, to stop the commodification of all creatures. My feeling is that the extent of the problems is overwhelming and many feel that it can't be achieved, but I don't think abolitionists think for a second this is going to happen overnight. However, neither do I see the point in making the short life of an animal a little more comfortable if he is just going to be brutalised at the end of his life. I consider the welfarist approach to only serve in making people feel good about eating animals. The dairy cow still grieves for her baby even if she is grazing on nice green pastures. I see in Australia the campaign the end live animal exports because time and again these animals have been filmed being killed in the most horrendous ways, and should be stopped undoubtedly. But those who campaign still eat dead animals and they then feel better because they think this brutality only happens 'over there' and not here in nice civilised Australia.

It is a highly complex issue. I have seen abolitionists criticised for being too aggressive, and that behaviour can't be condoned because it just harms the cause. That doesn't mean the abolitionist approach is wrong, nor that all abolitionists are aggressive. And we now live in a world where just politely saying something that upsets somebody is enough to be accused of aggressiveness. This happens also in the climate change debate. Speaking a truth based on evidence is not opinion it is the evidence and in this respect I think abolitionist is right. Many of those who I have seen criticising abolitionists I think are not exactly behaving the way I'd like to see people treat each other either and many to my mind are just as aggressive in their behaviour towards abolitionists.

So I have no problem about placing myself at the abolitionist end of the spectrum. There are many at this end who are really admirable in what they do. We are either vegan or we aren't. A bit of a rant, this is something that I get frustrated by seeing posts about how bad the abolitionists are. I tend to consider those who want the abolitionists to go away perhaps have a heightened need for social acceptance, which is hard when you are standing up against the majority of the human race for those who most need us.

[Jacob Edward]

Interesting :-) so you've heard of Gary Francione's position on things?  Is he who really convinced you that abolitionism is the way to go?

I'd say that the only reason why abolitionists are attacked by welfarists is because it's too challenging to the organizations that depend on membership dues...  Very challenging to say all of these campaigns that bring in millions of dollars aren't philosophically coherent...

I definitely agree with your theory that welfarists most likely have this heightened need for social acceptance, I mean, I showed this article to a welfarist I knew http://www.bellandevans.com/content/what-others-are-saying and he actually defended it with some nonsense about how they would be the first to switch to invitro meat when it becomes popular... if that's not a complete betrayal of the animals and the moral position, I don't know what is...

[Wendy J Cleaver]

I do not consider myself to be an abolitionist or a welfarist (I just don't like labels, because I think they divide us)  The groups out there for instance peta, mercy for animals, last chance for animals all try and educate people, they are out there talking to people telling them what goes on, things most of the general public do not know but not sure what abolitionists do except their own thing, on their own.

[Jacob Edward]

Yea... if you don't differentiate yourself from anybody then you're associated with everything... I'm all for dividing the movement between abolitionists and people who support this type of crap  http://www.bellandevans.com/content/what-others-are-saying

Wendy J Cleaver said:

I do not consider myself to be an abolitionist or a welfarist (I just don't like labels, because I think they divide us)  The groups out there for instance peta, mercy for animals, last chance for animals all try and educate people, they are out there talking to people telling them what goes on, things most of the general public do not know but not sure what abolitionists do except their own thing, on their own.

[Kerry Baker]

I was having an argument with some wildlife advocacy people yesterday about why it's wrong to have sausage sizzles to raise money for wildlife rescue.

Mostly I think people just don't want to know, because then they'd have to do something about their choices.

This is quite a good site to refer people to created by people who used to be in the business of raising animals for meat, eggs etc.

http://www.humanemyth.org/

[Jacob Edward]

Yea... that's one of the fundamental issues having to do with our movement... with all of the successful movements in the past (equality for races and women getting the right to vote, or at least here in the US) is that those movements were about getting an external group (the government) to change, but Veganism isn't about other people, it's about each individual making the decision to change their own behavior... fundamentally different :-(

Kerry Baker said:

I was having an argument with some wildlife advocacy people yesterday about why it's wrong to have sausage sizzles to raise money for wildlife rescue.

Mostly I think people just don't want to know, because then they'd have to do something about their choices.

This is quite a good site to refer people to created by people who used to be in the business of raising animals for meat, eggs etc.

http://www.humanemyth.org/

[Wendy J Cleaver]

Jacob Edward said:

Yea... if you don't differentiate yourself from anybody then you're associated with everything... I'm all for dividing the movement between abolitionists and people who support this type of crap  http://www.bellandevans.com/content/what-others-are-saying

Wendy J Cleaver said:

I do not consider myself to be an abolitionist or a welfarist (I just don't like labels, because I think they divide us)  The groups out there for instance peta, mercy for animals, last chance for animals all try and educate people, they are out there talking to people telling them what goes on, things most of the general public do not know but not sure what abolitionists do except their own thing, on their own.

[Wendy J Cleaver]

What do you do then Jacob to encourage others to become vegan?

[Jacob Edward]

I usually explain the philosophical position, give them a taste of how delicious Vegan food is if I can (if not I refer them to recipes) and then if that doesn't work, I turn them onto the videos...  If people don't go Vegan right away, I don't encourage Vegetarianism, I say try going Vegan for breakfast for two weeks, that way you can see how ridiculous it was to think it would be hard or unbearable, then if they still aren't ready to make the full switch, do breakfast and lunch for another two weeks...

Wendy J Cleaver said:

What do you do then Jacob to encourage others to become vegan?