Lafari

Preface: I know veganism is a broad ethical/justice stance against any animal exploitation that extends beyond food, but food is the most common way that humans contribute to the exploitation of nonhuman animals by far, usually 3 times a day or more - and it's something that they love to talk about and do as well. We could include buying clothes to a degree, but fewer clothes people buy are made from animals, and that topic doesn't seem to come up as much.

Do you avoid talking about, looking at, or being around food when with non-vegans (which is most people, meaning really any situation unless you're exclusively with people you know are vegan) because the reminder of what they're causing to happen to animals right in front of you and that most people don't share your views/actions on animals is too upsetting (possibly especially when it's people you know)?

Also because it can turn into an argument that you don't want, either because you feel obligated to briefly comment on it/state your opinion/certain facts if the subject specifically goes in that direction of veganism/animal cruelty (or feel like you should, but stop yourself for fear of rejection/conflict, which is itself painful) and then people get defensive & argumentative, or because other people bring it up and force the conversation on you and ask you questions about it that you don't know how to lie about or feel you have to be honest about, and then that leads to them getting angry and criticizing your views etc?

How do you avoid these situations? For example, it might be easier to do in digital formats, e.g. on Discord if I am in a server that has a food channel, I completely avoid the food channel or don't even give myself the "role" that would allow myself to see it. (Does anyone else do this? Seeing murdered corpses & exploited secretions of animals being glorified on full display is too triggering, especially when it's next to an "animal lovers" channel that is actually just "pet" lovers - dogs and cats that those people would feel the same horror at humans eating as we feel about all animals. That speciesist double standard/hypocrisy is also very distressing & maddening to be reminded of.) If people start talking about food in a general chat in any online space unrelated to food (it happens a lot) I typically just leave. For social media, there is always a way to just exit the space, platform, situation or turn off the device.

But how do you avoid this in real life? When you're in a social situation with people, you don't really have the ability to just leave if they're talking about or eating food.

I know some people take the Liberation Pledge (refusing to eat anywhere that animals and/or animal products are being served, and organizing fully plant-based [or alternatively at least animal flesh free] tables to eat at always). Usually this is done as more of a justice stance against animal exploitation as an extension of veganism, or as part of activism. But if I was going to do something like that, it would probably be largely to protect myself from the emotional anguish and stressful (often tense) situations that come about from being around people eating animals/animal secretions. However I don't know if it's effective for normalizing or getting across the message of not using animals (not that that is the focus of my post), or if it's practical to avoid all those situations from a personal point of view - it could be more isolating than I already feel. I don't want to ostracize myself from other people by not associating with them while they're involving themselves in discussions or activities related to animal exploitation, but at the same time I feel very disturbed about this and I know I feel more comfortable around other vegans - or when non-vegans aren't talking about those subjects at all.

Do you (vegans) personally avoid situations where food is being talked about or consumed when around non-vegans, or how do you deal with this from a mental health perspective?

P.S. Since there isn't an AskAVegan server on Lemmy that I know of, and the vegan community here is pretty small and often gets non-vegans commenting in it, I'm just specifying I'd rather only vegans reply to this if that's okay.

This has never happened to me before, but I was scrolling Uber Eats (even though I can't afford to get anything) and I saw a vegan Biscoff cheesecake and immediately smelled the sweet scent of Biscoff for a second. It wasn't like I just imagined how it smells like, I actually (at least mentally) "smelled" it as if it was there, and it made me consider if I was genuinely smelling something real (physically present) at the same time coincidentally but that makes no sense. The smell is very specific and I haven't had anything with Biscoff for quite a while and there is nothing around that would smell like it. I've never thought I had synesthesia (blending of senses/experiencing one sense as another) before but could this be a form of it?

I've read that olfactory response (smelling) sense memory is one of the strongest forms of sense memories, deeply ingrained in our subconscious. Smelling something familiar can trigger powerful memories and bring up emotions or even forgotten parts of your life. So maybe it can work in reverse as well, where seeing something familiar that you have a strong olfactory sense memory associated with (particularly a pleasurable one), maybe combined with taste memory (though it's notable I smelled it, not taste), could trigger such an intense reminder that it activates the actual memory of the smell as if it were really there?

Also, I may have partial anosmia (hyposmia), where I have difficulty smelling things, so that could play a role?

Hi, just wondering if fuggs are vegan. As in, do they contain products made from animals?

As far as I can tell, "fuggs" is a portmanteau of "fake" and "uggs", and so fuggs are "fake" uggs, meaning fake ugg boots. Uggs or ugg boots are a kind of boots traditionally made from sheepskin/shearling, and sometimes with suede leather (cow skin) on the outside.

But there's a bit of confusion about what "fuggs" or "fake uggs" means. Unlike something such as "faux fur" or "faux/fake leather", where it's pretty clear that will be vegan and not made from animals like the traditional kind is, "ugg" has some weird brand authenticity thing going on.

I might get some facts wrong here, but from what I could gather, there are 2 companies, called "UGG" (American brand) and "UGG Since 1974" (Australian brand) which both lay some kind of claim to what can be considered an authentic ugg boot. Uggs were first made in Australia, but I think the American UGG brand often sues other companies, including those in Australia, for using the "ugg" name. However in some places ugg simply means the style of shoe rather than the brand.

So unfortunately due to this, I think there might be 2 different meanings of "fuggs" - one I believe indeed means vegan ugg boots which don't use animal skins/products, while the other meaning is simply an ugg boot made in the traditional way from animals but just not by the "official" UGG brand.

In all this confusion, how can we truly answer the question of "Are fuggs vegan?" Is the answer somewhere between "They could be, sometimes." or "No one knows, really." ?

All PS2 games look really blurry on Panasonic Viera TV.

For comparison, when I play the Jak trilogy on PS5 (which is just the PS2 ports), it has a sharp and crisp image. But the same games on an actual PS2 are much lower quality. This leads me to think there's some scaling issue that the PS5 automatically fixes since I don't think they remastered it or anything. And the same applies to every PS2 game.

It's currently connected via RCA component cables, and I tried messing with the game mode settings on the TV but it didn't really do anything noticeable. I'm wondering if I should buy a PS2 to HDMI converter or if that might be even worse than the current set up. I don't have much money I can spend but if I need to I will, just whatever it takes to get it looking good. It looks like sh*

If a topic is in any way controversial, there's a good chance it will get removed, when I'm sure the same content wouldn't get removed on Reddit. I know it depends on subs and instances but I mean more generally, and for example AskLemmy vs AskReddit. Reddit seems to have more leeway for things, whereas Lemmy doesn't and seems harder on censorship. Not only that but they remove things even when they're not controversial such as when I just asked a question about savory fruit and sweet vegetables that got removed. They also give no reason at all for why things get removed nor any notice of its removal until you realise later. It happens so frequently that I wonder if this post will get removed too for some reason.

Question inspired by the image (see attached)

I feel like I would make use of it more if I could do it again. Maybe that's weird, I don't know.

Edit; To ask more of a question. What would you do differently?

An example is that I generally despise Jordan Peterson and most of what he says, but I often quote one thing that Jordan Peterson said (in the linked video) because I think it's a good summary of why toxic positivity doesn't work.

People (who hate JP) freak out when I quote him and say "Why tf are you quoting Jordan Peterson? Are you a insert thing that Jordan Peterson is?" And I'm like "No, I generally disagree with him on most points, aside from this one thing." But they don't believe or accept it and assume that I must be a #1 Jordan Peterson fan or something.

I think it can be considered a partial agreement, majority disagreement. Or a partial agreement with a person you generally disagree with. But I'd be open to other terms of how to describe this in a way people can understand.

Also, to avoid the controversy of referencing Jordan Peterson, if anyone has a better summary of the same concept explained by a different person in a way as well as he does, that would be appreciated too.

● An entirely new game (to follow Rift Apart)

● Ports of the original games onto next-gen

● Crash/Spyro style (1-1) HD remakes of the original games

● A reimagining of Ratchet 2 as a sequel to Ratchet PS4