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Comment by parsimo2010 | Hacker News Reader

parsimo2010

You’re kind of illustrating GP’s point. Throwing paint on a fashionista wearing fur poses very little risk- compare the risk to a Hell’s Angels biker who might literally kill you. And furs were always expensive which kept the quantity relatively low- compare the number of fur animals killed to the number that are killed for their hides to make car interiors, house furniture, clothing, and more.

If the fur protesters want to make a big impact they should protest leather, but you don’t see that. Instead they took their smaller symbolic victory because the meaningful fight is too hard and too risky.

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No one raises and kills cows for the leather; the leather is a byproduct.

The leather is a product, not a byproduct, just not the sole product. I fail to see the logic that killing a mink for its fur is wrong, but killing a cow is okay because we get meat along with the leather. You can also make arguments about how it’s okay because cows are raised specifically to be killed, but the fact remains that we kill orders of magnitude more cows than we ever have minks. My previous argument stands unchanged about how protesting mink is a small victory and most animal rights protesters stopped short of going for a big one.

Btw, I’m not an animal rights protester, I eat meat and have leather furniture. I’m just backing up the top level argument that Yale students aren’t protesting the big stuff.

Not to mention cows are a major contribution to global warming.

So are datacenters. And cows were here first.

Part of activism is picking the right battles you can win and where you can be effective.

The main focus of animal rights protesters consequently are industrial meat production and animal cruelty, not the fucking Hell’s Angels. That’s absurdity to the highest degree.

So you're not really protesting unless you light yourself on fire? You understand that if everybody who protested the "big stuff" did so by doing extremely risky things, you're going to end up with nobody left with the will to protest?

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