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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • Yes, there is the possibility that self-reported cases are untrustworthy. But there is no reason to think vegan cat owners would be more biased than non-vegan cat owners.

    My desired outcome is simply showing that it is possible for cats to be healthy on a vegan diet. I only need one example to show that. And there are examples of such cats in the study my link had. At least for its tested disorders, reported vegan cats on average were slightly less likely to have at least one. The majority of both groups were in fact “healthy” (having no measured disorder). The difference between the healthy rates is small enough that it can be explained by variance and other factors contributing to health besides diet, and that’s fine.

    Before anyone starts, yes there could be health metrics not being measured that are relevant to the spirit of the idea being explored. But you need to measure easily quantifiable things. If you just asked “Is this cat healthy?”, you would have some owners disqualify a cat for having a cut on their paw, and others disregarding serious concerns just because there hadn’t been a diagnosis. This is as wide a scope as you can expect to explore a qualitative idea with.

    Unless you are suggesting that literally every owner reporting a healthy vegan cat in the study is just lying, my claim is supported by the study. And if you thought otherwise, you invented a different claim and assigned it to me.

    I genuinely want people to engage honestly with other people’s arguments made in good faith. I know Lemmy is ultimately a collection of largely anonymous internet users, but still, I expected better than what I have seen in this thread.



  • I noticed you forgot to include a very important contextual sentence for your myopathy quote:

    Only three studies [27,29,30] have carried out hematological and/or biochemical analysis of blood in cats that were fed vegetarian diets, and it is worth noting that sample sizes were low. Cats on a high-protein vegetarian diet exhibited hypokalemia which accompanied recurrent polymyopathy [29]. There was also increased creatinine kinase activity, likely reflecting the muscle damage caused by the myopathy, and reduced urinary potassium concentrations. Potassium supplementation prevented development of this myopathy, strongly suggesting a link between the potassium and myopathy.

    Meaning there was a health problem when one of the cats’ dietary needs wasn’t being met, which no longer appeared when the deficiency was corrected.

    Even so, no one was trying to claim every conceivable vegan food mix is healthy for a cat. Of course trying to switch an animal who would be a carnivore in nature to a healthy synthetic vegan diet would be difficult. But there only needs to be one diet that succeeds to show it’s possible. And unless you’re going to claim literally all of the vegan cat guardians who reported healthy cats are lying about their cat’s health or diet, that requirement has been met.


  • What? That wasn’t my source, and it was a different comment chain created after my comment. How am I supposed to have read that?

    Anyway, to be clear, the source commenter claimed it is impossible for a cat to be healthy with a vegan diet. All that’s needed to refute that is an example of a healthy cat with a vegan diet. So I found an article discussing how that has been observed. That’s it. But many people in this thread are either unwilling to concede this or are creating strawmen.




  • Look, block who you want, but I don’t get this adamant rejection of reality. You think a thing is impossible, someone shows you a study stating that the thing does happen, and you still insist the thing is impossible. You don’t even give a reason why. But you have the nerve to say others are being irrational?

    To all the other free thinkers using the disagree button for dissent, reflect on if you are actually open to having your mind changed about things in the face of new information. Being occasionally exposed to sincere people that challenge your way of thinking is healthy. You may walk away with a more accurate view of something you previously dismissed, or even if you don’t have your mind changed, you are enriched with the confidence that your views can withstand a degree of criticism. And you don’t have to reply if you don’t want to argue or whatever, but at least be honest with yourself so you can grow.



  • Cats have dietary needs that would require them to eat meat in nature. But we can make vegan, synthetic food that meets these needs. In fact, studies have shown that cats on vegan diets tend to be healthier if anything.

    I don’t understand why people upvote summaries that don’t even try to be objective. I honestly think the mods there do notably abuse their power to remove comments, but let people decide that for themselves. This commenter is telling you who to support while being confidently incorrect on the original issue.



  • I am not a lawyer, but consumer protections should generally kick in when an issue is actually evaluated in a court. If you are being charged for things you believe to be unfair, you would need to refuse to pay, then see them in action after the business escalates it. Often, a predatory business will give up when it knows it doesn’t have a case. But it’s pretty hard to work on behalf of a citizen if they ultimately are convinced that they do have an obligation to pay after all.

    I agree with the other commenter on the first issue. If you have been paying the amount you were charged, and then hit with surprise retroactive charges, you would have a serious case in small claims. I expect a judge would favor you if it’s as described. $1000 for late fees is exorbitant, especially when the glitch was from their software and not rectified quickly. Unless you’re leaving out relevant details that explains the situation better.

    For the second issue, needlessly cumbersome cancellation processes are considered dark patterns and may be illegal in some cases. These cases are being enforced more recently, even against large companies like Amazon. For your pest control case though, if you face pushback when cancelling it’s pretty simple to tell them you won’t be using their services and will refuse to pay. If you already paid, you may be able to issue a chargeback after explaining the situation to your bank. Seeing as how you would be being charged for services not done, I don’t see how the business could contest that after being informed of the cancellation. You would still be on the hook for a (reasonable) cancellation fee, as lost business from a cancelled reservation does represent real damages.

    We are a country with a litigious history and we have recognized considerable rights for consumers. Just because you feel powerless doesn’t mean you are.



  • It seems bizarre to me that the only user I have seen actually trying to provide constructive criticism for the bot so far in this thread is the one that already likes it. Especially when others instead advocate for things like the mods taking a political stance to endorse and using mod powers to reinforce it.

    I like the bot. It’s valuable to have context for the organization pushing a story. I agree that others are reading too much from the orgs they like being labeled as biased. It’s assumed a news source will have some bias, and trying to avoid acknowledging that is dangerous. The takeaway is simply to be wary of any narrative being pushed (intentionally or not) by framing or omission, and get news from a variety of sources when possible. Instead, people tend to think identifying bias is advocating that the article should be disregarded, which is untrue.

    To your suggestion, I do think adding more sources for reliability and bias judgements is a good idea. It would give more credibility if multiple respected independent organizations come to the same conclusion. More insight into their methodology in the comment itself could also be nice. The downside of adding these is that it would make the comment even longer when people have already complained about its size.

    Other than that, I have seen people dislike using the American political center as a basis for alignment, but I have yet to see a good alternative. I expect a significant plurality of users are from the US, and US politics are globally relevant, so it seems to be a natural choice.

    Nearly every critic I have seen so far just thinks it should be removed entirely because they find it annoying. I would say even if it isn’t considered useful for the majority of users, the amount of value it provides people who do use it justifies whatever minor annoyance it is to others. Anyone who gets really tired of collapsing the comment or scrolling past it can block it in seconds.

    Thank you to the mod who created this thread. Even if it’s good to gather feedback, it’s obviously not easy to get bombarded with negative comments. I’m impressed with the patience you have shown in this thread.



  • There doesn’t seem to be a pattern for whatever name politicians become known by colloquially, except last name is most common. Hillary makes sense to distinguish her from Bill, but I remember people generally using her first and last. Kamala is usually Kamala, but you see Harris too. Trump is Trump, but you’ll see people use his first name at times (like r/TheDonald). Biden is still referred to as Joe occasionally. Bernie was much more common than Sanders. For supreme court justices, it’s usually last name or first and last. I’ve never seen anyone refer to AOC as just Alexandria. Obama is Obama, but I’ve seen Barack in really informal contexts. Nancy Pelosi is first and last. Elizabeth Warren is either first and last or just last.