Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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Why do anti-piracy people often treat us as the "villains" of the story? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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75% of the anti-piracy discussions I see rarely blame companies like Nintendo or Disney and always try to talk about how piracy is immoral, and you should feel "dirty" for doing it. My question is why do people seem to hate those who pirate more than the bad practices of mega-corporations or the fact that they don't want to preserve their media?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (46 children)

It’s because they are paying money for something and you’re getting a better deal. See that’s not fair. Same reason vegans hate on omnivores - they’ve taken the high road and the benefits are small while the cost is high. They tell themselves that their money is going to the artists. And if you believe that, then piracy is harming artists in a very direct way.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (41 children)

Same reason vegans hate on omnivores - they’ve taken the high road and the benefits are small while the cost is high.

This "vegans have a superiority complex" take is a thought-terminating cliché ultimately rooted in projection. Since vegans make you feel self-conscious about the unethicality of your carnist tendencies, you divert to accusations of a "superiority complex" when that is just the result of you internally grappling with the cognitive dissonance you have when it comes to funding animal exploitation that you have no proper justification for.

Veganism is a justice movement, and vegans express disdain for non-vegans because they often double down on their oppressive tendencies that keep animals enslaved, exploited, and slaughtered. I don't think I'm superior to you because, just like me, you have the capacity to understand why you shouldn't support the oppression of sentient beings. Not only do you have the capacity to understand it, but you can take that to its logical conclusion and live in a way that is in accordance with said understanding.

Also, the framing is off here. A principled ethical vegan doesn't see veganism as a "benefit;" we see it as a moral obligation and baseline. Saying that veganism comes with "benefits" is like saying that refraining from calling racial minorities ethnic slurs comes with "benefits," when it's actually just basic decency toward BIPOC.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago (26 children)

There’s no projection. I feel no guilt for eating the diet of every single one of my ancestors. Zero. I do not believe animals to be sentient, and I do not equate death or servitude with suffering. It’s not that I don’t understand vegans. I do. But it’s like a religion - you have a fundamental belief, not in god, but in the consciousness of animals. Because we differ on that fundamental belief, we can reach no understanding about the ethics beyond that.

And I think it is a fair comparison. People who pay for media may also see it as an ethical baseline to pay for what you consume. And in both the case of vegans, and those who pay for streaming, the perceived benefit of that choice is in my opinion fundamentally flawed. But it’s really not a big deal to me. I was just trying to answer OPs question. I think your response only validates my analogy. Thank you.