For my vegan hacktivism, I’m really interested in making an app based on any type of chart / estimations that relate one’s former habits and their impact. Like a carbon footprint counter (they have studies online for livestock and greenhouse gas emissions and probably a calculator), but one that accounts for animal lives saved.For example, I used to go to a place for 4 chicken tenders once a week, so, despite the other parts being repurposed for something else, I estimate 1 chicken died every time I went there. So, that’s 4 chickens a month, and about 50 chickens dying just from my visits to this one place alone.Now, take someone who went to starbucks and got a dairy latte every day. That’s about a gallon of milk per week. Then, I guess you can estimate how many artificial inseminations a cow goes through to produce a gallon of milk. The execs at dairy companies know this data, I’m just not sure how to look it up as I’m not privy to the terms yet.Anyway, I know a lot of people are hesitant to call themselves vegan, maybe are only thinking about the diet and can be opting for a plant-based diet for now. So, if there was an app where they can input old habits, like weekly chicken fingers, daily milk lattes, etc., it can give a weekly reminder, like, “Congratulations, _____! You’ve saved ‘A’ amount of Cows, ‘B’ amount of Chickens, ‘C’ amount of Pigs, etc. and lowered your Carbon footprint by ‘X’ this week., a total of ‘Y’ this year”. And maybe a cute picture of a cow/pig/chicken with a talk bubble that says, “Thank you!” So they can feel like they’re making a difference.I’ve heard some meat eaters say that:“animal ag won’t go away anyway because too many people like meat, so it’s pointless.”While I don’t agree with them, I can see why someone is not willing to go against the grain if they perceive their efforts will be futile. So, something like this app can help counter their argument with “if I can save 250 chickens in 5 years, along with 4 other friends, that’s 1000 chickens the animal ag industry doesn’t have to produce. Now, imagine communities of people letting go of meat"And just a few pre-emptive counters: (this is not to discourage anyone from voicing potential flaws with this idea, I’m just putting them out there to save time, but I do want to know what you think so this idea can be improved upon)So, with more people being interested in a plant based diet, their intentions might be for health or aesthetics. I’m not here to judge their initial intentions, because if they can eventually become vegan and defend animals, then that’s good to me. So, in addition to the ‘lives saved’ counter, there should probably be some sort of weight loss/blood pressure/cholesterol tracker to get them going.Community features:Guest usage with no requirement for email signup. If people want to just check it out and not commit to it, that should be fine. The purpose it to spread awareness and with minimal barriers to entry. They can sign up with email with they want to connect with friends.If you do want to connect with other plant-based-friends you can “show off” your progress and encourage each other. Some might call it ‘gamification’, but, so what. I’ve read many posts about vegans losing friends and family over becoming vegan and it can be very isolating to be vegan by yourself. Any type of tool to encourage community is a good thing.More pre-emptive counters:“Vegans wouldn’t need this app, their passion to save animals from cruelty doesn’t need to be inventoried”.Exactly. Veganism itself has built-in intrinsic motivation to save animals from oppression. This is directed towards the plant-based dieting community to see their benefits towards helping animals, the environment and community.While other vegans have the ability of overhauling their lifestyle overnight, I think the process to finally decide can take time for others. Becoming vegan can ‘pull the rug from underneath’ someone about their whole belief system. I’ve observed people being turned off from an interpreted misdirection of the passion of animal rights activists as hypervigilance, so they end up not wanting to listen, which in the end is a disservice to the animals. A lot of people don't want to face the fact they were indirectly responsible for the lives of so many animals, most people avoid that kind of guilt. So instead, if people get into plant-based eating and little seeds of encouragement are planted (pun intended) each week of the difference they’re making and one day they open that door to full-on veganism, then that would make the wait time worth it rather than turning off that person to possibly go back to consuming meat and dairy for potentially the rest of their lives.Sadly, I’m not a software coder. If someone would like to collaborate with me, maybe I can do the research? I can also learn to code but I’m not sure what is the best coding language for something like this. If anyone wants to point me towards the right direction, I’ll happily learn a coding language.Also, if an app like this already exists, lol, then please let me know as I’ll encourage others to use it and include my ideas as suggestions for feature upgrades. via /r/VeganActivism https://ift.tt/342Btm9
No comments:
Post a Comment