this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2024
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Never understood the leather/fur hate. But I'm also not vegetarian.
I don’t eat meat but do wear leather. I figure enough people will eat the beef anyways. I also try to buy my leather secondhand and take good care of it. If you treat it right it’ll outlast you.
Leather still can't be beat for footwear, a good shoe/boot will break-in to your foot, it's literally thick skin.
Leather jackets are basically windproof too.
Gore-tex is much better than animal skin for being both wind and water-proof, and better for breathability as well (and being much lighter weight). While the materials are bad environmentally, animal skin is not an environmentally friendly material either.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CNQgcBUGD3g&pp=ygURdmVnYW4gbWljIGxlYXRoZXI%3D
Gore-tex is shit. You're much better off with waxed fabric with strategic flaps for breathability (rain doesn't tend to fall from below).
I used to commute on bike every day, regardless of weather in rain or harsh northern winter conditions. Waxed fabric is an interesting idea, and I might try soy wax on my shoes come to think of it. However in the past I had tried to use a rain poncho while biking and found that the flappiness rendered it completely useless in the rain.
Technically it's not gore-tex exactly, but I got a Columbia brand rain jacket that uses an equivalent technology. It is probably the best coat I've ever had for both rain and winter conditions (as long as I dress in layers), and even 6+ years later it is still entirely rainproof.
Just a heads up: Wax isn't wax, if it has the wrong properties you could get anything from sub-par results to a complete mess. Most commercial waxes are a paraffin and bees wax mixture, vegan discussions about honey aside if you're really up for it you can try and find an abandoned hive in the forest. Another, not exactly inexpensive but very good alternative is microcrystalline wax. Not that beeswax is inexpensive either, though.
I happen to live in an area where it rains a lot, but most of it isn't drenching, plain moleskin (that's cotton, not mole leather) is sufficient 99.9% of the time and the rest, well, I get drenched. I'm not hiking out in the wilderness so it's not exactly a survival issue. Though the only reason that moleskin is sufficient is because it's multi-layered in the areas that count, especially shoulders and upper back: The upper layer can get drenched while the lower layer stays dry enough. Also moleskin is so dense it needs flaps for comfort: The lower layer has slits for that reason, covered by the upper layer which is open at the bottom.
Interesting, I'll have to look more into this.
I believed the same thing, but most leather doesn't actually come from beef cows. There is some by-product of the meat industry but the bulk comes from cows raised specifically for their hide.
Source? A quick Google search indicates this isn't true.
It's a difficult topic to find real stats on, results tend to be skewed one way or the other depending on the politics of the source. Most of my knowledge on the topic is from industry professionals and documentaries. Basically due to the harsh chemicals over half of all leather is produced in India, and conditions are not great for either party.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/how-india-s-sacred-cows-are-beaten-abused-and-poisoned-to-make-leather-for-high-street-shops-724696.html
Because it's rational to hate when people kill other living beings just to wear their skin. That's fucking bizarre and grotesque.
It's extremely not bizarre. Their skin is very useful, when prepared right. We've been doing it for about as long as we've been humans.
We have been doing a looot of things for a long time. Procreation without consent for example used to be a big staple in our development and yet we have ceased to find that acceptable, fortunately. Weather or not we have done something for a long time has no bearing on it beeing a good thing or not.
I never argued it was moral, only that it was normal and not strange.
Can I wear your mum when she dies?
If my mum donated her body, sure.
Alternately, if my mum was an animal, and you had raised that animal from birth, gave it plenty of food, made sure it was kept safe from predators, parasites etc., I'd say it would think that you taking its skin and meat when it no longer needed them was a small price to pay. If aliens abducted me and made me that deal, and those things weren't already provided by the society I was surrounded by, I'd probably take it.
That's just a no except you'd like to feel justified about it.
In fairness the suggested premise of you wearing human skin, not an animal skin, was funny but pretty stupid to start with. And not what they had suggested has been done for the while history of humanity.
I literally said yes.
Leather is not a byproduct. Virtually no one is raising cows just to be nice. It's a business, and no business is going to waste resources on unprofitable "assets". This means the cows are raised specifically for their skin (in the case of the leather industry), and they are killed while still young. The same is true for both the animal flesh and dairy industries - older cows are less profitable.
So to accurately compare it to humans, imagine a bunch of babies and young children being confined in cramped, unsanitary conditions, regularly getting abused, and then being slaughtered long before they ever had any opportunity to do anything with their lives - having only ever known suffering and abuse.
And you think there's anything normal about that?
No joke when this lab grown meat stuff finally hits its stride I'm going to start making calls to find out how much it would cost to grow me meet in a lab so I can eat myself.
Human skin is really only good for parchment and whatnot. It's too thin to be used for protection and it's lacking hair for warmth. Maybe you could turn her into some kind of drum? I'm not sure how much tension human leather can take.
Anyway, again we were talking about things that are or are not normal. Human artifacts have been created throughout history, but they're generally pretty rare. They're noteable. Shrunken heads, bone churches, skin books, a skin lamp shade. I think someone made some gloves once?
So, wearing my mum would not be normal. I'm gonna say you can't because all of your friends would disown you.
Just because something is popular doesn't make it normal or right. Maybe you should try visiting a slaughterhouse some time.
And we are back at the maybe if you just did this one thing you'd agree with my weird ideas that I think everyone should embrace.
If not visiting a slaughterhouse, it is about watching cowspiracy or some weird youtube videos. Come on
Oh it's you again, I didn't even realize in either of those cases. Well stop having bad takes about animals, and start doing right by them. They need you.
Hi again :)
No bad takes here, I already mentioned before that I have three beautiful chickens that are well loved, fed and protected and give me eggs on a daily basis. We work pretty well together
I have a reply to that comment nearly finished. Just had to break out a device with a real keyboard because it's lengthier.
So, the fact that something is popular does, in fact, make it normal. "Right" is a completely different discussion from popularity, that's correct.
Anyway, I generally agree we should minimize suffering as much as we can, but certain materials are irreplaceable for now. Leather has a combination of properties we haven't been able to match with plant or synthetic materials. There are fake leathers, yes, but they don't have the durability or flame resistance of real leather.
As for killing animals, I try to avoid it if it's not necessary, and try to do it as quickly as possible otherwise.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Of_Anger
Honestly it just feels weird, but its more rational definitely than killing the same animals and throwing away their skin when you have a use for it.
The rational thing is to just leave the animals alone and not kill them.
Have you tried to understand the hate? The movie Earthlings has a great segment on the leather trade.
Basically, PETA released a lot of videos about the worst of factory farming and pretended it's common place to skin animals live. Also the oil industry is so heavily subsidised often it's cheaper to get synthetic materials.
It's supremely bad as a product, the origin doesn't actually matter?
Smells, stiff, needs constant care, (comparatively) complex to repair, it just has virtually no upsides. It doesn't even last long unless you're comparing really high-quality leather to really low-quality cotton or something like that.
Ive been using a $10 leather belt every day for over 20 years now, zero maintenance or anything done to it.
I own a leather motorcycle jacket I've abused for 20+ years that is none of those things, and it wasn't particularly expensive. I've repaired some loose stitches and rub some leather balm into it twice a year.
Yes: garbage quality leather is crap, and most of the "fast fashion" items on the market use trash leather. But decent quality leather will last for decades if you put a minimal amount of care into it. It's relatively easy to maintain and repair too.
And that's why it has had no use throughout human history whatsoever. /s
Do you also have an opinion on timber smelling bad and be completely useless with no upsides?