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My favorite only half joking comment on vegitarianism is "So you're saying that you are racist against plants?" [0] 0. The pedant in me says kingdomist.

by hyperion2010 9y ago

DoreenMichele 9y ago
I have long joked that vegetarianism is about hating plants, not loving animals.
- gowld 9y ago
  Animals that peope eat eat far more plants than people who eat plants eat, so the joke is more "funny" than meaningful.
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
    It's not even funny. It's an attempt to subvert the very legitimate premise of vegetarianism in order to not face the undeniable impacts of non-vegetarian diets.
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      No. It is mocking the idea that the food choices of vegetarians makes them morally superior and entitled to look down their noses at everyone else and be awful to them. My dislike of the tendency for vegetarians to be all holier than thou was solidified while I was homeless and being harassed online by a holier than thou vegan* who claimed to be vegan because she couldn't tolerate the suffering of the farm raised animals. Meanwhile, she took glee in adding to my suffering, though I was extremely ill and desperately poor because of it. I am a big fan of "go pray in your closet." Making food choices because you sincerely believe they are morally right is totes cool. Being an asshole to anyone who doesn't eat like you, not so much. * To make matters worse, she wasn't really a committed vegan. In cold weather, she happily added cheese to her diet. She just preferred to call herself vegan for the virtue signaling associated with it.
      - hyperion2010 9y ago
        Yes. Basically if your reason to not eat meat is because you want to minimize your carbon footprint then usually you won't attack people for what they eat, but because they have a larger carbon footprint. Personally I fly a lot (I don't particularly want to), so therefore I could never use that argument. But I have met people who fly as much as I do who try to pull the morally superior diet card and I just move on because they have missed the point entirely.
        kaybe 9y ago
        Isn't it better to improve at least a little? It is better to save some emissions, and it is better to kill fewer animals. I still find the vegetarian chism of the past incredible - how can there be a conflict about advocating for less meat consumption by everyone vs trying to convert them all the way to vegetarianism? If you get 50% of the population to eat half of what they had before, it beats converting the 2% you can optimistically get in the short-to-medium term vastly, so just do both. It's the Copenhagen interpretation of Ethics again - if you interact with a problem in any way, eg by improving it a little, it is now your fault and responsibility to the end. Meanwhile, if you had no interaction, you are morally free not to do anything.
      - filoeleven 9y ago
        > It is mocking the idea that the food choices of vegetarians makes them morally superior and entitled to look down their noses at everyone else and be awful to them. These people definitely exist, as you’ve illustrated, but in my experience they are a small minority. What’s interesting to me is that vegetarians/vegans have this reputation for being in-your-face about it, yet in reality the experience reported by my veg friends, and later what I’ve witnessed myself, is that they don’t really advertise it or comment on other people’s choices, and when it does come up (e.g. while discussing where to go for lunch) it is all the meat eaters who predictably start in with the wisecracks and the pre-emptive defense of why they eat meat and why being vegetarian is stupid/weak/unnatural/unamerican/etc. You can see it in all the responses to this article! This is remarkably consistent here up and down the east coast anyway, I don’t know if it’s different in other parts of the country. I’m just sort of bemused by the difference between reputation and reality.
gumby 9y ago
When someone says they're a "vegetarian" but eat fish" I always think, "ah, it's the IQ school of vegetarianism: you'll eat anything you think is as smart as asparagus."
- nradov 9y ago
  Fish aren't necessarily any less smart than chickens or cattle. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24942105 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24942105 If you count cephalopods as "fish", some species are as smart as primates.
  - gumby 9y ago
    Indeed! I'm mocking these people. Plus fish are in the same kingdom as any other animal , which means you can hardly be a "vegetarian" unless you only eat vegetables (well, fungi and yeasts are OK too IMHO).
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      Do you find that any of your vegetarian friends, of which you appear to have several, find any of your "jokes" to be "funny"? Asking for a friend.
      - iainmerrick 9y ago
        Is it okay to eat you?
        gumby 9y ago
        Only if you are a humanitarian, I suppose.
      - gumby 9y ago
        I was a vegetarian myself for many years, and now you mention it I don't have any self-declared veg friends or relatives whom I know eat any animal products apart from dairy. Interestingly some do it for moral/religious reasons and some do it for health reasons, and it does seem the latter are the ones who want to bring it up.

My favorite only half joking comment on vegitarianism is "So you're saying that you are racist against plants?" [0] 0. The pedant in me says kingdomist.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

I have long joked that vegetarianism is about hating plants, not loving animals.

gowld 9y ago
Animals that peope eat eat far more plants than people who eat plants eat, so the joke is more "funny" than meaningful.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  It's not even funny. It's an attempt to subvert the very legitimate premise of vegetarianism in order to not face the undeniable impacts of non-vegetarian diets.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    No. It is mocking the idea that the food choices of vegetarians makes them morally superior and entitled to look down their noses at everyone else and be awful to them. My dislike of the tendency for vegetarians to be all holier than thou was solidified while I was homeless and being harassed online by a holier than thou vegan* who claimed to be vegan because she couldn't tolerate the suffering of the farm raised animals. Meanwhile, she took glee in adding to my suffering, though I was extremely ill and desperately poor because of it. I am a big fan of "go pray in your closet." Making food choices because you sincerely believe they are morally right is totes cool. Being an asshole to anyone who doesn't eat like you, not so much. * To make matters worse, she wasn't really a committed vegan. In cold weather, she happily added cheese to her diet. She just preferred to call herself vegan for the virtue signaling associated with it.
    - hyperion2010 9y ago
      Yes. Basically if your reason to not eat meat is because you want to minimize your carbon footprint then usually you won't attack people for what they eat, but because they have a larger carbon footprint. Personally I fly a lot (I don't particularly want to), so therefore I could never use that argument. But I have met people who fly as much as I do who try to pull the morally superior diet card and I just move on because they have missed the point entirely.
      - kaybe 9y ago
        Isn't it better to improve at least a little? It is better to save some emissions, and it is better to kill fewer animals. I still find the vegetarian chism of the past incredible - how can there be a conflict about advocating for less meat consumption by everyone vs trying to convert them all the way to vegetarianism? If you get 50% of the population to eat half of what they had before, it beats converting the 2% you can optimistically get in the short-to-medium term vastly, so just do both. It's the Copenhagen interpretation of Ethics again - if you interact with a problem in any way, eg by improving it a little, it is now your fault and responsibility to the end. Meanwhile, if you had no interaction, you are morally free not to do anything.
    - filoeleven 9y ago
      > It is mocking the idea that the food choices of vegetarians makes them morally superior and entitled to look down their noses at everyone else and be awful to them. These people definitely exist, as you’ve illustrated, but in my experience they are a small minority. What’s interesting to me is that vegetarians/vegans have this reputation for being in-your-face about it, yet in reality the experience reported by my veg friends, and later what I’ve witnessed myself, is that they don’t really advertise it or comment on other people’s choices, and when it does come up (e.g. while discussing where to go for lunch) it is all the meat eaters who predictably start in with the wisecracks and the pre-emptive defense of why they eat meat and why being vegetarian is stupid/weak/unnatural/unamerican/etc. You can see it in all the responses to this article! This is remarkably consistent here up and down the east coast anyway, I don’t know if it’s different in other parts of the country. I’m just sort of bemused by the difference between reputation and reality.

gumby 9y ago

When someone says they're a "vegetarian" but eat fish" I always think, "ah, it's the IQ school of vegetarianism: you'll eat anything you think is as smart as asparagus."

nradov 9y ago
Fish aren't necessarily any less smart than chickens or cattle. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24942105 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24942105 If you count cephalopods as "fish", some species are as smart as primates.
- gumby 9y ago
  Indeed! I'm mocking these people. Plus fish are in the same kingdom as any other animal , which means you can hardly be a "vegetarian" unless you only eat vegetables (well, fungi and yeasts are OK too IMHO).
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    Do you find that any of your vegetarian friends, of which you appear to have several, find any of your "jokes" to be "funny"? Asking for a friend.
    - iainmerrick 9y ago
      Is it okay to eat you?
      - gumby 9y ago
        Only if you are a humanitarian, I suppose.
    - gumby 9y ago
      I was a vegetarian myself for many years, and now you mention it I don't have any self-declared veg friends or relatives whom I know eat any animal products apart from dairy. Interestingly some do it for moral/religious reasons and some do it for health reasons, and it does seem the latter are the ones who want to bring it up.