4 ms·
Note: I am not vegan, nor I necessarily endorse the thinking behind this answer, but I'm trying to do a service to the discussion by reporting what I heard from
by mikk14 9y ago
Note: I am not vegan, nor I necessarily endorse the thinking behind this answer, but I'm trying to do a service to the discussion by reporting what I heard from a conversation with a vegan friend.
I think the argument here is that most of most animals' worth come from eating them or their products. If everybody were to stop eating animals then it would not be economically feasible any more to use the "waste" parts of the animal for all the other products. We would find other more economically feasible ways to produce the same products (via plant matter or synthetics). Thus, by refusing to eat meat and animal products, all the other uses of animal suffering would cease to exist.
- DonHopkins 9y ago>"If everybody were to stop eating animals" So is part of being vegan trying to make everyone else stop eating animals? Or is it enough to just control what you eat yourself? Because if your point is to make all the other uses of animal suffering cease to exist, then it sounds like a hopeless cause unless you try to convert everyone else in the world into vegans.
- ben_w 9y agoIf your goal is to climb Everest, each step gets you closer to your target; it is not a hopeless endeavour just because you cannot reach the summit in a single leap.
- DonHopkins 9y agoMany people have successfully climbed Everest in the past. Are you saying that people have already converted everyone else in the world into vegans in the past, or that you're hopeful that it's as possible to eventually do that, as it is possible for yet another person to climb Everest?
- ben_w 9y agoNeither, but the latter is closer. I’m saying that ending animal suffering takes many steps, and that not even trying because perfection doesn’t seem possible to you is akin to not even trying to go to the gym because you personally (I am making an assumption here) have not climbed Everest.
- odammit 9y agoBut maybe those people just want you to shut up? I have plenty of vegan friends and a small set of them beat the drum constantly. I’m not going to be vegan and if there was a meat prohibition, I’d be an outlaw. The thing that particularly drives me nuts about this kind of vegan is that they will bring cookies to a party and after everyone’s has eaten them point out that they were vegan and that everyone enjoyed them. A. Carrots are vegan. I can eat stuff without meat, too. B. No shit, Carl. You made them we assumed that. C. the cookies sucked and people weren’t going to be rude at a dinner party where someone already went out of their way to make you a vegan dish. D. They dipped them in milk because they were dry AF E. If I went to a vegan party and made vegan cookies and fed them to everyone and told them in the end there were pig eyeballs in them everyone would get pissed. I don’t do that because I’m not a self righteous asshole. </rant> Also, Carl sucks.
- travisjungroth 9y agoYou seem really upset about a time someone made you cookies.
- odammit 9y agoThey were terrible, man.
- KozmoNau7 9y agoThere is certainly a sizable segment of vegans who are dead-set on converting everyone to veganism. It's a minority, but a sizable one. These are the people who possibly annoy you online and at restaurants and who are featured in anti-vegan memes. The majority are perfectly content with just being vegan themselves, and you probably wouldn't know until you asked.
- cies 9y agoVegan activism is not trying to make everyone else in the world go vegan, it is trying to make a bigger difference than just by your own abstinence. It can be by introducing someone to veganism, or anything "bigger" than that.