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As someone who isn’t considering giving up my ways, red blooded meat eating American that I am, I actually appreciate vegans to some degree. As long as there a

by SllX 7y ago

As someone who isn’t considering giving up my ways, red blooded meat eating American that I am, I actually appreciate vegans to some degree. As long as there are an appreciable number of them, I will enjoy a greater variety of dishes and ingredients available to me, and oftentimes fresher ingredients too. Insofar as they are making choices that benefit them, they also make choices that benefit me. Where they lose me, and this isn’t all vegans, but the ones that lose me are the ones that try to convince me that I am a bad person for the dietary choices I make. Maybe I am, but I don’t think so. The ones that make me want to go out and eat two steaks just to stick it to them are the ones that want to take away my choices or introduce sin taxes onto meat. I’m cool with carbon/GHG taxes that make no exceptions, if the cost of my choices goes up because of a tax that applies to all levels of society in fair measure, I can live with that. I would argue such a fair tax is entirely theoretical, but in theory, it could work out. The ones that want to punish me specifically are the ones I can’t abide. When someone introduces me to an entirely vegetarian dish or vegan dish that I like, I’ll probably add it to my menu and start making it myself, and I usually don’t modify it to add any additional protein. Good food is good food and I actually like tofu and some of those veggie patties on the market. I like them for that they are, not for what they pretend to be. It come down to making a different choice as to what to eat for dinner, rather than making a compromise. Today, January 1st 2020, I’m not even thinking about lab grown meat. Maybe I’ll prefer it on January 1st, 2030, or maybe I’ll be paying a premium for my steak, or maybe the price of my premium cut steak will actually fall after checking against inflation and I’ll be eating even more steak. Maybe I’ll even lose my taste for meat, I mean I lost my taste for shrimp once upon a time, and I gained a taste for eggs in my early twenties. Vegans that practice veganism for dogmatic, ideological and religious reasons certainly aren’t going to win me over in ten or a hundred years by preaching to me though. I make choices. Vegans make choices. Everyone makes choices. I think that’s a pretty good state of affairs.

terryf 7y ago
This is probably the most balanced comment about meat-eating I've ever read. I think the tax thing is key - I eat meat and I fly a lot. I know both of those things contribute to the climate crisis - therefore I'd be completely ok with paying some more money as tax that goes towards offsetting the environmental damage from those activities. Lots of people think we needs to go back in development of technology and stop enjoying the things humanity has worked for a long time to achieve. Instead we should think about how we can make technology work better together with the environment and enable even more comfort and prosperity. Not force us to go back, rather find ways of moving even further forward.
- lwhi 7y ago
  I think the main issue is that money alone won't stop the greenhouse gasses from entering the atmosphere. We just need to stop flying so much, and stop eating as much meat. It's unfortunate and inconvenient.
  - SllX 7y ago
    Increased price pressure would incentivized a bit more ingenuity. There’s a number of things that are cheaper to purchase a replacement for than to maintain and repair. That has its pluses and minuses, but you could change up the cost equation, and plow the extra revenue into reforestation and artificial reef construction.
tluyben2 7y ago
There are so many nice dishes that don't have or need meat. I think a large thing is that people don't experiment much with their food. I have to travel a lot for work and especially in Asia and Africa, there are tons of dishes which are easy to make but very rich in flavour and much more 'refined' (in my opinion) than having a slab of meat on my plate. I sometimes think I want a steak, but after 2 bites I start thinking how much better that would've been 1/3 of it in an Indian curry (which of course is blasphemy but I'm not religious or from India) or in a thai curry dish. And once you properly make it into a dish which is one melange of integrated tastes, the 'real meat' thing becomes far less pressing. Same with meat in potato oven dishes, Lasagna or Pizza => unless you are into those overkill hard tastes (which I personally don't like), you can learn to cook them without meat while they still have the texture and taste for (open minded) meat eaters. A slab of meat like steak will be many years before that comes from a lab for a decent price. But worked into a nice curry or some usages for sausages etc, I say we are close or even there already.
- SllX 7y ago
  It’s all about the spices and sauces. Doesn’t matter if you’re cooking steak or tofu, it doesn’t have to be boring.
  - tluyben2 7y ago
    Well some people, including the young me, would send steaks with spices and sauces back. I liked them thick, bloody and without anything. Somehow I always thought that most cooks put way too much salt on really good meat so I asked, in restaurants as (annoying) little boy, to leave the salt and spices and would send it back if it had any. It was a short phase I guess. Now I find it boring. But you are right; you can make exciting food with mostly anything. Even, god forbid, veggies! (seems that angry meat eaters are also dead against anything that resembles a vegetable; they eat the steak, leave everything else on the plate).
danans 7y ago
> I’m cool with carbon/GHG taxes that make no exceptions, if the cost of my choices goes up because of a tax that applies to all levels of society in fair measure, I can live with that. Kudos to you, but this opinion would make you exceedingly rare among people for whom eating meat is an identity issue. > Maybe I’ll even lose my taste for meat, I mean I lost my taste for shrimp once upon a time, and I gained a taste for eggs in my early twenties. It's less about you individually than the economic policies that enable the mass production and consumption of meat. Beyond the science, which pretty convincingly make the case that industrial meat is behind a huge amount of environmental damage, the politics of this are very much about personal beliefs about whether or not that situation should continue in the same form, or be biased more towards plant based foods (via the carbon/ghg tax you proposed). And politics are grounded for better or worse in beliefs and dogma, just like religion.
- SllX 7y ago
  A GHG tax is one that prices in externalities and will hurt trade over long distances in more or less equal measure, I’m not the biggest fan of it because I fear it would be used for policies other than mitigating the effects of a changing climate, but it would at least raise the price of everything from leaves to meat to automobiles to fish to computers and candles and essentially anything that is industrially produced or raised or caught. The net effect is to depress the purchasing power of everyone, and possibly, maybe even likely making the repair of a widget more price competitive with the replacement of a widget. I wouldn’t be able to buy as much meat with my current grocery budget, but I also wouldn’t be able to buy as much spinach or apples or garam masala or coffee without increasing my grocery budget. This would be true of anyone and everyone within a jurisdiction that actually implemented it properly. In pricing out the tax, you would need to compute the global warming potential of the emissions for every piece in the supply chain, as well as their half life to measure their short term and long term impact and finally put a price on all of that. You could limit it to certain classes of emissions to keep it simpler, but you would want to cover all the known major transportation, industrial and agriculture emissions including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and so on.
ace_of_spades 7y ago
As there seem to be very few comments actually defending the ethical vegan standpoint here I go. Vegans who ask for „sin taxes“ don‘t want to piss you off, they simply have the belief (and actually quite well justifiable so) that meat consumption leads to quite a lot of suffering in the world. You don’t seem to be opposed to taxes on ghg emissions - presumably because you believe that they cause suffering. Why is it not reasonable to also punish/tax other behavior that causes suffering? Do you really believe that animal suffering doesn’t count? I would really encourage you to reflect your position on this and maybe revise towards being more forgiving towards people who simply care about the suffering of animals.
- SllX 7y ago
  Your assumption is wrong. The tax I would support is entirely theoretical and would raise the prices of all industrial products on the market from all forms of food to all forms of textiles and all forms of computers and machinery. I suspect that if it were ever implemented properly to begin with, it would become a target to steer into a kind of sin tax or luxury tax by doubling the rate on this or that product or zero rating it for others, so I can’t say I necessarily even would support it. Show me a policy proposal and I’ll say “maybe”. Suffering doesn’t enter into it, but I don’t like subsidies. If the problem with climate change is that my lifestyle is being subsidized because the “true cost” isn’t in the purchase price, I’ll pay it, but so should everyone. I’ll be paying more for meat, but I’ll also be paying more for spinach, and coffee, and spices, and salt, and clothes, and every single industrial good that I buy. And so would everyone, because the net result would be to see the purchasing power of everyone decrease. I can live with that if you can, even factoring in my dietary preferences, I’m willing to bet money I have a lower net contribution to climate change than most in my country.
  - rlue 7y ago
    Sure, parent comment made a faulty assumption about your policy preferences and the reasons you have for them. In responding to this grievance, you've entirely missed their point: the consumption of meat is above all else a moral issue—yes, a sin—and making other lifestyle choices of below-average ecological impact do not make up for it. I could elaborate, but I don't expect to change your mind; you've already stated outright that you're determined not to. In any case, I'm not here to cast blame on you personally for eating meat. I still do it, too. It's a shame about your stubbornness, though. You seem to be smart enough to engage in careful, reasoned analysis about a complex issue. In fact, I'd wager that you'd scoff at an anti-vaxxer or a Holocaust denier who shared the strength of your convictions. Of course, scientific and historical truth are a little more objective than basic moral principles—but when it comes to the way animals are manufactured in America today, not by much.

by SllX 7y ago

terryf 7y ago

This is probably the most balanced comment about meat-eating I've ever read. I think the tax thing is key - I eat meat and I fly a lot. I know both of those things contribute to the climate crisis - therefore I'd be completely ok with paying some more money as tax that goes towards offsetting the environmental damage from those activities. Lots of people think we needs to go back in development of technology and stop enjoying the things humanity has worked for a long time to achieve. Instead we should think about how we can make technology work better together with the environment and enable even more comfort and prosperity. Not force us to go back, rather find ways of moving even further forward.

lwhi 7y ago
I think the main issue is that money alone won't stop the greenhouse gasses from entering the atmosphere. We just need to stop flying so much, and stop eating as much meat. It's unfortunate and inconvenient.
- SllX 7y ago
  Increased price pressure would incentivized a bit more ingenuity. There’s a number of things that are cheaper to purchase a replacement for than to maintain and repair. That has its pluses and minuses, but you could change up the cost equation, and plow the extra revenue into reforestation and artificial reef construction.

tluyben2 7y ago

There are so many nice dishes that don't have or need meat. I think a large thing is that people don't experiment much with their food. I have to travel a lot for work and especially in Asia and Africa, there are tons of dishes which are easy to make but very rich in flavour and much more 'refined' (in my opinion) than having a slab of meat on my plate. I sometimes think I want a steak, but after 2 bites I start thinking how much better that would've been 1/3 of it in an Indian curry (which of course is blasphemy but I'm not religious or from India) or in a thai curry dish. And once you properly make it into a dish which is one melange of integrated tastes, the 'real meat' thing becomes far less pressing. Same with meat in potato oven dishes, Lasagna or Pizza => unless you are into those overkill hard tastes (which I personally don't like), you can learn to cook them without meat while they still have the texture and taste for (open minded) meat eaters. A slab of meat like steak will be many years before that comes from a lab for a decent price. But worked into a nice curry or some usages for sausages etc, I say we are close or even there already.

SllX 7y ago
It’s all about the spices and sauces. Doesn’t matter if you’re cooking steak or tofu, it doesn’t have to be boring.
- tluyben2 7y ago
  Well some people, including the young me, would send steaks with spices and sauces back. I liked them thick, bloody and without anything. Somehow I always thought that most cooks put way too much salt on really good meat so I asked, in restaurants as (annoying) little boy, to leave the salt and spices and would send it back if it had any. It was a short phase I guess. Now I find it boring. But you are right; you can make exciting food with mostly anything. Even, god forbid, veggies! (seems that angry meat eaters are also dead against anything that resembles a vegetable; they eat the steak, leave everything else on the plate).

danans 7y ago

> I’m cool with carbon/GHG taxes that make no exceptions, if the cost of my choices goes up because of a tax that applies to all levels of society in fair measure, I can live with that. Kudos to you, but this opinion would make you exceedingly rare among people for whom eating meat is an identity issue. > Maybe I’ll even lose my taste for meat, I mean I lost my taste for shrimp once upon a time, and I gained a taste for eggs in my early twenties. It's less about you individually than the economic policies that enable the mass production and consumption of meat. Beyond the science, which pretty convincingly make the case that industrial meat is behind a huge amount of environmental damage, the politics of this are very much about personal beliefs about whether or not that situation should continue in the same form, or be biased more towards plant based foods (via the carbon/ghg tax you proposed). And politics are grounded for better or worse in beliefs and dogma, just like religion.

SllX 7y ago
A GHG tax is one that prices in externalities and will hurt trade over long distances in more or less equal measure, I’m not the biggest fan of it because I fear it would be used for policies other than mitigating the effects of a changing climate, but it would at least raise the price of everything from leaves to meat to automobiles to fish to computers and candles and essentially anything that is industrially produced or raised or caught. The net effect is to depress the purchasing power of everyone, and possibly, maybe even likely making the repair of a widget more price competitive with the replacement of a widget. I wouldn’t be able to buy as much meat with my current grocery budget, but I also wouldn’t be able to buy as much spinach or apples or garam masala or coffee without increasing my grocery budget. This would be true of anyone and everyone within a jurisdiction that actually implemented it properly. In pricing out the tax, you would need to compute the global warming potential of the emissions for every piece in the supply chain, as well as their half life to measure their short term and long term impact and finally put a price on all of that. You could limit it to certain classes of emissions to keep it simpler, but you would want to cover all the known major transportation, industrial and agriculture emissions including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and so on.

ace_of_spades 7y ago

As there seem to be very few comments actually defending the ethical vegan standpoint here I go. Vegans who ask for „sin taxes“ don‘t want to piss you off, they simply have the belief (and actually quite well justifiable so) that meat consumption leads to quite a lot of suffering in the world. You don’t seem to be opposed to taxes on ghg emissions - presumably because you believe that they cause suffering. Why is it not reasonable to also punish/tax other behavior that causes suffering? Do you really believe that animal suffering doesn’t count? I would really encourage you to reflect your position on this and maybe revise towards being more forgiving towards people who simply care about the suffering of animals.

SllX 7y ago
Your assumption is wrong. The tax I would support is entirely theoretical and would raise the prices of all industrial products on the market from all forms of food to all forms of textiles and all forms of computers and machinery. I suspect that if it were ever implemented properly to begin with, it would become a target to steer into a kind of sin tax or luxury tax by doubling the rate on this or that product or zero rating it for others, so I can’t say I necessarily even would support it. Show me a policy proposal and I’ll say “maybe”. Suffering doesn’t enter into it, but I don’t like subsidies. If the problem with climate change is that my lifestyle is being subsidized because the “true cost” isn’t in the purchase price, I’ll pay it, but so should everyone. I’ll be paying more for meat, but I’ll also be paying more for spinach, and coffee, and spices, and salt, and clothes, and every single industrial good that I buy. And so would everyone, because the net result would be to see the purchasing power of everyone decrease. I can live with that if you can, even factoring in my dietary preferences, I’m willing to bet money I have a lower net contribution to climate change than most in my country.
- rlue 7y ago
  Sure, parent comment made a faulty assumption about your policy preferences and the reasons you have for them. In responding to this grievance, you've entirely missed their point: the consumption of meat is above all else a moral issue—yes, a sin—and making other lifestyle choices of below-average ecological impact do not make up for it. I could elaborate, but I don't expect to change your mind; you've already stated outright that you're determined not to. In any case, I'm not here to cast blame on you personally for eating meat. I still do it, too. It's a shame about your stubbornness, though. You seem to be smart enough to engage in careful, reasoned analysis about a complex issue. In fact, I'd wager that you'd scoff at an anti-vaxxer or a Holocaust denier who shared the strength of your convictions. Of course, scientific and historical truth are a little more objective than basic moral principles—but when it comes to the way animals are manufactured in America today, not by much.