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This is one of the best comments I've read on HN. While I strongly agree with you, it's important to remember that even in what seem like brain-dead obvious cas

This is one of the best comments I've read on HN. While I strongly agree with you, it's important to remember that even in what seem like brain-dead obvious cases, morality won't always be enough of a motivator to change people. What makes research and development like this important and exciting to me is that I believe it's the only way the world will ever really change on this issue. Convincing the entirety of the world that animal welfare is reason enough to go vegan is simply not going to happen. In the end, not eating meat needs to be 1) equal to or more satisfying than eating meat 2) equal or cheaper in cost 3) equal or more convenient.

jasonisalive 12y ago
Thanks for the positive feedback! For your other points, it's useful to draw a comparison with slavery here I think. 1) Our stable, successfully post-slavery world (which I would argue ours largely is) isn't a world where everyone plays slavery-reenactment videogames and has slave dolls while secretly wishing they could still own the real thing. It's a world where people overwhelmingly concur that slavery was a reprehensible practice, where people are happy that slavery is no longer mainstream, and where the wish to hold slaves is a tawdry, extremely minority desire held only in absolute secret. Similarly, a stable, successful post-animal cruelty world isn't a world where everyone eats mock meat and secretly wishes they could still eat the real thing. It's a world where people overwhelmingly realise that eating meat was actually always a disgusting, barbaric practice, that lead to countless inhumanity and injustice, and where people are glad that humanity has outgrown it. 2) The abolition of slavery was achieved because a vocal minority of people who cared pushed for it - not because they took the easy, meek route and tried to design slave-replacing mimics - "So servile you won't even notice the difference! Just as beatable but he'll never try and run away!" Similarly, for progress on meat to occur, people need to be supported, encouraged, and pushed to realise when they are behaving badly. That includes pointing out that in encouraging convincing substitutes for barbaric products, you implicitly condone the normative value of consuming that product in the first place, and you don't push people to feel disgust at the idea of even eating animal body parts. 3) Fake meat burgers are to meat-eating what methadone is to heroin. An uncomfortable, temporary fix, undoubtedly necessary, but not admirable or desirable in the long or even mid-term. People are capable of trying to achieve something because it is right, not because it is easy or more convenient. Pushing people to realise that their behaviour is wrong and needs to change is always going to be harder than saying "hey, just eat this burger, it'll satisfy your need to eat cooked dead bodies, but avoid all those nasty side-effects" - but it's much, much more effective and important. And it does work, even if slowly. I turned vegan because I came across people speaking passionately for its necessity, and I hope everyone who believes in it as much I do has the courage to push equally as hard, even though it is always tempting to make concessions. Edit: I'd also just like to say that living vegan is honestly not that hard. It's actually very fulfilling because you know that even as you're doing the right thing, you're also making it easier for others to do the right thing too, and as more people turn vegan, it becomes easier and easier for everyone. A nice positive feedback cycle.

jasonisalive 12y ago

Thanks for the positive feedback! For your other points, it's useful to draw a comparison with slavery here I think. 1) Our stable, successfully post-slavery world (which I would argue ours largely is) isn't a world where everyone plays slavery-reenactment videogames and has slave dolls while secretly wishing they could still own the real thing. It's a world where people overwhelmingly concur that slavery was a reprehensible practice, where people are happy that slavery is no longer mainstream, and where the wish to hold slaves is a tawdry, extremely minority desire held only in absolute secret. Similarly, a stable, successful post-animal cruelty world isn't a world where everyone eats mock meat and secretly wishes they could still eat the real thing. It's a world where people overwhelmingly realise that eating meat was actually always a disgusting, barbaric practice, that lead to countless inhumanity and injustice, and where people are glad that humanity has outgrown it. 2) The abolition of slavery was achieved because a vocal minority of people who cared pushed for it - not because they took the easy, meek route and tried to design slave-replacing mimics - "So servile you won't even notice the difference! Just as beatable but he'll never try and run away!" Similarly, for progress on meat to occur, people need to be supported, encouraged, and pushed to realise when they are behaving badly. That includes pointing out that in encouraging convincing substitutes for barbaric products, you implicitly condone the normative value of consuming that product in the first place, and you don't push people to feel disgust at the idea of even eating animal body parts. 3) Fake meat burgers are to meat-eating what methadone is to heroin. An uncomfortable, temporary fix, undoubtedly necessary, but not admirable or desirable in the long or even mid-term. People are capable of trying to achieve something because it is right, not because it is easy or more convenient. Pushing people to realise that their behaviour is wrong and needs to change is always going to be harder than saying "hey, just eat this burger, it'll satisfy your need to eat cooked dead bodies, but avoid all those nasty side-effects" - but it's much, much more effective and important. And it does work, even if slowly. I turned vegan because I came across people speaking passionately for its necessity, and I hope everyone who believes in it as much I do has the courage to push equally as hard, even though it is always tempting to make concessions. Edit: I'd also just like to say that living vegan is honestly not that hard. It's actually very fulfilling because you know that even as you're doing the right thing, you're also making it easier for others to do the right thing too, and as more people turn vegan, it becomes easier and easier for everyone. A nice positive feedback cycle.