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There are lots of questions for vegans. They just won't answer them.
They say that meat-eating is bad for animals. That's worth considering, so I put out some counterarguments.
They respond by saying it will clog your arteries. That's worth considering, so I put out some counterarguments.
They respond by saying it's bad for the planet. That's worth considering, so I put out some counterarguments.
They respond by saying it's bad for animals, and I disengage.
The unfortunate thing is that their arguments all seem to be worth considering. Perhaps it is bad to kill and eat animals. Perhaps animal fat is bad for cardiovascular health. Perhaps it does have an abnormally large carbon footprint. I'd love to know, but all my discussions with vegans have resulted in changing the argument, emotional appeal, and social pressure - in other words, bullshit.
I think the views of the white supremacists here are repugnant, but at least they respect me enough to engage with my arguments, and I feel obligated to show them the same.
The main argument about the cruelty involved in agri-business intensive factory farming and the suffering caused is the best of their case. That does raise legitimate points to be answered, and to see and understand what is really going on for the production of cheap, plentiful animal protein for us to consume.
It's when they get into "of course you're an immoral heartless monster if you don't immediately this second give up all meat and animal products", and when some of them get into the sentimental theatrics around weeping cows etc. that turns me off.
Especially the double standard when it comes to keeping pets; they don't let their cats outside, which seems to me very cruel to animals that are not meant to be indoors all the time. That's because they don't want the cats killing birds and other small animals, which okay maybe, but that's nature. But they want to go against nature when it suits them when it comes to being able to exploit animals, such as pets, as unconditional-love-production machines. Then we get posts about having to put the cat on a diet because it put on too much weight. Well, yeah, of course it did! It's inside literally 24/7 with nothing to do but eat, instead of being put out at night at least, or let out during the day, to run around and be an animal. Though part of that is as much that the people are living in places where they don't have a back garden or any way to let their cat out. But the human at least can get out of the house.
Okay, that's a side track, but the point I think still stands: they're willing to be cruel in a small way to animals for companionship, so their morality isn't 100% perfect. Nobody's is, of course, but they don't get to call other people immoral for not living up to their standards then.
There's also the route of "how dare you take medication when you're sick, that virus needs to replicate inside you to survive, by taking medicine you're essentially conducting a genocide".
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Is your main point of contention that vegans bundle together a lot of beliefs that should be independent, likely motivated by a core moral dislike of killing animals? Sure. But the vast majority of people do that; beliefs are tribal, and that's far from unique to vegans.
I'd be curious to see a link to the vegan post you mentioned; did he jump from point to point as you describe here, or did he focus on the (likely wrong) "veganism is good for high performance in sports" argument only to have a bunch of posters bring up unrelated points?
Vegans seem especially bad at this.
The other end of my social circle is rather MAGA. I can sit with them and discuss my many reservations about Donald Trump. For example, I usually say that I think he is hopelessly underinformed about foreign policy. In response, they sometimes disagree with me, citing things like the Abraham Accords. Usually they'll agree with me that he's terrible on foreign polic, but on balance, they prefer him to the alternatives.
I can have a productive discussion with them. They'll discuss the point at hand, and treat me with respect. With vegans, I get Gish Gallops, emotional appeals, shaming, and social desirability arguments.
My moral intuitions are closer to vegans than MAGA, but I find vegans so annoying I don't engage with them.
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This appears to be the original link that I painstakingly spent several minutes of my valuable time looking up. (just kidding, my time isn't very valuable) https://www.themotte.org/post/476/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/93520?context=8#context
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