Seen a lot of posts on Lemmy with vegan-adjacent sentiments but the comments are typically very critical of vegan ideas, even when they don’t come from vegans themselves. Why is this topic in particular so polarising on the internet? Especially since unlike politics for example, it seems like people don’t really get upset by it IRL

  • BrikoX@lemmy.zip
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    7 months ago

    From what I have seen, it more stems from the activism vegans are engaged in more than the actual veganism.

    • CalciumDeficiency@lemmy.worldOP
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      7 months ago

      I think there’s nothing wrong with explaining your ideas and why you believe them to those willing to listen, but I can see why pushy activism for any cause can get annoying quickly. There are often Jehovah’s witnesses outside my local supermarket, for example, but they only give you a pamphlet if you specifically approach them

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        It’s not just pushy, it’s judgemental and vitriolic

        Oh, you eat meat, murderer? Your shoes are made from the skins of defenseless creatures. The sugar you’re so callously adding to your coffee was processed with ground-up bones, you unredeemable monster.

        Even the arguments for veganism that aren’t built on animal cruelty still take on an air of moral superiority. Don’t you care about the planet and future generations? How dare you trade carbon emissions for the temporary comfort of a bacon cheeseburger!

        The vegan movement has always been associated with anger and contempt, even if it is justified.

        • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
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          There’s also the ‘guilt by association’. Look at organisations like PETA: they even complained about things like the treatment of entirely fictional animals in video games, like Palworld. Basically, you can’t even argue that ‘they look like real animals so it encourages real-world mistreatment’ like they usually do.

          That does not make you look particularly sane. I’m sure they do good work as well, but that sort of thing isn’t helping their cause.

          • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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            7 months ago

            PETA might do something good by accident. They kill 60-70% of the pets they receive for donation, so I guess the lucky 1/3 that don’t get the ax are a good thing.

        • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          And it’s history stems from religious ideology.

          Edit: oh you downvoters. Go look it up. A woman had a vision from God that said “don’t eat things with faces”. Dead serious - that’s where it started.

          All the sciencey justifications today are post-hoc rationalization.

      • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        The UK has a high rate of veganism, and part of that is attributed to the fact that the major vegetarian and vegan organisations in the UK generally recommend persuading people by offering them delicious food that is also vegetarian/vegan and saying it’s more ethical. On the other hand, the equivalent organisations in the US tend to lean more towards recommending telling people that eating animal products is unethical, and it’s difficult to accuse someone of unethical behaviour without being insulting. It also doesn’t help that multibillion-dollar organisations have run successful smear campaigns against groups like PETA - everyone’s heard of the time they took someone’s pet dog and killed it, but most aren’t aware that it happened once and gets reported on as if it’s news every few months, or that it was an accident as the dog’s collar had come off and it was with a group of strays, and got muddled with another dog, so was put down weeks earlier than it was supposed to be, bypassing the waiting period they had specifically to avoid this kind of mistake.

          • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            It doesn’t strengthen your point to link Fox News and the literal website for the smear campaign I mentioned: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=PETA_Kills_Animals

            As for PETA putting down lots of animals, that’s no secret. It’s really easy to get people to donate to a no-kill animal shelter, so there are lots of them. However, when you’re a no-kill animal shelter, and you’re full of animals you can’t kill, or are asked to take an animal that can’t be ethically be treated with anything other than euthanasia, you have to turn the animal down, and it ends up wherever will take it. Usually, that ends up being a PETA-run shelter. When a PETA-run shelter is being given all the rejects from everywhere else, it’s obviously going to end up putting lots of animals down. It’d be better for PR if they didn’t, but less ethical, and they prioritise the ethics above the PR.

            If you look at one of your more reliable sources, the Snopes article, it backs up what I’m saying, and not what you’re saying. It corroborates the story from my original post, lists another incident where PETA staff were accused but not convicted, and then discusses that they put down a lot of animals in their shelters, and how it includes healthy animals. The only controversy there is the definition of adoptable - a healthy stray kitten is theoretically adoptable, but if you get ten times as many kittens in a week as you do people wanting to adopt a kitten, 90% of them won’t get adopted, and your shelter will get quickly overcrowded if you insist on ignoring that fact.

            • Confused_Emus@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              I’m no fan of Fox News in general myself, but just because we don’t like them doesn’t make everything they publish false. And yeah, the PETA kills site clearly has an agenda, but their agenda is to try and save animals from PETA’s “love.” There’s sensationalism on that site, but there are also numbers, many of which come from PETA themselves.

              I linked the Snopes article knowing that it supported points from both sides. The point in linking that article is that it’s despicable that any of those reports of PETA’s disgusting behavior are true at all.

              You know what no-kill shelters try to do when they don’t have space? Coordinate with local foster programs, coordinate with other shelters to see if they have space. There are other alternatives besides taking in a perfectly healthy animal and dropping it in the euthanasia queue.

              I’m quite sure there are quite a few things PETA has been accused but not convicted of. When you’re a group of assholes as big as that, you get pretty good at skirting the fine lines of what’s legal and what’s not. They’re hardly the first example of groups like that.

              • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                And yeah, the PETA kills site clearly has an agenda, but their agenda is to try and save animals from PETA’s “love.”

                Their agenda’s to make PETA look bad so people don’t become vegan or demand higher welfare standards from meat producers, and they can continue selling meat to Americans of such low standards that it would be illegal in the rest of the civilised world.

                You know what no-kill shelters try to do when they don’t have space? Coordinate with local foster programs, coordinate with other shelters to see if they have space. There are other alternatives besides taking in a perfectly healthy animal and dropping it in the euthanasia queue.

                As I said, they can’t do that once the foster programs and other shelters are full, too, and then overflow into PETA-run shelters because they’re the ones that still have a capability to receive more animals after they’re full. There aren’t enough shelters to keep every animal in good conditions until it’s either adopted or dies of natural causes, and no amount of coordination can magically create extra capacity.

                • Confused_Emus@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  I’m sure PETA shelters would have more capacity if they didn’t prefer to see an animal dead than a pet. They have significantly higher kill rates than any other shelters, and have made their stance pretty clear that they’re against animals being pets. No wonder they just keep killing them.

      • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        think there’s nothing wrong with explaining your ideas and why you believe them

        That’s actually not the problem. The problem are those who repeat themselves ever louder, even to people who have expressed disinterest.

    • qevlarr@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Fascinating! Thank you for this article. It exactly describes what’s happening: “oh, you think you’re better than us? I’ll have another steak!”

      • anakin78z@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        This is really easy to test in fairly small social groups. The next time you’re in a group ordering pizza, say you want cheese, because you don’t eat meat. Now watch everyone else order, or change their order to, double meat supreme with bacon. It’s almost like they can’t help themselves. It’s hilarious how easy you can change other people’s behavior.

  • jacktherippah@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I don’t hate veganism. It’s a dietary choice and that’s fine. What I hate is vegans. They’re always pushy and judgmental and hateful and sometimes even destructive in their activism. They’re an annoying group of people and I just don’t want to have to deal with them.

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Unfortunately this is a topic like abortion.

      Vegans and pro life folks see what “others” are doing as murder/evil. So naturally, since they view the behavior as absolutely inappropriate, their discussion of the topic is always very energetic.

      I am not advocating for any dietary path, or abortion position in this comment. I’m only describing people’s behavior. Do not misrepresent me.

    • Today@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      My son used to tell this joke - little less relevant now that the giant hand sized vapes are less common.

      If you vape, you’re vegan, and you’re a musician; which one do you talk about first?

    • r0ertel@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I came here to say the thing that you said in better words. I’m on a diet for health reasons that closely resembles the vegan diet, so to keep it simple, I’ll say to people that I’m vegan. Most wait staff don’t care if I ask if a menu item can be made vegan, but family or people I’m dining with will either send hate vibes or go into a long thing about some distant vegan relative who died from malnutrition.

    • Floey@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Yes, some people being pushy and judgemental is the real travesty. Not animals having their autonomy and lives taken. I didn’t realize we were supposed to coddle people who we see partaking in grave abuses.

  • Leviathan@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I’ve never once in the last decade seen a single vegan post other than recipes. What I do see is constant posts about how “vegans are always throwing it my face/holier than thou”, “I’m gonna eat extra meat because vegans make me feel bad”. I really don’t think vegans are the problem, I think these fools fall for every single piece of beef industry propaganda that comes across their screens.

    • Cris@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      As much as I’d like that to be true, I’ve definitely still seen vegan spaces online that are intensely alienating and hostile 😅 when I was using reddit, often anything from r/vegan that hit r/all was pretty hostile to anyone who hadn’t already decided it was an important issue for them and made big lifestyle changes accordingly, adopting veganism.

      To be totally honest I’ve also never seen any beef industry propaganda encouraging people to hate vegans or resent veganism. If you can think of any examples off the top of your head I’d be curious to see them (if nothing comes to mind thats fine, I don’t intend that as a gotcha)

      I’m not vegan (grew up with an eating disorder, not in any position to cut stuff out of my diet or make eating more complicated/difficult, though I have a lot of respect for vegan ethics) but I am a big nerd about open source stuff and linux, and I’ve observed similar things in that space. I have a friend who’s averse to open source stuff because folks have evangelized to her aggressively and with the same sort of superiority complex many folks perceive vegans as having. I’m grateful she’s excited to listen to me talk about the stuff I’m excited about anyway these days, but I’m careful not to make her feel pressured to drop proprietary software she’s using for open alternatives because I want her to feel respected even though she’s not invested in this thing I care about a whole lot

      I think when you work hard to adopt a big change for reasons you’re proud of, it’s easy to view yourself as superior for having learned the thing, or made the dietary change

    • IamtheMorgz@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      The very first vegan I ever knew talked at me for 10 minutes about how I should go vegan. It was the only 10 minutes I knew her. I was 15, still living with my parents, didn’t have a way to get around, and my family was fairly poor. Oh, and my mother didn’t cook so much as unboxed dinner, because the kitchen was always filthy. I definitely walked away from that interaction feeling like I’d been told I was a terrible human who deserves to suffer by a rude principal. So yes, they definitely exist.

      I’ve never met a Vegetarian that wasn’t chill about it, though.

      I’m sure there are plenty of chill vegans too, but some of them come off like an annoying televangelist, in my experience.

  • sparkle@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    The same reason people hate leftists, feminists, trans athletes, “gamer girls”, people on welfare, blacks, etc. An image the right cultivated of the group, out of convenient easily-hateable annoying people in it that they could use to create a generalization/stereotype out of. It’s something that’s able to happen to any group, I could portray any hobbyist or activist in this way the same exact way as these “annoying” groups are portrayed, but the right is particularly willing to just flat out lie, slander, and cheat their way into making countercultural/anti-status-quo groups look as absurd as possible, to the point that the majority of the population falls for it (even those that don’t consider themselves to be conservative).

    I’ll make a comparison. Conservative/“anti-sjw” thumbnails often have a picture of some angry-looking rainbow haired woman, usually the same few, in order to be like “look how irrational and crazy these feminazis are, she must hate men so much” and like 4 out of 5 of those times it’s a picture of a woman that was protesting a literal neo-nazi gathering or something, not some sort of radical crazy man-hating feminist. But the internet has conditioned the average person to look at someone like that and immediately think they’re an irrational “feminazi”, and conservatives showing these pictures everywhere and making 100 videos on the same person makes people subconsciously believe they’re rampant and have a massive (and bad) grip on society.

    Same kind of thing happens with vegans, you have the same 10 or so internet vegans people use to portray veganism that conditions people to think poorly of the concept “vegan”, and when these influencers are confronted about it they say “I don’t hate veganism, I just hate the annoying vegans” then they go onto Twitter to complain about the vegans and how they’re irrational for not eating meat and their brains must be de-evolving or something. They know what they’re doing, but they can hide behind plausible deniability, and the majority of viewers fall for it.

    • sebinspace@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Lot of words to describe cherry-picking, but… yeah. All of that is true.

      Not even a vegan. I love meat. But the classic image of the vegan that constantly reminds you of the fact is not at all consistent with my experience with the several in my life…

      • sparkle@lemm.ee
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        I don’t like explicitly stating “cherry-picking”/“strawman”/“ad hominem”/other fallacies because people seem to have a visceral reaction to seeing those words, probably are confused as to what they actually are and are assuming you’re just throwing out random fallacies to conveniently discredit any arguments with no basis, and will refuse to consider the rest of the stuff they read. I think it’s more consumable for the people who really are open to seeing new angles if they have more specific/relatable views to work with, rather than me repeating the same thing they’ve already heard a hundred times without much elaboration. I can’t confirm that though

        • sebinspace@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          You’re describing the Fallacy Fallacy, being that the implication that the argument is necessarily wrong because a fallacy has been committed. That a fallacy has been committed by the other party should not alone be used as an argument against the point itself.

          I.e. you committed a strawman fallacy by stating that all strawmen are made of straw, therefore no strawmen are made of straw

  • retrospectology@lemmy.world
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    The meat and dairy industries have been pumping out propaganda for years, mostly aimed at right-wing dudes. It’s just kind of part of right-wing culture at this point to kneejerk react to veganism with tired old tropes and stereotypes.

    It was worse back in the 90s and early 2000s.

    • paf0@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Interesting take. I definitely see it more with the MAGA crowd. Their idea of it is so absurd too. It’s always some half-witted meme where they take a photo of the most frail person they can find and label them a vegan. It’s silly, because there are plenty of jacked vegans out there, and there are also frail omnivores.

      I understand people’s perspectives when it comes to the “meat is murder” vegans but otherwise it’s just a diet. I personally switched to eating meat just once a week late last year and I eat vegan most other days. I feel great, but I don’t make it anyone else’s problem.

      • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Eating meat is murder though. Just of a different species, and a normal thing in nature, hence not objectionable per se. But killing for meat is still taking a life of a living and feeling being. If people choose to avoid that, and alternatives are available, that is great. For those who wish to continue eating meat, it must be transparent where it came from to make an informed decision, and we would need regulation / legislation that forbidsalll those livestock factories that cause suffering for more profit.

        • paf0@lemmy.world
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          No, sorry, eating meat is not the same as murder, it’s just nature.

          I’m not a fan of factory farms either, but mostly for the antibiotics. The animals do suffer and people who can afford it should probably buy more certified “free range” options, but I’m not about to shame people for their dietary choices or incomes.

          • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
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            No, sorry, eating meat is not the same as murder, it’s just nature.

            You can acknowledge it’s murder while accepting it’s also a part of nature (at least in the original hunting context). Breeding defenseless livestock in captivity, in order to slaughter them for food, that’s murdering a social creature.

            I occasionally eat meat, but at least I am not lying to myself about what it means for the creature whose meat I eat.

            If you tell yourself that animals have no capability to enjoy life, to be happy and play, and therefore have a right to live, then you need a reality check,

            Eating any kind of animal is not wrong in terms of our nature and how our planet works, but if we have options without suffering from malnutrition (and by now we do), I applaud every person who chooses to go meat-free out of empathy.

  • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Because I sat at a table for an hour with a work colleague lecturing me on veganism. I couldn’t care less if you don’t lecture me.

  • 🦄🦄🦄@feddit.de
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    7 months ago

    This is so frustrating. People saying “Oh I just don’t like those self-righteous vegans”. Thing is, it doesn’t really matter what vegans say or how reasonable/logically sound it is, the knee-jerk reaction is always the same.

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    7 months ago

    Holier than thou attitude from new vegans whose world view changed overnight and cognitive dissonance on the part of non vegan with the need to deflect than to make substantial changes.

  • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Usually it’s not veganism, itself. Rather, it’s the vegans.

    Specifically the annoyingly loud, self-righteous, insists-everyone-must-join-them vegans.

    Unfortunately, most people only really see this sort of vegan- rather than the more common, average sort of person who happens to also be vegan.

    • Simon Müller@sopuli.xyz
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      Specifically the annoyingly loud, self-righteous, insists-everyone-must-join-them vegans. Unfortunately, most people only really see this sort of vegan

      On this note, I’d like to point to the Loud Minority problem; You have XYZ group, and within XYZ group there exists a minority that comes across as very “loud”. You can barely miss them, and because they state they’re a part of XYZ group, you start associating that group with the loud minority.

      Happens with Vegans a lot, and usually people which have already associated a group with a minority within said group which annoys them do not want to learn that they are wrong, or will just refuse to accept they are wrong.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Precisely.

        Personal anecdotes, there was a particular vegan at work. The smell of cooked meat made her feel sick.

        Instead of doing the rational thing and taking lunch at her desk; she proceeded to insist that the break room be meat-free. It escalated into all manner of preaching, “shame on you,”- including signage, nasty emails. Shaming with “don’t you care about me?!” All sorts of victimization.

        The reality was any attempt at accommodating her was met with “not enough”. The entire office in the end, according to her, needed to be a complete vegan zone.

        She didn’t last long for other reasons, but none of those shenanigans really helped. (let’s just say the attitude didn’t stop at being a vegan.)

        • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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          Yeah that was a wrong decision on the vegan’s part. Perhaps this sort of behavior might be acceptable in the public commons, but work is a private space where people join a company for specific purposes. Work and philosophy/politics should not intertwine.

          And who knows: if she excluded herself from the breakroom during lunch without notifying others, maybe coworkers would notice and be more willing to hear her out out of a desire to socialize. It probably could have helped her effort to do this actually.

          Vegans live and learn. We are part of a minority group, and with being a minority comes all of its benefits and detriments. We just need to learn that in situations like these, we often are the only vegan around people and so we need to carry our entire movement on our shoulders, whether we want to or not. Else, you get general, anecdotal sentiments the likes of which you see in this post.

    • platypus_plumba@lemmy.world
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      I do think they are annoying but a necessary type of annoying that will help humanity progress. The same type of annoying as people who claimed women had rights and African Americans were not inferior.

      Humans treat this planet like shit, we have zero respect for living beings and the ecosystems. Anyone who gets angry if someone calls them out for supporting animal abuse is just immature and selfish. Like they’ll just deny they are doing something wrong.

      I’ll probably never stop eating meat until stuff like Beyond Meat becomes mainstream. But I won’t pretend I’m not a straight up asshole to these animals for supporting their torture and murder. The times I’ve been called out I’ve embraced it instead of denying the obvious.

      In 150 years humans will look back in shame at what we did to those animals.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        Pointing out the consequences; the climate damage, all that is one thing. Respectful conversation.

        Actively tossing out people’s lunches isn’t going to convince anyone of anything, though. Suddenly that person is now the face of vegans for everyone in the office.

        Protests, sure. But when it comes to interpersonal relationships…. Yeah. Doesn’t help.

        • platypus_plumba@lemmy.world
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          Ah yeha, agreed. If they get physical, fuck that. I’m sure that’s just like 1% or less of vegans. We can’t judge a whole group for the actions of a few.

          • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Yes. It was a salad made with left over carnitas, dried cranberry and a homemade vinaigrette. (Yes, I’m a little vindictive about it.)

            She also tossed the front desk guys rice and beans because he included some impossible bacon.

            (That was like the day before she got fired for other reasons.)

    • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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      Specifically the annoyingly loud, self-righteous, insists-everyone-must-join-them vegans.

      Unfortunately, most people only really see this sort of vegan

      If all you can see of a movement are the annoying loudmouths, it will quickly taint the overall image of that movement, regardless of goals of the the movement itself.

    • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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      As a vegan myself, I’ve only met a handful number of other vegans in my lifetime irl, being raised omnivore for 23 years until changing.

      Whenever I talk about the reasons why I made the switch to those who are curious, I always keep the militant vegans in mind and try to offer more charity than I otherwise would.

      We vegans need to show the world that whether it’s diet or clothing (general use, specific use, etc.) or medicine or society (e.g. slaughterhouse workers contributing to societal psychosis) or climate or species loss or economic transparency, making the change is easy and a socially accepted thing to do.

      This absolutely cannot take form as aggression against those that would be considered outside of our “group”. Any means of using coercion or manipulation to change what others do is a violation of their moral capacities. Unfortunately, humans also violate the moral capacities of more than 100 billion animals every year, so the trade-off can seem justified to some.

      Every vegan needs to remind themselves that we’re doing this for the animals first and foremost. All behaviors should be guided by that principle: to reduce suffering for them as much as possible. Being militant, aggressive, and shameful to others can result in backlashes where people dig their heels in. A better way of convincing would be to give the science, show moral charity, offer easy alternatives, and illustrate factual evidence of the crimes done against animals. If we respect people to be able to change their minds given the evidence to do so, then they will.

  • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    People don’t hate veganism as much as they don’t appreciate being judged for their choices and chastised by other adults for beliefs that they don’t share.

    Personally I have no problem respecting the beliefs of people who are vegan due to their personal morals. Until they start disrespecting the beliefs of others who don’t agree with them with regards to meat, then they become annoying.

    • iiGxC@slrpnk.net
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      Eh, it’s hard for me to respect someones beliefs when they use those beliefs to justify causing harm. And if someone believes that experiencing a good taste in their mouth justifies killing, I don’t respect that at all

    • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Not all beliefs are good. Veganism seems to minimize suffering for a group of life on this planet that has traditionally been at the whims of humans.

      But as another commenter pointed out, people’s egos can’t usually take the claims that they are making bad choices and should change. This kind of pressure shows up in exercise, for example.

      Animals dying don’t care about egos though. On the one hand, entire beings seize to exist, while on the other the top predator remains to exist and satiate their taste buds with a steak or pork chop.

      If you are concerned about moral behavior in this world, then you can’t not extend that consideration to animals. If you can’t, then you’re morally inconsistent.

      • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        You are absolutely free to believe that not all beliefs are good or correct according to your own morals, and plenty of people will agree with you. Similar to going to a middle eastern country and telling them that women should have rights and shouldn’t have to cover up, don’t expect to be well liked for telling people that their beliefs are deficient or immoral.

        • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Unfortunately for any minority group that seeks change within a group led by the majority, this is true. Perhaps the vitriol against vegans is part of the game of realizing change: there will always be resistance and tendency from some portion of the population to keep things the same as they always were, regardless of whether those things are good for the population itself.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Because of the trope that vegans are pretentious twats that publicly chastise anyone not vegan.

    Like most things it’s one of those situations that’s blown out of proportion and the vast majority of us will never interact with a preachy vegan. I’ve encountered many vegans in the wild and they’ve most all been decent people, and I love picking their brains for decent vegan or vegetarian foods. I don’t mind vegan/vegetarianism, it’s just not easy to do well, so it helps to talk to people who do it for real. That said, I have encountered a few that are on the preachy side, but whatever. They’re no different than the tool who has the “eat tasty animals” bumper sticker and the like.

    • bastion@feddit.nl
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      7 months ago

      Yep. It’s not the way of life, it’s the pretentious self-righteousness, and most people aren’t that way. Is like the ‘bad Christians’ fucking it up for all the ones that are basically love-and-forgiveness believers that are largely benign.

      Most people - Christians, vegans, meat eaters, or whatever - are generally pretty chill. It’s the inciters that suck.

      • UckyBon@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Meat-eaters support a very harmful industry (both for the animals as well as the environment).

        Nothing chill about that.

        Edit: Thank you! Your downvote prevented another animal from being bred and killed within a couple of weeks after feasting on corn and body parts of its parents, meanwhile destroying the environment. Good job, buddy.

        Voting here doesn’t work. Vote with your wallet 🤪

        • bastion@feddit.nl
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          7 months ago

          Lol I didn’t downvote you, and your self-righteousness is more of a block to getting the industry changed than it is a benefit.

          Swallow your pride, don’t be a dick. Be humble, be honest about how you feel, and live up to your own ideals. But being an insufferable twat just drives people away from your ideals - you should really only do that to insufferable twats, otherwise, the thing you stand for isn’t saving animals, it’s self-righteous intolerance - and people look at you and think “glad I’m not like that guy.”

          Win the hearts and minds, don’t just stab people for being wrong - or you’ll keep stabbing until you finally stab yourself to death.

  • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    100% it’s just cognative dissonance. Everyone knows meat is bad but most can’t come to terms that they’re too weak to quit it. This is especially painful when people are confronted directly and a self-defence mechanism kicks in.

    It’s ok to be a bit weak sometimes, everyone has a lot of going and has to choose their battles. Our contemporary culture hates to acknowledge this thus creating a lot of binary tension.

    • tobogganablaze@lemmus.org
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      7 months ago

      Everyone knows meat is bad

      The hell are you talking about? Meat is awesome, probably one of the best things to exist.

    • ZMoney@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Yeah see here you go. Response to “meat is bad” is “meat is fucking awesome.”

      Evidence for meat is bad: I mean just drive by a factory farm. Look at any of the standard practices of the industry. Objectively horrific by any standard.

      Evidence for meat is awesome: bro check out this sick bacon weave. Guy Fieri. Etc. all of it divorced completely from the process, and acknowledging meat only as an industrial product that comes packaged as a block or cylinder.

      It’s an absurd argument. Nobody is arguing that meat isn’t delicious. We’re saying that everything about its production is awful.

      • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Yeah - no one who’s seen industrial meat farming would say it’s OK. Ever. You’d have to be a psychopath to justify this level of cruelty or distance yourself cognitively by justifying it.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    7 months ago

    It’s not veganism we hate, it’s the stereotypical preachy vegans, acting like farming is the equivalent of the holocaust.

    You don’t tell me what to eat, I won’t tell you what to eat, everyone’s a winner.

  • Dorkyd68@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    My ex was vegan. While I have absolutely no problem with the practice of being vegan, she would critique and criticize nearly everything I ate. It was extremely exhausting. Nothing against vegans personally however some of them won’t shut up about it and try to make you feel bad

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        7 months ago

        This is not how you get people to join your ideas, this is how you push them away further.

        • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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          7 months ago

          Same counter arguments people used against blacks, against gays. “If you just looked normal, people wouldn’t discriminate you”. Fuck that. I’m tired of your lame excuses. You just don’t care.

          • pathief@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I don’t know how you read my comment and concluded that I approve racism or homofobia. It’s these kind of comments that push people away.

            Vegan and non vegans are are at the opposite extremes. One only eats meat, the other never eats meat. You can’t insult people into your way. No one wants to have a conversation with you when you just randomly accuse them of homofobia. In your future attempt try going easier and with baby steps. People are more likely to stop eating meat if they take it one step at a time. This ridiculous expectation that someone must change their lifestyle over night or they’re racists… This isn’t the way, statistically speaking. But alas, this is a pointless discussion because you already know this and just want to fight with a stranger on the internet. Have a nice day.

      • pafu@feddit.de
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        7 months ago

        The primary point of the movement should be to stop animal suffering, not making other people feel bad.

        While it’s a necessity to make people aware of the cruelty of the animal industry and the harm it does to the planet, there are many ways to get there, and not all of them will work for everyone. The difficulty is in getting people to listen to you and being willing to self reflect their own behavior. Once they do, they will feel bad on their own.