Unpopular Opinion

Hooray! An unpopular opinion!

Yes, you're right. But your opinion is more or less what The Good Place (fantastic show) was saying. It is impossible to truly be a good person in society. The only way you can do that is by completely leaving society and living on your own. Having hard rules of "You're either doing good or not" means everyone is bad, as you're saying yourself.

There's a middleground. It is not "You are good or bad". Eating less meat helps the planet, reduces greenhouse gasses, and reduces wasted land. It's also horrible for the animals and knowingly exploitive. Those are facts. Now, what you say is true too, but what, should they just not eat at all? I know many vegans do try to grow their own food and do try to obtain everything as ethically as possible.

But it's impossible to live in society and not at least moderately hurt other people/animals/the planet. The clothes we wear, the food we eat, how we get around, our hobbies, these computers we're on, they're all built on exploitive labor. You have to pick your battles though, and you have to try.

Now, you can absolutely educate them, absolutely go for it, let them know. But I wouldn't start with calling people who are trying to make a difference "sociopaths".

I think you've confused vegan with strawman.

This isn't an unpopular opinion. In fact, it's an extremely popular one. Every corner of the internet goes out of their way to say they hate vegans, This isn't even remotely original.

I'm not interested in changing your mind. You do as you like, and frankly it seems like you are just venting, so rock on. But if you are intersted in fact based discussions, I think you need to move past your the stereotypes, assumptions and flat out falsehoods.

Human suffering is not preferable to animal suffering.

No vegan thinks it is. I would kill an animal to save a human.

They force their shit into pets like cats who can't thrive on a vegan diet

Snuggling my non-vegan cat right now.

steal your pet from you so they can kill it

Crazy people of every community exist. Without question the overwhelming majority of vegans do not support the behavior of a few that have done this. That is exactly as fair as me saying carnists practice cannibalism because of the handful of psychopaths to do so.

And the rest of your points fall under the "no ethical consumption under capitalism" good place type arguments. However, I find it particularly egregious to say vegans don't mind slavery. If a human slave in involved in a plant based food, then it isn't vegan.

[people trying to make a change] are worse than [people who don't want to change and are uncomfortable being called out by the first group] is such an easy "unpopular" post to make

Surprised you didn't write "they're doing a disservice to their cause"

I don't mind vegans, my problem is with cultists.

It's weird to care that much about what other people eat.

Just don't be weird about stuff. Most vegans don't care, most meat eaters don't care, so just stop being weird.

My problem with it isn't so much their stance or how far they'll go for it, it's that they don't act to achieve their stated goals.

Factory farming is legitimately horrifying, it's so deeply wrong that one day we'll teach children about it in a somber tone. When you start digging into it, it's almost cartoonishly evil... It just keeps getting worse the more you learn about it

It also is extremely carbon intensive to produce so much meat, and not very healthy to eat so much

But if your problem is essentially torturing animals, why is hunting wrong? The animals live free, the ecosystem requires apex predators (which we've mostly wiped out), and if it doesn't instill a respect for the animals you eat, at least it makes you look them in the eye

If your goal is reducing animal suffering, why are you sitting out there shaming people getting lunch? The problem is production, go after Purdue who forces these conditions as the supplier

If your goal is to reduce consumption, why do you draw a hard line? People in general won't accept cutting out meat, but I think most could be convinced to cut their consumption in half.

You don't have to have meat in every meal, or every day. You can even be mostly vegan, but have a steak occasionally.

But too many people demanding everyone meet you where you are or labeling them murderers has led to a taint on the terms. People can eat a meal with no meat and never really think about it, but then feel attacked if you mention it's actually vegan.

The problem is vegan and vegetarian culture doesn't seem to be about harm reduction or even cultural change - it seems to come from a place of moral superiority. The loudest voices screeching at random individuals is what most people hear. The message is "look at this horrible fact about factory farming, this is why you're a terrible person so stop eating meat right now"

They make the whole movement hardliner and therefore easily defeatable. I genuinely think it might be astroturfing by the meat lobby

What's weird is assuming that if someone doesn't cause as much harm as you in some regard they must be doing worse in some other regard. Like are serial killers all saints in other aspects of their life and that is their big cruelty outlet?

Some of these arguments are just baffling, especially the ones about food production itself. Can you explain to me how a vegan encourages more slave labor and steals from indigenous folk? A diet full of animal products uses more land and labour.

Upvoted for unpopular, and i disagree. There's a lot to admire their goal, reducing meat is decarbonisation which is a goal human MUST do this two decade because of deadly climate change, and factory farmed animal is inhumane, to say the least. A silent majority of them chose it as a lifestyle and doesn't force it to other people(or animal), but some of them treat the whole thing as a religion, they will act like a religious extremist and brand people that not of their believe some nasty name while claiming moral supremacy any chance they have.

Despite that, yeah, veganism is cool and i'm not even a vegan. Don't let the extremist deter your view.

You fucks should be upvoting this to the moon! This is an actual unpopular opinion. Do you know what community you're in?

I upvoted because this is an unpopular opinion.

Half my family are vegetarians, and my wife's extended family are vegan. So our family reunion dinners are vegan. I am not a vegan.

But to speak for them - We're all just trying to eat.

There's some shitty people in general from all sides. Imagine a dude mocking Muslims for not eating pork. Or a alcoholic mocking people for not drinking. That's same shit energy as a vegan mocking people for eating meat.

In a world where there's so many diverse cultures and meal types, it's weird as fuck to feel so strongly about what someone puts in their body.

they are promoting a healthy lifestyle, without realizing they have been hijacked by the food industry, who wants to sell incredible high margin junk food at meat prices.

for this to work, you have to convince a population that eats meat today, that meat is unhealthy. they dont care about ethics or enviroment. and vegans are so few that they dont matter at all as a customer base.

so you convince regular people that the reason for their dementia, obesity and diabetis is meat.

then you can sell them stuff made out of seed oils and what not, without having a farmer involved and all the subsequent cost of a living herd, butcher factory and what have you. the production chain is shorter now, and much more affordable.

and the argument why it is the same price or much more expensive then meat is:

research and development costs. get out of my face. you need a middle sized kitchen with special equipment, a lab, 3 chemical dudes, and someone who taste tests the product. and food companies do have this stuff anyway.

all the while people get fat and more unhealthy, well, i am glad they will stop eating meat, that must be a gamechanger in regard of their health.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ND4lUi-i2

thats a food scientist thats shows how processed food is made, i promise you its worth it.

Agreed. Eating more meat and preferring animal products is the smart, healthy, and ethical choice.

Any discussion of veganism consisting of anything other than "lab grown meat" is a waste of time.