@transmorpher

It's a little difficult to 'debate' your comment, because the points that you address to me are numbered but don't reference to specific parts of my post. That's probably my fault as i was releasing frustration haphazardly and sarcastically, and that sarcasm wasn't aimed at you. All i can do is try and sum up whether i think we agree or disagree overall.

Essentially everything is a question of 'taste', even for you. There's no escaping our nature, most of us don't drink our own piss, many of us won't swallow our own blood, almost all of us have a flavour that we can't abide because we were fed it as a child. So yes, our decisions are defined by taste. But taste is decided by the food that is available to people, within reasonable distance of their house, at a price they find affordable according to the society around them, from a range of food that is decided by society around them. Your average person does not have the luxury to walk around a high street supermarket selecting the most humane and delicious foods. People get what they can afford, what they understand, what they can prepare and what is available. Our ancestors ate chicken because of necessity of their own kind, their children are exposed to chicken through no fault of their own, fast forward a few generations, and thus chicken becomes an affordable, accessible staple. Can we reach a compromise here? It may not be necessary for chickens to die to feed the human race, but it may be necessary for some people to eat chicken today because of their particular life.

I don't like the use of the phrase 'if i can do it, i know anyone can'. I think it's a mistake to deal in certainties, especially pertaining to lifestyles that you can't possibly know about without having lived them. Are you one of the many homeless people accepting chicken soup from a stranger because it's nourishing, cheap and easy for a stranger to buy, and keeps you warm on the streets? Are you a single mother with coeliac disease, a grumpy teenager and picky toddler who has 20 minutes to get to the supermarket and get something cooking? Or one of the millions using foodbanks in the UK (to our shame) now? I don't think you're willfully turning a blind eye to those people, i'm not tugging heart strings to do you a disservice. Maybe you're just fortunate you not only have the choice, but you have such choice that you can't imagine a life without it. I won't budge an inch on this one, you can't know what people have to do, and we have to accept life is not ideal.

And within that idealism and choice problem we can include illnesses that once again in IDEAL situations could survive without dead animals, nevertheless find it necessary to eat what they can identify and feel safe with.

Yes, those damn gluten hipsters drive me round the bend but only because they make people think that a LITTLE gluten is ok, it makes people take the problem less seriously (see Tumblr feminism... JOKE).

I agree that we must look at what action we can take now - and that is why i keep reminding you that we are not in an ideal world. If the veganism argument is to succeed then you must suggest a reasonable pathway to go from how we are now to whatever situation you would prefer. My "ideal farm" description was just me demonstrating the problem - that you need to show us your blueprint for how we start again without killing animals and feeding everyone we have.

And on that subject, your suggestions need to be backed by real research, otherwise you don't have any real plan. "It's fair to say there is very little risk" is a nice bit of illustrative language but it is not backed by any fact or figure and so i'm compelled to do my Penn and Teller impression and call bullshit. As of right now, the life expectancy of humans is better than it has ever been. It is up to you to prove that changing the diet of 7 billion people will result in neutrality or improvement of health and longevity. That proof must come in the form of large statistical analyses and thorough science. I don't want to sound like i'm being a dick, but any time you state something like that as a fact or with certainty, it needs to be backed up by something. I'm not nit picking and asking for common knowledge to have a citation, but things like this do:

-- 70% of farmland claim
-- 'fair to say very little risk' claim
-- meat gives you cancer claim - i accept it may have a carcinogenic effect but i'll remind you so does breathing, joss-sticks, broccoli, apples and water
-- 'the impact to the planet would be immense' claim - in what way, and what would be the downsides in terms of economy, productivity, health, animal welfare (where are all the animals going to be sent to retire as of day 1?)
-- etc. etc.

Oh, and a cow might get its protein from plants, but it walks around a field all day eating grass, chewing the cud and having sloppy shits with 4 stomachs and enzymes that i don't have................. I'm a bit puzzled by this one... I probably can't survive on what an alligator or a goldfish eats, but i can survive on parts of an alligator or fish. I can't eat enough krill in a day to keep me going, but i can let a whale do it for me...?

1. If not for taste, then you must be doing it because you've been mislead (like I was) to think it's a nutritional requirement. There is zero nutritional reason to eat animals for the majority of people on this planet. Perhaps habit is involved, but nothing that can't be broken if you want to. 99.9% of vegans were not vegan.


2. There is no gene in the human body which specifically makes you eat meat or drink milk. The chemical reaction that makes you crave certain foods is influenced by the foods you eat. In a hypothetical survival situation, eat all of the animals you need to, but we don't live in that situation.


3. I'm a middle-class person just like the majority of the westerners. I wasn't vegan for the first 30 years or so of my life. If I can do it, I know anyone can, they simply must want to. There is no financial, professional, geographical reason for everyone apart from those living in extreme conditions in western society to not become vegan. The reason why I say western society is because not only is western society the biggest cause of this (poor countries are already plant based, using very few animal products comparatively), but because westerners have the opportunity to do it easily.
The only difficult part is finding out correct information, because animal industry groups love to create clouds of doubt by funding misleading research and advertising. But the information is now out there on the internet.


4. It's a nice thought, but until those ideal conditions are reality, we must look at what action we can take now.


5. You don't need to grow your own food, farmers do that for you, and there will be plenty of land free'd up since 70% of all farm land is currently used to feed livestock.


6. There is protein (including the 9 essential amino acids) in almost every edible plant - vegetable, grain, rice, potato, nut and fruit. That simply eating enough to not be hungry means you eat enough protein. You don't need to eat the 3 gluten sources to meet your daily protein requirements. Even if everyone apart from those with celiac disease became vegan, the impact to the planet would be immense, because it's not a common thing. (I'm guessing you must get annoyed with the current trend of hipsters avoiding gluten, when they don't have celiacs or have not had an intestinal biopsy to confirm it).

7. I think it's fair to say that there is very little risk, when the alternative is eating a well documented carcinogen (meat, especially processed meat, see the World Health Organisation). Surely not giving yourself cancer is a good reason to avoid meat?

8. We can philosophize about minute details of sentience, or something like abortion, but really that is say like we shouldn't drive cars because we don't fully understand the laws of physics. We know enough about physics to improve our way life. It's the same about veganism, we know farm animals are mistreated, we know they feel pain and misery, and they have a will to live, so lets fix that first, and then we can philosophize about sentience.


9. It's not about the people that don't have a choice, it's about the people that do, and the majority of people do have a choice, that is the point.


10. Again there is protein in everything you eat - how do you think a chicken or cow get's it's protein? From plants!

LOL. Keep drinking the Apple kool-aid, hipsters.

...Ummm... Yes?

In the same way that "every scone produced in England *HAS* to be radioactive" (because scones are made from flour, eggs, and other ingredients that contain C14). Or, I could say "Queen Elizabeth discovered to be radioactive", because she is organic (in the Chemistry sense, meaning "containing carbon"). Or, you know ... EVERYTHING organic is "radioactive"; humans, animals, food, trees, etc. etc.

It seems very click-baity to draw attention to a US law that all alcohol must come from plants / organic (again, Chemistry rather than Hipster definition) sources by claiming that all US-made alcohol "must be radioactive".

Love the content, hate the hipster presenting it. Could barely get through it, despite the killer story.

I think the tide of militant veganism is changing. Not that there are fewer of them, but I think vegans are more self-aware now (some proof being in a lot of vegan videos about vegans). Every time I hear people complain about mouthy vegans, I hear many chime in to say that they aren't that way. But then again, hipsters claim they're not hipsters so that may not be a good gauge.

I, personally, don't even mention I'm vegan unless it comes up directly -- and even then I don't continue the conversation unless prodded. I also hope I keep a relatively cool head about it.

As for the religious aspect of it, can you blame them? Just like being indoctrinated with religion from birth, you're indoctrinated from birth to eat meat. And you are constantly socially pressured for your whole life to eat meat. It becomes one of the many pieces that you use to build your sense of self with. And when it's threatened, well, people do what they do with religion, food, politics, etc. They go fucking batshit.

Also, when you first become vegan, you almost always go through a period of ~1 - 3 years feeling like Neo coming out the the matrix and the rage is hard to hide. "How could they do this?!?! They're killing them all!!!" It takes a while to let that cool off and think of more productive ways to spread your views, the best way, I find, is just living the lifestyle peacefully. I like teaching by example.

Kind of reminds me of this band I was in a couple years back. We were booked to play this hipster library in L.A. (Yes, these things exist) and our band's singer/leader is stammering his intros and not playing to whatever crowd is actually there, the guitars are out of tune even though we spent hours preparing and tuning, and the drums are drowning out the rest of the instruments.

God, the acoustics in that place, and the look on the face of the person who booked us. Horror. Utter horror. I was wearing an Iron Maiden shirt with hair down to my tits, a look of insanity, me-against-the-world on my face.

Someone in the audience was like, "What the fuck is this shit?"

But I'm not Bill Burr and I' NOT in any mood to admit my faults, I just came back from 2 drinks over my limit at a bar around the corner, and I'm fucking done with hipsters. Suddenly our FOLK band goes into overdrive and becomes a punk band. I start smashing the drums with my sticks faster and faster, letting the rest of the band catch up, "Fuuuuuck you. You want some rock n' roll? Here's some fucking rock n' roll." Our singer is timid at first, but the guitarist is an anarchist and looks at me like, "YEAH! Let's do this!" Adrenaline and alcohol made it so I didn't even need to know what I was doing any more. We just played the same songs except faster and angrier.

People are disgusted by the sound and the entire place empties.

Later on as we're packing up, the guy I told to fuck off comes up to us with his pals and starts harassing us. Turns out, he was the guitarist of the band that was on before us. And everyone loved this guy. I stared at him and just said, "Fuck you." And he immediately replied, "No, fuck you!" I don't remember how many fucks were given but it was quite the juvenile display. We just packed up and left with "fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck" in our wake.

As we're walking to the van our band leader says, "Well, that went okay I think, you know given the circumstances, I think that showed off our energy."

Don't have to. I have white privilege.

Not really seeing any disagreement in your statement though...

You own an EVO or WRX. Do much rallying? Driven in Pike's Peak? Do you, as the "Bellend" in the video does, just bomb around town acting like you're the shit because you're going fast and getting decent gas mileage?
If you don't do any of that... you're a hipster. You completely wasted your money for "prestige". An EVO or WRX deserves to be driven. It's what they're designed for. At least the douchebag is getting close to using the tool properly.

It's like people who buy 1000cc twin turbo crotch rockets. Either they drive like retarded psychopaths, or they just like that people THINK they drive like retarded psychopaths.

Putting anything "race day" on the street without racing it is sad. Racing it on the street is stupid.

If -and I doubt it- you've actually purchased your vehicle, and you use it properly, congratulations, you're an exception. Nothing is black and white, but if you see one of those cars driving around town, it's a hipster or a douchebag behind the wheel, and you, as the exception, KNOW I'm right.

Apparently, just for owning one, I have been called a hipster and a douchebag. You don't even know me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Lancer_Evolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_Impreza (WRX STi)

The very epitome of hipster driving.

I personally can't stand the way some locales actually ALLOW bikes to "lane split" or "filter". Everything about it just reeks. I do however enjoy when some Ken Block wannabe can't keep all four of his overpowered, all-wheel-drive should-be-simple-to-control-but-balls-are-bigger-than-brains econobox hipstermobile wheels on the road.

Haha.

Hipsters: An endless source of parody.

Why they would even want white people? Iunno. "Our thing is so simple, even dumbass, hipster roundeyes can use it!"

So, it's like Ensure but for hipsters instead of the elderly.

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