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Don't know why I'm stumbling on this post from /u/satirizedoor now a year later and nearly two years after the original post that I made. I still call myself vegan, but I do eat oysters now. I have come to find most vegans, including my past self, as annoying as you: there is a lack of real reflection as to what the goals of the movement are, and if the individual actions that vegans advocate are actually effective at accomplishing those goals. Total cessation of animal suffering is as impossible as it would be totalitarian (some vegans advocate for GMOing away all predators). Some amount of meat eating will always be part of human culture, and is frankly, indistinguishable and perhaps better than what goes on in the wild. My problem in reality is with industrial factory farming. It would be far better for these animals and the planet if we merely advocated for reduction in meat consumption, but that position isn't really justifiable outside of utilitarianism. Most people are not utilitarian I think, which makes it difficult to advocate for a position that fails on consequentialist/deontological grounds. The fact is that some people don't think animals have moral worth, while others do. There's very little ability to reason across that line, despite pretty good scientific evidence that most farm animals do have some rudimentary reasoning and emotional abilities equivalent to that of a small child. To vegans like myself, this evidence is helpful but rather superfluous. My beliefs about animal consciousness come from personal interactions I've had with animals. For those who aren't vegan, evidence of reasoning and/emotional reactions isn't sufficient evidence of consciousness or moral worth. Being able to solve puzzles or display emotions isn't very good evidence that there's something going on inside of another creature.
I'm still convinced that veganism isn't harmful for performance, at least in endurance sports. Plenty of endurance athletes at the highest levels are at least mostly vegan. However, I think that performance enhancement is a different question that I don't think has really been settled scientifically. There are without a doubt certain plant-based substances that are performance enhancers (beet juice), but I don't think this says anything about the efficacy of the diet as a whole. A cycling YouTuber that I vaguely follow, Dylan Johnson is vegan for recovery reasons, as plant-based diets are apparently much less pro-inflammatory than meat-based diets. I can't say I'm fully convinced by this: I think the real culprit in inflammation may be macronutrient ratios. Diets high in fat, which many vegans also have, seem to be particularly pro-inflammatory, at least in animal models. There's also good evidence that high protein consumption is linked to decreases in lifespan, but again this isn't exclusive to meat-eating populations.
I am more shocked by how skewed most user's idea of a healthy body weight is. I'm closer to 160 now, but a 150 with a height of 6' put me at a very normal BMI of 20. I recognize that this weight makes it very difficult to be a strongman, but that's not my goal, nor the goal of most Americans. It is an absurd position to tell me that I am a twig or emaciated at that weight when I am well within the bounds of a healthy BMI.
Among those few other intelligent species, there are honorable animals and dishonourable ones. Honorable animals are both intelligent and have moral worth. Dolphins are dishonorable. Orangutans are honourable. Chimpanzees are dishonorable. Elephants are honorable. Humans are mostly honorable, especially for omnivores.
Among the meat animals, octopuses are morally neutral, although they are regular cannibals, and I have no qualms with eating an animal that eats its own kind. That said, I consider octopus the least justifiable regularly consumed meat to eat. Likewise, pigs (including wild boar) are often honorable, but are also cannibals at high frequency, and if even they eat each other all the time, then so can I.
Most other meat (and other) animals are not intelligent, and so lack the same moral valence in either direction.
Your classification of honorable/dishonorable is totally foreign to me. Out of all the animals you list, I would have classified dolphins as the most "honorable". Is there really a major culture/ethnicity that thinks eating dolphins is okay but eating octopus is bad? It's hard for me to imagine.
"The rabbit has a pleasant face,
His private life is a disgrace
I really could not tell to you
The awful things that rabbits do."
What will make vegetarianism/veganism more widespread among ordinary people is not all the preaching in the world, it's the price of meat. Meat has gone up in price very fast here in Ireland, to the point that a morning radio show had butchers(!) on telling people how to make it go further, to buy (relatively) cheaper cuts, bulk meals out with lentils etc.
People may not give a damn about the moral worth of a cow or a pig, but if beef and bacon are too dear to buy the usual cuts and instead they're eating mince bulked out with lentils in stews and so forth for family meals, it's a lot easier to move towards "more veggies, less meat" in ordinary diet.
I think another way to move the needle is to make eating vegan convenient enough that the average person can eat vegan without too much added effort— no need to scour the ingredient list for obscure ingredients that are derived from animals, restaurants having multiple options that are specifically vegan and are not salad or steamed veggies. As it is now, the choice to be vegan specifically comes with a lot of extra cognitive load. You have to constantly look at ingredients, you have to call ahead or visit the website of restaurants to see if they have a vegan option and be grateful if one exists even if you don’t want that, it’s the only place nearby you can go eat with your friends and not have to bring in food.
This is how gluten-free took off. Until a person could actually have bread products, pastas, desserts, and common foods, being gluten-free was only done if you couldn’t process gluten properly and had no choice. No one else chose to make do with only meat veggies and potatoes, never ever having a dessert. Now, there are gluten free pizzas, cakes, cupcakes, muffins, breads, and a fair assortment of processed convenience foods that don’t have gluten. It’s a bit more expensive, but you aren’t feeling deprived by it.
This is how oat/soy-milk versus cow-milk was normalized in Germany. Now in the big cities almost every cafe has the option to use oatly (and near students/university oatly is the normal option).
There are some startups in Berlin trying to make casein protein from yeast. With casein one could make cheese (mozarella, gouda, cottage cheese, camenbert etc) virtually indistinguishable from cow-cheese. The current cheese alternatives all suck, especially on pizza, and are nutritionally worthless with almost no protein.
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