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Just because they're annoying doesn't mean they're wrong - a meta-discussion
A few months ago a wild vegan appeared. He was almost self-parodically stereotypical: short, mid thirties, college-educated, and into endurance sports. He posted a reasonably well-argued case that veganism was not harmful to sporting performance, with the usual smug boasting of his numbers in endurance sports. At the end of his post, he finished with "what's your excuse?"
The entirety of his well-reasoned post was ignored, and he was dogpiled for that one final sentence.
Mottizens could immediately detect what was going on - he actually found the killing and eating of animals to be immoral, but didn't think that would be a convincing argument, so he tried to achieve his goal with another argument.
Both positions are actually worth considering. I'm open to the possibility that killing animals for food is wrong, and I'm open to the possibility that a vegan diet is not harmful to athletic performance. Hiding behind one to advance another, however, is deceitful.
I've actually tried to engage seriously with these ideas, and in my desire to see their own steelmen, I have tried to read some vegan sites. Usually I give up quickly, as they are full of the above argumentation - shifting goalposts, emotional appeals, hiding behind one argument to advance another, etc.
I wish I could say I have rejected vegetarianism because I engaged with their best arguments and found them wanting. Instead, I found their argumentation so annoying I ceased to engage with them.
I've had similar experiences with people who hate cars. Like anyone else who can do math, I have often found it absurd to use two tons of car and two liters of fuel to get two bags of groceries. I've also tried to mitigate some of these by moving to a New Urbanist development (with an unpleasant HOA, sadly), and I've got an electric car and solar panels on my roof. Sadly, this doesn't lead to any productive discussion, as I've discussed before.
Years ago, I remember a similar circular argumentative style among supporters of the ACA. They would say that people are afraid to start companies because they won't have health care, to which I'd reply "sure, how about two years of subsidized COBRA?". Then they'd point to catastrophic expenses, to which I'd say "sure, how about a subsidized backstop for all 1MM+ expenses for anyone who has a 1MM plan?", to which they'd change the argument again.
Of course, there's a pattern here. From what I can tell, many vegetarians have an (understandable) response to the raising, killing, and eating of animals. Some people seem to be terrified of owning and operating large machines, and they find private cars and single family housing to be socially alienating. Some people are emotionally disturbed by other people suffering from the health consequences of a lifetime of bad choices.
What these groups all have in common is a strong ability to signal these things emotionally to people similar to them and form a consensus, but also a generally terrible ability to discuss these things reasonably.
We don't have many vegans, anti-car people, or socialists here at The Motte - but that's not because their arguments are invalid, it's because the people attracted to those ideologies don't fit well with our particular discursive style. On the flip side, we have plenty of white nationalists, who seem to be able to adapt.
I'm confident that white nationalists are wrong. I have engaged with their best arguments, and found them wanting.
I'm only confident that vegans are annoying, because they are so annoying that I find it hard to engage with their arguments.
I think that's a blind spot for The Motte.
We’ve had a number of pro-car vs. anti-car arguments here on the Motte, in which both sides have made well-argued and not at all annoying arguments. I’m on the anti-car side in the sense that I personally hate driving and would strongly prefer to live in a place where owning and operating a motor vehicle is not only unnecessary but actually discouraged. Many others here are similarly disposed toward urbanism and against cars, and are far more adept at making practical/technical arguments in favor of that position than I am. The main topics of discussion in such arguments always seem to circle back to 1. Is it feasible/desirable to convert cities built for cars into cities built for walking/transit, and 2. Is a car-free lifestyle feasible for people who have multiple children. People on both sides muster the best arguments at their disposal, and few of the participants resort to cheap emotional argumentation or goalpost-shifting.
I think that perhaps you just personally find one side of that argument annoying for idiosyncratic reasons, and have convinced yourself that it’s impossible for people who disagree with you on the issue to do so for non-annoying reasons. I won’t gainsay any personal experiences you’ve had when discussing the issue in other spaces, but I can assure you that here at the Motte we are in fact perfectly capable of conducting ourselves in a dignified and intellectually-honest matter as it regards cars, and have demonstrated this capability multiple times since I’ve been here.
I did learn, or at least learn to pay more attention to, one interesting fact on the last Motte pro/anti car argument I was involved in - substantial parts of the world routinely experience weather for extended periods that precludes all but the most hardy people around from doing extended outdoors work, like walking for 20 minutes while carrying a few days worth of groceries.
This is definitely a great point; I live in San Diego, with arguably the best and most mild year-round weather of any place on the planet, so it’s extremely easy for me to advocate walkability.
However, other places, both in North America and in Europe and Asia, do somehow seem to manage to have great public transit and walkability despite having intemperate weather. New York City’s weather is far worse than Phoenix’s, yet the former has the highest rate of public transit usage in America, while the latter’s transit system is pathetic. European cities with a ton of snow and rain still somehow seem to manage public transit, so it must be possible, although I can certainly see the merit of arguments that it’s quite suboptimal.
I live in NYC now, and mostly lived along the gulf coast before I moved here. One thing I have discovered is that there is a big difference between 30F and 10F. I've been told and am willing to believe there is an equally big difference between that and -10F. At 30F, you're okay with regular decent shoes, a set of long johns, a good basic jacket and a light hat. At 10F, you need (well, at least I need) insulated boots, heavy or double long johns, a heavy parka, hat, scarf unless your parka has a good hood, and mittens, and any skin exposed to the air for even a few seconds is actively painful. It's that cold here for maybe a couple of days to a week total over the course of a winter, and it's reasonable to avoid going outside during those times. At -10F I'm told you need petroleum jelly covering your face to avoid frostnip. I'm told in many places in the center of large continental areas, including the US, it's that cold or worse for multiple continuous weeks every winter. So I can totally see how many people, especially those who aren't in prime physical shape for any number of reasons, aren't eager to embrace needing to physically carry every crumb of food they eat home by hand.
I've lived in fairly hot places too, but never Phoenix. I've been told that in Phoenix, it's routinely hot enough that you are at serious risk of heat stroke if you walk outside in the sun for 20 minutes without carrying water. That's probably also worse if you need to carry moderate loads or aren't in great physical shape.
This makes me wonder how people in very cold climates where cars are unaffordable make do- my understanding is that large parts of Russia are both too poor for non-elites to have cars, and have temperatures below 10F for extended periods, and smaller portions have extended periods below -10F, and that sections of eg the Canadian Arctic are similar. How do people not die waiting for the bus in Magadan in January?
No such thing "cold", only "need more clothing".
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They only go out during the warmest parts of the day. There are good YouTube videos on life in Siberia etc.
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I wouldn't go so far as "all but the most hardy", merely "many on the bottom of the distribution". Carrying three days of groceries for 20 minutes in Minneapolis winter or Miami summer is bearable. Make it week's worth of groceries while tending to two small children, and it's misery if you're the average-sized woman.
In Singapore or Hong Kong this is irrelevant since in many cases the amount of time you need to spend outside is minimal. Even in parts of Canada (eg downtown Calgary or Edmonton) there are extensive climate controlled passages, tunnels and skyways to make sure you don’t need to experience extreme temperatures outside.
The idea that you need cars for climate control is just ridiculous. Many places have solved this problem; it doesn’t require the personal automobile.
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As I've gotten older and my joints more rickety, I can tell you that the prospect of multiple trips down to the shop (even the one not too far away) and carrying bags of groceries back is much less appealing than when I was in my 20s and 30s. "Twenty to thirty minute walk home carrying heavy bag of goods in my left hand" was okay when I was 35, now it's "Urgh, lemme see if I can shop online and have that delivered".
'No car' is great when you want to live in a city, when everything is on your doorstep so to speak, and you're doing nothing more strenuous than carrying a day's groceries like bread and milk home, there's a range of choices if you want to go out to eat instead of cooking at home, and if you need something big delivered (imagine you bought a new wardrobe) the shop will drop that off for you. (That still leaves the problem of 'no cars but we do need delivery lorries and trucks', and seeing large trucks trying to park on the streets in order to drop off goods at the stores is something regular in my town).
If you don't have a range of everything on the doorstep (and even the city nearest to me was unusual, decades back, because there were no grocery shops easily accessible in the city centre, something I never understood when I was in town and wanted to buy a few groceries rather than go out to the shopping centre on the outskirts) or if you need to carry a heavier load or bring a lot of purchases back with you, a car where you can load up or fit everything in the boot is much more appealing, even more necessary if you're not living in town or city.
I get sent to cities for a few weeks at a time for my job. I bring a small, soft-frame backpack with me, and for one man by himself it will carry anything as far as I want to carry it.
An older woman, with two grandkids? Not a chance. The problem is once you inconvenience grandma, you end up inconveniencing me, because I want my family to be near grandma, and so we all end up driving.
How do European grandmas pull it off, then?
Pretty much because many Europeans, especially in more dense city centers, and even in the suburbs (which are more dense in many cases than American suburbs) don't go to the supermarket once a week and get an ungodly amount of food. There's a local market, or at least a much closer supermarket they can stop by daily or maybe three times a week, get what they need quickly, and then go home.
I agree, it’s simply such a ridiculous thing to suggest when all across Europe and indeed most of the world the elderly are fine without needing to drive literally everywhere. The American suburb is the abomination, not the dense city, which is the norm for huge numbers of people for thousands of years.
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