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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.
I'm not sure veganism or moral vegetarianism is subject to rational argument; it's a matter of axioms. If you don't give a shit about chicken and cow deaths, no one is going to argue you into doing so. And if you do, nobody's going to argue you into meat-eating.
Anti-car people pop up often enough. There are arguments, they don't really convince anyone, but that's not unusual. Personally I think you've inadvertently provided one of your own arguments against the anti-car people:
Most "axioms" are not axioms at all. A chicken with human-level intelligence and values would have moral worth, so the true axiom is something like "intelligence grants moral worth." Starting from that axiom one could argue that chickens have some intelligence and thus some non-zero moral worth.
I disagree; a theoretically intelligent chicken would not have moral worth because it is not a human, and ‘humans have sufficiently more moral worth than animals to justify eating them’ is a statement I consider a postulate. It doesn’t matter if whales are as smart as people the japs still have the right to eat them, and it doesn’t matter if chickens are as smart as chickens or as smart as people, I will still fry and eat them.
If chickens were as smart as people there would be absolutely no justification to fry and eat them, if only because their equal intelligence implies there will probably be a time in the future when the tables are turned on who has power and you absolutely wouldn't want the chickens to start eating humans.
Of course intelligence gives rise to moral worth, and yes I will bite the bullet and freely say that some people are worth more morally than others (this doesn't mean that intelligence is the only thing behind moral worth, but it absolutely is one of them).
It doesn't, though. If that's your argument, then you have to explain why unintelligent humans have any moral worth. Profoundly retarded people are arguably less intelligent than squid, which at least have the ability to survive on their own , but I don't think anyone would argue that they have the same moral worth.
I would. I think all such people should be euthanized. They aren't really people. They're worthless sacks of flesh that just happen to have human DNA
In my defense, my post was in response to someone who said "I don't think anyone would argue this". So my post was primarily serving to show that, yes, there are people that would argue this and I know this because I'm one of them. That's why l thought a short post was appropriate.
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