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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.
My excuse here is that I don't care about sports, I don't want to run long distances or lift heavy weights or have bulgy muscles. So if veganism doesn't stop you doing that, great, but that's got nothing to do with me and hence why "veganism is great for sports" does not work as an argument in my case.
It is also belied by the fact that top athletes don’t seem to be vegan.
I know it’s totally anecdata but it’s significant to me that I’ve never, ever met a vegan who is healthier than me.
Because of my social and professional circles I’d bet a mint that I’ve met and interacted regularly with a lot more vegans than the modal person. So it’s not a sample size issue.
I’m not the perfect picture of health but I’m certainly “robust” in more than one way. I have a lifetime of on again off again strength training, extreme sports, endurance sports, outdoorsmanship, martial arts and manual labor . But I’m too poor and too busy to be a consistent athlete, and probably too undisciplined to boot.
But still, every vegan I’ve ever met I could almost literally break them into pieces.
To wit, I believe the poster in question said he was six feet tall and 150lbs, which to me even if you are endurance athlete is not “healthy”. I’m the same height and in my best shape I had almost a hundred pounds on him, even with literally zero body fat I’d weigh more.
I know it’s a joke on the whole ‘sigma grindset’ to say “If you can’t physically overpower me I don’t have to listen to you” but when it comes to diet & excercise, I’ll say “This but unironically.”.
You were literally obese in your best shape and you are casting aspersions on other people's health?
235 at 20% body fat is not obese, I had a ton of musculature and a tiny belly. I looked like a gorilla. I was doing 10 mile runs in the mountains on the regular and could deadlift almost three times my body weight.
If I had bird bones I’d be obese but I’ve never had a problem with getting enough calcium or putting enough eustress on my body.
150lbs at 6 feet tall you’d look like you just been interrupted halfway through your stay at Auschwitz.
235 at 6 foot is 31.9 bmi. this is obesity. Every guy on the Internet seems to be 20% BF, but they can't all be right.
150 at 6' is pretty skinny but not Auschwitz tier (myself, I'm 155 at 5'8" and of course 20% bf). It's a 20.3 bmi - this is what a normal American looked like before the obesity epidemic.
You’re right on the BMI scale, but the above poster wouldn’t qualify for most reasonable measures of obesity. BMI is good for population obesity measures, but quickly falls apart when you start seriously weight training. And a 3x body weight deadlift (at 235 pounds!) is extremely far to the right tail of the population strength curve; Strength Standards calls that an ‘elite’ lift (1), and it’s comparing to a population of people who actively train for strength. I would feel confident suggesting this is something that less than 0.1% of the population can do.
Now, I also think it’s likely that the above poster was using PEDs to support supraphysiologic muscle mass, as well. Not to cast aspersions, but merely to point out that with chemical assistance it’s certainly possible.
You’re right about 150 lbs / 6’ not being close to Auschwitz level, but it’s also a little insincere to suggest that it’s a ‘normal’ body weight. At 20.3 BMI, it’s less than 2 points from being underweight (18.5). At least in our society, I think it would commonly be agreed (as you say) that that’s pretty darn skinny.
For a personal anecdote, I’ve been both 130 and 240 pounds (at 6’3) and while the former was extremely skinny, the latter looked very good (as a bodybuilder, 10% or so body fat and yes, PEDs) despite being the cutoff for obesity according to BMI.
1)https://strengthlevel.com/strength-standards/deadlift/lb
I wasn’t on PEDs although I understand why that would be an assumption, anyone I’ve ever talked to with a background in this straight up told me I’m a weird outlier in terms of bone density, including my childhood doctors.
Took me a better part of two years to achieve that training 3-4 times a week.
I was also pretty laser focused on getting my deadlift as high as possible, and started off my powerlifting journey with high lower body strength as I had formerly trained as a cross country runner, and was an avid cyclist and amateur martial artist (kickboxing).
It’s really amazing what you can achieve when you’re consistent and keep your goals very narrow.
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