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Comment by fnovd | Hacker News Reader

Is it, though? I mean, I can see the similarity, but ethical veg*nism does exist outside of the dietary practice. You don't need to subscribe to the ethics to partake in the diet. We lack the words to distinguish between and ethical vegan and a for-health vegan, but that doesn't mean they aren't distinct groups.

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Does it matter?

What difference does it make if someone who's been a vegan for 3 months calls themself a vegan? Are they "harming the movement" by doing so? If partaking in the diet doesn't require you to subscribe to the ethics, as you say, then the label should just be a label: someone who doesn't eat animal products. No time frame or reasoning attached.

It does matter. It's the same with Jews, for example. You can be religiously Jewish but not ethnically, or ethnically Jewish but atheist, or you can be both. But they remain distinct concepts.

And yet you managed to convey that information with just one extra qualifying word. Unless you consider one of them isn't really a Jew, shouldn't both share the title equally? If more information is required, use more words.

Exactly. I've been a vegan for thirty minutes. In fact, I'm vegan almost all the time, with the exception of a few minutes per day!

I honestly think it's reasonable to attach a minimum time frame to a word like this, otherwise it gets a bit hard to know what people mean when they speak. Whether one year is a good choice I don't know, but a minimum is required.

>minimum is required

Can you expand on this? If there are two people in front of you, one who has been a vegan for 20 years, the other for 2 weeks, what is the real difference between them, how does that time difference change your interaction with them?

To put it another way, why does one word have to apply to one and not the other because of some inherent time requirement? English, in particular, as a language is inherently vague, and we rarely make this time requirement distinction for other words that describe people.

If I just graduated from the police academy I'm a "cop", just like how the 30 year veteran detective sergeant is a "cop". No, we aren't the same, since the latter has far more experience, but that doesn't mean that only one deserves the title. It just means we use additional qualifiers ("30 year veteran detective sergeant") to elaborate on what type of cop he or she is.

The difference is, becoming a chip takes certification by an institution. Very unlike being vegan.

Personally I'd set a minimum of a year.

So then what do vegans call themselves before that point? "Vegan in training"? "Vegan junior"? "Planning to be a vegan"? "I don't eat meat or animal products, but I'm not a vegan because I haven't put in the hours yet"?

I'm being pedantic on purpose here because the idea of some minimum time requirement to call yourself a vegan is one of the most pedantic things I've ever heard, and supports the stereotypical characterization of vegans being overall pains in the ass.

It's like the difference between a long-term member and someone on a trial membership. There is a difference.

When does someone become a true Scotsman then?

When they are past a typical dropout date.

I'm inclined to agree with you regarding this not necessarily being a no-true-Scotsman fallacy. I think there is a meaningful difference between proclaiming to be veg*n, and proclaiming to be trying it.

I wonder what proportion of the cohort here were in each group.

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