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Comment by xnxn | Hacker News Reader

I don't think your premise is correct. The data I can find[1][2] suggests that vegetarians and vegans are principally concerned with animal ethics.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257659/

[2] https://www.abc.net.au/cm/lb/10062622/data/veganuary-infogra...

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Hunting is most likely the best option from an animal ethics standpoint. Although it doesn't scale well. But make that point to a vegan and suddenly they're vegan primarily for environmental concerns.

It's almost as if other people disagree about what the best option for their personal viewpoint is.

I just think it's all more complicated than people want it to be. Some choices in life MIGHT have a slight net positive on the environment or on animals deaths. But then people get so invested in the outcomes that they paint it as completely black and white.

Everything that lives is going to die. And everything that dies is going to get eaten. It's just a matter of circumstances and subjects.

No, the differences are very big, real and well documented.

Why is hunting better than being vegan?

As someone who doesn't eat meat or dairy I've heard the argument that the environmental impact would be less than a vegan that lives in a city.

The argument being that a hunter is killing an animal that lived naturally is less of an environmental impact than getting food packaged and sent across the country, etc.

I'm not sure I agree, but it's the most plausible argument I've seen for not being Vegan.

> getting food packaged and sent across the country

You missed the biggest factor: industrial farming. Have you been to the midwest-does that look like a healthy, natural ecosystem? A vegan (well, most people really ) who lives there gets their food from the same place as one in the city.

I'm not sure any form of food production/gathering, at the scale needed today, would look any better though.

Farming at any scale results in unintended animal deaths, serving no purpose other than to "get out of the way" so we can farm here.

Hunting results in the death of a single animal, and that animal is then directly used for food. There is virtually no environmental impact as a result of well regulated hunting.

A vegan would argue that the death of a single animal should be prevented if at all possible. They would probably argue that hunting is much more ethical than factory farming, but still very unethical.

I know, I've had these arguments. But it's asinine because it is quite literally impossible for any human to exist without animals dying as a result of it. There are a small percentage of vegans that are convinced that their existence results in zero animal deaths. These people are delusional. Luckily there aren't many of them.

The reasonable vegans admit that it's a matter of causing as little animal death or suffering as possible. And then some percentage of what I've deemed "reasonable vegans" will also agree that hunting is about as good as any other options.

I'd like to think I fall in the "reasonable vegan" category. I know it's impossible for humans to prevent all possible animal deaths.

But there's a massive gap between hunting and not killing and eating animals for food at all. Of course I'd prefer if factory farming was replaced with hunting, but I'd prefer even more if synthetic meat were the norm and raising or killing animals for food just wasn't even part of the equation anymore (as PG, and others, are predicting).

As a human animal, I'd certainly rather live ~50% of my expected natural life in the wild and have it end in an instant from a weapon than be born in crammed captivity and force-fed horrible anti-biotic-laden meal for years for some higher-intelligence extraterrestrial species to consume, sure. But even though it's preferable, I still don't want to be shot and killed, even if I knew with certainty that my death was going to be short and painless.

Similar to PG, I predict killing animals for sport or for food will be considered very taboo within a century. At least in Western countries.

I briefly looked at those links. The first one, "Beliefs and Attitudes toward Vegetarian Lifestyle across Generations", says in the introduction

"Younger people significantly agreed more with the moral reason and with the environmental reason. People ages 41–60 significantly agreed more with the health reason. [i.e. not in absolute terms, just compared with other age groups]

A study publish[sic] in 1992 found that the highest number of vegetarians, 46 percent, chose a vegetarian diet for health reasons, 15 percent chose to be a vegetarian for animal rights reasons, 12 percent for friend/family influence, 5 percent for ethical reasons, 4 percent for environmental issues and 18 percent indicated other reasons.."

Their study:

"The objective of the study was to examine whether reasons to adopt vegetarian lifestyle differ significantly among generations. ...This cross-sectional, observational study was completed at Andrews University which is a Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) institution of higher learning. SDA represent a unique population known for their wide range of dietary habits. This conservative religious group prohibits the use of alcohol, tobacco, and pork and recommends that members adhere to lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet. ...Participants were drawn from a large undergraduate introductory-level nutrition class that is open to students from all academic directions."

So, 609 people at a Seventh-Day Adventist college who'd signed up for a nutrition class. That seems a super-bizarre, unrepresentative group to study for the purpose. And in Figure 1, the "Health" reason seems to be the strongest reason given, for every age group.

The other link is to a picture, which seems to be an Australian event, Veganuary, I guess trying to get people to sign up to be vegan in January? Anyway, that says people who signed up for that gave 43% "animals" and 39% "health" reasons, 10% environment, 8% other. They're mostly not vegetarians or vegans, it also says in the picture.

Neither of those two, and particularly not the first, seem to suggest that vegetarians and vegans are principally concerned with animal ethics - even if one assumes they're what they're not, perfectly representative of the beliefs of the entire population of the planet, or your country, or whatever region you're talking about. Still, they were interesting, thanks.

You know, I actually agree somewhat. I almost noted that I was having trouble finding more reliable sources, particularly concerning vegetarianism and veganism in the USA, but thought that would have completely torpedoed my argument. ;)

More seriously: the "environmental" claim rang hollow to me, so I set out in search of some facts, and I think what I found supports that intuition, but the burden of proof is not really mine. (I will retract my "it's animal ethics yo" statement—clearly a reach.)

The burden of proof should've been on me, for sure. I was going off of anecdote. Now I'm not so sure on what the actual percentages are, though I do still think that description probably does apply to a large number of vegetarians and perhaps vegans.

Thank you, interesting. I shouldn't rely so much on anecdata.

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