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Comment by malvosenior | Hacker News Reader

> Going vegan is simply the right thing to do at this point.

I'm sorry but no. Your diet is a personal choice and no amount of shaming is going to change that.

Do you travel internationally? Own a car? Do any other of a million things that have an impact on the climate but also constitute living your life?

It's great to put this information out there but telling people that your choices are "simply the right thing to do at this point" is incredibly condescending and will likely have the opposite impact you want it to have since no one likes to be preached at.

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> Your diet is a personal choice and no amount of shaming is going to change that.

I guess that depends on how you define personal choice. Climate change has certain changed the calculus, but diet was never merely a personal choice when it required the death of other individuals.

As for the shaming, I'm not in favor of that because it does not seem to be an effective way of bringing about change. But simply having these kinds of discussions cannot fairly be called shaming. That's a cop-out to avoid meaningful discourse.

Isn't there a level of condescension and or proselytizing that always goes on around environmental conversations?

Reduce, reuse, recycle - if you do it, good! If you don't, bad! Travel less, don't own anything.

How can we frame these sorts of ideals so that people don't feel attacked?

There _is_ a climate crisis. At least some level of that crisis is driven by consumer demands. We should be able to advocate a change without people feeling like they're being shamed.

I think it’s their problem and not ours. No one ever wants to change and no matter how nicely you put things they’ll always feel attacked. It’s just how it work, ultimately no one really wants to change so they need to be pushed.

> No one ever wants to change and no matter how nicely you put things they’ll always feel attacked.

Precisely. As another example, when people claim that progress pics are "fatshaming", it's pretty obvious that the problem isn't with the information or how it's presented, it's with the person feeling ashamed, which they rightfully are. These people should self-reflect upon why they feel ashamed instead of throwing a tantrum and playing the victim.

I think the original post did a good job of this. All you can do is present the information and let people decide for themselves.

I have been actively trying to reduce my ecological footprint because I believe climate change is real. I don't feel it's a matter of "personal choice" at this point. The way we live has a profound impact on the planet, and we all need to try and reduce that impact in any way we can. I realize this is a message people don't want to hear, but I believe they need to hear it. Going vegan and flying less are two of the biggest changes an individual can make.

> I don't feel it's a matter of "personal choice" at this point.

Unless you're suggesting forcing people by law to be vegan, then it most definitely is a personal choice.

> I realize this is a message people don't want to hear, but I believe they need to hear it.

It's precisely that attitude that ensures no one will ever listen to what you have to say.

Yet your diet isn't solely personal choice.

Was it your personal choice to cut down rain forest to raise beef cattle, or palm oil? What about air freighting in fruit and veg that common sense says comes on a ship? No?

Your diet is small part personal choice, within the far larger part played by cultural mores and market-led financial choices imposed by producers and supermarkets. You can't escape the part played by billions on advertising, and the choices of restaurants and supermarkets that led to your "personal choice".

"The market" is not going to phase out ecologically reckless methods unless people stop buying. Yet how can they when that detail, very intentionally, never appears on the label, and 365 day availability ensures almost no one remembers when things are in season any more?

So much for personal choice.

I can see why being "preached at" is being annoying, but the fact have been here long enough, yet a large percentage of the population haven't tried to change their diet.

If public shaming and social clout isn't involved, no one will.

Or we can accept people will keep their diet and go on with our lives. Just because something impacts the environment (literally everything does this btw) doesn't mean that we need to stop doing it. The climate will always be changing and humans will always have some impact on it. We need to accept that as fact.

Which doesn't abdicate us from preventing harm. My grandkids, if I am even lucky enough to have them, are going to live in a world where at least 31 days of the summer month will be too hot to go outside, winter will mostly be bouts of torrential super-storms, food will be incredibly expensive, and the politics of the day may very well be battles over how to handle the billions of migrants fleeing the uninhabitable places of the world.

Climate change is already displacing tens of thousands of people every year to floods, forest fires, and arid land. It's going to get worse before anything we do today to survive has an effect.

I think the thousands of scientists studying this phenomenon already understand the impact of human civilization on Earth rather well.

That's pretty much saying "I put my personal food taste before the safety of the future generations.". Don't get me wrong, you're free to have this opinion but it's probably a good thing to frame it like that to fully understand the choice.

There's "climate is changing" and massive population migration, uninhabitable areas, unreliable food and water supply, sea level threatening entire cities and probably more.

The fact that "literally everything we do" impact the environment isn't a valid argument. It does seem daunting, but by looking at each cause individually and acting on it, it looks less discouraging.

I'm far from perfect, I'm not even vegan and I still fly quite a bit, I just came to understand I had to make progressive changes to my behaviour or the human existence we currently have is severely threatened,

Public shaming cuts both ways, I can as easily shame you for being a vegan soy boy as you can shame me for eating meat.

Gw is unsolvable without better technology, or facism.

> Your diet is a personal choice

Not any more

> and no amount of shaming is going to change that.

It did change it for me. I haven’t gone vegan all the way but I did change my diet

> Do you travel internationally?

Less and less and preferably by train

> Own a car?

Yes, and I stopped driving it.

> since no one likes to be preached at.

I must be an exception then.

“Shaming” is what got me and my girlfriend to change, one pointed conversation 3 months later we went vegetarian than a year later vegan.

Yes, it sucks to be told you are a sinner. What language would you suggest people use in order to encourage people to be vegan? Suggesting it is the moral choice seems like a good method to me. Then again i am inclined to seek the moral and respond to guilt.

You seem more concerned about not being condescended to; for such an individual, what language would you find cogent?

None. I don't have any plans to be a vegan so don't want anyone telling me to do it.

I'm vegetarian and aspire to have a plant-based diet, but I recognize the difficulty in such a diet in a lot of places.

With that said, I'm curious why you don't want anyone trying to convince you to change your mind?

I don't want to eat meat, and I don't plan to, but if someone had some reasoned arguments as to why I should, I'd listen and decide for myself. I'm not you though, but I am curious what reason(s) you have for not being open to discussing it. I'm also curious why you phrased it as someone telling you to do it, rather than discussing it.

I love meat and many meat dishes. I would never stop eating them because they're a major part of my life. The question of if I want to change my diet is not one I'm asking myself. It seems weird to have to "debate" that with people. No amount of shaming is going to make me stop loving a good reuben sandwich or a carnitas burrito. I have no problem with other people eating what they choose but don't need to hear other people's thoughts on what I eat.

Think of it like pushy religious advocates. If they come to your door once and knock and you tell them to go way, that's mildly annoying but understandable. If they keep coming back every day saying that you "must" debate them, then that starts to get really annoying, really fast.

Thanks for responding. Very much appreciate it, and I totally understand.

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