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Comment by bluntfang | Hacker News Reader

>The validity of the argument isn't affected by whether one is a hypocrite.

I personally think it matters how much of an effort the person espousing beliefs is putting in to deviate from the norm their are complaining about.

For example, I'm not going to listen to your arguments about climate change if you aren't actively curbing your red meat consumption. Although, if you're making an effort to reduce your red meat consumption, I'll take you more seriously about climate change. It may be virtue signaling, or whatever phrase of the week, but I need people to believe in what they're fighting for.

edit: for those downvoting, please leave a remark. It's hard to understand this website since so many people downvote without any response.

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> For example, I'm not going to listen to your arguments about climate change if you aren't actively curbing your red meat consumption.

As it happens, I've considered becoming vegetarian but I'm literally allergic to nuts, and it's hard to have a balanced diet with enough protein if nuts aren't an option. The validity of an argument is even less affected by whether you think the arguer is a hypocrite.

Also, would you listen to my argument about how individual red meat consumption is a drop in the bucket of climate change and isn't really worth focusing on?

Is soy included in your nut allergy? I'm vegan and don't eat many nuts, although most of my protein comes from soy products. I was vegetarian for a while and used whole milk, eggs, and cheese for protein. Although I believe in the rights of living creatures so I couldn't do the dairy/eggs route any more.

There are plenty of foods that will give you enough protein, leafy greens like kale, beans, and rice are a staple of any stir fry/curry and are complete meals nutritionally.

fwiw, one of the things i love about my diet that was really hard to get used to was the difference of caloric density of vegetables vs animal products. I am constantly full and sometimes just have a hard time stuffing my face with enough food. I also am an amateur athlete so my caloric needs are probably really different than most people on this site.

>Also, would you listen to my argument about how individual red meat consumption is a drop in the bucket of climate change and isn't really worth focusing on?

I don't believe we're going to be able to change big business if we don't have the gumption to change our day to day lives. We need to live it in order to make real change, and factory farming, specifically of red meat, is the highest on the list for personal consumption. I also believe we've advanced as a society to not have to rely on killing living beings or manipulating their reproductives cycles for our benefit.

edit: I don't understand the downvotes here. I am literally informing someone about MY diet. Can you please add a response if you choose to downvote this post.

You're not supposed to be vegan, that's what's wrong. And if you really have to, you should at least keep quiet about it.

It raises far too many uncomfortable questions in the brains of people who really know better but are simply too weak-minded to change their habits.

Many problems are not suitable to be addressed by individual’s consumption choices. For instance, I think governments and international trade organizations should make sure there is no slavery involved in producing goods - it should simply not be legal to sell something if it was produced by slave or child labor. I would ask you to judge me on the efforts I make to influence politicians in this direction, rather than on whether or not I have done extensive research on the sourcing of minerals of every smart phone brand. The latter simply does not scale.

Methane looks scary, but it’s half-life is short and we have a boatload in the atmosphere already. As such grass fed cows are a complete non issue. What’s meaningful long term is how much carbon we are digging up.

>As such grass fed cows are a complete non issue.

AFAIK factory farming does not use grass fed cows. I've heard the grass fed arguments, but I just don't see that happening any time soon at the current red meat consumption scale if ever.

You can just directly buy grass fed cows from farmers. It’s not what you’re going to eat at a fast food joint, but avoiding fast food etc is different than going vegetarian.

My personal red meat consumption works just fine at scale, so that’s not an issue. Just compare efficiency of grass fed vs factory farms and lower your consumption to compensate. That said my consumption is well below average as I haven’t eaten meat this week which is fairly common.

It matters with respect to that person's credibility, but not in regards to the validity of the argument.

>For example, I'm not going to listen to your arguments about climate change if you aren't actively curbing your red meat consumption.

In other words, you don't listen to the likely majority of scientists?

You're confusing rationality with integrity.

>In other words, you don't listen to the likely majority of scientists?

I'm all ears, what do you mean here? You're talking about people who have devoted their lives to learning and explaining the world around us and not an armchair enthusiast worried about internet points?

>You're confusing rationality with integrity.

I really don't think I am, can you explain what you mean in more detail?

>I'm all ears, what do you mean here?

What is there to explain? My point is that it's very likely that the majority of scientists continue to happily eat meat, yet you've said you don't listen to such people.

>I really don't think I am, can you explain what you mean in more detail?

A person's credibility is only relevant if their personal experience is actually relevant to the soundness of their argument.

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