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Comment by nefitty | Hacker News Reader

I commend you for your decision.

I want to add that framing my ideas about animal suffering in an elastic way makes it easier for me to make incremental changes. An animal is either alive or dead. Maybe eating vegetarian once a week will save a life down the line.

I urge everyone to resist the all-or-nothing approach, especially on such an important aspect of our ethical choices. No one's perfect, not even the vegan straight edge kids on Instagram who sneak a chicken nugget when no one's looking.

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> I urge everyone to resist the all-or-nothing approach

There is no other moral stance where someone could reasonably say this. Veganism is a moral stance the same way as "racism is bad" and "abusing my spouse is bad" is a moral stance. No one would ever say "I'm trying to limit kicking dogs to just Tuesday-Sunday".

> vegan straight edge kids on Instagram who sneak a chicken nugget when no one's looking.

You're projecting. Veganism is _not_ a diet.

> There is no other moral stance where someone could reasonably say this. Veganism is a moral stance the same way as "racism is bad" and "abusing my spouse is bad" is a moral stance. No one would ever say "I'm trying to limit kicking dogs to just Tuesday-Sunday".

I agree that this holds from an ethical standpoint, but from an environmental one reduction is perfectly reasonable and needs to be part of the conversation.

The big difference is that racism and abuse invoke a social consensus. Veganism does not - the vast majority of society does not agree that veganism is a necessary, absolute moral stance. In fact, many would probably take offense at putting it on the same level of moral imperative as something like racism.

We also routinely deal with non-absolutes on these types of subjects. It's extremely common for people to disagree with the appropriate level of anti-racism, or the appropriate level of respect with which to treat one's spouse.

> You're projecting. Veganism is _not_ a diet.

It's more than a diet, for sure. But I do know many, many people who aspire to veganism and who at times make concessions. I don't think less of them for doing so.

I disagree and your comparisons aren't accurate. A more accurate comparison would he to say its like "I'm going to ride my bike to work once a week" or "I'll pick up trash at the local park once a week".

I don't have to view eating meat or driving my car an inherently immoral in order to recognize the objective negative ecological impact that those actions have, and to therefore want to engage in some form of harm reduction from time to time.

Yes, excellently stated. That's precisely my original point. I intended to preemptively disarm the conversational decay that absolutes cause.

I think there is a place for that, for example art or activism, but when speaking directly to another human, absolutes seem to place a lot of people on their back foot in defense of their current established decisions.

At risk of getting tedious here, the even-more accurate comparison would be "I'm gonna limit paying someone else to kick a dog from Tuesday to Sunday".

Since there actually exists real-life animal abuse in the case of paying for meat or any animal product ( including dairy ).

I would think that's still not as accurate as the above examples. That implies a form of intended malice and wish to do harm at no personal gain. If the factory in which my car is manufactured happens to employ children that doesn't mean I'm paying for child labor - I'm paying for a car regardless of how it's produced. The attempt to shift the blame to the consumer here fallacious.

I understand where you're coming from. I assume you believe one bad thing is preferable to two bad things. It's the trap I was warning against. Degrees instead of absolutes.

Personally, I am vegetarian due to ethical concerns, not dietary or nutritional ones. In my decade+ of being vegetarian, I have discerned the pattern that moral proselytizing is generally offensive to people. I think most intelligent non-vegetarians are more amenable to talking about clearly objective impacts (number of dead animals, environmental impact, nutrition, etc).

I prefer to be able to have a rational conversation when I talk about the topic with someone. Righteous indignation is more usually a thought extinguishing reaction to all involved. And then no one comes away with anything at all.

Are you okay with male chicks being grinded alive to enjoy your eggs, female cows being artificially inseminated by humans and their babies taken away and murdered just so you can enjoy your milk?

The point of reducing your consumption is that the demand for animals is lower, so they aren't born in to lives of non-stop suffering.

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