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One of my first experiences with a vegan was a girl in my French class who upon having seen me eat steak at a school trip came up to me to complain and tell me she was sure I'd feel differently if I had to kill the animal myself.

I've never killed a large animal, so maybe she was right, but I have killed small ones, and being annoyed I told her I didn't see a problem with killing an animal myself if I had to.

She stared at me for a moment, her face getting paler, called me a demon, and walked off.

I'm sure it must be hard feeling like that about meat eating (her housemate was also on the trip, and they at one point debated what to do about an ant-infestation because they couldn't bear killing them - this was not a casual thing to her) and living around people like us.

Especially if they, like me, are the kind of meat eater who still takes pleasure from having been called a demon to my face almost 30 years later.

Ha! similar experience, I explained that my grandmother had a farm and I learned at a young age to kill and skin a rabbit and to pluck a duck. It's not as if in nature, predators are any friendlier to preys.

I am a relatively considerate meat eater though, I make sure as much as possible to stay way from cattle raised in factory farms (partly due to taste, partly due to ethical concerns).

> [She] has compared me eating meat to pedophilia and suggested that the only moral choices I had was to either commit suicide or become vegan.

You should praise her selflessness, then encourage her to act as host to several threatened human parasites, starting with the Guinea worm.

For her to save these poor creatures would enshrine her virtue!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qNWWrDBRBqk

I'm sorry you had a bad experience. I'm vegan, though not the type to rave about anything. I'm afraid this is selection bias --- the loudest voices win. I've seen plenty of folks talk that way on the Internet, but never IRL.

Some have made a religion out of it. If you want to get an idea of how tiresome it can get, go to r/vegan and observe the folks getting into pissing contests about whether, for instance, vegans should have any contact with non-vegans.

I think there's something deeply ironic about taking the moral high ground, since even the most committed vegans still benefit from animal agriculture in ways they probably aren't aware of. It's like capitalism --- utterly inescapable in today's world. You just ought to do the best you can under the circumstances.

Your 'raving lunatic' sort of vegans (I wish you weren't so pejorative, but hey, I'll roll with it) are probably expressing deep frustrations about the meat and dairy industries (many of which are completely valid) at the only people they think they can influence: family and friends.

Sorry to hear you've got such a grating relative, but I assure you most vegetarians and vegans don't make it a point to piss people off (unless first provoked); they're just trying to live with the choices they have made.

I personally believe in leading by example rather than trying to outright convince anyone that my choices are better.

I wouldn't say that the proportion of raving ones is as high as 50%; but there's a reason that on spareroom mentioning that you are vegan has to be followed by an indication of how accepting you are of other dietary choices.

I’ll preface this by saying I’m neither a vegetarian nor a vegan.

The meme about vegans being this way exists for a reason.

Mostly this is due to people who eat meat being unwilling to be faced with the actual impact of their choices, and in turn hamming up the existence of this attitude.

I'll grant that maybe 50% of vegans aren't raving lunatics. But the ones who aren't raving lunatics need to distance themselves from the raving ones.

No they don’t; you need to learn not to apply broad brush strokes to a large community. It’s a you problem.

I’m sorry you have an asshole relative. But the overwhelming majority of vegans don’t give a shit about you or your choices - certainly on a personal level.

> Mostly this is due to people who eat meat being unwilling to be faced with the actual impact of their choices, and in turn hamming up the existence of this attitude.

The double standard between "pets" and "livestock" is especially illuminating in this regard. I know many people that will say eating a dog is unconscionable... right before ordering another helping of bacon.

Does dog taste like bacon? Asking for a friend.

Not unless you smoke it I guess.

I haven't tried but I would do it given the choice. Eating cat would be more problematic for me though.

> Eating cat would be more problematic for me though.

Less meat and too much bones?

Probably because we had a couple of cats when I was in my teens...

> you need to learn not to apply broad brush strokes to a large community. It’s a you problem.

Ridiculous, it’s not their problem, it’s a vegan community problem. Let’s not pretend that it’s not a well earned reputation. The noise those zealots create within the community is so unusual and loud that you simply do not find that type of holier than thou condemnation behavior from literally any other diet’s adherents.

I have had people bark at me from a sidewalk for enjoying a steak but I have never had someone bark at me from a sidewalk for enjoying a salad.

I have seen people on HN send comment after comment on the evils of eating meat, but have yet to see anyone claim that eating vegetables is an evil act.

If you don’t like the reputation, start policing your own.

I'm not even vegetarian, much less a vegan. But it's not honest to draw a false equivalence between salad and meat.

> Let’s not pretend that it’s not a well earned reputation.

It's not.

Judging a group by their loudest and most obnoxious members is lazy and intellectually dishonest; even if it happens all the time.

Most vegans I know are placid and kind. I'd have to say that meat eaters are far more obnoxious about vegans than vice versa.

Same as the people I know who complain about the 'stoner lifestyle' and think that this justifies prohibition. They're far more irritating to me than the average cannabis enthusiast, most of whom you wouldn't know from looking at them, and most of whom don't make cannabis their personality.

Deep down, us meat eaters know that we're eating an animal that had feelings like ours (or we're ignorant). And, we know that the Western diet is contributing to deforestation and a burning planet (again, or we're willfully ignorant).

Attacking vegans is like attacking a cyclist for believing in climate change, because a few cyclists had the audacity to suggest we use the car less or fund public transport. Popular - but lame.

>False equivalence between salad and meat

You mean…like both being food that humans can eat?

Regarding your other philosophical arguments for the behavior of preachy vegans—I don’t have any guilty feelings about the food that I eat that would lead me to be apologetic for the behavior of assholes.

I also view other groups that have a public reputation for and have obnoxious members that want to proselytize their morality to me too…so this isn’t limited to vegans.

> You mean…like both being food that humans can eat?

No, like the part where you need to slaughter and butcher a mammal with feelings and a social circle, after converting old growth forest to logs and pesticides.

Surprised I need to spell that out tbh - you wouldn't be acting disingenuous, would you?

> I don’t have any guilty feelings about the food that I eat that would lead me to be apologetic for the behavior of assholes.

That doesn't mean you aren't feeling guilty, just that you've dissociated from your natural response. Cognitive dissonance is a real thing.

And, who asked you to "be apologetic for the behavior of assholes"? Is this now about you feeling victimized somehow? Because one vegan, one time, said something to you from outside a restaurant? ... Okay, I guess. Weird though.

You obviously carry guilt about what you eat that I do not have. Perhaps You turn the guilt you feel into an explanation and justification of a bad idea behavior of a certain people because you are morally conflicted about it.

I am not morally conflicted and as such if someone wants to proselytize to me and attempt to impose their mortality and condemn me, I am well within my right to consider them an asshole. I am also capable of judging the behavior of many people who share that same belief and express the same proselytizing here on HN as representatives of that same group…and by their behavior define the qualities and beliefs of that group. I damn sure don’t see the gentle and non-judgemental members disagreeing with those assholes when they get loud. Their silence is compliance.

So it’s not just one, but many, and judging from the lack of apparent public disagreement within that group it’s a well deserved reputation.

I don’t know how to explain to you that individuals aren’t responsible for the actions of others.

That is completely understood, but you also must realize (if you are being honest) that if you belong to a group that has developed a negative public reputation for itself because of some of its members negative behavior that the negative public reputation will bleed over to you by association.

Conversely you can be a truly awful person within a group with a good public reputation and that good group reputation will apply to you too, even if you don’t deserve it.