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Comment by Shenglong | Hacker News Reader

This might be an entirely irrational fear, but throughout this entire article, I kept thinking of vegetarian/vegan extremists (and because I need to clarify, not all vegetarians are extremists, obviously). "What if," I thought, "these extremists started spreading lone star ticks around the world to further their ideals?" Historically, people have done some pretty crazy things for what they believe is right; I just hope intentionally spreading ailments won't be added to this list.

In any case, here's a video/article I saw two months ago, that summarizes this article, in case it's tl;dr: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/allergic-meat-lone-sta...

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Whenever there's talk of veg*anism, many people automatically think of 'extremists'. Why is that? As a vegetarian myself, I know I'm not an extremist; neither are all of my vegetarian friends. Some of them are repelled by meat, but that is no different than people being repelled by Durian for example; meat does smell offensive if you're not used to eating it.

I said vegetarian extremists - not vegetarians. Not all vegetarians are extremists, but there definitely are some. Please read what I actually write before responding negatively.

I think his point is that being quick to throw out exaggerated extremist views when describing a group can be tedious (if not offensive) to other members of the group.

Honestly, how many mentally-ill extremists who happen to be vegetarian do you think are going to risk jail time and notoriety just to breed ticks (!) and distribute them hoping to trigger this unusual side effect while knowing that they could just as easily spread other diseases?

What other diseases would prevent people from eating meat?

Phenylketonuria, for one, though that's not contagious, and prevents one from eating all protein.

Wait what, how did "mentally ill" suddenly drop in there?

Where would you place the likelihood that somebody who intentionally makes ticks bite people is well-balanced and without mental issues?

Their ethics put harm to animals on the same scale as harm to people, and so they regard the rest of us as complacently witnessing something like mass murder. Just because we entirely disagree doesn't make them crazy, though their ideas make it hard to coëxist with us.

I'd place them somewhere towards the "dick" end of the scale of "dick or not dick".

By extremists.... He's thinking of vegans out of morality--the type of people who say meat is murder.

If meat is murder, making people allergic to the fruits of their murder is a lesser crime.

If meat is murder then gunning down ranchers and blowing up meeting packing plants would be justifiable too. But it doesn't happen.

A bunch of non-meat-eaters taking their clothes off for PETA ads or throwing red paint on fur coats is a loooooooong way from what you are suggesting. Please come back to reality.

> blowing up meeting packing plants would be justifiable too. But it doesn't happen.

There have been plenty of incendiary devices planted at a variety of UK locations, including department stores that sold fur.

In that case, why are there not a lot of people dead from this if it is that prevalent? Either the people you are describing are the most rubbish terrorists ever, or they are just really not that into killing, which would make sense really, if their entire political belief is against killing things in general.

Animal rights extremists have set many fires in England. There are several reasons why no-one so far has died:

1) We have excellent fire response services

2) We have strict fire safety codes for buildings - those shops should have had working sprinkler systems for example (and setting off the sprinklers was the stated aim - water damage would have caused just as much financial damage)

3) Timing the devices to go off at night when there would be minimal people working

4) The aim is not to kill people, but to cause financial loss. ALF have been successful at that.

There are other reasons why few people have been physically harmed by animal rights extremists - most extremists are "non violent" (where violence applies to people, but not property).

The wikipedia article for the ALF is reasonably complete.

You are basically claiming that fans of The Smiths are a particularly dangerous social group. I don't think you need to worry, they were going to bring about revolution, but then they decided not to because they didn't want to go outdoors and were feeling a bit depressed.

Being a vegetarian, now I exactly understand how Muslims might be feeling.

Dammit, there are countries in the East where people are primarily vegetarian and no one's an extremist.

A small side note, as a vegetarian, in a part of the world where that's not normal, I love muslims. You can walking drunk to any muslim run food-place late a night a tell them that I don't like their menu because I don't eat meat and they will make something vegetarian. Muslims understand that there might be something that you won't eat for one reason or another.

Seriously, that was your thought?

I was thinking "Geez, I wonder if this is why vegetarianism developed?".

I'm not so sure. I'm more inclined to believe that agriculture was probably the reason vegetarianism. I'd rather eat vegetables predictably than wonder if I'm going to be able to hunt my next meal.

This isn't a meat allergy, its a mammal meat allergy. Doesn't really make you stop eating meat since you can still eat fish, chicken, etc.

And lobsters. And mussels. And locusts, squid, termites, beetles, worms, spiders... no shortage of nutritious meat sources, many of which taste better than the average mammal, just that we "westerners" aren't accustomed to eating them.

Edit: should probably include this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snail#Snails_in_cuisine

Midwesterners consider those vegetables. Not kidding. Ask for a "vegetarian option" and they might hand you chicken.

I have to admit I thought the same thing.

As to why anyone would think of this as others have asked in other comments below? You don't see many pro-meat groups (are there any?) fire bombing vegetable stands but PETA, ALF and other extremist groups who are vegetarian due to their views on animals do use violence; verbal or physical to intimidate people.

Pro-meat groups, known as the agribusiness, grocery, and foodservice industries, torture and kill animals and flaunt the carcasses to the public. So there is that.

More seriously, what would the dominant normative side of an issue need to even consider terrorism, the status quo is already in their favor.

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