Why are vegetarians so deluded?

[Wunderkind]

For a long time I thought whether to create this thread or not. These are my subjective thoughts. I will be brief.

I don't understand why, but there is this type of vegetarian who think they are saving animals from suffering. Refusing, for example, animal products, meat, leather in cars or other products, animals cannot be saved much.
Remember, making any purchase in the supermarket, be it a pack of apples, you move the economy, move the meat eaters. Mankind harms animals. Extracting useful minerals for humans, electricity, fuel for cars. Even the banal cultivation of corn in the fields harms animals. Since these fields are subjected to serious processing. On the site of this field there could be houses of gophers and other living creatures.
Whatever you do moves the economy. Medicine, which cannot do without animal testing. Everything is interconnected.

If you really want to keep animals from suffering, you need to become a hermit, live in the forest and eat fir cones.

 

[artificial_ineptness]

I mean, in some sense you do have a point - we do live in an extremely complex world, where "doing no harm" is generally impossible, but otherwise I don't really understand why you're calling them "deluded".

What is wrong with the idea that not eating animals leads to animals not being killed? I guess you're trying to argue that a bunch of other things harm them as well? It's not like every action you make has the same magnitude of effect on the world and animals, and it's not like being imperfect somehow makes things not worth doing. Should people just do nothing "good", because they can never do it perfectly?

I also don't think being a hermit is the ideal. Look, let's say we can agree that not eating meat can reduce your impact on animals by 10%. It is still more effective to convince >10 people to do the same than it is to be a hermit. Legislative changes could be even more impactful.

tbh, even if you were fully right, I am not sure """delusional""" would be justified, but I'm no word police, I guess...

 

[amnesianamnesis]

There are vegetarians who think they have far more of an impact than they do. Deluded, uninformed, ideological, I suppose any word can be thrown around. I was like that, when I was a kid. Now, I recognize that yes-if I want to live without harming the world around me, I would have to be a true hermit. Maybe move to some remote eco village. I think for some it's about limiting the suffering they cause. Sometimes it's about reducing their ecological footprint. Maybe it's what helps them sleep at night. As @artificial_ineptness said, I don't think being a true hermit is the ideal, and it isn't really a viable option for most. Though to your point, I do sometimes think about this generally. And if asked why I am a vegetarian now, I just say "I don't know, just been this way for a while. I'm used to it."

This is probably more of a soapbox speech than anything profound, so perhaps this is a good time for me to hop off.

 

[Yuri Yurovich]

As a vegetarian of 35 years, I had to find out what the reasoning is here. A variety of thoughts to offer:

1. Mostly, I agree. I think of being vegetarian as simply living a micro-bit more lightly on the earth. But point taken: when there are 8 billion of you, it doesn't fucking matter how benign you are--at your most benevolent, you are still crushing the life out of everything around you.

2. On the other hand, I think there may be an element of projecting onto others a 'type'--attributing to them uniformly attitudes and beliefs that they either do not all hold, or do not hold in the same degree. I'm not sure what the solution to that is, though, as I do the same damn thing. You can't get to know each and every member of group X personally so that you can have a fair picture of what they really do think, but even doing social science statistical research is extremely fallible and prone to misinterpretation. (shrug emoji)

3. Also, (Disclaimer: not to attribute this to Wunderkind) you know the story of the boy by the seashore, throwing stranded sea stars back into the tide? Man comes and says, "You can't throw them all back, so how does it matter what you do?" Boy replies (throwing another one back) "It mattered to that one." Honestly, I'm not sure which is more delusional: Doing something minuscule in hopes it helps some, or Denying anything can be done unless you can do it all. (Fuck, I'm starting to sound like an optimist. Gag!)

 

[Fulminare]

I'm sorry but who cares. Their diet doesn't affect you in any way.

 

[Life_and_Death]

What is wrong with the idea that not eating animals leads to animals not being killed?

this doesnt make sense to me. personally not eating it is doing more harm than eating them is. its already there, its already been killed and is on the shelf. by not eating it youre doing the animal a disservice. youre leaving it on the shelf to rot and be thrown out. youre making that animals death completely pointless, for nothing. if its not already on the shelf then theres a point, but if its on the shelf, its been killed, its too late. you might as well not leave them there to have died for nothing.

 

[wait.what]

In a sense, any attempt at ethical consumerism is doomed, particularly if you touch anything that's been processed, assembled, or transported. When your supply chain is 50 stages long, something shitty is definitely going to be happening somewhere in there, and if you throw money into that machine, you're helping to support it.

Your options are really either to say you don't care and buy whatever, or to make some attempt at harm reduction and refuse to buy the worst of the worst stuff. For some people that means vegetarianism. For some it means not buying things like diamonds, computer components, or chocolate, which all have a lot of human rights violations bound up in their production. Nothing any individual can do will help much, but I don't know that there's anything especially "rational" or intelligent about refusing to even try.

 

[Rainy_days]

I think factory farming is quite an extreme form of cruelty, so I think it is laudable when people refuse to consume the direct outputs of that. It only takes a little empathy to imagine what it would feel like to live in those conditions that we would classify as torture if done to human beings. The less demand there is, the less incentive for it to keep happening. If everyone takes the stance that their choices don't matter and evil will keep happening anyway, then there is nothing we couldn't justify, until it is harming us personally of course.

 

[artificial_ineptness]

this doesnt make sense to me. personally not eating it is doing more harm than eating them is. its already there, its already been killed and is on the shelf. by not eating it youre doing the animal a disservice. youre leaving it on the shelf to rot and be thrown out. youre making that animals death completely pointless, for nothing. if its not already on the shelf then theres a point, but if its on the shelf, its been killed, its too late. you might as well not leave them there to have died for nothing.

I probably agree with you in the short term / in isolation. It's a shame that some animals lives are wasted due to food waste, and a bit extra might be wasted when someone stops eating meat.

Long term, though, it just doesn't make sense for the companies to persistently overproduce. I think they would almost always maximize profit by reducing produced amount if demand decreases, or at least I can't think of a situation where that wouldn't happen. You are paying for the perpetuation of the system, even if you cannot save the already killed animals.

Soo... yeah, maybe I could have phrased that better, but I don't think there's a guarantee that not buying some piece of meat saves anyone directly, but overall, on a societal level, the economics would lead to less deaths and suffering, and the cultural change would also hinder the industry in the future.

 

[Chinaski]

I'm not a vegetarian but see more logic in being vegetarian than l do in being angry about people being vegetarian tbh

 

[Pluto]

On SaSu, the word 'deluded' translates to 'not me'.

 

[western_heart]

Not a vegetarian but I see reducing meat consumption as harm reduction and consider the planet in my decision making. I try to avoid beef (in large part because my body is not very good at digesting it), but given the disproportionate environmental impact of raising cattle, reducing beef demand seems like a good thing. I eat a lot of chicken instead. I also consider imported vs local foods, yet still buy imported stuff sometimes. Like, I can go to the grocery store and buy frozen pizza that was made in Italy. And I get it because it's fancier than some of the domestic alternatives. That pizza had to be refrigerated for a 5000 mile journey! I enjoy it but luxury comes at a cost.

On the other side, I do like some of the new meat alternatives, and ordering things like Impossible burgers at restaurants shows there's a market.
If McDonald's had a plant burger in the US, I'd go there way more often. I go to Burger King every month or two because they have the Impossible Whopper. And I really wish Taco Bell had a new veggie protein-I really like Beyond meat at Del Taco.

 

[Angst Filled Fuck Up]

My choices don't matter. It's a bit silly to think anything I do will have any impact on anything. This notion of "if we all stop eating meat" making a difference is cute, but it'd have to be quantified for me to act on it. How many people will have to stop eating meat before things change? Five? Five thousand? Five million? Until then, I'm going to continue to find cheeseburgers delicious.

 

[theboy]

The world is sick

 

[littlelungs]

I think factory farming is quite an extreme form of cruelty, so I think it is laudable when people refuse to consume the direct outputs of that. It only takes a little empathy to imagine what it would feel like to live in those conditions that we would classify as torture if done to human beings. The less demand there is, the less incentive for it to keep happening. If everyone takes the stance that their choices don't matter and evil will keep happening anyway, then there is nothing we couldn't justify, until it is harming us personally of course.

Spot-on. People only care when it starts to affect them personally.

And I don't understand the argument, "The animals are already dead so we might as well eat them." It's basic supply and demand. The less people who eat meat, the less of a demand there will be to mass-breed animals into existence to be slaughtered and consumed. And the whole "nobody can live perfectly ethically or do no damage whatsoever, so vegans/vegetarians are just as bad as everyone else" argument or whatever along those lines is an appeal to futility. Obviously nobody can live completely free of harm, but just because you can't do something perfectly, that doesn't automatically mean that you shouldn't do anything at all. And I think that anybody who genuinely believes that killing and eating animals is the more humane option, doesn't really realize what goes on in the animal agriculture industry.

As you can probably tell by now, I'm vegan so naturally I have some strong views on the subject, but the main thing it comes down to for me is that I want to reduce my role in the suffering of other sentient beings as much as I possibly can, as far as is practicable and possible. No, I don't think that I'm perfect or single-handedly changing the world or think that I'm "morally superior" or better than anyone else. I'm not trying to convince, argue with or judge other people because it's fucking exhausting and there's only so many times I can hear, "But what about the plants' feelings?!" and how suddenly everyone turns into a Plants Rights Activist once a vegan or vegetarian is around. If I'm being entirely honest, I didn't even want to be vegan at first; I looked for any excuse not to be, but every single excuse or argument I had was either logically inconsistent, scientifically inconsistent, and/or conflicted with my own principles and beliefs. I also can't get the sound of screaming pigs in a gas chamber out of my head or erase the image of baby male chicks being shredded alive because they're "useless" for the egg industry. For me personally, I just couldn't continue to consume animal products in good conscience and not feel like a massive hypocrite.

Again, I'm not here to argue with or judge anyone. This is just my two cents.

 

[CowsAreCool]

It's a weird moral stance. I have a good friend who is a vegetarian and works for a defense contractor.

The dude designs bombs to drop on other countries and won't eat a cheese burger.

I don't understand it. It's sad animals have to die to support human life. But it's the way nature works. To feel we are somehow above nature is just wrong.

 

[PinkSakura]

I don't know what vegans and vegetarians are so delusional. I've tried these diets and they are shit, I felt like death eating no animal products. I've had vegetarian and vegan friends eat meat again because their diet literally landed them in the hospital, and they still defend the act of not eating animal products despite their health problems. I think in this world, delusional people will exist just because god made it that way.

 

[Forever Sleep]

True, but I feel a tiny bit better killing less of them... Only been vegetarian for two years and I still eat eggs/drink milk- so- I'm sure I'm causing suffering there.

There's still plenty I do that pollutes this beautiful planet but there we go- I'll try and reduce my impact but it's still bad. Truth is- I'd happily leave right now but I don't want to upset my Dad.

It wasn't my fault I was born- so I don't feel entirely responsible, although I find it helps me personally to feel a bit more at ease killing less.

 

[Yuri Yurovich]

I don't know what vegans and vegetarians are so delusional. I've tried these diets and they are shit, I felt like death eating no animal products. I've had vegetarian and vegan friends eat meat again because their diet literally landed them in the hospital, and they still defend the act of not eating animal products despite their health problems. I think in this world, delusional people will exist just because god made it that way.

Two things though:

1. Vegetarian/Vegan diets are not for everyone. Certain health conditions make it riskier for some.

2. It is possible to fuck up a Vegetarian/Vegan diet.

When I decided to go all-in on this, I did a ton of research on nutrition and learned how to eat properly. Very few of us do.

I've been doing vegetarian diet for 35 years now, and I know several other long-term vegetarians--kinda seems like proof it can be done, IMHO.

Mind you, a few years ago, my physician noticed I was low in B12, so I took a supplement and was fine.

 

[Chinaski]

Not eating meat is technically "pro life",,,

 

[rationaltake]

Not eating meat is technically "pro life",,,

Vegetarians and vegans should be hounded off the site.

 

[Banshee]

It's not actually possible to truly be a vegan unless you live naked in the woods, don't move at all, and eat nothing but grass.

If there's a field of 100 cows and a field of potatoes, and both the cows and potatoes are harvested for food; the field of cows will result in 100 dead cows, the potatoes will result in 1000s of bugs, birds, mice, rabbits, gophers, and anything else the combine harvesters mutilates.

If you're a vegan you are apart of the largest current day animal holocaust, congratulations!

 

[Rainy_days]

It's not actually possible to truly be a vegan unless you live naked in the woods, don't move at all, and eat nothing but grass.

If there's a field of 100 cows and a field of potatoes, and both the cows and potatoes are harvested for food; the field of cows will result in 100 dead cows, the potatoes will result in 1000s of bugs, birds, mice, rabbits, gophers, and anything else the combine harvesters mutilates.

If you're a vegan you are apart of the largest current day animal holocaust, congratulations!

It's not just the killing but the life conditions of animals raised for meat. I would think members of a forum about suicide should grasp intuitively that life quality matters more than quantity.

But besides cruelty arguments there are also environmental ones against eating meat. It takes far more land, water and energy to grow feed for meat animals than it would to just eat that grain ourselves. Honestly it's pretty irritating when people make the most silly strawman arguments for vegetarianism and then smugly make fun of them. I still eat some meat and don't excoriate people who do, but at least be honest and acknowledge the cruelty and ecological damage we are willing participants to.

 

[Banshee]

It's not just the killing but the life conditions of animals raised for meat. I would think members of a forum about suicide should grasp intuitively that life quality matters more than quantity.

But besides cruelty arguments there are also environmental ones against eating meat. It takes far more land, water and energy to grow feed for meat animals than it would to just eat that grain ourselves. Honestly it's pretty irritating when people make the most silly strawman arguments for vegetarianism and then smugly make fun of them. I still eat some meat and don't excoriate people who do, but at least be honest and acknowledge the cruelty and ecological damage we are willing participants to.

I'm not referring to an environmental reasoning. It's well known the negative affect mass farming has on the environment, but it's also well known if the whole planet went vegetarian we'd still be living on a dying planet. Unless you were to completely eradicate oil & gas, transportation, manufacturing, and the entirety of China, we're still going to lose our planet. Unfortunately we're at a point that we simply cannot live without even one of those things, especially Oil & Gas.

Environment aside, yes, it is in fact fun and acceptable to make fun of vocal vegans. The only good vegan is a vegan that doesn't ramble on weakly about their diet.

 

[Rainy_days]

I'm not referring to an environmental reasoning. It's well known the negative affect mass farming has on the environment, but it's also well known if the whole planet went vegetarian we'd still be living on a dying planet. Unless you were to completely eradicate oil & gas, transportation, manufacturing, and the entirety of China, we're still going to lose our planet. Unfortunately we're at a point that we simply cannot live without even one of those things, especially Oil & Gas.

Environment aside, yes, it is in fact fun and acceptable to make fun of vocal vegans. The only good vegan is a vegan that doesn't ramble on weakly about their diet.

The point is not to save the planet for all time. Of course life will die on Earth some day if we go far enough forward in time. But if our actions can buy a few decades or centuries for generations in the future then it is still meaningful.

 

[Banshee]

The point is not to save the planet for all time. Of course life will die on Earth some day if we go far enough forward in time. But if our actions can buy a few decades or centuries for generations in the future then it is still meaningful.

We could get rid of Oil & Gas and force a vegan diet, but regardless China alone would still be destroying the planet just as fast as it is now. You'd literally have to wipe China off the map to make a positive impact on an environmental level.