this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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I mean, I'd say that knowing not to overeat is probably a good thing, but I'm guessing you mean it from a vegan/vegetarian context, and I'm just gonna say No. No it does not mean that. In fact, veganism is something of a yellow flag for me. I've known vegans who were good people, but I've known a disproportionate amount who were insufferable, self-righteous pricks. I recognize there is a bias there in that there are probably vegans I met whose dietary lifestyle I've never known about, but that's already besides the point. Veganism is not a green flag
And if you didn't meant that, then I really am curious as to what you meant by "unnecessarily"
If you go around yelling at people to put down the hamburger, people are gonna tell you to mind your own business. That's why people think vegans are insufferable. The ones who don't do this, you never know they're vegans because they mind their own business. Really fucks with the numbers, so I'll clarify and say that someone who makes it a point to steer a conversation to how they're vegan is a yellow flag. Veganism itself is not at all a problem
I welcome a world in which factory farms are gone. The amount of actual cruelty needed to sustain our population and capitalist demand is insane and depressing, but we are nowhere near winning that fight with boycotting animal products, and we never will. It won't make a difference. The improvement of substitute meat with systemic and legislative change will do that, and that's what we need to push for
So yeah, I'm not offended because a vegan told me not to eat a hamburger. I'm annoyed because a vegan went out of their way to steer the conversation towards their own moral superiority
So I'll apologize for having reacted so defensively, but I don't think that eating meat and having empathy for animals is mutually exclusive. It sure just seemed to me like you were telling me that veganism should be a green flag for me, and it just really isn't. It's whatever. If I find out a person is a vegan, I'm not gonna be more attracted to them; I'll just now know not to offer them a chicken nugget
Alright well my point is nobody asked you. Without massive legislative and systemic changes, and improvements on meat substitutes, you'll never end factory farms. Not enough people will ever care to put down the hamburger, no matter how annoying you are about it, in order for a consumer's wallet vote to make a difference in the industry. You can sit up there on your high horse, talking about how only vegans actually have empathy, while people roll their eyes at you fulfilling the stereotypes that discredit veganism. By all means, be a vegan. I fully support that. I even encourage it, but that is a lifestyle choice you make for yourself. I don't believe the efforts of veganism are at all effective, and capitalism, horrendous though it is, has successfully alienated me from my food source that I am able to still have empathy and love for animals while consuming meat. The cow I eat was gonna die anyway
You're not some moral paragon; You're proving exactly why veganism is a yellow flag for me
Stop π pretending π you're π making π a π difference
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. It sucks, but we all have to pick and choose what parts of the system to support and which parts to avoid. You can make your own goddamned shoes if you feel so morally superior to avoid paying for child labor. Maybe avoid using your phone or a computer to grandstand so you stop supporting the exploitative labor that goes into mining the materials that make them
and this is why its a yellow flag. it can be a green one, or on your case, a red one.
Raising the issue isnt the problem. beeing a pretentious dick about it is.
man, at this point all I can do is laugh at your lack of skill handling disagreements
That seems to illustrate the point that LadyLikesSpiders was making -- quite nicely.
what you dont seem to grasp is that there is a way to be yourself (gay) or have your opinions (you beeing vegan) without beeing an asshole about it.
I think people made it clear here that they werent interested in changing their opinions on eating animal(products), yet you continue to berate them. Do you realize that this causes the people you are talking to to get defensive, and less likely to change their opinion?
thats one way to proove my point lol
ah yes, I went to pride because I want queer people to be quiet, sure.
beeing gay and proud of it is absolutely no problem. βoh, you dont want to suck my dick, youre homophobicβ is a problem.
I have absolutely zero issues with vegans in real life. The ones I have met and talked to are reasonable people. people who are happy you reduce consumption because you dont want to go all the way.
Online its a lot more radicalized. you can see this even here. do you think comments telling me to stop killing animals for meat do any good? quite the opposite. I think that person is unreasonable, doesnt have good discussion skills and quite frankly I think they are a dick for not engaging in the conversation.
they arent helping their cause. societal change happens gradually, and the conversation also needs to be gradual, otherwise you risk stepping on peoples toes, and that just ends up with people wanting to distance themselves from your movement.
edit: also I never said be quiet, I said dont be a dick about it
Why would veganism be a yellow flag?
Veganism is caring for the well being of animals.. Veganism is definitely a green flag. Being insufferable is a red flag.
It seems to me you are the one being insufferable. Just because you are not vegan and like eating aninals, you see those who do otherwise as insufferable and self righteous picks and even see veganism as a yellow flag.
PS. I am not vegan.
No, I see vegans who think they're better than everyone else by virtue of their veganism as insufferable. I've no issue with vegans who keep to themselves I would welcome a world of impossible meat should we get to that point and encourage a switch to more sustainable diets as allowed by our infrastructure, but we're simply not there
Vegans are a yellow flag to me because most of the times, when someone comes up to me unprompted to talk about how eating animals is bad, they're assholes about it. I was approached here, unprompted, in my comment about liking animals in a post about green flags. If their veganism comes up when I offer food and they just say they don't eat that, that's no problem. That's why it's a yellow flag. Veganism isn't bad, it just has a bunch of annoying pricks in it that make 'em all look bad
So yeah, just to be clear, I do not oppose veganism. Veganism is a yellow flag because very often they bring it up out of the blue just to get on their high horse
Veganism sucks because it's libshit, consumer-side choices which don't meaningfully impact the world but if you point that point up they freak out because of all the personal sacrifices they made have just been invalidated. They also have a tendency to scream down indigenous people for eating their traditional diets which is just another case of white people thinking they're more moral than everyone else even though all they are is guilty as fuck for upholding systems of oppression.
Case in point, how many vegens have you seen pressuring their government to stop meat subsidies? Zero. It would have severe impacts on meat consumption but they're never going to do it because the point was never to make change, only to wash their hands of moral guilt.
Not all vegans are white people, which is very important because there are indigenous people who are vegan, Latinamerican, African and from many other places of origin, and many other non-white people who are vegan.
It looks like you haven't even researched about this, since many vegans in Europe have been protesting and asking to end meat and dairy subsidies.
Please research before spreading hate towards a philosophy you don't know anything about.
You can always tell an offended white person, but you can't tell them much.
Agree for sure, but in the spirit of fairness, I suppose I should clarify that when I say "vegan" I'm specifically referring to exactly the kind of person you mentioned. Though I don't know any, I'm sure there must be vegan organizations out there that DO push for systemic change, and that they remain largely unseen by non-vegans because they don't make it anyone else's problem. This goes for any vegan. You only know about the ones who are loud about it. I mentioned my bias in the comment, and I just wanna make sure it's pointed out because I've had to clarify, like, 30 times already π
But yeah, I'm with you on this. veganism gets used so much simply for moral grandstanding without the chance for any counter examples that any time someone mentions they're vegan, unless it's in some explicit context, I have to brace myself for dealing with someone who acts like they're the pinnacle of morality
I'm not a vegan but I think you are completely biased here.
The vast majority of vegans that you know are the ones who are vocal about it. Most vegans aren't, and so they are overrepresented by those who are.
Yes, I did mention the bias in my comment, and again in someone else's reply. To clarify, veganism is a yellow flag specifically because if I know about it, there is a decent chance it's because they were annoying about it. If vegans were actually just all like that, it'd be a red flag
Yes, annoying vegans who are very pushy about vegans exists. However, It seems like your bias stems from your intolerance towards any mentioning of veganism.
A vegan saying 'I am vegan' would be annoying to you, as if existing as a vegan is an offense. This is what you sound like when you say veganism is a yellow flag.
Personally, I find that there are far more meat eaters out there who are much more vocal and annoying about hating vegans than there actual annoying vegans. I like eating meat, but I don't find that I need to be defensive about it around vegans.
You misunderstand my "intolerance". I don't care if someone's a vegan. I'm annoyed that I stated my green flag, and then a vegan came here to assert that my green flag should be something different and vegan. I was defensive because I was defending my position. In my experience, people who go out of their way to make the conversation about veganism are as preachy as Christians trying to convert you. It's a yellow flag, meaning it's not a red flag, but it makes me watch out, because it's associated with behaviors I don't like. It's like men who call themselves Doms, and people who are just super into WW2 military history. There is a non-neglible chance that it's gonna go from something innocuous to a red flag
I don't hate vegans; I'm not saying someone is a bad person because they're vegans; I'm saying that too many times a vegan has come out of nowhere unprovoked to act like they're morally superior. I am just as annoyed by meat eaters who go out of their way to talk about being carnivores and how great they think they are
Comparing veganism to toxic masculinity is just wild. You have a completely skewed perception of what the vast majority of vegans are like out there.
You think that the act of vegans existing is morally superior, whether or not they've said or done anything.
Nothing is being misunderstood here. You don't get to say 'I don't care if someone's a vegan' and then say 'veganism is a yellow flag' in the same breath. That's some cognitive dissonance if I've seen any before.
There is a whole lot of misunderstanding here. I didn't even mention toxic masculinity, but I'm assuming you mean the asshole male Doms. The comparison begins and ends with too many of them being wholly unpleasant about it, and so when I hear someone say either of those things, I approach it with caution. That's it. That's what a yellow flag is
I've already clarified on this and other comment chains how I do recognize the bias in how the annoying vegans are the ones I know about, and how I don't know the vegans that don't make it my problem. I do not think that vegans existing. There is no "whether or not they've said something"; it's explicitly ABOUT them saying something. That's the problem
I don't know how to make it clearer than that. I don't care of someone is a vegan; If someone goes out of their way to talk about their veganism, I raise an eyebrow; If a vegan brings it up to insist their way of life is better, that's a red flag
Edit to add: Reading back on the comments, I wanna add further clarification that the original commenter who was "the annoying vegan" stereotype was such because I mentioned my green flag, and they insisted that veganism should be a part of that green flag. It isn't to me, and one does not get to tell me what my green flags are. That's that vegan moral superiority at work. I didn't bring up my diet, and the implication sure felt like "If you aren't vegan, your 'empathy towards animals' isn't real"
For you. Red/yellow/green flags can be entirely subjective, and what's yellow for you can be green for someone else.
Completely agree. It's a yellow flag for me. Veganism is also not a core component of empathy towards animals, but if someone comes into my comment about the subjective colors of my flags to tell me what should be a part of green flags, I'm gonna hold my position. This was my comment
Although perhaps I reacted to defensively. Maybe I mistook the intention of the other commenter, so to clarify I will say that I do not think that veganism/vegetarianism is required to be an animal lover, but I do not think that veganism in itself is a bad thing, only that someone being a vegan is not some kind of go-ahead that attracts me
What do you define as unnecessarily because if I didn't, I would never get enough meaningful food.
Do you or I know my diet and life better? I'm on a low meat diet but not a no meat diet.