Emerald

I just know that I notice it right away. There's a vibe that doesn't lie. It's like a perfume of the personality. I can smell it on them straight away. So, it's not a lefty talking point. It's just immediately evident in facial expressions, gestures, vibes, words, and actions if a guy has some misogynistic/Red Pill/Incel kind of stuff going on. And it isn't necessarily social ineptitude that I'm picking up on, though these ideologies can grow from and exacerbate social issues. From my subjective perspective, it's just hints of his underlying ideological framework and feelings about women that I can intuitively sense and that little glimpses come through. People tend to give themselves away in the first 5 minutes... even in rare instances where people try to mask it for fear of being picked up on and evoking a negative reaction. I just know what I notice and the feeling of being repelled. And I'm positive that I'm not a minority of one. I think 25% is a decent estimate of the percentage of Millennial and Gen Z women would relate to what I'm saying. Though, women over 45 might not be quite as attuned to it because they haven't been as affected by these movements or aware of them as women in their childbearing years in the age of internet misogyny movements.

You underestimate the degree of desire that I have to live my life with a sense of integrity with my own values... and how clear and present those inconsistencies are for me when I find myself unable to live up to that aspiration. I do think about these things all the time. And I do my best to make purchases that sit well with my internal compass... though I do so imperfectly. I've only had two iPhones in my life. I've been using the same one since 2018 or 2019 and I plan to keep it until it doesn't work anymore. The one I got before that, I got in 2011... and it crapped out on me in 2018, so I had to get a new one. And I don't buy new clothes or shoes that very often. And when I do, half of the time I secondhand stores to get my clothes. And I have a plan to sew all of my clothes from sustainably sourced material in the future, once I free up more time in my schedule. But this diverges from the idea you're talking about. It's actually MORE "expensive" to not sort for these qualities. You pay for it later in peace of mind. With the choice of male friends and partners... I am aware of these problem dynamics in the same way that I'm aware of all the issues. It's un-ignorable. The vibes don't lie. And it's easy to avoid without even having to put much conscious thought into it. Sometimes, I think you forget that women tend to be more sensitized to their own feelings and the feelings and vibes of others. I suspect you'll say something like 'women don't select based on those things.' But I know that I do.... right at the outset before any charm can happen. I know that (if I were single) I could fall in love over time with any guy I have chemistry with. And that doesn't preclude guys with misogynistic mindsets. So, why would I choose to be around a guy who has those problematic mindsets, when it's super obvious from the jump? You seem not to realize that there are so many subtle and over tells that are very obvious.

To be clear, I do also understand that these patterns come from somewhere. Most of the men that are caught up in these problem patterns are dealing with shame and disconnection... and looking to Red Pill or Incel communities to try to soothe those feelings. And this is also where misogyny comes from. And I find it quite easy to switch into a detached mode where I can find compassion and understanding towards individuals that are caught up in the dynamic, But from a practical boundaries perspective, it just doesn't feel comfortable or safe being around guys who are in this pattern. And there's so much negative that's happening as a result of these collective patterns, there's also feelings of anger and powerlessness. The guys in these ideologies have a tendency to project.... and because of their lack of attunement they tend to step all over ancient wounds that they're totally unaware of. And they create real political and social problems for women because they are swept up in their ideologies. So, it can feel really upsetting to be around guys who are in this energy because they do often accidentally tread on exposed nerves. And even if I don't show a reaction to it, it does repel me. And because I have no sense of scarcity of belonging, I just opt to spend time around men and women who aren't caught up in these patterns. And it's not a very active thing to sort these guys from my social circle. It's easy to avoid because it's easy to sense in someone's vibe. But part of my sharing this is to share how a lot of women are likely responding to noticing these patterns. There's a lot of disgust that a lot of women feel about these ideological patterns or male behavior. It just is what it is.

I would imagine so. If a woman (or man) is selecting for who will produce a roller coaster of emotions with anxiety, it's not a good platform to make a life from and raise children from. If it's exciting past the first 3 months, something has gone terribly wrong with the relationship. A healthy relationship is like a stable home base that you can rest in. So, men and women who are looking mostly for excitement either don't tend to settle and become parents... by choice. And I think that's an okay choice to make for some people. Or they end up having a child and creating a chaotic home environment for the child to grow up in because the parents want to maintain the emotional roller coaster. And that's not optimal from a survival and reproduction standpoint... even if the "toxic pick-up guys" might have 5 children with 5 different women. That isn't an evolutionary winning strategy... because it creates more trauma, drama, and issues... and detracts from our collective survival imperatives. So, if a woman is selecting for toxic pick-up guys who are sleeping with 3 women a week, then that's not a very good strategy if her desire is to have a settled committed relationship... and it's especially not a very good strategy if she wants children. If you want to have what the relationship dynamic that most women want, you must consciously select for things like stability, compatibility, maturity, loyalty, honesty, friendship capacity, etc. Otherwise, your life will be needlessly full of drama. And it seems to me that half or more of women are pretty good at selecting for this. But probably 30-40% of women are more drawn to the ups and downs and excitement of the new partner... and feeling off balance. And trying to squeeze blood from a stone trying to get the player guy to love her. And I sense it has a lot to do with self-esteem issues. But it also takes a learning curve to pick up on "player vibes". I was about 15 when I became conscious of them, and I felt naturally repelled by those vibes. But when I was 13 or 14, I could have fallen for one because I wasn't yet attuned to those vibes. But some may take a bit longer to become conscious of those vibes. And it might take some healing of self-esteem issues to start feeling an intuitive sense of disgust towards those vibes. You have to really build your intuition and relationship with disgust to select a partner wisely.

Keep in mind, I am Vegan. So using the "Would you eat an animal that I tortured?" example to illustrate your point doesn't work because I genuinely would not as I have already become aware of that. I'm very conscious that the little packages of meat come from animal torture. And I know quite a lot of people who are also conscious of this and adjust their behaviors thusly. That said, only 1% of people are Vegan. But I'm positive that at least 25% of women are attuned and sensitized to this kind of fuckery.... because it's EVERYWHERE! And I can spot a guy who's into Red Pill ideologies from a mile away because of how they think and behave. It's really obvious. And they have a very specific vibe. So my point is not really about pick-up per se... but rather guys with Red Pillish Incelish attitudes more generally. Though pick-up guys also exude some similar vibes. You can just sense intuitively when guys have these regressive attitudes. And there are ALWAYS tells... even subtle gestures and facial expressions give them away. Give me 2 minutes with a guy and I can tell you the ideologies he's operating off of. Same thing with women too. People are pretty easy to read. It doesn't mean that I'm immune to charm. But if it takes me 2 minutes to clock a guy... and 2 weeks to be properly charmed to where I start to develop feelings... then it's easy to dodge that bullet. You just avoid interacting with them. So, a woman who's aware of these patterns will notice these things from the jump and may just opt to avoid guys that give off those vibes or show tells that they have these ideas. My main point is that women who are open to being picked up might not be as aware of these problematic perspectives. You'd have to be living under a rock now-a-days to not know that a guy who's cold approaching you in the grocery store is probably operating off of some "get good with women" playbook. And even that gives a hint that he might be into problematic ideologies... as half or more of men are.

I've noticed that most guys who are Red Pill or Black Pill are not very socially adept. The toxic pick-up artist is the exception, though he will also be repulsive to the majority of women who aren't swayed by pick up artists and who have a spidey sense about it. Now, you may not see this selection bias at play, because you're going out with women who you meet through pick-up and who respond to pick-up. So, 100% of the examples you see are of women responding in a positive way to pick up. And women who are more open to meeting a guy outside of their well-traveled social networks, might not have as many filters as a woman who doesn't respond to pick up and might instead prefer to select from their social circle and broader social network. And that might not expose you to a variety of different female perspectives on dating and relationships. You might be simply choosing from a pool of 30% of the female population that's open to theoretically being picked up by a man. But because you're getting the some successes and some failures, you might be thinking that the ones that reject you are rejecting you because of something about you... when in reality they may just be closed off to meeting guys that way. And while toxic pick-up guys are probably having the most sex (especially with women who are open to pick-up), they aren't necessarily settling into families and becoming present fathers. And that's far more of an indicator of what the average woman is looking for. And it seems to me that half or more of women are pretty good at selecting for that... or they eventually get to that point after they get past college age. And I know that I've developed a spidy sense for picking up on if a guy has problematic views on women over the past 10 years or so because of understanding more about how many men are operating from these viewpoints. And I'm not even single. If I were single and dating and looking for a life partner, I'd be super vigilant for any and all hints of problematic mindsets that could bring harm to me. And like everyone else, I do choose my social circle in ways that are more comfortable for me. That's pretty natural. So, I don't have a lot of those guys around because it makes me feel uncomfortable. And it's pretty easy to pick up on the vibe of a guy who's operating that way. And if the vibe doesn't give it away, he'll say something that's a tell in pretty short order. And I know there are a lot of Gen Z women who are extra sensitized to these dynamics as well because of certain perspectives and patterns that are growing in popularity on social media. So, you may not be experiencing it. But it seems to be a pattern that's emerging with women's response to the exposure to all this overt misogyny that the internet has revealed to us. And I'm not 100% sure that it's for the reasons I mentioned. But it would be some incredibly intelligent nature feedback loop where, if we need to progress forward to survive global issues like climate change and become more fit to the environment as a species... that 1. The population would have to shrink and 2. The men with a certain physiology/psychology that predisposes them to have a regressive effect on society might have a harder time passing on their genes. Survival and reproduction is all about being the most fit to the environment, after all. But that's just a hypothesis. And it might be just a coincidence. Though I haven't ruled it out entirely as there could be very complex connections between the human individual mind/body complex, wider macrocosmic social dynamics, human being's psychological and behavioral responses to those macrocosmic social dynamics, and cycles of nature.

The fact of the matter is that these ideologies are dangerous in multiple ways to women. And they represent a real political and relationship threat to us. I know that I tend to feel quite uncomfortable around men who hold these types of ideologies. Where 10+ years ago, I wouldn't have been as aware of these issues. But the past 10 years have really sensitized me to these patterns. So, it stands to reason that it's probably a lot of women who feel have developed the same type of sensitivity. But it's not a matter of hatred but moreso of preservation of one's own sovereignty and well-being. You just can't have a good life with a man who operates off of Red Pill ideologies. Lots of women are aware of that, and will tend to just avoid guys that show signs of that.

I have toyed with the idea that certain societally harmful traits are being weeded out of the gene pool through all these Red Pill and Incel movements coming more prominently into the collective consciousness. And women who are and will be of child-bearing age are more aware of these patterns in men more than any other generation of women has ever been... just because of social media and being able to read everyone's private thoughts. And these manosphere movements and the anonymity of the internet have really amplified those socially degenerative voices that were more "only in his head" or "only talking with my buddies at the bar" voices 15+ years ago. But now it speaks through a megaphone because there's so much coalescence of movements around them... And about 10 years later, guys are struggling more with finding partners and the birth rate is declining. I'm sure the latter fact is for other reasons as well. But part of me suspects that women's increased awareness of the dysfunctional ways that a sizable minority of men operate under make contemporary women a lot more cautious than women of previous generations when selecting for a partner.

That's only because the consumption of dairy past infancy (and from another species) is only something that humans do. So, both Vegetarianism and the standard Omnivorous diet aren't found in nature. That said, it doesn't mean that human beings are able to consume these diets. Humanity is also part of nature. And our nature is different from the nature of other species. So, the notion of something "natural" being synonymous with "good for you" isn't scientifically sound. You actually have to look at meta-analyses that cross-reference many studies on how different diets tend to impact human beings to find out the optimal diet for human beings.

What if the overlords of society come up with something that you don't like personally? Are you still going to follow this state religion?

I'm not familiar with Simon Hill. But I originally went Vegan for the ethical reasons as it pertains to animals, and being better for the climate was a secondary boon. And I'm only recently focusing more on eating solely a whole food Vegan diet. Do you plan on going all the way Vegan one day?

What is it that motivates you to eat a more plant based diet?

@Something Funny @Scholar Methinks the ladies doth protest too much.

That's definitely important to question. But the majority of farmland isn't used to produce ethanol. I forget the exact statistics on it, but I think it's only like 10%. Though look that up because it's been a while since I looked at the breakdown. But depending on which region, anywhere between 60% and 80% is used to grow mono-crop grains to feed cows, pigs, and chickens in factory farms. So, that's how the vast majority of our agricultural land is being used.

I only take and have only ever taken a daily Muti-vitamin. The only thing that actually needs to be supplemented is b-12, and you don't even need to take that every day. And I've never been prescribed "doctor pills" because I'm Vegan. I don't have blood checks. I don't have health problems or hospital bills... and statistically I'm less likely to because I eat a Vegan diet. Vegan diets are associated with lower instances of all-cause mortality... especially heart attack and stroke compared to an omnivorous diets. That's because there's less saturated fat in the diet which leads to lower levels of LDL cholesterol. So, Veganism is a great way to avoid the #1 killer in wealthy nations. And higher consumption of plant foods and lower consumption of animal food is associated with health and longevity. Also, avocados aren't more expensive than meat, unless we're talking about bologna and hot dogs. And most people who eat meat, eat it with every meal. And I currently eat about 1800 calories per day and I'm always stuffed because there's a lot of fiber and protein in my diet. There's also a lot of variety because 95% of whole ingredients are Vegan friendly. And no... it isn't just rice and legumes. That would be boring. There's lots of different dishes that are Vegan or easily turned Vegan.

Here in the states, $37,000 per year as a couple with kids is quite difficult to live on. The average individual person's salary is around $50,000... and my husband and I made less than that combined prior to 2020 when my business took off. To give some context, we were in the lowest 20% of income earners when I went Vegan. And because of summer months being my off-cycle as a substitute teacher and summer being the slow months for his job as a server, we were always struggling through lean times in summer and fall where we were below the poverty line. And I am mostly advocating for Vegan diets for people who live in wealthy nations who are at liberty to have some degree of choice over what they eat.... which is probably 80%+ of people who live in the states. If someone's struggling to eat, then I don't recommend being selective. If I were in a situation where I was dealing with food scarcity, I would at least drop back to Vegetarianism. And if I were truly starving for multiple days on end, I would eat meat. The issue comes about when someone uses the "Veganism is expensive" argument when they themselves are in a position to save money on their groceries by going Vegan. At that point, it's just not an honest argument because it frames a diet with an average grocery cost as more expensive that a diet with a higher grocery cost.

First off, I've never been to a Whole Foods in my entire life. And I went Vegan when we were making less than $40,000 per year combined. I was making $12k per year as a substitute teacher and he was making around $25k per year as a waiter, and we were always scraping the bottom of the pot. But I was still able to be Vegan because most Vegan foods are cheaper than foods with meat and dairy. And I'd do all of the shopping at Walmart back then. And currently, I'm making a bit more money. But I still spend an average amount on groceries because I mostly eat rice, potatoes, beans, legumes, tofu, bananas, frozen veggies, and a few other fresh/frozen fruits and vegetables. So, a whole food Vegan diet is actually much cheaper than a whole food diet with meat, dairy, and eggs. If I were buying a bunch of meat instead of beans, our grocery bill would be much higher. That said, eating a healthy diet is more expensive than eating a junky diet. And a junk omnivorous diet is the cheapest diet you can do if you're getting cheap snack cakes, ramen noodles, cheap lunch meats, pudding cups, etc. There are plenty of accidentally Vegan foods that are quite cheap too like Oreos, potato chips, sugary drinks, etc. that fall into this category as well. So, processed omnivorous diet foods and processed accidentally Vegan foods are the cheapest foods. And I understand that it takes some extra funds to deliberately eat a healthy whole food diet, so that's where the there is an element of truth about there being privilege to the Vegan diet. It means you don't have to eat the cheapest and unhealthiest foods in the store. Processed Vegan foods that are deliberately Vegan are quite expensive, but most Vegans treat processed Vegan foods as an extra thing... not as the main thing that's being consumed. Also, I don't expect anyone to go Vegan who isn't getting consistent meals. If someone has to focus on just eating, then I understand. But if someone is in a wealthy nation and has access to enough funds to pick and choose what they eat, these are the people who have the power to go Vegan. And if someone's eating a more expensive diet because they're eating a bunch of steak and porkchops, they can save some money by going Vegan. So, I ascribe the responsibility to people in this position.

In the China study, the blue zones where people live the longest are places associated with the lowest levels of meat consumption.

Veganism is just Vegetarianism minus two ingredients (milk and eggs). They're about the same level of restriction, which is not restrictive at all. Vegetarians and Vegans can eat most things and there's plenty of close or better substitutes. And 95% of whole foods are Vegan friendly anyway. And I honestly prefer the Vegan dairy options compared to the regular dairy options with the exception of cheese, which is difficult to imitate with plant-based ingredients. Yet again, I've only tried a few brands of Vegan cheese. Maybe there are some great ones out there. But on the Vegan diet you can eat pretty much the same thing as in the omnivorous diet. Like if I wanted to go to the store and get ice cream or pizza, I could do that now. So, there's no sense of restriction. And the ice cream is genuinely better than dairy ice cream (as is the yogurt, oat milk, and the coffee creamer), and the pizza is proximal to non-Vegan pizza. I can even have meat that tastes and feels like meat, though I don't really enjoy Vegan or non-Vegan hamburgers or sausages. So, I don't eat them much unless they're the only Vegan option at a restaurant. There's even Vegan salmon and tuna sushi that I get every now and again, which is pretty good. That said, I've been trying to keep my diet as a whole food diet as much as possible unless I'm eating at a restaurant. And I am plenty satisfied with that. But going Vegan was really only giving up 4 foods that I really enjoy... salmon, eel, steak, and cheese. The rest either have adequate or better substitutes, or I never liked them much in first place.

It's borne out in many studies organized into a greater meta-analyses that meat consumption is associated with higher all-cause mortality and the less meat and the more plants in a diet, the more it's associated with lower instances of all-cause mortality because of specifically because of meat's impact on LDL cholesterol. Here's an example of an abstract of a meta-analysis that includes 9 studies... https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/179/3/282/103471?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false#no-access-message But there was also another meta-analysis that included thousands of studies that showed the same thing. I just couldn't find the article, but I have linked it on another Veganism-related thread. And the conclusion of the larger meta-analysis is that diets lower in meat are associated with lower levels of all-cause mortality.

That's just a fantasy. It's not a real solution. Plus, 60-80% of farmland is used to feed the meat the we eat. And those are the big mono-crops like corn and soy. So, animal agriculture in any form is going to decrease biodiversity because the only way to feed the volume of cows, pigs, and chickens humans eat every year, we need lots of mono-crop farmland. And it takes 16 lbs of grain to produce 1 lb of beef. So, meat is a very inefficient food to produce.

Meat consumption is linked with an increased risk of all-cause mortality primarily because of the saturated fat consumption. And that's borne out in many studies and meta-analyses. That's why Vegans bring it up, because it's the #1 death bringer to humans in wealthy nations. The issues people bring up with the Vegan diet only happen if people aren't eating enough calories. And you don't find many Vegans dying because of "nutrient deficiencies" unless the person has an eating disorder. Those who eat a plant-based diet tend to live longer lives with fewer strokes and heart attacks compared to meat eaters.

Factory farms are not part of the circle of life. And if we all hunted our food and consumed the same level of meat that factory farming currently enables us to, every land mammal would be hunted to extinction in a very short time frame. Also, if someone literally has no other option but to eat meat, then I don't have a problem with it. I disagree with people eating animals for pleasure and convenience and habit... but not for ACTUAL survival. But most privileged modern folk are not in that position. And a whole food Vegan diet is cheaper than a whole food diet with meat, dairy, and eggs. So my perspective is that our greater levels of privilege and power behoove us to take on greater levels of responsibility. And the prevalence of the Vegan diet shows how far we've grown as a species in terms of infrastructure and technology.

Factory farms don't waste anything. They sell all sellable product because it's how they make money. They use every part of the animal. It's just a myth that they don't. And they're operating off of razor-thin profit margins and are subsidized by the government to stay in business because it's so difficult to run the business in a way where it turns a profit. But yes, harvesting animals is inherently savage. There isn't a nice way to do it. Even the Halal method is a slitting of the throat. That's as nice as it gets, and having your throat slit is a violent death. Don't believe me? Look at videos of cows and pigs being killed in the "humane" way. Also, the plant and rocks thing is a common defense for an omnivorous diet, but probably the silliest and most dishonest one because no one who says it actually believes it when the rubber meets the road. If someone offered you $1000 to stab a stalk of broccoli or to stab an animal, I guarantee that you'd choose to stab the broccoli (unless you're a psychopath and like stabbing animals for fun) and you wouldn't even feel bad for stabbing the broccoli. And you'd probably think the people who choose to stab the animal over the broccoli are psychopaths. So, I'm sure that you intuitively understand the difference between sentient and non-sentient life.... and living things with a nervous system that can feel pain and living things with no nervous system that can't feel pain.

@Buck Edwards I can see why that's distressing. People who care about animals who aren't Vegan have a lot of unconscious inner turmoil buried under lots of different beliefs that enable them to maintain the status quo without becoming viscerally aware of the contradiction between their actions and values. And when someone challenges a non-Vegan who has Vegan values but who's not yet in a mental space where they're ready to make a change, it brings to the surface a lot of really uncomfortable feelings that can be quite overwhelming. And that person can start to feel a lot of shame and like they're the bad guy. And it produces a tendency to go into defense mode and to try to find reassuring narratives that show why Veganism is wrong/short-sighted/impractical/bad/unhealthy/etc. and that the status quo is okay. But you're not a bad person for not being Vegan. It's just that you might be a bit out of integrity with your own values and the commenter you mentioned probably drew your attention to the typically unconscious feelings of internal contradiction of being a non-Vegan who cares about animals. And shaming tends to backfire because it hits people with this awareness before they're ready for it. So, it's not a good rhetorical tactic to shame people unless they're already teetering on the edge of Veganism... and even then, it's not very effective and can backfire. When I first went Vegan, I had to deal with a lot of these uncomfortable feelings because I had to face with the reality that I'd been living out of alignment with my values for 27 years. And the dietary change gave space for those intellectual contradictions and the emotions they hid from me to make themselves known without any intellectual defense or cognitive dissonance on my part. And for about a week or two after I went Vegan, I felt really emotionally terrible because I couldn't unsee what I'd seen in myself. I also watched Earthlings, which was God-awful. So, that brought things really front and center to me to see how out of alignment my actions had been, as I cannot even watch animals be slaughtered on a computer screen without feeling totally traumatized and upset at how the world is. But I don't agree with using any kind of insults or shaming to convince people to go Vegan because people have to be in alignment to make that kind of change, and no amount of shaming will change that. It will just prematurely make a person become aware of all those unpleasant feelings and they'll feel like the bad guy... and then feel the need to defend their identity of goodness, which is a fundamentally human thing to do. But going through the posts on this thread, there are more anti-Vegan judgments than anti-omnivore judgments because Veganism is the minority stance. Some of the insults that I saw were things like the "spiritual ego" and "Stage Green oafs" and "those morons" and "Typical Vegan. They should have their own children" and "makes them look like a cult" and "misanthropic". But these judgments don't really bother me because I understand why people are saying these things... which is the same reason I used to say things like this before I went Vegan. And I currently feel a sense of alignment with my actions in this area of life. I've thought deeply on this choice. So, no amount of Vegan shaming is going to make me feel bad and reconsider because I feel solid in my values. So, it might be uncomfortable but this dynamic may have brought to your awareness a shakiness in your own value system. If you felt solid, the shaming probably wouldn't bother you so much and would just be mildly annoying. That said, he shouldn't be doing that if he wants to be effective in his activism.