Why i am not a vegan ?

[Yimpa]

[Joshe]

@SwiftQuill I am not what you’d call woke. I had a friend who was very much anti woke and I didn’t really get why. I mean, I could see the foolishness he was taking aim at, but I still didn’t understand the energy behind his attacks and why it moved him the way it did. 

[SwiftQuill]

@Joshe you're the one who brought up woke. I didn't bring it up in this thread. My criticism was mostly directed at loud vegans and common vegan talking points.

[SwiftQuill]

8 minutes ago, Yimpa said:

 

[blackchair]

Come to Balkan, vegetarians don't even exist here and considered mentally ill

[Joshe]

@SwiftQuill today is the first time seeing your profile. It wasn’t until after you responded that I saw you actually have an anti woke page on the internet. My intuition picked up on an anti woke undercurrent and I just harped on it. Either way, I was just hoping you could elaborate on what about it that actually moves you. You said “lies”. If I saw the woke foolishness as lies, I’d probably hate it too. But I just see it as foolishness. Like, I don’t think of Christianity as “lies”. I think of it as foolishness. Honestly, It can trigger me from time to time, but I don’t walk around with a constant anti Christian boner. Lol. If I did, it would likely be because it was detrimental to me or I was majorly impacted by it and haven’t made peace with it. There’s a reason why woke impacts you the way it does. That’s all I’m trying to get it. 

Edited Thursday at 12:46 AM by Joshe

[SwiftQuill]

@Joshe I've discussed the problems with the religion of Woke many times in this forum and no one ever listens. So really there's no point debating it or explaining it. But whenever someone brings up a woke talking point or something stupid or dangerous from that religion, I do call them out.

When Leo posts a video by David Pakman and says "Hey guys this political youtuber is pretty dope and unbiased" it triggers me. In the same manner it out trigger 90% of this forum if I were to unironically say Ben Shapiro is a good political commentator.

[SwiftQuill]

@blackchair only if Balkan women are hot

[Joshe]

@SwiftQuill ah, I gotcha. Didn’t know the history. 

I get you about Pakman. It took me a while to figure him out. I actually just thought he was somewhat of a grifter for a long time, and I do still think he’s operating in a grifty way, but I have come to respect him a little after watching him do interviews with people. His real personality can be seen in the interviews, whereas in his solo commentary, it’s kind of hard to get a read on him. After seeing enough interviews, I have concluded that he is actually pretty sharp. As far as popular left-wing commentators, go, there’s probably no one that could compete with him argumentation wise. If you were to stack him up against Ben Shapiro in a structured debate, he’d wipe the floor. He’s really good with logic, debate, spotting fallacy, etc, But most of that is hidden if you only watch his commentary. I apologize in advance if this was triggering. Lol 

Edited Thursday at 01:06 AM by Joshe

[SwiftQuill]

@Joshe

My problem is that it's easy to deconstruct Ben Shapiro. If you watch any of his videos, look at his comment section, his own audience calls him out on his right wing grift bullshit. I don't need to say anything about Ben Shapiro.

David Pakman is different. I don't think he is a grifter at all. But he is extremely biased to the left. In the way he selects the data, in the way he presents it, in the way he promotes his woke religion.

Ben vs David would obviously be an unfair match against Ben.

But David is mainstream. Ben Shapiro isn't mainstream.

So while you and Leo say that David Pakman is such an intelligent guy, such a wise guy, such a good political commentator...

Remember he promotes cancel culture. He promotes BLM. He promotes the anti cop movement. He essentially promotes all of the horrible parts in the Woke religion. And he presents them in a sanitized, almost intelligent manner.

And that's why I hate David Pakman. I hate how loyal he is to his religion. I hate how he is mainstream. I hate how his audience (99%) agrees with everything he says.

Maybe you have never experienced yourself the toxic side of Wokeness. You've never been banned, cancelled, fired, unfairly accused of SA, or anything like that.

But if you think Wokeness is "silly" in the same sense Christianity Jesus invisible God is "silly", you truly don't get it.

Edit: "You have said more lies in that sentence, than there are words in that sentence." is a quote that comes to my mind when I hear the likes of Pakman/Sam Seder/Destiny talking. And of course, that means to deconstruct and explain each of those lies is very time consuming.

Edited Thursday at 01:18 AM by SwiftQuill

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, SwiftQuill said:

I think they meant survival not in the "biological being needs to survive" but in the sense that Leo uses it. Like how playing videogames is survival, or watching a movie is survival. And I do agree that eating tasty food is part of our higher order survival.

If someone has a tough life, working long hours with few luxuries, and their few moments of pleasure are at lunch and dinner, they are unlikely to become vegan. When people are overworked and unhappy, they often seek comfort in hedonistic pleasures.

That is why I do not see them as evil for eating animal products. I do not confront them, debate them, or demand they justify drinking milk in the morning or eating a cheeseburger at lunch.

And if vegans don't understand this? If they don't possess the empathy to understand where those people come from, and even the logic to understand the approach of moralizing doesn't work? Those vegans are just retarded.

What Leo calls survival is like "self focused things we do for our own ends".

But what I mean by survival is literally life and death.

So, I know he is using Leo's colloquial definition of survival to justify eating meat as a 'self focused thing he's doing towards his own ends'... but dishonestly mincing it with the weight and gravity of the "life and death" meaning of survival.

It's a bit like how sex is part of survival from the colloquial way the Leo uses it. And then someone would dishonestly use Leo's definition of survival to justify raping someone to themselves because "Sex is part of survival... therefore raping someone is valid because I need it in order to survive".

But I personally, don't have any problem with people eating animals if they literally need it to survive or if they are dealing with genuine food scarcity.

If I was starving and I didn't have any other food sources or I didn't know where my next meal was coming from, I'd have no qualms with eating animals or animal products.

I just disagree with consuming animals out of pleasure and convenience... which is the reason why 90%+ of people in first world countries consume animals and animal products (regardless of whichever other justifications they might provide to obscure that truth from themselves).

But I don't see people as evil for partaking in eating animals... just unaware and disconnected from the realities of the suffering. It's just like I was before I decided to go Vegan... in a state of cognitive dissonance and denial about my own choices and the outcomes they are tied to that are incongruent with my values.

That's why I never try to convince people to go Vegan... but instead to simply be honest with themselves about their true motivations to consume animal products and to examine if that's actually in a alignment with their own values or not.

Like, even if a person chooses not to go Vegan... they should at least be honest with themselves. And of course, we all feel better and more on solid ground when our actions are in alignment with our values.

The issue is that a very large percentage of people (maybe half or more) hold Vegan values where they don't want animals to be harmed for food if there are other food sources available... and who would avoid it altogether if they had to slaughter the animal themselves. 

But most of these people with Vegan values don't live in integrity with them. Hence the rationalizations and justifications and shadow boxing with imaginary Vegans or Vegans on the internet. 

Edited Thursday at 01:36 AM by Emerald

[Leo Gura]

On 5/12/2025 at 2:03 PM, Majed said:

Throwing away thousands of years of culinary wisdom, rituals, traditions and habits, is a tragedy.

What a rationalization.

Emerald is right here. Eat what you want but stop kidding yourself.

Edited Thursday at 01:50 AM by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

16 minutes ago, Emerald said:

It's a bit like how sex is part of survival from the colloquial way the Leo uses it. And then someone would dishonestly use Leo's definition of survival to justify raping someone to themselves because "Sex is part of survival... therefore raping someone is valid because I need it in order to survive".

Rationalizing rape is survival.

[Emerald]

38 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Rationalizing rape is survival.

That is true in the particular way that you mean it when you use the word "survival". And I am fine with you using the word survival to describe people using selfish actions to benefit themselves at the expense of others... because it comes from the survival instincts.

But that is not the way I was using the term survival... as I was using the term to refer to what it traditionally refers to, which is literal life and death. I also consider it a matter of survival (in the way that I mean it) if a person is dealing with scarcity of food and water, even if death is not likely to happen.

But let's not monkey around with the semantics of the word "survival" itself as it will just muddy the waters and give people more rope to hang themselves with with regard to their denials... and let people off the hook with regard to facing their own integrity issues, cognitive dissonance, self-deceptions, and blindspots around their own incongruent actions.

And of course, someone rationalizing rape or eating animals as a matter of life and death when they don't need to do so to literally survive (aka avoid death) is survival in the way that you mean it around justifying selfish actions taken at the expense of another.

Edited Thursday at 02:30 AM by Emerald

[Yimpa]

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, SwiftQuill said:

"tHoSe dUmB MeAt eAtErS CaN'T HaNdLe tHe tRuTh tHaT I'M MoRe sElFeSs tHaN ThEm"

I hope you people repeat that mantra 100x in a row to yourselves at night. You clearly need it to sleep well.

Why are you mad?

[Emerald]

7 minutes ago, Yimpa said:

Haha! Accurate.  

[aurum]

Just because I have to bring this up in every vegan thread: the real solution is GMO food.

We are going to engineer food superior to anything that exists today. Including plants, meat, lab-meat, everything.

This is how we help solve the ethical dilemma of inflicting suffering in order to eat and survive. You out-engineer it.

[Leo Gura]

2 minutes ago, aurum said:

We are going to engineer food superior to anything that exists today.

Lab rat meat for all!

Coming soon.

[Leo Gura]

Survival requires much more than just avoiding immediate death. That is a very shallow notion of survival. If survival worked in such a low IQ way we would all be dead a long time ago.

Survival is all the activity that comes with maintaining life. And more.

Edited Thursday at 02:52 AM by Leo Gura