Sweet, vegan hate! Yeah, FUCK THEM! That's certainly an unpopular view on the internet! (The parent comment was rated as the highest comment today in fact.)

@the parent comment.

The idea that veganism or vegetarianism just isn't worth it because 'something always suffers' is a pretty big logically fallacy. Veg* people aren't trying to delude themselves into thinking nothing will suffer because of their existence, but to try to reduce the suffering caused.

My sister is 2 years younger then me. At a certain point she could count, but didn't understand that different coins have different value. I figured out pretty quickly that I could give her 5 pennies in exchange for 2 quarters and she would be happy. 5 is obviously more then 2.. duh.

That's the same type of logical fallacy your displaying here. Not all suffering is equal. For instance, in some places animal's skulls are smashed and their brains are eaten while they are alive. This has been done to primates, no less. I've seen preparations for duck that stipulate the duck must be alive while being cooked. I've seen videos where Japanese chefs keep frogs alive and gut them for the novelty of eating something that can watch you eat it. What your saying is, doing this isn't really any worse then buying a vegetable, because maybe it was grown an a farm that might be exploitative in some way.

Your lack of acknowledgment that suffering can vary in intensity or severity is intellectually dishonest. Not all suffering is made equal, but I'm pretty sure you know that. I doubt you think the last time you suffered was just like dieing in slowly in Auschwitz. http://www.theonion.com/articles/i-am-so-starving-vs-i-am-so.../

You're operating under the assumption that vegetarians choose their food in order to make you feel bad (it's all about you, right?) and so you feel personally attacked. Since you feel attacked you don't mind a little bit of intellectual dishonesty in your counter attack, and I get that. I'm just saying you seem at least reasonably intelligent, and I think you can aspire to better.

It's like saying 'why should I stop killing people, people are still going to die.' Or "Why should we sign this peace treaty, war will still exist."

I grow quite a bit of my own food. In fact, I actually cleared my garden plot from several invasive species (like spider wort, crocosmia, and agapanthus) so I didn't even displace any indigenous wildlife... which really matters on an island like this one.

Far from suffering, I really enjoyed my time gardening. I find it helps when I get burned out from the very cerebral tedious work I do (things like designing the AI in video games and writing symphonies) to just put my hands in the dirt and do something simple.

So this idea that my food HAS to be the product of suffering is not only an absurd rationalization, but it's also false. I certainly didn't suffer to create the food I grew (Which is the implication behind "Someone down the line gets screwed, and if they aren't then you're the one getting it." I believe) far from it.

Working with my hands helps me when my work gets tedious and frustrating. I got to spend time gardening with my friends and my wife. This idea that I 'got screwed' because I grew some chard is just silly...