I mean the premise already feels a bit absurd, but I’ll play…

I’m not a vegan myself, and I don’t really hang out in vegan spaces that much, so my answers may differ from your typical vegan, or not… who knows. But I suppose if the general goal is to preserve life where possible, then you should absolutely try to find some place for the animals to live out their days in peace. If we can manage to stuff them all in neat little boxes on the land we have now, I doubt it’s some intractable problem. You don’t have to let 'em run free and “out of control” per se, repurpose the land of the now defunct factory farms and slaughterhouses, build a number of sanctuaries all over the place, and plop 'em there. Of course, no one can possibly know all of the variables involved, so I’m not saying this is a well thought out solution, I’m just spitballing… but we’re not exactly hurting for land, to my knowledge.

However, suppose I granted you:

Realistically the amount of livestock is not sustainable and they’d need to be culled in gargantuan numbers

Why would that necessitate this outcome?

And then you get the slaughter without the benefit of feeding billions of hungry people.

Veganism isn’t some virus that physically prevents you from eating meat, and plenty of vegans have been meat eaters at some point in their lives. If it came down to it, I imagine there would be a steady supply of folks who would opt to revert temporarily instead of letting it go to waste. Vegans may disagree with me here, but I think it’s certainly a more ethical choice if the animals are already dead, can’t let the sacrifice be for nothing.

The vegan viewpoint on animals really just boils down to eliminating unnecessary suffering and death. Many are fine with the prospect of hunting, fishing, or raising livestock for food when there aren’t other options (eg. environments with insufficient crop yields to feed everyone or infrastructure to get other food), the problem arises from the fact that those of us privileged enough to live in a land of abundance continue to needlessly slaughter. Do we need to eat? Of course. Do we need to kill things to do it? Fuck no.

All that said, I think a more realistic transition scenario would be something like the meat industry halting slaughter operations, exhausting their existing supply until either there are no animals left to kill, or there are a small enough quantity to where we can just yeet the rest onto some farms somewhere. Not that vegans would be entirely on board with that, being anti-slaughter and all, but it’s at least a reduction in harm and a more believable way for things to play out… I think.

Not spacey at all, totally coherent. I appreciate you taking the time to write all of that out and share it with some stranger on the internet.

I don’t find myself disagreeing with any of what you said. Confirmation bias is a bitch, and regrettably something that most of us are guilty of at some point. Instilling fear, hatred, or self-loathing in your children based solely on your own anecdotal evidence isn’t right, and it’s a shame that it’s as prevalent as it is.

I guess where I might diverge in the context of the overarching post, and I’m not suggesting this is your position, but I don’t believe the argument being posited is that men/boys in their entirety, or on the basis of them being men, are definitively dangerous and ought to be feared. I think that’s how a lot of men end up taking it, myself included once upon a time. But as you put it, “most people don’t have the ability to access that world view as a normal part of thought”, I think that’s also true of men, and a big part of why this discussion is so contentious. It’s hard for many of us to truly comprehend the scope of what being a woman in day to day life entails. The majority of us don’t have to go through life worrying about being cat-called, followed home, sexually assaulted, having friends of the opposite sex constantly trying to turn it into “something more”, and a plethora of other things. These things can and do happen to men too, of course, along with some unique problems of our own, but those men have as much a right to be angry and speak out about their abuse as women do.

For me, it’s the disproportionality of it that’s concerning, along with the regressive trend of either outright denying we have a problem on our hands, or attempting to silence and/or shame the people (men and women both) who speak out, because it’s more comfortable not to look at it. Many seem to be content with throwing their hands up and saying “well, X, Y, and Z are already illegal, what more do you want us to do?”, and that’s simply not a viable path forward.

With that said, I certainly don’t want anyone degrading themselves over traits that are entirely out of their hands… To any young men who may be reading this, or men who find themselves torn on the conversation because they feel perhaps the conversation has veered into outright bigotry:

There’s nothing inherently wrong with you, you can be a tremendous force for good in the world, like so many other men before you, and anyone who claims otherwise can get fucked. And I’ll admit I could be wrong here, but I’d wager that the majority of folks saying they’d “pick the bear” feel the same way… they’re just tired, pissed off, and done mincing words with an uncaring world.

Be proud to be a man, own it, just bear in mind that there is a minority of us inflicting a tremendous amount of hurt and suffering in the world, on men and women alike. If we truly wish to be a force for good, then we have to be willing to rally against wrongdoing in any form, by any perpetrator, and not allow these things to proliferate out of complacency. I can understand if you’re put off by the present discourse… don’t get behind it for the sake of feminism, or some political ideology, do it because it’s the right thing to do.

Never made the comparison. As I’ve stated in two other comment threads already, two sets of stats, two distinct conclusions. That third sentence has been there since the inception of this post, the edit was added after two people blatantly ignored it.

Me saying they aren’t comparable isn’t “hiding behind” anything. It’s an acknowledgement that there are far too many variables involved be able to draw anything conclusive between the two. To not acknowledge that would be a disservice to anyone reading and would ultimately feed into confirmation bias in both directions.

Moreover, I could completely nix the info on bears and my point would still stand, the point of the hypothetical isn’t about the god damn bears.

Y’know… I thought more about this comment, and my response to it. I went back and re-read my post, and yeah, I can see how it was interpreted that way… It certainly wasn’t my intention to mislead or come off as dishonest, but admittedly it could have been composed more carefully. I went back and edited the main post to, I hope, be a more objective and accurate representation of what I meant overall, and why I decided to leave both of those things in, even with the acknowledgement that they were not analogous.

First off, I appreciate your thoughtful responses. I’m not trying to be combative here, but I’m having some trouble understanding what it is you’re trying to get at.

You said:

But writing off the behavior of abusive women (or even well-meaning women with problematic behavior) as a factor is just as problematic as people assuming it’s all the fault of women.

This indicated to me that you felt my response was, in some way, writing off women’s abusive behavior, hence the question about what behavior it was you were alluding to and the subsequent response.

I mean psychological abuse due to unresolved power dynamics - i.e., interpersonal trauma loops. […]

Could you give a hypothetical to describe what you mean by this? You gave trans-generational trauma as an example (which isn’t something I was aware of, so thanks), but I’m not sure how to interpret that in the context of this discussion. Do you mean, for example, an abusive or neglectful mother treating her son in a fashion that might lend itself to misogyny down the road?

Gotcha… misinterpretation on my part then. Apologies.

The

demonizing half of the humans because penis is not justified tho

Along with

I can’t believe that is a sentence that needs to be said

Came off to me as a sort of “not all men” argument.

But writing off the behavior of abusive women (or even well-meaning women with problematic behavior) as a factor is just as problematic as people assuming it’s all the fault of women.

Not saying I disagree, or that you’re wrong; all people are capable of doing shitty things. But I’m curious what kind of abusive behavior you’re alluding to here… the prompt posed in the original post?

While I typically don’t like the prospect of sweeping generalizations, it seems to me that women have tried to convey these ideas “the nice way” for decades, and it has either fallen on deaf ears, or been met with intense scrutiny by people either maliciously or ignorantly missing the entire point. It’s understandable why there’s some vitriol in the way things are presented today.

[…] and that impacts both men and women, deeply.

100%, we’re stronger as a society if men and women can find a way to work together to deal with the litany of other issues we’re facing. But it’s going to be hard to do that without first addressing the elephant in the room, which is that women feel unsafe in society as a direct consequence of the actions of men.

I mean, I feel like that goes a lot deeper than some perceived slight by women…

Entertainment, and subsequently our culture, has crafted this notion that if you’re kind to a woman, she’s obligated to be your girlfriend or fuck you, and when it doesn’t pan out like that in reality; young men are justifiably depressed and angry, just… at the entirely wrong thing. This is further expounded by the ever growing disconnect by people in general, a lot of young people feel lonelier than ever and end up turning to shit like dating apps, which are inherently superficial and not a good way to build authentic relationships. Failure on these platforms can lead to young men feeling like they aren’t “good enough”, and when a grifter like Tate comes along to tell them that it’s actually just the women that are the problem, it’s an easy dose of copium to ingest.

Suicide is a multi-faceted issue, and while the struggle to find meaningful relationships is certainly a contributor, I’d wager that the general sense of hopelessness, lack of opportunity, and increasingly fewer prospects for the future are far bigger factors to many young adults going through higher education or entering the workforce.

Already addressed this in another comment, just read the next sentence I wrote…

They’re not comparable for a variety of reasons, even if you account for population; I kept both in, with that caveat, because they make two distinct points. And my “conclusion” was really only in respect to the violent crime statistics presented.

Nobody is demonizing “half of humans”. Do you honestly think these women believe that 100% of men are rotten? Of course not.

There are a ton of decent men in the world, and if we’re to take the statistics at face value, that’s most of us.

But there are also a ton of men, all across the world, who are liars and manipulators at best, and monsters who commit unimaginable atrocities at worst. I’ll say it in a slightly different way, men are disproportionately the perpetrators of violent crime, this is a problem.

If we profess to be good men, and the best that most of us can muster is to sit idly by while bad men wreak havoc in the world, or to tell people to pipe down when they point out the obvious, then can we really call ourselves “good”?

Clearly no law in a book, or half-assed enforcement of said laws, is a sufficient deterrent. Our problem is a cultural one, and if we continue to allow it to proliferate, we’re culpable too.

Now obviously, people don’t go traipsing into bear country every day, and we’re constantly around other humans, among a litany of other differences like population, motivation, or intelligence; so the stats on their own aren’t truly comparable.

Literally just had to read one more sentence, my guy. The point of bringing up the stats wasn’t to compare them directly, rather I looked both up out of curiosity, and individually I think they make distinct points. The first being that bears aren’t necessarily dangerous as we portray them to be, and the second being that men are more dangerous than we’re willing to admit.

As a dude, I used to have the same knee-jerk reaction to these kinds of discussions: “Well I’m not dangerous, and none of the men I’m friends/family with are dangerous, so this must just be some man-hating tirade perpetrated by ignorant people”.

But then you dig into the statistics, and you start talking to the women in your life about their lived experience, and you realize that far too many of us are fucking animals. The prospect of bringing a daughter into a world that not only ignores an obvious issue, but actively shames the people who are victimized and try to speak out against it, is terrifying. Do I always agree with the way women present their criticism? No, a portion of it does veer into senseless hate. But that doesn’t mean that what they’re saying on the whole is bullshit.

Bear, easily.

A couple minutes of searching the web, you’ll find some variance in the stats, but the general notion is that bears don’t seem to be as dangerous as we portray them to be. The data aggregated here suggests that there were 48 fatalities in North America, in the span of 17 years. A few other places claim there have only been around ~180 bear fatalities in NA since the late 1700s, but I couldn’t find any definitive sources, so take those with a grain of salt.

Bear in mind, this factoid isn’t something we can stack up against men to answer this question, we don’t encounter bears with the same frequency or density that we do people, nor do bears have the same nature or motivations as humans, but it’s something I found along the way that I thought was interesting, and at least lends some credence to the idea that if you leave a bear the fuck alone, it will probably leave you the fuck alone.

On the back of that detour, I did a separate search, looking at the latest murder statistics I could find in the US. (Again, forgetting the bear stuff, making a different point here)

Personally, I found the data disturbing, 10,335 murders perpetrated by men in a single year, 7x that of women. Other violent crimes like rape are also tracked, albeit without offender sex, of which there were 122,822 in the same year; in a relatively “safe” country. If you look at it in relation to the entire population of ~328 million (at the time) you may be inclined to say “it’s not that many” or “it’s just a minority of men” (duh), but fellas… as someone with a dick and balls like you, I’ve never sat down and thought to myself “You know what sounds great right now? A good raping.”, and I’m sure the majority of you haven’t either, 1,000 rapes a year is too many, Nearing 123,000 is fucking egregious.

When I look at numbers like that, it’s apparent to me that people are capable of being selfish, violent, motherfuckers in ways that some random bear in the forest never could. And unfortunately, men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of that violence. If you take offense to that fact, and aren’t an awful person yourself, then you need to wake the fuck up and take a look around. No one’s accusing you specifically of being a rapist or a murderer, but there’s a non-negligible trend here, and an uncomfortable truth that has yet to be sufficiently addressed; and that’s the whole point of this thought experiment in the first place.

Edit 2

After receiving a few comments with similar criticisms, and after some additional reflection on what I initially wrote, I reworded and reorganized a solid chunk of this post to, I hope, clarify what my views are, include additional context, and ensure that people are clear that the two points of data (ie. bear fatalities and murder rates) are not intended to be compared, but rather they individually address separate statements I’ve seen echoed throughout this thread. My position hasn’t changed, the conclusion hasn’t changed, but hopefully this comes off a bit less inflammatory and more intellectually honest than before, it’s not my intention to mislead anyone; just to get the cogs turning.

There’s truth to that. None of us is free of blame, and there’s always going to be a cost associated with the luxuries and comforts that many of us enjoy; but it’s not about “feeling morally superior”, it’s about doing the right thing, reducing unwarranted harm and suffering as much as you reasonably can. And changing your diet, eating more fruits and veggies and less meat, is probably one of the least obtrusive ways to do so (save for folks with rare medical conditions, or people who live in an environment without an abundance of arable land). Even if you don’t give a shit about the suffering of animals or the environment, you at least ought to care about your own well-being.

I’ve eaten meat my whole life, still do… but I’ve cut back a lot, and it really hasn’t been that difficult. Every time this conversation comes up, nothing annoys me more than the hive-mind crawling out of the woodwork to dump on vegans for daring to speak out against something that is demonstrably harmful in several ways, and then claim that vegans do it only for the purpose of moral grandstanding. Moreover, the absurd amount of appeals to nature and the lazy “bacon tasty” retorts make all of these people look like fucking dorks.

You don’t have to flagellate yourself for eating meat, you don’t even have to give up meat entirely… But don’t be a jackass about it, acknowledge the harmful reality you’re contributing to and you can either accept it for what is, cut back and reduce your contribution, or choose to lead a life that doesn’t enable it at all.

Potatoes, pasta, bread, legumes, nut butters, vegetables, fruits, jelly, jam; all things that many people already eat with some regularity.

Time and resources are hardly an excuse, you don’t have to spend two hours a night preparing some 5 Michelin star meal with the most organic, non-GMO, [insert buzzword] ingredients in order to make better dietary choices, at least not in the first world where we have ample options… Shit, even just reducing your meat intake by 10% is a net harm reduction that adds up.

The slave labor thing is valid to an extent, but not entirely analogous. For better or for worse, modern society is increasingly dependent on technology; folks rely on it, in some form, to find/perform work, pay the bills, stay in contact with friends and family, survive the climate they live in, travel, etc… This isn’t typically the case with meat, it’s often just carnal desire which results in the death of something to the tune of ~80 billion (with a “B”) animals every year that didn’t really need to be slaughtered.

People absolutely should be upset about the conditions of workers being exploited anywhere in the world and advocate on their behalf where possible, but our position shouldn’t be: “Oh, some bad shit happened over here, so I guess it’s fine to allow this bad shit over here to proliferate as well”… just sayin’.

Probably because they do, at least in the realm of dietary choices. Choosing to slaughter billions of sentient creatures every year for food and accessorization, when the majority of us have an abundance of other options, is morally fucked… and this is coming from somebody who eats meat with some frequency.

Just because we like it, or because it’s easier, or because it’s “tradition” doesn’t mean it’s morally righteous, it just means we’re selfish assholes 💀

When people lash out at vegans it always seems to boil down to some degree of cognitive dissonance… Eat meat and revel in the immorality if you so desire, no one’s stopping you; but don’t fucking lie to yourself, and don’t get butthurt when someone holds a mirror up to your face. The loss of life, environmental impact, and the effects on our own health is enough justification to argue in favor of veganism, vegetarianism, or some other alternative that doesn’t result in needless harm.