What would a vegan world be like? Why should everyone go vegan?

[Allison-vega]

Lately I have been thinking about this a lot. So many vegans including myself have been working to encourage other people to switch to a vegan lifestyle. This is especially apparent on YouTube. Every day someone in the online community is reaching out to popular personalities and celebrities trying to get them to see the light so that they will reach more people. It's obvious that many of us are wanting the world to go vegan. And I realize there are many reasons for this, but I am curious what this would lead to if we actually saw the world to go vegan. What would the world look like? Would humans have some raised awareness? Would the world be a better kinder place? Would we reach a state of greater compassion and reason before or after going vegan if this happened? Why are we doing this?

[brimstoneSalad]

Veganism is one of many steps to make the world a better place.

Just as abolishing human slavery didn't really raise human awareness (we still treated our fellow creatures terribly, we still had wars, etc.), going vegan will be no different.

It WILL make the world a better place in a number of ways -- namely, the greatest amount of suffering in the world today will be ended, human health and well being in old age will be improved (not made perfect, but an improvement), and it may slow catastrophic global warming enough that we can find ways to avert it or cushion the blow -- but it won't fix everything. Improvement is an ongoing struggle, and it's a struggle worth fighting for.
It is and always will be about incremental improvement.

We do this for the same reason our ancestors abolished human slavery -- because it's the right thing to do, and it will make the world a little better than we found it.

[Allison-vega]

I don't want to get into spirituality but do you think if the world goes vegan the human species will have overcome our irresponsible ways?

[brimstoneSalad]

I don't want to get into spirituality but do you think if the world goes vegan the human species will have overcome our irresponsible ways?

No. Freeing the human slaves didn't do that either. Everything like this is just a step in the right direction.

There are plenty of irresponsible vegans still. People will just be a little less irresponsible, and there will be a lot less suffering in the world.

There will always be dogma and irrationality breeding rationalization and bad behavior in the wake of those excuses.

[Allison-vega]

I wonder if being vegan as a much bigger step forward however. Do you think when or if we stop seeing animals as objects we'll appreciate their lives as having value and then see the world that way? Maybe we'll make a connection. I just don't know if it will happen in my lifetime.

[brimstoneSalad]

Do you think when or if we stop seeing animals as objects we'll appreciate their lives as having value and then see the world that way?

There's a guy on this forum who proves that's not true by his existence: https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... =22&t=1795
He's some kind of fundamentalist/deontologist, calls himself "vegan", and sees no value in animals' lives at all (he thinks it's fine to kill them).

Maybe we'll make a connection. I just don't know if it will happen in my lifetime.

If we can't get him to "make the connection", then no. There will always be irrational people like that around. And I don't think people valuing animals' lives (if they even do) will make them rational either. There are plenty of irrational vegans out there.

[Mateo3112]

[Allison-vega]

Mateo3112,

I think that's the image a lot of people in this world have of vegans. They see veganism as some kind of socialist utopia. That's not really my vision for the future though. I personally don't need or want things to be lovey dovey, just more mature.

[Jaywalker]

It'll be a better world for sure! It wouldn't be perfect as said, there would be a long way to go before we turn into Vulcans. Not sure if that's even desirable.

There are many other issues to solve, so I reckon we wouldn't be completely bored out of our minds. I myself am a racist.

[Jebus]

A vegan world would be great. The expression "vegan restaurant" would no longer be used; every restaurant would have awesome vegan food.

How people would act regarding other world problems would largely depend on how and why the world went vegan. Brimstonesalad's slavery analogy would only be accurate if governments forced their people to be vegan just like the US government forced the confederate states to get rid of slavery. If everyone ended up becoming vegan by their own will because they felt sympathy for the animals, then we would have already come a long way and there would probably much more respect towards other humans as well.

I am more interested in the question of what will happen when roughly half of the world's population becomes vegan. With such strong feelings on both sides, will there be much violence? Will vegan countries impose sanctions on non-vegan countries?