Philosophical Vegan Forum

So no one should speak out against fur or cruelty to dogs?

Sure. I just think it's a disingenuous cause for non-vegans, and does nothing but absolve guilt from, as I said earlier, people who would never partake in either anyway. The dog meat thing also has a xenophobic/outright racist twang to it. Citizens of poorer countries are viewed as barbarians since they eat an animal we raise as companions. I think people should speak out against all injustices, but when is the subject of cognitive dissonance broached?

May I ask why you are vegan? If not because it is immoral to eat animal products, then why?

I love animals, but I don't view not eating them as a moral decision. I've come to know I don't need to ingest animal products to live healthily. In that sense, knowing what I know, it'd be sociopathic to partake. I guess that's my hangup. Why not a sociopath spectrum instead of universal morals? Eating meat doesn't automatically make somebody immoral or sociopathic, unless they're privy to the horrors and do it anyway.

seitan_forker wrote:I just think it's a disingenuous cause for non-vegans, and does nothing but absolve guilt from, as I said earlier, people who would never partake in either anyway.

But do you know this? Perhaps a non-vegan speaks out against wearing fur and as a result, meets a vegan who points out the parallels between wearing fur and eating meat, inspiring the person to go vegetarian. Isn't this a possibility?

seitan_forker wrote:The dog meat thing also has a xenophobic/outright racist twang to it. Citizens of poorer countries are viewed as barbarians since they eat an animal we raise as companions.

You're generalizing. I'm sure some feel this way, but certainly not all. I'm willing to bet for many it's a case of "dogs are friends, cows are food." We don't like when our friends are beaten, skinned alive and killed and would feel the same about an American treating dogs in such a way.

seitan_forker wrote:I think people should speak out against all injustices, but when is the subject of cognitive dissonance broached?

Potentially never, if non-vegans decide not to speak out against injustices for fear of being called racist hypocrites. By making their hypocrisy known, it gives us an opportunity to call them out on their bullshit (in a gentle way, of course) and potentially change their minds.

seitan_forker wrote:I love animals, but I don't view not eating them as a moral decision. I've come to know I don't need to ingest animal products to live healthily. In that sense, knowing what I know, it'd be sociopathic to partake.

If you didn’t feel guilty about it, yes, that would make you a sociopath (or a psychopath). If you knew the truth about animal agriculture, still consumed animal products AND felt guilty about it, then you would not be classified as a sociopath/psychopath. You’d just be a typical carnist.

You said you don’t view eating animals as a moral decision, but you refer to someone who eats animals knowing the harm it causes as a sociopath, implying that either:

a) the person doesn’t have the ability to feel guilty about what he/she did (implying that eating animals is something to feel guilty about, aka it’s immoral), or
b) you’re equating sociopathic with immoral (a lot of people do), therefore also implying that eating animals is immoral.

So is eating animals an ethical issue or is it not?

seitan_forker wrote:I guess that's my hangup. Why not a sociopath spectrum instead of universal morals? Eating meat doesn't automatically make somebody immoral or sociopathic, unless they're privy to the horrors and do it anyway.

My point earlier was that I don’t see any usefulness in calling a person moral or immoral. Why not just look at the actions themselves? Killing animals for food when there are other alternatives is immoral. Much simpler.

In addition, is everyone who knows about the horrors of animal agriculture and continues to eat meat really a bad person? Does it really mean they just don’t care?

If that’s the case, then vegan advocacy should be a cinch. Just show/tell people why eating animals is wrong and those who care will go vegan. The ones who don’t care won’t go vegan anyway so we don’t have to worry about trying to convert them.

While I do think that trying to convert someone who honestly doesn’t care about harming animals is a lost cause, I don’t believe the majority of people really feel this way. The inability to feel empathy is a reality for only a very small percentage of the population, much smaller than the number of people who eat animals.

For detailed info on the psychology of eating meat, I highly recommend the following presentation from Dr. Melanie Joy, who coined the term carnism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqE0gUCp0oI

brimstoneSalad wrote:

seitan_forker wrote:According to that thread, it sounds like dietary filtering is still available on the mobile app, not on the browser site, which is where I noticed the issue.

Well, there you go. Maybe it's just something messed up on the site. Hopefully they fix it.

seitan_forker, I know the conversation turned to other topics in the thread. If you still want to try the diet search on the browser site, you can let OkC know here: http://www.okcupid.com/feedback

I just let them know under the Bug/Technical issue option. I was also disappointed to find that search option no longer available. Hopefully if enough people give feedback, they'll add it back.

As for finding people who are already vegan vs. finding rational atheists who seem likely to go vegan, I tried both on OkC. Most of the vegans live in other states and/or described themselves as "spiritual," but it wasn't secular spirituality. One vegan was polyamorous, a preference I don't share. I have found that in the area where I live, many vegans are polyamorous. I wondered if one reason is that anytime someone becomes counter-culture in one way, the person becomes more likely to consider and adopt other counter-culture lifestyles as well. Has anyone else noticed this?

Has anyone here written to someone on a dating site who seemed to pretend to go vegan or vegan-ish to meet you in person? Or who seemed to genuinely go vegan or vegan-ish while writing and then regressed to anti-veganism within only a couple of weeks of meeting in person?

I think if rational atheists who are non-vegan on a dating site start going vegan while messaging you, then you will want to consider the extent to which they are doing so to date you or to act consistently with their own values and reasoning. At least in my case, an atheist messaged me on GreenSingles (also called PlanetEarthSingles), who indicated in his profile that he was "mostly vegetarian." A couple of weeks into messaging and talking on the phone, he said that he went vegan. He later revealed that his reason was because he "knew" that he would have to be vegan to date me. I hadn't stated in my profile that it was a requirement, but only that I hoped to find someone who is at least mostly vegetarian or vegan. When I invited him to a conscious eating conference and introduced him to my vegan friends afterward, he said only anti-vegan arguments, like how lions eat animals, so we should copy their model. I felt embarrassed that I invited this guy. When I talked more with him privately, I found that he was not just playing devil's advocate. He said that vegans still harm other animals by living on land that once belonged to them, and you can't abstain from all harm to animals, implying that you ought not to bother abstaining from any harm. He even said that he wonders how many compassionate vegans help humans, as if one can't help both. I found on the last day that he also pretended to be a non-smoker. I ended contact right away, and dating only lasted a week.

At least if someone were to state that they're "vegan" in their profile, that might reduce the chances of them pretending to go vegan to date you. It might seem like that guy wasn't even "rational," but I think he was, when rationality means acting according to reasoned conclusions. He just seemed to act according to a reasoned conclusion that the best way to date me, only for the short-term, was to pretend to be more like me than he was.

You might also find people who seem to genuinely want to go vegan-ish while writing, but who revert to traditionalism after you meet in person. I had one experience like that. I stated in my details on OkC that I'm vegan, and in the food section that I don't eat corpses and don't want to kiss a guy who does. That's about as direct as one can get, and I wanted to see what kinds of people would message me. A rational atheist on OkC messaged me and went from carnist to pescetarian in the process of writing. When I asked him what I said that was most influential, he said the emphasis on compassion. He said that he was used to doing a conceptual analysis against the arguments of vegan philosophers, but that he hadn't considered something simpler, and to him, compassion was simpler and was a missing piece in his thinking before he met me. He even wrote that he thinks factory farms should be "banned." He wrote that I affected him in profound ways. He still wrote that he believes that eating fish is necessary for his health. This is despite what I told him about vegan sources of Omega 3's, the Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio, and supplements. I thought he showed enough open-mindedness to meet in person though.

When we met in person, he said that he is mostly Paleo. After the next date, he said that he found a book on "vegan Paleo" that he was going to try. The date after that, he said that he really is Paleo. He gradually sounded more anti-vegan. I hadn't been trying to convert him during this time and kept conversation about veganism minimal with a surface light-heartedness, such as telling him that he doesn't look like a calf and that his mom is not a cow, which resulted in him laughing. The fourth date, he talked about how the Paleo diet is the healthiest for humans today and that it's responsible for our brain size. He said of himself, "I'm a traditionalist." I politely ended contact.

I didn't expect to meet an atheist who calls himself a traditionalist. But I've met many first-generation Asian immigrants in the U.S. who were raised atheist and who seem to have not put much thought into atheism. For them, it seems culturally conditioned and not the conclusion of free thought. This person was not Asian and was raised Jewish, probably secular. I think it's important to figure out whether someone is freethinking, i.e., inclined to think freely from tradition, authority, the majority and willing to question cultural conditioning. It's more important than whether someone is atheist, because atheism alone doesn't indicate free thought. As Russell explained in the "The Value of Free Thought," "What makes a free thinker is not his beliefs, but the way in which he holds them."

I think the approach of advertising that you are vegan on a non-veg site can also inspire someone to actually go vegan though. I've had two experiences like that.

1) When I was vegetarian, someone on OkC who messaged me had "vegan" in his details, nothing more about it in the profile. I became curious and did a YouTube search: "reasons for veganism." His profile disappeared a week later, and I didn't get a chance to respond. Three months later, after learning all the reasons (compassion for animals, health, environment, humanitarian), I became vegan. Just seeing that word inspired me to learn about a potential match; if I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have thought to search for it out of the blue.

2) A rational atheist on OkC messaged me and went from carnist to vegan, just in the process of writing. I had the same content as above, with the new addition of a link to the animation "MAN" on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfGMYdalClU. This person said that he loved the animation and shared it with other people. He said that he felt ashamed, reading my profile. I asked why, and he said that he has known for a long time that eating meat is unethical and that he just hadn't acted accordingly. He said that he was going vegetarian. When I asked what he thinks about drinking cow milk and gave an explanation, he said that he also views that as unethical. I told him about a comic showing incremental change across seasons, where a guy says in the fall that he's against animal abuse but "could never" go vegan, who goes vegetarian in winter but says that he "couldn't" go vegan, who says in spring that vegetarianism is easy and veganism is "so hard," who looks for vegetarian recipes in summer and happens upon vegan recipes, realizing that veganism is easy. The person on OkC said that he can't justify the "could never" and decided to go vegan now.

When we met in person, his words and other behavior seemed consistent with veganism. He's probably still vegan now. Things didn't work out for reasons unrelated to veganism. I wonder if anyone else will be inspired by the animation.

seitan_forker, it would be nice to see how the other method is working for you, if you've tried it. I haven't just said that I love animals in my profile. I hope other people on the site can also tell about how that works for them.

Great post Seachants,

It sounds like you're limiting your geographical range quite a bit: I would suggest that you not do that.
Vegans are too few and far between.

There are low cost airlines available that can have you visiting another city for $100 or so on a short round trip for a date. I did just that a couple weeks ago (although I didn't meet him or her on OKC).
If somebody isn't worth a trip across the country to meet him or her, he or she probably isn't worth dating anyway. Spend more time chatting online first so you're sure.

And this goes for anybody, but be patient; it takes time, and impatience comes across as desperation, and can scare people off.

brimstoneSalad,

Thanks for your response.

I agree that if somebody isn't worth a trip across the country to meet him or her, he or she probably isn't worth dating. I actually had been open to people in other states until recently. I Skype dated two people who lived in other states, which is a good way to see how they interact live.

I only recently limited my geographical range due to my schooling. I'm working full time while taking classes, which prevents me from being able to move out of my area (in the case of finding a genuine match I want to relocate to live near) for another 1.5 years. I also thought it would create more time constraints than I want if I have to travel far for a date.

I had also wanted to keep open the option of having a child with a genuine match, but as I get older, the chances of doing that in an optimally healthy way become more and more slim. There have also been studies showing that as the male ages, there are increased chances of having unhealthy children, so it's not just female age which is a concern. It just takes more time to get to know someone who lives far away, even if you're Skyping, because you don't as often see how they interact with others, their friends, their family, and how they live their lives. I don't want a match for the purpose of having children; it's just an option I want to keep open, and there are time constraints for that.

I know there was a thread about vegans having children, and my own personal preference is different from most of what I read in the responses. I find that some of the people who would make the best parents choose not to have children, whether genetically their own or adopted, for some of the same reasons that would make them the best parents. They put so much more thought into all of the consequences of having and raising them, and all the while, more thoughtless people just keep having them for blind tradition and other bad reasons. When children are raised vegan, it seems to me that they don't use up too many resources like children who are raised non-vegan (such as the amount of water used up for the food they eat), and when they're raised with respect for free thought, I think the consequences are much more beneficial for everyone than how most children are raised. If I rule out the option of having (as in producing) and only keep open the option of having (as in adopting) or not having children at all, then I would potentially be compatible with a much larger variety of people with a larger age range and geographical distance. I wonder if one reason why some vegans do not to have their own children is just because it's so hard to find another compatible vegan in time.

Seachants wrote: I only recently limited my geographical range due to my schooling. I'm working full time while taking classes, which prevents me from being able to move out of my area (in the case of finding a genuine match I want to relocate to live near) for another 1.5 years. I also thought it would create more time constraints than I want if I have to travel far for a date.

In that case, your best bet would just be holding off. Bad experiences put you at risk.

Seachants wrote:I don't want a match for the purpose of having children; it's just an option I want to keep open, and there are time constraints for that.

You could preserve your gametes, and hire a surrogate later. How old are you now?

Seachants wrote:I find that some of the people who would make the best parents choose not to have children, whether genetically their own or adopted, for some of the same reasons that would make them the best parents.

I agree.

Seachants wrote:As for finding people who are already vegan vs. finding rational atheists who seem likely to go vegan, I tried both on OkC. Most of the vegans live in other states and/or described themselves as "spiritual," but it wasn't secular spirituality. One vegan was polyamorous, a preference I don't share. I have found that in the area where I live, many vegans are polyamorous. I wondered if one reason is that anytime someone becomes counter-culture in one way, the person becomes more likely to consider and adopt other counter-culture lifestyles as well. Has anyone else noticed this?

Sorry for the months long delay!

In response to your observation, I have also noticed a contrarian bent to some klatches of vegans. Ambiguously religiuius spiritualism, anti-vax, polyamory, etc. Though polyamory seems to be gaining steam in general. My stereotypical picture of these folks usually involves raw milk, though . Co-Op hippie types who pick and choose when to defend animals depending on what they wake up and find in their fridge.

More than anything I come across the "vegan" pixie and flesh-eating manly man couple stereotype. People are entitled to their own version of happiness, but I'm wired in a way that prevents me from comprehending such a dichotomy.

Has anyone here written to someone on a dating site who seemed to pretend to go vegan or vegan-ish to meet you in person? Or who seemed to genuinely go vegan or vegan-ish while writing and then regressed to anti-veganism within only a couple of weeks of meeting in person?

I recently labored through an overwrought months long tête-à-tête with a woman who feigned interest in veganism. But was obviously never going to wrap her mind around it fully. It was something she was willing to force herself to try to be with me, but that's not a healthy way to enter into a relationship. I feel like I'm of an age where I should be meeting people who are already vegan.

I think if rational atheists who are non-vegan on a dating site start going vegan while messaging you, then you will want to consider the extent to which they are doing so to date you or to act consistently with their own values and reasoning. At least in my case, an atheist messaged me on GreenSingles (also called PlanetEarthSingles), who indicated in his profile that he was "mostly vegetarian." A couple of weeks into messaging and talking on the phone, he said that he went vegan. He later revealed that his reason was because he "knew" that he would have to be vegan to date me. I hadn't stated in my profile that it was a requirement, but only that I hoped to find someone who is at least mostly vegetarian or vegan. When I invited him to a conscious eating conference and introduced him to my vegan friends afterward, he said only anti-vegan arguments, like how lions eat animals, so we should copy their model. I felt embarrassed that I invited this guy. When I talked more with him privately, I found that he was not just playing devil's advocate. He said that vegans still harm other animals by living on land that once belonged to them, and you can't abstain from all harm to animals, implying that you ought not to bother abstaining from any harm. He even said that he wonders how many compassionate vegans help humans, as if one can't help both. I found on the last day that he also pretended to be a non-smoker. I ended contact right away, and dating only lasted a week.

At least if someone were to state that they're "vegan" in their profile, that might reduce the chances of them pretending to go vegan to date you. It might seem like that guy wasn't even "rational," but I think he was, when rationality means acting according to reasoned conclusions. He just seemed to act according to a reasoned conclusion that the best way to date me, only for the short-term, was to pretend to be more like me than he was.

So this is basically the version of my story above, but with an added level of insidiousness. I apologize on behalf of my gender.

You might also find people who seem to genuinely want to go vegan-ish while writing, but who revert to traditionalism after you meet in person. I had one experience like that. I stated in my details on OkC that I'm vegan, and in the food section that I don't eat corpses and don't want to kiss a guy who does. That's about as direct as one can get, and I wanted to see what kinds of people would message me. A rational atheist on OkC messaged me and went from carnist to pescetarian in the process of writing. When I asked him what I said that was most influential, he said the emphasis on compassion. He said that he was used to doing a conceptual analysis against the arguments of vegan philosophers, but that he hadn't considered something simpler, and to him, compassion was simpler and was a missing piece in his thinking before he met me. He even wrote that he thinks factory farms should be "banned." He wrote that I affected him in profound ways. He still wrote that he believes that eating fish is necessary for his health. This is despite what I told him about vegan sources of Omega 3's, the Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio, and supplements. I thought he showed enough open-mindedness to meet in person though.

When we met in person, he said that he is mostly Paleo. After the next date, he said that he found a book on "vegan Paleo" that he was going to try. The date after that, he said that he really is Paleo. He gradually sounded more anti-vegan. I hadn't been trying to convert him during this time and kept conversation about veganism minimal with a surface light-heartedness, such as telling him that he doesn't look like a calf and that his mom is not a cow, which resulted in him laughing. The fourth date, he talked about how the Paleo diet is the healthiest for humans today and that it's responsible for our brain size. He said of himself, "I'm a traditionalist." I politely ended contact.

Paleo bros! Society's bane!

I'm glad you ended with some positive examples, though. There is hope. Maybe I should attend one of the local vegan MeetUps, though the membership seems to be mostly 50+.

seitan_forker wrote: Sorry for the months long delay!

It's OK. It sounds like you were busy with the pretend vegan! Good thing that's over.

In response to your observation, I have also noticed a contrarian bent to some klatches of vegans. Ambiguously religiuius spiritualism, anti-vax, polyamory, etc. Though polyamory seems to be gaining steam in general.

Yeah, I have sometimes felt like a cultural anthropologist doing fieldwork, entering vegan groups while studying them. I have noticed the same types you mention. I think we can't know if we'll relate to someone just by knowing that they're vegan, since veganism isn't a unified group of people and probably won't be.

The first thing I noticed is that some are openly counter-culture as people, not just as vegans, such as some people in DxE (Direct Action Everywhere). Even with "trivial" things like appearance. At a conference, when I saw someone with green hair, I instantly wondered if she was with DxE, and I was right. Ha. Most of them don't appear that far out of the norm though.

Re: ambiguously religious spritualism. Can you elaborate on that (the combination of all three words)?

I have met more vegans who call themselves "spiritual but not religious" than those who call themselves religious. I wonder if there really are more in the former category. I haven't found a clear definition of spirituality. Among those calling themselves "spiritual but not religious," 92% still claim a belief in God, according to a 2012 Pew Research Center survey (I haven't found more recent stats.) It sounds counterculture in a country where most people call themselves religious. However, the approach to spirituality among most of these people I've met (vegan or not) is similar to how self-proclaimed religious people approach religion. All but one of the vegans I found on PlanetEarthSingles were into supernatural spirituality, and that site doesn't seem like a place for secular people. A vegan friend recently started talking like she believes in the Law of Attraction, that somehow the universe "knows" our thoughts and "aligns" them with events in our lives. For some spiritual people, the word "God" just seems to be replaced with "Universe" or "Source," and they attribute to the universe many of the same supernatural qualities that they would to a god.

Even secular spirituality can really be spiritual bypassing. Are you familiar with that term? Robert Augustus Masters, among others, wrote about it. I was aware of the phenomenon but didn't know the term until recently. Some people with any kind of psychological or behavioral problem turn to a belief system, whether they call it spirituality or religion, as a fix for their problems, but it becomes an escape from them. The religion or spirituality becomes a homogeneous feel-good blanket, covering up personal idiosyncrasies and stunting personal development. They might say the same oversimplified catchphrases, like how they love everyone, and try to stay "positive" all the time. An emotional event is like any other event inside of your body, which tells you information about yourself, often in relation to the world outside of yourself, and alerts you to something you need or want. I read from Todd Kashdan in The Upside to Your Darkside: "We believe— and new research supports— the idea that every emotion is useful. Even the ones we think of as negative, including the painful ones." A lot of the people I've met, vegan or not, who call themselves spiritual seem to have a self-concept based on how their spiritual/religious belief system dictates they should be more than how they actually are. Most of the vegans I've met who call themselves spiritual seem to be doing spiritual bypassing, but maybe not any more than non-vegans do it.

Re: polyamory. Yes, it does seem to be an increasing trend among vegans and non-vegans alike. I just wonder if it's even more common among vegans. I've noticed anecdotally that most polyamorous people don't want children. Maybe it makes their lifestyle easier to manage without children in the picture. Most vegans I've talked to and whose YouTube videos I've watched also don't want them. I just notice that similarity. I seem to be running into more polyamorous people now that I'm vegan than before, and I wondered if its more than coincidence.

I recently labored through an overwrought months long tête-à-tête with a woman who feigned interest in veganism.

Sorry to hear that! At the same time, I am glad to know I'm not the only one who experienced that. Probably others have, but I haven't heard about it.

It was something she was willing to force herself to try to be with me, but that's not a healthy way to enter into a relationship.

Yes. If you're just doing it to appease the other person, there will be a disjunction between overt/public and covert/private behavior. Maybe such people aren't lying about willingness to be vegan, but instead, they're just not accurately predicting whether who they are inside (carnists) will come to correspond with the behavior that they show to you on the outside (vegan). I agree that it's not a healthy way to enter into a relationship, if they're only "acting as if" without the corresponding beliefs. It's a lack of integrity, one meaning of which comes from "integer," whole number. I think of integrity as not only belief-action consistency but also consistency between who are you inside and out.

I feel like I'm of an age where I should be meeting people who are already vegan.

Same here. I take it you mean you're past your teens and twenties, when people typically are open to exploring a wider variety of people than are people in their thirties and beyond, who typically have had enough experience and learned from that experience to narrow down their criteria and to want someone who already fits the criteria. Of course, maybe age isn't directly related. I've met people in their late thirties and beyond who didn't have much dating experience, were married for ten or more years, and once the marriage ended, they were innocent-like and clueless regarding dating and their criteria for a partner.

I read earlier messages in the thread about trying to manipulate someone into fitting our dating criteria. I agree that we all manipulate people. "Manipulate" has a negative connotation in ordinary language, but it has a positive one in child development (a child learning to manipulate his environment learns that he has an effect on the world around him) and in research (manipulate an environmental variable to alter behavior). However, I wonder if dating is very different from those contexts. I am repelled by the thought of manipulating someone into becoming my ideal "date" or partner, just as I am repelled by someone doing that to me.

Have you heard of The Pygmalion Project? It's a book series based on how people try to get their "loved" ones to become the same temperament as their own, but the general principle behind it can apply to trying to get someone to be like you in other ways, not just in temperament. Trying to change what may be someone's inborn characteristics (like temperament) is different from trying to change their learned behavior in ways that benefit them and everyone though. I guess if you're manipulating well enough, the other person won't feel resentful, because they won't know you're manipulating at all.

So this is basically the version of my story above, but with an added level of insidiousness. I apologize on behalf of my gender.

Ha. I've been wondering if it's more likely a male than female phenomenon to lie about being vegan (or at least open to it) in order to get a date. I doubt any studies will be conducted on this. I just have anecdotes. I experienced a similar event twice when I was vegetarian, where two males on OkC claimed to be mostly vegetarian, only to reveal in one way or another that they weren't.

Maybe I should attend one of the local vegan MeetUps, though the membership seems to be mostly 50+.

I wonder if your location has something to do with it. I'm in the S.F. Bay Area, where there seems to be a higher number of vegans than most other cities in the U.S. I've seen a wide range of ages in most vegan Meetups here.

I haven't found a Meetup, dating site, or other group designed to get people to meet in-person for vegan atheists, secular vegans, rational vegans or anything like that. I agree with brimsoneSalad in other threads about the limitations of two-issue groups or multiple-issue groups. I considered creating my own Meetup for rational vegans, but I figured it would attract a very small number of people. I might still try something like it when I'm done with school though.

Seachants wrote:I am repelled by the thought of manipulating someone into becoming my ideal "date" or partner, just as I am repelled by someone doing that to me.

There's a difference between superficial manipulation to try to mold somebody into your ideal date -- say, you like blonde hair, so you get your S.O. to bleach, and basically mold his or her entire appearance to your whim -- and getting another to become an objectively better human being, for his or herself and others. Losing weight, getting in shape, eating better, being more sustainable, learning to cook, etc. These are good and useful things that are reasonable to expect.

I don't mind somebody trying to get me to become an objectively better human being -- in fact, that would be excellent. Sometimes I need encouragement to exercise more, for example, or get off the computer for an hour now and then.

Seachants wrote:Trying to change what may be someone's inborn characteristics (like temperament) is different from trying to change their learned behavior in ways that benefit them and everyone though. I guess if you're manipulating well enough, the other person won't feel resentful, because they won't know you're manipulating at all.

Right. I once had to explain to somebody why I'd expect a date to go vegan, but I wouldn't change to eat meat -- one is objectively better. For the same reason I'd be willing to pick up a sport and would understand a reasonable reluctance to quit a healthy habit in an S.O.

Some things are objectively better than others, and we should all make each other better people by encouraging each other to adopt our good traits, rather than (as it is more often) worse people by adopting each other's bad habits.

A smoking vegan plus a non-smoking meat eater will probably result in two smoking meat eaters, when it should result in two non-smoking vegans.

Seachants wrote: I wonder if your location has something to do with it. I'm in the S.F. Bay Area, where there seems to be a higher number of vegans than most other cities in the U.S. I've seen a wide range of ages in most vegan Meetups here.

Don't pin all of your hopes on one city/region, even a large one like the Bay area. Rational vegans are few and far between, which means sometimes we need to be willing to travel for a good match.

I talked a little about this in the Having a Girlfriend thread ( https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... =15&t=1557 ) and Miniboes' update thread ( https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... 83&p=17546 )

Seachants wrote: I haven't found a Meetup, dating site, or other group designed to get people to meet in-person for vegan atheists, secular vegans, rational vegans or anything like that.

Then why not make this one? I've met people on forums.

And look at this!
https://www.google.com/flights/#search; ... 2016-02-08

$99 for a round trip from SFO to DEN (where we happen to know a very eligible and intelligent single vegan atheist man lives).
Just saying. It's worth exploring a potential connection, even if it's across the country.

Seachants wrote:
Re: ambiguously religious spritualism. Can you elaborate on that (the combination of all three words)?

That was a bit word salad-y. I guess I really meant ambiguously theistic. Seemingly spiritual in only a naturistic or consciousness-expanding sense, but then uncomfortable with the topic of atheism when broached. I guess just saying 'agnostic' would have been simpler. Even my best friend, a guy more intelligent than myself, refuses to accept there might not be a man in the sky.

I have met more vegans who call themselves "spiritual but not religious" than those who call themselves religious. I wonder if there really are more in the former category. I haven't found a clear definition of spirituality. Among those calling themselves "spiritual but not religious," 92% still claim a belief in God, according to a 2012 Pew Research Center survey (I haven't found more recent stats.) It sounds counterculture in a country where most people call themselves religious. However, the approach to spirituality among most of these people I've met (vegan or not) is similar to how self-proclaimed religious people approach religion. All but one of the vegans I found on PlanetEarthSingles were into supernatural spirituality, and that site doesn't seem like a place for secular people. A vegan friend recently started talking like she believes in the Law of Attraction, that somehow the universe "knows" our thoughts and "aligns" them with events in our lives. For some spiritual people, the word "God" just seems to be replaced with "Universe" or "Source," and they attribute to the universe many of the same supernatural qualities that they would to a god.

Yeah, this pretty much nails the type I was trying to describe.

Even secular spirituality can really be spiritual bypassing. Are you familiar with that term? Robert Augustus Masters, among others, wrote about it. I was aware of the phenomenon but didn't know the term until recently. Some people with any kind of psychological or behavioral problem turn to a belief system, whether they call it spirituality or religion, as a fix for their problems, but it becomes an escape from them. The religion or spirituality becomes a homogeneous feel-good blanket, covering up personal idiosyncrasies and stunting personal development. They might say the same oversimplified catchphrases, like how they love everyone, and try to stay "positive" all the time. An emotional event is like any other event inside of your body, which tells you information about yourself, often in relation to the world outside of yourself, and alerts you to something you need or want. I read from Todd Kashdan in The Upside to Your Darkside: "We believe— and new research supports— the idea that every emotion is useful. Even the ones we think of as negative, including the painful ones." A lot of the people I've met, vegan or not, who call themselves spiritual seem to have a self-concept based on how their spiritual/religious belief system dictates they should be more than how they actually are. Most of the vegans I've met who call themselves spiritual seem to be doing spiritual bypassing, but maybe not any more than non-vegans do it.

Very interesting. I suppose being a pod person ruled by a vague will to stay positive (picturing Delores Herbig from 'Dead Like Me') is better than the structured alternative wherein you try to remain positive while succumbing to all the antiquated and harmful directives of an ancient book. /run-on sentence

Have you heard of The Pygmalion Project? It's a book series based on how people try to get their "loved" ones to become the same temperament as their own, but the general principle behind it can apply to trying to get someone to be like you in other ways, not just in temperament. Trying to change what may be someone's inborn characteristics (like temperament) is different from trying to change their learned behavior in ways that benefit them and everyone though. I guess if you're manipulating well enough, the other person won't feel resentful, because they won't know you're manipulating at all.

Manipulation has different levels, and 'manipulating' someone into being vegan is definitely a worthy pursuit. I just so very much hate the word. Maybe when it's done with good intentions it should be called maneuvering? Haha.

I wonder if your location has something to do with it. I'm in the S.F. Bay Area, where there seems to be a higher number of vegans than most other cities in the U.S. I've seen a wide range of ages in most vegan Meetups here.

Yeah, the Bay Area and Portland seem to be vegan meccas. I'm in Denver which, given the supposed vitality of it's residents, has been slow to embrace veganism too broadly. There are a few amazing spots, however.

brimstoneSalad wrote: $99 for a round trip from SFO to DEN (where we happen to know a very eligible and intelligent single vegan atheist man lives).
Just saying. It's worth exploring a potential connection, even if it's across the country.

We've got a regular Chuck Woolery over here! If Seachants uses the same handle on Vegan Passions, the fact that I drink (and partake in other Colorado-based stereotypes) is probably a non-starter.

That being said, brimstoneSalad needs to be my ticket booking Sherpa for flights in general.