Philosophical Vegan Forum

If you watch youtube videos, and anything to do with veganism, im sure Vegan Gains needs no introduction.

Since he produces a lot of videos, Im reaching out to the community here for some assistance. If you have a moment, and are willing to help me collect his arguments to critique, here is what I need:
1) the name of the video (and link)
2) the time stamp of the particular comment you think I should address

What are your thoughts on his approach to vegan activism?

I'm extremely familiar with the guy, and the title and general subject should effective vegan advocacy, as the guy seems to be unfamiliar with the concept. Not only that, he has expressed desires to kill Mr. Repzion, and his points have boiled down to ad hominem attacks, with some science, and random conclusions.

My favorite videos to address regarding effective vegan advocacy would have to be these three, as he really seems to give vegans a shitty name
1. Trisha Paytas, by far the most stupid, and definitely worth mentioning video. I'm paraphrasing here but a quote from with in it are as followed, "Oh look, your boyfriend committed suicide, wonder why that would be." And "I hope you grow old, develop heart disease, and die, because that's all the fat, pathetic, fucking liar you are." These quotes are far from effective, and even got him onto the Drunken Peasants for them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-WLufpPla8

2. His grandfathers death.
In this video, he expresses anger that his family did not want to him to film his grandfather dying of disease, another statement that lead to him not being taken seriously, despite his cult following making him a front runner in the vegan community. His primary idea behind this is that filming his grandfathers stroke and saying "LOOK, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T GO VEGAN."

This video is not currently on his channel, but a mirror can be found here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWlrHhIGBLQ

3. Has to be a tie.
The furious Pete video is a good choice, because in it, he again begins to exploit the disease and potential death of another person, (And don't get me wrong, I despise the way furious Pete composes himself, and even makes t-shirts mocking animal cruelty.) which regardless of the person isn't ok. It is almost cancer shaming, although the process of oncogenesis is hardly diet related at all, sure making growth factors stronger through meat eating aides in cancer cell growth, but the growth hormones are useless with out signalling, which is caused by a number of reasons, many of them scientific unknowns.

The second being the video in which he literally expresses his desire to kill Repzion, in an obviously non-satirical manner, which happened on his twitch stream. (twitch is a streaming service for gamers, if you do not follow gaming.). I just watched it again, and it is cringeworthy beyond all belief.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEMIALVGMN4

In general, vegan gains has started preaching to the choir, while leaving all the rest more opposed to an idea they might even be generally acceptive of provided it was expressed to them in a less emotionally driven and annoying manner. What he is doing does nothing to benefit veganism, the kid is essentially Onision times 10.

Looking forward to the video

Video name: Humans aren't more important than animals. Time codes: 0:41 - 1:06 and/or 4:44 - 4:56.

I actually really like Vegan Gains. I prefer the more in-your-face vegans simply because most people rely on their emotions instead of their intellect and Vegan Gains, much like Gary Yourofsky, challenges people's emotions, which gets them to think hard about what he's saying. I can imagine someone being so mad about what was said by either of those guys that they just keep playing it back in their heads and arguing with it to themselves, but it eventually breaks through their defenses and just clicks. For some people, that takes a while, and other more immediately. I also like that he has his finger on the pulse of the fitness industry, which has a choke hold on society. His 'Worst of the Fitness Industry' series, I think, will eventually do a lot of good in freeing people from the deception there and, at least, help to bring people to the vegan lifestyle through health and fitness. It seems to be the trend that dietary vegans eventually learn of the moral side of the vegan lifestyle and gain a new appreciation for it.

I know a lot of people have an issue with the video about his grandfather's death, his beef with MrRepzion, and the thing with Furious Pete's cancer like the commenter above me, but I honestly view the grandfather one much like how movies like Earthlings show the graphic deaths of animals. Some people need to be shocked to receive the message. The same thing with Furious Pete's cancer. Vegan Gains is trying to be as blunt and graphic with it because it's a perfect opportunity to say, 'SEE?! THIS COULD BE YOU! WAKE UP!' And I totally respect that. His comments toward Repzion shouldn't be taken any more seriously than internet trolls that say the same thing to people they're mad at and never do anything they've said. People vent their anger like that. This is the internet age and people vent out loud where everyone can see/hear it. Vegan Gains also addressed his statements in 'Who am I going to kill?' saying that he wasn't going to kill anyone. Everyone has violent thoughts about other people. Bashing Vegan Gains for being honest about it is just stupid. People bash Gary Yourofsky and say that his way of doing this isn't effective, but the evidence proves otherwise. Just because you personally don't like his attitude doesn't mean he's doing anything wrong. Different methods work for different people.

I applaud you for this. Will this be an overall critique of his videos, or just one video?.. I assume the former.

He's done two videos on Furious Pete getting cancer. This doesn't sit well with a lot of people, including vegans.
Points to address:
- 0:55 He says something along lines of "you can't argue with science, and it seems I was right because PETE GOT CANCER AGAIN."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okd3vFUwqj4

He made a video on why he supports violence against humans.
Points to address:
... Not really sure. He's just openly a sadist, and in an interview admits he's a sociopath. No real argument. However, he's a piece of shit. I think his advocacy often hurts veganism. He says something like "Well, who can blame me when 98% of the people I come across are supporting THIS *cuts to animal cruelty*".. He's using his veganism as a reason to hate people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP0NRgDhrfY

He made a video recommending Vegan youtube channels.
Points to address:
- He didn't mention TheVeganAtheist. (;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYtDiJdg18c

My views on his approach are VERY similar to my views on the Gary Yourofsky. It does more harm than good and causes attitude polarization.
This is a good paper, with a neat diagram on how the way information is presented to a person can influence whether they believe it or if it reinforces false information that they already believe.
https://dornsife.usc.edu/assets/sites/7 ... mation.pdf

Thanks all for the suggestions. I will make a compilation video showcasing a number of different comments he has made in his different videos. If you come up with more ideas, please post them here.

I'll try to bingewatch some Vegan Gains today. He has definitely said some fucked up things and it's good that you're making a critique of him.

In the same interview where he says he believes health care professionals are hiding a link between vaccines and autism, but in part two, he says eating high fat causes the oil to seep out of your skin and cause acne.

It kind of seems like he picks and chooses on science quite a bit.
He has cited some legitimate studies, but elsewhere makes stuff up or borrows nonsense from within the worst of the raw or whatever community.

EmperorPalpatine wrote:It is almost cancer shaming, although the process of oncogenesis is hardly diet related at all,

Yet it still is, even though there are other things that cause cancer too. You just need the right kind of DNA damage, which could have come from a stray carcinogen from dietary meat (probably) or its by-products from fermentation, metabolic by-products from any source (even fruit or veggies), environmental carcinogens, or even ionizing radiation. Even a cell just screwing up during normal replication for no clearly identifiable reason beyond the inherent chaos of chemical (and quantum, at such a small scale) processes.

As you noted, once the DNA damage has occurred, hormonal factors for growth (and immune response) are predominant, which are also strongly modulated by diet (and genetics, along with other lifestyle factors). It's not accurate to disregard these as "not causes", because when we're talking about somebody "having cancer", we're talking about virulent, life-threatening cancer, not just abnormal cells that don't do anything or that get eliminated by the immune system. So, those conditions being right are an essential part of the causal chain as well.

That whole clique kind of jumped on that, and it was an assumption on their part which they should have prefaced with something like "probably". In that context, though, they probably weren't factually wrong (it was a reasonable guess).
Calling somebody out like that when he just got news of his cancer may not be effective activism, though.

I think it's best to just focus on the research he uses or the claims he makes, and point out where is right or wrong.

I wouldnt spend time dealing with his inflammatory comments, since he just uses those to create controversy and attention. It's just part of the troll persona he has online. I think he is deliberately hypocritical with regards to his views on humans/animals, because that will often provoke a response from people that in turn makes them look like hypocrites too. By behaving like a sociopath towards humans he shows that people are sociopaths themselves when it comes to animals. Is his style entirely ethical? Most definitely not. Is it effective? Yes

knot wrote:By behaving like a sociopath towards humans he shows that people are sociopaths themselves when it comes to animals. Is his style entirely ethical? Most definitely not. Is it effective? Yes

Depends what you mean by effective. In getting views/money? Definitely. For promoting veganism? I think not. It's fun for a lot of vegans to watch, but just a glance at the like/dislike ratio, or scrolling through the comments gives a pretty good idea of what the majority of meat-eaters think of him/his-videos and often generalize it to "most vegans" - especially when most of his fans defend him. It creates a very US vs. THEM attitude. Which is not what we're trying to create at all.

brimstoneSalad wrote:
That whole clique kind of jumped on that, and it was an assumption on their part which they should have prefaced with something like "probably". In that context, though, they probably weren't factually wrong (it was a reasonable guess).
Calling somebody out like that when he just got news of his cancer may not be effective activism, though.

Yes, and no, however my point mainly was that making such videos is utterly irrelevant, and ineffective. That being said, there isn't data suggesting that pre-middle aged cancer can reliably be caused by dietary factors. The problem I have with VGs video is that he said verbatim "Yeah, so basically, cancer is a preventable disease caused by animal products...." And then went on to talk about furious Pete which is moronic. Chronic states of oxidative stress and inflammation are causations of DNA damage, however the compounds in meat such as heme-iron and L-carnitine and its conversion to TMAO are the only two that cause DNA damage, besides overcooking meat. That being said, probable isn't even the word I'd use, seeing as their are so many other possible causes. For instance, remaining in the pollutant camp of cancer research is medically ignorant, as viruses have clearly been linked as clear and irrefutable causations of certain cancer, including testicular. The important thing to remember is that testicular cancer is a rare condition, making up only 2% of cancer cases and it's causes are not cut and dry. This however is largely irrelevant, as calling someone out for having cancer is an action demonstrating a clear lack of empathy to the outside world, which is important to acknowledge and realize. All this did was preach to the choir, and inneffectively at that.