Gary Yourofsky

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Gary Yourofsky was (and in many ways still is) an immensely influential figure in the Vegan Community, and is credited with converting hundreds of thousands of people to Veganism. He initially started out his activist career by engaging in acts of civil disobedience, however, he eventually abandoned this method of activism in favor of an education-based approach. He gave lectures to tens of thousands of students, with some of them being recorded and becoming viral. His Georgia Tech speech is said to have converted 8% of Israel's population to veganism (from 5% to 13%), and this number doesn't even take into account all the others he's convinced all over the world (as his speeches have been translated into dozens of languages).

While Yourofsky has done more for veganism than almost anyone else, and has influenced many others to go into vegan activism, he is not without his share of faults... and there are many, many to list. While he has done so much for veganism, none of us here really consider him to be a particularly reliable source of information, especially when it comes to science and philosophy.

We can start with the good, but we really need to address the bad.

The Good

Effective Means of Activism

Promoting the purchase Vegan alternatives sold by non-vegan companies

The Maybe Bad

Holocaust Analogy

Opposition to animal Welfare Laws

The Bad

Anti-B12 Supplementation

Use of bad arguments

Gross-out arguments

Not acknowledging recidivism

Refusing to eat with non-vegans

Condemning people going Vegan for Health Reasons

Losing his cool

Against Helper Animals

The Very Bad =

Failure to recognize Moral Gradience

Alienating Views on Human Rights

Anti-GMO

The Very, Very Bad

Misanthropy

Advocacy of violence

Views on Justice

Failed career as a rapper