Convince Me Challenge Results and Anti-Vegan Arguments

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Dear readers,

A little over a week ago, I came up with a challenge which resulted to be a monumental failure.

I don’t think that it was because of the payout, because 5 SBD for the winner and 3 SBD for the second place seemed like an attractive bounty to me. So that only leaves the fact that it was a bit of a sensitive topic, as it involved an argument about ethics, and more specifically, it involved thinking about our behavior and evaluate whether it is right or wrong.

I know that this challenge probably wasn’t as appealing as talking about our bucket list or a funny memes challenges, but I hoped that it would spark an interesting debate nonetheless.

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This challenge was an attempt at raising awareness about animal cruelty in the meat industry.

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Unfortunately, none of the participants answered the question, and I was unable to pay out the reward. I will keep those SBD handy for anther contest I’ll organize in the future, which will probably be less philosophical (I really want to pay you guys!).

I personally love debating, because I think it’s a healthy exercise for the mind to come up with valid arguments to defend a point. Debating is a positive thing, and should not be confused with fighting or arguing.

When I was at University, my classmates and I were put in debate situations quite often, and we had to defend or condemn topics like the Hiroshima bombing on a regular basis. The exercise was not meant to just defend our opinion, we had to be able to argue for both sides, even if we didn’t agree with them. I believe that this exercise of “putting ourselves in the other party’s shoes” develops our critical thinking.

That's what I'm hoping to achieve here, only that I'm asking you to put yourself in an animal's "shoes" instead.

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Thankfully, a good amount of steemians did participate, and exposed some interesting arguments about why they still eat meat, or think humans in general should eat meat. Some of these arguments I had heard before, but others were a complete surprise to me. Please allow me to respond to some of the arguments I’ve come across, and maybe we can keep discussing (not arguing!) this topic in the comment section =)

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Argument 1: Plants feel pain too

Dear non-vegans, I’m starting with this one, because it’s my least favorite argument I hear from carnists.

Usually the conversation goes like this:

• VEGAN: You should stop eating animal products to prevent animals from suffering a torturous life and horrendous living conditions
• NON-VEGAN: Well plants feel pain too! You won’t have anything to eat if you think like that

First of all, bringing up one problem to neutralize another doesn’t work. You’ve just given me a totally different subject of discussion, which is entirely unrelated to the first one, meaning animal suffering. One species’ suffering cannot justify another.

It would be the equivalent of saying “what Hitler did to the Jews was horrible, we should fight antisemitism”, and someone answering “well the Tutsi in Rwanda suffered too”.

Now, I’m not comparing the Tutsi to plants, but I’m trying to make you see how this response doesn’t really make sense. I’m not saying that plants cannot feel pain (who knows!), but we’re talking about mammals here, who can cry, scream, play, communicate, be affectionate, and are intelligent sentient beings.

Argument 2: Humans have been eating meat for centuries

This wasn’t a history debate, and I honestly don’t know what humans ate hundreds of years ago. I also don’t care because many aspects have changed for the better for humanity since then.

We’ve made progress with regards to technology, medicine, nutrition and science in general. We live longer, we have toilets, showers, cars, basic human rights in most countries, and we generally treat our people and animals better today than we did hundreds of years ago. We now have animal rights associations and even animal protection laws in place, which did not exist “centuries ago” . Today you can actually go to prison for harming a domestic animal. Now we just need to take it a step further, and also include farm animals in these laws.

More importantly, we did not mass produce meat for centuries, that’s just something we’ve decided to do recently for profit. Therefore, what happened before doesn't justify how we live today, and it is something that can and should be changed.

Argument 3: Protein

I will not go into much detail about this one, because it’s basic mathematics. Google different plants and grains, check how many grams of protein they contain, and make sure to have your daily recommended value. It’s that simple. There are plenty of high level athletes who live on a plant based diet and are killing it, so there’s absolutely no reason to question the fact that they have all the nutrients the body needs, and more.

If you need to take a supplement for something (say B12 for instance), that’s no biggie. Most of us already took supplements before changing our diet, so I consider this to be a non-issue.

Argument 4: Farm animals would not exist if we didn’t eat them!

Ok, so this one truly baffled me. Not one, but several people have told me that they believed that it is still better for an animal to be born for a purpose which is to die miserably, than not being born at all.

Now I'm trying really hard take this one seriously, but it’s difficult.

• Do you think that a cow who has not been born knows that it has never been born?
• Do you think that the cow who has never lived is sad that it couldn’t live?
• Do you think that one can think if one has not ever had a brain to think?

Argument 5: Humans are born carnivores, like lions!

I have 4 cats, and as much as I love them, I do not see any similarities between myself and my feline friends. They are furry, have extremely pointy teeth and sharp nails. They also walk on all fours, and have a tail, and if you put a vegetable in front of them, they’ll give you the stink eye.

Humans, however, look more like gorillas who are 100% vegan, since we're playing the game of comparing humans to animals. Humans may eat meat, but also eat their fruits and veggies. Gorillas or apes in general may not be good looking according to human standards, but the physical and behavioral similarities are undeniable.

You can also not discount the importance of basic instincts in order to determine whether we are more like lions or gorillas. Any child would want to pet an animal, and be reluctant to kill it, if asked. That's because we don't have that killer instinct in us. We just learn that eating meat is normal, and aside from hobby hunters, I don't think any human being would be capable of slaughtering an animal unless their life depended on it.

As Harvey Diamond brilliantly put it “You put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit. If it eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car.”

Finally, unlike lions, humans can choose whether or not they eat meat, whereas a lion would die without it. The reality is we like the taste of meat, and that's about it.

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These are the most common arguments vegans hear on a regular basis, and I’m sure there are plenty of memes to be found to ridicule us. I realize that this post will probably attract many haters, and that is not the goal. I hope that you can take this with a sense of humor. But if you want to debate about it, I'm all ears. Just remember, vegans are not the enemy. We're just a bunch of idealistic people trying to achieve justice for those who don't have a voice.

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