One of the funniest things I have read in a long time.

Also, very good food for thought. Example:

> If you separate people from their families, their races, their traditions and who they actually are, you can engineer TV shows, sports teams, activist movements and a million other things for them to identify with and worship. Modernism pretends to liberate people from arbitrary traditions and authorities, when in reality is substitutes natural, emergent morals with controlled authorities.

Probably true. What else is Facebook if not natural human relationships, highly processed, repackaged and sold to you for profit?

Very interesting read for me. I found myself laughing along with all the bits that are so true - yet at the same time cringing at the dissonance it provokes in me as a "Digital Vegan".

Yes, it's about _actual_ food. But the essay is about culture. And without irony, Digital Veganism (which is a powerful metaphor of technological health [1]) is in fact a _conservative_, cautious stance. It eschews the breathless zealotry of solutionism that stamps all over age-old human traditions of dating, spending money, reading, talking to each other, and labels all dissent as "neo-Luddism".

I had never thought of digital technology as a post-modern "leftist" force, but now some parallels are clearer.

The dissonance comes because I admire Vegans (even though I am not one - but sometimes consider the lifestyle) Taking a principled stand against a mad world is the chief quality missing in society today.

I believe in vocal minorities (like Kosher eaters, 3% or whatever) who are so important for change. All change depends upon the unreasonable man etcetera. It was Cody Brown's funny dismissal of people who try to be in control of their technology, responsible about it, but cause awkwardness for others that inspired the title - because that's how I feel in so many situations when trying to be the "grown-up" about technology.

I try to eat a balanced diet. Veganism may be good or bad. But the spirit of Veganism is something to be celebrated. We need much more, not less of that attitude.

[1] https://digitalvegan.net

> you can't even eat in most non-urban places or foreign countries because the insane concept of not cooking with animal fats and eating and using animal products just doesn't exist. You have to survive holding your breath from one hipster downtown area to the next.

I don't know about their vegan traditions, but vegetarianism has been big in India for at least 3000 years. It sounds like tradition to me, religious (Jewish and Muslims do not eat pork, Hindus do not eat cows), and something outside a hipster downtown area.

I suppose going to McDonald's and eating a super-processed burger from some chemical injecting factory farms in the antithesis of "bugman".

Man, the level of contempt for difference - and the desperation to justify that contempt with some sort of reason - is really astonishing here. What an unhinged piece of garbage.

Not a vegan. But this is a load of nonsense from someone who seems to be masking his own problems through writing rage.

Plant based diets are better for the environment. Currently the level of meat intake is both bad for our health and for the environment.

Yes, cows, pigs and chicken aren't "natural". Unfortunately, because of industrialized farming we're eating animals that literally live in shit and get a lot of antibiotics into them. The environmental pollution of industrial farming harms you even if you only eat organic.

People are Omnivores. That means we can choose what to eat especially in this modern age where nutrition is better understood. Some vegan food is great but I need my pizza... I can actually live with most vegan burgers today, they aren't the best but to save the environment and a few grams of fat... Worth it.

I dunno man... "You can't hunt or trap for food or raise animals, even for eggs. "

I have to confess, I don't do those things! I just... I just dial for pizza!

I feel I am trapped between two groups of loons.