of course, i'm the radical one (or worse: the killjoy) when i actually say the above to real people in actual meatspace.

'no thank you' is the appropriate response to an invitation to murder, and silence is the appropriate response to witnessing a murder. 'i'm not a murderer' is a bit of a faux pas.

#vegan

In more seriousness, I struggle with the above a lot. Most (well, all) of my non-vegan friends are all right. I like them. They're cool, funny, witty, happy, lovely, and many things I aspire to be.

But it's so hard to not feel conflicted. When you've correctly reached the moral stance that maybe murder is bad, it's hard to put on a smile and say 'oh no, you go on ahead at the barbecue, I don't care, I'll just have the sad salad'.

But I do care. That's the thing. It's fine for me to make my own moral choices when it comes to, I don't know, how much I want to reap the benefits of American cultural imperialism by watching the newest hot film or not. But murder? Abstaining from murder is a _moral imperative_ that's rather a bit more serious.

But if I were to treat my beliefs seriously—actually seriously—I'd be a stark raving mad lunatic shouting at people to stop stuffing murder victims down their throats like holy shit what are you sadistic fucks doing?

But I like having friends, so I treat my rather sane and reasonable belief of 'murder is bad' less than a hundredth as seriously as maybe I should.

#vegan

@carmenbianca I'm convinced most people would be vegan if they were forced to kill animals they consume themselves.

Just like someone would be repulsed by the idea of slaughtering a dozen people with a machete.

The abstraction makes killing easy, regardless if mechanized killing of livestock or drone warfare.

I think that's the problem... People being distamced and alienated from what they consume.

@elr @carmenbianca you mean people that would still breed horses, cats, dogs and the like for enjoyment and profit, disregarding the fact that we don't need them as tools and that they've been obsoleted?

Yeah I know these exist...