u/Apprehensive_Cap4463

I'm a vegan for about a year, but I have lately been struggling to argue against the idea that veganism as it is usually practiced is an arbitrary line when I consider the rise of cultivated meat and precision fermentation. Why? Because the same argument for continuing to buy food from non-veganic farms can be used to justify the consumption of animal products that can be lab-grown. Most of these animal foods aren't on the market yet, but a few already are, so this is not just theoretical tech hype, and it is absolutely going to become a very important thing for us to figure out as these products become more popular.

Let's consider the ethical implications of eating field-grown tomatoes vs those of eating a bag of sunchips with whey powder in it. Vegans say a hard no to the chips, despite the fact that the whey powder is just a cheap byproduct, but eat the insect genocide tomatoes. Why? Because whey can't be produced without exploiting animals and tomatoes theoretically can. The mass gassing of insects is excusable as a necessary but unfortunate side effect of agriculture.

Except there's a problem. Whey can and IS being produced in vats by microbes. This is not far-off tech. Vegan whey powder is on the market NOW and you can buy it. On the other hand, tomatoes grown in controlled greenhouses exist and are even more available than field-grown year-round depending on where you live. So, isn't it wrong to eat a field grown tomato? When someone serves pico de gallo at a party, do you ask about where the tomatoes came from? Why not? If we're going to argue that pesticide use isn't morally relevant to our food choices because crops can be veganically produced, then it's on us to avoid crops grown using pesticides when possible and practical, just like we avoid lipstick that was tested on animals. Not doing so is simply being lazy or kicking the can down the road.

I am just so sick of seeing the same post three times a day in here that boils down to "I have values and my boyfriend doesn't care because meat tastes good, what do I do?". The answer is to break up. Please save yourselves the trouble. There's plenty if fish in the sea. If he won't engage with something so important to you as that, I promise there are tons of other things he does not respect about you. Of course it's almost never the other way around.

Over the past 8 years, I have been doing a lot of solo traveling. Growing up, I remember airports as this huge stressful build up and a lot of long waits in lines with frustrated relatives. Any time the topic comes up at a party or in popular culture/media they are treated like some sort of hell on earth.

Since traveling alone, I realize that airports can be very simple and fast if you do the tiniest amount of prep and research beforehand and know how to read signs and listen to directions.

Every single time I've gone through airports by myself, be they the main airport I fly out of (one of the busiest and largest in the world) or tiny airports with hardly any English speakers, it took me 20-30 minutes and I had no issues. Today I got through one in about 17 minutes.

The common denominator for bad airport experiences has always been that I'm with other people who are either unprepared, terrible at packing efficiently, made dumb touristy choices, or can't read clear signage plastered all over the place.