Philosophical Vegan Forum

*MODERATOR NOTE*
This user's posts fit the pattern of a persistent troll in the online vegan comminity, Pyrobotnik from youtube, who joins forums and makes up elaborate stories where he plays the role of the reasonable omnivore in the face of an insane or extreme vegan he has come to discuss or ask advice about. These stories sometimes but not always feature mysterious health problems. He does not discuss veganism or the arguments themselves, avoiding all discussion/debate of science or philosophy, but focuses on fabricating characters that represent vegans in a negative light.
On this forum he has also registered as bigbossomni, deadeye, and satansride72.
Everything he says should be assumed to be pure fiction unless or until the poster's ID can be confirmed by administration.

My wife and I have been married for 14 years and together for 24 years. We have a beautiful home with 5 beautiful kids.
Everything should be perfect, right?
My wife became a vegan 6 years ago and has slowly became more and more for the want of a better word, militant.
About 1 year ago my wife announced that if I did not agree to become vegan as well we couldn’t have a future. Her exact words were “I can’t be with a non vegan” and “knowing you have eaten meat and dairy makes you repulsive to me” and also unbelievably “I have lost all respect for you because you eat meat”. This is despite the fact that I have worked my fingers to the bone for the last 20 years to give my wife and kids everything they need and desire and so my wife could give up work and be a full time mum to our young family. Something we both wanted. Obviously this news devastated me. Consequently I have tried so hard to do what she has demanded. Put simply, if I do not conform to my wife’s new hard line vegan belief system my marriage is over. Everything I have ever worked for is gone. My beautiful family, gone. My beautiful wife who I still love deeply and adore despite in my opinion her unreasonable and unfair demands, gone. I have tried to be vegan now for well over 6 months. I am not a vegan and never wanted to be. It’s making me resentful and withdrawn. It’s making me unhappy. Surely I deserve better than this? My wife forces this on to me and our 5 kids. Until recently there was no sign of any meat or dairy in my house. I have had to stand up for my son and ask that he at least has some ham in the fridge for a sandwich and the occasional pepperoni pizza in the freezer. This is because my son detests vegan food and his point blank refusal to be vegan was causing daily arguments. My 4 daughters are all happily vegan and I’ve never done anything but encourage this as I am happy if my wife and daughters are happy. But, my wife never consulted me about my kids new vegan diet, she just made it happen. Truth is I’ve never stood in my wife’s way. I love her and have always strived to be a good husband and encouraged things that made her happy.
Anyway, long story short I am miserable. I’m in my forties and I feel my right to choose has been taken away from me. I am told what I can and can’t consume. I miss all the foods I loved before. Please believe me, I have tried to be vegan. I have tried so hard. I really want to remain with my wife and kids. But What happened to people having their own right to choose what they want to do with their lives? My wife feels no regret or remorse in the way she is making me feel. She refuses to compromise or even bend in any way whatsoever. It’s her way or the high way. She expects me to live with it with no discussion. Consequently, after months of unhappiness I snapped and moved out of our family home. I think my marriage may be over. I am gutted.
So my question is this?
Do all vegans feel this strongly?
Could I be hypnotised to become vegan? Should I?
Is there any hope that my wife could soften her vegan stance?
How do I convince her to even try?
Should I just give up and let go?
Do vegans agree she is being unreasonable?

I know what you will say, be vegan, it’s great, it’s healthy, it’s the future.
Please, I have heard it all before. Constructive comments and advice please. I just would like some input from vegans and non vegans so I can work out what the hell I am going to do.

Hello, Robert.
First of all, calm the fuck down. Maybe try meditation. Your wife oughta calm the fuck down too. And please use more paragraphs too, and improve your formatting.

From what I've gathered, if this were an AITA post, I'd probably give this one ana "Everyone Sucks Here" rating, and here's why. I'm gonna try keeping this short.

I'm going start off by explaining why your wife is an asshole in this situation.

I'm glad that you aren't taking the anti-vegan approach and responding to your wife in kind; She seems like a piece of work, and not a good representation of the majority of vegans. She might take it more extreme when discussing it with you since you're the husband which might create a more angry reaction (doesn't make it right of course). Ideally she should be more diplomatic with her approach, and be more understanding of why veganism is difficult for you. It seems like a large obstacle in you going vegan is probably your wife.

It's hard dealing with people like that and I do symphatize, but your wife appears to be set in her ways. After going vegan most will feel some sort of disilusionment and bitterness towards the world, frustrated at people's apathy and callous lifestyles, but this tends to go away with time. If she's been like this for six years, I wouldn't count on her changing any time soon.

I have a lot more to say about your wife's behavior, but she isn't going to take it from you, so this might be a stretch, but maybe you can get your wife on here, we'd love to talk some sense into her, and tell her how her behavior is ultimately hurting more animals than it helps.

Now let's get on to why I think you're also in the wrong here.

Robert wrote:I know what you will say, be vegan, it’s great, it’s healthy, it’s the future.
Please, I have heard it all before. Constructive comments and advice please.

This is giving me the impression that you aren't interested in hearing any arguments for veganism since you don't think they're important, but I assure you they are. Please bear with me, and read on with an open mind; I assure you, you have some misconceptions that need clearing up.

I assure you, there are plenty of vegans out there right now, who at one point didn't think we'd be able to give up meat. I was one of those, too, unable to imagine my life without chicken, milkshakes, ice cream. We loved animal products, and we ate them. A lot. Some of the biggest voices in veganism were once dedicated meat-eaters. We also laughed off veganism too, thinking it was some fringe thing. Until we saw the consequences.

Robert wrote:I’m in my forties and I feel my right to choose has been taken away from me. I am told what I can and can’t consume. I miss all the foods I loved before. Please believe me, I have tried to be vegan. I have tried so hard. I really want to remain with my wife and kids. But What happened to people having their own right to choose what they want to do with their lives?

I know I'm gonna get all preachy here, but to answer your concern, it's because your choices and lifestyle are negatively affecting other sentient beings.

Most of us here don't really give a shit if someone wants to destroy their own health, whether it'd be huffing gasoling or shooting up heroin. While we strongly discourage such behavior, if a person really wants to do such things, they ought to have every right to do so. We take no issues with personal choices like that.

We DO take issue with it however, when you are doing it at the expense of another being. The freedom to swing your first ends where the face of others begins. When you choose to buy animal products, meat, dairy, eggs, you are paying for the respective industries to abuse animals.

When you pay for eggs, you are supporting an industry that insists on cramming several chickens into one cage, forced to stew in their own waste, and also the grinding up of live male chicks (since they don't lay eggs). When you pay for milk and cheese, you're paying for female cows to be chained up their entire lives after they had their calves stolen from them. When you pay for bacon, you're giving people money to encage creatures that have roughly the same intelligence of a three year old human into crates so small they can't turn around, until they're eventually hung upside down and have their throats slit.

Let's also take into account that animal agriculture is a major driver of climate change, and is one that is completely unncecessary in the developed world. Climate change may hurt Westerners, but it's mostly going to kill people in poor countries, who for the record, contribute almost nothing as far as emissions are concerned.

That's who it's affecting.

Not only is meat bad for you (which also hurts our healthcare infrastructure), but the fact that it's hurting animals (and to an extent humans) too is the every definition of irrational.

I know you're probably thinking "This guy's just saying the same shit as my wife, I didn't come here just to hear it all again!" My question though, is what even is your response to it? Do you still insist that your consumption of animal products is harmless?

Your wife is being pretty shitty as I said, especially considering that she's doing that to her husband, but, and I know I'm gonna get accused of victim blaming here, from the sounds of it, you are not really making an effort to understand her position and her veganism; You appear to be resisting it, on a personal level, anyway. I think the reason why is because you seem to think it's all just a personal choice. It's harmless, right? No.

Robert wrote:My wife forces this on to me and our 5 kids.

In the same way she's forcing you all to not eat dog and cat meat?
Doesn't seem like your daughters feel as though they're being "forced" onto it.

I'm sure @brimstoneSalad might offer better advice when he's available, but my advice is to take time to understand the arguments against eating meat. Your wife is certainly not being rational or fair, but maybe it's because she doesn't feel as though you're listening to what she has to say. You might've tried veganism for a few months, but you clearly didn't see any reason to give it up, and maybe that's the problem. If you don't want to discuss it with your wife (understandable) we'd be glad to discuss it, here, and we'll also be glad to offer advice on how to transition to veganism easier. Otherwise, you might have to kiss your marriage and children goodbye.

Love does not conquer all though, so if things go south, well, just be ready for that in case it does happen.

I'd rather this be a new thread, but when it comes to veganism, It's mostly just changing your eating habits, and eating filling foods. A mistake many first time vegans make is they eat mostly fluff like lettuce and shit. Please let us know what foods you were eating during those six months were, that may be at the root of the problem.

I like to bring up this video from time to time, wherein Penn Jillette (who before could reasonably be called an anti-vegan) explains how he reprogrammed his tastebuds and switched to a (mostly) vegan diet (and he has gone on record to say he's since become an ethical vegan).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NelIXCuuSZ0

Hi mate.
Thanks for your reply.
Just to clarify, I do get it. I have had countless conversations about this with my wife and watched many programmes about it. I understand the argument. I understand that it’s healthy and I understand that animal welfare is a huge issue. I understand that it’s upsetting for my wife and for vegans. I have always been supportive and would never belittle her beliefs.
In my wife’s defence she swears she is being like this because she cares and wants me to be healthy. She says she’s doing this from a position of love.
But it doesn’t feel like love and it’s still not easy for me. Old habits die hard. I have lived this way for over 40 years. I am surrounded by meat eaters on a daily basis who cannot even comprehend my wife’s attitude towards my reluctance to toe her vegan line. They all think she’s crazy to treat me like this.
This is not an excuse. It’s hard. I struggle to find any food I can eat that I find satisfying during the working day. This depresses me. I’m not a fussy eater, I like all fruit and veg and I eat lots of it but I can’t get by just on a work lunch box full of fruit and crisps. I do not enjoy eating vegan alternatives like vegan cheese, chicken or pretend ham. This is just processed crap and is just as bad for me as meat. I struggle to even enjoy a sandwich. Peanut butter or strawberry jam seem to be my only choices unless I want to eat something plant based pretending to be meat which in my experience is processed, tastes bad and it’s texture is off putting.
Fortunately, my wife is a great cook and our evening vegan meals are usually great. Flavoursome and healthy. I am happy to eat this food and I tell her so regularly.
I so want to be vegan and to be happy about it. But I can’t do it purely because I have been instructed to do so. I need to be doing this because I want to. I have tried so hard to live this way. I’ve tried so hard to save my marriage. To take on board and embrace this new way of life.
But the truth is it’s not making me happy.
Surely, ultimately my wife should strive to make me happy like I do for her? This doesn’t feel like love. It feels like control.
She refuses to understand or compromise.
Ultimately this comes down to freedom. I need to be free to make my own choices and no matter what another persons opinion is I still have a right to choose. I only have one life and I need to be happy or what’s the point? All of the other once wonderful aspects of my marriage are disintegrating before my eyes. This is because the resentment is growing and because I am becoming more and more withdrawn I am certain it is mutual. Why can’t she see that this is hurting us all so much and destroying our lives. A compromise, some acceptance, some understanding and some love would go a long way to helping us to stay together for the sake of my kids and the sake of my sanity and happiness.

Hi Robert, I think you're probably another user called Pyrobotnik because you fit the pattern of his posts:

This user's posts fit the pattern of a persistent troll in the online vegan comminity, Pyrobotnik from youtube, who joins forums and makes up elaborate stories where he plays the role of the reasonable omnivore in the face of an insane or extreme vegan he has come to discuss or ask advice about. These stories sometimes but not always feature mysterious health problems. He does not discuss veganism or the arguments themselves, avoiding all discussion/debate of science or philosophy, but focuses on fabricating characters that represent vegans in a negative light.
On this forum he has also registered as bigbossomni, deadeye, and satansride72. There have been a few others too.
Everything he says should be assumed to be pure fiction unless or until the poster's ID can be confirmed by administration.

To my recollection we have not ever had any actual omnivore users who have come here for help who did not turn out to be said troll. It's just not something people do when they have a problem with a vegan (find an obscure online forum to post about it on and ask vegans their opinions). That doesn't mean you're wrong to post here IF on the off change you're a real person, but you should understand our skepticism since we've never seen anything like this except from trolls.

I'd like to hear from @NonZeroSum and @StraightVege on this one.
@NonZeroSum I hope you'll consider putting your article back up, or letting me mirror it in the form of a wiki article so it can be linked to and serve as a resource for others. I think this post is good enough reason to believe he has violated his agreement to end his troll campaign.

Robert, If on the very slim chance you are not Pyrobotnik, you're welcome to contact me privately and send me evidence that you are not (like a video of you saying who you are and affirming this post is yours, and a link to social media, since we know what Pyrobotnik looks like).
Since the forum isn't very active right now I'm tempted to welcome any traffic, but I don't think Pyrobotnik's form of activity is helpful (nor does he, which is why he does it).

On a philosophical note regarding the crux of the (probably fabricated) issue in this post: if somebody who knows the right thing to do and does not do it because of ego (such as the principle of somebody giving an ultimatum or trying to coerce him or her), that person is not a good person. You may think it makes you in the right to acknowledge the arguments of veganism but refuse to go vegan on principle, but it really just makes it worse if you don't have any other theoretical or philosophical misgivings beyond ego of not wanting be be told to do the right thing.
We might reserve judgement when we're dealing with literal petulant children who don't want to share their toys when mommy says, because they're children and not fully developed, but you're a fully grown man. You should have done the right thing when you realized it was the right thing to do, and you missed you chance. Maybe she didn't give you the chance to do it on your own and you resent that, and that's unfortunate for you, but if you think you *would* have eventually done it on your own maybe you should just say so, and do it, and then go to therapy to figure out why you have a hang up about it. I know it's a blow to the ego to be wrong. It's something grownups have to deal with. But changing and being right in the end after correcting your behavior should only benefit your self image in the long run.

As to the "bad vegan behavior" Pyrobotnik likes to feature: Activism that involves coercion and ultimatums is also in practice just not usually good activism, so we may call that party in error too regarding tactics, but she is not here to represent herself (if she even exists).

@Red probably already basically covered all of this regarding bad activism (sorry Red, didn't have time to read your reply fully).

Heh, let's see if my suspicions are confirmed then: If Robert is able to verify himself I'll respond to his reply to me. If he doesn't reply at all, we'll take that as a concession that it is indeed pyrobotnik. And even getting him to send a video might be dicey, since he easily could just get a friend to record a video saying it's legit.

Odd comments like these in particular (other than the entire theme) make me think it's not serious:

Robert wrote: ↑Sun Sep 11, 2022 5:43 pm Could I be hypnotised to become vegan? Should I?

And comments like these are in line with Pyro's disinterest in discussing actual vegan issues:

Robert wrote: ↑Sun Sep 11, 2022 5:43 pmI know what you will say, be vegan, it’s great, it’s healthy, it’s the future.
Please, I have heard it all before. Constructive comments and advice please. I just would like some input from vegans and non vegans so I can work out what the hell I am going to do.

Instead deflecting to vegan behavior and force/militantism/freedom issues:

Robert wrote: ↑Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:24 am Just to clarify, I do get it. I have had countless conversations about this with my wife and watched many programmes about it. I understand the argument. I understand that it’s healthy and I understand that animal welfare is a huge issue. I understand that it’s upsetting for my wife and for vegans. I have always been supportive and would never belittle her beliefs.

But then he represents an unrealistic and obviously unhealthy/unsatisfying "vegan lunch" that can't be taken seriously:

Robert wrote: ↑Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:24 amIt’s hard. I struggle to find any food I can eat that I find satisfying during the working day. This depresses me. I’m not a fussy eater, I like all fruit and veg and I eat lots of it but I can’t get by just on a work lunch box full of fruit and crisps.

And blanket negative statements like this:

Robert wrote: ↑Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:24 amI do not enjoy eating vegan alternatives like vegan cheese, chicken or pretend ham. This is just processed crap and is just as bad for me as meat.

Pyro does this, making strong claims against vegan options but never willing to support his claims. Claims about mock meat being unheathy are a trend for antivegans and pyro, and he never defends them. Of course mock meats vary, but by their nutritional breakdown on average they're much healthier than meat -- even part of a healthy vegan diet.
Though if somebody wanted to avoid them due to irrational obsession with whole food only, are peanut better sandwiches not lunch options (he acknowledges them later)? Bean and pasts salads? Humus wraps? Etc.
You have to do intentional cherry picking to typify vegan food as chips and fruit.

It's also implausible that somebody would dislike all mock meats, it's very uncommon for people to have a problem with new generation mock meats (wich are widely praised by meat lovers) unless they just hate vegans and it's a psychological issue.

While there remains a narrowing taste preference for animal meat, plant based meats are widely consumed and enjoyed too:
https://foodinsight.org/wp-content/uplo ... r-2021.pdf

Only about 13% in that survey didn't want to eat them, and 9% was basically completely ignorant of them, which likely puts the OP in a very convenient 4% of the population which itself is dubiously educated.

Robert wrote: ↑Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:24 amThe only plausible I struggle to even enjoy a sandwich. Peanut butter or strawberry jam seem to be my only choices unless I want to eat something plant based pretending to be meat which in my experience is processed, tastes bad and it’s texture is off putting.

Sounds straight out of Pyro's mouth to me. Very dramatic first world problem.

Eat PB sandwiches every day VS melt down and blow up my life... hmmm...

Robert, on the off chance you're a real person we're glad to help you with lunch suggestions, but if you blew up like this at your wife you owe her an apology for being a hangry baby instead of asking her to help you find more things to pack for lunch. And you're going to need to recognize that mock meats are generally a healthy option and that normal people find them to be palatable so it's probably nothing but your bias influencing your taste perception here.

If this is Pyro, he just drops comments like these and doesn't defend them or try to solve the problem... so that's one way to gather some evidence in the Pyro vs not-Pyro question.

Robert wrote: ↑Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:24 amSurely, ultimately my wife should strive to make me happy like I do for her? This doesn’t feel like love. It feels like control.

Making you happy is not her job. Devoting your life to making another person happy does not a good person make you. It's more about not causing wanton suffering to other sentient being -- particularly when that knowledge becomes available to you.

She's not here to tell her side of it, so if she's real I don't want to go into it. Please invite her here if she's real, and we can hear both sides.

The freedom rant is like peak Pyro:

Robert wrote: ↑Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:24 amUltimately this comes down to freedom. I need to be free to make my own choices and no matter what another persons opinion is I still have a right to choose.

Rights are not real (unlike suffering), they're fragile cultural/social constructs. The most "real" right is still socially arbitrary, and that is rights based on human law in a given society. You have the legal right in this society to be a profoundly bad person objectively speaking -- that does not justify the choice or mean others should shield you from the social consequences of it.

Robert wrote: ↑Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:24 amI only have one life and I need to be happy or what’s the point?

Sounds like your ego is making you unhappy, and blowing up your family is making you unhappy. Sounds like if you dropped the ego you'd realize "free" choice is an illusion, everything has consequences, and the best consequences for you and those around you is to make the choice your wife is pushing you toward (resent the pushing though you may).

Robert wrote: ↑Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:24 amThis is because the resentment is growing and because I am becoming more and more withdrawn I am certain it is mutual.

The fix to that is hard but simple: swallow the bitter pill of pride, and let go of this delusion of "rights" and freedom that you're holding on to.

Even though you're probably Pyro, if you'd actually stick around for discussion we could help you understand the fundamental problems with your metaethics. Whatever is making you hate vegans so much that you make up these personalities, it's not benefitting your life. This career of anti-vegan trolling is not psychologically healthy, and it's probably a representation of some self doubt on some level.

Robert wrote: ↑Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:24 amWhy can’t she see that this is hurting us all so much and destroying our lives.

So dramatic. Most couples get divorced. People change. It's not a terminal prognosis.

You probably changed from your wife's perspective (if she exists). She married a good man who did what was right based on what he knew. You two discovered a new harm in the world you were ignorant of, and that good man stopped doing the right thing because it was hard. She may have seen him become a spoiled coward in her eyes who could not eat a PB sandwich every day and inexplicably threw a fit about preserving his freedom to cause wanton suffering to helpless animals because it's his choice.

I don't know your wife -- I'm 90% sure you're Pyro and he's an incel or something (so the apparent pseudo-valiant misogyny you display in the way you talk about her is in line with that) -- but I'm sure that if she did exist we'd hear quite a different story.

Robert wrote: ↑Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:24 amA compromise, some acceptance, some understanding and some love would go a long way to helping us to stay together for the sake of my kids and the sake of my sanity and happiness.

A lot of "my" in there, just saying.

We're not relationship councilors, and without your wife being here to share her side I don't think we can read anything else into this. But whether you're Pyro or not, we can give you tips on satisfying vegan lunch options, help you understand why mock meats are healthy options, and explain the underlying problems with your self-entitled egoist centered moral philosophy that is holding you back from being the good person I think you probably want to be (Pryo or not).

Wow
I’m not a troll.
I’m a normal 40 year old bloke in middle England who is having marital problems with my extreme vegan wife.
I wanted your help, hence the fucking title!
I do not need to prove anything to you.
Your suspicion is laughable
I just wanted some advice from vegans to see if I was being unreasonable?
You’ve proved your point. You have won. I get it.
You are unreasonable, just like my wife.
Instead of being normal rational people, you’re fucking weirdos.
You have done me a favour!
You have only further confirmed my biggest fear and that I’m right. My marriage is doomed!
There is no compromise or flexibility from you hypocritical dicks. I hoped to show this thread to my vegan wife to see if she could understand from a vegans perspective that maybe love, children, marriage and 25 years might be more fucking important than diet.
But even she would agree that you’re a bunch of wankers.
I can’t believe I wasted my time reaching out to you fucking morons.
I hope you enjoy replying to this and calling me a meat eating cunt.
I won’t be around to see it you fucking bell ends
Get a fucking life

Alright yeah it's pyro. Last time I'm gonna give a post like this the benefit of the doubt.
Even if we're wrong with our accusations, we still made arguments that could potentially help in the case you aren't a troll, so...

For anyone who is bothering to read, this is just an example of someone attempting to make vegans look bad. My and @brimstoneSalad's posts were rational, and answered his problems, even with our suspicions. If he genuinely was in a situation where he needed to worry about his marriage possibly ending, he'd stick around and prove his innocence.

And now that he's been called out he's given up and is probably gonna cry to the antivegan subreddit. Hey more power to him, not much to do with the NEET lifestyle anyway. Not sure how he thinks this is going to help the antivegan "movement" since I think anyone reading sees who's the petulant one.

The last reply in response to being called out is classic Pyro, drop a bunch of f-bombs and briefly rant about crazy vegans and then bolt without addressing any points.
We were open to the possibility of him being a real person, and had made arguments to that end in the off chance he was -- a normal human being would feel compelled to defend his or her own character, but this is only that -- a character, not a human being. So Pyro has no investment in this fantasy to defend. His only point here was to make what he believes to be an example of vegan extremism.

It should also be noted, he has a VERY similar IP address also to our recent racist Kwashiorkor:
http://philosophicalvegan.com/memberli ... ile&u=6174

Posting from the same service provider and IP subnetwork (only the last two numbers different, which is of course what often happens if you disconnect and reconnect your router).

This is unlikely to be a coincidence given how inactive the forum has been unless the two are roommates/neighbors and the racist told his deadbeat dad friend to go to this forum.
Two different trolls from the same network happened to find it, one a short while after the first was banned... if you hear hooves you think horse not zebra right?

(The IP is different from pyrobotnik / bigbossomni / / deadeye / Satansride / etc., but it's been a while so that's not surprising)

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Mon Sep 12, 2022 5:17 pm Similar IP address also to our recent racist Kwashiorkor:
http://philosophicalvegan.com/memberlis ... ile&u=6174

Posting from the same service provider and IP subnetwork (only the last two numbers different, which is of course what often happens if you disconnect and reconnect your router).

This is unlikely to be a coincidence.

Hm, so maybe my suspicions about Kwashiorkor were correct:

I wrote:I'm becoming increasingly convinced that you aren't a vegetarian or vegan, you're an antivegan troll who is trying to make the movement look like it's full of insane racist and misogynistic incels so as to undermine it. These remarks are far too outlandish that even people who unironically believe this shit wouldn't say, because even they know it's batshit. Either that, or you're THAT desperate for attention you'll say anything. And you wonder why no one likes you.

Would explain the incel stuff.