In my observation, a big part of social progress is each generation pointing out the hypocrisy of the previous. “All men are created equal” so how can you enslave black people? If men can vote, why can’t women? How come straight people can marry but gay people can’t? How is it fair to send an 18 year old to war but not let him vote?
A lot of these hypocrisies were so internalized that a lot of people of previous generations never even thought about them. It was like a mental blind spot. It took young people with fresh thinking to point them out and fight to fix them.
So, speaking as a Millenial, I’m asking what my generation’s blind spots are. What injustices are we perpetuating without even thinking much about it?
For reference, Millenials are currently in their late 20s to early 40s. Not running the world, but also not fresh eyed college grads.
In my observation, millennials are the perfect consumers. They do not stand up for anything. They have forgotten all the neccessary “fights for a better world” of the former generation, for the environment, for peace, for better social justice etc. and not adopted the ones of the younger ones, like vegans etc.
We stood up during the anti Iraq war protests, occupy Wall Street, blm, pro-choice, marched for lgbtq rights, human rights, the environment.
We’re burned out because (mostly) nothing changed or got worse… also busy working to the bone to be able to afford to go to work tomorrow.
Perfect consumer because everything we need to buy is designed to fail and not be repairable.
We fought, we argued, we protested and we got some shit changed, some attitudes evolved but we got older and we got on with making the best of a bad situation. Like EVERY GENERATION BEFORE US.
How many of the diehard peace and love hippies who were at woodstock arent angry old boomers now? How many of them kept up the fight their whole lives? How many of Generation X are still “Xtreem”? people get old.
Its the Zoomers time to shine now, I have a child to provide for and raise into a confident young woman who demands changes herself.
I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong here but this is definitely a funny contrast to the classic “millennials are killing x industry” articles
Dude we were too busy testing all the drugs the world could offer us to fight for stuff.
The other generations are not perfect consumers? You got to be kidding yourself.
Veganism, or at least vegetarianism, was the first thing that crossed my mind. I bet future generations will not look kindly on us for eating meat. And yet still, I can’t turn down a good burger.
until we have a viable alternative it’s a choice between your ethics or your health and I don’t think we can begrudge anyone for choosing either one, especially when industrial agriculture make both option equally terrible.
a single cow can feed a single human for a year. eating meat isn’t the problem it’s the incredible amount of food waste and disrespect for the sacrifice that will be looked down upon.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that you probably haven’t even looked for any viable alternatives, because if you had, you would have found they are plentiful already. They’re just expensive because of the government subsidizing animal farming, not because they’re expensive to produce.
They’re not even expensive. If you cook at home, a vegetable-based diet is a fraction of the cost of a meat-based one.
I was vegan by choice for over a year, then went back to vegetarianism; and then nearly vegan for many more years because I was too broke to afford animal products (though also too broke to refuse them if they were free).
Now I’m well-off, and I still keep my grocery budget low by avoiding animal products, especially meat.
Highly dependent on where you live. In some places, vegetables are more expensive than meat.
Where? Alaska? I grew up in South Dakota –dairy and ranching country– and veggie, legumes, grains were way less expensive than meat, even in winter.
if it was viable it’s all you would hear about from militant internet vegans … and I wouldn’t even be mad.
First of all, it’s perfectly viable to just not eat meat. Tons of people don’t eat meat and are perfectly healthy.
If you need meat replacements, (which is for taste, let’s be clear) there are a TON of good substitutes, for example Beyond.
Also to your previous point, food waste is a big problem, but thermodynamically, meat IS food waste. Only a fraction of the energy of animal feed is present in the meat, which is super resource intensive and environmentally terrible (not to mention all the methane produced)
Meat substitutes are horrible replacements in terms of taste. Let’s just clarify that. Question anyone who likes them enough and you’ll eventually find out that they always disliked real meat, or they haven’t eaten real meat in decades.
But correct. Meat is not needed at all.