Absolutely all good on my end. Yeah, I very much react differently to the idea of saying “found the trans woman,” but I think that’s just because it seems like it could reasonably be taken as a threat or, even if not intended as one, still endanger the recipient. But yeah, that’s a great example of something where shame/judgment is uninvolved and it’s still not a good thing to say at all.

Germany is incredibly vegan friendly, to the degree that I haven’t been to a grocery store without at least tofu, various milk options, vegan yogurt and cream cheese, along with a bunch of traditionally vegan spreads (I currently have “spicy chickpea, tomato and bell pepper” and “pea and edamame”), no matter how rural the town is. There’s also the fact that good bread is a staple food here, so whole grains are really accessible. I don’t think the vegan friendliness applies to Bavaria, and I know it didn’t in Baden-Württemberg about 15 years ago (I had trouble then as a vegetarian in a student city, but I was also a lot less resourceful then). It definitely does not apply to Switzerland or rural Austria.

The hummus you find in vegan restaurants tends to be made with vinegar instead of lemon juice (but that’s not the case if you go to a Mediterranean or Middle Eastern restaurant or make it yourself) and slow cookers for dry beans cost a lot more money than they do in the US. Those are literally my only vegan-related complaints though.

Edit: also you can buy six Maultaschen (~600 kcal worth) for around 2€ basically everywhere. They can be eaten raw, sautéed, or in broth and they’re delicious and honestly pretty good for you.

No, I was joking about the bait, kind of a “you’re making it too easy,” but I don’t mind when people say “found the vegan” to me. What follows is longer than intended because I hyper focused on it.

Tl;dr: I take that type of statement differently depending on the context, but I wasn’t trying to dismiss you.

I would also personally not mind if someone said “found the x” for anything that applies to me, unless it was inherently a negative thing or something I’m ashamed of, and I just assumed others were the same. Like, I’m an immigrant in Germany and I’d be pretty upset if someone responded to me speaking German and said “found the American,” but that’s because I put in a lot of work to lose my accent. If they said it after I showed up to an appointment fewer than ten minutes early, I’d understand that they were intending to insult me and I’d feel put off, even though I think five minutes early is perfectly fine.

For qualities I’m not ashamed of, I think of it either as neutral or as an affirmation that what I’m saying or doing is in line with who I am. If I were talking about how mind blowing it is to live in a 500 year old house and someone said “found the American,” I’d probably laugh and agree, and if they said that after I said something about wearing mismatched socks and not caring what people think, I’d feel positive that that’s a known stereotype about Americans.

I’m autistic though, so I might be the outlier. I also completely miss passive aggression most of the time, so maybe people actually do intend to insult me when they say that, but I think it’s silly to view those negatively, so I take it about the same as I do when my dad says a political position I support is communism- still a win in my book. I’m pretty happy with my interpretation, even if it’s wrong, lol.

It’s a person who aims to do the least harm to and exploitation of animals practicable. Vegans don’t all agree with each other, but generally they don’t eat any animal products (food waste and somehow honey are common disagreements among vegans), nor would they buy new leather products (some might buy secondhand, but others won’t even hold on to a pair of shoes they bought and wore for years before going vegan).

Well I thought it, I wasn’t planning on saying anything until I saw your username and figured you were playful about it.

But do you really think it’s non-vegans who know what black salt (or whatever other reference you make in your comments that typically “outs” you) is without looking it up? It’s probably mostly people who are also vegan and feel kinship that they’d like to point out. That’s why I wrote my comment at least 🤷

It’s not fair, you’re baiting us

(I literally just thought to myself “found the vegan” before reading your username)

Entropy is ever expanding, so there’s no way to do no harm, though ideally we each try to do as little as possible. There are some parts of our lives where there’s no perfect answer, like technology or clothing, because for the most part, those are both generally exploitative and necessary to support yourself. In these cases, buying second hand can help, but it’s still a secondary market for products that benefit from slavery and/or it’s a separate, new evil like Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Taxes are also necessary, and the only workable remedies for the awful things that are paid for by those taxes are petitioning and electing as representative a government as possible or bringing it all down (which would itself include quite a lot of violence).

This is a totally different thing. This is investing excess money into an evil thing so that you can profit. There’s no requirement here, it’s an entirely voluntary worsening of the world.

Then it really seems like you’re providing funds for slavery and wishing it wasn’t harmful.

Are you organizing in any way to see that you can cooperate with like minded people? I’m not trying to be rude, but you should really think about the effect you want to leave on the world (not just you, everyone should).

That makes the world worse though. Do you really want to make the world a worse place?

I saw a video once of a guy asking students at an Indian university what they studied and what k meant to them. I can’t find it now, but there were easily a dozen answers and then the joke answer at the end was “it means she’s mad at me”

Rudy, the red nosed reindeer

They went with American football, where “running back” and ”defense” refer to positions.

Whenever I see a one-bar prison or something like this, I think of earthquakes and the years of surgery you’d need to repair those organs

I’m an American immigrant in Germany, and solidarity is exactly the word I’ve been using to describe the difference between the cultures. I work in a bakery part-time (as a salesperson) while studying, and it’s very different working in customer service in Germany from how it is in the US, because people here see you as a part of society in a way they don’t there.

I’m from the us and got married in Germany (to a German as a resident, not like a destination wedding). They told us we could change our names differently in the US and Germany would accept them, but they could only do so many options here.

Maria is afaik the only traditional woman’s name that any baby in Germany can have as a second name

Don’t you know? People forfeit their right to not be raped when they commit crimes, because that’s not cruel or unusual or anything.

Because they’re a part of the society you rely on and they are quite literally serving you. I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about people, regardless of whether others care about them

Illiteracy is not binary. If he reads at a second grade level (sounding out, length of word and difficulty of spelling being barriers to correct reading)

If I were taking advantage of their services, I would tip them too. As I’m benefiting from a first-world plate carrier’s service, I’ll tip them. Participating in a society by only doing things that help others when you might suffer consequences (via poor service on a return visit) is poor manners at the very least.

I don’t think this conversation is going to be very productive (at least on my end), so I’ll cut it off here. Have a good one.