What a nonsense argument. "I won't inconvenience myself because it's not the BEST way to help the environment and the human race." In that case, I can't afford a Tesla, so I'll keep driving my F-350.
The issue isn't strictly overpopulation. Its overpopulation combined with the amount of consumption. You can solve this either by reducing the population, or reducing consumption, or both. For a lot of people, there are compelling ethical, economical, and personal reasons for wanting to have children or at least avoiding restricting other people's desire for children. So in that case it makes more sense to reduce consumption.
What good is an empty planet?
Nothing? Or as simple as "I loved watching X tv program, you should check it out too"? Surely there is something you promote in your life? If so, same thing. Why should you impose your tv watching habits on other people?
I believe strongly in things, but I never have the need for everyone else to have the same beliefs. I respect the choices of others.
However, many vegetarians believe there are societal or ethical benefits to promoting vegetarianism that don't necessarily apply to other diets. It might be because they believe they have an ethical responsibility to limit the suffering of animals raised for slaughter, for example. Or they may believe that the spread of vegetarianism will curb the number of livestock and growth of pasture, which will be good for the environment.
That sounds more like a religious argument. At the extreme, some people don't believe that it matters ethically how animals are treated, and there are certainly many people who adopt an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude, or try to only eat meat from animals raised and slaughtered as humanely as possible. People are of course free to make a value judgment on these attitudes, but preaching vegetarianism/veganism on those grounds sounds too much like religious proselytizing for my taste.
I think it's fine and useful to promote non-meat diets by arguing that meat production (as we currently do it) is devastating to the environment, but religious/emotional preaching is IMO what gives a lot of vegetarians/vegans a bad name.
Where is everyone hanging out that vegans and vegetarians are constantly pestering them? And, if you're being honest to yourself, is it really an issue in your life?
I hear this complaint a lot about "imposing" beliefs, but mainly when it comes to diet. Why does diet get singled out?
It's usually considered a good thing to campaign for changes in politics (e.g. for/against drug legalisation, for/against vote reform, for/against higher taxes). You may not agree with a particular argument, but I think most people agree that being allowed to persuade people towards a point of view is part of a healthy society.
Why does politics when it comes to diet get such a visceral reaction?
Not true in many contexts, and comes across as preachy and holier-than-thou, especially when using guilt. Campaigning upwards is fine, even for diet, but not downwards.
Do you understand better now?
But I will let you know that I respect your choice of not eating meat, even though you won't accept that I will continue, like the majority of people, eating meat. Have a nice day.
This is fundamentally the way we talk about morality - not as a matter of attitude or personal preference, but as objective facts we believe are true. Whether any particular moral statement is true or false is what most people would question, not whether moral statements are in themselves motivating. In this way, most people seem to be (1) moral realists, (2) moral internalists.
Assuming you're a moral realist, it's easy to understand why someone would "promote/preach" their diet restrictions on moral grounds - because morality, to the realist, is a matter of fact (either an "objective" morality, or a "relative" (to a culture, time, or place) one). The assumption, also, is that unlike other facts, moral facts are inherently motivating.
To the moral realist, a statement like "eating meat is morally wrong" has a truth value, in the same way "the earth is spherical" or "the earth is flat" has a truth value. The moral internalist further states that this fact is enough to provide some motivation for action, so the statement "eating meat is morally wrong" necessarily implies and states to us that "one should not eat meat" - assuming there is no failure to motivate (as may the case with depressed people or people who face extreme exhaustion, or have some other mental malady).
