Especially when saying “no cheese” 8 times means you will definitely be getting cheese

I would’ve agreed with this a few years ago, but when you realize things can have subtle effects on our body that aren’t easy to measure or readily apparent, you shouldn’t fully trust something just because studies say it’s safe. A study can’t really show that “50 years of repeated exposure caused slightly more exhaustion,” for example.

However, we DO know tooth decay is a major health risk for our whole bodies. Avoiding a maybe possibly slightly harmful chemical isn’t stupid, but avoiding something that prevents known and documented dental harm and the effects that has on your entire body, that’s just letting fear override rational thinking.

It takes a “special” kind of person to take something so ingrained in culture and still say “I’m not gonna do that,” usually a slightly crazy and/or neurodivergent person. I think this is partly why there are so many “insane” vegans, because it’s self selecting for people who are outside the norm.

I don’t even mention to most people I’m vegan, usually just an excuse like “meat makes me feel sick” because the average person will think I’m going to give them a 20 minute lecture.

To anyone who is the vegan who will give the 20 minute lecture, please consider if your goal is actually animal welfare, you can hardly ever debate someone out of something they like. Instead, just show people easy dishes you made that they actually enjoy (pasta with spaghetti sauce, French fries, vegetable stir fry, roasted veggies with olive oil) and you’ll often find they start cooking more vegan food (or at least less meat), and also talk more positively about veganism

You are correct, hexbear did defederate from sh.itjust.works about a week after federating with them, so the vote became moot.

The reason you gave is part of the reason hexbear admins gave, but I would take what they say with a grain of salt. I’ve seen people say things like “being trans in thoughts is a much different experiece than being trans in the way you dress, act, and look” and hexbear users will call that transphobic/uninclusive, as well as generally being vitriolic and unpleasant.

As an example, a post where someone says “Biden brings up minimum wage increase and asks other democrats to speak up” will have several comments from hexbear users saying “capitalist bootlickers defending Biden should be shot like the vermin they are.” Maybe some users harassed hexbear users for these comments? I personally didn’t see any but it’s definitely possible.

Actually, there was a vote immediately after the defederation to see whether people wanted lemmygrad refederated, and about 80-90% of the votes were to stay defederated, so it seems the users of sh.itjust.works also don’t like grad.

edit: my mistake, turns out it was hexbear that was voted on, which has similar content

I wonder if studies like these are becoming more relevant due to covid and the disruption it can cause to the immune system long term.