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To add a bit of a counter-point, seeing as I found this paragraph recently, here's a section from "Flash Boys" by Michael Lewis. It's discussing the experience of Sergey Aleynikov, the Goldman Sachs hacker that later got sued, when coming to America:

> He arrived in New York city in 1990 and moved into a dorm room at the 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association, a sort of Jewish YMCA. Two things shocked him about his new home: the diversity of the people on the streets and the fantastic range of foods in the grocery stores. He took photographs of the rows and rows of sausages in Manhattan and mailed them to his mother in Moscow. "I'd never seen so many sausages," he says. But once he'd marveled at the American cornucopia, he stepped back from it all and wondered just how necessary all of this food was.

> [...]

> In the end he became a finicky vegetarian."



I would say he was just a product of his environment and unconsciously defended the system he was raised in. Many people are blinded to the detriments of their surroundings because it's all they know.


> Many people are blinded to the detriments of their surroundings because it's all they know.

Exactly same argument can be used against Western-style cornucopia-of-false-choices stores, or anything else at all for that matter.


That is quite correct. Makes it a solid argument.


I would say you're just blinded because that's the argument you were brought up with


Oh, in that case I guess I'm just totally wrong. Excellent use of my own argument against me. You must be a delight at parties.


America has great options for vegetarians. In a lot of languages there isn't even a native word for vegetarian, not to mention vegan.


The English word "vegetarian" was formed in 19th century from a Latin-via-French word combined with a Latin-via-French suffix. Not quite as Old English as "meat"...


From my memory, the term for 'vegetarian' prior to ~100 years ago was 'pythagorian'.


Or "peasant."


I am hoping to make those options more visible




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