I know this might sound strange but autistic people are roughly 3x more likely to be LGBT so you could consider going to an LGBT meetup. I'm neurodivergent and LGBT and that certainly matches my experience.

What if my dietary preference was cannibalism? Then would it be okay to shit on my dietary preference?

Not eating animals isn't a dietary stance, it's an ethical stance.

That's funny about cream cheese, I have mostly heard complaints about vegan cream cheese. Maybe I haven't had the right brand yet but of the three types I tried I wasn't a big fan.

I feel like that's a common trend with vegan food. Take a delicious food item and overuse it until it's almost disgusting. I love hummus but I can imagine if I ate it all the time I would get sick of it. I'm like that a little bit with mushrooms, I love mushrooms but eating a ton of them makes them gross for me.

I think something sorta unique about hummus that makes it really popular is that it's a vegan protein source that is served cold and can surprisingly substitute meat and cheese well. Like you mentioned about sandwiches, you can take out the deli meat and cheese and replace it with hummus and it still tastes delicious. Most vegan protein sources are cooked and served warm, or don't taste well with garden vegetables (like peanut butter).

I think there are a few spots where vegan cheese works.

There's a couple simple parmesan cheese recipes that are pretty much just blended cashews, nooch, and seasonings that I enjoy on spaghetti. I'm sure it wouldn't fool anybody but it works like a charm for me.

I also think you can make queso dips pretty well, the main ingredient usually being blended cashews or blended potatoes and carrots.

Sorry for bringing up cashews again but you can also make a really good cashew ricotta that's a good spread on crackers.

I tend not to enjoy the imitation cheeses. I prefer just going all in on the nuts and enjoying the final product as it's own unique item.

So the major problem with this, is that only hens produce eggs. So what do you do with all the roosters? You really don't need that many roosters to breed hens. Since there is a roughly 50/50 split of roosters/hens, and only a couple roosters are used for breeding, what do you think happens to the rest of them? So the idea is that you can't buy or own hens without them being a product of a massive amount of roosters being murdered.

I don't support egg or dairy. As I said in the post, my view on the "tier 2" animals is basically that I think it is possible to ethically keep them in captivity. That doesn't mean keeping them in captivity is ethical in general, but that if you really do it right I think it is okay. I think it's okay to keep a dog or a cow or a pig as a pet, but I think you really have to make sure you give them lots of space and enrichment. I don't believe you should be able to use them for resources though.

The difference being that tier 1 animals, even if you really try to give them a good life, I don't think should ever be kept as pets or in zoos. Like I don't care if you built the coolest ever whale terrarium, sorry, not allowed to put an animal like that in captivity.

There's definitely an extent to which my conclusion of "it's okay to eat insects" stems from trying to cope with the fact that I have pet reptiles that need to eat insects.

I definitely believe that insects feel pain, which is why I try to give them a good life while they are alive. I guess I'm saying that if they are killed instantly, then they could potentially die a painless death, and maybe that's okay because they don't live that long in the first place.

Here's an actual scientific study where participants chose fake meat over beef burgers: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0963996923003587)

While not a scientific study, we also have some funny events like:

Sausage expert, trying to prove that plant based sausage isn't as good as the real thing, accidentally praises it: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-11485203/Sausage-expert-tricked-praising-vegan-alternative.html

Professional chefs were often wrong about which meat was real and which wasn't in blind taste test: https://www.livekindly.com/professional-chefs-cant-tell-the-difference-between-vegan-and-animal-meat-in-blind-taste-test/

Lots of open job positions is very healthy for the economy, it gives the worker the ability to choose, and it makes companies have to compete. A ton of companies are literally being forced to increase their wages in order to get enough employees.

I really hate this sentiment because if you actually look into the libertarian party platform and their recent candidates, they are nothing like Republicans. LP has supported LGBTQ+ rights for decades, they support open borders, support social freedom, don't like religion in govt, etc. I mean, the only real overlap between the LP and Republican party is like, guns. I know many people would argue that they have similar economic policies but they really don't, all Republicans have done in the last twenty years is spend more money and specifically only remove the regulations that are actually useful.

But at the same time, whenever I meet someone who calls themselves a "libertarian"... yeah 90% of the time they are just edgy Republicans.

Well, I wouldn't go as far as to say that a natural monopoly doesn't exist, but I think it's pretty clear that big companies have a lot of influence on the government, and typically can lobby the government to pass policies that benefit them, and make it harder for competition.

And I think there's an argument to be made that if the government were less powerful, then there would be less potential harm done when a corporation is able to influence the government.

I'm personally torn on this, because on one hand I think the government can be a useful tool in preventing monopolies, but on the other hand, I think expecting the government to not always work in favor of big companies seems naive.