Hi Everyone,
I became Vegan two years ago. I strongly believe this is one of the most important decisions in my life. Becoming Vegan has certainly opened my eyes as well as given me a pathway to improve my life as well as the lives of others. You can read more about my vegan story in my two posts ’Vegan Economics – My Story (Part 1)’ and ’Vegan Economics - My Story (Part 2)’. You can also watch my two videos ’Vegan Story Video 1’ and ’Vegan Story Video 2’ which also explain my vegan story.
I wanted to take my experience one-step further by writing a book that combined my knowledge of economics with my knowledge and experience of becoming vegan; I found that economics could be applied in many ways to explaining veganism.
I started my journey with a working title ‘Vegan Economics’. I kept this title for about six months. I found ‘Vegan Economics’ worked quite well as a working title to keep me focused on the animal cruelty aspects. I initially intended to keep ‘Vegan Economics’ as the final title. However, on further reflection, I now believe keeping the title ‘Vegan Economics’ as a final title could limit my audience as well as limit my own perspectives. I have discovered over the 2 years of being vegan that the word ‘vegan’ has some negative connotations for some people. I therefore, decided I needed a title that would appeal to a broader audience as well as still capture the essence of my theme.
Response to ‘Vegan Economics’
In 2017, I presented my work and ideas about vegan economics at the Vegoutt YouTube Channel launch and the Sea Shepherd Fast Stand Festival. The crowd at both events reacted warmly and positively to what I was presenting. This positive response was mostly because the audience were already interested in what I had to say. The audience needed very little further convincing. I needed to reach an audience that was not yet in support of my theme.
I shared quite a bit of my content on social media vegan webpages (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google Plus). I found the responses to be quite mixed. Some people were supportive of my content while others were quite hostile. I also shared my content on non-vegan webpages, mostly economic and conspiracy webpages. I found I mostly got very little reaction from my audience. This further prompted me to think of a different title.
It is now ‘Cruelty-free’ Economics
I looked at how veganism was being promoted by other people. The term ‘cruelty-free’ appeared quite often. ‘Cruelty-free’ encapsulates everything I was trying to achieve with the word ‘vegan’ but is a lot more general and does not appear to have the negative connotations of the word ‘vegan’. ‘Cruelty-free’ also allows me to connect cruelty linked to animals to cruelty associated to humans. Using the word ‘vegan’ does not make that apparent. I have now also started referring to myself as having a plant-based diet and a cruelty-free lifestyle. To be completely cruelty-free is certainly going to be a challenge as there is a lot of cruelty in the world that we all contribute indirectly to in one way or another.
I have decided to keep the word ‘economics’ in the title. Essentially, the content will be based on economic analysis. Concepts such as willingness-to-pay, utility, and externalities will be explored and applied in the content. The word 'economics’ is generally broad and provides me with plenty of scope to explore different aspects of my work. Therefore, the new working title and hopefully final title to my topic/work and eventually book is ‘Cruelty-free Economics’. I will try to gauge the type of reaction I get when I start posting content under the new title ‘Cruelty-free Economics’. If I get a reasonably positive response and I feel the title adequately represents my work, I will finalise it as the official title.
Upcoming ‘Cruelty-free' Economics posts
At the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018, I authored several posts and videos relating to ‘Cruelty-free' Economics. Below is a complete list of those posts.
- What is the real cost of meat?
- Understanding the Cost of Animal Abuse
- Vegan Cost of a Big Mac (Includes Cruelty and Loss of Life)
- What is Vegan Economics?
- Vegan Economics - Vegoutt Launch Presentation
- Vegan Economics - Vegoutt Launch Presentation Slides
- Understanding the Cost of Animal Abuse (Dtube Video)
- Vegan Economics Talk at Sea Shepherd Stand Fast Festival Brisbane 2017
- Vegan Economics Talk at Sea Shepherd Stand Fast Festival Brisbane 2017 (Dtube Video)
- Vegan Economics – My Story (Part 1)
- Vegan Economics - My Story (Part 2)
- World Vegan Day Melbourne 2017 (Video)
- World Vegan Day Melbourne 2017
- Horse Racing – Supporting Addiction and Cruelty (Part 1)
- Horse Racing – Supporting Addiction and Cruelty (Part 2)
- Five Areas of Animal Abuse (Part 1) - Pets
- Vegan Story Video 1
- Vegan Story Video 2
- Five Areas of Abuse (Part 2) - Entertainment
- Five Areas of Abuse (Part 3) - Animal Testing
- Five Areas of Abuse (Part 4) - Food
- Five Areas of Abuse (Part 5) - Clothing and Fashion
Some of these posts are only available in written post format such as the five areas of abuse series. I will be making videos on the same topics to support these posts. I will also be continuing my journey to writing the book as well as authoring many posts that will contribute to the content of the book.
Some of the topics that you can expect are as follows:
- Valuing of life (third revision)
- Speciesism
- What can you do to make a difference?
- Beginning your awakening with what you can directly control
- What would aliens think?
- The occult and animal ritual killings
- Yulin Dog Meat Festival
- Activists that have died
- The global overpopulation argument
- Synthetic Meat
- Seaweed in cow feed
- The effect agriculture has on fauna (e.g. production, storage and distribution of grains)
Thanks for taking the time to read this post. I hope you will join me on my cruelty-free journey.
