When Meat Salespeople Call Vegans “fundamentalists”

Monday 23 July 2018 by Bradley M. Kuhn

Someone linked me to this blog by a boutique proprietary software company complaining about porting to GNU/Linux systems, in which David Power, co-founder of Hiri, says:

Unfortunately, the fundamentalist FOSS mentality we encountered on Reddit is still alive and well. Some Linux blogs and Podcasts simply won’t give us the time of day.

I just want to quickly share a few analogous quotes that show why that statement is an unwarranted and unfair statement about people's reasonably held beliefs. First, imagine if Hiri were not a proprietary software company, but a butcher. Here's how the quote would sound:

Unfortunately, the fundamentalist vegan mentality we encountered on Reddit is still alive and well. Some vegetarian blogs and Podcasts simply won’t give us the time of day.

Should a butcher really expect vegetarian blogs and podcasts to talk about their great new cuts of meat available? Should a butcher be surprised that vegans disagree with them?

How about if Hiri sold non-recycled card stock paper?:

Unfortunately, the fundamentalist recycling mentality we encountered on Reddit is still alive and well. Some environmentalist blogs and Podcasts simply won’t give us the time of day.

If you make a product to which a large part of the potential customer population has a moral objection, you should expect that objection, and it's reasonable for that to happen. To admonish those people because they don't want to promote your product really is akin to a butcher annoyed that vegans won't promote their prime cuts of meat.

Posted on Monday 23 July 2018 at 20:21 by Bradley M. Kuhn.

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