Personally I’m not sure the gate keeping you’re observing is all that much of an issue. I think it’s useful to remember many vegans are also public advocates for veganism. It’s important to them that people generally know what they mean when they advocate for veganism.

However, the definition of all words are always in flux. It’s not uncommon to see people call themselves vegan when a more apt description of their lifestyle would be plant based, flexitarian, vegetarian, etc. As such, I think edge cases like your friend take on an outsized importance that goes beyond the morality of your friend eating honey.

Basically, the goal may not be the social exclusion of your friend which is what I think is usually the problematic aspect of gatekeeping.

It’s a common problem in diagnostics and it’s why mammograms aren’t recommended to women under 40.

Let’s say you have 10,000 patients. 10 have cancer or a precancerous lesion. Your test may be able to identify all 10 of those patients. However, if it has a false positive rate of 5% that’s around 500 patients who will now get biopsies and potentially surgery that they don’t actually need. Those follow up procedures carry their own risks and harms for those 500 patients. In total, that harm may outweigh the benefit of an earlier diagnosis in those 10 patients who have cancer.

Yes just like Al Qaeda and the Taliban…

Israel bombed an Iranian embassy which is considered sovereign Iranian territory. That’s an act of war. They’re trying to provoke Iran into a broader conflict. If this is Iran’s response then the world can breathe a sigh of relief. A regional war would be devastating to the lives of millions and should be avoided.

Biden gave material support to Israel’s genocidal campaign which has killed over 30,000 people. You’re delusional if you think paying lip service to a ceasefire while still actively supporting the genocide is going to satisfy anyone.

The US has a long track record of supporting some of the most brutal regimes all around the world if it serves their geopolitical interests. In that way its support for Israel isn’t much of an anomaly.

More specifically though, Israel serves as a base from which the US can project military power. That prevents other states in the region from taking full advantage of their natural or geographic resources.

For example, the US wants to ensure oil is traded in US dollars. That creates demand for the dollar which inflates its value relative to other currencies. In that way, US financial capital is given an advantage over the rest of the world. This arrangement isn’t necessarily ideal for oil rich countries as it essentially means some of the value of their oil is getting siphoned off. However, the threat of military intervention may keep these states in line. However, many of them have started to experiment with trading in other currencies which might make the US uneasy.

The second thing I can think of is the US wants to ensure Egypt does not use the Suez Canal as a political weapon like it has historically. In such cases, Israel has been used as proxy through which western countries invaded Egypt to try and take back control of the canal. Since the canal remains very important trade route from which the US and its allies benefit, the US needs some sort of leverage to ensure it stays open to them.

Sure but that’s not saying much.

Ahh I see. So because Zionists haven’t been able to successfully cleanse all Palestinians from the region, Israel doesn’t count as an ethnostate. Don’t worry though because by God they’re still trying their damndest to make it happen no matter how many thousands of children they have to murder.

Calling a state an Ethnostate doesn’t mean you’re saying the population is entirely of one ethnicity. It means one ethnicity is given a privileged status above all others.

Israel was founded when Zionists purged Palestinians from their homes and forced them into Gaza and the West Bank in order to create a Jewish majority state. That makes Israel an ethnostate by definition.

Because it’s what Israeli politicians and government officials actually believe. They aren’t even quiet about it. It’s genuinely not hard to prove the genocidal intent of the Israeli government.

Unfortunately western media just tends to gloss over it all. I’m not sure if reporters can’t fathom the US supporting ethnic cleansing or if they just want to avoid the flack they’d receive by being honest. Either way, it’s unfortunate because well meaning liberals are left to assume Israel genuinely cares about stopping Hamas and aren’t using them as a pretext to ethnically cleanse the Gaza strip.

Companies are competing with each other to maximize profit. If there aren’t new markets for them to grow into, companies can only grow by reducing cost and bringing in more revenue. As such they make shittier products while also pushing prices as high as they can go. This is an unfortunate consequence of how capitalism works.

You think the people answering questions in these surveys were bribed? That’s hilarious lol. Imagine the headlines, “Global corruption soars as China moves to enhance its public image by bribing billions”