If you are just getting started, this is a good resource for learning hiragana and katakana.

Past that, I used Anki and Bunpro for learning vocab and grammar. However, an alternative to anki for vocab that’s definitely worth checking out is jpdb.io, and Cure Dolly’s youtube videos are good for learning grammar.

There are also some decks that people have on anki which have sentences that you can practice on, I hear those are a pretty good way to start reading so that you can work your way to reading books/manga and stuff.

Here’s another website that’s worth reading through if you’re interested in doing immersion learning with japanese.

Humans in developed countries are in a position where we can reduce our harm to others. I believe that if you’re in a position to be safely and reasonably able to, that you should do your best to reduce the harm you cause. I would argue that reducing harm includes reducing the amount of animals that I eat.

However, none of this really applies to animals. They don’t really get the same privileges that humans do in modern society, nor do they have the conscious ability to consider their harm on the world. Furthermore, obligate carnivores don’t really have a choice but to eat meat, so they wouldn’t be able to safely reduce the harm they cause regardless.

Animals eat food, too. If you eat meat, you’re actually creating more demand for crops than you would if you ate the crops directly. Furthermore, migrant workers also work on animal farms, in slaughterhouses, etc. I hear it’s not always great.

I guess what I’m saying is, I’m fairly sure that going vegan helps both animals and the children of migrant workers.

One caveat is that I’m assuming you’d eat the same classes of crops that an animal would, namely things like corn and grains. But honestly that sounds about right for most people, vegans included. Many vegans eat a lot of processed shit too lol. (me included)

Edit: I should add that the most commonly suggested vegan diet that I’ve heard from other vegans is to have rice and lentils as your staple foods. I’m fairly sure those aren’t typically harvested by hand, but I could be wrong.

I tried for a while to make those small changes, but I always found it too hard to do, until I finally just decided to cut out all animal products one night, and I never really went back.

I think the difference was how I framed it, mentally. I always saw it as an act of willpower to not eat animal products, like I have to overcome my cravings in the same way I would if I was cutting calories. But quitting animal products altogether allowed me to frame it differently for myself – instead of telling myself “I shouldn’t eat this”, I can just say “I don’t eat this.” Like, it’s not on the table as something I have to consider. I don’t even have to recognize animal products as food.

Maybe if you cut things out one at a time you could do a similar thing. Though one problem is that it’s a series of changes and commitments you have to make, instead of just one thing. I feel like that could be harder, depending on who you are.

The comments responding to you are pretty unnecessarily hostile, but I personally get where you’re coming from. I personally think it’s best to watch the thing so that you can be best informed, even if it’s hard to do. Not even because of veganism being ethical, but because the fear of the unknown is a lot scarier than any documentary could be, IMO. Information is power, and having information (even distressing information) is empowerment.

Also, I loved meat too, but when I went vegan, I never really missed it. I was pretty worried about missing certain foods (one was sushi), but that never really happened to me.

Animals eat plants. If plants are sentient, the animals you eat still eat the plants. If your goal is to reduce suffering, eating animals means more animals eating more plants – more plants than you could eat yourself. Therefore eating the plants directly would reduce harm.

Did you just criticize… having a stance on things? Like the whole concept of believing things are true?

Even if you accept the premise that so-called ethically raised meat is ethical, there’s just not enough land to farm meat at the scale which people in developed countries demand it, unless it’s factory farmed. Ethically farmed, free range animals require much more space than caged up factory farmed animals, and the grass they feed on requires yet more land.

That means that there’s a limit on the supply, so I’m pretty sure that if someone tries to solve the whole animal rights issue by buying ethical meat, they’ll only push the ethical dilemma on to someone poorer than them (the one who would be priced out, due to the increased demand). That person would then have to be the one to make the decision of whether to go vegan or to buy factory farmed meat.

Admittedly, I could be wrong about this? But I’m pretty sure that increasing land use of meat, whether by regulation or economic demand, would necessarily lead to increased prices, so I don’t see how it possibly wouldn’t just shift the problem on to the less wealthy.

Describing vegans as making major dietary changes because they “saw one video” is a pretty dishonest interpretation. Rigorously sticking to a vegan diet can be fairly difficult, and requires you to be very aware of exactly what you’re eating – including innocuous seeming things like food dyes and white sugar, which can often be made of animal products. To me, that doesn’t read as impulsive, but instead disciplined.

Furthermore, while the decision to switch to going vegan could theoretically sometimes be done on impulse, one still has to make the decision every single day. It’s not just a decision you make and it’s done, it’s one you must always choose to continue to make. A vegan has to decide to continue to be vegan every day, likely while under scrutiny of themself and others.

I’m pretty the curvature of the universe has actually been measured to be very close to 0, within margin of error, which would suggest an infinite universe. (It doesn’t prove it by any means, though. The curvature could just too small to measure.)

However, the observable universe is indeed finite, due to the speed of light being finite.