# When the Alternative is Better

By [jer979](https://paragraph.com/@jer979-2) · 2022-10-16

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I recently attended a Buddhist meditation session where the teacher was asked “do you need to be Vegan in order to be Buddhist?”

His answer, like many Buddhists, was subtle. That it’s impossible to never do any harm, so what we look to do is minimize the amount of harm that we actually do. Eventually, he suggested, the more you study Buddhism and the more you meditate on things like Lovingkindness and Compassion, the more you find the idea of eating animals to be unacceptable.

But then he made a point that I found very interesting.

“We’re pretty much at the point where you can find vegan alternatives to pretty much everything out there, whatever you want, and we’re also at the point where you can’t tell the difference between the two. **_Soon, it will become unacceptable for people to knowingly eat actual meat because the alternatives are just as good, if not better for you, for the environment, and for your conscience.”_**

The next morning, I was sitting in St. Pancras International station, awaiting the Eurostar train to Paris. I didn’t notice any advertisements in the entire station, except one. It was for a company called [Courbet](https://www.en.courbet.com/page/diamant), which makes “Lab Grown Diamonds.”

I can’t remember now as I write this (I’m on the train) what the tagline was, but it was something like “the alternative is better.” Maybe I am misremembering though.

Regardless, if that’s the case (and I would bet that it is), anyone who has seen the movie [Blood Diamond](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450259/) should be asking themselves the same question.

We’ve seen it happen with fur…why wouldn’t we see it happen with diamonds and meat?

But it only happens when the alternative is just as good, if not better.

Crypto is the same way. It’s an alternative, but it’s definitely not just as good and it’s definitely not better.

But, like vegan meat and lab grown diamonds, one day it will be.

lab grown diamonds

crypto

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*Originally published on [jer979](https://paragraph.com/@jer979-2/when-the-alternative-is-better)*