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Comment by tstrimple | Hacker News Reader

Strangely enough I've heard far more people make this "joke" than actual vegans speaking up. Even when living in LA.

The issue with this joke is that it's 100% confirmation bias. You know that all the vegans tell you they're vegan because you don't know about the ones that didn't.

There are people that I discovered were vegans when discussing what to eat. And there are people that loudly announced they'd become vegans without any context.

The later group used to be larger, but I don't remember anybody doing that recently.

I think it's also survivorship bias. All the people who tell you they're vegan being vegan does not mean that all the people who are vegan will tell you they're vegan, just like all the people who won the lottery probably having bought lots of tickets does not mean that buying lots of tickets will win you the lottery.

That's what I meant, maybe I used the wrong bias name.

Confirmation bias typically refers to accepting very little evidence or rejecting disproofs. Survivorship bias is the one where you forget to account for the non-survivors of a particular selection criteria.

I know this under "selection bias", so now we have three contenders.

Still, I'm not sure if it's a big factor. You likely know who is vegan in your circles, because veganism is unusual enough to be a good topic for gossip, you can easily see it when sharing a meal with someone, and it's also something you'd like to know when inviting people over, if you want to be a good host. So I think a more relevant estimate would be number of vegans you know vs. how many of them announce their veganism at the earliest opportunity.

I believe survivorship bias is a specific type of selection bias.

It made more sense 20 years ago when it was more generally true. Veganism seems to have spread beyond the merely self-righteous now. It's a very old joke (possibly from the 90?s).

“Practically everyone knows what veganism is, but vegans are actually a very small minority.

There are more Americans with gambling addictions than there are people committed to vegan diets!”

Chart: https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1805367282270433791?s=4...

That's the trick, you invert the logic. If you hear the word vegan, assume the person saying it is not.

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