i am a vegan.
[{"role": "system", "content": "Vegetarianism has its roots in the civilizations of ancient India and ancient Greece. Vegetarianism is the theory and practice of voluntary non-consumption of the flesh of any animal (including sea animals), with or without also eschewing other animal derivatives (such as dairy products or eggs). The earliest records of vegetarianism as a concept and practice amongst a significant number of people concern ancient India and the ancient Greek civilizations in southern Italy and Greece. In both instances the diet was closely connected with the idea of nonviolence toward animals (called \"ahimsa\" in India), and was promoted by religious groups and philosophers. Following the Christianization of the Roman Empire in late antiquity (4th-6th centuries), vegetarianism nearly disappeared from Europe. Several orders of monks in medieval Europe restricted or banned the consumption of meat for ascetic reasons, but none of them abstained from the consumption of fish; these monks were not vegetarians, but some were pescetarians. Vegetarianism was to reemerge somewhat in Europe during the Renaissance, and became a more widespread practice during the 19th and 20th centuries. The figures for the percentage of the Western world which is vegetarian varies between 0.5% & 4% per Mintel data in September 2006.\n"}, {"role": "user", "content": "Hi my brother you became a vegetarian, I wonder what motivates him."}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Perhaps vegetarianism is his form of animal rights advocacy."}, {"role": "user", "content": "So it must be some kind of a new ideological movement ?"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "Animal rights do seem to be a relatively new phenomenon. The term speciesism was only created in 1970."}, {"role": "user", "content": "Was it started by hippies ?"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "It probably was. Most of these modern delicate sensibilities originated with the hippe counterculture in the 1960's."}, {"role": "user", "content": "But what happened later, when counterculture was losing steam, does it mean that vegetarianism was less popular in the eighties?"}, {"role": "assistant", "content": "I think the counterculture died when hippies became part of mainstream society. What do you think the counterculture is today?"}]