For the second group, I always like to ask "Why should I use your argument to convince people when it didn’t convince you?"

Seriously, non vegans need to shut the feck up unless they’re willing to make the effort to stop hurting animals. Otherwise I’m not interested in their opinions.

I know I’m going to piss off every single group with this unpopular opinion, but I view veganism/vegetarianism and religion similarly.

Both of them come with benefits and downsides. The extent of these benefits and downsides differ from person to person. There’s no “right” answer, talking about your choice is perfectly fine and I don’t really care what you do either way, but I don’t like it when you try too hard to convert me.

What does that dog eat?

I watched the videos when I went vegan because I was afraid of backsliding. I thought that if I didn’t see what was happening on factory farms, then I might be tempted to go back to eating meat and dairy again.

Economic forces are always going to welfare wash and treat these poor sentient beings solely based on the bottom line instead of their actual wellbeing. Please don’t increase demand for their childrens and grandchildrens suffering.

Not vegan

Why?

People have been saying that for decades. It doesn’t work. I never understood the concept of “protests shouldn’t make me feel uncomfortable or inconvenience me.” That kind of undercuts the purpose of a protest and trying to spread a message. If you make it so it’s easy to ignore, it doesn’t work. Without fail there’s always the “ugh, someone who tries to make me feel bad about torturing and killing animals is simply not going to convince me to do otherwise.” It’s such a shitty excuse.

Highlighting contradictions in people’s beliefs is good, actually. If they choose to be willfully ignorant of cruelty while reaping the benefits, then they’re not going to face that contradiction from you asking nicely while carefully avoiding any implication that they might be doing something wrong. Rather, it’s the opposite - you want to make it as difficult as possible for them to ignore what they’re doing. But of course, since they are trying to remain ignorant, it can be expected that they will react with hostility when you call attention to it, no matter how nice and polite you are about it. The only way to avoid provoking such a response is by allowing them to keep the cruelty out of sight and out of mind, in which case they will have little motivation to go vegan and you’ve rendered yourself useless.

People who have neither been convinced nor convinced others of veganism love to offer their perspective on how we can be more convincing which invariably seems to consist of defanging our criticism and going out of our way to avoid making people to confront the cruel realities caused by their actions.

This is something that I often think about in connection with veganism.

I can sit down and watch a video about how vegetables are produced. It might be boring, but I could watch it.

Most carnists, on the other hand, can’t sit and watch how hamburger, sausage, cheese, etc. is produced. For them to enjoy that food, they have to ignore all the suffering behind it.

Isn’t “I’m for the intentional non-participation in animal exploitation and cruelty” just a consequence of “I saw the videos you refuse to watch”, hence similarly alienating and holier than thou?

Maybe even more so. “I can’t continue because I saw a video” could be an unreflected emotional statement, whereas yours sounds like a moral argument.

Or maybe getting people uncomfortable and forced to think about it, and actively face the dissonance is effective. Maybe they get mad and confrontational, but then you have to ask why.

Why are you doing something whose moral implications are making you uncomfortable?

Same thing goes for shit like buying stuff made by people in horrible working conditions. Maybe we shouldn’t feel as if we are entitled to being comfortable all the time, especially when we do so at the expense of others. What if it was you in the place of the worker or animal? Are you okay with continuing on like this?

And it makes people uncomfortable because it makes them see themselves as a bad person. But hey, maybe you should feel uncomfortable if you are doing something you yourself consider bad.

I mean vegans are welcome to be vegan. If you want you can mention these things if you think they might matter to someone but in the end what is important to a vegan isn’t going to be important to other people and that’s fine. In the end suffering is life and we all are made to suffer so that someone else can exploit us. The only difference with meat is that it’s nutritious and something our body makes good use of. Humans on the other hand are exploited so that the privileged can continue to be privileged.

The videos made me want stricter regulation, it didn’t make me want to go vegan or cut down on meat.

But there are other reasons to be a little more conservative with meat in my diet.

I find it hard to understand the disconnect you must experience.

I think it’s important to be aware of the process of everything we consume, that way we can influence the impact our habits have.

I watched some pretty terrible films. Watching those did make me cut down on meat and milk, and it made me try to source my animal products from more ethical sources. I still haven’t been able to make the full commitment to veganism or vegetarianism, though, unfortunately.

That being said, I do wish these kinda of films were shown in schools. It would make most people more conscious of the cruelty and harm caused by these industries, and maybe there would be more push to move to more ethical ways of doing things in the meat and dairy industries.

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Ok, but it’s about something people actively and blindly participate and fund. Not just folks watching traumatizing videos for fun.

If I was actively funding the abhorrent things in those videos, you’d be well within your right to tell me to stop, or at the very least insist I watch them.

I think it’s worse to admit that you’re fine with inflicting that kind of pain on animals and still enjoy the end result. There’s a reason they tell parents to be wary of kids who enjoy torture. You’re just a step below that.

So then why do you eat meat? Are you just a selfish narcissist who thinks their pleasure is more important than anything else? Or what is it?

Because scientific evidence hates you.

A few seem to be breaking the rules for this specific community too, there was one even going into detail describing a processing facility, and when reprimanded by another user they said they didn’t care.

I was hoping to learn something interesting, but maybe another time in a less popular thread

Everyone else is cowards.

Or worse: they just don’t care. There are people like that. Zero empathy.

It is very actionable to vote with their wallet and mouth and not eat meat. The “can’t save them all, so why bother”-argument is really sad. I don’t think most people would apply that logic, if they saw a child in distress, because so many children die every day of preventable causes. Every sentient being matter.

One person cutting down on red meat will never be enough

You could use that argument to invalidate voting or any boycott. “Why should I vote? My one vote won’t change anything.” The truth is, you aren’t one person. There are many vegans.

But even one person can do quite a bit. I’ve influenced my friends to eat less meat. When we go out to eat, if they want to include me, we’ll go to s vegan-friendly restaurant.

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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 biggest hurdle from me going vegan was I thought it would be difficult, so I did something similar. Turns out, however, that it’s SUPER EASY to cut out all meat and dairy. Seriously it blew my mind. Just look up a couple recipes, make sure you read ingredient lists on products, and you’re done. That’s all it takes.

The key is to just commit. Jump off the high board and take the plunge. Sure the water may shock you at first but you’ll quickly adapt. Quicker than you’d expect.

• Cut out meat from large animals that have the most environmental impact
• Work your way down from number 2 until all you eat is poultry

On the other hand cutting out smaller animals first would have a bigger impact on suffering because you need more beings for the same amount of meat. So I’d just say to just reduce meat, whichever is easier first.