Vegan

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.