this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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Vegan
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While the video is kind of bullshit, I (as a vegan for 3 years now and no plans of stopping) also don't think the message "just go vegan bro" is useful. A lot of people are now aware of the cruelty involved in animal agriculture, but just don't care enough to give up nutritious tasty food that's easy to cook. As usual, relying on individual action can't be the solution for a systemic problem. So I think the most important part is to mobilize people to organize, lobby and protest against the animal industry, and to push for pro-vegan regulations, without necessarily going full vegan themselves for now. Quite surprisingly for a lot of people that's easier to do than give up "mah cheese", as horrific as its production may be. Of course it's also great to encourage them to try easy & tasty vegan alternatives for some days of the week at least.
While I'm OK with openly agreeing that individual action is not very effective in some vegan circles, I avoid saying so in general communities. I don't think it's a productive argument and just leads to excuses not to take any individual action.
I think it's fine to suggest it as part of the solution, but the article taunts it as "simplest and most powerful action" and "the clearest way to reject the largest act of violence in human history". This is just not true: organized action is more powerful than individual action. Even if everyone reading this article went vegan immediately, it would do less than if they went out to protest and told all their friends about it too.
There's nothing simple about changing a trillion dollar industry lol
I would disagree. Or at least, it's not obvious or established. Protest and heart-to-hearts don't move the needle very much at all. Our individual economic and cultural contributions simply by living as vegans are powerful, not even considering the huge number of individuals each of us directly protect from atrocity with our individual actions.