• nednobbins@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    That entire line of reasoning only works if the person you’re talking to already considers meat consumption to be inherently cruel.

    While those people certainly exist, trying to convince them to be vegan is a form of, "Preaching to the choir.

    I’ve never seen accusations of cruelty change anyone’s behavior. I’ve personally gotten many people to reduce their meat consumption through dialog (and cooking *).

    Look up the guy who is generally credited with convincing the most KKK members to quit the Klan and how he did it.

    • Jtotheb@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Daryl Davis. The main message to take away from his work is to get to know people. I’m commenting on an anonymized forum. I will generally never know if I’m about to speak with an adult, a child, a paid actor, an expert, a liar… I’m not going to use him as an excuse to not say anything. Generally discussions on social media seem pointless when it comes to changing minds, given that there is even less room for empathy than in a real life conversation, but I think they can be informative for people who are not directly involved but are rather just scrolling through to get a feel for others’ opinions. And there’s always a chance you come across someone who has never critically examined their stance and remains open minded enough to do it now.

      Plus, I’d love to know! I’d hate to trigger someone by saying something like “another ~10,000 acres of the Amazon rainforest were clear cut today because you can’t stop eating burgers!” So I just need to know what phrases to avoid. It’s a shame to never know :^)

      • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 day ago

        another ~10,000 acres of the Amazon rainforest were clear cut today because you can’t stop eating burgers

        can you show me on the map, and tell me the name of the logger?

      • nednobbins@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        I forgot to note why I put a * on “and cooking” before.

        I absolutely eat meat. I eat all kinds of meat. I eat more kinds of meat that most people are comfortable with. I also eat a much lower quantity than most people from developed countries.

        One of my favorite foods is Wienerschnitzel. It’s made from veal and if anyone tried to give me a guilt trip over that, I’d laugh at them, loudly and in their face.

        My sister is Vegan and rather than give me shit, she just eats vegan food. So I developed a 100% vegan Wienerschnitzel recipe that is almost indistinguishable from the real thing. I wash flour into wheat gluten (seitan) and flavor it with vegetable broth. Then I roll them out in a pasta roller until they’re the size of tenderized veal. Pick your favorite vegan egg subsitute (it just needs to be sticky), bread it, and fry it up.

        I was willing to try a lot of vegan and vegetarian food because it was presented in a positive way. If someone had tried to guilt trip me and insist that I’d go 100% vegan I would just have written them off as a crackpot and never even listened to them.