I walk past PETA’s west coast headquarters in Los Angeles every week, and they have inset windows behind a small ledge that’s raised from the street and protected from the weather [1]. They have the raised metal studs near the edge of the ledge, which are called “skateboard deterrents” [2], but given that the ledge is a couple inches high and unsuitable for any sort of grind trick, the purpose is clearly to prevent the homeless from sleeping on the ledge comfortably. My take on the vegan debate is that people who do it are making a good choice both practically and morally, and I wish I had the willpower to make it, and I also understand that PETA represents a very specific brand of veganism and animal welfare, but I always feel pretty sad when I see that PETA building and its unethical treatment of humans.

[1] https://goo.gl/maps/iDZ2TZV4o12DiKtL8

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/how-cit...

See my note below about spoon theory. I guess I could've been clearer that I meant not a total fix, it won't fix everything on it's own. I didn't mean that it's not part of the solution.

Nobody's advocating less empathy for humans, what I'm suggesting is that according to spoon theory, there's only so much in a day you can give a shit about before you burn out [YMMV]. I'm suggesting that when you put all your empathy into caring for one thing at the cost of another, typically yourself, it's a hard path to walk. Empathy as a fix all, isn't. There needs to be balance between what's reasonable, feasible and practical, for our environment, for the eco-system and for us as humans. Empathy for sure is necessary, but it's only part of the solution, not the whole solution.

The people who want humans to live with as limited a footprint as possible, their standard of living be dammed