No Stupid Questions

Same reason people who love fossil fuels hate people who are worried about global warming

I think a lot of people also have a hard time seeing it as a priority for themselves compared to their personal problems and other ongoings. It's subjective, sure. But it also takes a ton of personal responsibility and self control/denial to change habits.

Bottom line, there is a lot of things out there to care about right now, and being vegan is a big change for a lot of people. That, mixed with the extreme (understandable) feelings about mistreatment of animals by vegans, often leads to a feeling of repulsion from investing personal bandwidth into changing the behavior.

That's my opinion based on growing up with religiously vegan parents.

I generally try not to bring it up, but I know folks that've resumed eating meat and we're welcomed back with high-fives. This argues against the "preachy" argument in this thread. And people don't get criticized the same way over eating unnutritious fast food all the time. My view is that some people feel criticized by other folks' different life choices. When Alice to be in an out group, Betty is confronted with their own life choices.

Some ideas on the topic.

I've only met vegans on social media. The vocal minority preaching vegan lifestyle is delusional. Outside of it, it's still corporations doing their best to make a profit. The regular person just eats quietly and lives their life. The requirements and costs are pittance only in their idealistic view of the world. "If only people would just .." No. They won't. We are where we are because people don't. Everyone wants the world to go their way and we kill each other for it.

As an omnivore animal, I eat what my budget allows. Sometimes it's meat, sometimes it's vegetables and sometimes it's cardboard. Just like the wild life, eating plastic bags because they taste yummy. Social media vegans seem to be either the ones that can afford to be picky or can't afford anything else.

Simple truth is that life can always be better, people can always do more and most of us simply don't want to.

It's simple: if you don't shove your ways in other people's faces, it's fine. If you do, it's not.

I don't care if you're vegan, but if you throw a BBQ and man the grill but don't cook any meat because it's not what you want, you're inviting criticism.

Right. I see what you mean but I think what you're asking for is impossible to ascertain

To grossly oversimplify things, there are two kinds of vegans...

Type 1 are "healthy living" and "sustainability" vegans. These type are generally benign, polite, helpful, positive, and keep to themselves unless asked. They also tend to not be super militant about their veganism... like the occassional egg from someone's beloved home-raised chickens is fine.

Type 2 are ideological vegans. These types believe that "exploiting" "living creatures" in any way is fundamentally immoral, and because it's a morality issue (e.g. basically religion) the vast majority are very preachy, demanding, and in-your-face about it. They don't consider type 1 to be "real vegans".

Type 2, being the loudest and most abrasive, giving veganism a bad name and ruining it for everyone.

Because strident, belligerant activists don't raise awareness, they just make people hate them. I'm sure there's a generalizable lesson in here somewhere.

Because nobody likes self aggrandizement. The perception that so many people only do it to make themselves appear to be better people because of their morally superior choice is often a vile taste to anyone who hasn't made that same choice.

We all know eating meat is bad and for the many reasons for it. What we don't want to hear is that someone made the switch and that their bleeding heart simply couldnt take it anymore.

I eat beyond meat and I do my best to transition, yet, I'd never say that for the purpose of making myself seem like a better person. Vegans typically do.