I have watched some vegetarian materials.
I was doing a brief study of vegetarian and vegan activism by watching several hours worth of videos portraying vegan campaigns, vegan documentaries and vegan interviews.
I was already aware of 'Earthlings' before I started my vegan video marathon a couple of months ago.
About myself
I am not a vegan because of poor availability of vegan food in my city.
There is no 'vegetarian' category corresponding with vegan, so I post it in 'life', otherwise it would be posted in 'vegetarian' if this category existed.
I am a vegan because my girlfriend happens to cook for me. If it was not for them, I would just eat white bread and ice cream, or I would fall back to flesh eating because of lack of a better alternative.
Availability of vegetarian food
I am not a chef.
I know that plenty of vegetarian and vegan recipes, but I do not really want to learn how to execute them.
For comparison, in the category 'blockchain' I do not just find source codes of cryptocurrencies and information on how to compile them.
I am getting the impression that I cannot be a vegan unless I am a chef. (And I am not a chef, thence I am not a vegan).
I do not really understand. Why vegan speakers who promote veganism assume that everybody will become a chef after listening to their talks?
When you first considered moving away from Windows, did you just download Linux sources and compiled them yourself? If this is not your preferred way of installing new software, why do you expect that I will just download your recipes and learn how to carry them out?
Places where it is available
I used to volunteer a little in gurudwaras, Seomra Spraoi, Auroville (Sadhana Forest) and Food Not Bombs.
From the above list only Food Not Bombs is available in my city, yet it only gives me an opportunity to eat vegan food once week while being exposed to cigarette smoke.
Eating vegan food is not worth being exposed to poisonous smoke, so I gave that up, anyway, it was only once a week.
I intend to be a vegetarian as long as there is at least one individual who cooks for me.
It is not possible in my city to be a vegan unless I am at the same time a chef (or I allow myself to be exposed to cigarette smoke).
If you are reading this, and you are a vegan, please understand I am a software developer. I am not telling you that you have to learn how to be a software developer if you want to use a computer. Please don't tell me that I have to be a chef if I want to eat ethical food.
Disadvantages of vegan activism
I am only going to address two kinds of vegan activism in this section.
Other kinds of activism promoting veganism, that actually matter and make a difference, were already mentioned above, and I do occasionally take part in them, as long as they are available in my city.
One of them is The Save Movement, or people watching animals that are about to die.
I understand that it is doing at least something, like giving bottled water to the oppressed, at least those traveling on the lowest decks.
Still, I don't know whether all of the participants do it for good reasons.
Some people genuinely enjoy watching animals suffer. There is plenty of YouTube videos showing mice dying agonizing deaths in elaborate traps. I've read the comments, and they are usually ecstatic. Supporters genuinely want these to be made and monetized.
If people want to watch animals in agony why give them the pleasure and distribute these films for free.
Some people are sick bastards who really enjoy watching torture and would be glad to pay the oppressors just to be able to watch them.
The other kind of vegan activism I want to discuss in this section is slacktivism or verbal activism.
Vegans who engage in video slacktivism do nothing at all, or just engage in publicity stunts.
There is one James Aspey who did nothing for animals other than refuse to speak for a year.
They wouldn't even speak for the animals.
(It could be called 'the voiceless for the voiceless action', pun intended :)
In a particular interview James shows that they know nothing about animals.
Watch this video from 28:05, at which the interviewer (themselves a murderer and an animal hater) talks about hunting.
James demonstrates that they know nothing about animal protection, or animal rights. At 29:35 they say:
When it comes to (...) deer overpopulation, I would say that we shouldn't just be looking at the easiest solution, going shoot as many of them as we can [this is not what hunting is about - hunting wild animals is distinct from Emu War], we should be looking at more respectful ways that do actually take the value of their lives into account, of what we can do actually about this problem.
(...)
Let's not just kill all these overpopulated animals, let's figure out a solution that doesn't cause all this suffering and this murder, let's find something better.
Do I have that solution? I don't, that's not my speciality [emphasis added]
What is James' speciality, then? Animal welfare it obviously is not, perhaps their speciality is speaking in front of the camera about nothing, or not speaking at all for prolonged periods of time, I am lost :)
My speciality
What is my speciality, apart from being terrible at preparing vegetarian food? (While still being a vegetarian).
I run a pet mice sanctuary.
I have over a hundred mice. Initially I bought a small number of pet mice, and you can watch me with one of my tame mice here (start at 13:03), eventually I also started taking care of stray mice and their descendants.
Other alternatives
If an animal sanctuary able to host overpopulated deers is not available in your area, why not just spay and neuter them?
I don't know whether spaying and neutering of feral deers is a viable option. Can deers be neutered like horses?
Is animal vasectomy just as good as neutering? I've had a vasectomy, and can testify from experience that it doesn't hurt.
If vasectomy can be humanely applied to counter overpopulation of humans, why can't it, or neutering, be applied to deers?
Has James researched that? Why wouldn't they - before going on TV to proclaim that - from a mute vegan's point of view - there is no real alternative to what is in James' own words committing a murder?