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Changing Your Diet Is 'Number One' Way To Help The Planet, Woody Harrelson Says
(plantbasednews.org)
this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2026
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Not even close. Dealing with the excess personal ambitions of the wealthy would do far more.
Unless being vegan would keep you from actually eating the rich, this point is utterly and completely irrelevant.
To illustrate, imagine some celebrity said "rape culture is bad, and everyone should work against it!". Do I, as some average guy, get a pass if I talk about how "um akschually, Epstein Island, Trump, bla bla"?
Like, seriously, my INDIVIDUAL impact on womens liberation is exactly as big as your impact on animals rights. So do we both get to just not care, and sit on our lazy asses, because we can't, on our own, change the world?
You people talk a big game about material reality, about systems, but you've turned "systems" into a near religious excuse for personal inaction. "The revolution" is the second coming, and all you have to do is believe. Not act, not make the world a better place, just preach.
Not really given the bold claim in the op title.
Can you do that?
Nobody can. We're fucked.
So why are you even bringing it up then
To share the pain.
It's actually called a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 and you deploy it to avoid processing thoughts and feelings that are better socially for you to pretend you don't understand. You're afraid of abandoning or being abandoned by your tribe, so you have to do everything and anything to avoid thinking about the vast cruelty and needless violence that you are participating in every day.
That's a ridiculous conclusion.
Learned hopelessness. You do more for the rich by wanting something more equal but being too pathetic to even believe it's possible than those who are entirely ignorant of our exploitation.
If you want to break this cycle you should start doing small things that make a difference. This will teach you change is possible, give you hope and make you more able to resist your oppression. Something like going vegan is a good place to start. A small change with a lot of impact.
Change happens all the time but its shaped by power, which the vast majority if individuals have very little of and seem to insist on never using. Collective empower is our only chance and everyone refuses to exercise it, at always have, so its really just the illusion of power.
Also, learned hopelessness comes from actual hopelessness. Just because you want to be hopeful doesn't mean there is any hope, you're just deluding yourself to protect your feelings.
So you're a champion of collective power but don't believe that the choices people make have any impact and thus individuals in a collective shouldn't pursue change?
I don't believe individual efforts are effective for the powerless and that not enough people are willing, able or commited to contribute enough to collective efforts to force systemic, positive changes.
Ok, so you don't actually believe in collective action that requires YOU PERSONALLY to be part of the collective? You're waiting for some other undefined collective of INDIVIDUALS to make INDIVIDUAL CHOICES AND SACRIFICES to make the changes?
You would've genuinely derided any and all civil rights movements, or womens movements, as long as they weren't big enough of far along enough.
Your morals depend not on what you actually support with your actions, but what you say you care about. As long as I, as a straight white man, SAY I care about feminism or anti-racism, I don't actually have to DO anything. Because there's only two forms of a movement: The one too weak, so there's no point helping, and the one so strong, there's no point helping (beyond words).
Nope. Not what I believe.
Not learned hopelessness though lol
You can just say you don't understand, it's not hard.
Bait used to be believable, you fell off
Maybe because no one is leading by example? You don't even have to commit to veganism to help. Just trying to eat less meat adds up quickly, especially when you do it and encourage others to do the same. That is one of the many ways collective action can kick off.
Countless people have led by example but nobody followed. It isn't a problem with having examples available. Reducing resource consumption won't work if those resources are simply used by others.