This is a bit of a follow-up to this post. Someone responded to my analogy this way, and I'm just baffled that you can seriously say something like this to go so hard to defend babystepping.
no one will argue with you that 0 kids in the basement is better than 5 or 10, but it's still objectively better to have 5 than 10.
Imagine typing this and hitting send. Holy shit.
Also, I wasn't vegan from birth, but I sure as hell wish I fucking was. I regret every moment I supported the exploitation of animals. I also got convinced to go vegan by listening to ethical vegans who were really staunch in expressing just how fucking bad the way we treat other species is. If I got a bunch of apologists who told me "You can go vegan at whatever slow pace you like and it's totally fine and ethical!", then I would be so damn uneducated and blind to the truth.
To quote this genius who sent me this reply, "Exactly."
I feel like easing people into Veganism less effective a lot of the time, especially if they're already vegetarian. If they actually care, or even if they may not, alerting them to the severity of the issues involving animal slaughter and their respective industries should be enough for them to change if they are materially able to.
The internet bullied me in to being vegan. If it had not, I'd still be baby-stepping it 3 years later. If meatless mondays help people become vegan, then the carnists advocating them as a half measure would already be vegan.