Reason is Not Enough

Have you ever wondered why is it so hard to convince someone to go vegan?

We don't need to tell you how morally initiatory and how nutritiously simple veganism is.

So how come it is so hard, even for many people who define themselves as "animal lovers", to become vegans?

Could it be that the obstacle to veganism is the messengers? Not enough health food stores? The price of soy milk? Not enough vegan celebrities? Not enough visual evidence about what is going on in factory farms?

You know it is not any of these.

The animal rights arguments are so simple and right. They are based on solid facts and evidences. Nobody can confront them rationally.

So why is it so hard to convince someone to go vegan?

The reason is that reason is not enough. Good arguments are not relevant.

Rationality is not enough in this world. It has proved itself as an insufficient element in order to change people’s habits.

Rationality can’t beat motivation.

"... humans are much more social than rational creatures. In everyday life on average, people try to merge into society, behave correspondingly, and afterwards rationalize their behaviour, i.e. find "rational" reasons why they act as they act. This observation is so obvious that it does not seem to merit quoting empirical support."
- Martin Balluch -

* Non-quotation text taken from the Only One Solution website.

Cognitive Dissonance among Vegans

Consider the following:
A. Most vegan activists will agree that humans - as all species - are selfish and violent by nature and that most of them do not care about nonhuman suffering.
B. Most vegan activists dedicate their activity time to vegan education and believe animal exploitation will end within 100 years.[1]

Don't you agree these two cognitions are inconsistent with each other? It is impossible to convince humans - who hold the freedom of choice - to behave against their own nature.
Vegan education is based on moral justice, while humans' choice is based on self interest. In our case, these are two contradictory things.[2]

It's so frustrating to admit, but the reason this dissonance is so common among activists is selfishness (which we all struggle with):
"Let's be honest. The animal rights movement as we now know it will never become a revolutionary struggle because the representatives of the oppressed enjoy enough privilege from the system they oppose to prevent them from supporting, let alone engaging in actual revolutionary activity that would risk those comforts."
--Rod Coronado, "Hypocrisy Is Our Greatest Luxury" (no longer available online)

The Only One Solution Manifest begins its attention to vegan education with the next paragraph:
"Have you ever wondered why is it so hard to convince someone to go vegan?
We don’t need to tell you how morally initiatory and how nutritiously simple veganism is. So how come it is so hard, even for many people who define themselves as "animal lovers", to become vegans? It is a question we have constantly asked ourselves when we were "vegan converters". Could it be that the obstacle to veganism is the messengers? Not enough health food stores? The price of soy milk? Not enough vegan celebrities? Not enough visual evidence about what is going on in factory farms? You know it is not any of these.
The question we are asking ourselves now in the only one solution movement is how come animal rights activists don’t see that the problem is with the addressees?"

Most activists probably know deep down it is not the messengers but the addressees, but as Rod Coronado put it so well, the price is too high.


[1] According to recent survey (which is no longer available online) that was first presented in the 12th International Vegan Festival, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 22-25, 2009.

[2] Some people would argue that acting morally is part of anyone's self interest, but this is not true. For most people - morality is a negligible consideration, it is important for them to feel peaceful with their choice. Meaning, they will seek (and find) a justification to continue with their violent acts ("animals in nature kill and eat other animals all the time", for example) and continue to ignore the most basic moral principle ("Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you").

Only One Solution

The Only One Solution may be the most important website there is. It gives you everything you need in order to understand why humans must be annihilated from this world. And that's not all, it also argues that it would be better if all species were to be annihilated.

The Only One Solution Manifest begins with the following paragraphs:

It is not easy to explain your most fundamental perceptions and ideas. It feels so clear, so obvious and right that ironically it is hard to pass it forth. Yet this is the goal of this manifest, this website and the only one solution movement as a whole, an explanation why the only deep-rooted, fundamental, radical, comprehensive and true solution to the world’s suffer is to destroy it.


It is a rather banal and self evident idea that many activists think of at some point in their lives, but we feel that mostly it pops up in times of despair and disbelief while it should be the primal concept at all times regardless of the state of affairs within the animal rights movement or with your own activism.
Such a fundamental and basic philosophy shouldn’t be built on a temporary situation or episodic mood. That is why we wrapped the idea with arguments that seek to construct a serious and comprehensive case for the annihilation idea. We want that what is now probably no more than a feeling or an opinion, will change into a purpose and then into action.


Please don’t automatically dismiss the idea as a cliché or a slogan, or an out of reach fantasy and get back to your familiar position in your organization. You are an activist because in some point of your life you realized how much suffer exists in the world and you have decided that you must stop it. The only one solution initiative is not romantic naiveness of inexperienced activists or grown fantasists. It is a rational and realistic quest for a sufferless world.
Even if you have doubts at least read the whole manifest. You may get new perspectives and new ideas, new arguments and new questions to confront with. The worst thing that can happen is a waste of a few hours, the best thing is that you will decide that from now on, you devote your life to end all the suffer in the world.



After reading the entire manifest, what is your opinion - would it be better if all species were to be annihilated, not only humans?

The Human Barrier

What exploited nonhumans need to be liberated is very simple: they need humans to be extinct. This may be a daunting technical task but it is still a technical task.

What is impossible is to liberate these nonhumans and keep humans alive.