I find it very hard to accept that most people truly believe that non-human animals are not sentient or that they don't feel pain. Speaking from my own experience, it was easier to use the distance between myself and the reality of the commodification of non-human animals than to accept the unbearable weight of the horrors.

Even as a vegan I find myself blocking it out. Looking for slippers recently I had to mentally file animal hair and skin as "bad" fabrics rather than what they actually are to avoid getting stuck on how cruel a pair of cozy slippers could be and focus on finding a suitable pair.

All of this to say that I don't think lack of evidence is the barrier. There sure are a lot of rules about how humans are allowed to treat these beings who supposedly don't feel pain the way we do, for example. I understand that it's likely a spectrum of "they don't feel pain", "modern slaughter is painless (🤡), they don't feel fear", "animals are here for us to use so long as we respect the gravity of taking their life" but each segment of that spectrum depends on some level of cognitive dissidence.

Please don't read this as a defeatist attitude or dismissive of certain tactics, that's not my intent. I think I'm just grappling with the scale of the issue and how it intersects with other injustices. As with anything, it will take a variety of tactics to shift collective acceptance of this unacceptable practice.

It's not a "theory" it's a cope. They want to believe it's true, it's not based on evidence or experience. It's a necessary lie people tell themselves so they don't feel guilt, and that works when you're buying a decontextualized package of meat at the store.

I bet if you forced most of these people who say "animals don't feel pain" to personally kill an animal they'd hesitate. They know.