As a social animal, we have a strong instinct to conform to the herd’s views, because it’s more important to our survival to agree with the group than it is to be objectively correct. But then we must live in a state of cognitive dissonance, constantly protecting the lies we tell ourselves. A little bit of thought shows why carnists “murder” more plants than vegans do. But does take a little bit of thought, and if you don’t think, it sounds like it makes sense, so it’s the perfect distraction. The point of these “arguments” isn’t to make and support a claim about reality. It’s simply to distract the person making the argument from their own thoughts and feelings that they are unwilling or unable to process. They are very afraid of disturbing the worldview that they uncritically accepted as a child. But that worldview isn’t based in reality, it’s based in wishful thinking and propaganda from capitalists. It requires constant bulwarking through denial, distraction, histrionics, groupthink, etc. People are genuinely afraid that they might change their mind, and suddenly find themselves without a herd. They’ll tell themselves any stupid thing to prevent that from happening.