It’s just impossible to engage with you because of the way you talk (well, type). You’re interested in animals. That’s fine, I get that. But you’ve prioritised that above all other issues and demand that I/we do the same.

Using words like holocaust and comparing people to war criminals and paedophiles doesn’t help. These are big ticket words that you’re using in an attempt to ally your cause with ones that are seen as unequivocal. But it’s a big turn-off.

3 million children died in the past year from starvation and malnutrition. About the same number will die for the same reasons this year. At the same time, there are about 1.5 billion overweight people in the world. That seems an especially ironic tragedy. But it’s just impossible to act on every perceived injustice in the world. We do what we can. There is no ice in our veins, we just have different priorities to you.

If my neighbour tries to set fire to his dog, I’ll try to stop him because that’s something that I can immediately act upon. If some people in a Japanese village want to kill a few unendangered dolphins, then that’s just not in the same class.

But then I see an awful lot of protests about Taiji, but pretty much nothing about China. Far greater animal mistreatment routinely goes on in China, but I never see any animal activists heading over there. Japan’s a nice place with a decent rule of law and comfortable living. You’re not going to get attacked by Japanese citizens and, if you get arrested, you’ll be dealt with fairly in humane conditions and likely suffer no worse fate than being sent home. It’s a different story in China. Perhaps this is the same as my neighbour burning his dog. I stop him because I can and it’s an easily-accessible problem that’s well within my ability to deal with. Perhaps Taiji is the same for animal activists.

Uh huh, my Buddhist mates have no balls. You’re very wrong about that. Here’s Akong Tulku: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akong_Rinpoche

There’s a guy who endured terrible hardships and spent his whole life helping other people. He was one of the happiest people I’ve ever met, always smiling and at peace with himself and the world. His brother’s the same. These guys agree with you about the treatment of animals, but they don’t scream and shout and it’s not all they care about.

I’m not going to take up any more space on someone else’s page with this. I understand your viewpoint. I think we all do; we get to hear it enough. I’m/We’re not unemotional anthropocentric automatons who don’t care about animals (we’re here reading about this, aren’t we?). We’ve just got different priorities. Trying to define everyone as good guys and bad guys and throwing around words like paedophile ain’t going to convert anyone to your cause – you may be doing more harm than good.

And I can assure you, I am not the extremist here. Go to Taiji .. or watch the live-streaming. Truly take the time to fully bear witness to what humans do to animals, across the board. That is, if you have the courage. Imagine you witness your neighbor setting fire to their dog. Will you play a mindgame in your head to distance yourself from acting? Intellectualize? Abstractify? I notice an inability to sense the real-time immediacy of the plight of these poor animals, and it’s really really disturbing to me. Te emotional deadening. The lack of empathy. And does intelligence really matter? Isn’t it just that they suffer at our hands that matters?

Look, I believe in letting anyone believe whatever they want to believe, until someone, human or non-human animal is harmed. That’s where my tolerance ends. Where does your tolerance end? We humans give a hell of a lot lip-service to “love and peace” with our fashionably worn peace symbols and our hopes for a better and peaceful world for our children, but that’s all it is … lip-service. It’s time to get off the fence and align our actions with our values. To raise the bar much higher on how we conduct ourselves.

I and my fellow activiists are just trying to shake the ice out your veins. Might it be possible that you can rediscover the innocent child inside that would unequivocally be horrified to learn these truths of what humans do to animals?

I too do not want to belabor this exchange as I am tired and out of patience to engage with those that it seems are just wired differently in the empathy zone.

Lastly, I leave you with this personal, simple, and non-controlling request that comes only from a place of love — please please please see if you can open your hearts on the animal issues.

The reason why so many people were disappointed with this article is that we were interested in hearing from someone who was involved in the protests and about their experiences and what motivates them, but just got a very emotional and emotive account that didn’t really tell us anything. It’s not a criticism of prose style, but of approach. Instead of an accessible piece that could be read by anyone, it’s only of interest to those of the same bent as the author; they won’t learn anything from the article either, but will enjoy someone reinforcing the views they already hold. It’s a missed opportunity. This isn’t some minor quibble over syntax or spelling.

The anthropomorphising is constant. There are whales “crying out in confusion”, a dolphin has a “terrified shaking fin”. This is ascribing human emotions and behavioural traits to animals without knowing whether they have such. It for precisely those kind of reasons that we tend to focus on the conservation of only the cutest animals like pandas. Who wants to save some ugly beetle that doesn’t behave in manner that we can equate with our own emotions?

Further up the comments there is an account from Leonna, a fisherman, who talks about her experiences without hectoring. It’s very interesting to read and very well expressed. That’s the kind of thing we were hoping for from Ms Reyes.

But I do still think you raise an interesting point about control. If we think in terms of our control of animals rather than our abuse of them, it’s clear that almost all our interactions with animals are of a controlling nature and that’s probably more disturbing than killing for meat. I don’t think you’ll see any end to us controlling other humans any time soon though.

The Celestine Prophecy. It’s a simply awful book that take a ‘spiritual tourism’ approach to other cultures. Sure, I can see its appeal, but goodness me, it’s crass. I read it when it first came out and I’ve always been uncomfortable around those who praise it highly.

Some of my friends are Tibetan Buddhist monks and priests. I’ve travelled with them in Tibet, Nepal and India and visited countless temples an monasteries. They’re nice people. I’m not a Buddhist. I’m not even a vegetarian. Never once have I had the slightest criticism from my Tibetan chums. Never have they suggested or promoted any notion or philosophy. As far as they’re concerned, everyone comes to enlightenment in their own way and pushing someone or promoting an agenda is wrong. I like their approach.

Visiting Buddhist centres back home is not an experience that I would recommend. I’ve met very few sincere people there and an awful lot of purple velvet-wearing fans of The Celestine Prophecies who stand around talking about how Tibet must be a beautiful and spiritual place and asking where Storm got her amazing new meditation mat. It’s jolly depressing.

I’m sorry, I realise this is sounding like a personal attack, but I really don’t intend that. If reading that book helped you find understanding in some way, that’s genuinely a good thing. But if that just codified a previously-held collection of beliefs for you, I’d recommend you cast you net more widely. I do think you raise a truly interesting point about control, which I will certainly think about further, but attacking with rhetoric everyone on here who disagrees with you doesn’t cast you in the best light. And it’s for the same reasons that we didn’t like Ms Reyes’ writing: coming off as a hectoring animal rights type screaming about murder and comparing people to war criminals just turns us off. It’s very easy to dismiss you as an extremist who is completely close-minded and wants nothing less than for us to agree with everything you say. And that’s a shame as I think you have some interesting things to say and it would be nice to engage with you and discuss these things, but I don’t think it’s possible. You’ll hear no more from me.

PS. 1st of August 2013, Seaworld stock rose 1%. It went up today as well. I don’t know what point you’re trying to make with that.