I appreciate this post: I think it makes progress in a conversation that can sometimes be an elephant in the room.
An experience I once had, which I bring up to illustrate how the state of this conversation has real effects on the ground, involved an EA—someone in a hiring position—saying that they are suspicious of x-risk-focused people who aren’t vegan. Attitudes like this within EA are harmful, in my opinion. The thesis put forward in this post, that veganism entails at least some trade-offs, seems clearly true to me, and I think that a dynamic—I’m not sure how prevalent this dynamic might be—of EAs feeling pressured into being vegan when really the trade-offs for them aren’t worth it, is unhealthy.
(For what it’s worth, I’m not a vegan, though I was vegan in the past for around a year.)
I appreciate this post: I think it makes progress in a conversation that can sometimes be an elephant in the room.
An experience I once had, which I bring up to illustrate how the state of this conversation has real effects on the ground, involved an EA—someone in a hiring position—saying that they are suspicious of x-risk-focused people who aren’t vegan. Attitudes like this within EA are harmful, in my opinion. The thesis put forward in this post, that veganism entails at least some trade-offs, seems clearly true to me, and I think that a dynamic—I’m not sure how prevalent this dynamic might be—of EAs feeling pressured into being vegan when really the trade-offs for them aren’t worth it, is unhealthy.
(For what it’s worth, I’m not a vegan, though I was vegan in the past for around a year.)