First off, thank you for your thorough & thoughtful replies (as well as the thorough & thoughtful original post). I appreciate you using your time to improve the quality of the conversation on veganism.
I agree it’s possible that small amounts of high-quality animal products provide minor benefits to people heavily optimizing for health who are otherwise capable of being healthy on a plant-based diet. I just think that 1) very few people are optimizing hard enough for this to matter, and 2) [in people that could be healthy vegans] the value of the mild health benefit is less than the ethical value of preventing the required animal suffering, even if they are being consistent by buying small amounts of extremely expensive high-quality meat.
People for whom iron supplements / heme iron in plant-based meat doesn’t help (& would be anemic on any plant-based diet) seem like the kind of people who have obvious and justifiable health-based reason for eating meat. In footnote 1 I was thinking of people who hadn’t tried a supplement.
(Also, this is obviously the type of discussion I’d only have in venues like this forum. If a friend says “I have to eat meat because I’m anemic,” I don’t say “Are you sure??? Have you really tried multiple vegan supplements???” I just say “Dang, that sucks, hope you feel better.”)
IIUC you want to allow vegans to be imperfect (with the acceptable bar raising with wealth), but are pretty worried about free riders saying “yay animals! I’m a vegan!” while not actually doing much that actually matters.
This is an accurate description. The details are obviously harder to hammer out.
I would make E being the ethical cost of animal products, s.t. one should go vegan iff N < M*(health costs of meat) + M*E.
Ideally going vegan keeps you in good health. For many on the SAD, I think a vegan diet will improve health. However, if veganism is going to cause death/disability, avoid it.[1][2] If it’s going to keep you in good health but keep you slightly short of technically optimal functioning, I think the ethical benefits are enough for veganism to still be worth it.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “looking for improvements on the margin” before recommending veganism — do you mean health improvements? I’d prefer people default to the maximally-ethical diet and then only introduce animal products as really needed for health, not default to eating animals and then only test out veganism after being super-duper sure they can’t eke out a few % increase using offal.[3]
As far as amelitarianism — I’m sure there are indeed plenty of people who’d find amelitarianism easier, and I’m under no illusion that they care about my personal opinions.[4] They don’t affect my morale, and I prefer amelitarians to standard omnivores. I would only take issue if they call themselves vegan, as then (in aggregate) it affects the meaning of the word, my ability to get (actually) vegan food, etc.
For the record, I hope I haven’t come off as too critical; I think we largely agree.
I am very in favor of gathering more empirical evidence on veganism. I think it helps everyone, very much including vegans; a rising tide lifts all boats, etc.[5][6]
I think testing people’s vitamin levels is good, both in giving us community information, and in helping those individuals avoid deficiency. Telling people who somehow missed the memo about B12 supplementation is very good; I’d strongly prefer people not give themselves permanent nerve damage.
Some of your writing feels concern-troll-ish at first pass, but a) I’m not the tone police, b) I think your research is beneficial, and c) there’s a reasonable chance I’m just oversensitized by how often I bump into actual concern trolls.
I think our only real disagreement is how much animal suffering matters compared to minor human health benefits (in the population of people who could be healthy plant-based[7]).
My hot political take is that I quite like humans, and would prefer humans not suffer/die. I would also prefer animals not suffer. I think these can usually be resolved with minimal conflict, but unfortunately not always. What are the odds I convince lots of non-vegans to get their animal-eating needs in the form of stationary bivalves and/or roadkill? :P
Again, both in the “literally cannot process vegan supplements correctly” way and the “extenuating circumstances” way. I mention SPD in a previous-post footnote. I also would be uncomfortable talking about veganism with someone with a history of eating disorders, for example.
Actually I’m not sure what the offal footnote means in general. I hope I’ve accurately conveyed that “tasting” animals is not the problem. Though offal pills might be more ethical if they’re low-cost byproducts? Or maybe you’re saying sticking to offal-only decreases the chance of eating unnecessary animal products?
I read Ozy’s post a while back and have never commented on amelitarianism before. I only gave an opinion on amelitarianism here because you specifically brought it up in a reply to me.
Also, completely selfishly, I’d prefer vegans not Streisand effect the real but (IMO) manageable convenience costs of being vegan, at least for those of us in very-omnivorous communities. [Maybe there are no convenience costs for people in wealthy coastal cities with high vegan populations and multiple vegan friends, but if so I can’t relate.]
Which I estimated at >=80% if ignoring financial constraints, but I’m very open to both research into what this percent actually is and (ideally) nutrition/agriculture/etc research on ways to raise it.
You’ve said some charged things and asked that I take them as information (and I’m glad I did). I’m going to ask for the same trust now.
For many on the SAD, I think a vegan diet will improve health
This sentence, without specifying effects on axes besides health, seems very slippery to me. Lots of diets improve health relative to SAD. SAD strongly optimizes for taste, convenience, and cost, with health being at best a distant afterthought, so there are lots of improvements available if you change your priorities.
I think it’s locally valid to say “after skilling up, the median person can spend $N and $M hours/week to get P health improvements, with no change in taste, and that’s obviously worth it for benefit Q to animals”. Or the same sentence with your personal values, which are easier to calculate. But specifying P without gesturing at the order of magnitude of N and M is not very useful.
You’re absolutely correct on the details. Most people going SAD → vegan increase health, because they generally trade cost or convenience.[1]
Most people[2] wouldn’t pay $N or $M for P without Q, as most people who don’t value Q don’t make the trade. I would not expect any completely amoral Americans to be vegan. My veganism is an argument based on Q, not for the irrelevance of N/M or the magnitude of P. I would expect both N & M to decrease as percent vegans in the local population increase.
However, while vegan being > SAD on health (even without mentioning N/M) is not relevant to this discussion, correctly saying “hey a balanced vegan diet won’t make you waste away” is still shocking news to many people. Therefore noting that there is a P is very useful with many non-vegans. If any EA people think there is no N/M, I think this is possibly the only U.S. subculture where that’s true.[3]
Also, to take a step toward the meta: “good health” and “animal suffering” are [sometimes] sacred values, where time/$ aren’t. So for whom those are sacred values, this is noting that you can have both sacred values by trading against only non-sacred values. Hopefully this is irrelevant to EA/LW people, but it is extremely relevant in the “real world”.
In wealthy urban areas with higher % vegans, the trade-off is usually cost (eating out at vegan restaurants, etc.). In areas that are small with few vegans, the trade-off is convenience (I started cooking more; there is only one vegan restaurant near me that is too far & expensive to regularly visit).
Sorry for my clumsy wording & many footnotes. What I’m trying to say is that in the equation where you trade $N and $M for P and Q, I think people (outside maybe EA) systematically overcalculate N and M and undercalculate P, even before accounting for Q, since they think being vegan is harder than it actually is and leads to a negative P value, which is usually false.
I still don’t think they’d make the trade without Q, but in an effort to “counter-balance” Q people seem to (unconsciously?) distort N, M, and P.
My veganism is an argument based on Q, not for the irrelevance of N/M or the magnitude of P.
But this discussion is about N, M, and P. There have been many discussions of Q, I have already acknowledged Q>0, quantifying Q is outside of scope of the this post. Over on LW I deleted attempts to argue Q=0 because it was out of scope. When N, M, and P are quantified people can combine all the information to argue and make decisions, but getting all 4 pieces quantified is a necessary step.
I fully agree with all of the above. From the first message of this thread I noted that I agreed with the cruxes of the post. I agree that N, M, and P are important and we should gather & disseminate better information on them.
To my understanding, in futher posts we’ve been discussing how much the trade-offs matter, to what extent they’ve been suppressed, and whether some sub-fields have trade-offs at all (e.g. leather).
I don’t think it’s possible to have a discussion without any shadow of Q, because ultimately without Q there’s not even a discussion (beyond a 1-page of current research on one lifestyle choice among many). Your “why is this so hard to talk about” section is answered mostly with Q itself.
That being said, I should have worked harder to stay on topic. I apologize if my replies here have been unhelpful to this discussion.
At the very least, I am still thankful for your thoughtful responses, as I have found this thread both interesting and useful.
First off, thank you for your thorough & thoughtful replies (as well as the thorough & thoughtful original post). I appreciate you using your time to improve the quality of the conversation on veganism.
I agree it’s possible that small amounts of high-quality animal products provide minor benefits to people heavily optimizing for health who are otherwise capable of being healthy on a plant-based diet. I just think that 1) very few people are optimizing hard enough for this to matter, and 2) [in people that could be healthy vegans] the value of the mild health benefit is less than the ethical value of preventing the required animal suffering, even if they are being consistent by buying small amounts of extremely expensive high-quality meat.
People for whom iron supplements / heme iron in plant-based meat doesn’t help (& would be anemic on any plant-based diet) seem like the kind of people who have obvious and justifiable health-based reason for eating meat. In footnote 1 I was thinking of people who hadn’t tried a supplement.
(Also, this is obviously the type of discussion I’d only have in venues like this forum. If a friend says “I have to eat meat because I’m anemic,” I don’t say “Are you sure??? Have you really tried multiple vegan supplements???” I just say “Dang, that sucks, hope you feel better.”)
This is an accurate description. The details are obviously harder to hammer out.
I would make E being the ethical cost of animal products, s.t. one should go vegan iff N < M*(health costs of meat) + M*E.
Ideally going vegan keeps you in good health. For many on the SAD, I think a vegan diet will improve health. However, if veganism is going to cause death/disability, avoid it.[1][2] If it’s going to keep you in good health but keep you slightly short of technically optimal functioning, I think the ethical benefits are enough for veganism to still be worth it.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “looking for improvements on the margin” before recommending veganism — do you mean health improvements? I’d prefer people default to the maximally-ethical diet and then only introduce animal products as really needed for health, not default to eating animals and then only test out veganism after being super-duper sure they can’t eke out a few % increase using offal.[3]
As far as amelitarianism — I’m sure there are indeed plenty of people who’d find amelitarianism easier, and I’m under no illusion that they care about my personal opinions.[4] They don’t affect my morale, and I prefer amelitarians to standard omnivores. I would only take issue if they call themselves vegan, as then (in aggregate) it affects the meaning of the word, my ability to get (actually) vegan food, etc.
For the record, I hope I haven’t come off as too critical; I think we largely agree.
I am very in favor of gathering more empirical evidence on veganism. I think it helps everyone, very much including vegans; a rising tide lifts all boats, etc.[5][6]
I think testing people’s vitamin levels is good, both in giving us community information, and in helping those individuals avoid deficiency. Telling people who somehow missed the memo about B12 supplementation is very good; I’d strongly prefer people not give themselves permanent nerve damage.
Some of your writing feels concern-troll-ish at first pass, but a) I’m not the tone police, b) I think your research is beneficial, and c) there’s a reasonable chance I’m just oversensitized by how often I bump into actual concern trolls.
I think our only real disagreement is how much animal suffering matters compared to minor human health benefits (in the population of people who could be healthy plant-based[7]).
My hot political take is that I quite like humans, and would prefer humans not suffer/die. I would also prefer animals not suffer. I think these can usually be resolved with minimal conflict, but unfortunately not always. What are the odds I convince lots of non-vegans to get their animal-eating needs in the form of stationary bivalves and/or roadkill? :P
Again, both in the “literally cannot process vegan supplements correctly” way and the “extenuating circumstances” way. I mention SPD in a previous-post footnote. I also would be uncomfortable talking about veganism with someone with a history of eating disorders, for example.
Actually I’m not sure what the offal footnote means in general. I hope I’ve accurately conveyed that “tasting” animals is not the problem. Though offal pills might be more ethical if they’re low-cost byproducts? Or maybe you’re saying sticking to offal-only decreases the chance of eating unnecessary animal products?
I read Ozy’s post a while back and have never commented on amelitarianism before. I only gave an opinion on amelitarianism here because you specifically brought it up in a reply to me.
I’m sure the link was for illustrative purposes, but just to be clear, I’m not the linked LW commenter, nor am I opposed to you conducting research.
Also, completely selfishly, I’d prefer vegans not Streisand effect the real but (IMO) manageable convenience costs of being vegan, at least for those of us in very-omnivorous communities. [Maybe there are no convenience costs for people in wealthy coastal cities with high vegan populations and multiple vegan friends, but if so I can’t relate.]
Which I estimated at >=80% if ignoring financial constraints, but I’m very open to both research into what this percent actually is and (ideally) nutrition/agriculture/etc research on ways to raise it.
You’ve said some charged things and asked that I take them as information (and I’m glad I did). I’m going to ask for the same trust now.
This sentence, without specifying effects on axes besides health, seems very slippery to me. Lots of diets improve health relative to SAD. SAD strongly optimizes for taste, convenience, and cost, with health being at best a distant afterthought, so there are lots of improvements available if you change your priorities.
I think it’s locally valid to say “after skilling up, the median person can spend $N and $M hours/week to get P health improvements, with no change in taste, and that’s obviously worth it for benefit Q to animals”. Or the same sentence with your personal values, which are easier to calculate. But specifying P without gesturing at the order of magnitude of N and M is not very useful.
You’re absolutely correct on the details. Most people going SAD → vegan increase health, because they generally trade cost or convenience.[1]
Most people[2] wouldn’t pay $N or $M for P without Q, as most people who don’t value Q don’t make the trade. I would not expect any completely amoral Americans to be vegan. My veganism is an argument based on Q, not for the irrelevance of N/M or the magnitude of P. I would expect both N & M to decrease as percent vegans in the local population increase.
However, while vegan being > SAD on health (even without mentioning N/M) is not relevant to this discussion, correctly saying “hey a balanced vegan diet won’t make you waste away” is still shocking news to many people. Therefore noting that there is a P is very useful with many non-vegans. If any EA people think there is no N/M, I think this is possibly the only U.S. subculture where that’s true.[3]
Also, to take a step toward the meta: “good health” and “animal suffering” are [sometimes] sacred values, where time/$ aren’t. So for whom those are sacred values, this is noting that you can have both sacred values by trading against only non-sacred values. Hopefully this is irrelevant to EA/LW people, but it is extremely relevant in the “real world”.
In wealthy urban areas with higher % vegans, the trade-off is usually cost (eating out at vegan restaurants, etc.). In areas that are small with few vegans, the trade-off is convenience (I started cooking more; there is only one vegan restaurant near me that is too far & expensive to regularly visit).
In regular meat-heavy U.S. culture. YMMV in specific subcultures.
Sorry for my clumsy wording & many footnotes. What I’m trying to say is that in the equation where you trade $N and $M for P and Q, I think people (outside maybe EA) systematically overcalculate N and M and undercalculate P, even before accounting for Q, since they think being vegan is harder than it actually is and leads to a negative P value, which is usually false.
I still don’t think they’d make the trade without Q, but in an effort to “counter-balance” Q people seem to (unconsciously?) distort N, M, and P.
But this discussion is about N, M, and P. There have been many discussions of Q, I have already acknowledged Q>0, quantifying Q is outside of scope of the this post. Over on LW I deleted attempts to argue Q=0 because it was out of scope. When N, M, and P are quantified people can combine all the information to argue and make decisions, but getting all 4 pieces quantified is a necessary step.
I fully agree with all of the above. From the first message of this thread I noted that I agreed with the cruxes of the post. I agree that N, M, and P are important and we should gather & disseminate better information on them.
To my understanding, in futher posts we’ve been discussing how much the trade-offs matter, to what extent they’ve been suppressed, and whether some sub-fields have trade-offs at all (e.g. leather).
I don’t think it’s possible to have a discussion without any shadow of Q, because ultimately without Q there’s not even a discussion (beyond a 1-page of current research on one lifestyle choice among many). Your “why is this so hard to talk about” section is answered mostly with Q itself.
That being said, I should have worked harder to stay on topic. I apologize if my replies here have been unhelpful to this discussion.
At the very least, I am still thankful for your thoughtful responses, as I have found this thread both interesting and useful.