I think this kind of reasoning (the justification for eating meat) is very dangerous and leads to atrocities like Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraudulent behavior. I am very confident that such justifications for meat eating are motivated reasoning. I can’t imagine someone is really that more productive and good at saving the future, by eating meat. If someone says that he eats meat because of being more productive in saving the future, for me it is a clear sign of having a bad character, or a weakness of will, and I don’t think people with such a weakness of will are good in doing much good.
While I think the meat-eating-for-productivity justification can be very perilous, I still strong downvoted this for what I perceive as an uncharitable tone toward those who report significant adverse effects from a vegan diet. I don’t think it is appropriate to summarily dismiss everyone who reports that they are significantly more productive when eating meat as guilty of “motivated reasoning,” along with “a bad character, or a weakness of will . . . .”
As relevant here, Will reported a significant loss of productivity that seems strongly suggestive of health problems, despite trying “very hard to do the vegan thing properly.” As far as I know, neither of us are a physician or a psychologist who have examined the people making similar claims and given them the proverbial million-dollar workup. Nutritional research is hard, and we’d need a significantly stronger body of research (e.g., random assignment, very large samples) to say that a vegan diet is maximally healthful for everyone at an individual level (as opposed to healthier on the a population average). Unless and until the data get to that level, we should err on the side of not diagnosing and condemning people via Internet forum who are reporting their own lived experiences.
Someone who is highly productive in reducing X-risks, is first highly intelligent, which means intelligent enough to know how to eat a healthy vegan diet, and second, most likely living in a wealthy environment with good access of healthy vegan food, which means able to follow the knowledge about healthy vegan diets. So that means if a person still has adverse health effects from the vegan diet, while following all knowledge about healthy vegan diets, it must be because of unknown reasons. And that seems very unlikely to me. We know so much about healthy food...
This comment is breaking Forum norms. It is too harsh. I would like to see more appreciation for the human on the other side of the screen and a collaborative mindset. You can do that while still maintaining a strong stance against the reasoning you don’t like.
I think this kind of reasoning (the justification for eating meat) is very dangerous and leads to atrocities like Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraudulent behavior. I am very confident that such justifications for meat eating are motivated reasoning. I can’t imagine someone is really that more productive and good at saving the future, by eating meat. If someone says that he eats meat because of being more productive in saving the future, for me it is a clear sign of having a bad character, or a weakness of will, and I don’t think people with such a weakness of will are good in doing much good.
While I think the meat-eating-for-productivity justification can be very perilous, I still strong downvoted this for what I perceive as an uncharitable tone toward those who report significant adverse effects from a vegan diet. I don’t think it is appropriate to summarily dismiss everyone who reports that they are significantly more productive when eating meat as guilty of “motivated reasoning,” along with “a bad character, or a weakness of will . . . .”
As relevant here, Will reported a significant loss of productivity that seems strongly suggestive of health problems, despite trying “very hard to do the vegan thing properly.” As far as I know, neither of us are a physician or a psychologist who have examined the people making similar claims and given them the proverbial million-dollar workup. Nutritional research is hard, and we’d need a significantly stronger body of research (e.g., random assignment, very large samples) to say that a vegan diet is maximally healthful for everyone at an individual level (as opposed to healthier on the a population average). Unless and until the data get to that level, we should err on the side of not diagnosing and condemning people via Internet forum who are reporting their own lived experiences.
Someone who is highly productive in reducing X-risks, is first highly intelligent, which means intelligent enough to know how to eat a healthy vegan diet, and second, most likely living in a wealthy environment with good access of healthy vegan food, which means able to follow the knowledge about healthy vegan diets. So that means if a person still has adverse health effects from the vegan diet, while following all knowledge about healthy vegan diets, it must be because of unknown reasons. And that seems very unlikely to me. We know so much about healthy food...
[Speaking as a mod.]
This comment is breaking Forum norms. It is too harsh. I would like to see more appreciation for the human on the other side of the screen and a collaborative mindset. You can do that while still maintaining a strong stance against the reasoning you don’t like.