Is the amount of time/energy you’d need to invest (discounted for the fact that likely you wouldn’t otherwise be spending this all on altruism) not worth it to unlock the benefits for animals of being vegan for the rest of your life?
This argument doesn’t hold as strongly as you think—because I can decide to be vegan later, so it’s more like “benefits for animal until being vegan becomes a priority”. And also perhaps animal suffering falls at some future time.
And for me it’s less about energy and more about focus. I don’t feel like I get to pick too many things to focus on in any weak, usually 1-2 (eg this week I’m mainly focusing on “getting work done” and “going to bed one time”). Veganism felt like it took up .2-1 of a slot for most of the time I did it. So yeah, I don’t think it was worth it.
I think the fuelling activism point is kind of good—I did find it easier to talk about animals when I knew I was taking pains to avoid them.
But there is a deeper kind of activism I might want to fuel, that of trying to do the most effective thing. It did feel a bit incongruous to spend mine and others time to avoid eating animals while my company wasn’t at the point I wanted it to be. And most of my impact will probably be through my work. Someone pointed out that this was inconsistent and I think they were right.
At some point veganism might be a top priority for me, but I’m not convinced it is now.
This argument doesn’t hold as strongly as you think—because I can decide to be vegan later, so it’s more like “benefits for animal until being vegan becomes a priority”. And also perhaps animal suffering falls at some future time.
And for me it’s less about energy and more about focus. I don’t feel like I get to pick too many things to focus on in any weak, usually 1-2 (eg this week I’m mainly focusing on “getting work done” and “going to bed one time”). Veganism felt like it took up .2-1 of a slot for most of the time I did it. So yeah, I don’t think it was worth it.
I think the fuelling activism point is kind of good—I did find it easier to talk about animals when I knew I was taking pains to avoid them.
But there is a deeper kind of activism I might want to fuel, that of trying to do the most effective thing. It did feel a bit incongruous to spend mine and others time to avoid eating animals while my company wasn’t at the point I wanted it to be. And most of my impact will probably be through my work. Someone pointed out that this was inconsistent and I think they were right.
At some point veganism might be a top priority for me, but I’m not convinced it is now.