RE: adopting a vegan diet being low cost (vegan being key to ensuring ending of the worst practices) is probably objectively wrong.
The evidence of dietary change efforts failing seems large (decades of conventional efforts, resulting with a flatline in total diet), and is large objective evidence against conventional animal welfare work (I’m unable to be more specific or name the specific practices and organizations involved, for net EV, “moral maze” sort of reasons).
In the otherwise unrelated EA forum discussions about “vultures”/defecting because of money, a common idea/narrative has been that “being vegan” is a powerful signal for altruism. This can’t be true if it’s easy.
Note that this belief about dietary change has not just been wrong but very costly to the actual cause.
This concrete and specific realization has been a large update for me against all leftist causes (as opposed to for ideological or political reasons).
At the same time, very small changes in diet can reduce suffering enormously. This truth is probably a key part a “ruthless” critique against EA vegan diets being effective (critiques which I do not fully agree with).
Sorry, yes, didn’t mean to imply Charles He was only talking about catering. I was just using that as an example of EAs following vegan diets in a way that costs more money, as opposed to costlessly. This post by Jeff Kaufman is relevant, https://www.jefftk.com/p/two-kinds-of-vegan :
“Go vegan!”, you hear, “it’s cheaper, more environmentally sustainable, and just as healthy and delicious!” The problem is, these aren’t all true at the same time.
I didn’t interpret Charles He as talking about EA events spending extra money on catering, but about individuals adopting vegan diets.
Yes, that is what I meant.
RE: adopting a vegan diet being low cost (vegan being key to ensuring ending of the worst practices) is probably objectively wrong.
The evidence of dietary change efforts failing seems large (decades of conventional efforts, resulting with a flatline in total diet), and is large objective evidence against conventional animal welfare work (I’m unable to be more specific or name the specific practices and organizations involved, for net EV, “moral maze” sort of reasons).
In the otherwise unrelated EA forum discussions about “vultures”/defecting because of money, a common idea/narrative has been that “being vegan” is a powerful signal for altruism. This can’t be true if it’s easy.
Note that this belief about dietary change has not just been wrong but very costly to the actual cause.
This concrete and specific realization has been a large update for me against all leftist causes (as opposed to for ideological or political reasons).
At the same time, very small changes in diet can reduce suffering enormously. This truth is probably a key part a “ruthless” critique against EA vegan diets being effective (critiques which I do not fully agree with).
Sorry, yes, didn’t mean to imply Charles He was only talking about catering. I was just using that as an example of EAs following vegan diets in a way that costs more money, as opposed to costlessly. This post by Jeff Kaufman is relevant, https://www.jefftk.com/p/two-kinds-of-vegan :