The post uses rhetoric, sort of what I call “EA rhetoric” where lengthy writing and language and internal devices and internally consistent arguments gas up a point, while basic, logical points are left out, and their omission is concealed by the same length.
This essay is centered on the truth that a vegan diet “isn’t really quite EA” (in the sense of the “GiveWell, dollars for QALY aesthetic”).
The reasons for EA vegan diet are subtle, related to the cause area and the fact that vegan diets are costly. I’m happy to do a ruthless takedown of the vegan EA diet, if there is demand.
Instead of understanding or discussing the reasons why EA choose this diet, which are interesting and important, it spends the rest of its time making arguments for climate change mitigation, constantly returning to this diet choice to justify itself.
Other things it does:
It bakes in and begs the question that climate change is similar to other EA causes—but it is not through the ITN framework that EAs use.
It lampshades this lack of argument by mentioning neglectedness, and then appealing to uncertainty, but that’s not nearly enough treatment for this critical claim.
It does not mention that the two causes tend to be diametrically opposed on personal choice.
It’s not clear that all dietary change away from beef hasn’t been vastly harmful.
Someone below did the math here, and finds the value of personal choices lower for climate change by a factor of 100, even using weights on animals that probably can’t be justified by the experiences.
Most EAAs do not want to spend time fighting or confronting left people because it’s net negative for instrumental or political reasons.
It’s net negative because of rhetoric like this, so propagating it is bad.
Consuming factory farmed animal products also indicates moral unseriousness much more strongly because it is so extremely cheap to reduce animal suffering by making slightly different choices .
The specific points being made in those quotations aren’t mutually exclusive. Onni Aarne is saying you can make very inexpensive adjustments to your diet that greatly reduce animal suffering, and Charles He is saying that EA events spend extra money on catering to satisfy the constraint of making it vegan. I think both claims are correct.
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.
“It bakes in and begs the question that climate change is similar to other EA causes—but it is not through the ITN framework that EAs use.”
I specifically tried to bracket the question of cause importance for a few reasons. I don’t think I have any particular expertise or insight on how to value animal suffering. My core point about the similarity in the potential for impact via personal consumption choices in both domains is analytically distinct from the importance of the cause areas. And I didn’t want agreement or disagreement with my post to hinge on readers own views about the relative importance of the two causes.
“It lampshades this lack of argument by mentioning neglectedness, and then appealing to uncertainty, but that’s not nearly enough treatment for this critical claim.”
I emphasized neglectedness this (though I did also briefly discuss importance and tractability, because lack of neglectedness is typically the feature of climate change mitigation that EAs rely most heavily on in deprioritizing climate change relative to other cause areas. In light of that, I think it’s important to note that (a) existing investments in climate change mitigation mostly do not come in the form of personal consumption decisions; and (b) there is little reason to expect diminishing marginal returns to more people taking some steps to minimize their carbon footprints (that is, on the extensive margin; on the intensive margin, or individual people making further investments in personal consumption decarbonization, decreasing marginal returns are to be expected).
It’s not that sophisticated.
The post uses rhetoric, sort of what I call “EA rhetoric” where lengthy writing and language and internal devices and internally consistent arguments gas up a point, while basic, logical points are left out, and their omission is concealed by the same length.
This essay is centered on the truth that a vegan diet “isn’t really quite EA” (in the sense of the “GiveWell, dollars for QALY aesthetic”).
The reasons for EA vegan diet are subtle, related to the cause area and the fact that vegan diets are costly. I’m happy to do a ruthless takedown of the vegan EA diet, if there is demand.
Instead of understanding or discussing the reasons why EA choose this diet, which are interesting and important, it spends the rest of its time making arguments for climate change mitigation, constantly returning to this diet choice to justify itself.
Other things it does:
It bakes in and begs the question that climate change is similar to other EA causes—but it is not through the ITN framework that EAs use.
It lampshades this lack of argument by mentioning neglectedness, and then appealing to uncertainty, but that’s not nearly enough treatment for this critical claim.
It does not mention that the two causes tend to be diametrically opposed on personal choice.
It’s not clear that all dietary change away from beef hasn’t been vastly harmful.
Someone below did the math here, and finds the value of personal choices lower for climate change by a factor of 100, even using weights on animals that probably can’t be justified by the experiences.
Most EAAs do not want to spend time fighting or confronting left people because it’s net negative for instrumental or political reasons.
It’s net negative because of rhetoric like this, so propagating it is bad.
While I also disagree with the top level post, this seems overly hostile.
Fwiw, another commentator, Onni Aarne, actually says the opposite—that a vegan diet is motivated because in part because it’s not costly (I’m not hereby saying they’re right, or that you are).
The specific points being made in those quotations aren’t mutually exclusive. Onni Aarne is saying you can make very inexpensive adjustments to your diet that greatly reduce animal suffering, and Charles He is saying that EA events spend extra money on catering to satisfy the constraint of making it vegan. I think both claims are correct.
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 :
This comment was at −3 before I strong upvoted.
Im not sure why that it is so but that is bad and may reflect some deterioration in norms (that maybe I’m contributing to?).
It’s think it’s good to argue ruthlessly but I avoid downvoting things I disagree with a lot of the time.
“It bakes in and begs the question that climate change is similar to other EA causes—but it is not through the ITN framework that EAs use.”
I specifically tried to bracket the question of cause importance for a few reasons. I don’t think I have any particular expertise or insight on how to value animal suffering. My core point about the similarity in the potential for impact via personal consumption choices in both domains is analytically distinct from the importance of the cause areas. And I didn’t want agreement or disagreement with my post to hinge on readers own views about the relative importance of the two causes.
“It lampshades this lack of argument by mentioning neglectedness, and then appealing to uncertainty, but that’s not nearly enough treatment for this critical claim.”
I emphasized neglectedness this (though I did also briefly discuss importance and tractability, because lack of neglectedness is typically the feature of climate change mitigation that EAs rely most heavily on in deprioritizing climate change relative to other cause areas. In light of that, I think it’s important to note that (a) existing investments in climate change mitigation mostly do not come in the form of personal consumption decisions; and (b) there is little reason to expect diminishing marginal returns to more people taking some steps to minimize their carbon footprints (that is, on the extensive margin; on the intensive margin, or individual people making further investments in personal consumption decarbonization, decreasing marginal returns are to be expected).