Iâm getting tired of the âveganism is only a minor inconvenienceâ point being made:
V*ganism shows very high ârecidivismâ rates in the general population. Most people who try to stop eating meat/âanimal products usually end up returning to eat these things before long.
The general public health literature on behaviour/âlifestyle change seldom says these things are easy/âstraightforward to effect.
When this point is made by EAAs, there is almost always lots of EAs who they say, âNo, actually, I found going v*gan really hardâ, or, âI tried it but I struggled so much I felt I had to switch backâ.
(The selection effect that could explain why âongoing v*gansâ found the change only a minor convenience is left as an exercise to the reader).
I donât know many times we need to rehearse this such that people stop saying âV*ganism is a minor inconvenienceâ. But I do know it has happened enough times that other people in previous discussions have also wondered how many times this needs to be rehearsed such that people stop saying this.
Of course, even if it is a major inconvenience (FWIW, Iâm a vegetarian, and Iâd find the relatively small âstep furtherâ to be exclusively vegan a major inconvenience), this could still be outweighed by other factors across the scales (thereâs discussion to be had ârelative aversionâ, some second-order stuff about appropriate cooperative norms, etc. etc.). Yet discussions of the cost-benefit proceed better if the costs are not wrongly dismissed.
I would say, in many cases, we could consider veganism to be a major inconvenience.
For example
when the whole family is eating meat and one has to live with them.
when one cannot really choose in school or work because of cafeteria offer
when one doesnât have a belief animal suffering should be avoided
when one has low tendency to stand up against colleagues/âfriends/âfamily/âsociety pressure
when one doesnât know how to cook (or doesnât have time) and there are not good enough vegan services in place of living
But when you change the context to Hotel for effective altruists where one can just eat what is given, is supported to eat whatâs given by everyone around we could call it only a âminor inconvenienceâ. And in a case, the food will be really good it could be called âgreat opportunityâ for non-vegan EA to experience vegan living without even trying.
V*ganism shows very high ârecidivismâ rates in the general population. Most people who try to stop eating meat/âanimal products usually end up returning to eat these things before long.
FWIW, based on Faunalytics surveys, the recidivism rate seems to be about 50% for vegans motivated by animal protection specifically:
I would be wary of equivocating different forms of âinconvenienceâ. There are at least three being alluded to here:
1) Fighting the akrasia of craving animal products
2) The hassle of finding vegan premade food (else of having to prepare meals for yourself)
3) Reduced productivity gains from missing certain nutrients (else of having to carefully supplement constantly)
Of these, the first basically irrelevant in the hotelâyou can remove it as a factor by just not giving people the easy option to ingest them. The second is completely irrelevant, since itâs serving or supplying 90% of the food people will be eating.
So that only leaves three, which is much talked about, but so far as I know, little studied, so this âinconvenienceâ could even have the wrong sign: the only study on the subject I found from a very quick search showed increased productivity from veganism for health reasons; also on certain models of willpower that treat it as analogous to a muscle, it could turn out that depriving yourself (even by default, from the absence of offered foods) you improve your willpower and thus become more productive.
Iâve spoken to a number of people who eat meat/âanimal products for the third reason, but so far as I know they rarely seem to have reviewed any data on the question, and almost never to have actually done any controlled experiments on themselves. Honestly I suspect many of them are using the first two to justify a suspicion of the third (for eg, I know several EAs who eat meat with productivity justifications, but form whom itâs usually *processed* meat in the context of other dubious dietary choices, so they demonstrably arenât optimising their diet for maximal productivity).
Also, if the third does turn out to be a real factor, it seems very unlikely that more than a tiny bit of meat every few days would be necessary to fix the problem for most people, and going to the shops to buy that for themselves seems unlikely to cause them any serious inconvenience.
The inconvenience I had in mind is not in your list, and comprises things in the area of, âPrefer to keep the diet Iâm already accustomed toâ, âPrefer omnivorous diets on taste etc. grounds to vegan onesâ, and so on. I was thinking of an EA who is omnivorous and feels little/âno compunction about eating meat (either because they arenât âon boardâ with the moral motivation for animal causes in general, or doesnât find the arguments for veganism persuasive in particular). I think switching to a vegan diet isnât best described as a minor inconvenience for people like these.
But to be clear, this doesnât entail any moral obligation whatsoever on the hotel to serve meatâitâs not like they are forcing omnivorous guests to be vegan, but just not cooking them free (non-vegan) food. If a vegan offers me to stay at their house a) for free, b) offers vegan food for free too, c) welcomes me to, if Iâm not a fan of vegan food, get my own food to cook at their house whenever I likeâwhich seems basically the counterfactual scenario if I wasnât staying with them in the first place, and d) explains all of this before I come, theyâve been supererogatory in accommodating me, and it would be absurd for me to say theyâve fallen short in not serving me free omnivorous food which they morally object to.
Yet insofar as âfree foodâ is a selling point of the hotel, âfree vegan foodâ may not be so enticing to omnivorous guests. Obviously the offer is still generous by itself, leave alone combined with free accommodation, but one could imagine it making a difference on the margin to omnivores (especially if they are cost-sensitive).
Thus thereâs a trade-off in between these people and vegans who would be put off if the hotel served meat itself (even if vegan options were also provided). Itâs plausible to me the best option to pick here (leave alone any other considerations) is the more âvegan-friendlyâ policy. But this isnât because the trade-off is in fact illusory because the âvegan-friendlyâ policy is has minimal/âminor costs to omnivores after all.
[Empirically though, this doesnât seem to amount to all that much given (I understand) the hotel hasnât been struggling for guests.]
Iâm getting tired of the âveganism is only a minor inconvenienceâ point being made:
V*ganism shows very high ârecidivismâ rates in the general population. Most people who try to stop eating meat/âanimal products usually end up returning to eat these things before long.
The general public health literature on behaviour/âlifestyle change seldom says these things are easy/âstraightforward to effect.
When this point is made by EAAs, there is almost always lots of EAs who they say, âNo, actually, I found going v*gan really hardâ, or, âI tried it but I struggled so much I felt I had to switch backâ.
(The selection effect that could explain why âongoing v*gansâ found the change only a minor convenience is left as an exercise to the reader).
I donât know many times we need to rehearse this such that people stop saying âV*ganism is a minor inconvenienceâ. But I do know it has happened enough times that other people in previous discussions have also wondered how many times this needs to be rehearsed such that people stop saying this.
Of course, even if it is a major inconvenience (FWIW, Iâm a vegetarian, and Iâd find the relatively small âstep furtherâ to be exclusively vegan a major inconvenience), this could still be outweighed by other factors across the scales (thereâs discussion to be had ârelative aversionâ, some second-order stuff about appropriate cooperative norms, etc. etc.). Yet discussions of the cost-benefit proceed better if the costs are not wrongly dismissed.
I would say, in many cases, we could consider veganism to be a major inconvenience.
For example
when the whole family is eating meat and one has to live with them.
when one cannot really choose in school or work because of cafeteria offer
when one doesnât have a belief animal suffering should be avoided
when one has low tendency to stand up against colleagues/âfriends/âfamily/âsociety pressure
when one doesnât know how to cook (or doesnât have time) and there are not good enough vegan services in place of living
But when you change the context to Hotel for effective altruists where one can just eat what is given, is supported to eat whatâs given by everyone around we could call it only a âminor inconvenienceâ. And in a case, the food will be really good it could be called âgreat opportunityâ for non-vegan EA to experience vegan living without even trying.
FWIW, based on Faunalytics surveys, the recidivism rate seems to be about 50% for vegans motivated by animal protection specifically:
https://ââwww.facebook.com/ââgroups/ââEffectiveAnimalAdvocacy/ââpermalink/ââ906516599519212/ââ
I would be wary of equivocating different forms of âinconvenienceâ. There are at least three being alluded to here:
1) Fighting the akrasia of craving animal products
2) The hassle of finding vegan premade food (else of having to prepare meals for yourself)
3) Reduced productivity gains from missing certain nutrients (else of having to carefully supplement constantly)
Of these, the first basically irrelevant in the hotelâyou can remove it as a factor by just not giving people the easy option to ingest them. The second is completely irrelevant, since itâs serving or supplying 90% of the food people will be eating.
So that only leaves three, which is much talked about, but so far as I know, little studied, so this âinconvenienceâ could even have the wrong sign: the only study on the subject I found from a very quick search showed increased productivity from veganism for health reasons; also on certain models of willpower that treat it as analogous to a muscle, it could turn out that depriving yourself (even by default, from the absence of offered foods) you improve your willpower and thus become more productive.
Iâve spoken to a number of people who eat meat/âanimal products for the third reason, but so far as I know they rarely seem to have reviewed any data on the question, and almost never to have actually done any controlled experiments on themselves. Honestly I suspect many of them are using the first two to justify a suspicion of the third (for eg, I know several EAs who eat meat with productivity justifications, but form whom itâs usually *processed* meat in the context of other dubious dietary choices, so they demonstrably arenât optimising their diet for maximal productivity).
Also, if the third does turn out to be a real factor, it seems very unlikely that more than a tiny bit of meat every few days would be necessary to fix the problem for most people, and going to the shops to buy that for themselves seems unlikely to cause them any serious inconvenience.
The inconvenience I had in mind is not in your list, and comprises things in the area of, âPrefer to keep the diet Iâm already accustomed toâ, âPrefer omnivorous diets on taste etc. grounds to vegan onesâ, and so on. I was thinking of an EA who is omnivorous and feels little/âno compunction about eating meat (either because they arenât âon boardâ with the moral motivation for animal causes in general, or doesnât find the arguments for veganism persuasive in particular). I think switching to a vegan diet isnât best described as a minor inconvenience for people like these.
But to be clear, this doesnât entail any moral obligation whatsoever on the hotel to serve meatâitâs not like they are forcing omnivorous guests to be vegan, but just not cooking them free (non-vegan) food. If a vegan offers me to stay at their house a) for free, b) offers vegan food for free too, c) welcomes me to, if Iâm not a fan of vegan food, get my own food to cook at their house whenever I likeâwhich seems basically the counterfactual scenario if I wasnât staying with them in the first place, and d) explains all of this before I come, theyâve been supererogatory in accommodating me, and it would be absurd for me to say theyâve fallen short in not serving me free omnivorous food which they morally object to.
Yet insofar as âfree foodâ is a selling point of the hotel, âfree vegan foodâ may not be so enticing to omnivorous guests. Obviously the offer is still generous by itself, leave alone combined with free accommodation, but one could imagine it making a difference on the margin to omnivores (especially if they are cost-sensitive).
Thus thereâs a trade-off in between these people and vegans who would be put off if the hotel served meat itself (even if vegan options were also provided). Itâs plausible to me the best option to pick here (leave alone any other considerations) is the more âvegan-friendlyâ policy. But this isnât because the trade-off is in fact illusory because the âvegan-friendlyâ policy is has minimal/âminor costs to omnivores after all.
[Empirically though, this doesnât seem to amount to all that much given (I understand) the hotel hasnât been struggling for guests.]