You may be right that people overestimate the cost. I’m not sure how to gather data about this.
Re: your second point (“there’s no reason I can fathom...”), how about this lens: view meat as a luxury purchase, like travel, movies, video games, music, etc. Instead of spending on these, you could donate this money, and I can imagine making a similar argument: “there’s no reason I can fathom why you can’t simply try to do less of that...”, but clearly we see foregoing luxuries as a cost of some kind, and don’t think that it’s reasonable to ask EAs to give up all their luxuries. When one does give up luxuries for altruistic reasons, I think it’s fine to try to give up the ones that are subjectively least costly to give up, and that will have the biggest impact.
Other costs: changing your possibly years-long menu for lunch and dinner; feeling hungry for a while if you don’t get it figured out quickly; having red meat cravings (much stronger for some people than others, e.g. not bad for me, but bad for Killian).
I don’t think what I’ve said is a case against vegetarianism; just trying to convey how I think of the costs.
ETA: there are other benefits (and other costs), this is just my subjective slice. An expert review, on which individuals can base their subjective cost breakdowns, would probably be helpful.
You may be right that people overestimate the cost. I’m not sure how to gather data about this.
Re: your second point (“there’s no reason I can fathom...”), how about this lens: view meat as a luxury purchase, like travel, movies, video games, music, etc. Instead of spending on these, you could donate this money, and I can imagine making a similar argument: “there’s no reason I can fathom why you can’t simply try to do less of that...”, but clearly we see foregoing luxuries as a cost of some kind, and don’t think that it’s reasonable to ask EAs to give up all their luxuries. When one does give up luxuries for altruistic reasons, I think it’s fine to try to give up the ones that are subjectively least costly to give up, and that will have the biggest impact.
Other costs: changing your possibly years-long menu for lunch and dinner; feeling hungry for a while if you don’t get it figured out quickly; having red meat cravings (much stronger for some people than others, e.g. not bad for me, but bad for Killian).
I don’t think what I’ve said is a case against vegetarianism; just trying to convey how I think of the costs.
ETA: there are other benefits (and other costs), this is just my subjective slice. An expert review, on which individuals can base their subjective cost breakdowns, would probably be helpful.