I think this is a very interesting point which I hadn’t thought of before. To add to it, let’s assume the “how much animals matter” values from the original post were chosen in a way more favorable to animals such that veganism seems to make economic moral sense, so we come to the conclusion “it’s probably an effective intervention for an EA to go vegan”.
Now assume some charity finds a super-effective intervention that cuts the cost of saving a human life to 10% its previous best value. Following the original argument, that would basically mean at this point going vegan is not recommended anymore because it may now be much less effective than the one thing we’re semi-arbitrarily comparing it to.
It seems rather counter-intuitive that thousands of hypothetical rational EAs would now start eating meat again, simply because a charity found a cheaper way to save humans.
But then again, I can’t get rid of the feeling that this whole counter-argument too is arbitrary and constructed, and that it wouldn’t convince me if I were of the opposite opinion, but rather seem like a kind of logic puzzle where you have to find the error of thought. Maybe despite being counter-intuitive, the absurd sounding conclusion would still be the correct one in some sense.
I think this is a very interesting point which I hadn’t thought of before. To add to it, let’s assume the “how much animals matter” values from the original post were chosen in a way more favorable to animals such that veganism seems to make economic moral sense, so we come to the conclusion “it’s probably an effective intervention for an EA to go vegan”.
Now assume some charity finds a super-effective intervention that cuts the cost of saving a human life to 10% its previous best value. Following the original argument, that would basically mean at this point going vegan is not recommended anymore because it may now be much less effective than the one thing we’re semi-arbitrarily comparing it to.
It seems rather counter-intuitive that thousands of hypothetical rational EAs would now start eating meat again, simply because a charity found a cheaper way to save humans.
But then again, I can’t get rid of the feeling that this whole counter-argument too is arbitrary and constructed, and that it wouldn’t convince me if I were of the opposite opinion, but rather seem like a kind of logic puzzle where you have to find the error of thought. Maybe despite being counter-intuitive, the absurd sounding conclusion would still be the correct one in some sense.