These ‘second order’ effects are hard to quantify, but I struggle to think they would be worth more than 10x or 100x the ‘direct impact’ of not eating animal products for most people who aren’t spending most of their energies being animal advocates.
People who change their diets because of ACE-recommended charities will also have second order impacts (although you would have to change some of the calculation to distinguish between animal product reduction and veg*nism). So this would appear on both sides of the equation, and wouldn’t clearly favor personal diet change over donation.
One could make an argument, and I have seen it claimed, that the signalling benefits of veg*nism are far greater in the effective altruism community than elsewhere. But selectively invoking second-order effects for one option but ignoring them for the other biases the estimates.
Separately, the average medium-run second-order benefits of veg*nism as such can’t be that huge, given that there are already hundreds of millions of vegetarians in the world. If the average second-order effects of vegetarianism had benefits 100x greater than the direct dietary effects, then the total benefit would be larger than eliminating all meat consumption worldwide. And yet that hasn’t happened, so the average second-order benefits have to be much smaller, although they will be higher in particular circumstances.
Separately, the average medium-run second-order benefits of veg*nism as such can’t be that huge, given that there are already hundreds of millions of vegetarians in the world. If the average second-order effects of vegetarianism had benefits 100x greater than the direct dietary effects, then the total benefit would be larger than eliminating all meat consumption worldwide. And yet that hasn’t happened, so the average second-order benefits have to be much smaller, although they will be higher in particular circumstances.
Not sure I follow. How do we know that the hundreds of millions of vegetarians are not the 2nd order effect of a few millions being persuaded to give up animal products?
People who change their diets because of ACE-recommended charities will also have second order impacts (although you would have to change some of the calculation to distinguish between animal product reduction and veg*nism). So this would appear on both sides of the equation, and wouldn’t clearly favor personal diet change over donation.
One could make an argument, and I have seen it claimed, that the signalling benefits of veg*nism are far greater in the effective altruism community than elsewhere. But selectively invoking second-order effects for one option but ignoring them for the other biases the estimates.
Separately, the average medium-run second-order benefits of veg*nism as such can’t be that huge, given that there are already hundreds of millions of vegetarians in the world. If the average second-order effects of vegetarianism had benefits 100x greater than the direct dietary effects, then the total benefit would be larger than eliminating all meat consumption worldwide. And yet that hasn’t happened, so the average second-order benefits have to be much smaller, although they will be higher in particular circumstances.
Hi Carl,
Not sure I follow. How do we know that the hundreds of millions of vegetarians are not the 2nd order effect of a few millions being persuaded to give up animal products?