I havenât engaged with this topic much with relations to EA, this was more in a vegan context several years ago so that I donât have specific sources in mind off the top of my head. But itâs typically in the direction of âItâs like someone holding slaves while donating money against slaveryâ; or arguing that there is no such thing as merciful killing, so that just improving conditions is meaningless if we still hold them in cages and breed them just to eat/âexploit them. Like kicking dogs for fun and then doing things to âkick less dogsâ instead of stopping altogether, etc.
So itâs still stuck in my head as a hypocritical action from me, redirecting money from other causes to one I donât even personally live up to. I can imagine seeing more nuanced takes in an EA context, hence I want to read up on this more.
Hey Christoph, I think it would be a real shame if you let not helping some amount of animals through diet change stop you from helping any animals at allâespecially when you can actually help far more animals though donating than you can through diet change. Making being vegan the price of admission to being a part of the solution to factory farming is a sure fire way to ensure that we never solve this problem. Far more helpful is to allow everyone to do what theyâre willing to do to solve it, regardless of their diet.
I donât think the animals who would experience drastically less suffering because of your donations care whether youâre being hypocritical in the eyes of some. Those animals, and I, think that you and the world are far better off if you eat meat and donate to help animals than if you just eat meat â¤ď¸
By the way, weâve made a tool just for people like you, to figure out how much youâd need to donate to do as much good for animals as going vegan (https://ââwww.farmkind.giving/ââcompassion-calculator). If you want to do the same amount of net good as doing vegan, you can offset your meat consumption twofold
Very happy to talk this topic through with you some more if youâre interested as Iâd hate to lose you as animal donor for this reason
As a non-vegan, I noticed myself becoming at least somewhat more aware of my dietary consumption choices after pulling the trigger on my first animal-welfare donation (and likely because of doing so). I donât have a great explanation of why, but it might be worth seeing if you experience the same effect.
I havenât engaged with this topic much with relations to EA, this was more in a vegan context several years ago so that I donât have specific sources in mind off the top of my head. But itâs typically in the direction of âItâs like someone holding slaves while donating money against slaveryâ; or arguing that there is no such thing as merciful killing, so that just improving conditions is meaningless if we still hold them in cages and breed them just to eat/âexploit them. Like kicking dogs for fun and then doing things to âkick less dogsâ instead of stopping altogether, etc.
So itâs still stuck in my head as a hypocritical action from me, redirecting money from other causes to one I donât even personally live up to. I can imagine seeing more nuanced takes in an EA context, hence I want to read up on this more.
Hey Christoph, I think it would be a real shame if you let not helping some amount of animals through diet change stop you from helping any animals at allâespecially when you can actually help far more animals though donating than you can through diet change. Making being vegan the price of admission to being a part of the solution to factory farming is a sure fire way to ensure that we never solve this problem. Far more helpful is to allow everyone to do what theyâre willing to do to solve it, regardless of their diet.
I donât think the animals who would experience drastically less suffering because of your donations care whether youâre being hypocritical in the eyes of some. Those animals, and I, think that you and the world are far better off if you eat meat and donate to help animals than if you just eat meat â¤ď¸
By the way, weâve made a tool just for people like you, to figure out how much youâd need to donate to do as much good for animals as going vegan (https://ââwww.farmkind.giving/ââcompassion-calculator). If you want to do the same amount of net good as doing vegan, you can offset your meat consumption twofold
Very happy to talk this topic through with you some more if youâre interested as Iâd hate to lose you as animal donor for this reason
As a non-vegan, I noticed myself becoming at least somewhat more aware of my dietary consumption choices after pulling the trigger on my first animal-welfare donation (and likely because of doing so). I donât have a great explanation of why, but it might be worth seeing if you experience the same effect.