I broadly agree with Katja Grace that if one can use the time/energy/willpower etc. that one would spend being vegetarian/vegan more effectively towards other altruistic activities, then it probably makes sense not to be vegetarian/vegan. But in my personal case, I’m really not sure that the costs of veganism are fungible in this way—perhaps just because they really are relatively small. But I haven’t thought about this a lot, and it’s possible that I could find some way to use the time and/or willpower I’d expend being vegan in an even better way.
Warren Buffet thinks that in order to be successful, you should focus on doing just a few things well.
Veganism is a habit that will take time and effort to inculcate and maintain. (If you’ve failed multiple times in the past, the outside view suggests it will take effort to avoid failing again.) And in principle that time and effort could be spent inculcating a habit that will increase your positive impact in other ways. I’d argue that for most effective altruists, going to your news feed preferences on Facebook and unfollowing every friend who doesn’t either talk about EA or make you better in some way (even by making you laugh) is a much higher return on your time than being vegan. I think I could probably come up with a list of 100+ other such habit changes that are higher ROI for reducing global suffering than veganism.
Like many people in the EA community, I am concerned with animal suffering. But switching to veganism seems like a relatively low-impact way to do something about it. Breeding happier livestock, in vitro meat, and passing laws all seem much higher impact.
Pragmatically speaking, I think having a few EAs work on one of these challenges full-time would do much more for suffering animals than having many EAs spend the mental overhead necessary to be vegan. In general, the EA community seems pretty open to “specialization of labor” in the sense that some EAs work at Givewell and rate charities, some earn to give, some grow the EA movement, etc. I don’t see why we can’t adopt the same approach for animal suffering. The alternative is the non-pragmatic “purity” mindset that animal products are tainted and should not be eaten. (I prefer dissociation myself, in line with my pragmatic consequentialist values.)
Anyway, if you do decide to go vegan I’d recommend supplementing creatine and choline; as far as I know there’s no way to get either from animal products and both seem to increase intelligence. (Maybe you’re supplementing them already?)
Warren Buffet thinks that in order to be successful, you should focus on doing just a few things well.
Veganism is a habit that will take time and effort to inculcate and maintain. (If you’ve failed multiple times in the past, the outside view suggests it will take effort to avoid failing again.) And in principle that time and effort could be spent inculcating a habit that will increase your positive impact in other ways. I’d argue that for most effective altruists, going to your news feed preferences on Facebook and unfollowing every friend who doesn’t either talk about EA or make you better in some way (even by making you laugh) is a much higher return on your time than being vegan. I think I could probably come up with a list of 100+ other such habit changes that are higher ROI for reducing global suffering than veganism.
Like many people in the EA community, I am concerned with animal suffering. But switching to veganism seems like a relatively low-impact way to do something about it. Breeding happier livestock, in vitro meat, and passing laws all seem much higher impact.
Pragmatically speaking, I think having a few EAs work on one of these challenges full-time would do much more for suffering animals than having many EAs spend the mental overhead necessary to be vegan. In general, the EA community seems pretty open to “specialization of labor” in the sense that some EAs work at Givewell and rate charities, some earn to give, some grow the EA movement, etc. I don’t see why we can’t adopt the same approach for animal suffering. The alternative is the non-pragmatic “purity” mindset that animal products are tainted and should not be eaten. (I prefer dissociation myself, in line with my pragmatic consequentialist values.)
Anyway, if you do decide to go vegan I’d recommend supplementing creatine and choline; as far as I know there’s no way to get either from animal products and both seem to increase intelligence. (Maybe you’re supplementing them already?)