Why lump milk and eggs together? I think that a cup of milk requires on the order of minutes of cow “suffering” (and an even smaller amount of calf suffering), and the lives of dairy cows don’t seem especially bad. For perspective, a cow produces tens of thousands of dollars of milk in her life. I think it is very unlikely that the welfare of the cow is a big consideration compared to the cost of the milk. Also, cutting dairy is nutritionally/logistically non-trivial. Cutting eggs seems pretty easy.
The issue isn’t just time/energy/willpower. It’s making your life worse. There are other ways to make your life worse to make the world better, and you clearly shouldn’t (and don’t) do all of them. It seems worth picking the ones that get an efficient tradeoff. At the point where you are cutting cheese from your pasta, the tradeoff seems very unfavorable. Many other ways of saving money would be a much more effective tradeoff, as would working like an extra few seconds each day. That’s probably true even if you don’t spend the money on an effective thing—money is still an indicator that someone else making a sacrifice on your behalf, such that you have to give them money to make them whole.
I think that if EA’s want to signal things, it should be being sensible and interesting rather than being eager to make sacrifices.
Yeah, good point. I’m definitely a lot less concerned about eating dairy than I am eggs. The main reason for lumping them together is that I think I’d find it quite a bit easier psychologically to be “vegan” than to be someone who “doesn’t eat eggs”, and I think I’d be more likely to keep it up, but it’s possible that’s more malleable than I think.
I’m not totally convinced that not eating dairy will make my life worse in any nontrivial way, though. I enjoy eating cheese, sure, but it’s not an experience that’s unlike any other. I’m pretty sure that the difference in enjoyment in a life in which I eat dairy products and one in which I don’t will basically be completely trivial.
I can sympathize with this perspective, but if you are actually on the fence regarding animal welfare concerns, it seems like it would be a shame if you ended up eating eggs because you didn’t want to give up milk! (e.g. if you actually caved because of cheese/butter).
If you haven’t tried just avoiding eggs, it seems worth at least trying.
If the only reason it’s psychologically harder is that “vegan” is a more familiar concept, then you will also be doing significant auxiliary good by giving more currency to lacto-vegetarianism. I expect more people would adopt this than would adopt veganism (if the two concepts had equal currency), and it seems basically equally morally good.
I don’t understand the “completely trivial difference” line. How do you think it compares to the quality of life lost by eating somewhat cheaper food? For me, the cheaper food is much more cost-effective, in terms of world-bettering per unit of foregone joy.
If you haven’t tried just avoiding eggs, it seems worth at least trying.
Yeah, that seems right!
I don’t understand the “completely trivial difference” line. How do you think it compares to the quality of life lost by eating somewhat cheaper food? For me, the cheaper food is much more cost-effective, in terms of world-bettering per unit of foregone joy.
I think this is probably just a personal thing—for me I think eating somewhat cheaper food would be worse in terms of enjoyment than cutting out dairy. The reason I say it’s a basically trivial difference is that, while I enjoy dairy products, I don’t think I enjoy them more than I enjoy various other foods—they’re just another thing that I enjoy. So given that I can basically replace all the non-vegan meals I would normally have with vegan meals that I like as much (which requires some planning, of course), then I don’t think there will be much, if any, difference in my enjoyment of food over time. I also think that even a very small difference in the pleasure I get from eating dairy vs vegan food would be trivial in terms of my happiness/enjoyment over my life as a whole, or even any day as a whole—I don’t think I’d ever look back on a day and think “Oh, my enjoyment of that day would have been so much greater if I’d eaten cheese.” I enjoy food, but it’s not that big a deal relative to a lot of other more important things.
I think this is probably just a personal thing—for me I think eating somewhat cheaper food would be worse in terms of enjoyment than cutting out dairy.
People’s mileage on these things clearly varies very much, leading to a lot of talking past one another.
Why lump milk and eggs together? I think that a cup of milk requires on the order of minutes of cow “suffering” (and an even smaller amount of calf suffering), and the lives of dairy cows don’t seem especially bad. For perspective, a cow produces tens of thousands of dollars of milk in her life. I think it is very unlikely that the welfare of the cow is a big consideration compared to the cost of the milk. Also, cutting dairy is nutritionally/logistically non-trivial. Cutting eggs seems pretty easy.
The issue isn’t just time/energy/willpower. It’s making your life worse. There are other ways to make your life worse to make the world better, and you clearly shouldn’t (and don’t) do all of them. It seems worth picking the ones that get an efficient tradeoff. At the point where you are cutting cheese from your pasta, the tradeoff seems very unfavorable. Many other ways of saving money would be a much more effective tradeoff, as would working like an extra few seconds each day. That’s probably true even if you don’t spend the money on an effective thing—money is still an indicator that someone else making a sacrifice on your behalf, such that you have to give them money to make them whole.
I think that if EA’s want to signal things, it should be being sensible and interesting rather than being eager to make sacrifices.
Yeah, good point. I’m definitely a lot less concerned about eating dairy than I am eggs. The main reason for lumping them together is that I think I’d find it quite a bit easier psychologically to be “vegan” than to be someone who “doesn’t eat eggs”, and I think I’d be more likely to keep it up, but it’s possible that’s more malleable than I think.
I’m not totally convinced that not eating dairy will make my life worse in any nontrivial way, though. I enjoy eating cheese, sure, but it’s not an experience that’s unlike any other. I’m pretty sure that the difference in enjoyment in a life in which I eat dairy products and one in which I don’t will basically be completely trivial.
I can sympathize with this perspective, but if you are actually on the fence regarding animal welfare concerns, it seems like it would be a shame if you ended up eating eggs because you didn’t want to give up milk! (e.g. if you actually caved because of cheese/butter).
If you haven’t tried just avoiding eggs, it seems worth at least trying.
If the only reason it’s psychologically harder is that “vegan” is a more familiar concept, then you will also be doing significant auxiliary good by giving more currency to lacto-vegetarianism. I expect more people would adopt this than would adopt veganism (if the two concepts had equal currency), and it seems basically equally morally good.
I don’t understand the “completely trivial difference” line. How do you think it compares to the quality of life lost by eating somewhat cheaper food? For me, the cheaper food is much more cost-effective, in terms of world-bettering per unit of foregone joy.
Yeah, that seems right!
I think this is probably just a personal thing—for me I think eating somewhat cheaper food would be worse in terms of enjoyment than cutting out dairy. The reason I say it’s a basically trivial difference is that, while I enjoy dairy products, I don’t think I enjoy them more than I enjoy various other foods—they’re just another thing that I enjoy. So given that I can basically replace all the non-vegan meals I would normally have with vegan meals that I like as much (which requires some planning, of course), then I don’t think there will be much, if any, difference in my enjoyment of food over time. I also think that even a very small difference in the pleasure I get from eating dairy vs vegan food would be trivial in terms of my happiness/enjoyment over my life as a whole, or even any day as a whole—I don’t think I’d ever look back on a day and think “Oh, my enjoyment of that day would have been so much greater if I’d eaten cheese.” I enjoy food, but it’s not that big a deal relative to a lot of other more important things.
People’s mileage on these things clearly varies very much, leading to a lot of talking past one another.