I’m a bit disappointed, if not surprised, with the community response here. I understand veganism is something of a sacred cow (apologies) in these parts, but that’s precisely why Ben’s post deserves a careful treatment—it’s the arguments you least agree with that you should extend the most charity to. While this post didn’t cause me to reconsider my vegetarianism, historically Ben’s posts have had an outsized impact on the way I see things, and I’m grateful for his thoughts here.
Ben’s response to point 2 was especially interesting:
If factory farming seems like a bad thing, you should do something about the version happening to you first.
And I agree about the significance of human fertility decline. I expect that this comparison, of factory farming to modern human lives, will be a useful metaphor when thinking about how to improve the structures around us.
<I’m a bit disappointed, if not surprised, with the community response here.>
I can’t speak for other voters, but I downvoted due to my judgment that there were multiple critical assumption that were both unsupported / very thinly supported and pretty dubious—not because any sacred cows were engaged. While I don’t think main post authors are obliged to be exhaustive, the following are examples of significant misses in my book:
“animals successfully bred to tolerate their conditions”—they are bred such that enough of them don’t die before we decide to kill then. It’s hard to see much relevance to whether they have been bred to not suffer.
The focus on humans “failing even to reproduce at replacement rates” suggests a focus on wealthy countries. Where’s the evidence that people in wealthy countries are not reproducing due to too much suffering, or discontent with their alleged domestication? The post doesn’t engage with people in those countries being happier than the median; the effects of education, income, and changing social mores on fertility; and other well-known factors.
More fundamentally, the assertion that there are “similar dynamics” at play between humans and farmed animals is particularly unsupported in my view.
It’s important to not reflexively defend sacred cows or downvote those who criticize them . . . but one can believe that while also believing this post seriously missed the mark and warrants downvotes.
I agree that the post is not well defended (partly due to brevity & assuming context); and also that some of the claims seem wrong. But I think the things that are valuable in this post are still worth learning from.
(I’m reminded of a Tyler Cowen quote I can’t find atm, something like “When I read the typical economics paper, I think “that seems right” and immediately forget about it. When I read a paper by Hanson, I think “What? No way!” and then think about it for the rest of my life”. Ben strikes me as the latter kind of writer.)
Similar to the way Big Ag farms chickens for their meat, you could view governments and corporations as farming humans for their productivity. I think this has been true throughout history, but accelerated recently by more financialization/consumerism and software/smartphones. Both are entities that care about a particular kind of output from the animals they manage, with some reasons to care about their welfare but also some reasons to operate in an extractive way. And when these entities can find a substitute (eg plant-based meat, or AI for intellectual labor) the outcomes may not be ideal for for the animals.
I didn’t catch this post until I saw this comment, and it prompted a response. I’m not well calibrated on how much upvotes different posts should get,[1] but personally I didn’t feel disappointed that this post wasn’t on the front page of the EA Forum, and I don’t expect this is a post I’d share with e.g., non-vegans who I’d discuss the meat eater problem with.[2]
This isn’t something I’d usually comment because I do think the EA Forum should be more welcoming on the margin and I think there are a lot of barriers to people posting. But just providing one data point given your disappointment/surprise.
I’m a bit disappointed, if not surprised, with the community response here. I understand veganism is something of a sacred cow (apologies) in these parts, but that’s precisely why Ben’s post deserves a careful treatment—it’s the arguments you least agree with that you should extend the most charity to. While this post didn’t cause me to reconsider my vegetarianism, historically Ben’s posts have had an outsized impact on the way I see things, and I’m grateful for his thoughts here.
Ben’s response to point 2 was especially interesting:
And I agree about the significance of human fertility decline. I expect that this comparison, of factory farming to modern human lives, will be a useful metaphor when thinking about how to improve the structures around us.
<I’m a bit disappointed, if not surprised, with the community response here.>
I can’t speak for other voters, but I downvoted due to my judgment that there were multiple critical assumption that were both unsupported / very thinly supported and pretty dubious—not because any sacred cows were engaged. While I don’t think main post authors are obliged to be exhaustive, the following are examples of significant misses in my book:
“animals successfully bred to tolerate their conditions”—they are bred such that enough of them don’t die before we decide to kill then. It’s hard to see much relevance to whether they have been bred to not suffer.
The focus on humans “failing even to reproduce at replacement rates” suggests a focus on wealthy countries. Where’s the evidence that people in wealthy countries are not reproducing due to too much suffering, or discontent with their alleged domestication? The post doesn’t engage with people in those countries being happier than the median; the effects of education, income, and changing social mores on fertility; and other well-known factors.
More fundamentally, the assertion that there are “similar dynamics” at play between humans and farmed animals is particularly unsupported in my view.
It’s important to not reflexively defend sacred cows or downvote those who criticize them . . . but one can believe that while also believing this post seriously missed the mark and warrants downvotes.
I agree that the post is not well defended (partly due to brevity & assuming context); and also that some of the claims seem wrong. But I think the things that are valuable in this post are still worth learning from.
(I’m reminded of a Tyler Cowen quote I can’t find atm, something like “When I read the typical economics paper, I think “that seems right” and immediately forget about it. When I read a paper by Hanson, I think “What? No way!” and then think about it for the rest of my life”. Ben strikes me as the latter kind of writer.)
Similar to the way Big Ag farms chickens for their meat, you could view governments and corporations as farming humans for their productivity. I think this has been true throughout history, but accelerated recently by more financialization/consumerism and software/smartphones. Both are entities that care about a particular kind of output from the animals they manage, with some reasons to care about their welfare but also some reasons to operate in an extractive way. And when these entities can find a substitute (eg plant-based meat, or AI for intellectual labor) the outcomes may not be ideal for for the animals.
I didn’t catch this post until I saw this comment, and it prompted a response. I’m not well calibrated on how much upvotes different posts should get,[1] but personally I didn’t feel disappointed that this post wasn’t on the front page of the EA Forum, and I don’t expect this is a post I’d share with e.g., non-vegans who I’d discuss the meat eater problem with.[2]
I’m assuming you’re talking about the downvotes, rather than the comments? I may be mistaken though.
This isn’t something I’d usually comment because I do think the EA Forum should be more welcoming on the margin and I think there are a lot of barriers to people posting. But just providing one data point given your disappointment/surprise.
I strongly disagree with flat earthers, but I don’t think that I should extend a lot of charity to arguments for a flat earth.
Also, on a quick skim, I could not find where this is argued for in the linked “I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup”