Many people involved in EA care about harm to sentient individuals specifically and are only concerned with matters like environmental degradation in so far as they have an effect on sentient individuals. There is significant discussion in EA about wild animal welfare generally, and how the welfare of wild animals is impacted by various human activities, including various types of farming; you can find some of that discussion in other posts and comment sections here on the Forum. But these questions are complex and our understanding of ecosystem-level effects of various changes is still negligible. I think there is a natural tendency to say something like, “X is the norm. Y is not the norm and requires work. Y is imperfect, so I should revert to X.” This is a failure of creativity. If there is a problem with Y, X is far from our only alternative. And in the particular example of food, continuing to kill trillions of animals because of the harms of conventional plant farming seems like a silly solution and alternatives like vertical farming and other novel systems seem much more promising.
- The book makes the counterintuitive argument more sentiment animals are dying from second-order effects of present-day plant cropping than pasture-raised meat (per calorie).
‘A vegan diet is not a bloodless diet, and may even destroy more life than a regenerative, pasture-centric model.’
- I would consider there is a longtermist perspective on soil health, and that if we deplete soil with monocropping, that’s not going to be good for future generations (of all forms of sentient life) – and thus is a big ethical consideration.
- I agree with your logic statement.
The book’s authors are, I consider, arguing “Y” could or should be regenerative agriculture/pasture-raised meat, rather than meat alternatives or lab-grown/clean meat.
- I agree with you, yes, smarter methods of plant farming should absolutely be explored.
But (as a newcomer to EA), it seems to me some of the knock-on effects of meat alternatives (destructive agricultural practices; lots of animals still dying)/clean meat (immense energy considerations) are not being fully discussed or challenged – and that some ‘red teaming’ (e.g. from the above co-authors) could be helpful.
Many people involved in EA care about harm to sentient individuals specifically and are only concerned with matters like environmental degradation in so far as they have an effect on sentient individuals. There is significant discussion in EA about wild animal welfare generally, and how the welfare of wild animals is impacted by various human activities, including various types of farming; you can find some of that discussion in other posts and comment sections here on the Forum. But these questions are complex and our understanding of ecosystem-level effects of various changes is still negligible. I think there is a natural tendency to say something like, “X is the norm. Y is not the norm and requires work. Y is imperfect, so I should revert to X.” This is a failure of creativity. If there is a problem with Y, X is far from our only alternative. And in the particular example of food, continuing to kill trillions of animals because of the harms of conventional plant farming seems like a silly solution and alternatives like vertical farming and other novel systems seem much more promising.
Thanks Rockwell.
- The book makes the counterintuitive argument more sentiment animals are dying from second-order effects of present-day plant cropping than pasture-raised meat (per calorie).
‘A vegan diet is not a bloodless diet, and may even destroy more life than a regenerative, pasture-centric model.’
- I would consider there is a longtermist perspective on soil health, and that if we deplete soil with monocropping, that’s not going to be good for future generations (of all forms of sentient life) – and thus is a big ethical consideration.
- I agree with your logic statement.
The book’s authors are, I consider, arguing “Y” could or should be regenerative agriculture/pasture-raised meat, rather than meat alternatives or lab-grown/clean meat.
- I agree with you, yes, smarter methods of plant farming should absolutely be explored.
But (as a newcomer to EA), it seems to me some of the knock-on effects of meat alternatives (destructive agricultural practices; lots of animals still dying)/clean meat (immense energy considerations) are not being fully discussed or challenged – and that some ‘red teaming’ (e.g. from the above co-authors) could be helpful.