First off, you can view vegetarianism as a gradient and the goal is to decrease meat consumption, not “avoid it at all costs”. With this approach, you can, when significantly inconvenient otherwise, consume some meat. Problem solved – right?
There is a spectrum here, but the question is where you should stop. Katja’s argument suggests that even relatively insignificant inconveniences should be enough to allow you to consume some meat.
Note that from the direct impact of consumption choices, it seems like it would make a lot of sense to focus more on eating a little bit less meat. For a typical meat-eater, cutting the first 20% of your meat consumption is likely to be pretty painless compared to the final 20%. So it seems odd that so many more conversations are about vegetarianism (which I’d interpret as ‘almost never eat meat’). Is this because it’s a natural Schelling point?
There is a spectrum here, but the question is where you should stop. Katja’s argument suggests that even relatively insignificant inconveniences should be enough to allow you to consume some meat.
Note that from the direct impact of consumption choices, it seems like it would make a lot of sense to focus more on eating a little bit less meat. For a typical meat-eater, cutting the first 20% of your meat consumption is likely to be pretty painless compared to the final 20%. So it seems odd that so many more conversations are about vegetarianism (which I’d interpret as ‘almost never eat meat’). Is this because it’s a natural Schelling point?