I think one of the major problems with this proposal is that nobody actually does it. 0% of the people I’ve heard propose it (three, if I haven’t forgotten any) actually donate (or make any measurable changes to their behavior at all) based on their animal product consumption.
I’ve seen a few folks argue that by eating animal products they’re making gains in somewhat-hard-to-measure areas like mood or productivity, and by making those gains they’re either more effective in their EA jobs or end up earning more to give. I don’t know of anyone who has actually tested this at all. I wouldn’t be horribly surprised if some of them did notice some deleterious effects from switching to veganism. I would be very surprised if they actually became less effective as EAs by going the reducetarian route and purposefully cutting out one meat meal per day or 1-2 full days of meat meals per week.
To the extent that switches to lifestyle take attention and willpower, I think it’s often a question of whether those attention and willpower had opportunity costs. I agree that this is hard to test, so we should fall back on experience/theory/common sense. You seem to be asserting that there won’t be opportunity costs, which seems prima facie surprising.
(This is an argument against pushing people to switch to vegnism; it doesn’t provide an argument for pushing people to stop being vegn.)
I think one of the major problems with this proposal is that nobody actually does it.
I spent a few months doing this, so that if I spent X euros on animal products, I would donate X euros to animal welfare charities at the end of the month.
I plan to resume doing so once my monetary situation looks better (also making a bigger one-off donation to “pay off” the time during which I didn’t maintain that practice).
I don’t know of anyone who has actually tested this at all.
I downgraded from full vegetarianism (and an attempt at full veganism) due to the amount of willpower and occasional well-being it was costing me, especially when battling with depression at the same time.
I think one of the major problems with this proposal is that nobody actually does it. 0% of the people I’ve heard propose it (three, if I haven’t forgotten any) actually donate (or make any measurable changes to their behavior at all) based on their animal product consumption.
I’ve seen a few folks argue that by eating animal products they’re making gains in somewhat-hard-to-measure areas like mood or productivity, and by making those gains they’re either more effective in their EA jobs or end up earning more to give. I don’t know of anyone who has actually tested this at all. I wouldn’t be horribly surprised if some of them did notice some deleterious effects from switching to veganism. I would be very surprised if they actually became less effective as EAs by going the reducetarian route and purposefully cutting out one meat meal per day or 1-2 full days of meat meals per week.
To the extent that switches to lifestyle take attention and willpower, I think it’s often a question of whether those attention and willpower had opportunity costs. I agree that this is hard to test, so we should fall back on experience/theory/common sense. You seem to be asserting that there won’t be opportunity costs, which seems prima facie surprising.
(This is an argument against pushing people to switch to vegnism; it doesn’t provide an argument for pushing people to stop being vegn.)
I’ve met a couple of people who donate to effective animal welfare charities so that they can eat meat.
I spent a few months doing this, so that if I spent X euros on animal products, I would donate X euros to animal welfare charities at the end of the month.
I plan to resume doing so once my monetary situation looks better (also making a bigger one-off donation to “pay off” the time during which I didn’t maintain that practice).
I downgraded from full vegetarianism (and an attempt at full veganism) due to the amount of willpower and occasional well-being it was costing me, especially when battling with depression at the same time.
I know at least one person who does—or at least did when we discussed it.