I was just arguing a few days ago on here that your very perspective is needed in EA: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6FLvBaEwiiqf9JGEJ/history-of-diversity-efforts-and-trends-in-ea?commentId=Egczucx2c3uX4qEMo
Something I do like about EA is that while the main ideas that many hold do have value, as you say… there also are some people who find their own way in EA on whatever topic most interests them even if their ideas are NOT held closely by many. (For example, while I am really concerned about AI, 95% of my interest in EA is global poverty, and teaching others some EA basics alongside non-EA ideas… and I mostly just link up with people who have those specific interests.)
That said, EA would be way better off as a whole if more diversity was present, from the high-income country world and especially from the low-middle income country world.
Cheers and thanks for writing this !!!!
I like your point that many people are not really working out and thus really just need the minimum-ish amount of protein in that case.
I am no longer veg for 2 reasons, in case my 2 cents means anything (tho maybe they are more personal to me than prevalent):
+ Processed food concerns (my specific examples):
-- Daily pea protein intake makes my stomach hurt… not sure if this is definitely related to processing or something else but chicken doesn’t do this to me. -- I have trouble getting enough protein from purely unprocessed vegan sources like organic tofu, and organic rice and beans, and peanut butter on wheat bread. I can only eat so much of these 3 things every single day, especially as I lift weights and don’t want just the minimum amount of protein. Are there other good unprocessed vegan sources of protein? EAG events and other events don’t give me that impression.… lots of pea protein fake meat, and sometimes full set ups with very little protein at all for an entire meal.
-- Products like Soylent that are not organic, have glyphosate, a known carcinogen, and possibly other chemicals. Soylent has readable levels of glyphosate in it, but some think it’s too much while others think it’s an okay amount. However I’d like to avoid carcinogens in any amount at least when it’s easy to.
+ Missing nutrients:
-- Why do so few vegans eat omega-3s from algae oil? Omega-3′s from flax etc need to be converted and it seems this doesn’t make the cut in what’s needed for many people, because it’s not the straight up DHA and EPA that the body best uses. “The trouble is that people vary dramatically in their abilities to convert ALA to DHA and EPA. So the only way to ensure that your body receives sufficient amounts of these latter two nutrients is to supplement.” Not getting straght up DHA and EPA, impairs long term brain function of at least some vegans. Vegans should supplement with very specifically, algae oil, such as what VivoLife and Dr. Fuhrman sell. (-- Some vegans don’t even supplement b12 which is more known). -- I can only wonder if there are additional nutrients that will come to light as time goes on, that vegans seem to be unaware of or careless about in their highlighting of animal suffering.