Not Quite Vegetarian
On my first day of college—August 18th, 2021 - I decided to strive towards becoming vegetarian, primarily for animal welfare reasons. Before college, I consumed around a median American quantity of meat, but I decided to make this change because Berkeley has more accessible vegetarian options compared to home. Since then, I’ve avoided meat for roughly 90% of meals.
Thoughts:
Reducing my meat consumption has been surprisingly manageable so far—I’ve never craved the meat options at the dining hall because the food isn’t great overall. In addition, I can order/cook my own food in college instead of eating the same meal as my family back home, so I have higher agency over what I eat. In January 2022, I was fortunate to eat great catered vegan food at MLAB, which made being vegetarian much easier at that time.
I wonder how much my reduction in meat consumption actually decreases meat production, and which actions are higher-impact than others; for example, unsure if eating vegetarian at my dining hall matters if they order the same amount of vegetarian/non-vegetarian food regardless of demand or throw away unserved leftovers.
It’s not clear to me whether being vegetarian is effectively altruistic compared to other actions one could take, and I’m not sure if being vegetarian is more expensive than eating meat.
Example: I went to an EA retreat which catered vegetarian burgers that cost >$10 each. I’m curious whether it would be better to eat McDonalds and donating the difference to ACE-recommended charities.
This food impacts calculator by VilleSokk suggests that both caged and cage-free eggs both have higher animal welfare/carbon emissions impact per calorie than pork. Could some vegetarian diets increase harm by offsetting protein from meat with eggs?
I’m somewhat worried about being vegetarian next year, as I’ll be cooking and meal-prepping with my non-vegetarian flatmates. It’s probably significantly more difficult to be vegetarian while living in or cooking for a non-vegetarian household, as buying/cooking separate meals for each other sounds challenging.
I consumed some meat with family during Thanksgiving and the first two weeks of winter break, and with friends on Chinese New Year. I haven’t eaten much Chinese food outside of large gatherings as it seems more difficult to remain vegetarian.
Food is shared in Chinese restaurants, in contrast to other situations where individuals buy their own plate of food; though its higher impact to get a whole table to eat vegetarian, it’s also significantly harder than just ordering vegetarian for oneself.
At festive Chinese meals, many dishes can have small amounts of meat (e.g. tofu with shredded meat).
The top comments seem mostly critical at the moment. This video was posted today and already has 1.2 million views (>100x the number of active EAs as of 2019!), so it might be useful to examine the reception from this video’s general audience. Some of the critique so far:
The video is titled “Is Civilization on the Brink of Collapse?”, but it doesn’t directly answer this question and instead focuses on the consequences of civilizational collapse and a road to recovery.
Comparisions are mainly made to ancient civilizations. They don’t bear much resemblance to modern society, which is more technologically developed and thus robust to risks such as pandemics.
Skepticism towards AI being an x-risk (AGI won’t be developed for a very long time and is difficult to build)
The video seems like a sponsored PR effort advancing WWOTF’s agenda.
The video was poorly researched:
The Bronze Age collapse was not mentioned, despite being a crucial civilizational collapse which regressed scientific and technological development.
The definition of “civilization” at the beginning of the video excludes societies which didn’t have hierarchies or abolished them.
Omission of some important extinction scenarios, like supervolcano eruptions or asteroid impacts.
The video is Eurocentric and doesn’t mention other cultures or empires.
The video is too optimistic/futuristic; it offers scientifically possible but implausible solutions for rebuilding civilization, and doesn’t demonstrate how to overcome social and political hurdles.
This video and “The Last Human – A Glimpse Into The Far Future” place too much emphasis on hypothetical future people, which distracts from suffering in the present.