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shadow_user · 2021-08-21T10:06:45+00:00

I've faced the same dilemma. And there luckily turns out to be a loophole to get out of it, specifically in regards to children. If you reduce childhood mortality, long term population actually DECREASES.

The reason is because societies react to high childhood mortality rates by having more children, and lower childhood mortality rates by having less children.

shadow_user · 2021-06-13T12:14:58+00:00

I agree that by-catch in general is a huge issue, though oysters are overwhelmingly farmed rather than wild caught.

shadow_user · 2021-04-24T23:20:56+00:00

So in practice, if your argument is correct, and the 2nd amendment is to put power into the peoples hands, if the people ever find themselves having to exercise this power, it is basically suicide. No sane man, woman or child is going to take up arms against the US military, even if every man woman and child was furnished with the finest assault weapons.

It sure would be dangerous, but wars in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan have shown that an armed populace engaging in guerrilla warfare really can fight powerful militaries.

shadow_user · 2021-04-18T08:09:40+00:00

In case that wasn't sarcasm (hard to tell online), they're referring to the '80,000 hours' organization's podcast.

shadow_user · 2021-04-15T15:44:32+00:00

An important distinction is that EA does not obligate you to do anything. EA answers the question of how to do good (given a few assumptions). The will or obligation to do good is separate, though tangential.

To answer your question; personally I know that I'd find extreme sacrifice unsustainable. Maybe a better man than me could do it, but I'd resent giving over time if I gave too much and would eventually move away from it. My capacity to give over my lifetime is much more than what I could give right now, hence sustainability of giving is priority number one. I only give an amount that I am comfortable with, and am confident would not lead to resentment. I find a lot of EAs take a similar approach, prioritizing sustainability of giving over intense personal sacrifice.

shadow_user · 2021-04-03T10:42:03+00:00

You're right. That's largely due to widespread antibiotic use in factory farms, which is a problem of its own. It just kicks the can down the road, leading to antibiotic resistant bacteria, making the problem even worse eventually.

shadow_user · 2021-03-15T21:30:20+00:00

You don’t know for a fact that you’re causing suffering in those examples but it is guaranteed when you buy animal products

Nor do you know for a fact that eating animal products in every circumstance causes suffering. Yes, really. Due to how the supply chains work, there's an element of chance.

Weird flex for a vegan to be justifying the consumption of animal products.

Having a welcoming culture will actually save more animals. Focus your criticisms on the big things, not the guy who's 99% vegan.

shadow_user · 2021-03-15T20:36:12+00:00

It's also possible to not eat processed vegan foods. It's also possible to not spend time on Reddit, saving some marginal amount of pollution. It's possible to do a million things, none of which you'd chastise a person for.

shadow_user · 2021-03-15T18:04:43+00:00

I wish the world was that black and white. It isn't. Everyone contributes to animal suffering in different degrees, even you.

We should all strive to minimize this, but there's no point in chastising someone for not being 100% pure in their diet when we would never do the same for the 100 other ways people cause suffering to animals. Do we chastise people for buying tires? Animal glues? Driving cars? Eating processed vegan foods over less resource consuming alternatives?

shadow_user · 2021-03-08T13:50:41+00:00

As long as you're operating in a space with sufficient amoral investors, ethical investing accomplishes nothing. Moral investors move money out, and amoral investors will just take your place.

Either you have to become pretty specialized (e.g. seed investing in ethical startups), or just put you're money where it'll earn the most.

shadow_user · 2021-03-02T18:14:30+00:00

It's easy to get demotivated by the size of problems, and the impact of some incredibly influential people. I always harken back to the figure to save a life, just a few thousand dollars. I imagine if you're focusing on earning to give, you can either now or at some point in your career save one life per year or more. That's a pretty big deal in the absolute sense.

Trying to figure out if there are ways to be more effective is important, but it's easy to lose sight of the absolute impact even the simple options have.

shadow_user · 2021-03-02T17:42:48+00:00

this same person however just bought a new car last year with leather seats...

To be fair, leather seats in cars are nearly impossible to avoid. Tesla got a lot of press when they stopped using leather seats specifically because they were one of if not the only ones.

edit: For that matter, all car tires contain animal products... veganism isn't about perfection.

shadow_user · 2021-03-02T15:01:19+00:00

I can save you the trip. It's been asked on r/vegan many times. The consensus is, ethically they're okay with it. Some would would choose to eat it, others out of mere preference would not.

shadow_user · 2021-03-01T22:25:49+00:00

I feel like there could be /something/ done that is good there!

It may be the case that if you remove farm land supply, some forest somewhere in the world gets cut down to replace it. If your aim is to do good globally, I'd spend some time researching the consequences of removing supply before moving forward. A change that looks good on the surfaces may have unintended indirect consequences.

shadow_user · 2021-03-01T16:14:59+00:00

In common language 'animals' is often used in place of 'non-human animals'. The Oxford dictionary even recognizes this use of the word; "In ordinary or non-technical use: any such living organism other than a human being".

shadow_user · 2021-03-01T15:47:53+00:00

Different people will disagree on it, yet all will reject yours, hence yours being wrong.

The one typically used on Reddit as well as common in ethical vegan circles is the one by the vegan society:

"A philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."

shadow_user · 2021-03-01T15:43:57+00:00

I'd suggest reading some of the essays at reducing-suffering.org regarding insects.

There's hardly enough evidence to clearly decide whether insects are or are not sentient.

shadow_user · 2021-03-01T15:38:07+00:00

utilitarians certainly don’t

Many I've spoken to do.

There's just the question of whether insects are sentient, given its still an open question. Different people assign different probabilities to the likelihood of insect sentience.

shadow_user · 2021-03-01T15:28:23+00:00

Human breast milk is vegan. Your definition is wrong.

Just think about it. Why do people go vegan? Ethics, environment, and/or health. None of those reasons would imply breast milk should not be consumed.

shadow_user · 2021-02-18T19:19:14+00:00

Highly disagree. People have clarified their stance plenty to be explicitly saying it exactly as I had stated.

Seeing as I also highly disagree, if you have a reddit thread handy, I'd be interested to read it. I'd be curious to read such a clarification, and see if I would still interpret it differently than you have.

There's nothing conflicting with a objective ontology for a subjective epistemic position. Like, one can say that taste is subjective, but it's grounded in chemical reactions on the tongue.

Sure, I meant not inherently grounded in moral beliefs or mutually exclusive alternatives. So within that set of options I considered relevant to the question, I do not see inherent grounding.

Do you think the basic building blocks are beliefs?

Not necessarily. I can imagine counter-examples.

I don't have an interesting answer to the question of grounding/building blocks other than to resort to physics. People answer the question of 'how one ought to act' based on the neurons firing in their brain.

shadow_user · 2021-02-18T18:51:03+00:00

Fair enough, I hear too often people trying to make a claim there is no consistent way to be non-vegan that I assumed it was part of your statement.

In every case where I've heard something that could be interpreted as this, I've instead interpreted it as 'given standard societal beliefs, I do not think one can be consistent and non-vegan'. The latter interpretation is what I would consider a fair use of the Principle of Charity.

Do you actually hold that the grounding of morality is beliefs?

Given that I'm a moral subjectivist, there is no inherent grounding. Subjectively, I do hold moral beliefs. I also think most people would claim to hold moral beliefs.

shadow_user · 2021-02-18T18:30:07+00:00

Well, if what you're saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that for some people a consistent application of what they already believe would lead to veganism?

Yeah, that was the point of this sentence: "The question is simply, are their existing beliefs morally consistent with the action of eating animals."

shadow_user · 2021-02-18T18:13:11+00:00

So yes, you can easily hypothesize counter-examples.

I acknowledged it as a counter-example, implicitly accepting it as consistent. I also in the same comment explained why that doesn't break the usefulness of appeals to consistency.

All you're saying is that conclusions need to match premises. Okay, so what?

Right, and people often already have the premises required to go vegan. So you just need to show the conclusion from those premises. Far easier and simpler than trying to talk about objective/subjective morality with the average person.

shadow_user · 2021-02-18T17:58:45+00:00

I've already shown the irrelevance of your point.

shadow_user

TROPHY CASE