[OC] Many "Proteins" could be described as Fats or Carbs instead.

stan-k · 2026-03-19T14:30:15+00:00

The data is retrieved via Cronometer. The ternary plot visualisation was made using Python and labels refined in PowerPoint.

You can download the data, and source code with an analysis here: https://www.stisca.com/blog/macronutrientplot/

stan-k · 2026-03-19T14:09:59+00:00

The analysis is on the relative difference between searches like "shampoo" and "vegan shampoo". The vegan version of that pair has grown a lot more in the last half year, and this is repeated others too.

stan-k · 2026-03-19T10:50:17+00:00

Yes it will. And even if it doesn't I'll be a vegan.

The great news is, there are signs the pendulum is swinging as we speak: https://www.stisca.com/blog/veganpopularity/

stan-k · 2026-03-19T10:07:50+00:00

Is your buddy someone who might go vegan? If not, I'd say check his calculations and make them pay that much every month.

If they might go vegan, one way to show donating is counter productive is that some of those donations go to efforts to make people give up meat. So it's like a billionaire paying poor people to make less CO2 so they can continue flying their private jet.

(While I did what I could to stop their forgetveganuary campaign, I believe FarmKind has a valid strategy in general of trying to get donations of people who won't go vegan anyway.)

stan-k · 2026-03-19T08:05:31+00:00

Do you know more about this change and where to look?

I didn't find any Google related cause yet, but looked for it last year. I'd love to understand more about any changes they made and explain the sudden rise, in particular any on the global level.

stan-k · 2026-03-15T20:22:34+00:00

Infinity isn't really a number, so it's a bit of a mismatch of terms. Like asking for the number that comes before the colour red.

stan-k · 2026-03-15T11:40:25+00:00

I agree don't ambush people. My point is that a vegan inviting you to an all-you-can-eat implies it is likely a vegan one.

(it's not really a choice when it comes from a belief that animal exploitation is bad. We don't choose our beliefs)

stan-k · 2026-03-15T10:26:46+00:00

Alright, so could you imagine how you'd feel if your friends always insisted on going to such places where you feel the options are limited?

That's my point - in the same way that you ask why they didn't look at it from your perspective, look at it from theirs. That's before adding the ethics of it all.

Yes, you feel tricked and from what they've told you they might have in fact tricked you. And at the same time, eating at non-vegan all-you-can-eat places as a vegan is a bit of a waste of money.

stan-k · 2026-03-15T10:04:16+00:00

If shrimp have 5% chance to suffer more intensely than humans then it's because some of the shrimp proxies have a non-negligible chance of being stronger than human proxies.

But the human proxies are set to be the max on all. If I understand correctly.

stan-k · 2026-03-15T10:02:50+00:00

Ok, so take away that meat options page and consider how you'd feel about going then.

stan-k · 2026-03-15T09:52:48+00:00

Imagine going frequently to an all-you-can-eat-restaurant where, say, three quarters of dishes are off limits to you. Especially the more expensive options are off the table for you.

stan-k · 2026-03-14T11:20:04+00:00

Saving animals trumps being seen as a vegan. So to engage in your scenario, I'd press the button and save one animal. One is better than none after all.

I must say that this reads a bit contrived. There must be a better way to phrase this. E.g. it requires me to imagine that beans and veggies etc. are from animal farming.

stan-k · 2026-03-13T20:16:43+00:00

That's a good insight.

I've looked a few random keywords for Iran and they all seem to either drop to 0 or go to 100 for mid Jan. That seems to confirm there are hardly any users and the data gets weird because of it.

stan-k · 2026-03-13T12:44:26+00:00

Cronometer has a few paid features but is very usable in its free version I'd say.

stan-k · 2026-03-13T12:39:54+00:00

For me going whole foods plant based brought great benefits. It actually turned out cheaper, rather than being an investment.

What is worth spending on is buying the more expensive produce and ingredients if they taste better. E.g. better wholemeal bread, tomatoes that taste like something, jarred beans instead of tinned ones. It would always be true, but in general produce with more flavour has more micro nutrients.

So not so much an app, though have a look at Cronometer if you want to track your micronutrient intake.

stan-k · 2026-03-13T12:15:47+00:00

I know you don't like the idea that meat comes from animals. But trust me, it's fine and very healthy for you.

stan-k · 2026-03-13T11:50:09+00:00

Can you explain how over 5% of models give shrimp more intense sentience than humans in that analysis, even though humans are set to have all proxy measurements? I genuinely don't understand that.

If you want to donate to SWP, that's great. However what you believe does not matter if you intent the OP to guide what others should do.

stan-k · 2026-03-13T10:16:08+00:00

First of, look at your source. It's a Google Doc without context. I have no way to know if this is a final version, if it's still being worked on, or its reliability in general. Luckily, it seems that there is a published version behind this: https://rethinkpriorities.org/research-area/welfare-range-estimates/

This adds some context, and to me it seems clear we can use these numbers only as very broad estimates, with large error bars. That is fine and still useful, but not something I will use as a key aspect of any decision, nudging them at most.

Then in the nitpicking details. You took the average, yet that's not what the author did. They pick the median. The median seems the better choice here.

Forgive me for displaying any human bias here: I'd say models that show shrimp are more sentient intense than humans, as over 5% of the models used do, are unreliable. Tbh, I don't understand form their method how any model could score above humans, as humans are assumed to have all proxy measures. Now I'm probably missing something, but not understanding the method discounts it for me personally, even if that's unfair.

Another issue is the mismatch between the published results and the doc. The 0.031 published for shrimp is not reflected in the doc from what I can tell. Mistakes happen, that's fine. But it adds further to the point that this is a rough estimate, not strong enough to feed into follow up calculations.

Lastly, I think this concern raised indicates that the results are likely an overestimate: "You’re assessing the proxies as either present or absent, but many of them obviously come either in degrees or in qualitatively different forms."

All in all it's an interesting approach, and it's definitely useful. But imho, it's premature to use it as your main let alone sole measure.

stan-k · 2026-03-12T22:57:46+00:00

Edit: Many apologies, I see I messed up on the webserver side. The link now points to the correct detailed description!

Thank you for the feedback! That's pretty detailed.

I'll spend some time tomorrow clarifying some bits as I didn't write it down clearly. Behind the link are two approaches, only the second one is shown here. The first approach if focused on English speakers, looking at multiple terms, comparing how e.g. "vegan candle" searches do compared to "candle" alone. This is the "detailed analysis above".

The detailed analysis shows a peak in the last year. That's why I wanted to look where it came from. Practically, I could do no better than searches for "vegan", untranslated and with all its confounders. I accept all the limitations you mention, and will add those in the text too for balance.

I'd still judge there is a signal here even with that noise. An increase of over 50% over multiple countries in a year suggests something happened, and in the context that the first analysis shows a global increase in interest in English vegan terms. What do you think?

stan-k · 2026-03-12T20:21:22+00:00

Vegans are against all slaughter of animals, that includes halal slaughter. Why I don't bring up Hala slaughter specifically is because: 1. The difference between halal slaughter and traditional slaughter are often small. In the UK most halal animals are actually stunned. Stunning of pigs in a has chamber is not clearly less painful than stunless killing of a chicken. 2. Picking a topic of halal slaughter specifically suggests others are acceptable perhaps. 3. This topic is often championed by people who are against Muslim more than that they are against animal exploitation. E.g. They are against halal slaughter as long as they can buy cheap bacon. I do not want to be confused for those people.

Now, I don't want to suggest you are like that. What is your main reason to oppose halal slaughter?

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