I still think about it regularly. The author carefully considers various animal-killing actions. Is it bad to exterminate ants that invade our house? It is bad to kill ants when we walk across grass? Every time we wash our bed sheets, we kill dust-mites. Is that morally significant?
In some aspects, our world is a hell. Everything has a cost, and often a cost that is quickly translated into suffering and death. In plant production, field mice are crushed by tractors. Combines destroy bird’s nests. Pesticides kill billions of insects. Every product we buy, every bit of electricty we spend, every kilometer we drive in our cars, we cause harm and suffering.
I support vegetarians and vegans. When they eat at my home, I cook a vegetarian meal. But these actions and pledges seem excessive. Not eating where animals are being eaten seems excessive. Not being able to eat a Thanksgiving meal without crying, an hour in the basement and hurting your partner’s mother seems excessive.
You own electronics. You probably drove to the house of your partner’s parents. You’re probably not spending all your time working and donating the money to Effective Altruism. Would you want to be ‘attacked’ for that? Would you want people to not be able to eat with you because you own a smartphone and/or PC? Would you want people to not be able to socialize with you because you regularly drive to places, or because you benefit from people and products that have been driving to places? You would harm less beings if you wouldn’t own and do these things… Where to draw the line?
It’s good to want to improve the world. It’s good to want to relieve suffering, and to improve well-being. But the world is complex. Your actions and non-actions have infinite consequences and we know so little about them.
I think lab-grown meat is great. We’re getting closer to mass producing it every day. If it’s fully developed, if it’s healthy, if it’s tasty, if it’s affordable - ‘real’ meat will be out of the grocery store in no time. And then it’ll get very tightly regulated. Aim for revolutions like that one. Make the world a better place, permanently, for everybody, instead of starting conflicts and polarizing ourselves even further for little gain.
I hope you’ll consider, and think you’ll enjoy this article, Killing the Ants: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zAGPk4EXaXSkKWY9a/killing-the-ants
I still think about it regularly. The author carefully considers various animal-killing actions. Is it bad to exterminate ants that invade our house? It is bad to kill ants when we walk across grass? Every time we wash our bed sheets, we kill dust-mites. Is that morally significant?
In some aspects, our world is a hell. Everything has a cost, and often a cost that is quickly translated into suffering and death. In plant production, field mice are crushed by tractors. Combines destroy bird’s nests. Pesticides kill billions of insects. Every product we buy, every bit of electricty we spend, every kilometer we drive in our cars, we cause harm and suffering.
I support vegetarians and vegans. When they eat at my home, I cook a vegetarian meal. But these actions and pledges seem excessive. Not eating where animals are being eaten seems excessive. Not being able to eat a Thanksgiving meal without crying, an hour in the basement and hurting your partner’s mother seems excessive.
You own electronics. You probably drove to the house of your partner’s parents. You’re probably not spending all your time working and donating the money to Effective Altruism. Would you want to be ‘attacked’ for that? Would you want people to not be able to eat with you because you own a smartphone and/or PC? Would you want people to not be able to socialize with you because you regularly drive to places, or because you benefit from people and products that have been driving to places? You would harm less beings if you wouldn’t own and do these things… Where to draw the line?
It’s good to want to improve the world. It’s good to want to relieve suffering, and to improve well-being. But the world is complex. Your actions and non-actions have infinite consequences and we know so little about them.
I think lab-grown meat is great. We’re getting closer to mass producing it every day. If it’s fully developed, if it’s healthy, if it’s tasty, if it’s affordable - ‘real’ meat will be out of the grocery store in no time. And then it’ll get very tightly regulated. Aim for revolutions like that one. Make the world a better place, permanently, for everybody, instead of starting conflicts and polarizing ourselves even further for little gain.