1) I am okay with humanely raised farm meat (I found a local butcher shop that sources from farms I consider ethical)
2) If I didn’t have access to civilization, I would probably end up hunting to survive, although I’d try to do so as rarely and humanely as was possible given my circumstances. (I’m only like 5% altruist, I just try to direct that altruism as effectively as possible and if push comes to shove I’m a primal animal that needs to eat. I’m skeptical of people who claim otherwise)
3) I’m currently okay with eating insects, mussels, and similar simplish animals, where I can make pretty good guesses about the lack of sentience of. (If insects do turn out to have sentience, that’s a pretty inconvenient world to have to live in, morally.)
4) I’m approximately average-preference-utilitarian. I value there being more creatures with more complex and interesting capacities for preference satisfaction (this is arbitrary and I’m fine with that). If I had to choose between humans and animals, I’d choose humans. But that’s not the choice offered to humans RE vegetarianism—what’s at stake is not humanity and complex relationships/art/intellectual-endeavors—it’s pretty straightforward pleasure (of a sort that I’m expect large swaths of the animal kingdom to be capable of experiencing—visceral enjoyment of food almost certainly evolved fairly early. You are not exercising any special human-ness to experience it)
Most people don’t need meat (or much of it) to be productive (the amount most people think they need is pretty grossly wrong), and the amount of hedonic satisfaction you’re getting from eating meat is vastly dwarfed by the anti-hedons that enabled it.
5) Ultimately, what I actually advocate is making the best decisions you can, given your circumstances. This includes trading off the willpower and energy you spend on Vegetarianism vs other ways you might be reducing suffering or increasing pleasure/joy/complex-beauty. I wouldn’t push too hard for an effective altruist to be Vegetarian. If you argue that devoting your “give a shit” energy is better spent on fighting poverty or injustice or preventing the destruction of the world by unfriendly AI, I won’t argue with you.
But I’d like people to at least have animal suffering on the radar of “things I’d like to give a shit about, if I had the energy, and that if it became much more convenient to care about, I’d make small modifications to my lifestyle.” So that when in-vitro meat becomes cheap and tasty, I think people should make the initial effort to switch over. (Possibly even while it’s still a bit more expensive). Meanwhile, humanely-raised meat tends to be tastier (it’s overall higher quality) so if you have leftover budget for nicer food in the first place, I’d consider that.
I don’t know how to resolve things like “the ecosystem is full of terribleness”. It is possible than plans that include “destroy all natural ecosystems” will turn out to be correct, but my prior on any given person deciding correctly to do that and execute on it without making lots of things worse is low.
But I’d like people to at least have animal suffering on the radar of “things I’d like to give a shit about, if I had the energy, and that if it became much more convenient to care about, I’d make small modifications to my lifestyle.” So that when in-vitro meat becomes cheap and tasty, I think people should make the initial effort to switch over. (Possibly even while it’s still a bit more expensive).
This is pretty much the case for me. I was vegetarian for a while in high school–oddly enough, less for reducing-suffering ethical reasons than for “it costs fewer resources to produce enough plants to feed the world population than to produce enough meat, as animals have to be fed plants and are a low-efficiency conversion of plant calories, so in order to better use the planet’s resources, everyone should eat more plants and less meat.” I consistently ended up with low iron and B12. It’s possible to get enough iron, B12, and protein as a vegetarian, but you do have to plan your meals a bit more carefully (i.e. always have beans with rice so you get complete protein) and possibly eat foods that you don’t like as much. Right now I cook about one dish with meat in it per week, and I haven’t had any iron or B12 deficiency problems since graduating high school 4 years ago.
In general, I optimize food for low cost as well as health value and ethics, but if in-vitro meat became available, I think this is valuable enough in the long run that I would be willing to “subsidize” its production and commercialization by paying higher prices.
I was vegetarian for a while in high school–oddly enough, less for reducing-suffering ethical reasons than for “it costs fewer resources to produce enough plants to feed the world population than to produce enough meat, as animals have to be fed plants and are a low-efficiency conversion of plant calories, so in order to better use the planet’s resources, everyone should eat more plants and less meat.”
Oddly, this sentence is more or less exactly true for me as well. Only on LessWrong...
Well, considering the existence of healthy vegetarians, it seems clear that we evolved to be at least capable of surviving in a low-meat environment.
I don’t have any sources or anything, and I’m pretty lazy, but I’ve been vegetarian since childhood, and never had any health problems as a result AFAICT.
I am entirely willing to take your word on this, but you know what they say about “anecdote” and declensions thereof. In this case specifically, one of the few things that seem to be reliably true about nutrition is that “people are different, and what works for some may fail or be outright disastrous for others”.
In any case, Raemon seemed to be making a weaker claim than “vegetarianism has no serious health downsides”. “Healthy portions of meat amount to far less than the 32 oz steak a day implied by some anti-vegetarian doomsayers” is something I’m completely willing to grant.
Considering the existence of healthy vegetarians, it seems clear that we evolved to be at least capable of surviving in a low-meat environment supported by modern agriculture that produces large quantities of concentrated non-meat protein in the form of tofu, eggs, whey protein, beans, and the like. This may be a happy accident. Are there any vegetarian hunter-gatherer societies?
I’ve been having a hell of a time finding trustworthy cites on this, possibly because there are so many groups with identity stakes in the matter—obesity researchers and advocates, vegetarians, and paleo diet adherents all have somewhat conflicting interests in ancestral nutrition. That said, this survey paper describes relatively modern hunter-gatherer diets ranging from 1% vegetable (the Nunamiut of Alaska) to 74% vegetable (the Gwi of Africa), with a mean somewhere around one third; no entirely vegetarian hunter-gatherers are described. This one describes societies subsisting on up to 90% gathered food (I don’t know whether or not this is synonymous with “vegetable”), but once again no exclusively vegetarian cultures and a mean around 30%.
I should mention by way of disclaimer that modern forager cultures tend to live in marginal environments and these numbers might not reflect the true ancestral proportions. And, of course, that this has no bearing either way on the ethical dimensions of the subject.
I’m having trouble finding… any kind of dietary information that isn’t obviously politicized (in any direction) right now.
But basically, when people think of a “serving” of meat, they imagine a large hunk of steak, when in fact a serving is more like the size of a deck of cards. A healthy diet has enough things going on in it besides meat that removing meat shouldn’t feel like it’s gutting out your entire source of pleasure from food.
Ah. Yeah, I don’t eat meat in huge chunks or anything. But meat sure is delicious, and comes in a bunch of different formats. Obviously removing meat would not totally turn my diet into a bleak, gray desert of bland gruel; I don’t think anyone would claim that. But it would make it meaningfully less enjoyable, on the whole.
This all seems pretty reasonable (except that I don’t think the validity of a human preference has much to do with how difficult it is for non-humans to have the same preference).
1) I am okay with humanely raised farm meat (I found a local butcher shop that sources from farms I consider ethical)
2) If I didn’t have access to civilization, I would probably end up hunting to survive, although I’d try to do so as rarely and humanely as was possible given my circumstances. (I’m only like 5% altruist, I just try to direct that altruism as effectively as possible and if push comes to shove I’m a primal animal that needs to eat. I’m skeptical of people who claim otherwise)
3) I’m currently okay with eating insects, mussels, and similar simplish animals, where I can make pretty good guesses about the lack of sentience of. (If insects do turn out to have sentience, that’s a pretty inconvenient world to have to live in, morally.)
4) I’m approximately average-preference-utilitarian. I value there being more creatures with more complex and interesting capacities for preference satisfaction (this is arbitrary and I’m fine with that). If I had to choose between humans and animals, I’d choose humans. But that’s not the choice offered to humans RE vegetarianism—what’s at stake is not humanity and complex relationships/art/intellectual-endeavors—it’s pretty straightforward pleasure (of a sort that I’m expect large swaths of the animal kingdom to be capable of experiencing—visceral enjoyment of food almost certainly evolved fairly early. You are not exercising any special human-ness to experience it)
Most people don’t need meat (or much of it) to be productive (the amount most people think they need is pretty grossly wrong), and the amount of hedonic satisfaction you’re getting from eating meat is vastly dwarfed by the anti-hedons that enabled it.
5) Ultimately, what I actually advocate is making the best decisions you can, given your circumstances. This includes trading off the willpower and energy you spend on Vegetarianism vs other ways you might be reducing suffering or increasing pleasure/joy/complex-beauty. I wouldn’t push too hard for an effective altruist to be Vegetarian. If you argue that devoting your “give a shit” energy is better spent on fighting poverty or injustice or preventing the destruction of the world by unfriendly AI, I won’t argue with you.
But I’d like people to at least have animal suffering on the radar of “things I’d like to give a shit about, if I had the energy, and that if it became much more convenient to care about, I’d make small modifications to my lifestyle.” So that when in-vitro meat becomes cheap and tasty, I think people should make the initial effort to switch over. (Possibly even while it’s still a bit more expensive). Meanwhile, humanely-raised meat tends to be tastier (it’s overall higher quality) so if you have leftover budget for nicer food in the first place, I’d consider that.
I don’t know how to resolve things like “the ecosystem is full of terribleness”. It is possible than plans that include “destroy all natural ecosystems” will turn out to be correct, but my prior on any given person deciding correctly to do that and execute on it without making lots of things worse is low.
This is pretty much the case for me. I was vegetarian for a while in high school–oddly enough, less for reducing-suffering ethical reasons than for “it costs fewer resources to produce enough plants to feed the world population than to produce enough meat, as animals have to be fed plants and are a low-efficiency conversion of plant calories, so in order to better use the planet’s resources, everyone should eat more plants and less meat.” I consistently ended up with low iron and B12. It’s possible to get enough iron, B12, and protein as a vegetarian, but you do have to plan your meals a bit more carefully (i.e. always have beans with rice so you get complete protein) and possibly eat foods that you don’t like as much. Right now I cook about one dish with meat in it per week, and I haven’t had any iron or B12 deficiency problems since graduating high school 4 years ago.
In general, I optimize food for low cost as well as health value and ethics, but if in-vitro meat became available, I think this is valuable enough in the long run that I would be willing to “subsidize” its production and commercialization by paying higher prices.
Oddly, this sentence is more or less exactly true for me as well. Only on LessWrong...
That reasoning does not seem to be either unique to or particularly prevalent on lesswrong.
Fair enough. I’ve never encountered it elsewhere, myself.
(Typically it is expressed as an additional excuse/justification for the political and personal position being taken for unrelated reasons.)
Could you (very briefly) expand on this, or even just give a link with a reasonably accessible explanation? I am curious.
From the American Dietetic Association: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19562864
Interesting, thank you.
Well, considering the existence of healthy vegetarians, it seems clear that we evolved to be at least capable of surviving in a low-meat environment.
I don’t have any sources or anything, and I’m pretty lazy, but I’ve been vegetarian since childhood, and never had any health problems as a result AFAICT.
I am entirely willing to take your word on this, but you know what they say about “anecdote” and declensions thereof. In this case specifically, one of the few things that seem to be reliably true about nutrition is that “people are different, and what works for some may fail or be outright disastrous for others”.
In any case, Raemon seemed to be making a weaker claim than “vegetarianism has no serious health downsides”. “Healthy portions of meat amount to far less than the 32 oz steak a day implied by some anti-vegetarian doomsayers” is something I’m completely willing to grant.
Fair enough.
Considering the existence of healthy vegetarians, it seems clear that we evolved to be at least capable of surviving in a low-meat environment supported by modern agriculture that produces large quantities of concentrated non-meat protein in the form of tofu, eggs, whey protein, beans, and the like. This may be a happy accident. Are there any vegetarian hunter-gatherer societies?
Wouldn’t these be “gatherer societies” pretty much definitionally?
(Unless there are Triffids!)
Obligatory Far Side reference
I’ve been having a hell of a time finding trustworthy cites on this, possibly because there are so many groups with identity stakes in the matter—obesity researchers and advocates, vegetarians, and paleo diet adherents all have somewhat conflicting interests in ancestral nutrition. That said, this survey paper describes relatively modern hunter-gatherer diets ranging from 1% vegetable (the Nunamiut of Alaska) to 74% vegetable (the Gwi of Africa), with a mean somewhere around one third; no entirely vegetarian hunter-gatherers are described. This one describes societies subsisting on up to 90% gathered food (I don’t know whether or not this is synonymous with “vegetable”), but once again no exclusively vegetarian cultures and a mean around 30%.
I should mention by way of disclaimer that modern forager cultures tend to live in marginal environments and these numbers might not reflect the true ancestral proportions. And, of course, that this has no bearing either way on the ethical dimensions of the subject.
I’m having trouble finding… any kind of dietary information that isn’t obviously politicized (in any direction) right now.
But basically, when people think of a “serving” of meat, they imagine a large hunk of steak, when in fact a serving is more like the size of a deck of cards. A healthy diet has enough things going on in it besides meat that removing meat shouldn’t feel like it’s gutting out your entire source of pleasure from food.
Ah. Yeah, I don’t eat meat in huge chunks or anything. But meat sure is delicious, and comes in a bunch of different formats. Obviously removing meat would not totally turn my diet into a bleak, gray desert of bland gruel; I don’t think anyone would claim that. But it would make it meaningfully less enjoyable, on the whole.
This all seems pretty reasonable (except that I don’t think the validity of a human preference has much to do with how difficult it is for non-humans to have the same preference).
This fact seems to outweigh the rest of your comment.