By the utilitarian principles this post rests on, assuming that the proposed data on the health of eating meat is true (although this is debatable), wouldn’t the logical outcome be:
Eat only plants, fungi, and bivalves (clams, oysters, etc. with no centralized brain)
...?
I don’t see how the the transition from ‘Okay, I’ll try eating bivalves to see if I feel better and thus more productive towards reducing suffering of animals’ to ‘Fund corporations to create an enormous amount of suffering in beings that share neural networks very similar with ours, and likely experience pain in a very similar way to us’ could be justified without mental gymnastics.
–––
This alone, I believe, undermines 90% of the post entirely, and so I almost refrain from undermining several other points of reasoning I do not (may not) see to hold. But here is an additional quick take, because from a meta perspective good reasoning is good.
The appeal to utilitarianism towards animals only holds if: the person is directly working in animal welfare, on a project that is effective + has some health issues (including mental health, yes) undermining productivity + tries a non-vegan diet, sees their health issues improve, and sees their productivity improve. I do wonder what percentage of people on Lesswrong even the first criteria applies to. Admittedly, the article seems to have been amended from when the post was first published and now transitioned a bit towards a sort of appeal to self-interest, and I am less interested in debating whether an appeal to self-interest is justified. But still, to the extent the appeal to utilitarianism is made, the acknowledgement about how narrowly this appeal will apply to the Lesswrong population, and how easily the appeal can be sloppily transitioned to a completely different set of variables is important.
I feel ambivalent about the nutritional science presented. You definitely make some good points that undermine the current scientific consensus which, overall, at majority, overwhelmingly points towards veganism as healthier along the metrics of reduction in heart disease, reduction in diabetes, reduction in cancer, longevity. In fact I’m not interested in debunking your point completely, I will rest in some humility on this one. But a few important things to consider:
Beware the Man of One Study, by Scott Alexander. The health assertions I point to come from systematic reviews, not single studies — and several. From what I remember, every single systematic review on the first page of Elicit.
Your points regarding extra variables and vegan correlations are clever and yet, wouldn’t a scientist whose job it is to tease out variables and get to the truth, have considered and accounted for this? I imagine at least one of the scientists who spent 1+ years on a systematic review would have accounted for this. If the results of the review came to contradict the consensus, and point to plant-based diets as less healthy, I imagine it would have shown in one of the reviews on the first page of Elicit.
By the utilitarian principles this post rests on, assuming that the proposed data on the health of eating meat is true (although this is debatable), wouldn’t the logical outcome be:
Eat only plants, fungi, and bivalves (clams, oysters, etc. with no centralized brain)
...?
I don’t see how the the transition from ‘Okay, I’ll try eating bivalves to see if I feel better and thus more productive towards reducing suffering of animals’ to ‘Fund corporations to create an enormous amount of suffering in beings that share neural networks very similar with ours, and likely experience pain in a very similar way to us’ could be justified without mental gymnastics.
–––
This alone, I believe, undermines 90% of the post entirely, and so I almost refrain from undermining several other points of reasoning I do not (may not) see to hold. But here is an additional quick take, because from a meta perspective good reasoning is good.
The appeal to utilitarianism towards animals only holds if: the person is directly working in animal welfare, on a project that is effective + has some health issues (including mental health, yes) undermining productivity + tries a non-vegan diet, sees their health issues improve, and sees their productivity improve. I do wonder what percentage of people on Lesswrong even the first criteria applies to. Admittedly, the article seems to have been amended from when the post was first published and now transitioned a bit towards a sort of appeal to self-interest, and I am less interested in debating whether an appeal to self-interest is justified. But still, to the extent the appeal to utilitarianism is made, the acknowledgement about how narrowly this appeal will apply to the Lesswrong population, and how easily the appeal can be sloppily transitioned to a completely different set of variables is important.
I feel ambivalent about the nutritional science presented. You definitely make some good points that undermine the current scientific consensus which, overall, at majority, overwhelmingly points towards veganism as healthier along the metrics of reduction in heart disease, reduction in diabetes, reduction in cancer, longevity. In fact I’m not interested in debunking your point completely, I will rest in some humility on this one. But a few important things to consider:
Beware the Man of One Study, by Scott Alexander. The health assertions I point to come from systematic reviews, not single studies — and several. From what I remember, every single systematic review on the first page of Elicit.
Your points regarding extra variables and vegan correlations are clever and yet, wouldn’t a scientist whose job it is to tease out variables and get to the truth, have considered and accounted for this? I imagine at least one of the scientists who spent 1+ years on a systematic review would have accounted for this. If the results of the review came to contradict the consensus, and point to plant-based diets as less healthy, I imagine it would have shown in one of the reviews on the first page of Elicit.