Why do you conclude that fish don’t suffer?
Slapstick
Karma: 126
It just seems to me like there’s a deeper level of explaination required to conclude the experience of consciousness is a false belief, relative to things like deja vu.
It seems like you’re using terms that presume experience in order to explain how experience is false via analogy.
You experience deja vu, the experience lends towards false beliefs about previous experiences. How can that have explanatory power in concluding experience itself is false? Wouldn’t that conclusion undermine the premises of the comparison?
This seems to carry unnecessary risks for your health and well-being, and it’s not clear how you’ll be able to confidently conclude anything meaningful from the results.
If you don’t end up gaining the weight back, what particular reason would you have to attribute that to this seed oil theory? You would be starting a novel diet consisting of mostly whole foods correct?
I don’t see how this would provide any evidence regarding a specific mechanism where seed oils supposedly increase obesity above and beyond their quality as a highly refined calorie source.
Have you consulted any medical professionals?
in short, when we’re discussing “what advice is appropriate”, we are presupposing that we’ve chosen the timing properly. Having assumed this, the question of what advice we should give does still remain.
If you presuppose things like proper timing, and presumably other considerations about appropriate contextual cues, I don’t think there really remains any issue here.
I think generally the type of person who actually has valuable advice to offer in this context is also the type of person who’s socially aware enough to offer it via methods which are recieved well.
Backround
I have personally cut out refined sugar almost entirely from my diet, with long stretches where I have cut it out entirely. I used to be about as addicted to refined sugar as possible, now I essentially don’t crave it at all anymore.
I also eat about as much fruit as you do, although it’s mostly in the form of dates and bananas (~400g very ripe bananas, ~150g dates) as well as other fruits.
I found your post interesting because we seem to have somewhat different models of how these things work, as well as behavioral differences, while both arriving at a somewhat similar place.
Questions
You say the watermelon technique takes a month or two to take effect. During that period, what does your refined sugar intake look like? Is there a gradual decrease? Or is there essentially no change until the cravings cease, resulting in a hard drop off?
My thinking
My model for how sugar cravings work physically is that consuming refined sugar breeds a particular kind of gut flora. This sugar loving gut flora lobbies the brain in order to consume more refined sugar to sustain and grow itself. Cold turkey cessation of refined sugar results in this gut flora being mostly wiped out along with cravings, but this takes about 2-3 weeks of no refined sugar.
I don’t put a ton of confidence in the mechanisms, but experientially that’s how it’s played out for me.
Do you think that the attitude you’re presenting here is the attitude one ought to have in matters of moral disagreement?
Surely there’s various examples of moral progress (which have happened or are happening) that you would align yourself with. Surely some or all of these examples include people who lack perfect honesty/truth seeking on par with veganism.
If long ago you noticed some people speaking out against racism/sexism/slavery/etc Had imperfect epistemics and truth seeking, would you condone willfully disregarding all attempts to persuade you on those topics?
FWIW I just spent a lot of time reading all of the comments (in the original thread and this one) and my position is that Martín Soto’s criticism of his representation is valid, and that he has been obviously mischaracterized.
I think Martín Soto explained it pretty well in his comments here, but I can try to explain it myself. (Can’t guarantee I will do it well, I originally commented because the stated opinions of commenters voicing an opposing view seemed to be used as evidence)
The post directly represents Soto as thinking that nieve veganism is a made up problem, despite him not saying that, or giving any indication that he thought the problem was fabricated (he literally states that he doesn’t doubt the anecdotes of the commenter speaking about the college group). He just shared that in his experience, knowledge about vegan supplimenting needs was extremely widespread and the norm.
The post also represents Soto as desiring a “policy of suppressing public discussion of nutrition issues with plant-exclusive diets”
That’s not what he said, and it’s not an accurate interpretation.
He innitally commented thanking them for the post in question, providing some criticism and questions. Elizabeth later asked about whether he thinks vegan nutrition issues should be discussed, and for his thoughts on the right way to discuss vegan nutrition issues.
He seems to agree they should be discussed, but he offers a lot of thoughts about how the framing of those discussions is important, along with some other considerations.
He says that in his opinion the consequences of pushing the line she was pushing in the way she was pushing it were probably net negative, but that’s very different from advocating a policy of suppressing public discussion about a topic.
Saying something along the lines of: “this speech about this topic framed in this way probably does more harm than good in my opinion”
Is very different than saying something like: “there should be a policy of suppressing speech about this topic”
Advocating generalized norms around suppressing speech about a broad topic, is not the same as stating an opinion that certain speech falling under that topic and framed a certain way might do more harm than good.
- 's comment on EA Vegan Advocacy is not truthseeking, and it’s everyone’s problem by (3 Oct 2023 1:43 UTC; 18 points)
- 's comment on EA Vegan Advocacy is not truthseeking, and it’s everyone’s problem by (8 Oct 2023 12:55 UTC; 10 points)
- 's comment on EA Vegan Advocacy is not truthseeking, and it’s everyone’s problem by (8 Oct 2023 13:04 UTC; 1 point)
Additionally, they seemed to accept the number as is.
I don’t think that’s fair to say given this disclaimer in the faunalytics study:
Note: Some caution is needed in considering these results. It is possible that former vegetarians/vegans may have exaggerated their difficulties given that they provide a justification for their current behavior.
.
where Faunalytics reports “listed health issues as a reason they quit”.
This isn’t a quote from the faunalytics data, nor is it an accurate description of the data they gathered.
The survey asked people who are no longer veg*/n if they experienced certain health issues while they were veg*/n. Not whether they attributed those health issues to their diet, or whether they quit because of those health issues.
Someone who experienced depression/anxiety while they were vegan for example, who then quit being vegan because they broke up with their vegan partner, would be included in the survey data you’re talking about.
It’s possible I’m confused or missing something.
I hedged a little less about this after wilkox, a doctor who was not at all happy with the Change My Mind post, said he thought it was if anything an underestimate.
I’m much less confident about my issue with this part because im not totally sure what they meant, but I don’t interpret their comment as saying that in their professional opinion they think the number of people experiencing health issues from veg*nism is higher.
I interpret their surprise at the numbers being due to the fact that it’s a self reported survey. Given that people can say whatever they want, and that it’s surveying ex veg*ns, they’re surprised more people didn’t use health as a rationalization (is my impression).
I appreciate the response
Though I’m mostly concerned that you seem to be falsely quoting the faunalytics study:
where Faunalytics reports “listed health issues as a reason they quit”
This isn’t in the study and it’s not something they surveyed. They surveyed something meaningfully different, as I outlined in my comment.
Thanks I appreciate this! (What follows doesn’t include any further critical feedback about what you wrote)
One thing I also thought was missing in the survey is something that would touch on a general sense of loss of energy.
Its my impression that many people attempting veganism (perhaps more specifically a whole foods plant based diet, but also veg*nism generally) report a generalized loss of energy. Often this is cited as a reason for stopping the diet.
It’s also my impression (opinion?) that this is largely due to a difference in the intuitive sense of whether you’re getting enough calories, since vegan food is often less caloricaly dense. (You could eat 2Lb of mushrooms, feel super full, and only have eaten 250 calories)
If someone is used to eating a certain volume of food until they feel full, that same heuristic without changing may leave them at a major caloric defecit if eating healthy vegan foods.
This can also be a potential risk factor for any sort of deficiency. The food you’re eating might have 100% of the nutrients you need, but if you’re eating 70% of the food you need, you’ll not be getting enough nutrients.
That’s a good question. I have many thoughts about this and I’m working on a more thorough response.
My very simple answer is that I do think that’s generally plausible (or at least that you’re getting at something significant).
Torture is not the purpose of farming animals. Meat is the purpose, suffering a side-effect. No farmer is going to out of their way to torture their livestock if they think it isn’t suffering enough.
This is true.
While it’s true that torture isn’t the purpose, many workers in animal agriculture/farmers do go out of their way to torture animals, beyond what is entailed in profit seeking. Whether as a form of sadism, taking out their anger, a twisted and ineffective attempt at discipline, it certainly happens.
This may be somewhat tangential, but I think it’s worth noting.
Personally I’ve listened to a farmer I know gleefully recounting stories of repeatedly hitting his cows with baseball bats, in the face and body. It’s anecdotal, but growing up in rural environments I’ve heard a lot of things like that. He also talked/joked about performing DIY surgery on their genitals without anesthesia, which technically has a profit motive, but I think it’s indicative of an attitude of indifference to causing them extreme suffering.
There’s also all sorts of reports and undercover footage of workers beating and mutilating animals, often without any purpose behind it.
It’s a bit difficult to disentangle torture for the sake of torture, from torture which is vaguely aimed at profit seeking (though torture for the sake of harming the animal does happen).
If someone wants an animal to move somewhere, or if they want to perform an excruciating procedure on the animal without it struggling too much, they may beat the animal until it does what they want it to. They may be using this as an opportunity to vent their aggression. You could say profit seeking/meat is the ultimate purpose of that. However I think there’s a lot of context in between the dichotomy of ‘torture for profit’ vs ‘torture for torture’.
These things often happen in a context where the industries have final say over whether a particular practice constitutes unlawful treatment. Where it’s illegal to record and release video footage of what goes on there. Where local law enforcement has no interest in enforcing laws when there are laws.
I think abuse for the sake of abuse is common in any environment with power imbalances, lack of oversight, and resource constraints. Nursing homes, schools, prisons, policing, hospitals, etc. All entail countless examples of people with power over others abusing others, with the main purpose being some sort of emotional catharsis.
Those are industries where humans are the victims, members of the ingroup, who have laws and norms meant to protect their interests. I think beyond all of the available evidence of ‘torture for the sake of torture’ on farms, it also makes sense to assume it does/will happen.
I would be interested in an explanation of how the quote captures why you don’t like suffering focused ethics.
My (possibly nieve) perspective is that people who downplay the relative moral significance of suffering just have a lack of relevant experience when it comes to qualia states.
If someone hasn’t experienced certain levels of suffering over certain durations, how can they reasonably judge that hundreds of billions of years worth of those experiences are relatively insignificant?
If you primarily care about suffering, then animal welfare is a huge priority, but if you instead care about meaning, fulfillment, love, etc., then it’s much less clearly important.
It’s hard for me not to interpret the word ‘care’ here as relating to attention, rather than intrinsic values. To me it seems like if someones attention were calibrated such that they had a deep understanding of the implication of billions of animals having surgery done on them without anesthesia, while also understanding the implications of people potentially having marginally more meaningful lives, they would generally consider the animal issue to be more pressing.
I’m quite interested in what you might think I’m missing. I often find myself very confused about people’s perspectives here.
Interesting topic
I think that unless we can find a specific causal relationship implying that the capacity to form social bonds increases overall well-being capacity, we should assume that attaching special importance to this capacity is merely a product of human bias.
Humans typically assign an animal’s capacity for wellbeing and meaningful experience based on a perceived overlap, or shared experience. As though humans are this circle in a Ven diagram, and the extent to which our circle overlaps with an iguana’s circle is the extent to which that iguana has meaningful experience.
I think this is clearly fallacious. An iguana has their own circle, maybe the circle is smaller, but there’s a huge area of non-overlap that we can’t just entirely discount because we’re unable to relate to it. We can’t define meaningful experience by how closely it resembles human experience.
When trying to model your disagreement with Martin and his position, I think the best sort of analogy I can think of is that of tobacco companies employing ‘fear, uncertainty, and doubt’ tactics in order to prevent people from seriously considering quitting smoking.
Smokers experience cognitive dissonance when they have strong desires to smoke, coupled with knowledge that smoking is likely not in their best interest. They can supress this cognitive dissonance by changing their behaviour and quitting smoking, or by finding something that introduces sufficient doubt about whether that behavior is in their self interest, the latter being much easier. They only need a marginal amount of uncertainty and doubt in order to suppress the dissonance, because their reasoning is heavily motivated, and that’s all tobacco companies needed to offer.
I think Martin is essentially trying to make a case that your post(s) about veganism are functionally providing sufficient marginal ‘uncertainty and doubt’ for non-vegans to suppress any inclination that they ought to reconsider their behaviour. Even if that isn’t at all the intention of the post(s), or a reasonable takeaway (for meat eaters).
I think this explains much or most of the confusing friction which came up around your posts involving veganism. Vegans have certain intuitions regarding the kinds of things that non-vegans will use to maintain the sufficient ‘uncertainty and doubt’ required to suppress the mental toll of their cognitive dissonance. So even though it was hard to find explicit disagreement, it also felt clear to a lot of people that the framing, rhetorical approach, and data selection entailed in the post(s) would mostly have the effect of readers permitting themselves license to forgo reckoning with the case for veganism.
So I think it’s relevant whether one affords animals a higher magnitude of moral consideration, or internalized an attitude which places animals in the in-group, However I don’t think that accounts for everything here.
Some public endeavors in truth seeking can satisfy the motivated anti-truth seeking of people encountering it. I interpret the top comment of this post as evidence of that.
I’m not sure if I conveyed everything I meant to here, but I think I should make sure the main point here makes sense before expanding.
All else equal, a unit of animal suffering should be accorded the same moral weight as an equivalent unit of human suffering. (i.e. equal consideration for equal interests)
I would love to see some sort of integration of the pol.is system, or similar features
Personally I find this type of forgetfulness occurs alongside a sense of urgency; experiencing someone suffering and feeling a need to instinctively offer assistance quickly.
In my view, the reflex to train in this situation is slowing things down so as to take time and consider the approach you want to take, while still being present for the struggling person in question.
It just so happens that the the types of communication you might use to “stall for time while you think about your approach,” are the same sorts of communication styles you might ultimately wish to employ given further consideration and recall.
Saying things like: “wow that sounds incredibly challenging, I’m sorry you’re going through that” , repeating their problem and experience back to them in your own words, and encouraging them continue talking.
All great ways to stall, giving you lots of time to slow down and think in order to remember to apply empathetic listening skills.