I regard the evil of being eaten as less than the evil of never having been born
I've never understood this evil of never having been born. Vegetarianism aside, does this mean that you promote the increase of the human population as much as possible? Should well-off people try to sire or bear a new child every two years at minimum?
(I know, this is still off topic. And hackneyed. I would RSVP if I lived near Berkeley.)
I've never understood this evil of never having been born.
Never having been born means one can't benefit from one's life, I would point out. If the animals we eat are not suffering terribly each moment, that means they have good moments or great ones where they are happy to be alive; enough of these to counterbalance death, and their life is a net gain to them.
One is free to argue that their death or portions of their life are so cruel and filled with suffering that their lives are not actually a net gain, but this is a difficult argument to make and i...
There's a Less Wrong meetup at my house in Berkeley this Saturday, the 25th of December, at 6PM. Celebrate the winter season, the Solstice, and the birth of Sir Isaac Newton among friendly aspiring rationalists, including Eliezer and other SIAI staff and volunteers.
I will cook for everyone in the style I call "paleolithic gourmet" which is cooked meat and raw produce.
I'd like to satisfy everyone's preferences as reasonably as I possibly can without getting vastly more food than will be eaten.
Default menu:
Steak
Lamb Burgers
Bacon
Salad of Berkeley Bowl produce and parmesan
Grilled Portabello and chanterelle mushrooms
Cheese selection
Pita + hummus
Cookies
Feel free to bring a potluck dessert or if you like, an alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage.
The food is free, but if you can afford to, in the spirit of Newtonmas, I suggest a $10 or $15 or $500 donation to SIAI (which will be matched). Please don't not come because you prefer not to pay; no one will be excluded from food or shunned for not paying. I really mean that. Consider the donation not an admission fee and more of a gentle nudge and reminder that optimal philanthropy starts around $10 and that you should positively associate giving money with the fuzzies of eating delicious food.
Please post here if you plan on attending and RSVP on Facebook. You can also post here or PM me with your thoughts on the menu and tell me what you want to eat the most of. I wasn't planning on cooking fish or chicken but can do so if people let me know they want fish or chicken or something else (like a carbohydrate).
My address is 1622 Martin Luther King Jr Way Apt A, Berkeley CA. It's the ground floor apartment around the side, not the upstairs one.