NancyLebovitz comments on Essay-Question Poll: Dietary Choices - Less Wrong

12 Post author: Alicorn 03 May 2009 03:27PM

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Comment author: NancyLebovitz 30 August 2010 03:30:46PM 5 points [-]

Does this argument imply a preference for eating larger animals?

Comment author: Morendil 30 August 2010 03:47:39PM *  3 points [-]

Yes, though depending on your (definitive or provisional) conclusions about how much sapience matters, there may be an inflection point.

At the bottom of that scale, I wouldn't worry about eating very small animals because very small brains seem to make for negligible amounts of moral concern. At the higher end, and as this link from elsewhere in this thread suggests, larger animals are more "suffering efficient" to coin a phrase both horrible and awkard, but also suggestive.

I don't think an oyster suffers in any meaningful sense, and I don't worry a whole lot about fish. I worry more about chickens and hogs than about cows because it takes a larger number of them to yield an equivalent mass of meat.

Comment author: Mqrius 30 January 2013 01:43:44PM *  0 points [-]

Oh nice, I had never considered that! Thanks for this new conclusion that flows naturally from two of my beliefs: Brain size differences between species don't correlate strongly with intelligence differences*, and suffering is bad.

*It's mostly brain-to-body mass ratio that seems to correlate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-to-body_mass_ratio
Within 1 species, there seems to be correlation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_size#Intelligence