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MichaelBishop comments on Essay-Question Poll: Dietary Choices - Less Wrong
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Comments (234)
I agree, of course, that we must take costs into accounts. Comments by meh basically explain how to think about that.
You said, in what I consider an unjustified mocking tone, that my dietary choice was "not particularly" effective in reducing my carbon footprint. This is wrong.
For the record, I never claimed, implied, or believed, it was the most efficient thing for every single person concerned about global warming to do. I believe my writing is very clear. I feel you are being an uncharitable discussion partner. At this rate, I will not continue discussing the issue with you.
I feel you misinterpreted my tone. When I said 'your' dietary choice I wasn't specifically addressing you - the thread was in response to meh's survey answers and you didn't mention your own diet in the comment I was responding to. I did realize in a later reply to meh that 'your' made the discussion sound unintentionally personal and so started using 'one's dietary choices' in place of 'your dietary choices'. If you re-read my comment with that substitution perhaps the tone comes across differently?
By echoing your use of the phrase "not particularly" I was trying to make a point that in the context of the thread your 'impression' that carbon offsets were not very effective carried no greater weight than my 'impression' that a vegetarian diet was not very effective. You've subsequently provided links to evidence that a vegetarian diet may be effective and so rebutted my point.
To be clear, the intent behind my questions is to elucidate to what extent people are choosing vegetarianism as a carefully thought out consequence of prior values (reduced environmental impact, minimizing harm to animals, etc.) and to what extent these are rationalizations for a choice made for other reasons.
I appreciate that you are making some adjustment to new evidence and therefore vote you up.
I acknowledge that the my moral calculations are far from the only thing driving my dietary decisions, the social motivations are interesting, and cut both ways. The fact that I have been exposed to, and learned how to cook, a delicious variety of vegetarian food certainly lessens the sacrifice I make. This is worthy of more discussion, though I may have to excuse myself from it at this point.
That said, I do believe I am, compared to the vast majority of people - even, I imagine, people on LW: 1. making better moral calculations regarding my dietary choices, 2. acting more in accordance with my moral calculations than other people.
Of course, most people probably believe those things about themselves.