Group Rationality Diary, August 1-15

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for August 1-15.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating!

Immediate past diary: July 16-31

Next diary: August 16-31

Rationality Diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for August 1-15.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating!

Immediate past diary: July 16-31

Next diary: August 16-31

Rationality Diaries archive

Having been spending $900/year to eat an omnivorous diet, you'd have to be eating a huge amount of meat to save $1K/year by going veg. Something like eating 16oz steak every day.

Having been spending $900/year to eat an omnivorous diet, you'd have to be eating a huge amount of meat to save $1K/year by going veg.

I spend roughly four times that, eating an omnivorous diet which, as it happens, does not include any large slabs of meat, and I'm curious to know where the difference lies. If you were specifically working to economise on food outlay, then it would not be a surprise to you that people not trying to economise have room to cut down by $1000 a year. But if you are not, how does your cost come in at less than $3 a day?

I'm in... (read more)

5CAE_Jones13y

I was generally under the impression that eating on less than $3/day was not particularly typical beyond poverty. I expected roughly $100/month for food, $200 if you indulge in anything like eating out/etc, if you were trying to save money. A quick search pops up $~150/week as the average American food bill (four times what I came up with), and I found this page which gets more detailed. What I take away from this is that most people probably could benefit financially from reducing meat intake, and most people seem to be spending more on food than is strictly necessary in general, at least in the US. ETA: Unclear if we're talking about specific people or general groups. The $3000 for avoiding meat in Qiaochu_Yuan's informal survey tells me people value eating habits that come with lots of ridiculous drawbacks a bit more than I thought (and I previously thought people's values regarding eating were kinda screwy).

0Oscar_Cunningham13y

I think most people spend much more than that on food. The internet seems to think it's about $6000 a year.