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Lukas_Gloor comments on Pay other people to go vegetarian for you? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Being uncertain about one's uncertainty doesn't mean you shouldn't act according to your moral beliefs, the uncertainty can go both ways. You still have to assign probabilities in the end.
Assuming you attribute the same importance to reducing suffering, no matter in what type of being it occurs, it still wouldn't make sense to "shoot people left and right". People who care a lot about animals are already being branded as "extremists", you'd have more impact by going about it with a more thought-out strategy like e.g. movement-building and / or high-earning and donating to the best outreach organizations.
What's the difference between a pet cause and a normal cause? Majority rule?
True, except that one's certainty about one's certainty is typically not a large number. If you think that killing one person justifies creating 1001 vegetarians, are you even 50% certain about that number 1001?
Yes, but "it makes sense to shoot people" is shorthand for "the moral reasons that normally mean we should not shoot people do not apply here". It may still be impractical or suboptimal to shoot people.
Not majority rule, just a cause with a similar popularity to vegetarianism.
I agree that one has to adjust for certainty and overconfidence, and peer disagreement does seem like a good reason to downshift as well.
OK, I see your point about shooting, agreed.
Regarding popularity, if that's the only criterion then also fAI would be a pet cause. I'd say it also depends on popularity among which group of people. Out of the smartest and most rational people I know, the majority of those who are interested in doing ethics, ie. in figuring out what "being altruistic" implies, would agree that animal suffering counts just as much as human suffering. And the smart and rational people who disagree are mostly not interested in doing ethics (in this way), as they just claim that it is all about "what they care about", a selfish defense that could just as well be used to uphold racism or sexism.
So on the above grounds I'd object to vegetarianism being a pet cause.