You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

jkaufman comments on Link: Rob Bensinger on Less Wrong and vegetarianism - Less Wrong Discussion

11 Post author: Sysice 13 November 2014 05:09PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (77)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: jkaufman 17 November 2014 07:42:02PM 1 point [-]

Why ">" and not "="? Is this true for other animals too or are cows special?

Comment author: MrMind 18 November 2014 08:16:58AM *  0 points [-]

Well... the example ran away like this: "If there was a fire and I was given the option of saving just the cow or just the person, I would save the cow". Presumably it would be the same with a pig or a dog.
This is a trasposed version of the trolley situation: 'I would not actively kill any human, but given the choice, I consider a cow to be more valuable'.
The motivating reason was something on the line of "humans are inherently evil, while animals are incapable of evil".

Comment author: Raemon 18 November 2014 05:02:54AM 0 points [-]

Tentative guess: Humans are considered to have negative value because (among other things) they kill cows (carbon footprint, etc)

Also they might just not be rational.

Comment author: Lumifer 18 November 2014 05:21:44AM 1 point [-]

Humans are considered to have negative value

Kill them all.

Comment author: Raemon 18 November 2014 05:39:32AM 0 points [-]

I've seen it argued.

Comment author: Lumifer 18 November 2014 05:46:03AM 1 point [-]

Notably by Agent Smith from the Matrix.

People who argue this can start with themselves.

Comment author: Raemon 18 November 2014 05:50:51AM 0 points [-]

I think there's a pretty solid case for that being a non-optimal solution, even if you've bought all their other premises. (There's not enough of them for a single or even mass suicides to inspire other people to do so, and then they'd just lose the longterm memetic war)

Comment author: Lumifer 18 November 2014 05:57:09AM 1 point [-]

then they'd just lose the longterm memetic war

I am quite confident of this result, anyway. Actually, I don't see any chances for a memetic war at all, never mind long-term X-)