SaidAchmiz comments on Arguments Against Speciesism - LessWrong

28 Post author: Lukas_Gloor 28 July 2013 06:24PM

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Comment author: threewestwinds 31 July 2013 07:05:03PM 0 points [-]

As has been mentioned elsewhere in this conversation, that's a fully general argument - it can be applied to every change one might possibly make in one's behavior.

Let's enumerate the costs, rather than just saying "there are costs."

  • Money wise, you save or break even.
  • It has no time cost in much of the US (most restaurants have vegetarian options).
  • The social cost depends on your situation - if you have people who cook for you, then you have to explain the change to them (in Washington state, this cost is tiny - people are understanding. In Texas, it is expensive).
  • The mental cost is difficult to discuss in a universal way. I found them to be rather small in my own case. Other people claim them to be quite large. But "I don't want to change my behavior because changing behavior is hard" is not terribly convincing.

Your discounting of non-human life has to be rather extreme for "I will have to remind myself to change my behavior" to out weigh an immediate, direct and calculable reduction in world suffering.

Comment author: SaidAchmiz 31 July 2013 11:44:01PM 2 points [-]

Money wise, you save or break even.

This is false. Unless you eat steak or other expensive meats on a regular basis, meat is quite cheap. For example, my meat consumption is mostly chicken, assorted processed meats (salamis, frankfurters, and other sorts of sausages, mainly, but also things like pelmeni), fish (not the expensive kind), and the occasional pork (canned) and beef (cheap cuts). None of these things are pricy; I am getting a lot of protein (and fat and other good/necessary stuff) for my money.

It has no time cost in much of the US (most restaurants have vegetarian options).

Do you eat at restaurants all the time? Learning how to cook the new things you're now eating instead of meat is a time cost.

Also, there are costs you don't mention: for instance, a sudden, radical change in diet may have unforeseen health consequences. If the transition causes me to feel hungry all the time, that would be disastrous; hunger has an extreme negative effect on my mental performance, and as a software engineer, that is not the slightest bit acceptable. Furthermore, for someone with food allergies, like me, trying new foods is not without risk.

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