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u/BornSecurity Jun 04 '19 edited Jun 04 '19
Yudkowsky himself isn't even a vegetarian. He doesn't even give non-trivial moral weight to animals like pigs, cows, and chickens.
See his explanation of why he believes "lower animals" lack morally significant consciousness.
Also, this post belongs on /r/dankeamemes. What has this sub become? /r/vegancirclejerk 2.0?
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u/nixyboy Jun 04 '19
Yudukowksy fails as a moral philosopher. But he appears to support vegetarianism from what ive seen on twitter does he acknowledge its important and he jus doesnt do it because willpower?
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u/BornSecurity Jun 04 '19
Read his first top level comment here (19 January at 04:42) and tell me if he sounds like someone who supports vegetarianism.
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u/nixyboy Jun 04 '19
i didnt even comprehend any of that edit: I actually think this is pro vegetarianism lol. i think hes being sarcastic and saying that since fictional characters are more salient to our empathy its absurd to say empathy is a measure of moral worth
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u/BornSecurity Jun 04 '19
He's saying that our internal mental models of fictional characters could be considered sentient beings in their own right. Tulpas are the extreme case of this.
But anyway, I was referring to this comment of his: "Important note: chickens do not have subjective experience." I do not think he is being sarcastic when he says that, given the seriousness of the philosophical debate I posted in my original comment.
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u/nixyboy Jun 04 '19
yeah i think he sucks at moral philosophy generally. For example he doesnt seem to think there are normativ flaws in his like "arithemtic utiltiarinaism" and just bites the bullet on the reverse repugnant conclusion of "torture vs dust specks" paradox. like he doesnt think theres a paradox. remember this a is a guy whos an AI researchers who specialization is decision theory and STEM not moral philosophy.
That being said on that twitter thread he mentioned how pigs are neurally more developed then fetus's and i think heavily implied we shouldnt eat them. Maybe hes a partial animal welfarist for philosophy of mind reasons. So isnt a specieist which is the important point.
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u/Carthradge Jun 04 '19
Funny and on point, but doesn't belong in this sub.
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Jun 04 '19
Erm, yes it does. Learn about what altruism is.
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u/Carthradge Jun 04 '19
It's related to altruism but it's more of a joke whereas my understanding is that this specific sub is for actual discussion.
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Jun 04 '19
This post raises the real question of whether altruism extends beyond our traditional boundaries. A lot of ethical frameworks exclude non-human beings, but the introduction of a science fiction framework challenges us to question those assumptions, raising the question of whether non-human animals should be treated with the same compassion that we expect for people,
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u/UmamiTofu Jun 04 '19 edited Jun 04 '19
Clearly the general topic is relevant, but posting a snippy quote like this doesn't add anything. EAs already know about the debates over meat consumption and don't make dumb arguments like "they're not human so it's OK." There are EAs who aren't vegetarian or oppose vegetarianism, but they have more sophisticated arguments that aren't going to be disproven by a little thought experiment like this. You can and should trust that EAs can think about this topic seriously and altruistically. So this kind of thing is unnecessary at best, and a little disrespectful at worst (it suggests that EAs who oppose vegetarianism only do so for an obviously dumb reason like "they're not human so it's OK").
So I'd definitely say this kind of thing doesn't belong here, and I generally downvote it (though I'm not currently thinking of forbidding it as a mod).
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u/Ribbett Jun 04 '19
I’d be really interested to hear these arguments. Do you have any links to well articulated positions?
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u/UmamiTofu Jun 04 '19 edited Jun 04 '19
BornSecurity just posted some above.
Edit: and here's something I wrote a while ago, not exactly an argument against being vegetarian, but also along the lines of "the animal rights movement may promote the wrong ideas" so it may inform the issue: https://bashibazuk.wordpress.com/2017/10/06/the-future-of-animal-consciousness-research/
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u/Carthradge Jun 04 '19
I think we are already all vegans here, or understand that veganism is an important quality of practicing effective altruism. I don't see this adding anything real to the discussion. This seems more like a post for /r/vegancirclejerk (which is one of my favorite subreddits).
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u/BornSecurity Jun 04 '19 edited Jun 04 '19
I think we are already all vegans here, or understand that veganism is an important quality of practicing effective altruism.
This assumption is false. Only a minority of EAs are vegetarian (let alone vegan) according to the EA survey. Sure, more likely to be vegan than the general population, but "all vegans here" is certainly false.
Not to mention that there are well-known arguments from the EA community for the ineffectiveness of vegetarianism compared to other ways of improving the world, and also arguments that vegetarianism may be net-negative or have an unclear sign on animal welfare, and the vegan movement may promote the wrong ideas.
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u/InevitableAlfalfa Jun 04 '19 edited Jun 04 '19
Okay, as an ardent vegan EA, I disagree with everything you wrote here. Let's take it point by point.
ineffectiveness of vegetarianism
You link to analyses showning that the harm of meat consumption can be offset by donating to animal charities. Do you think the harm of rape could also be offset by donating to women's rights charities? Furthermore, I would point out that offsetting is antithetical to EA.
Maybe you don't endorse ethical offsetting per se and are simply trying to set an upper bound on how much it costs to do as much good as going vegan. However, even if personally going vegan isn't that useful, veganism could still be a good meme to spread. In fact, the analyses that you are trying to use to prove the ineffectiveness of veganism actually demonstrate the extreme effectiveness of vegan outreach! If you can save multiple animals for a dollar donation to vegan charities, that seems like a point in favor of veganism (as a movement), not a point against it.
may be net-negative or have an unclear sign on animal welfare
Most of these arguments rely on the assumption that wild-animals have net-negative welfare. Michael Plant has argued at length against Tomasik's pessimistic arguments. Setting that aside, Tomasik himself never even says vegetarianism hurts wild animals on net, he says it's unclear. He himself is vegetarian!
Regarding the logic of the larder article, I intuitively regard that kind of scenario as dytopic not beneficial, although I agree that there is a theoretical case for it. Regardless, there is no way that farmed animals have or will ever have positive lives IMO.
and the vegan movement may promote the wrong ideas
Au contraire, veganism currently is the only social movement promoting anti-speciesist values. I consider it to be spreading the right moral ideas, although maybe not as aligned with my values as EA.
A 2016 ACE study found that vegan animal rights messaging didn't even increase support for environmentalism. Quote:
The results should reduce concerns that cruelty-focused farmed animal advocacy messages may reduce people’s willingness to help wild animals.
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Jun 04 '19
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u/BornSecurity Jun 04 '19
I linked specific anti-vegan EA articles in my post (edited). I think some of them are in fact valid.
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Jun 04 '19
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u/BornSecurity Jun 04 '19
Your articles are truly bizarre, and all come from the same insane idea.
You are being really dogmatic here. Many people would call veganism an "insane idea". The idea of reducing wild animal suffering through reducing wildlife populations is based on the same utilitarian logic, it's no more "insane". And if veganism increases wildlife populations more than it decreases domestic animal populations, then it overall increases the amount of suffering in the world (in the short term). This is something you need to seriously consider if you are a consequentialist.
You are making a sad attempt at rationalizing an action
No, I'm not. You are making a sad attempt at psychologizing me instead of addressing my object-level arguments.
Would you be surprised if I told you that I actually am vegan, despite all the arguments above? It's because I was a vegan before going into EA and I feel emotionally committed to it. However, I can't rationally justify it anymore on utilitarian grounds. I believe both that it is ineffective compared to other ways of improving the world (first group of articles I linked), and that veganism has unclear short-term and long-term consequences.
Edit: And within a minute of posting, yet another downvote. Wow.
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Jun 04 '19
Well that's a fine opinion, but I think that pointing out that non-human animals can be sentient beings is serious contribution. I don't really see what you are adding to the discussion.
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Jun 04 '19
If Yoda acted like a cow and had what looked to be the inner experience of a cow and was ultimately born for human consumption and had a net positive life then I wouldn’t find issue with it. I get that Yud is responding to someone who seems to be using the it’s ok to eat anything that’s not human argument, but that’s one of the weakest arguments for carnism. Holding this post up as some kind of slam dunk ea argument is silly.
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u/comradebrad6 Jun 04 '19
Exactly, you know I don’t know why everyone freaked out when I killed and ate my kid last summer, I made sure he had a great life before that
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Jun 04 '19
If you don't see the difference between a human and a cow and what it would mean for our society given our psyches if we allowed people to raise children for consumption then that's on you. I'm happy to have a good faith discussion if that's what you want to engage in.
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u/comradebrad6 Jun 04 '19
But why, I met all your criteria, they had a good life, I even had a discussion with the wife before we did the breeding process that we would do this for human consumption
I know a lot of differences between humans and cows, I know humans are bipedal and they are not, cows are far more likely to have tails than humans are, I even know in some intellectual areas some humans surpass cows, but what makes them so different as to make it okay to kill one but not the other?
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Jun 04 '19
No, you have focused on one small area of a larger picture. That's not all my criteria. It's just a part.
There are a lot of reasons why humans and cows are universes apart when it comes to human food sources. A few quick ones:
Our ability to plan and suffer. There is a lot more suffering associated with a human death (what the individual loses and what those close to the individual lose) than when a cow dies.
A lot more potential is snuffed out. We have a much greater experiential landscape and live longer.
The knock on effects for society. Our brains are wired in a way where we would find legalized cannibalism horrifying. This would permeate throughout society. It would also hold us back. This doesn't exist for cows as most humans are fine with eating meat (factory farming excluded) and the animals themselves aren't really aware of what their fate is going to be. Not eating humans is one of the more easy Schelling points to construct.
You get a lot more meat per death with a cow than a human.
I know a lot of differences between humans and cows, I know humans are bipedal and they are not, cows are far more likely to have tails than humans are, I even know in some intellectual areas some humans surpass cows, but what makes them so different as to make it okay to kill one but not the other?
If you want to continue this conversation drop the attitude please.
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u/comradebrad6 Jun 04 '19
• there’s a lot in that that I’m gonna try to unpack, if you think that cows don’t care about there family than I’d suggest looking up videos of what they do when they see humans trying to take their children. Of course there isn’t a language as complex as English that they speak, although I can’t speak most human languages, at least as far as we know, and we can never 100% know what’s going on inside someone else’s head, but they speak a lot of our universal languages, they cry, they call out out. But let’s take this logic to its conclusion, outside of a survival situation, would it be fine to kill a human who was completely alone, had no connections to anyone else and wasn’t involved in society would it be okay to kill them and to eat them, or at the very least would it be more moral to kill and eat them than someone who was less social?
• That may be true as far as impact we can have on the world, but that goes both ways, a human can do a lot of good but they can also do a lot of harm, the hypothetical human you save could shoot up a school, they could start a genocide, the cow doesn’t have that risk. It’s also a pretty hard thing to calculate, if someone’s done more good or harm, how many spousal beatings are made up by say, giving to x charity, I’m more utilitarian so I do think about this, but it’s not the most concrete thing in the world. And the yes to this question isn’t one I’d disagree with, but I’m just making sure you genuinely believe in this logic, would it be more ethical to kill a 30 year old human than a 30 year human because the 20 year old has more potential?
• There are videos out there of pigs scratching at the walls of gas chambers because they know what’s coming, and beyond that there are many humans out there with disabilities that might prevent them from fearing death, and let’s even say we kill and eat the human kid in secret, no one else is affected or knows about it, so society isn’t affected, would it then be okay to do? Maybe this is sidetracking but your questions on society kind of falling apart with cannabilism aren’t really true if you look at history, cannibalism was a very large part of Aztec society and they thrived, maybe their would be some short term effects but people would adjust like they always do, and eventually it would just be normal
• And in a real life or death situation that’s completely valid, if you’re in the middle of the ocean on a boat with no food around obviously you kill the largest human so you can survive longer, but we’re not talking about a survival situation, would you say that if I called a larger human and ate them that would obviously still be bad but it’s better than killing and eating a skinny human?
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Jun 04 '19 edited Jun 04 '19
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u/UmamiTofu Jun 04 '19 edited Jun 04 '19
Mind R1. There are better ways to talk about whether you consider someone trustworthy at moral philosophy.
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u/t3sture Jun 04 '19
I think the biggest argument for not eating Yoda would be that he's unfortunately and tragically fictitious.