The actual story: I was talking to a friend about the fact that meat eating, as a practice, inevitably causes animal suffering, and I realized that the benefit to humanity can’t possibly outweigh the suffering caused, so I decided to stop participating in the practice.
I didn’t do either of the two things you asked (act on emotion or on expected-utility calculation from my direct action), instead I tried to defend animal consumption as a general practice, failed, and concluded that I should stop.
Vegetarianism (if you share my values) is a collective action problem, similar (but not identical) to the prisoners’ dilemma. I use rule-utilitarian-like reasoning to try for the double-cooperation payoff. I’ve heard rumors around here that Timeless Decision Theory could help us understand these kinds of problems rationally in the future, and that sounds great to me!
Do you see that as the only option, or are there other things you do, besides not eating meat, directed at alleviating the suffering of animals?
I’m currently looking for a vegan charity to donate to. I donate to SIAI because they’re specialists who can tackle the big, hairy problem of FAI better than I could, and I want to donate to a vegan charity so that they can tackle the big, hairy problem of moving society away from meat. Becoming an advocate full-time would just make me miserable and probably be less effective.
Beyond donation and vegetarianism (and someday maybe veganism), I don’t know what else I can do. I try to be nice to animals day-to-day, and I awkwardly raise animal awareness in circles I run in, but I suspect that these are way less effective than the first two :)
The actual story: I was talking to a friend about the fact that meat eating, as a practice, inevitably causes animal suffering, and I realized that the benefit to humanity can’t possibly outweigh the suffering caused, so I decided to stop participating in the practice.
I didn’t do either of the two things you asked (act on emotion or on expected-utility calculation from my direct action), instead I tried to defend animal consumption as a general practice, failed, and concluded that I should stop.
Vegetarianism (if you share my values) is a collective action problem, similar (but not identical) to the prisoners’ dilemma. I use rule-utilitarian-like reasoning to try for the double-cooperation payoff. I’ve heard rumors around here that Timeless Decision Theory could help us understand these kinds of problems rationally in the future, and that sounds great to me!
I’m currently looking for a vegan charity to donate to. I donate to SIAI because they’re specialists who can tackle the big, hairy problem of FAI better than I could, and I want to donate to a vegan charity so that they can tackle the big, hairy problem of moving society away from meat. Becoming an advocate full-time would just make me miserable and probably be less effective.
Beyond donation and vegetarianism (and someday maybe veganism), I don’t know what else I can do. I try to be nice to animals day-to-day, and I awkwardly raise animal awareness in circles I run in, but I suspect that these are way less effective than the first two :)