There were ~20 in round 2, and I’ve gotten reports of other people being inspired by the post to get tested themselves that I estimate at least double that.
Nice! I really like that you did that work and am in agreement that too many vegans in general (not just EA vegans) suck at managing their diet. Of the four former vegans who I know/known personally, all of them stopped because of health reasons (though not necessarily health reasons induced by being vegan).
That said, I don’t see round 1 or round 2 as being particularly strong evidence of anything. The sample sizes seem too small to draw much inference from. There’s +7k people in the EA movement,[1] with around 46% of whom are vegan or vegetarian. Two surveys, one of six people from Lightcone, another of 20 people (also from Lightcone?) just don’t have enough participants to make strong claims on ˜3000 people. You say as much in the second post:
So can we blame veganism for the deficiencies?
This study doesn’t say anything one way or the other, which means I still think yes but you shouldn’t change your opinion based on the results. The sample is too small and skewed to compare deficiency rates in vegans and nonvegans. There were energetic omnivores with deficiencies and tired vegans with perfect scores so it’s clearly not deterministic.
This seems at odds with what you claim in the podcast:[2]
So I got them nutritional testing. It showed roughly what I thought. And this was like a whole thing. I applied for a grant. I had to test a lot of people. It’s a logistical nightmare. I found exactly what I thought I would. that there were serious nutritional issues, not in everyone, but enough that people should have been concerned.
From there I could prove that vegan advocates had been lying and this was causing harm, and from there I could prove that EA had failed in noticing these obvious lies that everyone knew, but had failed to push back on, and had thus, Let younger people who didn’t know better fall victim to. Because it made the vegans too sad and angry to correct them
Separately, it’s unclear to me how many people in the second survey actually are vegan / vegetarian rather than people with fatigue problems:
I should remind you here that the sample was a mix of 20 ethical EA vegans, vegetarians, people with fatigue issues, and people who happened to be in the office.
A separate point/nitpick, this part of the transcript incorrectly attributes your words to Timothy:
[00:09:43] Timothy: From there I could prove that vegan advocates had been lying and this was causing harm, and from there I could prove that EA had failed in noticing these obvious lies that everyone knew, but had failed to push back on, and had thus, Let younger people who didn’t know better fall victim to. Because it made the vegans too sad and angry to correct them
This post seems to be arguing that veganism involves trade offs (I didn’t read through the comments). I don’t disagree with that claim[1] (and am grateful for you taking the time to write it up). The part I take issue with is that the two surveys you conducted were strong evidence, which I don’t think they are.
There were ~20 in round 2, and I’ve gotten reports of other people being inspired by the post to get tested themselves that I estimate at least double that.
Nice! I really like that you did that work and am in agreement that too many vegans in general (not just EA vegans) suck at managing their diet. Of the four former vegans who I know/known personally, all of them stopped because of health reasons (though not necessarily health reasons induced by being vegan).
That said, I don’t see round 1 or round 2 as being particularly strong evidence of anything. The sample sizes seem too small to draw much inference from. There’s +7k people in the EA movement,[1] with around 46% of whom are vegan or vegetarian. Two surveys, one of six people from Lightcone, another of 20 people (also from Lightcone?) just don’t have enough participants to make strong claims on ˜3000 people. You say as much in the second post:
This seems at odds with what you claim in the podcast:[2]
Separately, it’s unclear to me how many people in the second survey actually are vegan / vegetarian rather than people with fatigue problems:
This was back in published back in 2021, so I expect the numbers to be even higher now.
A separate point/nitpick, this part of the transcript incorrectly attributes your words to Timothy:
see also: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Wiz4eKi5fsomRsMbx/change-my-mind-veganism-entails-trade-offs-and-health-is-one
This post seems to be arguing that veganism involves trade offs (I didn’t read through the comments). I don’t disagree with that claim[1] (and am grateful for you taking the time to write it up). The part I take issue with is that the two surveys you conducted were strong evidence, which I don’t think they are.
Though I do lean towards thinking most people or even everyone should bite the bullet and accept the reduced health to spare the animals.