3 ms·

Here's my unorthodox take. If I do the morally right thing and decide to stop eating beef, why should I be punished by not getting to eat beef? It sounds silly

Here's my unorthodox take. If I do the morally right thing and decide to stop eating beef, why should I be punished by not getting to eat beef? It sounds silly but I'm not kidding. If I could vote to reduce the global production of beef by one average person's consumption, I would do so immediately. I would probably continue to eat it though. I'm aware that many people would make the same choice, and this will result in raising prices and harder availability of beef, but that's fine with me.

amelius 6y ago
The only thing that might save us is proper taxing of every industry with negative externalities.
smt88 6y ago
Do whatever is tolerable to you. "Can't" quit beef? Try eating less or buying from a more responsible source. Can't eat less beef? Donate to a climate org, volunteer, switch to solar, drive your car less, do some political canvassing, etc. None of us will do all of that. Everyone has their subset of things they can do.
chrisdirkis 6y ago
A fun take from the currently defunct SlateStarCodex was buying "offsets" for activities you wanted to support. Carbon offsets for plane trips already exist, in the range of $30 to $150 or so. In theory, you could find someone who normally eats meat and offer them some amount of money per day to be vegetarian/vegan (or, find two people and pay them to halve their meat intake, or whatever). This might satisfy a moral obligation while costing you in a currency that you're happier to spend. The obvious argument is "why not buy offsets and then also not do the bad thing for 2x effect". I don't think anyone's morally obligated to buy carbon offsets arbitrarily even if they're not flying, and similarly, maybe people aren't obligated to not do the bad thing either? But this gets into the weeds of moral obligation in general, which is probably a complex topic. Suffice to say, while buying an offset might cost some amount of money, not eating meat is ~free, and that's a trade some people may be willing to make if they're feeling obliged to reduce meat production too.

amelius 6y ago

The only thing that might save us is proper taxing of every industry with negative externalities.

smt88 6y ago

Do whatever is tolerable to you. "Can't" quit beef? Try eating less or buying from a more responsible source. Can't eat less beef? Donate to a climate org, volunteer, switch to solar, drive your car less, do some political canvassing, etc. None of us will do all of that. Everyone has their subset of things they can do.

chrisdirkis 6y ago

A fun take from the currently defunct SlateStarCodex was buying "offsets" for activities you wanted to support. Carbon offsets for plane trips already exist, in the range of $30 to $150 or so. In theory, you could find someone who normally eats meat and offer them some amount of money per day to be vegetarian/vegan (or, find two people and pay them to halve their meat intake, or whatever). This might satisfy a moral obligation while costing you in a currency that you're happier to spend. The obvious argument is "why not buy offsets and then also not do the bad thing for 2x effect". I don't think anyone's morally obligated to buy carbon offsets arbitrarily even if they're not flying, and similarly, maybe people aren't obligated to not do the bad thing either? But this gets into the weeds of moral obligation in general, which is probably a complex topic. Suffice to say, while buying an offset might cost some amount of money, not eating meat is ~free, and that's a trade some people may be willing to make if they're feeling obliged to reduce meat production too.