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> Worse, the production of one animal protein requires 7 to 10 plant proteins. The argument is a strictly accounting one. Even if plant suffering were of the sa

> Worse, the production of one animal protein requires 7 to 10 plant proteins. The argument is a strictly accounting one. Even if plant suffering were of the same intensity as animal suffering, omnivores would produce seven to ten times more suffering than plant lovers alone. So, seven proteins make seven ... sufferings? Proteins are a measure of suffering?

karpierz 5y ago
No, the point is that the process of generating meat requires the animal eat plants. So even if plants suffer, eating animals is still worse, since the animal suffers along with 7-10x the number of plants.
- EvilEy3 5y ago
  Damnit, I'm all out of suffering points today. No meat for me!
- cheese_goddess 5y ago
  OK, so 1 animal suffering = 7 to 10 plant sufferings, yes? There's a quantification of suffering according to which the suffering of one animal is equal to the suffering of 7-10 plants, correct?
  - karpierz 5y ago
    No, it's not comparing the suffering of plants and animals. It's only pointing out that by virtue of feeding an animal, you necessarily kill plants. So when you raise an animal to eat, you're killing both the animal as well as the plants it consumed. The 7-10x number is relative to the number of plants you'd have killed if you instead ate plants directly.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - cheese_goddess 5y ago
      The quote says: "Even if plant suffering were of the same intensity as animal suffering, omnivores would produce seven to ten times more suffering than plant lovers alone." Note the word "suffering". The quote is comparins suffering, not killing. > The 7-10x number is relative to the number of plants you'd have killed if you instead ate plants directly. The quote says: "Worse, the production of one animal protein requires 7 to 10 plant proteins." So the quote is counting proteins, not animals or plants.
      - karpierz 5y ago
        I'm not sure what you're contradicting? In order to get 1 calorie of meat, you need to use 7-10 calories of plants. So by necessity, if you eat 1 calorie of meat, you are producing (at least) 7-10x the suffering relative to eating 1 calorie of plants, since 7-10x as much plant mass (and hence plants) needed to suffer to create the meat. I'm going to stop responding at this point because I'm not sure how else I can explain this.
        cheese_goddess 5y ago
        > In order to get 1 calorie of meat, you need to use 7-10 calories of plants. But where does this counting of calories come from? The article is talking about proteins. It says "the production of one animal protein requires 7 to 10 plant proteins" (my underlining). > So by necessity, if you eat 1 calorie of meat, you are producing (at least) 7-10x the suffering relative to eating 1 calorie of plants, since 7-10x as much plant mass (and hence plants) needed to suffer to create the meat. So, when you say "7-10x as much plant mass (hence plants)", you mean that 1 unit of plant mass = 1 plant, or did I wilfully misunderstand you again? > I'm going to stop responding at this point because I'm not sure how else I can explain this. You can explain it if you get the units right. Are we talking of proteins, calories, or units of suffering? What are we counting exactly? Maybe try to explain that?
LeifCarrotson 5y ago
It's a purely mathematical counter to the argument that if plants suffer, people (who consume a roughly fixed amount of protein) could just eat animals instead. That's a contradictory position, because animal protein comes from animals eating plants. The article is a little vague on why killing plants is bad. Whether it's because you believe that destruction is intrinsically bad, because they have souls, because they feel suffering, or because there's some potential for growth that's aborted, the various reasons are harder for me at least to understand and to build a coherent argument around. It's philosophically very obvious why killing people is bad, this is so self-evident it's almost nonsense to write it down and inadvertently equivocates it with killing plants: it's trivial to imagine oneself in the position of the victim, or to enumerate the harms being perpetrated, the goals and values being denied, and the rights being violated in the transaction, and conclude that it's wrong. No reasonable person can reach a different conclusion. It's a little more difficult to extend this empathy towards an especially intelligent animal being killed; while humans have vastly richer communication and more advanced tool use, some animals can have mental and emotional processes not that much different than us. In that case, measuring suffering is more difficult and sometimes leads to surprising conclusions when you do the math. (I said a couple days ago [1] that a reasonable metric for suffering is the number of cortical neurons possessed by the victim, see also [2]). People can disagree about the scale of the suffering or what behaviors are appropriate in light of this problem, but it's easy enough to consider. Of course, plants, lacking a brain or any neurons at all, are undefined by this criteria. And it's really difficult for me to anthropomorphize a carrot. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27492230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27492230 [2] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/moral-costs-of-chicken-vs-beef https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/moral-costs-of-chicken...

karpierz 5y ago

No, the point is that the process of generating meat requires the animal eat plants. So even if plants suffer, eating animals is still worse, since the animal suffers along with 7-10x the number of plants.

EvilEy3 5y ago
Damnit, I'm all out of suffering points today. No meat for me!
cheese_goddess 5y ago
OK, so 1 animal suffering = 7 to 10 plant sufferings, yes? There's a quantification of suffering according to which the suffering of one animal is equal to the suffering of 7-10 plants, correct?
- karpierz 5y ago
  No, it's not comparing the suffering of plants and animals. It's only pointing out that by virtue of feeding an animal, you necessarily kill plants. So when you raise an animal to eat, you're killing both the animal as well as the plants it consumed. The 7-10x number is relative to the number of plants you'd have killed if you instead ate plants directly.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - cheese_goddess 5y ago
    The quote says: "Even if plant suffering were of the same intensity as animal suffering, omnivores would produce seven to ten times more suffering than plant lovers alone." Note the word "suffering". The quote is comparins suffering, not killing. > The 7-10x number is relative to the number of plants you'd have killed if you instead ate plants directly. The quote says: "Worse, the production of one animal protein requires 7 to 10 plant proteins." So the quote is counting proteins, not animals or plants.
    - karpierz 5y ago
      I'm not sure what you're contradicting? In order to get 1 calorie of meat, you need to use 7-10 calories of plants. So by necessity, if you eat 1 calorie of meat, you are producing (at least) 7-10x the suffering relative to eating 1 calorie of plants, since 7-10x as much plant mass (and hence plants) needed to suffer to create the meat. I'm going to stop responding at this point because I'm not sure how else I can explain this.
      - cheese_goddess 5y ago
        > In order to get 1 calorie of meat, you need to use 7-10 calories of plants. But where does this counting of calories come from? The article is talking about proteins. It says "the production of one animal protein requires 7 to 10 plant proteins" (my underlining). > So by necessity, if you eat 1 calorie of meat, you are producing (at least) 7-10x the suffering relative to eating 1 calorie of plants, since 7-10x as much plant mass (and hence plants) needed to suffer to create the meat. So, when you say "7-10x as much plant mass (hence plants)", you mean that 1 unit of plant mass = 1 plant, or did I wilfully misunderstand you again? > I'm going to stop responding at this point because I'm not sure how else I can explain this. You can explain it if you get the units right. Are we talking of proteins, calories, or units of suffering? What are we counting exactly? Maybe try to explain that?

LeifCarrotson 5y ago

It's a purely mathematical counter to the argument that if plants suffer, people (who consume a roughly fixed amount of protein) could just eat animals instead. That's a contradictory position, because animal protein comes from animals eating plants. The article is a little vague on why killing plants is bad. Whether it's because you believe that destruction is intrinsically bad, because they have souls, because they feel suffering, or because there's some potential for growth that's aborted, the various reasons are harder for me at least to understand and to build a coherent argument around. It's philosophically very obvious why killing people is bad, this is so self-evident it's almost nonsense to write it down and inadvertently equivocates it with killing plants: it's trivial to imagine oneself in the position of the victim, or to enumerate the harms being perpetrated, the goals and values being denied, and the rights being violated in the transaction, and conclude that it's wrong. No reasonable person can reach a different conclusion. It's a little more difficult to extend this empathy towards an especially intelligent animal being killed; while humans have vastly richer communication and more advanced tool use, some animals can have mental and emotional processes not that much different than us. In that case, measuring suffering is more difficult and sometimes leads to surprising conclusions when you do the math. (I said a couple days ago [1] that a reasonable metric for suffering is the number of cortical neurons possessed by the victim, see also [2]). People can disagree about the scale of the suffering or what behaviors are appropriate in light of this problem, but it's easy enough to consider. Of course, plants, lacking a brain or any neurons at all, are undefined by this criteria. And it's really difficult for me to anthropomorphize a carrot. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27492230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27492230 [2] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/moral-costs-of-chicken-vs-beef https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/moral-costs-of-chicken...