Dubious Altruist
Comments12
This Daily Show 'bit' will not surely increase concerns and donations for shrimp. People are unlikely to believe that the shrimp welfare project is even real.
Chieng: So you decided to dedicate all your time and money into saving the lives of shrimp...
Zorrilla: Not quite. We're actually working to reduce the suffering when they die...
Chieng: So after all your work is done, they still die?
Zorrilla: Yes, less painfully.
Chieng: How did you make this even stupider?
Chieng has made an excellent and arguably bulletproof observation with his rhetorical question.
Even if the numbers of shrimp being killed is larger than fish, chickens, cows, pigs, the idea that skipping over the effort to prevent their death and focusing on reducing their suffering when they die does not have any merit.
The simple thought experiment is: you are a shrimp. A human with a dollar is nearby. Do you, as a shrimp, want the person to spend that dollar on possibly preventing your death? Or do you, as a shrimp, want that person to instead spend that dollar to possibly make you suffer less when you die?
What we have here is that the person who cares is making and funding a machine for not preventing death, but rather, funding a machine to reduce suffering before an inevitable death.
What am I missing, @Andres Jimenez Zorrilla 🔸 ?
Zachary,
Actually, in a word...Hinduism.
78% of India is Hindu, which explains why 40% of Indians are vegetarian.
And yes, that brings (some) ethical differences.
India's reasons for being highly vegetarian are not going to be easily transferrable to other countries.
Nor would that be desirable...India is the world's largest consumer of dairy, and the world's second largest consumer of eggs.
Egg Consumption by Country 2026
This is an excellent idea. People respond to free, and there will be some non-zero percentage of people for whom the habit of eating plant-based will stick, and possibly fully embrace the ethics of veganism.
Some feedback:
1) free food for a month is expensive and may attract people simply looking for free food
2) it may be somewhat effective or as effective to offer a discount for a month (e.g. 25% or 50%)
3) any effort should have some kind of commitment to abstain from animal food for the duration of the month
4) any effort should have some video tutorials to help people know what their options are, and how to prepare simple meals
5) any effort should also include dining at local vegan restaurants
6) any effort should also include interaction with other vegans, both for social support as well as to help with the transition
Next steps: definitely DONT drop it!
Do a pilot. Start with one household near you and self fund it if you can. Put a flyer up, and frame it as primarily a health or environmental thing. Stay in close contact with the household electronically, by phone, and in person. You'll learn so much about how it could play out and it will help you scale. If the household does not want to see the month through, go to the next household which has responded to your flyer.
Hi @Spencer R. Ericson ,
My view on @James Steijger 🔸 ’s GWWC response to the CEH response to Frances is that either they should have condemned it wholeheartedly, or said nothing, but not that they should make some flacid statement about “thank you…sorry…we need to be extra mindful…”.
Frances went through something horrible, then CEA amplified and prolonged it. Rather than being a group of people who would help her with what she needed, they gaslit her. Then James comes along, “on behalf of GWWC” and says “our missions make paying attention to these inequalities more important, not less”
I'm definitely not here to criticize as much as possible. As you know from your own post, the downvoting has more to do with other people's feelings about a comment than the literal text or even the sentiment behind it.
Getting pre-publication review of comments would be a good idea...if my objective was to only say things that other people agree with. That's not my objective.
Your comment was not taken "in the spirit that it was intended" for two reasons.
One is that it followed mine, which was critical of James' comment. There are a lot of people here who want to maintain a positive atmosphere, even at the risk of not being honest. Perhaps that's because they believe that CEA is on thin ice with this very public misstep. And perhaps people are sensitive after the whole Sam Bankman-Fried situation too.
The second reason is that while you started your comment positively, overall it reads sarcastically and critically. I suspect you did not intend this, but that is the communication style -- literal and inquisitive.
Saying that GWWC policies are newly absent from their website will not be taken as you intend it because it will be taken as them hiding their policies (which may very well be true). Those kinds of policies would ordinarily be for internal availability only, and asking for them now after CEA's fumble is less likely because there will be more scrutiny on them.
I don't know enough about the cultural factors, but both CEA and GWWC originate in the UK, so their response to a situation like this may be different than what I would expect. Probably the attitude is “Keep Calm and EA on”
And your detailed question will be taken as inappropriate in a comment where GWWC is just trying to say something appropriate “because they should” about a poorly handled situation. Nobody wants to actually have a public discussion about the factors underlying the situation, let alone under a post that demonstrates that the people you are asking the question to are not capable of answering the question!
-The Dub-meister