6 reasons to invest in the animal cause

personal, maybe

"He was such a radical vegan that he would even let mosquitoes bite him without killing them. He’d think: 'It’s less than a milliliter of blood and maybe a touch of dengue.' So, he dedicated everything to saving animals and felt amazing—like a hero—yet often left his own mother suffering in constant pain without so much as a word of comfort." (I’m speaking in the third person to see if I can make myself better understood.)

It might sound like sarcasm, but I really was that extreme.

I now see that I cannot invest everything in every cause. So, I tried to understand why I seemed to place so much importance on animals and so little on human beings. Here are six reasons:

1. My complete ignorance,

I didn't consider that, in the universe, in nature, a human being can be extremely valuable and rare; I could say that 0.0000001% of species exhibit our mental capacity. (90 to 95% confidence)

1. My savior ego,
   1. which leads me to want to save the most defenseless in order to feel like a hero (65-85% confidence).

1. I am pessimistic,
   1. which leads me to view human beings in a negative light and to ignore all the good they do (70-80% confidence).

1. Identification,as a vegan,
   1. I wanted to save innocent gazelles and ignore the suffering of the "evil" carnivorous lions (which also reflect a part of myself). (70–80% confidence)

1. My ignorance of evolutionary nutrition,
   1. It did not consider all the nutritional impacts and benefits of veganism. (30-50% confidence level)

1. My ignorance of neuronal processes,
   1. that a person can have billions of agents that can suffer (10-50% confidence).

Bonus: I don't know of any animal that can save as many animals as a human being. A human being can cause a lot of harm, but can also save thousands of animals. (90-99% confidence)

The destructive power may be considerable, but the power of empathy and cooperation is unique in the history we know of the universe. What else would I have to contemplate?

My extreme pro-animal stance began to crumble when I realized I was leaving the human beings around me to suffer while I dedicated myself to saving animals. It seems my mind tended to attribute everything bad in my life to humans, while ignoring the fact that many beautiful things came from them as well.

.

Human beings can be destructive, yet the constructive power, empathy, and cooperation found in humans are unique in the history of the known universe. That is precisely why I value our conversation here and am opening my mind to dialogue within the Effective Altruism community; I intend to devote all my energy to considering the counterarguments.