In the case of killing a healthy 18-year-old to donate their organs - this isn't big harm to one person for small good to many. The person who dies could suffer the least, they lived a healthy life and are killed instantly. The people they save were likely very sick for a long time and would have had a slow and painful death. It's a relatively smaller harm to one person to prevent a worse harm for many.
I wasn't aware there are people who think it is ethical to own a slave so long as you freed another slave....
Hi Richie, my understanding from the Nature article is that there's a limited amount of carbon we can store on the earth's surface. If we continue to extract it from under the earth's surface it at a faster rate than it can be sequestered back under the earth's surface then we can't really plan to offset it all. I'm not an expert in the field so not sure if I understand it all correctly, but the article in Nature is pretty convincing.
Yeah, regarding the meat offsets, I don't agree that it is moral to do harm and then 'offset' it by doing something good. If this were the case - then should we have human slavery? One human slave could make a whole family's life better by doing their cooking, cleaning etc. and looking after them. Should we kill healthy 18-year-old humans to harvest their organs? Organ donations from one human body can improve the lives of up to 70 other humans. If we aim to do 'net good' rather than 'good', we might even say it's immoral not to do these things.
This isn't good.. but I think the gun issue is still ultimately an issue with easy access to guns rather than chat GPT. Still, shocking that it coached someone off their epilepsy medication. Definitely needs to be more responsibility taken by chat bot companies. I feel there should be an easy-to-read disclaimer every time you open it explaining that it is closer to spicy auto-complete rather than an all-knowing super intelligence.
I am wondering about the legitimacy of data collected from Gemini. Where did it come from, how did it make up this data? If you picture a factor farm, for example, and picture a forest - there are surely less animals in a forest per hectare than a factory farm.
I also question if the suffering of wild animals is anywhere near the suffering of farmed animals. Which would you rather be? I know for me I would rather be a wild animal. If you are measuring suffering using life expectancy as you mention, then farmed animals definitely suffer more.
Anyway, unfortunately given how we see people using land today, not all farmland will be converted to nature. Even active farms in my region are now getting used for energy production, data centres and housing developments.
I wonder if this is potentially risky, because sometimes cravings for meat when you're transitioning to vegan are happening for a legit reason. For example, when I started eating vegan meals I still ate the same portion sizes as when I'd eaten meat and never felt very satisfied. After a few months it wasn't an issue anymore. In hindsight I think it's because I needed to adjust to eating more fibre, and my body needed time to be able to adjust to needing to eat a larger quantity of food to get the same calories. I think that the issues you're talking about are temporary and medication is not necessary.
Carbon offsetting doesn't work even if it is a legit offset. Carbon offsetting is a scientifically flawed concept. We extract carbon in the form of fossil fuels that took millions of years to get deep in the earth, and offset it with carbon captured on the surface of the earth which will still take millions more years to return to form of the carbon we 'offsetted'. (see source for this: https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1804). I think that meat offsets are similarly flawed. At the end of the day you still harmed someone.
Good on you for transitioning towards veganism - sounds like you're managing this without needing cell cultured meat. Having been through it myself and seen others go through it, I'm pretty sure that over time you will not crave meat anymore.
We could argue anecdotes all day about whether vegans can really enjoy cooking and food. We could also argue that many many people who eat animal products do not relish in cooking or food. For example my brother is not vegan and he dislikes cooking so much that he refuses to look at any recipe with >5 ingredients (including salt and pepper) and basically eats for necessity.
As you learn more recipes and ways of cooking it'll become easy. If you need inspiration, there are HEAPS of vegan cooks on social media creating amazing recipes.
We make food addictive mostly using synthetic and plant ingredients - like synthetic ingredients to change the textures - and like plant oils and salt to make it tasty. It is not necessary for addictive food to contain animal products to make it addictive. A famous example would be oreos, which are vegan. Cell cultured meat will also not be addictive without additives.
I don't think the reason for banning cell cultured meat matters when we're talking about consumer adoption. If it is banned then nobody will be buying it.
Sorry if I've missed the point of the claim and nobody is calling it a silver bullet. If the argument is that it is necessary I still disagree and I think my points are still relevant to that. Just because some people might go vegan if there was cell cultured meat available doesn't mean it is necessary for them to go vegan. If cell cultured meat is banned then nobody there will be able adopt it no matter how willing they might have been.
In the case of killing a healthy 18-year-old to donate their organs - this isn't big harm to one person for small good to many. The person who dies could suffer the least, they lived a healthy life and are killed instantly. The people they save were likely very sick for a long time and would have had a slow and painful death. It's a relatively smaller harm to one person to prevent a worse harm for many.
I wasn't aware there are people who think it is ethical to own a slave so long as you freed another slave....
Hi Richie, my understanding from the Nature article is that there's a limited amount of carbon we can store on the earth's surface. If we continue to extract it from under the earth's surface it at a faster rate than it can be sequestered back under the earth's surface then we can't really plan to offset it all. I'm not an expert in the field so not sure if I understand it all correctly, but the article in Nature is pretty convincing.
Yeah, regarding the meat offsets, I don't agree that it is moral to do harm and then 'offset' it by doing something good. If this were the case - then should we have human slavery? One human slave could make a whole family's life better by doing their cooking, cleaning etc. and looking after them. Should we kill healthy 18-year-old humans to harvest their organs? Organ donations from one human body can improve the lives of up to 70 other humans. If we aim to do 'net good' rather than 'good', we might even say it's immoral not to do these things.
This isn't good.. but I think the gun issue is still ultimately an issue with easy access to guns rather than chat GPT. Still, shocking that it coached someone off their epilepsy medication. Definitely needs to be more responsibility taken by chat bot companies. I feel there should be an easy-to-read disclaimer every time you open it explaining that it is closer to spicy auto-complete rather than an all-knowing super intelligence.
I am wondering about the legitimacy of data collected from Gemini. Where did it come from, how did it make up this data? If you picture a factor farm, for example, and picture a forest - there are surely less animals in a forest per hectare than a factory farm.
I also question if the suffering of wild animals is anywhere near the suffering of farmed animals. Which would you rather be? I know for me I would rather be a wild animal. If you are measuring suffering using life expectancy as you mention, then farmed animals definitely suffer more.
Anyway, unfortunately given how we see people using land today, not all farmland will be converted to nature. Even active farms in my region are now getting used for energy production, data centres and housing developments.
To me the issue with this from a welfare point-of-view is that it continues to support the dairy industry
I wonder if this is potentially risky, because sometimes cravings for meat when you're transitioning to vegan are happening for a legit reason. For example, when I started eating vegan meals I still ate the same portion sizes as when I'd eaten meat and never felt very satisfied. After a few months it wasn't an issue anymore. In hindsight I think it's because I needed to adjust to eating more fibre, and my body needed time to be able to adjust to needing to eat a larger quantity of food to get the same calories. I think that the issues you're talking about are temporary and medication is not necessary.
Carbon offsetting doesn't work even if it is a legit offset. Carbon offsetting is a scientifically flawed concept. We extract carbon in the form of fossil fuels that took millions of years to get deep in the earth, and offset it with carbon captured on the surface of the earth which will still take millions more years to return to form of the carbon we 'offsetted'. (see source for this: https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1804). I think that meat offsets are similarly flawed. At the end of the day you still harmed someone.
Good on you for transitioning towards veganism - sounds like you're managing this without needing cell cultured meat. Having been through it myself and seen others go through it, I'm pretty sure that over time you will not crave meat anymore.
We could argue anecdotes all day about whether vegans can really enjoy cooking and food. We could also argue that many many people who eat animal products do not relish in cooking or food. For example my brother is not vegan and he dislikes cooking so much that he refuses to look at any recipe with >5 ingredients (including salt and pepper) and basically eats for necessity.
As you learn more recipes and ways of cooking it'll become easy. If you need inspiration, there are HEAPS of vegan cooks on social media creating amazing recipes.
We make food addictive mostly using synthetic and plant ingredients - like synthetic ingredients to change the textures - and like plant oils and salt to make it tasty. It is not necessary for addictive food to contain animal products to make it addictive. A famous example would be oreos, which are vegan. Cell cultured meat will also not be addictive without additives.
I don't think the reason for banning cell cultured meat matters when we're talking about consumer adoption. If it is banned then nobody will be buying it.
Sorry if I've missed the point of the claim and nobody is calling it a silver bullet. If the argument is that it is necessary I still disagree and I think my points are still relevant to that. Just because some people might go vegan if there was cell cultured meat available doesn't mean it is necessary for them to go vegan. If cell cultured meat is banned then nobody there will be able adopt it no matter how willing they might have been.
Thanks mate