Tears Must Flow

I have a negative reaction to most emotion-based animal suffering arguments, but this post struck me as being very sincere and heartfelt and I was glad to have read it. Maybe because I had a similar node of sadness come through on Thanksgiving, about poverty rather than animal suffering. I don't even think poverty is the most important cause but it's extremely sad that people are suffering and dying for preventable reasons and I feel good about acknowledging that when the feeling comes up. 

On a meta-level, people seem to be reacting to this post by saying that vegan activists should not "make a scene" and feign sadness when encountering symbols of animal suffering, both because it's excessive and because it's counterproductive.

However, there are many cases in which I'd imagine people here would actively endorse experiencing an awkward emotional outburst about other issues. 

Imagine the case of someone whose parent is on the fence about cryonics but never got around to signing up. The parent is in the hospital with a terminal condition, and family members frequently visit to express sadness and farewell. Is it ever appropriate to cause a huge intra-family controversy about signing up the parent for cryonics? I think the answer is yes. Under ordinary ethics, when someone's life is on the line, it's sometimes appropriate to take drastic actions, even awkward and socially shameful actions, to save their life.

It may be interesting to compare this case with the one in the post. In both cases, the actions taken are unlikely to change anyone's minds; in fact, they're more likely to turn people off and cause unnecessary strife. However, they both have a small chance of changing people's minds: in both cases, a sympathetic family member might, upon seeing your strong reaction, realize how important the subject is to you and try to understand things from your perspective. If truly successful, that sympathetic family member may even intervene and join forces (ie. either go vegan too, or help convince the family member to sign up for cryonics).

The main difference between these cases might be that people think saving a family member's life is extremely important, but going vegan isn't. But if this is the main difference, then it's ultimately an arbitrary and weak difference. Plausibly, deluks917 feels just as strongly about veganism as they would about a family member dying. Yet if that's so, then some of the arguments in this thread seem to be missing the point: the only robust argument against this emotional outburst is that deluks917 shouldn't feel so strongly about vegansm. But why?

Some of the reactions to this post baffle and astound me. I don't know what to say. These reactions feel totally lacking in empathy and compassion. And also like they don't understand the grieving process. 

It seems like a reasonable response to cry with grief over the suffering and murder of beings. ? 

If someone started crying about this in front of me, my response would be one of sympathy. It just seems like such a reasonable thing to be upset about! I've cried about the Holocaust, about factory farming, about civilizational inadequacy, about nuking Japan, etc. These things are tragic. Grief doesn't necessarily wait for the family dinner to be over or for people to first be comfortable with your crying. 

It seems like a stupid suggestion to avoid all situations where one might encounter a factory-farmed animal?? Like what are you advocating? Avoid being with friends and family if you expect to be upset because 'being upset' is 'bad'? You are confused. "Bad feelings" are not inherently "bad". This is a weird map-territory confusion. 

The tactic of 'avoid things that make you feel bad' is a terrible one. Equating 'feeling bad' with 'something bad happening' is also terrible. It is entirely possible to be very happy deep down while one is grieving. Grieving is a healthy, good, and normal human reaction. Even at Thanksgiving, over a dead turkey. 

I hope you'll consider, and think you'll enjoy this article, Killing the Ants: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zAGPk4EXaXSkKWY9a/killing-the-ants [LW · GW]

I still think about it regularly. The author carefully considers various animal-killing actions. Is it bad to exterminate ants that invade our house? It is bad to kill ants when we walk across grass? Every time we wash our bed sheets, we kill dust-mites. Is that morally significant?

In some aspects, our world is a hell. Everything has a cost, and often a cost that is quickly translated into suffering and death. In plant production, field mice are crushed by tractors. Combines destroy bird's nests. Pesticides kill billions of insects. Every product we buy, every bit of electricty we spend, every kilometer we drive in our cars, we cause harm and suffering. 

I support vegetarians and vegans. When they eat at my home, I cook a vegetarian meal. But these actions and pledges seem excessive. Not eating where animals are being eaten seems excessive. Not being able to eat a Thanksgiving meal without crying, an hour in the basement and hurting your partner's mother seems excessive. 

You own electronics. You probably drove to the house of your partner's parents. You're probably not spending all your time working and donating the money to Effective Altruism. Would you want to be 'attacked' for that? Would you want people to not be able to eat with you because you own a smartphone and/or PC? Would you want people to not be able to socialize with you because you regularly drive to places, or because you benefit from people and products that have been driving to places? You would harm less beings if you wouldn't own and do these things... Where to draw the line? 

It's good to want to improve the world. It's good to want to relieve suffering, and to improve well-being. But the world is complex. Your actions and non-actions have infinite consequences and we know so little about them. 

I think lab-grown meat is great. We're getting closer to mass producing it every day. If it's fully developed, if it's healthy, if it's tasty, if it's affordable - 'real' meat will be out of the grocery store in no time. And then it'll get very tightly regulated. Aim for revolutions like that one. Make the world a better place, permanently, for everybody, instead of starting conflicts and polarizing ourselves even further for little gain. 

I think these posts of mine are relevant, and would be interested in your reactions to them:

• https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Ea8pt2dsrS6D4P54F/shut-up-and-divide [LW · GW]
• https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/y5jAuKqkShdjMNZab/morality-is-scary [LW · GW]

ETA: I think reading them may introduce doubt about the rationality of feeling such strong emotions in this circumstance. Am curious how much doubt they end up actually introducing.

I can't tell if this is a literal report of your experience at a family dinner, or an exaggeration to make a point.  Regardless of the morality of things, I'd advise a lot of introspection (likely guided by a professional) about why you chose to attend, knowing you'd observe a dead bird being served as food, and then be incapacitated with grief. This interfered with your own happiness, the happiness of your GF's family, and likely interfered with human connections you might have made.  AND it probably didn't save any birds or change any attendees' beliefs or behaviors.

I sympathize (but do not empathize or feel it myself) with your sorrow, and I'm sorry you're suffering.  I respect your right to follow this pledge, and to avoid situations where you feel bad.  I will gladly prepare and serve vegetarian dishes if you ever visit me.  

At the same time, I don't think this is the most effective way for you to react or behave.  If this is the controlling issue for all interactions, and nothing is more important or interesting enough to outweigh it, I suspect I won't enjoy your company enough to have you over in the first place.  Which means you won't get the opportunity to explore my reasoning for eating meat, and to help me see the error of my ways.

I have the impression (reading the comments and seeing the number of votes/the score of the post) that the LW readers are roughly divided 50/50 on how they feel about this post. In my case, I am one of those feeling very strongly against it. My reasons are:

• This post reads more like a political pamphlet than a typical post from LW.  For instance, "People, including non-human people" seems to me a Shibboleth. 
• I don't find any interesting insights here, simply an anecdote of someone (in my view) overreacting to a trivial experience that could have been avoided. 
• More at the object level: I am not vegan myself, not planning to become one, but I can see that many of the reasons why some people decide to do it are good reasons. After talking to many vegans, I realized that it is a good thing at least reduce the intake of meat. However, this behaviour displayed in this post creates in me (and I am probably not the only one) a very strong aversion to vegans.

Marshalling yourself in this way, reflects poorly on your movement. If I imagine myself as a member of this family, I would react poorly to the behaviour displayed. And would be repulsed by this movement, which can make someone act in such a way. 

Now, I don't share your emotional reaction to animal cruelty, and plausibly I am less empathetic. But consider what your emotional reaction here is doing, compare it to abstract acknowledgement of the harms and kind, thoughtful but confident explanations of your veganism.

And as a matter of scope, your reaction here is incorrect. The terror you saw at that table is as nothing compared to the industrial farming conditions as a whole. Reacting to it as a synecdoche of the agricultural system does not seem useful. It seems paralyzing.  

Also, promoting norms of disassociation among vegans makes veganism even more unappealing than it already is. 

Once cruelty free meats are cheap, and veganism itself becomes a cheap signal, those looking back from the future at your pledge will admire this uncompromising stance. But in terms of actually doing the most good for animals, I suspect it is harmful. 

At the risk of being uncharitable and the hope of being productive, I'm going to tell you my honest thoughts. If I met you in person, I would think you had had a bad childhood and are projecting that baggage onto animals. Your linked post confirms that. I wouldn't engage with your intellectual arguments because I would think the hurtful emotional fragility you demonstrated at Thanksgiving indicates you are unable to have dispassionate discussions. I'm sorry you had a bad childhood. You're allowed to cry about that without crying over every bird in the world. You're not going to save every turkey in America from a day almost everyone sees as a celebration of gratitude and family. You might be able to save yourself if you worked through your issues around feeling "happy and safe." I truly wish you the best.