• dinkusmann@feddit.rocks
      3·
      5 months ago

      This is actually a very smart point and held me back from going vegan for a while. Peter Singer has the best counterargument. Suppose a farm hatches chickens in multiples of 1000 each month. So, if the demand for chicken drops by 1/mo nothing will change, but if it drops by 1000/mo then they will hatch 1000 fewer chickens next month. Well, then if a thousand people go vegan, one will be the straw that broke the camel’s back and they will have saved 1000 chickens. So, in other words, you have a 1 in 1000 chance of saving a 1000 chickens. Which means that each vegan saves one chicken on average. So, for all intents and purposes, you can consider yourself to have spared all of the animals you don’t eat.

          • Victoria Antoinette @lemmy.world
            1·
            5 months ago

            I wonder if you actually read that page, particularly the part that says people don’t even know what gives them the most utility and when it seems to be calculable they still make irrational choices.

            your math doesn’t dictate behavior.

            • dinkusmann@feddit.rocks
              1·
              5 months ago

              When it’s calculable? You mean like when it’s a concrete number of deaths? Like what actually happens?

              And “people don’t always act as the math tells them to” isn’t a counter argument. You may as well reply to me by saying “but your arguments are moot because reason doesn’t dictate my behavior”

              • Victoria Antoinette @lemmy.world
                1·
                5 months ago

                You may as well reply to me by saying “but your arguments are moot because reason doesn’t dictate my behavior”

                that is essentially what i’m saying. farmers are no more rational than i am. neither are abbatoir owers or their workers or meat packers or food suppliers or grocers or restauranteurs. your reasoning would hold up if they were rational actors, but they are not, so you argument crumbles.