Zane wrote: ↑Wed Feb 27, 2019 5:10 pm
It seems you don't really understand the statistics in question. And, yes, I read the article, but found it lacking.
It's always both astonishing and frustrating when I meet somebody so committed to the 'your actions don't matter' mindset. Even extending it to voting... sure, there are some districts where your vote is less likely to have an effect, but polling is imperfect and *you do not know* that it won't.
If there's a better way to explain it so that you may understand it, I'd love to update the article.
Zane wrote: ↑Wed Feb 27, 2019 5:10 pmIf a business buys 1,000 sausages and sells 1,000 sausages, then it's almost certainly the case that someone wanted a sausage, and was told, "Sorry, we're out."
Yes, and do you deny that if *enough* customers ask for sausages, or the business sells out at a certain point early in the day/week, that the owner will decide to buy an additional case?
And that if fewer ask or it sells out later, the owner may opt not to buy additional cases next time?
There's always a tipping point for empirical consequence like that. The tipping point is chaotic in that it depends on many variables (even the mood of the store owner at the time), but it still exists.
Zane wrote: ↑Wed Feb 27, 2019 5:10 pmIn the real world, budgeting inventory is more complicated. Maybe they sell 950 sausages. The 50 left over are not necessarily going to spoil, so the business can maintain its standing order and sell the left-over fifty first. If there is a risk of spoilage, then the food is discarded as part of the cost of doing business (which is common in the restaurant industry).
And do you deny that there is a point at which *so many* are spoiling that sausages are no longer profitable?
Again, there's always a tipping point, be that positive or negative (ordering another box, or one less).
Sometimes that decision might not even be made at the store, but at a higher level -- regardless, nothing is set in stone, and every less person buying sausages increases the probability of change. Stores can and do stop carrying things. They can and do start carrying more of things.
Zane wrote: ↑Wed Feb 27, 2019 5:10 pmPart of the problem here goes to the Sorites Paradox. If I give you a penny, you're not rich. If I keep giving you pennies, eventually you will consider yourself rich, but there's not really a single penny that pushes you into "rich" territory. It's vague.
That resolution applies to concepts that exist as a continuum. Richness is relative, and it exists on a sliding scale.
When you introduce harder empirical effects that are granular, things change.
This kind of thing is everywhere in physics, particularly quantum and particle physics.
Ever heard of Millikan's oil drop experiment?
We're talking a case where the difference in an electrons is the difference between falling under the force of gravity or levitating given a certain voltage applied to the plates.
So what's particle physics have to do with cases of sausages? Discrete quantification.
The fact is we're not dealing with a smooth continuum of sausages, but a choice to order more or less by a discrete quantity a certain bulk. That's what makes it inevitable that ANY relevant variable in isolation, if it crosses a threshold, will have a huge effect.
The probability of being the person who pushes consumption over that threshold may be small, but the effect is proportionally large to make up for it.
Zane wrote: ↑Wed Feb 27, 2019 5:10 pmThat's not to say I disagree with your conclusion; veganism (and voting) is the right thing to do, but for other reasons -- specifically the one I mentioned.
In my experience, people who limit their reasons to be vegan are at higher risk of recidivism. Polls bear this out as well.
The fact that our actions have a statistical effect, even on granular systems, is undeniable. This combined with the moral necessity of considering probability rather than unknowable actual outcome speaks very strongly to being a responsible consumer as the right thing to do without leaning on more controversial moral theories (which you're appealing to).
Zane wrote: ↑Wed Feb 27, 2019 5:10 pm
This is a false analogy. Of course shooting a bullet in a stadium presents a credible risk to life. Even the mere crack of a gun shot causes harm.
You're talking panic?
So you fire it off at the same time as half-time fireworks. Then is it morally permissible as long as you get lucky and hit nobody?
It's very concerning to me that you seem to be rejecting the probabilistic nature of moral responsibility.
Zane wrote: ↑Wed Feb 27, 2019 5:10 pmI do find it strange you're so ready to believe that a single person going vegan can have a positive and dramatic cascading effect,
That's not speculative, it's basic economics and probability. These are all known factors.
Of course, a single person being vegan but being an asshole could have negative effects beyond the positive economic effects. That's something else.
Zane wrote: ↑Wed Feb 27, 2019 5:10 pmbut setting fire to a slaughterhouse stirs only negative possibilities in the imagination. That's looking at things morally, not statistically.
Setting fire to a slaughterhouse has known moral risk, while the benefits are highly speculative and offset by equally plausible drawbacks.
This isn't comparable to accepting established economics and probability.
Zane wrote: ↑Wed Feb 27, 2019 5:10 pmIt's like how people argue torture/"enhanced interrogation" does not work, therefore we shouldn't do it. Well, if torture never works, then it's a really easy question to resolve. The more interesting -- and honest -- approach might be to concede that torture could work under certain (rare) circumstances, but it does not necessarily follow that it should be legal.
We can use all of those arguments against violent activism.
That we shouldn't do it for other reasons.
But ALSO that the net empirical effect is likely bad.
It's important to have a fallback if somebody finds your original approach to be unconvincing. There's no reason to abandon the evidence.
Likewise, it's a weaker position to argue your more controversial moral position, and then if rejected have nothing empirical to fall back on. Not everybody is going to agree that it's still wrong if it doesn't have an effect.
Zane wrote: ↑Wed Feb 27, 2019 5:10 pmWe *know* above-ground activism, particularly of the commercial sort of producing meat alternatives and pushing for increased wellfare, is effective. Why divert resources to something that may be as likely to cause harm as help?
I disagree with the last part of that question: it's not clear to me ALF-style activities are as likely to harm as to help.
It doesn't have to be clear. It's fine to be agnostic. But unless you're prepared to put up evidence that those tactics are effective then it doesn't make sense to promote the devotion of resources to them.
Zane wrote: ↑Wed Feb 27, 2019 5:10 pmIn terms of resource diversion, one could readily concede that above-ground activism is generally more effective while maintaining it's perhaps reached a point of saturation. This is precisely where the "one more" could make a difference -- at the margin.
If it reaches a point of saturation at some time, that might be an argument. There's no reason to believe that currently: quite the contrary polls indicate a surprising level of public ignorance, and there's no indication that the meat alternative market is stagnating.