The link between cardiovascular disease and general consumption of animal products (in comparison with diets with reduced or zero animal products) is by now extremely well established I believe. I believe in this case meta-analyses and large studies should be very informative (although understanding root causes is also important). All cause mortality also observed to be reduced, although to a lesser degree.
Just from a cursory search, you can find tons of studies supporting this. It is not a controversial statement at all in scientific nutrition and medical fields.
I think it's significant however that unhealthy plant based diets show increased mortality, so it's important to pay attention to what you eat in any case.
It's also worth keeping in mind conflicts of interest and cultural aspects. I think probably there are strong interests in the side of animal products, although this is partisan in the US (and surely there is some lobbying from the opposite direction as well). Also I think culturally there's strong preference for animal products, in particular meat and beef consumption, almost everywhere. Of course, science is supposed to be resistant to conflicts of interest (and it is usually mandatory to disclose funding conflicts of interest), but not all studies are the same. Those conflicts being mostly in the other direction give me additional confidence there isn't a strong bias from those sources.
Also I always like to mention you should supplement a plant based diet, with vitamin B12 and usually a few other vitamins.
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Also, for the more literally minded, it's obviously not simply due to the atoms from your food source having come from animals most recently that they're unhealthy, so it's also obviously theoretically possible to produce healthy animal-based foods (if only by transmuting their atoms with nuclear reactions), it's the particular proteins, fats and other compounds typically found tend to interact in unhealthy ways with our system.
But that said it's also very significant (in favor of plants) that animals often suffer a lot in the production of those food products, and whether or not you consume them you have the responsibility to diminish their suffering.
Current society largely (but not completely) relies on experts building highly complex systems. This includes not only public infrastructure like waterworks, buildings and information systems, but also say the very bread you eat (to get it at a low price and high productivity[1]), the computer we're reading this in (mind-numbingly complex system), the internet. It's a feature of capitalism (really, a feature of many administrative systems and product interfaces) that the consumer thankfully doesn't have to be too much of an expert on say computers (say theory of CPU architecture, pipelines, assembly, etc..) to buy a laptop or use software. The consumer only needs to be able to tell which competitor product is best for his use (although often, as he should, relying on expert reviews). We are good at hiding complexity behind interfaces as well, packaging complexity and hiding away its intricate inner workings. All of this enables life in a complex society.
I think it's misguided or hypocritical to completely distrust experts specially when it comes to public policy, public administration and science, given how much we rely on experts for everything else. It's not even much of a choice, I believe: the fact that we rely on those complex mechanisms inevitably will make certain failures that often demand public attention also complex. Say a food company synthesizes a highly complex (and not present in most natural products), but good tasting, substance. Then we kind of need equally complex review of its impacts on human health. A highly complex computer network will need highly knowledgeable (and correspondingly highly complex) solution to certain bugs that might appear, specially in cases like cross-domain failures where complexity encapsulations fail for various reasons. Think how unlikely it would be that every discipline has been exploited to extremely high complexity, but just by chance we could get away with simple solutions for public-facing and public policy problems.
I like simplicity, and I even like the idea I wouldn't often require experts to understand a public or scientific issue of public concern. But I don't think I'm willing to give up most products of complexity, including computers, medical procedures and diagnosis, and more -- and even if I were willing (I might be able to live with say an early 2000s computer :) ), I don't think it's realistic or feasible to really do that. In part because of collective agreement, in part because of for example the sheer population we have to contend with today. Earlier methods of agriculture for example probably can't sustain that many people. We should therefore apply Einstein's wisdom: try to make things as simple as possible... but no simpler. And trust experts when sensible, when the problem at hand is complex enough to be beyond our comprehension (but still important).
Of course, experts can be wrong, but that is something we just have to contend with (like we have to contend with the possibility all the weird procedures we do to produce food or acquire and purify water -- which are managed by experts -- may go wrong, even with significant efforts to otherwise). We can, and probably should, demand explanations (which may be hard to understand for the general public) of the experts and they explain their reasoning. We can examine and expect that their scientific field is healthy, there is consensus and there is a good level of academic integrity. But we should not approach their well informed opinions on important issues from a baseline of arrogance and distrust, because likely they do know much better, in certain cases.
[1] Modern agriculture is highly complex. This includes special seeds, harvesting machines, soil science, weather prediction, and so on. Each of those is in turn highly complex requiring experts to exist at current performance.
I think not only compromise, but more importantly communication. Like it or not, the other half of the country is also part of the country, and you cannot claim to be in support of the public without covering half of the public. The first line should be consensus, and when consensus isn't possible a carefully balanced compromise should be attempted.
If the left or the right disagree on even language and core cultural issues, they both need to find ways to communicate and evolve that allows for a peaceful coexistence. The notion the other party is a stupid or evil adversary incapable of enlightenment is poisonous, it forbids communication. Even if your adversary is indeed stupid and/or evil, it is far better to talk to them and if not change their mind, explain yourself in a language they understand (that includes a language they don't find outrageous or absurd!), leaving open the door to seeing your point of view. Even if they want to destroy you, it is a much better strategy to show you're not all that bad than escalating or just giving up. Of course, there are always voices that profit from discord, and human nature is perhaps attracted to antagonism. But we shouldn't let that go out of control, for the benefit of everyone.
If we're wrong about something, it's to our profit to learn from an adversary. This is the main lesson I think we should be taking -- even if being wrong is painful or sometimes isolating. Also logically, don't isolate those who think a little differently from your cultural heterodoxy, for the case they might have good reasons you just don't understand yet.
I think the old customs of being, and of course appearing, respectful were in part norms created for this. By behaving respectfully you're showing a willingness to learn and be wrong. By shouting, offending and imposing your opinion you're demonstrating you might be closed to other possibilities even if they are wrong, sometimes for very misguided reasons like ego, pride, or power. It's clearly then particularly important to act respectfully with those who are your adversaries or with whom you disagree (since perhaps you'll be more inclined to hear those who you already mostly agree with).
In summary: communication, compromise and respect.
I disagree with the framing "You are a bad person" (although I think I understand the sentiment), because it implies they can't change (or understand the error). It seems better to leave it at "You did something very harmful, destructive for society".
Yes, there is a lot of bunk AI safety discussions. But there are legitimate concerns as well. AI is close to human level. Logically they become dangerous, specially if given autonomy and bad goals. Many of the accredited researchers recognize this.
There is some level that you can discuss AI safety without AI expertise (specially as of a few years ago where everything as so uncertain), but I think currently you need a lot of awareness of physical and computational limits. Taking those limits into account, we're clearly very close to human level intelligences that can scale in unpredictable ways (probably not "grey goo" ways), but potentially dangerous ways under various scenarios, including manipulating our digital lives if there are humongous AI systems controlling everything as we are in danger of getting into as a society.
I think there's also a lot of elitism toward humanities implied that you should try to get past too. Humanities have a lot of insights about human nature, even if not all of it is reliable. See philosophers like Derek Parfit.
(in case you're wondering, I've implemented a few AIs mostly RL algorithms)
Do you want Terminator? Because this is how you get Terminator. A blockchain-based distributed giant AI could go rogue and it would be very difficult to stop it.
> Since nations are competing, and we're talking about exponentials here, the cost for cutting off exponential economic growth too soon is likely to become irrelevant to the future, which every nation is going to strive to avoid.
I question this definition of relevance. To me, relevance is having a healthy, happy, sustainable society and culture. It's not accumulating goods and energy consumption in a self-destructive and planet-destroying way. The sooner nations realize this, the better.
Just from a cursory search, you can find tons of studies supporting this. It is not a controversial statement at all in scientific nutrition and medical fields.
Some studies:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11537864/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33951994/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-30455-9
I think it's significant however that unhealthy plant based diets show increased mortality, so it's important to pay attention to what you eat in any case.
It's also worth keeping in mind conflicts of interest and cultural aspects. I think probably there are strong interests in the side of animal products, although this is partisan in the US (and surely there is some lobbying from the opposite direction as well). Also I think culturally there's strong preference for animal products, in particular meat and beef consumption, almost everywhere. Of course, science is supposed to be resistant to conflicts of interest (and it is usually mandatory to disclose funding conflicts of interest), but not all studies are the same. Those conflicts being mostly in the other direction give me additional confidence there isn't a strong bias from those sources.
Also I always like to mention you should supplement a plant based diet, with vitamin B12 and usually a few other vitamins.
---
Also, for the more literally minded, it's obviously not simply due to the atoms from your food source having come from animals most recently that they're unhealthy, so it's also obviously theoretically possible to produce healthy animal-based foods (if only by transmuting their atoms with nuclear reactions), it's the particular proteins, fats and other compounds typically found tend to interact in unhealthy ways with our system.
But that said it's also very significant (in favor of plants) that animals often suffer a lot in the production of those food products, and whether or not you consume them you have the responsibility to diminish their suffering.