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WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

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Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#82

I can't eat a lot of types of food due to allergies. Meat is one of the few things I still can eat without issue. Yes, there are actually people out there (hi, me!) that actually cannot eliminate certain foods from our diets without getting sick. This policy would prevent me from being able to work at that company, for recognized medical health reasons, because I would not be able to do legitimate expenses of food re…

Not only is it terrible from a dietary standpoint, it reveals an intolerant workplace culture that I certainly wouldn't want any part of. Most of the world, and likely most of their employees, eat meat. It shows a serious lack of connection with the real world, and a willingness on the part of management to forcefully impose extreme views on a whim. Sounds like an unhealthy place to work, even if they all become vege…

What if your company said that they are starting a program to reimburse solar panel installation, but that program doesn't cover reimbursement for gas. Would your argument be that most of the world consumes gas, so they're "forcefully impose extreme views on a whim."

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#83
post #54

"The company estimates that the policy will save 445.1m pounds of CO2 emissions ... by 2023." That's 202,000 kt over a 5-year plan. Global fuel-based emissions in 2015: 36,061,710 kt CO2. In other words, they think they are so important as to "save" about 0.1% of global CO2 annually just by refusing to include meat in the menu of their own events and employee-expensed meals. I doubt the magnitude of their estimates.…

Also, if a group of urban westerners WERE to stop eating such a large quantity of meat en masse, it would have the effect of lowering the price of meat and not the effect of simply reducing the meat eaten in the world. Most of that meat will just get bought by others for a slightly cheaper price. Making protein cheaper for poorer people in the world would arguably be the best outcome of this experiment if the magnitude were anything close to their estimates.

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#84

I can't eat a lot of types of food due to allergies. Meat is one of the few things I still can eat without issue. Yes, there are actually people out there (hi, me!) that actually cannot eliminate certain foods from our diets without getting sick. This policy would prevent me from being able to work at that company, for recognized medical health reasons, because I would not be able to do legitimate expenses of food re…

Not only is it terrible from a dietary standpoint, it reveals an intolerant workplace culture that I certainly wouldn't want any part of. Most of the world, and likely most of their employees, eat meat. It shows a serious lack of connection with the real world, and a willingness on the part of management to forcefully impose extreme views on a whim. Sounds like an unhealthy place to work, even if they all become vege…

Love your profile message, you pretty much nailed what's going on with HN. Just keep posting, it's the only way to improve things.

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#85
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The common justification for this is the comparative anatomy argument that we're primates and primates don't eat meat. These same people have had their heads in the sand for the last 30 years, because it's been found that primates do quite commonly eat meat.

Definitely not. The common justification for this is that we, as the most intelligent species on the planet, have developed a moral conscience. As such, it is unconscionable that we support the literal mass murder and ill-treatment of billions of animals each year when there are alternatives that require no suffering and no death.

>it is unconscionable that we support the literal mass murder and ill-treatment of billions of animals each year when there are alternatives that require no suffering and no death.

There are ways to put down animals which require no suffering.

And no, there are no alternatives to death. Plants are living things too. Why is it okay to murder a plant but not an animal?

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#86
post #12

Nice. If you care at all about moral justifications for your own actions, eating meat is an extremely difficult position to defend. It even falls on the wrong side of the Kantian perfect/imperfect duty divide, since the default really is not eating meat, so eating meat is a positive action which must be justified. I think it's a great example of philosophy pointing out the absurdity of a (very) widely-practiced pheno…

> If you care at all about moral justifications for your own actions, eating meat is an extremely difficult position to defend. Let's do it gradually, first move to eating beef: less killed lives per lb of meat. From another hand if we reduce demand, those chickens will not even been born..

Oh man, the moral status of possible future entities is like a singularity of very weird conclusions. I would avoid it.

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#87

Being a vegetarian is exactly as equal a choice of freedom as being an omnivore or carnivore. This feels wrong to push this lifestyle on people. Of course one can always just not do business with We Work.

Only exactly as equal a choice for the individual doing the eating. It's less of a choice for the other beings involved.

Re: WeWork Will No Longer Let Employees Expense Any Kind of Meat

#89
post #78

> that staff will not be able to expense any meals that include poultry, pork or red meat That is absurd. Imagine the opposite (a company only allowed expensing meat meals) and the amount of blowback, PR nightmare, and internet outrage. The hypocrisy continues.

What exactly is the hypocrisy? Eating only meat is a very restricted and strange diet while excluding only meat can be a perfectly healthy diet. You're trying to make these equal opposites but they're not. Sort of like how not serving alcohol is acceptable but serving only alcohol (not even water) would be outrageous.

The fact that they are limiting people's choices and free will to eat meat and write-off (financial incentive) is the core problem.
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