By the time most of the world’s population has made the transition to a vegan or cultured-meat diet, the rearing of other sentient beings for human consumption will be illegal under international law. — David Pearce

Created by Pablo on 2012-10-01; known on 2070-01-01

• Pablo estimated 20% on 2012-10-01
• Pablo said “Source: http://goo.gl/985pS” on 2012-10-01
• Pablo said “Analogous present cases do not support this prediction. E.g., although most Spaniards oppose bull-fighting, this practice is still legal in most Spanish provinces.” on 2012-10-01
• RandomThinker said “Isn’t it illegal now to eat sentient beings? Most animals are not sentient.” on 2012-10-01
• Pablo said “The overwhelming majority of experts believe some nonhuman animals, including many of those we eat, are sentient. Feel free to make a public prediction about when future research will prove them wrong.” on 2012-10-01
• NathanMcKnight estimated 0% and said “Vegetarian and vegan diets will continue to become more common, especially in the West, but looking at places like India where vegetarianism is well-established, we see that even after thousands of years, some people still eat meat. ” on 2012-10-01
• gwern estimated 10% and said “Random: ‘sentient’ has been so badly abused and overloaded over the centuries that one could easily use one dictionary to prove that all animals are sentient, and another to prove that hardly any are.” on 2012-10-01
• Pablo said “Sentient is here used in the sense of “capable of experience pleasure and pain”. This usage is standard in philosophy, at least.” on 2012-10-01
• Jayson Virissimo said “That definition seems like a problem for vegetarians, since many plants also “experience pain”.” on 2012-10-08
• RandomThinker said “@gwern thx for explanation. I was going by Star Trek TNG definition of Data being barely sentient. Assuming animals = sentient for purposes of this question then.” on 2012-10-08
• RandomThinker estimated 10% on 2012-10-08
• RandomThinker said “@benthamite it’s a definitional question not a research one. Defined by culture. It’s likely if the world is vegan, sentience will have a broad definition, and may even include plants for some segment of population.” on 2012-10-08
• plewis22 estimated 15% and said “I disagree with the premise, so I treated it as if and when most of the world’s population etc. My odds are still low, because I think that if it happens it will be for economic reasons more than ethical ones.” on 2012-10-08
• Pablo said “As I made clear, the prediction has a straightforward, unambiguous interpretation. If you don’t agree that my usage of ‘sentient’ is standard, just assume I have stipulated that the term will have that meaning in this context.” on 2012-10-08
• Pablo said ““By the time most of the world’s population has made the transition to a vegan or cultured-meat diet, the rearing of other beings capable of experiencing pleasure and pain for human consumption will be illegal under international law.”” on 2012-10-08
• Pablo said “The previous comment restates the prediction using unambiguous language. (I ran out of characters so I had to break these remarks into separate comments.)” on 2012-10-08
• Jayson Virissimo said “Benthamite, if it is still legal to grow plants for consumption will you mark this wrong?” on 2012-10-09
• Pablo said “No, because plants can feel neither pleasure nor pain.” on 2012-10-09
• sharanga estimated 20% on 2012-10-10
• Ben Doherty estimated 5% on 2012-10-14
• themusicgod1 estimated 50% on 2016-10-10
• JesseClifton estimated 20% on 2017-01-28
• pranomostro estimated 10% on 2018-12-08