The Rationally Ignorant Carnivore

Several of my friends have started to become vegetarians.  I don't like that.  How are we supposed to share the majesty of a Caniac Combo from Raising Cane's or a Burger at Boylan if you don't eat meat?  I happen to love my carnivorous lifestyle and refuse to change even when my friends try to present me with information about how being a vegetarian "saves the planet" or is "healthier."  I used to respond to these attempts with the following true statement: "Every once in a while I watch PETA propaganda to make sure I still feel alright eating meat, and if that hasn't convinced me you won't either."  That sounds aggressive, but my friends bring this up a lot.  After taking this class, I realized that I don't need that defense anymore, I have a better one: rational ignorance.

Let's assume that my friends are right and that if we stopped raising animals for food altogether we would "save the planet," which is a stretch.  Well then, great, everyone should learn about this and stop eating meat.  But there's a problem.  The impact that any one person's decision to stop eating meat has on total meat production, and thus on the environment, is negligible at best and likely just zero (probably even smaller than their chance of changing the outcome of an election).  So the social marginal benefit of that decision is zero.  Now let's look at the costs, in searching out the information that will convince them to go vegetarian the individual incurs opportunity costs of time better spent doing anything else.  But let's say you don't have a lot to do and that cost is basically nothing too.  You read all the articles you can find and you feel a moral obligation to stop eating meat.  You now have two options: actually stop or don't.  If you don't stop eating meat, you will still have the weight of that information on your mind making it more costly to you to eat meat.  Even if you do stop eating meat the costs of your diet have increased because you naturally prefer meat to no meat (otherwise you would have already made that decision).  So basically there are no benefits to society from seeking out information regarding the effects of meat consumption on the environment and potentially high costs, even under the most favorable assumptions to our vegetarian friends.  The only way this wouldn't be the case is if a new vegetarian gets very high benefits from telling people about their vegetarianism (but talk about a negative externality).  All this means that it's rational for a meat eater to not seek out pro-vegetarian information that might turn them to the dark side.