AI Use Note: Main body text entirely human written. Claude (Opus 4.8) helped develop models of animal life histories in the appendix.
Cross-posted from Good Structures.
Executive Summary
* Animal advocates sometimes make claims like “there are X of this animal...
“How long have you been v*g*n?”
This is one of the most common icebreakers at animal protection events. It’s a baseline assumption, and it mostly holds true: if you’re out advocating for animals not to be tortured or abused, realistically these days you are v**n, or close. And it makes for good conversation. It seems fairly safe to assume when you meet strangers.
But this assumption is hurting the movement in a way which we don’t always notice: someone new comes into the sp...
Summary
Back in November 2023 I posted here to launch Spiro and raise our first $198k. Two and a half years later this is an update and a fundraiser for the next step.
The short version: we've now reached over-5,900 people with TB preventive medicine, including over 3,000 children under five years old. Our early results have held up well an...
A natural setting for the Long Reflection:
Space colonization. If the speed of light is at all binding, then spacefarers will spend thousands/millions/billions+ of years in transit in a (likely) resource constrained environment. Why not engage in the Long Reflection then?
This is especially relevant as these people will be able to restructure society as they see fit. This could also be a reason to put slightly more weight on space colonization as a pathway to existential security—it fosters moral progress & safeguards humanity.
Some might be concerned that space travel/colonization itself is something that should be reflected upon before anyone embarks on the journey. But this is not such a big obstacle. If our spacefaring long reflectors determine along the way that space colonization is bad, they can simply turn back home or, worst case, self-destruct.