Agreed! We're trying to find people with audiences who are sympathetic the cause but unwilling or unable to change their diet (e.g. Sam Harris) and provide them with a non-diet-related solution that they can speak to their audience about without having to fear backlash due to perceived moralising about people's diets
It’d be up to the founders, but I’d guess it would make sense to focus on layers in the Middle East until hitting diminishing returns there. After that, how to scale would likely depend on what the team’s comparative advantage is: Expertise and connections within the Middle East context (such that different asks in that context makes sense) or expertise at cage free campaigns specifically (such that the same ask in a different context makes sense)
It is valid but I think it’s being downvoted because (a) Vasco posts the same point so often and so widely that some people come to view it as spam, (b) this is on a public forum and is the kind of view that is perfect to be used by bad-faith EA critics and journalists to paint EA in a negative light in media.
Although, to Vasco’s credit, this comment is much improved on the optics front compared to previous ones
Good question! I think (a) having to think about which is the 10% and “should I eat this” every meal uses too much bandwidth. I find a simple rule easier overall. It’s kind of like how I don’t calculate the consequences of my actions at every decision even though I’m consequentialist. I rely on heuristics instead. (b) I found it really hard to get to my current diet. It took me many years. And I think that personally I’ll find it hard to re-introduce 10% of the animal products without being tempted and it becoming 50%. (c) I think the things I say about veganism to other vegans / animal people are more credible when I’m vegan [as I’m clearly committed to the cause and not making excuses for myself].
They're probably less judgmental than average. Also perhaps poorer social skills on average. Do I back us to have the required tact? :P
But in all seriousness, the answer to "is it positive for social signalling to have an extra vegan EA forum reader" could defs be different to "is it positive for social signalling to have an extra vegan". I had the latter in mind when I questioned the signalling value
Thanks for writing this! It seems all the more important to get this right given the trend that the beings on the edge of our moral circle tend to be the most numerous, meaning that if we take the possibility of their sentience seriously, we may spend quite large amounts of resources trying to help them. Seems worth trying to figure out whether beings on the edge of our moral circles are basically all that matters or don't matter at all!