The second post is really quite good. But I am not sure it’s the best fit for what I wrote. It’s not like I wrote about racism or how much people suffer in solitary confinement. I am expressing some truly niche views that are only popular among a tiny minority. For fundamentally I think my emotional reaction is grounded in some very basic cruxes. As far as I can tell turkeys served for food really do suffer terribly. I think one is just Eulering themself if they start rejecting ‘suffering is bad’.
I think the first post is an interesting critique. Responding to it in a serious way requires going into some deep water about how to model what we want and how we should ‘generalize’ our desires. There is definitely some doubt introduced. I am going to link ‘shut up and divide’ to my trusted friends and see what they think.
I would say I care quite a lot about the aggregate plight of animals. I am not even sure it’s humanely possible to care an appropriate amount about this plight, but I definitely act like I care. Never mind caring an appropriate amount about future astronomical suffering. But I would rather close as I can to the optimal amount.
I am expressing some truly niche views that are only popular among a tiny minority.
This isn’t really evidence against the second post being applicable. Every mainstream morality today must have started as a niche view among a tiny minority. A lot of humans probably have a status-gaining strategy of trying to be a successful moral vanguard. There are lots of examples of people playing status games in a tiny group. The Status Game has a chapter on Heaven’s Gate, for example. Or maybe a better comparison is to the anti-vaxx movement, which must have once been as small as veganism is today. (Not saying these are morally equivalent, just that the status dynamics are probably similar.) Here’s a relevant quote from the book:
Soon, Maranda was out in the world, playing a virtue game, evangelising her new beliefs. She told her mother and her cousins. She began looking for any reason to raise the topic socially. ‘You want to bring it up with people you can argue with, because you want to be like, I’m smarter than you, I know more than you do, look at this thing I know that you don’t. It’s really embarrassing to think about now. I thought I knew it all. I thought, that’s going to show them, they’re going to really regret arguing with me.’
I asked Maranda if part of the point was to go back to the group and report in, for status rewards. ‘That’s absolutely accurate,’ she said. ‘And that went for everybody: “I went to the doctor’s today and boy did I show them.” “I went to my cousin’s today and I was spittin’ fire.” You were rewarded for that. The louder you were, the more unmovable you were, the higher you moved up socially. You became someone for other people to try to strive to be like. You’d look at them and you’d think, they’re so confident in everything they’re saying, they believe it so strongly, they’re willing to do anything. I need to become this. I think it’s an unconscious thing. Humans want to be revered. They want to be on top of the group.’
The second post is really quite good. But I am not sure it’s the best fit for what I wrote. It’s not like I wrote about racism or how much people suffer in solitary confinement. I am expressing some truly niche views that are only popular among a tiny minority. For fundamentally I think my emotional reaction is grounded in some very basic cruxes. As far as I can tell turkeys served for food really do suffer terribly. I think one is just Eulering themself if they start rejecting ‘suffering is bad’.
I think the first post is an interesting critique. Responding to it in a serious way requires going into some deep water about how to model what we want and how we should ‘generalize’ our desires. There is definitely some doubt introduced. I am going to link ‘shut up and divide’ to my trusted friends and see what they think.
I would say I care quite a lot about the aggregate plight of animals. I am not even sure it’s humanely possible to care an appropriate amount about this plight, but I definitely act like I care. Never mind caring an appropriate amount about future astronomical suffering. But I would rather close as I can to the optimal amount.
This isn’t really evidence against the second post being applicable. Every mainstream morality today must have started as a niche view among a tiny minority. A lot of humans probably have a status-gaining strategy of trying to be a successful moral vanguard. There are lots of examples of people playing status games in a tiny group. The Status Game has a chapter on Heaven’s Gate, for example. Or maybe a better comparison is to the anti-vaxx movement, which must have once been as small as veganism is today. (Not saying these are morally equivalent, just that the status dynamics are probably similar.) Here’s a relevant quote from the book: