If Elizabeth is trying to maximize the impartial good, she should probably be far more concerned about an anti-veganism advocate on Facebook than about a veganism advocate who (incorrectly) denies veganism’s health tradeoffs.
I doubt that Elizabeth—or a meaningful number of her potential readers—are considering whether to be associated with anti-vegan advocates on Facebook or any movement related to them. I read the discussion as mainly about epistemics and integrity (these words collectively appear ~30 times in the transcript) rather than object-level harms.
I think it’s generally appropriate to be more concerned about policing epistemics and integrity in your own social movement than in others. This is in part about tractability—do we have any reason to think any anti-vegan activist movement on Facebook cares about its epistemics? If they do, do any of us have a solid reason to believe we would be effective in improving those epistemics?
It’s OK to not want to affiliate with a movement whose epistemics and integrity you judge to be inadequate. The fact that there are other movements with worse epistemics and integrity out there isn’t particularly relevant to that judgment call.
It’s unclear whether anti-vegan activists on Facebook are even part of a broader epistemic community. EAs are, so an erosion of EA epistemic norms and integrity is reasonably likely to cause broader problems.
In particular, the stuff Elizabeth is concerned about gives off the aroma of ends-justify-the-means thinking to me at points. False or misleading presentations, especially ones that pose a risk of meaningful harm to the listener, are not an appropriate means of promoting dietary change. [1] Moreover, ends-justify-the-means rationalization is a particular risk for EAs, as we painfully found out ~2 years ago.
Yes, I would even say that the original comment (which I intend to reply to next) seems to suffer from ends-justify-the-means-logic as well (e.g. prioritizing “shutting up and multiplying” such as “shipping resources to the best interventions” over “being honest about health effects”).
I doubt that Elizabeth—or a meaningful number of her potential readers—are considering whether to be associated with anti-vegan advocates on Facebook or any movement related to them. I read the discussion as mainly about epistemics and integrity (these words collectively appear ~30 times in the transcript) rather than object-level harms.
I think it’s generally appropriate to be more concerned about policing epistemics and integrity in your own social movement than in others. This is in part about tractability—do we have any reason to think any anti-vegan activist movement on Facebook cares about its epistemics? If they do, do any of us have a solid reason to believe we would be effective in improving those epistemics?
It’s OK to not want to affiliate with a movement whose epistemics and integrity you judge to be inadequate. The fact that there are other movements with worse epistemics and integrity out there isn’t particularly relevant to that judgment call.
It’s unclear whether anti-vegan activists on Facebook are even part of a broader epistemic community. EAs are, so an erosion of EA epistemic norms and integrity is reasonably likely to cause broader problems.
In particular, the stuff Elizabeth is concerned about gives off the aroma of ends-justify-the-means thinking to me at points. False or misleading presentations, especially ones that pose a risk of meaningful harm to the listener, are not an appropriate means of promoting dietary change. [1] Moreover, ends-justify-the-means rationalization is a particular risk for EAs, as we painfully found out ~2 years ago.
I recognize there may be object-level disagreement here as to whether a given presentation is false, misleading, or poses a risk of meaningful harm.
Yes, I would even say that the original comment (which I intend to reply to next) seems to suffer from ends-justify-the-means-logic as well (e.g. prioritizing “shutting up and multiplying” such as “shipping resources to the best interventions” over “being honest about health effects”).