I think it’s worth increasing the degree to which you put your prospective reader in mind when writing essays like this. As they say, “you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar”. I think more could have been done to avoid alienating readers who otherwise would have been inclined to listen to you.
Of course, I understand (and 100% agree!) with the way you feel about this moral issue. To you, factory farming is obviously morally wrong. But front and center in your mind could be that most people, and even some EAs/rationalists, have just never thought about meat consumption this way.
You’re in 650 BCE trying to convince Spartans to not kill babies, 1850 trying to convince American Southerners to not own slaves, and 2023 trying to get people to care about AI x-risk. What’s a better approach: Wrecking them with facts + logic, or gently guiding them to consider a perspective they haven’t before?
I think it’s worth increasing the degree to which you put your prospective reader in mind when writing essays like this. As they say, “you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar”. I think more could have been done to avoid alienating readers who otherwise would have been inclined to listen to you.
Of course, I understand (and 100% agree!) with the way you feel about this moral issue. To you, factory farming is obviously morally wrong. But front and center in your mind could be that most people, and even some EAs/rationalists, have just never thought about meat consumption this way.
You’re in 650 BCE trying to convince Spartans to not kill babies, 1850 trying to convince American Southerners to not own slaves, and 2023 trying to get people to care about AI x-risk. What’s a better approach: Wrecking them with facts + logic, or gently guiding them to consider a perspective they haven’t before?