I basically disagree with this take on the discussion.
Most clearly: this post did generate a lot of pushback. It has more disagree votes than agree votes, the top comment by karma argues against some of its claims and is heavily upvoted and agree-voted, and it led to multiple response posts including one that reaches the opposite conclusion and got more karma & agree votes than this one.
Focusing on the post itself: I think that the post does a decent job of laying out the reasoning for its claims, and contains insights that are relevant and not widely considered/discussed, especially for readers who already (e.g.) think that fish matter to a non-negligible extent and are willing to avoid eating salmon because of that. It takes a lot more bee-days to make a serving of honey than salmon-days to make a serving of salmon, and when Rethink Priorities looked into moral weights they found as about as strong a case for bee sentience/welfare as they did for carp or salmon. So the claim that one should avoid eating honey for basically the reasons given in the post seems like a plausible hypothesis, especially conditional on the views that lead many EAs to avoid eating factory farmed chicken or salmon, and it seems good that people are thinking through that claim.
I don’t buy this post’s conclusion, for reasons that are pretty well covered in existing responses. And I agree that there are some epistemic problems with the way it lays out its arguments, such as using a kilogram-to-kilogram comparison instead of serving-to-serving, incorrectly claiming that RP found that bees display “every” behavioral proxy of consciousness, and its choices about when to label estimates as being “conservative”. And it’s not good that these all point in the same direction, of overstating the case for avoiding honey.
So we at least have a fair amount of agreement about the post itself. But turning it into an exhibit of a general EA-vegan-specific problem feels like a stretch, especially given the response it has received. And even just considering the post by itself, there are posts which have gotten a positive reception on LW that I’ve found to be worse-argued than this. (Though perhaps that could be flipped around to say that there are some bad epistemic patterns in both intellectual subcultures.)
This post did generate a lot of pushback. It has more disagree votes than agree votes, the top comment by karma argues against some of its claims and is heavily upvoted and agree-voted, and it led to multiple response posts including one that reaches the opposite conclusion and got more karma & agree votes than this one.
I agree that this somewhat rebuts what Raemon says. However, I think a large part of Raemon’s point—which your pushback doesn’t address—is that Bentham’s post still received a highly positive karma score (85 when Raemon came upon it).
My sense is that karma shapes the Forum incentive landscape pretty strongly—i.e., authors are incentivized to write the kind of post that they expect will get upvoted. (I remember Lizka[1] mentioning, somewhere, that she/the Forum team found (via user interviews?) that authors tend to care quite a lot about karma.) So, considering how Bentham’s posts are getting upvoted, I kind of expect them to continue writing similar posts with similar reasoning. (Further, I kind of expect others to see Bentham’s writing+reasoning style as a style that ‘works,’ and to copy it.)
The question then becomes: Is this a good outcome? Do we want Forum discourse to look more like this type of post? Is the ‘wisdom of the EA Forum voting crowd’ where we want it to be? (Or, conversely, might there be an undesirable dynamic going on, such as tyranny of the marginal voter?) I have my own takes, here. I invite readers to likewise reflect on these questions, and to perhaps adjust your voting behaviour accordingly.
I basically disagree with this take on the discussion.
Most clearly: this post did generate a lot of pushback. It has more disagree votes than agree votes, the top comment by karma argues against some of its claims and is heavily upvoted and agree-voted, and it led to multiple response posts including one that reaches the opposite conclusion and got more karma & agree votes than this one.
Focusing on the post itself: I think that the post does a decent job of laying out the reasoning for its claims, and contains insights that are relevant and not widely considered/discussed, especially for readers who already (e.g.) think that fish matter to a non-negligible extent and are willing to avoid eating salmon because of that. It takes a lot more bee-days to make a serving of honey than salmon-days to make a serving of salmon, and when Rethink Priorities looked into moral weights they found as about as strong a case for bee sentience/welfare as they did for carp or salmon. So the claim that one should avoid eating honey for basically the reasons given in the post seems like a plausible hypothesis, especially conditional on the views that lead many EAs to avoid eating factory farmed chicken or salmon, and it seems good that people are thinking through that claim.
I don’t buy this post’s conclusion, for reasons that are pretty well covered in existing responses. And I agree that there are some epistemic problems with the way it lays out its arguments, such as using a kilogram-to-kilogram comparison instead of serving-to-serving, incorrectly claiming that RP found that bees display “every” behavioral proxy of consciousness, and its choices about when to label estimates as being “conservative”. And it’s not good that these all point in the same direction, of overstating the case for avoiding honey.
So we at least have a fair amount of agreement about the post itself. But turning it into an exhibit of a general EA-vegan-specific problem feels like a stretch, especially given the response it has received. And even just considering the post by itself, there are posts which have gotten a positive reception on LW that I’ve found to be worse-argued than this. (Though perhaps that could be flipped around to say that there are some bad epistemic patterns in both intellectual subcultures.)
I agree that this somewhat rebuts what Raemon says. However, I think a large part of Raemon’s point—which your pushback doesn’t address—is that Bentham’s post still received a highly positive karma score (85 when Raemon came upon it).
My sense is that karma shapes the Forum incentive landscape pretty strongly—i.e., authors are incentivized to write the kind of post that they expect will get upvoted. (I remember Lizka[1] mentioning, somewhere, that she/the Forum team found (via user interviews?) that authors tend to care quite a lot about karma.) So, considering how Bentham’s posts are getting upvoted, I kind of expect them to continue writing similar posts with similar reasoning. (Further, I kind of expect others to see Bentham’s writing+reasoning style as a style that ‘works,’ and to copy it.)
The question then becomes: Is this a good outcome? Do we want Forum discourse to look more like this type of post? Is the ‘wisdom of the EA Forum voting crowd’ where we want it to be? (Or, conversely, might there be an undesirable dynamic going on, such as tyranny of the marginal voter?) I have my own takes, here. I invite readers to likewise reflect on these questions, and to perhaps adjust your voting behaviour accordingly.
our former Forum Khaleesi