I have had >30 conversations with EA vegetarians and vegans about their reasoning here. The people who thought about it the most seem to usually settle on it for signaling reasons. Maybe this changed over the last few years in EA, but it seemed to be where most people I talked to where at when I had lots of conversations with them in 2018.
I guess this is a bit pedantic, but you originally wrote “My best guess is that most people who are vegetarians, vegans or reducetarians, and are actually interested in scope-sensitivity, are explicitly doing so for signaling and social coordination reasons”. I think veg EAs are generally “actually interested in scope-sensitivity”, whether or not they’re thinking about their diets correctly and in scope-sensitive ~utilitarian terms. “The people who thought about it the most” might not be representative, and more representative motivations might be better described as “in it to prevent harm”, even if the motivations turn out to be not utilitarian, not appropriately scope-sensitive or misguided.
I guess this is a bit pedantic, but you originally wrote “My best guess is that most people who are vegetarians, vegans or reducetarians, and are actually interested in scope-sensitivity, are explicitly doing so for signaling and social coordination reasons”. I think veg EAs are generally “actually interested in scope-sensitivity”, whether or not they’re thinking about their diets correctly and in scope-sensitive ~utilitarian terms. “The people who thought about it the most” might not be representative, and more representative motivations might be better described as “in it to prevent harm”, even if the motivations turn out to be not utilitarian, not appropriately scope-sensitive or misguided.