In addition, veg*nism is associated with strong negative judgements of people. It prompts massive defensiveness and rationalisation on the part of meat eaters for this reason. To the extent that EA is associated with veg*nism, that’ll bleed over.
Actually, data suggests most people have positive associations of veg*nism. EA actually seems to have some of the most negativity towards veg*nism that I’ve seen.
EA actually seems to have some of the most negativity towards veg*nism that I’ve seen.
That might be because some vegans associated with the EA community have a hardline “meat is murder” recruiting strategy, contrasting with typical vegans in the population at large.
It doesn’t seem to me that the proportion of vegans with that approach is higher in communities around EA than in other communities. They don’t seem particularly vocal either. I could be wrong.
These people operate in the San Francisco area and have substantial overlap w/ the EA community there: http://directactioneverywhere.com/ My vague impression is that they’ve been pretty divisive but I don’t have much firsthand knowledge.
I’d love to believe that, but that source doesn’t seem very reliable or persuasive (one small point: aren’t the %s it cites significant overestimates?) Do you have other evidence for it? And do you disagree that suggestions that meat is murder and people are morally obliged to stop eating it provoke massive defensiveness and opposition?
Just to be clear, my comment was disagreeing with this claim:
In addition, veg*nism is associated with strong negative judgements of people.
But to your questions, there’s not very robust evidence in either direction that I know of. And I think there’s an important distinction between defensiveness and negativity. An example to illustrate this is military service. Most people think highly of military people, but would react with great defensiveness if you suggested they had a moral obligation to join the military. If veganism is similar, then we might expect that people would be excited about a high number of military people in EA but would only become defensive if you brought it up as a moral obligation.
More importantly, however, EA brings up a lot of moral obligations. I mean, donating 10% of your income is pretty widespread, as is being willing to reject your current altruistic endeavors if they’re ineffective. I rarely see anyone in EA bring up concerns about these things being offputting, but it comes up almost every time veg*nism is discussed. I think this is an example of motivated reasoning.
Actually, data suggests most people have positive associations of veg*nism. EA actually seems to have some of the most negativity towards veg*nism that I’ve seen.
That might be because some vegans associated with the EA community have a hardline “meat is murder” recruiting strategy, contrasting with typical vegans in the population at large.
It doesn’t seem to me that the proportion of vegans with that approach is higher in communities around EA than in other communities. They don’t seem particularly vocal either. I could be wrong.
These people operate in the San Francisco area and have substantial overlap w/ the EA community there: http://directactioneverywhere.com/ My vague impression is that they’ve been pretty divisive but I don’t have much firsthand knowledge.
I’d also be interested in your expanding on this—though I’d understand if you don’t want to, or don’t want to here.
I’d love to believe that, but that source doesn’t seem very reliable or persuasive (one small point: aren’t the %s it cites significant overestimates?) Do you have other evidence for it? And do you disagree that suggestions that meat is murder and people are morally obliged to stop eating it provoke massive defensiveness and opposition?
Just to be clear, my comment was disagreeing with this claim:
But to your questions, there’s not very robust evidence in either direction that I know of. And I think there’s an important distinction between defensiveness and negativity. An example to illustrate this is military service. Most people think highly of military people, but would react with great defensiveness if you suggested they had a moral obligation to join the military. If veganism is similar, then we might expect that people would be excited about a high number of military people in EA but would only become defensive if you brought it up as a moral obligation.
More importantly, however, EA brings up a lot of moral obligations. I mean, donating 10% of your income is pretty widespread, as is being willing to reject your current altruistic endeavors if they’re ineffective. I rarely see anyone in EA bring up concerns about these things being offputting, but it comes up almost every time veg*nism is discussed. I think this is an example of motivated reasoning.