More important than isolated concrete examples are the general trends, the thousand little nudges. Can’t measure this unfortunately.
Here’s an example of a tweet with 5k likes mocking someone suggesting that the welfare of barnacles that are being scraped off sea turtles is worth considering. Likely some of these 5k people were nudged away from caring about animal welfare concerns when they saw this.
I also think of this recent meme on twitter: It’s a misunderstanding of a research study that was done on conservative vs. progressive moral circles. Many disdainful memes being thrown around about “the libs” caring about rocks and trees more than about their own family members. A post on the moral importance of nematodes would nudge them further down that belief track I think.
Beyond the specifics (which Vasco goes into in his reply): These tweets are clearly not serious/principled/good-faith criticisms. If we are constantly moderating what we say to try to make sure that we don’t possibly give trolls any ammunition, then our discourse is forever at the mercy of those most hostile to the idea of doing good better. That’s not a good situation to be in. Far better, I say, to ignore the trolling.
I think this is a false binary. For sure we don’t have to always be at the “Mercy” of trolls, but we can be wise about what ideas to toss into any given public sphere at any point in time.
Saying crazy but philosophically valid things is fine as long as it’s useful. Many of our current morals would have looked crazy 300 years ago, so I’m glad people spoke up.
Nematode welfare is not productive conversation. The conclusions are clearly not tenable, the uncertainties too broad, the key questions (is a nematode life net good or bad) unanswerable. What is the purpose?
Thanks, Henry. The people who were put off the most by some caring about the barnacles were the ones caring about turtles the most relative to barnacles. So I think those people are the least likely to help turtles less, and help barnacles more in the future as a result of some caring about the barnacles. The people who were put off the most could still have been polarised, and therefore made less likely to help animals which are less charismatic than turtles, but more than barnacles. However, they could also have been made more likely to help such animals via the radical flank effect. There is going to be variation, but I expect that arguing for considering less charismatic animals tends to have the net effect of more people helping these.
More important than isolated concrete examples are the general trends, the thousand little nudges. Can’t measure this unfortunately.
Here’s an example of a tweet with 5k likes mocking someone suggesting that the welfare of barnacles that are being scraped off sea turtles is worth considering. Likely some of these 5k people were nudged away from caring about animal welfare concerns when they saw this.
I also think of this recent meme on twitter: It’s a misunderstanding of a research study that was done on conservative vs. progressive moral circles. Many disdainful memes being thrown around about “the libs” caring about rocks and trees more than about their own family members. A post on the moral importance of nematodes would nudge them further down that belief track I think.
Beyond the specifics (which Vasco goes into in his reply): These tweets are clearly not serious/principled/good-faith criticisms. If we are constantly moderating what we say to try to make sure that we don’t possibly give trolls any ammunition, then our discourse is forever at the mercy of those most hostile to the idea of doing good better. That’s not a good situation to be in. Far better, I say, to ignore the trolling.
I think this is a false binary. For sure we don’t have to always be at the “Mercy” of trolls, but we can be wise about what ideas to toss into any given public sphere at any point in time.
Saying crazy but philosophically valid things is fine as long as it’s useful. Many of our current morals would have looked crazy 300 years ago, so I’m glad people spoke up.
Nematode welfare is not productive conversation. The conclusions are clearly not tenable, the uncertainties too broad, the key questions (is a nematode life net good or bad) unanswerable. What is the purpose?
Thanks, Henry. The people who were put off the most by some caring about the barnacles were the ones caring about turtles the most relative to barnacles. So I think those people are the least likely to help turtles less, and help barnacles more in the future as a result of some caring about the barnacles. The people who were put off the most could still have been polarised, and therefore made less likely to help animals which are less charismatic than turtles, but more than barnacles. However, they could also have been made more likely to help such animals via the radical flank effect. There is going to be variation, but I expect that arguing for considering less charismatic animals tends to have the net effect of more people helping these.