Matt is the author, co-author, secondary-author, ghost-author, and non-author of articles, speeches, book chapters, and even entire books! The most recent is his blockbuster* The Accidental Activist (which Amazon claims is by his wife Anne Green. So it goes.). Currently, he is President of One Step for Animals; previously, he was shitcanned from more nonprofits than there is room to list here. (Although there’s still time for more!) Before Matt’s unfortunate encounter with activism, he was an aerospace engineer who wanted to work for NASA (to impress Carl Sagan).
His hobbies include photography, almost dying, and XXXXXX (Hey! This is a family-friendly website! -ed). He lives in Tucson with Anne, along with no dogs, no cats, and no African tortoises, although he cares for all of these via friends and family.
*JK
MattBall
Happy with every effort to help reduce burnout. We would all do well to take ourselves a little less seriously. (I wish I had understood that decades ago.)
I’m in the same situation, having finally gotten to One Step for Animals.
The moral needs PBM. It is the only way to get there. Decades of moral arguments have left us with record-high per-capita consumption of animals.
https://www.mattball.org/2016/10/what-have-we-learned.html
Love this. Would “trying to undermine the Catholic church” fall under this as well?
>Astronomical value begone!
<swoon>
Our kid graduated HS in 2012. They and their best friend both got rejected from Stanford, while a classmate who was a legacy with significantly lower grades, SATs, and extracurriculars got in. It was fine; the friend went to MIT and EK went to Pomona (which is FANTASTIC OMG).
More: https://www.mattball.org/2016/04/ellen-stalwart.html
This is the best thing I’ve read on this Forum!
Thanks for posting this. Good luck with finding a decent medical regiment!
Honestly, this is why I won’t be engaging with comments.
How is this a question based on anything I’ve written? I’m arguing that we should reduce unnecessary suffering that exists right now. So instead of addressing that, you accuse me of advocating of wanting to kill all humans?
Good faith, indeed. Yikes.
Anyone with legit questions and insights (as I said, I could be wrong!) knows where to find me.
Over and out.
Against Longtermism: I welcome our robot overlords, and you should too!
I changed my mind about promoting veganism.
https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/5/27/15701168/save-animal-lives-eat-beef-not-chicken
Thanks. I’ve seen gallons of digital ink spilled on wild animal suffering, but from everything I can tell, approximately zero has been accomplished.
I’ve known a key wild-animal suffering person since he was trying to seduce a way-underage girl. I have watched his “evolution” over the years, and he is driven (IMO) to show he’s smarter than everyone else, full stop.
I can’t speak to the motivations of others, but many seem to be motivated to talk rather than have any actual impact in the world. (The same goes for many vegans, too.)
Thanks, Michael. This is what I’ve been looking for. I’ll check out your links.
I tend to agree with Ryder, although I don’t know how thorough his framework is.
Thanks again.
PS: Hey Michael, those links were interesting. Do you have a good link to go into more about “limited aggregation”?
Thanks,
-Matthew Michael
I understand that you lose a lot (and I appreciate your blog posts). But that is not an argument that additivity is correct. As I’ve written for my upcoming book:
Imagine a universe that has only two worlds, World R and World FL. In World R, Ricky the Rooster is the only sentient being, and is suffering in an absolutely miserable life.
This is bad. But where is it bad? In Ricky’s consciousness. And nowhere else.
On World FL, Rooster Foghorn is living in one forest and Rooster Leghorn is living in a separate forest. They are the World FL’s only sentient beings, and don’t know each other. Their lives are as bad as Ricky’s.
Our natural response is to think that World FL is twice as bad as World R. But where could it possibly be twice as bad? Foghorn’s life is bad in his consciousness and nowhere else. Leghorn’s life is bad in his consciousness and nowhere else.
Where is their world twice as bad as Ricky’s?
Nowhere.
Okay, yes, I admit it is twice as bad in your mind and my mind. But we are not part of that universe. Imagine that these worlds are unknown to any other sentient being. Then there is simply nowhere that World FL is worse than World R.
In this universe, there are three worlds and only three worlds: one in each of their minds.
Tell me where I am factually wrong. Please, I’m asking you. My life would be much easier and happier if you would.
Don’t say that the implications of this insight leads to absurd conclusions that offend our intuitions. I already know that! Just tell me where am I factually wrong.
I know (oh, yes, I know) that this seems like it can’t possibly be right. This is because we can’t help but be utilitarian in this regard, just like we can’t help but feel like we are in control of our consciousness and our decisions and our choices.
But I can see no way around this simple fact: morally-relevant “badness” exists only in individual consciousnesses.
With regards to wild animal suffering, my main point is tractability.
I saw this headline in the Digest and clicked over. The sincere question I have is: Is this forum many people’s lives? That is fine—why not—but it does seem like quite a few people live here, commenting and then re-commenting.
I’m only just seeing this piece now. Very good! It is similar to points I’ve tried to make over the years:
https://www.mattball.org/2016/01/big-numbers-hurt-animals-revisited.html
Nah. Never terminate deliberation.
;-)
Thanks so very much for this! Makes an important point in a funny but irrefutable way. I’ve tried to take this on seriously ( https://www.mattball.org/2020/12/repeat-kinda-against-ea-utilitarianism.html ) and Vox has as well: https://www.vox.com/2015/8/10/9124145/effective-altruism-global-ai
Thanks again. You rock!
Congratulations on being one of the winners of the contest.
Having spent most of my adult life promoting veganism, it is pretty sad to know that ACE found “Around 1% of adults both self-identify as vegetarians and report never consuming meat. It seems that this percentage has not changed substantially since the mid-1990s.” That is why One Step for Animals pursues a different path.
I think there is a deeper problem, though, at least in the United States, as I document in the “The End of Veganism” chapter in Losing My Religions.