Effective Altruism and Virtue Signaling: Diana Fleischman interviews Geoffrey Miller

Can virtue signaling do any real good -- like in the 'Effective Altruism' (EA) movement? In this video, Diana Fleischman (evolutionary psychology professor) interviews Geoffrey Miller about his new ebook 'Virtue Signaling', and its lessons for EA, which uses reason and evidence to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of sentient beings, human or non-human, present or far-future.

My other books most related to this topic are:

[Qstandsforred]

19:16 I think EA still needs to work on the difference between causing suffering and preventing suffering. Analogizing to domestic violence, saying _"I don't hit my kids anymore, I only hit my wife, so my suffering footprint is _*_massively_*_ reduced."_ That should sound "weird and psychopathic and terrible" to an EA just as much as what you said sounds so to a vegan. If they further say _"I also donate to charity to offset the beating I still do, "_ then an EA should nod and think "yeah, that makes sense. Still, you should probably stop."

[BawsMode]

Effective altruism seems like the epitome of virtue signaling

[tmporallbow]

Aren't bivalves also the only farmed fish that give you more fish than you put in? That's a win.
Also - Hypocrisy: From my cold, dead hands...

[MecaniCiencia]

The barrel distortion of the lens doesnt favor Diana, she's cuter.

[DRFelixelixir]

After a few days of retreat in a remote secret cave, continuously doing Vipassana and feeding only on sun light; after talking with a couple of Boddhisattvas, a few evolutionary biology teachers, and various groups of animal protection volunteers, a few questions still remain:

If 1 whale can offer the same number of calories as 73658657837579 sardines, what is more recommendable to kill from the Ethical Effective Vegetarianism point of view? What weights more: the number of individuals or how fat they are? Whatever the answer is, could it be applied to humans? Knowing that a whale sashimi is much more desirable than a few sardines in a can, how much this variable will affect the Epicurean segment of the population in making their decision? Is there any book on the Utilitarian Ethical Effective Vegetarianism (UEEV)?

[tribalypredisposed]

I tried Effective Altruism and I, unfortunately, concluded it was an extremely ineffective movement for several reasons. First, the focus does not reflect the philosophy. Veganism is great, but can you effectively convince people to become and remain vegans? In 1971 1% of Americans were vegetarians, in 2008 3.2% were, and 0.5% were vegans. By 2015 3.4% were vegetarians but just 0.4% were vegans. I have seen nothing from EA that remotely indicates that EA will achieve anything at all by focusing on veganism. As a vegetarian since 1974, I have met many many ex vegetarians and vegans. It is not enough to just convince people to try being vegan or vegetarian, to be effective requires figuring out how to keep them from starting to eat meat again. I frankly think it is a hugely ineffective use of EA time and resources. Elon Musk is right that we are unlikely to convince enough people to give up cars and bike everywhere instead or give up nice cars for a crappy "green" car. Instead we have to offer them something better than what they have. Until we have something better to offer than meat, I think the vegan push is an extremely ineffective waste of EA resources.

The existential risk EA folks are astonishing to me because they focus on low odds potential future risks when: 1) humans as a rule are going to tend to ignore those and be unwilling to take any action and 2) we are right now for real facing an existential threat called climate change that EA super wants to ignore.

Beyond these issues, I found EA members to be EXTREMELY closed minded and to, on average, believe that they were the masters of all realms of human knowledge. I had DEMANDS for arguments by authority, I had people with BAs in programming suggesting they could: help me learn how to write well, review my work in economics and evolutionary theory and parasitology, judge whether my work in such disciplines was novel, make expert judgements on political paradigms novel to them...

There SHOULD BE an Effective Altruism movement, what exists now is not one.

[zekelerossignol]

Veganism creates human suffering though!