"EA Vegan Advocacy is not truthseeking, and it’s everyone’s problem" by Elizabeth
Oct 3, 2023
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Elizabeth discusses the problems with EA Vegan Advocacy and the lack of truthseeking in effective altruism. The podcast explores the negative impact of EA vegan advocacy on truth seeking, challenges of vegan advocacy and exploring the nutritional completeness of plant-based food for cats. It also emphasizes the importance of truth-seeking in vegan advocacy and critiques claims on saturated fat, cholesterol, iron, lactose, and milk in a paper.
Vegan advocacy within effective altruism has actively lied and hindered truth-seeking, which requires nutritional education to ensure the well-being of vegans.
The epistemic immune system of effective altruism needs to be strengthened to address the suppression of inconvenient questions and the dismissal of opposing arguments within the vegan advocacy community.
Deep dives
EA Vegan Advocacy: Truth Seeking and Consequences
Effective altruism (EA) prides itself on truth seeking but falls short of its own standards. Vegan advocacy within EA has actively lied and hindered truth seeking by avoiding honest investigations. This hampers newcomers to EA who are denied a full understanding of the argument. There is a need for nutritional education within vegan advocacy to ensure the well-being of vegans. The epistemic immune system of EA needs to be strengthened to address the suppression of inconvenient questions, the framing control of implications, and the dismissal of opposing arguments. All effective altruists should prioritize preserving the epistemic commons and promoting truth-seeking.
Suppressing Inconvenient Questions and Framing Control
EA vegan advocacy has stifled discussions and imposed consequences for investigating questions it doesn't like, even for widely accepted positions like veganism as a constraint. Some advocates suppress public discussions on nutrition issues, hindering the identification of problems and potential solutions. Techniques like active suppression, ignoring arguments, and framing control have been observed within the vegan advocacy community. These practices undermine truth seeking and prevent productive conversations.
Citations and Known Faucets
Vegan advocacy within effective altruism often uses citations that are of poor quality and are abandoned when challenged. The practice of citing misleading or flawed sources undermines the integrity of evidence-based decision making. Efforts should be made to improve citation practices and encourage rigorous sourcing within the community. Additionally, known problems or inaccuracies, such as unreliable statistics, should be acknowledged and addressed rather than ignored until they become a public relations issue.
Preserving the Epistemic Commons Within EA
All members of the effective altruism community, not just vegan advocates, should prioritize the preservation of the epistemic commons. Accurate evidence is essential for making informed decisions and calculating utilities. Epistemic cooperation, legibility, responsiveness to arguments, and a commitment to truth-seeking are necessary to foster a strong epistemic immune system. By standing up for truth and actively fostering a culture of open inquiry, effective altruists can maintain the integrity of their movement and enhance their impact.
Effective altruism prides itself on truthseeking. That pride is justified in the sense that EA is better at truthseeking than most members of its reference category, and unjustified in that it is far from meeting its own standards. We’ve already seen dire consequences of the inability to detect bad actors who deflect investigation into potential problems, but by its nature you can never be sure you’ve found all the damage done by epistemic obfuscation because the point is to be self-cloaking.
My concern here is for the underlying dynamics of EA’s weak epistemic immune system, not any one instance. But we can’t analyze the problem without real examples, so individual instances need to be talked about. Worse, the examples that are easiest to understand are almost by definition the smallest problems, which makes any scapegoating extra unfair. So don’t.
This post focuses on a single example: vegan advocacy, especially around nutrition. I believe vegan advocacy as a cause has both actively lied and raised the cost for truthseeking, because they were afraid of the consequences of honest investigations. Occasionally there’s a consciously bad actor I can just point to, but mostly this is an emergent phenomenon from people who mean well, and have done good work in other areas. That’s why scapegoating won’t solve the problem: we need something systemic.