Yeah, most of my suggestions were semi-intentionally outside the Overton window, and the reaction to them is appropriately emotional. A more logical approach from an animal welfare proponent would be something along the lines of “People have researched various non-mainstream ideas before and found them all suboptimal, see this link …” or “This is an interesting approach that has not been investigated much, I see a number of obvious problems with it, but it’s worth investigating further.” etc.
On the one hand, “it’s probably better to pursue strategies for animal suffering reduction that most people in the movement could get behind” is a very reasonable view. On the other hand, a big part of EA is looking into unconventional ways to do good, and focusing on what’s acceptable for the mainstream right off the bat does not match that.
Yeah, most of my suggestions were semi-intentionally outside the Overton window, and the reaction to them is appropriately emotional. A more logical approach from an animal welfare proponent would be something along the lines of “People have researched various non-mainstream ideas before and found them all suboptimal, see this link …” or “This is an interesting approach that has not been investigated much, I see a number of obvious problems with it, but it’s worth investigating further.” etc.
On the one hand, “it’s probably better to pursue strategies for animal suffering reduction that most people in the movement could get behind” is a very reasonable view. On the other hand, a big part of EA is looking into unconventional ways to do good, and focusing on what’s acceptable for the mainstream right off the bat does not match that.