The “Ignoring known falsehoods until they’re a PR problem” section seems a bit out of place. The other examples you point out seem to be of vegans not wanting to discuss possible nutritional issues with veganism because they don’t want to make statements that are semantically associated with normative claims endorsing a world with nonzero animal agriculture.
But with ACE, it seems like the answer to the question of whether pamphleting is an effective way to get people to reduce their animal product consumption is orthogonal to whether or not people should go vegan or become vegan activists, right? After all, if you want there to be more vegans, and that’s what’s really emotionally motivating you, you should be very open to evidence indicating pamphleting is ineffective so that activists can spend their time doing something better. I feel like if ACE was being epistemically unreasonable as to which forms of vegan activism are most effective, that would be an example of general “I don’t want to admit that I’m wrong about something” behavior rather than “I don’t want to reveal true information that will harm the growth of a movement I’m attached to” behavior.
The “Ignoring known falsehoods until they’re a PR problem” section seems a bit out of place. The other examples you point out seem to be of vegans not wanting to discuss possible nutritional issues with veganism because they don’t want to make statements that are semantically associated with normative claims endorsing a world with nonzero animal agriculture.
But with ACE, it seems like the answer to the question of whether pamphleting is an effective way to get people to reduce their animal product consumption is orthogonal to whether or not people should go vegan or become vegan activists, right? After all, if you want there to be more vegans, and that’s what’s really emotionally motivating you, you should be very open to evidence indicating pamphleting is ineffective so that activists can spend their time doing something better. I feel like if ACE was being epistemically unreasonable as to which forms of vegan activism are most effective, that would be an example of general “I don’t want to admit that I’m wrong about something” behavior rather than “I don’t want to reveal true information that will harm the growth of a movement I’m attached to” behavior.