seanwelsh77

I don't buy the assumption that seems to be implied that many arguments have to be weak and a single argument has to be strong.

Why not have many strong reasons instead of one weak reason?

Certainly for complex questions I find multi-threaded answers more convincing than single-threaded ones.

Fox over hedgehog for me.

In terms of picking a major, do something you enjoy that you can conceivably use to get a job. You can actually get a job with a philosophy degree. I did... after I quit accounting because it was too darn boring...

More research...

Gerd Gigerenzer's views on heuristics in moral decision making are very interesting though.

The will of the few people funding the super PACs which are telling the sheeple what to bleat, in the few states whose result matter.

The sheeple? That is a contemptuous remark. You should withdraw it.

There are no super PACs in my country. We have sensible electoral laws Down Under... Sensible gun laws too. Oh and Medicare for all without any squibbing, mandatory 401ks for all workers. And freedom... Lot of good stuff...

What is your constructive alternative to voting and political activism?

What are you offering? Some cafe society "I am vastly superior to the bleating sheeple masses" pose?

Or I will take a long shot and get rich and buy the country option?

FYI, People did die for the right to own slaves. They LOST. There is a subtle but important difference.

You have to fight to win. You got nothing but rationalizing your chicken out cynicism option.

Seriously, how much effort goes into voting? Perhaps an hour at the most?

Compared to how much tax gets taken off you every day it seems that having some minor influence in guiding the assembly that sets the budget for the spending of said tax is worth your while. If only to sack a representative assembly that displeases you.

What virtues are displayed by not voting? Sloth? Indifference?

If no one voted how would democratic government work?

Does voting increase utility? In a single case not by much but in the aggregate the people can remove a government that displeases them. This is surely better than the alternative (shoot them out as in Syria today).

The fact that Super PACs pay money to persuade people to vote speaks to the value of your vote not its worthlessness.

I think there are reasonable grounds for making the modest effort required to vote.

Fascinating paper. Will there be a release of the code used? I would like to be able to play these games and tinker with the code myself.

Hacking is believing...

I think you should put out a game called Modal Combat!

Quite so. The OP I think is more concerned about factory farming than the more traditional grazing approaches to cattle. But I think if you push a morality too far up against the hill of human desire it will collapse. Many activists overestimate the "care factor". My ability to care is pretty limited. I can't and won't care about 7 billion other humans on this planet except in the thinnest and most meaningless senses (i.e. stated preferences in surveys which are near worthless) let along the x billion animals. In terms of revealed preferences (where I put my dollars and power) I favour the near and the dear over the stranger and the genetically unrelated.

A difficulty of utilitarianism is the question of felicific exchange rates. If you cast morality as a utility function then you are obliged to come up with answers to bizarre hypothetical questions like how many ice-creams is the life of your first born worth because you have defined the right in terms of maximized utility.

If you cast morality as a dispute avoidance mechanism between social agents possessed with power and desire then you are less likely to end up in this kind of dead-end but the price of this casting is the recognition that different agents will have different values and that objectivity of morals is not always possible.