Conspiracy theorists are clowns.

This seems like a "No True Scotsman" statement to me. Your whole thesis here - that malicious actors would use social media and big data to manipulate people en masse - is clearly a "conspiracy theory". 

But of course when you say that conspiracy theorists are clowns, you don't mean that. You mean the clownish kind of conspiracy theorist...

Now I am confused. Do you care about animal ethics as part of your commitment to effective altruism? If so, how can you do that without reasoning about it? Or do you just ignore the animals?

Thanks for the response. 

I suppose you do not have any interest in effective altruism either?

Thanks for the response.

You make it sound as though enjoyment and suffering are just arbitrary and unimportant shorthands to describe certain mechanistic processes.

From that perspective, how do you reason about animal ethics? For that matter, why does any ethics matter at all?

I do not think I communicated my point properly. Let me try again:

Showing compassion is not free. It has a cost. To show compassion for someone you might need to take action to help them, or refrain from taking some action that might harm them.

How much effort do you spend on showing compassion for a human being?

How much effort do you spend on showing compassion for an earthworm?

How much effort do you spend on showing compassion for a plant?

How much effort do you spend on showing compassion for an NPC in a video game?

I don't know about you, but I am willing to expend a decent amount of effort into compassion for a human. Less for an earthworm, but still some, because I suspect the earthworm can experience joy and suffering. Even less for a plant, because I suspect that it probably cannot experience anything. And I put close to zero effort into compassion for an NPC in a video game, because I am fairly convinced that the NPC cannot experience anything (if I show the NPC compassion, it is for my own sake, not theirs).

But I might be wrong. If a philosophical argument could convince me that any of these things experience more or less than I thought they did, I would adjust my priorities accordingly.

I have another question: It seems to me that philosophy of mind is valuable for ethical reasons because it attempts to figure out which things have minds that can experience enjoyment and suffering, which has implications for how we should act. Do you disagree?

Thanks. What is PNSE? "Persistent non-symbolic experience"?

Good question!

I have gained a lot of emotion handling skill. This lets me be calmer and kinder to my wife and my son and other people. It also means I suffer less because I can more easily detect negative thoughts and feelings and (to some extent) disengage from them rather than feed them.

I am also slowly getting better at actively cultivating positive/happy/pleasant mind states.

Neat! Thanks!

I speak not from experience here, but according to my limited understanding, the idea is that most or all ideas of the "self" are more-or-less arbitrary abstractions like the Ship of Theseus. 

Via western philosophy of mind you can gain some understanding of this idea and convince yourself that it is probably true, but via meditation AFAIU it becomes possible to observe this directly in your own mind.

The benefits of "transcending" the concept of self, I believe, is that you suffer less and become happier.