Fat Acceptance

[Red]

Rich from ReviewTechUSA made a good video about this:
https://youtu.be/8VlzUKfxTWE
What do you guys think?

[brimstoneSalad]

Rich from ReviewTechUSA made a good video about this:
https://youtu.be/8VlzUKfxTWE
What do you guys think?

That was pretty good!

[Narahs_stark]

I agree, it's a harmful idea; in this case, physically harmful. It's much like recognizing ebonics as a second language (harmful to black students, since it divides society).

People have a hard time seeing a middle ground between the extremes of public shaming/ridicule and hatred, and unquestioning acceptance.

A little shame about being overweight is important, and even good, to motivate weight loss -- but it should be shame in the behaviors that contribute the weight gain, and in the fat itself, not of the person in general for anything (otherwise it's hard for them to feel motivated). And we definitely must not shame weight loss efforts (which is a big problem today). Shame is one of those things that, like any medication, has to be carefully measured and balanced.
For people who have nothing about themselves to be proud of, it can be difficult, because all they are is fat, and all that is is shameful -- particularly with all of the myths about it just being a person's natural body type or metabolism, and that it can't be changed, or all of the ridiculous fad diets.
There's so much misinformation out there.

Spot on! There's also the issue of people leading stressful lives, the easy availability of cheap junk food, and the general lack of understanding regarding nutrition and health.

[PsYcHo]

My SO's aunt and uncle are both massively obese. (400+ easy) Her aunt doesn't talk about it, but her uncle explained it to us once like this.

"Lots of people have addictions, and I'm a food addict. The difference is, if you want to quit drinking or doing drugs, you can just stop them all together. To survive, I have to indulge my addiction everyday while still trying to limit how much I eat."

Of course he's not implying that his lifestyle is healthy or something to be proud of, so I respect his openness.

[inator]

This is a distinction EquALLity has tried to draw a few times, but I don't think it works in practice. Shaming any trait or behavior of a person may shame that person (from that person's perspective) if he or she identifies existentially with that trait or behavior.

People strongly identify with their physical appearances, negative or positive, so shaming any aspect related to that can be interpreted as shaming the person, whether intentional or not.

Its a similar difference as between throwing an ad hominem versus criticizing the argument. Maybe there shouldn't be a difference, since the person is being stupid (or at least confused) in the moment. But people are emotional creatures and the way you frame things does matter in terms of the results you'll get. This should be taken into consideration if the goal is to help others do better rather than to just ridicule them. And I don't see the practical purpose of ridiculing anyone.

What x said is stupid. X is not stupid. Obesity is a problem that an obese person has. An obese person is not a problem. Language matters.

I've seen that around, I think it's a growing myth in the fat acceptance and fat positive movements.

Oh, I'd make a distinction between fat acceptance and fat positive.

HAES is about health. Pseudoscience around health is at the root of the movement, no different from Freelee's RT4 and HCLF nonsense. Metabolic damage, and all of that nonsense.

Fabrey helped Louderback research his subsequent book, Fat Power, and Louderback supported Fabrey in founding the National Association to Aid Fat Americans (NAAFA) in 1969, a nonprofit human rights organization. NAAFA would subsequently change its name by the mid-1980s to the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.

It's right in the name "Fat Acceptance"; it seems to have stemmed from the propaganda arm of the HAES crowd.

Thanks for showing me this, I wasn't aware of this organization. Yes, they're obviously promoting pseudo-science and shouldn't be supported.
I don't identify with their views just like you probably don't identify with the views of the assholy fat shamers. These are both extremes.

They must be stupid or lack will power, because if neither of these were true they could lose weight if they wanted. And they must want to lose weight, because only a crazy person would want to be so fat due to the severe health concerns.

These are all profound indictments of character.

I don't necessarily take a fat person to be weaker willed than a skinny person. Had the skinny person grown up in a family where their habits were shaped differently and had that person been overweight since childhood, had had a much higher count of fat cells as a result, and a messed up reward system in the brain, then that person might have had the same problem. These comparisons of will power or "smartness" in being fit can't be made so easily.

If a formerly fat person has lost a lot a weight (and kept it off) against really bad odds, there's a good chance that he or she is much more strong willed and organized than the average skinny person.
A person who got fat through no fault of his own and has been like that since childhood, as many fat people are, may not have a weaker willpower or intelligence than a skinny person at all. Not getting fat is not equivalent to losing weight.

Yet if we agree that some people got fat because of how they were raised and not because they were stupid or weak willed enough to gain the weight, then why isn't a larger percentage of them successful when they try to lose the weight as adults? Look at the statistics of how many obese people actually succeed in losing weight and keep it off. They're depressing. It doesn't all come down to character.

I think aesthetics track crudely to follow perceptions of health. It's also the case with disease, or things that are "dirty". Evolutionarily, that is the purpose, and culturally there seem to be parallels as well.
While it's a superficial reason, that doesn't mean there aren't deeper justifications for those feelings. Most people seem to find those in health and wellness.
[...]
Anyway, my point is that aesthetic reactions can't always be written off as completely shallow.
On some meaningful level, it's ugly because it's unhealthy, and people don't want to see it for the same reason they don't want to see open festering oozing sores everywhere.

Crudely. Even if that's true, its pretty irrelevant from a pragmatic point of view.

We could say that fat people have a responsibility to lose weight for a number of reasons, but to please others aesthetically is not one of them. If people do not want to be decent human beings in dealing with others, they should at least mind their own business and accept that others don't exist to please them. This should be common sense.

I've seen too many overweight people get bullied, to think 'yeah, but the bully has a point somehow'. It's not done out of concern for the other or to have a positive impact, it's done out of assholeness.
You said yourself that judging others only has as much value as it influences the affected people to change. If it has a practical purpose.
Yet in most of the fat shaming tactics, it has no such purpose. It's pure bullying.

Anyway, that's not what you're promoting, so it doesn't make much sense to talk about it.
Keeping this problem solving purpose in mind, I don't think blaming or shaming obese people helps too much in achieving success. On the contrary, it makes the people in question become defensive and causes reactions like HAES.
It's much more important to find out why so many people are having this problem and how to help them fix it according to their individual needs.

Also, and probably more importantly, trying to fix the problem from the top as well. After all, almost half of the West's population hasn't magically become weak willed in the past few decades. No, there's a systematic problem.
It's like causing the collapse of the economy and then blaming the rise in criminality (or even poverty) on the individuals. Sure, each individual who became a criminal or poor made some bad choices and we could say it's their own fault to some extent, but fault is irrelevant. If you want to fix a societal problem, have a look at the incentives too.

Making it a bit harder for people to get fast food will have a greater effect than shaming them for wanting fast food. Investing in some free education materials about healthy nutrition in line with government recommendations, even free sessions with dietitians, will save a lot of money in terms of medical care and productivity at work.
Introducing healthy food options at the work place and starting a healthy eating challenge will have much better effects than shaking our heads when a fat person eats a doughnut. The goal is to use the power of community to make it easier for them to make the right choices, not to create a frustration loop by shaming them.

It's similar to how we agree that shaming non-vegans and calling them murderers (since the information is out there and if they were just strong willed, intelligent and decent enough, they should have become vegan instantly) is probably not the most effective strategy. Let's work with what we've got, not with how things should be.

Only by changing the perceptions of ill health associated with obesity can these aesthetic positions be fully undermined, and that's a dangerous gambit that means allying with pseudoscience.

There's a difference in nuance. The point is not to undermine aesthetic positions or to force anyone to think that something is attractive. It's to stress that no one has an obligation to please others aesthetically.

I think the bigger issue, as I've mentioned before, is that they're often shamed when trying to lose weight, like by running or going to the gym, or buying and eating healthier foods. It draws attention to them. AND worse yet, they're often shamed by their fat peers and family and made fun of for trying to lose weight.
This kind of thing makes a quick fix more appealing.

Yes, this is probably the biggest issue.

That may be true in some sense, but you can also build up your will power: it can be exercised like anything, and a substantial influence limiting it is actually your expectation. Placebos can be pretty powerful at regenerating willpower. In some sense, it may be limited by our beliefs that it's limited.

Is there a common belief that willpower is limited? Most opinions seem to point in the direction of "If you just want something badly enough, you can do it through sheer willpower" or "I'm only failing because I wasn't strong enough yesterday, last month and last year. Tomorrow this will change." Which may be true for some marginal examples, but a more pragmatic approach would be to organize things around you in a way that allows you to dole out your willpower and use up less of it in general.
Otherwise quick fixes would be perfectly doable for anyone who has simply exercised their willpower muscle hard enough. But the point is to help the average person lose weight.

It's important not to shame the more reasonable fat shamers, though, who want to ensure that obesity remains at least somewhat shameful and socially unacceptable, but are happy to encourage those who are working to lose weight and open to the use of positive incentives too. Removing the negative isn't likely to help the situation.

I'm not shaming them, I'm saying their tactics are counterproductive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ARVUy43lOQ

Please, for Pete's sake, slap a Katie Hopkins warning on that stuff before you post it.

[brimstoneSalad]

Its a similar difference as between throwing an ad hominem versus criticizing the argument. Maybe there shouldn't be a difference, since the person is being stupid (or at least confused) in the moment.

When the thing you're criticizing is people's behavior, incorrect beliefs, or attributes the people identify with, people tend to take that personally as a criticism of them whether you want them to or not. No matter how carefully you phrase it, a significant number of people are bound to be offended and view it as a personal attack: it will probably be called a "veiled personal attack" if you phrase it very nicely.

It's not just that there shouldn't be a difference: a significant number of people will not see a difference anyway (even if there is one, which I doubt: one is just less direct).

But people are emotional creatures and the way you frame things does matter in terms of the results you'll get.

I agree, and it's sometimes worth it to phrase things more carefully. But since it's not entirely up to you, but rather to how the person takes it, there's only so much you can do.

This should be taken into consideration if the goal is to help others do better rather than to just ridicule them. And I don't see the practical purpose of ridiculing anyone.

I disagree on that point: ridicule is powerful. It has legs and it has teeth. It's rebroadcasted, heard more widely, and sticks with people more. I think there are practical purposes for ridicule: although it's best used when sensible conversation breaks down.
It's hard to argue with the pseudoscience of HAES if somebody rejects the science. The only recourse to some stubborn beliefs and behaviors is ridicule and social shaming. And that is of course unfortunate.

What x said is stupid. X is not stupid. Obesity is a problem that an obese person has. An obese person is not a problem. Language matters.

There are cases where that's true. One's approach should be tailored to the situation. There are also cases where you'll be accused of fat shaming no matter what you say, or how nicely, and how much you try to let people save face.

What kind of person makes a stupid argument? Apparently a stupid one. Most people seem keen enough to make that connection, at least, and take offense even when you don't intend it. And they're probably right. They are being stupid, and in a roundabout way we are calling them on that.

Oh, I'd make a distinction between fat acceptance and fat positive.

The HAES community doesn't seem to.
Accepting fat means saying it's OK to be obese, which implies it's healthy, not harmful to the environment, etc.

Of course we can come from the angle of 'accepting' people without accepting everything they do. Maybe we shouldn't say "acceptance" though. How about "tolerance"?

We can be tolerant of the obese without agreeing with them. As soon as we accept the fat itself, that has at least neutral and probably positive connotations.

Thanks for showing me this, I wasn't aware of this organization. Yes, they're obviously promoting pseudo-science and shouldn't be supported.
I don't identify with their views just like you probably don't identify with the views of the assholy fat shamers. These are both extremes.

I'm agnostic to the techniques of the assholy fat shamers. They aren't outright advocating pseudoscience, they're just being mean.

Shame has been a powerful social tool for conformity for many thousands of years: I'm not ready to dismiss it so casually because of a few weak and not very scientific studies coming out of the social justice warrior dominated field of social "sciences".

I want to know when, and how much shame is appropriate. Obviously too much water can kill somebody, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't drink. I'm interested in dose-response, or better proof that shame in any amount in any context is harmful. I don't believe it is, since I haven't seen evidence of that. Of course shame doesn't feel good, but if it can be motivating the benefits may outweigh the cost.

Of course carrot is often better than stick in behavioral training, but that ignores the context and application. If stick is a million times cheaper and easier than carrot and only one hundredth as effective, stick becomes the obvious choice.

I don't necessarily take a fat person to be weaker willed than a skinny person. [...] These comparisons of will power or "smartness" in being fit can't be made so easily.

Like I said before, a skinny person isn't proof of a strong will; it may be due to more dumb luck of genetics and environment. A fat person tends to be evidence of the opposite, though.
Some people are thin and fit because of strong wills and being smart, some are just lucky. Virtually all fat people are ultimately suffering from a weak will or some form of stupidity or ignorance (or they have an underlying medical condition and need to be on medication).

If a formerly fat person has lost a lot a weight (and kept it off) against really bad odds, there's a good chance that he or she is much more strong willed and organized than the average skinny person.

Sure, a formerly fat person trumps a skinny person who was lucky. People change. We're not born with a set will power. Mindset changes, knowledge can grow, ambition can be inspired.

Somebody who used to be fat is a very different and likely better person than he or she used to be.

Yet if we agree that some people got fat because of how they were raised and not because they were stupid or weak willed enough to gain the weight, then why isn't a larger percentage of them successful when they try to lose the weight as adults?

I think you've mistaken the claim. I don't think anybody is claiming people who grew up fat were weak willed as children to gain the weight.
The claim that they are stupid or weak willed is because they have not yet lost the weight once they realized the problem.

Look at the statistics of how many obese people actually succeed in losing weight and keep it off. They're depressing. It doesn't all come down to character.

I think that is evidence of character. The same way people who smoke are providing evidence of character, since it's a safe assumption that they know they should quit.

A skinny person who is not a smoker simply hasn't provided evidence upon which to judge yet.

I'll try to get to the rest soon.

[brimstoneSalad]

Crudely. Even if that's true, its pretty irrelevant from a pragmatic point of view.

My point is that it's not a good argument to say people are just focused on aesthetics, because you can't assume what reasoning underlies that.
It's like the carnists' argument that vegans are just bleeding heart hippies who cry about cute animals dying. It's a red herring: why are people concerned with these animals dying? Is it really fully irrational as is claimed? That would mean claiming to know for certainty the motivations of others; it's a weak claim, and I don't think it does anything to undermine the credibility of the argument or answer questions of efficacy.

We could say that fat people have a responsibility to lose weight for a number of reasons, but to please others aesthetically is not one of them. If people do not want to be decent human beings in dealing with others, they should at least mind their own business and accept that others don't exist to please them. This should be common sense.

The aesthetic argument could go either way: lose weight, or put on more clothes. There is a sense of social propriety and having consideration for others. Respect for others means being appropriately dressed, clean, etc.

I've seen too many overweight people get bullied, to think 'yeah, but the bully has a point somehow'. It's not done out of concern for the other or to have a positive impact, it's done out of assholeness.

Regardless of why it's done, what's the effect?

Some people bully for amusement, some criticize to help. How is this different if it's taken in the same way? How much difference does intent really make if the consequences are the same?

You said yourself that judging others only has as much value as it influences the affected people to change. If it has a practical purpose.
Yet in most of the fat shaming tactics, it has no such purpose. It's pure bullying.

If people are using ineffective or counterproductive tactics, that is something that should be first proved, then stopped (assuming the effort to stop it or redirect it is effective for the resource expenditure).

Anyway, that's not what you're promoting, so it doesn't make much sense to talk about it.

I don't promote it because I don't have evidence it's effective. BUT I also don't have evidence that it's counterproductive. So I can't really criticize it either.

For all I know, the bullying may inspire people to finally get fit, and the fall in bullying rates and rise of fat acceptance could be the cause of the rising obesity epidemic, and the reason fewer overweight people believe they're overweight, and why fewer are even trying to do anything about it.

All we have is limited data that implies a correlation, but there are too many variables to nail down causes in any of these cases.

It's easy to criticize pseudoscience, because it's so easy to debunk: it's empirically false and logically inconsistent. But nitpicking over hypothetically effective methods is much more difficult. We don't have enough good evidence to make strong claims here.

Keeping this problem solving purpose in mind, I don't think blaming or shaming obese people helps too much in achieving success. On the contrary, it makes the people in question become defensive and causes reactions like HAES.
It's much more important to find out why so many people are having this problem and how to help them fix it according to their individual needs.

That's a perfectly fine hypothesis. If you can prove it with concrete numbers on efficacy and show how the current trend is counterproductive, etc. then I'm on board.

It could also be that HAES can only be destroyed with shaming and ridicule, since it's based on pseudoscience, and that the slack in fat shaming and growing obesity epidemic is what created this. It could be that the fear of being seen as a bully or shamer is what has given "cry bullies" the power they have today.

I think the problem is pretty clear from the perspective of health science. Bad food and an excess calorie intake. The psychological aspects probably stem from society letting itself go and letting up on social shame for this behavior, and letting parents get their children so fat (which is child abuse, and needs to be seen that way).

Also, and probably more importantly, trying to fix the problem from the top as well. After all, almost half of the West's population hasn't magically become weak willed in the past few decades.

I don't think it's magic. We've likely softened up due to lack of criticism and low expectations.
Food got worse at the same time, and fatty and sweet foods along with an advertising bombardment and high animal product consumption haven't helped. I'm glad to do something about that too. I don't think targeting people who are "shaming" for criticism is productive, though. For all we know, it could even be effective.

Making it a bit harder for people to get fast food will have a greater effect than shaming them for wanting fast food.

Probably true, but one of those things is much easier than the other.

Investing in some free education materials about healthy nutrition in line with government recommendations, even free sessions with dietitians, will save a lot of money in terms of medical care and productivity at work.

The government is already trying to do some of this, but a public education campaign is monumentally expensive.

The joy the shamers get out of shaming, if they're given permission to do it and are told it's the right thing to do, makes it profoundly cheap.
One is an uphill battle, and the other can snowball down a hill and start an avalanche with the tiniest push.

From the perspective of a virtue ethicist it may seem abominable, but what's the effect per unit of input?

Introducing healthy food options at the work place and starting a healthy eating challenge will have much better effects than shaking our heads when a fat person eats a doughnut. The goal is to use the power of community to make it easier for them to make the right choices, not to create a frustration loop by shaming them.

That's all great in theory, and it would be nice, but what's the cost?

It's similar to how we agree that shaming non-vegans and calling them murderers (since the information is out there and if they were just strong willed, intelligent and decent enough, they should have become vegan instantly) is probably not the most effective strategy. Let's work with what we've got, not with how things should be.

They also make up an overwhelming majority. And while it's not the most effective, it is cheap, and it's hard to argue with the amount of attention Yourofsky and Freelee generate. If they just weren't nutcases advocating pseudoscience, they might do a lot more good (particularly in Freelee's case).
A controversial message has legs, and while it's important for us to speak up and say "hey, that's wrong!", in some sense we're playing the role of the good cop here.

Take Yourofsky: Even if only one in a thousand who hear his message change their behavior, so many more hear his message than a more moderate message that doesn't get any press, and it puts so many pebbles in so many shoes, that it may be ultimately more effective -- not in terms of percentage, but in terms of total number reached.

It's very likely that people need to hear a harsh message AND a moderate one to have optimal effect.

It's to stress that no one has an obligation to please others aesthetically.

We kind of do, though: or at least not to offend them. There are laws about decency, and bylaws about home and lawn upkeep.

Is there a common belief that willpower is limited?

Seems to be, at least in terms of what people feel they're entitled to. E.g. "I did a good job so I get a reward".

A recent Scishow talked about it, so it seems to be a common perspective:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MDNvKXdLEM

The issue seems to be complicated.

Otherwise quick fixes would be perfectly doable for anyone who has simply exercised their willpower muscle hard enough. But the point is to help the average person lose weight.

And somebody who has exercised his actual muscles enough can lift a car. Most people aren't at that point, though.
Working up to things gradually seems to be the way to go for the average person. People just starting out need to build on smaller successes, gain confidence in their will power, and move on from there.

Yes, these are probably very weak people. Yes, that's a character flaw. BUT it can change.

I'm not shaming them, I'm saying their tactics are counterproductive.

How do you know?

[inator]

I disagree on that point: ridicule is powerful. It has legs and it has teeth. It's rebroadcasted, heard more widely, and sticks with people more. I think there are practical purposes for ridicule: although it's best used when sensible conversation breaks down.
It's hard to argue with the pseudoscience of HAES if somebody rejects the science. The only recourse to some stubborn beliefs and behaviors is ridicule and social shaming. And that is of course unfortunate.

There are cases where that's true. One's approach should be tailored to the situation. There are also cases where you'll be accused of fat shaming no matter what you say, or how nicely, and how much you try to let people save face.

Yes, being offended is a personal fault, no matter how a critique is formulated. But if we can avoid offence and the resulting defensiveness for a majority of people by delivering the critique more sensitively, we should do that. I prefer to get a good result out of a person than to make it known to them that I am right.

Of course we can't control how every crazy self-important person will react. I personally think there's hope even for that kind of individuals, even if more manipulation is what it takes to get a desirable response out of them.
If that's not possible or if it's too time consuming to do, then ridicule may work when it's directed at things like HAES or at people who have some influence over other people. To turn others away from them.
But in a liberal society, I think social shaming tends not to work too well. Ridicule directed at an individual who minds his own business might just push him in the arms of HAES or whatever other delusional defense he can find. There's no shortage of this stuff.

The HAES community doesn't seem to.
Accepting fat means saying it's OK to be obese, which implies it's healthy, not harmful to the environment, etc.

Of course we can come from the angle of 'accepting' people without accepting everything they do. Maybe we shouldn't say "acceptance" though. How about "tolerance"?

We can be tolerant of the obese without agreeing with them. As soon as we accept the fat itself, that has at least neutral and probably positive connotations.

No, I think 'acceptance' is more appropriate. I take 'fat acceptance' to mean acceptance of the fat (person), not of the fatness or the body fat. If it was called 'fatness' or 'obesity' acceptance, then yes, tolerance may be a better word.

Tolerating a person implies that person is a problem. I can even visualize someone rolling their eyes when they say they tolerate someone. Accepting a person implies accepting them whatever problems they may have.

I'm agnostic to the techniques of the assholy fat shamers. They aren't outright advocating pseudoscience, they're just being mean.

Shame has been a powerful social tool for conformity for many thousands of years: I'm not ready to dismiss it so casually because of a few weak and not very scientific studies coming out of the social justice warrior dominated field of social "sciences".

Yes, and so has beating children. There are better ways than creating emotional distress.

As I said above, I think shame as a social tool might work better on individual people in less liberal and connected societies than ours.
My impression is that positive incentives for change can either be ineffective or effective, depending on how appropriate they are for the context.
Shaming can be both of those, but also counterproductive. It's a wild card, I'd rather stay away from it until we have the information you were demanding earlier (*generic commentary about where the burden of proof actually lies*).

Slightly off-topic, because I've seen you comment on this before:
Yes, social sciences are soft sciences but they still have descriptive and predictive power, even if it's not as precise as that of the hard sciences. There's an argument to be made that due to the complexity and lack of complete overseeable information available to them (as a result of the less predictable 'human factor'), their job can be more difficult.
And if you look at the research and commentary coming out of them, I don't think they're SJW dominated at all, at least not economics and the political sciences. Parts of sociology and the behavioral sciences might be, because SJWs tend to want to be more active in those areas, but not always.

Contempt for the predictions of experts in economics and political science is often what makes democratic votes surrounding a specific policy have such regrettable results.
Yes, economists and political scientists sometimes disagree, but not as divisively as many might think. It's in a way similar to nutrition science - there's disagreement about details, not about the big picture, even though it may seem that way to the layman due to misinformation being thrown around. (Here I mean actual economic or political analysis, not the field of political philosophy - that's not a science; even less so political ideology or rhetoric)
The news are divisive, but they don't do anything near academic-level analysis. They're just science informers (in the best and rarest of cases) and then twist things their way.

Yet if we agree that some people got fat because of how they were raised and not because they were stupid or weak willed enough to gain the weight, then why isn't a larger percentage of them successful when they try to lose the weight as adults?
Look at the statistics of how many obese people actually succeed in losing weight and keep it off. They're depressing. It doesn't all come down to character.

I think you've mistaken the claim. I don't think anybody is claiming people who grew up fat were weak willed as children to gain the weight.
The claim that they are stupid or weak willed is because they have not yet lost the weight once they realized the problem.

I probably just expressed myself a bit off. I'll break it down:

a. We agree that the will and intelligence of the people who grew up fat are not to blame for the weight gain.
b. Given a, we can assume that the distribution of willpower and intelligence among people who grew up fat should be similar to the normal distribution.
c. We know that many obese people who grew up that way and who are trying to lose the weight as adults do not succeed.
d. Given b. and c., we can conclude that those character traits are not great determinants of whether someone loses the weight or not.

Again my conclusion: It doesn't all come down to character. Fat people who grew up that way are close to the normal distribution of will power and intelligence.
We could only say it's possible that those who do not lose the weight may not be in the top 10% percentile of will power and a certain type of intelligence (I'm making the generous guess that 10% of people who grow up obese succeed in getting to a normal body mass later, but whether that's all due to will and intelligence is questionable), but they're definitely not far off from everybody else. A fat person can easily have an above average willpower and still be fat.

So if there is such a relation between character and obesity for those who grew up that way, it's true to a much smaller degree than generally assumed.

That's a perfectly fine hypothesis. If you can prove it with concrete numbers on efficacy and show how the current trend is counterproductive, etc. then I'm on board.

I wouldn't say that trend is current anymore, it's changing as we speak. The little research that we do have on does not support the effectiveness of bullying (I think you've already discussed it with Equallity, so I won't quote it here). Even if you're skeptical of that research for some reason, at least there is some. Meanwhile, there's none supporting bullying as far as I know.

It could also be that HAES can only be destroyed with shaming and ridicule, since it's based on pseudoscience, and that the slack in fat shaming and growing obesity epidemic is what created this. It could be that the fear of being seen as a bully or shamer is what has given "cry bullies" the power they have today.

It's more probable that HAES and the need to come up with pseudoscience to defend themselves are a product of shaming and ridicule rather than the lack of it.

After all, there probably wouldn't be many mennists today were it not for feminism going overboard sometimes.

I don't think it's magic. We've likely softened up due to lack of criticism and low expectations.

IQ levels are constantly going up, at least. So is education and the adherence to science over superstition. I don't know about willpower, but this seems like a baseless assertion. Most will "soften up" in some regard when their standard of life goes up, since there won't be as many existential threats anymore. That's what people do in advanced societies. They come up with non-aggressive, dialogue-based strategies to resolving issues.

Food got worse at the same time, and fatty and sweet foods along with an advertising bombardment and high animal product consumption haven't helped. I'm glad to do something about that too.

Yes.

I don't think targeting people who are "shaming" for criticism is productive, though. For all we know, it could even be effective.

That's the last thing I'd spend my time doing even if I were absolutely convinced that I'm right. Here we're only discussing between ourselves what the best strategy to tackle obesity might be.

I don't promote it because I don't have evidence it's effective. BUT I also don't have evidence that it's counterproductive. So I can't really criticize it either.

You're not promoting it, but you support it. Is this just an argument you're making without adhering to it or is it a belief? Now you're distancing yourself from this and claiming you're neutral on it, but other times you claim that the lack of shaming and criticism is probably what's causing people to stay obese.
It's an uncommon claim, definitely not in line with current trends that are backed by some research.

We know bullying can have negative effects in some cases and it's not clear how powerful the alleged positive effects are. There's no evidence that it is effective, there's some evidence that it can be counterproductive. And we have alternatives to it.
That should be enough to move the burden of proof towards those supporting shaming and bullying.

The joy the shamers get out of shaming, if they're given permission to do it and are told it's the right thing to do, makes it profoundly cheap.
One is an uphill battle, and the other can snowball down a hill and start an avalanche with the tiniest push.

From the perspective of a virtue ethicist it may seem abominable, but what's the effect per unit of input?

The joy bullies get out of causing fat people distress, whether it's effective or not, does say something about their willingness to cause distress to others in other ways. This sort of thing should not be encouraged, nor overlooked.
Virtue ethics and intentions say something about people's characters and the probability that they'll engage in similar behavior in other regards.

Unless there is really an unintended positive effect, the joys of bullying probably don't match the emotional distress caused by it to others. Not just the victims, but also to the onlookers.

Regardless of why it's done, what's the effect?

Some people bully for amusement, some criticize to help. How is this different if it's taken in the same way? How much difference does intent really make if the consequences are the same?

If I bully fat people because I take joy in creating distress (whether it unintentionally results in a positive effect or not in this particular case), I will probably continue creating distress for other people in other ways too.

If I like beating people up and I happen to do it to a guy who wanted to blow himself up in the middle of a square that day, by chance I created a positive effect. But I'll probably go on beating other people up too.

That's why intentions and virtue ethics matter, they're a good predictor of future behavior.

Introducing healthy food options at the work place and starting a healthy eating challenge will have much better effects than shaking our heads when a fat person eats a doughnut. The goal is to use the power of community to make it easier for them to make the right choices, not to create a frustration loop by shaming them.

That's all great in theory, and it would be nice, but what's the cost?

The cost of replacing one food option with another on the menu? A little bit of time needed to find a new caterer if the current one will not oblige, perhaps. Or the company could just make a deal with the closest health food restaurant and provide discounts to its workers. Not so difficult.

The cost of starting a healthy eating challenge withing the team? I don't know, some initiative maybe. You can just replace the initiative of shaming with something more positive and voila. Sure, it might take a bit more planning, so you can count that as a cost if you want.

Take Yourofsky: Even if only one in a thousand who hear his message change their behavior, so many more hear his message than a more moderate message that doesn't get any press, and it puts so many pebbles in so many shoes, that it may be ultimately more effective -- not in terms of percentage, but in terms of total number reached.

I don't want to know how many people Yourofsky has turned away from veganism and made unwilling to listen to the "moderate" message.
Being portrayed in the media as "look at was these crazy extremists are saying again" gives us a really bad image. It's too polarizing - while it may attract some people, the others probably don't just remain indifferent towards veganism, they turn against it.

What happened? I used to be the one indifferent about people trying out many different strategies in vegan activism, but in the meantime I was convinced otherwise. Now you're going down that road?

It's very likely that people need to hear a harsh message AND a moderate one to have optimal effect.

It's more likely that they need to hear a reasonable, consistent message.

We kind of do, though: or at least not to offend them. There are laws about decency, and bylaws about home and lawn upkeep.

A fat person should not have to cover up more than, say, a person who suffers from vitiligo.

I'm not shaming them, I'm saying their tactics are counterproductive.

How do you know?

Add a probably to that.

[inator]

My point is that it's not a good argument to say people are just focused on aesthetics, because you can't assume what reasoning underlies that.
It's like the carnists' argument that vegans are just bleeding heart hippies who cry about cute animals dying. It's a red herring: why are people concerned with these animals dying? Is it really fully irrational as is claimed? That would mean claiming to know for certainty the motivations of others; it's a weak claim, and I don't think it does anything to undermine the credibility of the argument or answer questions of efficacy.

True, we don't know for sure what the motivation of every bully is. But if it is done with the pure intention of creating distress, then it can be problematic, irrespective of the potential unintended positive effect. I said why in the former post.

The aesthetic argument could go either way: lose weight, or put on more clothes. There is a sense of social propriety and having consideration for others. Respect for others means being appropriately dressed, clean, etc.

I doubt that there's any logical argument to be made that fat people dressed in the same types of clothes as skinny people can be more inappropriate. It all comes down to feeling, I suppose, but disgust is rarely a good basis for the limitation of liberties.

Regardless of why it's done, what's the effect?

Some people bully for amusement, some criticize to help. How is this different if it's taken in the same way? How much difference does intent really make if the consequences are the same?

I think I've addressed this.

If people are using ineffective or counterproductive tactics, that is something that should be first proved, then stopped (assuming the effort to stop it or redirect it is effective for the resource expenditure).
[...]
We don't have enough good evidence to make strong claims here.

There is some research that doesn't support bullying. What evidence would you need to see that you won't discount as a SJW product because you don't trust the social sciences? Where would that evidence come from if not the social sciences, if it's to study a big enough sample to get robust results?
Based on the little evidence we do have and the lack of evidence to the contrary, the default perspective to take should be that the odds favor the non-bullying position.

Seems to be, at least in terms of what people feel they're entitled to. E.g. "I did a good job so I get a reward".

A recent Scishow talked about it, so it seems to be a common perspective:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MDNvKXdLEM

The issue seems to be complicated.

That's interesting, then I'll assert this with a lower degree of certainty. It still seems to me that good organization skills are often more important than willpower when it comes to medium and long-term goals, though willpower does help.

And somebody who has exercised his actual muscles enough can lift a car. Most people aren't at that point, though.
Working up to things gradually seems to be the way to go for the average person. People just starting out need to build on smaller successes, gain confidence in their will power, and move on from there.

Yes, these are probably very weak people. Yes, that's a character flaw. BUT it can change.

That's a good perspective, though I still doubt that most fat people's willpower is below average. There are other physiological and structural factors playing a role here too.


I think I've addressed your main points, but if there's anything I missed let me know. I was trying not to repeat myself too much and to keep this as compact as possible.

[brimstoneSalad]

--- Efficacy & Parsimony ---

Yes, being offended is a personal fault, no matter how a critique is formulated.

Of course, my point is that there's no clear line that objectively delineates a "personal attack" in the way that people think there is. It's because what's considered "personal" is highly subjective, and how it's ultimately received depends on the recipient.

But if we can avoid offence and the resulting defensiveness for a majority of people by delivering the critique more sensitively, we should do that. I prefer to get a good result out of a person than to make it known to them that I am right.

I agree, provided the message is carried as efficiently.

I personally think there's hope even for that kind of individuals, even if more manipulation is what it takes to get a desirable response out of them.

I would agree that there's "hope" in the same way I'd agree that any terrorist, no matter how violent and angry, could ultimately be reformed into a productive member of society. Assuming there was no cost to doing so, I could agree it was the right thing to do. But that's not the case: there is a cost to education, manipulation, reformation, etc. We have to examine the cost to benefit ratio.

At a certain point, people are not too far gone to be reformed, but they are too far gone to be cost effective to reform them.

If that's not possible or if it's too time consuming to do, then ridicule may work when it's directed at things like HAES or at people who have some influence over other people. To turn others away from them.

That's the best case for ridicule, but it can work against individuals, too, on an individual level. Peer pressure is a powerful force.

The cost of replacing one food option with another on the menu? A little bit of time needed to find a new caterer if the current one will not oblige, perhaps. Or the company could just make a deal with the closest health food restaurant and provide discounts to its workers. Not so difficult.

More expensive food. Complaints. More time for HR. The cost of advertising and convincing people to eat it. The cost of educating. The cost of lost employees or customers who go elsewhere because they're addicted to junk food.

Margins may already be tight, particularly in the food industry, these things are just not competitively viable in most places.
You would have to legislate to mandate all businesses meet these standards, and then you have to contend with lobbying and the pitfalls of democracy from an ignorant junk food addicted public.

The cost of starting a healthy eating challenge withing the team? I don't know, some initiative maybe.

Plenty of schools and companies try this kind of stuff, and it falls flat. You end up with no entries, or a couple bad ones. You can't just make up "fun and exciting" programs like eat healthy and clean your room and expect people to fall over themselves to take part. Pulling off things like that is a marketing miracle.

You can just replace the initiative of shaming with something more positive and voila. Sure, it might take a bit more planning, so you can count that as a cost if you want.

Not a just bit more. Shaming is free: people are happy to do it, particularly if they're given an excuse to do so. It's very difficult to get people to participate in a healthy eating event. It's lame. People know it's lame.
If it wasn't regarded as lame, then we wouldn't have the problem we do today. If healthy eating was kewl, and what all the rad sk8r kidz did, then it'd be easy.

My issue is that these initiatives you're proposing are just not likely to be viable: if you pour enough incentives into them they might work in the short term while you're incentivizing it, but then it will fail as soon as you take the reward away, and meanwhile it costs an arm and a leg.

Yes, and so has beating children. There are better ways than creating emotional distress.

Maybe there are, but I need to see comparative studies on methods and the costs of those methods.

My impression is that positive incentives for change can either be ineffective or effective, depending on how appropriate they are for the context.
Shaming can be both of those, but also counterproductive. It's a wild card, I'd rather stay away from it until we have the information you were demanding earlier (*generic commentary about where the burden of proof actually lies*).

Positive incentives can also be ill planned and counterproductive.
I'm not convinced that negative incentives are higher risk or offer less benefit by the cost.

I could be convinced, but I'd need to be shown hard data from a credible source.

--- Credibility of the Social "Sciences" ---

And if you look at the research and commentary coming out of them, I don't think they're SJW dominated at all, at least not economics and the political sciences. Parts of sociology and the behavioral sciences might be, because SJWs tend to want to be more active in those areas, but not always.

Economics is a fairly hard field, I take the predictions of mainstream economists very seriously. Economics is an exception.

It's unfortunate that they end up grouped as such; I'm not trying to condemn all fields typically grouped in the social sciences. The problem is a lack of standards and consistency within the departments; there's both good and profoundly bad work being done in most of these fields, and as an unfortunate consequence I can't trust any of it at face value without spending an inordinate amount of time studying the studies.

I've seen too many terrible statistics come out of the field to have any faith in most social "sciences". That's not unreasonable.

It's an issue of credibility, and one of the reasons why regardless of claims of temporary efficacy, it's important to squash pseudoscience and pseudophilosophy as associated with veganism.

Even if you're skeptical of that research for some reason, at least there is some. Meanwhile, there's none supporting bullying as far as I know.

I wouldn't expect there to be any any; no more than I'd expect the Catholic Church to do studies showing how atheists can be just as good and productive citizens as Catholics. Where there is an agenda, the number of studies done to one end or another are unconvincing. Studies like these in the social science also tend to be very low quality, short term, and deal only with correlations.

IQ levels are constantly going up, at least.

I don't think that's been true for a long time among developed populations; in many places, IQ is actually dropping (and this could be due to a dysgenic effect of almost one IQ point per decade). The Flynn effect seems to plateau after around 15 points in a developed country, comparable to differences between nations and differences in racial IQ scores that may have been caused by educational and standard of living differences over the past century.

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything at hand though.

I don't know about willpower, but this seems like a baseless assertion.

It's speculative. What I'm saying is you can't assume your hypothesis is correct. There are other viable models here.

You're not promoting it, but you support it. Is this just an argument you're making without adhering to it or is it a belief? Now you're distancing yourself from this and claiming you're neutral on it, but other times you claim that the lack of shaming and criticism is probably what's causing people to stay obese.

I'm presenting alternatives. I argue for it when others argue against it. There's a current trend to assume that shaming is bad, and I think that's dangerous and not well informed by sound theory supported by good evidence.
If the trend were reversed, and there were a public campaign to increase shaming, I'd probably take the opposite position.

We know bullying can have negative effects in some cases and it's not clear how powerful the alleged positive effects are.

Which is the point. We don't know what the effects of stopping bullying are. We don't know to what extent it builds character, or what could replace it if necessary.

There's no evidence that it is effective,

Doesn't mean it isn't.

there's some evidence that it can be counterproductive.

Limited and with questionable credibility.

And we have alternatives to it.

With proven efficacy, at a low cost? Shaming is basically free.

That should be enough to move the burden of proof towards those supporting shaming and bullying.

If it was an expensive social program? Yeah, probably.
Given that it costs virtually nothing, if you want to stop it you have to show credible evidence that it really has a net negative effect, because right now we're spending money to stop bullying, and we don't even know if that's good.

The burden of proof lies on those who want to change policy and spend money, not on the status quo. It has not been met.

What evidence would you need to see that you won't discount as a SJW product because you don't trust the social sciences?

Some that evaluates the calculus of optimal shaming levels, and situations where it's more and less effective, rather than just claiming it's bad and looking at the negative aspects in isolation without the necessary comparison to benefits, short and long term.

Based on the little evidence we do have and the lack of evidence to the contrary, the default perspective to take should be that the odds favor the non-bullying position.

Like I said before, I don't think they do any more than studies by theological institutions claiming god exists would make our default favor theism.
Bias and bad methodology is a serious issue throughout much of the social sciences.

It's why credibility is so important: now I'm just not going to trust anything I read on that. In order to, I'd have to spend an inordinate amount of time studying the studies, and probably doing my own. That's not something I'm interested in doing.

But as I said, if I saw a truly good study that obviously wasn't one sided and examined short and long term costs and benefits, and weighed them against each other with respect to varying amounts of bullying and shaming with objective metrics, that would be pretty convincing.


---- HAES & backlash counterculture ---

But in a liberal society, I think social shaming tends not to work too well. Ridicule directed at an individual who minds his own business might just push him in the arms of HAES or whatever other delusional defense he can find. There's no shortage of this stuff.

Not if they want to function socially, and those ideas are hit even harder than just being overweight. It would only work if people decided it was a religion and should be respected, whereas overweight people who didn't believe in HAES are fair game for criticism. That's not likely to happen.

Defense doesn't work against ridicule, because even if you think you know it's wrong, it's still a social cost and it feels terrible to be ridiculed.

People retreating into safe spaces and echo chambers is a risk, but I don't think it's a big one; it's the same thing we see with weird religious cults. It's hard to sustain. Mormon and Jehovah's witness children of strongly religious parents tend to drift as they interact with society and receive ridicule for particular beliefs and practices.

The bottom line is that it's extremely factually wrong, and that puts it in a very weak position when it comes to free proliferation of information in the long term. In this case, the cult will suffer objectively from health problems, and find itself on the receiving end of very strong criticism from mainstream health authorities. There's only so much delusion can do to hold off against such a strong deluge.

Basically, what I'm saying is I think this is a particular fight that can be won, and easily. Even if it creates a counterculture of pro-obesity HAES lunatics, they will fail to adequately isolate themselves, and those who do will quickly die as they treat all of their ailments with homeopathy because they think the mainstream health establishment is biased against them.

In that respect, it even compares negatively against the strengths of religious extremists.

It's more probable that HAES and the need to come up with pseudoscience to defend themselves are a product of shaming and ridicule rather than the lack of it.

How do you know?

After all, there probably wouldn't be many mennists today were it not for feminism going overboard sometimes.

Being male isn't something you can easily chose. Fat people aren't backed into a corner of creating a counter culture or being shamed into oblivion: they can just lose weight.

And as I said, I think it's something that can be pretty easily crushed.


--- Fat Acceptance Semantics & Connotation ---

No, I think 'acceptance' is more appropriate. I take 'fat acceptance' to mean acceptance of the fat (person), not of the fatness or the body fat.

Does it matter how you take it if a significantly larger number of people will interpret it as acceptance meaning fat is OK?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acceptance

Full Definition of acceptance
1
: an agreeing either expressly or by conduct to the act or offer of another so that a contract is concluded and the parties become legally bound
2
: the quality or state of being accepted or acceptable
3
: the act of accepting : the fact of being accepted : approval

Acceptance connotates approval. It means something is acceptable or OK.

If it was called 'fatness' or 'obesity' acceptance, then yes, tolerance may be a better word.

I know you're trying to make a distinction between the person and the fatness here, but "fat acceptance" fails to do so. It's not "fat people acceptance", it's "fat acceptance". It's about as ambiguous as you can get, if it doesn't suggest that the fat itself is being accepted (which I think it does).
It also suggests a connotation of "giving up" and fatalism which is counter productive to change.

Tolerating a person implies that person is a problem. I can even visualize someone rolling their eyes when they say they tolerate someone. Accepting a person implies accepting them whatever problems they may have.

"Religious tolerance" is a popular positive buzz word. It doesn't imply the religion is a problem, but that people disagree with each other, but are civil regardless. It definitely doesn't imply anything negative about the people, save perhaps the intolerant.


--- Weak Willed Fat Statistics ---

I probably just expressed myself a bit off. I'll break it down:

a. We agree that the will and intelligence of the people who grew up fat are not to blame for the weight gain.
b. Given a, we can assume that the distribution of willpower and intelligence among people who grew up fat should be similar to the normal distribution.

Not if the habits formed in growing up fat act to diminish will power itself through abuse of reward mechanisms and physical disability created by obesity.
It goes both ways: being overweight and possessing the habits leading to that could lead to somebody being lazier and weaker willed, and growing up that way may also mean multi-generational compounding both through nature (any genes associated with weak will) and nurture (by modeling weak willed fat parents).

I don't know how significant such an effect might be, but I don't think we can rule it out.

c. We know that many obese people who grew up that way and who are trying to lose the weight as adults do not succeed.

Given that anybody with a certain level of knowledge and willpower is certain to succeed due to thermodynamics.
What percentage of them succeed? What is "many"? That's a crucial question.

Again my conclusion: It doesn't all come down to character. Fat people who grew up that way are close to the normal distribution of will power and intelligence.
We could only say it's possible that those who do not lose the weight may not be in the top 10% percentile of will power and a certain type of intelligence (I'm making the generous guess that 10% of people who grow up obese succeed in getting to a normal body mass later, but whether that's all due to will and intelligence is questionable), but they're definitely not far off from everybody else. A fat person can easily have an above average willpower and still be fat.

Those who are skinny as adults have more representation of the strong willed than the fat, since the strong willed fat become skinny, and the strong willed skinny do not become fat.

Let's say it's 10%. If 55% of adults are fat, it would have been about 61% of children. That 61% contained 6% of the strong willed who migrated to the other (skinny) group where 4% were already strong willed, and now 10% of 45% are strong willed (at this threshold); over 20% of skinny people, and 0% of fat people are over this particular threshold.

Obviously willpower would look more like a bell curve, but when we compare the two populations, one of them has been very strongly biased toward being strong willed due to introduction of additional strong willed people while the other has hemorrhaged its strong willed members who have no interest in being part of that population.

Additionally, some people become fat in adulthood -- perhaps the bottom 10% of will -- and move over into the other group biasing it even more.
This confounding factor also makes it very difficult to figure anything out with population studies.

We'd need to know the numbers for all of these to make any precise claims, but it should be self evident that a thin person, all other things being equally unknown, is more likely to be strong willed and smart than a fat person.

We don't have many good studies on will power IFAIK, but weight is inversely correlated with IQ: Obese people are stupider, or stupider people are more likely to be obese.

That's a good perspective, though I still doubt that most fat people's willpower is below average.

Assuming a bell curve with initially even distribution, and that even one person with a high willpower moved from team fat to team skinny, then statistically speaking, most fat people are below average by definition.

I don't think that's really debatable unless you're suggesting another confounding variable in fat people that makes them have a stronger will power.

The open question is by how much are they below average.

That's interesting, then I'll assert this with a lower degree of certainty. It still seems to me that good organization skills are often more important than willpower when it comes to medium and long-term goals, though willpower does help.

Wouldn't lack of organizational ability be let another reason not to hire a fat person, if that were the issue? (I don't think it is, not eating a cookie is a short term battle that just occurs over and over again).
Sure, there may be some other factors, but will power is the most immediate, directly, and seems to be the most widely cited (including by people who struggle with their weight).


--- Virtue Ethics ---

The joy bullies get out of causing fat people distress, whether it's effective or not, does say something about their willingness to cause distress to others in other ways.

But does it make them more prone to? Or is it an outlet that will actually prevent them from acting out in other ways?
This is similar to the question surrounding simulated child porn.

This sort of thing should not be encouraged, nor overlooked.

Why? If it has a good consequence, and if it doesn't make those people otherwise worse.

Virtue ethics and intentions say something about people's characters and the probability that they'll engage in similar behavior in other regards.

Sure, but does it matter if they're good people or not? They were probably going to do that stuff anyway, now the behavior is being channeled into something potentially productive.

Unless there is really an unintended positive effect, the joys of bullying probably don't match the emotional distress caused by it to others. Not just the victims, but also to the onlookers.

I agree, and I think we need more studies on bullying and shaming: particularly those that aim to identify optimal levels of bullying for motivation and long term character building.
Studies treating these issues as black and white are not useful.

However, remember that if verbal bullying bothers people, it's much the same kind of social blight that is fat people wearing revealing clothing. It's bothering people aesthetically. Things they don't want to see or words they don't want to hear.

It's a problem to suggest people have the right to be protected from one and not the other. Much more so when it imposes on free speech than upon free dress.

A fat person should not have to cover up more than, say, a person who suffers from vitiligo.

The latter isn't a choice, and while it might be polite if people thought it gross, fat people have more viable options (cover up or lose weight), making it less excusable to fail to do both.

I doubt that there's any logical argument to be made that fat people dressed in the same types of clothes as skinny people can be more inappropriate. It all comes down to feeling, I suppose, but disgust is rarely a good basis for the limitation of liberties.

But are hurt feelings? Why speak against people shaming fat people for not covering up? Isn't that doing the same thing? Speaking against somebody's liberties.

If fat people are free to walk around half naked, others are free to shame them for it. The only hypocrite in that scenario seems to be the person who shames the shamers for exercising their personal liberties.

I understand you're saying that isn't your priority, but from an ideological perspective, that seems like a weak position.
That's why I'm concerned with consequences, not ideology.

If I bully fat people because I take joy in creating distress (whether it unintentionally results in a positive effect or not in this particular case), I will probably continue creating distress for other people in other ways too.

Maybe, maybe not. More so than had you not, or less so? Maybe you'd just be all bullied out.

If I like beating people up and I happen to do it to a guy who wanted to blow himself up in the middle of a square that day, by chance I created a positive effect. But I'll probably go on beating other people up too.

You were probably beating people up anyway. If that effort can be channeled into exclusively beating up terrorists (or at least beating them up more and others less) and if it does some good, what's wrong with that?

That's why intentions and virtue ethics matter, they're a good predictor of future behavior.

Unless you're planning to lock the person up, it doesn't necessarily seem relevant to consequences.


--- Yourofsky and Bad Cops ---

I don't want to know how many people Yourofsky has turned away from veganism and made unwilling to listen to the "moderate" message.
Being portrayed in the media as "look at was these crazy extremists are saying again" gives us a really bad image. It's too polarizing - while it may attract some people, the others probably don't just remain indifferent towards veganism, they turn against it.

Are skinny people going to decide to become fat due to fat shaming, or are fat people going to decide to become more fat to spite the shamers?
It seems pretty implausible for the issue of obesity.

For veganism, I don't think people are going out and eating meaningfully more meat when they hear these messages. If they're anti-vegans, they just turn into assholes and do... not much. Or they post some asshole things on Facebook, and get called out for being assholes, and they eventually run into moderate vegans who tell them #notallvegans, and they're more likely to hear the moderate message.

Plenty of people who go vegan say that before hand they hated or mocked vegans and thought they'd never do it. It's very possible that a hater is more likely to encounter and ultimately listen to a moderate message than somebody who is indifferent.

If you're one on one, you absolutely want a moderate message: you already have the person's ear, and you want to get the most effective message in while you have the chance.

If you're broadcasting a message, though, that's not necessarily the case. If you don't get a voice unless you say something controversial, sometimes the controversial message, though less effective, is the only thing that will be spread.

The vast majority of people are carnists, and rarely receive any kind of message at all. Even something with a 1% success rate broadcast to a million is more successful than a 100% success rate heard by nobody.

What happened? I used to be the one indifferent about people trying out many different strategies in vegan activism, but meanwhile I was convinced otherwise. Now you're going down that road?

I'm more concerned with strategies that are factually and empirically wrong and undermine the credibility of the message. Not as much tone policing.

See my last post here:
http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=474&p=11616#p11616

I don't think anybody is saying that Yourofsky's methods couldn't be improved upon. If you got that impression from anybody here, you may have misunderstood.

Nobody's methods are perfect -- that would be astronomically improbable. We can only perfect our outreach methods through extensive trail and error, and more importantly extensive unbiased research into efficacy. To my knowledge Yourofsky isn't basing his activism on research, but more on intuition. He's doing reasonably well, considering, but certainly he could improve.

Now, whether that improvement would mean being even MORE "in your face" about it, or more meek -- that's hardly clear. We can't guess on that based on our personal feelings. We need hard data to back up these kinds of claims.

The only thing I'm comfortable standing particularly strongly against is pseudoscience. Beyond that, as far as I can tell, different outreach methods (provided it's not violent) reach different people.

It's very likely that people need to hear a harsh message AND a moderate one to have optimal effect.

It's more likely that they need to hear a reasonable, consistent message.

Only research will tell us exactly what works, when, and why. The only thing I'm comfortable standing against with any great measure of certainty, lacking that research, is pseudoscience and bad reasoning/pseudophilosophy, because these harm the credibility of the message and they're extremely easy to dismantle.
Beyond that, tone is dealer's choice until we have stronger evidence.
In my experience, good cop bad cop is the most effective. You need one asshole, and one sympathetic and reasonable voice. And that's kind of what we have going on now in the vegan "community" online. It may be a natural state of movements. As long as we stop short of violence, a few assholes may be productive.