Nice post. I don't think people ever really step out of the status level. Maybe when thinking alone or among trusted friends...

The level of facts only works right when the topic is status neutral. This is my guess from numerous anecdotal evidence.

Official answer: Eliezer's right. If we see traffic growing we'll invest in further development.

We can think of many things we could do to make the site better… but those users who currently use it don't use it enough, and if they tell their friends about it their friends don't become regular users (often enough).

Hosting the current code is very cheap and easy, so the site's in little danger of being shut down, but we won't be developing it further unless you guys and gals (and your friends, and their friends) pile on the love.

Also, there need to be more explanations of how things work and the interface needs to be tweaked for better user friendliness. Also, please add more bandwidth. Otherwise, awesome idea.

This is pure awesome. Finally something has been done! This is akin to the mythbusters going on TV and doing science instead of just talking about how awesome science is.

Apologies for my little rant above.

As for the site itself, other than being awesome, it needs a few tweaks. There is no place to discuss the site itself and possible improvements to it. Also, I wish there was a feature to hide the result until after I vote.

I wouldn't say "internal catastrophe", more just a long line of disappointments. To wit: finding out that when we humans profess our undying love for each other, we are actually simply deluded. The real nature of human relationships is a compromise between co-operation and defection, as evidence by human nonpaternity studies.

Or, take the example of charity and the extent to which many people give just enough money to charity to purchase moral satisfaction and no more. And the degree to which people are eager to help people like tramps who are near and immediate, but not the much more worthy cause of third world poverty. And also the extent to which people react badly to suggestions about efficient charity.

Hell, consider that most people just don't give anything to charity, and don't think that there's a problem with ordering their nice new flatscreen TV whilst the kids in Africa die of malaria. And, of course, there's an evo-psych explanation for this.

Or, to take a leaf from the book of Frank Adamek, consider the extent to which humans do not magically become super-motivated and super effective when they know that their actions determine, with non-negligible probability, the fate of the universe:

What we do have are foibles, eccentricities, and fixations. We have imperfections and disabilities, irrational modes of thought and poor calibration. We’re dragged down by fear and self-doubt and insecurities. We’re given to rash and ineffective violence, and to thinking in tribalistic, us-versus-them mindsets. We shake and we cry and we bleed, we get sick and we get disparaged and we get depressed.

In each of these cases, more self knowledge shatters our pleasant delusions about ourselves.

Now, since I am still here, I haven't had an "internal catastrophe" upon learning these things, because as PJEby says, knowing your weaknesses is the first step to overcoming them. In essence, this little comment explains both the urgent need for transhumanism, and why it is so unpopular.

And lastly, the best thing one could ever learn about human nature is that we will succeed this century *in spite of * our flaws. And that, I guess, is singularitarianism. Unfortunately, it is a dream which may or may not come true.

This is silly.

Thou know’st ’tis common; all that live must die, passing through nature to eternity. This way, though, they don't leave descendents to toil in cages.

As I said before, the worst part of a factory farm cow's existence isn't death, but life.

So if I understand you correctly

You don't.

you say that the reward 'quality of life of whoever might eat cows' does not justify the cost of taking the life of said cows.

This is the opposite of what I said.

Interrupting this relationship will result in the extinction or near extinction of cows.

Yes. I have already said I don't care if cows go extinct, except inasmuch as they are useful. If they stop being useful (if people stop eating them and using their byproducts) then they can go extinct and this will not bother me.

I am trying to make a point.

Ah. I suggest doing it differently next time. It is much clearer (and less deceptive) if you do not ask questions when you are trying to make a point. Instead, ask questions when you are curious about something and think someone has the answer, and use declarative statements (like those in the parent comment) to make a point. It should greatly aid in your communication.

I have no idea where you got those suggestions. Neither one is accurate about my beliefs: I don't go around using the concept of virtue when I talk about ethics, and I only think bad things can be also unethical when they are the result of deliberate or negligent actions/inactions by a person. I think ethics is about the behavior of persons, not the behavior of lions or the edibility of antelopes.

I get my opinions about who should be a vegetarian by the following logic:

I would not up and kill a cow/chicken/guinea pig/cat/whatever for no reason. It seems to me that it would be wrong to go around killing animals (or, for that matter, smashing vases or setting books on fire or committing any act of destruction) for no reason.

It seems that there are some reasons where it would be quite okay to kill an animal (or smash a vase or set a book on fire). If I were starving (if I needed a shard of ceramic to cut some wrongly convicted-of-witchcraft person free from a stake/if I were otherwise going to freeze to death) then I would kill and eat a cow (smash a vase/set a book on fire).

So somewhere in the space of reason-having, between "no reason" and "otherwise a person will die", there must be a threshold of adequacy sufficient to kill an animal (or do any other destructive thing). For the death-for-food of non-personhood-having animals, I draw that line at the excellent quality of life of whoever might eat them. I can have an excellent quality of life and eat only occasional fish. My friend who gets sick when she doesn't eat enough meat can't. So she needn't be a vegetarian, but I should.