Discussion roundups, as distinct from my weekly link roundups, are semi-regular articles that I use to list all the discussions that I participate in which are, in my perspective at least, interesting, insightful, and worth following as a development of the ideas in this blog and elsewhere. Also included is a recap of things that have been updated.

Blog Comments!

Since the last discussion roundup (10/Dec/2012), this blog has brought in 89 additional comments. Here’s a summary of some of the conversations:

On “Why Vegetarianism”, I answer some reader questions such as “Why do you think more suffering is a bad thing and not a normal part of the predator/prey relationship?”, “Why does it make a difference if we eat fish if the same fish would be eaten by other ocean fish, anyway?”, and “Do you think painlessly killing an animal is just as bad as painlessly killing a human?”.

On “Charity: Where Should My Money Go?”, we discuss more about how to articulate the benefits of anti-malaria bed nets are when they save lives in the short-run and reduce overpopulation in the long-run. (It can’t really be in terms of lives saved.)

On “Uncertainty in Giving and Why I’m Not Currently Giving to Reduce Existential Risk”, I defend why I’m thinking about donating paltry sums of college student money rather than focusing on other tasks, why I don’t focus on helping Americans, and a bit more about superintelligent artificial intelligence.

On “Why Moral Realism is False and How We Can Still Have Moral Discourse Without It” I talk about moral internalism, or the view that morals are rationally compelling.

On “Finlay and Joyce on Moral Discourse”, I talk about the differences between good acts and good decision procedures, and something being good vs. something being praiseworthy.

On “Happy Birthday to Me”, we talk about alcohol.

On “Why the ObamaCare Mandate Isn’t Infringing Your Freedoms”, I clarify the car insurance analogy.

I add yet more articles to the “Roundup #57: Gun Violence and Such”.

I fix the description of results in “LessWrong Survey Results: Do Ethical Theories Affect Behavior?”.

Felicifia!

Felicifia is a forum about utilitarianism that I administrate. Here’s some of our recent
discussions:

Brian Tomasik models veganism conversion as a 100-yard line.

We talk about the issue of plant pain and how it fits into utilitarian calculations.

Pablo Stafforoni asks about using his time to leaflet for Vegan Outreach.

Comments Elsewhere!

Over on Rational Conspiracy, I talk about being frugal and giving to charity while young on “If You’re Young, Don’t Give to Charity”.

Updates!

I launch my personal website, www.peterhurford.com.

I’m still soliciting feedback.

You can track my success on my New Year’s Resolutions on HabitCal.

I updated the Vegan Outreach Cost-Effectiveness Calculator.

I now have a Full Papers category for all my uploaded papers.

I redesigned the comments section to number the comments and highlight the comments that are made by me (because I’m special).