Most of this post’s arguments for that premise seem to be just the author’s speculative intuitions, given with no evidence or argument
Yes, not doing research, and instead throwing my ideas out and make it a crowdsourcing of ideas and argumentation, is how I am doing “research” on this topic, I guess.
I also worry that using laws to capture our abolition of moral catastrophes after they become economically inviable, can create a false sense of progress
I am still pretty convinced by this particular point I raised though. This is not my intuition only. For example, some political thinkers and philosophers, such as Hobbes, the Legal School in China, and many more, believe that humans pretty much agreed to not kill each others all the time because of laws or authority. But people, not just now but also in the past, seemed to be very confident that not murdering other humans is a moral intuition or moral progress we had collectively.
But I don’t think ungrounded intuitions about how society might work are good ways to make predictions; there’s too many complications and alternatives that approach might miss.
I tend to agree. And to a certain extent throwing these intuitions out feels bad. But I do have a push back. If there are too many complications I might miss in my worries (and btw I am more express doubts over the standard predictions farmed animal and alt-pro advocates are making, than making predictions myself), then the same doubt can be casted against farmed animal welfare and alt-pro advocates for not thinking about these messy complications. So yes, naively taking my worries to make predictions is unreliable, but not considering the worries I threw out just because they are messy seems so too.
As a reason why this kind of argument isn’t reliable, we could just as easily come up with intuitive stories that point to the opposite conclusion, e.g. “economic changes that drive moral progress will inspire and inform future advocates to take pragmatic approaches that actually work well rather than engaging in endless but ineffective moral grandstanding; always waiting for moral progress might mislead us to think we have less obligation to improve economic incentives when the tractability of moral advocacy is lower.”
I actually think this paragraph you created is worth presenting and considering. The thing is, it’s pretty much been presented already. This is, for example, roughly the story of Bruce Friedrich (founder and CEO of GFI), and maybe pretty much GFI too. And that was my story too, and might be the story of a lot of EA animal/alt-pro advocates. So if this argument is presented, why not also consider its counterpart? (what I did)
Also, I think the historical importance of economic and military motives for the abolition of slavery are understated.
Great to know! Thanks. Might update my views on the topic again.
I actually think this paragraph you created is worth presenting and considering. The thing is, it’s pretty much been presented already. This is, for example, roughly the story of Bruce Friedrich (founder and CEO of GFI), and maybe pretty much GFI too. And that was my story too, and might be the story of a lot of EA animal/alt-pro advocates. So if this argument is presented, why not also consider its counterpart? (what I did)
I think this is subtly off. The story I’ve heard from alt-pro advocates is that we should focus on making it easier for people to drop factory farming because that would get people to do so, while generations of moral advocacy against factory farming have failed to achieve mass consumer change. That’s a historical argument about tractability—it’s not a speculative argument about how we might inspire or mislead future advocates.
(To be fair, the above is still not an argument about long-term impacts. But I think the related long-term argument that “good, lasting value change is more likely when it’s convenient” is a much better-grounded claim than “good, lasting value change is more likely when advocates have historical examples of entirely morality-driven change”; the latter claim seems entirely speculative, while the former is at least in line with various historical examples and psychological findings.)
I strong-up-voted this for the effort to clarify things while the post is no longer on the frontpage.
I think I still have reservations. You tried to point out the story that points to historical evidence about what worked and what did not. But meta discussions about what kind of work motivates (though I believe they don’t talk about misleading) advocates being effective and sustainable (not burning out) is a constant topic that goes on in pretty much all annual meetings/retreats of FAW advocacy groups. Street advocacy/education advocacy, or just any moral advocacy that is not working, is being discussed as a reason to move away BOTH because of direct effectiveness and how much we can stay motivated. And the reverse is said for what’s working. And even if those were mentioned, I don’t think it is possible that each of us, as individuals, wasn’t affected by such motivation/frustrations in choosing our career, for instance, I was.
Also, as a side story, I heard that people left some FAW-related orgs for overrepresenting/overmotivating, and I tend to agree with them about their judgment. So maybe there is actually some active misleading.
So in a sense, “speculative argument about how we might inspire or mislead future advocates” IS happening, at least the “inspire” part (and I suspect that the misleading part is also there, just not framed this way).
“good, lasting value change is more likely when it’s convenient” is a much better-grounded claim than “good, lasting value change is more likely when advocates have historical examples of entirely morality-driven change”; the latter claim seems entirely speculative,
I think you kind of changed the “latter argument” a bit here from what we were discussing before. Copying things over, it was A:”economic changes that drive moral progress will inspire and inform future advocates to take pragmatic approaches that actually work well rather than engaging in endless but ineffective moral grandstanding;”
And B: “always waiting for moral progress might mislead us to think we have less obligation to improve economic incentives”
And my point is that, within the FAW and altpro movements, A is mentioned, often as a point for advocacy sustainability and self-care.
B is also mentioned, but much less than A (A is a recurring theme in retreats, I literally heard it just last week), as a criticism of abolitionist vegans who often spend a big chunk of their time criticizing us (us as in the FAW/altpro movement).
my point is that, within the FAW and altpro movements, A is mentioned
Oh interesting, I wasn’t aware this point came up much. Taking your word for it, I agree then that (A) shouldn’t get more weight than (B) (except insofar as we have separate, non-speculative reasons to be more bullish about economic interventions).
I think you kind of changed the “latter argument” a bit here from what we were discussing before.
Sorry for the confusion—I was trying to say that alt-pro advocates often have an argument that’s different (and better-grounded) than (A) and (B).
In other words, my current view is that (A) and (B) roughly “cancel out” due to being similarly speculative, while the separate view that “good, lasting value change is more likely when it’s convenient” is better-grounded than its opposite.
Voted agree! I think we are gaining understanding, and maybe converging on our views a bit.
Also, I want to mention that I have shifted quite a bit from my worry I wrote in this post, so much that I actually updated some parts of it. My high level takeaway now is that we SHOULD keep up, probably speed up alt-pro (maybe particularly CM), but at roughly the point that alt-pro replaced 70-80% of factory farming, we should seriously consider putting much more effort (than now) on moral and legal advocacy.
Yes, not doing research, and instead throwing my ideas out and make it a crowdsourcing of ideas and argumentation, is how I am doing “research” on this topic, I guess.
I am still pretty convinced by this particular point I raised though. This is not my intuition only. For example, some political thinkers and philosophers, such as Hobbes, the Legal School in China, and many more, believe that humans pretty much agreed to not kill each others all the time because of laws or authority. But people, not just now but also in the past, seemed to be very confident that not murdering other humans is a moral intuition or moral progress we had collectively.
I tend to agree. And to a certain extent throwing these intuitions out feels bad. But I do have a push back. If there are too many complications I might miss in my worries (and btw I am more express doubts over the standard predictions farmed animal and alt-pro advocates are making, than making predictions myself), then the same doubt can be casted against farmed animal welfare and alt-pro advocates for not thinking about these messy complications. So yes, naively taking my worries to make predictions is unreliable, but not considering the worries I threw out just because they are messy seems so too.
I actually think this paragraph you created is worth presenting and considering. The thing is, it’s pretty much been presented already. This is, for example, roughly the story of Bruce Friedrich (founder and CEO of GFI), and maybe pretty much GFI too. And that was my story too, and might be the story of a lot of EA animal/alt-pro advocates. So if this argument is presented, why not also consider its counterpart? (what I did)
Great to know! Thanks. Might update my views on the topic again.
Thanks for the thoughtful response!
I think this is subtly off. The story I’ve heard from alt-pro advocates is that we should focus on making it easier for people to drop factory farming because that would get people to do so, while generations of moral advocacy against factory farming have failed to achieve mass consumer change. That’s a historical argument about tractability—it’s not a speculative argument about how we might inspire or mislead future advocates.
(To be fair, the above is still not an argument about long-term impacts. But I think the related long-term argument that “good, lasting value change is more likely when it’s convenient” is a much better-grounded claim than “good, lasting value change is more likely when advocates have historical examples of entirely morality-driven change”; the latter claim seems entirely speculative, while the former is at least in line with various historical examples and psychological findings.)
I strong-up-voted this for the effort to clarify things while the post is no longer on the frontpage.
I think I still have reservations. You tried to point out the story that points to historical evidence about what worked and what did not. But meta discussions about what kind of work motivates (though I believe they don’t talk about misleading) advocates being effective and sustainable (not burning out) is a constant topic that goes on in pretty much all annual meetings/retreats of FAW advocacy groups. Street advocacy/education advocacy, or just any moral advocacy that is not working, is being discussed as a reason to move away BOTH because of direct effectiveness and how much we can stay motivated. And the reverse is said for what’s working. And even if those were mentioned, I don’t think it is possible that each of us, as individuals, wasn’t affected by such motivation/frustrations in choosing our career, for instance, I was.
Also, as a side story, I heard that people left some FAW-related orgs for overrepresenting/overmotivating, and I tend to agree with them about their judgment. So maybe there is actually some active misleading.
So in a sense, “speculative argument about how we might inspire or mislead future advocates” IS happening, at least the “inspire” part (and I suspect that the misleading part is also there, just not framed this way).
I think you kind of changed the “latter argument” a bit here from what we were discussing before. Copying things over, it was A:”economic changes that drive moral progress will inspire and inform future advocates to take pragmatic approaches that actually work well rather than engaging in endless but ineffective moral grandstanding;”
And B: “always waiting for moral progress might mislead us to think we have less obligation to improve economic incentives”
And my point is that, within the FAW and altpro movements, A is mentioned, often as a point for advocacy sustainability and self-care.
B is also mentioned, but much less than A (A is a recurring theme in retreats, I literally heard it just last week), as a criticism of abolitionist vegans who often spend a big chunk of their time criticizing us (us as in the FAW/altpro movement).
Oh interesting, I wasn’t aware this point came up much. Taking your word for it, I agree then that (A) shouldn’t get more weight than (B) (except insofar as we have separate, non-speculative reasons to be more bullish about economic interventions).
Sorry for the confusion—I was trying to say that alt-pro advocates often have an argument that’s different (and better-grounded) than (A) and (B).
In other words, my current view is that (A) and (B) roughly “cancel out” due to being similarly speculative, while the separate view that “good, lasting value change is more likely when it’s convenient” is better-grounded than its opposite.
Voted agree! I think we are gaining understanding, and maybe converging on our views a bit.
Also, I want to mention that I have shifted quite a bit from my worry I wrote in this post, so much that I actually updated some parts of it. My high level takeaway now is that we SHOULD keep up, probably speed up alt-pro (maybe particularly CM), but at roughly the point that alt-pro replaced 70-80% of factory farming, we should seriously consider putting much more effort (than now) on moral and legal advocacy.
Thank you everyone for the discussion!