Hi Josh, here are a few rough ideas of how the post’s ideas could be applied to the pro-animal world today:
Applying quality 3 (theory of victory):
Fund researchers to look into and advise the movement on:
which milestones it should aim towards (including confidence levels for those recommendations). This would potentially reap huge benefits with relatively few movement resources—I could imagine even just a team of 3-5 full-timers could go a long way
Organisations start transparently publishing their theory of victory, and it becomes part of movement culture to dialogue about theories of victory, to both challenge and refine them.
Applying qualities 2 and 4 (power + holistic criteria to choose campaigns & projects)
Intervention evaluators and funders should ensure that interventions are evaluated based on their ability not just to help animals directly, but to build power and generate learning value for the movement.
Applying quality 6 (big picture perspective)
Seeding a meta-organisation to help the movement increase its steering capacity (cheers @Ben Stevenson for pointing me to this post) - for example, by:
continually refining theories of victory / milestones, and our confidence levels in them
tracking success indicators of progress (based on the above theories of victory / milestones)
installing feedback loops to see which interventions are best advancing the theories of victory / milestones
advising the movement on how to best distribute its resources
facilitating organisations, groups and funders to dialogue and coordinate given all of the above
Funding a broader spread of interventions—taking a more hits-based approach, given our current cluelessness about what will make long-term progress
Intervention evaluators and funders should ensure that interventions are evaluated based on their ability not just to help animals directly, but to build power and generate learning value for the movement.
My impression is that most funders are already doing the above (we are too).
Fund researchers to look into and advise the movement on:
which milestones it should aim towards (including confidence levels for those recommendations). This would potentially reap huge benefits with relatively few movement resources—I could imagine even just a team of 3-5 full-timers could go a long way
I don’t think the above is that promising as I think there is not a predetermined set of milestones that lead to victory and instead we should pursue opportunities that are both achievable and important, as they come. I also think political and cultural winds change very quickly, such that many of the milestones set might become impossible or irrelevant. For example, maybe these researchers would have predicted 7 years ago that a major milestone would be major US & EU retailers selling cultivated meat but actually, it turns out the technology is super far off in 2025 and the actual best thing to do for alternative proteins now is getting defence agencies to research cultivated meat (this is a made-up example).
I also think that when this has been attempted, basically nothing useful was generated so it was actually quite a poor use of movement resources.
My impression is that most funders are already doing the above (we are too).
That’s interesting, James, and an update for me—if you happen to have any top sources at hand that point to how different funders are thinking, that would be really useful.
I don’t think the above is that promising as I think there is not a predetermined set of milestones that lead to victory..
I 100% agree that there’s no predetermined set of milestones, and that any long-term strategising we do needs to be robust to an ever-changing world. To clarify, my suggestion to fund researchers is not intended to suggest those researchers should direct the movement from the top-down, as that majorly risks locking us in to suboptimal paths—but that they can surface possibilities that the rest of us might be missing, and provide information to help the rest of the ecosystem make better decisions. The value isn’t in creating a rigid roadmap, but in helping the movement have a clearer shared understanding of what we’re building toward and what capacities we might need—and in updating that understanding as the world changes. This is my understanding of the value provided by think tanks in other movements, and strategy personnel in large corporations who engage in vision-setting, scenario-planning and the like.
More broadly, what I’m pointing towards is what I think of as the movement’s ‘strategy function’ - the capacity to step back, look at the whole system, and help different actors coordinate toward shared goals. I’m curious whether you think the movement currently has sufficient capacity in this area, even if you think dedicated researchers aren’t the right form for it?
I also think that when this has been attempted, basically nothing useful was generated so it was actually quite a poor use of movement resources.
In this realm I’m only really aware of Animal Think Tank’s long-term strategy project and some work at Rethink Priorities that never quite took off. Do you have others in mind? From my own awareness, (a) we’ve dedicated very little movement resource to this kind of work; and (b) I would really hesitate to rule out an entire area of work just because a couple of projects have not delivered, as there are all sorts of reasons that can happen.
Hi Josh, here are a few rough ideas of how the post’s ideas could be applied to the pro-animal world today:
Applying quality 3 (theory of victory):
Fund researchers to look into and advise the movement on:
which milestones it should aim towards (including confidence levels for those recommendations). This would potentially reap huge benefits with relatively few movement resources—I could imagine even just a team of 3-5 full-timers could go a long way
Organisations start transparently publishing their theory of victory, and it becomes part of movement culture to dialogue about theories of victory, to both challenge and refine them.
Applying qualities 2 and 4 (power + holistic criteria to choose campaigns & projects)
Intervention evaluators and funders should ensure that interventions are evaluated based on their ability not just to help animals directly, but to build power and generate learning value for the movement.
Applying quality 6 (big picture perspective)
Seeding a meta-organisation to help the movement increase its steering capacity (cheers @Ben Stevenson for pointing me to this post) - for example, by:
continually refining theories of victory / milestones, and our confidence levels in them
tracking success indicators of progress (based on the above theories of victory / milestones)
installing feedback loops to see which interventions are best advancing the theories of victory / milestones
advising the movement on how to best distribute its resources
facilitating organisations, groups and funders to dialogue and coordinate given all of the above
Funding a broader spread of interventions—taking a more hits-based approach, given our current cluelessness about what will make long-term progress
My impression is that most funders are already doing the above (we are too).
I don’t think the above is that promising as I think there is not a predetermined set of milestones that lead to victory and instead we should pursue opportunities that are both achievable and important, as they come. I also think political and cultural winds change very quickly, such that many of the milestones set might become impossible or irrelevant. For example, maybe these researchers would have predicted 7 years ago that a major milestone would be major US & EU retailers selling cultivated meat but actually, it turns out the technology is super far off in 2025 and the actual best thing to do for alternative proteins now is getting defence agencies to research cultivated meat (this is a made-up example).
I also think that when this has been attempted, basically nothing useful was generated so it was actually quite a poor use of movement resources.
That’s interesting, James, and an update for me—if you happen to have any top sources at hand that point to how different funders are thinking, that would be really useful.
I 100% agree that there’s no predetermined set of milestones, and that any long-term strategising we do needs to be robust to an ever-changing world. To clarify, my suggestion to fund researchers is not intended to suggest those researchers should direct the movement from the top-down, as that majorly risks locking us in to suboptimal paths—but that they can surface possibilities that the rest of us might be missing, and provide information to help the rest of the ecosystem make better decisions. The value isn’t in creating a rigid roadmap, but in helping the movement have a clearer shared understanding of what we’re building toward and what capacities we might need—and in updating that understanding as the world changes. This is my understanding of the value provided by think tanks in other movements, and strategy personnel in large corporations who engage in vision-setting, scenario-planning and the like.
More broadly, what I’m pointing towards is what I think of as the movement’s ‘strategy function’ - the capacity to step back, look at the whole system, and help different actors coordinate toward shared goals. I’m curious whether you think the movement currently has sufficient capacity in this area, even if you think dedicated researchers aren’t the right form for it?
In this realm I’m only really aware of Animal Think Tank’s long-term strategy project and some work at Rethink Priorities that never quite took off. Do you have others in mind? From my own awareness, (a) we’ve dedicated very little movement resource to this kind of work; and (b) I would really hesitate to rule out an entire area of work just because a couple of projects have not delivered, as there are all sorts of reasons that can happen.