Random thought: (factory farm) animal welfare issues will likely eventually be solved by cultured (lab grown) meat when it becomes cheaper than growing actual animals. This may take a few decades, but social change might take even longer. The article even suggests technical issues may be easier to solve, so why not focus more on that (rather than on MCE)?
I just took it as an assumption in this post that we’re focusing on the far future, since I think basically all the theoretical arguments for/against that have been made elsewhere. Here’s a good article on it. I personally mostly focus on the far future, though not overwhelmingly so. I’m at something like 80% far future, 20% near-term considerations for my cause prioritization decisions.
This may take a few decades, but social change might take even longer.
To clarify, the post isn’t talking about ending factory farming. And I don’t think anyone in the EA community thinks we should try to end factory farming without technology as an important component. Though I think there are good reasons for EAs to focus on the social change component, e.g. there is less for-profit interest in that component (most of the tech money is from for-profit companies, so it’s less neglected in this sense).
Random thought: (factory farm) animal welfare issues will likely eventually be solved by cultured (lab grown) meat when it becomes cheaper than growing actual animals. This may take a few decades, but social change might take even longer. The article even suggests technical issues may be easier to solve, so why not focus more on that (rather than on MCE)?
I just took it as an assumption in this post that we’re focusing on the far future, since I think basically all the theoretical arguments for/against that have been made elsewhere. Here’s a good article on it. I personally mostly focus on the far future, though not overwhelmingly so. I’m at something like 80% far future, 20% near-term considerations for my cause prioritization decisions.
To clarify, the post isn’t talking about ending factory farming. And I don’t think anyone in the EA community thinks we should try to end factory farming without technology as an important component. Though I think there are good reasons for EAs to focus on the social change component, e.g. there is less for-profit interest in that component (most of the tech money is from for-profit companies, so it’s less neglected in this sense).