Interesting. I think there’s something to this analogy, though ofc the social pressure to put your seatbelt on is far higher than that to prioritize chickens over shrimp.
I think social pressure mostly comes from people who are close to us. So I believe there can be significant social pressure to prioritise some animal welfare interventions even if society at large cares little about them. For example, people who have worked on helping dogs and cats for 10 years will make friends and professional connection working on the same area, and this in turns makes it harder to change to other areas.
People rarely update just based on noticing or being reminded of a bias they may have.
People funding or working on animal welfare interventions are often in a tiny minority who were persuaded to eat mostly plant-based to be consistent with their views about non-farmed animals, particularly pets. So those people may be significantly more likely than random people to prioritise animals with a lower probability of sentience if they notice they are happy to support other activities like voting which have a super low chance of positively influencing outcomes.
I think social pressure mostly comes from people who are close to us. So I believe there can be significant social pressure to prioritise some animal welfare interventions even if society at large cares little about them. For example, people who have worked on helping dogs and cats for 10 years will make friends and professional connection working on the same area, and this in turns makes it harder to change to other areas.
People funding or working on animal welfare interventions are often in a tiny minority who were persuaded to eat mostly plant-based to be consistent with their views about non-farmed animals, particularly pets. So those people may be significantly more likely than random people to prioritise animals with a lower probability of sentience if they notice they are happy to support other activities like voting which have a super low chance of positively influencing outcomes.