A quick counterargument from the alt-protein side: while $100k to an animal welfare nonprofit might alleviate $100k worth of suffering, it isn’t going to lead to a state change unless it is facilitating a permanent intervention that meat producers would not have an incentive to reverse. The same amount of money directed toward innovation in cultivated meat is progress toward a potential nonlinear tipping point that could fully displace factory farming, and I don’t think we should take it as a guarantee that alt protein technologies will breach to disrupt the meat market without the right amount of wind in their sails.
This is a good point. To be fair, I do think animal advocacy groups working on cage-free hens or other animal welfare interventions are aiming to make these changes permanent (or at least as permanent as the industries they are a part of). However, at least one recent case shows how easily even a seemingly permanent change of this kind can be undone.
I suppose the question comes down to your confidence in the existence of a tipping point at which alternative proteins take over. Given the evidence I’ve seen, it remains far from certain that alternative proteins will fully displace animal products no matter how much we support the relevant industries; in this case, it seems more productive to support alleviating the worst of the suffering that currently takes place in factory farms. Even if we agree that cultivated meat will at some point in the future fully displace animal-based foods, if this is in the far future we still might be able to do more good supporting animal welfare reforms that will see us through until then.
However, my hope is that this counterargument turns out to be true, and that alternative proteins do reach exactly this kind of tipping point in the near future. This post was in large part my attempt to turn this hope into something more certain, one way or the other.
A quick counterargument from the alt-protein side: while $100k to an animal welfare nonprofit might alleviate $100k worth of suffering, it isn’t going to lead to a state change unless it is facilitating a permanent intervention that meat producers would not have an incentive to reverse. The same amount of money directed toward innovation in cultivated meat is progress toward a potential nonlinear tipping point that could fully displace factory farming, and I don’t think we should take it as a guarantee that alt protein technologies will breach to disrupt the meat market without the right amount of wind in their sails.
This is a good point. To be fair, I do think animal advocacy groups working on cage-free hens or other animal welfare interventions are aiming to make these changes permanent (or at least as permanent as the industries they are a part of). However, at least one recent case shows how easily even a seemingly permanent change of this kind can be undone.
I suppose the question comes down to your confidence in the existence of a tipping point at which alternative proteins take over. Given the evidence I’ve seen, it remains far from certain that alternative proteins will fully displace animal products no matter how much we support the relevant industries; in this case, it seems more productive to support alleviating the worst of the suffering that currently takes place in factory farms. Even if we agree that cultivated meat will at some point in the future fully displace animal-based foods, if this is in the far future we still might be able to do more good supporting animal welfare reforms that will see us through until then.
However, my hope is that this counterargument turns out to be true, and that alternative proteins do reach exactly this kind of tipping point in the near future. This post was in large part my attempt to turn this hope into something more certain, one way or the other.