Really great post, thanks for writing this! EA’s animal successes are indeed really impressive. I want to push back a bit on “no one cares about” this though. The “good things” forum post and Twitter thread I did back in December both did well; much of EAG programming is about wins; Animal Liberation Now, which has got a ton of attention, contains a whole chapter on progress in animal welfare; and indeed your own post got a ton of upvotes.
I do agree that we could always do more to celebrate and reflect on wins like this — I’m just pushing back because I think saying “no one cares about” can actually perpetuate the negative environment it’s trying to fight.
My title was a bit gimmicky, I flagged it as such, but it was accepted (I think by Ben West to incriminate him). I like such titles, so it may be my bias. Nevertheless, it was built from a very true disappointment (or something along that) of people not mentioning/celebrating the wins of EA when discussing and criticizing it, but I think this “frustration” was built more on reading the external takes rather than the internal ones—which internally was hard to disentangle for me. I think I failed to make this clear in the post. And my disappointment touches all cause areas (I’d imagine all those lives saved would make a stronger impression on people), but I feel qualified the most to talk about animals one.
Interesting point about perpetuating the negative framework by the title phrasing—in hindsight, I would probably choose a different one if I had considered that risk. Thanks for this perspective.
I actually accepted the title specifically to undermine Shakeel’s work. I felt like the EA communications environment has been too easy lately, and I wanted to keep him on his toes.
Really great post, thanks for writing this! EA’s animal successes are indeed really impressive. I want to push back a bit on “no one cares about” this though. The “good things” forum post and Twitter thread I did back in December both did well; much of EAG programming is about wins; Animal Liberation Now, which has got a ton of attention, contains a whole chapter on progress in animal welfare; and indeed your own post got a ton of upvotes.
I do agree that we could always do more to celebrate and reflect on wins like this — I’m just pushing back because I think saying “no one cares about” can actually perpetuate the negative environment it’s trying to fight.
Thank you Shakeel, very good criticism.
My title was a bit gimmicky, I flagged it as such, but it was accepted (I think by Ben West to incriminate him). I like such titles, so it may be my bias. Nevertheless, it was built from a very true disappointment (or something along that) of people not mentioning/celebrating the wins of EA when discussing and criticizing it, but I think this “frustration” was built more on reading the external takes rather than the internal ones—which internally was hard to disentangle for me. I think I failed to make this clear in the post. And my disappointment touches all cause areas (I’d imagine all those lives saved would make a stronger impression on people), but I feel qualified the most to talk about animals one.
Interesting point about perpetuating the negative framework by the title phrasing—in hindsight, I would probably choose a different one if I had considered that risk. Thanks for this perspective.
I actually accepted the title specifically to undermine Shakeel’s work. I felt like the EA communications environment has been too easy lately, and I wanted to keep him on his toes.