I feel like a lot of EA charities are “reactionary” in that they try to mitigate an issue while not attempting to overcome an issue.
Take animal welfare for example: the main charities that are funded are mostly advocacy based and activism. While I am supportive of this approach, I don’t think it will ultimately help animal welfare much by any order of magnitude in the long term. Instead, something will probably displace the need for animals IMO– like lab grown meat. Why don’t EAs support basic research such as lab grown meat* as a means to displace the current state of factory farming? Sure, over a lifetime lab grown meat has a really low % chance of coming to fruition, but if it did (and with greater funding you can increase its chance of happening!), it would have orders of magnitude more impact for animal welfare than the current advocacy model.
*The same situation applies to climate change too. There’s a trend in EA and now more general circles to “offset your carbon footprint” but again this feels like a mitigation/reactionary way of spending your money. I would much rather my money go to nuclear fusion research b/c if it worked out, it would have orders of magnitude more impact than simply mitigating my own carbon footprint
Why don’t EAs support basic research such as lab grown meat* as a means to displace the current state of factory farming?
That’s news to me. 😕 Animal Charity Evaluators recommends several charities that promote alternative proteins, such as the Material Innovation Initiative and the Good Food Fund. Although no longer an ACE recommended charity, the Good Food Institute is one of the leading orgs that funds and promotes alternative protein innovation, and is often recommended by EAs.
There’s a trend in EA and now more general circles to “offset your carbon footprint” but again this feels like a mitigation/reactionary way of spending your money. I would much rather my money go to nuclear fusion research b/c if it worked out, it would have orders of magnitude more impact than simply mitigating my own carbon footprint
I’m not familiar with carbon offsetting as being a ‘trend in EA’ - as far as I’m aware the canonical EA treatment of this is Claire’s piece arguing against it.
Similarly, if I look at the EA forum wiki page for climate change, every single bullet point is about research, and the first one is ‘innovative approaches to clean energy’ which includes nuclear.
I’m personally pretty skeptical of lab-grown meat after looking into it for a while (see here, here, and here). I do think some investment into the space makes sense for reasons similar to your argument, but I’m personally a bit skeptical of “I think the science of my current approach doesn’t work and will never work but there’s a small chance I’m wrong so it might make sense to work on it anyway” as a way to do science.*
My guess is that the future replacement for meat will not look like lab-grown mammalian cells, and if it does, how we get there will look like radically different approaches than the way we’re currently doing it (e.g. substantially more AI-assisted).
I do tentatively think something in the general shape of your critique is right, and more effort should be spent mapping out the theory of victory for farmed animal agriculture in general, and for technological solutions in particular (see also).
* (I intuitively think this type of probabilistic hedging mentality is more natural to threat analysis or political wins. This is an empirical question though, and I’m also confused here).
I feel like a lot of EA charities are “reactionary” in that they try to mitigate an issue while not attempting to overcome an issue.
Take animal welfare for example: the main charities that are funded are mostly advocacy based and activism. While I am supportive of this approach, I don’t think it will ultimately help animal welfare much by any order of magnitude in the long term. Instead, something will probably displace the need for animals IMO– like lab grown meat. Why don’t EAs support basic research such as lab grown meat* as a means to displace the current state of factory farming? Sure, over a lifetime lab grown meat has a really low % chance of coming to fruition, but if it did (and with greater funding you can increase its chance of happening!), it would have orders of magnitude more impact for animal welfare than the current advocacy model.
*The same situation applies to climate change too. There’s a trend in EA and now more general circles to “offset your carbon footprint” but again this feels like a mitigation/reactionary way of spending your money. I would much rather my money go to nuclear fusion research b/c if it worked out, it would have orders of magnitude more impact than simply mitigating my own carbon footprint
hope that makes some sense!
That’s news to me. 😕 Animal Charity Evaluators recommends several charities that promote alternative proteins, such as the Material Innovation Initiative and the Good Food Fund. Although no longer an ACE recommended charity, the Good Food Institute is one of the leading orgs that funds and promotes alternative protein innovation, and is often recommended by EAs.
I’m not familiar with carbon offsetting as being a ‘trend in EA’ - as far as I’m aware the canonical EA treatment of this is Claire’s piece arguing against it.
Similarly, if I look at the EA forum wiki page for climate change, every single bullet point is about research, and the first one is ‘innovative approaches to clean energy’ which includes nuclear.
I’m personally pretty skeptical of lab-grown meat after looking into it for a while (see here, here, and here). I do think some investment into the space makes sense for reasons similar to your argument, but I’m personally a bit skeptical of “I think the science of my current approach doesn’t work and will never work but there’s a small chance I’m wrong so it might make sense to work on it anyway” as a way to do science.*
My guess is that the future replacement for meat will not look like lab-grown mammalian cells, and if it does, how we get there will look like radically different approaches than the way we’re currently doing it (e.g. substantially more AI-assisted).
I do tentatively think something in the general shape of your critique is right, and more effort should be spent mapping out the theory of victory for farmed animal agriculture in general, and for technological solutions in particular (see also).
* (I intuitively think this type of probabilistic hedging mentality is more natural to threat analysis or political wins. This is an empirical question though, and I’m also confused here).