Global development is an animal welfare issue. The wealthier a country is the more free time and resources the population has to entertain the idea that animal torture is bad.
If you or I were living in a favela in Brazil struggling to get by we probably wouldn’t have animal welfare on our radars as a political concern. We’d have bigger problems. Give us a comfy middle-class life and maybe we’d have room to care.
Having a strong precedent for this in countries like the UK and trying to nudge foreign standards with welfare-based import controls both help, but development is critical.
What EAs typically fund as “global health and development” is this very low level. I am skeptical what you say is significantly true at most higher levels. It seems to me that if this is your true reason you should fund either direct research into lab-grown meat, progress studies, or longtermism.
You’re skeptical that concerns for animal welfare track with socioeconomic development? The animal welfare movement has arisen and mainly operates in rich countries
Progress studies and longtermism sound good in theory and then in practice they don’t seem to have produced anything beyond theory, which is not that helpful. The randomista movement that produced the RCTs GiveWell based its recommendations on was a response to the longstanding failures of development economics to actually make an impact on development.
I am skeptical that socioeconomic development increase animal welfare at any point. This is a bit like saying that there weren’t any environmentalists before the Industrial Revolution, and there are a lot of environmentalists since then, so clearly this whole industry thing must be really good for the environment.
Environment is an interesting example because you go from complete poverty (no environmental impact) to middle income (rampant growth, environment not a priority, think Brazil/Indonesia and their rainforests, or manifest destiny USA and their forests) so impact worsens, then at high income concerns about environment become more of a priority so you get environmental protections.
Unless the goal is to prevent people rising out of poverty entirely (it shouldn’t be) the best outcome comes from faster development
But the environment (and animal welfare) is still worse off in post-industrial societies than pre-industrial societies, so you cannot credibly claim going from pre-industrial to industrial (which is what we generally mean by global health and development) is an environmental issue (or an animal welfare issue). It’s unclear if helping societies go from industrial to post-industrial is tractable, but that would typically fall under progress studies, not global health and development.
Global development is an animal welfare issue. The wealthier a country is the more free time and resources the population has to entertain the idea that animal torture is bad.
If you or I were living in a favela in Brazil struggling to get by we probably wouldn’t have animal welfare on our radars as a political concern. We’d have bigger problems. Give us a comfy middle-class life and maybe we’d have room to care.
Having a strong precedent for this in countries like the UK and trying to nudge foreign standards with welfare-based import controls both help, but development is critical.
This doesn’t seem to be borne out by the data on the effects of economic growth on total animal suffering.
The meat-eater problem is an issue with people going from not being able to afford meat (dreadfully poor) to being able to (only slightly less poor).
I’m talking about development beyond those very low levels
What EAs typically fund as “global health and development” is this very low level. I am skeptical what you say is significantly true at most higher levels. It seems to me that if this is your true reason you should fund either direct research into lab-grown meat, progress studies, or longtermism.
You’re skeptical that concerns for animal welfare track with socioeconomic development? The animal welfare movement has arisen and mainly operates in rich countries
Progress studies and longtermism sound good in theory and then in practice they don’t seem to have produced anything beyond theory, which is not that helpful.
The randomista movement that produced the RCTs GiveWell based its recommendations on was a response to the longstanding failures of development economics to actually make an impact on development.
I am skeptical that socioeconomic development increase animal welfare at any point. This is a bit like saying that there weren’t any environmentalists before the Industrial Revolution, and there are a lot of environmentalists since then, so clearly this whole industry thing must be really good for the environment.
Environment is an interesting example because you go from complete poverty (no environmental impact) to middle income (rampant growth, environment not a priority, think Brazil/Indonesia and their rainforests, or manifest destiny USA and their forests) so impact worsens, then at high income concerns about environment become more of a priority so you get environmental protections.
Unless the goal is to prevent people rising out of poverty entirely (it shouldn’t be) the best outcome comes from faster development
But the environment (and animal welfare) is still worse off in post-industrial societies than pre-industrial societies, so you cannot credibly claim going from pre-industrial to industrial (which is what we generally mean by global health and development) is an environmental issue (or an animal welfare issue). It’s unclear if helping societies go from industrial to post-industrial is tractable, but that would typically fall under progress studies, not global health and development.