I don’t have much to say, other than thanks for continuing to think about this issue. I’ll add a couple of (hot take) thoughts that might be relevant, based on my current read of the movement:
It seems to me that many animal advocates these days are aware of SARP and actively tailor their strategies to avoid it where possible. For example, being very careful to advocate for plant-based defaults at institutions rather than just for “reduced emissions” food swaps, when doing environmentally-focused campaigns (since “reduced emissions” could technically just swap beef for chicken, decreasing emissions but increasing total animals killed / days of suffering).
More organizations are working on small animal welfare than ever before, such as the large amount of money and energy that has gone into fish welfare and chicken welfare in recent years, and even in previously completely-ignored areas (like shrimp welfare, insect welfare, etc.).
So I think many of the main actors in the advocacy space are trying to adjust their strategies to account for SARP, regardless of whether or not it’s only a temporary setback from moral circle expansion. But I’m not sure how the percentages shake out, of who is accounting for it and who isn’t.
I think your Reversomelas scenario is very interesting and worthy of more analysis.
Thanks! In this other comment, I started wondering whether the main crux (for people not worrying that much about SARP) was the temporary setback view or animal advocates just believing they don’t contribute to SARP, and you’re providing some more reasons to believe it’s the latter.
Yeah, I think (a) many people don’t think about it, (b) some people do think about it and try to adjust accordingly (which they may succeed or fail at), and (c) some people acknowledge it but think of it as a temporary setback related to moral circle expansion.
I’m curious if you’re hoping to shift people’s thinking about strategy in any specific direction here, due to bringing this up? Are there specific changes you’d like to see advocates make, or some definition of “success” for improving advocacy strategies based on this awareness?
Might be interesting to do specific quantitative analysis and projections of various scenarios, as well, although of course that’s its own research project.
I’m curious if you’re hoping to shift people’s thinking about strategy in any specific direction here, due to bringing this up?
Not really, at least not with this specific post. I just wanted to learn things by getting people’s thoughts on SARP and the temporary setback view. Maybe I also very marginally made people update a bit towards “SARP might be a bigger deal than I thought” and “animal macrostrategy is complex and important”, and that seems cool, but this wasn’t the goal.
I like your questions. They got me thinking a lot. :)
Hey Jim! Thanks for pointing me here via your comment on my post about Adding Nuance to the Small Animal Replacement Problem: Moral Circle Expansion.
I don’t have much to say, other than thanks for continuing to think about this issue. I’ll add a couple of (hot take) thoughts that might be relevant, based on my current read of the movement:
It seems to me that many animal advocates these days are aware of SARP and actively tailor their strategies to avoid it where possible. For example, being very careful to advocate for plant-based defaults at institutions rather than just for “reduced emissions” food swaps, when doing environmentally-focused campaigns (since “reduced emissions” could technically just swap beef for chicken, decreasing emissions but increasing total animals killed / days of suffering).
More organizations are working on small animal welfare than ever before, such as the large amount of money and energy that has gone into fish welfare and chicken welfare in recent years, and even in previously completely-ignored areas (like shrimp welfare, insect welfare, etc.).
So I think many of the main actors in the advocacy space are trying to adjust their strategies to account for SARP, regardless of whether or not it’s only a temporary setback from moral circle expansion. But I’m not sure how the percentages shake out, of who is accounting for it and who isn’t.
I think your Reversomelas scenario is very interesting and worthy of more analysis.
Thanks! In this other comment, I started wondering whether the main crux (for people not worrying that much about SARP) was the temporary setback view or animal advocates just believing they don’t contribute to SARP, and you’re providing some more reasons to believe it’s the latter.
Yeah, I think (a) many people don’t think about it, (b) some people do think about it and try to adjust accordingly (which they may succeed or fail at), and (c) some people acknowledge it but think of it as a temporary setback related to moral circle expansion.
I’m curious if you’re hoping to shift people’s thinking about strategy in any specific direction here, due to bringing this up? Are there specific changes you’d like to see advocates make, or some definition of “success” for improving advocacy strategies based on this awareness?
Might be interesting to do specific quantitative analysis and projections of various scenarios, as well, although of course that’s its own research project.
Not really, at least not with this specific post. I just wanted to learn things by getting people’s thoughts on SARP and the temporary setback view. Maybe I also very marginally made people update a bit towards “SARP might be a bigger deal than I thought” and “animal macrostrategy is complex and important”, and that seems cool, but this wasn’t the goal.
I like your questions. They got me thinking a lot. :)