I found this post excellent and original. SARP is an immense problem and still seems crucially neglected within EA animal advocacy, perhaps because itās still difficult to find good theories of change aimed at preventing it. This also might be the first piece I encounter that treats SARP as more than a short-termist concern.
While I superficially agree with the overall point, I do have a few cruxes. ā[...] advocacy towards considering the suffering of mammals farmed for their meat, seems to be contributing to the growth of the farming of smaller animalsā seems like a core claim, and yet thereās no link or footnote for tentative evidence[1]. Yes, vegan advocacy and SARP have both grown in the past ten years, but does correlation imply causation?
My second crux ends up being kind of the same as the first one. I find both Sentientia and Reversomelas implausible, because I find it unlikely that the values of a tiny minority of present-day humans (animal advocates) will have a strong effect on the values of society in the future.
Overall, while I found the post enriching, I find myself disagreeing with the premise somewhat. Your description of the present, as well as those of both futures, seem to give too much weight to moral adovcacy, compared to other factors. While I think that the size of animals that will be farmed in the future matters a lot, I think that the factors that will determine that are neither the way current vegans talk about animals, nor the choices we make in welfare campaigns during this decade.
Since veganism /ā antispeciesism opposes the farming of small animals, by contrast with environmentalists who are likelier to be favorable to insect farming for pet feed or honey production while being critical of the farming of large animals, there is a strong āsuperficialā case for thinking that the vegan /ā sentientist meme is likelier to attenuate SARP than to worsen it. Another point would be the (very minor) waves that shrimp welfare campaigns have made recently.
There are obvious counterpoints to my position though: cow-focused environmental /ā leaning vegan material like Cowspiracy has probably worsened SARP on the margin.
ā[...] advocacy towards considering the suffering of mammals farmed for their meat, seems to be contributing to the growth of the farming of smaller animalsā seems like a core claim, and yet thereās no link or footnote for tentative evidence.
Interesting. I didnāt expect this to be controversial. This was just an example anyway. I didnāt mean to argue about what strategies do and do not contribute to SARP. Thatās a whole other discussion and is kinda irrelevant to the point of my post. (Although, obviously, the more we think the strategies people use contribute to SARP, the more my point matters in practice.)[1]
While I think that the size of animals that will be farmed in the future matters a lot, I think that the factors that will determine that are neither the way current vegans talk about animals, nor the choices we make in welfare campaigns during this decade.
What do you think those factors are, then? And do you think the work of people trying to help animals (EA-inspired people in particular) do not affect these factors in any non-chaotic way? (such that there is no need to worry about contributing to SARP.)
Fwiw, I just found this interesting video where Matt Ball somewhat suggests that promoting veganism hurts animals overall because of SARP (and he completely ignores animals smaller than chickens). (EDIT: no, I misinterpreted him. He just thinks promoting veganism doesnāt work. This has nothing to do with SARP.)
(my answer is kind of messy as I probably misunderstood some of your points while first writing it, and then edited in a disorderly fashion)
What will shape the future is always unclear. Naively predictable factors that seem much larger than animal advocacy to me are:
Caring about the environment /ā sustainability: itās likely that if these factors remain important in society, some forms of farming could be severely restricted (cow farming, but also perhaps some forms of fish farming?)
Cultural /ā commercial contingencies: stuff like the popularity of sushi in the west, successful ad campaigns by red lobster, seem to have significantly influenced the demand for small animals
Technological development: current developments may make cow farming more sustainable (good for small animals), but productivity developments will probably be more significant for small animal farming, which is much less efficient currently and has more room for improvement.
Sure, animal advocates could strategically try to influence these factors in one direction or the other, but Iād see at possible marginal impact over force currently beyond their control. Regarding second-order effects of the moral advocacy /ā cultural influence aspect of animal advocacy, I canāt remember ever encountering any indication of the fact that people in the west were eating more chickens[1], crustaceans and fishes because of culturally-encouraged empathy for large animals. Maybe there are non-consumer cases where a link can be drawn, such as ethical criticisms of meat from large animals being leveraged by the insect farming industry, but this is more of an imaginary example as Iām not sure this has been the case.
As for whether animal advocates are still likely to influence SARP: yes, but plausibly only marginally, unless they act with a strategic mindset in some key field (eg through getting a ban on the use of Precision Livestock Farming for large animals but not for small animals). I agree that it should be taken more seriously. However, I think whether current animal advocacy efforts increase or decrease SARP is very unclear to me. There are definitely strategic questions to be asked here, such as whether welfare reforms that drive up the prices of products from large animals will increase the consumption of small animals, or whether the movement should try to be aligned with the environmental movement (who seems to have a larger effect on SARP), and reminding advocates that SARP actually matters a lot is a good step in that direction. I wonder to what extent the big animal welfare orgs are currently thinking about this (it seems to be on L214ā²s mind from what Iāve heard floating around, but itās unclear whether their current efforts are going in the right direction).
Matt Ball is definitely an interesting case, itās surprising that the person whoās probably been the most outspoken about SARP is also the one anti-invertebrate sentience advocate in the movement.
Just to clarify, I really didnāt mean to argue about whether strategy X is contributing to SARP. All Iām saying is āmany people i) believe what they do somewhat contributes to SARP but they ii) think itās just a temporary setback and itās fineāand (I claim) itās not obvious theyāre right about (ii)ā.
You seem to think they might not be right about (i), which is of course also relevant but my impression is that the crux for most people is (ii) and not (i). They generally donāt seem to care about how much what they do might be contributing to SARP. As long as this improves peopleās values from their perspective, they generally think it offsets their (potential) contribution to SARP anyway. (See e.g. here and here.)
EDIT: Actually, Iāve just spent some more time looking into every mention of SARP on the EA Forum and it is almost exclusively mentioned in discussions of meat taxes and environmental strategies. There seems to be a meme that SARP is just a reason to avoid helping animals with environmentalist strategies, as if it was obvious that other strategiesāe.g., promoting plant-based food, chicken welfare reforms, moral advocacyādid not contribute to SARP (here and here are rare exceptions). So maybe the question of what exact strategies contribute to SARP is more cruxy than I thought. Maybe most animal advocates think theyāre not contributing to SARP anyway and havenāt thought that much about (ii).
I found this post excellent and original. SARP is an immense problem and still seems crucially neglected within EA animal advocacy, perhaps because itās still difficult to find good theories of change aimed at preventing it. This also might be the first piece I encounter that treats SARP as more than a short-termist concern.
While I superficially agree with the overall point, I do have a few cruxes. ā[...] advocacy towards considering the suffering of mammals farmed for their meat, seems to be contributing to the growth of the farming of smaller animalsā seems like a core claim, and yet thereās no link or footnote for tentative evidence[1]. Yes, vegan advocacy and SARP have both grown in the past ten years, but does correlation imply causation?
My second crux ends up being kind of the same as the first one. I find both Sentientia and Reversomelas implausible, because I find it unlikely that the values of a tiny minority of present-day humans (animal advocates) will have a strong effect on the values of society in the future.
Overall, while I found the post enriching, I find myself disagreeing with the premise somewhat. Your description of the present, as well as those of both futures, seem to give too much weight to moral adovcacy, compared to other factors. While I think that the size of animals that will be farmed in the future matters a lot, I think that the factors that will determine that are neither the way current vegans talk about animals, nor the choices we make in welfare campaigns during this decade.
Since veganism /ā antispeciesism opposes the farming of small animals, by contrast with environmentalists who are likelier to be favorable to insect farming for pet feed or honey production while being critical of the farming of large animals, there is a strong āsuperficialā case for thinking that the vegan /ā sentientist meme is likelier to attenuate SARP than to worsen it. Another point would be the (very minor) waves that shrimp welfare campaigns have made recently.
There are obvious counterpoints to my position though: cow-focused environmental /ā leaning vegan material like Cowspiracy has probably worsened SARP on the margin.
Thanks for the comment Jo :)
Interesting. I didnāt expect this to be controversial. This was just an example anyway. I didnāt mean to argue about what strategies do and do not contribute to SARP. Thatās a whole other discussion and is kinda irrelevant to the point of my post. (Although, obviously, the more we think the strategies people use contribute to SARP, the more my point matters in practice.)[1]
What do you think those factors are, then? And do you think the work of people trying to help animals (EA-inspired people in particular) do not affect these factors in any non-chaotic way? (such that there is no need to worry about contributing to SARP.)
Fwiw, I just foundthis interesting videowhere Matt Ball somewhat suggests that promoting veganism hurts animals overall because of SARP (and he completely ignores animals smaller than chickens).(EDIT: no, I misinterpreted him. He just thinks promoting veganism doesnāt work. This has nothing to do with SARP.)(my answer is kind of messy as I probably misunderstood some of your points while first writing it, and then edited in a disorderly fashion)
What will shape the future is always unclear. Naively predictable factors that seem much larger than animal advocacy to me are:
Caring about the environment /ā sustainability: itās likely that if these factors remain important in society, some forms of farming could be severely restricted (cow farming, but also perhaps some forms of fish farming?)
Cultural /ā commercial contingencies: stuff like the popularity of sushi in the west, successful ad campaigns by red lobster, seem to have significantly influenced the demand for small animals
Technological development: current developments may make cow farming more sustainable (good for small animals), but productivity developments will probably be more significant for small animal farming, which is much less efficient currently and has more room for improvement.
Sure, animal advocates could strategically try to influence these factors in one direction or the other, but Iād see at possible marginal impact over force currently beyond their control. Regarding second-order effects of the moral advocacy /ā cultural influence aspect of animal advocacy, I canāt remember ever encountering any indication of the fact that people in the west were eating more chickens[1], crustaceans and fishes because of culturally-encouraged empathy for large animals. Maybe there are non-consumer cases where a link can be drawn, such as ethical criticisms of meat from large animals being leveraged by the insect farming industry, but this is more of an imaginary example as Iām not sure this has been the case.
As for whether animal advocates are still likely to influence SARP: yes, but plausibly only marginally, unless they act with a strategic mindset in some key field (eg through getting a ban on the use of Precision Livestock Farming for large animals but not for small animals). I agree that it should be taken more seriously. However, I think whether current animal advocacy efforts increase or decrease SARP is very unclear to me. There are definitely strategic questions to be asked here, such as whether welfare reforms that drive up the prices of products from large animals will increase the consumption of small animals, or whether the movement should try to be aligned with the environmental movement (who seems to have a larger effect on SARP), and reminding advocates that SARP actually matters a lot is a good step in that direction. I wonder to what extent the big animal welfare orgs are currently thinking about this (it seems to be on L214ā²s mind from what Iāve heard floating around, but itās unclear whether their current efforts are going in the right direction).
Matt Ball is definitely an interesting case, itās surprising that the person whoās probably been the most outspoken about SARP is also the one anti-invertebrate sentience advocate in the movement.
Just to clarify, I really didnāt mean to argue about whether strategy X is contributing to SARP. All Iām saying is āmany people i) believe what they do somewhat contributes to SARP but they ii) think itās just a temporary setback and itās fineāand (I claim) itās not obvious theyāre right about (ii)ā.
You seem to think they might not be right about (i), which is of course also relevant but my impression is that the crux for most people is (ii) and not (i). They generally donāt seem to care about how much what they do might be contributing to SARP. As long as this improves peopleās values from their perspective, they generally think it offsets their (potential) contribution to SARP anyway. (See e.g. here and here.)
EDIT: Actually, Iāve just spent some more time looking into every mention of SARP on the EA Forum and it is almost exclusively mentioned in discussions of meat taxes and environmental strategies. There seems to be a meme that SARP is just a reason to avoid helping animals with environmentalist strategies, as if it was obvious that other strategiesāe.g., promoting plant-based food, chicken welfare reforms, moral advocacyādid not contribute to SARP (here and here are rare exceptions). So maybe the question of what exact strategies contribute to SARP is more cruxy than I thought. Maybe most animal advocates think theyāre not contributing to SARP anyway and havenāt thought that much about (ii).