ACE does largely work in relation to institutional change compared to individual change. But not really systems change, at least not in a more radical sense. Most of the work is about mainstreaming change through a dominant capitalist system, which is something that foundations seem to be pretty comfortable with. So it doesn’t challenge the roots of the issues but seems to cut away at the branches in a fairly single issue type way. The organisations that effective altruists tend to support are generalist, particularly engaged in welfare and “veg” approaches, not those engaged with educating around speciesism or taking broad based justice approaches. Perhaps EA Funds will do more work around these issues and maybe ACE is going to as well, though i feel there is a general sense that direct work around justice issues is considered too demanding, which is why incrementalism from within systems is preferred. However, almost inevitably effective animal advocacy has reflected some aspects of these harmful systems.
ACE does largely work in relation to institutional change compared to individual change. But not really systems change, at least not in a more radical sense. Most of the work is about mainstreaming change through a dominant capitalist system, which is something that foundations seem to be pretty comfortable with. So it doesn’t challenge the roots of the issues but seems to cut away at the branches in a fairly single issue type way. The organisations that effective altruists tend to support are generalist, particularly engaged in welfare and “veg” approaches, not those engaged with educating around speciesism or taking broad based justice approaches. Perhaps EA Funds will do more work around these issues and maybe ACE is going to as well, though i feel there is a general sense that direct work around justice issues is considered too demanding, which is why incrementalism from within systems is preferred. However, almost inevitably effective animal advocacy has reflected some aspects of these harmful systems.
This is quite a tangential point to the post and might come across as trying to divert the conversation.
There’s a possibility that if this happens a lot, it lowers the chance that other people pay attention to the points when they are relevant.
Then it ought to be the case that they are addressed somewhere by the relevant organisations.