I agree with your statement in its entirety (even the “fitting comeuppance” bit), but I don’t like the tone because it feels a little vindictive and mean to me. FarmKind were genuinely trying to help animals here, maybe messed up and I think you could perhaps be a little nicer while making your well articulated, very good point.
I am also sure Farmkind was genuinely trying to do good. But I do think these sorts of schemes warrant calling out with some small degree of ire.
Although my vision may be jaundiced, this case fits a pattern of some folks in animal advocacy being willing to be somewhat-worse-than-spotless in terms of integrity or candour in the hopes of securing some tactical advantage (cf.).
I think heading in the direction of treating non-animal advocates (within or without EA) as “legitimate targets for influence operations” rather than “fellow moral interlocutors” is unwise. Besides being unwise in the immediate “you weren’t as clever as you thought you were and it blew up in your face”, it also errs in terms of more insidious pollution of commons helpful for folks to coordinate on figuring out what is best to do, and cooperate in doing it.
Thus I hope the lesson learned is, “avoid kind-of manipulative or insincere advocacy”, not, “get better at pulling it off”. Unfortunately, if it has, it is not readily apparent in the OP, given its reflections focus on first-order consequences and better coordination with other EAAs.
I don’t know that it is entirely manipulative or insincere, even if the founders of Farmkind are themselves vegan and support veganism. I think that they are trying to put forward a perspective and highlight a perspective that is also consistent with funding effective animal charities:
“I love consuming animal products and I am not giving that up. But I also think it’s fucked up and wrong how animals are treated in the factory farming system.”
And then they would initially use the interesting contrast between that and the vegan community to generate attention, while then emphasizing the commonality. That animals shouldn’t be tortured and we can all do something to help make that stop.
I think that Farmkind is right that embracing people who have that perspective and validating that perspective may be part of growing the big tent, through not just funding but through engagement with the political process as well.
It seems like there were some execution issues here, but I hope that the appetite for creative and new ways to try to engage with the omnivorous supermajority continues growing.
I agree with your statement in its entirety (even the “fitting comeuppance” bit), but I don’t like the tone because it feels a little vindictive and mean to me. FarmKind were genuinely trying to help animals here, maybe messed up and I think you could perhaps be a little nicer while making your well articulated, very good point.
I am also sure Farmkind was genuinely trying to do good. But I do think these sorts of schemes warrant calling out with some small degree of ire.
Although my vision may be jaundiced, this case fits a pattern of some folks in animal advocacy being willing to be somewhat-worse-than-spotless in terms of integrity or candour in the hopes of securing some tactical advantage (cf.).
I think heading in the direction of treating non-animal advocates (within or without EA) as “legitimate targets for influence operations” rather than “fellow moral interlocutors” is unwise. Besides being unwise in the immediate “you weren’t as clever as you thought you were and it blew up in your face”, it also errs in terms of more insidious pollution of commons helpful for folks to coordinate on figuring out what is best to do, and cooperate in doing it.
Thus I hope the lesson learned is, “avoid kind-of manipulative or insincere advocacy”, not, “get better at pulling it off”. Unfortunately, if it has, it is not readily apparent in the OP, given its reflections focus on first-order consequences and better coordination with other EAAs.
I don’t know that it is entirely manipulative or insincere, even if the founders of Farmkind are themselves vegan and support veganism. I think that they are trying to put forward a perspective and highlight a perspective that is also consistent with funding effective animal charities:
“I love consuming animal products and I am not giving that up. But I also think it’s fucked up and wrong how animals are treated in the factory farming system.”
And then they would initially use the interesting contrast between that and the vegan community to generate attention, while then emphasizing the commonality. That animals shouldn’t be tortured and we can all do something to help make that stop.
I think that Farmkind is right that embracing people who have that perspective and validating that perspective may be part of growing the big tent, through not just funding but through engagement with the political process as well.
It seems like there were some execution issues here, but I hope that the appetite for creative and new ways to try to engage with the omnivorous supermajority continues growing.