This isn’t directly related, but here is some background about popular sentiment and one kind of activism:
The Octopus farming event has gotten traction and reception in social media.
On Reddit (the basis for LessWrong/EA forum) the issue has a 92k upvoted post, which puts it among one of the top recent posts:
In addition to the popularity of the post, many of the top comments are also pro-octopus welfare. The post has are moderate toned discussions that try to persuade or inform people.
I’m unsure if there’s any connection to this particular post, but in the past, several people (near EA, but not funded by EA money) have worked diligently on Reddit communication.
What this means is more well received, top posts such as this for farm animals. It probably also means high effort comments, e.g. “nonviolent communication” and “emotional labor”, that try to communicate and persuade, in a sort of EA way.
Over time, my guess is that popular discussion of farm animal welfare might have improved, with less heated, distracting arguments.
It’s unclear if or how social media will stop this particular farm, but sentiment seems useful in other theories of change.
It’s also good to know that in more than one way (senior EA academic leaders being the other), it’s plausible that EA leaders and near-EAs might have helped moved sentiment.
This isn’t directly related, but here is some background about popular sentiment and one kind of activism:
The Octopus farming event has gotten traction and reception in social media.
On Reddit (the basis for LessWrong/EA forum) the issue has a 92k upvoted post, which puts it among one of the top recent posts:
In addition to the popularity of the post, many of the top comments are also pro-octopus welfare. The post has are moderate toned discussions that try to persuade or inform people.
I’m unsure if there’s any connection to this particular post, but in the past, several people (near EA, but not funded by EA money) have worked diligently on Reddit communication.
What this means is more well received, top posts such as this for farm animals. It probably also means high effort comments, e.g. “nonviolent communication” and “emotional labor”, that try to communicate and persuade, in a sort of EA way.
Over time, my guess is that popular discussion of farm animal welfare might have improved, with less heated, distracting arguments.
It’s unclear if or how social media will stop this particular farm, but sentiment seems useful in other theories of change.
It’s also good to know that in more than one way (senior EA academic leaders being the other), it’s plausible that EA leaders and near-EAs might have helped moved sentiment.