I believe that both contraceptive delivery and research are important, and wouldn’t advocate for funding one over the other. I was thinking more in terms of high priority funding gaps for both areas, and because male contraceptive research is so neglected, there appear to be some low hanging fruit. There are scientists who want to work on a clean sheets pill as well as other methods but who haven’t been able to for years due to lack of funding. If successful, the clean sheets pill might be able prevent both pregnancy and STDs such as AIDS.
Many men do care about their partners and avoiding unintended pregnancy, and many women struggle to find a contraceptive method that works for them with manageable side effects. Even looking at it just from a purely selfish perspective, many men do want to avoid the responsibility of having kids and having to pay child support.
I completely agree that there is a need for re-thought on the demand side campaign. I’m hoping that with the ACE research fund ( http://researchfund.animalcharityevaluators.org/ ) we’ll learn more about what works on the demand side, the challenge being able to measure small effect sizes. It does seem plausible that advocacy could be more effective if the ask is smaller, e.g. switching from chicken to beef or better yet a tastier meat alternative.
In addition to the difficulty in measuring small effect sizes, one of the significant problems with trying to evaluate advocacy is the necessary longitudinal nature of any meaningful study. Plenty of studies have shown that ~80% of people who go veg goes back to eating animals. What this doesn’t capture is that all those millions of former vegetarians are actively working against others making compassionate choices, telling everyone they found it impossible to be vegetarian, how fanatical vegans are, etc.
(Also, we would need to capture the full impact of our argument / advocacy, since most everything we put out there argues strongly for replacing red meat with chickens; http://bit.ly/2jrYBEB)
IMHO, it is better to simply ask, “Don’t eat chickens.” Don’t say “eat beef” or “eat vegan alternatives”—just leave the ask as simple and straightforward as possible.
More: http://www.mattball.org/2016/06/can-our-choices-make-difference.html
Thanks for the conversation!
That is a good point about the need for studies to measure the long term impact. What do you think of United Poultry Concerns? Do you know of any people who have given up chicken for ethical reasons but still eat other meat?
Do you think that cultured meat research should focus on developing alternatives to chicken instead of beef?
Mr Mather,
Sorry for the delay in replying.
I’m not sure what UPC does to get a reasonable, actionable message to the general public. One Step for Animals ( http://www.onestepforanimals.org/ ) has a psychologically sound message that they get in front of loads of people. For example, in the past 30 days, they have gotten their ads and videos in front of 1.8 million people on a budget of less than $10,000.
Yes, I do think that replacing chicken (with plant or clean meat) is much more important than beef.
Thanks Matt. In theory it sounds possible that your message could have impact for the reasons you gave—though I’d be interested in seeing empirical evidence that people would give up chicken for ethical reasons.
I believe that both contraceptive delivery and research are important, and wouldn’t advocate for funding one over the other. I was thinking more in terms of high priority funding gaps for both areas, and because male contraceptive research is so neglected, there appear to be some low hanging fruit. There are scientists who want to work on a clean sheets pill as well as other methods but who haven’t been able to for years due to lack of funding. If successful, the clean sheets pill might be able prevent both pregnancy and STDs such as AIDS.
Many men do care about their partners and avoiding unintended pregnancy, and many women struggle to find a contraceptive method that works for them with manageable side effects. Even looking at it just from a purely selfish perspective, many men do want to avoid the responsibility of having kids and having to pay child support.
I completely agree that there is a need for re-thought on the demand side campaign. I’m hoping that with the ACE research fund ( http://researchfund.animalcharityevaluators.org/ ) we’ll learn more about what works on the demand side, the challenge being able to measure small effect sizes. It does seem plausible that advocacy could be more effective if the ask is smaller, e.g. switching from chicken to beef or better yet a tastier meat alternative.
In addition to the difficulty in measuring small effect sizes, one of the significant problems with trying to evaluate advocacy is the necessary longitudinal nature of any meaningful study. Plenty of studies have shown that ~80% of people who go veg goes back to eating animals. What this doesn’t capture is that all those millions of former vegetarians are actively working against others making compassionate choices, telling everyone they found it impossible to be vegetarian, how fanatical vegans are, etc. (Also, we would need to capture the full impact of our argument / advocacy, since most everything we put out there argues strongly for replacing red meat with chickens; http://bit.ly/2jrYBEB) IMHO, it is better to simply ask, “Don’t eat chickens.” Don’t say “eat beef” or “eat vegan alternatives”—just leave the ask as simple and straightforward as possible. More: http://www.mattball.org/2016/06/can-our-choices-make-difference.html Thanks for the conversation!
That is a good point about the need for studies to measure the long term impact. What do you think of United Poultry Concerns? Do you know of any people who have given up chicken for ethical reasons but still eat other meat?
Do you think that cultured meat research should focus on developing alternatives to chicken instead of beef?
Mr Mather, Sorry for the delay in replying. I’m not sure what UPC does to get a reasonable, actionable message to the general public. One Step for Animals ( http://www.onestepforanimals.org/ ) has a psychologically sound message that they get in front of loads of people. For example, in the past 30 days, they have gotten their ads and videos in front of 1.8 million people on a budget of less than $10,000. Yes, I do think that replacing chicken (with plant or clean meat) is much more important than beef.
Thanks Matt. In theory it sounds possible that your message could have impact for the reasons you gave—though I’d be interested in seeing empirical evidence that people would give up chicken for ethical reasons.
Thanks Mr Mather. As noted here http://www.mattball.org/2017/01/the-difficulty-of-evaluating-impact-of.html it is tough. But at least the message should minimize the number of people switching from red meat to chickens. You might also like: http://www.onestepforanimals.org/blog/experiment-evaluate-repeat http://www.onestepforanimals.org/blog/good-news-believe-it-or-not :-)
PS: in blog form http://www.mattball.org/2017/01/the-difficulty-of-evaluating-impact-of.html Thanks again!