In terms of Twitter, which is where my expertise lies
I don’t understand the key break points well enough. What are they things that could be acheived? What are the key “markets of the mind” that need shifting?
For nuclear this is “nuclear is dangerous” but nuclear is safer per gigawatt hour than fossil fuels. See our world in data
For “capitalism is bad” it’s “the world is much better”. See Our world in data
Possible lines here. Do people think:
“high welfare meat would be too expensive”
“factory farming’s ills are exaggerated?”
“animals aren’t really conscious”
″ I don’t care”
And for whicheveer of these are the main ones, what is the reality of the situation.
A graph showing that high welfare meat that animal wellfare advocates support is only $1 mor per meal
Graphs showing that the median farm is a horrorshow. Perhaps with video
vidoes of farm animals being highly intelligen
polls about how the public tends to care a lot about animials.
Sorry to write this quickly and happier to have a longer discussion, but I think many people could support the cause if they were supported with a map of the discourse and arguments they trusted.
Often to me the animal welfare movement looks like it doesn’t negotiate. If there were a push to say “buy high welfare meat is 50% better” if that’s true, then that could be a big tent thing.
Happy to discuss more in messages. I have 16k twitter followers so on this vertical I know something of what I’m talking about.
Thanks Nathan! I like your idea of mapping the key arguments that stop people from helping farm animals. My sense is there are different blocking arguments depending on the ask. For high-welfare meat, I suspect the blockers are:
“I already buy humane meat” (easy to believe this when most meat is labeled with ‘all natural’ and other meaningless labels)
“High welfare meat is too expensive” (true of truly high-welfare, but not necessarily of med-welfare)
“I have no way of knowing which meat is high welfare” (it’s really hard because in most countries the meat industry is free to mislabel their products with fake certifications and lots of meaningless claims)
You’re absolutely right that a major challenge is that portions of the animal movement don’t negotiate. Some high welfare meat is easily 50% better, but if you claimed that on Twitter you’d get drowned out by abolitionists claiming it’s all equally bad.
I’m pessimistic about changing individual diets in general, whether to higher welfare meat or plant-based, simply because of the scale of people you need to reach. So I’m more excited about mobilizing people to support corporate and political change. I suspect there the biggest blockers are a mix of “my action won’t make any difference” and “I’m too busy with other stuff.”
In terms of Twitter, which is where my expertise lies
I don’t understand the key break points well enough. What are they things that could be acheived? What are the key “markets of the mind” that need shifting?
For nuclear this is “nuclear is dangerous” but nuclear is safer per gigawatt hour than fossil fuels. See our world in data
For “capitalism is bad” it’s “the world is much better”. See Our world in data
Possible lines here. Do people think:
“high welfare meat would be too expensive”
“factory farming’s ills are exaggerated?”
“animals aren’t really conscious”
″ I don’t care”
And for whicheveer of these are the main ones, what is the reality of the situation.
A graph showing that high welfare meat that animal wellfare advocates support is only $1 mor per meal
Graphs showing that the median farm is a horrorshow. Perhaps with video
vidoes of farm animals being highly intelligen
polls about how the public tends to care a lot about animials.
Sorry to write this quickly and happier to have a longer discussion, but I think many people could support the cause if they were supported with a map of the discourse and arguments they trusted.
Often to me the animal welfare movement looks like it doesn’t negotiate. If there were a push to say “buy high welfare meat is 50% better” if that’s true, then that could be a big tent thing.
Happy to discuss more in messages. I have 16k twitter followers so on this vertical I know something of what I’m talking about.
Thanks Nathan! I like your idea of mapping the key arguments that stop people from helping farm animals. My sense is there are different blocking arguments depending on the ask. For high-welfare meat, I suspect the blockers are:
“I already buy humane meat” (easy to believe this when most meat is labeled with ‘all natural’ and other meaningless labels)
“High welfare meat is too expensive” (true of truly high-welfare, but not necessarily of med-welfare)
“I have no way of knowing which meat is high welfare” (it’s really hard because in most countries the meat industry is free to mislabel their products with fake certifications and lots of meaningless claims)
You’re absolutely right that a major challenge is that portions of the animal movement don’t negotiate. Some high welfare meat is easily 50% better, but if you claimed that on Twitter you’d get drowned out by abolitionists claiming it’s all equally bad.
I’m pessimistic about changing individual diets in general, whether to higher welfare meat or plant-based, simply because of the scale of people you need to reach. So I’m more excited about mobilizing people to support corporate and political change. I suspect there the biggest blockers are a mix of “my action won’t make any difference” and “I’m too busy with other stuff.”
I’d welcome any additional thoughts you have!