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.”
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!