This might sound like a no-true Scotsman, but ACE is not widely respected by Effective Animal Advocates—as catalysed by the thread you link. Likewise, ACE publicly distances itself from EA. This is common knowledge for EA’s that operate in this space.
This is news to me and is a significant positive update, thanks very much for sharing.
I notice that two of the three animal funds listed on the GWWC page (which is also the EA funds page? I’m not quite sure of the distinction) are managed by ACE. Perhaps this is not so common knowledge among the non-EAA people who run that infrastructure?
I’m not fully following things, but my understanding was this was about right a couple years ago but isn’t any longer? Since that controversy, ACE has had a lot of leadership turnover including a new executive director and research director. And in their first Forum post in over a year:
As an EA organization dedicated to transparency and intellectual rigor, we would like to take it a step further and interact more closely with the community that shares these values.
Compare to, around the time they (which was a pretty different group of people at the time) stopped engaging:
We have declined to include our perspective here. The most time-consuming part of our commitment to Representation, Equity, and Inclusion has been responding to hostile communications in the EA community about the topic, such as this one. We prefer to use our time and generously donated funds towards our core programs. Therefore, we will not be engaging any further in this thread.
I don’t want to take your word for it, but if this is true I think it would reflect well on EAAs. I’d love to hear more about the internal reaction.
EDIT: I misread this as “catalyzed by the thread [Elizabeth] linked”, and realize now you probably meant “catalyzed by the thread [in the comment you were directly replying to]”
I assume that’s not what Elizabeth was talking about though, given the lack of relation to nutrition, so I’m still not sure if her comment about punishment is reasonable in this context.
Less relevant but I also think the ACE example is slightly different as it was penalising charities for views that they disagree with, rather than investigating questions it doesn’t like.
(FWIW I also think ACE has changed sufficiently since that incident that I think it’s unlikely to happen again, but who knows)
The only thing I have strong evidence for, for investigations in particular, is “leaving aggressive, time-consuming comments”.
And I think that’s about all they can do to non-EAAs for asking questions, because vegan advocacy isn’t that powerful outside its sphere. It wouldn’t surprise me if my recent posts cost me e.g. the ability to get grants from Animal Welfare Fund[1], but this is the only project of mine that would affect[2]. It’s possible people within EAA would be treated more harshly, but also possible they’d be treated more kindly since they’d be able to signal in-group-ness in various ways.
The worst instance of use of symmetric weapons by EAAs I’ve heard of is DxE threatening to disrupt EAG 2015 if meat was served, and that this was a major reason meat hasn’t been served at EAG since.[3]
Several years ago AWF reached out to ask if I wanted to apply for funding for a research question, and gave several suggestions for things I could investigate. So I think getting funding from AWF was a live option for me at one point.
When my first grant ran out and I was looking for both more funding and a VA co-founder to study the question in more detail, I reached out to two members of VA. One didn’t respond, and I only just realized the other email bounced. I used the email they’d reached out to me with, but I guess it was tied to a specific project that has since closed. One missed email
That’s the first I’ve heard of that disruption threat. But—just judging from that sentence—it sounds completely reasonable to me! Asymmetric weapons and improving the discourse are good aims generally, yes, but there are substantial barriers in place to these actually occurring.
I don’t really have enough info to judge what the actual counterfactual would be here, but generally the counterfactual reality in these sorts of discussions isn’t everyone coming together in harmonious logical debate. Incrimination and the four Ns are a strong countervailing force! That we have a norm in 2023 where quite disparate people (in background, field) come together on eating vegan is pretty much unprecedented.
What evidence do you have that it has punished people?
I think ACE’s attempt to get speakers removed from conferences and penalize charities based on their dissent to ACE’s BLM views probably counts. (Though this example is not nutrition based).
This might sound like a no-true Scotsman, but ACE is not widely respected by Effective Animal Advocates—as catalysed by the thread you link. Likewise, ACE publicly distances itself from EA. This is common knowledge for EA’s that operate in this space.
This is news to me and is a significant positive update, thanks very much for sharing.
I notice that two of the three animal funds listed on the GWWC page (which is also the EA funds page? I’m not quite sure of the distinction) are managed by ACE. Perhaps this is not so common knowledge among the non-EAA people who run that infrastructure?
I’m not fully following things, but my understanding was this was about right a couple years ago but isn’t any longer? Since that controversy, ACE has had a lot of leadership turnover including a new executive director and research director. And in their first Forum post in over a year:
Compare to, around the time they (which was a pretty different group of people at the time) stopped engaging:
ACE is largely different people now than it was a few years ago, and I talked to them a lot when I was in the space as recently as June.
I don’t want to take your word for it, but if this is true I think it would reflect well on EAAs. I’d love to hear more about the internal reaction.
EDIT: I misread this as “catalyzed by the thread [Elizabeth] linked”, and realize now you probably meant “catalyzed by the thread [in the comment you were directly replying to]”
I assume that’s not what Elizabeth was talking about though, given the lack of relation to nutrition, so I’m still not sure if her comment about punishment is reasonable in this context.
Less relevant but I also think the ACE example is slightly different as it was penalising charities for views that they disagree with, rather than investigating questions it doesn’t like.
(FWIW I also think ACE has changed sufficiently since that incident that I think it’s unlikely to happen again, but who knows)
The only thing I have strong evidence for, for investigations in particular, is “leaving aggressive, time-consuming comments”.
And I think that’s about all they can do to non-EAAs for asking questions, because vegan advocacy isn’t that powerful outside its sphere. It wouldn’t surprise me if my recent posts cost me e.g. the ability to get grants from Animal Welfare Fund[1], but this is the only project of mine that would affect[2]. It’s possible people within EAA would be treated more harshly, but also possible they’d be treated more kindly since they’d be able to signal in-group-ness in various ways.
The worst instance of use of symmetric weapons by EAAs I’ve heard of is DxE threatening to disrupt EAG 2015 if meat was served, and that this was a major reason meat hasn’t been served at EAG since.[3]
Several years ago AWF reached out to ask if I wanted to apply for funding for a research question, and gave several suggestions for things I could investigate. So I think getting funding from AWF was a live option for me at one point.
When my first grant ran out and I was looking for both more funding and a VA co-founder to study the question in more detail, I reached out to two members of VA. One didn’t respond, and I only just realized the other email bounced. I used the email they’d reached out to me with, but I guess it was tied to a specific project that has since closed. One missed email
Source: Oliver Habryka, an organizer at EAG 2015 and 2016
That’s the first I’ve heard of that disruption threat. But—just judging from that sentence—it sounds completely reasonable to me! Asymmetric weapons and improving the discourse are good aims generally, yes, but there are substantial barriers in place to these actually occurring.
I don’t really have enough info to judge what the actual counterfactual would be here, but generally the counterfactual reality in these sorts of discussions isn’t everyone coming together in harmonious logical debate. Incrimination and the four Ns are a strong countervailing force! That we have a norm in 2023 where quite disparate people (in background, field) come together on eating vegan is pretty much unprecedented.