Hi Nico! Welcome to the forum! I appreciate you making the case for a new intervention, that is broadly viable to many people interested in advancing the cause of non-human animals’ welfare or rights.
My intuition is that the liberation pledge will not make the top 10 of most effective ways of having a positive impact on farmed animal welfare. I don’t have rigorous (or tbh, any) models here, but things that I would imagine are more effective at similar levels of emotional, economic, and attention costs:
working slightly harder at your day job and donating
doing research and analysis of specific med/low-level questions like what specific charities are best to give to, or what pathways to alternative proteins exist.
signing petitions and other issue-specific political advocacy efforts
campaigning for pro-animal politicians within your local jurisdiction.
(for multi-lingual speakers) translating important texts in EAA thought to your local language
Using the extra time and emotional affordances you have to spend on improving your career capital
figuring out ways to increase the general perceived social/PR costs for executives and other knowledge workers (e.g. lawyers, marketing) from working at factory farming orgs.
while i don’t fully agree,, thankfully i’m not sure i need to! the Pledge doesn’t require i spend new resources, i.e., it doesn’t come at the expense of other actions i can (and should) be doing in this space. rather, i see it as complimentary. i eat the same number of meals a day, the same types of food, and hopefully with the same people as i otherwise would.
to the extent practicing the Pledge does require additional social/emotional capital up front, i view it as an investment into my future self. (the more i have these convos, the easier they get; the more i have these convos, the less i need to have them (as they’ve already been had); failing to have these convos kicks the ball down the road, and forces continued [albeit buried] strain upon my relationships).
Thanks for the engagement. I’m sometimes confused when things I perceive as subtly-but-not-legibly costly are not seen as costly by other people. Here’s another example that comes to mind.
thanks for that link; i see what you are getting at.
yes, i do think practicing the Pledge comes with some of the costs you mention in other comment. i simply think that the harms of these systems are so devastating comparatively that practicing the Pledge is the least i can do.
moreover, from my experience, practicing the Pledge has increased—not decreased—my capacity for further activism. in section IV.7 i respond to the issue of moral licensing, which applies here: ”However, at least in this context, the opposite impact is more likely. Powerfully and publicly acting on one’s values every mealtime helps the practitioner to build their confidence and conviction. And rather than limiting one’s additional activism, this impassioned conviction more often spills over to inspire continued engagement in the movement.”
I think I may have misunderstood the scope of your post. If you mean to restrict it to (animal) activists, then I’m much less sure about my top comment (though still think it is probably in the right direction). However, the EA Forum have many people who want to do good in different roles, including e.g., entrepreneurs, students, earning-to-givers, professional communicators, bureaucrats, grantmakers, lawyers, operations folks, and (especially) researchers. For most of those roles, seeing yourself primarily motivated by impassioned conviction and activism may be less directly useful than for activists.
i think the Pledge can be an effective tool (amongst others) for individuals to challenge the harms caused by Big Meat. i.e., it can be used by activists focused on the harms to animals, to public health, to workers, to the environment, etc. the article copied below makes a compelling case for framing veganism in this way (and i think the same applies to the Pledge):
(fwiw, i define activism/activists quite broadly; far from being reserved from grassroots organizers on the street, i think activist can (and should) apply to anyone trying to change the social conditions we were born into. by that definition, i think most EAs fall into that category).
Hi Nico! Welcome to the forum! I appreciate you making the case for a new intervention, that is broadly viable to many people interested in advancing the cause of non-human animals’ welfare or rights.
My intuition is that the liberation pledge will not make the top 10 of most effective ways of having a positive impact on farmed animal welfare. I don’t have rigorous (or tbh, any) models here, but things that I would imagine are more effective at similar levels of emotional, economic, and attention costs:
working slightly harder at your day job and donating
doing research and analysis of high-level questions like what the Theory of Change looks like for animal welfare, or what animal activists can learn from historical case studies.
doing research and analysis of specific med/low-level questions like what specific charities are best to give to, or what pathways to alternative proteins exist.
signing petitions and other issue-specific political advocacy efforts
campaigning for pro-animal politicians within your local jurisdiction.
(for multi-lingual speakers) translating important texts in EAA thought to your local language
Using the extra time and emotional affordances you have to spend on improving your career capital
figuring out ways to increase the general perceived social/PR costs for executives and other knowledge workers (e.g. lawyers, marketing) from working at factory farming orgs.
Helping EAA orgs find talent.
critiquing and red-teaming EAA orgs.
etc.
hey Linch. i like this comment!
while i don’t fully agree,, thankfully i’m not sure i need to! the Pledge doesn’t require i spend new resources, i.e., it doesn’t come at the expense of other actions i can (and should) be doing in this space. rather, i see it as complimentary. i eat the same number of meals a day, the same types of food, and hopefully with the same people as i otherwise would.
to the extent practicing the Pledge does require additional social/emotional capital up front, i view it as an investment into my future self. (the more i have these convos, the easier they get; the more i have these convos, the less i need to have them (as they’ve already been had); failing to have these convos kicks the ball down the road, and forces continued [albeit buried] strain upon my relationships).
Thanks for the engagement. I’m sometimes confused when things I perceive as subtly-but-not-legibly costly are not seen as costly by other people. Here’s another example that comes to mind.
thanks for that link; i see what you are getting at.
yes, i do think practicing the Pledge comes with some of the costs you mention in other comment. i simply think that the harms of these systems are so devastating comparatively that practicing the Pledge is the least i can do.
moreover, from my experience, practicing the Pledge has increased—not decreased—my capacity for further activism. in section IV.7 i respond to the issue of moral licensing, which applies here:
”However, at least in this context, the opposite impact is more likely. Powerfully and publicly acting on one’s values every mealtime helps the practitioner to build their confidence and conviction. And rather than limiting one’s additional activism, this impassioned conviction more often spills over to inspire continued engagement in the movement.”
I think I may have misunderstood the scope of your post. If you mean to restrict it to (animal) activists, then I’m much less sure about my top comment (though still think it is probably in the right direction). However, the EA Forum have many people who want to do good in different roles, including e.g., entrepreneurs, students, earning-to-givers, professional communicators, bureaucrats, grantmakers, lawyers, operations folks, and (especially) researchers. For most of those roles, seeing yourself primarily motivated by impassioned conviction and activism may be less directly useful than for activists.
i think the Pledge can be an effective tool (amongst others) for individuals to challenge the harms caused by Big Meat. i.e., it can be used by activists focused on the harms to animals, to public health, to workers, to the environment, etc. the article copied below makes a compelling case for framing veganism in this way (and i think the same applies to the Pledge):
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10455752.2020.1837895
(fwiw, i define activism/activists quite broadly; far from being reserved from grassroots organizers on the street, i think activist can (and should) apply to anyone trying to change the social conditions we were born into. by that definition, i think most EAs fall into that category).