Thank you so much for this discussion! I don’t have much to add except to say that, as you mentioned earlier, linguistic skills for certain key languages like Chinese are something often forgotten in the cause of global animal welfare, but they’re crucial to EA work around this internationally. More presence in China would benefit EA work as a whole, although that’s obviously easier said than done.
I also agree with the idea of extending existing legislation for animal welfare, even though my ultimate goal is the abolition of animal agriculture. Considering the existing economic and sociopolitical realities, outright bans on animal agriculture or slaughter are unfortunately not politically possible at the moment.
Existing legislation has the advantage of already being on the books, and if we can clearly frame the issue as addressing what such legislation was originally intended to address, as well as ways expanded laws benefit humans, it may be the best way of getting those with low prior commitments to animal welfare onboard.
Yes, if there is one key takeaway from the report, I think it would be that someone with more local knowledge on China should investigate the Shandong guidelines in more depth. I was quite excited to see these guidelines and my research seems somewhat promising, but this needs to be validated further.
It seems like we are also aligned on the other points :)
Thank you so much for this discussion! I don’t have much to add except to say that, as you mentioned earlier, linguistic skills for certain key languages like Chinese are something often forgotten in the cause of global animal welfare, but they’re crucial to EA work around this internationally. More presence in China would benefit EA work as a whole, although that’s obviously easier said than done.
I also agree with the idea of extending existing legislation for animal welfare, even though my ultimate goal is the abolition of animal agriculture. Considering the existing economic and sociopolitical realities, outright bans on animal agriculture or slaughter are unfortunately not politically possible at the moment.
Existing legislation has the advantage of already being on the books, and if we can clearly frame the issue as addressing what such legislation was originally intended to address, as well as ways expanded laws benefit humans, it may be the best way of getting those with low prior commitments to animal welfare onboard.
Thanks for your comment Hayven!
Yes, if there is one key takeaway from the report, I think it would be that someone with more local knowledge on China should investigate the Shandong guidelines in more depth. I was quite excited to see these guidelines and my research seems somewhat promising, but this needs to be validated further.
It seems like we are also aligned on the other points :)