It’s a tough question and something I’ve tried to wrap my head around as well. All of the threads in the comments here are quite helpful!
This point you’ve made, Sam, is also something I have thought about:
Saving human lives doesn’t just contribute to the problem of animal consumption, I hope it it also accelerates the solutions to factory farming.
Awareness of animal welfare issues tends to increase as people get richer and have more space to think about something other than their immediate needs. Of course, factory farming is worse in richer societies, but I think those societies are also closest to overcoming factory farming / the worst farming practices (veganism is more popular, bans of cages, mandatory pre-slaughter stunning, R&D into alt proteins, etc.). This hinges on a few assumptions, which can be debated, but I tend to find it plausible.
That said, I still exclusively support animal charities at this stage, since I think they are anyway far more cost-effective at improving sentient lives (see the points made by Vasco Grilo and Ben Millwood made in this thread).
It’s a tough question and something I’ve tried to wrap my head around as well. All of the threads in the comments here are quite helpful!
This point you’ve made, Sam, is also something I have thought about:
Awareness of animal welfare issues tends to increase as people get richer and have more space to think about something other than their immediate needs. Of course, factory farming is worse in richer societies, but I think those societies are also closest to overcoming factory farming / the worst farming practices (veganism is more popular, bans of cages, mandatory pre-slaughter stunning, R&D into alt proteins, etc.). This hinges on a few assumptions, which can be debated, but I tend to find it plausible.
That said, I still exclusively support animal charities at this stage, since I think they are anyway far more cost-effective at improving sentient lives (see the points made by Vasco Grilo and Ben Millwood made in this thread).