I really enjoyed reading this, and I really appreciate you pointing out that each animal helped matters, because I think that’s a very important point that people often forget. I also agree it’s important to be honest about what is feasible in the foreseeable future.
I am, however, more optimistic than you about ending factory farming. I think society has gradually been becoming more conscious of animal welfare issues and most people support ending factory farming. It might take 50 years, 100 years, but I think eventually this will translate into people caring enough to fight against powerful systemic forces. I’d be interested to hear what you think are the big differences to past social movements (the fact that animals can’t speak for themselves is obviously one!)
I think we also need to be careful about celebrating small wins too much. My understanding is that cage-free or something similar is like going from −100 to −90 on a welfare scale. That’s still good, but the bigger difference is between −90 and 0. That’s one reason I think our goal should still be to end factory farming, at least in regions where there is growing support for animal welfare.
In practice, I’m not sure whether that would change which actions we take, but maybe it should push us more towards building the democratic institutions that allow people to raise their voice about animal welfare (eg. Australian Alliance for Animals reforms), over say corporate campaigns. I’d also be keen to hear what other interventions you’re less pessimistic about (the “many more” from your post).
Hi Lucas, I like your point about being careful about celebrating small wins too much. To me the big difference between going from −100 to −90 and going from −90 to 0 is I see the expected value calculation as very different because the first one (going cage free) is clearly quite tractable, whereas the second one (reducing egg consumption?) I see as being really hard and unclear how to pursue it.
I definitely think there should be some effort that goes towards ‘ending factory farming’ type work. But I’m also quite skeptical of many proposed solutions. Or at least I think the people putting forward the proposals are too optimistic. This is maybe too big a question to ask in a forum comments section, but what’s the path to ending factory farming in 50 or 100 years? What probability do you think we’ll get there in that time frame?
Yeah for sure, it’s hard to know how the EV calculation pans out. Using my made-up numbers, the interventions that end factory farming would need to have >10% as much chance of success to be better—I think that is plausible but there’s so much uncertainty here.
Agree these are big questions that are hard to discuss online, but let’s chat when we get a chance in person!
I agree Lucas, I’m also optimistic about this. I feel like it’s too early in the movement to rule out a more ambitious vision like this, especially when there’s still so many stones left unturned like democratic institutional reform.
Thanks for writing this Elliot!
I really enjoyed reading this, and I really appreciate you pointing out that each animal helped matters, because I think that’s a very important point that people often forget. I also agree it’s important to be honest about what is feasible in the foreseeable future.
I am, however, more optimistic than you about ending factory farming. I think society has gradually been becoming more conscious of animal welfare issues and most people support ending factory farming. It might take 50 years, 100 years, but I think eventually this will translate into people caring enough to fight against powerful systemic forces. I’d be interested to hear what you think are the big differences to past social movements (the fact that animals can’t speak for themselves is obviously one!)
I think we also need to be careful about celebrating small wins too much. My understanding is that cage-free or something similar is like going from −100 to −90 on a welfare scale. That’s still good, but the bigger difference is between −90 and 0. That’s one reason I think our goal should still be to end factory farming, at least in regions where there is growing support for animal welfare.
In practice, I’m not sure whether that would change which actions we take, but maybe it should push us more towards building the democratic institutions that allow people to raise their voice about animal welfare (eg. Australian Alliance for Animals reforms), over say corporate campaigns. I’d also be keen to hear what other interventions you’re less pessimistic about (the “many more” from your post).
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!
Hi Lucas, I like your point about being careful about celebrating small wins too much. To me the big difference between going from −100 to −90 and going from −90 to 0 is I see the expected value calculation as very different because the first one (going cage free) is clearly quite tractable, whereas the second one (reducing egg consumption?) I see as being really hard and unclear how to pursue it.
I definitely think there should be some effort that goes towards ‘ending factory farming’ type work. But I’m also quite skeptical of many proposed solutions. Or at least I think the people putting forward the proposals are too optimistic. This is maybe too big a question to ask in a forum comments section, but what’s the path to ending factory farming in 50 or 100 years? What probability do you think we’ll get there in that time frame?
Hey Elliot, sorry for the slow response on this.
Yeah for sure, it’s hard to know how the EV calculation pans out. Using my made-up numbers, the interventions that end factory farming would need to have >10% as much chance of success to be better—I think that is plausible but there’s so much uncertainty here.
Agree these are big questions that are hard to discuss online, but let’s chat when we get a chance in person!
I agree Lucas, I’m also optimistic about this. I feel like it’s too early in the movement to rule out a more ambitious vision like this, especially when there’s still so many stones left unturned like democratic institutional reform.
Elliot (and anyone else who’s interested) I’d love to discuss further with you on strategy—join us at EAAA, we discuss this kind of thing regularly 🙂 https://www.facebook.com/groups/eafta/?ref=share&mibextid=NSMWBT