Good question, I wasn’t sure how much to err on the side of brevity vs thoroughness.
To phrase it differently I think sometimes advocates start their strategy with the final line ‘and then we end factory farming’, and then try to develop a strategy about how do we get there. I don’t think it is reasonable to assume this is going to happen, and I think this leads to overly optimistic theories of change. From time to time I see a claim about how meat consumption will be drastically reduced in the next few decades based on a theory that is far too optimistic and/or speculative.
For example, I’ve seen work claim that when plant-based meat reaches taste and price parity, people will choose plant-based over conventional meat, so if we raise the price of meat via regulation, and lower the cost of plant-based, there will be high adoption of plant-based, and meat reduction will be 30% lower by 2040 (those numbers are made up, but ball-park correct). I think these claims just aren’t super well founded and some research showed that when a university cafeteria offered impossible and regular burgers, adoption was still quite low (anyone know the citation?).
Thanks for your reply Elliot. I was specifically asking about your views on why the problem animal advocates are trying to solve is much harder and disanalogous than the problem the emancipation and the gay marriage movements were tryng to solve.
Hmm I’m not sure if I have a very considered answer to this question, except for the main argument that I think it’s much harder for people to see animals as having rights/moral value since they look different, are different species, and often act in foreign ways that make us more likely to discount their capacity to feel and think (e.g. fish don’t talk, scream, or visibly emote).
Good question, I wasn’t sure how much to err on the side of brevity vs thoroughness.
To phrase it differently I think sometimes advocates start their strategy with the final line ‘and then we end factory farming’, and then try to develop a strategy about how do we get there. I don’t think it is reasonable to assume this is going to happen, and I think this leads to overly optimistic theories of change. From time to time I see a claim about how meat consumption will be drastically reduced in the next few decades based on a theory that is far too optimistic and/or speculative.
For example, I’ve seen work claim that when plant-based meat reaches taste and price parity, people will choose plant-based over conventional meat, so if we raise the price of meat via regulation, and lower the cost of plant-based, there will be high adoption of plant-based, and meat reduction will be 30% lower by 2040 (those numbers are made up, but ball-park correct). I think these claims just aren’t super well founded and some research showed that when a university cafeteria offered impossible and regular burgers, adoption was still quite low (anyone know the citation?).
Hi Elliot, I cite a couple of studies similar to that in my review Price-, Taste-, and Convenience-Competitive Plant-Based Meat Would Not Currently Replace Meat; I suspect you’re thinking of Malan 2022.
Thanks for your reply Elliot.
I was specifically asking about your views on why the problem animal advocates are trying to solve is much harder and disanalogous than the problem the emancipation and the gay marriage movements were tryng to solve.
Hmm I’m not sure if I have a very considered answer to this question, except for the main argument that I think it’s much harder for people to see animals as having rights/moral value since they look different, are different species, and often act in foreign ways that make us more likely to discount their capacity to feel and think (e.g. fish don’t talk, scream, or visibly emote).