Moreover, many animal welfare people are now focused on clean meat, which often doesn’t need philanthropic funding in the first place.
I think this is wrong or at least may be easy to misinterpret for the typical reader.
It is confusing but my guess is that Benjamin Todd meant plant based meat, for the reasons you indicate (size of the recently popular PBM industry, where recent valuations of a single company is many times all funding in FAW, as opposed to in vitro lab grown meat, which is much farther away from commercialization).
Yes, sorry I was thinking of meat substitutes broadly. I agree clean meat is more funding constrained than plant based meat, because it’s further from commercialisation.
Hmm yeah maybe(?) he just misspoke. I do think “clean meat” usually refers to in vitro lab grown meat rather than “all meat alternatives”, both within EA and more broadly, so if clean meat was a standin for PBM I’d stand by my assertion “may be easy to misinterpret for the typical reader”
FWIW I looked into PBM much less than clean meat but I would guess it would be overconfident to assume that replacing all (or most) slaughter-based meat via scaling up existing systems is inevitable and I would guess progress is at least somewhat amenable to philanthropic funding, though not necessarily on parity with top farmed animal welfare interventions like corporate campaigns.
Btw, I too find myself confused about this point by Benjamin_Todd and also am not sure exactly what’s going on here.
On the other hand, many animal welfare non-profits still seem more likely to say that if they had more funding, they’d hire a bunch more people, and salaries also seem fairly low. I’m not sure exactly what’s going on there.
Btw, I too find myself confused about this point by Benjamin_Todd and also am not sure exactly what’s going on here.
On the other hand, many animal welfare non-profits still seem more likely to say that if they had more funding, they’d hire a bunch more people, and salaries also seem fairly low. I’m not sure exactly what’s going on there.
I think Benjamin_Todd is saying that
There is currently “room for funding” in (farmed) animal welfare, maybe specifically in talent and salaries
There was a reported overhang of funding in farmed animal welfare. Extrapolating from growth in Good Ventures, this overhang could even have increased
1 and 2 seems to be a contradiction
Some quick thoughts of mine that may be low quality:
I know some people in the farmed animal welfare space and funding is being thoughtfully deployed and there is attention to talent and appropriate compensation.
There’s a lot of actual on the ground, operational activity in animal welfare, compared to meta or longtermist cause areas. In my personal bias/perspective/worldview, this activity is inherently less cohesive and produces noise and this is normal. This noise described above can make it a little harder to get signal about funding gaps
Increasing salaries or significantly improving the stream of talent are inherently delicate and slow processes involving changes in culture
I think 2017 is a long time in the EA movement. It seems reasonable to get newer information about funding. Note that clearly 80,000 hours has hosted important leaders in farmed animal welfare since 2017.
I’m more sure that actual on the ground work, operations and implementation, is precious and can be hard to communicate or make visible.
It is confusing but my guess is that Benjamin Todd meant plant based meat, for the reasons you indicate (size of the recently popular PBM industry, where recent valuations of a single company is many times all funding in FAW, as opposed to in vitro lab grown meat, which is much farther away from commercialization).
Yes, sorry I was thinking of meat substitutes broadly. I agree clean meat is more funding constrained than plant based meat, because it’s further from commercialisation.
Hmm yeah maybe(?) he just misspoke. I do think “clean meat” usually refers to in vitro lab grown meat rather than “all meat alternatives”, both within EA and more broadly, so if clean meat was a standin for PBM I’d stand by my assertion “may be easy to misinterpret for the typical reader”
FWIW I looked into PBM much less than clean meat but I would guess it would be overconfident to assume that replacing all (or most) slaughter-based meat via scaling up existing systems is inevitable and I would guess progress is at least somewhat amenable to philanthropic funding, though not necessarily on parity with top farmed animal welfare interventions like corporate campaigns.
Btw, I too find myself confused about this point by Benjamin_Todd and also am not sure exactly what’s going on here.
I think Benjamin_Todd is saying that
There is currently “room for funding” in (farmed) animal welfare, maybe specifically in talent and salaries
There was a reported overhang of funding in farmed animal welfare. Extrapolating from growth in Good Ventures, this overhang could even have increased
1 and 2 seems to be a contradiction
Some quick thoughts of mine that may be low quality:
I know some people in the farmed animal welfare space and funding is being thoughtfully deployed and there is attention to talent and appropriate compensation.
There’s a lot of actual on the ground, operational activity in animal welfare, compared to meta or longtermist cause areas. In my personal bias/perspective/worldview, this activity is inherently less cohesive and produces noise and this is normal. This noise described above can make it a little harder to get signal about funding gaps
Increasing salaries or significantly improving the stream of talent are inherently delicate and slow processes involving changes in culture
I think 2017 is a long time in the EA movement. It seems reasonable to get newer information about funding. Note that clearly 80,000 hours has hosted important leaders in farmed animal welfare since 2017.
I’m more sure that actual on the ground work, operations and implementation, is precious and can be hard to communicate or make visible.