Hi! I run Legal Impact for Chickens (LIC).
alene
Karma: 1,333
Thank you Joey!
The Law Is on the Animals’ Side: Legal Impact for Chickens’ Room for Funding & Impact (2025)
Thank you Akber!!!!
SPCA cruelty enforcement case clears another hurdle
Thank you Kathleen!!!!
Got it. Thank you so much for explaining so patiently!
Got it. I think I understand what you’re saying. I’m not as good with math so I’m not sure if I followed the calculations. But to try to put what you’re saying in less mathy terms, I think you’re basically saying:
1) There are WAY WAY WAY more nematodes than farmed animals.
2) Nematodes are significantly less likely to be sentient than farmed animals.
3) But the fact that there are WAY WAY WAY more nematodes than farmed animals still means that, from an expected value perspective, one would still expect the effect of farming on nematodes to be much bigger than the effect of farming on farmed animals.
Is that right?
Like, if you could enter a deal where a person is guaranteed to pay you $1 up front, but in exchange you accept a 6% chance that the person will later take $4,810,000 from you, it’d be a bad deal to make, even though the most likely outcome is you simply gain a dollar and don’t pay anything. Is that a good analogy?
Thank you for this interesting, weird, surprising, and important post. It is a mind f*ck.
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Question: You say, “In particular, it is crucial to know whether [soil nematodes, mites, and springtails] have positive or negative lives.”
Is another crucial question to find out whether soil nematodes, mites, and springtails are sentient at all?
To me, reading this, the main emotional / System 1 reaction I had was, “But those animals are SO small and SO different from me. I can’t even see them! It’s hard for me to believe they’re sentient.” I looked briefly on the EA Forum and found this: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jYdmcrgAj5odTunCT/demodex-mites-large-and-neglected-group-of-wild-animals (“Strictly speaking, it’s unclear whether Demodex mites are sentient. But this is mostly because nobody has researched this question—for many groups of invertebrates where people have looked (e.g. insect groups), the science does support these groups being sentient. To me, it seems plausible enough that Demodex mites are sentient that we should be giving serious consideration to their interests.”).
What is your opinion on how likely these small animals are to be sentient? E.g. do you think it’s more like 10% likelihood or more like 90% likelihood?
To me “whether they have positive or negative lives” seems to imply that you think they likely do have lives with a valence one way or the other, as opposed to just unvalenced lives like we imagine plants and bacteria have. But maybe that’s not what you meant.
I realize that there are SO many animals that even a small chance of them being conscious is a big important moral thing for us to consider. So to be clear I’m not trying to push back on caring about them even if the likelihood of them being conscious is only like 10%. I’m just curious what you think.
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Update: After posting this, I just googled to see what soil mites look like up close. And the pictures I found of them are SO CUTE. They just look like little bugs, with cute little legs and stuff. So that makes me change my System 1 reaction to a new System 1 reaction of “Oh, of course these little cuties are sentient.” :-)
This is SUCH a great post. Very needed. Thank you Aaron!
Woah! This is really interesting and surprising to me. Thank you so much for letting people know!
This is a REALLY good point. Thank you for posting this. I come from the animal rights movement. We have a similar problem in that movement. People in the AR movement tend to feel isolated, because they care so much about animals and perhaps they feel that the rest of the world, their family, and their society doesn’t get it. So they are so eager to meet and befriend another AR person. It’s really fun to make friends so easily! I love how quick other AR people are to trust me when they find out I’m an animal advocate. But there’s also a downside to the trust in AR, similar to what you’re describing. People can be too trusting when they’re part of an ethical movement like AR or EA. And it can let others take advantage of them. I even imagine that people who want to take advantage of others might intentionally be motivated to join ethical communities like EA, AR, charity work, religious work, political activism, etc., so they can be accepted more easily with fewer questions. (Not sure—Just a hypothethis.) Thank you for writing this!
This is such a cool and interesting post. And it totally helps understand why things for humans seem like they’re materially getting better in many ways, but our culture involves a lot of people saying a lot of negative things about how humanity is doing. I love that you’re challenging the assumption that people accurately remember, or accurately report their memory of, their own happiness! This is super smart and matches my own experience of what it’s like to be a human. Often, I’m not super sure how happy I’ve been over the past week, or the past day. When someone asks me, it feels like a hard question. All I can remember is how I feel right now. And even that can sometimes be hard to articulate.
And thank you for mentioning that GDP growth could still be bad due to its effects on animals!
LIC proves in court that SPCAs can sue to stop ag cruelty!!
Thank you for posting this important question—and for mentioning Legal Impact for Chickens.
We have done some work to attempt to improve broiler chicken welfare through the U.S. government’s executive branch, by submitting comments on proposed United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations. We asked USDA to address broiler welfare in its salmonella response, and to make chicken-meat companies warn growers about animal-welfare issues. And we asked the National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP) to give birds more space in order to avoid deadly diseases.
Other orgs have sued the U.S. government executive branch to try to slow down slaughter line speeds. Faster slaughter line speeds are worse for chicken welfare.
None of the above-mentioned efforts were focused on fast-growth breeding, though. There’s definitely more that needs to be done.
Most people have a strong drive to perpetuate humanity. What makes EAs special is that EAs also care about others’ suffering. So EAs should focus on trying to make sure the future isn’t full of suffering.
Legal Impact for Chickens seeks a Litigation Intern.
Update on Harvey’s Market: A quick victory!
The butcher shop says it stopped selling foie gras thanks to LIC’ lawsuit.
“Harvey’s Market . . . discontinued the sale of foie gras once notice of this lawsuit was received,” according to the butcher shop’s answer to our complaint.
Thank you so much for posting this. This is something I worry about a lot but I’m terrible at explaining it. The way you explain it makes much more sense. Thank you. ❤️
I guess the main reason is because the arguments we’re making are right on the law. So I feel that we are bound to eventually win.
The example that immediately comes to mind for me is how animal lawyers finally established that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) prohibits the abuse of captive endangered and threatened animals.
The ESA states that it’s illegal to kill, harm, or harass any animal whose species is threatened or endangered. So if you read the law objectively, it looks like it should prevent the abuse of captive endangered or threatened animals in a circus or a roadside zoo. But circuses and roadside zoos used to routinely beat and neglect animals like endangered Asian elephants, lemurs, tigers, etc. And they wanted to be able to continue doing so.
The ESA also says that, if someone violates the ESA, any citizen who is harmed by that violation can sue. So it makes it very easy for private citizens to protect endangered or threatened animals even when police and prosecutors are busy with other tasks.
The circus and the roadside zoos didn’t want the ESA to apply to them. And they had access to lots of money and good lawyers.
So, for years, somehow, the private wild animal ownership industry was able to continue violating the ESA without repercussion—even when animal lawyers tried to sue.
Finally, though, lawyers at the Animal Legal Defense Fund brought a landmark case called Kuehl v. Sellner. Kuehl v. Sellner successfully established that it’s illegal to abuse captive endangered and threatened animals. Now, courts seem to accept that premise without question.
The cool thing about the U.S. court system is that it’s designed to be a place where you can win if you’re right on the law—even if your opponent has more money and political power than you. It doesn’t always live up to that promise right away. But eventually, it often does.
Thank you so much for your support, Jason!