avacyn

Karma: 242

avacyn 25 Jul 2022 2:38 UTC
15 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Three common mistakes when naming an org or project
I disagree with 2 and somewhat disagree with 3.
Re 2 - I think there’s a lot of value early on to describing clearly what you do via your name, and particularly how you might be different than similar organizations. A big challenge for new organizations is building a network of people (donors, employees, advisors) that are excited about what the group is doing. Making it clear to people why they might get excited to you via your name is a way to make this process much easier.
If you expand your strategy in the future you can always rebrand. Rebranding is disruptive, but it often won’t be as harmful as missing out on valuable connections early on.
Re 3 - getting lots of feedback is great, and you make a good point regarding how to get feedback. However, I think you have to be careful about how you weigh that feedback. The more people who weigh in on something like this, the more likely you’ll end up selecting for something that doesn’t have downsides, rather than something that actively has upsides (especially non-obvious ones, such as clearly describing what you do).

avacyn 24 Nov 2021 18:59 UTC
42 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Announcing our 2021 charity recommendations
I’ll preface by saying that I’m not deeply informed about the activities of the various non-profits in the technology alternative space (GFI, MII, New Harvest, Cellular Agriculture Society). However, based on my direct anecdotal experience working with some of these orgs, as well as strong impressions formed through working adjacent to them at a cell ag company, their relative rankings don’t line up with my understanding of their relative impact and competence. ACE’s comprehensive write ups don’t provide much more detail either. I worry that ACE has holes in their process that cause them to be systematically wrong about charities in the animal-alternative technology space. I would welcome more explanation for what went into these rankings.
I have a lot of respect for ACE, and I think that charity evaluation here is even more difficult than it is for conventional animal advocacy. However, if I were a donor, I would place very limited weight on ACE’s rankings for these orgs in particular, absent more info.
(I have no opinions ACE’s recommendations for other charities, and would probably still mostly defer to ACE there).

avacyn 11 Oct 2021 2:12 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Linch’s comment on: The crux of the cultivated meat feasibility debate
Not to over-emphasize this part of the debate, but I don’t think future cultured meat systems will be that analogous to how they look in animals. For example, modern bioreactor systems often employ a “sterile boundary” approach to sterility, which is pretty different than using antibodies to attack foreign particles. Depending on what bioreactor system you use, there are lots of things that look pretty different than what happens inside an animal.

avacyn 11 Oct 2021 1:52 UTC
2 points
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on: Early career EA’s should consider joining fast-growing startups in emerging technologies
Completely agree! I’ll also point out that there’s tons of promising fast growing startups in the alternative protein space.

avacyn 6 Oct 2021 2:53 UTC
7 points
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on: New intuitions for cultured meat
I think this is a bit of a straw-person. It may be true that some commentators overstate the immediate relevance of this consideration, as well as how close companies are to reaping the benefits of this efficiency. However, a more charitable interpretation of the argument is that at scale, support systems will be amortized over a much larger amount of desired output. To give two examples:
- Animals expend a substantial amount of calories thinking with their brain. This processing will be centralized, and paired down in scope in the computers that run the bioreactors.
- Animals spend a lot of energy regulating body temperature. Given that bioreactors will be much bigger than animals, they will have a much lower surface area for heat transfer.
(To be clear, I don’t think this category of argument is a major consideration in favor nor against the feasibility of cultured meat. There are arguments pointed in both direction. One disadvantage of bioreactors is that they have to be designed to last decades, have modular components that can be swapped out, etc.)

avacyn 2 Oct 2021 1:45 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: Linch’s comment on: Some Thoughts on Cultured Meat Feasibility
Thanks Linch! Apologies for the things I misunderstood / misrepresented about your report. Any sloppiness was the result of being rushed. I hope it’s clear that I was trying to engage in good faith :).
I agree with your characterization of the Altruist’s goals. Indeed, I think one of the biggest reasons to be bearish on cultured is if you’re super bullish on plant-based!
Re my theory of change, one other area that we may take lessons from is AI. I’m hesitant to speak too much about that since folks here know way more about it than me, but if AGI ends up being possible, it seems like it would have been important that domain-specific AIs were highly economically useful at various levels of sophistication.
Re the crux you identified—I agree that imagining such scenarios is important to thinking about the possible outcomes of cultured meat. I’m not sure I understand your distinction in the last paragraph of your comment. However, a couple of related thoughts:
- I don’t imagine it’s a good use of EA resources to devote tons of money directly to cultured meat R&D. Instead, it seems better to identify high leverage ways to increase funding, e.g. GFI’s work to hire lobbyists to get governments to invest huge sums and provide great incentives for research (like they have for solar).
- It doesn’t seem particularly optimistic to think that there will be on the order of tens of billions of dollars of investment over the next 10-20 years (even potentially with minimal EA intervention). I’d have to think a bit more about the different scenarios, but there are lots of worlds where there are impressive milestones reached, lots of private funding, funding by incumbent food companies, governments, etc in which we’d see that kind of investment. Tesla alone has an R&D budget of around 1.5B / year.

avacyn 28 May 2021 0:33 UTC
9 points
1 ∶ 0
on: Career Guide for Ending Factory Farming
In particular, there is a talent bottleneck for science and engineering roles.
As someone with experience hiring in the alternative protein sector, I have a few thoughts about this:
- The current talent bottlenecks in the industry may not be a great guide for a young professional’s career, at least in the alternative protein sector. Things in these industries change extremely quickly. Given that it could take 5+ years to get educated in one of these technical fields, the landscape by the time you finish your degree may look pretty different. Product improvement is a major focus now, but in the future I can see a major emphasis on policy (government funding for technical research can be a massive resource for public-good focused industries), management, operations, and marketing / PR (e.g. once the competition with conventional meat gets a bit dirtier).
- In my experience, the talent bottleneck for food science is greater than for other technical fields. Plant-based, cultivated, and fermented alt-proteins all need food scientists, and the explosion in plant-based meat (which is 10x bigger than cultivated and fermented) has put a lot of strain on that labor market. I also think it may be somewhat faster to get trained in food science than in e.g. bioengineering.
Very thorough writeup :)

avacyn 6 Jan 2021 22:15 UTC
5 points
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in reply to: Max_Daniel’s comment on: Some Scattered Thoughts on Operations
Agree!
Another possible difference between the startup world and the EA world is that startups have access to much stronger direct feedback loops than non-profits, i.e. trying to sell to customers and seeing what happens. This means that startups don’t have to think through everything super carefully before executing.

avacyn 6 Jan 2021 17:38 UTC
14 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Some Scattered Thoughts on Operations
I remember being surprised by the differing mindsets about operations when I transitioned to being more involved in the tech startup world after already being involved in EA. In the startup world you often hear things like “Ideas are cheap; execution is everything” which likely leads to operations feeling less low status. This is a major contrast to the EA world where many are highly intellectual, and place a high value on ideas. Given that startups tend to have more skin in the game than non-profits, perhaps EA non-profits could benefit from shifting more towards this mindset.

avacyn 3 Jan 2021 3:32 UTC
1 point
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on: The Conflicted Omnivore
[Separating from my other comment, since it’s a separate idea]
There’s a fifth idea that activists might consider when taking conflicted omnivores seriously, although it’s a bit ickier. Activists may be able to take whatever feeling is underlying the answers to these polls, and combine it with peoples’ general lack of education around factory farming, and garner broad support for something that seems much less radical than it is. For example, imagine a ballot initiative that aimed to “ban artificial insemination” in the dairy industry. Given polls like these, people may be inclined to support it, despite being unaware that it could cripple the dairy industry.

avacyn 3 Jan 2021 3:22 UTC
5 points
0 ∶ 0
on: The Conflicted Omnivore
Thank you for bringing attention to this phenomenon! I’ve seen a number of polls like this now, which makes me confident that this isn’t a fluke, and actually points to something extremely important for the movement. Another cool study from Psychology Today shows animal rights was the least controversial of six causes considered, including sustainability.
It’s a shame that in my experience, many activist are convinced that broader society doesn’t care about animals at all. I think this is a major sort of disillusionment and burnout in the movement. According to polls like this, there’s an important way in which this mindset is misguided.
I’ve also thought a bit about why we haven’t already abolished factory farms given polls like these. Adding on to the points you’ve already brought up:
- Cass Sunstein has done some awesome work on how “societal beliefs” can be slow to change in response to changes in the beliefs of the individual in that society (I like this 80K podcast episode on it). This is a reason for optimism that we may see abrupt change in favor of animal rights in the future.
- I think many people don’t actually have “beliefs” about whether animals have rights / feel pain / are conscious, etc . Beliefs are an abstraction over ways they might act in various scenarios (the map is not the territory). People can answer polls like this yet still not have the ascribed belief, because in reality their answer is a different type of behavior (e.g. an emotional response, signaling of group identity, etc). For me, this makes it less paradoxical how people can answer polls like this, yet still eat meat.

avacyn 13 Nov 2020 19:07 UTC
12 points
0 ∶ 0
on: What foundational science would help produce clean meat?
In the abstract, the highest impact scientific research you can do outside industry should focus on things that are important to long-term success, but are not necessary in the short term.
Companies already have a strong incentive to find alternatives to the largest cost-drivers so that they can begin to produce regularly at smaller scales without going bankrupt. For example, companies are likely already working on alternatives to using the most expensive growth factors, since at current costs, they can make even small scale production cost-prohibitive.
However, the long term success of cultivated meat will require innovation and cost reduction across the entire value chain. Many of these innovations aren’t important for the short-term goals of the industry, so will likely get pushed off until later. This is where academic research can currently provide value.
One great candidate for this is developing ways to create dirt-cheap basal media from plants, e.g. using hydrolysates. Currently, basal media components are all sourced separately, and are often produced in inefficient ways. For example, individual amino acids are often produced via fermentation and then combined in a single media formulation. This is a much less efficient process compared to current meat production, where amino acids are sourced from soybeans and fed to animals. In the long term, it’s likely that cultivated meat will need to move to a system where the main basal media components are grown via agriculture as opposed to biotech. However, it’s likely difficult for companies to justify spending a lot of time on this, since basal media is not currently a major cost driver.
What links here?
- What foundational science would help produce clean meat? by richard_ngo (13 Nov 2020 13:55 UTC; 25 points)

avacyn 13 Jul 2020 1:08 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: avacyn’s Shortform
Wayne Hsiung, the co-founder of Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) is running for mayor of Berkeley: https://www.wayneformayor.com/
He’s running on a left-leaning platform that doesn’t explicitly discuss animals, but he will likely focus on animal-friendly policies. For example, he wants to create a “solar powered, pedestrian-only, and plant-based Green District.”
DxE has been fairly controversial in the animal advocacy world, but setting aside questions of their particular tactics, having someone so animal friendly in government could be very impactful. I just donated $50 to the campaign, which is the maximum individual donation.
Does anyone know much about Berkeley politics, and if it seems like he has a shot at winning?

avacyn 6 Jul 2020 17:55 UTC
8 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Animal Advocacy Careers advice
I’m a big fan of what you’re trying to do! It could be very impactful.
However, I notice that your advice seems to be greatly skewed towards non-profits. For example, in your M&L overview, you don’t spend much time on food tech as a potential application of M&L skills. You also don’t give any information on the skill gaps currently facing plant-based / cultivated meat. I think this is a missed opportunity, as the gaps in those industry are important, and could be well suited for people who aren’t a good fit for management, fundraising, or advocacy.
Is this a purposeful decision? Are you planning to augment this later?
Thanks for all of your work :)

avacyn 29 Jun 2019 21:56 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Brian_Tomasik’s comment on: How Much Do Wild Animals Suffer? A Foundational Result on the Question is Wrong.
I’m thankful for this discussion. Previously, I was under the impression that most people who looked deeply into WAS concluded that there was definitely net suffering. However, now it’s clear to me this isn’t the case.
Brian—I’m wondering if you’ve explained elsewhere exactly what you mean by “extreme, unbearable suffering can’t be outweighed by other organism-moments experiencing pleasure.” Is this an expression of negative utilitarianism, or just the empirical claim that current organisms have greater suffering capacity than pleasure capacity?
I am a total hedonic utilitarian, and not negative leaning at all, so I’m wondering what conclusion this philosophical position would lead to, given all the empirical considerations.

avacyn 4 Jun 2019 20:50 UTC
10 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Not getting carried away with reducing extinction risk?
Since most of the responders here are defending x-risk reduction, I wanted to chime in and say that I think your argument is far from ludicrous and is in-fact why I don’t prioritize x-risk reduction, even as a total utilitarian.
The main reason it’s difficult for me to be on board with pro-x-risk-reduction arguments is that much of it seems to rely on projections about what might happen in the future, which seems very prone to miss important considerations. For example, saying that WAS will be trivially easy to solve once we have an aligned AI, or saying that the future is more likely to be optimized for value rather than disvalue, both seem overconfident and speculative (even if you can give some plausible sounding arguments).
If I were more comfortable with projections about what will happen in the far future, I’m still not sure I would end up favoring x-risk reduction. Take AI x-risk: it’s possible that we have a truly aligned AI, or that we have a paperclip maximizer, but it’s also possible that we have a powerful general AI whose values are not as badly misaligned as a paperclip maximizer’s, but that are somehow dependent on the values of its creators. In this scenario, it seems crucially important to speed up the improvement of humanity’s values.
I agree with Moses in that I much prefer a scenario where everything in our light cone is turned into paperclips to one e.g. where humans are wiped out due to some deadly pathogen, but other life continues to exist here and wherever else in the universe. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I favor biorisk reduction over AI risk reduction, since AI risk reduction also has the favorable effect of making a remarkable outcome (aligned AI) more likely. I don’t know which one I’d favor more all things considered.

avacyn 18 May 2019 18:54 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Aaron Gertler 🔸’s comment on: Is this a valid argument against clean meat?
I overall agree that the argument isn’t enough to move the needle.
I’ll just say that I think 90% is too high for people who don’t care about about how much meat they consume. I think people’s views on the issue are more complicated. I think there’s a large group of people who have a general notion that eating meat is unfortunate, but don’t reduce their consumption because it’s not a thing for their ingroup, and also they bristle at the notion about someone else telling them what to do. Kind of similar to how lots of people think that their clothing is made unethically in sweat shops, but they buy it anyways.
If I had to choose a number of number of people who don’t care how much meat they eat, it would be closer to 55%-60%.

avacyn 5 May 2019 0:02 UTC
8 points
0 ∶ 0
on: What is the Impact of Beyond Meat?
According to their S-1, in 2018 they sold a total of 11.8M pounds of their “fresh” products. A large majority of this was the Beyond Burger.
Given that 93% of retail consumers that purchased the Beyond Burger also purchased animal meat, I think we can assume a pretty high rate of counterfactual replacement of beef—let’s say 75%.
That’s a total of 8.9M pounds of beef displaced. Assuming a cow yields 490 pounds of beef, that’s around 18 thousand cows spared in 2018. This is impressive!
However, I agree with zdgroff in that the majority of the impact of Beyond Meat is the expected future impact when they focus more on chicken, and in legitimizing the plant-based meat industry.

avacyn 24 Apr 2019 5:25 UTC
13 points
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in reply to: WilliamKiely’s comment on: Reasons to eat meat
I think that only makes sense if you’re negative leaning, which I’m not. If you think that adding pleasurable lives is good, then you’d be taking a risk of *not* creating the net-positive cattle lives when you decided to eat tofu over beef.
To be clear, I’m not necessarily arguing that we should eat beef (I’m vegan), I just thought it would be useful to describe the arguments that I thought this post was going to make before I read it :).

avacyn 23 Apr 2019 22:59 UTC
9 points
1 ∶ 0
on: Reasons to eat meat
On a less satirical note, I think one strong argument in favor of eating meat is that beef cattle (esp. grass-fed) might have net positive lives. If this is true, then the utilitarian line is to 1) eat more beef to increase demand, 2) continue advocating for welfare reforms that will make cows’ lives even more positive.
Beef cattle are different than e.g. factory farmed chicken in that they live a long time (around 3 years on average vs 6-7 weeks for broilers), and spend much of their lives grazing on stockers where they might have natural-ish lives.
Another argument in favor of eating beef is that it tends to lead to deforestation, which decreases total wild animal habitat, which one might think are worse than beef farms.