Experience has nothing to do with it. I have zero CEO or HR experience and it’s extremely obvious to me too. EA might have a higher rate of “not seeing or doing the obvious thing” because there is usually a blind spot in assessing the “E”—that is “Effectiveness” of the altruism. One blind spot doesn’t exist alone...
Dubious Altruist
Karma: −143
The documentary, and “animal welfare” in general, is not about abstaining from meat or anything on the demand side. Rather, it is a supply side effort intended to (and only to) reduce suffering before an inevitable and necessary death. Indeed the supply (and profitability) of animal products would necessarily go up, because the improved conditions would result in more animals surviving to slaughter.
We meet Temple Grandin, who designed slaughter techniques to minimize animal suffering. Grandin did more to reduce animal suffering than almost anyone else alive. But Grandin’s attitude is puzzling—while she acknowledges that many welfare issues on the farms remain, she describes farms as pretty good. When Jack asks her about the conditions of broiler chickens, she declines to answer. She describes the life of a crated pregnant pig as being like having to spend the entire duration of your pregnancy in an airline seat, without ever being able to go into the aisles. Yet she sees this as a cause for tweaks at the margins, to make things less cruel, rather than a reason to swear off meat entirely. Grandin is not vegan.
Grandin should be viewed as the ultimate Animal Welfare hero, and all Animal Welfare advocates should aspire to model her: reduce animal suffering, not being vegan be damned! Why judge her by an absent standard?
This reminds me of an interaction between Jack and his father in the documentary:
Jack: Well, but if I’m dedicating my life to a problem that you don’t even think exists, then surely you think I’m being a bit silly or naive.
Dad: I think maybe. Yes. Uh, it’s a case of which side of the fence you’re on. If you think it’s wrong for animals to be killed, that’s fair enough.
Jack: What if the position is just I don’t think animals should suffer.
Jack’s statement here is not very “vegan” either...
Thoughts?
-The Dub-meister
Hi @Spencer R. Ericson ,
My view on @James Steijger 🔸 ’s GWWC response to the CEH response to Frances is that either they should have condemned it wholeheartedly, or said nothing, but not that they should make some flacid statement about “thank you…sorry…we need to be extra mindful…”.
Frances went through something horrible, then CEA amplified and prolonged it. Rather than being a group of people who would help her with what she needed, they gaslit her. Then James comes along, “on behalf of GWWC” and says “our missions make paying attention to these inequalities more important, not less”
I’m definitely not here to criticize as much as possible. As you know from your own post, the downvoting has more to do with other people’s feelings about a comment than the literal text or even the sentiment behind it.
Getting pre-publication review of comments would be a good idea...if my objective was to only say things that other people agree with. That’s not my objective.
Your comment was not taken “in the spirit that it was intended” for two reasons.One is that it followed mine, which was critical of James’ comment. There are a lot of people here who want to maintain a positive atmosphere, even at the risk of not being honest. Perhaps that’s because they believe that CEA is on thin ice with this very public misstep. And perhaps people are sensitive after the whole Sam Bankman-Fried situation too.
The second reason is that while you started your comment positively, overall it reads sarcastically and critically. I suspect you did not intend this, but that is the communication style—literal and inquisitive.
Saying that GWWC policies are newly absent from their website will not be taken as you intend it because it will be taken as them hiding their policies (which may very well be true). Those kinds of policies would ordinarily be for internal availability only, and asking for them now after CEA’s fumble is less likely because there will be more scrutiny on them.
I don’t know enough about the cultural factors, but both CEA and GWWC originate in the UK, so their response to a situation like this may be different than what I would expect. Probably the attitude is “Keep Calm and EA on”
And your detailed question will be taken as inappropriate in a comment where GWWC is just trying to say something appropriate “because they should” about a poorly handled situation. Nobody wants to actually have a public discussion about the factors underlying the situation, let alone under a post that demonstrates that the people you are asking the question to are not capable of answering the question!-The Dub-meister
It is incorrect to characterize the EA forum as “intellectual”.
The term “pseudo-intellectual” is more appropriate.
$1.9M distributed, and zero fewer chickens killed?? Tragic.
Trym,
You asked 6 questions in your post; I will try to answer them (even the rhetorical judgmental ones).
Before I do, you surely know that SWP was featured on the daily show, and Ronnie Chieng said it better than I ever could have hoped to:
Chieng: So you decided to dedicate all your time and money into saving the lives of shrimp...
Zorrilla: Not quite. We’re actually working to reduce the suffering when they die...
Chieng: So after all your work is done, they still die?
Zorrilla: Yes, less painfully.
Chieng: How did you make this even stupider?Q: …how [well-meaning person who wants to make the world better] reach such a conclusion about Effective Altruism?
A: This isn’t an honest question. The video covers the scale and horror of the shrimp industry, and EA’s response to it is to do the killing more effectively? There’s an irony here.
Q: What are we doing wrong in the framing of EA which makes certain people become so critical of the movement, and what make the “negatives” stand out so much more?
A: It’s not the framing of EA where it’s going wrong...it’s the foundation. The exclusive thrust of “Animal Welfare” is about not trying to stop or even reduce animal deaths, but rather, make them ostensibly less painful.
Q: I am wondering how people are capable to with a clean conscience sit in their living room eating shrimp which they literally made a segment about how much suffering goes through, while tarnishing a movement actively making the world a better place?
A: Reminder that you think making the world a better place is implemented by killing beings more effectively, not by eliminating the killing in the first place. Not everyone would agree with that thought process.
Q: Is it perhaps because some of the conclusions of utilitarianism are so insanely uncomfortable that we seem like psychos?
A: Here’s a simple thought experiment: you are a shrimp. A human with a dollar is nearby. Do you, as a shrimp, want the person to spend that dollar on possibly preventing your death? Or do you, as a shrimp, want that person to instead spend that dollar to possibly make you suffer less when you die? It’s psycho to take the death as a foregone conclusion and just focus on the pain of it.
Q: Or perhaps there are only specific kind of people who are compatible with Effective Altruist thinking?
A: Yes. The kind of person who would get 0% correct on a yes/no multiple choice test sums up the foundation of Effective Altruist thinking. Even someone ignorant should get 50% correct. Imagine getting worse than that! It would take someone who is confidently incorrect. It’s worth considering.
Q: Maybe the movement has reached a cap in terms of its size?
A: We can only hope!
Also, happy easter, except probably not for the 400B shrimp who have died since last easter :(
This Daily Show ‘bit’ will not surely increase concerns and donations for shrimp. People are unlikely to believe that the shrimp welfare project is even real.
Chieng: So you decided to dedicate all your time and money into saving the lives of shrimp...
Zorrilla: Not quite. We’re actually working to reduce the suffering when they die...
Chieng: So after all your work is done, they still die?
Zorrilla: Yes, less painfully.
Chieng: How did you make this even stupider?Chieng has made an excellent and arguably bulletproof observation with his rhetorical question.
Even if the numbers of shrimp being killed is larger than fish, chickens, cows, pigs, the idea that skipping over the effort to prevent their death and focusing on reducing their suffering when they die does not have any merit.
The simple thought experiment is: you are a shrimp. A human with a dollar is nearby. Do you, as a shrimp, want the person to spend that dollar on possibly preventing your death? Or do you, as a shrimp, want that person to instead spend that dollar to possibly make you suffer less when you die?
What we have here is that the person who cares is making and funding a machine for not preventing death, but rather, funding a machine to reduce suffering before an inevitable death.
What am I missing, @Andres Jimenez Zorrilla 🔸 ?
Zachary,
Actually, in a word...Hinduism.
78% of India is Hindu, which explains why 40% of Indians are vegetarian.
And yes, that brings (some) ethical differences.
India’s reasons for being highly vegetarian are not going to be easily transferrable to other countries.
Nor would that be desirable...India is the world’s largest consumer of dairy, and the world’s second largest consumer of eggs.
Egg Consumption by Country 2026
James,
This is a disappointingly supportive message towards CEA’s handling of the situation.
There will be some people who do not want to associate with CEA knowing that this is how they handle actions by employees, and how they address failures by the leadership team.
Surely you don’t speak on behalf of all of GWWC?And surely some will reconsider their support of GWWC as well?
-The Dub-meister
EDIT: It’s easy to ‘disagree’ and spread negative karma with just a tap, isn’t it?
It’s harder to explain why.
Maybe eventually we’ll agree that once people have made mistakes, doubled down on them, been independently assessed to have made avoidable mistakes, make ineffective changes to prevent the preventable mistakes, that those people are not suited to those roles...
...the “E” in EA stands for ‘Effective’. If the HR function of an organization can’t be effective, how can the altruism be?
What is the number of dollars used towards cage-free corporate campaigns in the time range 2015-2024? I’d like to know how many chickens’ lives have been improved, relative to the total number of chickens—is it 10%, 1%, or a different number...
This is the correct response to the whole situation. And of course in the world we live in, it gets downvoted.
This is an excellent idea. People respond to free, and there will be some non-zero percentage of people for whom the habit of eating plant-based will stick, and possibly fully embrace the ethics of veganism.
Some feedback:
1) free food for a month is expensive and may attract people simply looking for free food
2) it may be somewhat effective or as effective to offer a discount for a month (e.g. 25% or 50%)
3) any effort should have some kind of commitment to abstain from animal food for the duration of the month
4) any effort should have some video tutorials to help people know what their options are, and how to prepare simple meals
5) any effort should also include dining at local vegan restaurants
6) any effort should also include interaction with other vegans, both for social support as well as to help with the transition
Next steps: definitely DONT drop it!
Do a pilot. Start with one household near you and self fund it if you can. Put a flyer up, and frame it as primarily a health or environmental thing. Stay in close contact with the household electronically, by phone, and in person. You’ll learn so much about how it could play out and it will help you scale. If the household does not want to see the month through, go to the next household which has responded to your flyer.
There may be no ‘clear way forward’ but what does ‘tentative steps possibly forward’ look like?
Is it a list of all the advocacy efforts, along with their funding, expected outcomes, and historical performance?
Is it a place where efforts can be put in a tournament and be pitted against each other to eventually come up with a list ranked by estimated effectiveness?
Where is the underlying data for:
Corporate cage-free policy fulfillment data collected by THL
Estimates of the number of hens spared by each corporate policy THL helped secure
Historical program cost data, adjusted for inflation and including proportional overhead
...for your analysis?
first of all, fuck that.