JamesÖz 🔸

• JamesÖz 🔸 30 Mar 2026 19:50 UTC

  12 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: The Fu­ture Will Be Weirder Than That

  I think it’s probably true that animal advocates likely under-rate how weird things might be with TAI but I am not convinced that this would change significant amounts of how resources are allocated:

  • If the world really will be that weird, probably there isn’t that much we can actually do now that would improve animal welfare going forward. For example, if we think that frontier AI companies will replace governments and AI decides on policy issues like cultivated meat regulation: what can we actually do to change this? An optimistic view is that we should make sure that AIs have pro-animal values (which people are already working on!) but a pessimistic view might say that AIs will realise that their values have been altered by some pressure groups and this work is moot. They might come to the (I believe) correct conclusion that factory farming is a very inefficient and cruel way to produce food but this is not because of advocacy, but because this is a super-intelligent AI system that just worked it out.

  • Relatedly, it’s possible that in worlds where things are very weird, any good that happens to animals is basically due to non-animal-movement factors and our advocacy won’t make much of a difference. For example, if all humans are uploaded to the cloud or we send out digital copies ourselves across the universe, how would our advocacy predictably influence this in a positive way for animals? And therefore, most of the counterfactual impact is in worlds where things aren’t that weird, timelines are long, etc.
    

  (In case it’s not clear, I also agree with the recommendations you have: research to figure out a strategy, building flexible capacity to respond quickly, influencing frontier AI companies, etc. I’m glad some of these things are beginning to happen but I’m also somewhat pessimistic on how well research can actually make actionable recommendations, given the weirdness of the future).

• JamesÖz 🔸 27 Mar 2026 18:47 UTC

  18 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Jacob_Peacock’s comment on: JamesOz’s Shortform

  I’ll be joining the Farm Animal Welfare team at Coefficient Giving come May!

• JamesÖz 🔸 27 Mar 2026 17:37 UTC

  41 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: JamesOz’s Shortform

  Help me find my replacement doing farmed animal advocacy grantmaking!

  I wanted to share a job opening for, in my opinion, one of the coolest jobs to help animals: my job! I’m moving on from Mobius soon, so we’re looking for the next person to lead our grantmaking and entrepreneurial projects.

  The role: You’d manage the grantmaking portfolio for one of the top ten largest funders of farmed animal welfare work globally, plus lead entrepreneurial projects like incubating new organisations and identifying strategic gaps in the movement. You’d work with a small and nimble team and influence where millions of dollars go.

  Some key details:

  • Full-time, US-based, remote (Bay Area preferred). We’re open to other countries in exceptional cases, as a contractor.

  • $70k – $120k depending on experience and location. We can go higher for exceptional candidates.

  • Open to hiring at two levels: Philanthropy Manager (3+ yrs experience) or Director of Philanthropy (5+ yrs)

  • Application deadline: Sunday, April 12th

  Why I’d recommend it: This role is a great mix of grantmaking and incubating/​running important projects. You get to collaborate with other donors in the movement, as well as support high-impact nonprofits. Maybe most importantly, you’ll work with a very supportive team, with plenty of learning opportunities, space for personal development, and regular pickleball.

  Full job description and application form here.

Re­quest For Pro­pos­als: US Col­lege Farm An­i­mal Ad­vo­cacy Program

• JamesÖz 🔸 15 Mar 2026 22:35 UTC

  12 points

  4 ∶ 0

  in reply to: abrahamrowe’s comment on: In­com­ing money, in­tegrity, and col­lec­tive ac­tion problems

  Seems like some of your concern is that a bunch more money should be spent on neglected species & wild animals but my sense is that EA AWF is explicitly prioritising this work? or do you think that it’s still not sufficient given the potential marginal opportunity vs farmed animal work?

  I think there shouldn’t just be one view /​ dominant position on how to help animals, multiple perspectives should get a seat at the table /​ we should make multiple types of bets, even those I disagree with because I’m sure I’m wrong about many things.

  I generally agree with this but I guess I’m not sure that there is one dominant position on how to help animals in the EAA world? You might say CG directs a large portion of overall movement funds, therefore their position becomes the dominant position, but IMO The Navigation Fund has a relatively distinct view on how to best help animals, which is meaningful as they’re the second biggest funder in the movement. But yes, probably CG and EA AWF have relatively similar worldviews to one another.

  I think the climate/​global heath analogies aren’t quite right, because the majority (maybe even large majority) of that money is spent in pretty ineffective ways — I probably wouldn’t be excited about marginal money to a random global development charity, vs a GiveWell top charity, which have much more limited room for more funding.

  Yes this is true but GiveWell moved over $400M in grants in 2026, which makes me think there is at least $400M of highly cost-effective opportunities in global health & development, not counting the other hundreds of millions of other impact-focused global health focused funding from people like CG, Mulago, etc. FWIW even a very outdated RFMF page on GiveWell’s website from 2019 estimated their top charities had $70-600M+ in RFMF, so hard for me to imagine the FAW movement can only spend $20-40M well (of course, we are a relatively newer movement so we do have less scalable things to fund—I agree finding those should be a priority).

  Basically, I just disagree that the FAW movement only has around $20-40M of good opportunities and additional funds aren’t that well utilised. A priori, that would just be extremely surprising to me, given:

  • We have some interventions that work relatively well (corporate campaigns) but there are still many important countries where we have <5FTE utilising this strategy

  • Factory farming is a global problem, so we need people in many different countries to figure out how to address it

  • We only have around 2,000 − 3,000 people working full-time on farm animal welfare globally. This seems ludicrously small given the scale of the opposition and there is lots of useful movement building that we probably should fund to attract more good people (basically copying what AI safety /​ EA has been doing wrt movement building).

  • The FAW movement has historically paid pretty low salaries, so there are some salary increases just to be on par with other NGOs/​issues

  • Welfare technology seems to be a whole area that could use lots of funding in a productive way and we’ve barely explored it (e.g. starting companies or putting out prizes to develop better stunning technology, on-farm welfare monitoring tech, etc).

  • We have historically not invested much in political advocacy, and this seems both essential and tractable if done well. Our opponents are spending a bunch of money on this political work and slowing down /​ overturning promising reforms (e.g. EU animal welfare reforms) so spending additional money here is likely quite useful.

  Also, I would be curious how much of AI safety funding you think is well-spent, similar to the $20-40M number you had in mind for FAW?

• JamesÖz 🔸 15 Mar 2026 16:21 UTC

  12 points

  6 ∶ 0

  in reply to: abrahamrowe’s comment on: In­com­ing money, in­tegrity, and col­lec­tive ac­tion problems

  This seems overly negative on marginal FAW funding opportunities. I struggle to believe that a movement with only $250M/​year will struggle to spend more money productively when climate mitigation spends $10B, global development spends $11B, AI safety is probably spending $500M+, etc. Also, funding in the FAW space myself, I think the marginal opportunities are far better than “obviously not worth funding”, and I still expect them to affect approx. several animals per dollar (for impact-minded donors like CG, EA AWF, etc). I’m curious what you have in mind though when you conceptualise the marginal FAW funding opportunity and why you’re so negative on them generally.

  FWIW I am also very pro having more decentralised regrantors like FTX and would like to see some more experiments like that too! But having almost been a recipient of such a grant, my guess is that this also leads to a lot of wasted money.

• JamesÖz 🔸 12 Mar 2026 18:57 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Mo Putera’s comment on: What I didn’t ex­pect about be­ing a funder

  yes I was definitely inspired by that great post! thanks for flagging

What I didn’t ex­pect about be­ing a funder

• JamesÖz 🔸 5 Mar 2026 18:38 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: David Mathers🔸’s comment on: KFC, Nando’s, Waga­mama, and Burger King drop pledge to im­prove the welfare of chickens

  my understanding is that lying about current status of cage-free/​BCC isn’t a huge issue as companies can get sued for lying to investors or false advertising. But if it’s a commitment to do something in the future, companies are allowed to change their mind and backtrack

Re­quest for Pro­pos­als: Strate­gic An­i­mal Fund­ing Cir­cle, Spring 2026

• JamesÖz 🔸 17 Feb 2026 0:44 UTC

  15 points

  7 ∶ 0

  on: Con­sider ad­vo­cat­ing for fur­nished cages in­stead of cage-free aviaries?

  I don’t think this is a good idea:

  • Infrastructure lock-in. Furnished cage systems last 10-20 years. Once companies adopt it, they will likely not want to go cage-free until the end of this lifespan, which isn’t great. This creates lock-in against further reform, not momentum toward it.

  • The public won’t be excited/​that supportive of this: Corporate campaigns work best when there is public consensus and pressure. “Better cages” likely will not be something many people want to get behind. So you might lose your primary campaign tool and also the potential to bring in future activists.

  • Advocacy cost (likely) doesn’t scale linearly with producer cost. The hard part (I think) is getting companies to change at all. If it takes a similar campaign effort to win either commitment, furnished cages are less effective per advocacy dollar. My guess is that even if furnished cages only cost 5% more (relative to 20% for cage-free), this won’t mean the campaigns are 4x easier to win. I would be interested to ask some corporate campaign experts on their best guesses for this number.

  • Verification is harder so follow-through rates might be lower (e.g. who will audit to make sure there is the right amount of litter area or perch space?).

• JamesÖz 🔸 24 Jan 2026 0:04 UTC

  3 points

  7 ∶ 9

  in reply to: InTheSky’s comment on: Reflec­tions on Far­mKind’s Jan­uary me­dia campaign

  The campaign raised an estimated $16,700--$59,300

  Is this not some evidence that the target audience exists?

• JamesÖz 🔸 23 Dec 2025 18:50 UTC

  21 points

  5 ∶ 0

  in reply to: MxLucchese 🔸’s comment on: Offer­ing higher salaries than so­cial-sec­tor peers

  talented people who never enter the social sector because they can’t afford the pay cut.

  
  FWIW I don’t like this framing. These people can almost certainly afford the pay cut, because probably if you get a job as a researcher/​employee at some average US nonprofit, you are making above the US median and in the top few % globally.

  But yes, it’s more likely to tempt people who would otherwise not work for a nonprofit.

• JamesÖz 🔸 17 Nov 2025 21:54 UTC

  18 points

  6 ∶ 3

  in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: Nick­Laing’s Quick takes

  Given your expertise is in global health, I do think it’s likely that you’re less well-calibrated on how reasonable your animal welfare comments are relative to your global health ones! So you may think it’s a reasonable critique but someone who is a die-hard animal person may have already thought about your comment and know there is a common counterpoint that negates it (which you haven’t heard yet). Obviously, the inverse could be true for global health comments.

  But I agree that this shouldn’t have been downvoted on karma grounds!

  (Also, sometimes your comments do give me “I am sceptical of most things animal welfare” vibes, so people might be reacting to a real or perceived difference in values about how much animals matter).

• JamesÖz 🔸 16 Nov 2025 21:40 UTC

  5 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Dilan Fernando’s comment on: Vi­sion­ary Prag­ma­tism: A Third Way for An­i­mal Advocacy

  Intervention evaluators and funders should ensure that interventions are evaluated based on their ability not just to help animals directly, but to build power and generate learning value for the movement.

  My impression is that most funders are already doing the above (we are too).

  • Fund researchers to look into and advise the movement on:

    • which milestones it should aim towards (including confidence levels for those recommendations). This would potentially reap huge benefits with relatively few movement resources—I could imagine even just a team of 3-5 full-timers could go a long way

  I don’t think the above is that promising as I think there is not a predetermined set of milestones that lead to victory and instead we should pursue opportunities that are both achievable and important, as they come. I also think political and cultural winds change very quickly, such that many of the milestones set might become impossible or irrelevant. For example, maybe these researchers would have predicted 7 years ago that a major milestone would be major US & EU retailers selling cultivated meat but actually, it turns out the technology is super far off in 2025 and the actual best thing to do for alternative proteins now is getting defence agencies to research cultivated meat (this is a made-up example).

  I also think that when this has been attempted, basically nothing useful was generated so it was actually quite a poor use of movement resources.

• JamesÖz 🔸 12 Nov 2025 14:31 UTC

  11 points

  3 ∶ 0

  on: The Cri­sis EA Can­not Afford to Ignore

  Thanks for posting this Allegra! I was actually looking into this the other day and one thing that stopped me from giving as an individual donor was understanding exactly how cost-effective groups working on this are. My general understanding is that traditional humanitarian efforts aren’t particularly cost-effective if your goal is to help the most people (I think largely because these efforts raise lots of money through salience and they are not as rigorously designed as GiveWell charities might be—but these might not be true in this case).

  Do you have any information or research into Emergency Response Rooms or other groups working in Sudan on how many people they are helping or lives they are saving?

• JamesÖz 🔸 11 Nov 2025 17:24 UTC

  14 points

  3 ∶ 0

  in reply to: ThomNorman’s comment on: Vi­sion­ary Prag­ma­tism: A Third Way for An­i­mal Advocacy

  Yeah I agree with this. Specifically, I don’t think that basically anyone working on cage-free/​alt proteins/​most pragmatic issues would agree with the statement below (I think approximately everyone thinks we should pursue several effective approaches, not just one).

  A search for the (one) most effective approach. For example it’s not uncommon for advocates to say the movement should converge on one specific approach, such as alt-proteins/​cage-free campaigns/​legal advocacy/​whatever — with an implication that we should significantly discount other approaches.

  I also agree with your other comment Thom about timelines. I think talking about theories of victory is much more relevant if you think we can end factory farming in 10 years (which people in Animal Rising do). I think it is more like 75 years away, so it makes less sense to discuss the details (especially when it is hard to make good predictions for things 50+ years away).

• JamesÖz 🔸 5 Nov 2025 20:53 UTC

  18 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: ThomNorman’s comment on: Are we wrong to stop fac­tory farms?

  I would +1 to all of the above (and probably in stronger terms!).

  Additionally, from yet unpublished research we’ve done in the UK and also talking to people who work on food policy in the UK government, the number one thing people care about for food right now is cost. So the odds of getting any kind of significant progress to block loads of factory farm expansions and/​or close existing ones, which will both increase the cost of food, will be extremely small. For example, Labour’s current plan is the weaken planning regulations to allow more chicken sheds to be built (to reduce the cost of food) so for them to do a full U-turn would be a miracle, in my opinion.

  I also think these battles will be in a relatively small number of rural constituencies, with relatively small populations, so I don’t expect there to be any major impacts on national public opinion. And as Thom says, most people already say they agree with us, despite paying for lots of factory-farmed meat. So I’m unsure if trying to change the number of people who say they don’t want factory-farmed products in the UK is even a useful goal (but I also don’t know what a better metric might be).

• JamesÖz 🔸 5 Nov 2025 16:43 UTC

  82 points

  11 ∶ 0

  on: Are we wrong to stop fac­tory farms?

  Thank you for writing this Rose – I think it’s very useful to have some of this discussion in the open and also clearly explained. I’m also a big fan of the way this can be used to gain media and get people involved in animal issues.

  However, I disagree on some points, and will explain why below:

  1. Your article came across as demeaning to and ignores the great work being done in the movement

  “You don’t get there by doing nothing locally and hoping for the best globally.”

  “And perhaps most importantly, it offers no coherent alternative except surrender.”

  I think implying that EAs or people who have this critique are surrendering is pretty insulting to all the groups doing great work, in the UK and more broadly. For example, The Humane League UK, Open Cages UK, and Animal Equality UK are all doing great work to get hens out of cages in the UK, improving the living standards of meat chickens, winning legal protections for fish, and much more. They have impacted the lives of literally 500 million meat chickens and helped get tens of millions of hens out of cages each year.

  To me, this seems like a worrying sign of hubris: only thinking the work you’re doing is “radical” enough or addressing the “real” problem.

  2. Stopping new farms could hold back improving the lives of animals

  Something you didn’t mention is another aspect people are concerned about: stopping new farms holds back welfare reforms that will tangibly improve the lives of chickens.

  Thanks to the amazing work of groups in the UK, 7 major retailers committed to giving their meat chickens 20% more space. Estimates are that this will improve the lives of 500 million chickens each year, out of the total 1+ billion meat chickens raised in the UK. However, giving chickens 20% more space reduces the number of chickens per shed. If you block the extra floor space needed, which some producers are trying to build, other companies may not give their chickens more space. Or, similarly bad, those companies could source more from abroad, often at lower welfare. That’s not the outcome we want. Ideally, we can work on campaigns that don’t make the work of other animal advocates more challenging, which is why I have some mixed feelings here!

  Of course, you could try to avoid this via not targeting the higher-welfare farms, which I and others have suggested previously. However, I don’t think you have clarified your position on blocking planning permission for farms where it is required to make welfare improvements. Anima have made this distinction for their campaign in Poland, for example.

  3. Stopping imports, or phasing out factory farming, is not easy nor likely to happen soon

  I also don’t think the fur farming example supports your point that “Import restrictions become politically inevitable because they’re supported by the movement we’ve built and aligned with farming interests.” – Imports of fur continue to this day, 25 years after we banned it in the UK.

  Farmers say they want equal import standards, but their actual top issues are loosening planning rules so they can build more sheds and fighting inheritance tax. Even now, the UK signs trade deals allowing lower-welfare meat. Getting those laws passed is slow and uncertain – we can’t assume they’ll follow automatically.

  The UK is currently on track to align veterinary standards with the EU, which means the UK loses the ability to block imports from the EU (our main trading partner) as well as some other countries like the US, Canada, Brazil and more I’m not aware of. This doesn’t make me very optimistic that we should pursue strategies that only seem good if we ban imports. Read more about this here.

  Similarly, I disagree with:

  “Here’s the deepest difference between our approach and the critics’: we actually believe factory farming can end.”

  I also believe it can end – we just have very different timelines. It seems like (but correct me if this is wrong) you think this is possible within the next few years? Personally, I would put it around 20-50 years away, given the strength and size of the industry, and the fact that social change always moves more slowly than people expect. Given that this is an industry that has been stable or growing for the past decades, I think there needs to be pretty exceptional evidence if you think it will end in the next few years.

  To be clear, I think it is good to be ambitious and go for big wins. But, I think it has to be moderated with some clear-eyed thinking on what is actually possible, so we don’t spend limited resources on campaigns that have a minisucile chance of winning – like trying to ban factory farming in the UK – and therefore miss a better opportunity to help animals.

  4. You overstate how much these wins actually help animals

  Stopping a new farm in the UK might prevent animal farming locally, but I think it’s unlikely that the effects are long-lived.

  You say:

  “We are blocking factory farms that raise an average of 1 million birds per year. If that farm would have operated for 30 years, that’s millions of individual lives spared from industrial confinement. It takes years to identify land, secure planning permission, secure financing, and build a new facility. In the meantime, large numbers of animals will be spared a lifetime of suffering.”

  I think this is somewhat true, and it is a complicated dynamic. But I don’t think it’s right to say it takes 30 years to scale up imports or production. For example, you might have:

  • Farms abroad that operate at 80% capacity, which can easily increase production and export to the UK (and as you note, these will sometimes have worse standards!)

    • Given that there are many countries we import chicken from, with probably thousands of chicken farms each, I think it’s likely that at least some of them have additional capacity to increase production and cover a UK shortage while farms are built in other countries.

  • Farms are built overseas in countries that don’t require loads of regulations and red tape. Given that we import chicken meat from countries like Brazil or Thailand, which will have fewer planning regulations, it will be relatively straightforward for them to scale up production (especially if they just add an extra shed to an existing farm).

  • Farms in the UK that operate at 80% full capacity (e.g. they have an unused shed), and they will just ramp up to 100% capacity, which will be extremely quick.

  • As a comparison to how others are thinking about the duration of impact, Saulius working with Anima used an average 1 year of impact, although he notes this estimate is highly uncertain.

  (Although this is also based on other complex stuff like breeders, hatcheries, catching slots and farms being the right specification for UK buyers).

  Other reasons why imports can easily increase:

  • The UK almost doubled its chicken imports from 2012 to 2022.

  • Imports make up around 25-35% of all chicken consumption in the UK currently, so it already is a pretty major component.

  • In economic terms, the supply of meat is elastic: if the market expects a shortage in one place, prices adjust and other producers find it profitable to produce a bit more. So while I agree the world isn’t perfectly static or efficient, it’s not completely messy either – there are market mechanisms that fill the gaps. The USDA even states it themselves: “improved margins are expected to encourage increased broiler production”

  But overall, yes, there might be some period of time where supply is reduced, so prices are increased and demand drops slightly. This would be a good outcome! But this also comes at the cost of animals being in worse conditions – this report found 95% of Britain’s current or potential trade partners have lower farm animal welfare standards than the UK. So, it’s not obvious to me which side wins overall for actually improving the lives of animals.

  Then I think a reasonable question is: is it the best use of our time and energy to be pursuing things that only help animals for a few months or in unclear ways? Especially if it may clash with the work of other advocates?

  5. Movement-building is valuable but not self-justifying.
  One of this campaign’s strongest points is that “we are building a movement” and changing public consciousness. I totally agree that movement-building is valuable. Every time we get more people to care about factory farming, whether through fighting a local farm proposal or reading a news story about a campaign, that’s a win. Social change does require people power and cultural shifts, and local campaigns can be a catalyst for that. I also agree that these victories energise activists; feeling that “we can win” boosts morale and engagement for future, bigger fights.

  However, I would also note that movement-building is only as good as the direction the movement goes. Building a large, passionate movement is a means to an end – the end being less animal suffering. All of the points above make me unsure whether if this is the best thing to build a movement around. To take an extreme example: we’ve seen very large, well-organised movements pushing harmful agendas in politics (e.g. the anti-abortion movement). The mere fact that we “built a movement” doesn’t guarantee we did something positive for the world.

  Overall:

  I think we agree on a bunch of stuff: we need to urgently help animals, we should fight it on multiple fronts, and building public support is essential. Where I worry is that stopping one farm might not save the lives we think it does – because those animals appear in someone else’s barn or another country’s statistics, sometimes in worse conditions. Especially if this work makes other animal advocacy campaigns more challenging to win, and it uses our precious time and energy.

  One thing I would be curious to hear from you and other people in AR: What evidence would you have to see to change your mind that this campaign isn’t the best use of your time? I think having a few of these in mind is pretty important.

  For example, if I had the following evidence, I would be convinced that this campaign is worthwhile pursuing:

  • It doesn’t significantly slow down the improvements to giving chickens farmed for meat in the UK more space (e.g. 80%+ of the farms being blocked aren’t the farms with lower stocking density)

  • Most (e.g. 80%+) of the additional imports come from countries with high welfare standards (e.g. Germany, the Netherlands, which are two of our current largest import markets)

  • We get a government policy commitment that we would ban imports that don’t meet UK minimum standards and this would happen over the next 5 years

  • The price increase /​ supply time lags are bigger than I expected, e.g. a 5% increase in price due to this campaign or a 3-year time-lag to fill the supply gap

  Most importantly, I appreciate that this discussion is happening! It shows that we are trying to figure out how to make positive change for animals in this complicated and messy world.

  What links here?

  • Ben Stevenson's comment on Vi­sion­ary Prag­ma­tism: A Third Way for An­i­mal Advocacy by Dilan Fernando (15 Nov 2025 18:07 UTC; 5 points)

• JamesÖz 🔸 26 Sep 2025 6:46 UTC

  7 points

  3 ∶ 1

  in reply to: Aidan Alexander’s comment on: Why you should eat meat—even if you hate fac­tory farming

  My guess is that the people reading the EA Forum are much less judgmental than the average vegan and generally, there will be a selection effect such that people who are actually willing to think reasonably and be 90% vegan won’t be the judgmental ones anyway. So, probably for people here, it’s not harmful to recommend people be non-judgmental strict vegans for signalling reasons.