I have a background in physics and previously worked at Effective Altruism Austria and Sentient Futures. Before that I co-founded Effective Animal Advocacy Austria and Screwworm Free Future, and Iāve been involved in EA community building in Austria for a few years.
Iām currently looking for a role in animal welfare or AI safety.
Feel free to reach out if youād like to chat about EA, animal welfare, AI safety, or community building.
Thanks for answering, makes sense.
@Philip Popien took the āProgressive Pledgeā, whereby he gradually increases his pledged percentage upon any salary increase.
Thanks for sharing this. It is the first time for me to hear about this dynamic pledge.
You mention giving 10 percent once you earn the median income in your city, and 60 percent once you earn double the median. Have you also thought about what you would give between those two points, when you are earning more than the median but not yet double it? Would you keep giving 10 percent until you hit the higher threshold, or do you have a gradual plan in mind?
Thanks for this detailed answer, this makes a lot of sense. Looking forward to the progress updates to come. All the best for your projects!
Thanks for writing this insightful piece.
Is there any reason why you havenāt mentioned farmed honeybees or cochineals? At any given time, there are more than a trillion managed honey bees, and the farming of cochineal directly causes 4.6T to 21T additional deaths, primarily of male and female cochineal nymphs, and adult male cochineals.
Thanks Aaron for this really insightful and thoughtful post. The scale of ambition here is truly promising!
I have a question about the confidence in the effectiveness of the humane slaughter implementations: For a given stunner installation, how confident are you that at least X% of those shrimps are actually being humanely slaughtered?
Iām thinking about this in terms of the curves shown in the attached graph:
Curve A: Lower confidence
Curve B: Medium confidence
Curve C: Higher confidence
Less confident than A
More confident than C
Something else, mix of options, etc.
Which curve best represents your current confidence in the effectiveness? I imagine this relates closely to your focus on āincreasing confidenceā through better implementation, monitoring, and measurement & evaluation that you mention in the post.
Thanks for sharing this comprehensive guide, Kevin, Sofia and Kyle! I wanted to respond to your questions based on my experience with EA Austria community building over the past year and co-initiating an Effective Animal Advocacy group with you, Kevin and Therese two years ago.
What problem did it solve for me?
I was doing street activism but found myself questioning, āIs this really effective?ā Learning about effective animal advocacy through our community helped me focus both my career and donations more strategically. It gave me the frameworks and knowledge I needed to move from activism based on intuition to impact-driven work.
What made it worth returning to?
The combination of monthly socials (game nights, dinners, picnics) and topic-based events (discussions, workshops, lightning talks) created a space that never felt like work. Many people who came to these events became close friends. Itās meaningful time with people I enjoy, where we have helpful discussions about effective animal advocacy. That blend of social connection and substantive conversation is what keeps bringing me back.
An underrated tip:
Community is bidirectionalāitās about both giving and taking. While I can provide resources, connections, and advice to others, I can also reach out when I need help. Creating a culture where itās normal to both contribute and ask for support has been crucial for making the community sustainable and genuinely valuable.
How we handled a hard moment:
With EA Austria, we had to remove someone from the group for six months because other members felt uncomfortable around them. This was one of the most difficult and energy-consuming decisions Iāve made as a community builder. The biggest mistake was waiting too long. We saw multiple signsāpeople stopped attending events when they knew this person would be thereābut we hesitated to act.
My advice to other community builders: If a memberās behavior is causing others to disengage or avoid events, address it quickly. Find a solution that protects the broader communityās wellbeing, even if it means asking someone to leave. Acting sooner would have prevented more people from having negative experiences and saved everyone involved significant stress.
Thanks for putting this together! Really appreciate having such an accessible introduction to MEL.
Love this project and really appreciate the scientific, impact-focused approach youāre taking. Excited to share GoodWallet with friends and family. This feels like a simple but powerful way to make everyday actions more meaningful.
Thanks for this update!
Over 440 billion shrimps are farmed annually, over five times the total number of all farmed land animals.
Iām a big fan of SWPās important work. Just a pedantic note on the framing: while 440 billion farmed shrimp is indeed massive, the claim that this is āover five times the total number of all farmed land animalsā doesnāt quite hold when including insects. According to Rethink Prioritiesā 2020 report, 1-1.2 trillion insects are farmed annually for food and feed, more than 2x as many as shrimps.
Given this scale and the rapid industry growth, are there any insect welfare initiatives in AIMās pipeline, or is this an area AIM is considering?
Thanks for this great post, Max! I strongly agree, this is super important.
Thanks for sharing Kevin!
I completely agree that factory farming is a moral atrocity, and it would be far better if we could reduce or eliminate the harm we cause to these animals.
Your post got me thinking about individual moral responsibility and free will. My question: Do you think we need to have free will (the ability to have acted differently) in order to have individual moral responsibility? If our actions are determined or influenced by factors beyond our control, can we still be held morally responsible for them? Curious to hear your thoughts!
Thanks for the clarification!
Regarding this point:
Sinergia estimates that this commitment has helped over 1,000,000 piglets per year since 2023. Sinergia cites a source for their estimate, but the source states PPA slaughters only 750,000 pigs per year.[1] This makes it questionable if PPA even has 1,000,000 piglets that could be teeth clipped each year.
I think there might be a misunderstanding in the analysis regarding the number of piglets and the slaughter figures. A 25% pre-slaughter mortality rate is quite common in pig farming. [E.g. Pre-weaning piglet mortality varies largely between farms and ranges from 5 % to 35 %. European Parliament, The EU Pig Meat Sector, Sep 2020] This means itās entirely possible that 1,000,000 piglets are born each year, and 25% (250,000) die before reaching slaughter age, leaving 750,000 to be slaughtered.
Therefore, Sinergiaās estimate that 1,000,000 piglets per year benefit from teeth clipping could still be accurate. The 1,000,000 figure likely refers to the total number of piglets born, all of whom could potentially have their teeth clipped, rather than the number that survive to slaughter.
Thank you very much Cameron!
Funnily enough I watched this video and took some notes, last week.
Very interesting presentation with some eye-opening facts and thoughts!
Great and thought provoking post, thank you very much Moritz!
I especially liked the Evolutionary Perspectives on Happiness and Dissatisfaction part.
Thank you for writing this, Chris. Really well researched and informative.
Iāve been vegan for more than 6 years now, also for ethical reasons. For anyone curious, hereās what I take, both from Sunday Natural: VeganLife Bioactive (https://āāwww.sunday.de/āāen/āāveganlife-bioactive.html) for B12, D3, K2, iodine, selenium, iron, zinc and calcium, and Omega-3 Complete (https://āāwww.sunday.de/āāen/āāomega-3-capsules-epa-dha-vegan-algae-1000mg-bundle.html) with 300mg EPA and 200mg DHA per capsule. No affiliation with the brand, and not meant as nutritional advice, just what has worked for me.