Thank you for the comments Aleksi, your input helps me understand how can I communicate my thoughts.
Yes we can debate and cooperate, but I think I see a way of cooperation that’s not taking place yet. I will show what I mean in a specific example bellow.
Okay I see that for example a painful disease is not in a category of cruelty, so I will change to talk about “the worst suffering” from now on, because that is what matters (but I believe the worst suffering is caused by human cruelty, because the way us humans can make others suffer is worse than nature itself can)
I think if someone’s thinking “How to have the biggest impact?” your perception of solutions is limited, compared to when you’re thinking: “How to solve this?” Imagine that your kids are profoundly suffering. You don’t only think, “How can I spend the money I have in the most impactful way to help them?” You think further… “How will I get the kids out of the suffering, no matter what?”
Concrete example of what people in EA could do:
Look at the statistics of animal and human suffering and dangers of possible suffering in the future. Instead of debating where to donate for the highest impact, we would take every big problem (human trafficking, testing on animals...) and organize ourself to work on solving it completely. That usually requires innovation + cultural change of how people think and live.
When COVID hit, we didn’t debate where to donate or work for maximum impact. Governments locked us down and then we came up with vaccines. Proof of how huge of a change is possible when needed.
If enough people would see Dominion (document about torturing animals in factories) and perhaps documentaries from their country, they would understand that this is hell on earth, far worse then COVID and if we would present them with a solution like: Let’s have a national refferendum, where we all agree that we will close these factories, we will eat much less meat for some time, only from local farms, where we will put more supervision, over time there’s gonna be more synthetic meat and more “ethical” farms.
I believe this would be more compelling and would avoid arguments between vegans and meat eaters, that are lacking the point. Also would move to action those, who are usually paralyzed by feeling that their own action is super small an isolated, and not even worth the sacrifice when others don’t care.
So EA could create an online workspace where we would organize ourselves to put this vision into actionable steps.
We could organize professionals to prepare the plan for closing the factories and taking care of the animals, and also how could the whole thing take place legally, via referendum.
Then we would prepare a compelling campaign for the referendum, put it on social media, and also create an online course for volunteers on how to persuade other people in their social circle or even on the street to pre-agree on a refferendum on our website.
Many people would want to become a volunteer aswell. Once we would hit the needed number for a referendum, we would have it and the problems would be solved all together.
The EA could create an organization for direct work of volunteers for these matters: rather than only having a debate on where to donate, which newcomers can join or learn from, we would have also prepared tasks for them.
So they would come to the website, fill out their profile of skills and would be appointed a task.
If they would be a lawyer—great! We are now in this stage of preparing a referendum, can you help us?
If they would be a highschooler—look, you can edit instagram reels for this campaign to help us reach this number of people for this petition.
If they are a sales person—help us with creating an online course for people to convince others to pay attention to a certain issue.
This way, we could drive a big systematic and cultural change and in the end… have far more impact.
What do you think?
Thank you David, your supporting words mean a lot. I looked up the article you mentioned, it’s great to see that this referendum took place. It seems the initiative lacked the resources to create a campaign powerful enough.
I recently outlined a draft of a plan how we could prepare public for such a referendum here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6Nu4zXBEeNREKWa4Q/how-to-end-animal-factories-faster-simple-idea-of-a-plan
The plan stems out from my broader idea of creating a place for people to contribute with their work, rather than with their money… Volunteering for the cause might spread like a virus, if it would be rewarding enough for the volunteers, whereas with money… you’re always running out of it.
If you ever tried to get help on a street you know it is much easier to get people do something for you, than make them give you money.
So I think there is a room to change how we want people to do charitable things in general… I think it’s mainly about organizing and motivating ourselves in the right way.
How many students have the means or motivation to donate money to charity, that then buys commercials, that aim to convince the great parents of the students, to join the referendum?
But how many of these students could be motivated to spend a few hours a month advocating in their social circle, if they would be given a chance to be a part of a cool organization, that has clear and ambitious goals, and invites them to go to a war with the cruelties and to step out of their comfort zone at the same time?
Again, thank you and I will message you.