KevinWatkinson

Karma: 13

KevinWatkinson 4 Nov 2018 11:05 UTC
5 points
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in reply to: Amy Labenz’s comment on: Problems with EA representativeness and how to solve it
Hi Amy, is there any progress in terms of presenting who is on the advisory boards? Or if people don’t want to be named that would be useful information too.

KevinWatkinson 31 Aug 2017 17:08 UTC
4 points
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in reply to: Robert_Wiblin’s comment on: Should EAs think twice before donating to GFI?
I don’t doubt it is cost effective (ACE have said it is). What I am saying is that its financial needs are likely met, for instance Lewis Bollard says about GFI in relation to EA Funds “I’m also excited about the Good Food Institute’s work in this space, but I think that big funders (including Open Phil) will fill GFI’s funding needs in the medium term.”

So I’m saying there isn’t much value in considering it as a viable donation opportunity if its needs are met. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be funded, instead I am saying what could happen when we start to look elsewhere.

KevinWatkinson 20 Dec 2018 10:09 UTC
3 points
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on: Animal Welfare Fund AMA
Given the EA animal welfare fund appears oriented around two organisations (Effective Giving also utilises research from Open Philanthropy and ACE to find exceptional opportunities to do good), what efforts are being made to include different value systems and perspectives that are found in effective altruism more generally? And how ought those perspectives be valued?
What are the similarities and differences between the new ACE fund and the EA animal welfare fund?
It also seems to me that some of the organisations that receive EA funds could graduate to multi-year funding from Open Philanthropy. So i wonder what progress is being considered there?

KevinWatkinson 22 Nov 2018 22:01 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: Ben_West’s comment on: Effective Altruism Making Waves
In relation to short / medium term, i am saying that short term gains are more geared toward welfarism and *veg* approaches rather than projects such as rights / anti-speciesism in terms of anti-exploitation. So whilst we could view conventional EAA interventions as part of a bigger picture, we’re not exploring these issues as part of how they fit together in a broader context, particularly in terms of different moral theories or how it is that different perspectives aim to reduce suffering. In the sense of what is funded / emphasised through effective altruism then there are conflicting overarching ideas which in my view need to be considered and resolved in order to be inclusive / representative.
For most organisations which already fit with “pragmatism” this is a bit of a non-issue. However, for those which are more politicised they can be marginalised in relation to how funding is allocated and how powerful alliances are constructed around ideology. This i would argue has happened with most of the large considered to be EA aligned organisations. This to me overlooks how narrow the framework for intervention actually is. To illustrate this point we can look at where problems have arisen with organisations ACE has considered evaluating such as A Well Fed World.
“Declined to be reviewed/published for the following reason(s):
- They disagree with Animal Charity Evaluators’ evaluation criteria, methodology, and/or philosophy.
- They do not support Animal Charity Evaluators’ decision to evaluate charities relative to one another.”
Despite this outcome they don’t appear a good fit for conventional EAA because the work they do is difficult to measure and the groups they support as part of their work so small it is difficult to measure their impact going forward (positive or negative). However, that potential impact is diminished (in terms of including different perspectives) further by favouring resourcing conventionally aligned organisations over those not part of the EAA family (which isn’t to say they don’t tacitly accept EA principles) which then grow at a much faster rate potentially crowding out other ideas and organisations. For those resourced and largely ideologically aligned i’m thinking of Animal Equality, The Humane League, Good Food Institute, Mercy for Animals, ProVeg, Reducetarian Foundation, Albert Schweitzer Foundation, Open Cages, Compassion In World Farming.
What happens here is that EAs tend to point toward funding directed toward cat / dog rescues over farmed animal protection, and it is correct to note how egregiously disproportionate that continues to be. However, within the somewhat delicate and nascent space of farmed animal protection, funding a small number of ideologically aligned groups has been disruptive in the movement as a whole (for instance affordability in terms of conferences, sponsorship, outreach and so on), and this impact hasn’t been factored in (though it remains to be seen whether the new ACE Effective Animal Advocacy project will address some of these issues, though perhaps only implicitly). A further issue would arise that if it doesn’t happen and if EA Funds doesn’t shift beyond Lewis’ general considerations then the new panel for EA Funds will present a missed opportunity. Lewis might be concerned about whether people would be a good fit and could agree on certain issues, but it seems unfortunate that conclusion was drawn before an attempt made to really challenge the foundation of EAA, for instance in relation to normative uncertainty. However, here it depends on what time Lewis would have to oversee that, and i suspect not enough to make it a viable possibility which i think illustrates the reason that underpins the new approach.
Traditionally, organisations that are more challenging to the “mainstream” have often struggled for funding (so therefore by the lights of many aren’t very successful), and are often too small for Open Philanthropy to consider, or EA Funds at least up until now because of the time constraints involved in doing so (time spent per dollar donated). Indeed, it is challenging to present a case for many organisations, other than it is important to have multiple perspectives / organisations in a movement format, though, as Lewis pointed out in relation to EA Funds he also worries about discord. But this isn’t a reason not to do that more challenging work, and neither are time constraints. If anything, these are fundamental considerations that ought to have been incorporated at the inception of EAA and the Open Philanthropy Animal Welfare Program, but it doesn’t appear to me they ever really were. Partly because it appears EA leaned heavily on conventional organisational leaders of the larger animal organisations prior to EAA, and there isn’t much evidence those leaders took those types of considerations onboard either. Particularly i’m thinking Paul Shapiro, Wayne Pacelle, Nick Cooney, Bruce Friedrich, Matt Ball who largely preferred an agenda and approach grounded in “pragmatism”, something which was quite appealing to many utilitarians but not to rights advocates, who became unflatteringly associated with terms such as extremist, fundamentalist, absolutist, puritan, hardliner in the associated rhetoric. Their value further diminshed because a lack of pragmatism seemed to become equated with a lack of effectiveness.
None of this is to say that it is “wrong” to fund any of the top or standout ACE charities (for instance) from an EA perspective, but taken together it’s a stretch even for effective altruism. So from my view funding is disproportionate, but this also reflects the view of the EAA trust network presumably. If we had a better idea of who exactly that was, including who the CEA was consulting then it would be easier to point out where adjustments could be made, so we might have diversity of viewpoints and representation within an EA framework, or we could at least consider how it is that it could function differently given a variety of scenarios / counterfactuals. Otherwise we have no real idea of how effective we are being collectively, we are instead looking at things from a fairly conventional EAA view, which from my perspective is loaded toward de-politicised short terms gains associated with “veg” and welfare approaches.

KevinWatkinson 9 Jan 2019 15:55 UTC
2 points
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on: An integrated model to evaluate the impact of animal products
“The EA community should not push veganism except insofar as a milk exception is considered weird and difficult to communicate.”
This could be a utilitarian position within effective altruism but it wouldn’t reflect a rights position. Overall i don’t think EA could take a position of not pushing veganism. Not that it pushes veganism anyway, and never has done, instead the preference has been for the “rational pragmatism” of Shapiro, Friedrich and Ball.
If veganism were to be promoted then it would challenge the conventional position of welfarism favoured by most leading utilitarian EAs. Whilst we could point to some veg promotion this tends to exist in opposition to “extreme” rights views of non-exploitation and is viewed as compatible with welfarism, indeed one way to ensure that welfare standards aren’t violated is to have less domesticated animals to violate.
I think even in terms of where we might argue that dairy is necessary for nutrition, then rights advocates would look to promote alternatives and address inequalities in terms of accessibility to plant based nutrition. Also worth noting that Open Philanthropy funded charities RSPCA and CIWF have been promoting rose veal as a way to discourage farmers from killing calves at birth or live exporting them.
Overall though cross-price elasticity would seem interesting for rights advocates in terms of how it might affect a shift to plant based products or alternatively toward animal products (if people are of the mind they are merely consuming products). Though as a general matter rights advocates are addressing cultural speciesism rather than nudging consumer behaviour within systems of exploitation.

KevinWatkinson 28 Nov 2018 9:22 UTC
2 points
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on: 2018 ACE Recommendations
In terms of cost effectiveness it’s relevant to consider that ProVeg set up a UK operation despite the organisational space appearing relatively saturated in the UK. It’s an interesting situation because as far as i can tell The Vegan Society has largely been directed on ProVeg grounds since co-founder of ProVeg International Jasmijn de Boo was CEO of The Vegan Society (2011-2016), it seems to me it has largely continued along those lines. I’m also not sure what level of consultation took place in relation to VeggieWorld London, the veg festival space isn’t operated by the larger conventional organisations, so i would wonder what sort of consultation took place there or whether it was something more speculative.
Separate to that there remain issues as to why ProVeg (at least Tobias Leenaert, Melanie Joy and Sebastian Joy) set up the ideological ProVeg organisation Centre for Effective Vegan Advocacy (CEVA) under Beyond Carnism rather than ProVeg or VEBU (as it was formerly known). This organisation is supported by several of the other top and standout charities and seeks to influence the animal movement more broadly. There is no assessment of the impact of this organisation on EAA generally or the animal movement.
I would also disagree that ProVeg is medium to long term. It’s ideologically short term around promoting “veg” and focussing on “mainstreamness”. It doesn’t reflect or promote a broader and inclusive perspective in relation to speciesism or animal rights. ProVeg seems to believe it is too soon to talk about such issues, so focusses on short term gains (in a de-politicised way), whilst stressing the medium to long term approaches more commonly found in the grassroots animal rights movement. But there has been no consultation here.
I have more to say about how ProVeg functions within the broader animal movement, but these types of issue aren’t given much weight in decision making terms. Something which in my view functions to undermine the recommendation process. Overall i remain sceptical of the value of a “top” and “standout” charity system and would favour compartmentalising recommendations in relation to the approach of organisations, and then making meaningful comparisons between those organisations, whilst weighting the different compartments. There isn’t really any discussion about the utility of different systems of recommendation as far as i can tell. Presumably this happened originally with 80,000 hours, but i’m not sure if it has been reviewed.

KevinWatkinson 17 Nov 2018 16:07 UTC
2 points
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on: Effective Altruism Making Waves
I think with EAA waves have been made in quite a depoliticised way. We can point to how GFI has supported investment and promoted products, but we can also look to the costs of this general approach. Going “mainstream” often seems to mean that we are adopting and replicating the characteristics of that mainstream and nudging within it (or just aligning with it) rather than challenging it. This has informed much of effective altruism and how donations are made to larger organisations, particularly as issues of rights, anti-speciesism and veganism have been considered and often pushed aside. For instance, i doubt there are many rights advocates in the ACE top charities, or generally associated with effective altruism. Those perspectives are largely missing throughout EAA and neither are they sought out or particularly welcome as far as i can tell.
The emphasis for me has been a race to make short term gains whilst medium to longer term projects have been marginalised or just not considered in favour of approaches aligned to dominant ideologies around welfarism and “pragmatism”. Particularly associated with Bruce Friedrich, Paul Shapiro, Nick Cooney, Matt Ball and favoured by Peter Singer.
Another concern is how effective altruism continues to break issues down between individualism (or atomisation) and corporate campaigning from organisational perspectives, something which overlooks the nature of the general animal movement. I’m pleased that plant based burgers are more readily available these days, but this is perhaps not so much due to GFI but more to do with how people have helped promote them generally.
We can find positive things to consider about effective altruism, but there is a tendency to overlook some underlying issues which are important to think about in terms of a more complex form of effectiveness, and it is rare to see these types of issues considered and discussed. Perhaps not least because EAA has become somewhat distorted by a mainstream it has attempted to engage and influence.

KevinWatkinson 8 Aug 2018 15:09 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: Amy Labenz’s comment on: Problems with EA representativeness and how to solve it
I think what conference attendees most want to hear about but also worth considering what potential attendees would want to hear about. Personally i would prefer more diversity within the cause area to look at various challenges to conventional EAA whilst focussing more on philosophy and demandingness. I think in this way people could become somewhat more familiar with the broader cause area rather than in my view a tendency to focus on a fairly narrow group of organisations and individuals.

Would it be possible to say who is on the advisory board?

KevinWatkinson 4 Apr 2018 11:39 UTC
2 points
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on: How to improve EA Funds
The March 2018 animal welfare fund update is here if you would like to add it.

KevinWatkinson 9 Oct 2017 11:59 UTC
2 points
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on: The Effective Altruism Equality and Justice Project
A really interesting project and process. I would like to know how the group first came across NMNW?

In terms of including animal groups that would have been a particularly interesting process in terms of non-utilitarianism and the types of organisations the group would have considered. However, that also could have been an additional process that consumed too much time (on top of the time taken to choose to incorporate speciesism). I would say that even within EAA non-utilitarian perspectives are generally neglected, and sometimes marginalised, so negotiating that issue might have been difficult.

Overall, I think it is a good thing that utilitarians are giving more consideration to non-utilitarian perspectives, and potentially groups that fit into an area that utilitarians and non-utilitarians can agree with. However, this seems to me to largely be the point of Effective Altruism. So the idea EA is more inclined toward Effective Utilitarianism (particularly with EA weighting toward utilitarianism) is quite a complicated issue overall which the movement seems to struggle with, so I appreciate the effort made here with this project.

I think for me this issue continues to point toward the need for meta-evaluation. A commitment to reflection and evaluation ought to be a core component to EA and yet is fairly neglected at the foundational level. I know there are pros and cons for meta-evaluation, but I see few reasons why it couldn’t largely benefit the movement and the organisations associated with it.

I hope some of the issues related to this project will be discussed at the forthcoming EA Global conference in London.

KevinWatkinson 3 Jul 2017 14:09 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: DC’s comment on: Getting to the Mainstream
First of all we would need to accept there are different approaches, and consider what they are before evaluating effectiveness.

The issue with Effective Altruism is that it is fairly one dimensional when it comes to animal advocacy. That is it works with the system of animal exploitation rather than counter to it, so primarily welfarism and reducetarianism. In relation to these ideas we need to view the subsequent counterfactual analysis, and yet where is it? I’ve asked these sorts of questions and it seems that people haven’t applied some fundamental aspects of Effective Altruism to these issues. They are merely assumed.

For some time it has appeared as if EA has been working off a strictly utilitarian script, and has ignored or marginalised other ideas. Partly this has arisen because of the limited pool of expertise that EA has chosen to draw upon, and this has had a self replicating effect.

Recently i read through some of Holden Karnofsky’s thoughts on Hits-based Giving and something particularly chimed towards the end of the essay.

“Respecting those we interact with and avoiding deception, coercion, and other behavior that violates common-sense ethics. In my view, arrogance is at its most damaging when it involves “ends justify the means” thinking. I believe a great deal of harm has been done by people who were so convinced of their contrarian ideas that they were willing to violate common-sense ethics for them (in the worst cases, even using violence).

As stated above, I’d rather live in a world of individuals pursuing ideas that they’re excited about, with the better ideas gaining traction as more work is done and value is demonstrated, than a world of individuals reaching consensus on which ideas to pursue. That’s some justification for a hits-based approach. But with that said, I’d also rather live in a world where individuals pursue their own ideas while adhering to a baseline of good behavior and everyday ethics than a world of individuals lying to each other, coercing each other, and actively interfering with each other to the point where coordination, communication and exchange break down.

On this front, I think our commitment to being honest in our communications is important. It reflects that we don’t think we have all the answers, and we aren’t interested in being manipulative in pursuit of our views; instead, we want others to freely decide, on the merits, whether and how they want to help us in our pursuit of our mission. We aspire to simultaneously pursue bold ideas and remember how easy it would be for us to be wrong.”

I think in time we will view the present EAA approach as having commonalities with Karnofsky’s concerns, and steps will be taken to broaden the EAA agenda to be more inclusive. I think it is unlikely however, that these changes will be sought or encouraged by movement leaders, and even within groups such as ACE i remain concerned about bias within leadership toward the ‘mainstream’ approach. Unfortunately, ACE has historically been underfunded, and has not received the support it has needed to properly account for movement issues, or to increase the range of the work it undertakes. I think this is partly a leadership issue in that aims and goals have not been reasonably set and pursued, and also an EA movement issue, where a certain complacency has set in.

http://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/hits-based-giving

Should EAs think twice before donating to GFI?

KevinWatkinson31 Aug 2017 13:50 UTC

1 point

20 comments3 min readEA link

KevinWatkinson 2 Feb 2019 10:50 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: Peter Wildeford’s comment on: Will companies meet their animal welfare commitments?
Shaming tactics are used, but the issue i’m raising here is how they impact relations between the campaigning organisations and the businesses themselves. If it is the case that relations are impacted negatively through the “stick” then this is going to create issues going forward if organisations want to be part of business decision making or advisory groups.
In relation to McDonald’s the line from mainstream organisations has been to celebrate their commitments and their one or two veg offerings, until it seems the moment they go back on a pledge (though we don’t really know how this compares to what else they are planning to do). It seems a lesser matter compared to the various reasons people boycotted McDonald’s over McLibel. So I would think boycotting and the THL style of McCruelty campaigning ought to be a last resort because it appears to demonise the business over this one issue, but it seems to me that isn’t a very compelling issue on its own. I guess we’ll see what changes, and i’m sure there are many different tactics being used, but likely this will attract the most attention and it seems this would broadly be supported by the Open Wing Alliance. So it isn’t as if business would consider it just the approach of one organisation.
I also think it would be nice if there is broader consultation with the animal movement before some decisions are made. It is much easier to get people on board if different perspectives are openly included in decision making, and even if there was a unilateralist decision made on this (as wouldn’t be unusual) at least different perspectives would have been heard.

KevinWatkinson 1 Feb 2019 14:35 UTC
1 point
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on: Will companies meet their animal welfare commitments?
Traditionally the approach taken by welfare seems to have been corporate engagement and building positive relations around “win wins”, so a commitment in exchange for good publicity upfront. So i’m not really sure about a shift toward “shaming” strategies as an enforcement approach, i’m uncertain that enough power exists within the welfare movement to use this particular tactic, whilst going forward it seems uncertain how it would impact relations with large businesses. If for instance The Humane League pursue a shaming campaign against McDonald’s now, then how is that going to impact their work with that business in the future? Presumably there will be other welfare campaigns to consider that McDonald’s will need to sign up to?
Whilst it is also worth noting that McDonald’s and other large fast food enterprises are under pressure from an environmental perspective, and it seems that slow growing chickens are likely to exacerbate that particular issue, so i’m not sure whether competing demands might also be behind some of the reluctance here. It seems to me the Chicken Sustainability Advisory Council is partly constructed to consider these issues, and it is worth noting that Temple Grandin is part of that set up.
I would also be concerned about how some of the welfare commitments are being marketed, for instance the Better Chicken Commitment talks about choosing “happy chickens” which seems disingenuous. This is one of the key disagreements that rights advocates have with welfare approaches, in that they fail to represent what actually happens in the process, relating only to “welfare” designated “improvements” rather than describing the reality of animal farming.

KevinWatkinson 25 Jan 2019 12:34 UTC
1 point
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on: Farmed Animal Funders Custom Shallow Review: On Selecting Funding Strategies In General And On Focusing Funding On Open-Access Scientific Research For Plant-Based Alternatives
I think the diversifying approach has been somewhat underexplored, and up to now many of the recommendations have involved filling capacity for welfarism / general advocacy / some for product promotion. This has caused some issues for diversity because the preferred approach has given weight to certain aligned organisations in the movement space. This has sometimes been justified as “effectiveness” but I think in reality it has disproportionately pressed smaller organisations and allowed some larger groups and their associated ideologies to dominate. This wouldn’t be important in terms of considering the differences between a cat rescue and farmed animal advocacy, which really don’t interact in any meaningful way, but in terms of the farmed animal movement space, particularly in terms of different worldviews or moral theories that are often overlooked then it is certainly important.
I would welcome more consideration of this area, and believe that safeguarding diversity has significant value in terms of maintaining a healthy movement / maintaining a sense of competition rather than co-operation among a small group of in-group leaders. For one thing I believe it would be useful for ACE to split its recommendations into different areas (maybe around general / wild / welfare / rights / vegan / veg / social justice / product), and that the Open Philanthropy Project ought to diversify its approach from being centred around conventional welfarism / HSUS. I think even with EA Funds there are issues with taking a default approach too closely aligned to “pragmatic” ideology over a more diversifying approach. In some ways this is the type of consideration that ought to have taken place at the foundation of EAA, but I’m not aware of whether those discussions took place or how they played out, instead i get the impression it was all a bit rushed. They are however long overdue, but I think partly because people think they are time consuming / would potentially disrupt present donation strategies / disrupt the political state of EAA they are neglected.

KevinWatkinson 24 Nov 2018 20:05 UTC
1 point
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on: Outreach to Farmers
The Vegan Society has its Growing Green campaign which springs to mind. There is also an article here about how Oatly helped a farmer shift more of his oat crop from animal feed to Oatly, so that is quite interesting from a business perspective and the article also discusses some of the tensions between Oatly and animal farmers. Some of these issues were also covered in the Rotten series that netflix produced, one of the episodes looked at chicken farming in the USA and how the industry functions, so that may be interesting if you haven’t seen it. But i agree this type of approach doesn’t receive as much attention as it could.

KevinWatkinson 27 Jul 2018 13:27 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: Avi Norowitz’s comment on: The EA Community and Long-Term Future Funds Lack Transparency and Accountability
Yeah, this was a good step but i think probably not enough, particularly in relation to having two former HSUS staff members which is useful for implementing the current programme but less so when considering or assessing the value of different areas of the animal movement.

KevinWatkinson 23 Jul 2018 14:04 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: Jeff Kaufman’s comment on: The EA Community and Long-Term Future Funds Lack Transparency and Accountability
I would agree, there’s more scope beyond how the Open Philanthropy Welfare Fund presently operates so EA Funds has more potential utility there, but my own view is that the full range of possibilites aren’t presently explored / considered because of time constraints alongside the low value of some disbursements alongside potentially having to spend more time justifying fairly unconventional grants.

In some ways i think it is the unconventional / marginal organisations which need more consideration as bringing potential value to the table over what is generally considered. Particularly in the way that a narrow funding focus could develop associations with particular organisations / ideas and so there could be issues of gravitating toward type.

I’m not sure what the solution is, perhaps another project worker at the Open Philanthropy Welfare Fund, maybe a small set of volunteers could be managed / empowered to work on building cases. It’s difficult to know, but i do sympathise with the time constraints.

KevinWatkinson 7 Jun 2018 9:31 UTC
1 point
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on: Animal Equality showed that advocating for diet change works. But is it cost-effective?
Interesting. It would be useful to know what people did instead. So in the AE study if people are eating less pork then what are they doing instead? If people are reducing animal flesh consumption across the board in the reducetarian study then what are they consuming instead? Whilst some sort of comparison with industry promotion could be interesting. So how does the cost / impact of reduction messaging compare to increase messaging of the industry? For example.

KevinWatkinson 18 Sep 2017 13:14 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: Michael_PJ’s comment on: The Turing Test
I just listened to an interesting one with Brian Tomisik here: https://harvardeapodcast.com/2017/09/17/episode-5-brian-tomasik/

KevinWatkinson

Should EAs think twice be­fore donat­ing to GFI?

Should EAs think twice before donating to GFI?