I listened to your talk, and it’s great to see this sort of topic getting real-estate on TED. The fact it wasn’t too preachy was well played, in my opinion. “Talk about factory farming.”—I like this message because it’s so unclear what one can even do outside of changing their diet, which is alienating to some.
Speaking from my own experience, the topic of animal welfare simply needed someone to leave the door ajar, and I was able to look behind it by my own investigation. I think the ‘wanting not to know’ is (and always will be) the biggest hurdle in the animal advocacy space.
Great talk
Leroy Dixon
Karma: 91
I think you’re certainly right that the key lies somewhere in this approach. The main problem is reconciling it with the narrative companies wish to present and the narrative consumers present to themselves. Both fall along the lines of ‘we are good, so let’s not think about what might contradict that idea’. I think carbon credits (while debated) are somewhat successful because companies and individuals can be part of the programme without villifying themselves (you often can’t avoid generating carbon in a practicable manner). However, to do the same for animal welfare requires an initial admission of guilt (inside the mind). I believe this is the major hurdle to not only implementing markets, but just about anything animal welfare related—working against the ostrich effect.
A thoughtful post, and definitely makes me want to further consider how it would be possible to address the hurdles of its implementation.
I think some framework is needed, insofar that it doesn’t get in the way of the action. If one is devoting a lot of time to something, they should have some damn good reasoning behind it
I’m vegan, and I am for almost entirely ethical reasons. However, when the topic of honey comes up I often go for the environmental arguments. Even if we were to concede that the subjective welfare of honey bees is better than wild bees, honeybees displacing native pollinators through competition and disease likely has untold flow on effects on the ecosystem we can’t necessarily calculate. Populations of honeybees have increased by over 80% since 1961 (FAO), while wild bee diversity has declined steadily since the 1990s, with over 40% of wild bee species threatened (Vox 2023; Penn State 2022).
I guess what lies at the core of my views is that even if a bunch of honey bees are living net-positive lives, is this a case of more is better? My utilitarian framework would probably hinge on there having to be an increase in the average welfare of all beings over time—and I see the welfare brought about from a product such as honey as negligible, compared to the risks posed. I would be keen to hear some counter-arguments to this framework.
Thank you for writing this post! I definitely fall into the camp of trying to get my foot in the door of the EA space (I’ve been struggling to even get a volunteering role). I do a lot of projects/research in my own time, but completely neglect the networking aspect of it (trying to get better).
Someone should commission new moral weights work in the next year
I think any study should be replicated, and RP’s moral weights is no exception. Having different frameworks can allow us to get upper and lower bound estimates. I’m sure even the lower bounds would not be negligible when multiplied by the number of animals in factory farms
Happy to see something like this. I did notice I got $3.45 for animal suffering despite being vegan, just curious as to why that is? (I don’t think being vegan eliminates animal suffering entirely, I just want to know the reasoning). I imagine there are a lot of kinks to iron out, but I like the concept a lot :)