Ronen Bar

• Ronen Bar 30 Sep 2026 9:02 UTC

  3 points

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  on: The ve­gan trap: are we mak­ing an­i­mal ad­vo­cacy harder than it needs to be?

  I think it is important we stop calling ourself the vegan movement, vegan congress, vegan parade, vegan summit, etc., and use animal rights or animal freedom or animal protection instead. No one who is not 100% vegan would ever feel welcome in a place like that (unless it is only a food festival).
  
  Even the pride parade is not called the gay parade, and it is in many ways the opposite of what we offer people, the parade is a party and part of a movement that offers people to expend the spectrum of experiences and we offer people to limit their experiences. It is not an attractive offer, we have to admit (and this is also part of why I think it is hard to draw conclusions from other social struggle movements, where people fought to free themselves. Feminist movement offers people that join the chance for more freedom, we offer less freedom (which is what veganism is, practically).
  
  Our focus needs to be much more on activism, how to make people do something regardless of their food choices.
  
  But also I think it is good that some groups are focusing on veganism, like anonymous for the voiceless, veganism is as you said a very strong social connection glue, and especially in countries with no movements or very small movement, the focus on veganism can help grow (initially) the movement. But once you have this initial grow, I think you probably get stuck if you keep focusing on veganism.

• Ronen Bar 17 Sep 2026 13:30 UTC

  1 point

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Alistair Currie’s comment on: EA Should In­vest in An­i­mal Liber­a­tion and Diet Change Advocacy

  Thanks Alistair, Yes I agree and I have done some lobbying too with parliament members who obviously were obviously not vegan (sometimes even while sitting with them while they are eating chicken). I was talking more about the people who are coming to those legislators for the animals and who are part of the movement—volunteering or working. The movement for farmed animals has not been able to widely expend it community, core activists, beyond vegans, that was the argument and I think it is kinda true, not exactly accurate.

• Ronen Bar 16 Sep 2026 6:02 UTC

  3 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: EA Should In­vest in An­i­mal Liber­a­tion and Diet Change Advocacy

  At the end of the day the ceiling for how much you can change without touching the core, the ethics, is limited. I don’t think that ceiling is that high, because interests collide and the interests of animals and humans are not just going to magically align due to new technology.
  
  The big thing I think we are missing, well, one of them, is getting people to act for farmed animals, (not only for welfare reforms but also more “radical” activism), into a community, regardless of what they eat. What you said, Bruce, “I don’t care what you eat”, that is a good thing to say from an alternative protein promotion perspective, but also for (some, not all) animal rights advocacy perspective. “I want you (the meat eater) with us in this ethical fight”—sending a letter to the mayor or senator, protesting, voting, aligning careers to animal’s interests, and much more. EAs are well positioned to do this work, and this is where the animal right movement has failed. I think we never made non-vegans feel welcome, at home, in our activities.

• Ronen Bar 6 Sep 2026 3:44 UTC

  2 points

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  in reply to: Tandena Wagner’s comment on: The Reified Refer­ent: How the Sat­u­ra­tion View Values the Taste of Some­one Who Does Not Exist

  imo truth (which I find extremely important) has value as so far as it is an experience or relating affecting experience. Same with variety, and consciousness is the basis for experience. So as far as those things are at the individual level, they exist and have meaning, but there is no meaning to this as far as it is viewed not at the individual level, e.g. variety between lives (unaware of each other) , truth as viewed from above by some god (though from a practical perspective it is good and wise that we value truth this way).
  
  I agree morality like rights is not something that exists outside experience, nothing does (or nothing meaningful does, I use the word exist only for experiences), but as far as morality is a thought experiment we use to better experiences, that is a useful tool

• Ronen Bar 30 Aug 2026 7:09 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: Tandena Wagner’s comment on: The Reified Refer­ent: How the Sat­u­ra­tion View Values the Taste of Some­one Who Does Not Exist

  Thanks for putting your thoughts in detail about all this! For me it comes down to the question: Is there any value in something that doesn’t exist? I think there isn’t. A variety which is between lives, which is experienced by no one, doesn’t exist. On the other hand when I calculate welfare and I sum them up, I am doing an operation on the welfare but I am only playing with things that really exist. I’m not adding anything fictional. I think our language in many ways promote caring for fictional not existing things. imo this is a philosophical mistake. We should only care about reality.

The Reified Refer­ent: How the Sat­u­ra­tion View Values the Taste of Some­one Who Does Not Exist

• Ronen Bar 24 Aug 2026 14:36 UTC

  2 points

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  in reply to: Tristan Katz’s comment on: Ur­ban An­i­mals De­serve a Global Nonprofit

  Thanks Tristan. I agree local branding has a big advantage for urban animals. The global org is there for the other half: research, and helping with collaboration, community, and connections between the local groups. It could also do some local interventions itself, based on its research and for a specific global purpose, in partnership with a local org. I think that is something to try and figure out later rather than decide now. Many global non-profits have local chapters too.

• Ronen Bar 3 Aug 2026 18:24 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: Cat Kerr’s comment on: Ur­ban An­i­mals De­serve a Global Nonprofit

  Thanks so much Cat! I will add this to the post, I see Wild Animal Initiative are funding many urban animal related studies .
  
  What do you think about the branding of urban animals vs wild animals? do you see more gains in urban animals being inside the wild animals field, having their own “branding”, or perhaps both?
  And where should we “put” the animals that are somewhere on the spectrum between urban and wild

• Ronen Bar 3 Aug 2026 13:44 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: Grace Szonn 🔹’s comment on: Ur­ban An­i­mals De­serve a Global Nonprofit

  I agree cities seems like a very high potential grounds for effective interventions for EA people

Ur­ban An­i­mals De­serve a Global Nonprofit

• Ronen Bar 14 May 2026 7:22 UTC

  3 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: Time Sen­si­tive: Stop One of Biggest Threats for An­i­mal Welfare

  Thanks for the post, this is SO CRUCIAL!

• Ronen Bar 3 Feb 2026 11:25 UTC

  3 points

  3 ∶ 0

  on: The Ve­gan Filter: Over­com­ing the Lead­ing Bar­rier to Veganism

  Sounds like a great idea to me!

• Ronen Bar 11 Oct 2025 19:46 UTC

  4 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Toby Tremlett🔹’s comment on: to­bytrem’s Quick takes

  Do we need a yearly strategy paper of the EA movement?

• Ronen Bar 24 Sep 2025 16:15 UTC

  1 point

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  on: Eth­i­cal co-evolu­tion, or how to turn the main threat into a lev­er­age for longter­mism?

  I think Ethical co-evolution of humanity and AI is a very interesting concept, that on the one hand points out to humans staying in control and not handing over power and knowldge of what is “right” to AI, but on the other hand willing to learn and develop, understanding we are shortsighted when it comes to morality, and also may have a lot to learn from AI!

• Ronen Bar 26 Jul 2025 9:54 UTC

  1 point

  1 ∶ 0

  on: Why Mo­ral Weights Have Two Types and How to Mea­sure Them

  @Beyond Singularity Another issue is how you calculate positive vs negative valence. David Pearce thinks ethics is only about reducing negative experiences, and although it is good to make beings have more positive ones, it is not within ethics. So his view is, I think, the more extreme side of negative utilitarianism.
  
  I think positive experiences are within the ethical realm, and although reducing suffering is more important than increasing happiness, I would still try calculate how much beings are happy as well and how to optimize that.

Ad­dress­ing the non­hu­man gap in in­ter­gov­ern­men­tal AI gov­er­nance frameworks

• Ronen Bar 29 Jun 2025 14:42 UTC

  1 point

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  in reply to: Beyond Singularity’s comment on: De­bate: Mo­ral­ity is Objective

  I don’t think this large-scale cooperation or society or groups function is morality. It is linked to morality but it is fundamentally something else. A society can “function” well with having part of it suffer tremendously for the benefit of another group. There is nothing objective with longing for a world with less suffering, it is basically in another realm, not in the one of math or rational, though it is tied to rationality in some way

• Ronen Bar 29 Jun 2025 6:34 UTC

  1 point

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Beyond Singularity’s comment on: In­ter­stel­lar travel will prob­a­bly doom the long-term future

  I agree when thinking about the long future we have to have better more robust moral frameworks and the time and moral circle expansion are very crucial factors that have to be taken into consideration

• Ronen Bar 29 Jun 2025 6:29 UTC

  5 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Beyond Singularity’s comment on: De­bate: Mo­ral­ity is Objective

  I tend to think the word objective doesn’t fit morality from a philosophical standpoint. “objective” truths are arguments that we can decide upon who is right by checking predictions, each of them is evidence for the validity of a claim. If I say earth is round, we can check this claim by talking to experts or flying to space and looking at earth, etc. All of which are prediction of subjective experiences we will have.
  
  So “objective” argument means I am guessing something about the future world, that it will look one way and not another. Morality is in a totally different domian. I would like the future world to be with less suffering and not more, but this is a longing, not a prediction that can be refuted. So with morality there is some sense of logic and being systematic, but at the core it is not an objective question becasue it can’t be decided upon with predictions

• Ronen Bar 26 Jun 2025 15:11 UTC

  1 point

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  on: Should we launch the “An­i­mal Ad­vo­cacy Corps”? Seek­ing Feed­back and a Founder

  Very interesting idea that could improve the worldwide interconnectedness of the movement. I like it very much.