SiobhanBall

Karma: 779

SiobhanBall 13 Mar 2026 12:09 UTC
6 points
2 ∶ 0
on: Make Cruelty Unprofitable Again
It seems that this problem is best solved by regulation + import controls, with industry-wide agreements being an ‘in the meantime’ solution. Doesn’t this make a case for redirecting more resources toward legislative strategy, and less toward corporate campaigns?

SiobhanBall 4 Mar 2026 12:37 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Seth Ariel Green 🔸’s comment on: Seth Ariel Green ’s Quick takes
Hahaha, alright. I appreciate the self-awareness. :) I, too, have words to live by, even Spanish ones.

SiobhanBall 4 Mar 2026 10:31 UTC
6 points
1 ∶ 3
in reply to: Seth Ariel Green 🔸’s comment on: Seth Ariel Green ’s Quick takes
And they call us a cult. A 𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑡!

I skimmed your examples and think neither should meet the bar for a ‘little telling off.’

In light of the Netflix doccos coming out later this year, and whatever other scandal might be waiting around the corner, I think we ought to ease up on this level of public language policing. The critics are coming; let’s not make their job easy for them (nor convert from within our own community).

SiobhanBall 4 Mar 2026 8:30 UTC
6 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Zachary Segall’s comment on: KFC, Nando’s, Wagamama, and Burger King drop pledge to improve the welfare of chickens
Hi Zachary, do you have any notion of the success rate in going from recommitment → realised changes?

Also, thanks for your service! 6+ years is a lot of volunteering.

SiobhanBall 4 Mar 2026 6:55 UTC
5 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Finally some good news: Ahold Delhaize to go cage-free!
Finally, indeed! I hope the changes materialise.

SiobhanBall 3 Mar 2026 15:23 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 1
on: KFC, Nando’s, Wagamama, and Burger King drop pledge to improve the welfare of chickens
Indeed! I asked the same questions in a recent LinkedIn post and am planning to address this topic in a new substack post soon (so now I’m wondering if we know each other 🥷🏽).

To answer your last question—pretty common. The majority I think, though estimates differ.

SiobhanBall 3 Mar 2026 7:22 UTC
5 points
0 ∶ 0
on: How much of a post are you comfortable for AI to write?
I started off at 100% but, having reflected on this for a few days, I’m now unsure. I stand by the point I alluded to elsewhere on the forum—that language has been used as a class gatekeeping tool since forever, AI levels the field, and this is good—but on the other hand, the slop is out of control.

You can’t get a read of the writer’s personality if AI is used (that might be beneficial in some cases, but I believe it’s worse overall); it represents the next level of performative twoddle that I’ve decided I do not like (even if I engage in it myself sometimes), and we don’t need another way to distance ourselves from being seen by one another.

So, @NickLaing changed my mind.

SiobhanBall 3 Mar 2026 6:16 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
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SiobhanBall 3 Mar 2026 5:44 UTC
7 points
5 ∶ 5
in reply to: Fran’s comment on: CEA’s response to sexual harassment
I think it’s important that CEA is allowed to respond without a pre-emptive framing of how they might respond.

SiobhanBall 28 Feb 2026 23:25 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 1
on: Pete Hegseth declares Anthropic a supply-chain risk
Dario deserves his own memecoin ❤️

SiobhanBall 28 Feb 2026 23:03 UTC
5 points
1 ∶ 1
on: CEA’s response to sexual harassment
I appreciate the courage it takes to write about this so publicly, and I hope the supportive responses have been helpful in light of both your experience and the broader cultural reflections you’ve shared.
From a community learning perspective, the document itself is central. Much of the harm and the organisational failure relates to how that document was written and interpreted internally.

SiobhanBall 21 Feb 2026 9:19 UTC
6 points
1 ∶ 3
in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: NickLaing’s Quick takes
I think folks should be free to choose what level of AI use they’re comfortable with, without fear of being shamed or outed inherently for using AI. Those who don’t approve are free to downvote or ‘x’ to show their discontent. If enough people feel the same way then the incentives will do their job.

As I said on LinkedIn, you are still engaging with a human… a human that’s using AI.

I see AI as an interesting leveller of the playing field. It gives people less room to dismiss a point of view for being conveyed haphazardly in writing.

Writing well is a skill, built on the existential privilege of intelligence. If you don’t have it, does it mean you have less right to be heard?

SiobhanBall 19 Jan 2026 21:15 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Jenny Kudmowa’s comment on: Sanjay’s Shortform
Hi Jenny, very interesting, thank you. What was the response of CG to your report, and do you know if they are planning to invest more resources towards this potential cause area?

SiobhanBall 19 Jan 2026 20:58 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: feijão’s comment on: Sanjay’s Shortform
I was wondering if anyone was going to mention that. There was a lot of media buzz about whether the events of the show could really happen at the time of its airing. This piece by Yale is supposed to sound reassuring, but it just… doesn’t. :/

SiobhanBall 15 Jan 2026 4:46 UTC
0 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Alistair Stewart’s comment on: Should animal advocates treat veganism as a supererogatory commitment or a moral baseline?
Ok, you’ve convinced me on the theoretical button-pushing. In reality those aren’t the options we’re presented with.

SiobhanBall 15 Jan 2026 4:37 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Ben Stevenson’s comment on: Should animal advocates treat veganism as a supererogatory commitment or a moral baseline?
Good questions. R&D isn’t the only lever. Given the relatively small amount of money that would be coming from EA, I’d direct the funding towards policy advocacy, comms/educating the market, and lobbying for governments to invest more in scale up funding.
I’m not in favour of intervention plurality for its own sake. Even if cultivated meat would only displace 50%, 25%, 10% of demand for broiler chickens, that would already be hugely beneficial compared to what we spend on currently.
And you wouldn’t have to be vegan to support it, which would open the movement up to others in the way FarmKind have tried to do. Just imagine: vegans, non vegans, environmentalists, investors, and businesses all united under one common, commercially viable goal of giving consumers another choice that has almost no trade offs compared to what they eat currently. Most other interventions and meta debates seem trivial by comparison if you think that cultivated meat is inevitable… which I do.
I think the main problem from a movement dynamics point of view is that it would undermine much of what people spend their energy on now.

SiobhanBall 14 Jan 2026 19:31 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Ben Stevenson’s comment on: Should animal advocates treat veganism as a supererogatory commitment or a moral baseline?
I think that should depend on what the bets are.

SiobhanBall 14 Jan 2026 19:29 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Alistair Stewart’s comment on: Should animal advocates treat veganism as a supererogatory commitment or a moral baseline?
Because a large proportion of vegans revert to eating animals at some point in their lives. Moreover, it isn’t going to happen in any timeframe, unfortunately.

SiobhanBall 14 Jan 2026 16:02 UTC
32 points
4 ∶ 2
on: Propose a debate topic—I’ll run one
Most, if not all, animal advocacy funding should be directed towards bringing cultivated meat products to market ASAP.

SiobhanBall 14 Jan 2026 15:59 UTC
6 points
0 ∶ 3
on: Should animal advocates treat veganism as a supererogatory commitment or a moral baseline?
Re: your poll, I’d say neither. Veganism and offsetting are both ‘rearranging furniture on the Titanic’. The button I’d press wouldn’t be to make everyone vegan in an instant, but to get cultivated meat on supermarket shelves at a competitive price point, in an instant.

Nothing else (bar x-risks for humans) is going to end factory farming. As you say, meat consumption is skyrocketing, yet in animal advocacy we act like there isn’t a viable alternative that is, or rather could be, on the table.

So strong is my view on this that I’d go as far as to say that the way funding is allocated in animal advocacy is extremely ineffective. It should basically all be going towards scale-up grants or policy advocacy or whatever cultivated meat businesses need.

But yeah the findings of the Pulse survey you mentioned don’t surprise me. In the end I think this campaign was a load of hot air, probably not particularly helpful nor damaging either way.

SiobhanBall

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