Introduction

In this post, I will argue that EAAs lack a long-term perspective, claim that a long-term perspective could result in vastly more impact, and offer some concrete ways that EAAs could adopt a more long-term perspective.

As a side note, after writing this post, I found Dilan Fernando’s post “Visionary Pragmatism: A Third Way for Animal Advocacy,” which you may want to check out. It makes quite a similar argument to this post, but it’s significantly longer and is written by someone who’s been in the animal movement for over a decade.

EAAs Lack a Long-Term Perspective

I believe that EAAs lack a long-term perspective because EAA organizations’ research lacks a long-term perspective, EAAs measure cost-effectiveness using short-term metrics, and farm animal activism leaders believe that the movement as a whole lacks a long-term perspective.

First, EAA organizations’ research lacks a long-term perspective. When looking at the titles from all research produced by ten different EAA or EAA-adjacent organizations,^[1] I was only able to identify two articles that related to creating change over a period of longer than ten years, namely Animal Ask’s “Pathways to victory: How can we end animal agriculture?” and Rethink Priorities’ “Forecasts estimate limited cultured meat production through 2050.”

Second, EAAs measure cost-effectiveness using short-term metrics. For instance, ACE’s report “Better for Animals” mostly uses the metrics “number of animals affected” and “amount of suffering averted” rather than metrics that I think would measure long-term progress more effectively such as how much more likely voters are to support legislation improving farm animal welfare or how much more likely individuals are to consume alternative proteins.

Lastly, according to leaders in the farm animals activism movement, farm animal activism lacks a long-term perspective. For instance, in 2024, during a meeting of 32 leaders, a “lack of focus on developing long-term theories of change” was identified as one of the movement’s major challenges.

A Long-Term Perspective Could Have Significantly More Impact

I think that a long-term perspective could have significantly more impact because the very best interventions for reducing farm animal suffering over the next century are likely different from the very best interventions for reducing farm animal suffering over the next decade. After all, it would be a very surprising coincidence if this were not the case.

How EAAs Could Adopt A Long-Term Perspective

I believe that EAAs could adopt a long-term perspective by focusing on long-term change more, creating theories of long-term change, and using more long-term metrics.

First, EAAs focus on long-term change more by emphasizing the importance of long-term change in general discussion, research reports, and funding decisions.

Second, EAAs could create more long-term theories of change by trying to model how the future of farm animal activism could go and criticizing each other’s models. Especially if EAAs made use of forecasting, this would enable them to much more confidently hold long-term perspectives.

Lastly, EAAs could use more metrics that measure proxies for long-term change such as how much more likely voters are to support farm animal welfare legislation, how much more likely people are to discuss factory farming with their friends, or how much more likely a country’s legislators are to consider farm animal welfare legislation. (Of course, if you don’t consider social change to be the largest driver of change for farm animals, then, you might consider other metrics such as the rate of development of alternative proteins or the number of successful corporate campaigns each year to be more important metrics for measuring long-term change.)

1. ^{^}

    Faunalytics, Rethink Priorities, Animal Ask, Animal Charity Evaluators, Charity Entrepreneurship, Coefficient Giving, Good Growth, Social Change Lab, Animal Think Tank, and Pax Fauna