I thought this was a well-written, thoughtful and highly intelligent piece, about a really important topic, where getting as close as possible to the truth is super-important and high-stakes. Kudos! I gave it a strong upvote. :) 

I am starting from the point of being fairly attached to the “let’s try to end factory farming!” framing, but this post has given me a lot to think about. 

I wanted to share a bunch of thoughts that sprung to my mind as I read the post:

One potential advantage of the “let’s try to end factory farming!” framing is that it encourages us to think long-term and systematically, rather than short-term and narrowly. I take long-termism to be true: future suffering matters as much as present-day suffering. I worry that a framing of “let’s accept that factory farming will endure; how can we reduce the most suffering” quickly becomes “how can we reduce the most suffering *right now*, in a readily countable and observable way”. This might make us miss opportunities and theories of change which will take longer to work up a head of steam, but which over the long term, may lead to more suffering reduction. It may also push us towards interventions which are easily countable, numerically, at the expense of interventions which may actually, over time, lead to more suffering-reduction, but in more uncertain, unpredictable, indirect and harder-to-measure ways. It may push us towards very technocratic and limited types of intervention, missing things like politics, institutions, ideas, etc. It may discourage creativity and innovation. (To be clear: this is not meant to be a “woo-woo” point; I’m suggesting that these tendencies may fail in their own terms to maximize expected suffering reduction over time). 

Aiming to end factory farming encourages us to aim high. Imagine we have a choice between two options, as a movement: try to eradicate 100pc of the suffering caused by factory farming, by abolishing it (perhaps via bold, risky, ambitious theories-of-change). Or, try to eradicate 1pc of the suffering caused by factory farming, through present-day welfare improvements. The high potential payoff of eradicating factory farming seems to look good here, even if we think there’s only (say) a 10pc chance of it working. I.e, perhaps the best way to maximise expected suffering reduction is, in fact, to ‘gamble’ a bit and take a shot at eradicating factory farming. 

• A potentially important counterpoint here, I think, is if it turns out that some welfare reforms deliver huge suffering reduction. I think that the Welfare Footprint folks claim somewhere that moving laying hens (?) out of the worst cage systems basically immediately *halves* their suffering (?) If true, this is huge, and is a point in favour of prioritising such welfare measures. 

If we give up on even trying to end factory farming, doesn’t this become a self-fulfilling prophecy? If we do this, we guarantee that we end up in a world where factory framing endures. Given uncertainty, shouldn’t (at least some of) the movement try to aim high and eradicate it? 

I’m not sure that the analogy with malaria/poverty/health/development is perfect:

• Actually, we do seek to end some diseases, not just control them. E.g. we eradicated smallpox, and are nearly there for polio. Some people are also trying to eradicate malaria (I think). (Though eradicating a disease is in many ways easier than eradicating factory farming, so this analogy maybe doesn’t work so well.)
• Arguably, the focus within EA global health discourse on immediate, countable, tangible interventions (like distributing bednets) has distracted us from more systemic, messy - but also deep and important - questions, such as: Why are some countries rich and others poor? What actually drives development, and how can we help boost it? How can we boost growth? Why do some countries have such bad health systems and outcomes? How can we build strong health systems in developing countries, rather than focus ‘vertically’ on specific diseases? *Arguably*, making progress on these questions could, over the long term, actually deliver more suffering-reduction than jumping straight to technocratic, direct ‘interventions’.
• Some of global development discourse *is* framed in terms of *ending* poverty, at least sometimes. For example, the Sustainable Development Goals say we should seek to ‘end poverty’, end hunger’, etc. 

I’m very unsure about this, but I *guess* that a framing of “factory faming is a gigantic moral evil, let’s eradicate it” is, on balance, more motivating/attracting than a framing of “factory farming is a gigantic moral evil, we’ll never defeat it, but we can help a tonne of animals, let’s do it” (?) 

*If* we knew the future for sure, and knew it would be impossible ever to eradicate factory farming, then I do agree that we should face facts and adjust our strategy accordingly, rather than live in hope. My gut instinct though is that we can’t be sure of this, and there are arguments in favor of aiming for big, bold, systemic changes and wins for animals. 

These are just some thoughts that sprang to mind, I don't think that in and of themselves they fully repudiate the case you thoughtfully made. I think more discussion and thought on this topic is important; kudos for kicking this off with your post! 

(For those interested, the Sentience Institute have done some fascinating work on the analogies and dis-analogies of factory farming vs other moral crimes such as slavery - eg here and here.)  

I like the thought process and the sentiment, but I think big goals are a critical guiding light for the future. "Reducing suffering as much as possible" is neither inspirational enough nor concrete enough to work as as public waiting for

"End factory farming" is a clearer a inspiring rallying point, the same way we in global development do talk about ending poverty, and yes eradicating Malaria. The millennium and sustainable development goals use those kind of terms and I believe help light the way.

Call me naive, but I think distant hope is more likely to keep people going than lead to burnout, as long as we are realistic about out short term goals. I don't think ending factory farming is unrealistic long term.

I've recently been coming across content that on some level discuss how some aspect 'X' is / shoud be different in the pro-animal movement. 

One example is the disproportionate amount of focus that goes into consumer activism over institutional change. I'm not an expert in social movements, nor have I spent much active time studying them, but the sense I get is that other social movements like ending slavery, and feminism have involved focusing on institutional and scalable changes. In this example, X = type of change we should focus on. 

In this post, I would say X = the goal of the pro-animal movement. 

In both instances, X is different for the pro-animal movement than in other forms of social movements. 

I wholeheartedly acknowledge that nonhuman animal oppression is a beast that none other parallels so there ought to be some differences in the way we approach bringing about change in this area. But I inevitably also wonder if there is some level of embedded speciesism involved when we differentiate nonhuman animal oppression from human-specific oppressions. 

Thanks, Elliot.

• Many animal advocates frame the goal of the movement as "ending factory farming".
  • I see why it’s a tempting message, both to hold onto internally, and when pitching to people new to the movement.
  • Yet, I think the reality is that we might never get there.
• I think the framing therefore leads to the following problems:
  • Unrealistic hope leads to disillusionment and burnout.
  • You should count counterfactual wins, not the absolute numbers.
  • A lack of strategic clarity when developing a theory of change.
  • Leads to a poor allocation of resources.

There is another point which makes me especially in favour of focussing on reducing suffering, and also increasing happiness. Ending factory-farming only increases animal welfare if factory-farmed animals continue to have negative lives forever, whereas I would say they may become positive in the next few decades at least in some animal-friendly countries.

I found your article very useful.
Similar thoughts to the ones you express here led me to write this post: Fighting animal suffering: beyond the number of animals killed

Can you elaborate on why you think we will never eradicate factory farming? You point to near-term trends that suggest it will get worse over the coming decades. What about on a century long time scale or longer? Factory farming has only been around for a few generations, and food habits have changed tremendously over that time.

I think it's important to consider how some strategies may make future work difficult. For example, Martha Nussbaum highlights how much of the legal theory in the animal rights movement has relied on showing similarities between human and animal intelligence. Such a "like us" comparison limits consideration to a small subset of vertebrates. They are impotent at helping animals like chickens, were much legal work is happening now. Other legal theories are much more robust to expansion and consideration of other animals as the science improves to understand their needs and behavior.

Using your line of argument applied to the analogy you provided would suggest that efforts like developing a malaria vaccine are misguided, because malaria will always be with us, and we should just focus on reducing infection rates and treatment.