I've made some updates and corrections to this paper—(2) and (3) are most important in my opinion and make the Malan 2022 field experiment a somewhat weaker test of the PTC hypothesis. Thanks to all who commented!

Changes are noted below (which I've also added to the post):

1. Correction to Figure 1 to indicate Ikea 2019 data represent all stores globally, rather than just the United States.

Corrections and updates in the "Malan 2022 field experiment" section:

2. Replace "On Thursdays, students had the option of receiving prepared burritos with either Impossi

This source suggests the rate of self-identified veganism in Germany is about 3% in 2022. (We did not do any data collection ourselves; this report is a re-analysis of existing data collected by Brachem et al.)

they don’t discuss (let alone defend) “strong form PTC” theory.

I suppose we simply disagree here. The first quote I cite states "the products need to taste the same or better and cost the same or less." The next sentence strongly implies that "the market can kick in and take it from there, just shoot us up the S-curve," with "necessary but not sufficient" relegated to a "quibble." In conjunction with the Q&A, I think reasonable audience member would infer that your statements mean roughly "if price and taste parity were met, a majority of consumers... (read more)

Sorry I missed this—mostly (2), sometimes discussing (1).

Thanks! My subsequent reply to Bruce might be helpful here—while Bruce doesn't defend the claim here, I do think he says things that strongly resemble it elsewhere.

Are you referring to the blind taste test?

Yes. The Sogari blind taste test is indeed affected by saltiness; it also includes an informed taste test similarly effected (but again finding Impossible and animal-based meat tied for first). There is a second blind taste test cited immediately thereafter (Chicken and Burger Alternatives, 2018), although salt levels were not reported.

Have you compared these foods yourself?

No, I haven't.

It seems really hard to draw conclusions about taste competitiveness of a meat substitute from this kind of n=1 study, b

Hi Paul, thanks for checking the analysis so closely! (And apologies for the slow reply; I've been gathering some more information.)

But wouldn't Impossible be a comparison for ground beef, not for steak? Am I misunderstanding something here?

This is a good point and I've now confirmed with the authors that the steak was cubed, rather than minced or ground, so indeed not likely directly comparable to Impossible ground beef. I'll be making some updates to the paper accordingly. Thank you!

The build-your-own-entree bar offers shredded beef, which while also... (read more)

Hi Bruce, thank you for your reply. I'll focus on a few key disagreements here, although I'm happy to elaborate further if it's helpful.

Finally fifth: I'm not sure about your current thesis (the “strong-form” version of PTC). [...] In my opinion, these are very weak citations, and your inference based on them is not (I don’t think) tenable.

I'll address this first as I think it's trenchant to determine whether the hypothesis I work to refute is in fact held. I’d contend that you (and GFI) have, at times, prominently promoted and supported the strong PTC... (read more)

Thank you so much; I'm so glad you found the paper valuable!

Thanks!

Sorry if I missed it, but are the logarithms here base 10?

Agree, forecasts would be great and I'd work on this is I end up spending more time on the future prospects of PBM!

Hi Bruce, thank you for your response and engagement with the paper over the course of the project.

However, I don’t think this reply engages with the key arguments I make in the paper.

Why did GFI initially adopt the PTC paradigm?

I cite and discuss a number of the studies you mention to support this point in the section The PTC premise. I make four specific critiques of this body of literature—can you address these directly?

1. These studies generally don’t find PTC to be the top three factors in determining food choice. [Two of the three studies I cite d

Thanks for your kind words, Lizka!

I should also say that it doesn't seem appropriate (to me) to strongly update towards "it's not important to lower price and improve taste and convenience of plant-based meat alternatives." (I don't think the post is seriously arguing for this, but figured that I would flag it.)

I agree, with emphasis on 'strongly update.'

which is indeed a belief I've heard implied or stated in EA

This is especially helpful as people have (understandably) doubted this is the case.

I expect that without improvements in price and tast

Hi Francis, I don't think there's much work on this, although I do believe an advocacy group tried this but found the results underwhelming.

Hi Michael, thanks for engaging; just flagging this will be my last reply on this thread :)

Quickly reviewing the RethinkX report, it seems like the dramatic changes forecast on very short timelines have not come to pass:

• Precision fermentation beef is not currently ~$2/kg (Figure 11)
• 30% of the US beef 'tissue' market is not from cultured or precision fermentation (Figure 12)
• US cattle population is forecast to decline ~80M but remains steady at 94M as of 2021
• Similarly, US chicken populations remain stable

The cost curves in Fig 5 does not cite any sour... (read more)

(Abraham and I both work for Rethink Priorities.)

I agree, especially with your points on "necessary but not sufficient." In my view, this represents mostly a pivot from the PTC hypothesis. I'm not sure whether to view this as post hoc hypothesizing (generally bad) or merely updating-on-evidence (generally good).

I do think the question of "what percent of the 'work' is PTC?" is probably not well-defined, but is likely a worthwhile starting point for disagreement.

Thank you, Alain, and interesting to hear similar accounts for someone more closely involved with the industry!

Hi Jack, thanks for your comment and so thoroughly checking my sources!

I agree with your interpretation of Szejda. I intended to cite this study with regards to the PTC premise—that PTC primarily determine food choice—not the PTC hypothesis in full (that PTC-competitive PBM would largely displace animal-based meat).

However, I don't agree that no one holds this view. I'd refer to three lines of evidence:

1. Direct textual evidence. In particular, I think the main source I cite is pretty clear cut:

the hypothesis proposes that plant-based meat "can compete o

Hi Mark, thank you for your kind words and thoughtful comment! Also, welcome to the forum :) Please forgive my referring you to particular sections of the paper if you've already read them; I understand it's a lengthy read.

Indeed, I consider general evidence on PTC in food choice in the section The PTC premise. Chris Bryant has actually subsequently pointed me toward Cunha (2018), which I think is stronger than what I cite there, but still subject to the same critiques. The paper is also not cited in any of the discourse on plant-based meats that I know of... (read more)

I agree that the PTC hypothesis is generally unsupported by the data available.

Glad to hear!

neither of these things are going to be true for longer than 1-2 years because of the cost curve of alternative meats and the technologies involved.

the most likely future is one in which alternative meat has the following attributes: • At least 80% cheaper • At least as tasty as the best meat today • Consistently the same quality, every time • At least as healthy, likely far healthier • At least 100X less contamination issues. • A longer shelf life

This is ... (read more)

On the Malan trial, I write:

With regards to taste, Impossible ground beef specifically has not been subjected to any public taste tests. However, as reviewed above, the Impossible Burger, which is made of similar ingredients, has been found to taste equivalent in some studies. The study does not describe exactly the form of the beef in the steak burrito, making its taste equivalence less certain but probably still a reasonable inference. For the ground beef served on the build-your-own entree line, taste equivalence seems very likely. We can further surm

Hi Brad, thanks for your comment. I'd contend that the Malan 2022 field experiment, among other studies, does give us some insight into behavior towards a putatively PTC-competitive plant-based meat. (There is also some survey data included which might cover attitudes, but I'm assuming you mean something closer to behavior. Let me know if not.) Can you clarify why you don't find it compelling, if that's the case?

Ditto, really appreciate your taking the time to so thoughtfully engage. :) A good day on the Forum! I'll try to wrap up here as well.

(a) Thanks for this reference—I wasn't aware of it! This definitely seems like useful evidence in the right direction and I agree with the XKCD's comic sentiment. That said, it seems like there are still many possible contingencies where price might be a partial rather than full cause. This seems like a ripe area for further research.

(b) I agree, my list is incomplete, and these are good considerations. By the same token, I ... (read more)

Thank you, Fergus, that's very kind of you! I would note that I think it's quite possible and somewhat likely the Malan field experiment found a very small effect on beef sales at 0.3 percentage points. That said, there may have been a couple percentage point decline in poultry sales, which would be much more valuable. (I didn't get in to this as it was besides the main point of the paper.)

Thanks for reading, Jonas! I think these are pretty reasonable takeaways. I'd only add that it'd be useful to define for yourself what PTC actually, concretely mean. Also, I don't think many folks believe we'll reach some standard of PTC parity across most animal-products within ~5 years, if that's roughly what you mean by "the next years."

Thank you, I appreciate the nuance! [Also, I realize it’s a long paper, so I quote some relevant passages, but apologies if you already read them. I figure it might help other folks following our thread as well.]

1. "One could go away from your piece thinking there is a lot of evidence that should have one update against long-term PTC" Reasonable, although I did try to avoid this and emphasize the results apply to current consumers. So I also agree it "seems not warranted by most of the kind of evidence you cite" and specifically didn't cite evidence that f

Thanks for your question—forgive my quoting from the paper in response, I understand it's quite lengthy! To your first question, I don't think most interpretations of the PTC hypothesis would qualify tempeh as taste-equivalent (although, as I emphasize here, these factors aren't very well defined).

I've included a case study on hot dogs specifically:

the home-goods-retailer-cum-cafeteria Ikea sells plant-based hotdogs that are equally or lower-priced, readily available alongside animal-based hot dogs, and "received a 95 percent approval rating" in taste te

Hi Sanjay, thank you for reading and your thoughtful comment! The evidence I reviewed here already spans a couple of years, so I do think it might be reasonable to extrapolate closer to 3-5 years. That said, there isn't any analysis of trends of over time, so maybe not.

I agree conditional on the existence of similar alternatives, regulating against animal-based meat is easier than if those alternatives don't exist. Can you elaborate on the why you think the arguments apply differently to lab-grown rather than plant-based meat in your third point? If one be... (read more)

Hi Jack, thank you for your comment! I largely agree the future prospects of plant-based meat might be quite different from the current prospects and write:

Important alternatives to the PTC hypothesis might consider the role of future consumers rather than present-day consumers, who have been the focus of this paper. Future consumers might experience a large change in social norms or otherwise shift their preferences toward consuming plant-based rather than animal-based meats. This is a common feature of many animal advocacy theories of change (Delon et

Gladly, thank you for your kind words! Sometimes people include health or nutrition as well. But there are really myriad factors that influence food choice, as I talk about some here, so I think there are still issues with models that simply add a factor or two (discussed some in the paragraph starting "Producing compelling evidence to substantiate just the premise of the PTC hypothesis would require an ambitious experimental effort.")

Thank you!

Thanks, Willem, that all makes sense! I agree, the overall conclusion certainly seems fair, especially given the convergent evidence you cite.

Not sure why this is being so heavily down-voted. I believe it's accurate and contributes, especially re: my comments where a safe and non-permanent way of causing severe pain would be needed.

(Caveat: Views my own, not my employer's)

I think this sort of first-hand investigation is potentially pretty valuable. I know Ren discourages folks from conducting similar self-experimentation, but I would be curious to see safe and careful experiments of this bent to understand the impact of deliberate experiences of suffering on moral views. Perhaps a worthwhile task for some empirical ethicists.

Caveat: I work for Rethink Priorities, as do the authors of this post

Great to have this timely research and good antidote to some of the gloomy outlooks on how this has affected the community!

I especially liked the two convergent approaches for measuring the effect of the FTX crisis on EA satisfaction. I noticed in the satisfaction over time analysis, you can kind of eyeball a (slight) negative pre-trend. This made me wonder how you thought about the causal inference concerns both in that specific analysis and for this report generally? By extension, I won... (read more)

I agree with the substance of your post and appreciate your taking the time to do the fact checking. I also sympathize with your potential frustration that the fact checking showe didn't support the claim.

However, I do think your comment comes off as a bit dismissive: neither OP nor Food Empowerment Project themselves claim FEP to be "real researchers," whatever this might mean; OP merely states FEP might have helpful resources. Furthermore, the comment might be taken to imply that being an activist and a real researcher are at odds, which I don't believe to be the case.

I also feel sad that your comments feel slightly condescending or uncharitable, which makes it difficult for me to have a productive conversation.

I'm really sorry to come off that way, James. Please know it's not my intention, but duly noted, and I'll try to do better in the future.

1. Got it; that's helpful to know, and thank you for taking the time to explain!

2. SDB is generally hard to test for post hoc, which is why it's so important to design studies to avoid it. As the surveys suggest, not supporting protests doesn't imply people don't report suppo

Thank you for your responses and engagement. Overall, it seems like we agree 1 and 2 are problems; still disagree about 3; and I don't think I made my point on 4 understood and your explanation raises more issues in my mind. While I think these 4 issues are themselves substantive, I worry they are the tip of an iceberg as 1 and 2 are in my opinion relatively basic issues. I appreciate your offer to pay for further critique; I hope someone is able to take you up on it.

1. Great, I think we agree the approach outlined in the original report should be changed.

Updated view

Thank you to James for clarifying some of the points below. 1, 3 and 4 all result from miscommunications in the report that on clarification don't reflect the authors' intentions. I think 2 continues to be relevant, and we disagree here.

I've updated towards putting somewhat more credence in parts of the work, although I have other concerns beyond the most glaring ones I flagged here. I'm reticent to get into them here since this comment has a long contextual thread; perhaps I'll write another comment. I do want to represent my overall view her... (read more)

I think there are two additional sources on corporate animal welfare campaigns worth mention here; neither cover all the topics you outline in tractability, but I think do fill in some of the blanks:

• Peter Singer's Ethics Into Action: Henry Spira and the Animal Rights Movement gives a book-length overview of corporate campaigns from one of their key US proponents.
• Samara Mendez and my study Impact of Corporate Commitments to Source Cage-Free Eggs on Layer Hen Housing provides an introduction to academic literature on animal welfare campaigns and a quantit

I don't find the case against bivalve sentience that strong, especially for the number of animals potentially involved and the diversity of the 10k bivalve species. (For example, scallops are motile and have hundreds of image-forming eyes—it'd be surprising to me if pain wasn't useful to such a lifestyle!)

I agree, pricing in impact seems reasonable. But do you think this is currently happening? if so, by what mechanism? I think the discrepancies between Redwood and ACE salaries are much more likely explained by norms at the respective orgs and funding constraints rather than some explicit pricing of impact.

Thanks for these Peter! (Note that Peter and I both work at Rethink Priorities.)

Do you think your study is sufficiently well powered to detect very small effect sizes on meat consumption?

No, and this is by design as you point out. We did try to recruit a population that may be more predisposed to change in Study 3 and looked at even more predisposed subgroups.

substantially larger than the effects we usually find for animal interventions even on more moveable things

I think we were informed by the results of our meta-analysis, which generally found e... (read more)

Yes, we did and found no meaningful increases in interest in animal activism, including voting intentions. Full questions available in in the supplementary materials.

Thank you taking the time to engage, much appreciated! Forgive my responding quickly and feel free to ask for clarification if I miss anything:

• Definitely, could be different results with different docs. But ours showed a much stronger effect than the average of similar interventions we found in a previous meta-analysis, suggesting Good for Us is pretty good. It is probably better than Cowspiracy on changing intentions, with longer studies of excerpts of Cowspiracy also finding no effect.
• Agree especially with your sub-point. We also tried to recruit pop

+1 As well. I would emphasize that number of animal alive at any given time is significantly more important than slaughter as many animals die prior to slaughter.

Ah, I see—in that case, it makes a lot of sense for you to pursue these case studies. I appreciate the time you invested to get to a double crux here, thanks!

Thank you for your replies, Jamie, I appreciate the discussion. As a last point of clarification when you say ~40%, does this, for example, mean that if a priori I was uninformed on momentum v complacency and so put 50/50% credence on either possibility, that a series of case studies might potentially update you to 90/10%?

When I'm thinking about the value of social movement case studies compared to RCTs, I'm also thinking about their ability to provide evidence on the questions that I think are most important

I don't disagree—but my point with this intu