All of KevinWatkinson's Comments + Replies

Then it ought to be the case that they are addressed somewhere by the relevant organisations.

Shaming tactics are used, but the issue i'm raising here is how they impact relations between the campaigning organisations and the businesses themselves. If it is the case that relations are impacted negatively through the "stick" then this is going to create issues going forward if organisations want to be part of business decision making or advisory groups.

In relation to McDonald's the line from mainstream organisations has been to celebrate their commitments and their one or two veg offerings, until it seems the moment they go ba... (read more)

Traditionally the approach taken by welfare seems to have been corporate engagement and building positive relations around "win wins", so a commitment in exchange for good publicity upfront.  So i'm not really sure about a shift toward “shaming” strategies as an enforcement approach, i'm uncertain that enough power exists within the welfare movement to use this particular tactic, whilst going forward it seems uncertain how it would impact relations with large businesses.  If for instance The Humane League pursue a shaming campaign agai... (read more)

I think the diversifying approach has been somewhat underexplored, and up to now many of the recommendations have involved filling capacity for welfarism / general advocacy / some for product promotion.  This has caused some issues for diversity because the preferred approach has given weight to certain aligned organisations in the movement space.  This has sometimes been justified as “effectiveness” but I think in reality it has disproportionately pressed smaller organisations and allowed some larger groups and their associated ideologies to dominate.  ... (read more)

“The EA community should not push veganism except insofar as a milk exception is considered weird and difficult to communicate.”  

This could be a utilitarian position within effective altruism but it wouldn’t reflect a rights position.  Overall i don't think EA could take a position of not pushing veganism.  Not that it pushes veganism anyway, and never has done, instead the preference has been for the “rational pragmatism” of Shapiro, Friedrich and Ball. 

If veganism were to be promoted then it would challenge the conventional position of welfaris... (read more)

Given the EA animal welfare fund appears oriented around two organisations (Effective Giving also utilises research from Open Philanthropy and ACE to find exceptional opportunities to do good), what efforts are being made to include different value systems and perspectives that are found in effective altruism more generally?  And how ought those perspectives be valued?

What are the similarities and differences between the new ACE fund and the EA animal welfare fund?  

It also seems to me that some of the organisations that receive EA funds could graduate t... (read more)

Non-consequentialist considerations aren't really part of animal welfare. They aren't taken seriously as part of the Animal Welfare Program at the Open Philanthropy Project and neither are they factored into the work that ACE does in relation to "top" or "standout" charities. It's difficult to wonder about how rights advocates would think about prioritisation when they wouldn't agree with how effective altruism has constructed "effective animal advocacy". To consider how non-consequentialists would think... (read more)

In terms of cost effectiveness it's relevant to consider that ProVeg set up a UK operation despite the organisational space appearing relatively saturated in the UK. It's an interesting situation because as far as i can tell The Vegan Society has largely been directed on ProVeg grounds since co-founder of ProVeg International Jasmijn de Boo was CEO of The Vegan Society (2011-2016), it seems to me it has largely continued along those lines. I'm also not sure what level of consultation took place in relation to VeggieWorld London, the veg fe... (read more)

The Vegan Society has its Growing Green campaign which springs to mind. There is also an article here about how Oatly helped a farmer shift more of his oat crop from animal feed to Oatly, so that is quite interesting from a business perspective and the article also discusses some of the tensions between Oatly and animal farmers. Some of these issues were also covered in the Rotten series that netflix produced, one of the episodes looked at chicken farming in the USA and how the industry functions, so that may be interesting if you haven't seen it. B... (read more)

In relation to short / medium term, i am saying that short term gains are more geared toward welfarism and *veg* approaches rather than projects such as rights / anti-speciesism in terms of anti-exploitation. So whilst we could view conventional EAA interventions as part of a bigger picture, we're not exploring these issues as part of how they fit together in a broader context, particularly in terms of different moral theories or how it is that different perspectives aim to reduce suffering. In the sense of what is funded / emphasised through effect... (read more)

I think with EAA waves have been made in quite a depoliticised way. We can point to how GFI has supported investment and promoted products, but we can also look to the costs of this general approach. Going "mainstream" often seems to mean that we are adopting and replicating the characteristics of that mainstream and nudging within it (or just aligning with it) rather than challenging it. This has informed much of effective altruism and how donations are made to larger organisations, particularly as issues of rights, anti-speciesism and vegani... (read more)

Hi Amy, is there any progress in terms of presenting who is on the advisory boards? Or if people don't want to be named that would be useful information too.

I appreciate the clarification of where people are presently working. More information is available in the bios.

I would like to know a bit more about the reasoning behind bringing in people from ACE and Sentience Politics to contribute to the Animal Welfare Fund.

From my point of view ACE is already heavily represented in terms of decision making in relation to animal organisations, particularly distributing funds to organisations affiliated to the "pragmatic" ideology favoured by most utilitarians in EAA.

Bringing more people onboard to the Animal Welfare Fund is a good idea but seems to have offered an opportunity to take on a variety of perspectives to in... (read more)

Wouldn't referring to other groups likely confirm that it is the only game in town? If they were working on similar issues then there would be cross referencing and a greater degree of accountability. But it seems that hasn't happened at least in some cases and it may or may not be the case there are further issues to be examined elsewhere. In my view there are around moral theory (particularly managing more polarising issues), whilst i would disagree with Jc that meta evaluation isn't useful. Likely it would provide some useful information to consider... (read more)

I wonder whether it would also be useful to take a broader movement view on these issues alongside EA professionals, because effectiveness considerations are likely to be weighted toward organisations rather than movements. For instance one concern for me is that saying animal rights in the generic way overlooks animal rights theory and immediately minimises those considerations. This for me is a survey more related to animal welfare, which is to centre use within a system of exploitation whereas rights is focussed on freedom from exploitation and justic... (read more)

In terms of representation then my own opinion in relation to the animal welfare cause area is that it could relate to moral theory. At present the dominant ideology (rational pragmatism) favoured by many utilitarians has functioned as a way for people to associate with one another, and offers a fairly easy way to become part of EAA through adopting certain organisations and ideas. This is an ideology which in my view has been dismissive of rights based approaches by diminishing their value / relevance to effectiveness thinking.

To address this issue i ... (read more)

I think what conference attendees most want to hear about but also worth considering what potential attendees would want to hear about. Personally i would prefer more diversity within the cause area to look at various challenges to conventional EAA whilst focussing more on philosophy and demandingness. I think in this way people could become somewhat more familiar with the broader cause area rather than in my view a tendency to focus on a fairly narrow group of organisations and individuals.

Would it be possible to say who is on the advisory board?

Thanks for that link, it's an interesting article. In the context of theory within the animal movement Singer's pragmatism isn't particularly demanding, but a more justice oriented approach is (along the lines of Regan). In my view it would be a good thing not least for the sake of diversity of viewpoints to make more claims around demandingness rather than largely following a less demanding position. Though i do think that because people are not used to ascribing significant moral value to other animals then it follows that anything more than the societal level is therefore considered demanding, particularly in regard to considering speciesism alongside other forms of human discrimination.

Yeah, this was a good step but i think probably not enough, particularly in relation to having two former HSUS staff members which is useful for implementing the current programme but less so when considering or assessing the value of different areas of the animal movement.

I would agree, there's more scope beyond how the Open Philanthropy Welfare Fund presently operates so EA Funds has more potential utility there, but my own view is that the full range of possibilites aren't presently explored / considered because of time constraints alongside the low value of some disbursements alongside potentially having to spend more time justifying fairly unconventional grants.

In some ways i think it is the unconventional / marginal organisations which need more consideration as bringing potential value to the table over what is gene... (read more)

I think it depends somewhat on the concept of giving effectively. Whilst i think it can be argued that people could give more effectively by shifting their giving from animal shelters to farmed animal advocacy, it depends somewhat on precision. For people who are already donating to animal organisations which aren't shelters then it isn't necessarily better to give to "effective" organisations as put forward by ACE because there aren't sufficient comparisons that can be made between organisations they are already supporting, and there is also t... (read more)

Interesting. It would be useful to know what people did instead. So in the AE study if people are eating less pork then what are they doing instead? If people are reducing animal flesh consumption across the board in the reducetarian study then what are they consuming instead? Whilst some sort of comparison with industry promotion could be interesting. So how does the cost / impact of reduction messaging compare to increase messaging of the industry? For example.

Connections in the field seems to be quite an important foundational issue, but whilst it may be a weak area generally, i think it can be an area where insufficient time is spent considering the importance of plurality. So if a certain group of people were asked to be part of the experts in the field then it could become fairly self recommending from there on in, particularly if it were resourced / various benefits flowed from it. I tend to view this as a bit of an issue within EAA, particularly at both ACE and the Open Philanthropy Project where approac... (read more)

Thanks for the response, yes I was wondering about conformity in the sense of prevailing thinking within a particular cause area. Is there an expectation for talent to conform to prevailing thinking to a certain degree and would this then reinforce that idea of being talented, or could talent be more related to a set of core values or principles?

I think some cause areas seem to have fairly high expectations of conformity toward in-group / out-group identity, so if this is the case then talented people may conform or not (given the assumption that not all talented people would necessarily be in-group thinkers), but it seems to confer various advantages on those that do.

How does Open Philanthropy weigh conformity against talent?

The March 2018 animal welfare fund update is here if you would like to add it.

Hi Richenda,

I guess it depends on what the thinking and doing is about. My concerns are more around how ideas have been evaluated and analysed at the highest levels, particularly in relation to EAA. For instance, I haven't found too much evidence for how the ideas adopted by many EAs have been contextualised and considered in relation to different moral theories. I can understand that many utilitarians might be satisifed and be keen on doing, but in relation to others i think the ideas need more work before doing is put into practice.

For instance i b... (read more)

I note the mention of Peter Singer. I don't know a great deal about different areas of EA, but he features quite heavily in the EAA space (he is often considered a parent of EA as he is considered a father of the modern animal movement). Perhaps it would be worthwhile emphasising and working on areas where there is overlap between different moral theories. I tend to think this doesn't happen enough, but it could be a worthwhile area in which to allocate more resources that could help mitigate some of those issues.

Yes, it's difficult to know whether it would have an impact in terms of more people becoming involved. Though i don't think that means it isn't worthwhile in terms of calibrating value systems within EAA, so we still need to know we are representing different value systems well, even if other people don't necessarily want to get involved.

In reference to moral uncertainty? In this article i'm saying two things which i think have a fairly similar basis. Firstly, that we need to give consideration to different value systems or we risk gravitating to a single value system by default, which is what i argue has generally happened in EAA. So i outline some ways this could be addressed.

In terms of how the issues are negotiated, if referenced to this article, i'm not in favour of normative externalism which in my view represents the main situation of EAA at present (welfare / reducetarianism). ... (read more)

Thank you for the feedback. Do you have a few examples of the gears-level model being used so that I could look at how that works? Is it something like this perhaps? If that’s the case I could make the article fit a broader critique of Effective Altruism based on previously acknowledged areas, which may be more useful for people, rather than it perhaps appearing more like a standalone piece.

In terms of the other two points you make, I’m more familiar with that perspective. So I agree that welfare would have more popularity in the marketplace of ideas, ... (read more)

A really interesting project and process. I would like to know how the group first came across NMNW?

In terms of including animal groups that would have been a particularly interesting process in terms of non-utilitarianism and the types of organisations the group would have considered. However, that also could have been an additional process that consumed too much time (on top of the time taken to choose to incorporate speciesism). I would say that even within EAA non-utilitarian perspectives are generally neglected, and sometimes marginalised, so negoti... (read more)

I just listened to an interesting one with Brian Tomisik here: https://harvardeapodcast.com/2017/09/17/episode-5-brian-tomasik/

Thanks for your comment.

This is what ACE say in relation to the criterion.

“4. The charity possesses a strong track record of success. The charity has a record of successful achievement of incremental goals or of demonstrated progress towards larger goals. Note that this implies the charity has been in existence for some length of time. While very young charities may have strong potential to return large results for small initial amounts of funding, donating to charities without track records is inherently risky.”

I think it is reasonable to say that GFI h... (read more)

Continued.

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You could consider other ACE top charities or standout charities.

I think to be fair I did mention standout ACE charities the Non-human Rights project and Animal Ethics as considerations, so I left the door open with those groups, rather than to close it.

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I don't think this is true, as you do need to also build the demand for replacement meat products in addition to creating the supply.

In terms of building demand, I think this is true, but there are differences within animal advocacy and the relationship with marketing, differences which ... (read more)

Hi Peter, thanks for those comments.

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I believe that one issue with thinking of the seven criteria as fairly rules based is that people can have an expectation the criteria will be met in relation to consistency and impartiality. I am not in favour of maintaining strict rules, though I think there are some potential negative consequences of not doing so that need to be taken into account. So in which circumstances would they be overlooked or minimised? I think it is fine to be open that it could happen, but it raises issues in relation to how other gro... (read more)

I think it depends how we choose to look at it. GFI would certainly be a departure from what ACE generally agree upon as part of the seven criteria. Though it doesn't really matter to me they did that, it could be the case that i wouldn't favour the group they replaced them with.

Maybe it would be Animal Equality. I think generally it could depend how concerned we would be about how they could have benefitted from Top Charity status. Jon Bockman wrote the following article: https://animalcharityevaluators.org/blog/our-2016-recommendation-of-animal-equ... (read more)

It’s true I don’t know who gives money to New Crop Capital or the Open Philanthropy Project. However, I think it is fairly ok to assume that people investing in meat alternative start ups could also be giving money to various groups that will support and promote their investments. It is likely what I would do if I had a foundation.

As a claim it is a fairly intuitive one, because even if that wasn’t the case, I still believe Open Phil would fill a funding gap because GFI is highly rated by them, and they donated $1,000,000 to the fledgling project toward the end of last year.

Thanks also for the link to MAF, I don't think i had heard of them, though I am aware of SuperMeat.

I don’t doubt it is cost effective (ACE have said it is). What I am saying is that its financial needs are likely met, for instance Lewis Bollard says about GFI in relation to EA Funds “I’m also excited about the Good Food Institute’s work in this space, but I think that big funders (including Open Phil) will fill GFI’s funding needs in the medium term.”

So I’m saying there isn’t much value in considering it as a viable donation opportunity if its needs are met. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be funded, instead I am saying what could happen when we start to look elsewhere.

I don't have any reading recommendations on this subject, but i'm interested to learn more about the issue (i'll check out the links people have suggested below).

I generally believe that non-profits should be doing some of the work themselves when it relates to becoming a top EA recommended charity. I guess we might go further than they do, but i believe they ought to demonstrate the basis for being recipients of funding, rather than say, relying on external evaluation which can be time consuming and highly selective.

If we are comparing two charities that... (read more)

On the face of it, the idea does sound quite good. However, we need to place it into a broader movement context and look at how it has been evaluated to consider how effective it is likely to be, and what other impacts the approach has that aren’t immediately clear.

A central issue with EA is that it says for instance, that we need to consider scope, neglectedness and tractability, but meeting this criteria doesn’t then lead to effectiveness, or optimal outcomes, it just flags that it is an approach worth more consideration.

Consequently, we can note the ‘... (read more)

This can be an issue, but i think Matt Ball has chosen not to present a strong position because he believes that is offputting, instead he undermines the strong position and presents a sub optimal one. However, he says this is in fact optimal as it reduces more harm.

If applied to EA we would undermine a position we believe might put people off, because it is too complicated / esoteric, and present a first step that will do more good.

I think first we would need to ascertain whether low level (maybe foundational) EA were taking place, otherwise we could risk creating a divide within the movement around consistency. So we would need to see the evidence for where process has been applied. Perhaps there could be a scheme that could grade how much EA process has been applied, and direct us to where we could locate that information. Maybe it could also be undertaken by an external group that is neutral to EA.

I think we ought to be fairly uncertain around how much process is presently appli... (read more)

I favour the idea of inclusivity, and being upfront about the different areas that are prioritised. I think within these areas, there are certain ideas that could be held back, that people might think are fairly unusual issues of consideration. However, this does also mean that if an idea is put forward it doesn't then become a priority in itself. For example, where factory farming is put forward, not factory farming isn't necessarily the most effective way to reduce harm, instead harm can be shifted onto non-factory farming, which is another form of an... (read more)

Maximising impact wouldn't necessarily rely on messaging that undermines other groups in the broader animal movement. I don't think it is a good thing to take such an approach either in relation to Effective Altruism or in the broader animal movement.

Matt Ball's recent vox article stated that people love animals and hate vegans and that we need to act on this. I think this isn't a good thing, particularly where someone as respected as Matt Ball is equating vegans to hezbollah through someone as dedicated to animal exploitation as Bourdain. This of cours... (read more)

First of all we would need to accept there are different approaches, and consider what they are before evaluating effectiveness.

The issue with Effective Altruism is that it is fairly one dimensional when it comes to animal advocacy. That is it works with the system of animal exploitation rather than counter to it, so primarily welfarism and reducetarianism. In relation to these ideas we need to view the subsequent counterfactual analysis, and yet where is it? I've asked these sorts of questions and it seems that people haven't applied some fundamental... (read more)

I have some doubts generally about the principle of mainstreaming. It seems to me that it utilises dominant ideologies 'strategically', thus reifying them. In terms of the animal movement this is very much the case in regard to One Step for Animals, Pro-Veg and The Vegan Strategist. All these groups and organisations have adopted a mainstream 'pragmatic' approach which concurrently undermines social justice.

This is of course one approach, but i do not believe there is sufficient evidence to pursue it, or that it stands to reason. It would be far better... (read more)