All of LewisBollard's Comments + Replies

Yeah that's a great point. I think you're right that these issues were ideologically polarized historically, and that now the parties reflect that polarization, it may mean that most social reforms will be politically polarized too.

Thanks, this is a good point. I agree that it's not obvious we should choose A) over B).

My evidence for A) is that it seems to be the approach that worked in every case where farm animal welfare laws have passed so far. Whereas I've seen a lot of attempts at B), but never seen it succeed. I also think A) really limits your opportunities, since you can only pass reforms when liberals hold all key levers of power (e.g. in the US, you need Democrats to control the House, Senate, and Presidency) and they agree to prioritize your issue.

My sense is that most his... (read more)

Thanks for flagging that. I agree that most of the funds donated by animal ag employees were not to oppose animal protection, or likely any specific policies. I should have clarified that. I also generally don't think of people working in agriculture as evil. I think they're mostly just doing the rationale thing given the goal of profit maximization, and the lack of constraints we've imposed on how to pursue that.

Thanks Jason! You raise some really interesting points. I particularly like your logrolling point, which I think explains well the disproportionate power of reform opponents on ag policy. The decline of rural Democrats may be quite helpful here in getting the Democratic party onboard. But it won't help with Republicans, where I agree that pro-reform suburban Republicans are likely going to keep trading away this issue to anti-reform rural Republicans.

Thanks Ozzie! I should have been more precise in my claim. I'm guessing people who happen to be vegans or animal rights activists cumulatively donated millions in the 2020 election cycle. I'm just not aware of anyone donating substantial $ for the purpose of advancing animal advocacy. 

But, in fairness, this may well be true of a lot of the $45M donated by industry-aligned individuals too. E.g. $14.7M of the $45M was donated by executives of Mountaire Corp, almost entirely to conservative groups. My guess is that's likely because those executives are p... (read more)

Yeah good point. I think welfare reforms should mostly be good for these indirect players, since the reforms mostly require agribusinesses to invest more in new infrastructure (e.g. building more barns to give animals more space) and increase staffing (e.g. cage-free farms require more workers than caged farms). But I agree that the indirect players probably don't see it this way.

Thanks Linch. Yeah I think you're spot on about the salience / enthusiasm gap. I should have emphasized this more in the piece.

Thanks Nick! That's very kind :)

I agree with everything above, especially how lucky we are that Dustin and Cari both give generously and defer to experts (neither is common amongst the few other billionaires I've talked with). Although I think our funding is the vast bulk of our impact, I don't think we'd have been so effective without EA. I think the EA ideals and community have helped the whole animal movement maximize its impact ... something I may write a post on sometime.

Haha thanks Howie! I want to also give a shout-out to Amanda, who's been a leader on this work at Open Phil since 2018. And to the hundreds of EAs, including Jakub, who have done the hard work to turn funding into results for animals :)

Hey Brian, I think it's too early to judge both of the HSA grants we funded because they're for long research projects, which have also gotten delayed. We'd like to fund more similar work for HSA but there have been capacity constraints on both sides. We also tend to weigh prolonged chronic suffering more highly than shorter acute suffering, so slaughter isn't as obvious a focus for us. So I think funding HSA or similar slaughter-focused groups is a good idea for EAs like you who prioritize acute suffering. On slaughter, you might like to also look into the Shrimp Welfare Project (OP-funded, but with RFMF).

I think we should try lots of approaches to diet change, since I don't think we've yet found approaches that we have a lot of evidence that they robustly work. I'm not sure if we evidence that the species that suffer the most are the ones people are most resistant to stopping eating. E.g. there's some evidence people are most resistant to giving up dairy, but less resistant to dropping fish. I agree chicken welfare is a major movement focus, but I'm also very excited about any intervention with demonstrated potential to affect the largest numbers of animals. 

This is a good idea for a future newsletter. In the meantime, I recommend ACE's standout charity list and our grants database.

This is beyond my expertise, but I'd be interested to read a post on the topic :)

Yeah I find that even equally aligned and informed EAs have a very wide range of priors on how to compare acute vs. chronic suffering in animals. I agree that slowly dying probably almost always causes a lot of suffering, and dying of something like cannibalism seems particularly horrific. That's the main reason why I don't want advocates  to ban debeaking, at least until producers have worked out how to achieve much lower mortality rates. And I totally agree on the need for continued work to ensure producers install the highest welfare cage-free systems.

Yeah we've been commissioning a bunch of research from outside experts. In general we do prefer value-aligned researchers, though the expertise is typically more important. I'm most excited when the two align, as I think it has for instance on Cynthia Schuck and Wladimir Alonso, who are producing a series of welfare assessments for us.

In general I think our greatest needs are for expertise in welfare science / biology, economics / stats, and animal cognition / philosophy of mind. But I think the field as a whole has greater needs for alt protein specific scientific fields.

A few ideas:

1. Push for a policy that's political feasible at the local level, e.g. a foie gras ban or requirement that the city's public procurement buy less meat or only welfare certified meat.
2. Coordinate with national groups to support larger campaigns, e.g. corporate campaigns.
3. Focus on building talent and political power for the movement, e.g. lots of events etc.

I think the EA Animal Welfare Fund is a good default option, but here are a few reasons people might prefer to give elsewhere:

• You have a strong view that one approach is much more promising or relatively neglected, e.g. research on effective interventions or wild animal welfare.
• You have a relationship with an effective group and enjoy the greater connection and insight into their work of supporting it directly.
• You're aware of or able to fund unique opportunities that the EA Fund isn't,  e.g. political contributions or your friend's project.

Cool that you're designing a MSc dissertation on this! Please share it with me when you're done :)

I'm pretty skeptical of efforts to remove agricultural subsidies from factory farming, both because I think it's really hard and because I'm skeptical that subsidies have a large price effect on meat. (I think people sometimes confuse the fact that farmers really like subsidies with an assumption they must be lowering prices a lot -- I think they're often structured instead to prop up prices.) I'm more optimistic about seeking subsidies for plant-based meat re... (read more)

Potential other leverage points: (1) go to work at an existing animal group and help it better focus on high impact approaches, (2) start a new group focused on a high impact approach and encourage imitators, (3) write pieces about higher impact approaches that could be taken, e.g. on the EA Forum.

A few places I think charities / advocates can play a major role: (a) lobbying for govt funding for alt protein R&D, (b) lobbying for a clear regulatory pathway for cultivated meat and novel plant-based meat ingredients (e.g. Impossible's heme),  (c)  educating investors and food companies on the business opportunity, especially around higher impact opportunities (e.g. plant-based fish) and unusual investment setups (e.g. long-term patient funding for deeper R&D).

I'm not sure how much labeling laws matter, and think it probably depends on... (read more)

General attention to new species and issues (e.g. the treatment fo farmed and wild-caught fish) and focused attention on companies and governments' failure to achieve reforms for other large groups of animals (e.g. caged hens).

I recommend the comments of alt_protein_vc above and my newsletter here. 

You're right that pork and chicken producers are major obstacles to higher welfare initiatives, especially in the US. I think this will mainly come down to the biggest food companies (especially retailers and fast food chains) telling the producers that they have to change. And that in turn will mainly depend on the work of advocates in mobilizing consumers and the public to demand change.

Thanks for the fascinating comments! As an initial matter, it seems like you know more than I do about plant-based meat production costs, so I hope you'll write something publicly on this. (Or let me know where it is if you already have.) On your questions:

1. Production efficiency: you make a good point about this being a limited share of the pie. I guess my thinking is ~25% of $3.6 is still 90c/lb., and if we're ever going to compete with commodity chicken at <$1/lb, we'll need to make progress on this piece. But I agree there's no silver bullet here and

1. My current view is that cage-free systems on average relieve ~40% of the suffering of caged systems. As with the above estimate on broiler welfare, there's substantial uncertainty on that -- my 80% confidence interval is probably more like 20-80%. I really liked the new mortality meta-analysis, but I'd emphasize that mortality is just one proxy for welfare, and I think usually not a particularly good one (depending on the cause of mortality, total level, etc)
2. We've funded work to address keel bone fractures, which are a leading mortality cause in cage-free

Haha, yes Farm Animal Welfare is only left in US Policy on our website (not internally) and that may soon change too. Watch this space :)

Yeah don't go to law school :) I think my legal schooling was most useful for understanding US litigation, legislation, and regulation, which is relevant to farm animal stuff and a few other EA causes like bio and AI policy.  I think you could learn as much through listening to some combo of  online courses, books, and podcasts on litigation, legislation, and regulation. E.g. I think books like America's Bitter Pill (on the passage of Obamacare) do a good job addressing a lot of the legislative and regulatory process pieces.

I'm not sure what the most effective intervention for fish is -- I think it's mostly too early to say. But here's a non-exhaustive list of some promising approaches, with an example of one group working on each:

• UK corporate and policy reforms: Compassion in World Farming
• European corporate reform: Albert Schweitzer Foundation
• European legislative reform: Eurogroup for Animals
• Undercover investigations: Essere Animali
• Working with producers: Fish Welfare Initiative
• Engaging certifiers: Aquatic Animal Alliance
• Researching higher welfare methods: Humane Slaughter A

Thanks Charlie and Oat for sharing your experiences with Animal Equality. I understand your skepticism and I’m sorry to hear about how things have gone for you and too many others.

You’re right that we spoke with a lot of former and current AE employees in 2019. We heard concern about practices but also concern about the potential fallout of us just cutting funding. It was a tough decision, but we chose to use our leverage to push for changes rather than to cut funding.

I wish I could get into more specifics of the conversations with AE leadership, but think... (read more)

Thanks Irena and nice to meet a fellow debater! I'm pleasantly surprised that anyone still watches that WUDC final :) 

I had a great time debating, and think it  taught me a lot about common reasoning fallacies and problematic arguments. But I think you're alluding to debate's biggest flaw -- that it's not truth-seeking. It rewards you for finding evidence to support your pre-existing position, not to fairly assess the evidence and reach the best answer. 

About that WUDC final: it's funny, but it's so long ago now that it's mostly a blur. I mostly remember us wasting our prep time  debating some minor issues that turned out not to be relevant :) 

I don't have a good sense of this I'm afraid. My general sense is that Veganuary the charity is still the majority of the force behind the event, e.g. they're the ones getting media, getting food companies to launch new products in January, etc. But I'm not that confident in that.

I'm worried about the growth of industrial-scale insect farming. We don't know if insects are sentient, or if they are how to weigh their experiences against different species. But based on what we do know I think we should consider a significant possibility that they are sentient. And if so, I think there are reasons to think industrial-scale insect farming could be particularly problematic on animal welfare grounds, especially given its huge scale. I recommend this EA Forum post for more details on specific welfare concerns.

Nah, I don't really know. I'm always skeptical of claims that one event or activist ignited a huge change. And I'd note that Israel still has some of the highest rates of meat consumption in the world, despite having a vibrant animal welfare and alternative protein movement. But I'll leave to others with more knowledge of Israel's movement to speculate more here. 

I think it depends on how the tax is structured. A tax based solely on climate impacts is likely to fall primary on beef, which could increase consumption of chicken by increasing the price gap between them (an increasing beef-chicken price gap seems to have contributed to rising US chicken consumption over the last few decades). But a tax that also considers other environmental and animal welfare impacts could reduce all animal product consumption.

I was especially interested by this new Nature Communications study, which suggested a German meat ... (read more)

Thanks for the interesting questions Monica! 

1. Alternatives to pig castration: major producers in a number of countries have already implemented Improvest or similar approaches, e.g. JBS Brasil, producers in a number of Northern European countries. It's crazy to me that US pig producers haven't, despite, as you note, the FDA approval. Your explanation about the processing plants is interesting. I've heard other reasons from industry insiders: (1) the industry is afraid that consumers will view Improvest as a chemical additive, producing a yuk response l

Hi Maxtandy, that's cool that you're becoming a food scientist! We definitely need more of them. I don't have a strong view on this question, and suspect it may depend more on the specifics of your situation -- which scientific skills you're strongest in and which research + job opportunities you see. I broadly see the need for a lot more research on both plant-based and clean meat -- and the related field of fermentation. 

Thanks for the questions Jose. 

1. Intercontinental consolidated  & well-funded EAA orgs: I'm not sure this is the dominant model. E.g. the five biggest groups you're probably thinking of (THL, MFA, GFI, CIWF, Animal Equality) had combined 2019 budgets of ~$50M, out of a global movement total of ~$180M. I think that's less consolidation than most movements. That said I don't have a strong prior on whether international consolidated orgs or smaller local ones are most effective. We've since similar success levels and challenges amongst both types

Interesting Q's:

1. New interventions I'd like to see: I think my answers to Michael and Ula above cover my immediate thoughts here.
2. The impact of protest groups: I feel pretty unsure on this -- it's obviously hard to measure. My prior is that there's a lot of value to building a bigger grassroots movement demanding action on factory farming, but that there's always a risk that provocative tactics will alienate more people than they bring in. So it's about striking that balance, and I'm uncertain on the right place to strike it. I'm not inclined to suggest anyt

I haven't given this much thought. I expect the combination of securing and implementing cage-free and broiler welfare commitments to remain the chicken-welfare focus for at least the next decade (maybe a bit less in Northern Europe, more in Asia etc). Fish welfare is the obvious candidate for the next major welfare issue, though there's no shortage of other welfare issues to address (gestation crates, aquatic invertebrates, etc). I wouldn't want to speculate on what will come next, since I expect it will depend on how things go in the next few years and which issues appear most tractable when we're ready to move on. 

I'm only one of four fund managers, and I'm only describing my personal approach. For me scale and neglect typically operate as an initial threshold -- I'm not excited about something that could never affect >1M animals or that is already fully-funded or likely to be. But most submissions for the Fund pass this threshold, so estimates of potential tractability / cost-effectiveness become most important. To assess this, I especially consider:

• The track record of this intervention: has it been tried before; if so how did it go; are there reasons to think t

This is a tough one. I'm most confident in the cost-effectiveness of corporate campaigns, especially on cage-free and broiler welfare, because there's a tight feedback loop and easily measurable results. But I think a number of more speculative longer-term interventions could plausibly turn out to be more cost-effective -- they're just  higher variance. Some candidates for plausibly most cost-effective longer-term interventions:

• Any scaleable intervention for improving fish welfare, especially of the most numerous farmed species (e.g. common carp) and

Yeah I agree that's a critical question. I don't think it's inevitable that cultivated meat will be price-competitive with cheap animal products at scale one day, but I also don't think it's impossible. So it's a question of what probability to attach to that outcome and on what timeline. I feel very unsure on that.

I'd love to see more people making predictions on this and debating the likely solvability of specific challenges identified in the report. One place for making predictions is this Metaculus series which we commissioned (though note most predict... (read more)

Thanks Ula. Yes that's an important point that these issues go beyond diversity and sexual harassment. I completely agree on the need to emphasize good management and treating employees well across the board -- both because it's the right way to treat everyone and because employees / talent are our movement's most valuable resource and one we risk squandering.

Two thoughts here:

1. I wouldn't over-update based on my experience in management consulting. I only worked in it for one year and at one firm. Of my friends currently or formerly in management consulting  my rough sense is only ~half agree with my  take. E.g. my brother has been in management consulting for 7+ years and disagrees with me, and he's smarter than me :)
2. I think the confusion is partly caused by the term "management consulting"; I think "business consulting" is more accurate. My experience has been that the big consulting firms mostly sol

Thanks for the questions Brian, and for the work you're doing in the Philippines. We estimate the Philippines has the 10th highest number of vertebrate farmed animals alive at any time -- mostly farmed fish -- but we currently only have one Filipino farm animal grantee.  So I'd love to hear from you and  other Filipinos interested in doing EA animal advocacy. (Anyone reading this can email info@openphilanthropy.org or message me.) On your questions:

1. Your ranking of issues looks good to me. My main advice in your situation would be to look primaril

I'd like to see more independent research on these programs, especially research that  goes beyond self-reports. The area where we have the best data on diet change -- dining hall studies on lectures and leaflets -- suggests a huge gap between self-reported consumptions / intention, and actual consumption, especially when the self-reports are being collected by the group doing the advocacy. I think the key Qs are:

• How many people who sign pledges counterfactually wouldn't have gone veg anyway?
• How much do pledge signers actually reduce animal product co

This is a major question for us, and one we continue to research. Our current very rough estimate is that our average $ spent on corporate campaigns and all supporting work (which is ~40% of our total animal grant-making) achieves the equivalent of ~7 animals spared a year of complete suffering. We use this a rough benchmark for BOTECs on  new grants, and my best guess is this reflects roughly the range we should hope for the last pro-animal dollar. 

Of course there are many caveats!  They take two forms. First we have lots caveats on the num... (read more)

This one's tricky because I think the limiting factor on promising new interventions is more often a lack of talent wanting to pursue them -- and established groups not wanting to do too many things at once -- rather than a lack of support or good ideas. (To be clear: I think the movement as a whole is funding constrained; this only applies to new speculative interventions.)

Here's a non-exhaustive list of new interventions I'd like to see tried which I think some EAs would be well-positioned to do: 

• Working with large aquatic invertebrate companies to

Interesting Q! I think there's a lot that would surprise 2015-me. A few highlights:

1. Plant-based meat: I didn't expect Impossible to get into Burger King so quickly, the popularity of the Beyond Meat IPO,  the  surge in sales of plant-based meat in US retail over the last few years, or the resulting investing boom in the space in the last few years. I think following the industry more closely would have given me a bit more foresight here, but I'm not sure it would have resulted in a lot more good grants, since there are limited grant opportunities