This is a comment critical of your approach in this article. I am sympathetic to the broader claim you are making, that the EA movement should be more systems-change focused. However, I don't think your target audience will hear that message for the issues stated below. Please hear this from the perspective of an ally recommending a tactical shift.
This article does not meaningfully engage with any of the actual reasons why most people in the EA movement take a different approach to helping animals than what you recommend. You make a great case for the importance of shifting our food system, but the vast majority of EAs who work on animal welfare already believe this.
The real challenge is tractability: what can we do that will actually work? This is left unaddressed.
Your calls to action are also unlikely to be effective.
On your first point, if you tell anyone with a strong moral commitment, "I know what you should do, but you'll have to fundamentally change your moral theory to believe it's a good idea," they're going to drop your suggestion, not the moral theory. For example, I feel confident that no one on this forum could entice you to become a utilitarian using the merit of shrimp welfare campaigns.
The thing is, you don't need to convince anyone to stop being a utilitarian. If you have good reason to believe that changing the food system will be what's best for animals and people (you do, your article is about this), then that means utilitarians should change the food system. IF there's a tractable way to do it.
The other two calls to action are generic and don't suggest any real change. They imply that the reason why we have failed to change the food system already is that we haven't formed coalitions or made plans to do so. Clearly, we have done these things. The movement is still losing, badly. Animal consumption is rising and veg*nism is flat. We all want to change these trends, and we need more than a call to come together to fix them.
It seems pretty bad to allow people to react to their own comments/posts beyond the initial karma bump of an upvote. It allows users to artificially create the appearance of positive engagement with their posts, which skews initial perceptions and detracts from the truth-seeking goals of the Forum.
I'd be surprised if preventing people from saving starfish from asphyxiating on the beach is the best way to help shellfish even if all the assumptions in this calculation hold. If not, Shrimp Welfare project should probably start the SPFSTSNABWWTSTONAF (stop people from saving these specific neglected animals becuase we want to save those other neglected animals fund).
I'm so glad I found this when I did. I had been filling out the 7 row of a multiplication table, but after 5 steps, I hit a major road block. Deep Thought was exactly what I needed to push through and figure it out.
The whole AGI welfare movement is treating the advance of an animal friendly future as more monolithic than it truly is. I think the future will be weirder than that.
I know of someone who walked out of a city and regretted it whom you might be able to reach. Last I heard they had an Appointment in Samarra, so you can presumably find them there.
This is really discouraging to see. People posting falseclaims with fake evidence distracts from people like you postingtrueclaims in a misleading way, which is totally fine.
I'm so sorry to be the one to break this to you, I have already written an entire book about why this is simply not possible. Have you considered asking people working impactful careers to only spend 800 hours on it?
This is a comment critical of your approach in this article. I am sympathetic to the broader claim you are making, that the EA movement should be more systems-change focused. However, I don't think your target audience will hear that message for the issues stated below. Please hear this from the perspective of an ally recommending a tactical shift.
This article does not meaningfully engage with any of the actual reasons why most people in the EA movement take a different approach to helping animals than what you recommend. You make a great case for the importance of shifting our food system, but the vast majority of EAs who work on animal welfare already believe this.
The real challenge is tractability: what can we do that will actually work? This is left unaddressed.
Your calls to action are also unlikely to be effective.
On your first point, if you tell anyone with a strong moral commitment, "I know what you should do, but you'll have to fundamentally change your moral theory to believe it's a good idea," they're going to drop your suggestion, not the moral theory. For example, I feel confident that no one on this forum could entice you to become a utilitarian using the merit of shrimp welfare campaigns.
The thing is, you don't need to convince anyone to stop being a utilitarian. If you have good reason to believe that changing the food system will be what's best for animals and people (you do, your article is about this), then that means utilitarians should change the food system. IF there's a tractable way to do it.
The other two calls to action are generic and don't suggest any real change. They imply that the reason why we have failed to change the food system already is that we haven't formed coalitions or made plans to do so. Clearly, we have done these things. The movement is still losing, badly. Animal consumption is rising and veg*nism is flat. We all want to change these trends, and we need more than a call to come together to fix them.
If you ever need a classic rap song to communicate your desire to be more influential in animal philanthropy, just say:
I wish I was a little bit taller
I wish I was a Bollard
It seems pretty bad to allow people to react to their own comments/posts beyond the initial karma bump of an upvote. It allows users to artificially create the appearance of positive engagement with their posts, which skews initial perceptions and detracts from the truth-seeking goals of the Forum.
I'd be surprised if preventing people from saving starfish from asphyxiating on the beach is the best way to help shellfish even if all the assumptions in this calculation hold. If not, Shrimp Welfare project should probably start the SPFSTSNABWWTSTONAF (stop people from saving these specific neglected animals becuase we want to save those other neglected animals fund).
D:
I'm so glad I found this when I did. I had been filling out the 7 row of a multiplication table, but after 5 steps, I hit a major road block. Deep Thought was exactly what I needed to push through and figure it out.
Thank you so much!
The whole AGI welfare movement is treating the advance of an animal friendly future as more monolithic than it truly is. I think the future will be weirder than that.
I know of someone who walked out of a city and regretted it whom you might be able to reach. Last I heard they had an Appointment in Samarra, so you can presumably find them there.
This is really discouraging to see. People posting false claims with fake evidence distracts from people like you posting true claims in a misleading way, which is totally fine.
I'm so sorry to be the one to break this to you, I have already written an entire book about why this is simply not possible. Have you considered asking people working impactful careers to only spend 800 hours on it?