I have thought about it for a few minutes, and while I agree with all you say -- talking to people from advocates "in their own camp" will certainly lower the social cost -- it will still frame refraining from animal consumption as a cost. I think it would make change much easier if going vegan provided back something people sought, not just moral satisfaction. Those things can be money, pleasure, social status... but I think we need to provide something back; and something they want.

Thanks for your comment Tobias! I read and enjoy your Substack a lot

However, having been in the animal/vegan movement for a few decades, it doesn't strike me that the approaches you mention haven't been tried. Both companies and NGOs have been trying to make all things veg cool for a long time...

Probably you are right, I am fairly new to the area. This is probably more visible for companies than NGOs, though.

I think many believed that this approach might be sufficient until, say, five years ago (until Beyond Meat crashed and all).

Clay Christensen's framework suggests an important problem with focusing on plant-based burgers is that they are essentially a (hopefully indistinguishable) replacement, which would mean they are attacking the incumbent's core markets and value proposition and thus would be categorised as sustaining rather than disruptive innovation. This makes it hard to displace incumbents. But many experts have surely considered this and many other considerations long ago.

I still think the issues are social to a very great extent, but maybe they have become more ideological and identity related still, to the extent that they can't be solved in the way you suggest?

The average person that I know who has not been in touch with the animal welfare movement does not seem to place much of their identity in relation to meat. There is certainly some social consensus that is sympathetic to farmers and people living in rural areas more generally, as they would be with, e.g., doctors. This is where most farmers seem to draw their political power from, but I think this is distinct from most individual identities because animal welfare is a low saliency issue. In fact, I would argue that climate change is much more ideological and identity-related.

I don't have any insight, but what you are proposing looks good to test out, perhaps starting small and validating the hypothesis.

What would be the motivation? Is writing a good skill to have and thus merits practising?

Perhaps a better framing is: "On the margin, should we devote farmed animal welfare resources to improve the animals being farmed (e.g., via corporate campaigns) or devote resources to substituting farmed animals altogether via alternative proteins?"

What about Spanish? I would be interested because I could give it as a present.

Have you considered translating it? It seems to me the typical lectors outside English speaking countries will not necessarily be fluent in that language.

I think GFI has claimed this in the past, and given their role of large coordinator of the area I’m inclined to believe their conterfactual importance. However the problem is that without a downstream model of how dollars convert into averted animal suffering, it is quite hard to prioritise between theories of change.