Insanely good and readable article. Strong positives: tackling a question that underlies many individual positions but is rarely discussed; and using some interesting limited data points when possible (fungibility of activists in Animal Rising and CAFT, stories from the Pax Fauna interviews). Also, it felt like a real trip getting from a defense of shrimp welfare to "timelines" in abolitionism. Maybe try a 200-word version if you're trying to make a larger number of activists evolve on their position, though? (so somewhat longer than the final TL;DR)
I can try it! I think the problem is, personally I definitely heard the 200-word version of this back in my days of being dogmatically opposed to welfare campaigns and it didn’t persuade me, I needed to go on the whole journey that I’ve tried to reconstruct here. But maybe I shouldn’t assume other people are as stubborn as me!
I'm still very confused about the "reform vs revolution" debate in advocacy. I can see the appeal of both, as you outline well in this post. So this is food for thought! I saved the post and will reread in the future. :)
Great post, Aidan! Have you considered crossposting it to the EA Forum? I can do it myself one of these days if you prefer, crediting you, and linking to the original post.
"Shrimp are by far the most numerous farmed animals"
You mention those coming out for SeaWorld or puppy related initiatives will not come out for farmed animals. While this might be true, I think (I have no data) that those people are able to work on those things because we do not eat horses, cut up whales for their oil, or light cats on fire for entertainment. We are free to consider other issues because those issues are gone.
Once the low hanging fruit of non-farm animal related issues are put to bed, that will open up a new sectors of what is now considered unacceptable. I see all advocacy work that targets some direct sector of using animals as chipping away at all that is specieism.
Can you share the research you refer to about people's moral consideration towards animals being segmented? It wasn't cited and I'm not familiar with it. Thanks!
Hi Katie! For something more academic, I'd recommend Margo DeMello's "Animals and Society." For something more readable, Hal Herzog's "Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat." Herzog's book was published the same year (2010) as Melanie Joy's very similarly conceived "Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows." Joy's book has had more staying power in the movement but DeMello and Herzog both use the same 4 buckets I reference here, and provide ample citations to outline the argument. To show the relative staying power of this 4-bucket framework, a more recent preprint paper from my friend Garrett Broad & co uses it as the basis for a quant study: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/5pywj
Perfect title. Reminds me of this, from the classic foreword to Frederick Douglass… perhaps the most significant earliest root of “abolitionism vs. welfarism”. And if read closely it’s about how radically committed we choose to be, not about principles themselves:
“I am glad the time has come when the "lions write history." We have been left long enough to gather the character of slavery from the involuntary evidence of the masters. One might, indeed, rest sufficiently satisfied with what, it is evident, must be, in general, the results of such a relation, without seeking farther to find whether they have followed in every instance. Indeed, those who stare at the half-peck of corn a week, and love to count the lashes on the slave's back, are seldom the "stuff" out of which reformers and abolitionists are to be made.”
It’s something like correlation not causation. There are pitfalls - like being pragmatic for the right reasons and not just for comfort. Challenges - how can we prove to one another we’re committed when sometimes the path looks less radical? How to inspire? Perhaps how to win (the odds are so great). But nonetheless this is not, and has never been for hundreds of years, an inherent opposition. Just a matter, as you put it, of “radical welfarism.”
Imo, factory farming is very bad. So bad that I absolutely view factory farming companies as "enemies" worth "cutting". I want them to fail. I want factory farmers to be socially scorned and held accountable as much as people who abuse dogs and cats. Literal wars have been fought over issues that are way less consequential than factory farming, some of them I would argue are still justifiable even if factory farming is a bigger issue than what was fought over. If anything, I would say that the metaphor quoted here is an understatement of how bad factory farming is and how critical it is that it ends as soon as possible
It seems like a leap in logic to suggest that just because people view different kinds of animals in different categories, that directly translates to meaning that working on campaigns for one category of animals will not soften people for addressing issues of animals in another category. If we’re fighting how people view animals in one category, we’re fighting speciesism, and that could make things easier for working on other animal categories.
I also disagree with the assessment that activists are not fungible. Myself, and many activists I know are excited to work on animal issues across the various categories. Sure, I’ve met some that only focus on one category, but they tend to be older and part of a more disconnected animal rights movement from days past. I see potential for more unity across the movement in this regard in the future.
You make some strong assertions that you seem quite certain about, and I’m concerned about how this will impact people working on greyhound racing, dog labs, etc. I think the utility of the work they’re doing can help the wider animal movement in more ways than you recognize in this writing. They’re learning how to take on animal abusing industries and win. They are building networks, systems, and connections. Also, getting concrete victories for our movement when we feel like we’re losing everyday is priceless.
"What do you think is the earliest year we could reasonably expect to see the end of commercial animal farming in your country, if we play our cards right?". "Over time, my own estimate has gone from 40 years to 400 and then back to 4 thanks to the approaching AI tsunami".
Great food for thought (I finally made it through a whole Sandcastles post 😉)!
Personally, my trajectory of concern for others started with climate change, expanded to farmed animals, expanded to wild animals. I doubt I would have reached any of those at the pace I did without first caring about the prior. I'm willing to entertain that most people won't leap causes like that, but the concept of expanding circles of compassion still seems worthwhile to entertain (re: dog people won't fall in love with farmed animals).
Also, yikes, if you’re not making it through I really need to consider writing shorter. Ironically it’s so much more work to write 4000 words than 8000 words.
Let me know if I misunderstood, but my point is not that dog lovers can’t be made to start caring about farmed animals, it’s that everyone is already dog lovers and in order to get them to make that step, we need campaigns focused on farmed animals. (Rather than more dog campaigns)
Yeah I'm a slow reader so I've never been into long read culture like so many others. But you have good stuff so I've started listening to the podcast.
Thanks for clarifying about dog lovers. But I'm confused...doesn't 99% of animal welfare money go to farmed animals. But who will speak up for the companion animals???
Seriously though, I do wonder if there are exceptions. Like does being in coalition on dog campaigns help increase friendliness to farmed animals, or even destigmatize farmed animal advocates? And, if it does, is it worth the effort?
Insanely good and readable article. Strong positives: tackling a question that underlies many individual positions but is rarely discussed; and using some interesting limited data points when possible (fungibility of activists in Animal Rising and CAFT, stories from the Pax Fauna interviews). Also, it felt like a real trip getting from a defense of shrimp welfare to "timelines" in abolitionism. Maybe try a 200-word version if you're trying to make a larger number of activists evolve on their position, though? (so somewhat longer than the final TL;DR)
I can try it! I think the problem is, personally I definitely heard the 200-word version of this back in my days of being dogmatically opposed to welfare campaigns and it didn’t persuade me, I needed to go on the whole journey that I’ve tried to reconstruct here. But maybe I shouldn’t assume other people are as stubborn as me!
I'm still very confused about the "reform vs revolution" debate in advocacy. I can see the appeal of both, as you outline well in this post. So this is food for thought! I saved the post and will reread in the future. :)
Great post, Aidan! Have you considered crossposting it to the EA Forum? I can do it myself one of these days if you prefer, crediting you, and linking to the original post.
"Shrimp are by far the most numerous farmed animals"
Rethink Priorities (RP) estimates the population of farmed shrimps in 2020 was only 1.03 (= 230*10^9/(223*10^9)) times that of farmed finfishes in 2022 (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Rw3iXiJ4Fw4ePu4t6/forecasting-farmed-animal-numbers-in-2033).
"I think everyone working on any of the campaigns discussed so far would love to see a fully vegan world"
I think "the vast majority" would be more accurate than "everyone". I contribute to animal welfare corporate campaigns, but I have little idea about whether less animal farming increases or decreases animal welfare (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/i6qdTYqEPxD9tSfvA/more-animal-farming-increases-animal-welfare-if-soil-animals) (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/i6qdTYqEPxD9tSfvA/more-animal-farming-increases-animal-welfare-if-soil-animals?commentId=A2TtHEE6Ymonc2AJ4).
Great post.
You mention those coming out for SeaWorld or puppy related initiatives will not come out for farmed animals. While this might be true, I think (I have no data) that those people are able to work on those things because we do not eat horses, cut up whales for their oil, or light cats on fire for entertainment. We are free to consider other issues because those issues are gone.
Once the low hanging fruit of non-farm animal related issues are put to bed, that will open up a new sectors of what is now considered unacceptable. I see all advocacy work that targets some direct sector of using animals as chipping away at all that is specieism.
Can you share the research you refer to about people's moral consideration towards animals being segmented? It wasn't cited and I'm not familiar with it. Thanks!
Hi Katie! For something more academic, I'd recommend Margo DeMello's "Animals and Society." For something more readable, Hal Herzog's "Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat." Herzog's book was published the same year (2010) as Melanie Joy's very similarly conceived "Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows." Joy's book has had more staying power in the movement but DeMello and Herzog both use the same 4 buckets I reference here, and provide ample citations to outline the argument. To show the relative staying power of this 4-bucket framework, a more recent preprint paper from my friend Garrett Broad & co uses it as the basis for a quant study: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/5pywj
If that doesn't address the piece you were asking about, let me know!
Thanks so much!
Perfect title. Reminds me of this, from the classic foreword to Frederick Douglass… perhaps the most significant earliest root of “abolitionism vs. welfarism”. And if read closely it’s about how radically committed we choose to be, not about principles themselves:
“I am glad the time has come when the "lions write history." We have been left long enough to gather the character of slavery from the involuntary evidence of the masters. One might, indeed, rest sufficiently satisfied with what, it is evident, must be, in general, the results of such a relation, without seeking farther to find whether they have followed in every instance. Indeed, those who stare at the half-peck of corn a week, and love to count the lashes on the slave's back, are seldom the "stuff" out of which reformers and abolitionists are to be made.”
It’s something like correlation not causation. There are pitfalls - like being pragmatic for the right reasons and not just for comfort. Challenges - how can we prove to one another we’re committed when sometimes the path looks less radical? How to inspire? Perhaps how to win (the odds are so great). But nonetheless this is not, and has never been for hundreds of years, an inherent opposition. Just a matter, as you put it, of “radical welfarism.”
Love the general thought-process, but I'm not sure viewing people as the "enemy" to be "cut" is necessarily the best frame. I could be wrong.
And also:
https://www.mattball.org/2025/09/dont-believe-everything-you-read.html
But I’ve got to regain some of my radical cred after writing a 7500 word post on shrimp welfare!
Imo, factory farming is very bad. So bad that I absolutely view factory farming companies as "enemies" worth "cutting". I want them to fail. I want factory farmers to be socially scorned and held accountable as much as people who abuse dogs and cats. Literal wars have been fought over issues that are way less consequential than factory farming, some of them I would argue are still justifiable even if factory farming is a bigger issue than what was fought over. If anything, I would say that the metaphor quoted here is an understatement of how bad factory farming is and how critical it is that it ends as soon as possible
It seems like a leap in logic to suggest that just because people view different kinds of animals in different categories, that directly translates to meaning that working on campaigns for one category of animals will not soften people for addressing issues of animals in another category. If we’re fighting how people view animals in one category, we’re fighting speciesism, and that could make things easier for working on other animal categories.
I also disagree with the assessment that activists are not fungible. Myself, and many activists I know are excited to work on animal issues across the various categories. Sure, I’ve met some that only focus on one category, but they tend to be older and part of a more disconnected animal rights movement from days past. I see potential for more unity across the movement in this regard in the future.
You make some strong assertions that you seem quite certain about, and I’m concerned about how this will impact people working on greyhound racing, dog labs, etc. I think the utility of the work they’re doing can help the wider animal movement in more ways than you recognize in this writing. They’re learning how to take on animal abusing industries and win. They are building networks, systems, and connections. Also, getting concrete victories for our movement when we feel like we’re losing everyday is priceless.
"What do you think is the earliest year we could reasonably expect to see the end of commercial animal farming in your country, if we play our cards right?". "Over time, my own estimate has gone from 40 years to 400 and then back to 4 thanks to the approaching AI tsunami".
What is your median date for when global meat production will be 10 % of that in 2023 (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-meat-production)?
Great food for thought (I finally made it through a whole Sandcastles post 😉)!
Personally, my trajectory of concern for others started with climate change, expanded to farmed animals, expanded to wild animals. I doubt I would have reached any of those at the pace I did without first caring about the prior. I'm willing to entertain that most people won't leap causes like that, but the concept of expanding circles of compassion still seems worthwhile to entertain (re: dog people won't fall in love with farmed animals).
Also, yikes, if you’re not making it through I really need to consider writing shorter. Ironically it’s so much more work to write 4000 words than 8000 words.
Let me know if I misunderstood, but my point is not that dog lovers can’t be made to start caring about farmed animals, it’s that everyone is already dog lovers and in order to get them to make that step, we need campaigns focused on farmed animals. (Rather than more dog campaigns)
Yeah I'm a slow reader so I've never been into long read culture like so many others. But you have good stuff so I've started listening to the podcast.
Thanks for clarifying about dog lovers. But I'm confused...doesn't 99% of animal welfare money go to farmed animals. But who will speak up for the companion animals???
Seriously though, I do wonder if there are exceptions. Like does being in coalition on dog campaigns help increase friendliness to farmed animals, or even destigmatize farmed animal advocates? And, if it does, is it worth the effort?