This comment section felt a bit brigaded here, which I don't love.
I'm sympathetic to debating strategic disagreements in the animal welfare movement, and appreciate you bringing these ideas up and pushing for what you believe is the right approach.
There were 2 things that stood out to me:
We need to go beyond Peter Singer’s utilitarian approach, which has had a limiting impact on campaigns giving preference to concerns about animal suffering and welfare reforms. What is needed are a deontological philosophy and a holistic, ecological systems approach.
I don't think utilitarianism gives a preference to welfare reforms — it's that welfare reforms have a strong track record of being effective, while these other approaches don't. Peter Singer himself wholeheartedly embraces animal liberation, literally! If the utilitarians thought that things beyond welfare reforms would work, and were cost-effective, they'd do them. It isn't because of their principled commitment to utilitarianism that they disagree.
Secondly, I think that many of the donors and EAs would stop being EA donors or EAs at all if deontology became the norm. At least speaking for myself, I am not aligned with EA because it is EA, but I'm aligned with EA because it is more aligned with my values (which are very utilitarian). I suspect this is true for many EA-motivated people. If EA changes, it doesn't mean the donors will change their values.
The campaign was inspired by: (1) the “AI Windfall” entering the animal movement
I think an important question for people who aren't excited about new funding entering the space going to welfare reforms is "why are these new donors are interested in funding animal welfare work at all?"
I think the answer is because cage-free campaigns, etc. demonstrated that helping animals at scale was possible, and because welfare-motivated advocates demonstrated that something could be done to help animals effectively.
No animal welfare advocate controls where these donors give — if the movement today decided to pivot to plant-based advocacy and stop doing welfare stuff, it's plausible significantly less money would be donated to helping animals. There isn't a pot of unlimited money controlled by animal advocates — there are donors who have specific values and priorities, and organizations who will make the case to those donors that their work should be funded. The pitch should be to the donors (who actually will decide these things), not to EA as a whole, and has to overcome the fact that you're pitching against the thing that might have gotten many of them excited about animal advocacy in the first place.
cw rape
Context:
I like to call hits and misses. And so, while I have argued this forum is sometimes too sensitive about gender issues or too guilt prone, I would like to give credit that I am glad it seems very unlikely to me that that behaviour would be acceptable here and that it greives me for women to have to read that a guy who writes lurid descriptions of rape would be reflexively welcomed/defended.
My model of poeple who disagree with me is that they would roll their eyes and say 'obviously' and 'we've been saying this for years' and frankly, we still disagree on many things, but it feels right to say "yeah I agree on this point". I don't know what norms should be, but I completely understand why women wouldn't want to be in spaces where they are likely to come into contact with these people.
>I made a 13x13" hole in my wall
I was away for the day and when I got home, he said "I made a hole in our wall but it can be refilled."
Discussing EA drama on the forum might be bad, but discussing it on twitter is, in my view, worse.
With all the recent media attention on EA, I think what's really unclear to outsiders is the relationship between EA and Anthropic (rightfully so!). To most people it doesn't make sense that a community so focused on AI safety can also be linked to one of the leading companies. I'd personally be very interested to see a survey of what EAs think of Anthropic, but maybe that's a minefield.. Even a good explainer meant for the public could go a long way.
EA is (again) having a moment:
The usual suspects are in the trenches fighting the good fight, but this is a great time for EAs to take some comms action. An example I particularly loved was @Andres Jimenez Zorrilla 🔸 's post on LinkedIn and Twitter: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andres-jimenez-zorrilla_im-a-longtime-effective-altruist-and-the-share-7512717228480413696-7Y_k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAINuQ8BRM6_FTbj8vR-viYZrP0S2TPoUEg
This is the sort of collective action problem that EAs think is some other EA's responsibility and comms isn't our traditional strong suit, but I'd love to see more EAs in the arena here, posting about their experiences, posting their arguments, or talking to friends and family about why these ideas matter.