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I've just created local EA presences in the following 15 new places, added to my previous list. Point them out via that link to anyone you know nearby who might be interested! A good low key way to do so is to point or invite them to the Facebook groups (you can invite them by joining said groups and then using the right sidebar on them).
- Adelaide, Australia
- Bulgaria
- Hong Kong, China
- Kiel, Germany
- Leipzig, Germany
- Russia
- Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
- Yorkshire, United Kingdom
- Albany, United States
- Central Massachusetts, United States
- Central Virginia, United States
- Dallas, United States
- Portland, United States
- Sacramento, United States
- University of Idaho, United States
As some of you are probably aware I work as a Credit Analyst for a hedge fund in NY - I analyze the bonds of different companies and choose which to invest in. As a result, I frequently meet management of many large corporations and discuss their businesses with them. Management are often quite attentive to investors - not only are we essentially their boss, with the power to set their compensation and even fire them, we spend a great deal of time researching their industry, and so can produce useful insights in a more incentive-compatible way than consultants - albeit restricted by only having access to public information.
In particular, I sometimes meet with the CEOs, CFOs etc. of protein companies - companies that produce beef, pork, chicken and other meat products. I personally don't care about animal rights much, but I'm aware that many EAs think these companies are very evil - plausibly the worst thing to ever happen in the history of the world.
As such, I was wondering if people had any suggestions for issues I might raise with these management teams.
My motives here are basically:
In general I believe in holding off from proposing solutions so I don't want to prime you for the sorts of things you could suggest. But in case you don't understand what I'm looking for, here are some initial thoughts I had. Bare in mind that I'm not an expert on animal welfare.
rot13
Upvoted. Thanks for having the courage to suggest something seemingly odd, even for effective altruism, because you care about achieving good, and cooperating with peers you don't fully agree with but respect.
I have seen worry about improving the material living conditions of animals such that people become less concerned with their welfare. I think the idea there is that most of the expected value is in the small chance of a very large shift away from consumption of animals.
Animal welfare ensures animals are taken care of, but isn't necessarily about ending carnism, i.e., eating animal flesh. Animal rights seeks to respect the rights of nonhuman animals, including the right to life and not to be killed by humans. This is merely my impression, not objective data, but in NY experience the majority of those in effective altruism who care about factory farming are for full animal rights, not merely animal welfare. There is also a contingent of utilitarians within effective altruism who primarily care about reducing and ending suffering. They may be willing to compromise in favor of animal welfare, and not full rights, but I'm not sure. They definitely don't seem a majority of those concerned with animal suffering within effective altruism.
Of course, only actual data on EAs could demonstrate the proportionate of utilitarians willing to compromise but this seems weird. To me it would seem utilitarianism all but commits you to accept "compromises" on animal welfare at least in the short term given historical facts about how groups gained ethical consideration. As far as I know (anyone feel free to provide examples to the contrary), no oppressed group has ever seen respect for their interests go from essentially "no consideration" (where animals are today) to "equal consideration" without many compromising steps in the middle.
In other words, a utilitarian may want the total elimination of meat eating (though this is also somewhat contentious) but in practice they will take any welfare gains they can get. Similarly, utilitarians may want all wealthy people to donate to effective charities until global poverty is completely solved but will temporarily "compromise" by accepting only 5% of wealthy people to donate 10% of their income to such charities while pushing people to do better.
So, in practice, utilitarianism would mean setting the bar at perfection (and publicly signaling the highest standard that advances you towards perfection) but taking the best improvement actually on offer. I see no reason this shouldn't apply to the treatment of animals. Of course, other utilitarians may disagree that this is the best long term strategy (hopefully evidence will settle this question) but that is an argument about game theory and not whether some improvement is better than none or if settling for less than perfection is allowable.
This is an extremely interesting idea. My understanding is that animal-rights campaigns are usually very targeted at a specific company.
My guess, which I can confirm with people who know more about this, is that the highest impact thing you could do is say "Mercy for animals is planning on targeting you for their next action; the last company they targeted had bad financial outcomes X, Y and Z; therefore I recommend you phase out gestation crates or whatever."
Do you have the ability to target just one company and work with an organization like MFA? Or do you want generic advice like "phase out gestation crates"?
I'm completely unconcerned about abortion, so we may be able to trade.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Hmm, interesting idea. My concern would be that this would look very weird - outside of my role as an investor, which would make them confused / ignore it. It would be strange for an investor to have advance knowledge of an activist stunt! And indeed I do not actually have knowledge of such activities. In particular, I'm not sure what I would add in such a situation, compared to MFA simply contacting the company directly, who would also be more credible.
It does seem that MFA have been successful on the gestation crates. However, I don't think that exact answer would be applicable here, as generally the companies I'm looking at are like Tyson Foods, rather than the companies which use gestation crates, which tend (I think) to be contractors.
However, I could say something along the lines of "Other companies have been getting negative publicity about gestation crates, and deciding to re-actively stop using them. As it's better to be proactive than reactive, maybe you should start phasing them out of your supply chain now".
Also not all the companies do pork, whereas most do chicken.
Glad to hear it. Are you aware of similar things having been done before? I'm unaware of how it would work, mechanically. (I'm also not sure exactly what I would buy from you in return, but I guess we could settle for a donation to a charity, whose identity I could determine later.)
Do you know how you would actually do such a trade? There seems to be a major trust problem.
You've probably considered it, but it's not on your list: To hedge against any change in our consumption of meat, you could invest in in vitro meat, and other meat-alikes.