For veganism:

1. To me, veganism seems like a moral obligation in the same way that not torturing puppies for chocolate seems like a moral obligation
2. Veganism is a costly signal that is important for movement-building and motivating animal advocates
3. Seems intuitive and plausible to me that there is some kind of social tipping point for veganism, where you go slowly from 1 to 25% of the population being vegan, then quickly from 25 to 99%

Against veganism:

1. It makes entry to the animal movement demanding, perhaps unnecessarily and growth-stuntingly so: "[the animal movement] is one of the only social justice causes whose point of entry is entirely negotiated by real, quantifiable, fundamental behavior change [veganism]." Source
2. Perhaps social tipping points are overrated

I tend to want a big, diverse animal movement with people trying different approaches –from "holding non-vegans accountable"-style vegan outreach, to FarmKind's offsetting approach (minus their criticism of Veganuary/veganism). That diversity will appeal to different audiences and bring in different resources (allies, committed activists, money, political attention). The diversity does trade off against movement unity, though, but I think it's worth it if we learn from experimenting and retain some level of movement solidarity.

Nice, got it.

If we're going to promote offsetting, I reckon these kinds of considerations will not be interesting to the vast majority of the target audience, and they wouldn't expect to have them explained. Just do the maths, taking into account positives avoided as well as negatives caused, and tell people how much they need to donate to offset those impacts of their non-veganism.

(I say this as someone who is pretty sceptical of offsetting non-veganism, for both moral/deontologically-flavoured reasons and strategic/consequentialist ones.)

Super interesting. I think I'd say that sexual orientation and meat cravings (if that's what you mean by "personal desire") are sufficiently different that this analogy doesn't really hold.

Thanks. To be clear, is your original question asking about a) whether the animal movement should take into account the positives avoided by offsetting non-veganism when deciding whether or not to promote offsetting to non-vegans, or b) whether the animal movement should tell non-vegans about the positives avoided by offsetting?

I think definitely yes to a), and we shouldn't lead with it whilst remaining transparent for b).

I think pressing a button to make everyone (ethically) vegan would be a much more robust way to end factory farming (and all forms of animal exploitation) than pressing a button to get cultivated meat on supermarket shelves at a competitive price point.

• If everyone is ethically vegan: the social/cultural pressure to remain vegan is much stronger –>  ex-veganism is heavily stigmatised –> far fewer ex-vegans –> not enough demand for factory farming to survive or return
  • Even before that, presumably factory farming would be undermined from every angle: lawmakers would ban it, employees would quit/strike, consumers would boycott
• As far as I know, cultivated meat faces a number of cultural barriers

Clearly it's much much harder to make everyone vegan than to get affordable cultivated meat on supermarket shelves! That's one reason why I think cultivated meat is currently a more powerful tool at our disposal than vegan outreach for helping animals.

But I want the vegan outreachers to continue doing their work. One reason is I think that veganism is, deontologically, a moral obligation; another is that I think veganism is a costly signal that binds the animal movement together, which can serve to keep advocates motivated.

I think it's very important we (try to) consider the full counterfactual – what's the reason not to?

For those (like me) who don't know what political lesbianism is:

Political lesbianism asserts that sexual orientation is a political and feminist choice, and advocates lesbianism as a positive alternative to heterosexuality for women^[1] as part of the struggle against sexism... Heterosexual behavior is seen as the basic unit of the patriarchy's political structure, and therefore lesbians who reject heterosexual behavior are disrupting the established political system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_lesbianism

Though I'm not sure I follow why veganism is like political lesbianism Ben, can you explain?

If we made everyone vegan in an instant, how would that not end factory farming?

Super helpful, thanks Joseph / Matilda / PauseAI UK team!

Great to see this Firat!