Thanks for the answers. Sounds like a big crux for us is that I am sadly much more cynical about (a) how much optimism can shift probabilities. I think it can make a difference, but I don't think it can change probabilities from 10% to 70%. And (b) I am just much more cynical on our chances of ending factory farming by 2060. I'd probably put the number at around 1-5%. 

Edit: Just re-read this and realised the tone seemed off and more brisk than I meant it. Apologies, don't comment much and was trying to get out a comment quickly.

1. Thanks for the response, and for the detailed answer. Sorry, I don't want to be a stickler here, but can you give me your best guess probability? The reason I ask is because to me it seems like if one of these scenarios is much more likely than the other then this is relevant, no? Like if we think there's a less than 99% vs 1% chance that we continue with current strategies, this seems relevant no?
2. On a different point, I agree that we need a certain amount of optimism and drive, but I think the moment our optimism clouds our thinking, it can lead to sub-optimal choices. For example I think people trained up in cultivated meat research on unfounded promises that it was inevitable. I think Julia Galef in Scout Mindset does an excellent job of selling the path to clear thinking while incorporating optimism and ambition.

3. Finally, I have to ask were your comments written by an LLM? The general structure, length, tone, and some of the specific lines in it ("probability of success skyrockets towards 100%") struck me as LLM sounding. If so, how come? Genuinely curious if this is the case.

    

Hi Sam, I'm wondering how much of our difference in optimism is in our beliefs about the likelihood of ending factory farming in our lifetimes vs what is the best framing. You say in your blog post that there's "a realistic chance of ending this system within our lifetimes". Do you care to define a version of 'ending this system', pick a year and put a percentage number on 'realistic chance'? If you pick a year and definition of ending factory farming, I can put a percentage chance on it too and see where the difference lies. 

These numbers can be very rough of course, not asking for a super well calibrated prediction, more of just putting a number on an intuition.  

Yeah I agree with this and wish I was clearer from the get go. 

I think for the folks in the 'ending factory farming' camp that (IMO) are not being realistic, this can lead to adopting specific theories about how all of society will change their minds. This could include claims about meat being financially unviable if we just got the meat industry to internalise their externalities (the word just is doing a lot of lifting here), or theories about tipping points where once 25% of people believe something everyone else will follow, so we need to focus on consciousness-raising (I've butchered this argument, sorry to the folks who understand it better).  

Good point. I feel weird admitting it but it does seem like some cows probably have net-positive lives right now

Hi Matthew,

I think my analogy isn't claiming that we shouldn't try to end malaria because it will always be with us, but rather that we shouldn't view ending malaria as making a small dent in the real fight of ending preventable deaths, but that rather we should view it as a big win on its own merits. In fact I think ending cages for hens in at least Europe and the US is a realistic goal.

I think we might never eradicate factory farming. I think it's plausible that we end factory farming with some combination of cultivated meat, moral circle expansion, new generations having more progressive views, and who knows what AGI might bring to the table. I just don't think that it's inevitable. I do agree that on the timescale of centuries things get very hard to predict. My post is more aimed at discussions that focus on ending factory farming in our lifetime.   

Hi Lucas, I like your point about being careful about celebrating small wins too much. To me the big difference between going from -100 to -90 and going from -90 to 0 is I see the expected value calculation as very different because the first one (going cage free) is clearly quite tractable, whereas the second one (reducing egg consumption?) I see as being really hard and unclear how to pursue it.

I definitely think there should be some effort that goes towards 'ending factory farming' type work. But I'm also quite skeptical of many proposed solutions. Or at least I think the people putting forward the proposals are too optimistic. This is maybe too big a question to ask in a forum comments section, but what's the path to ending factory farming in 50 or 100 years? What probability do you think we'll get there in that time frame?  

Good question, I wasn't sure how much to err on the side of brevity vs thoroughness.

To phrase it differently I think sometimes advocates start their strategy with the final line 'and then we end factory farming', and then try to develop a strategy about how do we get there. I don't think it is reasonable to assume this is going to happen, and I think this leads to overly optimistic theories of change. From time to time I see a claim about how meat consumption will be drastically reduced in the next few decades based on a theory that is far too optimistic and/or speculative.

For example, I've seen work claim that when plant-based meat reaches taste and price parity, people will choose plant-based over conventional meat, so if we raise the price of meat via regulation, and lower the cost of plant-based, there will be high adoption of plant-based, and meat reduction will be 30% lower by 2040 (those numbers are made up, but ball-park correct). I think these claims just aren't super well founded and some research showed that when a university cafeteria offered impossible and regular burgers, adoption was still quite low (anyone know the citation?).    

So this involves a bit of potentially tenuous evolutionary psychology, but I think part of what is going on here is that people are judging moral character based on what would have made sense to judge people on 10,000 years ago which is, is this person loyal to their friends (ie me), empathetic, helps the person in front of them without question, etc. 

I think it's important to distinguish between morality (what is right and wrong) from moral psychology (how do people think about what is right and wrong). On this account, buying animal products tells you that a person is a normal member of society, and hitting an animal tells you someone is cruel, not to be trusted, potentially psychopathic, etc.