Currently grantmaking in animal advocacy, at Mobius. I was previously doing social movement and protest-related research at Social Change Lab, an EA-aligned research organisation I've founded.
Previously, I completed the 2021 Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program. Before that, I was the Director & Strategy lead at Animal Rebellion + in the Strategy team at Extinction Rebellion UK, working on movement building for animal advocacy and climate change.
My blog (often EA related content)
Feel free to reach out on james.ozden [at] hotmail.com or see a bit more about me here
Mobius (the Bay Area-based family foundation where I work) is exploring new ways to remove animals from the food system. We're looking for a part-time Program Manager to help get more talented people who are knowledgable about farmed animal welfare and/or alternative proteins into US government roles. This entrepreneurial generalist would pilot a 3-6 month program to support promising students and early graduates with applying to and securing entry-level Congressional roles. We think success here could significantly improve thoughtful policymaking on farmed animal welfare and/or alternative proteins. You can see more about the role here.
Key details on the role:
Please share with potentially interested people!
I'm not convinced that the chances that efforts to end factory farming will (by default) become more likely to succeed over time - what's your thinking behind this? Given the current trajectory of society (below), whilst I'm hopeful that is the case, it's far from what I would expect. For example, I can imagine the "defensive capabilities" of the actors trying to uphold factory farming improve at the same or faster rate relative to the capabilities of farmed animal advocates.
Additionally, I'm not sure that the information value about our future prospects, by the simple statement, outweighs the suffering of trillions of animals over coming decades. This feels like a statement that is easy for us to make as humans, who largely aren't subject to suffering as intense as faced by many farmed animals, but it might be different if we thought about this from behind a veil of ignorance where the likely outcome for a sentient being as a life of imprisonment and pain.
Obviously, I don't speak for OP or EA AWF fund but they literally only publish 1-3 sentences per grant so I'm not surprised at all if they don't mention it, even if it is a consideration for them. That said, I might just be projecting because this was partially the reason why I supported giving them a grant!
Agree though that stunners aren't literally a one-off and never touch again, but as you mention I think the overall cost of the intervention to animals helped is significantly better for shrimp stunning in my opinion, as well the avenue for industry adoption being much more clear and more likely.
This isn’t true for any of the other sub-focus areas that will be exited though, which I thought was strange. Given that nothing other than digital minds work was listed, how would any potential donors or people who know potential donors know about OP exiting things like invertebrates or wild animal welfare?
(I’m basing those sub-focus areas on the comments in this thread because of exactly this problem - I’m unclear if there’s more being exited or if those two are definitely part of it)