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Thom Norman is the co-founder of FarmKind (www.farmkind.giving), a new non-profit focused on raising money for some of the best farmed animal charities. FarmKind is designed to help donors both have a big impact for animals and donate to the organisations they care about most. It allows users to split donations between an expert-recommended super-effective charity and their favourite charity, then provides a bonus on both.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the most important questions: “what’s real?”, “who matters?” and “how can we make a better future?”
Sentientism answers those questions with “evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” In addition to the YouTube and Spotify above the audio is on our Podcast here on Apple & here on all the other platforms.
00:00 Clips!
00:56 Welcome
02:30 Thom’s Intro
– Co-founding @farmkind
– “What’s the thing I can do best… to tackle the issue of factory farming?”… “We believe the single biggest thing… is to donate to the right charities… we help people to do that”
– Finding charities that do great work and making donating to those charities super-easy
03:44 What’s Real?
– A very, very religious family “church is an integral part… of their worldview… also social structures”
– “Broadly a positive thing”
– Anglican, Church of England Christian
– Asking philosophical questions that “hit up against some bible verse or god – and that’s the end of the conversation”
– Conversations with some Christians about animals: “Humans are made in the image of god… we are above other animals… that is kind of the end of the conversation”
– “As someone who increasingly… took the suffering of animals very seriously… I don’t think that’s where the conversation should end… and for many Christians that’s not where it ends”
– “You can think that humans matter more than animals and still think that animals do matter”
– “We can still agree on basic things like ‘suffering is bad’… ‘animals suffer’… ‘if there are things we can do to prevent suffering’… ‘then it seems obvious that that’s a good thing'”
– The people working within religious communities to emphasise more universal sentiocentric compassion… #ahimsa, #stewardship, care and compassion, mercy
– Reading religious apologetics and secular points of view
– “I don’t know what I think… a pragmatic pragmatism?… what version of the world do I see that allows me to operate… to move through it… even if epistemically or ethically that’s not 100% perfectly logically sound”
– Humility… “We need to be clear that we’re not sure that we’re right”
– Donating to the most effective charities “is not the only thing people care about”… so FarmKind allows donation splitting… head and heart donations
– The tension between different values… more rational and more intuitive / personal
– “It’s very important we don’t disregard those emotional reasons”
15:03 What Matters?
– “Doing good is a fundamentally important thing”
– Leaving behind a safe career as a lawyer for start-up charity founding
– “I do attribute that to coming from a religious upbringing… that’s how I got there”
– From divine command theory “doing good means following what god wants” towards “suffering is very bad… if you can do things that reduce suffering… or increase positive emotions and affect… then this is almost certainly good”
– “There are very few coherent moral frameworks that would say that reducing suffering is bad”
– “Probably… I would be a deontologist… I’m not a utilitarian… there are these values… justice and fairness as well as suffering… what is right is probably… stay as close to those”
– JW: Linking the good/bad of experiences to the good/bad of morality
– Ethical pluralism (virtue, utility, justice, care…) “many of these theories have some things that are helpful to them”
– “You can do more good or less good… aiming towards doing more good is better… there’s an unerring logic to that”
– “When we’re acting as ethical beings… we’re not getting out a spreadsheet… there is clearly something emotional going on… it would seem strange… to say that can’t be the right way”
– Virtue ethics “doing good because you’re a good person”
– Is killing (outside of compassionate euthanasia) wrong if it’s done without suffering? “there’s still something that’s clearly wrong”
– JW: The suffering-free killing thought experiment “bears no relation to animal agriculture whatsoever”
– A narrow focus only on suffering “is clearly missing something”… JW: “We tend to call it murder”
26:00 Who Matters?
– “Almost everybody does really care about animal suffering”
– The public outrage at acts of cruelty against cats and dogs
– “There’s a natural empathy that we do have”
– “What gets in the way of that is… ‘I also want to continue eating animals… If I accept that I really think these animals matter then I’m going to have to make all these behavioural changes’”
– Ethical consistency and inconsistency “It can be a work in progress… once you accept that there’s a moral imperative… it doesn’t mean that tomorrow your life has to be 100% completely transformed… that’s not practical… you can work towards these things”
– “One thing you can do to help animals that isn’t changing your diet right away is for example donating to help animals. You can actually have as much good for animals or more good by giving relatively small amounts of money than you would have by changing your diet. For those people that aren’t ready to make those kinds of dietary changes or lifestyle changes this can be a very easy way to bring themselves more into line with their values…”
– “I was a meat-eater like almost everybody”
– A partner pointing out a “go vegan” advert on the tube (London’s subway) “In those conversations I quite quickly shut them down… a strong reaction… ‘obviously factory farming is terrible… we need systems reform, legislation… that’s the answer – stop talking to me now’”
– “Why am I not just having… a normal conversation… why am I getting emotionally involved in this… deep down I did think that there was something wrong with how I was behaving”
– “Me just saying ‘yes we need systemic change’ is not really helping – it’s not actually doing anything… it was just a way to avoid me having to actually engage with this problem… that sent me on this journey”
– Going vegetarian “Had this… naïve assumption that because we’re not killing egg-laying hens and we’re not killing hens that their lives must be fine”
– Reading Jonathan Safran-Foer’s “Eating Animals”… “having my eyes opened… clearly this is not something I want to be part of”
– Then going vegan “becoming in touch with where my ethics really were underneath the surface… ”
– Putting aside the excuses “I’ll have to change… somebody’ else’s problem – it’s not for me to deal with”
– “Coming more in line with how I wanted to ethically show up in the world”
– “Psychologically freeing – moving away from a feeling of guilt… also a sense of mission… try to do everything I can to try to make this better”
– An angry vegan phase with friends and family “It doesn’t work”
– “I had very little pushback form people. [But] I had the frustration of them not coming on that journey with me.”
– The boundaries of moral scope: animals and sentience vs. biocentrism and ecocentrism
– The book “Should Trees Have Standing” and ideas of the rights of nature
– “Sentience is a really good starting point because it comes back to this thing about suffering”
– The challenges of becoming overwhelmed “we need to segment problems”
– “In our case we focus on factory farming not because it’s the only thing that matters… we have to start with something… this is a lot of beings that are suffering a huge amount… we can affect a large amount for a very small amount of money… and so we start there… but that doesn’t have to be where we end.”
– “We can be pretty confident that beings that suffer matter. Let’s address that. Once we’re in a world where that is no longer a problem let’s explore these other things as well”
38:24 A Better World?
– “Factory farming… so engrained… 98% of the meat we eat if you’re an American is from a factory farm – in the UK it’s about 80%… it feels like this thing that is never going to go away”
– “It’s almost certain that that system will be history… our job is just to speed that up… we’re not trying to push against the tide”
– “It’s massively inefficient – if we moved away from animal farming completely we could feed 4 billion more people with the amount of land that we currently use… environmental damage… pandemic risks… antibiotic resistance… this is not a good system”
– JW: “If those systems did not exist and someone proposed starting them up – you would think they’d lost their minds”
– “Factory farming is actively bad for us as people as well as for animals”
– “Our theory of change… can we help the animals that are being farmed now to have better lives… because… it’s going to be a transition.”
– “Make alternatives easier… so we can reduce… the amount of animal products people are using”
– “Find the foods of the future… a new food system… less cruel… less of a strain on our environment… healthy and sustainable”
– “We’re working with organisations on each of the points of that journey… so we can bring the end of the factory farming era closer”
– “That future… we use much less land… turn land back over to the wild… reverse species loss… tackle climate change… reducing methane emissions… reducing health risks”
– “By tackling this one issue we’re actually able to help both humans and non-humans on all these different aspects of some of the biggest problems that we as a world are currently facing… a very exciting challenge.”
– JW: “If we just focus on factory farming is there a risk that we’re just enabling a massive ethics-washing re-branding of the animal agriculture industry… an end state where there is no more ‘factory farming’ but actually animal agriculture is even bigger… they’ve just changed the labels”
– JW: The challenges of welfare interventions “that’s an improvement but it’s not an end state”
– “It’s a real concern… what we don’t want to be doing is acting as humane-washers”
– “How do we make the lives of the animals that are suffering tomorrow… much less bad… cage-free campaigns… incredibly cost-effective… you can help thousands of chickens for really small amounts of money… helping millions of chickens to have considerably better lives… gone from about 5% of USA hens being cage-free to about 40% over around about 15 years”
– “But that [welfare improvements] can’t be all we do… cultivated meat… plant-based alternatives… these are crucial”
– “The environmental impacts… arguably… worse if you move to a less intensive farming system”
– “Where we want to get to… a sustainable food system… that can feed everybody in a way that isn’t putting our planet at risk, isn’t putting our health at risk and isn’t exploiting animals”
– JW: “It’s so important to maintain that clarity on the end goal… these industries are clever… the dead-ends beckon… regenerative farming, high welfare, human slaughter…”
– “The animal movement [compared to environment / global health causes]… is very small in terms of the money that it has… but also fairly young… there is still a degree of experimentation”
– “Corporate campaigns… we can demonstrate very clearly that we can help animals…”
– “But we are also still looking for other amazing interventions… things that are really going to shift the needle on this.”
– JW: “Guide dogs for the blind… RSPCA… RSPB… they are absolutely awash with money compared to those people who are trying to end animal exploitation”
– JW: Is the effective altruism animal movement bringing in more money and/or diverting money from more grass-roots/vegan-oriented/direct action/sanctuary/abolitionist campaigns? The book “The Good it Promises, The Harm it Does”
– “It is true that some of the successes of things like corporate campaigns… the focus from some of the large effectiveness minded donors has moved the movement towards these big campaigns… because it is just so small… even a few large donors can have a massive impact”
– “We have around 200 million dollars per year… the meat industry is about 2 trillion… considering that it’s amazing the work that the movement has achieved over the last decade… some real wins”
– “I think we should be humble”
– “If you can help an animal in a sanctuary… it’s a good thing but it’s going to cost maybe a few thousand dollars to look after an animal for a year… we could make the lives of literally thousands of chickens substantially better for that amount of money… you have to really think… when we don’t have enough money… about where we put that money…”
– “Having said that we also need to be humble… nobody actually knows… it is definitely possible that some of the things we think are the best solutions will turn out to be good but not the best…”
– “We need to be a pluralistic movement and we need to be… exploring different approaches… also inclusive of the things that matter to people… having different values”
– “It’s not for any one of us to come in and say ‘I know the right answer… your giving or your helping animals’”
– The Elan Abrell Sentientism episode
– JW: The other factors to consider “Maybe sanctuaries are providing a model for human inter-species relations that could have a wider impact on the culture… on social norms.”
– “We’re not saying is that’s the only good thing you can do… that’s why we built a model to allow for this splitting… give people a bonus on both their favourite charity and our suggested donations… sanctuaries can be a good thing too… it’s also a good thing to donate to The Humane League or Synergia.”
– The FarmKind process “We know that when you want to donate you have a bunch of reasons… you want to do a lot of good… your money used wisely… but you also care about your local shelter… or a particular cause that really matters to you… what we designed FarmKind to do is to engage with you as a whole donor”
– “We are all about people’s donations… that is by no means the only way to do good… it just happens to be a really convenient way”
– “How much do I need to give to do as much good as going vegan for a year? It’s about 23 dollars a month… we have a calculator on our web-site… donation is one of the most powerful things that any of us can do”
– “You can go vegan but that’s only going to help the animals you were going to eat… that’s the hard limit…”
– “With our donations you can do a huge amount of good… cash in all that good feeling”
– “An online platform – you come to us – you pick your favourite charity… then we have a list of 6 charities… really amazing organisations… measured, evaluated and demonstrated… then you split your donation between the two… then we give you a bonus… the more you give to the recommended charity the bigger the bonus we give to both charities”
– “You can donate to our bonus fund… that money then sits there… to encourage more people to use our platform… the fuel”
– JW: The challenges of moral offsetting “it’s a mind-set that we would never accept in an intra-human ethical conversation… we wouldn’t say well ‘you engage in domestic abuse but you donate to a local shelter and that offsets”
– “The people we really designed this for… have maybe reduced the amount of animal products they eat… they realise that there are issues… animal cruelty… environment… but either because they don’t feel able or sometimes they literally can’t… dietary restrictions… this can be a way for people who feel guilty… to at least feel that they are doing something… helping in a really meaningful way”
– “This is not like some carbon-offsetting… it is a meaningful impact on animals”
– “We’ve all just got to manage the best we can – our impacts on the world”
– “How we can best… have as much of a positive impact on the world around us as we can… for some people that’s going to be a lot about going on protests and working on legal changes and being vegan and doing lots of advocacy and for many people that’s going to involve donating and… making diet changes… because they’ve got a lot of other things going on in their lives.”
01:08:37 Follow Thom and @farmkind
– Farmkind.giving (sign up to the newsletter!)
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Thanks to Graham for the post-production and to Tarabella and Denise for helping to fund this episode via our Sentientism Patreon.