Lewis Bollard on the strategies that win, the traps to avoid, and why.

Lewis Bollard should be a familiar name for those trying to improve the lives of farmed animals. For almost 10 years, he’s been running the farm animal welfare program at Open Philanthropy, the largest funder in the fight against factory farming. It's hard to think of someone who's had a large positive influence on the modern farm animal welfare movement. 

In this conversation, we discuss the many different approaches we can take to help animals. We talk about why some strategies are less promising than they initially seem, common misconceptions he sees amongst advocates, why creating good strategy is hard, where the movement is under-investing and what he’s learned from other social movements. 

See the full transcript on our Buzzsprout.

Chapters:

• What Lewis has changed his mind on (00:02:33)
• The challenges of institutional meat reduction (00:06:05) 
• Lewis' pessimism on animal welfare litigation (00:11:58)
• The case for animal welfare technologies (00:14:42)
• Why blocking new farms may not help (or even make things worse) (00:18:24)
• What Lewis thinks advocates commonly get wrong (00:23:11)
• Incrementalism vs moonshots & the speed of social change (00:26:50)
• What is the movement under-investing in? (00:36:44)
• Challenges in scaling large organisations (00:41:46)
• Prop 12 and the future of US legislation (00:45:43)
• How can we improve our political advocacy? (00:50:01)
• What can we do in the Global South? (00:55:32)
• How will transformative AI affect animal advocacy? (01:07:43)
• What is tough about Lewis' role? (01:15:41)

Resources:

• For more about Open Phil as a funder, check out our episode with Amanda Hungerford
• Lewis’ substack 
• Lewis AMA on the EA Forum
• Lewis' Twitter

If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - we would really appreciate it! Likewise, feel free to share it with anyone who you think might enjoy it. You can send us feedback and guest recommendations via Twitter or email us at hello@howilearnedtoloveshrimp.com. Enjoy!

Chapters

• 2:33 What Lewis has changed his mind on
• 6:05 The challenges of institutional meat reduction
• 11:58 Lewis' pessimism on animal welfare litigation
• 14:42 The case for animal welfare technologies
• 18:24 Why blocking new farms may not help (or even make things worse)
• 23:11 What Lewis thinks advocates commonly get wrong
• 26:50 Incrementalism vs moonshots & the speed of social change
• 36:44 What is the movement under-investing in?
• 41:46 Challenges in scaling large organisations
• 44:01 Promising policy opportunities
• 45:43 Prop 12 and the future of US legislation
• 50:01 How can we improve our political advocacy?
• 55:32 What can we do in the Global South?
• 58:11 Why winning small victories is important
• 1:01:43 What Lewis learnt from the anti-slavery movement
• 1:07:43 How will transformative AI affect animal advocacy?
• 1:11:03 Challenges facing the movement
• 1:12:55 Did we under-invest in changing culture?
• 1:15:41 What is tough about Lewis' role?
• 1:20:55 L214's huge win for chickens

Transcript

Lewis Bollard: 0:00

L214 just secured a commitment from I think it's the LDC group, which is the biggest French chicken producer, to adopt the European chicken commitment for their two flagship brands. L214 is estimating this could affect up to 400 million birds every year. I tend to be more conservative with estimates. Let's just say, even if it's half of that, like over five years, that's over a billion birds and I think sometimes we don't pause enough on just like individual victories like this to be like that's insane. Like their most social movements never help a billion individuals like they. They never get to help them any across many generations of work and thousands of people and like this is just one win in this. So I think the one hand it's easy to get paralyzed by like scale of factory farming, but also I think we should just reflect on the scale of progress we make. That like when a group gets a win like this, that is so many individuals who are going to suffer less because of that, because of that commitment.

James Özden: 1:09

Lewis Bollard should be a familiar name for those trying to improve the lives of farmed animals. For almost 10 years, he's been running the farm animal welfare program at Open Philanthropy, who is the largest funder in the fight to reduce animal suffering. Personally, I can't think of many other people I've learned more from on how to effectively help farmed animals than Lewis, so I was very excited to have him on today and in this conversation we discuss the many different approaches the animal movement takes to help animals, whether that's alternative proteins, blocking new factory farms, animal welfare technologies and corporate campaigns. We talk about why some of these strategies are less promising than they initially seem, common beliefs he thinks advocates get wrong, why we may not find better interventions than what we currently have where the movement is under-investing, and much, much more.

James Özden: 1:57

This was a pretty wide-ranging discussion, going from very high-level stuff to quite nuts and bolts and lots of juicy details and facts and information from Lewis, so I highly recommend listening to all of it. As always, you can find the chapters to quickly navigate the place. Maybe you find more interesting and, of course, you can watch this whole episode on YouTube as well. Hope you enjoy, lewis. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?

Lewis Bollard: 2:22

Thanks, james, great to be here.

James Özden: 2:24

It's exciting to have you on. We've had a bunch of requests with you, so excited to finally chat. First question we'd like to ask everyone what's something you changed your mind on recently and why.

Lewis Bollard: 2:33

One in the last few years has been the likelihood of insects being sentient in a way that is morally really important. I've always been open to that possibility, but I think I might've thrown out on a podcast some years back like 10% probability or something. I think I'm probably north of 50% probability at this point and that obviously has pretty unsettling implications about the world we live in.

James Özden: 2:59

What caused that pretty big change?

Lewis Bollard: 3:01

I think a combination of reading some of Rethink, prior rethink, priorities, work on this, talking with megan barrett, who's an entomologist, and really also just reflecting on the evolutionary purposes that pain serves, and thinking whether my baseline, expectation, my baseline, had been what most people start out with, which is like a baseline of they're not sentient and I'm updating from zero for any evidence showing me that they are. And I think what I realized is there's no reason to start from zero and you should start from like 50 or a hundred. And if you start from a baseline of 50 or a hundred, then the evidence should mostly, I think, still up from a hundred, should update you down, but like the evidence from 50, should certainly, I think, probably update you up. And I think just having that different baseline and realizing like yes, the evidence is still not super strong on them being sentient, but like the evidence against is incredibly weak. So if you don't start out with this presumption that they're not sentient, then actually, like you, quite likely to end up in place they are interesting.

Lewis Bollard: 4:04

Yeah, that was like a funny case study of like how important your prior belief is to where you end up and obviously, if you start at zero, yes, it's very different starting 100 yeah, I mean, I think there's a broader lesson there around how people think about moral weights for animals, right like I think that there is just this natural thing where people start with all non-human animals, or at least not all, all except for, like, the charismatic megaphore you know or?

Lewis Bollard: 4:25

their dogs, but like when it comes to like even pigs, and certainly chickens or fish, they start with this presumption that they are just many orders of magnitude less important than humans. And then you know, we'll update based on any evidence within those bounds. And so you still reach very low moral weights because they started out with an incredibly low moral weight updating cycle, and I think that's just a mistake. I think that, in fact, you should probably start out with much more egalitarian beliefs and then try that thing from there. Nice.

James Özden: 4:54

Does that have any ramifications? How does that impact what you think we should do as a movement? You know, right now maybe we're spending, you know, sub 0.1% of our total money on this. Yeah, what kind of natural consequences come out of that belief?

Lewis Bollard: 5:09

Well, I mean, the first thing is you know, is we're not funding in insect or shrimp welfare and so there is a limit on how much funding you can go to those spaces. I encourage individual donors who are persuaded of the case for insect and shrimp sentience, as I am, to fund in those areas. I think that there are a lot of really good opportunities, and so I think that's probably the main limiting factor at this point is just how much funding there is. But you know, even if that wasn't a limiting factor, I think there would be a strategic question about how much as a movement you want to focus on what the general public will perceive as the most extreme cases, and I think there is something to be said for trying to meet the public somewhat where they are at, or at least reach a compromise between doing the greatest, reaching the greatest number of animals and reaching the public where they're at. And people, I think, can have very reasonable differences of opinion about where that leads you, but it's not clear to me. You just just follow them.

James Özden: 6:04

Yeah, that makes sense. Well, this kind of segues nicely into, I guess, hopefully, what will be a pretty broad ranging discussion on a bunch of different questions on strategy and prioritization in the animal movements. And one place we can start is I think last year you didn't ask me anything on the EA forum, which we'll link people for people to look at it if they're interested.

James Özden: 6:22

Yeah, someone asked this good question of you know, lewis, can you essentially rank the the different kind of interventions that is happening in the animal movement? And I guess you didn't necessarily why, but you know things like cage free versus litigation, versus institutional meat reduction, and I think there's some things in there that I thought were quite interesting in terms of you know, the things you put at the top are things people who know you might expect you know corporate cage free, alternative proteins, movement building, but things that were lowered down. That maybe I also found a bit surprising was and maybe I'll go through a few of these and curious your takes on this. Something like institutional meat reduction, I think was like relatively low on your list, maybe like just below midway, kind of curious, for I guess why, maybe this idea? So you know, getting institutions to be more plant-based, why this kind of was a bit lower than people other people might have on their list.

Lewis Bollard: 7:11

First, massive disclaimer. These are just personal opinions. I feel like in some ways, I'm like ranking my children and I'm like telling you what like the worst things are about the youngest ones. Thankfully, I only have one child, but, and I will say, I just have immense respect for the people who work on this issue. So I think that oftentimes criticism of a strategy can come off as as criticism of the people pursuing that strategy, and that is certainly not the case. Like for for all of the strategies that I have a lower opinion of, it has nothing to do with people working. I think there are very talented people doing really good work on these issues. The reason I am skeptical is because of the constraints they face.

Lewis Bollard: 7:47

It's because of the, like, objective barriers not because, yeah, because I think some people are just like, oh well, they must be really bad at their job. It's like, no, it's, it's. It's really not that like. So, caveats aside, yeah, I mean, I think institutional mean reduction is a really cool idea. So I think that like, in principle, the idea that just as we've gone from an individual to an institutional focus when it comes to K-3 and when it comes to animal welfare reforms, you should do the same thing on the meat reduction side. It makes a ton of sense and I think it makes more sense than trying to ask individual consumers to reduce their meat, and I think it makes more sense than trying to ask individual consumers to reduce their meat and I think it is more effective than doing so. I think the challenges we've seen so far first is it has been challenging to get institutions large enough to make the same kind of scale of reform as we've operate at the level of a school district or a hospital or a university, rather than at the level of a multinational fast food chain or a retailer. And there are several orders of magnitude difference in the size of how many animal products those different companies or institutions buy, and so I think it's understandable. It's very hard, like McDonald's is not going to make one of these pledges, and that fact just makes it way harder to achieve the same scale. The second thing is I think it is really hard to stare at these in a way that doesn't feed in to the narrative of switching chicken or fish.

Lewis Bollard: 9:18

My sense is, the primary motivations that are sold to institutions or they get institutions on board is not animal welfare. It is much more to do with the reducing the climate footprint of the food they consume and reducing the health consequences. Perhaps, and the stark reality is that beef is the real problem on those dairy as well, much more than chicken or fish. And now I know that advocates have been really thoughtful about this and I know advocates have been really careful, but I've still seen a lot of cases where it's like google had this like big institutional meat reduction plan. At the end they were like we like massively reducing the amount of beef.

Lewis Bollard: 9:53

Oh, and, by the way, we're selling like twice as much seafood and like that already like more than cancels out the the animal welfare effect. I think there's a really similar risk that, like you can't sometimes you just can't control these things once they're out of the bag, and so the institution will be like yeah, I mean I'll give you another example, which was like the TED conference went plant-based a few years ago, I think, after being pushed by advocates and the then got massive backlash from attendees who were like we can't just eat plants the whole time, and so their compromise was they just added back in chicken and fish and fruit. They're like we definitely want to go back to beef because like that's so bad for the climate and we know that. And as a result, you've got people like it's probably worse than the original policy was as far as the animal.

James Özden: 10:38

So like I'm not saying that always happens, I think that is just a risk to be aware of yeah, it's both kind of constrained by the size of the institution and like, yeah, you can't, you don't control implementation, so when there's that option it's not going to go well. I guess like maybe one example I think kind of like resilient to those two problems is campaigning against retailers on kind of plant protein versus animal protein splits. Do you have any thoughts on that, if that kind of like gets around the two issues you pointed out?

Lewis Bollard: 11:06

Yeah, I'm hopeful. I mean, I've been really excited to see, yeah, the Dutch retailers, I think, really leading on this, making these targets around plant protein, and similarly the German retailers. I think so far we haven't yet seen significant implementation. So we saw Tesco had a target that just blew through and completely ignored. We've seen, so far the dutch retailers that are reporting haven't reported much progress and I don't think that, again, is for lack of trying for the advocates. I think this is just really hard. Which retail? Yeah, but you're right, I think that those are much more promising in that they definitely address the first concern around the scale, because retailers are the biggest players out there can also address the second concern, again, so long as they're not also wrapped up in as part of a broader climate sustainability pledge that's like will reduce the carbon emissions of our you know food by a certain percentage, or something like that yeah, that makes sense.

James Özden: 11:58

Next one litigation for farmed animals. You had this relatively low down, and this is funny because you're obviously a former lawyer. I think you worked at hsus doing litigation, right. So, yeah, curious for your thoughts on this one yeah, I mean the two things are related.

Lewis Bollard: 12:09

Like I am pessimistic on litigation because I tried doing litigation, so you know I really thought when I went to law school this was going to be the way we're going to achieve social change on this issue. Like this has been the way that great social movements throughout american history have achieved change, whether it's environmental movements, civil rights movement, marriage equality movement and so it was really tempting to think this would be the same story for us. The problem is there's a massive difference between us and those movements, which is they had laws and the constitution to sue under. We do not, and so in the environmental case, they have these really strong laws like the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act that they can continually sue under. In the marriage equality case, they can appeal to the guarantees of equal rights in the constitution.

Lewis Bollard: 12:52

Neither of those exist for animals and, as a result, most animal litigation ends up taking very roundabout forms, so it ends up being environmental litigation. I was involved in a lawsuit against an egg factory farm and after like three years of litigation against one egg factory farm, we won, and they were like good news we're putting in a manure digester so that we will no longer have an environmental footprint, but like we're keeping everything else the same. Or they focus on false advertising, which is great. But again, I think the most common settlement coming from the false advertising cases is the company just removes the term humanely raised, so it doesn't start humanely raising its animals. It just removes the term humanely raised, but it often replaces it with something like all natural that surveys show people think means the same thing or is even better. So I think that it's just really hard, given the lack of laws that exist, to find.

Lewis Bollard: 13:43

Again, this is US everything I've said so far about litigation. I am a bit more optimistic in other countries. So I think, for instance, in Germany it seems like public interest litigation has been really critical to some of the major reforms they've achieved there. I think in the Netherlands, wackadere has had some really exciting results, and so I think within Europe there's potentially more possibilities on this. There was also a while back in India. It looked like it was going to go really well with litigation. So we got as far as advocates, got as far as the high court of Delhi and actually imposed a nationwide moratorium on battery cages. Unfortunately, that was then overruled by the government.

James Özden: 14:18

I think that's always the other challenge with litigation is, if you really succeed, then the odds that the government steps in and overrules you are pretty high yeah, it's funny that there's a similar case in the uk where the law said you couldn't actually have chickens upside down in handling and so advocates for animals, animal law foundation I don't know which one litigated against this and the government said yes, you're right, we will now change the law to make it permissible. It was like, oh boy, that's not what we wanted. Maybe more well a question on I think that you put quite high up, which I think people think about less is you put farm animal technologies like welfare technologies and innovation, and obviously maybe this is a topical thing with innovosexing, I guess, kind of coming to the us.

Lewis Bollard: 14:57

But I'm curious why maybe you're particularly excited about this and if you think what more could be done on this I think for a while all of the technology focus was on alternative proteins, which I think there is still a huge amount of potential there. I want people to keep focusing on that, but I think that sometimes came at the expense of thinking about technological changes that could reduce suffering on farm at slaughter and a hatchery. And there's just really been phenomenal success with an oversexing lately. So we've seen about 28% of the European market has already adopted Inovosexing. It just arrived in the US. The first eggs from Inovosex hence went on sale.

Lewis Bollard: 15:33

And I think we've gotten to the point with this technology where it is quite likely that over the coming decade we will eliminate chick killing in Europe and the US. And once the technology reaches a price point where it is cheaper than than killing the male chicks, I think we will see global adoption and that's a pretty incredible trajectory. Like I think it is just very rare that our movement has been able to completely end terrible practice and this technology is on path to. And I should say not just the technology but also the work of a lot of advocates in getting, for instance, france and germany to ban the practice once the technology was viable, to facilitate its adoption, and advocates bringing the technology to the United States. But, yeah, that's made me very excited about what a technology like that can achieve, and I think there are a lot of other technologies out there that we haven't we've barely scratched the surface on, and so I think there's just a lot more potential.

James Özden: 16:21

I'm also generally excited, excited about this. But I guess the one place where I'm not sure where it works is like the only example I can think of is where it is basically no cost to industry or like it kind of has some benefits, and I guess there aren't that many kind of opportunities. I think there's like stuff around, you know, vaccines prevent lameness is one, and in over sexing, which is like relatively cheap, kind of one-off administered things, but I can't think of many things where it kind of impacts like the whole life of the animal. So yeah, do you have any thoughts? It's like, am I just being kind of too like restrained in my thinking or do you think there's a lot more opportunities?

Lewis Bollard: 16:54

no, I think that's right. I mean, the first thing I'd say is I think there are two different adoption models here, and the one that I think is less likely is just that the technology on its own gets cheaper than the alternative cruel practice and it just gets adopted on its own. I think that can happen, but it's going to be very rare. I think the much more common one is where technology is going to make the more humane alternative cheap enough that advocacy can push it over the line. So it's going to make it something that right now is just prohibitively expensive. But you get it down to a certain cost point and a certain amount of campaigning on companies or on governments can push it over the line. And that's for the theory of change that I'm I'm more excited about.

Lewis Bollard: 17:32

Yeah, I agree with you, I think this will mostly be for one-off procedures, but I think that covers a lot of stuff. Like you think of pretty much all of the acutely painful, really intensely painful things that are done to animals. So you think of, like the mutilations, like the castrations, cutting the horns and all of that. I think all of that stuff is susceptible to this, as is all of the slaughter process, which is again the other really acutely painful part. I agree it's going to be much harder when it comes to chronic suffering issues, particularly where there's a trade-off, where it's like you just need to give the animals more space, like that is not something technology is going to be able to help. Yeah, yeah, but I do think that I think there are some things, like you know, the vaccine you mentioned on on lameness, like I think there are some things that may be able to help with chronic issues, but, yeah, mostly a thing for acutely painful things. But that would still be a huge, huge winner in my book.

James Özden: 18:16

Yeah, definitely yeah, and actually another one people are interested in is like, for example, like cheaper stunners for whether it can be fish or shrimp and so on. There's one that wasn't on the list but I think has gained kind of popularity in in animal movement I guess animal international does it and animal rising is starting to do it which is trying to block factory farms being built. So, yeah, what are your thoughts on this? I've never been excited about it.

Lewis Bollard: 18:40

So I I think there are a couple of reasons. So one is you're normally operating at the level of one individual factory farm. In the United States, depending on how you count, there's somewhere between like 15,000 and 30,000 factory farms, and every year, you know, like a thousand naturally go out of business and a few hundred naturally come along, and just blocking one at the margin is just so very marginal to that enterprise. The other thing is you're normally playing a game of whack-a-mole. So it's like if you stop a factory farm in arkansas, it moves over the border to iowa. If you stop a factory farm in poland, maybe it moves somewhere else in poland, or maybe it moves over to belarus or uk Ukraine or somewhere else where you can't reach it. And then the other thing which is even better is I actually think we don't want to stop farms in high welfare countries.

Lewis Bollard: 19:30

There has been a natural trend going on over the last few decades there's been very limited growth in farming in high welfare countries and much more growth in low welfare countries that can then import into this country.

Lewis Bollard: 19:41

So like, rather than seeing growth in the UK poultry sector, we see growth in Thailand and growth in Brazil, and then they import into the UK. Given most governments' elite unwillingness to apply animal welfare standards to imports, I think it is much better that additional farms pop up in somewhere like the UK or Poland where they can actually be regulated than go to some place where they can actually be regulated then go to some place where they can't be regulated. So I think we're kind of shooting ourselves in the foot, and I think that's especially true when you look at the UK farms right now. A lot of the reasons why chicken farms are trying to expand in the UK is to fulfill the stocking density pledges that UK retail wants to allow for more space for birds. So I think that the the more that we block those farms, the more that we are just impeding that work.

James Özden: 20:25

And yeah, without like any really clear upside that, I say I generally agree with you, but I'll try still manual aside, to make this more interesting sure sure.

James Özden: 20:35

Yeah, well, I think in relation to the first point, you said like, oh, it'll just go somewhere else. So I think in the case of uk, for sure, and maybe poland, I'm 100 sure it's like actually the planning regime is quite restrictive and actually it is very hard to actually build these farms. So actually if you do block one, it kind of does seem to make a meaningful difference, because actually many aren't getting approved and this is a problem for farmers and all this kind of stuff. So it seems like maybe there is some a genuine impact. And I guess the other comment that I've heard, which I think is a bit more philosophical, is like if we can't even block factory farms, then what are we meant to be doing? Surely we think this is a bad thing, and if we do allow it here, what does that mean for our issue and what we fight on?

Lewis Bollard: 21:14

Let's just say we stop it from popping up somewhere in the UK. You're saying that's clearly impactful. I don't think it is, because I think it just results in that marginal supply moving to Thailand. And so I think, even if you can stop the whack-a-mole effect within a country or state, which is hard enough, there is a free international market in trading these goods and it is just going to be produced somewhere else. If you haven't addressed the demand side of the equation, the supply will pop up somewhere else.

James Özden: 21:39

The thing I've heard is it's we'll try, kind of almost like get rid of lots of animal production here. It's like we can the agribusiness lobby in this country and then we'll start working on demand side stuff which I'm like yes, like this kind of makes sense. It is possible, then you know. But then you have the problem like maybe you offshored all the production to like the countries where your advocacy is like the least successful, and then you're totally screwed yeah, I mean, I think that's right.

Lewis Bollard: 22:02

I think it's like yes, you have weakened the lobby ever so slightly in the uk and strengthened it in thailand and brazil.

Lewis Bollard: 22:08

By weakening it in the uk, you've also weakened how much it matters. Because if you let's just say you managed to stop like get rid of all the chicken farms in the uk, yes, there would no longer be a chicken industry lobbying in the uk, there would also no longer be any effect of animal welfare standards in the UK and you would just have a really powerful lobby in Thailand that prevented any regulation from happening there and you would just have that really shitty chicken imported into the UK. And so it's just like again, it's not clear to me what you're achieving in that scenario. I get the impulse you described of like oh, come on, this seems obviously bad, let's go for it. But I think that is like kind of the thing about strategic advocacy is that it requires you to like step back and be like. I know. For a while people were like well, it's obviously bad if someone's like wearing fur in front of me, so I should just go and like yell at them or like throw something up.

Lewis Bollard: 22:55

That is obviously good and I'm like I think in retrospect it was not obviously good. I think that what feels obvious is often misleading us. We should, as much as we can, step back and think about okay, like, what are the very predictable effects, follow-on flow for effects of taking this action?

James Özden: 23:12

Yeah, yeah, I wanted to ask maybe a broader question like what are some things? Do you think advocates are kind of, like you know, miscalibrated on or, like you know, know they have some. Maybe people have some belief, you know. Obviously this is very in general terms. So from what you've experienced, it's like you know. Maybe people might expect cultivated meat to come radically transform the market in like five or ten years, and I think most insiders don't think that's the case. Is anything else that you think this is like a quite common misconception in the movement that is potentially quite important?

Lewis Bollard: 23:40

so I think the code of enemy one is very real, that, like I, I see vast over optimism on the timelines there. Like I, I think it is totally possible on much longer timelines. It's not only going to lead to disappointment, as I think it has already, as people are seeing like could we meet companies going out of business and getting really sad because they thought it was all going to take off so quickly. I think it also distorts what the strategy should be. I think if you think it's a really long-term play, it makes more sense to invest in R&D, do other things that are on a much longer timeline.

Lewis Bollard: 24:11

A more general phenomenon I see is I think people have this feeling that there are just a ton of really cost-effective interventions out there and they're just waiting to be discovered, and like there were all these things that if we just like devoted more resources to them, we would find like tons of other things that are as good as corporate campaigns.

Lewis Bollard: 24:30

And I think the reality is actually that social change in every movement is insanely hard and the default for the vast majority of tactics and strategies used in social movements is they fail, like it's just it is actually really hard to change that quote, and so I think we've gotten incredibly lucky in both discovering corporate campaigns on our issue and having advocates who have been able to so skillfully use that tactic, and I am optimistic that we will find some other routes that are as cost effective, as impactful.

Lewis Bollard: 25:00

But I don't think we should think that like, oh, it's just a case of, like you know, giving some more money to some local advocates here or then they'll work it out. Like I actually think it is really hard to find those things, and you know, and that also means people should like go easier on themselves, like if they find that, like you know, the project they tried to do for two or three years failed, like not beat themselves up about that, like that is just like absolutely the the most likely outcome, because it is it's the case that social change is really hard yeah, yeah, I guess it's kind of like your first point of maybe our prior should be things won't work and if they do, it's a welcome surprise.

James Özden: 25:30

Not like this will definitely work.

Lewis Bollard: 25:33

This will kind of radically shape the movement and we'll make loads of change yeah, that's right and I think I think like the funding dynamic for non-profits is part of the problem here. Where it's like to get funding from a philanthropist groups, advocates normally need to go funder, go funder and tell them why they're like super confident that this is definitely going to work out.

Lewis Bollard: 25:51

Yeah, like if they went to them and they're like I'm pretty sure this is going to fail, but there's, like you know, a five percent chance that it's really impactful and it really works out, most fund funders will be like, oh, I'm not interested. And so I do think funders, including us, should do a better job of being comfortable with that high level of uncertainty and comfortable making bets on low probability things. That doesn't mean you have to bet on everything, because I think sometimes people infer from that They'll hear me say something like that and they're like well, why didn't you support my project then? Because my project's low probability. And I'm like, yeah, it's like you still, you still have to make choices between the two. Right, like you still have to make trailers. You can't find everything, but I think there is. There's something real to like just appreciating advance. Hello, the probabilities are a lot of new approaches yeah, yeah, I think this is funny.

James Özden: 26:34

I think trap that I've seen written about, oh, I'm trying to achieve this thing and you know, if there's a chance of me succeeding, you know it'll be huge. And it's like, well, everyone uses the same one percent benchmark because it sounds small but actually it can be really high, like if you're trying to change like legislation in your country. Odds are it's like way less than one percent. People can probably either infer from what you said or from their knowledge of you that you're quite bullish on, I guess, more incremental work that kind of solidifies wins, kind of builds up over time and kind of focus on like steady progress rather than trying to shoot for the moon, so to speak. What's like the best argument you have for this kind of more incremental worldview, as opposed to something that's like change happens in kind of rapid and kind of punctuated ways?

Lewis Bollard: 27:14

we look at the track record of our move, we have not yet had a moonshot that has worked, and there have been many that have been attempted. By contrast, we have had a ton of incremental reform work that has worked. And then, if you look at other social movements, I think the same is true there too. Like I think people fixate on like the one or two things that appear to have been moonshots that succeeded, like marriage, equality, winning at the supreme court. I'm not sure that was so much of a moonshot. Like it was actually like a very incremental state-by-state strategy. Yeah, yeah, even if you think it was, like it is extremely rare, you can't actually think I mean, obviously there's like the french revolution or like the american revolution or something, but like again, like how did that turn out?

Lewis Bollard: 27:56

It's very rare that change happens all at once, overnight, and the much more common path of progress whether you look at the abolition of slavery, whether you look at work on the environment, any kind of social movement is it comes in small, incremental steps and I think that's just how the world changes. It's just extremely rare you get this one moonshot that changes everything. The other thing is, I think I really like the aspect of having feedback loops. So I think it's just sometimes really hard to be honest with ourselves if we work on a moonshot project and it doesn't go anywhere, and so I think that the nice thing about things that have relatively short-term feedback loops is you can see if it's working or not. Now there are ways to construct things like that.

Lewis Bollard: 28:39

I do think we need some moonshot projects out there, and I think there are ways you can construct incremental milestones. I think you just need to be honest with yourself and ideally, pre-commit to them, so don't just say like, oh, like you know, it's a success because, like, whatever has happened has happened, no-transcript, keeping on doing the same thing that is clearly not working decades on the end with the idea that like, well, maybe it's just a few more decades away yeah, it's funny.

James Özden: 29:17

Yeah, the next episode that we're going to release is is with david cole, who wrote a book on the marriage equality movement and nri and other stuff, and he also an ardent incrementalist. He said, no, the marriage equality movement is 100, very incremental, you know they they did in the most favorable states and then slowly worked their way up. Once they had, you know, over 10 states, then they would need to go to the supreme court and and there was other stuff as well. They're doing so anti-discrimination laws, etc, etc. So if you look kind of under the hood of most social movements, it is fairly incremental and then it culminates in this big sexy win and often we forget the the work leading up to it yeah, totally no.

Lewis Bollard: 29:53

And I think I think there's something here about like how, like hollywood and popular culture misleads us, because I think that, like the hollywood version of social change, society suddenly realized that something was horribly wrong and a few brave people stood up and and protested and marched and yelled about it and then, within the space of this two-hour movie, like everything changed and it's like you know, and it's like I think that that has just conditioned us to think this is how these things work, when in fact, in almost all those cases, people had been working for decades earlier than that to lay the groundwork for reforms and often even the triumphant victory at the end of it.

Lewis Bollard: 30:28

The civil rights act, the equal rights amendment, whatever, is something that still is nowhere near good enough, like is still a form of incremental reform that, like, still requires a ton of additional work on top of it. So I think there is just this thing that, like, we're conditioned as kids to think like this is how the world should work and so we want it to work this way, where things happen in these like huge, sudden leaps and bounds but I think sadly, it seldom does.

James Özden: 30:48

And what do you think are the biggest kind of risks of having this kind of deeply incremental worldview? Or, I guess, what's the best arguments for the other side?

Lewis Bollard: 30:56

Yeah, I mean, I think the best argument for the other side is this is an insanely big problem and all of the incremental work we've done today for all I'm saying it's helped a lot of animals it's still a very small share of the total problem.

Lewis Bollard: 31:10

So if you look at it as a proportion of the total problem, it's still very small. And I think you could say, look, given how bad it is and given it's still getting worse overall, we would be better to just focus on things that could completely alter that trajectory, and ideally in the suffering caused by factory farming entirely. And I think if I believed, for instance, that these moonshots were more viable, then I could get quite excited about them. If, for instance, it seemed like cultivated meat was both scientifically more viable and publicly more acceptable, then like yeah, it might just make sense to go all in on it. It's not just a theoretical debate, like it does also matter what the empirical facts are, because it could just be that, like we create a new moonshot, we find some new way of getting protein that everyone in the public is totally cool with eating and it's scientifically really promising.

James Özden: 31:58

And then like maybe you should mostly go all in on that yeah, yeah, I think I'm glad you mentioned the empirics point because I think one thing I've kind of noticed I had a conversation with ben from animal rising on the podcast and I think he made a statement that in the context of rspca campaign they were running, that this could be beneficial because there's a possibility of ending factory farming, like in the near future. And he's like in the us is totally different, but the uk is possibility and therefore we should be more ambitious. And I think for me I was like wow, this is like totally not what I believe. So do you think it's like some, I guess, difference in opinion and on like a like how quickly change happens and how far away kind of our goals are a hundred percent?

Lewis Bollard: 32:32

yeah, I think this is actually something that wayne shang pointed out to me, that like one reason we have such different views of how social change should occur is because of our levels of options.

Lewis Bollard: 32:41

Wayne continues to believe that we will end factory farming in our lifetimes and like maybe in the next couple of decades.

Lewis Bollard: 32:48

He certainly believed like a decade ago he sent me like a roadmap of how it would end in 25 years and like, yeah, and you know, it's like I appreciate him like pre-committing to these dates and I I told him at the time like if I believe the markers that were in that 25 year road plan roadmap, I would be doing things that look way more like what he was doing than what I was doing.

Lewis Bollard: 33:06

Like it would not make sense to be doing cage free reforms with like 10 year phasings if you thought oil factory farming was going to be out the window in 25 years. I I do think that is just a major disagreement and I hate publicizing my pessimism and the reasons for it, because I want don't want to make people just like more depressed about factory farmers. Like I don't want to persuade people that like it's you know it's going to take forever, but I do think that it's helpful to just like be a little more realistic on this. And yeah, if you do buy those really short timelines, then like, yeah, maybe you should be doing a very different kind of advocacy and that advocacy and that I think that is like a key difference in opinion. Yeah, it's interesting.

James Özden: 33:41

So you don't want to be pessimistic publicly, but I think there's also the trade-off where, like, if people have these high hopes and then it doesn't turn out that way, then you get even more to moralize maybe, and then what happens then? So it's very hard to balance, like what you should do and how you should talk about these things that's right, that's right.

Lewis Bollard: 33:55

I mean, this is why I don't go around like saying like we're gonna see the end of factory farming anytime soon. You know like it's like I. I think that it is really important to not set unreasonable expectations, because I've already seen people become deeply depressed when those expectations were not met. I mean, particularly around alternative proteins, where people I think thought that by now is going to be like 10 of global meat and, like you know, it's just going to have like massive, massively on being the path taking off. And I think it just.

Lewis Bollard: 34:20

And I've seen a lot of people become so disillusioned that they not only like stop working on that, but just leave the movement entirely. Like they're like well, this is hopeless. Like if it didn't all work out in five years, then like what's the point of even trying? Clearly, that's the wrong reaction. Like and I think it is better if we set people's expectations of like no, this will be a lifetime of work, like this will be, you will work on this your entire life and you will not almost certainly you will not end the problem in your lifetime, but you can first alleviate a ton of suffering along the way and, second, you can change the trajectory during our lifetime. So, like I, am more optimistic that we can reach a tipping point during our lifetime where, after we have died, this issue does ultimately go away, in part thanks to the work we did during our lifetimes I don't know if this is a big disagreement.

James Özden: 35:01

I think maybe something you said that also strikes me as different to what I hear from other people is like you said. You know the goal is almost like to be reducing suffering or some people. They don't necessarily view that as the goal. They kind of view the goal as maybe ending factory farming or like some other holistic improvement in animals' lives.

Lewis Bollard: 35:14

Yeah, Do you think this is like reducing suffering? Other people have also value, other like intangible benefits to animals lives. I often hear folks who just want to end like animal exploitation, who are very dismissive of factory farming reforms because they think, well, you're just alleviating slightly the suffering. Even if they accept the premise that you're alleviating slightly the suffering through these reforms, they think that is fundamentally not what's wrong with the system. And so I think there's like there's two differences here. One is just like a philosophical view where, like, if philosophically you think the problem with factory farming is that it is exploiting animals, then it is true that a cage-free system also exploits animals. And so in that sense, like, if you don't think the problem is is the pain and suffering it's causing, then like, yeah, alleviating pain and suffering is not that helpful.

Lewis Bollard: 36:06

I think most of us think the main problem with factory farming is the suffering it causes. And I think if you think that, then it's actually much more important to alleviate that suffering than it is to like end the system. So it's like if we could alleviate 90 of the suffering of factory farming without end the system. So it's like if we could alleviate 90% of the suffering of factory farming without ending the system or have a 50% chance of ending the system. Entirely pretty clear to me. We should just alleviate the suffering of 90%, even if it remains in some places and the institution continues to exist. But some people will disagree. I think some people would say like no, that's not the whole problem for me, or it's not even the primary problem.

James Özden: 36:42

Yeah, into some maybe future looking stuff. So what are some things you think the animal movement broadly is under investing in and you think more efforts at a time or money could be quite useful?

Lewis Bollard: 36:55

Well, I think first about the levers of driving the movement. So I think you look at talent, you look at money and you look at ideas, and I think on all three fronts, we have some really amazing things. I think we have incredible talent in the movement, and I think we could use even more of it, and so I'm really excited about the work that groups like Animal Advocacy Careers are doing. I think there's a lot more we could be doing to create the pipeline of the next generation of talented advocates and to taking the current cohort of junior and new advocates to the movement and helping them train up to be more experienced advocates and to be more skillful to be future leaders. So I think there's a lot more we can do on that.

Lewis Bollard: 37:35

On the money side, this movement is still woefully underfunded, like it's still just tiny in the grand scale of social movements and social reform efforts, and so I think we need to bring a lot more money into the movement, and I think that one way to do that is through elite outreach, reaching influential groups that often have access to larger pools of capital. And then, when it comes to the ideas, I think we need to both keep coming up with new ideas but, more importantly, testing new ideas and doing so at the smallest scale possible, because we don't have the resources to just like try everything at massive scale. But I would love to see a lot more small scale experimentation with all kinds of different ideas, so that we can find the most promising interventions to scale up in the future. Do you have?

James Özden: 38:23

any specific examples of what it might look like to have new things, like a new pipeline for new advocates or either training up existing advocates.

Lewis Bollard: 38:32

So I think one of the things on talent pipelines that a bunch of us feel like we probably made a mistake in not pursuing this very much includes our funding is around university campuses, and I think there used to actually be stronger groups on university campuses in many places than there are today.

Lewis Bollard: 38:50

So I would love to see a lot more organization going on on university campuses in many places than there are today.

Lewis Bollard: 38:52

So I would love to see a lot more organization going on on university campuses to help people become advocates in this work, and I should say become advocates whether that is becoming a full-time campaigner or whether that is going into industry or politics or any other career path and being an advocate within that career path, because I think there are actually a ton of talented people out there who are working in relatively influential positions, who care about our issues, but they're not connected to any people in our movement and they don't have an idea of how to affect change.

Lewis Bollard: 39:21

And so I think more the greater degree to which we could be going into these institutions but actually staying in touch with the movement and having people have the understanding, the strategy, the skills to see change within those places, I guess the other thing on the talent side is looking at like mid-career folks. So I think it's been a really nice trend in recent years of more people coming in mid-career, so people who are in business or work or else who already have a more developed skill set, particularly around management or operations or other things that you get from working years in the private sector, and are coming into our space to help out. And I think we should do more to recruit those folks and more to reach out to those folks and bring them into the movement full time or again as advocates within their current roles.

James Özden: 40:03

On the bringing more money inside. I guess this is something that has been like a big focus for lots of people, I think recently is you know, how do we get more money for the movement? You know we're relatively small in the big scheme of things 300 million dollars roughly globally, which sounds like a lot, but it turns out not to be very much. One question I always think about is like if we did have like 10 million additional dollars, like where would that money go, or like where would it ideally go?

Lewis Bollard: 40:23

just logistically, there are vehicles that could go through, whether that is like ea fund, the ace fund, the I mean, I mean more like practically, like you know, either interventions, countries, etc.

Lewis Bollard: 40:34

Etc I suspect most people in the movement are listening to this are like I could use some more money to scale you know like it's like and and not to say I should just like go to everything. But like I, I do think we are still doing most things in the movement on a shoestring and I think that is like, in many ways, a real strength. Like we have operated very it's a very lean movement and I don't think we want to become these giant bureaucracies who just exist for the sake of existing. But I think there was often the ability that we could ramp up our campaigns. So, whether corporate or political, we could just put more resources into those campaigns, put more resources into the adoption of new humane technology, alternative protein lobbying I mean there are a whole bunch of things that could happen to the margin.

Lewis Bollard: 41:17

The other thing I'd say is I think more important than getting like $10 million more this year is getting a steady increase in funding in years going forward, because I actually worry less about the immediate financial needs of the movement. I don't think the movement is actually that well-placed to take a huge flight of money right now, but I do think that we're getting the structures in place where we could take a lot more money over the long run, and so I think it's more important to build up that pipeline. So even if they're only willing to give a little bit today could give potentially a lot more in the future.

James Özden: 41:46

Yeah, on this question of organizational bureaucracies and all that, I think most people who have worked in very large organizations have a view that things aren't always super efficient and you're not very nimble, agile, this whole kind of classic innovator's dilemma you hear with very large organizations. Do you think you have the view that actually, maybe if additional funding came in, it's more well-placed rather than increasing staff headcount but more on, like campaign budgets, whether that's advertising, marketing, you know, materials, et cetera, et cetera? Yeah, do you have any thoughts on this kind of balance?

Lewis Bollard: 42:18

So I generally have been more excited lately about things that are campaign materials and other one-off expenses, Because I think we have seen across the movement a lot of challenges with scale, Like we've seen. The idea I think a lot of groups had was like, well, if I just add like a few more campaigners, like my campaigns will get way more effective. And then what they found was like well, actually that then created a whole bunch of internal HR and other issues that need to be resolved, and so then they needed to get more staff to deal with those. And then that created its own issues.

Lewis Bollard: 42:47

And then like you know there's this compounding thing. Now I think in the long run, we need to work out how to more efficiently solve those issues, and so I'm really excited about the work that groups like Scarlet Spark are doing to help groups, because it can't be the case that we're just reliant on, like every advocacy group, remaining tiny and, like you know, never becoming a bureaucracy in any way, because I think that just really limits our potential effectiveness as a movement and there are a ton of talented people out there who want to get into the movement and I would love to find ways to get them into the movement. So, like I wouldn't say like no funding should go to new roles, because there are people out there who I really want to come into new roles of the movement and and I think, could be incredibly impactful.

James Özden: 43:44

And so I think one of the things we need to do is more work around creating the structures that can absorb those new people, allow them to be really effective in their external work without adding a ton, need management, and then for both of those you need an HR person, and then to support them you need an extra fundraising person, and then it kind of keeps adding and adding and you're like, oh, now, suddenly we're very big and we're not that many campaigners. Yeah, do you think there's any specific kind of policy areas that you're particularly excited about? Groups kind of exploring or testing out?

Lewis Bollard: 44:13

exploring or testing out. Well, I think this depends a lot on what's possible in each country or region. So I think, for instance, at the European Union right now, I'm excited about groups seizing this opportunity of a likely upcoming revision of the EU's animal welfare legislation. But in that case I think it's going to be very driven by what the commission is open to entertaining, which seems to mainly be focused around cages and crates and the killing of male chicks.

Lewis Bollard: 44:35

In the UK it seems quite possible to seek bans on battery cages or enriched cages and bans on farrowing crates. I wish that it were possible to extend those to imports, though it seems like probably not. I think in the EU it is possible to extend those to imports and so that makes sense to be a major priority. And then in the US, I think the top legislative priority needs to absolutely be defeating what used to be called the EATS Act, what now has some other obscure name, but basically the effort in Congress to, through the Farm Bill, wipe out the most meaningful state farm and welfare laws, like California's Proposition 12. And then in other countries it's going to vary a lot Like, I think, that, a lot of time on legislative work. It's just the art of the possible. So, rather than formulating like a perfect policy proposal on what we'd love to see, the better activity is to go around and like meet with a bunch of politicians and be like what could you imagine getting through?

James Özden: 45:33

and like how do we support you to get get that through yeah, I think it's good that you you noted on prop 12 because I want to talk about that. I guess this seems like to me one of the major threats to the us movement. I guess how worried are you about it? And yeah, what do you think advocates can do to kind of like stop the reversal of Prop 12?

Lewis Bollard: 45:53

Yeah, I'm really worried about this because it wouldn't just be so. I mean, for those who haven't been following, the advocates passed re-ballot measures Proposition 12 in California, question 3 in Massachusetts which banned the sale of pork and eggs from caged and crated animals and farms that use cages and crates and there is now a major effort in congress to overrule those laws at a federal level. And if they did this it wouldn't just wipe out those laws, it would prevent any kind of future meaningful farm animal welfare legislation, because to be meaningful it needs to not only cover production in the state but cover sales into that state. I mean. Otherwise you have the same whack-a-mole problem described earlier, where it's like the producers just move over the state boundaries, do their cruel farming next door and then sell back into that state, and so the pork industry has correctly worked out that this is absolutely critical to effectively regulating their industry's down disability and right now, frankly, it's not on a good path.

Lewis Bollard: 46:50

So there was a congressional hearing last week that was pretty brutal, so I mean it was basically showed that almost all the republicans on the house agriculture committee are strongly supporting putting this into the farm bill. They only invited industry that was supportive. This didn't invite anyone else. And even on the democratic side we had like two democrats who supported the effort, which is crazy to me. And then you had a lot of democrats who were just sitting there doing and invite anyone else. And even on the Democratic side we had like two Democrats who supported the effort, which is crazy to me and then you had a lot of Democrats who were just sitting there doing nothing, like just like, oh I'm just, you know, waiting to learn about this issue whatever, and like not actively opposing.

Lewis Bollard: 47:19

And so I think we simultaneously have two problems. One is the other side is really fired up and has access to the most important people, like the chairs of the house ag committee, the chair of the senate ag committee, who will decide the base language of what's in the farm bill. And then the other problem we have is that the people on our side are nowhere near fired up. So democrats have just been kind of sitting around on this issue, not doing a lot, with a few notable exceptions. You know there are some republicans who have joined us, but again they haven't been as vocal and as loud as the people on the outside have been.

Lewis Bollard: 47:51

And so put your question what advocates can do. I think the most important thing is just trying to get their politicians to speak up about this. So you know, even if that is, even if they live in a city and probably have like a democratic member of congress and a democratic senator, like there's still value to reaching out to their offices, being like why are you not speaking up about this? Why are you not making it a more important issue? Because the farm bill will probably require democratic votes to pass in both the senate and the house. And if that's the case, then it's really valuable for democrats to say I'm not supporting the farm bill.

James Özden: 48:20

This is it you get the sense that this is like possible to alter, because I don't know much about us politics, but it's like obviously the farm bill is a huge piece of legislation and for people to go against it on a welfare issue seems like a high bar to ask of politicians. And how likely do you think is that this would actually happen?

Lewis Bollard: 48:40

Well, I think there are different degrees of possibility. So, look, I'll say it's not looking good right now. You're absolutely right that the reason they are throwing this in the farm bill is that we could defeat it on a standalone vote in the house. Yeah, most likely, but they know that there are a lot of people who vote against this as a standalone bill. But when it's passed, of this giant farm bill that not only provides farm subsidies for farmers but also reauthorizes all the nutrition assistance for low-income people which democrats really want to get through, they know there are far fewer people who are going to vote against it based on this, this one issue.

Lewis Bollard: 49:11

That that said, I think there are two things. So, first, I think there are some legislators who are actually willing to stick their neck out and do that one. For example, on the republican side, nancy mace whatever you think about her and she's a lightning rod on other issues has literally said she won't vote for the farm bill if this is that, and well, it would be great to see some democrats, I think, the same courage that she has had on this issue. Even if they literally not willing to say publicly they won't vote for the whole farm bill, on this. They can still go to leadership and say this is really uncomfortable, like this is something I would much rather not be there and leadership in turn, go to their chairs of the committee and be like you're putting our members or our senators in a really hard place and we're prefer you not do that, and so I think there is still value to that. But yeah, it's a really hard fight and we are not in a great position.

James Özden: 50:01

And yeah, I guess, on the, how effective do you think has the animal movements response to that bid and like, does that kind of give you any hints of like, oh, I wish we had this kind of infrastructure or this kind of organization. That doesn't exist, does anything?

Lewis Bollard: 50:15

that kind of come out based on the response to the attack. Yeah, so I think there are some advocates who have been doing really great work around us and I really appreciate the amount of hard work that's been done with advocates. I think we have simultaneously seen some of the infrastructure we are really lacking as a movement. I think the first thing is we have seen our lack of organized republican lobbying on these issues. So there are a ton of republicans who are on our side on this. Like the average grassroots republican voter we know from surveys. They hate gestation crates. They are not supportive of this. They do not want Congress to take away the rights of states to regulate these.

Lewis Bollard: 50:51

Like this is not a Republican position. But because we have so little organized infrastructure, in rallying those Republican voters, it ends up normally being animal groups that are very left-coded, trying to go and meet with Republican officers and the Republican officers being like we don't want to meet with you, like your group, like endorsed Kamala Harris and like you know, and like you know, like doesn't you know? It's like, it's just like, so clearly not like you know, representing our voters. Yeah, and so I think there there is a real need for like people to go out and honestly represent those voters who are like right-leaning, who actually do not want this, and we do a huge amount more to organize that using this more, you know, trying to have like a large supporter list, quite like a public facing NGO, which then kind of kind of does like supporter actions, to email your representative.

James Özden: 51:33

It's like that kind of like. What kind of organization are you specifically kind of thinking of? That'd be quite useful. Yeah, it could be that I mean.

Lewis Bollard: 51:37

I think, like realistically, where you start is probably smaller than like a mass, you know member list.

Lewis Bollard: 51:43

But, like I think there is, oftentimes just bringing representatives of that community to DC is very valuable.

Lewis Bollard: 51:51

So, like one thing that I think has been very effective in this farm board work is that there are some small farmer groups who have brought small farmers who are benefiting from these farm and welfare laws to Congress to talk about it. That has been incredibly powerful and I think if that movement were better resource, if we had better groups established in that space, there are so many more small farmers out there who are just like, actively opposed to what the pork industry is doing here and are not having their voices heard, and with more organization and mobilization we could help them have their voices heard. I think the same is true when it comes to republicans on this issue. So, like there are conservatives around the country who are concerned about this issue, we could be doing what the pork industry is doing, which is like flying them to d, setting up meetings for them with their representatives and senators and organizing that. Again, there are people doing this on a shoestring budget. I think this could be done at just a much bigger scale if we had the infrastructure and the resources.

James Özden: 52:40

Is there anything else that comes to mind on this infrastructure piece?

Lewis Bollard: 52:44

I mean, I think the more broader mobilization of animal welfare voters is a really important thing of animal welfare voters is a really important thing. So I think that for too long, either the groups organizing animal welfare voters have just prioritized dog and cat legislation and have basically just ignored farm animals, or they have not politically mobilized in an effective way, and I think that there is a need for someone to represent the majority of Americans who actually really care about animal welfare and are not happy about things like this. It will be very hard to do that. I think, like it is just hard to break through the noise. It's hard to establish yourself as a new lobby in DC, but in the long run, I think that's a voice that needs to be heard.

James Özden: 53:24

I think it's actually something we're trying to do in the UK with UK voters for similar reasons is like there's just there's lots of really good kind of grassroots and mass corporate engagement from animal welfare, which has been very effective in getting lots of major companies to understand the kind of depth and breadth of feeling, but this hasn't really translated through to the farm animal welfare political engagement, and I think you're right in that either groups focus on things that are maybe more tractable and mobilize the base, which is like cat and dog and trophy hunting and other stuff, or they just don't turn out many people. But yeah, so I agree.

Lewis Bollard: 53:56

I think this is somewhere where I think I'm excited for more groups to try this kind of work the uk is a great place like uk probably has some of the strongest sentiment around farm animal welfare in the world, and it's. It was wild to me that, like when the labor party put out its manifesto before the election also not as manifesto, but put out like eight point plan on animal welfare for the election farm animals weren't listed. I mean it's just outrageous. Like it's outrageous that they think they could get away with like an eight point plan that is like dogs, cats, trophy on an animal. It was like nothing about farm animals.

Lewis Bollard: 54:28

I think it's pretty bad too that they still haven't done anything on farm and welfare. I mean it's like there there's just such huge public support on this issue. Yeah, and their continued willingness to like you know, I read the debates that have been going on in in parliament about like cages and crates and you just get mps from across the aisle saying like public so strongly supports change here, and then the minister gets up at the end. It's like thank you so much. Like we're considering all of this and it's like on other issues that would not be an acceptable response, that like, oh, we're just like considering it, we're thinking about it, we'll just keep on thinking about it. It's like on other issues, like we actually demand change on this, and I think that's where better mobilization could could push things forward yes, actually we're organizing a mass lobby day.

James Özden: 55:08

We're trying to get 100 people plus to come to the UK and actually talk to MP about this Because, yeah, I agree, I think there's been a lack of actually talking, even though I think you're right that MPs are supportive. It's partially, I guess, for also their personal reasons, because most people do agree that cages are bad. But I think, yeah, have a bit more constituent pressure. I think is always and I guess you know it provides legitimacy for MPs and others to do this stuff. So we'll see how that goes.

James Özden: 55:33

So we've spoken a bunch about the US and the UK for a bit and obviously most farmed animals don't live in those countries. They're kind of disproportionately in either Southeast Asia and some other places like Latin America, and I guess what are your thoughts on what we should be doing there? I think the kind of model I have in my head is in most places you try and make progress on the low-hanging fruit, which is often corporate progress, and then, once you have enough of the market pushed over and you also build your base, then you can go for more ambitious things, maybe including legislative victories. Is that roughly the model you have in your head, or how do you think about changing these other regions?

Lewis Bollard: 56:11

I mean I think we should do whatever works. So I think that in you know, we've supported groups across Asia and across Latin America and they have pursued different strategies based on what they've been able to get traction for. And I think that is the appropriate way to do this Like I don't think that, like us, based in the US, should set like a one size fits all model. I also don't think we can just defer exclusively to local advocates if they're not achieving anything. Like we see the same dynamic in every country that we see in the US and Europe. Because, like there are plenty of advocates doing things for dogmatic reasons, because, like they wish this was the way the world worked, because they wish, like that their campaign had worked out. It hasn't, and so instead, I think we should just like try out a lot of different potentially promising things and double down on the things that have worked.

Lewis Bollard: 56:57

And I think, like so far, one surprising thing has been that the tactics that have worked seem quite similar to what has worked in the us and europe, which is to say that corporate campaigns have been relatively effective. From a low base, initial legislative lobbying has gotten some positive initial traction, awareness raising around, undercover investigations and things like that has had some impact and a lot of other things have just really struggled. Again, I don't think that's surprising. Change is really hard, but, yeah, I think we should mostly just be like, yeah, trying to get things, things started. And so there's an aspect also, if it's like movement building, where it's like you want to build up a movement in these countries, but I think you need to be careful that it's not just movement building for its own sake, like a movement needs to do something, and so I think it is generally more effective for movement building if you are, yes, having people meet, yes, convening groups, but also having them do some kind of advocacy and actually start seeing what they can get traction on.

James Özden: 57:54

Yeah, I totally agree. I often find that's kind of good for two reasons, Like move and build with a purpose. A because you attract the right people, If you attract doers, if you actually want to achieve something rather than people who just want to sit and talk shop all day, and also people get excited about actually doing stuff and winning and progress, and I think that's how you kind of retain, I think, the most.

Lewis Bollard: 58:12

I think, in general, like winning is just incredibly important, like, so it's. It's not just like the obvious thing of, yes, you can win reforms for animals, but even winning really small victories that, like, maybe don't help a lot of animals, I think are really important to motivating activists, motivating donors, sustaining activists, motivating donors, sustaining activists, getting them experience, and so I think that finding like, hey, what are the initial small wins we can get is also often a really promising thing to do.

James Özden: 58:41

I'm kind of curious what your definition of small is there, because I think like one thing we've thought about, like one trap you can fall into, is like oh, we'll do stuff on trophy hunting and dogs, kind of like get people excited and have some wins, but actually no, that policy stuff also takes like five or six years and like is that the best use of time? I don't know. It's like what is your definition of small when you say go after small wins?

Lewis Bollard: 59:00

yeah, I don't think farm animal advocates should be doing things on trophy hunting or dogs, yeah, like I. I think first of all it really matters of is this thing you're campaigning for actually going to lead support, to more support for farm animals in future? And I think what we have seen in the us, for instance, is, like you, we've had huge progress for companion animals and that has just not trickled down to farming. It's like there has not been. There was this theory that like, well, you know, if we just get enough people to make enough progress on companion animals, then everyone will focus on farm animals. In fact, what happens is they just want more progress for companion animals, like rightly so, but like it's like actually no one ever switches over and if you try and switch them over, they're like no, I'm, I was there for the dogs, not the, you know, not the pigs. Yeah, yeah, instead, I think you need to get people started on the animals that matter.

Lewis Bollard: 59:46

I have the same problem with like kind of non-human rights project approach of like we'll focus on, like elephants and chimpanzees, where I'm like, even if you win, I sadly don't think they will win, but even if you did, I don't think that trickles down to chickens and fish.

Lewis Bollard: 59:59

Like I just think it gets people like to care even more about elephants and chimpanzees, and and so I think you have to focus on actual farm animal welfare stuff. Then in in terms of, yeah, what is a small win, like I think, getting like a small change to regulations that, like you know, is only incrementally making like the slaughter process a bit better regulated, or getting a commitment from a small company, or even just getting you know this recognized in official documents, or you know, I think there are other things like you can do that are not like the biggest thing. Or just, you know, just getting someone in the agriculture department who's working on animal welfare. I am very wary of the thing of like we should work on different issues in the hope that one day we will then be able to like pull people across to work on the issues we actually care about.

Lewis Bollard: 1:00:45

Yeah, I also haven't seen that work out very well, but you can see the natural appeal of that and the other risk I've seen is that, like I've seen so many people who convince themselves of these stories where it's like when I was in the humane society, one thing that say is like well, yeah, we're not working on like farm animals now, even though we totally care about them, but like it's because it's just way more tractable to do this thing in congress. But you know, like, ultimately we'll switch across to farm animals. And I've seen people who've like retired now, who had like mindset their whole career and like how did it work out? Like did that ever happen? And I think, like I think part of the problem is you just like, once you start focusing on trophy hunting dogs, like you end up being really fixated on that. You end up like understandably, just like fixating on that goal. And that becomes the goal when you forget that it was like a tactic rather than, like you know, a piece. So yeah, if it was a tactic.

James Özden: 1:01:33

Instead it becomes like the end itself yeah, yeah, yeah, we I've called this in the uk like drinking your own kool-aid, where you tell everyone you're doing of this reason. Actually you kind of forget internally and then you go off. Yeah, I think both in the asking anything you kind of mentioned. You know you're, you know, an avid reader of a social movement history and I think that's something you did in your undergrad. I'm kind of curious. The abolition of slavery movement was, I guess, one you looked at quite a lot. I'm kind of curious and any takeaways from there that I don't know kind of reinforce either kind of what you've said so far or how we should approach helping animals yeah, I mean, I think so.

Lewis Bollard: 1:02:05

I I find a lot of inspiration in social movements in the past, and especially in the abolitionists, who took on this deeply entrenched system of agriculture. By the way, I mean, it was, it was farmers who were responsible for slavery, and it took on this deeply entrenched, entrenched system and achieved incredible, incredible forms, and so I think there's amazing inspiration to take from these. I also think we have to be wary about taking lessons, for two reasons. The first is that what works is going to differ hugely by time and place, so I don't think the tactics that succeeded with the British Parliament in 1807 are going to be the tactics that are going to succeed with the British Parliament in 2025. I think there are just big differences. There are big differences across issues on what's going to work for people. The other thing, though, is I find that when advocates look at social movement history, they largely do so to prove what they already believe, and I am as guilty of this as others. Like my read of social movement history is like it was all incremental reform that, like you know, achieved a huge amount in reducing the badness of issues and then slowly build up the momentum to end the badness entirely. That is just one read of social movement history, and I think like if I was a Marxist, I would have a completely different read of what had gone on. I think it's just like I'm always skeptical of taking those lessons. So then, perhaps I think you can take some lessons on like what not to do so, even within successful movements, it does seem like infighting has just been a destructive force throughout social movement. Like that just just seemed to be a common lesson. I think that there is related to that.

Lewis Bollard: 1:03:39

One take I have might be a little more controversial is that articulating completely unachievable goals also is often a divisive force, and one that just like leads people astray. And and you know, I mean you saw this like in the marriage equality battle, for instance. For a long time, that movement in the 60s and 70s was paralyzed over whether they should be endorsing marriage as an institution at all, because a lot of them were like marriage is an oppressive institution. So like, yeah, what the heck are we doing? Saying we want marriage, like we want to abolish marriage, and it's like you know, I think someone could tell you like you're not going to abolish marriage, like whether you want to or not, like that's just not, that's not happening, you know, and so it's like it's like actually that's, that's quite counterproductive.

Lewis Bollard: 1:04:16

And then it does broadly seem like focus is pretty valuable. Again, I mean, I am probably more you know has just been pretty critical to the successful movements and, by contrast, there are so many examples of movements that just like could not focus and, as a result, could not achieve a lot.

James Özden: 1:04:36

Does anything come to mind in terms of specific movements that couldn't focus?

Lewis Bollard: 1:04:40

I think you can look at movements today, right On the left, where it's just like they are just like driven by, like they have to work on every problem at once. The organization is like feels like it needs to be dealing with the climate crisis, gaza, it needs to be dealing with every other issue at once, and each of these can be very worthy issues in their own right. It's not like I think sometimes, when people are like yo, can we stop talking about that other issue? People are like, oh, you must not care about that other issue.

James Özden: 1:05:06

But it's like no, it actually actually it's just the case that I think history suggests is more effective to have advocates individually focused on just climate and advocates individually focused on just gaza and so on, than it is to have all advocates try to do all of that a good analysis of this in the book abundance by ezra klein and derek thompson, in terms of, like how regulation in the us kind of stops building because now permits people want to build houses, need to do has to be like very green and also has to pay a fair living wage and all this kind of stuff actually means now you can't build any housing. Now it's a whole big problem because, like, you're trying to solve too many issues at once and you actually end up doing nothing.

Lewis Bollard: 1:05:42

Yeah, yeah and the other. The other thing I see in this, by the way, when it comes to animals, is I suddenly see animal advocates like again was very good intentions wanting to elevate other issues within their advocacy. There is no risk process, like it's not like climate movement, it's like now we're going to talk about factory farming all the time. You know, like it's like, it's just like so. I think one of the problems with this thing of like talk about everyone talks about all issues all the time, it's like most people are just never going to talk about factory farm, so they're going to talk about like the top three most salient issues in the media all the time and those are going to be the three things that get all the attention, and then the issues like factory farming that are not as salient in the media. It's going to be forgotten by everyone because it's like no one is.

James Özden: 1:06:23

No one is is focusing on people I guess talk about, you know, climate change and pandemics and everything else, almost the way it's like reaching audiences but at the same time you're kind of like diminishing or diluting the animal welfare message. I guess, yeah, how do you see that kind of balancing, that trade off?

Lewis Bollard: 1:06:37

Yeah, so I think there's a lot of value in having coalitions around particular issues, where disparate forces agree on the same thing. So I think that's what's happening, for instance, in Congress congress right now, where animal welfare advocates are allying with small farmers. They don't agree on everything but, like, on this particular issue, they agree. It would be really bad to wipe out these laws. I think, similarly, when it comes to alternative proteins, there should be a coalition between climate advocates and animal advocates, because alternative proteins would be both good for the climate and good for animals, and so it makes sense. But, like, that doesn't mean we need to get the coalition, the climate advocates, on board with the cage free campaigns, nor does it mean that we need to get on board with the other climate campaigns. And so I think it just makes way more sense to think about, like where do our interests just genuinely overlap and on those issues where we both stand to gain, where it's good for animals? And another issue like, yes, we should ally with them on those issues and, you know, build a coalition.

James Özden: 1:07:36

Okay, we have around just over 10 minutes left, so I will do some kind of scattered questions, so the topic will jump a fair bit. Sounds good One I'm sure it's been on the form in other places a lot recently the impact of transformative AI on animal movements. So how should we change our priorities and our strategies, if at all, if we believe that we're going to have pretty transformative AI in the next decade or so? Do you have any thoughts on this question?

Lewis Bollard: 1:08:03

I think there are two different pieces. One is how should we do advocacy differently? Everyone should work out how to use LLMs and AI tools. That's a great idea. If you haven't already, go and work it out. They can make your life easier. They can make things more efficient Great idea. Second thing is should we actually be doing advocacy around the course of ai and how things develop?

Lewis Bollard: 1:08:24

And I think this is much harder because it's really hard to work out the leverage points where we could make a predictably good change. I think, for instance, I'm pretty skeptical that we can in any way influence the the way in which precision livestock farming technology gets adopted, like I think they're going to adopt it. I think it is probably mostly going to be bad for animals and I don't think there's a lot we can do to stop that. I think we can like support new humane tech enabled by ai, just as we could humane tech not enabled by ai. Then, when it comes to like the, for instance, the llms and the other systems being developed by the labs, like, I think it's good that there are people trying to benchmark them on how those ais think about animals and try to influence them on that, because I do think it is the case that those ais are not enshrining the most positive views about animal welfare they could.

Lewis Bollard: 1:09:12

I know there's a big debate in the ai community about how much advocacy on this now will matter in future. Like what degree will the values that claude or open or chat gpt has today in any way influence the values that agi has? I don't have strong views but like seems like it's probably still worth trying to influence those. Yeah, I don't see right now a ton of other high leverage opportunities, but I think this is a great area for exploratory like. I think this is a great area for people to like go and try some things out, see if they can have make an impact.

James Özden: 1:09:44

And if they can like we should, we should scale those up where does the skepticism around us not being able to influence precision livestock farming come from that just you know this industry's going to take off and we're not going to control it.

Lewis Bollard: 1:09:54

Therefore, you know we can only do so much so I think people have these ideas that we, we should just like, like they'll see some giant force coming along, so it's like the spread of factory farming around the world to like developing countries, and they're like, oh, we should stop that. And I'm like, yeah, like we should also stop factory farming, and like, and like you know, it's like I. I just think that we need a degree more humility as a movement to just be like. Actually, neither we nor any social movement has the ability to stop a giant technological trade or something that is just clearly more efficient being adopted by an industry. We do have the ability to nudge things at the margin, and so to nudge for better legal protections at the margin, to nudge for all these other things at the margin, but I think just appreciating like, where we have had the greatest influence so far has normally been at the margin, not in terms of like stopping an entire giant technological force.

James Özden: 1:10:41

There's a good but kind of niche podcast, the 8,000 Hours, with Alan Defoe, who works at DeepMind, on technological progress and you know to what extent you can shape the course of it and his view is you can't really shape the course of it and it's like technology is what decides history and you know, like you said, we can do some small things in the margin but it's very hard to stop a major trend that's going to happen anyway. Yeah, we spoke about Prop 12 as being a big threat to the US movements and a major setback. Do you have any views on other major threats or setbacks that is facing the movement right now?

Lewis Bollard: 1:11:14

I think there's been a broader pushback against animal welfare reforms from companies on cost grounds. Advocates are having, you know, having success and pushing back on that, but I just see that being a bigger trend of companies trying to frame this as a battle over the price of food. I think, obviously on alternative proteins there have just been some major challenges. So there's both the challenge that in the us, uk and some other markets plant-based meat sales just keep on declining and there is the challenge of all these labeling laws and all these like seven states now the us have banned cultivated meat, the european union's trying to ban it, and so I think something we we didn't adequately anticipate on that was just the force of cultural and political opposition, like it was like I think there was this view with alternative proteins where it's like, well, if you just make them like cheap and tasty enough, like everyone will eat them, and it's like actually it turns out both like you just don't want to eat them in general, but also they're very susceptible to these like cultural messaging around it's ultra processed, it's bad for you, etc.

Lewis Bollard: 1:12:14

And very susceptible to getting caught up in the culture war as a political issue. And then you know, I mean there's just like the long-standing, like terrible threat of like factory farming is expanding everywhere and and you know I will say on that, like on the one hand that is deeply depressing and frustrating and everything, but also I think it is war is also expanding lately and yet it's still very valuable that there are people reducing war in the world and like trying to make it be less bad. You know, so it's like in an issue, more hopeful that in the very long run we will in factory farming than I am, that we really in war entirely.

James Özden: 1:12:47

So you know, it's like I I do think that we can achieve a huge amount, even as it gets worse, and ultimately hope to change that trajectory yeah, on the protein side, I think I agree that maybe people had a relatively I don't know simplistic or naive view that like, yes, you know, price, taste, convenience will go well and therefore adoption will go well.

James Özden: 1:13:07

But yeah, we haven't seen this happen, for a variety of reasons. You know it can be, you know, like the ultra process narrative being pushed mainly by the meat industry and like other things, that's kind of stopping adoption. On this kind of cultural side especially, I'm kind of curious do you think we kind of under invested in this like cultural public opinion piece around alternative proteins and and I think I think there's a broader sentiment of this and animal welfare that we? There's a period where it was all kind of like change hearts and minds and actually, oh, this is really expensive, it doesn't work very well, we'll do institutional stuff. Now it's like, oh wait, did we forgo that too much? And actually maybe we should tilt the scales a tiny bit back towards some of this work. Otherwise either we can't maintain the reforms we have or stuff like alternative proteins don't actually take off as we like.

Lewis Bollard: 1:13:47

I honestly think the biggest challenge with cultural and social change right now is we haven't worked out how to achieve it. So I don't think it's like the lack of funding. I don't think it's the lack of people paying attention to it. I of funding. I don't think it's the like of people paying attention to it. I think that it has just gotten way harder in the current media and social media universe. So, for example, a decade ago, advocates got a ton of play with undercover investigations got picked up in huge media outlets, played all over the place. Videos on factory farming went viral on YouTube, posts were viral on Facebook and, unfortunately, some combination of the media getting distracted by other issues, afraid to report on these issues, and then the social media platforms changing their algorithms, has meant that, like all of that content just gets way less play than it used to, and I think the same, as I've seen, is true for people trying to break through the narrative you know, the ultra process narrative around plant-based meat.

Lewis Bollard: 1:14:41

Like it's like, yes, if we could have effective narrative change on this, that would be amazing. But I don't think. I think sometimes people are like, oh well, why don't we just invest in like more, you know, consumer surveys and like focus groups and things, and I don't think that's the problem. Like I think we've got plenty of messages that work. I think the problem is getting those messages in front of people and finding a way to actually get messages that go viral on social media, that go viral in the media, get picked up on. And I think that's just really hard.

Lewis Bollard: 1:15:08

I think that we're just in this extremely noisy media environment that is obsessed with culture, war battles and it is really hard to break a narrative that fits that trend. Like cultured meat, is this imposition of the elites on the masses or the idea that, like plant-based meat, is this like sinister plot to get us all to eat, you know, ultra-processed food? Like I, I think it is just. It is actually just really hard to count some of those things and so I again, I I want people to be experimenting with it, like I, I really want people to be experimenting with ways to change that, because I think it's very important, but I I don't think we yet have the formula of how we change it yeah, you sit in a role that I'm sure means you have a lot of inbound messages that say from people either you or your team, in terms of getting funding, but also, like you know, relatively scrutinized, and I think you also wrote on.

James Özden: 1:15:55

You're asking me anything that you know, even like having friendships with leaders in the movement, is that kind of more challenging because of concerns around conflicts of interest and not wanting to favor people or be seen to be favoring people? Yeah, I'm going to concur. It's like what do you find it emotionally taxing about your role and like how is it hard for you?

Lewis Bollard: 1:16:13

yeah, it is. It is emotional taxing. I mean, I look, I don't want to like complain because I'm very lucky to have this role, like I think, think that like it is. You know, this is my dream job to be working on an issue that I am so passionate about and to have the resources that Open Philanthropy enables us to have to enable such amazing advocates to do such cool work. So I'm very excited about that.

Lewis Bollard: 1:16:34

At the same time, I think the main emotionally taxing thing is actually just something common to most advocates, which is like it's freaking emotionally taxing thinking about this amount of animal suffering all the time, right, and not just how much suffering there is. I think the fact that we are powerless to stop most of it we can only help a small portion of the world's factory farm animals at this point and the fact that most of society seems indifferent. That really still gets me. The fact that there's just this insane moral atrocity going on and most of society like can't be bothered paying any attention. I think that's just really hard, and so I think like something that I have tried to embrace a bit more on, that is, the need to take some breaks, the need to get a bit of time away from just thinking about animal suffering all the time. Think more about self-care. I think that is just a very real challenge.

Lewis Bollard: 1:17:26

And then, in terms of this role in particular, yeah, I mean, I think the thing I find hardest is turning down amazing people Like I think you know, all the time, because of the necessity as a funder of we have a limited pool of money, we cannot fund, fund everything we end up turning down lots of people, and most of them are really incredible people. Most of them are like, I mean, by the mere fact of having devoted their lives to, like, alleviating the suffering. I respect them hugely, but also it's not, it's just like incredibly talented people have achieved incredible things, great ideas and, for any kind of number reasons, like we're not the right fit for them or we can't fund them at this time, and that's up, and so, like, I'm sure it's harder on them, like, again, I don't want to, like I don't need some. I'm sure it's harder than them, like not having the funding, like, but it's just like, yeah, that is a space like this that does have such scarce funding and that has such incredible people who you know.

James Özden: 1:18:21

I would love to be able to support all of them maybe I had this view before I went into the world, like, oh, it's like, why don't you know funders, just like do x and y and you know give this person money or give me money. But I guess maybe once I came into it was much more like oh, the trade-offs are like much harder than I realized and there's a very direct consequence like funding one group means another great group maybe gets less money or no money, and it's actually like very challenging to make those decisions and put from the inside like yeah, and I think it's often too.

Lewis Bollard: 1:18:50

People just think like, oh, this is just this one piece of money right now, and it's not that much money like why would you go to me? And I think what we've seen is people very reasonably have the expectation that once we start supporting them, we will keep supporting them. Yeah, and oftentimes that they will grow and get bigger and bigger. And so sometimes with the funding session, we're not just thinking like could we spare $100,000 to start this project now, we're thinking is this something that we're going to be sufficiently excited about to keep supporting for a longer period of time? Because we try to avoid scenarios that of course, happen, but we try and avoid scenarios where we'd start funding someone and, like a year or two later, just need to cut off the funding and that also kind of raises the raises the barrier. Because it is like we are more worried about like being overly disruptive in the movement by like funding a lot of things and then cutting funding, cutting funding from them immediately yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

James Özden: 1:19:40

Oh, maybe one final before doing our closing questions is yeah, I find whenever I follow your twitter or I watched your interview with live burry, you seem to follow the animal ag industry in an unusually detailed way, just like posting photos of, like random legislation or like this was weird practice or something from or on the world. So it seems like something you really are. I guess. How are you following this? And like, oh, like, yeah, kind of curious, like what your kind of tracking of the animal ag industry looks like and how these things come up yeah, I mean for us.

Lewis Bollard: 1:20:07

I'm not sure it's worth other people doing the same. Like it's it is, it is mostly, uh, deeply frustrating thing and also like time consuming, because most of the stuff they post is just like irrelevant. So you know, I mean literally I just use like google alerts and x. I wish I had a better system, but I found all the other systems more time consuming and I found this is a relatively quick way to find out a decent portion of of what's going on. But you know, I would say for most people the more important thing than following the industry is like following the movement, like following all the things that the movement is up to, I think, is much more important than following what the industry is up to yeah makes sense, maybe for those in the uk.

James Özden: 1:20:44

I have a subscription to poultry business magazine and it's great. It's a monthly free magazine and it's great to see what they're saying about us and how we're doing. Okay, moving on to our closing questions, what's one bit of news that you're excited about recently?

Lewis Bollard: 1:20:58

I was really excited. In france, l214 just secured a commitment from I think it's the ldc group, which is the biggest french chicken producer to adopt the european chicken commitment for their two flagship brands. L214 is estimating this could affect up to 400 million birds every year. I tend to be more conservative with estimates. Let's just say like, even if it's half of that, like over five years, that's over a billion birds and I think sometimes we don't pause enough on just like individual victories like this to be like that's insane. Like their most social movements never help a billion individuals like they. They never get to help them any across many generations of work and thousands of people and like this is just one win in this. So I think on the one hand, it's easy to get paralyzed by like the scale of factory farming and but also I think we should just reflect on the scale of progress we make, that like when a group gets a win like this, that is so many individuals who are going to suffer less because of that, because of that yeah as well.

James Özden: 1:22:01

That's. That's very amazing. And yeah, I think seems like l214 is actually pretty amazing thing, so hopefully this will spread across europe and then further. That's right. Next thing is what are some media recommendations for listeners could be books, podcasts, blogs, etc.

Lewis Bollard: 1:22:17

So there are some great sub stacks out there. I just started recommending some of my sub stacks, so rather than listing like 15, I'll like go to farm and warfare sub stack and look at the ones I recommend. Yeah, that includes yours, james, and I'm hoping that by recommending it I will guilt you into publishing another post one of these days. One day, one day, I have lately felt like sub stack has been where a lot of the good content is. There's some good stuff on the ea forum too. Like I, I think it's worth following some of the animal warfare discussions there, and I'm sure there are a lot of podcasts that I'm missing that, like I just don't, you know, follow these things other than other than your podcast, of course, but uh, yeah, of course I guess the final question is like how can people follow you or hear about what either you or OpenField are doing?

Lewis Bollard: 1:23:04

The two places that I post are on my sub stack, farmandawelfaresubstack, and on my X account. I know that X has become a total cesspool and I wish there was a better alternative. But I'm just kind of locked in because that's where my followers are and I wish there was a better alternative. But I'm just going to lock it in because I've like been, that's where my followers are and I really can't be bothered trying to build them up on a new platform. I think it's possible Open plan to be able to start posting some more content on our general blog and on our website, so always worth keeping an eye on that too.

James Özden: 1:23:34

Nice, great. Well, lewis, thanks so much for joining. It's been pretty fun and wide ranging an hour and a half. So yeah, I appreciate all your time and all the work you do in the movement.

Lewis Bollard: 1:23:43

Awesome, thank you. Thanks for your time, jeff.