A well-funded and monstrous shift of the “animal rights movement” we must resist
I have just read this incredibly disturbing piece by Collectively Garywhich lays out clearly the monstrous trajectory of the so-called animal rights movement. I urge you to read it. This shift is opprobrious and we as advocates must resist both the narrative and the consistent mediocrity pushed on us to advocate for less than total liberation.
The article argues a major, well-funded shift has occurred within the animal rights movement. Instead of fighting to “end factory farming”, which is a term long-time readers will know I find insufficient because small farms are no less deadly, central institutions are now using a historic influx of money from the recent and forthcoming AI IPOs to build and finance “Factory Farming 2.0”—the next generation of AI-driven, intensive animal agriculture. This is a strategic reversal presented as pragmatism.
The so-called movement is spending its largest-ever windfall to subsidise the adoption of Precision Livestock Farming (PLF) technology. This makes the industry more durable, efficient, and capitalised rather than challenging its existence. This is a dangerous mistake because the underlying premise, that intensification is “unavoidable”, is false and historically disproven.
“In eighteen months, animal advocacy has assembled a complete pipeline for developing, financing and selling technology that makes animal agriculture more profitable.” And this is being headed up by well-known names in the advocacy business (and I use that term deliberately), including Nick Cooney, founder of the Humane League. Those involved “are the central institutions of this movement: its funders, its incubators, the founders of its most prominent organisations. This is what that layer has chosen to do with decades of accumulated legitimacy and the biggest windfall the movement has ever seen: build the infrastructure of the thing we exist to end.”
This is a predictable arc for effective altruists chasing cash and building lucrative careers out of the oppression, exploitation and death of countless animals.
And don’t think their acolytes aren’t in advocate spaces trying to convince you this is the way to go.
Look at who is speaking at the conferences advocating we speak less, compromise more of our ethics to achieve some nebulous goal, focussing only on treatment rather than eradicating animal use. All this pragmatism and appeasement for what looks like serious financial gain.
Looking at it objectively, all this pragmatism and appeasement has been an astonishing failure for the animals, despite hoovering up so much of our movement’s resources – money, time, attention, hope – and denying funding to education, sanctuaries and people on the ground really trying to make an embodied difference.
The number of animals killed hasn’t decreased, despite all the pragmatic, effective, moveable-middle strategies.
And now, they’ll have AI money. Disgusting.
I know where I stand. I will continue to live with the courage of my convictions. I hope you will too.
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