One conclusion that has repeatedly arisen in discussions on reducing wild-animal suffering and utilitarian action more generally is the importance of understanding how best to promote memes. The question depends very much on one's target audience -- the message and forums that work best for academics will be very different from those targeted toward the general public -- but given an audience, what are some good ways to advance new ideas among its members?

I'll leave this thread as an opening for discussion on that topic, including any links to relevant research that others would like to contribute. As one friend mentioned, the advertising and marketing literature may be a good source of inspiration. Of course, those of us from academic backgrounds tend to run to quantitative studies for an answer to every question, but I would also suggest that we not underestimate the value of just conversing with ordinary people in the real world -- for example, during a leafletting session to hand out brochures on wild animals. Another idea is to talk with experienced leafletters like those at Vegan Outreach and to read testimonials by people who changed their minds. Just now I was browsing through the quotes at the bottom of this Vegan Outreach newsletter and was impressed by the apparent impact of Food, Inc.. As far as mass impact, the effect of a single incisive film far exceeds that of dozens of academic papers. Of course, before deciding to drop all other plans and fund a documentary, one should consider how many other documentaries fail to achieve mass-impact status, but the option is something to consider. Similar comments apply to viral YouTube videos and the like.

Sorry. Couldn't help it.

Nice.

Alan Dawrst wrote:Of course, those of us from academic backgrounds tend to run to quantitative studies for an answer to every question

False!! Depends on what sort of academic background one has. A lot of the best academic research - including in ethics - has barely any numbers. The study of the impacts of memes is a sociology topic well-suited to qualitative or mixed quantitative-qualitative research. Ditto for marketing research on the design of memes. I'm not familiar with this research but might be able to ask around. However, I think the best approach is just to talk with lots of different people and gauge from them how a framing goes. On that note I wouldn't use the phrase "ordinary people in the real world" because really, who is ordinary, and which world is non-real?

On global catastrophic risk I've gradually developed a phrase along the lines of "helping prevent the destruction of global civilization so we can colonize space before the world ends" as a quick line to convey the basic idea in a way that usually intrigues people so they want to hear more. On utilitarianism I usually simplify with something about "valuing everyone's life equally" which has broad appeal (compare to "we hold these truths to be self-evident...") and then introducing detail regarding lives vs. utility, speciesism, etc as needed. But these might not qualify as memes. Maybe the GCR meme would be along the lines of Spaceship Earth, and the utilitarianism meme would be about promoting equality or something like that. Maybe.

A lot of the best academic research - including in ethics - has barely any numbers. The study of the impacts of memes is a sociology topic well-suited to qualitative or mixed quantitative-qualitative research. Ditto for marketing research on the design of memes.

Hm, I agree that a lot of academic research isn't quantitative, but I don't think that's a good thing. Dealing with philosophical fundamentals it's hard to avoid, but qualitative 'research' in social science just seems like tacit resignation to the fact that it's incredibly hard to be confident about anything, and consequently making stuff up, rather than lowering your confidence to an appropriate level.

Arepo wrote:Hm, I agree that a lot of academic research isn't quantitative, but I don't think that's a good thing. Dealing with philosophical fundamentals it's hard to avoid, but qualitative 'research' in social science just seems like tacit resignation to the fact that it's incredibly hard to be confident about anything, and consequently making stuff up, rather than lowering your confidence to an appropriate level.

We're drifting pretty far off topic here, but it seems worth stressing that qualitative research does not at all imply making stuff up. Quite a lot of it is intensely empirical with quite high methodological standards. Of course we can find also shoddy research in any field, qualitative or otherwise. Also qualitative research is not restricted to social science.

See for example this article on animal rights activists which I stumbled upon this evening
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/jour ... 0/abstract
Unfortunately I couldn't get the full article, but the abstract suggests some of the sorts of insights more readily obtained from qualitative methods.

And for what it's worth, I say all this as someone trained in engineering and applied math.

HI Seth, I started a new thread on this to avoid derailing this one: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=283