{"items": [{"author": "Todd", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/112947709146257842066", "anchor": "gp-1366078971113", "service": "gp", "text": "Insofar as you're not a vegetarian, does this particular issue matter to you, or are you looking at this as an example of a way to tackle issues without lifestyle changes more generally?", "timestamp": 1366078971}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1366079625152", "service": "gp", "text": "@Todd\n\u00a0Mostly I just happen to get interested in things and then I write about them. \u00a0If I have to construct a coherent story it's that I'm interested in charity evaluation and practicing in a field where I'm not invested in any outcome seems helpful.", "timestamp": 1366079625}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181209808699134", "anchor": "fb-181209808699134", "service": "fb", "text": "This is coming out of feedback from a lot of people, but Wayne and Jonas Vollmer have been especially helpful.", "timestamp": "1366079687"}, {"author": "David Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/106120852580068301475", "anchor": "gp-1366079911742", "service": "gp", "text": "I think this is pretty much how effectiveness of online ad campaigns is measured by (reasonably sophisticated) people trying to make money off it (rather than do good). Having to get people to fill out a survey is a bit more complex than watching to see if they buy the product. But overall the setup is similar. ", "timestamp": 1366079911}, {"author": "David Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/106120852580068301475", "anchor": "gp-1366080056452", "service": "gp", "text": "(The difference from what I've heard described is instead of site A and site B they have ad A and ad B. Instead of a 404, ad B is generally some kind of PSA unrelated to the product being sold.)", "timestamp": 1366080056}, {"author": "Peter", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181224495364332", "anchor": "fb-181224495364332", "service": "fb", "text": "Don't forget that there's also a line of evidence from the pamphlets themselves that also point to a figure of ~$10 to prevent a year of suffering on a factory farm: http://www.greatplay.net/.../new-evidence-for-cost...

Secondly, the ~$10/prevented year figure is already adjusted for non-response bias and desirability bias, see http://www.greatplay.net/vegan-outreach-cost.... Without those adjustments (90% and 25% respectively), the value would be <$0.23/year.

I don't take these numbers at as much face value as it may look. I do want to hold out for more evidence. But I also think the case is more compelling than it looks, though not much more, given (1) two sources that yield coherence, (2) these sources also cohering with anecdotes from people passing out pamphlets in the field, and (3) the conservative adjustments for response and desirability biases.

Also, note that these calculations aren't in veg-years, but years prevented. One veg year is supposed to approximately yield 1 year of vegetarianism is ~13 years of factory farm suffering prevented, I think, assuming I used my calculator right.", "timestamp": "1366081680"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181370288683086", "anchor": "fb-181370288683086", "service": "fb", "text": "@Peter: \"line of evidence from the pamphlets themselves that also point to a figure of ~$10 to prevent a year of suffering on a factory farm\"

I didn't mention pamphlets because the evidence there is very bad. They only surveyed people who remembered getting a pamphlet, which is a big bias. And then the survey itself is http://ccc.farmsanctuary.org/.../01/LeafletingSurvey.pdf Having big pictures of the pamphlets makes it even more clear what the experimenters want. When I saw the 2013 survey it actually made me doubt the 2011 survey more because I was so disappointed in it.

\"these calculations aren't in veg-years, but years prevented\"

This is confusing. I'm talking about veg-years, and the $11 figure from Brian is also about veg-years: http://www.utilitarian-essays.com/veg-ads.html", "timestamp": "1366111537"}, {"author": "Brian", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181372685349513", "anchor": "fb-181372685349513", "service": "fb", "text": "Thanks, Toby! I think the concern about whether people would otherwise have gone veg anyway is mostly/partly allayed by the fact that the videos also influence a bunch of people who don't go veg right away. I proposed a \"100-yard-line model\" to illustrate: http://felicifia.org/viewtopic.php?t=786. I think a potentially bigger problem is that the people who go veg may have already eaten less meat before, and many converts are women who eat less meat in general.", "timestamp": "1366111804"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181373758682739", "anchor": "fb-181373758682739", "service": "fb", "text": "@Peter: How does your calculator treat vegetarian attrition? In a \"null hypothesis\" model we could have 2% of american teenagers going veg in any six month period and another 2% giving it up. Your correction for response bias doesn't include that the survey is only of \"likers\" and so isn't going to include the 2% of people who gave it up.", "timestamp": "1366112136"}, {"author": "Brian", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181379372015511", "anchor": "fb-181379372015511", "service": "fb", "text": "The leafleting study gave numbers very similar to what people in the field have observed anecdotally over the years (~1-2% going veg). There can obviously be reporting bias here too, but each puzzle piece adds something to the story.

Maybe my biggest fear with these surveys is that people may have been pushed over the 100-yard line by something else, but when asked the survey, they still attribute it to the video. Maybe they saw the video and then were pushed over the edge by something else, but it all happened in a short enough window that they say, yes, I went veg after watching the video. Maybe there are also people who were already veg but misread the question (or want to inflate the numbers) and so say the happy answers in their survey responses.

TBH, I think the written comments on the videos are some of the best evidence. I've read hundreds of them, and the sheer number of people affected isn't small. I wonder if there's a way to get a lower bound on the impact through comments alone.", "timestamp": "1366113265"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181379828682132", "anchor": "fb-181379828682132", "service": "fb", "text": "@Brian:\" I wonder if there's a way to get a lower bound on the impact through comments alone.\"

Sure. Put the comments into \"reverse chronological\" sort, then go back a months counting the number of \"OMG i'm never eating meat again!\" comments. Then ask Nick Cooney how many people went to the site in the time period.

My guess is that this would be a pretty disappointing lower bound, though, partly because people mostly don't comment.", "timestamp": "1366113461"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181380035348778", "anchor": "fb-181380035348778", "service": "fb", "text": "@Brian: \"The leafleting study gave numbers very similar to what people in the field have observed anecdotally over the years (~1-2% going veg).\"

If I were a leafleter, how would I know how many people I gave leaflets to actually went vegetarian?", "timestamp": "1366113556"}, {"author": "Peter", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181430838677031", "anchor": "fb-181430838677031", "service": "fb", "text": "Jeff Kaufman: \"They only surveyed people who remembered getting a pamphlet, which is a big bias. And then the survey itself is http://ccc.farmsanctuary.org/.../01/LeafletingSurvey.pdf Having big pictures of the pamphlets makes it even more clear what the experimenters want.\"

Those are two important biases. I suppose you could adjust by amping up the desirability bias and response bias numbers on the calculator. Furthermore, one could distribute the surveys to populations who have not received leaflets and see if they respond differently. Though if the desirability bias is only in receiving a leaflet + being asked about that leaflet, it might require having to do something like verify their purchasing history, ask their friends, or go through their trash.

I am a bit surprised they didn't record data from folks who don't remember the pamphlet. Could be an interesting population to compare to.", "timestamp": "1366121192"}, {"author": "Peter", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181431978676917", "anchor": "fb-181431978676917", "service": "fb", "text": "Jeff Kaufman: \"How does your calculator treat vegetarian attrition?\"

There is a setting on the calculator for \"average number of years spent vegetarian\" with the current estimate being 4-6.", "timestamp": "1366121290"}, {"author": "Peter", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181432185343563", "anchor": "fb-181432185343563", "service": "fb", "text": "Jeff Kaufman: \"If I were a leafleter, how would I know how many people I gave leaflets to actually went vegetarian?\"

I think it comes from people coming up to you, recognizing you, and telling you they went vegetarian (for example, when you as a leafleter revisit a campus).", "timestamp": "1366121345"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181546021998846", "anchor": "fb-181546021998846", "service": "fb", "text": "@Peter: \"people coming up to you, recognizing you, and telling you they went vegetarian\"

This at least sounds like something one could count.", "timestamp": "1366138544"}, {"author": "Brian", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181731368646978", "anchor": "fb-181731368646978", "service": "fb", "text": "The page that I'm quoting from no longer exists, but here is from my old and less trustworthy piece (http://www.utilitarian-essays.com/dollar-worth.pdf):

---
Often while leafleting on a campus, students read the brochure and then
approach us saying they are not going to eat meat any longer. Jack Norris
averaged about 1 per campus when he was traveling to campuses, averaging
about 235 brochures per campus (note: the pamphlets were
less powerful and in black and white at the time he was travelling in 1996-
97; we expect that they are more e\u000bective now). We also get e-mails from
students saying they became veg and sometimes we run into students who
told us they went vegetarian after reading the brochure from a previous
time we were on campus.
---

I don't know if they've actually tallied all the emails, etc. over time, but at least in the early days, when Jack was one of the only leafleters out there, it seems like these calculations would have been more straightforward.", "timestamp": "1366167304"}, {"author": "Brian", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181732661980182", "anchor": "fb-181732661980182", "service": "fb", "text": "On second thought, I think the \"number of comments\" estimate may not be too pessimistic. It's hard to determine the total number of comments, because Facebook keeps erasing them. Right now, http://ag-laws.info/ has almost 20K. Say 1/10 of them are \"omg I'm never eating meat\" comments. Say ~$10^5 has been spent on the ads so far. (I think that's right within an order of magnitude.) Maybe there have been ~50K comments so far, or ~5K \"omg\" ones. Then that's like ~$20 per \"omg\" comment. Say the \"omg\" people go veg for 6 months on average. That's like $40/veg year. Obviously huge uncertainty here, but I would be surprised if the cost were several orders of magnitude higher. I think all of my estimates were pretty conservative, especially considering that I'm not counting anyone who didn't comment.", "timestamp": "1366167699"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181859415300840", "anchor": "fb-181859415300840", "service": "fb", "text": "@Brian: \"Say 1/10 of them are 'omg I'm never eating meat' comments\"

Let's count. Looking at the first 100 (so percentages are convenient) with a reverse chronological sort on http://ag-laws.info my tallies are:

going vegan: 3
going vegetarian: 0
eat less meat: 2
other: 95

Most of the posts for ag-laws are \"stop animal abuse\", \"this is sad\", or \"poor pigs\". The few who mention veg*ism are mostly not saying they're going veg because of this but that they're already veg.

Being curious about what this looks like on some of the other sites with different videos, I did another count, this time on http://www.whosagainstanimalcruelty.org/ :

going vegan: 0
going vegetarian: 22 (+1 relative)
eat less meat: 5
other: 73

(This is kind of hard going, getting past comments like \"we have to eat meat to survive if not animals wiil take over\" and \"not EVERY single person in the world will go vegan if we do we will have an over population of animals\")

Now http://hiddenfaceoffood.com/

going vegan: 0
going vegetarian: 6
eat less meat: 0
other: 94

(More bad examples: \"Become a vegetarian and your worst enemy then becomes Monsanto and the antibiotics (such as Glyphosate) that are sprayed indiscriminately on our crops\", \"That's why the cost of fruits, vegetables and grain products has skyrocked, the world can not sustain humanity on a vegetarian diet. People all over the world are dying because of drought conditions brought on by over farming the land.\")", "timestamp": "1366199174"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=181866295300152", "anchor": "fb-181866295300152", "service": "fb", "text": "I just turned my counting into a new top level post: http://www.jefftk.com/news/2013-04-17", "timestamp": "1366200519"}, {"author": "Brian", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=183247931828655", "anchor": "fb-183247931828655", "service": "fb", "text": "Oh dear. :P
Yes, one does have to get used to such arguments.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/.../4129322738_d4e5fafd54...", "timestamp": "1366525165"}, {"author": "Wayne", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/181206435366138?comment_id=183734595113322", "anchor": "fb-183734595113322", "service": "fb", "text": "", "timestamp": "1366660030"}]}