“Visionary Pragmatism: A Third Way for Animal Advocacy” by Dilan Fernando

This work is my own, written in my spare time, and doesn’t reflect the views of my employer. Less than ~3% of the text is AI-generated. Thank you to Laila Kassam, Haven King-Nobles, Lincoln Quirk, Tom Billington and Harley McDonald-Eckersall for their feedback, which doesn’t imply their endorsement of the ideas presented.Summary Most animal advocates want sweeping change — to end factory farming at the very least, and often to go even further. But across the movement, we rarely talk in depth about how we'll actually achieve these kinds of long-term goals. Instead, I believe much of the movement has adopted a mindset I call short-term pragmatism: a focus on measurable, near-term wins that has delivered real victories, but which risks leaving us without a path to our ultimate aims. I suspect the convergence towards this mentality is a reaction to another dominant mindset, passionate idealism. This post argues that to achieve the long-term goals we truly aspire to, we must think differently. I make the case for visionary pragmatism — a third way that starts with an ambitious end goal and applies clear thinking to achieve it. To illustrate how animal advocates can position ourselves as [...] ---Outline:(00:32) Summary(02:00) Introductory Context(04:04) 1. The problem: our current way of thinking risks long-term failure(05:24) 1.1. Short-term pragmatism: our dominant mindset(08:20) 1.2. Why (I think) short-term pragmatism draws us in(10:18) 1.3. The strategic limitations of short-term pragmatism(12:12) 2. The solution: visionary pragmatism(12:33) 2.1. Defining visionary pragmatism(13:31) 2.2. Six core qualities of visionary pragmatism(42:02) 2.3. Summarising visionary pragmatism(42:45) 3. Next steps: cultivating visionary pragmatism(44:31) 4. Over to you! --- First published: November 9th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/38K7pn8SSpRgRGKGq/visionary-pragmatism-a-third-way-for-animal-advocacy --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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