If you work in the Animal movement, you need to move to San Francisco

I’m Itsi Weinstock, you might not know me yet. I am the SF lead for Senterra Funders, the coordination org for the Animal Welfare movement.

You need to move to San Francisco. Whether you are currently working in the movement, or are thinking about getting into the movement, you need to be here. I don’t care if you run a large organization, I don’t think there’s a good reason not to pick up your life and move here unless you literally cannot. This is the most important moment in history if we are going to stop putting 100s of billions of animals through factory farms, the closest approximation to hell.

Power is concentrating. You don’t need to have crazy predictions about AI to see that. San Francisco is quickly becoming the capital of the world. This is a small city of 800,000 people where billions of dollars are flowing every day. There is a narrow period here where we can influence the people and culture of this city to get them to care, but we are missing that boat. The companies here are gobbling up more and more industries, and this would be true even if AI didn’t keep getting better. But AI systems are getting better, and things are about to get monumentally more crazy and unequal.

Whether you like it or not, the people in this city are the people who decide how that future goes, what gets cared about, and where resources get spent. If they want to, they will end factory farming. We are a paltry (lol), small movement with about 2,000 people and only about $300M a year across the whole world. Fortunately for us, this city has thrown many, many billions at things before, and they’ll do it again if we can convince them that what we are doing is cool, valuable, and effective, and because we are their friends and they like us. Because of the effect of EA on the city, animal welfare is already in the water. But it’s not enough, and that’s why you need to get here and push it further. Do not underestimate the effect you can have on the culture by just being here, being interesting, working on interesting things, and being friends with people. The world moves from the house parties in this city.

We are critically underinvested in San Francisco. There is a small and mighty rag tag crew here, trying to get people to care, but we need it to be so much bigger. And we need projects and organizations here. Sentient Futures has quickly become the most important community building organization in the world, but we need far more than that.

So what would it look like to do this properly? It means huge chunks of the movement moves here. I look at the AI Safety movement which has gone from a few scattered researchers to a behemoth in a few years, with many designated buildings around the Bay. This has vastly improved the communication and speed of their ecosystem. They have centralized to do their work, run fellowships, deploy grants, and make a huge influence on the city and the future. We can do this too. We get our organizations to set up their bases here and move people over. We set up exciting new projects, fellowships, and incubators. We become friends with everyone, and turn San Francisco into the city whose legacy includes ending factory farming. This will take time. But it needs to start with specifically you moving here to do what you can to get it started.

It was hard for me to move to San Francisco. I dreaded it. I am from Australia, the best place in the world. I love culture, music and wine, and having friends and communities that I’ve known for decades. The tech scene in SF is not known for these things. And it is hard to be here as an immigrant. But it is where the future is happening. And it is where you will find people, who, like yourself, are willing to acknowledge that and have come here to make it go better. And frankly, because it lacks culture, you can have a big impact on it.

I don’t have a specific job for you. You’ll need some grit to figure out what the plan is. But there is so much to do, and as long as you are motivated we can make it work; helping you get cheap accommodation, introducing you to people, starting you on project ideas, and even training you into an AI Safety researcher so you can make a dent on how AI gets developed in a way that is better for animals.

You have probably committed your life or made a lot of sacrifices already to be in the animal movement. You have done it before and I am asking you to do it again. Moving to San Francisco is probably the best thing for animal welfare the movement you will ever do.

Scott Alexander, one of SFs most important writers and intellectuals, wrote in You Have Only X Years To Escape Permanent Moon Ownership to criticize the boring, wealth-hoarding ambitions of many in SF who want to “escape the permanent underclass”:

In such a situation, greatness is pathetically easy. A random woman gave Jesus a washcloth to wipe his face on the way to his crucifixion. She is now known as St. Veronica, patroness of laundry workers, and one out of every 2,500 girls in America is named in her honor. She has an annual feast day, approximately one million beautiful Renaissance paintings, a chapel in Jerusalem, and lesser churches all around the world (including one here in San Francisco). The richest olive merchant in Jerusalem that year is long forgotten, but she endures.

I hope this resonates with you. We all aim to be Veronica, we do the right thing just because it is right, and hope our deeds pass through the ages. But I also hope you also see the tremendous importance of being in the right place—she was, very importantly—in Jerusalem.

Get here!

PS: I will admit, I’m actually being narrow. I think there’s other places you’re allowed to be. San Francisco, Washington DC, or China. Maybe India or Brazil. End of list. If you’re working in those other places it might be ok to stay there.