People, it needs-must be remarked, tend to think of new technologies as a point rather than a vector. What I mean by this is that people grasp new technologies, their immediate reaction is to think about what the next five years are going to be like with the technology as it exists now. But that neglects new technology isn’t stationary.

I wanted to illustrate this by showing how fast things change. About two and a half years ago I happened to use an image generator to create images to go with quotes from Sufjan Stevens songs. Now I want to show you how much things have changed in 30 months or so.

(Orginal image generator here).

A jump of similar magnitude again, whether in large language model performance, or image generator performance is almost unimaginable. I’m not saying a jump like this is going to happen again, but certainly, there will be a jump.

You stare at the sun to see the sublime

All things grow

The lion and the lamb are restored

I was dressed in white

His father was a drinker

In the tower above the earth

Justice delivers its death

I’ll find sleep, I’ll find peace

Blackbird on my shoulder

For this one I wanted to include all four generated Midjourney images because I was shocked at how similar they all were!

I built your walls around me

All of me wants all of you

Signs and wonders

My friend is gone, he ran away

We were ashamed of her

We’re all going to die

It’s your own damn head on that plate

For this one, Midjourney refused to generate an image, because its language AI flagged it as too violent, a change that seemed as interesting as any image.

How do you persuade the whole world to stop eating meat?

I have been trying for half a century. My book Animal Liberation was published in 1975, when I was 29 years old. I argued that our treatment of animals is ethically unjustifiable: If it’s wrong to cause unnecessary suffering, then it’s wrong regardless of the sufferer’s species. On that basis, I urged readers to stop eating meat. Though I described how animals are forced to endure extreme suffering on factory farms and in laboratories, my appeal was to rationality, not emotion. I believed I had proved that there was no reasonable defense for animal cruelty.

At the time, my position was widely considered radical, even bizarre. Today it’s mainstream. And yet the paradoxical fact remains: Even as the ethical arguments for avoiding meat have become better known, meat consumption has risen not only in countries that are emerging out of poverty, but in the U.S. as well. I never could have predicted that vegan living and carnivorousness might rise in tandem in the same society. What should we make of that?

I have been asking myself this question recently while working on Animal Liberation Now, which renews and updates my earlier book. The process has made me wonder what my younger self would have thought if he had known that, 48 years later, meat consumption would be higher than ever.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the publication of Animal Liberation. It began as an essay in The New York Review of Books. Robert Silvers, the magazine’s legendary editor, told me that my arguments persuaded him to give up meat. This was immensely encouraging. If I, an academic philosopher, could win over the editor of what was then America’s preeminent publication for progressive ideas, surely millions of other converts would swiftly follow. It seemed reasonable to hope that the market for the products of factory farms would soon shrink or even collapse.

[Read: Your diet is cooking the planet]

Measured against those expectations, Animal Liberation was a failure. Some of the rise in meat eating simply tracks population growth and increased prosperity in countries, like China, whose citizens were once too poor to afford meat. But even in the United States, per capita consumption of meat and poultry is 24 percent higher than it was in 1975. The average American is eating less beef, but that has been more than offset by higher consumption of chicken and turkey. That’s even worse from an animal-welfare perspective. More birds must be raised and killed to produce the same quantity of meat, and they are raised in more crowded and intensive conditions than cows are.

At the same time, I would have been pleased to know that the book would succeed at changing minds. Back in the early 1970s, the treatment of animals was a nonissue, especially on the political left, where it was seen as a sentimental concern limited to animal lovers. Animal Liberation seems to have helped change that. Ingrid Newkirk, the founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has written that the book “made people—myself included—change what we ate, what we wore, and how we perceived animals.”

In the decades since, the animal-welfare movement has achieved important reforms, especially in Europe. The European Union and the United Kingdom have prohibited keeping hens in bare wire cages that prevent them from stretching their wings. Veal calves and breeding sows used to be housed in stalls so narrow that they were unable to turn around or walk more than a single step; that is now also illegal. These changes fall far short of what is needed but they give hundreds of millions of animals a better life.

Perhaps the most obvious change is cultural: In the West, there are far more vegetarians today than there were in 1975. I did not dare advocate going vegan in the original version of Animal Liberation, because it seemed too extreme. Today, avoiding all animal products isn’t so daring.

Can we attribute this shift to the success of ethical arguments? Recent experimental evidence suggests that they did play a role. In 2016, the philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel invited me to collaborate on a study designed to test whether a single discussion about the ethics of eating meat would make students more likely to choose vegetarian meals. Eric thought it would not. Based on my anecdotal experience, I thought it might.

We randomly divided more than 1,000 undergraduate students at UC Riverside into two equal groups. One was assigned to read an article arguing, on ethical grounds, against eating meat from factory farms, which was followed by a small-group discussion and an optional video advocating avoiding meat. The other, the control group, got a similar lesson plan about donating money to help people in poverty. Because many students at Riverside use their student-ID cards to pay for meals, we could track their food choices after the lessons. Meat consumption stayed the same for the control group, but declined among those in the group that discussed animal ethics. Another recent study found similar results using arguments about meat consumption’s role in global warming, rather than animal suffering. Remarkably, the researchers found that the effect persisted three years later.   

The most awkward conversations I have had since publishing Animal Liberation have not been with people who reject my arguments, but with those who tell me that they think I’m right—and continue to eat meat anyway. I have always known that ethics are not paramount for everyone all the time. Only a bold person would claim that they always do what they believe to be right, no matter the sacrifice. Still, I will never forget when, shortly after I arrived at Princeton, a new colleague told me at dinner that she agreed with my views about the treatment of animals. She told me this, you see, over the factory-farmed chicken she had just ordered from a menu that included the perfectly adequate vegan meal I was enjoying.

My older, wiser, and reluctantly realistic self now accepts that most people can easily continue doing something they believe is wrong as long as they have plenty of company. I suspect that when these people say they agree with my views, what they’re really saying is that they care about animal welfare and climate change, but they’re not going to adjust their individual habits until everyone else does.

[Read: The coming obsolescence of animal meat]

This doesn’t mean that ethical arguments are useless. It means, rather, that their effect is felt most powerfully at the level of the policy changes that voters will support, rather than in people’s choice of what to buy at the supermarket. Many people have a sense that their individual actions don’t matter, but are in favor of passing laws that would constrain their options. In 2018, 63 percent of California voters supported Proposition 12, which required that all products from farmed animals sold in California must come from animals who have sufficient space to turn around and stretch their limbs or wings. (Earlier this month, in a major victory for the animal-welfare movement, the Supreme Court rejected a claim by pork producers that Prop 12 violates the U.S. Constitution.) A similar 2016 initiative in Massachusetts passed by an even more lopsided 78 percent. In both states, most of those voting for change must have been consuming animal products produced under the very conditions they were voting to prohibit.

When it comes to public policy in the United States, however, the role that money and lobbyists play makes changing anything that agribusiness opposes very difficult. It’s telling that, of the 14 U.S. states that have required-minimum-space allowances for farmed animals, all but two provide for ballot initiatives. There is no such federal mechanism. This helps explain why animal-welfare laws are further developed in democracies where money plays a more restricted political role, and where improvements for farmed animals have come through national or (in the case of the EU) transnational legislation.

Political hurdles will be more surmountable if we invest in alternatives to meat that people want and can afford, making it easier for them to align their actions, and votes, with their ethics. The rise of more appealing meat alternatives is a major cause for optimism. Novel plant-based foods that taste and chew like meat help people switch to a more ethical diet, although these products need to get cheaper to compete with meat from animals. Lab-grown meat could be even more revolutionary. Chicken produced from cultured animal cells is already on sale in Singapore. In Israel, the biotech firm Remilk says it can produce “real” dairy products made by copying the gene responsible for milk production in cows and inserting it into yeast cells. The company received regulatory approval in April. But lab-grown products are even further from being affordable and sustainable at scale than plant-based foods are. It’s crucial for investors to support research and development, for regulators to ease products’ path to market, and for governments to encourage their production.

I was an idealistic young man when Animal Liberation was published. Today I am an idealistic old man. The world has changed since 1975 in ways I couldn’t have imagined, many of them for the worse. But I remain convinced that philosophical arguments can shape how people live their lives. As long as that is true, there is hope for a future in which we will cease to inflict avoidable suffering on any sentient being.

The following memos, exchanged between fall 2023 and spring 2029, document the choices that lead to the total destruction of American Community College. The first party in this exchange is the Center for Academic Excellence, a faction within ACC’s sprawling marketing division charged with “supporting student success.” At the time they branded themselves “CaX!” and referred to their own memos as “CaXbLaSts!.” The other party is Sisyphina Jones, a tenured philosophy instructor who appears to be the only faculty member ever to reply to a CaXbLaSt!.

CaXbLaSt!, August 2023:

Our data indicates that faculty office hours are underutilized by students. Total utilization has fallen from 12% of available hours in 2012 to 8% in 2022. This is an outcome that does not support student success.

CaX! is undertaking a campus-wide re-branding of faculty office hours. To support your students in being successful, please deprecate the term “office hours” and replace it with “happy fun times.”

CaX! anticipates your enthusiasm and asks that you promptly report your increase in student utilization of happy fun times. This is Priority One, people! Let’s make this happen!

Instructor Jones’s memo, December 2023:

I regret to report a decline in student visits to office hours. In our final class meeting I asked why so few of them came to see me for “happy fun times.” It turns out they thought it was a childcare thing.

CaXbLaSt!, January 2024:

Please deprecate “happy fun times” and replace it with “adult happy fun times.” Come on, team! We’ve got this!

Jones memo, May 2024:

I regret to report that my office-hours visits cratered to zero. Students thought I was inviting them to an orgy. It hurts me, though it does not surprise me, that they were appalled.

CaXbLaSt!, August 2024:

Deprecate “adult happy fun times.” Replace with “Title IX compliant adult happy fun times.” Our faculty rocks!!

Jones memo, December 2024:

No change. Students are unfamiliar with Title IX but speculated that it is a reference to The Hunger Games. They thought I was proposing not a standard orgy, but rather a competitive, violent one.

CaXbLaSt!, January 2025:

“Title IX compliant (sexually non-threatening) adult happy fun times.”

Jones memo, May 2025:

How could this elegant branding have failed? I regret to report no change.

I had a thought. The adjunct who teaches in my classroom before me preps and grades in her car. She says it would be easier to hold Title IX compliant (sexually non-threatening) adult happy fun times if she could check out a stool for students to sit on. Perhaps in a hallway on campus?

Given that we have been on a long march to our current ratio of three stool-less adjuncts for each tenured instructor, I am fighting the urge to question whether the original decline in student use of office hours was indeed a consequence of sub-optimal marketing.

CaXbLaSt!, May 2025:

CaX! is fighting the urge to question faculty’s commitment to student success. No one wants that! Our faculty rocks!! Stick with the plan. This fall, shorten to “sexually non-threatening adult happy fun times” abbreviated and stylized “SnTaHfT” for visual interest. This is the one.

Jones memo, December 2025:

Across my division, student visits to SnTaHfTs stick stubbornly at zero. I request that we replace “SnTaHfTs” with the legible, if old-fashioned, branding of “office hours,” and further request that we issue adjuncts a stool and a taped-off patch of hallway they may use for office hours.

Personal communication from CaX! to Instructor Jones, December 2025:

Adjuncts are valued members of our campus community and we at CaX! do literally everything possible to support their mission-critical work. Unfortunately, no discretionary funds are available for stools or tape. Those funds are earmarked for an exciting student-success initiative. (Spoiler alert: it’s a custom app to get out the word re: SnTaHfTs.)

CaXbLaSt!, January 2026:

Exciting news!! As part of our mission to support student success, CaX! has partnered with GesichtReich Ltd. to create a custom app: SnTaHfT.crush! SnTaHfT.crush allows students to up-crush each other’s mentions of SnTaHfTs and use those up-crushes to enter raffles for ACC swag. We are thrilled to bring this unique deliverable to our amazing students. Make sure to include SnTaHfT.crush on your syllabi, demo it in your first few class meetings, give students bigtime extra credit for installing it, and prepare to be inundated with students in your SnTaHfTs!

CaXbLaSt!, February 2026:

Please pause your promotion of SnTaHfT.crush. Several law enforcement agencies have disclosed a concern that GesichtReich Ltd. may be a Russian hacker cartel devoted to identity theft and sex trafficking. If true, this would not support student success. In the meantime, please report your data assessing student utilization of SnTaHfTs.

Jones memo, February 2026:

It has been more than two years since a student last visited my sexually non-threatening adult happy fun times.

CaXbLaSt!, March 2026:

Exciting news!! GesichtReich Ltd. is not a Russian hacker cartel! Please encourage your students to use the heck out of SnTaHfT.crush. Remind them that they can win swag and get attention. Don’t forget that this app cost a lot of money. So much money. Up-crush those mentions, teachers!

CaXbLaSt!, December 2026: 

Exciting news!! CaX! and American Community College have partnered with SpaceX to promote SnTaHfT.crush! We have volunteered to become the first community college to host a Falcon-Heavy-capable launchpad. In exchange, SpaceX will brand our campus “Spaceport ACC” and every rocket launched from it will display innovative messaging from CaX! The upgrades to our physical plant will take approximately two years, but we’ve already locked in our first ad. In reflective letters on the side of a Falcon Heavy our students will see: “SnTaHfT.crush!!!! visit the app store it’s FREEEEEE!!!” This will support their success!

Our radical reimagination of the modern community college provides invaluable marketing opportunities. The one downside is that during the conversion/construction phase we won’t have access to campus, and therefore must suspend SnTaHfTs and in-person classes for a few semesters.

Jones memo, December 2026:

Please don’t do this.

CaXbLaSt!, March 2029:

Obviously, CaX! is disappointed with yesterday’s debut launch from Spaceport ACC. We anticipated a glorious arc of rocket fire capped with our innovative ad for SnTaHfT.crush. Instead, we witnessed an explosion on the launchpad, the incineration of our campus, and the nearly instantaneous conversion of our misfortune into a remorseless tide of mean-spirited memes. That is not the outcome we were hoping for.

But, honestly? We’ve struggled for years to find the right branding for what were once called faculty office hours, the trends in the assessment data were never encouraging, and our budget was perennially threatened by adjuncts demanding stools. Yes, our campus is reduced to rubble. But the problem of faculty office hours is finally solved. Viewed through the lens of student success, mightn’t it be this is all for the best?

———–

D.L.E. Roger is a pen name of an instructor at a Midwestern community college.