I think this post is excellent, but I disagree with your fundamental statement—that if wild Animal Welfare is intractable, then everything is. I think you’ve made a good argument, but only half the tractability argument.
I agree with your well made arguments that in theory, animal welfare is tractable. I think though that your argument is a little bit of a strawman because I think you ignore what is probably the most important part of tractability of Wild animal welfare interventions—will most people actually support and allow interventions that might improve wild animal welfare? As in once we have followed your great thought process and decided on a helpful intervention, is it something that most people will agree with, is it “tractable” in real life.Tractability considerations include both what is physically possible, and what is societally/politically likely to happen (not addressed here). And in the case of Wild Animal Welfare I think the biggest tractability problems are what society/regular people will allow.
Unfortunately much of “tractability” in any field are about what is socially possible and likely to happen, as much as what is mechanically and physically possible. In medicine when we consider tractability of challenge trials, yes they are physically possible—the question is will regulatory bodies and society allow them? That’s the tractability problem, as the trials themselves are obviously theoretically tractable. We could also pretty easily knock half a degree to a degree off where rising temperatures would end up, for example by taxing carbon emissions consistently or even just subsidising green energy more than fossil fuels. But tractability is low on many aspects of climate change work because people these options are close to politically implausible on a global scale.
My biggest questions about tractability of wild animal welfare interventions (unfortunately) are around what’s going to be societally/politically possible, which isn’t addressed at all in this article. On a mechanical, theoretical level yes I agree wild animal welfare is as tractable as everything else, but on a societal/political level, it may be less tractable. At least these aspects need to be considered in order to be accurate about how tractable animal welfare interventions might be.
I agree it’s worth pointing out that Mal addresses only one of the two very distinct kinds of the tractability objection (i.e., cluelessness about our overall influence rather than “can we influence things at all”).
However, I don’t find your tractability concerns compelling. Surely there are consensual WAW interventions people already support, and we might not even need their support. Developing humane insecticides, for example, doesn’t seem obviously less tractable to me than pushing for humane slaughter reforms for farmed animals. (I know very little about WAW and others might give more/better examples, though, or tell me I’m actually wrong and your concerns are fair.)
First I’m not at all anti WAW interventions and i think there will be some that thread the tractable line, I just don’t think the OPs arguments cover most of the tractibility problem here.
I’m not a WAW person, but i would ask you to try a thought experiment. think of 5 WAW interventions you think could have a big impact. Then ask yourself whether most people would actually support and go for them? i disagree that “surely there are consensual WAW interventions people already support”. I think most interventions will have poor public tractibility.
Your insecticide example is a great one. sure you could develop a humane insecticide, but how are you going to get a decent amount of market share and get millions to actually use it? THATs the tractability problem. Most people wouldn’t care enough to buy insecticide that was more humane, they will focus on efficacy, cost and even brand name. i would guess “heavy use of humane insecticide” would be very difficult to make happen, and quite intractable.
Hi Nick! Thanks for engaging. I’m not reading you as being anti WAW interventions, and I think you’re bringing up something that many people will wonder about, so I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to comment on it.
Basically, let’s say the type of intractability worry I was mainly addressing in the post is “intractability due to indirect ecological effects.” And the type you’re talking about is “intractability due to palatability” or something like that.
I think for readers who broadly buy the arguments in my post, but don’t think WAW interventions are palatable, are not correct but for understandable reasons. I think the reason is either (1) underexposure to the most palatable WAW ideas because WAW EAs tend not to focus on/enjoy talking about those or (2) using the “ecologically inert” framework when talking about WAW and one of the other frameworks when talking about other types of interventions.
Let’s first assume you’re okay with spotlighting, at least to a certain degree. Then, “preventing bird-window collisions with bird safe glass legislation” and “banning second generation anti-coagulant rodenticides” are actually very obviously good things to do, and also seem quite cost-effective based on the limited evidence available. I think people don’t really realize how many animals are affected by these issues—my current best-guess CEA for bird safe glass suggest it’s competitive with corporate chicken campaigns, although I want to do a little more research to pin down some high-uncertainty parameters before sharing it more widely.
Anti-coagulant bans and bird-safe glass are also palatable, and the proof is in the pudding: California, for example, has already passed a state-wide ban on these specific rodenticides, and 22 cities (including NYC and Washington DC) have already passed bird-safe glass regulations. I think I could provide probably at least 5 other examples of things that fit into this bucket (low backfire under spotlighting, cost effective, palatable), and I don’t really spend most of my time trying to think of them (because WAI is focused on field-building, not immediate intervention development, and because I’m uncertain if spotlighting is okay or if I should only be seeking ecologically inert interventions).
The important thing to note is that WAW is actually more tractable, in some cases, then FAW interventions because it doesn’t require anyone to change their diet, and people in many cultures have been conditioned to care about wild animals in a way they’ve been conditioned to reject caring about farmed animals. There’s also a lot of “I love wild animals” sentiment being channelled into conservation, but my experience is that when you talk to folks with that sentiment, they also get excited about bird window collision legislation and things like that.
But perhaps you’re actually hoping for ecologically inert interventions. Then, I’m not sure which interventions you’d think would be acceptable instead? Sure, humane insecticides could end up being hard (although I think much less hard than you think, for reasons I won’t go into here). But literally nothing else—in FAW, in GHD, in AI—seems reasonably likely to be ecologically inert while still plausibly causing a reduction in suffering (maybe keel bone fracture issues in FAW?). But the folks who say “WAW interventions aren’t palatable” have not generally, in my experienced, said “and I also don’t do GHD because it’s not ecologically inert”—so I suspect in at least some instances they are asking for ecologically inert interventions from WAW, and something else from their cause area of preference.
Thanks @mal_graham🔸 this is super helpful and makes more sense now. I think it would make your argument far more complete if you put something like your third and fourth paragraphs here in your main article.
And no I’m personally not worried about interventions being ecologically inert.
As a side note its interesting that you aren’t putting much effort into making interventions happen yet—my loose advice would be to get started trying some things. I get that you’re trying to build a field, but to have real-world proof of this tractability it might be better to try something sooner rather than later? Otherwise it will remain theory. I’m not too fussed about arguing whether an intervention will be difficult or not—in general I think we are likely to underestimate how difficult an intervention might be.
Show me a couple of relatively easy wins (even small-ish ones) an I’ll be right on board :).
Thanks! I think I might end up writing a separate post on palatability issues, to be honest :)
On the intervention front, the movement of WAW folks is turning now to interventions in at least some cases (in WAI’s case, rodenticide fertility control is something they’re trying to fundraise for, and at NYU/Arthropoda I’m working on or fundraising for work on humane insecticides and bird window collisions). I just meant that perhaps one reason we don’t have more of them is that there’s been a big focus on field-building for the last five years.
For field-building purposes, there’s still been some focus on interventions for the reasons you mention, but with additional constraints—not just cost-effective to pursue but also attractive to scientists to work on and serves to clarify what WAW is, etc., to maximize the field-building outcomes if we can.
I’m not familiar with the examples you listed @mal_graham🔸(anticoagulant bans and bird-safe glass), are these really robustly examples of palatability? I’m betting that they are more motivated by safety for dogs, children and predatory birds, not the rats? And I’m guessing that even the glass succeeded more on conservation grounds?
Certainly, even if so, it’s good to see that there are some palatability workarounds. But given the small-body problem, this doesn’t encourage great confidence that there could be more latent palatability for important interventions. Especially once the palatable low-hanging fruit are plucked.
I think this post is excellent, but I disagree with your fundamental statement—that if wild Animal Welfare is intractable, then everything is. I think you’ve made a good argument, but only half the tractability argument.
I agree with your well made arguments that in theory, animal welfare is tractable. I think though that your argument is a little bit of a strawman because I think you ignore what is probably the most important part of tractability of Wild animal welfare interventions—will most people actually support and allow interventions that might improve wild animal welfare? As in once we have followed your great thought process and decided on a helpful intervention, is it something that most people will agree with, is it “tractable” in real life. Tractability considerations include both what is physically possible, and what is societally/politically likely to happen (not addressed here). And in the case of Wild Animal Welfare I think the biggest tractability problems are what society/regular people will allow.
Unfortunately much of “tractability” in any field are about what is socially possible and likely to happen, as much as what is mechanically and physically possible. In medicine when we consider tractability of challenge trials, yes they are physically possible—the question is will regulatory bodies and society allow them? That’s the tractability problem, as the trials themselves are obviously theoretically tractable. We could also pretty easily knock half a degree to a degree off where rising temperatures would end up, for example by taxing carbon emissions consistently or even just subsidising green energy more than fossil fuels. But tractability is low on many aspects of climate change work because people these options are close to politically implausible on a global scale.
My biggest questions about tractability of wild animal welfare interventions (unfortunately) are around what’s going to be societally/politically possible, which isn’t addressed at all in this article. On a mechanical, theoretical level yes I agree wild animal welfare is as tractable as everything else, but on a societal/political level, it may be less tractable. At least these aspects need to be considered in order to be accurate about how tractable animal welfare interventions might be.
I agree it’s worth pointing out that Mal addresses only one of the two very distinct kinds of the tractability objection (i.e., cluelessness about our overall influence rather than “can we influence things at all”).
However, I don’t find your tractability concerns compelling. Surely there are consensual WAW interventions people already support, and we might not even need their support. Developing humane insecticides, for example, doesn’t seem obviously less tractable to me than pushing for humane slaughter reforms for farmed animals. (I know very little about WAW and others might give more/better examples, though, or tell me I’m actually wrong and your concerns are fair.)
First I’m not at all anti WAW interventions and i think there will be some that thread the tractable line, I just don’t think the OPs arguments cover most of the tractibility problem here.
I’m not a WAW person, but i would ask you to try a thought experiment. think of 5 WAW interventions you think could have a big impact. Then ask yourself whether most people would actually support and go for them? i disagree that “surely there are consensual WAW interventions people already support”. I think most interventions will have poor public tractibility.
Your insecticide example is a great one. sure you could develop a humane insecticide, but how are you going to get a decent amount of market share and get millions to actually use it? THATs the tractability problem. Most people wouldn’t care enough to buy insecticide that was more humane, they will focus on efficacy, cost and even brand name. i would guess “heavy use of humane insecticide” would be very difficult to make happen, and quite intractable.
Hi Nick! Thanks for engaging. I’m not reading you as being anti WAW interventions, and I think you’re bringing up something that many people will wonder about, so I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to comment on it.
Basically, let’s say the type of intractability worry I was mainly addressing in the post is “intractability due to indirect ecological effects.” And the type you’re talking about is “intractability due to palatability” or something like that.
I think for readers who broadly buy the arguments in my post, but don’t think WAW interventions are palatable, are not correct but for understandable reasons. I think the reason is either (1) underexposure to the most palatable WAW ideas because WAW EAs tend not to focus on/enjoy talking about those or (2) using the “ecologically inert” framework when talking about WAW and one of the other frameworks when talking about other types of interventions.
Let’s first assume you’re okay with spotlighting, at least to a certain degree. Then, “preventing bird-window collisions with bird safe glass legislation” and “banning second generation anti-coagulant rodenticides” are actually very obviously good things to do, and also seem quite cost-effective based on the limited evidence available. I think people don’t really realize how many animals are affected by these issues—my current best-guess CEA for bird safe glass suggest it’s competitive with corporate chicken campaigns, although I want to do a little more research to pin down some high-uncertainty parameters before sharing it more widely.
Anti-coagulant bans and bird-safe glass are also palatable, and the proof is in the pudding: California, for example, has already passed a state-wide ban on these specific rodenticides, and 22 cities (including NYC and Washington DC) have already passed bird-safe glass regulations. I think I could provide probably at least 5 other examples of things that fit into this bucket (low backfire under spotlighting, cost effective, palatable), and I don’t really spend most of my time trying to think of them (because WAI is focused on field-building, not immediate intervention development, and because I’m uncertain if spotlighting is okay or if I should only be seeking ecologically inert interventions).
The important thing to note is that WAW is actually more tractable, in some cases, then FAW interventions because it doesn’t require anyone to change their diet, and people in many cultures have been conditioned to care about wild animals in a way they’ve been conditioned to reject caring about farmed animals. There’s also a lot of “I love wild animals” sentiment being channelled into conservation, but my experience is that when you talk to folks with that sentiment, they also get excited about bird window collision legislation and things like that.
But perhaps you’re actually hoping for ecologically inert interventions. Then, I’m not sure which interventions you’d think would be acceptable instead? Sure, humane insecticides could end up being hard (although I think much less hard than you think, for reasons I won’t go into here). But literally nothing else—in FAW, in GHD, in AI—seems reasonably likely to be ecologically inert while still plausibly causing a reduction in suffering (maybe keel bone fracture issues in FAW?). But the folks who say “WAW interventions aren’t palatable” have not generally, in my experienced, said “and I also don’t do GHD because it’s not ecologically inert”—so I suspect in at least some instances they are asking for ecologically inert interventions from WAW, and something else from their cause area of preference.
Thanks @mal_graham🔸 this is super helpful and makes more sense now. I think it would make your argument far more complete if you put something like your third and fourth paragraphs here in your main article.
And no I’m personally not worried about interventions being ecologically inert.
As a side note its interesting that you aren’t putting much effort into making interventions happen yet—my loose advice would be to get started trying some things. I get that you’re trying to build a field, but to have real-world proof of this tractability it might be better to try something sooner rather than later? Otherwise it will remain theory. I’m not too fussed about arguing whether an intervention will be difficult or not—in general I think we are likely to underestimate how difficult an intervention might be.
Show me a couple of relatively easy wins (even small-ish ones) an I’ll be right on board :).
Thanks! I think I might end up writing a separate post on palatability issues, to be honest :)
On the intervention front, the movement of WAW folks is turning now to interventions in at least some cases (in WAI’s case, rodenticide fertility control is something they’re trying to fundraise for, and at NYU/Arthropoda I’m working on or fundraising for work on humane insecticides and bird window collisions). I just meant that perhaps one reason we don’t have more of them is that there’s been a big focus on field-building for the last five years.
For field-building purposes, there’s still been some focus on interventions for the reasons you mention, but with additional constraints—not just cost-effective to pursue but also attractive to scientists to work on and serves to clarify what WAW is, etc., to maximize the field-building outcomes if we can.
I’m not familiar with the examples you listed @mal_graham🔸(anticoagulant bans and bird-safe glass), are these really robustly examples of palatability? I’m betting that they are more motivated by safety for dogs, children and predatory birds, not the rats? And I’m guessing that even the glass succeeded more on conservation grounds?
Certainly, even if so, it’s good to see that there are some palatability workarounds. But given the small-body problem, this doesn’t encourage great confidence that there could be more latent palatability for important interventions. Especially once the palatable low-hanging fruit are plucked.