Yes, I estimated over 99.9 % of the benefits of donating to GiveWell’s top charities come from reducing the number of soil animals.
I would say buying animal-based foods is in agreement with human values in the sense of increasing the welfare of both consumers and animals.
I would be surprised if there are cost-effective ways of advocating for decreasing agricultural land which decrease human welfare. The cost-effectiveness of advocating for an intervention is the cost-effectiveness of the intervention times the money moved to it as a fraction of the spending on advocating it, and this fundraising multiplier will tend to be much lower for advocy for supporting interventions which decrease human welfare.
I doubt that total human welfare is negative. I estimated only 6.37 % of people have negative lives. However, even if total human welfare was negative, I do not think it would make sense for superintelligent AI to kill all humans:
I guess making human welfare positive would be not only more beneficial, but also cheaper, thus increasing human welfare more cost-effectively.
Even if killing all humans was the most cost-effective way of increasing human welfare, I believe the overall effect of this would be driven by effects on soil nematodes, mites, and springtails, and that these would be harmed as a result of the decrease in agricultural-land-years caused by the extinction of humans.
I think increasing human-years via decreasing human mortality is generally more cost-effective than through increasing human fertility. GiveWell’s top charities save a life for around 5 k$, 10 % of the lowest cost per additional birth of 50 k$ I found with a quick search.
I think effects on humans are smaller than those on soil animals, so I would focus on these whenever there are conflicts, but I am sceptical about finding cost-effective ways of helping soil animals that significantly harm humans.
Yes, I estimated over 99.9 % of the benefits of donating to GiveWell’s top charities come from reducing the number of soil animals.
I would say buying animal-based foods is in agreement with human values in the sense of increasing the welfare of both consumers and animals.
I would be surprised if there are cost-effective ways of advocating for decreasing agricultural land which decrease human welfare. The cost-effectiveness of advocating for an intervention is the cost-effectiveness of the intervention times the money moved to it as a fraction of the spending on advocating it, and this fundraising multiplier will tend to be much lower for advocy for supporting interventions which decrease human welfare.
I doubt that total human welfare is negative. I estimated only 6.37 % of people have negative lives. However, even if total human welfare was negative, I do not think it would make sense for superintelligent AI to kill all humans:
I guess making human welfare positive would be not only more beneficial, but also cheaper, thus increasing human welfare more cost-effectively.
Even if killing all humans was the most cost-effective way of increasing human welfare, I believe the overall effect of this would be driven by effects on soil nematodes, mites, and springtails, and that these would be harmed as a result of the decrease in agricultural-land-years caused by the extinction of humans.
I think increasing human-years via decreasing human mortality is generally more cost-effective than through increasing human fertility. GiveWell’s top charities save a life for around 5 k$, 10 % of the lowest cost per additional birth of 50 k$ I found with a quick search.
I think effects on humans are smaller than those on soil animals, so I would focus on these whenever there are conflicts, but I am sceptical about finding cost-effective ways of helping soil animals that significantly harm humans.