The conclusion will be that we either need to nuke ourselves or completely restructure society around maximising nematode wellbeing.
I simply recommend donating more to GiveWell’s funds. Killing humans would be counterproductive. It would mean less human-years, and therefore less agricultural-land-years, and more animal-years of soil nematodes, mites, and springtails, which I think is harmful given my best guess that they have negative lives.
Looks crazy: Even mentioning the issue to say why it doesn’t matter has a significant cost
I feel like the same could be said, although to a lesser extent, about caring about invertebrates, and AIM, ACE, AWF, and RP have supported interventions helping these.
Why not advocate for massive desertification efforts and spreading radioactive material to sterilise the soil.? Bring CFCs back to eradicate ozone.
same could be said, although to a lesser extent, about caring about invertebrates
Yep agree. Invertebrates is approximately the point on the moral consideration spectrum at which the huge numbers * tiny numbers with highly uncertainty makes the ethics too fuzzy and volatile to be fruitful. Somewhere between lobsters and maggots the numbers shoot off towards infinities and the whole thing becomes not worth thinking about.
The cost-effectiveness of advocating for an intervention is the cost-effectiveness of the intervention times the money moved to the intervention as a fraction of the spending advocating for it. I think this fundraising multiplier would be very low for desertification efforts even if they decrease the living time of soil animals more cost-effectively than GiveWell’s top charities, such that advocating for supporting these is more cost-effective.
RP’s probability of sentience of crayfish (similar to lobsters) is only 1.54 (= 0.453/​0.294) times RP’s probability of sentient of black soldier flies (BSFs).
I think if you see desertification as good (you seem to be saying it is), you should have very high suspicion that your ethical framework has led you astray somewhere.
I think desertification is beneficial because deserts, and xeric shrublands is the biome with the least soil nematodes, mites, and springtails by far, and my best guess is that these have negative lives, such that decreasing their population is good (although I am highly uncertain).
Thanks, Henry. Upvoted.
I simply recommend donating more to GiveWell’s funds. Killing humans would be counterproductive. It would mean less human-years, and therefore less agricultural-land-years, and more animal-years of soil nematodes, mites, and springtails, which I think is harmful given my best guess that they have negative lives.
I feel like the same could be said, although to a lesser extent, about caring about invertebrates, and AIM, ACE, AWF, and RP have supported interventions helping these.
Why not advocate for massive desertification efforts and spreading radioactive material to sterilise the soil.? Bring CFCs back to eradicate ozone.
Yep agree. Invertebrates is approximately the point on the moral consideration spectrum at which the huge numbers * tiny numbers with highly uncertainty makes the ethics too fuzzy and volatile to be fruitful.
Somewhere between lobsters and maggots the numbers shoot off towards infinities and the whole thing becomes not worth thinking about.
The cost-effectiveness of advocating for an intervention is the cost-effectiveness of the intervention times the money moved to the intervention as a fraction of the spending advocating for it. I think this fundraising multiplier would be very low for desertification efforts even if they decrease the living time of soil animals more cost-effectively than GiveWell’s top charities, such that advocating for supporting these is more cost-effective.
RP’s probability of sentience of crayfish (similar to lobsters) is only 1.54 (= 0.453/​0.294) times RP’s probability of sentient of black soldier flies (BSFs).
I think if you see desertification as good (you seem to be saying it is), you should have very high suspicion that your ethical framework has led you astray somewhere.
I think desertification is beneficial because deserts, and xeric shrublands is the biome with the least soil nematodes, mites, and springtails by far, and my best guess is that these have negative lives, such that decreasing their population is good (although I am highly uncertain).