In terms of direct work, I think interventions with smaller effects on soil animals as a fraction of those on the target beneficiaries have a lower risk of decreasing animal welfare in expectation. For example, I believe cage-free corporate campaigns have a lower risk of decreasing animal welfare in expectation than decreasing the consumption of chicken meat. For my preferred way of comparing welfare across species (where individual welfare per animal-year is proportional to “number of neurons”^0.5), Iestimate decreasing the consumption of chicken meat changes the welfare of soil ants, termites, springtails, mites, and nematodes 83.7 k times as much as it increaes the welfare of chickens, whereas Icalculate cage-free corporate campaigns change the welfare of such soil animals 1.15 k times as much as they increase the welfare of chickens. On the other hand, in practice, I expect the effects on soil animals to be sufficiently large in both cases for me to be basically agnostic about whether they increase or decrease welfare in expectation.
yes i missed the word stopping!
yes we can always do research for sure that’s great. I was considering direct work though not including research.
In terms of direct work, I think interventions with smaller effects on soil animals as a fraction of those on the target beneficiaries have a lower risk of decreasing animal welfare in expectation. For example, I believe cage-free corporate campaigns have a lower risk of decreasing animal welfare in expectation than decreasing the consumption of chicken meat. For my preferred way of comparing welfare across species (where individual welfare per animal-year is proportional to “number of neurons”^0.5), I estimate decreasing the consumption of chicken meat changes the welfare of soil ants, termites, springtails, mites, and nematodes 83.7 k times as much as it increaes the welfare of chickens, whereas I calculate cage-free corporate campaigns change the welfare of such soil animals 1.15 k times as much as they increase the welfare of chickens. On the other hand, in practice, I expect the effects on soil animals to be sufficiently large in both cases for me to be basically agnostic about whether they increase or decrease welfare in expectation.