Vasco Grilo🔸 comments on How to campaign about the recent UK aid cuts

[Vasco Grilo🔸]

Thanks, Sanjay! Great points.

Putting together all the second order and third order considerations, I don’t think it’s clear which outcome leads to be better outcomes for animals, so I’m inclined to treat the effects on animals as a neutral factor.

I agree it is unclear whether campaigning against aid cuts is beneficial or harmful to animals. However, treating the effects on animals as neutral requires the effects on animals to be much smaller in magnitude than the effects on humans. I can easily see the effects on animals being negative and larger in magnitude. So I do not know whether campaigning against aid cuts is beneficial or harmful.

To clarify, I distinguish between these 2 possibilities for “effect on animals” + “effect on humans” = “overall effect”:

• “Small positive/​negative number” (effect on animals) + “medium positive number” (effect on humans) = “medium positive number” (overall effect). One can neglect the effects on animals.

• “Medium/​Large positive/​negative number” + “medium positive number” = “medium/​large positive/​negative number”. One cannot neglect the effects on animals.

I think the 2nd bullet corresponds to the actual situation.