I’m an ardent critic of the use of naive EV calculations in EA. But what determines whether something is a naive EV calculation isn’t whether the probability is low, but whether the level of uncertainty in that probability is super high.
Any EV calc we “came up with” about mites would be uncertain to the point of being worthy of zero credence. It would be a Pascal’s mugging.
The case for stunning shrimp, as far as I can tell, is far less uncertain. I think Omnizoid is right that it’s hard to dispute it being a very strong bet.
But I also want to mention that the more I learn about our “surest bets” for doing good (e.g bednets) the more uncertain I discover them to be. This leads me to be super reluctant to go “all in” on anything the way you suggest we might be inclined to with the EV calcs for microscopic organisms.
In conclusion: SWP looks like a highly cost-effective org for doing good in the world. We should support it, but we shouldn’t go all in on it or any other cause/intervention. The world is messy enough that we should be highly pluralistic (even while continuing to prioritize and make trade-offs)
I agree that there’s a big difference between shrimps and nematodes, although the uncertainty for shrimp sentience remains extremely high, to the point where I think it’s not unreasonable that some people consider it something like a pascals mugging (personally I don’t put it in that category).
Yes shrimp “sentience” or “capacity to suffer” is less uncertain than a mite, but it’s still very uncertain even under models like RPs which I think probably favor animals.
Things with a 50% chance of being very good aren’t pascal’s muggings! Your decision theory can’t be “Pascal’s muggin means I ignore everything with probability less than .5 of being good.”
I agree we don’t ignore everything with a probability of less than 0.5 of being good.
Can you clarify what you mean y “50% chance of being very good?”
1) Rethink priorities give Shrimp 23% chance of sentience 2) Their non-sentience adjusted welfare range than goes from 0 (at 5th percentile) to 1.095 (at 95% percentile). From zero to more than a human is such a large uncertainty range that I could accept arguments at this point that it might be “unworkable” like Henry says (personally I don’t think its unworkable) 3) Then After adjusting for sentience it looks like this.
Whatever way the cookie crumbles I think that’s a lot smaller than a “50% chance of being very good” and also a high uncertainty range.
The calculations around shrimp welfare have very high uncertainty. Look at the confidence intervals on the rethink priorities welfare ranges.
Why this uncertainty is workable and demodex mite uncertainty is not I’m not clear on.
I’m an ardent critic of the use of naive EV calculations in EA. But what determines whether something is a naive EV calculation isn’t whether the probability is low, but whether the level of uncertainty in that probability is super high.
Any EV calc we “came up with” about mites would be uncertain to the point of being worthy of zero credence. It would be a Pascal’s mugging.
The case for stunning shrimp, as far as I can tell, is far less uncertain. I think Omnizoid is right that it’s hard to dispute it being a very strong bet.
But I also want to mention that the more I learn about our “surest bets” for doing good (e.g bednets) the more uncertain I discover them to be. This leads me to be super reluctant to go “all in” on anything the way you suggest we might be inclined to with the EV calcs for microscopic organisms.
In conclusion: SWP looks like a highly cost-effective org for doing good in the world. We should support it, but we shouldn’t go all in on it or any other cause/intervention. The world is messy enough that we should be highly pluralistic (even while continuing to prioritize and make trade-offs)
I agree that there’s a big difference between shrimps and nematodes, although the uncertainty for shrimp sentience remains extremely high, to the point where I think it’s not unreasonable that some people consider it something like a pascals mugging (personally I don’t put it in that category).
Yes shrimp “sentience” or “capacity to suffer” is less uncertain than a mite, but it’s still very uncertain even under models like RPs which I think probably favor animals.
Things with a 50% chance of being very good aren’t pascal’s muggings! Your decision theory can’t be “Pascal’s muggin means I ignore everything with probability less than .5 of being good.”
I agree we don’t ignore everything with a probability of less than 0.5 of being good.
Can you clarify what you mean y “50% chance of being very good?”
1) Rethink priorities give Shrimp 23% chance of sentience
2) Their non-sentience adjusted welfare range than goes from 0 (at 5th percentile) to 1.095 (at 95% percentile). From zero to more than a human is such a large uncertainty range that I could accept arguments at this point that it might be “unworkable” like Henry says (personally I don’t think its unworkable)
3) Then After adjusting for sentience it looks like this.
Whatever way the cookie crumbles I think that’s a lot smaller than a “50% chance of being very good” and also a high uncertainty range.
The calculations around shrimp welfare have very high uncertainty. Look at the confidence intervals on the rethink priorities welfare ranges. Why this uncertainty is workable and demodex mite uncertainty is not I’m not clear on.