This calls to mind The Technological Completion Conjecture, which suggests we should focus on the order of inventions rather than whether we want then invented at all.
We could posit some “Moral Completeness Conjecture” in the same way. Then we only need look for the order in which we want interventions (like ASRS risk mitigation & stopping animal factory farming) that improve the world. It’s already trivial that som paths to utopia are much worse than others.
Welcome to the EA Forum, OGTutzauer! Thanks for the interesting thought.
I currently think one should focus on improving the welfare of farmed animals despite all the effects I discuss in the post. For example, I believe way more welfare would be gained by making all farmed animals live fully healthy lives than by eliminating the risk of ASRSs:
I estimated an expected annual mortality rate from ASRSs of 1.95*10^-5adjusting results from the Centre for Exploratory Altruism Research (CEARCH), which corresponds to 161 k death/year (= 1.96*10^-5*8.2*10^9) for the current population. Assuming 29.2 DALY/death (= 1.98*10^9/(67.9*10^6)) based on the years of life lost and deaths in 2021, the expected annual burden from ASRSs is 4.70 MDALY (= 161*10^3*29.2).
I got180 k MDALY for farmed animals, i.e. 38.3 k (= 1.80*10^11/(4.70*10^6)) times as much as the above burden from ASRSs.
This calls to mind The Technological Completion Conjecture, which suggests we should focus on the order of inventions rather than whether we want then invented at all.
We could posit some “Moral Completeness Conjecture” in the same way. Then we only need look for the order in which we want interventions (like ASRS risk mitigation & stopping animal factory farming) that improve the world. It’s already trivial that som paths to utopia are much worse than others.
Welcome to the EA Forum, OGTutzauer! Thanks for the interesting thought.
I currently think one should focus on improving the welfare of farmed animals despite all the effects I discuss in the post. For example, I believe way more welfare would be gained by making all farmed animals live fully healthy lives than by eliminating the risk of ASRSs:
I estimated an expected annual mortality rate from ASRSs of 1.95*10^-5 adjusting results from the Centre for Exploratory Altruism Research (CEARCH), which corresponds to 161 k death/year (= 1.96*10^-5*8.2*10^9) for the current population. Assuming 29.2 DALY/death (= 1.98*10^9/(67.9*10^6)) based on the years of life lost and deaths in 2021, the expected annual burden from ASRSs is 4.70 MDALY (= 161*10^3*29.2).
I got 180 k MDALY for farmed animals, i.e. 38.3 k (= 1.80*10^11/(4.70*10^6)) times as much as the above burden from ASRSs.