Back of the envelope calculations could be flawed due to bias, incomplete information, setting a bad precedent, flow-on effects, reputational damage, etc.
I agree, reality is hard! On the other hand, I would say such points should push us towards being less certain about what is right/āwrong. A hallmark of naive utilitarianism is strongly optimising for a single metric (e.g. number of factory-farmed animals) without adequately accounting for other potential important effects (e.g. on wild animals and longterm future).
Another point is that reduced opposition to factory farming could prolong a situation which is both bad for farm animals and probably a suboptimal solution to the problems you have raised (ASRS, wild animal welfare).
I think you are alluding to a really important heuristic, which is thinking about what the optimal world would look like, and then figure out what would move us towards it. My ideal world does not include factory-farming (even if factory-farmed animals had positive lives, there likely are more efficient ways of producing wellbeing), which suggests opposition to factory-farming is good.
Nonetheless, opposition to factory-farming may also lead to effects which push against arriving to an optimal world. For example, my optimal world does not include lots of wild animal suffering, and abolitionist approaches to farmed animal welfare may decrease the likelihood of humans deciding to improve the lives of wild animals. So I am more sympathetic to welfare reforms than simply decreasing the consumption of animals.
In terms of ASRSs, I agree preparedness and response plans as well as R&D of resilient foods is more cost-effective at the margin than increasing the consumption of factory-farmed animals. However, directing edible animal feed to humans is probably one of the best approaches to increase food supply during 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 āMoral Completeness Conjectureā 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. Itās 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/āyear (= 1.96*10^-5*8.2*10^9) for the current population. Assuming 29.2 DALY/ādeath (= 1.98*10^9/ā(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/ā(4.70*10^6)) times as much as the above burden from ASRSs.
I agree, reality is hard! On the other hand, I would say such points should push us towards being less certain about what is right/āwrong. A hallmark of naive utilitarianism is strongly optimising for a single metric (e.g. number of factory-farmed animals) without adequately accounting for other potential important effects (e.g. on wild animals and longterm future).
I think you are alluding to a really important heuristic, which is thinking about what the optimal world would look like, and then figure out what would move us towards it. My ideal world does not include factory-farming (even if factory-farmed animals had positive lives, there likely are more efficient ways of producing wellbeing), which suggests opposition to factory-farming is good.
Nonetheless, opposition to factory-farming may also lead to effects which push against arriving to an optimal world. For example, my optimal world does not include lots of wild animal suffering, and abolitionist approaches to farmed animal welfare may decrease the likelihood of humans deciding to improve the lives of wild animals. So I am more sympathetic to welfare reforms than simply decreasing the consumption of animals.
In terms of ASRSs, I agree preparedness and response plans as well as R&D of resilient foods is more cost-effective at the margin than increasing the consumption of factory-farmed animals. However, directing edible animal feed to humans is probably one of the best approaches to increase food supply during 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 āMoral Completeness Conjectureā 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. Itās 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/āyear (= 1.96*10^-5*8.2*10^9) for the current population. Assuming 29.2 DALY/ādeath (= 1.98*10^9/ā(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/ā(4.70*10^6)) times as much as the above burden from ASRSs.