I’ll be giving some critique below, but nevertheless, thank you for the idea and the analysis!
I think the animal welfare section of this post would benefit from more rigor. (not sure about the other sections; haven’t read them yet)
healthy: “oysters, mussels, scallops, and clams are good for you. They’re loaded with protein, healthy fats, and minerals like iron and manganese.”
Neither the linked article nor the quote sounds very credible or scientifically convincing to me.
Eating bivalves causes less suffering than an equivalent amount of chickens, pigs, cows, and most other animals.
To me this seems highly non-obvious. Maybe explain why you think so?
Also, I suspect this depends a lot on one’s moral weights assigned to different species, which (I guess) varies hugely across different people.
Depending on what it substitutes for, it would also reduce crop farming and associated rodent/insect deaths, which are more sentient than bivalves.
It’s good that field deaths are included in the analysis.
But one may also want to count the second-order effects of bivalve aquaculture (note that I have no knowledge about this and don’t know if this will significant change the conclusions).
Non-EAs are receptive to a proposal to substitute bivalves for other meat.
This also seems non-obvious to me.
Therefore, bivalves are the most effective way to reduce overall animal suffering.
This is a really bold claim and would deserve much more argumentation. Consider, for example, doing a cost-effectiveness comparison with the popular EA animal welfare interventions, if you’d like to argue for this.
Again, thank you for the post, and please don’t take this comment as an attempt of dismissal; just pointing out where I think it could be improved :)
I’ll be giving some critique below, but nevertheless, thank you for the idea and the analysis!
I think the animal welfare section of this post would benefit from more rigor. (not sure about the other sections; haven’t read them yet)
Neither the linked article nor the quote sounds very credible or scientifically convincing to me.
To me this seems highly non-obvious. Maybe explain why you think so?
Also, I suspect this depends a lot on one’s moral weights assigned to different species, which (I guess) varies hugely across different people.
It’s good that field deaths are included in the analysis.
But one may also want to count the second-order effects of bivalve aquaculture (note that I have no knowledge about this and don’t know if this will significant change the conclusions).
This also seems non-obvious to me.
This is a really bold claim and would deserve much more argumentation. Consider, for example, doing a cost-effectiveness comparison with the popular EA animal welfare interventions, if you’d like to argue for this.
Again, thank you for the post, and please don’t take this comment as an attempt of dismissal; just pointing out where I think it could be improved :)