Very interesting article! Although I would disagree that it would be bad to decrease the number of factory farmed animals if they have positive lives. What we’re doing when decreasing the number of factory farmed animals is just shifting the biomass to be in different forms. I think humans are capable of much more positive lives than farmed animals, so in the long term future it would be best to have as much biomass in the form of humans (and possibly pets) as possible. A world where humans eat predominantly plants and cultivated meat would be able to support more humans, and these extra humans would have much better lives than farmed animals.
When it comes to shifting the biomass towards wild animals, I don’t know whether it would be good or bad though. I think in the long term future after people start intervening, wild animals would probably also have better lives than farmed animals, because people would value them intrinsically instead of instrumentally. Farms will always be optimised to produce as much output as possible, whereas future “nature reserves” could be optimised for welfare
Thanks for the comment, Alex! I strongly upvoted it because I like that you tried to think about how to increase welfare assuming farmed animal end up with positive lives, instead of dismissing this as impossible, or arguing that factory-farming is intrinsically bad.
I think humans are capable of much more positive lives than farmed animals, so in the long term future it would be best to have as much biomass in the form of humans (and possibly pets) as possible. A world where humans eat predominantly plants and cultivated meat would be able to support more humans, and these extra humans would have much better lives than farmed animals.
I agree humans are capable of more positive experiences that animals, but not that much more. I also agree plant-based foods would enable supporting more humans. However, to maximise welfare, one should look for interventions which increase welfare the most per $. At least now, I think these are ones helping animals, not humans (i.e. not the species whose individuals are capable of experiecing the most welfare). I estimate:
Broiler welfare and cage-free campaigns (helping chickens) are 168 and 462 times as cost-effective as GiveWell’s top charities.
Shrimp Welfare Project’s Humane Slaughter Initiative is 64.3 k times as cost-effective as GiveWell’s top charities.
I expect helping animals will continue to be more cost-effective than helping humans longerterm, at least given humans’ current form, because animals have a higher ratio between welfare range and calorie consumption[1].
Species
5th percentile welfare range per calorie consumption as a fraction of that of humans
Median welfare range per calorie consumption as a fraction of that of humans
95th percentile welfare range per calorie consumption as a fraction of that of humans
Thanks for the reply. I completely agree that we should look for interventions that improve welfare most per $, and that those, at least for now, are the ones focusing on animals and not humans. 100% of my donations at the moment actually goes to animal causes.
That’s a very interesting table about welfare range per calorie consumption. It caused me to update away from my belief that in the ideal far future we should dedicate most resources to creating more happier humans (or the next generation of the most sentient beings), and towards the belief that the existence of some lower sentience but super efficient beings, such as bees, would be a great thing. It doesn’t change any near term things for me or have any actionable consequences though, as I think we’re still gonna be in the “reduce suffering” part of history for a very long time before we get to the “increase bliss” part
Very interesting article! Although I would disagree that it would be bad to decrease the number of factory farmed animals if they have positive lives. What we’re doing when decreasing the number of factory farmed animals is just shifting the biomass to be in different forms. I think humans are capable of much more positive lives than farmed animals, so in the long term future it would be best to have as much biomass in the form of humans (and possibly pets) as possible. A world where humans eat predominantly plants and cultivated meat would be able to support more humans, and these extra humans would have much better lives than farmed animals.
When it comes to shifting the biomass towards wild animals, I don’t know whether it would be good or bad though. I think in the long term future after people start intervening, wild animals would probably also have better lives than farmed animals, because people would value them intrinsically instead of instrumentally. Farms will always be optimised to produce as much output as possible, whereas future “nature reserves” could be optimised for welfare
Thanks for the comment, Alex! I strongly upvoted it because I like that you tried to think about how to increase welfare assuming farmed animal end up with positive lives, instead of dismissing this as impossible, or arguing that factory-farming is intrinsically bad.
I agree humans are capable of more positive experiences that animals, but not that much more. I also agree plant-based foods would enable supporting more humans. However, to maximise welfare, one should look for interventions which increase welfare the most per $. At least now, I think these are ones helping animals, not humans (i.e. not the species whose individuals are capable of experiecing the most welfare). I estimate:
Broiler welfare and cage-free campaigns (helping chickens) are 168 and 462 times as cost-effective as GiveWell’s top charities.
Shrimp Welfare Project’s Humane Slaughter Initiative is 64.3 k times as cost-effective as GiveWell’s top charities.
I expect helping animals will continue to be more cost-effective than helping humans longerterm, at least given humans’ current form, because animals have a higher ratio between welfare range and calorie consumption[1].
The welfare range is the difference between the welfare per time of a practically maximally happy and unhappy life.
Thanks for the reply. I completely agree that we should look for interventions that improve welfare most per $, and that those, at least for now, are the ones focusing on animals and not humans. 100% of my donations at the moment actually goes to animal causes.
That’s a very interesting table about welfare range per calorie consumption. It caused me to update away from my belief that in the ideal far future we should dedicate most resources to creating more happier humans (or the next generation of the most sentient beings), and towards the belief that the existence of some lower sentience but super efficient beings, such as bees, would be a great thing. It doesn’t change any near term things for me or have any actionable consequences though, as I think we’re still gonna be in the “reduce suffering” part of history for a very long time before we get to the “increase bliss” part