This is a reasonable argument, and seems quite plausible for farmed animals.
I think the biggest uncertainty here—at least in terms of impact on animals—is what each additional human life means for wild animals. If wild animals typically have net negative lives, and more humans reduces the number of wild animals, then perhaps family planning charities aren’t beneficial for animals overall.
Yeah, I think this is a huge source of uncertainty that could push in the opposite direction. Additionally, I think that maybe more people being born than the counterfactual could increase the chances of space colonization? And that might massively expand suffering (spread wild animals throughout space, digital minds maybe, …) but that has even more uncertainty to go along with its larger magnitude.
I think a good chunk of and maybe most of humanity’s impact on wild animals comes through food production (agriculture, fishing), and animal products require more crop production per calorie or gram of protein than plant products. So, if humanity’s net impact on wild animals is to reduce their populations, and this is good, then it seems more likely than not that supporting veg*ism and alt proteins increases wild animal populations, and this is bad.
This is not meant to be a reductio against the view. I take this argument seriously, so mostly support welfare reforms, which I expect to have smaller in magnitude wild animal effects (relative to their farmed animal effects) and tend less in either direction in particular for wild animals. And I think we should do more research on the wild animal effects of diet.
Though if you wanted to reduce wild animal populations, you could pay to destroy habitats without also causing farm animal suffering, or maybe even do something productive e.g. keep growing crops but burn them for fuel rather than use them as animal feed. Not that I’d particularly advocate this, but I think it argues against a view that it could be optimal to not reduce farm animal populations on these grounds.
This is a reasonable argument, and seems quite plausible for farmed animals.
I think the biggest uncertainty here—at least in terms of impact on animals—is what each additional human life means for wild animals. If wild animals typically have net negative lives, and more humans reduces the number of wild animals, then perhaps family planning charities aren’t beneficial for animals overall.
Yeah, I think this is a huge source of uncertainty that could push in the opposite direction. Additionally, I think that maybe more people being born than the counterfactual could increase the chances of space colonization? And that might massively expand suffering (spread wild animals throughout space, digital minds maybe, …) but that has even more uncertainty to go along with its larger magnitude.
I think a good chunk of and maybe most of humanity’s impact on wild animals comes through food production (agriculture, fishing), and animal products require more crop production per calorie or gram of protein than plant products. So, if humanity’s net impact on wild animals is to reduce their populations, and this is good, then it seems more likely than not that supporting veg*ism and alt proteins increases wild animal populations, and this is bad.
This is not meant to be a reductio against the view. I take this argument seriously, so mostly support welfare reforms, which I expect to have smaller in magnitude wild animal effects (relative to their farmed animal effects) and tend less in either direction in particular for wild animals. And I think we should do more research on the wild animal effects of diet.
FWIW, Brian Tomasik seemed pretty uncertain about this: https://reducing-suffering.org/vegetarianism-and-wild-animals/.
Though if you wanted to reduce wild animal populations, you could pay to destroy habitats without also causing farm animal suffering, or maybe even do something productive e.g. keep growing crops but burn them for fuel rather than use them as animal feed. Not that I’d particularly advocate this, but I think it argues against a view that it could be optimal to not reduce farm animal populations on these grounds.