Can you give some examples of what research you could do to improve our understanding about either 1. whether soil microbes are sentient, or 2. whether their average life experience is net positive or negative?
These both seem completely unanswerable. with a billion dollars and no other interests I wouldnât know where to begin answering these questions.
On 1, Rethink Priorities (RP) could extend their welfare range table to cover soil ants, termites, springtails, mites, nematodes, and some microorganisms. I would also like to see much more work informing interspecies comparisons of expected hedonistic welfare. RPâs research agenda about interspecies welfare comparisons has some question about that. There could also be more research related to @Wladimir J. Alonsoâs and @cynthiaschuckâs post on whether primitive sentient organisms feel extreme pain. âThis discussion is part of a broader manuscript in progress, focusing on interspecific comparisons of affective capacitiesâa critical question for advancing animal welfare science and estimating the Welfare Footprint of animal-sourced productsâ.
On 2, it would be helpful to have detailed descriptions of the life-fates of soil animals and microorganisms. Ideally, there would be a quantitative break-down of how organisms of a given species in certain conditions spend their time. For example, how much time they spend eating, drinking, mating, being eaten, being crushed, sleeping, and having certain diseases. I know about a private project proposal to investigate the life-fates of springtails, mites, or nematodes.
I know about 2 project proposals for researching the welfare of soil animals. They are not public, but one will most likely start next year. I hope there will be more related projects. People are welcome to fill this very short form if they are interested in funding research informing how to increase the welfare of soil animals.
The welfare ranges are extremely broad for the animals they do cover, and thatâs with questionable assumptions. I donât see how extending these to microbes would clarify anything.
Doing âmore researchâ on the day-to-day experience of nematodes and how they respond to noxious stimuli or calculating their neural energy consumption as a proxy for their ability to suffer also doesnât seem clarifying. Imagine you knew all this information about nematodes. Still the fundamental question will remain how their âsufferingâ or âjoyâ compares to ours and how morally important it is. A lot of animal ethics is driven by our ability to relate to animals (âI can relate somewhat to a chicken and I wouldnât want to be a chicken in a cageâ) but this falls apart by the time we get to nematodes, so you have to rely solely on your numbers, which will be extremely uncertain.
I remain very puzzled how you ever see us getting low enough error bars on the joy/âsuffering of microscopic worms that we could make decision based on it.
The welfare ranges are extremely broad for the animals they do cover, and thatâs with questionable assumptions. I donât see how extending these to microbes would clarify anything.
I have come to believe this is a very fair objection. I believe you have acknowledged the uncertainty in RPâs welfare ranges much better than me in the past. At the same time, RP extending their welfare range table to soil animals and microorganisms (which does not involve calculating welfare ranges; it would just be a literature review) would help decrease the uncertainty about their (expectedhedonistic) welfare.
Imagine you knew all this information about nematodes. Still the fundamental question will remain how their âsufferingâ or âjoyâ compares to ours and how morally important it is.
Great point. I would currently prioritise decreasing the uncertainty about how the welfare of soil animals and microorganisms compares with that of humans over investigating ways of increasing their welfare. I asked RP 2 days ago about whether they âhave any plans for projects decreasing the uncertainty of interspecies comparisons of expected hedonistic welfareâ.
I remain very puzzled how you ever see us getting low enough error bars on the joy/âsuffering of microscopic worms that we could make decision based on it.
I do not know about any intervention which robustly increases welfare, and I am not confident this will ever change. However, I do not think people should give up on increasing welfare before much more effort is put into decreasing the uncertainty about interspecies comparisons of expected hedonistic welfare.
Can you give some examples of what research you could do to improve our understanding about either 1. whether soil microbes are sentient, or 2. whether their average life experience is net positive or negative?
These both seem completely unanswerable. with a billion dollars and no other interests I wouldnât know where to begin answering these questions.
Thanks for the comment, Henry!
On 1, Rethink Priorities (RP) could extend their welfare range table to cover soil ants, termites, springtails, mites, nematodes, and some microorganisms. I would also like to see much more work informing interspecies comparisons of expected hedonistic welfare. RPâs research agenda about interspecies welfare comparisons has some question about that. There could also be more research related to @Wladimir J. Alonsoâs and @cynthiaschuckâs post on whether primitive sentient organisms feel extreme pain. âThis discussion is part of a broader manuscript in progress, focusing on interspecific comparisons of affective capacitiesâa critical question for advancing animal welfare science and estimating the Welfare Footprint of animal-sourced productsâ.
On 2, it would be helpful to have detailed descriptions of the life-fates of soil animals and microorganisms. Ideally, there would be a quantitative break-down of how organisms of a given species in certain conditions spend their time. For example, how much time they spend eating, drinking, mating, being eaten, being crushed, sleeping, and having certain diseases. I know about a private project proposal to investigate the life-fates of springtails, mites, or nematodes.
I know about 2 project proposals for researching the welfare of soil animals. They are not public, but one will most likely start next year. I hope there will be more related projects. People are welcome to fill this very short form if they are interested in funding research informing how to increase the welfare of soil animals.
None of that suggested work seems very clarifying
The welfare ranges are extremely broad for the animals they do cover, and thatâs with questionable assumptions. I donât see how extending these to microbes would clarify anything.
Doing âmore researchâ on the day-to-day experience of nematodes and how they respond to noxious stimuli or calculating their neural energy consumption as a proxy for their ability to suffer also doesnât seem clarifying. Imagine you knew all this information about nematodes. Still the fundamental question will remain how their âsufferingâ or âjoyâ compares to ours and how morally important it is. A lot of animal ethics is driven by our ability to relate to animals (âI can relate somewhat to a chicken and I wouldnât want to be a chicken in a cageâ) but this falls apart by the time we get to nematodes, so you have to rely solely on your numbers, which will be extremely uncertain.
I remain very puzzled how you ever see us getting low enough error bars on the joy/âsuffering of microscopic worms that we could make decision based on it.
Thanks for the pushback, Henry!
I have come to believe this is a very fair objection. I believe you have acknowledged the uncertainty in RPâs welfare ranges much better than me in the past. At the same time, RP extending their welfare range table to soil animals and microorganisms (which does not involve calculating welfare ranges; it would just be a literature review) would help decrease the uncertainty about their (expected hedonistic) welfare.
Great point. I would currently prioritise decreasing the uncertainty about how the welfare of soil animals and microorganisms compares with that of humans over investigating ways of increasing their welfare. I asked RP 2 days ago about whether they âhave any plans for projects decreasing the uncertainty of interspecies comparisons of expected hedonistic welfareâ.
I do not know about any intervention which robustly increases welfare, and I am not confident this will ever change. However, I do not think people should give up on increasing welfare before much more effort is put into decreasing the uncertainty about interspecies comparisons of expected hedonistic welfare.