I am glad you are considering far-future effects in terms of proxies like “increase empathy.” I think this is a useful method. Also, I commend you for considering far-future impacts in general, as increasing our confidence in effecting them seems to have high potential upside for EA decision-making.
On the specifics of this post, I am unsure exactly what your claim is now—whether it’s (i) that a happier non-human farm animal, all else equal, seems “extremely unlikely” to meet the goal of making the long-term future flourish, or (ii) that improving animal welfare with interventions like vegan leafleting, public demonstrations, antispeciesism essays, or lobbying for farm animals seems “extremely unlikely” to meet the goal of making the long-term future flourish.
(i) seems clearly true, but if you mean (ii), I think that’s debatable and am unsure how you arrive at “extremely unlikely.” Most non-human animal activists see great value in helping farm animals now as well as potential impact on the far future. I think strong evidence is required to reject their claims with such confidence.
For example, even Vegan Outreach, arguably the most short-run impact focused organization in the field, considers its impact in both ways: “In addition to influencing the diets of individuals, VO wants to change the ways that people view farm animals and teach people that farm animals are capable of suffering. VO aims to influence public opinion to affect long-term public policy.” (http://files.givewell.org/files/conversations/Jack%20Norris%205-20-14%20(public).pdf)
Some organizations are much more explicit about their goals for promoting general antispeciesism sentiment and helping animals in the long-run, like Direct Action Everywhere (http://directactioneverywhere.com), and concern themselves very little (if at all) with individual dietary changes.
Now, this isn’t clearly the best route to improving the long-term future, but I think it would take very strong evidence to say it is “extremely unlikely” and the point merits further consideration. I know my personal decisions could change with new information on these potential far-future effects.
Neither (i) (although I think that’s true) nor (ii).
Closer would be a modification of (ii):
(iii) That improving animal welfare with interventions like vegan leafleting, public demonstrations, antispeciesism essays, or lobbying for farm animals seems “extremely unlikely” to be the best way of meeting the goal of making the long-term future flourish.
Personally, I’d more or less endorse (iii), though I’d replace “extremely unlikely” with “unlikely”. Of course, the distinction between “good” and “best” matters a lot here. I don’t think these things are bad, but I do think that we can do better.
The actual claim has another modification:
(iv) That setting out to improve animal welfare (in the short or medium term) seems extremely unlikely to be the best sub-goal to aim for to meet the goal of making the long-term future flourish.
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One thing you said was:
“Most non-human animal activists see great value in helping farm animals now as well as potential impact on the far future.”
I would argue that they should think the value in helping farm animals now, while it may seem large, is very small compared to the value they can expect to create in the far future (whether through this route or another), and should therefore not be a large component of their decision making (unless they find it useful for another reason, such as to sustain motivation).
Thanks for the clarification. Claim (iii) with “unlikely” rather than “extremely unlikely” is a tenable view, and the specifics, of course, depend on other ways we can affect the far future. Do you think it’s fair to put the modified (iii) claim in the same category as...
(v) That improving human welfare with interventions like antimalaria nets, deworming pills, or cash transfers seems “unlikely” to be the best way of meeting the goal of making the long-term future flourish.
I take it you do put these in the same category as you say you are (vi) not making the claim:
That improving human welfare is a better instrumental sub-goal for improving the long-term future than improving animal welfare.
But you also claim (vii) “In contrast, we do not have similarly strong reasons to think “improve human welfare” is definitely not the best approach.” There seems to clearly be a tension between (vi) and (vii).
I would put (iii) in roughly the same category as (v), though I think it’s more unlikely in case of (iii) than (v).
There isn’t really a tension between (vi) and (vii), although I can see why you might think there was. It’s a distinction about our subjective probability distributions for how good the different causes are.
The way I see it, we are currently probing a space and know relatively little about it. We want to know global features—which things are better than others, and which are best. Often we are better at distinguishing local features—how to compare between relatively similar matters.
I think the arguments we’ve discussed show reasonably conclusively that animal welfare isn’t the best instrumental goal—because we can see other things in the vicinity such as targeting value improvements where it’s almost certain that at least one of them is better. This doesn’t tell us how to compare the things in this vicinity with the things in the vicinity of human welfare improvements. The contrast with human welfare interventions was firstly supposed to show how indirect effects matter, and second supposed to make clear that there was something unusual going on in the vicinity of the animal welfare interventions. It wasn’t meant to make a direct claim about how to compare the two.
“I think the arguments we’ve discussed show reasonably conclusively that animal welfare isn’t the best instrumental goal—because we can see other things in the vicinity such as targeting value improvements where it’s almost certain that at least one of them is better.”
It seems the “improving animal welfare” interventions could very well be the best ways to improve those values. I think that’s a key point where we disagree. I’d be interested in hearing what you think are better alternatives at some point.
If there are clearly better options for proxies related to “improving animal welfare,” but not clearly better options for proxies related to “improving human welfare,” then “improving animal welfare” could still be the better option of the two. Analogy: if we have two car races with five separate cars each, the worst car in one race could still be better than all five in the other.
Did you read the first part of the post, on meanings of cause? I don’t disagree that that could be the best intervention cluster. But I think if we’re pursuing it, it should be for the right reasons—this will help us to make the correct decisions when new evidence comes to light.
I entirely agree that improving animal welfare could still beat improving human welfare. That’s exactly what I was saying in (vi).
I don’t “see other things in the vicinity such as targeting value improvements where it’s almost certain that at least one of them is better.” That’s where I was asking for better alternative subgoals to reaching value improvements.
I think we practically understand each other’s points now though. Thanks for the discussion and clarification.
I am glad you are considering far-future effects in terms of proxies like “increase empathy.” I think this is a useful method. Also, I commend you for considering far-future impacts in general, as increasing our confidence in effecting them seems to have high potential upside for EA decision-making.
On the specifics of this post, I am unsure exactly what your claim is now—whether it’s (i) that a happier non-human farm animal, all else equal, seems “extremely unlikely” to meet the goal of making the long-term future flourish, or (ii) that improving animal welfare with interventions like vegan leafleting, public demonstrations, antispeciesism essays, or lobbying for farm animals seems “extremely unlikely” to meet the goal of making the long-term future flourish.
(i) seems clearly true, but if you mean (ii), I think that’s debatable and am unsure how you arrive at “extremely unlikely.” Most non-human animal activists see great value in helping farm animals now as well as potential impact on the far future. I think strong evidence is required to reject their claims with such confidence.
For example, even Vegan Outreach, arguably the most short-run impact focused organization in the field, considers its impact in both ways: “In addition to influencing the diets of individuals, VO wants to change the ways that people view farm animals and teach people that farm animals are capable of suffering. VO aims to influence public opinion to affect long-term public policy.” (http://files.givewell.org/files/conversations/Jack%20Norris%205-20-14%20(public).pdf)
Some organizations are much more explicit about their goals for promoting general antispeciesism sentiment and helping animals in the long-run, like Direct Action Everywhere (http://directactioneverywhere.com), and concern themselves very little (if at all) with individual dietary changes.
Now, this isn’t clearly the best route to improving the long-term future, but I think it would take very strong evidence to say it is “extremely unlikely” and the point merits further consideration. I know my personal decisions could change with new information on these potential far-future effects.
Neither (i) (although I think that’s true) nor (ii).
Closer would be a modification of (ii): (iii) That improving animal welfare with interventions like vegan leafleting, public demonstrations, antispeciesism essays, or lobbying for farm animals seems “extremely unlikely” to be the best way of meeting the goal of making the long-term future flourish.
Personally, I’d more or less endorse (iii), though I’d replace “extremely unlikely” with “unlikely”. Of course, the distinction between “good” and “best” matters a lot here. I don’t think these things are bad, but I do think that we can do better.
The actual claim has another modification:
(iv) That setting out to improve animal welfare (in the short or medium term) seems extremely unlikely to be the best sub-goal to aim for to meet the goal of making the long-term future flourish.
--
One thing you said was:
“Most non-human animal activists see great value in helping farm animals now as well as potential impact on the far future.”
I would argue that they should think the value in helping farm animals now, while it may seem large, is very small compared to the value they can expect to create in the far future (whether through this route or another), and should therefore not be a large component of their decision making (unless they find it useful for another reason, such as to sustain motivation).
Thanks for the clarification. Claim (iii) with “unlikely” rather than “extremely unlikely” is a tenable view, and the specifics, of course, depend on other ways we can affect the far future. Do you think it’s fair to put the modified (iii) claim in the same category as...
(v) That improving human welfare with interventions like antimalaria nets, deworming pills, or cash transfers seems “unlikely” to be the best way of meeting the goal of making the long-term future flourish.
I take it you do put these in the same category as you say you are (vi) not making the claim: That improving human welfare is a better instrumental sub-goal for improving the long-term future than improving animal welfare.
But you also claim (vii) “In contrast, we do not have similarly strong reasons to think “improve human welfare” is definitely not the best approach.” There seems to clearly be a tension between (vi) and (vii).
Could you resolve it?
I would put (iii) in roughly the same category as (v), though I think it’s more unlikely in case of (iii) than (v).
There isn’t really a tension between (vi) and (vii), although I can see why you might think there was. It’s a distinction about our subjective probability distributions for how good the different causes are.
The way I see it, we are currently probing a space and know relatively little about it. We want to know global features—which things are better than others, and which are best. Often we are better at distinguishing local features—how to compare between relatively similar matters.
I think the arguments we’ve discussed show reasonably conclusively that animal welfare isn’t the best instrumental goal—because we can see other things in the vicinity such as targeting value improvements where it’s almost certain that at least one of them is better. This doesn’t tell us how to compare the things in this vicinity with the things in the vicinity of human welfare improvements. The contrast with human welfare interventions was firstly supposed to show how indirect effects matter, and second supposed to make clear that there was something unusual going on in the vicinity of the animal welfare interventions. It wasn’t meant to make a direct claim about how to compare the two.
“I think the arguments we’ve discussed show reasonably conclusively that animal welfare isn’t the best instrumental goal—because we can see other things in the vicinity such as targeting value improvements where it’s almost certain that at least one of them is better.”
It seems the “improving animal welfare” interventions could very well be the best ways to improve those values. I think that’s a key point where we disagree. I’d be interested in hearing what you think are better alternatives at some point.
If there are clearly better options for proxies related to “improving animal welfare,” but not clearly better options for proxies related to “improving human welfare,” then “improving animal welfare” could still be the better option of the two. Analogy: if we have two car races with five separate cars each, the worst car in one race could still be better than all five in the other.
Did you read the first part of the post, on meanings of cause? I don’t disagree that that could be the best intervention cluster. But I think if we’re pursuing it, it should be for the right reasons—this will help us to make the correct decisions when new evidence comes to light.
I entirely agree that improving animal welfare could still beat improving human welfare. That’s exactly what I was saying in (vi).
I don’t “see other things in the vicinity such as targeting value improvements where it’s almost certain that at least one of them is better.” That’s where I was asking for better alternative subgoals to reaching value improvements.
I think we practically understand each other’s points now though. Thanks for the discussion and clarification.
Thanks for those clarifications, Owen. I understand your position better now.