Great questions. I’m afraid I won’t do justice to them properly here, but I’ll give a quick answer with my opinions without too much justification.
I think that empowering humans tends to:
(i) increase their influence over the world;
(ii) improve their values.
Over the past few hundred years, the effect of (i) has significantly outweighed the effect of (ii) on animal welfare (in a way which may or may not be positive after you account for the effects on wild animals). My best guess is that going forwards this will be true for a while longer, but eventually (ii) will come to dominate (humans like to think of themselves as having nice values, and when we’re wealthy enough that it’s cheap to act on this I expect them to do so). I would like to have a better understanding of this dynamic, though.
Great questions. I’m afraid I won’t do justice to them properly here, but I’ll give a quick answer with my opinions without too much justification.
I think that empowering humans tends to: (i) increase their influence over the world; (ii) improve their values.
Over the past few hundred years, the effect of (i) has significantly outweighed the effect of (ii) on animal welfare (in a way which may or may not be positive after you account for the effects on wild animals). My best guess is that going forwards this will be true for a while longer, but eventually (ii) will come to dominate (humans like to think of themselves as having nice values, and when we’re wealthy enough that it’s cheap to act on this I expect them to do so). I would like to have a better understanding of this dynamic, though.