Executive summary: Proxies are useful tools for prioritization and impact assessment in effective animal advocacy, but they often oversimplify complex issues, potentially leading to misunderstandings and suboptimal decision-making.
Key points:
Grouping Animals Can Oversimplify Prioritization: Broad categories (e.g., “farmed” vs. “lab” animals) may obscure meaningful distinctions in numbers, suffering, and intervention effectiveness.
Scale Proxies Can Mislead Impact Estimates: The total number of animals in a category (e.g., farmed in China) doesn’t always correlate with intervention effectiveness if only a small fraction is reached.
Numbers Alone Don’t Capture Suffering: Counting animals without considering suffering intensity and intervention scalability can lead to misplaced priorities (e.g., shrimp vs. chickens).
Attributing Impact Can Be Complex: Multiple organizations may justifiably claim full impact for the same outcome, creating a perception of “double counting,” but focusing on counterfactual necessity is more informative.
Proxies Remain Useful but Require Caution: While proxies help decision-making, it’s crucial to periodically reassess whether they still accurately reflect impact and priorities.
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Executive summary: Proxies are useful tools for prioritization and impact assessment in effective animal advocacy, but they often oversimplify complex issues, potentially leading to misunderstandings and suboptimal decision-making.
Key points:
Grouping Animals Can Oversimplify Prioritization: Broad categories (e.g., “farmed” vs. “lab” animals) may obscure meaningful distinctions in numbers, suffering, and intervention effectiveness.
Scale Proxies Can Mislead Impact Estimates: The total number of animals in a category (e.g., farmed in China) doesn’t always correlate with intervention effectiveness if only a small fraction is reached.
Numbers Alone Don’t Capture Suffering: Counting animals without considering suffering intensity and intervention scalability can lead to misplaced priorities (e.g., shrimp vs. chickens).
Attributing Impact Can Be Complex: Multiple organizations may justifiably claim full impact for the same outcome, creating a perception of “double counting,” but focusing on counterfactual necessity is more informative.
Proxies Remain Useful but Require Caution: While proxies help decision-making, it’s crucial to periodically reassess whether they still accurately reflect impact and priorities.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.