Trying to be constructive: perhaps one response to this could be for people to support family planning interventions, which empower women in developing countries to exert choice over whether and when they get pregnant. This has a tonne of benefits for human wellbeing and gender equity, and it also seems good, downstream, for farmed animals, for folks who are concerned by the conundrum raised in this post. Some discussion of the general case for family planning as a good value for money intervention is here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zgBmSgyWECJcbhmpc/family-planning-a-significant-opportunity-for-impact
Thanks for the comment, and welcome to the EA Forum! I think family planning interventions increase welfare nearterm via decreasing human population nearterm when farmed animals have negative lives. However, I do not know whether this is good or bad overall because the longer term effects on animals can be harmful or beneficial.
Nevertheless, I am not confident that saving human lives in China, India or Nigeria is harmful to animals. Even if it is so for farmed animals nearterm, it can still be beneficial overall:
I wouldsay at least chickens’ lives can become positive over the next few decades in some animal-friendly countries. Relatedly, I would ideally determine the welfare burden per animal per year by country, although it is unclear to me whether I am over or underestimating it. Furthermore, I guess better worsening conditions now imply a longer time until reaching positive lives, and therefore a longer time until increased consumption of farmed animals being beneficial.
I can see saving human lives being beneficial due to decreasing the number of wild animals with negative lives, although no one really knows whether this is the case or not.
It is unclear to me whether saving lives increases or decreases person-years. It increases these nearterm via increasing population, but may decrease them longterm, as lower child mortality is associated with lower fertility, which can lead to a smaller longterm population. Note human welfare may be decreased in this case.
I assume improved human conditions increase the success of animal welfare interventions, for example, via greater willingness to pay for higher welfare products. In any case, I expect more targeted approaches explicitly optimising for animal welfare to be much more cost-effective.
I also think family planning interventions decrease person-years, so I can easily see them decreasing human welfare (relatedly).
Trying to be constructive: perhaps one response to this could be for people to support family planning interventions, which empower women in developing countries to exert choice over whether and when they get pregnant. This has a tonne of benefits for human wellbeing and gender equity, and it also seems good, downstream, for farmed animals, for folks who are concerned by the conundrum raised in this post. Some discussion of the general case for family planning as a good value for money intervention is here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zgBmSgyWECJcbhmpc/family-planning-a-significant-opportunity-for-impact
Thanks for the comment, and welcome to the EA Forum! I think family planning interventions increase welfare nearterm via decreasing human population nearterm when farmed animals have negative lives. However, I do not know whether this is good or bad overall because the longer term effects on animals can be harmful or beneficial.
I also think family planning interventions decrease person-years, so I can easily see them decreasing human welfare (relatedly).