Even no consumption of shrimp would lead to saving lives in India being harmful neaterm if I kept all my other parameters constant, and there would always be significant uncertainty even if my point estimate suggested the benefits to humans are larger than the harms to animals nearterm.
Yes, but I don’t see any reason to assume that the uncertainty skews in favour of humans dying rather than humans surviving. Particularly not when the assumptions you used to reach this conclusion were that that poor Indians receiving nutrition supplementation have access to the same ~11 farmed shrimp per year in their diet as rich Indians, and that the positives of 1 Indian human living for 1 year are no more than the negatives of four shrimp being farmed.
I think in an area of high uncertainty we should default to the idea that humans should survive (and maybe change their dietary preferences) and not to the idea that they should die
The consumption of poultry birds and farmed aquatic animals per person helped in India in 2022 would have to be less than 19.3 % (= 1/5.17) as large as that of a random person for extending human lives to increase welfare nearterm
Sure. But since food choices are skewed heavily by budgets and aquaculture is a premium export market, and the supply chains to send 11 farmed shrimp per year to every man, woman and child in interior villages don’t exist, I don’t think the evidence points to the median GiveWell beneficiary consuming any of the ~13 farmed aquatic animals per year you’ve attributed to them. The idea that GiveWell donations have a non-zero effect on the size of the aquaculture industry at the margin is even more dubious, given that the economics of farming in a region which exports nearly all of its aquaculture products are highly unlikely to factor in a few thousand GiveWell non-beneficiaries dying to their demand calculations and reduce production accordingly.
Others have suggested that proposing that people shouldn’t be allowed to survive on the basis of things they might choose to eat in future. I think it would be worse to condemn them for things they are statistically unlikely to even get the opportunity to eat.
Either way, it’s a view you’re perfectly entitled to and have clearly done some research into, but I don’t think it’s a glaring omission that an organization that considers it axiomatic that human lives are worth saving hasn’t invested time in doing their own “so actually, under what set of assumptions can we conclude humans shouldn’t be saved” calculations.
Yes, but I don’t see any reason to assume that the uncertainty skews in favour of humans dying rather than humans surviving.
Some reasons which push towards saving lives being more harmful nearterm:
The supply per capita of meat excluding aquatic animals, and shrimp are roughly proportional to the logarithm of real GDP per capita, and real GDP per capita has been increasing.
I guess I am underestimating the harms to animals due to using RP’s median welfare ranges, which were calculated assuming a probability of 0 of animals having capacities which are unknown to be present or not. In reality, the probability will be higher than 0, which implies larger welfare ranges, especially for less studied animals like shrimp.
I think in an area of high uncertainty we should default to the idea that humans should survive (and maybe change their dietary preferences) and not to the idea that they should die
I think the focus should be on pursuing robustly good actions, in particular, improving animal welfare, and learning more.
Particularly not when the assumptions you used to reach this conclusion were that that poor Indians receiving nutrition supplementation have access to the same ~11 farmed shrimp per year in their diet as rich Indians
Random Indians, not rich Indians. I would appreciate it if you could represent my post fairly.
I don’t think the evidence points to the median GiveWell beneficiary consuming any of the ~13 farmed aquatic animals per year you’ve attributed to them
I explicitly said in the post “The harms would be smaller for a random person helped by such GiveWell’s grants or Ambitious Impact’s organisations”, and then argued why it is unclear this changes my conclusions.
Random Indians, not rich Indians. I would appreciate it if you could represent my post fairly.
“Random Indians” is a group which includes poor Indians (i.e. recipients of anti-poverty measures, which have non-random targeting) and rich Indians (typically not recipients of GiveWell or AIM charitable interventions). The assumption you make by using a mean consumption figure is that poor Indians and rich Indians alike consume ~11 shrimp per year. That’s what the text you quoted said, and a perfectly fair representation of your post
I actually think it’s an unfair representation of my post to accuse me of misrepresenting you simply because I spelled out the logical implications of your choice of figure, especially when I have also presented multiple reasons why I believe zero would be more representative of the amount they were likely to consume, and even more representative of the marginal impact of a typical GiveWell/AIM recipient surviving on Indian aquaculture production.
I explicitly said in the post “The harms would be smaller for a random person helped by such GiveWell’s grants or Ambitious Impact’s organisations”, and then argued why it is unclear this changes my conclusions.
My argument is that the median survivor due to GiveWell/AIM aid causes zero harm via aquaculture, and even the small minority of survivors who do consume shrimp are unlikely to have any impact upon numbers of shrimp culled in factory farms. I’m aware your post above argues that meat consumption may be linearly related to welfare via the common factor that is GDP, but I don’t think the relatively small diminution in self-reported welfare from lower incomes you’ve considered here is anywhere near enough to doubt that the survival of Indians without access to aquaculture products might be net positive in the welfarist framework you presented!
I feel we’re going in circles here, so I’ll wish you a happy Christmas and am unlikely to continue the discussion.
Yes, but I don’t see any reason to assume that the uncertainty skews in favour of humans dying rather than humans surviving. Particularly not when the assumptions you used to reach this conclusion were that that poor Indians receiving nutrition supplementation have access to the same ~11 farmed shrimp per year in their diet as rich Indians, and that the positives of 1 Indian human living for 1 year are no more than the negatives of four shrimp being farmed.
I think in an area of high uncertainty we should default to the idea that humans should survive (and maybe change their dietary preferences) and not to the idea that they should die
Sure. But since food choices are skewed heavily by budgets and aquaculture is a premium export market, and the supply chains to send 11 farmed shrimp per year to every man, woman and child in interior villages don’t exist, I don’t think the evidence points to the median GiveWell beneficiary consuming any of the ~13 farmed aquatic animals per year you’ve attributed to them. The idea that GiveWell donations have a non-zero effect on the size of the aquaculture industry at the margin is even more dubious, given that the economics of farming in a region which exports nearly all of its aquaculture products are highly unlikely to factor in a few thousand GiveWell non-beneficiaries dying to their demand calculations and reduce production accordingly.
Others have suggested that proposing that people shouldn’t be allowed to survive on the basis of things they might choose to eat in future. I think it would be worse to condemn them for things they are statistically unlikely to even get the opportunity to eat.
Either way, it’s a view you’re perfectly entitled to and have clearly done some research into, but I don’t think it’s a glaring omission that an organization that considers it axiomatic that human lives are worth saving hasn’t invested time in doing their own “so actually, under what set of assumptions can we conclude humans shouldn’t be saved” calculations.
Some reasons which push towards saving lives being more harmful nearterm:
The supply per capita of meat excluding aquatic animals, and shrimp are roughly proportional to the logarithm of real GDP per capita, and real GDP per capita has been increasing.
I guess I am underestimating the harms to animals due to using RP’s median welfare ranges, which were calculated assuming a probability of 0 of animals having capacities which are unknown to be present or not. In reality, the probability will be higher than 0, which implies larger welfare ranges, especially for less studied animals like shrimp.
I think the focus should be on pursuing robustly good actions, in particular, improving animal welfare, and learning more.
Random Indians, not rich Indians. I would appreciate it if you could represent my post fairly.
I explicitly said in the post “The harms would be smaller for a random person helped by such GiveWell’s grants or Ambitious Impact’s organisations”, and then argued why it is unclear this changes my conclusions.
“Random Indians” is a group which includes poor Indians (i.e. recipients of anti-poverty measures, which have non-random targeting) and rich Indians (typically not recipients of GiveWell or AIM charitable interventions). The assumption you make by using a mean consumption figure is that poor Indians and rich Indians alike consume ~11 shrimp per year. That’s what the text you quoted said, and a perfectly fair representation of your post
I actually think it’s an unfair representation of my post to accuse me of misrepresenting you simply because I spelled out the logical implications of your choice of figure, especially when I have also presented multiple reasons why I believe zero would be more representative of the amount they were likely to consume, and even more representative of the marginal impact of a typical GiveWell/AIM recipient surviving on Indian aquaculture production.
My argument is that the median survivor due to GiveWell/AIM aid causes zero harm via aquaculture, and even the small minority of survivors who do consume shrimp are unlikely to have any impact upon numbers of shrimp culled in factory farms. I’m aware your post above argues that meat consumption may be linearly related to welfare via the common factor that is GDP, but I don’t think the relatively small diminution in self-reported welfare from lower incomes you’ve considered here is anywhere near enough to doubt that the survival of Indians without access to aquaculture products might be net positive in the welfarist framework you presented!
I feel we’re going in circles here, so I’ll wish you a happy Christmas and am unlikely to continue the discussion.