Good point, the way I worded that is wrong since we kill more animals than we farm and looking into it more now it looks like the 99% figure applies to the US, but according to our world in data (link later in this comment), the global estimate including farmed fish is more likely 94%. It’s also not more animals per year than all humans, apparently it’s likely about on par
According to our world in data and sentience institute, we factory farm 111 billion per year, but “this has wide uncertainty, ranging from 39 to 216 billion” (https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-animals-are-factory-farmed) (i.e. on the low end my point is it happens every three years and it still dwarfs human issues but not by as much, and on the high end it happens almost twice per year and is an even worse problem.)
Once you factor in wild fishing, then it’s even more clear. And the method of slaughter for sea fish (suffocating or crushed to death in a pile) does not seem meaningfully better to me than a factory farm slaughterhouse, so the connotation still applies imo.
I agree that my perspective is likely to turn away people, I don’t lead with it in conversations with the general public, but I do still think it’s true. The problem is multiplied by every year we let it continue, it’s not just a one-time <torture as many animals as all humans ever> event. Effective messaging to the public is super important, but it’s not what I was trying to do with my comment. I was trying to highlight a reality so that people who really care about reality can use it to help orient and decide what to focus resources on.
“Once you factor in wild fishing, then it’s even more clear. And the method of slaughter for sea fish (suffocating or crushed to death in a pile) does not seem meaningfully better to me than a factory farm slaughterhouse, so the connotation still applies imo.”
First seacaught fish are not farmed. The simple fact that some fish are farmed illustrates the difference. Estimates I can find are between 1 and 2 trillion fish killed while fishing, about 10x the number of total farmed animals. This means excluding invertebrates using your farmed animal numbers maybe 10% of the animals we kill are factory farmed (excluding wild animal stuff), which is quite different from 99%
I also disagree that “the method of slaughter for sea fish (suffocating or crushed to death in a pile) does not seem meaningfully better to me than a factory farm slaughterhouse, so the connotation still applies imo.” Yes the death might be bad or worse, but most suffering at a factory farm comes from a badly lived life, not a bad death. Many might disagree and I’m very uncertain, but its very possible that many fish that we kill after catching (yes with a bad death) have net positive lives. I find it hard to believe their suffering is on the same scale as a factory farmed chicken or pig.
I’ll have to think about a better way to phrase my point, since I still think that the sheer amount of suffering and death far outweighs human issues. Almost all animals we kill at the very least have a bad death, and ~94% of the ones we farm (~10% of the ones we kill) also have a bad life. We factory farm about as many animals per year as the total number of humans who have ever lived, maybe about a third as many, maybe almost twice as many. Multiply that out by the number of years we’ve been doing those things and I still don’t think any human problem even comes close to as bad.
but its very possible that many fish that we kill after catching (yes with a bad death) have net positive lives.
Doesn’t this imply that even a theoretical painless death of a fish is really really bad because your taking away all the good moments trillions of fish could have experienced? You could argue that the utility experienced by those who consume the fish is higher, but it probably doesn’t compare to the utility those unimaginably large amount of creatures could have experienced had they continued their natural lives.
(I agree with the more important point that non-adversarial messaging matters and these sorts of comparisons are practically useless.)
Good point, the way I worded that is wrong since we kill more animals than we farm and looking into it more now it looks like the 99% figure applies to the US, but according to our world in data (link later in this comment), the global estimate including farmed fish is more likely 94%. It’s also not more animals per year than all humans, apparently it’s likely about on par
According to https://www.prb.org/articles/how-many-people-have-ever-lived-on-earth/, “About 117 billion members of our species have ever been born on Earth”.
According to our world in data and sentience institute, we factory farm 111 billion per year, but “this has wide uncertainty, ranging from 39 to 216 billion” (https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-animals-are-factory-farmed) (i.e. on the low end my point is it happens every three years and it still dwarfs human issues but not by as much, and on the high end it happens almost twice per year and is an even worse problem.)
Once you factor in wild fishing, then it’s even more clear. And the method of slaughter for sea fish (suffocating or crushed to death in a pile) does not seem meaningfully better to me than a factory farm slaughterhouse, so the connotation still applies imo.
I agree that my perspective is likely to turn away people, I don’t lead with it in conversations with the general public, but I do still think it’s true. The problem is multiplied by every year we let it continue, it’s not just a one-time <torture as many animals as all humans ever> event. Effective messaging to the public is super important, but it’s not what I was trying to do with my comment. I was trying to highlight a reality so that people who really care about reality can use it to help orient and decide what to focus resources on.
This comment doesn’t make much sense to me.
“Once you factor in wild fishing, then it’s even more clear. And the method of slaughter for sea fish (suffocating or crushed to death in a pile) does not seem meaningfully better to me than a factory farm slaughterhouse, so the connotation still applies imo.”
First seacaught fish are not farmed. The simple fact that some fish are farmed illustrates the difference. Estimates I can find are between 1 and 2 trillion fish killed while fishing, about 10x the number of total farmed animals. This means excluding invertebrates using your farmed animal numbers maybe 10% of the animals we kill are factory farmed (excluding wild animal stuff), which is quite different from 99%
I also disagree that “the method of slaughter for sea fish (suffocating or crushed to death in a pile) does not seem meaningfully better to me than a factory farm slaughterhouse, so the connotation still applies imo.” Yes the death might be bad or worse, but most suffering at a factory farm comes from a badly lived life, not a bad death. Many might disagree and I’m very uncertain, but its very possible that many fish that we kill after catching (yes with a bad death) have net positive lives. I find it hard to believe their suffering is on the same scale as a factory farmed chicken or pig.
I’ll have to think about a better way to phrase my point, since I still think that the sheer amount of suffering and death far outweighs human issues. Almost all animals we kill at the very least have a bad death, and ~94% of the ones we farm (~10% of the ones we kill) also have a bad life. We factory farm about as many animals per year as the total number of humans who have ever lived, maybe about a third as many, maybe almost twice as many. Multiply that out by the number of years we’ve been doing those things and I still don’t think any human problem even comes close to as bad.
Doesn’t this imply that even a theoretical painless death of a fish is really really bad because your taking away all the good moments trillions of fish could have experienced? You could argue that the utility experienced by those who consume the fish is higher, but it probably doesn’t compare to the utility those unimaginably large amount of creatures could have experienced had they continued their natural lives.
(I agree with the more important point that non-adversarial messaging matters and these sorts of comparisons are practically useless.)