Firstly, I think this may be helpful in understanding the downvotes: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/about—to me, your post isn’t very clear, and it seems you’re using a somewhat superficial excuse of a question in order to make a bunch of semi-related points (if this is not the case and you’re sincerely just looking for an answer, then sorry for the assumption).
Linking to your book doesn’t really add to the post and comes off as unnecessary self promotion independent of whatever the actual concrete point of this post may be.
“Playing Bach or Mozart” to animals is probably just an intended minor provocation and you’re not seriously thinking that this is what EA is going for when it comes to animal welfare. Still, to attempt to answer your question:
“animal welfare” is a cause area in the sense that it’s a big global problem (billions of animals experiencing pain and suffering) that is neglected (comparably few resources going into improving the situation) and potentially solvable
playing music to animals on the other hand would be one possible intervention (so an answer to the question of how we could approach that big problem), and certainly not the most effective one, and I don’t think anybody here has claimed that. But correct me if I’m wrong.
if you disagree with how animal welfare is handled in EA currently, there are at least two possible constructive ways of attack:
you argue that animal welfare is not an important cause area, because either it is not as big a problem, because it is not neglected, or because it is not solvable; all of these things are pretty well established however, so unless you know of some very crucial consideration, even strong evidence in any of these areas would probably only lead to comparably small adjustments in how this cause area is prioritized in comparison to others
you argue that there are interventions to tackle that problem that are more effective than those currently favored by EA; this seems closer to what you’re trying to do here. So your question should not be “Why is animal welfare a thing”, but “Why do you assume intervention X is more effective than intervention Y” (e.g. X being research into clean meat, and Y being carbon tax), and then doing some research on the effectiveness of both things; or alternatively if you’re relatively sure of that, writing a post in favor of intervention Y being underrated and why people should look more into it as it’s a very effective animal welfare intervention.
Building on the last point: when arguing against a position, you’ll get more support and fewer downvotes if you follow a) the good faith principle (basically assuming the position you’re arguing against originates from well meaning people with a genuine interest in doing good) and b) try steelmanning the opposite view (i.e. trying to find the best possible available argument, as opposed to strawmanning, which “playing Bach or Mozart” basically is).
To get closer to the actual object level here, I’d be interested in what you think about these statements and to what extent you agree or disagree with them:
1. Animal suffering is a problem worth solving
2. We should prioritize approaches of solving the problem that do the most good per dollar/time (i.e. alleviate the most suffering or yield the most happiness, or following a similar metric depending on your values)
3. Which approach is the most effective one is an open question that should be answered primarily by gathering evidence
I was coming from “fake news” background where click-bait titles and controversy gets you clicks and comments, but here only downvotes...
My style is often controversial and I’m definitely not sorry.
Just like environmentalist are talking about Polar Bear 🐻 losing natural habitat… For someone living on $1 per day, who don’t have passport, don’t have bank account, don’t have electricity—does it matter? I’m worried about catastrophic climate change.Animal industrial agriculture—waste of land, waste of water, CO2, agricultural subsidies—it’s TERRIBLE DISASTER. I’d love the market to decide:
market price for water
market price for CO2
no subsidies
There is market for premium meat! My personal view—I’m OK to have chickens and eat eggs in my own homestead. I’ll treat them well.
You still seem confused. You say your views are controversial, as if this community doesn’t allow for and value controversial opinions, and think that it’s the claims you made. That is not the case. Hopefully this comment is clear enough to explain.
1. This was a low-effort post. It was full of half-formed ideas, contained neither a title or a introduction that related to the remainder of the post, nor a clear conclusion. The sentences were not complete, and there was clearly no grammar check.
2. Look at successful posts on the forum. They contain full sentences, have a clear topic and thoughts about a topic that are explained clearly, and engage with past discussion. It’s important to notice the standards in a given forum before participating. In this case, you didn’t bother looking at other posts or understanding the community norms.
3. You have not engaged with other posts, and may not have even read them. Your first attempt to post or comment reflects that lack of broader engagement. You have no post history to make people think you have given this any thought whatsoever.
4. Your unrelated comments link to your other irrelevant work, which seems crass.
Firstly, I think this may be helpful in understanding the downvotes: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/about—to me, your post isn’t very clear, and it seems you’re using a somewhat superficial excuse of a question in order to make a bunch of semi-related points (if this is not the case and you’re sincerely just looking for an answer, then sorry for the assumption).
Linking to your book doesn’t really add to the post and comes off as unnecessary self promotion independent of whatever the actual concrete point of this post may be.
“Playing Bach or Mozart” to animals is probably just an intended minor provocation and you’re not seriously thinking that this is what EA is going for when it comes to animal welfare. Still, to attempt to answer your question:
“animal welfare” is a cause area in the sense that it’s a big global problem (billions of animals experiencing pain and suffering) that is neglected (comparably few resources going into improving the situation) and potentially solvable
playing music to animals on the other hand would be one possible intervention (so an answer to the question of how we could approach that big problem), and certainly not the most effective one, and I don’t think anybody here has claimed that. But correct me if I’m wrong.
if you disagree with how animal welfare is handled in EA currently, there are at least two possible constructive ways of attack:
you argue that animal welfare is not an important cause area, because either it is not as big a problem, because it is not neglected, or because it is not solvable; all of these things are pretty well established however, so unless you know of some very crucial consideration, even strong evidence in any of these areas would probably only lead to comparably small adjustments in how this cause area is prioritized in comparison to others
you argue that there are interventions to tackle that problem that are more effective than those currently favored by EA; this seems closer to what you’re trying to do here. So your question should not be “Why is animal welfare a thing”, but “Why do you assume intervention X is more effective than intervention Y” (e.g. X being research into clean meat, and Y being carbon tax), and then doing some research on the effectiveness of both things; or alternatively if you’re relatively sure of that, writing a post in favor of intervention Y being underrated and why people should look more into it as it’s a very effective animal welfare intervention.
Building on the last point: when arguing against a position, you’ll get more support and fewer downvotes if you follow a) the good faith principle (basically assuming the position you’re arguing against originates from well meaning people with a genuine interest in doing good) and b) try steelmanning the opposite view (i.e. trying to find the best possible available argument, as opposed to strawmanning, which “playing Bach or Mozart” basically is).
To get closer to the actual object level here, I’d be interested in what you think about these statements and to what extent you agree or disagree with them:
1. Animal suffering is a problem worth solving
2. We should prioritize approaches of solving the problem that do the most good per dollar/time (i.e. alleviate the most suffering or yield the most happiness, or following a similar metric depending on your values)
3. Which approach is the most effective one is an open question that should be answered primarily by gathering evidence
Thank you for the generous comment.
I was coming from “fake news” background where click-bait titles and controversy gets you clicks and comments, but here only downvotes...
My style is often controversial and I’m definitely not sorry.
Just like environmentalist are talking about Polar Bear 🐻 losing natural habitat… For someone living on $1 per day, who don’t have passport, don’t have bank account, don’t have electricity—does it matter? I’m worried about catastrophic climate change.Animal industrial agriculture—waste of land, waste of water, CO2, agricultural subsidies—it’s TERRIBLE DISASTER. I’d love the market to decide:
market price for water
market price for CO2
no subsidies
There is market for premium meat! My personal view—I’m OK to have chickens and eat eggs in my own homestead. I’ll treat them well.
You still seem confused. You say your views are controversial, as if this community doesn’t allow for and value controversial opinions, and think that it’s the claims you made. That is not the case. Hopefully this comment is clear enough to explain.
1. This was a low-effort post. It was full of half-formed ideas, contained neither a title or a introduction that related to the remainder of the post, nor a clear conclusion. The sentences were not complete, and there was clearly no grammar check.
2. Look at successful posts on the forum. They contain full sentences, have a clear topic and thoughts about a topic that are explained clearly, and engage with past discussion. It’s important to notice the standards in a given forum before participating. In this case, you didn’t bother looking at other posts or understanding the community norms.
3. You have not engaged with other posts, and may not have even read them. Your first attempt to post or comment reflects that lack of broader engagement. You have no post history to make people think you have given this any thought whatsoever.
4. Your unrelated comments link to your other irrelevant work, which seems crass.