I suppose I’m saying that I think your beliefs suggest we should try to annihilate the world or try to extinguish all life.
I think hidden in a lot of your analysis is one of the following
Negative utilitarianism. I think this is a fine belief to hold but I think it should be stated outright.
An assumption that the lives of many/most/all animals is net negative by default and we need evidence that they are positive for them not to be considered net negative.
I think 2 is more likely but I think a lot of the people that think along your lines (maybe someone like Bentham’s Bulldog too), seem to assume that life is likely to be negative and I just don’t see why this assumption should be expected. We don’t really see any animals committing suicide, they clearly show desire/preference to live (they try to escape death at many costs), a lot of life for humans who we consider to usually be net positive is spent on things where we “struggle” to maintain existence and yet most people are fairly happy with their life.
I also agree that we should be highly uncertain about whether soil creatures live positive or negative lives but your analysis more or less assumes that the sign is negative and everything else follows from there.
On death, most of the life of a creature is usually not spent during it’s death. I’m happy for interventions for farmed animals to reduce pain during death (and humans too!) but I think basing a lot of calculations on this doesn’t capture most of the animal’s life.
Last, I think your analysis ignores something I consider to be extremely important and in fact, the main reason I’m (and I think others should be) vegan. Namely, a ~daily reminder that animals matter and a reduction in cognitive dissonance and the effect it has on others. I think my (and any other) individual diet’s direct harm is uncertain, has a lot of crucial considerations, etc. but, I think a lot of rationalists like to pretend they are above usual human thoughts/instincts on this matter. I discuss this more here.
I fully endorse expectational total hedonistic utilitarianism. I strongly believe there are many experiences that are better than nothing. Negative utilitarianism implies that the painless elimination of all experiences forever would be as good as utopian lives for all beings forever. So negative utilitarianism makes no sense to me.
As I said in my comment above, I am very uncertain about whether soil nematodes, mites, and springtails have positive or negative. However, I would not see the absence of suicide among these animals as compelling evidence that they have positive lives. I estimated 6.37 % of humans have negative lives, but only 0.00946 % commited suicide in 2021, 0.149 % (= 9.46*10^-5/0.0637) as many as those I estimate to have negative lives.
I would get more counterintuitive conclusions if I assumed soil nematodes, mites, and springtails have positive lives (although this is not a reason for me to assume their lives are negative). Generally improving human lives, and the conditions of farmed animals would then harm soil animals much more than it benefits humans and farmed animals.
@Marcus Abramovitch 🔸, I am tagging you because I forgot to reply to the last paragraph of your comment. I do not think it makes senses to remind myself and others to help animals by doing something that I believe actually harms animals. However, I still eat fully plant-based because I think the benefits from increased donations are greater than the harm caused to animals due to less agricultural-land-years.
I agree that we should be thinking at the margin.
I suppose I’m saying that I think your beliefs suggest we should try to annihilate the world or try to extinguish all life.
I think hidden in a lot of your analysis is one of the following
Negative utilitarianism. I think this is a fine belief to hold but I think it should be stated outright.
An assumption that the lives of many/most/all animals is net negative by default and we need evidence that they are positive for them not to be considered net negative.
I think 2 is more likely but I think a lot of the people that think along your lines (maybe someone like Bentham’s Bulldog too), seem to assume that life is likely to be negative and I just don’t see why this assumption should be expected. We don’t really see any animals committing suicide, they clearly show desire/preference to live (they try to escape death at many costs), a lot of life for humans who we consider to usually be net positive is spent on things where we “struggle” to maintain existence and yet most people are fairly happy with their life.
I also agree that we should be highly uncertain about whether soil creatures live positive or negative lives but your analysis more or less assumes that the sign is negative and everything else follows from there.
On death, most of the life of a creature is usually not spent during it’s death. I’m happy for interventions for farmed animals to reduce pain during death (and humans too!) but I think basing a lot of calculations on this doesn’t capture most of the animal’s life.
Last, I think your analysis ignores something I consider to be extremely important and in fact, the main reason I’m (and I think others should be) vegan. Namely, a ~daily reminder that animals matter and a reduction in cognitive dissonance and the effect it has on others. I think my (and any other) individual diet’s direct harm is uncertain, has a lot of crucial considerations, etc. but, I think a lot of rationalists like to pretend they are above usual human thoughts/instincts on this matter. I discuss this more here.
I fully endorse expectational total hedonistic utilitarianism. I strongly believe there are many experiences that are better than nothing. Negative utilitarianism implies that the painless elimination of all experiences forever would be as good as utopian lives for all beings forever. So negative utilitarianism makes no sense to me.
As I said in my comment above, I am very uncertain about whether soil nematodes, mites, and springtails have positive or negative. However, I would not see the absence of suicide among these animals as compelling evidence that they have positive lives. I estimated 6.37 % of humans have negative lives, but only 0.00946 % commited suicide in 2021, 0.149 % (= 9.46*10^-5/0.0637) as many as those I estimate to have negative lives.
I would get more counterintuitive conclusions if I assumed soil nematodes, mites, and springtails have positive lives (although this is not a reason for me to assume their lives are negative). Generally improving human lives, and the conditions of farmed animals would then harm soil animals much more than it benefits humans and farmed animals.
@Marcus Abramovitch 🔸, I am tagging you because I forgot to reply to the last paragraph of your comment. I do not think it makes senses to remind myself and others to help animals by doing something that I believe actually harms animals. However, I still eat fully plant-based because I think the benefits from increased donations are greater than the harm caused to animals due to less agricultural-land-years.