Not really an argument, although I do disagree with stuff like RPâs moral weights.
I liked your comment. At the same time, I would not dismiss the conclusions just because they are counterintuitive. I only see this as a reason for further investigation. I would be curious to know about your best guess for the welfare range of nematodes. I estimated the annual welfare of soil nematodes is â296 k times that of humans, so the welfare range of nematodes would have to be less than 3.38*10^-6 (= 1/â(296*10^3)) times my estimate of 6.47*10^-6, 2.19*10^-11 (= 3.38*10^-6*6.47*10^-6), for my estimate of the absolute value of the welfare of nematodes to be smaller than that of humans.
âyou canât actually use RP-style moral weights to compare things in that wayâ
âitâs an equivalent amount of suffering, yes, but itâs such a different TYPE of suffering that you shouldnât picture suffering humans, instead it would be more accurate to picture Xâ (what should X be? maybe something simpler than an adult human but still relatable, like crying newborns or a writhing, injured insect?)
[...]
Philosophically, I tend to be of the opinion that if you made a computer simulation of a human brain experiencing torture, it would be very bad to run that simulation. But if you then ran the EXACT same simulation again, this would not be 2x as badâit might not be even any worse at all than running it once.
I think what matters is the intensity and duration of the pain, not its uniqueness. I believe 2 h of pain of a given intensity is exactly 2 times as bad as 1 h of pain of the same intensity, regardless of the specific content of the painful experiences. Intuitively, I do not see how the badness of my pain can depend on the extent to which there is a similar pain being experienced somewhere in the multiverse.
ânegative QALYs arenât actually very bad; itâs more like having a stubbed toe 24â7 than being tortured 24/â7â (I am very confused about the idea of negative QALYs, neutral points, etc, and it seems everyone else is too)
In my post, â1 QALY is the welfare needed to neutralise 1 QALY.
Iâd also be very curious to know what people make of the fact that at least the most famous nematode species has only 302 neurons that are always wired up in the exact same way.
It looks like there are around 1 M species of nematodes, 148 (= 1*10^6/â(6.74*10^3)) times as many as the 6.74 k species of mammals.
Nematode species can be difficult to distinguish from one another. Consequently, estimates of the number of nematode species are uncertain. A 2013 survey of animal biodiversity suggested there are over 25,000.[4][5] Estimates of the total number of extant species are subject to even greater variation. A widely referenced 1993 article estimated there might be over a million species of nematode.[6] A subsequent publication challenged this claim, estimating the figure to be at least 40,000 species.[7] Although the highest estimates (up to 100 million species) have since been deprecated, estimates supported by rarefaction curves,[8][9] together with the use of DNA barcoding[10] and the increasing acknowledgment of widespread cryptic species among nematodes,[11] have placed the figure closer to one million species.[12]
Anyways, perhaps this perspectiveâwherein human civilization is essentially irrelevant except insofar as we can take action that affects the infinite ocean of primitive-but-vast nematode experienceâwould seem more normal to me if I came from a more buddhist /â hindu /â jain culture instead of a mostly christian/âwestern oneâmahayana buddhism is always on about innumerable worlds filled with countless beings, things persisting for endless repetitions of lifetimes, and so forth. In contrast to christianity which places a lot of emphasis on individual human agency and the drama of historical events (like the roman empire, etc). Or one could view it as a kind of moral equivalent of the copernican /â broader scientific revolution, when people were shocked to realize that the earth is actually a tiny part of an incomprehensibly vast galaxy. The galaxy is physically large, but it is mostly just rocks and gas, so (we console ourselves) it is not âmorally largeâ; we are still at the center of the âmoral universeâ. But for many strong believers in animal welfare as a cause area, and doubly or triply so for believers in insect welfare, this is not the case.
Great perspectives! Maybe a video about them could be interesting ;).
Agreed with Marcus Abramovitch that (if nematode lives are indeed net-negative, and if one agrees with RP-style weights on the importance of very simple animals), I think it WOULD strongly suggest (both emotionally and logically) pursuing âcharities that just start wildfiresâ (which IMO would be cost-effectiveâseems pretty cheap to set stuff on fire...)
I would be open to donating to such charities in principle. I do not shy away from counterintuitive conclusions. However, I am just very sceptical they would be cost-effective, or even just beneficial instead of harmful. Their scale would necessarily be limited due to the illegal nature of their work, which means supporting them would also likely be illegal, and therefore have to be super cost-effective to outweigh the expected decrease in future donations linked to the risk of fines, and being arrested, and outweigh the expected decrease in direct impact linked to the risk reputational damage worsening oneâs career. I also do not know whether fires decrease the number of nematodes. I guess they do nearterm, because I think 90 % of nematodes are in the top 15 cm of soil, and I assume this would still heat up sufficiently to kill the nematodes. However, the fire might increase the number of nematodes longer term.
Deliberately hastening global warming (perhaps by building a CFC-emissions factory on the sly) might shift biomes in a favorable way for the nematodes. Steering an asteroid into the earth, or hastening the arrival of a catastrophically misaligned AI superintelligence, might effectively sterilize the planet where nukes canât. And so on.
I think my point that increasing the risk of catastrophes increases animal-years also holds for the catastrophes above. It is way way harder to end life on Earth than to cause human extinction, and this is way way harder than just marginally decreasing human population. So I believe increasing the risk of large catastrophes would overwhelmingly decrease human-years, thus decreasing cropland, and increasing animal-years, while only infinitesimaly increasing the probability o extinction of all life on Earth.
All the standard longtermist arguments would then applyâeven raising the chance of sterilizing the earth by a little bit would be worth a lot. From my perspective (as someone who disagrees with the premises of this insect-welfare stuff), these implications do seem socially dangerous.
I do not think reducing the nearterm risk of human extinction is astronomically cost-effective. Likewise, I do not think increasing the risk of extinction of all life on Earth is astronomically cost-effective. In addition, I believe the best ways of increasing the risk of extinction of all life on Earth involve a peaceful gradual expansion of the activities of humans and their eventual non-biological descendents.
Thanks for the comment, Jack!
I liked your comment. At the same time, I would not dismiss the conclusions just because they are counterintuitive. I only see this as a reason for further investigation. I would be curious to know about your best guess for the welfare range of nematodes. I estimated the annual welfare of soil nematodes is â296 k times that of humans, so the welfare range of nematodes would have to be less than 3.38*10^-6 (= 1/â(296*10^3)) times my estimate of 6.47*10^-6, 2.19*10^-11 (= 3.38*10^-6*6.47*10^-6), for my estimate of the absolute value of the welfare of nematodes to be smaller than that of humans.
At least Ambitious Impact (AIM), Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE), and RP assume welfare per animal-year is proportional to RPâs mainline welfare ranges, as I did.
I think what matters is the intensity and duration of the pain, not its uniqueness. I believe 2 h of pain of a given intensity is exactly 2 times as bad as 1 h of pain of the same intensity, regardless of the specific content of the painful experiences. Intuitively, I do not see how the badness of my pain can depend on the extent to which there is a similar pain being experienced somewhere in the multiverse.
In my post, â1 QALY is the welfare needed to neutralise 1 QALY.
It looks like there are around 1 M species of nematodes, 148 (= 1*10^6/â(6.74*10^3)) times as many as the 6.74 k species of mammals.
Great perspectives! Maybe a video about them could be interesting ;).
I would be open to donating to such charities in principle. I do not shy away from counterintuitive conclusions. However, I am just very sceptical they would be cost-effective, or even just beneficial instead of harmful. Their scale would necessarily be limited due to the illegal nature of their work, which means supporting them would also likely be illegal, and therefore have to be super cost-effective to outweigh the expected decrease in future donations linked to the risk of fines, and being arrested, and outweigh the expected decrease in direct impact linked to the risk reputational damage worsening oneâs career. I also do not know whether fires decrease the number of nematodes. I guess they do nearterm, because I think 90 % of nematodes are in the top 15 cm of soil, and I assume this would still heat up sufficiently to kill the nematodes. However, the fire might increase the number of nematodes longer term.
I think my point that increasing the risk of catastrophes increases animal-years also holds for the catastrophes above. It is way way harder to end life on Earth than to cause human extinction, and this is way way harder than just marginally decreasing human population. So I believe increasing the risk of large catastrophes would overwhelmingly decrease human-years, thus decreasing cropland, and increasing animal-years, while only infinitesimaly increasing the probability o extinction of all life on Earth.
I do not think reducing the nearterm risk of human extinction is astronomically cost-effective. Likewise, I do not think increasing the risk of extinction of all life on Earth is astronomically cost-effective. In addition, I believe the best ways of increasing the risk of extinction of all life on Earth involve a peaceful gradual expansion of the activities of humans and their eventual non-biological descendents.