Got it. I think I understand what you’re saying. I’m not as good with math so I’m not sure if I followed the calculations. But to try to put what you’re saying in less mathy terms, I think you’re basically saying:
1) There are WAY WAY WAY more nematodes than farmed animals.
2) Nematodes are significantly less likely to be sentient than farmed animals.
3) But the fact that there are WAY WAY WAY more nematodes than farmed animals still means that, from an expected value perspective, one would still expect the effect of farming on nematodes to be much bigger than the effect of farming on farmed animals.
Is that right?
Like, if you could enter a deal where a person is guaranteed to pay you $1 up front, but in exchange you accept a 6% chance that the person will later take $4,810,000 from you, it’d be a bad deal to make, even though the most likely outcome is you simply gain a dollar and don’t pay anything. Is that a good analogy?
Yes, that is basically right[1]. For example, I estimate nematodes are 7.76 % (= 0.068/0.876) as likely to be sentient as chickens (“significantly less”), but that there are 16.7 billion (= 4.89*10^20/(29.2*10^9)) times as many soil nematodes as farmed chickens (“WAY WAY WAY more”).
Yes, I think that analogy illustrates why I think broadly advocating for decreasing the consumption of animal-based foods tends to be harmful to animals.
With the caveat that what matters besides population is the welfare per animal-year, which is the product between the probability of sentience, welfare range given sentience, and welfare per animal-year as a fraction of the welfare range.
Got it. I think I understand what you’re saying. I’m not as good with math so I’m not sure if I followed the calculations. But to try to put what you’re saying in less mathy terms, I think you’re basically saying:
1) There are WAY WAY WAY more nematodes than farmed animals.
2) Nematodes are significantly less likely to be sentient than farmed animals.
3) But the fact that there are WAY WAY WAY more nematodes than farmed animals still means that, from an expected value perspective, one would still expect the effect of farming on nematodes to be much bigger than the effect of farming on farmed animals.
Is that right?
Like, if you could enter a deal where a person is guaranteed to pay you $1 up front, but in exchange you accept a 6% chance that the person will later take $4,810,000 from you, it’d be a bad deal to make, even though the most likely outcome is you simply gain a dollar and don’t pay anything. Is that a good analogy?
Yes, that is basically right[1]. For example, I estimate nematodes are 7.76 % (= 0.068/0.876) as likely to be sentient as chickens (“significantly less”), but that there are 16.7 billion (= 4.89*10^20/(29.2*10^9)) times as many soil nematodes as farmed chickens (“WAY WAY WAY more”).
Yes, I think that analogy illustrates why I think broadly advocating for decreasing the consumption of animal-based foods tends to be harmful to animals.
With the caveat that what matters besides population is the welfare per animal-year, which is the product between the probability of sentience, welfare range given sentience, and welfare per animal-year as a fraction of the welfare range.
Got it. Thank you so much for explaining so patiently!