Here are some quick observations about the dogfree movement vis a vis effective altruism:
Contrary to dogfree movement claims, dogs have an overall positive human hedonic impact. But dogs have been bred to provide supernormal stimuli, so it is not clear if this is truly long-run beneficial. For example, is it better for a human to be immediately satisfied with a superficial form of unconditional love from a dog, or to seek out the arduous task of learning to unconditionally love oneself? It may be the case that many people are stuck in a hedonic local maximum with dog ownership.
Pugs, which are booming in popularity, have been bred to be neotenous and “cute” at the expense of substantial suffering for the pugs themselves.
Dogs typically eat meat, and thus contribute to suffering on factory farms.
I had never considered the first point regarding a local maximum—interesting thing to explore but I’m unsure, except perhaps in a more ideal world, that we are at all capable of consistently getting more than local maxes at times (and yeah dogs seem to be one of the best (easiest) one-time actions someone can take for their happiness (https://jamesclear.com/how-to-automate-a-habit), author surveys his own audience and they produce this tidbit and it matches my intuition).
And this sort of strikes me of my impression of dog-free (or pet-free?) as a movement overall—I recall a friend discussing it with me as a potential ongoing moral catastrophe that people in the future would be horrified with—which I agree with (particularly with the pug example (I can imagine this being extrapolated to all dogs somewhat perhaps), as you said!) but I feel quite horrified by a lot of more horrifying things now than this specific cause area (others with way more scale). It feels like a step for later moral progress, somewhat along the lines of the discounting argument: “people are starving now, why pursue better lives for animals before them.” (I don’t really subscribe to this argument).
I think the idea of dogs replacing children is really interesting and I will definitely think about that a bit more in the future!
I recently learned that there’s a intense and growing “dogfree” movement, and I’m curious if there’s an effective altruist take on this topic. This subreddit post seems to capture dogfree activists’ objections to dog ownership: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dogfree/comments/7bk3wo/just_curious_what_is_the_reason_why_you/
Here are some quick observations about the dogfree movement vis a vis effective altruism:
Contrary to dogfree movement claims, dogs have an overall positive human hedonic impact. But dogs have been bred to provide supernormal stimuli, so it is not clear if this is truly long-run beneficial. For example, is it better for a human to be immediately satisfied with a superficial form of unconditional love from a dog, or to seek out the arduous task of learning to unconditionally love oneself? It may be the case that many people are stuck in a hedonic local maximum with dog ownership.
Pugs, which are booming in popularity, have been bred to be neotenous and “cute” at the expense of substantial suffering for the pugs themselves.
Dogs typically eat meat, and thus contribute to suffering on factory farms.
Dogs and children are substitute goods, and children are more important to the future. In San Francisco, there are more dogs than children: https://www.kqed.org/news/11669269/are-there-really-more-dogs-than-children-in-s-f . In Taiwan, pets outnumber children under the age of 14: https://www.petfoodindustry.com/articles/9549-taiwan-pet-population-outnumbers-children-14-or-younger?v=preview
Dogs are less sentient than other alternative pets, such as pigs.
Dogs contribute to climate change, and unlike children, will never contribute to any innovation that helps us end it.
Many humans are allergic to dogs. On the other hand, early life exposure to dogs may reduce the risk of developing allergies and asthma later on.
Dogs are not effective altruists.
I’m curious to hear others’ thoughts on this subject!
I had never considered the first point regarding a local maximum—interesting thing to explore but I’m unsure, except perhaps in a more ideal world, that we are at all capable of consistently getting more than local maxes at times (and yeah dogs seem to be one of the best (easiest) one-time actions someone can take for their happiness (https://jamesclear.com/how-to-automate-a-habit), author surveys his own audience and they produce this tidbit and it matches my intuition).
And this sort of strikes me of my impression of dog-free (or pet-free?) as a movement overall—I recall a friend discussing it with me as a potential ongoing moral catastrophe that people in the future would be horrified with—which I agree with (particularly with the pug example (I can imagine this being extrapolated to all dogs somewhat perhaps), as you said!) but I feel quite horrified by a lot of more horrifying things now than this specific cause area (others with way more scale). It feels like a step for later moral progress, somewhat along the lines of the discounting argument: “people are starving now, why pursue better lives for animals before them.” (I don’t really subscribe to this argument).
I think the idea of dogs replacing children is really interesting and I will definitely think about that a bit more in the future!
Thanks for sharing.