Hi! I agree with basically everything written here, in particular about their lives probably not being worth living. My sense is that this depends less on differences in intensity of experiences across species, which makes it a useful starting point for my thinking. I admittedly know less about on-the-ground conditions than activists in this area, but if their lives are void of good experiences, and include at least some subjectively bad ones, its hard to come up with a rationale for how they could have worthwhile lives.
So, conditional on focusing on near-term problems, I think there is a very good case for prioritizing factory farming (and many EAs do!). I’m less certain about the longtermist point you make. If factory farming phases out eventually without EA effort (which seems likely to me), then your efforts aren’t counterfactually ending an indefinite future of factory farming, just speeding this transition up. Preventing extinction or totalitarian lock-in really would create a counterfactual stream of goodness that’s (approximately) indefinite. Though this also assumes the future is likely to be a stream of goodness, rather than badness; here’s a related discussion on this point you might find useful.
Hi Kevin, I definitely agree with your point on longtermism, and thanks for sending that article as I think it gets a lot closer to one my main concerns here which is indefinitely extending a bad future.
Hi! I agree with basically everything written here, in particular about their lives probably not being worth living. My sense is that this depends less on differences in intensity of experiences across species, which makes it a useful starting point for my thinking. I admittedly know less about on-the-ground conditions than activists in this area, but if their lives are void of good experiences, and include at least some subjectively bad ones, its hard to come up with a rationale for how they could have worthwhile lives.
So, conditional on focusing on near-term problems, I think there is a very good case for prioritizing factory farming (and many EAs do!). I’m less certain about the longtermist point you make. If factory farming phases out eventually without EA effort (which seems likely to me), then your efforts aren’t counterfactually ending an indefinite future of factory farming, just speeding this transition up. Preventing extinction or totalitarian lock-in really would create a counterfactual stream of goodness that’s (approximately) indefinite. Though this also assumes the future is likely to be a stream of goodness, rather than badness; here’s a related discussion on this point you might find useful.
Hi Kevin, I definitely agree with your point on longtermism, and thanks for sending that article as I think it gets a lot closer to one my main concerns here which is indefinitely extending a bad future.