Another thing on my mind is that we should beware surprising and suspicious convergence—it would be surprising and suspicious if the same intervention (present-focused WAW work) was best for improving animals’ lives today and also happened to be best for improving animals’ lives in the distant future.
I worry about people interested in animal welfare justifying maintaining their existing work when they switch their focus to longtermism, when actually it would be better if they worked on something different.
(I hope it’s not confusing that I’m answering both your comments at once).
While I will have to consider this for longer, my preliminary thought is that I agree with most of what you said. Which means that I might not believe in some of my previous statements.
Thanks for the link to that post. I do agree and I can definitely see how some of these biases have influenced a couple of my thoughts.
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On your last point, but future-focused WAW interventions, I’m thinking of things that you mention in the tractability section of your post:...
Okay, I see. Well actually, my initial thought was that all of those four options had a similar impact on the longterm future. Which would justify focusing on short-term interventions and advocacy (which would correspond with working on point number three and four). However after further consideration, I think the first two are of higher impact when considering the far future. Which means I (at least for right now) agree with your earlier statement:
“So rather than talking about “wild animal welfare interventions”, I’d argue that you’re really only talking about “future-focused wild animal welfare interventions”. And I think making that distinction is important, because I don’t think your reasoning supports present-focused WAW work.”
While I still think the “flow through effect” is very real for WAW, I do think that it’s probably true working on s-risks more directly might be of higher impact.
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I was curious if you have some thoughts on these conclusions (concluded based on a number of things you said and my personal values):
Since working on s-risk directly is more impactful than working on it indirectly, direct work should be done when possible.
There is no current organization working purely on animal related s-risk (as far as I know). So if that’s your main concern, your options are start-up or convincing an “s-risk mitigation organization” that you should work on this area full time.
Animal Ethics works on advocating moral circle expansion. But since this is of less direct impact to the longterm future, this has less of an effect on reducing s-risk than more direct work.
If you’re also interested in reducing other s-risks (e.g. artificial sentience), then working for an organization that directly tries to reduce the probability of a number of s-risk is your best option (e.g. Center on Long-Term Risk or Center for Reducing Suffering).
Another thing on my mind is that we should beware surprising and suspicious convergence—it would be surprising and suspicious if the same intervention (present-focused WAW work) was best for improving animals’ lives today and also happened to be best for improving animals’ lives in the distant future.
I worry about people interested in animal welfare justifying maintaining their existing work when they switch their focus to longtermism, when actually it would be better if they worked on something different.
(I hope it’s not confusing that I’m answering both your comments at once).
While I will have to consider this for longer, my preliminary thought is that I agree with most of what you said. Which means that I might not believe in some of my previous statements.
Thanks for the link to that post. I do agree and I can definitely see how some of these biases have influenced a couple of my thoughts.
--
Okay, I see. Well actually, my initial thought was that all of those four options had a similar impact on the longterm future. Which would justify focusing on short-term interventions and advocacy (which would correspond with working on point number three and four). However after further consideration, I think the first two are of higher impact when considering the far future. Which means I (at least for right now) agree with your earlier statement:
While I still think the “flow through effect” is very real for WAW, I do think that it’s probably true working on s-risks more directly might be of higher impact.
--
I was curious if you have some thoughts on these conclusions (concluded based on a number of things you said and my personal values):
Since working on s-risk directly is more impactful than working on it indirectly, direct work should be done when possible.
There is no current organization working purely on animal related s-risk (as far as I know). So if that’s your main concern, your options are start-up or convincing an “s-risk mitigation organization” that you should work on this area full time.
Animal Ethics works on advocating moral circle expansion. But since this is of less direct impact to the longterm future, this has less of an effect on reducing s-risk than more direct work.
If you’re also interested in reducing other s-risks (e.g. artificial sentience), then working for an organization that directly tries to reduce the probability of a number of s-risk is your best option (e.g. Center on Long-Term Risk or Center for Reducing Suffering).