Thanks for the post, Ben and Amalie. I have argued for prioritising interventions targeting farmed animals over ones targeting humans many times in the past, including during AIM’s research program. However, I now think it is better to direct marginal funding and people to global health and development interventions instead of ones targeting farmed animals.
Part 1: Why you should launch an animal welfare charity
Our existing animal charities have had a lot of impact—improving the lives of over 1 billion animals worldwide. - from Shrimp Welfare Project securing corporate commitments globally [...]
I estimate funding the Centre for Exploratory Altruism Research’s (CEARCH’s) High Impact Philanthropy Fund (HIPF) decreases 5.07 billion soil-animal-years per $, 5.07 times the 1 billion animals you mention above per $. HIPF funds global health interventions, this decreases human mortality, this increases food production, this increases agricultural land, and this decreases the number of soil animals. In addition, I estimate funding HIPF increases the welfare of soil ants, termites, springtail, mites, and nematodes 3.43 k (= 70.6*10^3/20.6) times as cost-effectively as the Shrimp Welfare Project’s (SWP’s) Humane Slaughter Initiative (HSI) increases the welfare of shrimps. This is for my best guess that soil animals have negative lives. I supposed the welfare per soil-animal-year is −25 % of that per fully happy soil-animal-year. I am very uncertain about whether soil animals have positive or negative lives. However, AIM (in particular, Karolina Sarek, Joey Savoie, and David Moss) estimated−42 % for the “wild bug” in 2018, which is more negative than what I assumed.
It is valid but I think it’s being downvoted because (a) Vasco posts the same point so often and so widely that some people come to view it as spam, (b) this is on a public forum and is the kind of view that is perfect to be used by bad-faith EA critics and journalists to paint EA in a negative light in media.
Although, to Vasco’s credit, this comment is much improved on the optics front compared to previous ones
And related to (a), experience teaches us that there’s a risk of derailing the discussion away from the topic of the original post. While posters are not entitled to control the discussion on their posts, I also don’t think there’s much value in hosting the soil-animal discussion on a bunch of different threads especially if it risks displacing other discussions.
I do not reflexively downvote Vasco’s comments on this topic, but here I think the connection to the topic of the post is too tenuous.
Thanks for the post, Ben and Amalie. I have argued for prioritising interventions targeting farmed animals over ones targeting humans many times in the past, including during AIM’s research program. However, I now think it is better to direct marginal funding and people to global health and development interventions instead of ones targeting farmed animals.
I estimate funding the Centre for Exploratory Altruism Research’s (CEARCH’s) High Impact Philanthropy Fund (HIPF) decreases 5.07 billion soil-animal-years per $, 5.07 times the 1 billion animals you mention above per $. HIPF funds global health interventions, this decreases human mortality, this increases food production, this increases agricultural land, and this decreases the number of soil animals. In addition, I estimate funding HIPF increases the welfare of soil ants, termites, springtail, mites, and nematodes 3.43 k (= 70.6*10^3/20.6) times as cost-effectively as the Shrimp Welfare Project’s (SWP’s) Humane Slaughter Initiative (HSI) increases the welfare of shrimps. This is for my best guess that soil animals have negative lives. I supposed the welfare per soil-animal-year is −25 % of that per fully happy soil-animal-year. I am very uncertain about whether soil animals have positive or negative lives. However, AIM (in particular, Karolina Sarek, Joey Savoie, and David Moss) estimated −42 % for the “wild bug” in 2018, which is more negative than what I assumed.
Whilst I don’t have a strong view on the points you’re making, why is this getting downvoted? It’s a valid discussion.
It is valid but I think it’s being downvoted because (a) Vasco posts the same point so often and so widely that some people come to view it as spam, (b) this is on a public forum and is the kind of view that is perfect to be used by bad-faith EA critics and journalists to paint EA in a negative light in media.
Although, to Vasco’s credit, this comment is much improved on the optics front compared to previous ones
And related to (a), experience teaches us that there’s a risk of derailing the discussion away from the topic of the original post. While posters are not entitled to control the discussion on their posts, I also don’t think there’s much value in hosting the soil-animal discussion on a bunch of different threads especially if it risks displacing other discussions.
I do not reflexively downvote Vasco’s comments on this topic, but here I think the connection to the topic of the post is too tenuous.
Thanks for the support, Siobhan.