Executive summary: The number of farmed animals, especially small animals like fish, shrimp, and insect larvae, is extremely large and raises questions about the scale of animal welfare considerations in agriculture.
Key points:
Estimates suggest there are over 2 trillion farmed vertebrate animals alive at any given time, with over 500 trillion killed per year.
Farmed shrimp, fish, and insect larvae vastly outnumber farmed mammals and birds.
Brine shrimp nauplii, with 1.5 trillion alive at a time and 540 trillion killed per year, challenge expected value reasoning and moral aggregation due to their small size and uncertain sentience.
Further research on the mental capacities of small farmed animals like shrimp and insect larvae could be valuable for assessing their moral weight.
The scale of animal farming, especially of small animals, raises important questions about the magnitude of animal welfare considerations in agriculture.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: The number of farmed animals, especially small animals like fish, shrimp, and insect larvae, is extremely large and raises questions about the scale of animal welfare considerations in agriculture.
Key points:
Estimates suggest there are over 2 trillion farmed vertebrate animals alive at any given time, with over 500 trillion killed per year.
Farmed shrimp, fish, and insect larvae vastly outnumber farmed mammals and birds.
Brine shrimp nauplii, with 1.5 trillion alive at a time and 540 trillion killed per year, challenge expected value reasoning and moral aggregation due to their small size and uncertain sentience.
Further research on the mental capacities of small farmed animals like shrimp and insect larvae could be valuable for assessing their moral weight.
The scale of animal farming, especially of small animals, raises important questions about the magnitude of animal welfare considerations in agriculture.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.