Insect farming is a relatively new and “rapidly growing” industry, which may help explain why the insect welfare scale was the lowest.
One piece of good news regarding the meat-eater problem is that humans seem to reduce wild invertebrate populations, and that there are many ethical arguments pointing to these invertebrates living net negative lives. There’s some reason to believe that this dominates our (horrific) treatment of farmed animals.
Insect farming is a relatively new and “rapidly growing” industry, which may help explain why the insect welfare scale was the lowest.
Yes, nice point! In any case, the scale of the welfare of farmed insects being lower does not mean we should not try to mitigate it. One should also have tractability and neglectedness in mind, and these may well be higher earlier. So current efforts may well be especially cost-effective.
I think net change in forest area is a major driver for the impact of humans on terrestrial arthropods. So, since humans have historically caused deforestation, and deforested areas have less terrestrial arthropods, I can see why humans have decreased the population of terrestrial arthropods. However, forest area is now increasing in many countries. From OWID:
So I think there is not a clear answer.
there are many ethical arguments pointing to these invertebrates living net negative lives
From reading Brian Tomasik’s (great!) posts, I also got the impression wild animals have net negative lives. Meanwhile, I have become essentially agnostic. From here:
For pushback on the view that net welfare in the wild is negative, I mostly recommend checking this preprint from Heather Browning and Walter Weit. In addition, I also liked the posts linked here by Michael St. Jules:
I think net change in forest area is a major driver for the impact of humans on terrestrial arthropods.
Is that just a guess, or has someone said that explicitly? I also get the vague impression that forests have higher productivity than grasslands/etc, but that’s not obvious, and I’d be curious to see more investigation of whether/when forests do have higher productivity. (This includes both primary productivity and productivity in terms of invertebrate life.)
It is a guess informed by you (great!) analysis here, where you assumed the median density of arthropods in rainforests to be 1.53 (= 2.3/1.5) times that in Cerrado, although with high uncertainty as you noticed. However, I did not mean that increasing forest area would necessarily lead to more arthropods. I just meant that the change in forest area due to human activities could be the main factor for the net change in the total welfare of arthropods. I am uncertain about the sign of the correlation because I am not only uncertain about which biomes have greater density of arthropods, but also about the sign of the welfare of arthropods.
I have also illustrated here that the change in forest area might be the driver for the nearterm cost-effectiveness of GiveWell’s top charities.
Thanks. :) I’m uncertain how accurate or robust the 2.3/1.5 comparison was, but you’re right to cite that. And you’re right that human land-use changes (including changes to forest area) likely have big effects of some kind on total arthropod welfare.
also about the sign of the welfare of arthropods
Makes sense. I have almost no uncertainty about that because I measure welfare in a suffering-focused way, according to which extreme pain is vastly more important than positive experiences. I suspect that a lot of variation in opinions on this question come down to how suffering-focused or happiness-focused one’s values are, rather than empirical disagreements, though it’s also true that we lack a lot of empirical information about how invertebrates perceive and value various good and bad events.
It seems that most people agree that factory-farmed pigs and battery-cage hens have net negative welfare, so I guess there could be some possible empirical information that would persuade most people to take one or the other side of the issue. However, there’s disagreement about whether, e.g., factory-farmed beef and dairy cows have net negative or positive welfare. That seems to mostly be a difference in moral values.
Great post! Some points:
Insect farming is a relatively new and “rapidly growing” industry, which may help explain why the insect welfare scale was the lowest.
One piece of good news regarding the meat-eater problem is that humans seem to reduce wild invertebrate populations, and that there are many ethical arguments pointing to these invertebrates living net negative lives. There’s some reason to believe that this dominates our (horrific) treatment of farmed animals.
Hi Ariel,
Great to know you liked the post!
Yes, nice point! In any case, the scale of the welfare of farmed insects being lower does not mean we should not try to mitigate it. One should also have tractability and neglectedness in mind, and these may well be higher earlier. So current efforts may well be especially cost-effective.
I think net change in forest area is a major driver for the impact of humans on terrestrial arthropods. So, since humans have historically caused deforestation, and deforested areas have less terrestrial arthropods, I can see why humans have decreased the population of terrestrial arthropods. However, forest area is now increasing in many countries. From OWID:
So I think there is not a clear answer.
From reading Brian Tomasik’s (great!) posts, I also got the impression wild animals have net negative lives. Meanwhile, I have become essentially agnostic. From here:
Is that just a guess, or has someone said that explicitly? I also get the vague impression that forests have higher productivity than grasslands/etc, but that’s not obvious, and I’d be curious to see more investigation of whether/when forests do have higher productivity. (This includes both primary productivity and productivity in terms of invertebrate life.)
Thanks for commenting, Brian!
It is a guess informed by you (great!) analysis here, where you assumed the median density of arthropods in rainforests to be 1.53 (= 2.3/1.5) times that in Cerrado, although with high uncertainty as you noticed. However, I did not mean that increasing forest area would necessarily lead to more arthropods. I just meant that the change in forest area due to human activities could be the main factor for the net change in the total welfare of arthropods. I am uncertain about the sign of the correlation because I am not only uncertain about which biomes have greater density of arthropods, but also about the sign of the welfare of arthropods.
I have also illustrated here that the change in forest area might be the driver for the nearterm cost-effectiveness of GiveWell’s top charities.
Thanks. :) I’m uncertain how accurate or robust the 2.3/1.5 comparison was, but you’re right to cite that. And you’re right that human land-use changes (including changes to forest area) likely have big effects of some kind on total arthropod welfare.
Makes sense. I have almost no uncertainty about that because I measure welfare in a suffering-focused way, according to which extreme pain is vastly more important than positive experiences. I suspect that a lot of variation in opinions on this question come down to how suffering-focused or happiness-focused one’s values are, rather than empirical disagreements, though it’s also true that we lack a lot of empirical information about how invertebrates perceive and value various good and bad events.
It seems that most people agree that factory-farmed pigs and battery-cage hens have net negative welfare, so I guess there could be some possible empirical information that would persuade most people to take one or the other side of the issue. However, there’s disagreement about whether, e.g., factory-farmed beef and dairy cows have net negative or positive welfare. That seems to mostly be a difference in moral values.