Thanks so much for your engagement and consideration. I appreciate your openness about the need for more work in tackling these difficult questions.
our current estimates of the gap between marginal animal and human funding opportunities is very different from the one in your post ā within one order of magnitude, not three.
Holden has stated that āIt seems unlikely that the ratio would be in the precise, narrow range needed for these two uses of funds to have similar cost-effectiveness.ā As OP continues researching moral weights, OPās marginal cost-effectiveness estimates for FAW and GHW may eventually differ by several orders of magnitude. If this happens, would OP substantially update their allocations between FAW and GHW?
Along with OPās neartermist cause prioritization, your comment seems to imply that OPās moral weights are 1-2 orders of magnitude lower than Rethinkās. If thatās true, that is a massive difference which (depending upon the details) could have big implications for how EA should allocate resources between FAW charities (e.g. chickens vs shrimp) as well as between FAW and GHW.
Does OP plan to reveal their moral weights and/āor their methodology for deriving them? It seems that opening up the conversation would be quite beneficial to OPās objective of furthering moral weight research until uncertainty is reduced enough to act upon.
Iād like to reiterate how much I appreciate your openness to feedback and your replyās clarification of OPās disagreements with my post. That said, this reply doesnāt seem to directly answer this postās headline questions:
How much weight does OPās theory of welfare place on pleasure and pain, as opposed to nonhedonic goods?
Precisely how much more does OP value one unit of a humanās welfare than one unit of another animalās welfare, just because the former is a human? How does OP derive this tradeoff?
How would OPās views have to change for OP to prioritize animal welfare in neartermism?
Though you have no obligation to directly answer these questions, I really wish you would. A transparent discussion could update OP, Rethink, and many others on this deeply important topic.
Thanks again for taking the time to engage, and for everything you and OP have done to help others :)
As OP continues researching moral weights, OPās marginal cost-effectiveness estimates for FAW and GHW may eventually differ by several orders of magnitude. If this happens, would OP substantially update their allocations between FAW and GHW?
Weāre unsure conceptually whether we should be trying to equalize marginal returns between FAW and GHW or whether we should continue with our current approach of worldview diversification. If we end up feeling confident that we should be equalizing marginal returns and there are large differences (weāre uncertain about both pieces right now), I expect that weād adjust our allocation strategy. But this wouldnāt happen immediately; we think itās important to give program staff notice well in advance of any pending allocation changes.
Your comment seems to imply that OPās moral weights are 1-2 orders of magnitude lower than Rethinkās.
Iām wary of sharing precise numbers now, because weāre highly uncertain about all three of the parameters I listed and I donāt want people to over-update on our views. But the 2 orders of magnitude are coming from a combination of the three parameters I listed and not just moral weights. We may share more information on our views and methodology later, but I canāt commit to a particular date or any specifics on what weāll publish.
I unfortunately wonāt have time to engage with further responses for now, but whenever we publish research relevant to these topics, weāll be sure to cross-post it on the Forum!
We think these discussions are valuable, and I hope weāll be able to contribute more of our own takes down the line. But weāre working on a lot of other research we hope to publish, and I canāt say with certainty when weāll share more on this topic.
Hi Emily,
Thanks so much for your engagement and consideration. I appreciate your openness about the need for more work in tackling these difficult questions.
Holden has stated that āIt seems unlikely that the ratio would be in the precise, narrow range needed for these two uses of funds to have similar cost-effectiveness.ā As OP continues researching moral weights, OPās marginal cost-effectiveness estimates for FAW and GHW may eventually differ by several orders of magnitude. If this happens, would OP substantially update their allocations between FAW and GHW?
Along with OPās neartermist cause prioritization, your comment seems to imply that OPās moral weights are 1-2 orders of magnitude lower than Rethinkās. If thatās true, that is a massive difference which (depending upon the details) could have big implications for how EA should allocate resources between FAW charities (e.g. chickens vs shrimp) as well as between FAW and GHW.
Does OP plan to reveal their moral weights and/āor their methodology for deriving them? It seems that opening up the conversation would be quite beneficial to OPās objective of furthering moral weight research until uncertainty is reduced enough to act upon.
Iād like to reiterate how much I appreciate your openness to feedback and your replyās clarification of OPās disagreements with my post. That said, this reply doesnāt seem to directly answer this postās headline questions:
How much weight does OPās theory of welfare place on pleasure and pain, as opposed to nonhedonic goods?
Precisely how much more does OP value one unit of a humanās welfare than one unit of another animalās welfare, just because the former is a human? How does OP derive this tradeoff?
How would OPās views have to change for OP to prioritize animal welfare in neartermism?
Though you have no obligation to directly answer these questions, I really wish you would. A transparent discussion could update OP, Rethink, and many others on this deeply important topic.
Thanks again for taking the time to engage, and for everything you and OP have done to help others :)
Hi Ariel,
As OP continues researching moral weights, OPās marginal cost-effectiveness estimates for FAW and GHW may eventually differ by several orders of magnitude. If this happens, would OP substantially update their allocations between FAW and GHW?
Weāre unsure conceptually whether we should be trying to equalize marginal returns between FAW and GHW or whether we should continue with our current approach of worldview diversification. If we end up feeling confident that we should be equalizing marginal returns and there are large differences (weāre uncertain about both pieces right now), I expect that weād adjust our allocation strategy. But this wouldnāt happen immediately; we think itās important to give program staff notice well in advance of any pending allocation changes.
Your comment seems to imply that OPās moral weights are 1-2 orders of magnitude lower than Rethinkās.
Iām wary of sharing precise numbers now, because weāre highly uncertain about all three of the parameters I listed and I donāt want people to over-update on our views. But the 2 orders of magnitude are coming from a combination of the three parameters I listed and not just moral weights. We may share more information on our views and methodology later, but I canāt commit to a particular date or any specifics on what weāll publish.
I unfortunately wonāt have time to engage with further responses for now, but whenever we publish research relevant to these topics, weāll be sure to cross-post it on the Forum!
We think these discussions are valuable, and I hope weāll be able to contribute more of our own takes down the line. But weāre working on a lot of other research we hope to publish, and I canāt say with certainty when weāll share more on this topic.
Thank you again for the critique!