I find that discussion about wild animal suffering very quickly gets to “but it would be ludicrous to believe X because then we’d have to do Y.” I think it’s better to focus on “How might we find out if X is true” rather than the drastic consequences that would have.
As a parallel, people in power have often found it convenient to believe that slaves, immigrants, poor people, etc have naturally higher pain tolerance than themselves and thus it’s not a problem for them to do hard labor, have inadequate medical care, etc. The fact that changing this belief would have disruptive consequences doesn’t have anything to do with its accuracy.
Having read much of Brian Tomasik’s work, I think the idea that wild animals have net negative lives is plausible, and I don’t think habitat destruction would be ludicrous. However, that does seem to be a more extreme position than most wild animal welfare organizations are willing to commit to, and I suggest that the framework proposed here is not well-suited for answering those sorts of questions.
Yeah, I think there’s a bad dynamic where people who have read Tomasik either seriously or jokingly propose “pave everything” and other people find that alarming and want nothing to do with any ideas that could lead in that direction. I spent years intentionally not reading Tomasik because I was afraid it would make me into some kind of fanatic.
I find that discussion about wild animal suffering very quickly gets to “but it would be ludicrous to believe X because then we’d have to do Y.” I think it’s better to focus on “How might we find out if X is true” rather than the drastic consequences that would have.
As a parallel, people in power have often found it convenient to believe that slaves, immigrants, poor people, etc have naturally higher pain tolerance than themselves and thus it’s not a problem for them to do hard labor, have inadequate medical care, etc. The fact that changing this belief would have disruptive consequences doesn’t have anything to do with its accuracy.
Having read much of Brian Tomasik’s work, I think the idea that wild animals have net negative lives is plausible, and I don’t think habitat destruction would be ludicrous. However, that does seem to be a more extreme position than most wild animal welfare organizations are willing to commit to, and I suggest that the framework proposed here is not well-suited for answering those sorts of questions.
Yeah, I think there’s a bad dynamic where people who have read Tomasik either seriously or jokingly propose “pave everything” and other people find that alarming and want nothing to do with any ideas that could lead in that direction. I spent years intentionally not reading Tomasik because I was afraid it would make me into some kind of fanatic.