Thanks for the interesting discussion, Abraham and Matthew! I have coincidentally been thinking about this over the past few days.
I agree there’s high uncertianty, but sometimes it’s worth acting on +ev actions even given loads of uncertainty.
I agree. Uncertainty about whether wild animals have positive or negative lives should directionally update one towards supporting interventions which improve their lives, and away from ones which increase/​decrease positive/​negative animal-years. However, it could still be the case that one’s best guess for the welfare per animal-year is sufficiently away from 0 for the latter interventions to be more cost-effective. I am not aware of any quantitative analysis arguing one way or the other.
Thanks for the interesting discussion, Abraham and Matthew! I have coincidentally been thinking about this over the past few days.
I agree. Uncertainty about whether wild animals have positive or negative lives should directionally update one towards supporting interventions which improve their lives, and away from ones which increase/​decrease positive/​negative animal-years. However, it could still be the case that one’s best guess for the welfare per animal-year is sufficiently away from 0 for the latter interventions to be more cost-effective. I am not aware of any quantitative analysis arguing one way or the other.