I think the strength of these considerations depends on what sort of longtermist intervention you’re comparing to, depending on your ethics. I do find the abject suffering of so many animals a compelling counter to prioritizing creating an intergalactic utopia (if the counterfactual is just that fewer sentient beings exist in the future). But some longtermist interventions are about reducing far greater scales of suffering, by beings who don’t matter any less than today’s animals. So when comparing to those interventions, while of course I feel really horrified by current suffering, I feel even more horrified by those greater scales in the future—we just have to triage our efforts in this bad situation.
I think the strength of these considerations depends on what sort of longtermist intervention you’re comparing to, depending on your ethics. I do find the abject suffering of so many animals a compelling counter to prioritizing creating an intergalactic utopia (if the counterfactual is just that fewer sentient beings exist in the future). But some longtermist interventions are about reducing far greater scales of suffering, by beings who don’t matter any less than today’s animals. So when comparing to those interventions, while of course I feel really horrified by current suffering, I feel even more horrified by those greater scales in the future—we just have to triage our efforts in this bad situation.