I see how (B) and (C) could be arguments for veganism / for thinking factory farming is really bad, but I don’t yet see how they’re arguments for working on factory farming rather than for future generations.
(B) suggests we should consider factory farming morally horrific and inexcusable, but I think that view is totally compatible with doing (non-animal-focused) longtermist work. Since we have to triage, we can see factory farming as an immense problem without considering it the top priority.
And insofar as we’re worried about exploitative power relationships, that’s also a reason to worry about how humanity treats future generations, since we’re arguably screwing over powerless future generations pretty badly—skepticism toward exploitation is not just a consideration that suggests focusing on animals.
(C) suggests we should be more willing to make sacrifices. This suggests veganism, but does it also suggest doing (non-animal-focused) longtermist work? My intuition is not really, since many of the latter jobs don’t involve more sacrifice than many jobs focused on animal welfare.
If the point was one about what sacrifices humanity should collectively be willing to make, I think that’s also a reason to worry about how humanity treats future generations, since giving up some things for them may be in order.
My arguments B and C are both of the form “Hey, let’s watch out for this bias that could lead us to misallocate our altruistic resources (away from current animal suffering).” For B, the bias (well, biases) is/are status quo bias and self-interest. For C, the bias is comfort. (Clearly “comfort” is related to “self-interest”—possibly I should have combined B and C, I did ponder this. Anyway...)
None of this implies we shouldn’t do longtermist work! As I say in section F, I buy core tenets of longtermism, and “Giving future lives proper attention requires turning our attention away from some current suffering. It’s just a question of where we draw the line.” The point is just to ensure these biases don’t make us draw the line in the wrong place.
The question from A is meant as a sanity check. If millions of humans were in conditions comparable to battery cages, and comparably tractable, how many of “our” (loosely, the EA movement’s) resources should we devote to that—even insofar as that pulls away resources from longtermism? I’d argue “A significant amount, more than we are now.” Some would probably argue “No, terrible though that is, the longtermist work is even more important”—OK, we can debate that. The main stance I’d push back on is “The millions of humans would merit resources; the animals don’t.”
Btw none of this is meant as an argument for veganism (ie personal dietary/habit change), at all. How best to help farmed animals, if we agreed to, is a whole nother topic (except yes, I am assuming it’s quite tractable, happy to back that up).
Yup, I’m mostly sympathetic to your last three paragraphs.
What I meant to argue is that biases like status quo bias, self-interest, and comfort are not biases that could lead us to (majorly) misallocate careers away from current animal suffering and toward future generations, because (I claim) work focused on future generations often involves roughly as much opposition to the status quo, self-sacrifice, and discomfort as work focused on animals. (That comparison doesn’t hold for dietary distinctions, of course, so the effects of the biases you mention depend on what resources we’re worried about misallocating / what decisions we’re worried about messing up.)
Thanks for this! Important questions.
I see how (B) and (C) could be arguments for veganism / for thinking factory farming is really bad, but I don’t yet see how they’re arguments for working on factory farming rather than for future generations.
(B) suggests we should consider factory farming morally horrific and inexcusable, but I think that view is totally compatible with doing (non-animal-focused) longtermist work. Since we have to triage, we can see factory farming as an immense problem without considering it the top priority.
And insofar as we’re worried about exploitative power relationships, that’s also a reason to worry about how humanity treats future generations, since we’re arguably screwing over powerless future generations pretty badly—skepticism toward exploitation is not just a consideration that suggests focusing on animals.
(C) suggests we should be more willing to make sacrifices. This suggests veganism, but does it also suggest doing (non-animal-focused) longtermist work? My intuition is not really, since many of the latter jobs don’t involve more sacrifice than many jobs focused on animal welfare.
If the point was one about what sacrifices humanity should collectively be willing to make, I think that’s also a reason to worry about how humanity treats future generations, since giving up some things for them may be in order.
(Edited for clarity/detail)
My arguments B and C are both of the form “Hey, let’s watch out for this bias that could lead us to misallocate our altruistic resources (away from current animal suffering).” For B, the bias (well, biases) is/are status quo bias and self-interest. For C, the bias is comfort. (Clearly “comfort” is related to “self-interest”—possibly I should have combined B and C, I did ponder this. Anyway...)
None of this implies we shouldn’t do longtermist work! As I say in section F, I buy core tenets of longtermism, and “Giving future lives proper attention requires turning our attention away from some current suffering. It’s just a question of where we draw the line.” The point is just to ensure these biases don’t make us draw the line in the wrong place.
The question from A is meant as a sanity check. If millions of humans were in conditions comparable to battery cages, and comparably tractable, how many of “our” (loosely, the EA movement’s) resources should we devote to that—even insofar as that pulls away resources from longtermism? I’d argue “A significant amount, more than we are now.” Some would probably argue “No, terrible though that is, the longtermist work is even more important”—OK, we can debate that. The main stance I’d push back on is “The millions of humans would merit resources; the animals don’t.”
Btw none of this is meant as an argument for veganism (ie personal dietary/habit change), at all. How best to help farmed animals, if we agreed to, is a whole nother topic (except yes, I am assuming it’s quite tractable, happy to back that up).
Yup, I’m mostly sympathetic to your last three paragraphs.
What I meant to argue is that biases like status quo bias, self-interest, and comfort are not biases that could lead us to (majorly) misallocate careers away from current animal suffering and toward future generations, because (I claim) work focused on future generations often involves roughly as much opposition to the status quo, self-sacrifice, and discomfort as work focused on animals. (That comparison doesn’t hold for dietary distinctions, of course, so the effects of the biases you mention depend on what resources we’re worried about misallocating / what decisions we’re worried about messing up.)