Thanks for the post. I’m somewhat less confident in the meat-eater problem being a problem as a result of it, maybe for different reasons though. I still think that it is overall a problem, however. I’ll just put my initial thoughts below.
It’s also plausible that interventions that raise incomes, like deworming, have a lower impact on meat consumption because they don’t raise the overall number of humans that would be eating meat over their entire lifetime.
The effect of raising income itself will still tend to increase meat consumption, though. There was another helpful post recently on the forum which attempted to quantify the effect of economic growth on meat consumption. Although, it’s plausible that interventions that raise incomes and contribute to increased education, such as deworming, could not only not raise the number of humans eating meat, but could also reduce the number of humans who would have otherwise existed, if education and particularly female education does lead to lower fertility, though I don’t think that this lowering of fertility would outweigh the increased amount of meat being eaten.
Also, while life-saving interventions may have no effect on or even lower fertility in the long-run, there’s also some evidence that interventions against malaria, for instance, may raise incomes too, which would lead to more meat being eaten. But, then again, more education as a result of lack of disruption due to malaria prevention could lead to lower fertility in the long run.
I’m less sure of other systems of animal agriculture where welfare standards are higher
Though, factory-farming is the dominant method of animal agriculture in the UK too, and likely in Europe as a whole. I’m also not convinced that animal welfare standards in developing countries will be significantly better even today, and I think that the hypothesis that factory-farming is only going to grow as incomes and populations grow is strong.
Even if I’m wrong about the meat eater problem, we can improve the chances we’ll solve it with investments in animal organizations today
I agree with this, and I also agree with the conclusion that EA should be directing more resources towards animal advocacy, because it does appear to be quite human-centred despite the commitment to impartiality. The possibility that lab-grown meat could ensure that the meat-eater problem is not as big of a problem in the future is also an interesting one, and hopefully one which will be realised.
Again, I would agree that this makes the meat-eater problem somewhat less of a concern, but it also means that potential short-term increases in fertility, which are plausible as a result of global health interventions as the report you cite states, are more important than long-run decreases in fertility—decreasing fertility in the long run is less likely to matter as more people in the long-run will impact less, in expectation, on meat-eating due to the ever increasing probability of lab-grown meat becoming widely or near-fully adopted.
I also liked the idea of “working more in India” as a compromise solution.
However, I’d still disagree that we should split our donations—I would endorse the view that we should maximise expected utility and favour your option 1 of donating solely to animal charities (or future animal suffering), and I wouldn’t say that this relies on implausible causal chains either. While I have downshifted my confidence in the meat-eater problem being a thing, I still think that it’s more likely to be a thing than not. And, I would say that the amount of suffering inflicted upon non-human animals as a result of meat-eating is greater than the amount of human suffering we could alleviate. So, if we’re sufficiently worried about the meat-eater problem, chances are that our donations would align best with our values if we donated solely to animal charities, and vice-versa.
Thanks, Vidur! I didn’t make it totally clear, but I don’t think that individuals should split their donations. The main argument that I’m trying to make is that the distribution of our donations across the EA movement are heavily human-centered, and that’s a mistake based on expected value. I didn’t want to dive too deep into this but that’s the claim I was trying to make.
Broadly speaking, I’d like to see a much higher proportion of our dollars go to animal organizations. I could see this being fixed from a decent sized group of people moving their donations over or a major organization like OPP fixing it.
Thanks for the post. I’m somewhat less confident in the meat-eater problem being a problem as a result of it, maybe for different reasons though. I still think that it is overall a problem, however. I’ll just put my initial thoughts below.
The effect of raising income itself will still tend to increase meat consumption, though. There was another helpful post recently on the forum which attempted to quantify the effect of economic growth on meat consumption. Although, it’s plausible that interventions that raise incomes and contribute to increased education, such as deworming, could not only not raise the number of humans eating meat, but could also reduce the number of humans who would have otherwise existed, if education and particularly female education does lead to lower fertility, though I don’t think that this lowering of fertility would outweigh the increased amount of meat being eaten.
Also, while life-saving interventions may have no effect on or even lower fertility in the long-run, there’s also some evidence that interventions against malaria, for instance, may raise incomes too, which would lead to more meat being eaten. But, then again, more education as a result of lack of disruption due to malaria prevention could lead to lower fertility in the long run.
Though, factory-farming is the dominant method of animal agriculture in the UK too, and likely in Europe as a whole. I’m also not convinced that animal welfare standards in developing countries will be significantly better even today, and I think that the hypothesis that factory-farming is only going to grow as incomes and populations grow is strong.
I agree with this, and I also agree with the conclusion that EA should be directing more resources towards animal advocacy, because it does appear to be quite human-centred despite the commitment to impartiality. The possibility that lab-grown meat could ensure that the meat-eater problem is not as big of a problem in the future is also an interesting one, and hopefully one which will be realised.
Again, I would agree that this makes the meat-eater problem somewhat less of a concern, but it also means that potential short-term increases in fertility, which are plausible as a result of global health interventions as the report you cite states, are more important than long-run decreases in fertility—decreasing fertility in the long run is less likely to matter as more people in the long-run will impact less, in expectation, on meat-eating due to the ever increasing probability of lab-grown meat becoming widely or near-fully adopted.
I also liked the idea of “working more in India” as a compromise solution.
However, I’d still disagree that we should split our donations—I would endorse the view that we should maximise expected utility and favour your option 1 of donating solely to animal charities (or future animal suffering), and I wouldn’t say that this relies on implausible causal chains either. While I have downshifted my confidence in the meat-eater problem being a thing, I still think that it’s more likely to be a thing than not. And, I would say that the amount of suffering inflicted upon non-human animals as a result of meat-eating is greater than the amount of human suffering we could alleviate. So, if we’re sufficiently worried about the meat-eater problem, chances are that our donations would align best with our values if we donated solely to animal charities, and vice-versa.
Thanks, Vidur! I didn’t make it totally clear, but I don’t think that individuals should split their donations. The main argument that I’m trying to make is that the distribution of our donations across the EA movement are heavily human-centered, and that’s a mistake based on expected value. I didn’t want to dive too deep into this but that’s the claim I was trying to make.
Broadly speaking, I’d like to see a much higher proportion of our dollars go to animal organizations. I could see this being fixed from a decent sized group of people moving their donations over or a major organization like OPP fixing it.