Really interesting article, thanks for writing it! I’m especially intrigued by the concept of the possible + net utility of certain forms of factory farming, as this is an idea I have not encountered before, and have updated based on it.
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.
I’m a bit concerned with this argument. There’s research showing that people in developing countries eat more meat as their income increases. So if the goal is to optimize for lower meat consumption, it is beneficial to keep people’s incomes lower.
Now, I am not saying that we should keep people’s incomes lower. In fact, I’m a strong supporter of GiveDirectly and other organizations that increase people’s incomes in developing countries. However, we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that the consequence of increasing people’s incomes is an increase in meat consumption, and we have to count that as a variable in the cost-benefit analysis.
Let’s work more in India
While in a way that makes sense, we have to remember that in India, beef and pork meat are rarely eaten for religious reasons (Hindus don’t eat beef, Muslims don’t eat pork). So chicken meat is going to be eaten more there. This is a concern that we need to include in our calculations.
EA could probably stand to give a much higher proportion of its money to animal charities
As someone concerned with movement-building from the perspective of how the EA movement looks to outsiders, we should consider the costs and benefits from a PR perspective of this move. I’m not saying it’s a bad or good move, just raising it as an issue to consider.
(Hindus don’t eat beef, Muslims don’t eat pork). So chicken meat is going to be eaten more there.
This is plausible in principle, but it seems that in practice, India has quite low per-capita poultry consumption, although this is partly because India is so poor even relative to China.
It turns out that India is the biggest exporter of beef and the biggest producer of milk. This page shows India as having the world’s biggest cattle population. Of course, some of the causal responsibility for this belongs to beef consumption in the importing countries.
possible + net utility of certain forms of factory farming
As someone concerned with movement-building from the perspective of how the EA movement looks to outsiders, we should consider the costs and benefits from a PR perspective of this move.
I think the proportions in which EAs donate have very little to do with public perception. For example, lots of people like to complain about how EAs care too much about AI safety even though only about 1% of EAs’ money goes toward AI safety.
Good point! I will update my point to being concerned with how the EA movement talks about its priorities in donations, versus how much people actually donate.
Thanks, Gleb! I definitely struggle with the PR aspect of this—it’s certainly a weird topic but one that I think matters a lot.
Definitely think that we should include increased meat consumption in our cost-effectiveness analysis for interventions that increase income. My guess is that this amount is much smaller than for interventions that save lives, like bed nets, but that’s certainly an open question.
I agree with Brian’s remarks on chicken consumption in India—it didn’t seem the case when I looked at the data.
Really interesting article, thanks for writing it! I’m especially intrigued by the concept of the possible + net utility of certain forms of factory farming, as this is an idea I have not encountered before, and have updated based on it.
I’m a bit concerned with this argument. There’s research showing that people in developing countries eat more meat as their income increases. So if the goal is to optimize for lower meat consumption, it is beneficial to keep people’s incomes lower.
Now, I am not saying that we should keep people’s incomes lower. In fact, I’m a strong supporter of GiveDirectly and other organizations that increase people’s incomes in developing countries. However, we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that the consequence of increasing people’s incomes is an increase in meat consumption, and we have to count that as a variable in the cost-benefit analysis.
While in a way that makes sense, we have to remember that in India, beef and pork meat are rarely eaten for religious reasons (Hindus don’t eat beef, Muslims don’t eat pork). So chicken meat is going to be eaten more there. This is a concern that we need to include in our calculations.
As someone concerned with movement-building from the perspective of how the EA movement looks to outsiders, we should consider the costs and benefits from a PR perspective of this move. I’m not saying it’s a bad or good move, just raising it as an issue to consider.
Overall, very good article, upvoted!
This is plausible in principle, but it seems that in practice, India has quite low per-capita poultry consumption, although this is partly because India is so poor even relative to China.
It turns out that India is the biggest exporter of beef and the biggest producer of milk. This page shows India as having the world’s biggest cattle population. Of course, some of the causal responsibility for this belongs to beef consumption in the importing countries.
Another possible benefit of animal (or at least cattle) farming is lowering wild-insect populations.
Updated on India and beef exporting, thanks for the numbers!
I think the proportions in which EAs donate have very little to do with public perception. For example, lots of people like to complain about how EAs care too much about AI safety even though only about 1% of EAs’ money goes toward AI safety.
Good point! I will update my point to being concerned with how the EA movement talks about its priorities in donations, versus how much people actually donate.
Thanks, Gleb! I definitely struggle with the PR aspect of this—it’s certainly a weird topic but one that I think matters a lot.
Definitely think that we should include increased meat consumption in our cost-effectiveness analysis for interventions that increase income. My guess is that this amount is much smaller than for interventions that save lives, like bed nets, but that’s certainly an open question.
I agree with Brian’s remarks on chicken consumption in India—it didn’t seem the case when I looked at the data.
The PR aspect is pretty nuanced. I think we’d need to do some market research to actually know how it will cash out.
Regarding meat consumption, this shouldn’t be hard to figure out in a detailed analysis.
Yup, I updated based on Brian’s points regarding chicken consumption in India.