One quick response: The people whose lives are saved by the Against Malaria Foundation are usually too poor to afford much meat (Malawians consume 25x less meat than Americans), and farmed animals in developing countries plausibly have better lives than those in developed countries at the moment, so I’m not very concerned about an immediate negative impact of AMF.
On the other hand, an increased population of Malawi now could lead to increased meat consumption in the future if the nation becomes wealthier in the future.
The effects of increased population on wild animal suffering are also important, which leads me to be unsure about whether increasing populations is net good. I can’t immediately find a good link for this, but this is an alright starting point.
This essay by Brian Tomasik addresses this question further, looking at the overall impact of human activities on wild-animal suffering, and includes the effect of factory-farming in the analysis too. Whilst human impact on the environment may lead to a net reduction in wild-animal suffering (if you think that the lives of wild-animals are significantly net-negative), the people whose lives are saved by the Against Malaria Foundation also have little impact on the environment, so also have little impact on the reduction of wild-animal suffering.
It’s plausible that those saved from malaria have lower-than-average environmental impact, but their impact is not trivial. This section mentions some ways in which poverty might actually increase a person’s environmental impact.
This section discusses AMF as a potential way to reduce insect suffering. I added a paragraph specifically about Malawi because Buck mentioned that country. I’m interested in finding someone to research the net impact of AMF on insect suffering more thoroughly. :)
Thanks, Buck! You’re definitely right in the short term. However, I think that the time frame we need to operate on is likely at least 1 generation, considering that’s about the amount of time someone will be eating meat if their life is saved by a health intervention. Perhaps even longer depending on the extent to which health interventions influence fertility.
You’re absolutely right on wild animal suffering, and I hope someone with more knowledge on this will chime in. I didn’t include it in the article because I find most of the arguments extremely speculative, but it’s not fair to entirely remove that from the equation, either.
One quick response: The people whose lives are saved by the Against Malaria Foundation are usually too poor to afford much meat (Malawians consume 25x less meat than Americans), and farmed animals in developing countries plausibly have better lives than those in developed countries at the moment, so I’m not very concerned about an immediate negative impact of AMF.
On the other hand, an increased population of Malawi now could lead to increased meat consumption in the future if the nation becomes wealthier in the future.
The effects of increased population on wild animal suffering are also important, which leads me to be unsure about whether increasing populations is net good. I can’t immediately find a good link for this, but this is an alright starting point.
This essay by Brian Tomasik addresses this question further, looking at the overall impact of human activities on wild-animal suffering, and includes the effect of factory-farming in the analysis too. Whilst human impact on the environment may lead to a net reduction in wild-animal suffering (if you think that the lives of wild-animals are significantly net-negative), the people whose lives are saved by the Against Malaria Foundation also have little impact on the environment, so also have little impact on the reduction of wild-animal suffering.
Thanks for the link!
It’s plausible that those saved from malaria have lower-than-average environmental impact, but their impact is not trivial. This section mentions some ways in which poverty might actually increase a person’s environmental impact.
This section discusses AMF as a potential way to reduce insect suffering. I added a paragraph specifically about Malawi because Buck mentioned that country. I’m interested in finding someone to research the net impact of AMF on insect suffering more thoroughly. :)
Thanks, Buck! You’re definitely right in the short term. However, I think that the time frame we need to operate on is likely at least 1 generation, considering that’s about the amount of time someone will be eating meat if their life is saved by a health intervention. Perhaps even longer depending on the extent to which health interventions influence fertility.
You’re absolutely right on wild animal suffering, and I hope someone with more knowledge on this will chime in. I didn’t include it in the article because I find most of the arguments extremely speculative, but it’s not fair to entirely remove that from the equation, either.