I agree we won’t ever have a single response, but that’s not my intention. I just think this is an important enough problem that far more EAs should be taking it seriously and considering it as they donate/work (the EA response).
On chickens—yes, most chicken lives currently are probably very net-negative. However, the authors’ numbers say cage-free and market (non-breeder) chickens raised for meat live net-positive lives. If you disagree with the authors’ numbers, that’s a totally fair argument and I’d love to hear it. However, given the huge movement towards cage-free just in the past year and the numbers above, we may have many chickens living net-positive lives in the immediate future. This seems important to me as we discuss predictions about the next 50-100 years.
Re: shaky ethical assumptions: I agree that this is controversial and a view not held by many people. I’d love to hear arguments about why this ethical view is not correct!
Thanks for your link, I meant to put it in my post but forgot.
I was using a broader “we” as in “humanity will develop meat alternatives,” not that any particular Effective Altruist will do it. I don’t much care who does it.
However it’s worth keeping in mind that this is intensive agriculture in Africa. I’m not personally informed on what their factory farms are like, and we really don’t know how it could turn out in the long run. They might not be happy to adopt the same regulations that there are in the developed world (or they could be better, I suppose).
Unfortunately, I don’t have any relevant papers off the top of my head regarding ethics, but the repugnant conclusion, natalism and antinatalism, and animal rights would be good general areas to read into.
Thanks, Kbog! Responding to a few claims:
I agree we won’t ever have a single response, but that’s not my intention. I just think this is an important enough problem that far more EAs should be taking it seriously and considering it as they donate/work (the EA response).
On chickens—yes, most chicken lives currently are probably very net-negative. However, the authors’ numbers say cage-free and market (non-breeder) chickens raised for meat live net-positive lives. If you disagree with the authors’ numbers, that’s a totally fair argument and I’d love to hear it. However, given the huge movement towards cage-free just in the past year and the numbers above, we may have many chickens living net-positive lives in the immediate future. This seems important to me as we discuss predictions about the next 50-100 years.
Re: shaky ethical assumptions: I agree that this is controversial and a view not held by many people. I’d love to hear arguments about why this ethical view is not correct!
Thanks for your link, I meant to put it in my post but forgot.
I was using a broader “we” as in “humanity will develop meat alternatives,” not that any particular Effective Altruist will do it. I don’t much care who does it.
Okay, I understand.
However it’s worth keeping in mind that this is intensive agriculture in Africa. I’m not personally informed on what their factory farms are like, and we really don’t know how it could turn out in the long run. They might not be happy to adopt the same regulations that there are in the developed world (or they could be better, I suppose).
Unfortunately, I don’t have any relevant papers off the top of my head regarding ethics, but the repugnant conclusion, natalism and antinatalism, and animal rights would be good general areas to read into.