Has there been any explicit calculation actually done on whether wild animal lives are net positive or negative? Because I’ve done some myself and it seems to be positive, at least for microorganisms and insects which are the most populous by a large margin.
My personal opinion is that it is pretty much impossible to make claims at this point about the sign of many animals’ lives without significantly more research. I think the arguments regarding welfare and life history strategy are compelling prima facie, but that might not be enough evidence for action immediately, and instead indicates it is a high priority area for study (which is why we have so much life history work planned this year). Models like the ones you linked here are interesting and provide some insight, but also have huge assumptions built in that significantly alter the results depending on the author’s views on some critical issue (scoring relative utility of subjective experiences, weighting based on the square root of neurons, and a sentience multiplier), and also don’t account for variations in season, climate etc., that would probably alter those numbers massively as well.
My personal guess is that we are quite a ways off from being able to do this comprehensively (at least a few years) for any particular arthropod population, not including discounts that might be made based on number of neurons or whatever features we think might be important. And we are probably much further out from being able to state with certainty which of those features are important, and how much we should discount on the basis of them (if at all).
Either way, academic buy-in is going to be crucial, which is why we are so focused on academic outreach, and doing research that will help us understand what early academic work we should prioritize.
Thanks for your research! It was interesting to see!
As far as I’m aware, the lives of invertebrates are considered likely to be net negative due to r-selection (most (all?) species reproduce by having a large amount of offspring, most of whom die at a very young age), and short lifespans in general, which tend to end in painful death by dehydration, being eaten alive etc (the extreme suffering involved in this type of death is thought to typically outweigh any positive aspects of the individual’s short life).
I don’t think its enough to say they’re net negative because of r-selection though. Insect larvae probably have like 2 orders of magnitude less neurons and they might not even be conscious in the first place. Also I saw those welfare reports but really didn’t like them because they left out the duration of suffering which is a huge factor in how bad something is. A broiler chicken experiencing a moderate amount of stress for it’s entire life could be much much worse than it being boiled alive for a few seconds.
This is my welfare spreadsheet but I didn’t intend to share it so if you want citations for the numbers I can try to link them.
This is very interesting to see/hear. I have a paper coming out that’s purely theoretical but that deals with this issue, and I’d be interested in talking more about this spreadsheet.
Thanks for sharing. Definitely more research like yours and WAI’s is needed regarding what species and stages of development within species are likely to experience suffering, and how we should view the importance of moderate/extreme suffering/pleasure.
Has there been any explicit calculation actually done on whether wild animal lives are net positive or negative? Because I’ve done some myself and it seems to be positive, at least for microorganisms and insects which are the most populous by a large margin.
My personal opinion is that it is pretty much impossible to make claims at this point about the sign of many animals’ lives without significantly more research. I think the arguments regarding welfare and life history strategy are compelling prima facie, but that might not be enough evidence for action immediately, and instead indicates it is a high priority area for study (which is why we have so much life history work planned this year). Models like the ones you linked here are interesting and provide some insight, but also have huge assumptions built in that significantly alter the results depending on the author’s views on some critical issue (scoring relative utility of subjective experiences, weighting based on the square root of neurons, and a sentience multiplier), and also don’t account for variations in season, climate etc., that would probably alter those numbers massively as well.
My personal guess is that we are quite a ways off from being able to do this comprehensively (at least a few years) for any particular arthropod population, not including discounts that might be made based on number of neurons or whatever features we think might be important. And we are probably much further out from being able to state with certainty which of those features are important, and how much we should discount on the basis of them (if at all).
Either way, academic buy-in is going to be crucial, which is why we are so focused on academic outreach, and doing research that will help us understand what early academic work we should prioritize.
Thanks for your research! It was interesting to see!
True, I still believe that making a toy model with made-up numbers is still better than not doing it at all.
I totally agree—they also often help identify where more research is needed (like seeing which numbers are the hardest to lock down).
As far as I’m aware, the lives of invertebrates are considered likely to be net negative due to r-selection (most (all?) species reproduce by having a large amount of offspring, most of whom die at a very young age), and short lifespans in general, which tend to end in painful death by dehydration, being eaten alive etc (the extreme suffering involved in this type of death is thought to typically outweigh any positive aspects of the individual’s short life).
I don’t know of any explicit calculations apart from Charity Entrepreneurship’s weighted animal welfare index (http://www.charityentrepreneurship.com/blog/is-it-better-to-be-a-wild-rat-or-a-factory-farmed-cow-a-systematic-method-for-comparing-animal-welfare) which includes an estimate for ‘wild bug’ (spoiler alert: it’s net negative). Are you able to share some of your calculations?
I don’t think its enough to say they’re net negative because of r-selection though. Insect larvae probably have like 2 orders of magnitude less neurons and they might not even be conscious in the first place. Also I saw those welfare reports but really didn’t like them because they left out the duration of suffering which is a huge factor in how bad something is. A broiler chicken experiencing a moderate amount of stress for it’s entire life could be much much worse than it being boiled alive for a few seconds.
This is my welfare spreadsheet but I didn’t intend to share it so if you want citations for the numbers I can try to link them.
This is very interesting to see/hear. I have a paper coming out that’s purely theoretical but that deals with this issue, and I’d be interested in talking more about this spreadsheet.
Sure I’d be happy to discuss it more
Thanks for sharing. Definitely more research like yours and WAI’s is needed regarding what species and stages of development within species are likely to experience suffering, and how we should view the importance of moderate/extreme suffering/pleasure.