Executive summary: The author estimates the total welfare of many biological populations by assuming individual welfare scales with basal metabolic rate (BMR) raised to an uncertain exponent, concluding that under plausible assumptions soil organisms, microorganisms, or trees could dominate total welfare and that reducing uncertainty about interspecies welfare comparisons could substantially change funding priorities.
Key points:
The author assumes individual (expected hedonistic) welfare per fully-healthy-organism-year is proportional to “BMR at 25 ºC” raised to an exponent between 0 and 2, and treats exponents from 0.5 to 1.5 as plausible best guesses.
Using population sizes, estimated living conditions, and BMRs, the author finds that total welfare rankings across humans, farmed animals, wild animals, trees, soil animals, and microorganisms vary dramatically with the exponent.
For exponents of 0.5, 1, and 1.5, soil bacteria and archaea or trees often have the largest absolute total welfare, sometimes exceeding human welfare by orders of magnitude.
The author argues that uncertainty about interspecies welfare comparisons is severely underestimated and that prioritisation across populations matters least around an exponent of 1.07.
They claim that current welfare-weighting approaches, such as AIM’s and ACE’s estimates for shrimps, may overstate shrimp welfare by several orders of magnitude under BMR- or neuron-based comparisons.
The author recommends funding further research on interspecies comparisons of expected hedonistic welfare, particularly via restricted funding to Rethink Priorities, and expresses pessimism about interventions affecting soil animals due to dominant uncertainty from microorganisms.
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Executive summary: The author estimates the total welfare of many biological populations by assuming individual welfare scales with basal metabolic rate (BMR) raised to an uncertain exponent, concluding that under plausible assumptions soil organisms, microorganisms, or trees could dominate total welfare and that reducing uncertainty about interspecies welfare comparisons could substantially change funding priorities.
Key points:
The author assumes individual (expected hedonistic) welfare per fully-healthy-organism-year is proportional to “BMR at 25 ºC” raised to an exponent between 0 and 2, and treats exponents from 0.5 to 1.5 as plausible best guesses.
Using population sizes, estimated living conditions, and BMRs, the author finds that total welfare rankings across humans, farmed animals, wild animals, trees, soil animals, and microorganisms vary dramatically with the exponent.
For exponents of 0.5, 1, and 1.5, soil bacteria and archaea or trees often have the largest absolute total welfare, sometimes exceeding human welfare by orders of magnitude.
The author argues that uncertainty about interspecies welfare comparisons is severely underestimated and that prioritisation across populations matters least around an exponent of 1.07.
They claim that current welfare-weighting approaches, such as AIM’s and ACE’s estimates for shrimps, may overstate shrimp welfare by several orders of magnitude under BMR- or neuron-based comparisons.
The author recommends funding further research on interspecies comparisons of expected hedonistic welfare, particularly via restricted funding to Rethink Priorities, and expresses pessimism about interventions affecting soil animals due to dominant uncertainty from microorganisms.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.