I really appreciate your comment Karthik as I was wrestling with the same feelings myself—the majority of streeties I’ve met at home and during travels have seemed to live happy, agentic lives. I’d go so far as to say some of them lived better lives than many companion dogs — they had complete freedom (to many housed dogs live the majority of their lives tied in the same place), had rich social lives and were allowed to live out their natural impulses. I’m hesitant to know how much to trust this experience, the happy/friendly dogs are far more likely to be the ones I’ve interacted with, and it seems undeniable that the high early mortality, short lifespans, and general insecurity of basic needs suggests a less than desirable state of being. But, I take back how strongly I worded the sentence you quote.
I also realized while writing the tension between highlighting WALYs lost by premature pup deaths and suggesting birth control as an intervention. It seems to boil down to—does the average streetie live a happy life? It’s a seemingly impossible question and I don’t know yet what my answer is. For what it’s worth, on an IG poll I just ran 16 ppl voted No and 4 voted Yes.
About the DALY-WALY conversion, honestly I don’t find comparing cortical neurons to assess degrees of suffering meaningful but I’ll admit to not knowing a better way. I think this is where EA’s forcing apples to be oranges so we can crunch them together breaks down. However, note that DALY-WALY is not the same as dog life—human life, because humans live 8x longer lives. So the 30:1 ratio is implying you should save a human baby over saving 240 puppies. Curious to know if you think that’s too high based off your 1/100th, which would imply the 30:1 ratio is actually too conservative.
The lives vs life years thing shouldn’t change our answer much. I would also not extend the lives of 30 dogs by 1 year compared to extending a human life by 1 year, and honestly the 1⁄100 conversion rate I mentioned is too high for me as well, I just used it as an example of how the comparison changes with a different conversion rate.
This seems to fall under the general confusion and difficulty of evaluating wild animal suffering, and I don’t envy anyone who has to do that.
I really appreciate your comment Karthik as I was wrestling with the same feelings myself—the majority of streeties I’ve met at home and during travels have seemed to live happy, agentic lives. I’d go so far as to say some of them lived better lives than many companion dogs — they had complete freedom (to many housed dogs live the majority of their lives tied in the same place), had rich social lives and were allowed to live out their natural impulses. I’m hesitant to know how much to trust this experience, the happy/friendly dogs are far more likely to be the ones I’ve interacted with, and it seems undeniable that the high early mortality, short lifespans, and general insecurity of basic needs suggests a less than desirable state of being. But, I take back how strongly I worded the sentence you quote.
I also realized while writing the tension between highlighting WALYs lost by premature pup deaths and suggesting birth control as an intervention. It seems to boil down to—does the average streetie live a happy life? It’s a seemingly impossible question and I don’t know yet what my answer is. For what it’s worth, on an IG poll I just ran 16 ppl voted No and 4 voted Yes.
About the DALY-WALY conversion, honestly I don’t find comparing cortical neurons to assess degrees of suffering meaningful but I’ll admit to not knowing a better way. I think this is where EA’s forcing apples to be oranges so we can crunch them together breaks down. However, note that DALY-WALY is not the same as dog life—human life, because humans live 8x longer lives. So the 30:1 ratio is implying you should save a human baby over saving 240 puppies. Curious to know if you think that’s too high based off your 1/100th, which would imply the 30:1 ratio is actually too conservative.
The lives vs life years thing shouldn’t change our answer much. I would also not extend the lives of 30 dogs by 1 year compared to extending a human life by 1 year, and honestly the 1⁄100 conversion rate I mentioned is too high for me as well, I just used it as an example of how the comparison changes with a different conversion rate.
This seems to fall under the general confusion and difficulty of evaluating wild animal suffering, and I don’t envy anyone who has to do that.