I donât think whether animals or humans are interchangeable (within each group) is the right question. If a human dies and another human is born, the latter does not replace the former in terms of their unique characteristics as an individual, their relationships, etc. But they both have lives worth living, and I donât think itâs obviously the case that one long life is better than two half-long livesâsure, there are some advantages to longer lives in terms of accumulation of knowledge, memories, relationships etc, but I think these effects are relatively minor among reasons why a life is good or rich or well-lived (e.g. I think children have rich and valuable livesâalthough they miss some things about the adult experience, itâs not so much to make them dramatically different).
If a human dies and we have a lot of humans very very similar to them, I think it is plausible that weâve lost less. Still a negative, but not as much of one. (Which is one answer that I favor to the repugnant conclusion, you canât just add new people indefinitely). I also think this makes more sense for societies that can freely copy minds.
For animals my logic was much the same, but that thereâs less variation/âuniqueness that is lost because (for example) chicken minds have less axes on which they vary notably.
Hereâs another argument:
I think the âone long life vs two half-long livesâ is a good example, but that it matters how long they live. Better to have a parrot that lives for a year rather than two parrots that live for six months. The parrot has more opportunity to learn and build on what it has learned and gets more value out of living for longer. A chicken wouldnât have as much value because it has stronger limits on what it can learn, be curious about, enjoy, and so on. But a parrot that lives 50 years vs two that live 25? I would lean towards two.
I disagree about how much children miss from adult lives, though it depends on how young weâre calling children. Children are certainly very valuable, but I do think they miss out on a lot of adult experiences. The problems they solve are less intricate, the understanding of complex joys is significantly weaker (a child playing with toys vs. reading a 150k word book), and so on. But I donât know where Iâd do the tradeoff precisely. I think part of the value of children, beyond being a good in-of-themselves, is that they will grow up to be adults which have richer more vibrant and varied experiences.
However, I donât think that matters much here. I donât believe that the longevity we manage to acquire is merely one long life vs. two half-lives. It is more of a âone ten century long human life vs. (tens of? (hundreds of?)) thousands of various animals living a couple years moreâ. I think the human has a lot of space to continue learning, growing, and experiencing that many animals unfortunately saturate. (Of course their happiness+lack-of-suffering+other positive emotions matters significantly as well)
Then thereâs also the factor that paired with the fantastical technology that would allow life extension, many other ills of humanity will be pushed back. If a person isnât interchangeable at all (plausible), then ensuring that they survive means theyâll experience all these wonders. Rather than letting many animals live for a few more years in happiness (a good thing!), you get X amount of people who are able to go on to live in a world closer to a utopia.
As I said previously, I find the animal welfare being far more neglected and more important than current human welfare to be probably true. However, I think comparing Animal Welfare vs. Global Health ignores that EA has areas of thought which indicate that Global Health isnât considering certain factors, like longevity meaning more people get to live in a better and better world where we may have solved aging. Most charities are operating under a âeverything continues as normalâ paradigm, which gives EA an advantage here.
Part of what makes me uncertain and which would make Animal Welfare more of an obvious choice is that Global Health might already be putting a lot into longevity. I suspect they arenât, given general ignorance of cryo, but theyâre tackling many things that correlate with it, which would still tilt the calculation in the favor of Animal Welfare.
I donât think whether animals or humans are interchangeable (within each group) is the right question. If a human dies and another human is born, the latter does not replace the former in terms of their unique characteristics as an individual, their relationships, etc. But they both have lives worth living, and I donât think itâs obviously the case that one long life is better than two half-long livesâsure, there are some advantages to longer lives in terms of accumulation of knowledge, memories, relationships etc, but I think these effects are relatively minor among reasons why a life is good or rich or well-lived (e.g. I think children have rich and valuable livesâalthough they miss some things about the adult experience, itâs not so much to make them dramatically different).
If a human dies and we have a lot of humans very very similar to them, I think it is plausible that weâve lost less. Still a negative, but not as much of one. (Which is one answer that I favor to the repugnant conclusion, you canât just add new people indefinitely). I also think this makes more sense for societies that can freely copy minds.
For animals my logic was much the same, but that thereâs less variation/âuniqueness that is lost because (for example) chicken minds have less axes on which they vary notably.
Hereâs another argument:
I think the âone long life vs two half-long livesâ is a good example, but that it matters how long they live. Better to have a parrot that lives for a year rather than two parrots that live for six months. The parrot has more opportunity to learn and build on what it has learned and gets more value out of living for longer. A chicken wouldnât have as much value because it has stronger limits on what it can learn, be curious about, enjoy, and so on. But a parrot that lives 50 years vs two that live 25? I would lean towards two.
I disagree about how much children miss from adult lives, though it depends on how young weâre calling children. Children are certainly very valuable, but I do think they miss out on a lot of adult experiences. The problems they solve are less intricate, the understanding of complex joys is significantly weaker (a child playing with toys vs. reading a 150k word book), and so on. But I donât know where Iâd do the tradeoff precisely. I think part of the value of children, beyond being a good in-of-themselves, is that they will grow up to be adults which have richer more vibrant and varied experiences.
However, I donât think that matters much here. I donât believe that the longevity we manage to acquire is merely one long life vs. two half-lives. It is more of a âone ten century long human life vs. (tens of? (hundreds of?)) thousands of various animals living a couple years moreâ. I think the human has a lot of space to continue learning, growing, and experiencing that many animals unfortunately saturate. (Of course their happiness+lack-of-suffering+other positive emotions matters significantly as well)
Then thereâs also the factor that paired with the fantastical technology that would allow life extension, many other ills of humanity will be pushed back. If a person isnât interchangeable at all (plausible), then ensuring that they survive means theyâll experience all these wonders. Rather than letting many animals live for a few more years in happiness (a good thing!), you get X amount of people who are able to go on to live in a world closer to a utopia.
As I said previously, I find the animal welfare being far more neglected and more important than current human welfare to be probably true. However, I think comparing Animal Welfare vs. Global Health ignores that EA has areas of thought which indicate that Global Health isnât considering certain factors, like longevity meaning more people get to live in a better and better world where we may have solved aging. Most charities are operating under a âeverything continues as normalâ paradigm, which gives EA an advantage here.
Part of what makes me uncertain and which would make Animal Welfare more of an obvious choice is that Global Health might already be putting a lot into longevity. I suspect they arenât, given general ignorance of cryo, but theyâre tackling many things that correlate with it, which would still tilt the calculation in the favor of Animal Welfare.