Not thinking very hard. I think it’s more likely to be an overestimate of the necessary disparity than an underestimate.
There are about 500m humans in tractably dire straits, so if there were 500t animals in an equivalently bad situation, you might be very naïvely indifferent between intervening on one vs the other at a million to one. 500t is probably an oom too high if we’re not counting insects and several ooms too low if we are.
I think the delta for helping animals (life of intense suffering → non-existence) is probably higher (they are in a worse situation), tractability is lower, but neglectedness is way higher such that careful interventions might create compounding benefits in the future in a way I don’t think is very likely in global health given how established the field is.
Can I ask how you arrived at the “millionths” number?
Not thinking very hard. I think it’s more likely to be an overestimate of the necessary disparity than an underestimate.
There are about 500m humans in tractably dire straits, so if there were 500t animals in an equivalently bad situation, you might be very naïvely indifferent between intervening on one vs the other at a million to one. 500t is probably an oom too high if we’re not counting insects and several ooms too low if we are.
I think the delta for helping animals (life of intense suffering → non-existence) is probably higher (they are in a worse situation), tractability is lower, but neglectedness is way higher such that careful interventions might create compounding benefits in the future in a way I don’t think is very likely in global health given how established the field is.