I think it certainly deserves an assessment. But I myself have been postponing reading Dasgupta’s review for months. On the other hand, I wonder if it might overlap or conflict with wild animal welfare.
It certainly conflicts with WAW, so it could be an interesting opportunity to see how EA handles direct conflicts between cause areas or worldviews.
Though I think I strongly support one side. The idea of influencing wild animal welfare keeps seeming terrible to me, having a prior that already knows the effects of similarly-themed colonialism.
How does biodiversity conflict with WAW? I would imagine that there’s many possible interventions which are good both in terms of increasing the wellbeing of animals in the wild, and in keeping species from going extinct. Are you assuming a suffering-focused view of WAW?
That’s certainly the only one I’ve ever seen. Can you give an example of such a view, and such an intervention? Or describe how [an organisation] will find or test one?
disclaimer: I don’t feel like I know much about wild animal welfare, last read about it about 2 years ago
You’re right, I think suffering-focused wasn’t the right term to use, as all WAW interventions that come to my mind are about reducing animals’ suffering. I should’ve asked if you’re assuming that WAW people think that:
animals’ lives are usually net-negative
the best way to help them and future animals is to kill them / cause them to not exist
I would guess that (1) is a common belief, but that a only a minority of people who work in WAW believe in (2). But this guess isn’t based on much.
The first WAW interventions that come to my mind :
Vaccinating animal populations from painful diseases (and finding out a way to do so that doesn’t mess with ecosystems)
seems to be the first intervention idea that WAW advocates like to bring up
Genetically engineering predators to be omnivores for the benefit of their preys
I read people arguing about this in the comments of a slatestarcodex post, don’t know if anyone’s actually pursuing research into the feasibility of it. Either way it seems like this would be super complicated for many reasons, so likely a far off thing.
Incentivizing people to build buildings from certain materials that don’t cause tons of bugs to exist underneath them (assumes that bugs’ expected life experiences are net negative)
probably from Brian Tomasik’s blog
Assuming success, only the last one seems to me like it would be bad from a biodiversity perspective.
It’s a complex interaction for sure, and gets into some thorny questions that inevitably run into making evaluations of lived (nonhuman) experiences we can’t possibly claim to understand. Using longterm scales makes it clear that this issue will determine whether billions of trillions of individuals get to experience life. It’s clear that certain land dynamics lead to more life, so if there’s more inhabitable space on Earth’s surface it means there’s more room for life.
Then those with decision making power have to take a philosophical stance as to whether to ensure more possibility space for life or make twisted conclusions about QALYs we don’t really understand…
I think it certainly deserves an assessment. But I myself have been postponing reading Dasgupta’s review for months.
On the other hand, I wonder if it might overlap or conflict with wild animal welfare.
It certainly conflicts with WAW, so it could be an interesting opportunity to see how EA handles direct conflicts between cause areas or worldviews.
Though I think I strongly support one side. The idea of influencing wild animal welfare keeps seeming terrible to me, having a prior that already knows the effects of similarly-themed colonialism.
How does biodiversity conflict with WAW? I would imagine that there’s many possible interventions which are good both in terms of increasing the wellbeing of animals in the wild, and in keeping species from going extinct. Are you assuming a suffering-focused view of WAW?
That’s certainly the only one I’ve ever seen. Can you give an example of such a view, and such an intervention? Or describe how [an organisation] will find or test one?
disclaimer: I don’t feel like I know much about wild animal welfare, last read about it about 2 years ago
You’re right, I think suffering-focused wasn’t the right term to use, as all WAW interventions that come to my mind are about reducing animals’ suffering. I should’ve asked if you’re assuming that WAW people think that:
animals’ lives are usually net-negative
the best way to help them and future animals is to kill them / cause them to not exist
I would guess that (1) is a common belief, but that a only a minority of people who work in WAW believe in (2). But this guess isn’t based on much.
The first WAW interventions that come to my mind :
Vaccinating animal populations from painful diseases (and finding out a way to do so that doesn’t mess with ecosystems)
seems to be the first intervention idea that WAW advocates like to bring up
Genetically engineering predators to be omnivores for the benefit of their preys
I read people arguing about this in the comments of a slatestarcodex post, don’t know if anyone’s actually pursuing research into the feasibility of it. Either way it seems like this would be super complicated for many reasons, so likely a far off thing.
Incentivizing people to build buildings from certain materials that don’t cause tons of bugs to exist underneath them (assumes that bugs’ expected life experiences are net negative)
probably from Brian Tomasik’s blog
Assuming success, only the last one seems to me like it would be bad from a biodiversity perspective.
It’s a complex interaction for sure, and gets into some thorny questions that inevitably run into making evaluations of lived (nonhuman) experiences we can’t possibly claim to understand. Using longterm scales makes it clear that this issue will determine whether billions of trillions of individuals get to experience life. It’s clear that certain land dynamics lead to more life, so if there’s more inhabitable space on Earth’s surface it means there’s more room for life.
Then those with decision making power have to take a philosophical stance as to whether to ensure more possibility space for life or make twisted conclusions about QALYs we don’t really understand…