This is not an unreasonable take, but just in the interest of having an accurate public record, I’m actually the strategy director for WAI (although I was the executive director previously). Also, none of us at Arthropoda are technically animal welfare scientists. Our training is all in different things (for example, my PhD is in engineering mechanics and Bob’s a philosopher who published a lot of skeptical pieces on insects).
Basically, I think we came to Arthropoda because the work we did before that changed our minds. More importantly, I don’t think the majority of Arthropoda’s work will be about checking for sentience? Rather, we’re taking a precautionary framework about insects being sentient and asking how to improve their welfare if they are. In this context our views on sentience seem less likely to cause a COI—although I also expect all our research to be publicly available for people to red-team as needed :)
Finally, fully agree on the extreme personnel overlap. I would love to not be co-running a bug granting charity as a volunteer in addition to my two other jobs! But the resource constraints and unusualness of this space are unfortunately not particularly conducive to finding a ton of people willing to take on leadership roles.
“Rather, we’re taking a precautionary framework about insects being sentient and asking how to improve their welfare if they are”.
If this is the case, i think this mission could have been made a bit more clear on @Bob Fischer ’s funding post and on the website itself. Re-reading the post though that sentiment does come through if a bit unclearly. On a first read i really did think a big part of it was still researching insect sentience.
Also on a completely side/ personal note I’m a bit concerned that you “would love to not be co-running a bug granting charity as a volunteer in addition to my two other jobs!” I think we are generally more productive if we are happy doing what we love and the work is sustainable. I’ve tried at times dying on the altar of important work and it wasn’t helpful for me or the work!
This is not an unreasonable take, but just in the interest of having an accurate public record, I’m actually the strategy director for WAI (although I was the executive director previously). Also, none of us at Arthropoda are technically animal welfare scientists. Our training is all in different things (for example, my PhD is in engineering mechanics and Bob’s a philosopher who published a lot of skeptical pieces on insects).
Basically, I think we came to Arthropoda because the work we did before that changed our minds. More importantly, I don’t think the majority of Arthropoda’s work will be about checking for sentience? Rather, we’re taking a precautionary framework about insects being sentient and asking how to improve their welfare if they are. In this context our views on sentience seem less likely to cause a COI—although I also expect all our research to be publicly available for people to red-team as needed :)
Finally, fully agree on the extreme personnel overlap. I would love to not be co-running a bug granting charity as a volunteer in addition to my two other jobs! But the resource constraints and unusualness of this space are unfortunately not particularly conducive to finding a ton of people willing to take on leadership roles.
“Rather, we’re taking a precautionary framework about insects being sentient and asking how to improve their welfare if they are”.
If this is the case, i think this mission could have been made a bit more clear on @Bob Fischer ’s funding post and on the website itself. Re-reading the post though that sentiment does come through if a bit unclearly. On a first read i really did think a big part of it was still researching insect sentience.
Also on a completely side/ personal note I’m a bit concerned that you “would love to not be co-running a bug granting charity as a volunteer in addition to my two other jobs!” I think we are generally more productive if we are happy doing what we love and the work is sustainable. I’ve tried at times dying on the altar of important work and it wasn’t helpful for me or the work!