For what it’s worth (as someone who helped found Arthropoda but is no longer involved), I’d very much like there to be more convincing arguments against taking insects and other arthropods seriously. I feel pretty heavily incentivized to believe arguments against it as doing the animal welfare work I care more about emotionally (wild animal welfare) would be far easier. Working on animal welfare (and any other issue, if you care about second order effects) is vastly harder if you care about effects on insects, and I’d prefer the simpler world of only caring about vertebrates.
I think it’s pretty typical for the people who work on a cause area to be convinced that cause area matters. This is of course a source of bias, but, for example, asking global health charities to hire at least some people skeptical that we should improve the lives of people in developing countries seems like…. a hard request to fulfill at a minimum?
And, I believe that I and probably other people who have worked in this space are skeptics—just not extreme ones. I personally would not bet on any insects having morally relevant experiences, and put the odds at probably <30%. Relative to many this is less skeptical, but in absolute terms it still is skepticism—it sounds like you’re just advocating for there to be extreme skeptics—e.g. people who put the odds at, say, <1%. To analogize to global health again, it already feels odd to say “global health organizations should have folks who think there is a >70% chance this isn’t good thing to do”, let alone asking them to have staff who think there is a >99% chance.
it’s good to hear that there are more skeptical people working in this space on your front. i take the point about life for all animal welfare people being harder if the consensus becomes we need to care a lot about insects
I don’t understand the comparison to working with humans at all though, it seems a bit absurd. Basically 100 percent of people think humans matter, so it’s not even possible to find people who don’t care about them? whereas with insects getting people with 1% − 30% priors on sentience working on that seems reasonable? Orgs like GiveWell and Global health researchers are often skeptical about what they are researching. You’re right though that bias is an issue in all research, in it’s just about mitigating it.
There are skeptical scientists out there I’ve even seen them commenting on the forum—could they not be brought on board? I get that might be impossible if it’s a volunteer organization, but i would hope some people involved were on good terms/friends with more skeptical people.
My main point isn’t that i think people shouldn’t work on what they care about, it’s that we have purely highly motivated people funding/running a range of organizations that are researching a critically important question about animal welfare, which seems like potentially a strong source of bias.
I personally would not bet on any insects having morally relevant experiences, and put the odds at probably <30%.
Being sceptical about a high probability of sentience does not imply scepticism about work on increasing the welfare of arthropods being very cost-effective (I know you understand this). At least for people caring about expected welfare, I think endorsing a probability of sentience of 10 % leads to only slighly more scepticism about the cost-effectiveness of the work relative to one of 100 %.
Hey @Vasco Grilo🔸 Abraham and i aren’t discussing the cost effectiveness of the work, we’re discussing the merits of having all people who believe in high probabilities of insect sentience working on and funding the work. He was making the point that he was one of the founders of Arthropoda even while his personal percentage chance on moral relevance of insects isn’t necessarily that high.
For what it’s worth (as someone who helped found Arthropoda but is no longer involved), I’d very much like there to be more convincing arguments against taking insects and other arthropods seriously. I feel pretty heavily incentivized to believe arguments against it as doing the animal welfare work I care more about emotionally (wild animal welfare) would be far easier. Working on animal welfare (and any other issue, if you care about second order effects) is vastly harder if you care about effects on insects, and I’d prefer the simpler world of only caring about vertebrates.
I think it’s pretty typical for the people who work on a cause area to be convinced that cause area matters. This is of course a source of bias, but, for example, asking global health charities to hire at least some people skeptical that we should improve the lives of people in developing countries seems like…. a hard request to fulfill at a minimum?
And, I believe that I and probably other people who have worked in this space are skeptics—just not extreme ones. I personally would not bet on any insects having morally relevant experiences, and put the odds at probably <30%. Relative to many this is less skeptical, but in absolute terms it still is skepticism—it sounds like you’re just advocating for there to be extreme skeptics—e.g. people who put the odds at, say, <1%. To analogize to global health again, it already feels odd to say “global health organizations should have folks who think there is a >70% chance this isn’t good thing to do”, let alone asking them to have staff who think there is a >99% chance.
it’s good to hear that there are more skeptical people working in this space on your front. i take the point about life for all animal welfare people being harder if the consensus becomes we need to care a lot about insects
I don’t understand the comparison to working with humans at all though, it seems a bit absurd. Basically 100 percent of people think humans matter, so it’s not even possible to find people who don’t care about them? whereas with insects getting people with 1% − 30% priors on sentience working on that seems reasonable? Orgs like GiveWell and Global health researchers are often skeptical about what they are researching. You’re right though that bias is an issue in all research, in it’s just about mitigating it.
There are skeptical scientists out there I’ve even seen them commenting on the forum—could they not be brought on board? I get that might be impossible if it’s a volunteer organization, but i would hope some people involved were on good terms/friends with more skeptical people.
My main point isn’t that i think people shouldn’t work on what they care about, it’s that we have purely highly motivated people funding/running a range of organizations that are researching a critically important question about animal welfare, which seems like potentially a strong source of bias.
Hi Abraham.
Being sceptical about a high probability of sentience does not imply scepticism about work on increasing the welfare of arthropods being very cost-effective (I know you understand this). At least for people caring about expected welfare, I think endorsing a probability of sentience of 10 % leads to only slighly more scepticism about the cost-effectiveness of the work relative to one of 100 %.
Hey @Vasco Grilo🔸 Abraham and i aren’t discussing the cost effectiveness of the work, we’re discussing the merits of having all people who believe in high probabilities of insect sentience working on and funding the work. He was making the point that he was one of the founders of Arthropoda even while his personal percentage chance on moral relevance of insects isn’t necessarily that high.