This is a really interesting project and way of approaching the topic!
One thing to note: welfare ranges don’t factor in the lifespans of animals, so we’d also need to factor in the typical time a farmed animal lives and then weight by welfare range to get a moral weight-adjusted sense of per calorie animal impacts.
But again, approaching this from a per calorie perspective is really interesting!
To clarify, my post is about the calories consumed by the animals, not about the animal calories consumed by humans. However, I agree running a similar analysis for the calories provided per animal, and then factoring in their lifespan (and median welfare range, and ideally quality of life) would be quite interesting too! Just in case you are not aware, Brian Tomasik has a piece about “equivalent days of suffering caused per kg demanded”. There is a website which weights days of suffering by various functions of the number of neurons, and also accounted for climate change, but I do not remember the name (Michael St. Jules should know). Maybe they could add an option to weight by Rethink’s median welfare ranges.
I was thinking about welfare ranges per calories consumed by the animals with the goal of getting a sense of what type of beings would fill the world in order to increase welfare. For a given amount of energy, and welfare as a fraction of the welfare range, it looks like feeding bees produces much more welfare than feeding humans. Nevertheless, I do not think one should start tilling the universe with bees just yet! This is only one of many factors to consider.
There is a website which weights days of suffering by various functions of the number of neurons, and also accounted for climate change, but I do not remember the name (Michael St. Jules should know).
I asked Michael, and the website is Food impacts, which is now using Rethink’s median welfare range estimates instead of functions of the number of neurons. In the methodology page, other analyses of welfare impacts per calorie are mentioned:
Rankings based on welfare have been developed previously by various individuals and groups such as Peter Hurford, Brian Tomasik, Charity Entrepreneurship and Dominik Peters. This tool is a minor extension of the work of Dominik Peters that also considers emissions in addition to welfare. I want to thank Dominik for kindly providing the data and methodology that he used.
I think Julian Galed also did one many years ago, looking into days of animal living time per calorie.
FYI, I also have a short draft related to the badness of eating farmed animals as a fraction of the human goodness supported by their calories. Your comments are welcome, but no worries if you have other priorities now. I trust your decision-making! Update on July 22: published!
This is a really interesting project and way of approaching the topic!
One thing to note: welfare ranges don’t factor in the lifespans of animals, so we’d also need to factor in the typical time a farmed animal lives and then weight by welfare range to get a moral weight-adjusted sense of per calorie animal impacts.
But again, approaching this from a per calorie perspective is really interesting!
I am glad you found it interesting, Laura!
To clarify, my post is about the calories consumed by the animals, not about the animal calories consumed by humans. However, I agree running a similar analysis for the calories provided per animal, and then factoring in their lifespan (and median welfare range, and ideally quality of life) would be quite interesting too! Just in case you are not aware, Brian Tomasik has a piece about “equivalent days of suffering caused per kg demanded”. There is a website which weights days of suffering by various functions of the number of neurons, and also accounted for climate change, but I do not remember the name (Michael St. Jules should know). Maybe they could add an option to weight by Rethink’s median welfare ranges.
I was thinking about welfare ranges per calories consumed by the animals with the goal of getting a sense of what type of beings would fill the world in order to increase welfare. For a given amount of energy, and welfare as a fraction of the welfare range, it looks like feeding bees produces much more welfare than feeding humans. Nevertheless, I do not think one should start tilling the universe with bees just yet! This is only one of many factors to consider.
Oh I see! Thanks for the clarification!
I asked Michael, and the website is Food impacts, which is now using Rethink’s median welfare range estimates instead of functions of the number of neurons. In the methodology page, other analyses of welfare impacts per calorie are mentioned:
I think Julian Galed also did one many years ago, looking into days of animal living time per calorie.
FYI, I also have a short draft related to the badness of eating farmed animals as a fraction of the human goodness supported by their calories. Your comments are welcome, but no worries if you have other priorities now. I trust your decision-making! Update on July 22: published!