Hi Vasco, thank you for linkposting this article and for summoning me, I appreciate the thought! Also thanks to Rob for engaging with this matter.
I’ve had some issues understanding the aim of this article throughout my read. It feels like it raises some issues, but then shows that they actually are not issues but rather opinions, bets or trade-offs.
First, shrimps’ welfare is depicted as “default priority” and as the “ultimate” cost-efficient intervention, but I don’t know where this comes from. It definitely is considered as one of the most pressing welfare issues considering scale and tractability, but I don’t see why it would cast shadow on other topics. As far as I know, the SWP and other shrimp-enthousiasts are pretty aware that sentience in this specific species definitely lacks more evidence and that insects welfare is as major of a topic. It seems like the author is saying “if these are your arguments for working on shrimp, stay consistent and work on insects instead!” while ultimately throwing all of his arguments away at the end to judge that its actually more important to help chickens. There’s no wrong in questioning if injecting millions into electrical stunners is a good idea if we’re not sure it’s actually helping any form of sentience; but I did not feel like the format of this article was solely meant to do this.
I won’t dive into the neuroscience literature: see Bob’s comment for more insights. There is just one more point that I would bring up: I believe Rob underestimates how conserved nociceptive and pain systems are within the animal kingdom. He does aknowledge that nociception is a sort of baseline for noxious stimuli detection, and it does seem like L. vannamei lacks integrative regions found in other taxons, but the fact that they are so closely linked with species on which we do have high confidence on sentience criterias can legitimately bias us towards high precautionnary decisions rather than a status quo situation. Rob even explains how Birch further researched the specific L. vannamei situation and that the SWP is actively putting money to study this matter more thouroughly. So why bringing all this evidence up, if the people concerned are already aware of it, working on it, and already announced their stances on it ?
It is true that prioritizing shrimp welfare is a bet because many areas of uncertainty remain. We may disagree, both sides being valid. However, the way this article is constructed (and its title) suggests that shrimp welfare is overrated/overfunded, while aknowledging at the end that we can definitely keep an eye on this subject, but that it just should not be the golden standard or “default priority”. Again, I do not know why the author thinks that shrimps are considered the pinnacle of welfare interventions, because they definitely are not: much, much more grants are directed towards mammals, birds and fish (definitely more sentient!). Rob also argues that more evidence could convince him to better consider shrimps: who is going to fund the science then?
Aside of the fact that the article also implies that shrimp people should focus on insects, the fact that the SWP exists does not prevent insect-focused non profits to exist. Also, as I believe the heart of this article relies on the two last paragraphs, I do not understand why it mainly compares shrimps and insects. We may have more insights into insects sentience, yes, but its also a field of research with many areas of uncertainties: so why not argue “way more individuals + lower sentience probability” VS “less individuals but still a lot + high sentience” ? Here’s a RP article that talk exactly about that, with humans vs chickens vs shrimps as the exact example, and it does indeed highly favor chicken interventions, with an emphasis on funding invertebrate sentience research.
So, what I understand is that Rob argues shrimp welfare and sentience should be studied, but only marginally, and way more funds should be directed towards chickens. However, that’s already the case. And, instead of arguing the trade-off between shrimps and chickens, Rob argues that L. vinnamei sentience is “overrated”, which the literature already aknowledges. It seems like a convoluted way to downplay shrimps welfare to focus the attention on chickens, while actually sounding like a pro-insect argumentation. It is a bit confusing. And I insist: if shrimp sentience is overstudied, overfunded, overrepresented, we can argue on the matter; but the problem this article seem to bring up just does not seem to exist. Plus, the switch to chickens at the very end of the article seems out of place and shows that the arguments brought up do not reflect the goal this post seemed to have.
PS: I’ve re-read myself and may sound harsh on the article—it’s definitely not my intention to be rude. These are definitely necessary conversations.
I’d personnaly bet more on shrimps than Rob, but I also donate to help chickens :)
Hi Vasco, thank you for linkposting this article and for summoning me, I appreciate the thought! Also thanks to Rob for engaging with this matter.
I’ve had some issues understanding the aim of this article throughout my read. It feels like it raises some issues, but then shows that they actually are not issues but rather opinions, bets or trade-offs.
First, shrimps’ welfare is depicted as “default priority” and as the “ultimate” cost-efficient intervention, but I don’t know where this comes from. It definitely is considered as one of the most pressing welfare issues considering scale and tractability, but I don’t see why it would cast shadow on other topics. As far as I know, the SWP and other shrimp-enthousiasts are pretty aware that sentience in this specific species definitely lacks more evidence and that insects welfare is as major of a topic. It seems like the author is saying “if these are your arguments for working on shrimp, stay consistent and work on insects instead!” while ultimately throwing all of his arguments away at the end to judge that its actually more important to help chickens. There’s no wrong in questioning if injecting millions into electrical stunners is a good idea if we’re not sure it’s actually helping any form of sentience; but I did not feel like the format of this article was solely meant to do this.
I won’t dive into the neuroscience literature: see Bob’s comment for more insights. There is just one more point that I would bring up: I believe Rob underestimates how conserved nociceptive and pain systems are within the animal kingdom. He does aknowledge that nociception is a sort of baseline for noxious stimuli detection, and it does seem like L. vannamei lacks integrative regions found in other taxons, but the fact that they are so closely linked with species on which we do have high confidence on sentience criterias can legitimately bias us towards high precautionnary decisions rather than a status quo situation. Rob even explains how Birch further researched the specific L. vannamei situation and that the SWP is actively putting money to study this matter more thouroughly. So why bringing all this evidence up, if the people concerned are already aware of it, working on it, and already announced their stances on it ?
It is true that prioritizing shrimp welfare is a bet because many areas of uncertainty remain. We may disagree, both sides being valid. However, the way this article is constructed (and its title) suggests that shrimp welfare is overrated/overfunded, while aknowledging at the end that we can definitely keep an eye on this subject, but that it just should not be the golden standard or “default priority”. Again, I do not know why the author thinks that shrimps are considered the pinnacle of welfare interventions, because they definitely are not: much, much more grants are directed towards mammals, birds and fish (definitely more sentient!). Rob also argues that more evidence could convince him to better consider shrimps: who is going to fund the science then?
Aside of the fact that the article also implies that shrimp people should focus on insects, the fact that the SWP exists does not prevent insect-focused non profits to exist. Also, as I believe the heart of this article relies on the two last paragraphs, I do not understand why it mainly compares shrimps and insects. We may have more insights into insects sentience, yes, but its also a field of research with many areas of uncertainties: so why not argue “way more individuals + lower sentience probability” VS “less individuals but still a lot + high sentience” ? Here’s a RP article that talk exactly about that, with humans vs chickens vs shrimps as the exact example, and it does indeed highly favor chicken interventions, with an emphasis on funding invertebrate sentience research.
So, what I understand is that Rob argues shrimp welfare and sentience should be studied, but only marginally, and way more funds should be directed towards chickens. However, that’s already the case. And, instead of arguing the trade-off between shrimps and chickens, Rob argues that L. vinnamei sentience is “overrated”, which the literature already aknowledges. It seems like a convoluted way to downplay shrimps welfare to focus the attention on chickens, while actually sounding like a pro-insect argumentation. It is a bit confusing. And I insist: if shrimp sentience is overstudied, overfunded, overrepresented, we can argue on the matter; but the problem this article seem to bring up just does not seem to exist. Plus, the switch to chickens at the very end of the article seems out of place and shows that the arguments brought up do not reflect the goal this post seemed to have.
PS: I’ve re-read myself and may sound harsh on the article—it’s definitely not my intention to be rude. These are definitely necessary conversations.
I’d personnaly bet more on shrimps than Rob, but I also donate to help chickens :)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Guillaume.