Therefore, I just assumed the āthisā referred to the ācost per additional plant-based mealā and not the effectiveness per dollar.
āSarah expects this to decrease in the futureā is indeed supposed to mean that Sarah expects the cost per additional plant-based meal to decrease in the future. In addition, the cost per additional plant-based meal is supposed to refer to the ratio between the annual cost and benefits.
I would almost insist this is not a situation where the law of diminishing marginal returns is applicable.
Thanks for the context around this! I have just asked Sarah about whether she has any guesses for how many x % more additional meat-free meals they would have had in 2023 if they had spent 10 % more in 2023.
Additionally, it appears to me you calculated the average cost per meal rather than the marginal cost per meal in this calculation ā0.0600 $ (= 248*10^3/ā(4.13*10^6))ā.
Yes, 0.0600 $ is the average cost per additional plant-based meal in 2023 (in ratio between total cost and benefits in 2023), which I then adjust to get the marginal one.
All of these components would suggest the marginal cost for an intervention would decrease over time rather than increase.
This would suggest the marginal cost-effectiveness would increase over time. In this case, it would make sense for School Plates to save more (and funders to support it less) since spending later (and funders supporting it later) would be more impactful at the margin. Ideally, spending should be moved from the worst to the best years until the marginal cost-effectiveness is the same across years (in the same way that it makes sense at any point in time to move money from the worst to best charities until their marginal cost-effectiveness is the same).
I would probably use a marginal cost of $0.03 instead of $0.12 if I had to pick a point estimate here.
In this case, I believe you are suggesting that the marginal cos-effectiveness of Shool Plates is 2 (= 0.0600/ā0.03) times their ratio between benefits and cost in 2023, i.e. that them spending 10 % more then would have resulted in 20 % (= 0.1*2) more additional plant-based meals in 2023. This would be surprising to me.
On point 2, many of your points are well takenānamely the linearity of your model. Iām not a huge fan of sheets and would have written then model in Python where it would be relatively easy to turn the model into a MCS, so I would have just done that first instead of thinking through everything you wrote in your comment (different work styles and it seems yours is much more efficient here).
I used to run Monte Carlos more often, but now I tend to prefer Sheets, at least for linear problems where I can foresee the effects of changing inputs, because then more people can review/āupdate the model.
Additionally, I may want a lot of this modeling sitting in Python anyway for comparing other interventions or tactics so building the MCS has other benefits for me (not to mention the fact that having a computer program spit out some examples is a nice communication tool for people without a background in probability).
Fair!
While I am a bit skeptical of the 8.2 chicken lives affected per dollar, Iām not going to jump into all these calculations at the moment, so Iāll just have to accept it for the point of conversation.
Quick clarification. I assume corporate campaigns affect 8.20 years of chicken life per $, not 8.20 chicken lives per $.
While your point estimate is probably reasonable as a point estimate, I know people who would try to argue this number should be more like 95%. Iām not saying theyāre correct or endorsing these estimates in any way, but I feel the need to keep that uncertainty. With your particular ethical slant (particularly the EXPECTED component of your utilitarianism), this probably isnāt very relevant to you personally.
For reference, this cell calculates the welfare per unit time of a broiler in a reformed scenario relative to that of one in a conventional scenario, as a function of conversion factors between 4 types of pain, being asleep, and being alive (I assume being alive with hurtful pain is neutral). It is very hard to arrive to that 95 % because, based on data from the Welfare Footprint Project, when a broiler goes from a conventional to a reformed scenario, the time experiencing (the types of pain are defined here):
Excruciating pain decreases 81.5 %. This is close to my assumption that overall suffering decreases 77.7 % (= 1 ā 0.223) because I weight extreme suffering very heavily.
Disabling pain decreases 65.7 %.
Hurtful pain decreases 23.4 %.
Annoying pain increases 4.51 %.
For the pain per unit time of a broiler in a reformed scenario being 95 % of that of one in a conventional scenario, one would have to give negligible weight to the above reductions in excruciating, disabling and hurtful pain, and then for some reason weight very heavily a reduction in pain with intensity somewhere between those of annoying and hurtful pain. I think this would be unjustifiable under expected total hedonistic utilitarianism. I would not want to assume the suffering per time in a reformed scenario is more than 50 % as bad as in a conventional one[1], in which case corporate campaigns would be more than 120 times as cost-effective as School Plates.
Additionally, I have heard numerous accounts of corporate campaigners sharing how much easier the more extreme abolitionists make their job. After corporations work with an extreme abolitionist, working with THL is so much more attractive.
That makes intuitive sense to be. On the other hand, I think it would mostly push one towards supporting activities optimising for radical flank effects, not ones aiming to increase the number of plant-based meals at schools and universities.
Overall, I think these interventions do and must work together towards the world we want to create for animals, even if there may be some disagreement about what that ultimate world looks like exactly. This leads me to prefer a pluralistic movement and err on the side of endorsing less effective interventions (at least in the short run) if they are of a different āflavorā. By different āflavorsā, I basically mean the tactics and the theories of change are not very related and may even be complementary.
I agree it is better to support interventions whose cost-effectiveness is less correlated everything else equal[2]. At the same time, conditional on corporate campaigns being something like 186 times as cost-effective as School Plates, I do not see how one could justify supporting School Plates over corporate campaigns. If, for the same cost, one could save 186 human lives via intervention A or just 1 via B, it would feel very wrong to me to support B over A on grounds that A and B are quite different.
In any case, thanks for outlining some reasons the ratio of 186 may be too high!
I get 53.2 % here assuming excruciating pain is 10 times as bad as disabling pain (instead of my original 1 k times), that disabling pain is 10 times as bad as hurtful pain (instead of 100 times), and that there are no positive experiences (instead of being alive with hurtful pain being neutral).
Thanks for the follow up! Strongly upvoted.
āSarah expects this to decrease in the futureā is indeed supposed to mean that Sarah expects the cost per additional plant-based meal to decrease in the future. In addition, the cost per additional plant-based meal is supposed to refer to the ratio between the annual cost and benefits.
Thanks for the context around this! I have just asked Sarah about whether she has any guesses for how many x % more additional meat-free meals they would have had in 2023 if they had spent 10 % more in 2023.
Yes, 0.0600 $ is the average cost per additional plant-based meal in 2023 (in ratio between total cost and benefits in 2023), which I then adjust to get the marginal one.
This would suggest the marginal cost-effectiveness would increase over time. In this case, it would make sense for School Plates to save more (and funders to support it less) since spending later (and funders supporting it later) would be more impactful at the margin. Ideally, spending should be moved from the worst to the best years until the marginal cost-effectiveness is the same across years (in the same way that it makes sense at any point in time to move money from the worst to best charities until their marginal cost-effectiveness is the same).
In this case, I believe you are suggesting that the marginal cos-effectiveness of Shool Plates is 2 (= 0.0600/ā0.03) times their ratio between benefits and cost in 2023, i.e. that them spending 10 % more then would have resulted in 20 % (= 0.1*2) more additional plant-based meals in 2023. This would be surprising to me.
I used to run Monte Carlos more often, but now I tend to prefer Sheets, at least for linear problems where I can foresee the effects of changing inputs, because then more people can review/āupdate the model.
Fair!
Quick clarification. I assume corporate campaigns affect 8.20 years of chicken life per $, not 8.20 chicken lives per $.
For reference, this cell calculates the welfare per unit time of a broiler in a reformed scenario relative to that of one in a conventional scenario, as a function of conversion factors between 4 types of pain, being asleep, and being alive (I assume being alive with hurtful pain is neutral). It is very hard to arrive to that 95 % because, based on data from the Welfare Footprint Project, when a broiler goes from a conventional to a reformed scenario, the time experiencing (the types of pain are defined here):
Excruciating pain decreases 81.5 %. This is close to my assumption that overall suffering decreases 77.7 % (= 1 ā 0.223) because I weight extreme suffering very heavily.
Disabling pain decreases 65.7 %.
Hurtful pain decreases 23.4 %.
Annoying pain increases 4.51 %.
For the pain per unit time of a broiler in a reformed scenario being 95 % of that of one in a conventional scenario, one would have to give negligible weight to the above reductions in excruciating, disabling and hurtful pain, and then for some reason weight very heavily a reduction in pain with intensity somewhere between those of annoying and hurtful pain. I think this would be unjustifiable under expected total hedonistic utilitarianism. I would not want to assume the suffering per time in a reformed scenario is more than 50 % as bad as in a conventional one[1], in which case corporate campaigns would be more than 120 times as cost-effective as School Plates.
That makes intuitive sense to be. On the other hand, I think it would mostly push one towards supporting activities optimising for radical flank effects, not ones aiming to increase the number of plant-based meals at schools and universities.
I agree it is better to support interventions whose cost-effectiveness is less correlated everything else equal[2]. At the same time, conditional on corporate campaigns being something like 186 times as cost-effective as School Plates, I do not see how one could justify supporting School Plates over corporate campaigns. If, for the same cost, one could save 186 human lives via intervention A or just 1 via B, it would feel very wrong to me to support B over A on grounds that A and B are quite different.
In any case, thanks for outlining some reasons the ratio of 186 may be too high!
I get 53.2 % here assuming excruciating pain is 10 times as bad as disabling pain (instead of my original 1 k times), that disabling pain is 10 times as bad as hurtful pain (instead of 100 times), and that there are no positive experiences (instead of being alive with hurtful pain being neutral).
Basically, for similar reasons that lead me to invest in global stocks rather than the single company I expect to grow the most.