Hi again Brian. I agree that your vision for the WAW movement is different from what WAW organizations are currently doing. I criticized the latter and don’t have a strong opinion on your vision of focusing on very small animals and reducing populations. I said that I don’t want to reduce populations partly because that usually includes reducing plant productivity which in turn causes more climate change, which might increase s-risks, x-risks, poverty, etc. But perhaps some interventions in your list could reduce populations without causing more environmental issues. I hadn’t considered them because they didn’t qualify for my WAW intervention search, and I had forgotten about them.
I’m unsure how one would go about lobbying for these things. I’d be a bit afraid of PR risks too. Imagine a farmer lobby figuring out that the real motivation for people funding lobbying against their irrigation subsidies are weirdos from Effective Altruism who are worried about small invertebrate suffering. That could cause some bad press for EA. I also think that the few potential WAW funders I talked to wouldn’t have funded such interventions but there could be other funders.
Yeah, I think some ways of reducing plant growth are often supported by environmentalists, including
less growing of crops in dry areas requiring irrigation (and instead growing more crops in regions where rain provides more of the water)
less irrigation of pastures and lawns
fewer artificial fertilizers
less nutrient pollution into water bodies
lowering atmospheric CO2 concentrations, which reduces the “CO2 fertilization effect” (though as you note, the overall impact of climate change on wild-animal suffering is unclear)
not genetically engineering plants to have higher yields.
Some other activities like encouraging palm-oil production (which destroys rainforests) are bad for the environment but may reduce poverty. (I should note that I’m unsure about the net impact of palm-oil production for wild-animal suffering.)
I agree that the question of how to lobby for these things without seeming like weirdos is tricky. It would be easier if society cared more about wild animals from a suffering-focused perspective, which can be one argument for starting with philosophical advocacy regarding those topics, though it seems unlikely that concern for wild-animal welfare or suffering-focused ethics will ever become mainstream (apart from weak forms of these things, like caring about charismatic megafauna or Buddhist philosophy about suffering). These philosophical views would also help for various far-future scenarios. But from the standpoint of trying to reduce some short-term suffering, especially if we worry about cluelessness for longer-term efforts, then this approach of doing philosophical advocacy would be too slow and indirect (except insofar as it contributes to movement building, leading some other people to pursue more concrete interventions).
So overall I may agree with you that for short-term, concrete impact, we should plausibly focus on things like stunning of wild-caught fish and so on. This is why I feel a lot of fuzzies about the Humane Slaughter Association and related efforts. That said, it does seem worth pondering more whether there are ways to direct money toward opposing irrigation subsidies and the like.
Hi again Brian. I agree that your vision for the WAW movement is different from what WAW organizations are currently doing. I criticized the latter and don’t have a strong opinion on your vision of focusing on very small animals and reducing populations. I said that I don’t want to reduce populations partly because that usually includes reducing plant productivity which in turn causes more climate change, which might increase s-risks, x-risks, poverty, etc. But perhaps some interventions in your list could reduce populations without causing more environmental issues. I hadn’t considered them because they didn’t qualify for my WAW intervention search, and I had forgotten about them.
I’m unsure how one would go about lobbying for these things. I’d be a bit afraid of PR risks too. Imagine a farmer lobby figuring out that the real motivation for people funding lobbying against their irrigation subsidies are weirdos from Effective Altruism who are worried about small invertebrate suffering. That could cause some bad press for EA. I also think that the few potential WAW funders I talked to wouldn’t have funded such interventions but there could be other funders.
(Sorry for being slow to return here!)
Yeah, I think some ways of reducing plant growth are often supported by environmentalists, including
less growing of crops in dry areas requiring irrigation (and instead growing more crops in regions where rain provides more of the water)
less irrigation of pastures and lawns
fewer artificial fertilizers
less nutrient pollution into water bodies
lowering atmospheric CO2 concentrations, which reduces the “CO2 fertilization effect” (though as you note, the overall impact of climate change on wild-animal suffering is unclear)
not genetically engineering plants to have higher yields.
Some other activities like encouraging palm-oil production (which destroys rainforests) are bad for the environment but may reduce poverty. (I should note that I’m unsure about the net impact of palm-oil production for wild-animal suffering.)
I agree that the question of how to lobby for these things without seeming like weirdos is tricky. It would be easier if society cared more about wild animals from a suffering-focused perspective, which can be one argument for starting with philosophical advocacy regarding those topics, though it seems unlikely that concern for wild-animal welfare or suffering-focused ethics will ever become mainstream (apart from weak forms of these things, like caring about charismatic megafauna or Buddhist philosophy about suffering). These philosophical views would also help for various far-future scenarios. But from the standpoint of trying to reduce some short-term suffering, especially if we worry about cluelessness for longer-term efforts, then this approach of doing philosophical advocacy would be too slow and indirect (except insofar as it contributes to movement building, leading some other people to pursue more concrete interventions).
So overall I may agree with you that for short-term, concrete impact, we should plausibly focus on things like stunning of wild-caught fish and so on. This is why I feel a lot of fuzzies about the Humane Slaughter Association and related efforts. That said, it does seem worth pondering more whether there are ways to direct money toward opposing irrigation subsidies and the like.