Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Brian. I should’ve mentioned that I think that WAW might be tractable for people who think that reducing wild animal populations is good. I don’t think that reducing populations is good because:
I remain very uncertain whether wild animals experience more suffering than happiness (see this talk). I still think it’s more likely that there is more suffering due to painful deaths but not by much. This is partly because I give less weight to short but very intense pain than you do.
Reducing wild animal populations usually goes against various human interests [EDIT: actually, this doesn’t apply to some interventions in your list. I’m now thinking about whether any of them are promising.]
It’s not what most people want. Hence, even if I did think that reducing wild populations is good, I’d be afraid that I’ll change my mind in 10 years.
I worry that researching the big questions you mention might be intractable. You wrote a detailed analysis about the impact of climate change on wild animal suffering, and concluded that your “probabilities are basically 50% net good vs. 50% net bad when just considering animal suffering on Earth in the next few centuries (ignoring side effects on humanity’s very long-term future).” Correct me if I’m wrong, but your analysis rests on the assumption that reducing wild populations is good. An analysis without this assumption would be vastly more difficult because it would require analyzing whether various populations would become happier (instead of just analyzing changes in population). I worry that we wouldn’t have enough confidence in that analysis to inform our decisions.
All that said, I think that attempting to research WAW impacts of vegetarianism might still be worth it, though I’m unsure.
Hi Saulius, I wonder if have factored in your points 2&3 above in your view that you think digital beings are a priority for longtermism, and factory farming a priority for non-longtermist animal welfare. It seems that both cause areas, if taken consistently and seriously enough, would go against (organic) human interests and is not what most people want.
I imagine that few people would say that it’s actively harmful to try to decrease s-risks to digital minds (especially when it involves trying to prevent escalating conflicts, sadism, and retributivism). Most people would say it’s just a waste of money and effort. Most people agree that it’s important that animals used for food are well cared for. Not everyone votes for welfare improvements in ballot initiatives but a significant proportion of people do. And if we had infinite money, I don’t think anyone would mind improving conditions for farmed animals. But if there was a ballot initiative asking “shall we actively try to decrease wild animal numbers?”, I imagine that almost everyone would passionately oppose it. I don’t feel comfortable working on things most people would passionately oppose (and not just because it’s a waste of resources, but because they think that our desired outcome is bad). It also makes it difficult to work on it as an EA cause and it could repulse some people from EA. But I now weakened (or changed) my position on reducing populations after realizing that it doesn’t always to lead to more environmental issues (see this comment). Also, people might not mind if we are only decreasing populations of tiny animals.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Brian. I should’ve mentioned that I think that WAW might be tractable for people who think that reducing wild animal populations is good. I don’t think that reducing populations is good because:
I remain very uncertain whether wild animals experience more suffering than happiness (see this talk). I still think it’s more likely that there is more suffering due to painful deaths but not by much. This is partly because I give less weight to short but very intense pain than you do.
Reducing wild animal populations usually goes against various human interests [EDIT: actually, this doesn’t apply to some interventions in your list. I’m now thinking about whether any of them are promising.]
It’s not what most people want. Hence, even if I did think that reducing wild populations is good, I’d be afraid that I’ll change my mind in 10 years.
I worry that researching the big questions you mention might be intractable. You wrote a detailed analysis about the impact of climate change on wild animal suffering, and concluded that your “probabilities are basically 50% net good vs. 50% net bad when just considering animal suffering on Earth in the next few centuries (ignoring side effects on humanity’s very long-term future).” Correct me if I’m wrong, but your analysis rests on the assumption that reducing wild populations is good. An analysis without this assumption would be vastly more difficult because it would require analyzing whether various populations would become happier (instead of just analyzing changes in population). I worry that we wouldn’t have enough confidence in that analysis to inform our decisions.
All that said, I think that attempting to research WAW impacts of vegetarianism might still be worth it, though I’m unsure.
Hi Saulius, I wonder if have factored in your points 2&3 above in your view that you think digital beings are a priority for longtermism, and factory farming a priority for non-longtermist animal welfare. It seems that both cause areas, if taken consistently and seriously enough, would go against (organic) human interests and is not what most people want.
I imagine that few people would say that it’s actively harmful to try to decrease s-risks to digital minds (especially when it involves trying to prevent escalating conflicts, sadism, and retributivism). Most people would say it’s just a waste of money and effort. Most people agree that it’s important that animals used for food are well cared for. Not everyone votes for welfare improvements in ballot initiatives but a significant proportion of people do. And if we had infinite money, I don’t think anyone would mind improving conditions for farmed animals. But if there was a ballot initiative asking “shall we actively try to decrease wild animal numbers?”, I imagine that almost everyone would passionately oppose it. I don’t feel comfortable working on things most people would passionately oppose (and not just because it’s a waste of resources, but because they think that our desired outcome is bad). It also makes it difficult to work on it as an EA cause and it could repulse some people from EA. But I now weakened (or changed) my position on reducing populations after realizing that it doesn’t always to lead to more environmental issues (see this comment). Also, people might not mind if we are only decreasing populations of tiny animals.