Executive summary: Factory farming may expand into space as humans settle other worlds, posing a major but neglected animal welfare concern.
Key points:
Settling space could enable trillion trillion vertebrates to be factory farmed, making this a huge animal welfare issue.
Common reasons for optimism about a cruelty-free space future are critiqued, including Earth resupply, lab meat, transformative AI, and changing norms.
Timelines are deeply uncertain but space factory farms could emerge once tens of thousands of people live off-Earth.
Next steps include better understanding engineering needs for space factory farms, intersections with terraforming, and tractability of interventions.
We may be unable to supply meat to settlements across the solar system without expanding factory farming on Earth.
Even if not a near-term issue, the scale warrants more attention on factory farming possibly expanding into space.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: Factory farming may expand into space as humans settle other worlds, posing a major but neglected animal welfare concern.
Key points:
Settling space could enable trillion trillion vertebrates to be factory farmed, making this a huge animal welfare issue.
Common reasons for optimism about a cruelty-free space future are critiqued, including Earth resupply, lab meat, transformative AI, and changing norms.
Timelines are deeply uncertain but space factory farms could emerge once tens of thousands of people live off-Earth.
Next steps include better understanding engineering needs for space factory farms, intersections with terraforming, and tractability of interventions.
We may be unable to supply meat to settlements across the solar system without expanding factory farming on Earth.
Even if not a near-term issue, the scale warrants more attention on factory farming possibly expanding into space.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.