DMRA could actually favour helping animals of uncertain sentience over helping humans or animals of more probable sentience, if and because helping humans can backfire badly for other animals in case other animals matter a lot (through the meat eater problem and effects on wild animals), and helping vertebrates can also backfire badly for wild invertebrates in case wild invertebrates matter a lot (especially through population effects through land use and fishing). Helping other animals seems less prone to backfire so much for humans, although it can. And helping farmed shrimp and insects seems less prone to backfire so much (relative to potential benefits) for other animals (vertebrates, invertebrates, farmed and wild)
I suppose you might prefer human-helping interventions with very little impact on animals. Maybe mental health? Or, you might combine human-helping interventions to try to mostly cancel out impacts on animals, like life-saving charities + family planning charities, which may have roughly opposite sign effects on animals. And maybe also hedge with some animal-helping interventions to make up for any remaining downside risk for animals. Their combination could be better than primarily animal-targeted interventions under DMRA, or at least inteventions aimed at helping animals unlikely to matter much.
Maybe chicken welfare reforms still look good enough on their own, though, if chickens are likely enough to matter enough, as I think RP showed in the CURVE sequence.
DMRA could actually favour helping animals of uncertain sentience over helping humans or animals of more probable sentience, if and because helping humans can backfire badly for other animals in case other animals matter a lot (through the meat eater problem and effects on wild animals), and helping vertebrates can also backfire badly for wild invertebrates in case wild invertebrates matter a lot (especially through population effects through land use and fishing). Helping other animals seems less prone to backfire so much for humans, although it can. And helping farmed shrimp and insects seems less prone to backfire so much (relative to potential benefits) for other animals (vertebrates, invertebrates, farmed and wild)
I suppose you might prefer human-helping interventions with very little impact on animals. Maybe mental health? Or, you might combine human-helping interventions to try to mostly cancel out impacts on animals, like life-saving charities + family planning charities, which may have roughly opposite sign effects on animals. And maybe also hedge with some animal-helping interventions to make up for any remaining downside risk for animals. Their combination could be better than primarily animal-targeted interventions under DMRA, or at least inteventions aimed at helping animals unlikely to matter much.
Maybe chicken welfare reforms still look good enough on their own, though, if chickens are likely enough to matter enough, as I think RP showed in the CURVE sequence.
All super interesting suggestions, Michael!