This research is very helpful, thanks! Two questions: (1) Sometimes I wonder if brain size is relevant, not just to probability-of-feeling-pain but to “amount of pain felt” or something like that. So, for example, perhaps a 1kg brain feels 1000x more pain than a 1g brain, on average. Do you include this in your analysis? If not, would it change things much if you did—e.g. making cows much higher-priority? (2) Your analysis is focused on the question of which animals should be prioritized in EA interventions. Does it also apply to the question of which animals are highest-priority to avoid eating? E.g. would it be better to be a reducitarian who eats beef but no other meats than a pescetarian?
So on #1, there have been some discussions of this but out team was not convinced of the arguments enough to include a factor involving it into our analysis. You can see more here https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2jTQTxYNwo6zb3Kyp/preliminary-thoughts-on-moral-weight and on the links at the bottom of that post. It would change things quite a bit. We have not done the calculation but off the top of my head I would expect it would impact insects most significantly with other animals moving up or down a category e.g. cows might move to mid but I would not expect them to move to high.
On #2, indeed our research is mostly focused around which charities should be founded in the animal space. That being said, I do think it cross applies. For example, I would far prefer someone to eat beef and give up chicken than the opposite. For giving up different food categories I think it would go something like Fish > Chicken > Eggs > Pork > Beef > Milk > Cheese in order of importance based on both the animal welfare and the amount of animals it takes to form a meal (e.g. 1 chicken or 0.01 cows).
This research is very helpful, thanks! Two questions: (1) Sometimes I wonder if brain size is relevant, not just to probability-of-feeling-pain but to “amount of pain felt” or something like that. So, for example, perhaps a 1kg brain feels 1000x more pain than a 1g brain, on average. Do you include this in your analysis? If not, would it change things much if you did—e.g. making cows much higher-priority? (2) Your analysis is focused on the question of which animals should be prioritized in EA interventions. Does it also apply to the question of which animals are highest-priority to avoid eating? E.g. would it be better to be a reducitarian who eats beef but no other meats than a pescetarian?
So on #1, there have been some discussions of this but out team was not convinced of the arguments enough to include a factor involving it into our analysis. You can see more here https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2jTQTxYNwo6zb3Kyp/preliminary-thoughts-on-moral-weight and on the links at the bottom of that post. It would change things quite a bit. We have not done the calculation but off the top of my head I would expect it would impact insects most significantly with other animals moving up or down a category e.g. cows might move to mid but I would not expect them to move to high.
On #2, indeed our research is mostly focused around which charities should be founded in the animal space. That being said, I do think it cross applies. For example, I would far prefer someone to eat beef and give up chicken than the opposite. For giving up different food categories I think it would go something like Fish > Chicken > Eggs > Pork > Beef > Milk > Cheese in order of importance based on both the animal welfare and the amount of animals it takes to form a meal (e.g. 1 chicken or 0.01 cows).