Thanks for writing this, the ontology is interesting.
Regarding this claim for rowing:
Despite all of the suspicious aspects, I think there is a good case for it. I don’t understand where this ship is going or why things are working the way they are—maybe the ship happens to be pointed toward warmer or calmer latitudes? - but rowing seems to have made life better for the vast majority of people over the last couple hundred years, and will likely continue to do so (by default) over at least the next few decades.
Unfortunately, the chart for average animal quality of life probably looks very different from the human one; for example, the rise of factory farming in the 20th and 21st centuries is a massive negative development. I consider this a major complicating point for the narrative about life getting better over this period.
This basically seems like a knockdown counterargument to me: if you include all sentient beings (which seems like the natural “default” population) the trendline is negative (or at least unclear), so naïvely extrapolating the trendline is not very exciting. I’m curious why you don’t find this counterargument so compelling? Is it that you don’t think “all sentient beings” is the “right” population to use?
(Note: I think there are compelling reasons to believe the “default” future will be positive, I just don’t think the “naïvely extrapolate a trendline” argument is very compelling.)
I think this is a good point, but it doesn’t totally knock me out of feeling sympathy for the “rowing” case.
It looks quite likely to me that factory farming is going to end up looking something like air pollution—something that got worse, then better, as capabilities/wealth improved. I expect the combination of improving “animal product alternatives” (Impossible, Beyond, eventually clean meat) with increasing wealth to lead this way.
Granted, this is no longer a “pure trend extrapolation,” but I think the consistent and somewhat mysterious improvement in the lives of humans (the population that has been getting more empowered/capable) is still a major part of a case I have a lot of sympathy for: that by default, at least over the next few decades and bracketing some “table-flip” scenarios, we should expect further economic growth and technological advancement to result in better quality of life.
It seems that both you and the OP are saying that developments in farm animal welfare may have affected the sign of human progress.
Note that EA and Open Phil is the major leader and funder to improving welfare of many farmed animals.
In farm animal welfare, many of the best initiatives and leaders are “native to EA”.
According to one of the responses to this post, some reduction of severe factory farming practices is one of EA’s achievements.
In one case, an EA organization has produced field expanding work in farm animal welfare and beyond (and continues, while also usefully growing into other cause areas).
Thanks for writing this, the ontology is interesting.
Regarding this claim for rowing:
Elsewhere, you state:
This basically seems like a knockdown counterargument to me: if you include all sentient beings (which seems like the natural “default” population) the trendline is negative (or at least unclear), so naïvely extrapolating the trendline is not very exciting. I’m curious why you don’t find this counterargument so compelling? Is it that you don’t think “all sentient beings” is the “right” population to use?
(Note: I think there are compelling reasons to believe the “default” future will be positive, I just don’t think the “naïvely extrapolate a trendline” argument is very compelling.)
I think this is a good point, but it doesn’t totally knock me out of feeling sympathy for the “rowing” case.
It looks quite likely to me that factory farming is going to end up looking something like air pollution—something that got worse, then better, as capabilities/wealth improved. I expect the combination of improving “animal product alternatives” (Impossible, Beyond, eventually clean meat) with increasing wealth to lead this way.
Granted, this is no longer a “pure trend extrapolation,” but I think the consistent and somewhat mysterious improvement in the lives of humans (the population that has been getting more empowered/capable) is still a major part of a case I have a lot of sympathy for: that by default, at least over the next few decades and bracketing some “table-flip” scenarios, we should expect further economic growth and technological advancement to result in better quality of life.
One facet of your comment:
It seems that both you and the OP are saying that developments in farm animal welfare may have affected the sign of human progress.
Note that EA and Open Phil is the major leader and funder to improving welfare of many farmed animals.
In farm animal welfare, many of the best initiatives and leaders are “native to EA”.
According to one of the responses to this post, some reduction of severe factory farming practices is one of EA’s achievements.
In one case, an EA organization has produced field expanding work in farm animal welfare and beyond (and continues, while also usefully growing into other cause areas).