Likewise, if we’re optimising for the reduction of near-term animal suffering, then we can compare welfare improvement projects using a standardised measure of suffering like Ambitious Impact’s “Suffering-Adjusted Days” (SADs) and invest in the ones which reduce the most SADs per dollar.
1 SAD corresponds to 1 human-day of disabling pain. So it is not time-bound. It can be used to measure reductions in suffering even if they happen far into the future (although I guess more than 90 % of the overall effect materialises in the 1st 100 years for the vast majority of interventions).
Many advocates are working towards a broader project of endingindustrial food animal production (IFAP).
There is a sense in which reducing animal suffering (as measured by SADs) is a broader project than ending large-scale farming? Farmed animals account for a tiny fraction of all animals and neurons.
Each of these is attacking IFAP from a different angle. Therefore it’s extremely hard—if not outright impossible—to compare their cost-effectiveness, because each project’s “unit of impact” is completely different.
Since you mention “if not outright impossible”, do you think ending industrial farming is intrinsically good? I believe what matters is just decreasing suffering, and increasing happiness. So I would ultimately assess interventions decreasing industrial farming in these terms. I worry about using non-welfare final outcomes because animals in large-scale farming can have positive lives, with more happiness than suffering, under some conditions. In this case, they would prefer existing over not existing. I also think positive lives are very much possible in practice. I estimatethat the welfare per chicken-year of slower growth broilers is 92.9 % higher than that of fast growth broilers, and that of layers in barns 80.4 % higher than that of layers in battery cages, which suggests lives in the improved conditions that are negative, but close to neutral (estimates of 100 % higher welfare would suggest neutral lives). I guess cows, broilers, and layers in organic production have positive lives.
Thanks for the post, Dilan.
1 SAD corresponds to 1 human-day of disabling pain. So it is not time-bound. It can be used to measure reductions in suffering even if they happen far into the future (although I guess more than 90 % of the overall effect materialises in the 1st 100 years for the vast majority of interventions).
There is a sense in which reducing animal suffering (as measured by SADs) is a broader project than ending large-scale farming? Farmed animals account for a tiny fraction of all animals and neurons.
Since you mention “if not outright impossible”, do you think ending industrial farming is intrinsically good? I believe what matters is just decreasing suffering, and increasing happiness. So I would ultimately assess interventions decreasing industrial farming in these terms. I worry about using non-welfare final outcomes because animals in large-scale farming can have positive lives, with more happiness than suffering, under some conditions. In this case, they would prefer existing over not existing. I also think positive lives are very much possible in practice. I estimate that the welfare per chicken-year of slower growth broilers is 92.9 % higher than that of fast growth broilers, and that of layers in barns 80.4 % higher than that of layers in battery cages, which suggests lives in the improved conditions that are negative, but close to neutral (estimates of 100 % higher welfare would suggest neutral lives). I guess cows, broilers, and layers in organic production have positive lives.