Thanks, @NickLaing. I am tagging you because my initial reply did not include the paragraph just below.
Kevin did not ban posts about soil animals. “Kevin explained posts about soil animals are not restricted as long as they are sufficiently different from the above, and is open to discussing what this means on a case by case basis”.
Do you think people who consider caring about shrimp crazy, and are interested in helping vertebrate animals may lose this interest as a result of other people caring about shrimp? Do you think people who consider caring about soil animals crazy, and are interested in helping farmed animals may lose this interest as a result of other people caring about soil animals?
As a rule of thumb, I think interventions increasing agricultural land are beneficial, and ones decreasing it are harmful. I estimate cage-free and broiler welfare corporate campaigns increase agricultural land (although I am very uncertain about whether cage-free campaigns increase or decrease agricultural land), thus being beneficial. However, I think broadly advocating for replacing animal- with plant-based foods tends to decrease agricultural land, thus being harmful.
I certainly do not think people caring about shrimp or soil animals crazy. Although most people basically do.
My point was that your comment
“Do you have concrete examples of people moving away from supporting vertebrate animals as a result of discussions about soil animals?”
Seems incongruous with “I am very uncertain about whether cage-free campaigns increase or decrease agricultural land), thus being beneficial.
Do you currently support Cage free campaigns or not? This seems like an important question when the topic is your comments being banned from a forum largely dedicated to this goal.
My best guess is that a random cage-free corporate campaign increases animal welfare due to increasing the amount of feed needed to produce 1 kg of eggs, and therefore increasing agricultural-land-years. It makes sense hens in barns need more feed because they can move around, and therefore spend more energy. However, chickens may have higher mortality in barns in some cases, and this pushes the amount of feed needed to produce 1 kg of eggs up. I have not investigated this much, but asked Gemini 2.5 about it on 11 April 2025, and it suggested there is lots of overlap between the feed needed to produce 1 kg of eggs with chickens in barns and cages. It provided a range of 1.9 to 2.1 feed-kg/egg-kg for cages, and 2.0 to 2.2 feed-kg/egg-kg for barns.
In any case, I estimate cage-free and broiler welfare corporate campains increase the welfare of target beneficiaries, and soil ants, termites, springtails, mites, and nematodes 1.14 % and 6.51 % as cost-effectively as funding Centre for Exploratory Altruism Research’s (CEARCH’s) High Impact Philanthropy Fund (HIPF). So I recommend this instead.
Thanks, @NickLaing. I am tagging you because my initial reply did not include the paragraph just below.
Kevin did not ban posts about soil animals. “Kevin explained posts about soil animals are not restricted as long as they are sufficiently different from the above, and is open to discussing what this means on a case by case basis”.
Do you think people who consider caring about shrimp crazy, and are interested in helping vertebrate animals may lose this interest as a result of other people caring about shrimp? Do you think people who consider caring about soil animals crazy, and are interested in helping farmed animals may lose this interest as a result of other people caring about soil animals?
As a rule of thumb, I think interventions increasing agricultural land are beneficial, and ones decreasing it are harmful. I estimate cage-free and broiler welfare corporate campaigns increase agricultural land (although I am very uncertain about whether cage-free campaigns increase or decrease agricultural land), thus being beneficial. However, I think broadly advocating for replacing animal- with plant-based foods tends to decrease agricultural land, thus being harmful.
I certainly do not think people caring about shrimp or soil animals crazy. Although most people basically do.
My point was that your comment
“Do you have concrete examples of people moving away from supporting vertebrate animals as a result of discussions about soil animals?”
Seems incongruous with “I am very uncertain about whether cage-free campaigns increase or decrease agricultural land), thus being beneficial.
Do you currently support Cage free campaigns or not? This seems like an important question when the topic is your comments being banned from a forum largely dedicated to this goal.
My best guess is that a random cage-free corporate campaign increases animal welfare due to increasing the amount of feed needed to produce 1 kg of eggs, and therefore increasing agricultural-land-years. It makes sense hens in barns need more feed because they can move around, and therefore spend more energy. However, chickens may have higher mortality in barns in some cases, and this pushes the amount of feed needed to produce 1 kg of eggs up. I have not investigated this much, but asked Gemini 2.5 about it on 11 April 2025, and it suggested there is lots of overlap between the feed needed to produce 1 kg of eggs with chickens in barns and cages. It provided a range of 1.9 to 2.1 feed-kg/egg-kg for cages, and 2.0 to 2.2 feed-kg/egg-kg for barns.
In any case, I estimate cage-free and broiler welfare corporate campains increase the welfare of target beneficiaries, and soil ants, termites, springtails, mites, and nematodes 1.14 % and 6.51 % as cost-effectively as funding Centre for Exploratory Altruism Research’s (CEARCH’s) High Impact Philanthropy Fund (HIPF). So I recommend this instead.