I By reputational risk I mean that an organization like Hive who’s stated purpose is to be “Your global online hub for farmed animal advocates.” could be undermined by their platform being spammed with arguments suggesting helping farmed animals is a bad idea.
I don’t think discussions about whether what your entire platfor is doing is even net positive, are best had on an organizational slack forum. It’s could demotivate people who are passionate about helping farmed animals.
Perhaps very uncertain philosophical questions can be discussed on other forums, then when there is some consensus that can move into the mainstream, as I think has mostly been the case with EA ideas in the past.
I strongly disagree with your statement below based on experience. Vascos arguments might be logically straightforward, but most people I know and hang out with would find it bizarre, incomprehensible and even offensive. If I tried to argue this I would probably lose hard fought reputation I have as a sensible guy who advocate for helping humans far away and farmed animals—convincing people chickens matter is hard enough...
“the core of Vasco’s argument—that if soil animals are conscious, then, given how numerous they are, their total moral weight must be very high—is really quite straightforward.
Which is why the EA forum (and maybe others) seems like a good place to anchor these discussions, send perhaps not a farmed animal welfare group slack page. My argument is that we should be wise about where and when we talk about what....
At least until the Daly show cracks open the Overton window again ;)
At least until the Daly show cracks open the Overton window again ;)
Rethink Priorities (RP) conducted a “US national poll of 4,446 Americans, adjusted to match a US nationally representative likely voter electorate”, and found “65% of respondents thought honeybees could feel pain, 56% of respondents thought that ants could feel pain, and 52% of respondents thought termites could feel pain”. I estimate effects on soil ants and termites are much larger than on target beneficiaries for “welfare range as a fraction of that of humans” = “number of neurons as a fraction of that of humans”^0.19, which explains 78.6 % of the variance in the welfare ranges in Bob Fischer’s book about comparing welfare across species.
I estimate effects on soil animals would still be much larger than those on the target beneficiaries for a welfare per animal-year of exactly 0 for animals with fewer neurons than those considered in Bob’s book, and an exponent of the number of neurons of 0.19 which explains very well its estimates []. I calculate soil ants and termites have 2.91 and 1.16 times as many neurons as shrimp, so effects on them would still be relevant. I get the following increase in the welfare of soil ants and termites as a fraction of the increase in the welfare of the target beneficiaries for an exponent of 0.19 (the chicken welfare corporate campaigns would decrease animal welfare):
I By reputational risk I mean that an organization like Hive who’s stated purpose is to be “Your global online hub for farmed animal advocates.” could be undermined by their platform being spammed with arguments suggesting helping farmed animals is a bad idea.
I don’t think discussions about whether what your entire platfor is doing is even net positive, are best had on an organizational slack forum. It’s could demotivate people who are passionate about helping farmed animals.
Perhaps very uncertain philosophical questions can be discussed on other forums, then when there is some consensus that can move into the mainstream, as I think has mostly been the case with EA ideas in the past.
I strongly disagree with your statement below based on experience. Vascos arguments might be logically straightforward, but most people I know and hang out with would find it bizarre, incomprehensible and even offensive. If I tried to argue this I would probably lose hard fought reputation I have as a sensible guy who advocate for helping humans far away and farmed animals—convincing people chickens matter is hard enough...
“the core of Vasco’s argument—that if soil animals are conscious, then, given how numerous they are, their total moral weight must be very high—is really quite straightforward.
Which is why the EA forum (and maybe others) seems like a good place to anchor these discussions, send perhaps not a farmed animal welfare group slack page. My argument is that we should be wise about where and when we talk about what....
At least until the Daly show cracks open the Overton window again ;)
Rethink Priorities (RP) conducted a “US national poll of 4,446 Americans, adjusted to match a US nationally representative likely voter electorate”, and found “65% of respondents thought honeybees could feel pain, 56% of respondents thought that ants could feel pain, and 52% of respondents thought termites could feel pain”. I estimate effects on soil ants and termites are much larger than on target beneficiaries for “welfare range as a fraction of that of humans” = “number of neurons as a fraction of that of humans”^0.19, which explains 78.6 % of the variance in the welfare ranges in Bob Fischer’s book about comparing welfare across species.