Bentham's Bulldog

The Virtue Ethics Case For Shrimp Welfare

Wild An­i­mal Suffer­ing Is The Worst Thing In The World

Against Ad­dress­ing Root Causes

• Bentham's BulldogFeb 4, 2025, 3:48 PM

  6 points

  1 ∶ 1

  in reply to: Vasco Grilo🔸’s comment on: In­sec­ti­cide-treated nets sig­nifi­cantly harm mosquitoes, but one can eas­ily offset this?

  I disagree with you about wild animal welfare—I think it’s clearly negative. I agree though that we should be cautious and give to the wild animal institute. But even if they have positive lives, if they’ll still die eventually, this just pushes them back to have another more painful death.

  Do you think paying for more human pesticides is more effective than SWP? And is there a charity doing that?

• Bentham's BulldogFeb 4, 2025, 11:27 AM

  10 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: In­sec­ti­cide-treated nets sig­nifi­cantly harm mosquitoes, but one can eas­ily offset this?

  I mean, the alternative is the mosquitos dying later. Do we have reason to expect their later deaths to be any better? Given that mosquitos are R-strategists, it might be good to kill them if we think they live negative lives (which I do—I know you’re less certain).

• Bentham's BulldogJan 27, 2025, 7:47 PM

  9 points

  1 ∶ 1

  in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: The Up­com­ing PEPFAR Cut Will Kill Millions, Many of Them Children

  Hmm, I guess none of those happening seems decently likely to me—around 50% probability.

The Up­com­ing PEPFAR Cut Will Kill Millions, Many of Them Children

• Bentham's BulldogDec 23, 2024, 2:35 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Ulf Graf 🔹’s comment on: The Case For Giv­ing To The Shrimp Welfare Project

  Yeah sure! Thanks so much!

How Much Does Mo­ral­ity Re­quire You To Give?

Effec­tive Altru­ism FAQ

[Question] Does any­one have up to date es­ti­mates on the most effec­tive char­i­ties helping chick­ens?

• Bentham's BulldogDec 10, 2024, 12:57 AM

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: justsaying’s comment on: What’s up with the bristle­mouth, the most pop­u­lous fish?

  Checking it out now.

[Question] What’s up with the bristle­mouth, the most pop­u­lous fish?

The Un­speak­able Hor­rors Beyond Com­pre­hen­sion That We In­flict On Thanks­giv­ing Turkeys

Must We Hurt Even The Lit­tle An­i­mals?

• Bentham's BulldogNov 24, 2024, 3:51 PM

  0 points

  1 ∶ 1

  in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: Re­but­ting Every Ob­jec­tion To Giv­ing To The Shrimp Welfare Project

  Things with a 50% chance of being very good aren’t pascal’s muggings! Your decision theory can’t be “Pascal’s muggin means I ignore everything with probability less than .5 of being good.”

• Bentham's BulldogNov 23, 2024, 1:33 PM

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Henry Howard🔸’s comment on: Re­but­ting Every Ob­jec­tion To Giv­ing To The Shrimp Welfare Project

  But those guys almost definitely aren’t conscious. There’s a difference between how you reason about absurdly low probabilities and decent probabilities.

  (I also think that we shouldn’t a priori rule out that the world might be messy such that we’re constnatly inadvertently harming huge numbers of conscious creatures).

Re­but­ting Every Ob­jec­tion To Giv­ing To The Shrimp Welfare Project

• Bentham's BulldogNov 22, 2024, 12:17 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 1

  in reply to: David Mathers🔸’s comment on: I Have A New Paper Out Ar­gu­ing Against The Asym­me­try And For The Ex­is­tence of Happy Peo­ple Be­ing Very Good

  I do not think a joking throwaway reference to a statement from the upcoming vice president is offensive.

• Bentham's BulldogNov 22, 2024, 12:09 AM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: MichaelStJules’s comment on: I Have A New Paper Out Ar­gu­ing Against The Asym­me­try And For The Ex­is­tence of Happy Peo­ple Be­ing Very Good

  I was assuming both buttons are available. Specifically, suppose Bob exists:

  1. Bob getting an extra 1 util and Todd being created with a util is better than that not happening.

  2. Todd being created with 3 utils is better than the scenario in 1.