ML researcher
calvinmccarter
Karma: 13
Cause: research to narrow the gap between in vitro and in vivo experiments
I recently learned that there’s a intense and growing “dogfree” movement, and I’m curious if there’s an effective altruist take on this topic. This subreddit post seems to capture dogfree activists’ objections to dog ownership: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dogfree/comments/7bk3wo/just_curious_what_is_the_reason_why_you/
Here are some quick observations about the dogfree movement vis a vis effective altruism:
Contrary to dogfree movement claims, dogs have an overall positive human hedonic impact. But dogs have been bred to provide supernormal stimuli, so it is not clear if this is truly long-run beneficial. For example, is it better for a human to be immediately satisfied with a superficial form of unconditional love from a dog, or to seek out the arduous task of learning to unconditionally love oneself? It may be the case that many people are stuck in a hedonic local maximum with dog ownership.
Pugs, which are booming in popularity, have been bred to be neotenous and “cute” at the expense of substantial suffering for the pugs themselves.
Dogs typically eat meat, and thus contribute to suffering on factory farms.
Dogs and children are substitute goods, and children are more important to the future. In San Francisco, there are more dogs than children: https://www.kqed.org/news/11669269/are-there-really-more-dogs-than-children-in-s-f . In Taiwan, pets outnumber children under the age of 14: https://www.petfoodindustry.com/articles/9549-taiwan-pet-population-outnumbers-children-14-or-younger?v=preview
Dogs are less sentient than other alternative pets, such as pigs.
Dogs contribute to climate change, and unlike children, will never contribute to any innovation that helps us end it.
Many humans are allergic to dogs. On the other hand, early life exposure to dogs may reduce the risk of developing allergies and asthma later on.
Dogs are not effective altruists.
I’m curious to hear others’ thoughts on this subject!
It turns out that one of the New Science 2022 Fellows has been working on this very topic: https://newscience.substack.com/p/a-call-for-context-in-cell-culture