Iâm living in France. Learned about EA in 2018, found that great, digged a lot into the topic. The idea of âwhat in the world improves well-being or causes suffering the most, and what can we doâ really influenced me a whole lotâespecially when mixed with meditation that allowed me to be more active in my life.
One of the most reliable thing I have found so far is helping animal charities : farmed animals are much more numerous than humans (and have much worse living conditions), and there absolutely is evidence that animal charities are getting some improvements (especially from The Humane League). I tried to donate a lot there.
Long-termism could also be important, but I think that weâll hit energy limits before getting to an extinction eventâI wrote an EA forum post for that here: https://ââforum.effectivealtruism.org/ââposts/ââwXzc75txE5hbHqYug/ââthe-great-energy-descent-short-version-an-important-thing-ea
How did you come to these numbers for the P-sentience ? Why not between 1 in 10 and 1 in 100,000,000,000,000 ?
My personal feeling, while reading these kind of numbers, is that they seem conveniently in the ballpark of âwide enough that I recognize I am not really sure about what is causing sentience, but low enough that I donât have anything to do about itâ. Maybe this is not how you came up with them, but this is what I would come up with I had to justify not working on the topic.
I understand that itâs possible that insects may have a lower ability to feel suffering, but I donât see how we can be confident enough to find it unlikely that they are morally relevant.