emre kaplan🔸

Mea­sura­bil­ity is Dou­bly Im­por­tant in An­i­mal Advocacy

• emre kaplan🔸Apr 9, 2025, 8:06 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Antonia Gefahrt’s comment on: Ex­per­i­ment test­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion styles of Me­lanie Joy vs. Gary Francione

  Thank you for your research!

Ex­per­i­ment test­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion styles of Me­lanie Joy vs. Gary Francione

Maybe We Aren’t Stub­born Enough

• emre kaplan🔸Apr 6, 2025, 2:52 PM

  13 points

  3 ∶ 0

  on: The case for AGI by 2030

  Setting aside general arguments about companies’ conflicts of interest regarding AI projections, I want to note that the revenue projections of these companies do not assume straight lines over trends.

  Different sources suggest OpenAI does not expect to be profitable until 2029, and its revenue projection for 2029 is around $100-120 billion. Similarly, Anthropic expects $34.5 billion revenue in 2027. These are very significant numbers, but for comparison Microsoft has an annual revenue of $250 billion. When I see the headlines “AGI by 2027”, I expect something far scarier than $34.5 billion annual revenue. Of course one can argue that business deployment of AI takes time, companies can’t capture all the value they produce and so on. Nonetheless, I think these numbers are helpful to keep things in perspective.

Find­ing our peo­ple in an­i­mal advocacy

• emre kaplan🔸Feb 19, 2025, 3:29 PM

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: ASuchy’s comment on: Hy­pothe­ses on how we can mo­bil­ise peo­ple for an­i­mal welfare

  Thanks a lot for your comments Alex. I really appreciate it as I want to develop my thinking on topic. Thanks a lot for the suggestions as well.

Hy­pothe­ses on how we can mo­bil­ise peo­ple for an­i­mal welfare

• emre kaplan🔸Feb 6, 2025, 6:56 AM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Benquo’s comment on: Eth­i­cal Ve­ganism is Wrong

  There are some forms of agreements you can make with animals and there are some forms you cannot. I don’t see why they can’t intentionally coordinate based on understanding of our choices. A cow or a crow might move closer to someone giving them food and act kindly towards them later on, but they will refuse to move closer and cooperate if they realise that person has a history of deception.

  There are also possible worlds in which animals’ intelligence can be enhanced even further. It could even happen during our lifetimes given a technology explosion. In those possible worlds animals will be able to meet any threshold you want them to pass.

  I really struggle to see a consistent way to be respectful towards people in coma or babies without also respecting the animals. You need a very specific argument on why both of these are true:

  1. Being uncooperative to animals is fine even though they might become agents(according to your threshold) with some additional technology.

  2. Being uncooperative to babies is not fine because many of them will become agents in future.

  I believe the only consistent way to disregard animal interests is to deny that animals have interests at all as Yudkowsky does. As long as animals have interests it’s very difficult to explain why screwing them over won’t send a signal of “I might screw over others if I can get away with it”.

• emre kaplan🔸Feb 2, 2025, 9:36 AM

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Alistair Stewart’s comment on: Why is ‘an­i­mal welfare’ more com­mon in EA than ‘an­i­mal rights’?

  Many advocates try to practice non-violent communication by merely criticising actions instead of individuals. But non-violent communication is stricter than that. Here’s one example from “Non Violent Communication: A Language of Life”. The anecdote starts with a cab driver making an antisemitic remark:

  MBR: “You know, when you first started to talk, I felt a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, sadness and discouragement, because I’ve had very different experiences with Jews than you’ve had, and I was wanting you to have much more the kind of experiences I’ve had. Can you tell me what you heard me say?”
  Man: “Oh, I’m not saying they’re all . . . ”
  MBR: “Excuse me, hold on, hold it. Can you tell me what you heard me say?

  Man: “What are you talking about?”
  MBR: “Let me repeat what I’m trying to say. I really want you to just hear the pain I felt when I heard your words. It’s really important to me that you hear that. I was saying I felt a real sense of sadness because my experiences with Jewish people have been very different. I was just wishing that you had had some experiences that were different from the ones you were describing. Can you tell me what you heard me say?”

  Man: “You’re saying I have no right to talk the way I did.”

  MBR: “No, I would like you to hear me differently. I really don’t want to blame you. I have no desire to blame you.”

  In this section many advocates would not be happy with correcting the expression “You’re saying I have no right to talk the way I did.”.

  In general, I think the language used for rights based theories is in continuity with religious ethics in which actions are divided into “positive/​neutral/​negative” categories. When you do negative actions you incur some kind of debt and that debt should and will be repaid in terms of punishment in hell. Forbidden actions are forbidden because God backs them up with authority. He exercises punishment when people disregard his authority.

  I think given the history and culture it’s very difficult to divorce “You have no right to do that” from “It would be good if you were punished” and “Hey, people around, punish that guy and be happy when this guy gets punished”.

  To be fair, non-violent communication is pretty much against all morality statements. But I think welfarist language(makes happier, gives suffering, better things to do, worse things to do, results in worse/​better/​best/​worst state of affairs) is less continuous with the religious tradition around debts and punishment.

• emre kaplan🔸Jan 28, 2025, 3:49 PM

  12 points

  5 ∶ 0

  on: Eth­i­cal Ve­ganism is Wrong

  You say:

  “But this assumes the other party can engage in the kind of reciprocal decision-making that grounds such rights. Most animals’ decision processes don’t mirror ours in the way needed for this kind of relationship—they can’t make or honor agreements, or intentionally retaliate based on understanding our choices. The question returns to welfare considerations: whether their lives are net positive.”

  I’m generally confused about this argument. If someone says “you can break your promises and violate trust if your counterparty is never able to find out or retaliate” they will get the retort “no no no decision theory doesn’t work that way”. If that person says “don’t worry, I really picked out those that really are unable to retaliate. I will be super careful with folks who are able to retaliate.”, they will get the response “nope, that doesn’t work”.

  When you hurt those who might have interests but are in no position to exercise agency, don’t you send a similar signal that “if you’re unable to understand what I’m doing, then I might hurt you”. You might say “don’t worry, I really picked out those that lack agency from birth, it will be fine” but I’m struggling to see a principled distinction.

  I also think many animals have some capacity to communicate, understand promises, feel anger and spite over betrayal and hold grudges. It’s possible to lie to many mammals and it’s also possible to trade with them.

• emre kaplan🔸Jan 26, 2025, 6:34 PM

  7 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: Why is ‘an­i­mal welfare’ more com­mon in EA than ‘an­i­mal rights’?

  Here’s what I personally think about using welfare vs. rights jargon in my advocacy. These are some unpolished thoughts that I’m hoping to explore further in the future.
  
  Pro welfare:

  Some anti-incrementalist animal advocates try to gatekeep the term “animal rights”. They frequently complain when incrementalist folks use the expression “animal rights”. When I ask these advocates “What kind of empirical evidence would change your mind” sometimes I get the response “No biased study in this speciesist world would make me sell out my principles. Just like no evidence could convince me there could be merits to torture, I’m never going to negotiate on the basic rights of animals”. This makes me react “Ok, in that case I’m not going to swear allegiance to your banner and I will grow what I believe to be good”.

  Existing animal advocacy is already heavy on rights. Focusing on welfare jargon allows me to raise a distinct banner, differentiate my brand and organise people who are more sympathetic towards welfarist thinking.

  I’m happy with the philosophical welfarist tradition and their moral leadership on many issues. I want to signal continuity with that tradition.

  Rights based jargon is in strong tension with non-violent communication. Rights based jargon invokes a frame in which some people are sinners and should be punished. I’m not sure how useful non-violent communication is. But if it’s useful then it’s better to avoid rights jargon.

  When I look at the arguments themselves before taking peer disagreement into account, my first-order beliefs are very consequentialist. I think arguments against the significance of personal identity and arguments against the moral significance of act/​omission or intend/​foresee distinction are powerful and correct. As the main purpose of the communication is to make myself clear to the relevant stakeholders, welfare jargon is better equipped to make my beliefs clear.

  Pro rights

  Many people understand mere moral standing in terms of rights. Saying “animals have rights” is basically equivalent to saying “animals have moral standing” for these people. So singling out animals by talking about “animal welfare” when the whole world talks about “human rights” might diminish perceived moral standing of animals.

  In Turkish civil society, the term “rights based” is used to differentiate organisations that play by the rules of international human rights framework. I’m a huge fan of these norms and I’m happy to play by that book. Refusing being “rights based” because of my philosophical commitments would confuse people about where I stand in a political divide.

  Since I take peer disagreement very seriously, I give significant credence to rights based theories and I’m not a welfarist. I also would like basic legal human rights to be extended to non-human animals. Avoiding rights terminology makes it harder to communicate this aspect of my thinking.

  I want to maintain that incrementalist animal advocacy and wild animal welfare work are actually compatible with a rights based ethical theory. By avoiding rights language, I fear conceding this framework entirely to anti incrementalist advocates.

• emre kaplan🔸 19 Dec 2024 17:39 UTC

  20 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Ask Us Any­thing: EA An­i­mal Welfare Fund

  What is your bar for funding for some of the most common welfare interventions? On the margin, how many animals or animal-years should be affected per dollar for the following welfare improvements:

  a. Cage-free transition for egg-laying hens

  b. Stunning before slaughter for farmed sea bass and sea bream

  c. Transition to ECC/​BCC standards

• emre kaplan🔸 11 Dec 2024 7:29 UTC

  20 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Ozzie Gooen’s comment on: Ozzie Gooen’s Shortform

  Lewis Bollard:

  “I agree with Ellen that legislation /​ corporate standards are more promising. I’ve asked if the breeders would accept $ to select on welfare, & the answer was no b/​c it’s inversely correlated w/​ productivity & they can only select on ~2 traits/​generation.”

• emre kaplan🔸 25 Nov 2024 15:11 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Mean­ingfully re­duc­ing meat con­sump­tion is an un­solved prob­lem: meta-analysis

  Thank you so much for this research. Is there a more intuitive way to interpret SMD values? For example, how many standard deviations is an average vegetarian away from the average person in the general population?

Je­sus Among The Utilitarians

• emre kaplan🔸 13 Nov 2024 15:05 UTC

  12 points

  4 ∶ 0

  on: EA An­i­mal Welfare Fund: 2024 Re­view, Changes, and Plans

  What does EA AWF think about publishing annual impact reports reporting the outcomes of its previous grants? I understand how this might be much more difficult than publishing an impact report for a single organisation. But as it stands, donating to EA AWF requires a lot of trust in fund managers and EA movement as there is little data available on the impact of previous grants. I care a lot about the growth of this fund and I’d have much easier time recommending this fund to potential donors if they could learn more about its past impact.

• emre kaplan🔸 5 Nov 2024 17:20 UTC

  6 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Re­mem­ber­ing Joseph Rot­blat (born on this day in 1908)

  Thank you for writing this. I really appreciate EA’s focus on highlighting people doing the right thing out of good judgment. Normally people tend to focus on selflessness, courage and hard work instead of good judgment when they think of praiseworthy figures. These are also pretty important but it’s nice to learn more about people succeeding in this overlooked requirement for doing good.

• emre kaplan🔸 31 Oct 2024 18:04 UTC

  7 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: The goal isn’t ‘end fac­tory farm­ing’, but re­duce as much suffer­ing as possible

  I thought about this question over the last few months while drafting our strategy and vision. A few thoughts and observations:

  Some other EA organizations also seem to have adopted directional visions instead of static visions describing an ideal world. 80k had this in their 2014 business model:
  ”Our aim is to have the biggest possible social impact.”

  and they currently have this more detailed blog post about the meaning of social impact.

  2022 CEA:
  ”CEA’s overall aim is to do the most we can to solve pressing global problems — like global poverty, factory farming, and existential risk — and prepare to face the challenges of tomorrow.”

  What I primarily need from a vision statement is to succinctly and clearly communicate my goal to my team, supporters, and the general public. The problem with static vision statements is that they are unable to properly communicate what we are trying to do.

  Making the ideal world come sooner or making it more likely to come is only one part of doing good. Another important part of doing good is affecting non-ideal worlds by making them less bad or making the worst futures less likely. It becomes more difficult to explain my focus on harm-mitigation with a static vision statement, because in many cases harm-mitigation doesn’t obviously make the ideal world come sooner. I think harm mitigation is worthwhile even if it has zero impact on when the ideal world comes.

  On the other hand, one main distinction that both the general public and animal advocates are primarily interested in is whether the organization is against all animal farming or not. Directional vision statements make your position on this unclear. When you say “I’m trying to do the most good for the animals”, people(both mainstream public and animal advocates) keep asking you “I don’t get it, are you a vegan organisation or not?”.

  Pretty much all animal advocacy organizations I know of have static vision statements describing an ideal world. I’m still confused about what is the best way to proceed here.

• emre kaplan🔸 16 Oct 2024 17:37 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Mo Putera’s comment on: Dis­cus­sion thread: An­i­mal Welfare vs. Global Health De­bate Week

  I appreciate the correction. When I said “I generally feel much more comfortable standing behind Givewell’s estimates” that was for their main page recommendations. I currently won’t prioritise reviewing these BOTECS in detail in the short term but as a future exercise I will look into the linked analyses and compare them to animal welfare ones.