Hey Elliot, sorry for the slow response on this.
Yeah for sure, it’s hard to know how the EV calculation pans out. Using my made-up numbers, the interventions that end factory farming would need to have >10% as much chance of success to be better—I think that is plausible but there’s so much uncertainty here.
Agree these are big questions that are hard to discuss online, but let’s chat when we get a chance in person!
Thanks for writing this Elliot!
I really enjoyed reading this, and I really appreciate you pointing out that each animal helped matters, because I think that’s a very important point that people often forget. I also agree it’s important to be honest about what is feasible in the foreseeable future.
I am, however, more optimistic than you about ending factory farming. I think society has gradually been becoming more conscious of animal welfare issues and most people support ending factory farming. It might take 50 years, 100 years, but I think eventually this will translate into people caring enough to fight against powerful systemic forces. I’d be interested to hear what you think are the big differences to past social movements (the fact that animals can’t speak for themselves is obviously one!)
I think we also need to be careful about celebrating small wins too much. My understanding is that cage-free or something similar is like going from −100 to −90 on a welfare scale. That’s still good, but the bigger difference is between −90 and 0. That’s one reason I think our goal should still be to end factory farming, at least in regions where there is growing support for animal welfare.
In practice, I’m not sure whether that would change which actions we take, but maybe it should push us more towards building the democratic institutions that allow people to raise their voice about animal welfare (eg. Australian Alliance for Animals reforms), over say corporate campaigns. I’d also be keen to hear what other interventions you’re less pessimistic about (the “many more” from your post).
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!
Sorry it didn’t work out, but congrats on getting all those meetings and thank you for trying! :)
Thank you, that makes sense! Keen to hear what comes from it.
This looks super cool Ren and KvPelt! Curious—do you plan to advocate for electrical stunning after the six months of investigation? I’m wondering if the theory of change would be similar to FWI and SWP, or if it’s still to be determined based on this initial investigation work?
Thanks so much! :)
Thanks Martin, looking forward to it! Just checking—should I eat dinner beforehand? (Is it mostly snacks?) Also, I’m allergic to nuts (except for almonds), but no problem if you’ve already bought food :)
Hi! I’m visiting from Australia and would love to meet some new people in EA Berlin. Is it ok for me to attend? :)
I very much agree with what Kyle said.
Please consider focusing on improving your mental health as priority, because your wellbeing matters, and you deserve to live a flourishing and joyful life.
I also agree that IQ is not particularly important in certain jobs, and there is something impactful for everyone if you enjoy it and your heart is in the right place.
Good luck :)
Ah I see! Thanks Luke :)
Hi team, thanks for your amazing work. Just out of curiosity, is there any particular reason climate charities are no longer recommended?
Haha this is brilliant!
Thanks very much Bob, appreciate the hot take! I’ll get in touch if we’d like any more detail :)
Wow fascinating, thanks for this post Vasco!
I’d be inclined to take a Bayesian approach to this kind of cost-effectiveness modelling, where the “prior evidence” is the estimated impact on lives saved. This is something we have strong reason to believe is good under many world views. Then the “additional evidence” would be the reduction in insect welfare caused by deforestation. I’m just so very uncertain about whether the second one is really a negative effect that I think it would be swamped by the impact on lives saved. This is because we have several steps of major uncertainty: impact of GiveWell charities on deforestation, impact of deforestation on insect welfare, moral weight of insects, baseline welfare of insects (positive or negative).
One issue here is that the same objection could potentially be applied to longtermist-focused charities, but I actually don’t think this is true. I think (say) working in government to reduce the risk of biological weapons is actually far more robustly positive than trying to improve insect welfare by reducing deforestation. It also seems like the value of the far future could be far greater than the impact on present-day insects.
What are your thoughts on this approach?
Hi Bob, thanks for this post, really interesting stuff.
I’m a researcher at the Shrimp Welfare Project. Do you have a sense of whether any of the broad conclusions are likely to apply to shrimps as well, or do you think it would require an entirely new research project?
Thanks,
Lucas
I love this! Happy holidays :)
This website looks incredible, amazing job people!!
Thanks Sean, amazing work!
I’d like to see someone in the EA community do some work related to preventing bullying, which seems likely to be one the most intense forms of suffering for children.
Excited to vote on this! I’ll also share it with my local EA group. Is there any strategy involved in voting? (e.g. is it better if we don’t split our vote?)