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?
Lucas Lewit-Mendes
Karma: 445
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.
This is an awesome and beautifully written post, thanks James!
Thanks so much for your awesome work!! :)
What is StrongMinds’ room for more funding, and do you expect the cost-effectiveness of the marginal dollar (ie. additional funds) to be any worse than the average cost-effectiveness of StrongMinds?
Fantastic work—thank you!
Re Jalil et. al (2022), it’s interesting to see there was a decrease in poultry/fish consumption as a result of climate change messaging (in addition to red meat). My prior concern would’ve been that people might simply switch from red meat to poultry/fish. For those interested in the general topic, note also this meta-review on interventions that influence animal-product consumption.
Ah yes, my apologies, I meant natural experiments (or in the case of Croke 2019, a natural experiment caused by an actual experiment).
I suppose it is possible deworming would have a much smaller effect when children also receive these other interventions. However, I would’ve thought many children currently being treated for worms are also receiving such interventions, therefore making it decision-relevant for GiveWell-funded deworming programs?
Thank you, that makes sense! Keen to hear what comes from it.