I am a generalist with a focus on data and research.
I work as a researcher for Animal Advocacy Africa.
I participated in Charity Entrepreneurship’s Research Training Program in 2023.
I took the GWWC pledge in 2020.
Moritz Stumpe 🔸
Karma: 383
I am a generalist with a focus on data and research.
I work as a researcher for Animal Advocacy Africa.
I participated in Charity Entrepreneurship’s Research Training Program in 2023.
I took the GWWC pledge in 2020.
Thanks and congratulations to the RP team for your work on this. This is incredibly thorough and useful!
Having looked at the whole Moral Weight Project sequence in some detail, I have some uncertainties around the following question/objection that you list above:
“Your literature review didn’t turn up many negative results. However, there are lots of proxies such that it’s implausible that many animals have them. So, your welfare range estimates are probably high.”
In your response you write that this is a good objection.
However, as I understand it, whenever proxies were unknown, you assumed these to be zero (i.e. not present). For instance, in your methodology writeup, I read: “Assigning proxies labeled “Unknown” zero probability of being present is certainly leading to underestimates of the welfare ranges and probabilities of sentience.”
Somehow I cannot square these two statements. Can you solve that seeming contradiction for me?