It seems pretty bad to allow people to react to their own comments/posts beyond the initial karma bump of an upvote. It allows users to artificially create the appearance of positive engagement with their posts, which skews initial perceptions and detracts from the truth-seeking goals of the Forum.
Nematode Lover
Karma: 172
Nematode Lover’s Quick takes
I’d be surprised if preventing people from saving starfish from asphyxiating on the beach is the best way to help shellfish even if all the assumptions in this calculation hold. If not, Shrimp Welfare project should probably start the SPFSTSNABWWTSTONAF (stop people from saving these specific neglected animals becuase we want to save those other neglected animals fund).
D:
I’m so glad I found this when I did. I had been filling out the 7 row of a multiplication table, but after 5 steps, I hit a major road block. Deep Thought was exactly what I needed to push through and figure it out.
Thank you so much!
The whole AGI welfare movement is treating the advance of an animal friendly future as more monolithic than it truly is. I think the future will be weirder than that.
I know of someone who walked out of a city and regretted it whom you might be able to reach. Last I heard they had an Appointment in Samarra, so you can presumably find them there.
I’m so sorry to be the one to break this to you, I have already written an entire book about why this is simply not possible. Have you considered asking people working impactful careers to only spend 800 hours on it?
If No One Builds It, Everyone Dies
You’re getting at the heart of my argument here. Even if we assume that expanding land use is not just positive but a central moral target, it is still highly implausible that the best way to use land requires us to also torture animals on that land. I agree that it is absurd to converge on factory farming as the best answer, especially when even “all of the work involved in land development in factory farming but nothing else” would be cheaper.
I would like to see those who hold the view of land use as a central moral target (such as @Vasco Grilo🔸) to explore what the best pathway is. And I don’t think it is remotely justifiable to derail discussions of farmed animal welfare work with nematode arguments until there is a robust case not just for its effect on nematode welfare, but against any other plausible way to increase land use.
I am completely unopposed to discussing soil animals and the extent to which our actions affect their welfare. I actually think that doing so is valuable. My EA Forum post explicitly highlights that there is more exploration to be done in this regard that I want to see done.
I take zero issue with the fact that you have authored multiple EA Forum posts about this topic. While I fundamentally disagree with your assumptions/methodology/conclusions, from a position of epistemic modesty, I think it is good that people with wildly differing views can share such ideas in this forum. If you could find interventions that improve the welfare of soil nematodes significantly that are well-evidenced and robust to many moral frameworks, I would be really happy to see it.
However, there is a distinction between discussing soil animals and derailing otherwise productive conversations. Continuing to reply to what feels like every single animal welfare post with a comment about nematodes even when the connection is tenuous, despite multiple people trying to communicate why you should stop, is not just bothersome to many within the community. It also has negative long-term implications, since you are alienating EA animal welfare advocates, one of the groups I expect to be most open to your beliefs regarding nematodes.
Given your final statement in this comment, I would be curious to hear your thoughts on my ending call to action:
And please, from someone who truly does care about nematodes, stop derailing discussions of farmed animal welfare.
Hi Vasco,
I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my post here and elsewhere. I am personally not surprised at all that GPT 5.1 got this type of thing wrong. Like I said in the post, I don’t believe LLMs should be trusted on complicated and important questions like these, and I only used GPT because Real Estate Development was a somewhat arbitrary example, not a specific call for focus.[1] My real CTA with this post is for people who believe nematodes (and other soil animals) are our primary concern to investigate other interventions that don’t concern factory farming. YGG’s comment captures it well.
- ^
There could be some interesting discussion about the difference between buying beef and spending money developing land in a way that could turn a profit allowing you to earn to give, meaning a straight cost-effectiveness comparison doesn’t really make sense.
However, I really don’t really know if Real Estate Development specifically is a better or worse use of your time. Again, it was an arbitrary example.
- ^
If you ever need a classic rap song to communicate your desire to be more influential in animal philanthropy, just say:
I wish I was a little bit taller
I wish I was a Bollard