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Instead of campaigning for farm animal welfare reforms and animal welfare certified meat, animal advocates could better focus on campaigns to reduce or eliminate animal-based meat and promote animal-free meat substitutes.
I think it would be more accurate to say that the benefits of farm animal welfare reforms may be lesser.
The other benefits of welfare reforms(which you mentioned like higher prices) may also influence behavior when switching from a stepping stone.
How the lesser benefits may impact overall interventions may be a question that requires further investigation.
Thanks for the write up!
I totally agree that when working on particular solutions the neglectedness of the solution is the important factor not just the problem area.
But I am slightly hesitant to be in full agreement with the meaning change because it is dependent on working on specific solutions, rather than working on a problem area more broadly, or just building career capital around a problem.
For Podcasters, I really like the Hear this idea podcast :3
Excellent.
The parent of this comment shouldn't happen.
Paradox!
see the post footnote:
"I looked at the number of people who had marked something as “most valuable,” and then divided by [karma score]^1.5. All of these were marked as most valuable by at least two people.
Just dividing by karma didn’t change the list much, and dividing by karma^2 penalized karma too much. I played with a few other ways of modifying the “underrated-ness” metric, but they didn’t seem better."
+60% on scientific devaluing on poc(true or false) deterring poc from participating.
Not sure if overall would be good though. The clearerThinking podcast w/Magnus Carlson say that allowing misinformation to be voiced may be effective at reducing misinformation. Ex. can point out why the view may fall short.
Clarification: is scientific racism something like "there is a scientific paper relating to race and IQ, [discussion on implication]"?
Or maybe both analogies are correct? Then the question is how can we be like gut bacteria for the AI and not ants?
Or maybe analogies just add more confusion and we should go back to first principles xd
I observed many people(including other Transhumanists) feeling scared when they see the topic of race and IQ being discussed because they want to avoid more atrocities like in the past.
I do understand though that people of the transhumanism crowd generally think of increasing human genetic capabilities as a good thing.
I think they mean well and want to avoid accidently promoting harmful views by speaking with empathy and compassion on the topic
Not a question specifically for OP, but in general what does it mean to speak with rigor and empathy on the topic? (I think many people not used to thinking with empathy would assume "it would mean every few minutes going on a tangent about an atrocity and clarify that bad thing is bad". I am embarrassed to say that I also have an underdeveloped ability to talk about sensitive views with empathy and am not sure how to do so)
On the part about longtermism, Tobias Leenhart from ProVeg seems to think more on the lines of behaviour change(from whatever reason, health, enviorment, cheaper price of plants(due to welfare reforms for animals)) will make attitude change for animals & wild animals much easier[1].
This makes me think that they would not be in agreement with what you said about "focusing on welfare improvements could end factory farming sooner, but delay abolition for a very long time", but rather think there would be welfare improvements sooner & abolition sooner. What are your thought on that idea?
I am in agreement though that attitude change for animals is most important in the longterm.
First off, I love the name of this post lolol. Did Mr. McLaughlin think of that one because they got me laughin.
Want to add some clarity as to what welfarism means as I've heard it:
From some I hear welfarism as "supporting of welfare reforms"
But from others I hear welfarism as "The welfare of animals matters"(which means at least in principle being open to considering abolitionist solutions - not sure how much this actually occurs)
Which one do you mean by welfarism?
Does ubi pertain to longtermism in ways that givedirectly does not?
Mr. Jonathan nooo!! Don't goo I'll miss you!! <3
At the higher earning level (FANG SDE's) a consideration to keep in mind is that in the US only 60% of income can be written off as charitable giving each year.
The US and CA Gov takes ~43% percent of your income each year in taxes so it may be a better idea to spread out giving over as many years as possible to bypass that.
Hello OP,
thanks for creating this write up. On the democratizing of grantmaking part of this post. One of the reasons that I gave my full internship pay of 14k as a rising senior to the EA animal welfare fund was that I didn't have to put in any effort into thinking about what organizations/opportunities were effective. I really valued that I could outsource this labor to lewis bollard and other grantmakers that have a good track record.
If I feel they are not doing a good job I will switch my donations to ACE though >:3
A blog that recommends both atomic habits and the replacing guilt series? 👀👀👀 Will check that out!
Can creatine be found in vegan supplements?
Thank you for your impeccable attention to detail, and taking the time to spot check and challenge assumptions :D
May I ask, what made you make the choice to look deeper into this issue? Do you have some amazing intuition as to when something is off? Or are just a fan of spot checking many facts? Or something alerted you as to that something may be off?
:c cant make it
The vegan hacktivists sounds really cool and would love to help out! What kind of work/impact do the projects yall do have? Is it mainly with other ea animal orgs?
This post hit at a good topic and gave it good nuance, minus the part about "society lead by the elite" and "self obvious statements"
OMG I love GWWC!!!
These ideas sounds cool, a friend and I are interested in these ideas.
A tentative outline:
An AWS infrastructure that can be called via an api and respond with the social media post
let us know if you have any more ideas on how to make this most impactful.
I think the Utilitarian arguments you presented are quite strong, such as precommiting to certain principles being very advantageous, but surely they're not infinitely advantageous right? A few billion is quite a lot.
I think it's good to have in clear mind if we mean x-risk pandemic vs bad pandemic. Factory farming already has done many bad pandemics, but as you seem to note the majority of EV from pandemics comes from x-risk cases
The best solutions to pandemics are ones that can tackle all vectors of deadly pandemics(natural & man made)
Hear this idea podcast has a great recent episode on this topic
Earthling Ed has a few restaurants, 👀
Yes! I think in this area to best help refugees supporting organizations that relax immigration policies in first world countries is one of the strategies. Don't know any orgs to name though in specific
Anyone getting these vibes from Luke's comment? :>
https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better
Your comment makes sense for being wary of replacing farmed carmine with wild carmine.
Do you really mean to say that biosynthetic alternative exploration increases wild carmine harm though?
gpt3 back at it again
I shall become the holder of the most historic hedon heist in history! 😈
Thanks, updated
That's definitely a con that will cost many QALY's. But so does the risk in cosmopolitanism; the lack of incentive for government innovation to attract citizens which also costs many QALY's.
I do want to say that I'm not saying cosmopolitanism isn't the best option, but rather think some more doubt and careful running of the numbers of QALY's may be necessary to increase confidence in that option.
Also Your totally right that it's impractical often to tell the person in a bad nation to just leave their nation & they did not choose their country.
It's quite similar to a person working in a sweatshop. They did not choose to be born where that's one of their opportunities, but they often say themself that they prefer the factory job best compared to selling various small items, or farmwork.
If neartermism is within 30 years maybe
And longtermism is greater than 100,000,000,000,000,000 years,
What is the middle position? 50,000,000,000,000,015 years?
^this may not be the correct way to frame it, but also Will talks about how most positions lead to one of the extremes and it's hard to find a middle place during their more recent 80k ep https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/will-macaskill-what-we-owe-the-future/
I think the post is spot on with the sentiment that a value many EA's hold is that each person, no matter the nation they belong to, is equal.
However I would like to provide some doubt as to whether cosmopolitanism is the best way to organize the world.
Just as how a corporation controlling 100% of a market may not be the best thing, a single government controlling 100% of the world may also have some downsides(ex. innovation). I might be wrong, and most of my thinking on this is just coming from this: https://www.econtalk.org/yoram-hazony-on-the-virtue-of-nationalism/
The topic might need some pro-con weighting.
Thanks, heads up your second link is broken
Incorrect registration form? Says 'at capacity for July's dinner', but this is for August.
I think they mean buy from sweatshop compared to counterfactual fair trade place. Not sure if they mean donating the difference in money saved as well.
Good q! To splat some thinking, The act of eating harms no animal so I interpret you to mean economic consumption. Fish killed by humans usually have worse deaths than naturally, but also trophic impacts, I think it's unclear what the effects are and so would favor supporting economically top charities such as fish welfare initiative for better cost effectiveness. Hope these thoughts help!
I think the majority of people who interact here aren't strictly just existing to be of service people!
Well I can best speak for myself, I mainly enjoy EA to the extent that I have some % of me or some desire to do some good. I enjoy that EA helps me do good better(even in maybe only certain areas ex. animals).
Your free to choose for yourself to help others if that's what you(or a % of your multiple desires) wants to do! If there is some desire to help others, let's figure out how to help them more effectively!
Thanks for posting! I especially like the part you mentioned on how it's possible to slip into a mindset of justification/motivated reasoning of past actions as being cost effective for happiness for productivity! Daniel Kirmani made a comment here more in depth about it that makes me think about the book The Elephant In The Brain that expands on this idea in depth(you may have already heard of it).
Thanks for posting! I think it's great to think about ways to use the large differences in suffering per calorie depending on what species is being farmed to our advantage to increase animal welfare.
Non-EAs are receptive to a proposal to substitute bivalves for other meat. They are not receptive to proposals to go vegetarian/vegan.
This is a better source about it being difficult to influence dietary change https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/effectiveness-of-a-theory-informed-documentary-to-reduce-consumption-of-meat-and-animal-products (via method of documentaries)
The greater tractability of dietary change to increase bivalve consumption(reducing other animal consumption) is likely the strongest point in support of bivalve farming. I think(85%) that influencing people to substitute for bivalve consumption will be quite similar in difficulty to influencing people to go more veg*n. Some people who identify as vegan also consume bivalves anyways so this may not be an either/or though. Nudging people away from the worst in suffering per calorie is always better so it.
On price I don't think(65%) scallops(which you compared) are the cheapest of the bivalves? May be better options!
Depending on what it substitutes for, it would also reduce crop farming and associated rodent/insect deaths
This is an interesting point! Animals require a lotta farmland for food. I'm not sure there's any strong agreement though that reducing amount of crop farmland is good for animal welfare compared to counterfactual re-wilded land, or the counterfactual how the wild animals in the farmland would have died anyways.
can clean up polluted water.
xD Be careful with this point there seems to be a tradeoff between cleaning polluted water and health, from that article:
As they filter water, the bivalves' tissues absorb some of the chemicals and pathogens that are present - things like herbicides, pharmaceuticals and flame retardants
Great post thanks so much!! I really appreciate the concern for animals and learned a few things about some supplements I may want to consider taking while on a plant based diet(been forgetting to take my b12 and eat cruciferous veggies owa)
On your recommendation for Choline though, it's an essential nutrient, but I think consuming too much of it can be harmful for health: https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/choline/
"Our gut bacteria can turn choline into the toxic byproduct and cardiotoxicant TMAO—trimethylamine oxide—which is then absorbed back into our system within only an hour of consumption. The more eggs we eat, the higher the choline and TMAO levels we have, and the higher the risk we may have for heart disease and other diseases. Choline, as well as carnitine in red meat, can be turned into TMAO, which is associated with inflammation and a significantly higher risk of heart disease, heart attack, stroke, or death within a three-year period."
But for every action that is considered moral under one moral theory, there is an equal, and opposite moral theory that says that action is not moral.
Maybe instead of just other moral theories, it would have to be a 'significant moral theory' based on some metric(like popularity?). But that has it's flaws too.
I think I may check out that book and sequence to get a feel of what's already been thought about on this subject
Thanks for the write up.
To add some more suggestions to how generalist resilience may come about, check this out by 80k: https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/
I'm currently unsure of what to think about your claim that generalist resilience needs to be upscaled by that large factor. This is mainly due to being unsure about what proportion of efforts is currently being directed there. Do you know anything about the distribution of efforts already at generalist resilience?
I like the acronym, YEA things :3
I know one organization: Agricultural Fairness Alliance(past ACE grantee) (edit: oh the image you have is from them! xD)
Also maybe Sam Bankman's support of Joe Biden works somewhat like this? Joe Biden gives some many billions less in subsidies than counterfactual Trump(altho still too much xd)
oop
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/s/a2LBRPLhvwB83DSGq/p/Syz3Fiqn5rBqhePiz
Great post on this topic. I used to think about where obligations come from. ~~I came to no satisfying conclusion -- the is-ought gap is a real killer xD
For me my motivation used to come from identifying as a utilitarian, until I read the replacing guilt ea sequence https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/s/a2LBRPLhvwB83DSGq/p/Syz3Fiqn5rBqhePiz. It really made me to a 180 on things like "I should donate to charity" and "I should be vegan" to "I want to see the world a better place, these actions help make that true, thus I want to do them"(which I think is personally much healthier for me).
I think your point 3/4 is a "big IF true" sort of thing, but reminds me of a "pascals wager" argument for the points that depend on it.
Based and Pogger pilled owo