AI Use Note: Main body text entirely human written. Claude (Opus 4.8) helped develop models of animal life histories in the appendix.
Cross-posted from Good Structures.
Executive Summary
* Animal advocates sometimes make claims like “there are X of this animal...
This is a crosspost from the new Animal Welfare Alignment Newsletter by Anima International. You can subscribe on Substack if you are interested in following these efforts. Audio reading also available on Substack.
The goals of this post are to:
1. Raise a question I see as crucially important to the goal of aligning AI to animal welfare...
“How long have you been v*g*n?”
This is one of the most common icebreakers at animal protection events. It’s a baseline assumption, and it mostly holds true: if you’re out advocating for animals not to be tortured or abused, realistically these days you are v**n, or close. And it makes for good conversation. It seems fairly safe to assume when you meet strangers.
But this assumption is hurting the movement in a way which we don’t always notice: someone new comes into the sp...
Hi, Everyone
I dare to insert here a proposal which is, at the same time, vague and ambitious; just to discuss about it. It is nothing firm, just an idea. I excuse for my defective English.
After a long life and many books read, I realize that if we want to improve human life in the sense of prosociality the real target must be human behaviour. If we improve our moral view –our ethos- in a sense of benevolence, altruism and non-aggression –in a rational way, of course- the charities, the economic acts, the deeds must be a necessary consequence of this previous human change.
We know that moral evolution exists. Humanitarian movements like EA show that. Why not to try to go farther? Which is the limit to moral change?
I don´t see anything in this forum dealing with the possibilities of improving moral behavior in individuals –and, consequently, in groups and societies- in order to achieve the highest effective altruism. I mean, doing the job that in the past did the moralistic religions of the Axial Age... but now, independently from irrational religious traditions. So, doing it finally the right way: non-political social change.
We have today the experience, the knowledge in social sciences and the clarity of thought enough to ponder the means for improving human behavior in the sense of extreme prosociality. I realize that no one is just discussing the question. You write about getting as much as possible –with charitable goals- from the people as they are. Don´t you realize that you could get much more by changing morally the people first?
A person is made out of motivations, feelings, rewards and desires. Moral change can act on them. This is historical evidence… And if the outcome of that process of change turns to be unconventional, is not that also the usual result of social change along the history?
At least, just to discuss it…