This is a crosspost for The Case for Insect Consciousness by Bob Fischer, which was originally published on Asterisk in January 2025.
[Subtitle.] The evidence that insects feel pain is mounting, however we approach the issue.
For years, I was on the fence about the possibility of insects feeling pain — sometimes, I defended the hypothesis;[1] more often, I argued against it.[2]
Then, in 2021, I started working on the puzzle of how to compare pain intensity across species. If a human and a pig are suffering as much as each one can, are they suffering the same amount? Or is the human’s pain worse? When my colleagues and I looked at several species, investigating both the probability of pain and its relative intensity,[3] we found something unexpected: on both scores, insects aren’t that different from many other animals.
Around the same time, I started working with an entomologist with a background in neuroscience. She helped me appreciate the weaknesses of the arguments against insect pain. (For instance, people make a big deal of stories about praying mantises mating while being eaten; they ignore how often male mantises fight fiercely to avoid being devoured.) The more I studied the science of sentience, the less confident I became about any theory that would let us rule insect sentience out.
I’m a philosopher, and philosophers pride themselves on following arguments wherever they lead. But we all have our limits, and I worry, quite sincerely, that I’ve been too willing to give insects the benefit of the doubt. I’ve been troubled by what we do to farmed animals for my entire adult life, whereas it’s hard to feel much for flies. Still, I find the argument for insect pain persuasive enough to devote a lot of my time to insect welfare research. In brief, the apparent evidence for the capacity of insects to feel pain is uncomfortably strong.[4] We could dismiss it if we had a consensus-commanding theory of sentience that explained why the apparent evidence is ir
Even if I nailed the macro trends prediction, the Fed lowered interest rates, I cannot predict presidential tweets. Realistically, starting from the bottom you want to invest in low cost index funds.
VCs have a lot of capital to invest and only a few plays can make up for all their losses and then some. Most people cannot beat the market. I could spend all my time trying to squeeze out a few extra percent. However, I still would not know if I am a good investor with smart money or a dumb one who got lucky.
I can compound my investments historically around 10% per year. Including inflation puts the real dollar return at 8% per year. If I want more growth I really need to earn a higher salary. With a tighter job market, from lower interest rates and lower levels of natural unemployment, means switching jobs creates double digit raises. The trend in business is wage compression where people with more experience who continue to work for the same employer are only given inflation wage adjustments but never any real wage growth.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cameronkeng/2014/06/22/employees-that-stay-in-companies-longer-than-2-years-get-paid-50-less/#6a133b87e07f
People should invest in index funds since they require no thought and do better than most managed investments. But this also frees up time to change careers and grow your income which is often easier to do, has a better return, and is under their direct control.
The excess income should go into index funds until someone can choose if they want to continue to work.
Index altruism might be a better strategy for most people too. If someone can identify a more altruistic charity that does more good then the efficient market hypothesis should quickly level the playing field. Maybe there is more smart money in investing that becomes dumb money when giving it away?