I see what you're saying. It might be worth noting that the companies that are hopefully being convinced by these campaigns (such as companies like McDonalds or Walmart that sell food directly to consumers) are not the companies I have in mind as being both politically powerful and vehemently opposed to change (meat "producers" like JBS, Tyson, Smithfield).
That's an interesting thought. But how exactly do you price that opposition in, since it presumably depends on the psychology of the people who run those companies? The degree to which companies are willing to fight various projects would make a huge difference, and they ultimately have more financial resources at their disposal than the EA movement. On a more optimistic note, maybe cases like the passage of Proposition 12 in California show that even these companies lack the power to stop certain well-targeted approaches. (fingers crossed that the new Farm Bill in the U.S. does not roll back this progress).
Is gene editing to reduce suffering available? There has been a good amount of research that shows knockouts of different aspects of pain and other negatively valenced states in laboratory animals. How close it is to being actually available would depend on what would be needed to get regulatory approval and what additional tests would be required in order to feel confident that the modifications are actually improving welfare (since we run into the epistemic questions about knowing what non-verbal animals are actually feeling).
One point that I think does not get discussed enough (though I will be happy to be corrected on this) is that animal welfare work in many cases is going up against resistance from some of the biggest and most politically powerful industries in the world. I did see a reference to animal welfare being more politicized in this post, but I think it needs to be emphasized more that it's not just "politicized" but in fact is in opposition to the political power of huge corporate entities like Tyson Foods, JBS, Smithfield, etc. who from what I can tell have just as much political power as oil, coal, and tobacco industries but without an opposition that is as strong as the global environmental movement (in the case of coal and oil) or public health advocates (in the case of tobacco). These companies often stand to lose money from various animal welfare improvements and therefore are willing to spend money to defeat efforts to make those improvements.
This leads to the problem that there is not as likely to be a linear relationship between spending money on many animal welfare reforms and making actual improvements, because countervailing forces with more money to spend can respond to efforts for animal welfare improvements. In other words, we can't be sure if spending $100 million to convince the public to care more about animal welfare will be effective, because it might trigger a $200 million dollar advertising campaign that says things like "real mean eat beef" that unfortunately appear to be relatively effective despite being incredibly dumb.
While there may be a few ideologues out there that oppose certain EA global health interventions, in general I don't think these interventions are going up against the same kind of organized political opposition.
Both suggested animal welfare improvements (cage free, slower growth, etc) within the current system and alternative proteins threaten current entrenched interests and so run into this problem. However, I will shamelessly use this opportunity to point out the still fairly neglected approach of using gene-editing to reduce suffering in modern agriculture. This is something that can be done without threatening the current business model of powerful companies. It does run into opposition along the lines of people having an initial very negative reaction to the idea of gene editing animals (particularly consuming genetically modified animals). However, crucially (imo), these attitudes are very likely shaped by culture and context and I think could be overcome by the same powerful industries that somehow managed to get our current atrocious factory farming systems implemented with fairly minimal public outcry.
AB, I think you're looking at a different stage of analysis than we are here. We're looking at how to weigh the intrinsic value of different organisms so that we know how to count them. It sounds to me like you're discussing the idea of, once we have decided on a particular way to count them, what actions should we take in order to best produce the greatest amount of value.
It's an interesting thought, although I'd note that quite a few prominent authors would disagree that the cortex is ultimately what matters for valence even in mammals (Jaak Panksepp being a prominent example). I think it'd also raise interesting questions about how to generalize this idea to organisms that don't have cortices. Michael used mushroom bodies in insects as an example, but is there reason to think that mushroom bodies in insects are "like the cortex and pallium" but unlike various subcortical structures in the brain that also play a role in integrating information from different sensory sources? I think there's need to be more of a specification of which types of neurons are ultimately counted in a principled way.
I appreciate your interesting point! I would note that as Erich mentioned, we're interested in moral patiency rather than moral agency, and we ultimately don't endorse the idea of using neuron counts.
But in response to your comment, there are different ways of trying to spell out why more neurons would matter. Presumably, on some (or most) of those, the way neurons are connected to other neurons matters, and as you know in babies the connections between neurons are very different from the connections in older individuals. So I think a defender of the neuron count hypothesis would still be able to say, in response to your point, that it's not just the number of neurons but rather the number of neurons networked together in a particular way that matters.
Thanks, yeah, I agree those are better than just raw neuron count and we discuss those a bit more in the longer report. But also the objections are meant to apply to even these measures.
I see what you're saying. It might be worth noting that the companies that are hopefully being convinced by these campaigns (such as companies like McDonalds or Walmart that sell food directly to consumers) are not the companies I have in mind as being both politically powerful and vehemently opposed to change (meat "producers" like JBS, Tyson, Smithfield).
That's an interesting thought. But how exactly do you price that opposition in, since it presumably depends on the psychology of the people who run those companies? The degree to which companies are willing to fight various projects would make a huge difference, and they ultimately have more financial resources at their disposal than the EA movement. On a more optimistic note, maybe cases like the passage of Proposition 12 in California show that even these companies lack the power to stop certain well-targeted approaches. (fingers crossed that the new Farm Bill in the U.S. does not roll back this progress).
Is gene editing to reduce suffering available? There has been a good amount of research that shows knockouts of different aspects of pain and other negatively valenced states in laboratory animals. How close it is to being actually available would depend on what would be needed to get regulatory approval and what additional tests would be required in order to feel confident that the modifications are actually improving welfare (since we run into the epistemic questions about knowing what non-verbal animals are actually feeling).
One point that I think does not get discussed enough (though I will be happy to be corrected on this) is that animal welfare work in many cases is going up against resistance from some of the biggest and most politically powerful industries in the world. I did see a reference to animal welfare being more politicized in this post, but I think it needs to be emphasized more that it's not just "politicized" but in fact is in opposition to the political power of huge corporate entities like Tyson Foods, JBS, Smithfield, etc. who from what I can tell have just as much political power as oil, coal, and tobacco industries but without an opposition that is as strong as the global environmental movement (in the case of coal and oil) or public health advocates (in the case of tobacco). These companies often stand to lose money from various animal welfare improvements and therefore are willing to spend money to defeat efforts to make those improvements.
This leads to the problem that there is not as likely to be a linear relationship between spending money on many animal welfare reforms and making actual improvements, because countervailing forces with more money to spend can respond to efforts for animal welfare improvements. In other words, we can't be sure if spending $100 million to convince the public to care more about animal welfare will be effective, because it might trigger a $200 million dollar advertising campaign that says things like "real mean eat beef" that unfortunately appear to be relatively effective despite being incredibly dumb.
While there may be a few ideologues out there that oppose certain EA global health interventions, in general I don't think these interventions are going up against the same kind of organized political opposition.
Both suggested animal welfare improvements (cage free, slower growth, etc) within the current system and alternative proteins threaten current entrenched interests and so run into this problem. However, I will shamelessly use this opportunity to point out the still fairly neglected approach of using gene-editing to reduce suffering in modern agriculture. This is something that can be done without threatening the current business model of powerful companies. It does run into opposition along the lines of people having an initial very negative reaction to the idea of gene editing animals (particularly consuming genetically modified animals). However, crucially (imo), these attitudes are very likely shaped by culture and context and I think could be overcome by the same powerful industries that somehow managed to get our current atrocious factory farming systems implemented with fairly minimal public outcry.
It shouldn't be used as a unitary measure, but can be included in a combined measure, which is likely to correlate better.
AB, I think you're looking at a different stage of analysis than we are here. We're looking at how to weigh the intrinsic value of different organisms so that we know how to count them. It sounds to me like you're discussing the idea of, once we have decided on a particular way to count them, what actions should we take in order to best produce the greatest amount of value.
It's an interesting thought, although I'd note that quite a few prominent authors would disagree that the cortex is ultimately what matters for valence even in mammals (Jaak Panksepp being a prominent example). I think it'd also raise interesting questions about how to generalize this idea to organisms that don't have cortices. Michael used mushroom bodies in insects as an example, but is there reason to think that mushroom bodies in insects are "like the cortex and pallium" but unlike various subcortical structures in the brain that also play a role in integrating information from different sensory sources? I think there's need to be more of a specification of which types of neurons are ultimately counted in a principled way.
Hi Rhiza,
I appreciate your interesting point! I would note that as Erich mentioned, we're interested in moral patiency rather than moral agency, and we ultimately don't endorse the idea of using neuron counts.
But in response to your comment, there are different ways of trying to spell out why more neurons would matter. Presumably, on some (or most) of those, the way neurons are connected to other neurons matters, and as you know in babies the connections between neurons are very different from the connections in older individuals. So I think a defender of the neuron count hypothesis would still be able to say, in response to your point, that it's not just the number of neurons but rather the number of neurons networked together in a particular way that matters.
Here's the report on conscious subsystems: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vbhoFsyQmrntru6Kw/do-brains-contain-many-conscious-subsystems-if-so-should-we
Here's the report on conscious subsystems: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vbhoFsyQmrntru6Kw/do-brains-contain-many-conscious-subsystems-if-so-should-we
Thanks, yeah, I agree those are better than just raw neuron count and we discuss those a bit more in the longer report. But also the objections are meant to apply to even these measures.