Yes. I'm one of those possible people. I'm happy to have reached mutual understanding.

Okay. Thank you for your patience. I understand your point, and agree with the formal argument.

However, I still disagree. I don't know how to explain why without using some maths.

Let A be a subset of B, both sets of actions. Let G be the set of actions that we ought to do.

Existential generalization is something like

If exists x in A ^ G, exists x in B ^ G.

But this is not how I would expect readers to understand "we ought to build more confined animal feeding operations" in your abstract. This reads like a general recommendation, or even an unqualified/universal statement, not like an existential.

And let me add: even if the formal argument is airtight in your examples, it doesn't sound as obvious (in my intuition, it sounds obviously wrong) in your original case. This suggests that the same words mean different things in the different contexts, at least in how I'm reading it.

Thank you for spelling out your reasoning in such a transparent way. I think our disagreement is not a matter of stylistic preferences.

I believe the following is incorrect:

If [we should build more CAFOs of the kind in which animals have above 0 welfare], then [we should build more CAFOs].

Let me rephrase your argument as

If [CAFOs > 0 is should] then [CAFOs is should].

I believe for this to hold you would need to know that [CAFOs < 0] is impossible, not just that [CAFOs > 0] is possible.

Hi Vera,

I agree on the meta point that you make here in principle. I think it's fine to not state every premise in the abstract and the conclusion, if it's something that it's argued for.

I also agree that "net positive welfare is possible in CAFOs" is not an assumption, but a premise that is argued for (and I find the arguments sound).

However, I still think the abstract as it stands now is saying something different, namely, that [maximizing aggregate welfare] => [we should build more CAFOs]. 

Afaik, this would be the logical conclusion from aggregationism if we assume that [animals in CAFOs have net positive lives], not only if [it is possible that animals in CAFOs have net positive lives].

Right. Then I think this should be in the abstract. Because right now the abstract says:

we should pick the one that maximizes the net aggregate welfare of animals. I argue that, if this is right, then—counterintuitively—we ought to build more confined animal feeding operations

and the "if this is right" only refers to the assumption of aggegation, not to the assumption of positive welfare in cafo

and the conclusion also doesn't say we maybe ought (if there are cases where cafo > 0)

I think your reductio is standing on the big if that animals in CAFOs have a net positive existence, and the abstract / post skips that.

Noted. Thank you for flagging.

For now, I think you can read the text by hovering your mouse above each option (not comfortable!)

We will change the format asap

Should be fixed now

Fair point. I no longer fully endorse point 2 so I've struck that out.

Hi Andrew,

I appreciate how Seth is playing nice because you are new to the EA Forum.

However, I'm strongly downvoting for the following reasons:

1. "leading cause area" are very strong words to then not follow with any comparison to any other cause areas.
2. Strong claims such as ‘The case is overstated’ and ‘The calculations double-count a lot of livestock carcasses’ appear to have resulted from those commentators not having read the relevant studies with sufficient care, or from failing to understand the mathematics of the calculations, or their implications. Reasonable people can disagree on how to count byproduct allocation. Calling that a failure to read carefully or understand mathematics misrepresents the disagreement.
3. These incorrect claims undermine the case for sustainable pet diets. Similar attempts to defend the status quo were made, and are being made, by those seeking to undermine the science demonstrating the adverse effects of smoking, and the consumption of animal products, and of fossil fuels. However, these claims are incorrect, and sometimes profoundly so. This is not an argument, and does not belong here. This is just rethoric.
4. Your paper is published in MDPI, a known pay-to-publish venue.

I have absolutely no idea if making pets eat plant-based is a good intervention, and how it competes with other possible uses of our resources, and refuse to make any object-level claims about it here.

Strongly downvoted because, while pointing to some plausible failure mode of LLMs, this is very unnecessarily long, hard to read, and it's not clear what is being tested or how.