Lot of good points that I'm glad I get the opportunity to address.
"People have been arguing about religion for hundreds if not thousands of years."
People have also been trying to perfect the field of medicine for thousands of years and have relatively recently made great strides. Of course physical sciences aren't analogous to religious apologetics, but some innovations (e.g. increased literacy, unprecedented communication tech like email, internet access, instant translations, etc.) may really also accelerate progress now more than ever. As I said in the essay, I don't know if those advancements will be enough but I think it's well worth trying to find out.
"why you would think EA is particularly well positioned"
EA may be most motivated to figure out HOW to do the most good (and avoid suboptimal opportunities). And I don't know anyone else that might be willing and open minded enough to take on this challenge.
"The sort of "fair trial" you propose sounds extremely alienating to religious people"
Yup, which is why I'm not really pitching my proposal to them. I also feel no need to make this research public or affiliated with the larger EA community or try to convert people who are already attached to a particular ideology or religion. Hope that addresses this concern:
"I'm not religious myself but I'm glad that EA is working on building common ground with people across different religions... This seems like it would burn those bridges to no good end."
"to no good end" seems presemptous for the reasons I explained in the Importance section but if that's lacking plz lmk. And either way thanks a lot for your thought provoking comment
Hi, quick question. When you wrote that "After consulting with researchers in the space, we temporarily assumed that shrimp are of equal moral significance to chickens due to a lack of consensus on the issue." Did you mean that all consumed shrimp are morally equivalent to all farmed chickens or that shrimp are equivalent to chickens on an individual level?
Btw I checked this out thanks to a 80K podcast with Zorrilla and glad I did. It's a really interesting field and I hope yall succeed.
Although I'd prefer if Soares and Sam Altman saw eye to eye, I think it's inspiring that Altman seems to be soliciting criticism.
Wouldn't it be cool if other cause areas worked like that (e.g. wouldn't it be amazing if industrial animal agriculture consulted Animal Charity Evaluators before opening up factory farms?).
Do you think I should post about this issue in the subreddits of Minnesota, PA, and Arkansas and ask constituents (like I did here) to reach out to their reps especially:
Either way, thank you for the update.