Great post! It's quite common to see solid ideas like this on the EA Forum, but seeing them executed is rare. And it's a nice change to see a more in-person kind of outreach for effective giving, in particular for animals. I'm interested to see a follow-up learned on what you'll have learned after giving season!

Were I to pick only one that's at once rigorous and accessible, I'd say the first post in Anthony DiGiovanni's sequence on Unawereness (20m read officially, but has some references and charts, so I'd say it probably takes 10 minutes to read it: 1. The challenge of unawareness for impartial altruist action guidance: Introduction

Thank you for this post, Zlatko! Welcome to the forum, and well-done for your transparent criticism of a perspective you find repugnant. Many individuals prefer to call such perspectives "crazy" without justification. So reading this was a good way to start the week.

I think this post is quite valuable, since it defends a point of view (that it's not super cautious to just reduce the amount of net-negative lives) that seems somewhat common in EA, but is also rarely defended as such. Some thoughts (lengthy, but there's a lot of content in your post!):

• I think this is a much stronger point than arguing that many animal lives could simply be positive on a hedonistic utilitarian view (less repugnant, requires less arguments from implausible interpersonal tradeoffs)
• In the takeaways, however, you don't focus on what should be the biggest (drawing from your argument as only basis) from an EA perspective: that we should be in favor of actions that increase the numbers of lives. Then, it's probably good to promote veganism as this seems to increase the farming of small animals on the margin. And to promote actions that reduce the amount of agricultural land, so that more wild animals can live there. Both of these actions seem fairly morally acceptable (especially if one realizes that wild animals have been there long before us, and that we may have some duties of preservation), compared to more "maximizing" takes on maximizing the amount of individual lives on earth. Doing this seems massively more important (on a numbers-scale), if one thinks life has positive value, than counteracting the small effects of lives not being lived caused by a few plant-based advocacy organizations (let alone wild animal advocacy, which doesn't seem to have affected the world much for now).

My crux for why I do not adhere to the argument personally:

• I appreciated that you made a distinction between strong suffering that one may still accept, and extreme suffering. They also seem very different in my view, and the distinction is often glossed over in critiques on negative utilitarianism. You also say "Most suffering is not in that category.", and I entirely agree.
  • However, I'm inclined to believe that most of the beings who life you discuss do contain extreme suffering, even if it's a minority of the suffering they experience (imo, extreme suffering = mid-high ranges of disabling pain in the Welfare Footprint sense ?). Chronic hunger (more intense than one may think, Ctrl+F chronic hunger here), being eaten alive, being eaten from the inside by parasites, being suffocated to death over the course of half an hour, are all likely cases of extreme suffering to me. So the question is not just about whether there's a strong positive value to a life containing suffering. but whether it's such a strong positive value that it "outweighs" the experience of extreme suffering (you may be familiar with the sympathy-based argument against extreme suffering being outweighable).
• More minor crux: you discuss animals still having a taste of potential positive experiences of life, but I'd be skeptical that we can draw a comparison between humans, even living in difficult conditions (let alone humans living a relatively sheltered life, like me), and hens who spend their entire life in a cage where they can't spread their wings. I assume, eg, "tasting food" feels very different when you've only been able to eat it with a mutilated beak, than for humans who can sometimes eat sufficiently while being relatively untroubled, and thus really enjoy the food. And in the case of wild animals, it seems many die so shortly after birth that they may not even have a single occasion to eat, or appreciate their environment.

Thanks again for this post, and perhaps more importantly, for opening your perspectives and donating outside of your preferred cause area! That's not so common in EA, and I think this can be valuable for making progress in doing good impartially.

This is super insightful, thank you!

This going in my personal best-of for Forum posts of 2025! You explore crucial considerations and possible responses in a clear and transparent way, with pleasant sequencing. I find it very helpful in order to be less confused about my reactions in the face of backfire effects. 

Hi Zoe! It's thrilling to meet others with interest in invertebrate welfare (doesn't happen every day), and congratulations again for donating to a cause that is rarely considered appealing! Unsurprisingly, there's really no consensus on what one should do for animals in the face of AGI. However, there's a lot of exchange around what AI could mean for animals on the Sentient Futures slack, and if you have some thoughts you want to share about this, I'm sure there are many members there (including me) who'd be happy to read your current takes on the topic! 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this important topic! I enjoyed reading it, and I loved the reference to the supporter/fan framework from Mjreard.

My feelings: the EA community is somewhat better than average at 1-2, most definitely better at 4 in certain cases (and I think cultivated meat is a good example, as EA circles very often argue for it on non-animal welfare grounds). I agree that 5 is an EA failure mode (I'm on the obsequious / sycophant side, I'm a bit cowardly and think being "fully transparent" about your values often leads to unproductive conflict), and 3 is something where improvement could be made (though it's hard-ish for longtermist causes, or even when you care about animals - heck, even discussing the welfare of cute mice seems to backfire).

Again, this is an important topic, since how we influence others positively could have a large impact, and taking a few hours to think about how to do it right is certain worth it.

3. The psychology of professional sports is surprisingly healthy.

This thesis is one of the most insightful community-related things I've read on the forum. I'd love to read more about if and hear if you think there's anything actionable on the margin (highly de-emphasize careers within EA orgs in outreach material, especially now that top impact may have moved elsewhere, eg, in high-impact non-EA roles?). Thanks!

In the spirit of thanking whoever helped you, this post was what finally convinced me to substantially donate (1,500$+ since then) to charities working on limiting the growth of insect farming when I read it in February of 2025. And yet, I had already substantially engaged with work on insect suffering, especially from Tomasik. Not sure what pushed me over the edge, but this post really managed to make take in the current evidence as worthy of influencing my priorities.