That's fair.

Mostly this is about strategies for engaging non-EAs for effective giving. So it wouldn't come up much.

Although this does sound like a version of the standard right-of-centre effectiveness-based objection "why bother, giving just causes dependency loops that entrench the problem" - to which I would probably shift to impact mode and explain that AMF donations specifically don't do that.

I can see people arguing that they shouldn't have to donate to help stop malaria. (I get that all the time.)

I cannot, however, see anyone genuinely advocating for a pro-malaria stance?

(As opposed to for example peace activism where you get people genuinely advocating for pro-war stances)

Is this a thing in EA? Some people are pro-malaria?

I'd hope that even the "meat-eater problem" lot recognise that the set of effective methods to reduce animal suffering don't include pro-malaria advocacy.

To clarify: I think soil animals should be an area of focus. I'm unconvinced on nematodes specifically - but I think there's good arguments for assessment of the life experiences of higher-neuron soil species being a very important thing.

I think that the method of calculation of the set of animals that are most important for any point within an unknown measurement of welfare is a good method to have.

I also think you've done really well in pointing out that the welfare ranges would seem to imply a capacity to experience suffering that drops off far less than the neuron count does, and that does have issues.

I suspect that there exists a belief that below a certain threshold there is no consciousness or capacity for welfare - a discontinuity - and thus animals such as nematodes are out of scope. I, at least, have no trouble saying that 1 neuron would not have capacity for welfare - that welfare capacity arises through the linkages, and not through things internal to the cell. And 302 really is quite small. I feel if you could get welfare capacity off linkages in a system of that size, we'd have found digital consciousness by now.

I also sympathise with the feelings you have to be doing something, even if you can't really afford to be doing anything right now. I recommend you have a chat to any EAs you know personally about that - it's a common feeling, and talking to others about it can help you feel less alone.

I think it's probably bad to fake participation. It's going to affect your underlying moral compass which will set you up badly for the future. There's a (fascinating) whole section on this on the 80,000 hours website about how ultilitarians might think about "for the greater good" kinds of justifications: https://80000hours.org/articles/harmful-career/

However, if you are actually volunteering, I don't think it's bad to put that down, even if you're not doing something super "official". So if you do find yourself writing any cards for the military (or for Amnesty International), you can log it!

Oh and there's also in-ovo sexing for egg laying chickens and buying shrimp stunners. Basically, provision of free/cheap farming tech that reduces suffering while having no/positive productivity impacts, or research into such.

There's a bunch of different interventions about getting more plant-based stuff to people that's basically supported by governments in certain higher-income countries due to the health benefits and that nobody has any real issues with.

For wild animals there's screworm-free future, that I don't think anyone is objecting to?

Great essay, best I've seen yet.

I wonder if it's possible to solve the alignment problem by just somehow legally requiring models to be lazy (something they seem to be doing anyway, so it's more a ban on any strategies that fix it "too well", for catastrophic safety reasons).