Thank you Vasco for the welcome and for your prompt reply!

Yes, I understand the underlying logic of your reasoning; my intention was only to highlight how paradoxical it might seem when interpreted from a "narrative" perspective. This is, after all, the way most of us instinctively tend to think/feel, even if it’s often not strictly correct.

Thank you for the update on agricultural land use. I hadn't seen your comment. I am absolutely in agreement with you on that point (regarding the need for more research due to uncertainty).

I was wondering if—in the case that it were true that agricultural land decreases the number of nematodes & Co.—given that we write here so that new ideas might be put into action, and thus based on the consensus these ideas can obtain, wouldn't it be more advantageous to highlight more the non-problematic cases for someone who cares about animals?

For example, for a person deeply committed to the animal cause, it will be harder to accept the solution of purchasing animal products. But confirming the idea that it's better to finance cage-free or broiler chicken campaigns for this additional reason (reducing soil animals) could be much more easily accepted, and thus put into practice. Whereas an idea like consuming more beef might risk provoking repulsion and rejection, perhaps even in a place like this (though this is just a hypothesis, as I don't know this forum that well).

We could call this the "Probability that someone will act upon reading the post." Though I suppose it's difficult to quantify.

Conversely, strongly advocating for a controversial/counter-intuitive thesis, as you have partly done, could also contribute to attracting attention and thus generating the desired effects.

Thinking better about the whole issue, even if nematodes had net-positive lives, the course of action could still be controversial, as it would be practically a perfect example of the Repugnant Conclusion.

In general, you are absolutely right to draw attention to this issue. One could argue that it's probably not a relevant topic. But if it were relevant, it would be extremely relevant. And that fact makes it effectively relevant (at least given our current state of knowledge).

Your reasoning is certainly interesting to me, and you might even be right.

However, I believe the most problematic point boils down to this: we are being asked to commit an act involving certain, morally grave harm (increasing the suffering of farmed animals, which we know to be sentient) in exchange for a potential benefit (reducing nematode suffering) that rests upon a chain of rather uncertain hypotheses.

• Are these organisms sentient?
• Are their lives net-negative overall?
• What is the moral value of their conscious experience, if they have any?

This idea closely resembles the "fat man" scenario in the trolley problem, only elevated to the nth power. It actively proposes inflicting harm upon someone (the farmed animals / the fat man) for a much greater benefit (the nematodes & Co / the people who would be hit by the train). And this is already an example that many people instinctively reject.

But the situation here is infinitely more paradoxical.

We could frame it this way: "You must push the fat man off the bridge. We don't know if he will stop the train. In fact, we don't even know if there are really people on the tracks to save."

"There is a very low probability that there are billions of people on the tracks (i.e., that nematodes & Co are sentient, that their lives are net-negative, and that their consciousness has a certain moral value)."

"But most, most likely, there is no one there (e.g., they are not sentient; the probability that they are is low, e.g., 6.8\% for nematodes, according to the RP data you cited yourself)."

"Yet, the man you push will surely die."

We are committing a certain murder for a totally speculative benefit. This is a harm that will be 90% or more a large-scale, self-contained harm that yields no benefit whatsoever.

But in reality, an even more fitting analogy might be this, since we are talking about reducing suffering, not saving lives in an absolute sense:

"We know there are several serial killers in the world who will torture a high number of people. For this reason, we take one person, make them be born and raise them, with the sole purpose of constantly torturing them on live TV, so that many of the killers will be distracted by the show and will torture their victims less."

To be truly consistent with what we have discussed, however, it would sound more like this:

"Most probably, there are NO several serial killers in the world who torture many people. But since there is a minimal chance that they do exist, we decide to take a person, make them be born, raise them, and constantly torture them on live TV so that the hypothetical serial killers will be distracted by the show and hypothetically kill their victims earlier."

Now, I know this might be more of an anecdote than a completely rational argument. Since we are forced to act in reality, and we are constantly acting, we must do so with the information available to us, even if it is partial. And that is what you tried to reason about. However, we are essentially exchanging a certain (and grave) harm for an improbable benefit (albeit of astronomical proportions).

And this is without even considering the fact that, for all we know, the lives of these animals might be net-positive. In this case, the harm to the farmed animals would be compounded by the harm to the nematodes & Co. In this scenario, our previous story might sound something like this: "There are no serial killers in the world. We torture a guy on TV thinking there are, and some people who watch the show draw inspiration from it and start killing people themselves."

In general, the uncertainty seems so high as to not justify new actions before obtaining new information that would grant us greater clarity, as you rightly suggest.

Furthermore, given that this involves inflicting harm in exchange for something that could have a massive output, why choose the path of harm when there could be many others? It’s a bit like saying, "Would you push the fat man off the bridge?" "Yes, if it were the only option." Most people would try to find other options, so as not to have to kill the fat man and still save the unfortunates on the tracks. Couldn't we just derail the train with a large rock, for example? Reality is often rich with creative possibilities.

And in this case, I don't see why we should actively inflict harm on someone (the farmed animals) simply because this indirectly achieves something greatly good. Couldn't we just do that good thing ourselves?

Why should we reduce the number of nematodes & Co. through farming, which is harmful in its own right? We might as well kill these animals directly if we decide they must live less! I bet we could be far more efficient. We might as well develop a "killer mixture" for these species, or who knows what else?

Admittedly, I'm venturing into "science fiction" here, and the idea wouldn't be very marketable. But this would be the sensible path. 

So, is this a weak hypothesis too? Perhaps we could invent some excuse. It is true that a project openly intending to "kill" nematodes would not succeed, nor could a charity pursuing this mission define itself as such in the eyes of public opinion. But perhaps there could be some ingenious ways to frame this as something good and morally approvable? That way, everyone would not see us as the mad people who want to exterminate nematodes, but as someone doing something good (or perhaps irrelevant). And whose secret purpose is to reduce the number of nematodes on Earth. A win-win situation.

Of course, it is not guaranteed that such a thing is possible, and thus this is also pure speculation, but couldn't finding such a creative solution be a very promising way to do good?