Agriculture is somewhat unique in its use of enormous amounts of land. But even within that context, there are many other pathways if someone is truly convinced that expanding land use is somehow a positive for the world.

The most obvious example is biofuel. The climate space has explored it extensively. It demands huge amounts of land and would result in substantial additional deforestation.

Beyond that, there may be ways to accelerate soil degradation. Opposing regenerative agriculture would probably help. There are also avenues to promote soil acidification, such as encouraging the use of certain fertilizers.

It’s also lazy to lump all cropland together. Different crops require different soil conditions and different uses of fertilizers, insecticides, and fungicides, all of which likely influence soil animal populations in different ways.

The effects of global warming — such as land becoming submerged — would also shift populations of soil animals. I’m sure there are differing levels of nematodes, springtails, and sea monkey populations on land versus underwater. And simply changing global temperatures would almost certainly affect these populations as well.

If one genuinely cares about microscopic animals and believes they understand their welfare enough to link it directly to land use, there’s plenty to examine. It probably reveals some unconventional interventions to explore.

Given that none of these areas seem to be getting much serious attention, it feels quite absurd to use nematodes as an argument against farmed animal work — especially when factory farming is responsible for some of the most severe, well-documented suffering we know of.

Cynical thoughts related to the point that “there is something suspicious about moral theorizing without sacrifice” and that “we should scrutinize [a conclusion that is extra convenient] extra closely”:

It often feels too convenient for self-identified EAs who have always enjoyed geeking out over machine-learning and AI to conclude they are also doing the most important thing in the world. Sacrifice-less moral theorizing about the far future is much sexier than antagonizing over suffering of the mere mortals (especially voiceless mere mortals), but it does feel suspicious at times and hardly builds trust and cohesion as the community continues to grow.