Suppose it were discovered with a high degree of confidence that insects could suffer a significant amount, and almost all insect lives are worse than not having lived. What (if anything) would/should the response of the EA community be?
Are you familiar with the work of either Brain Tomasik or the Foundational Research Institute? Both take mass suffering very seriously. (Including that of insects, video game characters, and electrons. Well, sort of. I think the last two are just weird EV-things that result when you follow certain things to their logical conclusion, but I’m definitely not an expert.)
There’s a lot of uncertainty in this field. I would hope to see a lot of people very quickly shift a lot of effort into researching:
Effective interventions for reducing the number of insects in the environment (without, e.g., crashing the climate)
Comparative effects of different kinds of land use (e.g. farming crops or vegetables, pasture, left wild, whatever) on insect populations
Ability of various other invertebrates to suffer (how about plankton, or nematodes? The same high-confidence evidence showing insects suffer might also show the same for their smaller, more numerous cousins)
Shifting public perceptions of gene drives
Research into which pesticides cause the least suffering
Currently it seems like Brian Tomasik & the Foundational Research Institute, and Sentience Politics, are paying some attention to considerations like this.
Effective interventions for reducing the number of insects in the environment
A partial solution is often better than no solution.
But this seems really dangerous, even assuming some kind of negative utilitarian philosophy (meaning you’re more interested in reducing suffering than producing value). If we kill ourselves, then we can’t help at all. I would be very reluctant to support any such intervention. Ecological collapse is already an existential threat of some concern to EA. Increasing the risk of any existential threats, even for short-term reduction of total suffering strikes me as a massively bad idea.
Given our starting assumption that insects are suffering, they’ve likely been doing so for millions of years. A well-aimed intelligence explosion is our best option to permanently solve the problem. Let’s not be tempted to cut the corner of a few more decades of suffering with a partial solution and lose the option of a total solution.
My mental model of what could possibly drive someone to EA is too poor to answer this with any degree of accuracy. Speaking for myself, I see no reason why such information should have any influence on future human actions.
Seriously, that’s about all we can do in the short term. We can try to not make the problem worse. Fixing this completely is likely a post-singularity problem. Thus, EA should invest in MIRI.
We can’t feasibly eradicate all the insects now—it’s been said that cockroaches would survive a global nuclear war. And even if we could, it would mean the extinction of the human species. We’re too dependent on them ecologically. If we tried, we’d likely kill ourselves before we got all of them, then the suffering wouldn’t end until the sun eventually heats up enough to burn up the biosphere. Patience now is the better strategy. It ends the suffering sooner.
Someone might suggest gene drives, so I’ll address that too. We can’t use them for eradication of all insect species. Some of them would likely develop resistance first, so we’d have to be very persistent. But we humans wouldn’t last that long.
What might work is to alter insects genetically so they don’t suffer. If we can figure out how to do this we could then try to put the modification on the gene drive, but this is also very risky. Messing with the pain systems might inadvertently make suffering worse, but also make it less obvious. Nature invented pain for reasons. Turning it off would likely put those insects affected at a selective disadvantage. Suffering might evolve again after we get rid of it. Scaling the drive could unbalance the ecology and thereby damage human populations enough that we couldn’t continue the project. It would take a great deal of research to pull this off.
Short of an intelligence explosion, we’d have to genetically engineer an artificial ecology that can sustainably support human life in outer space, but doesn’t suffer. We’d then have the capability to move human civilization off-planet (very expensive), and then use giant space mirrors to start a runaway greenhouse effect that makes Earth look like Venus, finally eradicating the old miserable biosphere. This would require at minimum, a world government. I think an intelligence explosion is easier. Maybe not safer, but easier.
Suppose it were discovered with a high degree of confidence that insects could suffer a significant amount, and almost all insect lives are worse than not having lived. What (if anything) would/should the response of the EA community be?
Are you familiar with the work of either Brain Tomasik or the Foundational Research Institute? Both take mass suffering very seriously. (Including that of insects, video game characters, and electrons. Well, sort of. I think the last two are just weird EV-things that result when you follow certain things to their logical conclusion, but I’m definitely not an expert.)
There’s a lot of uncertainty in this field. I would hope to see a lot of people very quickly shift a lot of effort into researching:
Effective interventions for reducing the number of insects in the environment (without, e.g., crashing the climate)
Comparative effects of different kinds of land use (e.g. farming crops or vegetables, pasture, left wild, whatever) on insect populations
Ability of various other invertebrates to suffer (how about plankton, or nematodes? The same high-confidence evidence showing insects suffer might also show the same for their smaller, more numerous cousins)
Shifting public perceptions of gene drives
Research into which pesticides cause the least suffering
Currently it seems like Brian Tomasik & the Foundational Research Institute, and Sentience Politics, are paying some attention to considerations like this.
A partial solution is often better than no solution.
But this seems really dangerous, even assuming some kind of negative utilitarian philosophy (meaning you’re more interested in reducing suffering than producing value). If we kill ourselves, then we can’t help at all. I would be very reluctant to support any such intervention. Ecological collapse is already an existential threat of some concern to EA. Increasing the risk of any existential threats, even for short-term reduction of total suffering strikes me as a massively bad idea.
Given our starting assumption that insects are suffering, they’ve likely been doing so for millions of years. A well-aimed intelligence explosion is our best option to permanently solve the problem. Let’s not be tempted to cut the corner of a few more decades of suffering with a partial solution and lose the option of a total solution.
My mental model of what could possibly drive someone to EA is too poor to answer this with any degree of accuracy. Speaking for myself, I see no reason why such information should have any influence on future human actions.
Don’t farm crickets.
Seriously, that’s about all we can do in the short term. We can try to not make the problem worse. Fixing this completely is likely a post-singularity problem. Thus, EA should invest in MIRI.
We can’t feasibly eradicate all the insects now—it’s been said that cockroaches would survive a global nuclear war. And even if we could, it would mean the extinction of the human species. We’re too dependent on them ecologically. If we tried, we’d likely kill ourselves before we got all of them, then the suffering wouldn’t end until the sun eventually heats up enough to burn up the biosphere. Patience now is the better strategy. It ends the suffering sooner.
Someone might suggest gene drives, so I’ll address that too. We can’t use them for eradication of all insect species. Some of them would likely develop resistance first, so we’d have to be very persistent. But we humans wouldn’t last that long.
What might work is to alter insects genetically so they don’t suffer. If we can figure out how to do this we could then try to put the modification on the gene drive, but this is also very risky. Messing with the pain systems might inadvertently make suffering worse, but also make it less obvious. Nature invented pain for reasons. Turning it off would likely put those insects affected at a selective disadvantage. Suffering might evolve again after we get rid of it. Scaling the drive could unbalance the ecology and thereby damage human populations enough that we couldn’t continue the project. It would take a great deal of research to pull this off.
Short of an intelligence explosion, we’d have to genetically engineer an artificial ecology that can sustainably support human life in outer space, but doesn’t suffer. We’d then have the capability to move human civilization off-planet (very expensive), and then use giant space mirrors to start a runaway greenhouse effect that makes Earth look like Venus, finally eradicating the old miserable biosphere. This would require at minimum, a world government. I think an intelligence explosion is easier. Maybe not safer, but easier.
I think that for any sensible actions to be designed, you should also show if sufference is additive or not.
Effective Altruism is not Animal Rights.
Every atom shall be used for the computronium, anyway. So there will be no (insect) pain anymore.
We should be very careful what to upload then.
But it’s the EA, you are asking for. What their response should be?
I have no idea. I don’t see any use for this movement in this context. Or in almost any other context, too.