I think the poor meat eater problem is a legitimate concern, and it’s something that would benefit from research—we may not be able to establish the relative value of human/nonhuman life to everyone’s satisfaction, but in principle we can do empirical research to find out the size of the effect that poverty reduction has on factory farming.
To me this would be a point in favour of “meta” in general, but not necessarily GWWC/80K in particular, as they don’t seem currently focused on this kind of research.
A good concrete step you could take would be to get in touch with Effective Animal Activism (an 80K spinoff) and see if you can get the poor meat eater problem onto their research agenda. If there’s already research in this area (I haven’t looked), they may be able to point you towards it.
That’s right. If there’s a lot of concern, we can write up what we already know, and look into it further—we’re very happy to respond to demand. This would naturally go under EAA research.
There are some related concerns that need to be factored into the multipliers for extending lifespans and reducing poverty, but which don’t fall naturally under EAA’s research:
Impact of extra population/animal population/consumption on environmental and other resources
Effect of extending a life or reducing poverty on global economic growth
Positive impact of increased economic growth
Negative impact of increased economic growth—existential risk and possibly other considerations?
How much of the weights in the Disability-Adjusted Life Year calculation come from valuing quality of life factors for their own sake, and how much is a fudge factor associated with reduced expected income/employability/social involvement associated with disability or disease? Toby Ord makes sort of this point here
Do you know which organisation’s remit these kinds of question would fall into? Do any of these questions already receive mainstream attention (and if so are they likely to miss something important out of their calculations?)
These are all good questions! Interestingly, they are all relevant to the empirical aspect of a research grant proposal I’m writing. Anyway, our research team is shared between 80,000 Hours and GWWC. They would certainly be interested in addressing all these questions (I think it would officially come under GWWC). I know that those at GiveWell are very interested in at least some of the above questions as well; hopefully they’ll write on them soon.
I think the poor meat eater problem is a legitimate concern, and it’s something that would benefit from research—we may not be able to establish the relative value of human/nonhuman life to everyone’s satisfaction, but in principle we can do empirical research to find out the size of the effect that poverty reduction has on factory farming.
To me this would be a point in favour of “meta” in general, but not necessarily GWWC/80K in particular, as they don’t seem currently focused on this kind of research.
A good concrete step you could take would be to get in touch with Effective Animal Activism (an 80K spinoff) and see if you can get the poor meat eater problem onto their research agenda. If there’s already research in this area (I haven’t looked), they may be able to point you towards it.
That’s right. If there’s a lot of concern, we can write up what we already know, and look into it further—we’re very happy to respond to demand. This would naturally go under EAA research.
There are some related concerns that need to be factored into the multipliers for extending lifespans and reducing poverty, but which don’t fall naturally under EAA’s research:
Impact of extra population/animal population/consumption on environmental and other resources
Effect of extending a life or reducing poverty on global economic growth
Positive impact of increased economic growth
Negative impact of increased economic growth—existential risk and possibly other considerations?
How much of the weights in the Disability-Adjusted Life Year calculation come from valuing quality of life factors for their own sake, and how much is a fudge factor associated with reduced expected income/employability/social involvement associated with disability or disease? Toby Ord makes sort of this point here
Do you know which organisation’s remit these kinds of question would fall into? Do any of these questions already receive mainstream attention (and if so are they likely to miss something important out of their calculations?)
These are all good questions! Interestingly, they are all relevant to the empirical aspect of a research grant proposal I’m writing. Anyway, our research team is shared between 80,000 Hours and GWWC. They would certainly be interested in addressing all these questions (I think it would officially come under GWWC). I know that those at GiveWell are very interested in at least some of the above questions as well; hopefully they’ll write on them soon.