Good point, there is reason to expect that I’m just assigning numbers in a way that makes the result come out convenient. Last time I did a very rough estimate, the expected suffering of insects and nematodes (given my subjective probabilities) came out around half the expected suffering of all decapodes/amphibians-and-larger wild animals. And then wild animals outnumber farm animals by around 2-3 orders of magnitude in terms of expected suffering, and farm animals outnumber humans by a large margin too. So if I just cared about current suffering, or suffering on earth only, then “non-negligible” would indeed be an understatement for insect suffering.
However, what worries me most is not the suffering that is happening on earth. If space colonization goes wrong or even non-optimal, the current amount of suffering could be multiplied by orders of magnitude. And this might happen even if our values will improve. Consider the case with farmed animals, humans probably never cared as much for the welfare of animals as they do now, but at the same time, we have never caused as much direct suffering to animals as we do now. If you’re primarily care about reducing the absolute amount of suffering, then whatever lets the amount of sentience skyrocket is a priori very dangerous.
Good point, there is reason to expect that I’m just assigning numbers in a way that makes the result come out convenient. Last time I did a very rough estimate, the expected suffering of insects and nematodes (given my subjective probabilities) came out around half the expected suffering of all decapodes/amphibians-and-larger wild animals. And then wild animals outnumber farm animals by around 2-3 orders of magnitude in terms of expected suffering, and farm animals outnumber humans by a large margin too. So if I just cared about current suffering, or suffering on earth only, then “non-negligible” would indeed be an understatement for insect suffering.
However, what worries me most is not the suffering that is happening on earth. If space colonization goes wrong or even non-optimal, the current amount of suffering could be multiplied by orders of magnitude. And this might happen even if our values will improve. Consider the case with farmed animals, humans probably never cared as much for the welfare of animals as they do now, but at the same time, we have never caused as much direct suffering to animals as we do now. If you’re primarily care about reducing the absolute amount of suffering, then whatever lets the amount of sentience skyrocket is a priori very dangerous.