Conditional on animals mattering, how many animal-years on a factory farm do I see as being about as good as giving a human another year of life?
This compares “giving a year of life” to preventing suffering. It’s unclear to me whether you’re someone who cares unusually little about animals, or whether you’re someone who cares unusually much about “giving years of life to self-aware beings that form life plans.” Many animal advocates (esp. ones that follow Singer’s philosophy) would agree that there’s an important difference between human lives and animal lives. But not that there’s an important difference about human suffering versus animal suffering.
This means I’d rather see someone donate $43 to GiveWell’s top charities than see 100 people go vegan for a year.
This is saying something different from “I’m not vegan.”
I’m not vegan myself either (anymore), but I would care a lot about the impact of 100 people going vegan, and I could imagine so would a lot of non-rationalist meat eaters. Maybe I’m not factoring in how counterintuitive it is how few entire animals are actually eaten by someone, and how effective Givewell charities are by comparison. But on the face of it, this statement feels quite unusual to me.
Edit: I should really have thought about the actual numbers rather than the confounder with money donated to an effective charity. So, according to the post, the comparison is 1 healthy human life year for the following:
preventing 80 factory farmed cow years
preventing 80 factory farmed pig years
preventing 3,300 factory farmed chicken years
preventing some % of 300 fish years (representing the %-age of farmed fish rather than wild-caught fish)
I think it’s defensible to call this “unusual” but I agree there are many people who would give way higher animal numbers still.
I could imagine so would a lot of non-rationalist meat eaters
Maybe your imagination accurately reflects reality or maybe not, but it’s certainly not discongruent with enough people having the viewpoint(s) that make jkaufman’s stance not-unusual.
The average person’s revealed preferences seem to assign close to zero weight to animal suffering.
On the other hand, we could make the argument that we should compare jkaufman’s position to what I would assume to be the tiny minority of people who have given any substantial amount of thought to veganism and animal suffering.
In that case, I would agree that it is likely that he is unusual.
This compares “giving a year of life” to preventing suffering. It’s unclear to me whether you’re someone who cares unusually little about animals, or whether you’re someone who cares unusually much about “giving years of life to self-aware beings that form life plans.” Many animal advocates (esp. ones that follow Singer’s philosophy) would agree that there’s an important difference between human lives and animal lives. But not that there’s an important difference about human suffering versus animal suffering.
I’m “someone who cares unusually little about animals” compared to most vegans, but I’m not sure if I am compared to the general population?
Given the rate of veganism, I’m not sure “unusual” would apply to jkaufman in either case.
This is saying something different from “I’m not vegan.”
I’m not vegan myself either (anymore), but I would care a lot about the impact of 100 people going vegan, and I could imagine so would a lot of non-rationalist meat eaters. Maybe I’m not factoring in how counterintuitive it is how few entire animals are actually eaten by someone, and how effective Givewell charities are by comparison. But on the face of it, this statement feels quite unusual to me.
Edit: I should really have thought about the actual numbers rather than the confounder with money donated to an effective charity. So, according to the post, the comparison is 1 healthy human life year for the following:
preventing 80 factory farmed cow years
preventing 80 factory farmed pig years
preventing 3,300 factory farmed chicken years
preventing some % of 300 fish years (representing the %-age of farmed fish rather than wild-caught fish)
I think it’s defensible to call this “unusual” but I agree there are many people who would give way higher animal numbers still.
Maybe your imagination accurately reflects reality or maybe not, but it’s certainly not discongruent with enough people having the viewpoint(s) that make jkaufman’s stance not-unusual.
The average person’s revealed preferences seem to assign close to zero weight to animal suffering.
On the other hand, we could make the argument that we should compare jkaufman’s position to what I would assume to be the tiny minority of people who have given any substantial amount of thought to veganism and animal suffering.
In that case, I would agree that it is likely that he is unusual.
+1
The adversarial collaboration talks a bit about this.