Super excited to see you going into this area. It's a thorny field where a lot of speculation is currently needed, and it seems most people who care about this (not that there are many of us), still defer to Brian Tomasik articles from fifteen years ago. It's cool to see someone with your degree of visibility carrying the torch, and it motivates me to speak up on this topic too. I applied to give a talk about how to reduce wild animal suffering now (and considerations for wild animal suffering in the future) at an animal advocacy conference this summer, and while I have no confirmation that I'll be able to do it, you played a role in me proposing this topic. Plugging a piece I wrote about humanity's impact on wild animals, which is much vaguer than this one, but could have speculative considerations that are of interest to you and your audience: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gRnow2c4J93YuprwS/human-extinction-s-impact-on-non-human-animals-remains
“Why, what a crappy, suffering-filled potential life you’ve got there — let me just get rid of that for you. See? All better now.” Strange things happen when one prioritizes the well-being of others, but only on terms one defines based on one’s own experience and frame of reference. The preemptive extermination of insect populations may be justifiable from all kinds of angles, but “for their own good” is a stretch, of the sort that’s previously been used to justify all manner of pogroms and mass sterilizations.
I just got all experts in wild animal ethics, population ethics, and wild animal welfare on the phone. They said they found your argument extremely convincing and wanted to thank you as they can now stop investigating questions related to whether it is in the interest of wild animals to exist.
Okay, that initial reaction was a bit sharp and rhetorically charged. I’ll try again, peeling back the layers to see which part of this approach sticks in my craw.
Insects clearly strive to exist, as evidenced by their self-preservation and reproductive behaviors. Humans preemptively negating insect populations works against those efforts. Arguably, each generation of insects is selling the next generation into bondage to suffering, so they should be thwarted, but they’re themselves in bondage, and still choose to perpetrate the cycle. So there’s an implicit assumption that humans’ judgment of insect worth is more valuable than insects’ own decisions. Which you justify by quantifying insect suffering as an objectively measurable evil. But if the humans don’t feel it, and if the insects who do feel accept it and it take explicit action for it to continue so that they also can continue, who is actually harmed? If this all shakes out according to a cosmic scoreboard of good vs. harm, humans are poorly placed to be the scorekeepers.
If the computer program keeps outputting 5 when I ask it to sum 2 and 2, who am I to judge that it's mistaken? What argument have you given that it's impossible for humans to be better informed on insect suffering than insects themselves?
I’ve given none. And it’s not really necessary for me to prove the negative here.
It’s possible that humans are better informed on some aspects of insect suffering than insects, though it would be hard to make the case that we’re better informed on the experiential aspects. It’s possible that insects are better informed than humans, though again probably in different ways than we see or value. The more salient question is who is better informed on the purpose of insects, and, again, it’s possible that the scale tips either way.
Which means that we’re all working from assumptions. The author seems to assume that pain and suffering are the greatest evil, greater than loss of autonomy or deprival of the right to exist, and that pain and suffering in any form of life are comparable in some objective way. These are reasonable assertions, but they’re by no means self-evident. The author then uses these assertions to propose a fairly extreme moral metric — that reducing the future insect supply is a greater good than almost anything else. Again, it’s possible. Even plausible given this very particular set of guiding beliefs. But not undeniable.
I’m not interested in proving anyone wrong, because for all I know this all just so happens to be correct. But I am interested in filling in a few of the base assumptions. Why, for example, is it hubris to acknowledge human suffering but not insect suffering, but also totally appropriate for humans to decide for insects what value the existence they struggle for should have? It seems like any argument of human superiority that bolsters the second part should also play into the first.
So with all those arbitrary assertions in mind, jumping from “I think this counterintuitive issue is a big deal” to “let’s examine a series of graphs to start exploring concrete hypotheticals” feels a little like the leap from “my understanding of the Bible tells me the earth is six or seven thousand years old” to “now let’s work out the exact year the creation took place.” It’s weird to start niggling over details when the whole tableau is blurry.
I have previously argued that the destruction of all life on Earth is the end goal to which BB would point us. If BB is right, then Ultron was right and the Avengers were wrong to stop him. I think any philosophy that leads inevitably to this conclusion is certifiably insane.
Didn't he write a philosophy paper arguing against antinatalism and saying it's better for more people to exist? Seems a little different to being pro destruction of all life on earth.
My understanding is his argument stems from most wild animals and insects living what are on net pretty horrible lives. Assuming this is the case I don't know why this would lead to ending all sentient life? It's not even clear that it leads to the destruction of all wild animals assuming some live what are on net positive lives (leaving aside the practicality of how to actually determine that).
I think you are here displaying a poor approach to ethics.
In essence, you are saying that some assumptions lead to an "insane" conclusion.
But the thing is: repugnant implications are all over the place in moral philosophy! So it's not enough to end our reflection at the first weird implication we encounter. It's important to also compare the weird conclusions with each other.
Here you are saying that BB's philosophy implies that "Ultron was right", which is obviously false.
First, I don't think the implication is correct actually. There are many subtleties you seem to have glossed over. Notably, there is a difference between: (1) The world has overall negative value, and (2) We SHOULD strive to destroy the world.
(1) is an axiological claim whereas (2) is a normative claim.
But in any case, the stance you are taking also has repugnant conclusions, which should be taken into consideration.
Namely, a dismissal of insane amount of extreme suffering.
The badness of extreme suffering is something you and I can barely comprehend. It is not something we can invoke in our mind. The best we can do is get a glimpse of it, and even then, there are many biases conspiring against us giving suffering the consideration and moral weight it deserves. Yet there are some forms of suffering that are so unbearable that the beings enduring it would give up literally anything to make it stop. And there is seriously a lot of it in the world. Whether we like it or not. Whether we're able to grasp it or not. (Actually, it happens that Bentham's Bulldog's last post is precisely about this)
I can relate to how insane "Ultron was right and the Avengers were wrong to stop him" sounds. (And as I said, I think it is actually a naive non sequitur!)
But, in any case, I think disregarding the intense suffering of the world is far more insane.
Another way to think about it is to properly apply the principle of impartiality. Imagine having to live through every concious moment on earth, including trillions and trillions of years of lives devoid of anything and filled with unbearable agony -experiences so unfathomably horrible that we would value its cessation above anything else while enduring it.
Here is a serie showing common instances of suffering in the wild:
The deterioration and destruction of life on earth is the end goal of *all* priestly types. The belief and focus on an afterlife always leads to the devaluing of life, and ultimately to nihilism.
Where did you make that argument? I couldn't find anything under your account.
I had to look up the plot of Age of Ultron but it looks like Ultron wants to kill off humanity specifically whereas BB (at worst) seems to think we should kill all non-human species.
I guess it speaks well of Mr Bentham that he doesn’t ban me, but I frequently leave snarky comments on his posts. I’ve previously said that the eradication of life on Earth would be the end result of his philosophy. As to Ultron, you may be right. Perhaps he wasn’t bloodthirsty enough for BB.
I guess BB might leave plants, but a lot of them would perish without birds and insects
Another post leaning on the histrionic assertions that life is hell for animals from a utilitarian "net suffering" POV, but you don't even attempt to actually quantify both sides of the equation to support this. Such an assertion would require you to attempt to quantify pleasure as well, and also neutral experiences, and to decide where they should be factored. Given all of these calculations are essentially impossible, you'd think you would opt for a more humble, less dangerously totalitarian position than "we should take it upon ourselves to end nature".
If more and more people go vegan, and animal agriculture starts to shrink, how will that affect wild animal suffering? I've heard the argument made that if pastureland goes back to being wild, the number of wild animals will increase to such an extent as to more than offset the suffering that would have been endured by the farm animals. And I'm sure that there would be other effects on wild animals besides just rewilding of pastures.
It's an internally consistent position, sure but I don't think appeal to what happens on the scale of millions of years does what you want.
1. In the very long run, everything is dead regardless.
2. In the scale of life on Earth, anything happening now occupies only the tiniest time slice compared to the eons of life and death that have preceded us. Compared to all that death — so much death that our ground is composed of the compacted shells of countless dead sea creatures — anything we do now is marginal on the scale of ages.
3. Any philosophy that would lead you to dropping the asteroid on the dinosaurs is going to be rejected by most small children. Our pre-theoretical moral intuitions clearly favour keeping cool animals around given the choice. (This isn't an objection you're going to accept I just thought it was funny to note.)
Better hope AI never develops the ability to ask its own questions, develop its own goals, or execute on them. Because it'd come to precisely the same conclusion about humans. They spend almost all their time toiling away for relatively tiny amounts of pleasure in comparison to the toil, they grieve and suffer terribly when loved ones die, etc. Just calculating it out, it doesn't net positive. Yet we seem to take our own will to live and efforts to survive as dispositive, so I'd extend the same grace to other animals.
All makes sense - though do you buy into the notion of 'surprising and suspicious convergences' or worry that the supposed alignment of human and wild animal interests might be one?
If the god you claim exists from anthropics said that he was going to exterminate all humans because their lives had much more pain than a new, ideal species, what would your response be?
I just want to draw attention to the fact that almost all animals/arthropods are either member of Collembola (springtail), Arachnida (mites) or Copepoda. Thus in terms of sheer numbers an arthropod inclusive utilitarian utility maximizing approach would probably mostly focus on them and their populations and analysis of their lives and deaths.
Super excited to see you going into this area. It's a thorny field where a lot of speculation is currently needed, and it seems most people who care about this (not that there are many of us), still defer to Brian Tomasik articles from fifteen years ago. It's cool to see someone with your degree of visibility carrying the torch, and it motivates me to speak up on this topic too. I applied to give a talk about how to reduce wild animal suffering now (and considerations for wild animal suffering in the future) at an animal advocacy conference this summer, and while I have no confirmation that I'll be able to do it, you played a role in me proposing this topic. Plugging a piece I wrote about humanity's impact on wild animals, which is much vaguer than this one, but could have speculative considerations that are of interest to you and your audience: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gRnow2c4J93YuprwS/human-extinction-s-impact-on-non-human-animals-remains
“Why, what a crappy, suffering-filled potential life you’ve got there — let me just get rid of that for you. See? All better now.” Strange things happen when one prioritizes the well-being of others, but only on terms one defines based on one’s own experience and frame of reference. The preemptive extermination of insect populations may be justifiable from all kinds of angles, but “for their own good” is a stretch, of the sort that’s previously been used to justify all manner of pogroms and mass sterilizations.
I just got all experts in wild animal ethics, population ethics, and wild animal welfare on the phone. They said they found your argument extremely convincing and wanted to thank you as they can now stop investigating questions related to whether it is in the interest of wild animals to exist.
Pearl clutching is not an argument
Okay, that initial reaction was a bit sharp and rhetorically charged. I’ll try again, peeling back the layers to see which part of this approach sticks in my craw.
Insects clearly strive to exist, as evidenced by their self-preservation and reproductive behaviors. Humans preemptively negating insect populations works against those efforts. Arguably, each generation of insects is selling the next generation into bondage to suffering, so they should be thwarted, but they’re themselves in bondage, and still choose to perpetrate the cycle. So there’s an implicit assumption that humans’ judgment of insect worth is more valuable than insects’ own decisions. Which you justify by quantifying insect suffering as an objectively measurable evil. But if the humans don’t feel it, and if the insects who do feel accept it and it take explicit action for it to continue so that they also can continue, who is actually harmed? If this all shakes out according to a cosmic scoreboard of good vs. harm, humans are poorly placed to be the scorekeepers.
If the computer program keeps outputting 5 when I ask it to sum 2 and 2, who am I to judge that it's mistaken? What argument have you given that it's impossible for humans to be better informed on insect suffering than insects themselves?
I’ve given none. And it’s not really necessary for me to prove the negative here.
It’s possible that humans are better informed on some aspects of insect suffering than insects, though it would be hard to make the case that we’re better informed on the experiential aspects. It’s possible that insects are better informed than humans, though again probably in different ways than we see or value. The more salient question is who is better informed on the purpose of insects, and, again, it’s possible that the scale tips either way.
Which means that we’re all working from assumptions. The author seems to assume that pain and suffering are the greatest evil, greater than loss of autonomy or deprival of the right to exist, and that pain and suffering in any form of life are comparable in some objective way. These are reasonable assertions, but they’re by no means self-evident. The author then uses these assertions to propose a fairly extreme moral metric — that reducing the future insect supply is a greater good than almost anything else. Again, it’s possible. Even plausible given this very particular set of guiding beliefs. But not undeniable.
I’m not interested in proving anyone wrong, because for all I know this all just so happens to be correct. But I am interested in filling in a few of the base assumptions. Why, for example, is it hubris to acknowledge human suffering but not insect suffering, but also totally appropriate for humans to decide for insects what value the existence they struggle for should have? It seems like any argument of human superiority that bolsters the second part should also play into the first.
So with all those arbitrary assertions in mind, jumping from “I think this counterintuitive issue is a big deal” to “let’s examine a series of graphs to start exploring concrete hypotheticals” feels a little like the leap from “my understanding of the Bible tells me the earth is six or seven thousand years old” to “now let’s work out the exact year the creation took place.” It’s weird to start niggling over details when the whole tableau is blurry.
I have previously argued that the destruction of all life on Earth is the end goal to which BB would point us. If BB is right, then Ultron was right and the Avengers were wrong to stop him. I think any philosophy that leads inevitably to this conclusion is certifiably insane.
Don’t worry. BB also believes that there’s an omnipotent omnibenevolent God, so all this endless suffering surely exists for a very very good reason.
Didn't he write a philosophy paper arguing against antinatalism and saying it's better for more people to exist? Seems a little different to being pro destruction of all life on earth.
The logical implication of his argument about wild animal and insect suffering would lead to that conclusion.
My understanding is his argument stems from most wild animals and insects living what are on net pretty horrible lives. Assuming this is the case I don't know why this would lead to ending all sentient life? It's not even clear that it leads to the destruction of all wild animals assuming some live what are on net positive lives (leaving aside the practicality of how to actually determine that).
I think you are here displaying a poor approach to ethics.
In essence, you are saying that some assumptions lead to an "insane" conclusion.
But the thing is: repugnant implications are all over the place in moral philosophy! So it's not enough to end our reflection at the first weird implication we encounter. It's important to also compare the weird conclusions with each other.
Here you are saying that BB's philosophy implies that "Ultron was right", which is obviously false.
First, I don't think the implication is correct actually. There are many subtleties you seem to have glossed over. Notably, there is a difference between: (1) The world has overall negative value, and (2) We SHOULD strive to destroy the world.
(1) is an axiological claim whereas (2) is a normative claim.
But in any case, the stance you are taking also has repugnant conclusions, which should be taken into consideration.
Namely, a dismissal of insane amount of extreme suffering.
The badness of extreme suffering is something you and I can barely comprehend. It is not something we can invoke in our mind. The best we can do is get a glimpse of it, and even then, there are many biases conspiring against us giving suffering the consideration and moral weight it deserves. Yet there are some forms of suffering that are so unbearable that the beings enduring it would give up literally anything to make it stop. And there is seriously a lot of it in the world. Whether we like it or not. Whether we're able to grasp it or not. (Actually, it happens that Bentham's Bulldog's last post is precisely about this)
I can relate to how insane "Ultron was right and the Avengers were wrong to stop him" sounds. (And as I said, I think it is actually a naive non sequitur!)
But, in any case, I think disregarding the intense suffering of the world is far more insane.
Another way to think about it is to properly apply the principle of impartiality. Imagine having to live through every concious moment on earth, including trillions and trillions of years of lives devoid of anything and filled with unbearable agony -experiences so unfathomably horrible that we would value its cessation above anything else while enduring it.
Here is a serie showing common instances of suffering in the wild:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1OAzRNhKUcYUgwPcABtKYNFq9MGKsBbVX79JiDQ4YElU
If we honestly make the effort of appreciating what most lives in the wild really are, I think the sense of obviousness you display quickly dissolve.
Personally, I'd rather take the Ultron scenario any day rather than having to experience all sentient lives.
(But once again, saying this is not even of practical relevance)
The deterioration and destruction of life on earth is the end goal of *all* priestly types. The belief and focus on an afterlife always leads to the devaluing of life, and ultimately to nihilism.
Exactly: https://backcountrypsych.substack.com/p/misspecified-utilitarians-hate-existence
Where did you make that argument? I couldn't find anything under your account.
I had to look up the plot of Age of Ultron but it looks like Ultron wants to kill off humanity specifically whereas BB (at worst) seems to think we should kill all non-human species.
I guess it speaks well of Mr Bentham that he doesn’t ban me, but I frequently leave snarky comments on his posts. I’ve previously said that the eradication of life on Earth would be the end result of his philosophy. As to Ultron, you may be right. Perhaps he wasn’t bloodthirsty enough for BB.
I guess BB might leave plants, but a lot of them would perish without birds and insects
Another post leaning on the histrionic assertions that life is hell for animals from a utilitarian "net suffering" POV, but you don't even attempt to actually quantify both sides of the equation to support this. Such an assertion would require you to attempt to quantify pleasure as well, and also neutral experiences, and to decide where they should be factored. Given all of these calculations are essentially impossible, you'd think you would opt for a more humble, less dangerously totalitarian position than "we should take it upon ourselves to end nature".
https://backcountrypsych.substack.com/p/misspecified-utilitarians-hate-existence
Utilitarisme at it limits leads to absurdity
If more and more people go vegan, and animal agriculture starts to shrink, how will that affect wild animal suffering? I've heard the argument made that if pastureland goes back to being wild, the number of wild animals will increase to such an extent as to more than offset the suffering that would have been endured by the farm animals. And I'm sure that there would be other effects on wild animals besides just rewilding of pastures.
It's an internally consistent position, sure but I don't think appeal to what happens on the scale of millions of years does what you want.
1. In the very long run, everything is dead regardless.
2. In the scale of life on Earth, anything happening now occupies only the tiniest time slice compared to the eons of life and death that have preceded us. Compared to all that death — so much death that our ground is composed of the compacted shells of countless dead sea creatures — anything we do now is marginal on the scale of ages.
3. Any philosophy that would lead you to dropping the asteroid on the dinosaurs is going to be rejected by most small children. Our pre-theoretical moral intuitions clearly favour keeping cool animals around given the choice. (This isn't an objection you're going to accept I just thought it was funny to note.)
Could you say more on how this research has impacted your assessment of animal welfare charities relative to human-focused ones?
This is an impressive post. How long did it take you to write this?
Not sure. I was working on it for a bit though. Maybe 5 hours including research.
Better hope AI never develops the ability to ask its own questions, develop its own goals, or execute on them. Because it'd come to precisely the same conclusion about humans. They spend almost all their time toiling away for relatively tiny amounts of pleasure in comparison to the toil, they grieve and suffer terribly when loved ones die, etc. Just calculating it out, it doesn't net positive. Yet we seem to take our own will to live and efforts to survive as dispositive, so I'd extend the same grace to other animals.
I keep wondering when he's going to stop doing this bit...
All makes sense - though do you buy into the notion of 'surprising and suspicious convergences' or worry that the supposed alignment of human and wild animal interests might be one?
If the god you claim exists from anthropics said that he was going to exterminate all humans because their lives had much more pain than a new, ideal species, what would your response be?
I'd cross my arms, stomp my feet, do a pouty face and go "harrrrumph! not fair, God! 🥺😡😡😢"
Couldn't factory farming of large mammals like cows be net positive for similar reasons?
Interesting empirical approach.
I just want to draw attention to the fact that almost all animals/arthropods are either member of Collembola (springtail), Arachnida (mites) or Copepoda. Thus in terms of sheer numbers an arthropod inclusive utilitarian utility maximizing approach would probably mostly focus on them and their populations and analysis of their lives and deaths.