After thinking it over I gave a hundred bucks to the damn shrimp (non-recurring, will consider recurring when organizing charity in january). I hope they don't waste it on booze, but I guess it's none of my business.
To address my "Bay Area weirdo lifestyle is morally obligatory iff shrimp utilitarianism" concerns, I also made an offsetting donation to Cheetah House, which helps people who have severe adverse effects from engaging in meditation practices.
Why not do this whole marketing/popularising thing again but with Longtermist causes? (E.g. https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/charities/risks-and-resilience-fund) Surely the enormous expected population living in the future (consisting not only of shrimp—who, let's be honest, have lives barely worth living anyway, at least when compared to humans—but also humans, chickens, dogs, and, in all likelihood (unless one unreasonably thinks we're the end of natural selection), posthumans and digital minds, etc.), in total, matter colossally more than shrimp do? The expected value of the former surely exceeds that of the latter. More than hundreds of millions of expected shrimp lives to be saved, there are trillions and trillions of expected lives (shrimp, humans, etc.) to be saved, a big subset of which include lives which are in fact worth living (substantially and objectively meaningful lives which aren't repugnant). Plus, whereas the latter endeavour is merely about minimising suffering and can be realised in a void (an empty world) the former endeavour is about both minimising suffering and maximising all-things-considered flourishing.
Analogous to how one might think that the large population of shrimp makes up for the moral uncertainty of shrimp welfare and its plausible lower individual moral worth, the extremely, astronomically enormous expected population of future generations more than makes up for the uncertainty of longtermist causes.
Plus, we must bravely confront the cold hard fact of trade-offs and opportunity cost. One more dollar spent towards marine cockroaches with lives barely worth living is one less dollar spent on an enormous set of lives many of whom have lives not only worth living but also have a much greater capacity of all-things-considered flourishing, objectively greater than whatever amount of flourishing cockroaches are capable of.
I really do not understand the rationale of this effort to save shrimp. If they were not caught for human consumption, would they probably instead have been consumed by whales or other sea creatures? I understand a Buddhist respect for all life—even the annoying mosquito and fly in my bedroom — but to use Shelley’s phrase life is full of an eternally fierce destruction. Wish it were otherwise.
I also set up monthly reoccurring of $30!
Awesome!
That is absolutely AMAZING! Congratulations. I am so proud of you. (And the shrimp will thank you)
Thank you!
After thinking it over I gave a hundred bucks to the damn shrimp (non-recurring, will consider recurring when organizing charity in january). I hope they don't waste it on booze, but I guess it's none of my business.
To address my "Bay Area weirdo lifestyle is morally obligatory iff shrimp utilitarianism" concerns, I also made an offsetting donation to Cheetah House, which helps people who have severe adverse effects from engaging in meditation practices.
Awesome! I gave $90
Awesome!
Thanks for highlighting how valuable this is! I just gave $1000.
Why not do this whole marketing/popularising thing again but with Longtermist causes? (E.g. https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/charities/risks-and-resilience-fund) Surely the enormous expected population living in the future (consisting not only of shrimp—who, let's be honest, have lives barely worth living anyway, at least when compared to humans—but also humans, chickens, dogs, and, in all likelihood (unless one unreasonably thinks we're the end of natural selection), posthumans and digital minds, etc.), in total, matter colossally more than shrimp do? The expected value of the former surely exceeds that of the latter. More than hundreds of millions of expected shrimp lives to be saved, there are trillions and trillions of expected lives (shrimp, humans, etc.) to be saved, a big subset of which include lives which are in fact worth living (substantially and objectively meaningful lives which aren't repugnant). Plus, whereas the latter endeavour is merely about minimising suffering and can be realised in a void (an empty world) the former endeavour is about both minimising suffering and maximising all-things-considered flourishing.
Longtermist stuff is way more uncertain and speculative, but I agree, it's a valuable cause to give to.
Analogous to how one might think that the large population of shrimp makes up for the moral uncertainty of shrimp welfare and its plausible lower individual moral worth, the extremely, astronomically enormous expected population of future generations more than makes up for the uncertainty of longtermist causes.
Plus, we must bravely confront the cold hard fact of trade-offs and opportunity cost. One more dollar spent towards marine cockroaches with lives barely worth living is one less dollar spent on an enormous set of lives many of whom have lives not only worth living but also have a much greater capacity of all-things-considered flourishing, objectively greater than whatever amount of flourishing cockroaches are capable of.
Great, congratulations !
Incredible work, seriously! Thank you for writing this newsletter – it has done a really large amount of good already.
Can I get the paid subscription? Set up a $30/mo donation. Love this effort
High-shrimpact effectual kindness
I really do not understand the rationale of this effort to save shrimp. If they were not caught for human consumption, would they probably instead have been consumed by whales or other sea creatures? I understand a Buddhist respect for all life—even the annoying mosquito and fly in my bedroom — but to use Shelley’s phrase life is full of an eternally fierce destruction. Wish it were otherwise.
This doesn't affect that--the shrimp are still killed, just painlessly.
Amazing