Bird-safe glass may impact arthropods much more than birds?

Vasco Grilo🔸

Bird-safe glass may impact arthropods much more than birds?

Vasco Grilo🔸

7 min readApr 12

Comments

Bird-safe glass may impact arthropods much more than birds? — EA Forum

Jim Buhler

3mo

Is there any project you think may not impact arthropods and/or soil animals much more than whatever animals are targeted? I feel like exploring this would be far more insightful at this stage.

Vasco Grilo🔸

3mo

Hi Jim. No. For all the non-research interventions I am aware of, including all on Rethink Priorities' (RP's) Wild Animal Welfare Intervention Database (WAWID), I think the effects on soil animals or microorganisms may be much larger than those on the target beneficiaries. So I recommend decreasing the uncertainty about the effects on soil animals and microorganisms via research on i) their welfare, and ii) comparisons of welfare across species.

Jim Buhler

3mo

Curious what motivated you to spend time assessing the impact of bird-safe glass on arthropods, specifically, then. Were you hoping to find out that bird effects dominated but found and shared the opposite unsatisfying results? Or maybe you think "here's another example showing how indirect effects on tiny animals may dominate" and that this will convince some people to also prioritize (i) and (ii)? (people who were not convinced by your previous largely-overlapping posts but might by this one?)

Vasco Grilo🔸

3mo

Or maybe you think "here's another example showing how indirect effects on tiny animals may dominate" and that this will convince some people to also prioritize (i) and (ii)? (people who were not convinced by your previous largely-overlapping posts but might by this one?)

I was mostly motivated by this, but I would not be surprised if my post ends up having a very minor effect.

Zlatko Jovičić

3mo*

I agree with your logic, but I'm wondering how you psychologically deal with this? I find this type of thinking quite uncomfortable. In a way it taints all of our endeavors. Can anything be about what it was intended to be? Can bird safe glass be about birds?

Here's the most uncomfortable part and what I'm genuinely afraid of: it is the possibility to arrive at negative conclusion about an intervention that is by our very strong intuitions very positive, benevolent and altruistic, and that probably does, indeed help birds.

So if, after research, you arrived at this conclusion that such bird safe glass indeed hurts arthropods more than it helps birds, what would you do with this fact?

Would you advocate for stopping this type of interventions? Would you conclude we should let birds die by crashing into windows?

I personally think this is not a good approach. I think this constant triage is very cruel and cold as it directly puts interests of one group directly against the interest of other group.

My approach is probably more naive and maybe wrong at first sight from the utilitarian point of view, though it maybe be actually good when considered from more sophisticated utilitarian perspectives.

My approach would be to let interventions benefiting birds be about birds without worrying about effects on arthropods, while at the same time trying to directly help arthropods as well, by some other interventions directly aimed at arthropod welfare.

Since you care a lot about arthropods and soil animals and think that their welfare should dominate our moral concerns, maybe it would be valuable to try to think of interventions that could directly help them without hurting other animals or damaging the whole ecosystems.

BTW, my hunch is that they don't have net negative welfare, and even if they do have net negative welfare the solution is not to consider their extermination, but to wait until we're so advanced technologically that we can turn their welfare positive instead of simply eliminating them.

I'm saying this because elimination of certain species that we consider to be suffering, would be a dangerous precedent, that's first, and second it would damage biosphere. Some other animals eat them for food, so if you remove arthropods, you also remove food for those other animals.

So my take is to try to find very conservative ways of helping arthropods directly without eliminating them, without having strong negative effects on other animals and humans, and without causing us to evaluate every other intervention that is focused on other beneficiaries in terms of how it affects arthropods.

So my take is that concern for arthropods and concern for other beneficiaries should not be mixed. It should be two separate things. Both are worthy and valuable, but one should not be judged in terms of other.

Also, interventions that directly help arthropods and soil animals could plausibly have more effects on their welfare than interventions where effects on arthropods and soil animals are just a side effect.

Vasco Grilo🔸

3mo

Thank you for the comment, Zlatko.

I agree with your logic, but I'm wondering how you psychologically deal with this?

I sometimes feel a bit demotivated that increasing welfare seems very hard. However, I try to focus on what I can do to improve the situation. I also find comfort in determinism. I already thought I could not contribute to a better or worse world even before learning about effects on soil animals. I believe what I do (or, more precisely, the probabilities of my potential actions) is fully determined by the laws of physics.

Here's the most uncomfortable part and what I'm genuinely afraid of: it is the possibility to arrive at negative conclusion about an intervention that is by our very strong intuitions very positive, benevolent and altruistic, and that probably does, indeed help birds.

I am not confident that bird-safe glass increases the welfare of birds. From Mal's post:

Birds saved from window collisions don't become immortal — they die later from other causes, most commonly predation, as far as we can tell (Hill et al., 2019). Based on age-structured mortality models for affected species like song sparrows, collision victims who survive gain approximately 1–2 additional years of life^[1]. Whether this is net positive depends on comparing the suffering of window collision deaths versus alternative deaths (predominantly predation), plus the value of those additional life-years. Critically, if the difference in the amount of suffering caused by the new death outweighs the joy gained from an additional 1–2 years of life, the intervention could be net negative for birds themselves. Whether you think this is possible or likely depends both on empirical facts we don’t currently have access to, as well as philosophical beliefs about what makes a life worth living.

I personally think this is not a good approach. I think this constant triage is very cruel and cold as it directly puts interests of one group directly against the interest of other group.

We are always in triage?

My approach would be to let interventions benefiting birds be about birds without worrying about effects on arthropods, while at the same time trying to directly help arthropods as well, by some other interventions directly aimed at arthropod welfare.

Would you advocate for bird-safe glass if it increased the welfare of birds, but robustly increased suffering, and robustly decreased happiness accounting for effects on soil animals and microorganisms?

Since you care a lot about arthropods and soil animals and think that their welfare should dominate our moral concerns

I can see the total welfare of soil animals being practically negligible or all that matter. For individual welfare per fully-healthy-animal-year proportional to "individual number of neurons"^"exponent", and "exponent" from 0 to 2, which covers the best guesses that I consider reasonable, I estimate that the absolute value of the total welfare of soil ants, termites, springtails, mites, and nematodes is 2.04*10^-5 to 17.9 billion times the total welfare of humans.

maybe it would be valuable to try to think of interventions that could directly help them without hurting other animals or damaging the whole ecosystems

I agree. I do not recommend pursuing interventions aiming to change land use, or decrease the welfare of non-soil animals.

I recommend research on i) the welfare of soil animals and microorganisms, and ii) comparisons of welfare across species.

So my take is that concern for arthropods and concern for other beneficiaries should not be mixed. It should be two separate things. Both are worthy and valuable, but one should not be judged in terms of other.

Would you advocate for an intervention which harms a group of people A much more than it benefits another group of people B? If not, one should also consider not advocating for an interventions which may harm a group of animals C much more than it benefits another group of animals D?

Also, interventions that directly help arthropods and soil animals could plausibly have more effects on their welfare than interventions where effects on arthropods and soil animals are just a side effect.

I agree.

Zlatko Jovičić

3mo*

Here's my kind-of logic. Basically it's based on some principles:

that everyone matters - so if we can help birds in ways that seem cheap and straightforward we should do it
that side effects of certain interventions (in this case increased suffering of arthropods) can be compensated in a similar way as you compensate carbon emissions by buying carbon offsets. So if you increase suffering of arthropods by helping birds, you should make sure that you also decrease suffering of arthropods by helping them directly by interventions directly aimed at them. My hope is that such interventions could be much more effective, so that side effects of helping birds becomes a rounding error. This is just a HOPE not a claim that we can actually achieve this.
There are some other considerations but then it would get too long.
Regarding the following:

Based on age-structured mortality models for affected species like song sparrows, collision victims who survive gain approximately 1–2 additional years of life^[1]. Whether this is net positive depends on comparing the suffering of window collision deaths versus alternative deaths (predominantly predation), plus the value of those additional life-years. Critically, if the difference in the amount of suffering caused by the new death outweighs the joy gained from an additional 1–2 years of life, the intervention could be net negative for birds themselves.

First, I think even if the pain that ends bird's life in case of predation is indeed much worse than pain caused by hitting a window - 1-2 additional years of life are probably worth it. First of all hitting a window isn't painless either. Second, a bird can survive hitting a window and end up disabled. Third, if the bird is killed by predation, it ends her life, so no matter how painful it was while it lasted, the bird doesn't deal with trauma afterwards. It's bad but lasts very short time. Unsuccessful predation that leaves bird dismembered and traumatized, but alive, is probably much worse.

Now even more importantly, I think we shouldn't even think in this way. If we conclude that extra years of life are net negative for birds, what should we do? Should we go and kill all birds? This is a very negative attitude towards life. I think the good thing about suffering at the end of life is that it isn't endless, and as soon as it ends, the there's nothing more for those birds. It is not remembered it doesn't leave trauma or disability (except in cases of unsuccessful predation) But I guess they should live as long as possible before that. Thinking otherwise would mean that we are in principle supporting painless euthanasia of animals, to protect them in advance from life itself. I think it's not a good way to think about life.

I think there are some higher principles, such as that life is good in principle. And interventions should improve welfare, but not to the detriment of life itself. If some pain is inevitable part of life at this stage of our development, I think it's better to accept it than to rebel against the idea of life itself.

We are always in triage?

I know this, but I think offsets can help us escape it. There are things that matter for different reasons. Birds matter because we love birds, and we want to help them, and helping them is generally good, if you are looking at the action in itself. Side effects are not immanent to helping birds. So for side effects, you "buy offsets" by helping arthropods directly.

Would you advocate for bird-safe glass if it increased the welfare of birds, but robustly increased suffering, and robustly decreased happiness accounting for effects on soil animals and microorganisms?

Probably yes, but with buying offsets. I can't logically explain it but I think bird welfare matters for more reasons than just utility calculus. Birds matter in their own right... like they are ends in themselves. They are not means for increasing the amount of pleasure in the Universe. They matter for their own sake, and they have been important for humans for ages, and eating bugs might even be useful... Maybe it is way to keep insect population from exploding, which would likely produce many unhappy insects. So yes, I would help birds anyway, but in case I'm really sure about negative effects on bugs, I would try to eventually offset it by directly helping arthropods by some other intervention. Maybe not immediately, but eventually, helping arthropods would be on my agenda.

Would you advocate for an intervention which harms a group of people A much more than it benefits another group of people B? If not, one should also consider not advocating for an interventions which may harm a group of animals C much more than it benefits another group of animals D?

No. But I think the two situations are not really analogous.

First of all, all people are in the same category according to most moral theories. Birds and arthropods don't seem to be in the same category. Second interventions that help one group of people and harm other group even more don't seem like they could look good on any intuitive measure. It would seem like some form of exploitation, slavery, war, genocide, or something like this, which doesn't look good.

Third, windows are not a natural part of environment, it's something introduced by us, that directly harms birds. Predation of worms and bugs by birds has always been there and it might have benefits for the birds, for the ecosystem, and perhaps even for the bugs, if it keeps their number in check and avoids overpopulation, which could result in much worse life conditions, hunger, etc... Of course it won't help the insect that's eaten, but it might help the population of insects as whole by controlling their population.

Vasco Grilo🔸

2mo

everyone matters - so if we can help birds in ways that seem cheap and straightforward we should do it

Imagine an intervention can help a group of people "in ways that seem cheap and straightforward", but this may decrease human welfare due harming a much larger group of people, and that overall you are very uncertain about whether the intervention increases or decreases human welfare (in expectation). To increase human welfare, it would be reasonable to invest less in that intervention, and instead pursue ones which decrease the uncertainty about its effects, or ones which robustly increase human welfare? I agree that everyone matters, but this is precisely what makes me more pessimistic about bird-safe glass. I think one should account for effects on all potential beings.

Now even more importantly, I think we shouldn't even think in this way. If we conclude that extra years of life are net negative for birds, what should we do? Should we go and kill all birds?

The welfare of birds can be increased by decreasing the number of birds with negative lives, but also by improving their lives (making them less negative or positive), and this may increase the welfare of birds more cost-effectively. Would you oppose killing a bird if this was the most cost-effective way of increasing its welfare? If yes, do you oppose euthanising pets even when this is the most cost-effective way of increasing their welfare?

I know this, but I think offsets can help us escape it.

Money used for offsets can be used for other altruistic purposes. For example, according to Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE), The Humane League (THL) helped 11 chickens per $ in 2024, and the Shrimp Welfare Project's (SWP's) Humane Slaughter Initiative (HSI) helped 10.4 k shrimps per $ in 2024. So one has to decide between helping 1 chicken or 945 shrimps (= 10.4*10^3/11).

eating bugs might even be useful... Maybe it is way to keep insect population from exploding

I do not understand. Catching wild insects for human consumption would be more expensive than increasing the production of farmed insects, and this would require a greater population of farmed insects.

First of all, all people are in the same category according to most moral theories.

Which moral theories put birds and insects in different categories?

Second interventions that help one group of people and harm other group even more don't seem like they could look good on any intuitive measure. It would seem like some form of exploitation, slavery, war, genocide, or something like this, which doesn't look good.

The actions you have in mind described by the above have looked intuitive to lots of people at certain points in history, even if they were described differently when they were performed?

Third, windows are not a natural part of environment, it's something introduced by us, that directly harms birds. Predation of worms and bugs by birds has always been there and it might have benefits for the birds, for the ecosystem, and perhaps even for the bugs, if it keeps their number in check and avoids overpopulation, which could result in much worse life conditions, hunger, etc... Of course it won't help the insect that's eaten, but it might help the population of insects as whole by controlling their population.

Vaccines are not naturally part of the human environment, and the diseases they mitigate could be a good way of keeping human population in check, even though they harm the people who suffer from them?

Zlatko Jovičić

2mo

And I think one should account for effects on all potential beings.

If you have certainty that intervention X harms group B much more than it helps group A, then you're right that we should scrutinize such intervention much more, and probably, in most cases, refrain from doing it.

But, probably it would still be unwise to refrain from it in all cases. Because, if humanity didn't prioritize its own interests, if it wasn't partial to some extent, it would not be able to achieve any progress. Only our partiality and focusing on development of our own human civilization, technology and welfare has allowed us to even get to this point where we can discuss effects we have on animals. Taking care about our own interests has brought us to the edge of singularity and has opened up the theoretical possibility that we can some time in the future bring about this welfare to other beings as well.

But we should probably take care about ourselves first and make the world robustly good for humans. I wouldn't feel particularly good about myself letting kids die due to concerns for insects or even chicken.

Situation in which kids die of preventable diseases is tragic and dystopian. I think we should first take care of our own dystopia and try to make conditions less dystopian to humans. If we successfully achieve this, then we can start using more and more of our resources for helping other animals, while making sure our own standard stays at some decent level.

I think for making decisions like this, it could be good to have a long term vision of what kind of world you would like to live in and to work towards such a vision... instead of just looking on single actions and judging how much positive and negative utility do they cause.

If the strategic long term goal is the world in which both humans and most other animals flourish and are spared from extinction, then we should work towards this goal strategically.

Letting kids die because they might eat chicken or letting birds die because they might eat bugs, doesn't seem like a good step towards that goal.

If arthropods dominate your concerns from the very start, then probably no one else will ever be your priority.

And arthropod related calculus can likely spoil any other beneficial action that you might want to take for any other beneficiary. It can paralyze you and stop you from doing anything.

I on the other hand think in a different paradigm. The paradigm of "solving problems".

Like malaria is a problem. Let's solve it. Birds crashing into windows, that's a problem, let's solve it.

Once you have solved human problems and problems of some animals closer to us, you already have a world that looks much more like this vision that I mentioned.

Then the next step would be to help smaller animals and arthropods as well. But how?

Not by cutting down the days of those with net negative lives, but by finding advanced, probably AI-powered ways to turn every sentient life into net positive.

It doesn't mean that we should overpopulate planet with insects because now they are happy. It means that their number should be ecologically sustainable and harmonious with other forms of life, while they who do live, they should be happy.

So my take is not "make happy insects / people" or whatever, but make insects/people happy.

But people first.

Because there are many moral frameworks that don't consider them to be in the same category, and thinking that you're sure that such frameworks are false is not intellectually humble.

Would you oppose killing a bird if this was the most cost-effective way of increasing its welfare? If yes, do you oppose euthanising pets even when this is the most cost-effective way of increasing their welfare?

Yes, I would oppose it, unless the bird is already suffering irredeemably like, terrible illness or disability. I would ignore the effects of future potential predation, as the bird can still live for some time before it happens. My judgement comes from my own subjective experience. I would rather be eaten at the age of 80, than be euthanized today. Of course I would not like to be eaten ever. But if I have to choose, better be eaten at 80 than be euthanized today. And I think this choice is completely normal.

Yes, I in general oppose euthanising pets because in many, or most of the cases we do it for our own sake and for our own convenience. If you have a pet stay with it till the end. If you wouldn't euthanize your terminally ill mother, you shouldn't euthanize your dog either. Mother can consent, dog can't. We shouldn't do it against their consent. If people are good proxy for what dog would choose, then most dogs would NOT choose euthanizia, for the very same reason why most people don't choose euthanasia.

The ill dog can even have some real fun in last days with morphine or other drugs (I'm not joking... opioids cause euphoria and pleasure to everyone)

Money used for offsets can be used for other altruistic purposes. For example, according to Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE), The Humane League (THL) helped 11 chickens per $ in 2024, and the Shrimp Welfare Project's (SWP's) Humane Slaughter Initiative (HSI) helped 10.4 k shrimps per $ in 2024. So one has to decide between helping 1 chicken or 945 shrimps (= 10.4*10^3/11).

But if we're talking about arthropods here, the offset I mentioned are interventions in favor of arthropods. Directly. Even if they weren't offsets, they would be excellent interventions on their own terms. My estimate is that doing bird glass intervention with offset would likely have effects like this:

Bird windows - somewhat positive for birds, more negative for bugs

(lets say birds get 10 utils, bugs lose 100 utils), so it's net -90 so far.

Paying offsets... since arthropod related offsets are extremely cheap and effective, you're likely to buy way more utils for way less money. If you spent $50 on birds, you can likely for just $10 buy 1000 or more utils for arthropods. But bird intervention is the thing that would push you to consider offsets in the first place.

So in the end you can end up like -90 (bird windows) + 1000 (offset) = 910 total.

That's fantastic in my book. And it works both towards increasing utility, and towards making a world less problematic and dystopian place. You eliminate windows that hurt birds and that make the world more dystopian, and it motivates you to help arthropods directly which increases utils very strongly.

I do not understand. Catching wild insects for human consumption would be more expensive than increasing the production of farmed insects, and this would require a greater population of farmed insects.

I was talking about birds. They eat insects in the wild. This lowers insect population. No farming is involved.

Which moral theories put birds and insects in different categories?

Maybe those that look at flourishing as well, and not just pleasure and pain. If you think there are some higher, and deeper values and flourishing, maybe birds can experience more of it. It's basically the logic that was behind the famous quote: "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is only because they only know their own side of the question." It's a quote by John Stuart Mill.

The actions you have in mind described by the above have looked intuitive to lots of people at certain points in history, even if they were described differently when they were performed?

You make a good point here. But I think my defense of actions such as sending money to AMF or making bird windows are defended a little better here than most of the past defenses of colonialism, slavery, etc...

Regarding bird windows intervention I don't feel very strongly about it at all. I never donated for such a thing, and some other charities would be higher on my priority list for donation. I would probably donate to something else. So far I mostly donated to Give Well charities, and once I donated to Animal Charity Evaluators fund.

So it's not that I'm a big fan of this particular intervention. I am just defending the right of people to do it, if they choose, in principle. I'm just arguing that concern for arthropods shouldn't stop you from trying to help birds if this is what you want to do. I'm arguing that those secondary effects, in this particular case probably don't disqualify bird window intervention and they don't make it a bad thing to do.

Vaccines are not naturally part of the human environment, and the diseases they mitigate could be a good way of keeping human population in check, even though they harm the people who suffer from them?

Unfortunate truth is that predation is often the only way to balance populations of various animals. But humans probably deserve better, because they have, through their own effort invented vaccines, and also agriculture and food industry that allows them to have greater populations.

And by the way human population growth is slowing down and could likely reverse by the end of this century. So our own lack of enthusiasm for kids keeps our numbers in check even without such diseases.

I am not sure if it makes sense to constantly compare how things work in human society versus how they work among animals. The difference between us are too big. For the start arthropods aren't discussing human welfare in depth.

We are kind of willing to help them eventually. We think they matter. But most people think we should prioritize making our own civilization stronger and more robust and such things have typically led to moral progress as well.

In my opinion the world in which kids die and birds crash in the window is not solved. Prioritizing arthropods before problems like that are solved, could, IMO, lead to situation in which we never solve most of the problems.

Maybe you're right if we're strictly thinking on margin. In this case you can say, on margin, for me it's best to help arthropods. And it might indeed be the case. In your particular case you have this kind of luck that your visceral care is so well aligned with utilitarian calculus. So you can help arthropods and feel great about it.

But IMO, marginal thinking most of the time relies on other people doing less effective things that are still necessary. Implicitly there's reliance on other people doing other useful things. If everyone just cared about arthropods, we'd probably collapse as a civilization quite quickly.

But if people like you benefit arthropods, that would probably be a great thing.

I might occasionally, but probably not always join you in this endeavor.

Vasco Grilo🔸

2mo

But we should probably take care about ourselves first and make the world robustly good for humans. I wouldn't feel particularly good about myself letting kids die due to concerns for insects or even chicken.

Do you think there should still be some spending on animal welfare? Each 4 k$ or so spent on animal welfare could have saved one child if donated to GiveWell's top charities.

The ill dog can even have some real fun in last days with morphine or other drugs (I'm not joking... opioids cause euphoria and pleasure to everyone)

Interesting perspective.

Maybe you're right if we're strictly thinking on margin. In this case you can say, on margin, for me it's best to help arthropods. And it might indeed be the case. In your particular case you have this kind of luck that your visceral care is so well aligned with utilitarian calculus. So you can help arthropods and feel great about it.

Yes, I am thinking at the margin. I believe soil animals are very neglected in the current portfolio of animal welfare interventions. The animal advocacy movement spent around 259 M$ in 2024. The vast majority was spent on farmed animals, and almost nothing on soil animals. I am only aware of 2 projects on soil invertebrates funded by WAI on spiders totalling 56.9 k$ (= (29.9 + 27.0)*10^3). If one of these happened in 2024, spending on research on soil invertebrates was 0.0110 % (= 56.9*10^3/2/(259*10^6)) of that targeting farmed animals. In contrast, I estimate there are 959 M times as many soil animals as farmed animals, and that soil animals have 13.6 k times as many neurons in total as farmed animals. The ratio between total number of neurons and spending is 124 M (= 13.6*10^3/(1.10*10^-4)) times as large for soil animals as for farmed animals. I am very uncertain about whether the total number of neurons is a good proxy for potential benefits, but I see it as a reasonable option.

Zlatko Jovičić

2mo*

Do you think there should still be some spending on animal welfare? Each 4 k$ or so spent on animal welfare could have saved one child if donated to GiveWell's top charities.

I am a bit conflicted about it, but I think YES, we should spend some on animal welfare, but not all of our donation money.

My intuition is to take the word "philanthropy" and understand it literally. If you want to call yourself philanthropist you must be helping people... Because it literally means "love of people".

Also if you asked most world religions what they mean by charity, I guess in most of the cases they would tell you "helping the poor" and "helping people" in general.

If we stop doing it, I think we're making a mistake.

So I think a non-negotiable part of our donation budget should go to human charities. And the rest of it, we can spend freely on other causes, like X risk prevention and animal welfare, including arthropods.

X risk prevention seems to be especially good, as it could help both humans and animals at the same time.

P.S.

Could you recommend any charity directly concerned with soil animals and arthropods that you think is good and that you yourself donate to? I'd like to know, perhaps I could donate some.

Also I'm wondering if they do just research at this phase, or are they already actively helping?

Vasco Grilo🔸

2mo

Could you recommend any charity directly concerned with soil animals and arthropods that you think is good and that you yourself donate to? I'd like to know, perhaps I could donate some.
Also I'm wondering if they do just research at this phase, or are they already actively helping?

I am glad you are open to supporting work targeting invertebrates. My top recommendation for this is funding the Arthropoda Foundation. I donated a few k$ to them last year. Here is the post announcing their launch, and here is their post during the last Marginal Funding Week. They have been funding research informing how to increase the welfare of farmed arthropods, and "are particularly interested in research with a clear path to impact, whether by shaping future science or informing real-world decision-making".

Zlatko Jovičić

2mo

OK, thank you Vasco, both for conversation and for recommendation.

I hope they do some good work and achieve something for arthropods.

Vasco Grilo🔸

2mo

Thank you too for making me understand your perspective better. I think it is shared by many people.

Hans Schönberg 🔸

2mo

"I speculate birds cause 1 s of excruciating pain to each arthropod they eat. So I estimate the decrease in the welfare of each arthropod is equal to that from them losing 24 h of fully healthy life"

Did you just equal 1 second of suffering to a whole day of good life?

I like Peter Godfrey-Smiths concept of a life worth living and the thought experiments that come with it. So basically you get to decide if you want to be reborn and live the life of certain animal or not. If you say you would take the chance to live a certain life, you consider this to be a life worth living. So in this case it would be like living a perfect day in insect form and in the end I get eaten. The pain is intense but since it's only one second I will hardly notice it.

Or I get the chance of living a full 2 good months in insect form and in the end I live through a very painful one minute fight for life and death that I lose. For me both examples are not even remotely close calls but if they are close calls for you than negative utilitarism makes intuitively sense to you, while I don't get it. To be honest if you give me the chance to live just through the fight I would still take it cause it's exciting and if I don't take it, there is nothing.

This whole concept that whole species might have net negative lifes has some arbitrariness to it. If some people feel that 1 second of excruciating pain is worth 24 hours of living while others think it's not a big deal you can just type in any numbers in your calculations in order to get the result you want. It would be interesting to set up similar thought experiments and ask people in war zones or tribal communities how they feel about those things. They definitely know more about pain and the struggle to survive than we do.

Vasco Grilo🔸

2mo

Hi.

"I speculate birds cause 1 s of excruciating pain to each arthropod they eat. So I estimate the decrease in the welfare of each arthropod is equal to that from them losing 24 h of fully healthy life"
Did you just equal 1 second of suffering to a whole day of good life?

The sentence before the one you quoted above has the additional context.

I guess I am roughly indifferent between 1 s of excruciating pain, like “severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture”, and losing 24 h of fully healthy life. I speculate birds cause 1 s of excruciating pain to each arthropod they eat. So I estimate the decrease in the welfare of each arthropod is equal to that from them losing 24 h of fully healthy life (= 24*60/22.4).

I assume that 1 s of excruciating pain (very extreme suffering) is as bad as losing 24 h of fully healthy life.

I like Peter Godfrey-Smiths concept of a life worth living and the thought experiments that come with it. So basically you get to decide if you want to be reborn and live the life of certain animal or not. If you say you would take the chance to live a certain life, you consider this to be a life worth living.

I like this thought experiment too.

If some people feel that 1 second of excruciating pain is worth 24 hours of living while others think it's not a big deal you can just type in any numbers in your calculations in order to get the result you want.

My conclusions do not depend on whether arthropods have positive or negative lives. "For simplicity, I ignore changes in the population of arthropods", and I still conclude bird-sage glass may impact arthropods much more than birds.

Hans Schönberg 🔸

2mo

I totally agree with your conclusion. I like to read your posts and I'm sorry for derailing this one. I was just genuinly surprised anyone would assume that one single second of any pain could be "as bad as losing 24 h of fully healthy life."

Vasco Grilo🔸

2mo

I think your question was relevant. I did not feel like you were derailing the post. Thanks for the support.

Criticism of effective altruist causes

Summary

Loss et al. (2014) “estimate that between 365 and 988 million birds (median = 599 million) are killed annually by building collisions in the U.S. [United States]”. Bird-safe glass is “specially designed to make glass a visible obstacle to birds”, and therefore decrease the number of birds killed by building collisions. In this post, I illustrate that (replacing standard with) bird-safe glass may change the welfare of arthropods much more than that of birds.
I calculate wild insectivorous birds eat 23.4 k arthropods per bird-year, which implies the birds live for 22.4 bird-minutes for each arthropod they eat.
I conclude bird-safe glass can easily increase or decrease welfare. I believe it may impact arthropods way more than birds, and I have very little idea about whether it increases or decreases the welfare of arthropods.
I recommend research on i) the welfare of soil animals and microorganisms, and ii) comparisons of (expected hedonistic) welfare across species. I think progress on ii) is difficult, but necessary to find interventions which robustly increase welfare. I also see lots of room for progress on ii) to change funding decisions even neglecting soil animals and microorganisms. For welfare range proportional to “individual number of neurons”^“exponent”, and “exponent” from 0 to 2, which covers the best guesses that I consider reasonable, the welfare range of shrimps is 10^-12 to 1 times that of humans.
I am sceptical that targeting non-soil animals is a great way to build capacity to increase the welfare of soil animals later. I believe the most cost-effective ways of building capacity to help any given group of animals will generally be optimised with such animals in mind. I would also expect much more investigation of the extent to which interventions targeting non-soil animals are building capacity to increase the welfare of soil animals if this was key to whether they are increasing or decreasing animal welfare.

Context

Loss et al. (2014) “estimate that between 365 and 988 million birds (median = 599 million) are killed annually by building collisions in the U.S. [United States]”. Bird-safe glass is “specially designed to make glass a visible obstacle to birds”, and therefore decrease the number of birds killed by building collisions. Mal Graham has argued there is significant uncertainty about whether bird-safe glass increases or decreases the welfare of birds and other animals. In this post, I illustrate that bird-safe glass may change the welfare of arthropods much more than that of birds.

Arthropods eaten by birds

Here are my calculations.

I assume the target birds have a mean mass of 26.4 g. I get this from the mean between the means for white-throated sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, ovenbirds, and song sparrows, which are the most commonly killed according to Loss et al. (2014). “Of 92,869 records used for analysis, the species most commonly reported as building kills (collectively representing 35% of all records) were White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis), Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis), Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla), and Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia)”. I set the mean mass for each species to the mean between the lower and upper bounds from All About Birds.

I suppose wild insectivorous birds eat 421 Mt of arthropods per year. I get this from a weighted mean of the lower and upper bounds from Nyffeler et al. (2018). I put a weight of 2/3 on 396 Mt, and 1/3 on 472 Mt. They say the “true value” is “most likely at the lower end of this range”. Nyffeler et al. (2018) says “the standing biomass of the global community of insectivorous birds might be on the order of ≈ 3 million tons”. So I infer wild insectivorous birds eat 140 kg of arthropods per year per kg of birds. Combining this with my mean mass for the target birds, I determine that wild insectivorous birds eat 3.70 kg of arthropods per bird-year.

I estimate the target birds eat 6.33 k arthropods per kg of arthropods. I get this for an individual mass of arthropods of 0.158 g, which is the mean of a lognormal distribution with 8th and 99.99th percentile of 0.481 mg and 1.65 g. Gemini 3.1 Pro on 31 March 2026 estimated 8 % of the arthropods eaten by the 4 bird species I mentioned above are lighter than 0.481 mg, and 0.01 % are heavier than 1.65 g. Dark-eyed juncos eat aphids, and these have a mean mass of “0.4809 mg” according to Maia et al. (2020). Song sparrows eat grasshoppers, and I found a fact sheet mentioning a mean mass of female three-banded grasshoppers of “1,654 mg”.

I calculate from the above that wild insectivorous birds eat 23.4 k arthropods per bird-year, which implies the birds live for 22.4 bird-minutes for each arthropod they eat.

Discussion

Bird-safe glass may impact arthropods much more than birds

My intuition based on the numbers above alone is that bird-safe glass may change the welfare of arthropods much more or less than that of birds. I explore this further below, but ultimately arrive at the same conclusion. For simplicity, I ignore changes in the population of arthropods, and in the welfare of birds due to these dying in some other way due to avoiding collisions with buildings.

I guess I am roughly indifferent between 1 s of excruciating pain, like “severe burning in large areas of the body, dismemberment, or extreme torture”, and losing 24 h of fully healthy life. I speculate birds cause 1 s of excruciating pain to each arthropod they eat. So I estimate the decrease in the welfare of each arthropod is equal to that from them losing 24 h of fully healthy life (= 24*60/22.4). This is a loss of 64.3 fully-healthy-arthropod-years per bird-year (= 24*60/22.4).

One can clarify the comparison above using the tentative (expected) welfare ranges in Bob Fischer’s book about comparing welfare across species. That of chickens is 5.48 (= 0.40/0.073) times that of black soldier flies (BSFs). Welfare range is defined there as the difference between the maximum and minimum welfare per unit time among “realistic biological possibilities”. I do not expect the welfare range of the target birds to dramatically differ from 5.48 times that of random arthropods they eat under the methodology of Bob’s book. I would be surprised if the welfare range of the target birds was meaningfully different from that of chickens, or if that of random arthropods they eat was dramatically different from that of BSFs. In addition, I think it is reasonable to assume that individual welfare per fully-healthy-animal-year is proportional to the welfare range. So I suppose 1 fully-healthy-bird-year has 5.48 times as much welfare as 1 fully-healthy-arthropod-year. In this case, the decrease in the welfare of the arthropods eaten by the birds corresponds to a loss of 11.7 fully-healthy-bird-years per bird-year (= 64.3/5.48).

I speculate the lives of the target birds are 50 % as good as fully healthy lives. So I conclude from the above that the effects on arthropods are 23.4 (= 11.7/0.5) times as large as those on the birds.

My practical conclusion is that bird-safe glass may change the welfare of arthropods much more or less than that of birds. The final comparison above suggests the effects on arthropods are much larger than those on birds. Nonetheless, there is large uncertainty in the change in the living time of birds and arthropods, change in the welfare of birds due to these dying in some other way due to avoiding collisions with buildings, change in the welfare of arthropods due to these being eaten by birds instead of dying in some other way, and welfare comparisons across species.

Bird-safe glass can easily increase or decrease welfare

I conclude bird-safe glass can easily increase or decrease welfare. I believe it may impact arthropods way more than birds, and I have very little idea about whether it increases or decreases the welfare of arthropods. I do not know which species of arthropods are the most important to determine the change in the welfare of arthropods given the large uncertainty in welfare comparisons across species. I can see the most important arthropods being the smallest, largest, ones with intermediate mass, or any combination of these. To make matters worse, I have almost no clue about whether any species of wild arthropods has positive or negative lives in a given biome. I am also very uncertain about which arthropods become more or less abundant as a result of changes in the population of birds.

What now?

I recommend research on i) the welfare of soil animals and microorganisms, and ii) comparisons of welfare across species. I think progress on ii) is difficult, but necessary to find interventions which robustly increase welfare. For instance, ones that focus on the greatest sources of suffering across all species. I also see lots of room for progress on ii) to change funding decisions even neglecting soil animals and microorganisms. In Bob’s book, the tentative welfare range of shrimps is 8.0 % of that of humans. However, for welfare range proportional to “individual number of neurons”^“exponent”, and “exponent” from 0 to 2, which covers the best guesses that I consider reasonable, the welfare range of shrimps is 10^-12 (= (10^-6)^2) to 1 times that of humans, as shrimps have 10^-6 times as many neurons as humans.

I would prioritise the above research over the “ecologically inert” interventions which have been proposed so far. I suspect interventions decreasing the pre-slaughter pain of farmed invertebrates are the closest to robustly increasing welfare (in expectation). However, I still do not know whether electrically stunning farmed shrimps increases or decreases welfare due to potentially dominant effects on soil animals and microorganisms. Furthermore, I would say such interventions may increase welfare only negligibly due to their target invertebrates having a super narrow welfare range, as it would be the case if shrimps had a welfare range equal to 10^-12 times that of humans.

Targeting non-soil animals is a great way to build capacity to increase the welfare of soil animals later?

I am sceptical. I believe the most cost-effective ways of building capacity to help any given group of animals will generally be optimised with such animals in mind. I would also expect much more investigation of the extent to which interventions targeting non-soil animals are building capacity to increase the welfare of soil animals if this was key to whether they are increasing or decreasing animal welfare.