All of Aaron Boddy's Comments + Replies

Absolutely - as I've hopefully made clear above, shrimp paste is one of the biggest areas in the shrimp welfare space that we think another project could have an impact!

There are a couple of reasons why SWP is not working on it:

• The contexts are very different
  • Our current focus projects all operate within the context of: whiteleg shrimps, in aquaculture, being globally exported/imported. 
  • Shrimp paste on the other hand, is likely to be different on all counts: Japonicus shrimps, Wild-capture fisheries, domestic Southeast Asia/Southern China markets
  • We ess

Hey Angelina - thank you so much for your kind words! It’s really heartwarming to see your enthusiasm and interest in our work :)

Shrimp Size
The corporate producers we're working with supply "headless peeled shrimps" (mainly to Northern Europe) which tend to be smaller on average for this market

This is different for example to "head on, shell on shrimps", which are typically larger (and are mainly supplied to Asia and Southern Europe)

As we sign more commitments globally, we'll likely want to supply ranges per producer depending on the market they supply

Adju... (read more)

Agreed - for me the biggest piece of the puzzle I don't currently understand is the cultural experience... Our volunteer writing the report is from the Philippines, so although we want the report to be global, we're hoping to have a sort of case study (maybe conduct a few interviews or something) on the Philippines to add some on-the-ground context that would be difficult to get from desk-based research alone.

Also, someone from EA Philippines also once told me that shrimp paste is often fed to whale sharks, in order to keep them present in the waters year-... (read more)

Hi MHR! Thanks for your kind words, we're really excited about entering this next phase :)

Regarding your questions:

1. The calculation is the same, but the number we're reporting is different, this is due to a few factors:
   1. ~4,000/$/year is the actual cost-effectiveness of our stunners program to date, not including overheads other than the cost of the stunners themselves (1B / $247.5K)
   2. ~1,500/$/year in contrast, is the minimum cost-effectiveness of our stunners program going forward, which we commit to purchasing if the producer commits to stunning a minimum of

Thanks very much for this write-up MHR! We’ve recently published a “two-year update” post on the Forum, and wanted to reflect on some considerations we think most likely affect the Cost-Effectiveness of this project. Rather than including the below in that post, we thought it made sense to continue the discussion that had already started here.

• Considerations around the “Pain-Track” for this intervention, for example:
  • The intervention targets acute rather than chronic suffering. In some Pain-Tracks, Time spent suffering can overwhelmingly dominate t

Really enjoyed this - thanks for sharing!

Can't wait to hear/see the full musical when you're finished :)

Can I ask what your idea for an EA board game was? I've recently started designing board games as a hobby and I was thinking about trying to do an EA one :)

Hey Eric, this comment thread popped into my head today :) Are you able to share the list of relevant-to-EA video and board games at this time? I'm just super curious to know what they are and try some out!

Hi all - one of the co-founders of Shrimp Welfare Project (and a co-author of this report) here :) 

Unfortunately, Lucas, our Research Lead (and primary author of this report), will be leaving the team at the end of April. We are sad to see him go and are thankful for all the great work he has done within Shrimp Welfare Project. 

We are therefore looking for a new Research Lead to take over from April, before Lucas leaves, so that he can pass on all relevant information! If you are interested, you can find out more here. Applications can be submitt... (read more)

One of the co-founders from Shrimp Welfare Project here :) 

I agree - it was a real priority for us to not have a curled shrimp in our logo (which was tricky!) for this reason. And you're right, most shrimps that are farmed are whiteish or brownish (though there are over 2,000 species of shrimps, and some are very colourful!). Finally, as an alternative to the "go vegan" message that could accompany it, you could also explore an "expanding the moral circle" message (though as it's been noted previously with the "do good better" message, that this could... (read more)

Absolutely, go for it :) 

Hey there!

I've only recently finished the book, so don't have much advice regarding putting the principles into practice unfortunately... though hopefully someone else does and can comment here too :)  

A lot of the Principles relate to managing a bigger organisation than mine... Having said that I am trying to implement more robust decision tracking etc. in my org based on the ideas of thinking of your organisation as an optimisation "machine" to achieve a goal (and some of the suggestions he has in the book of how to do that)

The reason I pulled this ... (read more)

No problem, these are great questions!

And yes that's true, each stakeholder in the shrimp supply chain is usually driven by the demands of the next link (i.e. farmer - processor - importer - distributor - consumer). So when it comes down to it, often the distributor (retailer/restaurant etc.) can only make a change if they have reason to believe that the public is demanding change...

Though we are anticipating that we can make lots of progress before we reach public awareness as our limiting factor (the scale is just so huge!).

And we expect that in the mea... (read more)

There are lots of overlaps between welfare and sustainability, with a great overview provided by the Aquatic Life Institute [1] (we're hoping to publish a shrimp-focused look at the overlap of sustainability and welfare on our website soon!)

Our main concern is with super-intensive systems, in which many of these welfare issues are managed very well, but there are very high stocking densities. In less intensive systems, lower stocking densities can reduce stress and susceptibility to diseases, so we have a pretty good case for asking that they're reduced as... (read more)

You've hit the nail on the head! The idea on the face of it seems so unusual, but once I talk through the scale, neglectedness and tractability of the problem, I've yet to find anyone who isn't convinced by it (except maybe my parents...)

I have been slightly bowled over by the number of people who have "got it", but as you say, this is largely because I'm talking to EAs. But even with non-EAs, describing welfare issues such as eyestalk ablation, dying of disease or suffocating due to lack of oxygen seems to be pretty well understood and hasn't come across as controversial...

We're really excited to see what lies ahead for us, and can't wait to see the progress you make on insect welfare! :)

Great questions!

Advocacy: You're absolutely right, that's been our impressions of corporate advocacy work too and we're currently not expecting to drum up grassroots campaigns, or do any significant work on public awareness. Our expectation as it stands is that we can frame the benefits of shrimp welfare as a lever for sustainability. The Seafood Task Force has managed to make shrimp supply chain improvements driven by retail largely without the buy-in of consumers [1]. In addition, we hope to enable corporations to be leaders in this area, as consumer aw... (read more)

I loved watching this talk, thanks for sharing!

It would be great to talk further about this idea (though based on your talk, it would seem you have already given way more thought to it than I have)

I love this! 

I think for me a real barrier is the fact that I barrel ahead with the ideas too quickly... like I want to jump straight in at the deep-end with "we should think of all lives as equally important and we should be trying to consider the ways our donation can go farthest" - that idea on its own maybe isn't controversial, but probably hasn't engaged my conversational partner in the same way as in your example.  

One of the main motivations for me writing this post was to have a mental checklist when discussing EA so that I don't barrel a... (read more)

Ahh that's really interesting to know!

But yeah, I definitely would feel a bit manipulative if I didn't feel like I knew the person properly - I want to present to them ideas that I think they'd really engage with and would interest them, rather than giving them the impression I'm trying to force a viewpoint on them

We are actually going to discuss this article at my local university group next week, so it would be interesting to consider how we might apply the ideas to the group - thanks for the suggestion! :)

I found this really interesting and the difference between realization and belief reminded me of the Toyota Production System's concept of Genchi Genbutsu ("real location, real thing" or "go and see"). It basically states that you cannot be sure you really understand any part of any business problem unless you go and see for yourself firsthand - It is unacceptable to take anything for granted or to rely on the reports of others. 

How bad is it to exploit bees?

I agree that taking action to improve the welfare of farmed bees is positive.

But with other farmed animals such as chickens/pigs/cows, a significant goal to aim for is to ultimately bring fewer of those animals into existence in order to reduce overall suffering. 

But is that also the case for bee farming? Or do we instead want to increase the number of bees we farm because we need to increase commercial pollination services for a greater good? And if so, even if we weren't to intervene in bee welfare in any way, would we ... (read more)

This is great thanks I hadn't considered this! I found the Zvi post you're referring to if anyone else is interested.

Do you know if there has been any work to try and quantify this added value from Amazon? (Like in Meatonomics, David Robinson Simon discusses the hidden costs of meat, so a $4 Big Mac really costs society $11, so that extra $7 cost is absorbed by society). Is there any potential to calculate something similar with Amazon? e.g. every $1 someone spends on Amazon typically saves the consumer/society $X. 

I'm not an economist and I know that... (read more)

How bad is Amazon?

So there are a lot of reasons people don't like Amazon. It exploits its workers, it fights tax laws, it has a significant environmental impact etc.

But is Amazon net-negative from a consequentialist point of view, or is there a net-positive impact of Amazon? My rough thinking is:

• Jeff Bezos has projects such as Blue Origin which might be positive for longtermism.
• He recently donated $10billion to Climate Change with the Bezos Earth Fund (and this may continue?).
• He has been interested in some other short term philanthropy in the past. His ex-