If you want to read the longer defense of the RP numbers, you can read the RP report or my followup article on the subject https://benthams.substack.com/p/you-cant-tell-how-conscious-animals. Suffice it to say, it strikes me as deeply unwise to base your assessments of bee consciousness on how they look, rather than on behavior. I think the strong confidence that small and simple animals aren't intensely conscious rests on little more than unquestioned dogma, with nothing very persuasive having ever been said in its favor https://benthams.substack.com/p/betting-on-ubiquitous-pain. Also the RP report wasn't a poll!
I agree about the 97% number and have corrected it! I think the point made by the number--many more bees than e.g. fish--is correct, but I failed to add the relevant caveats.
Regarding 10% as bad as chicken, that still strikes me as pretty conservative. I think bees spend much of their time suffering from extreme temperatures, disease, etc, and thinking that's 10% as bad as the life of an average chicken (note: this is before adjusting for sentience differential) strikes me as pretty conservative.
The argument for insects mostly living bad lives is given in the linked post and in this post--if you live a super short life (days or weeks) you don't get enough welfare to outweigh the badness of a painful death.
The reason it has political potshots is that it was originally a blogpost and I just added it here. If I were writing it specifically for the forum, I wouldn't have added that--but I also am somewhat irritated by the EA forum culture where it feels like you have to write like you're making an academic paper rather than having any whimsy or fun!
Majorly disagree! I think that while probably you'd expect an animal to behave aversively in response to stimuli, it's surprising that:
etc