All of Aditya_Karanam's Comments + Replies

Interesting. I think it might be useful to have more studies on this. For example, one uncertainty is about net welfare across time, i.e if it decreases the net population or if some other group of animals fill in to consume the available resources. Also since it mentions that anthropogenic noise increases cortisol by 90-120x in fishes, I wonder how we should trade off against the stress this causes animals in short term vs the population reduction. 

  • Conduct research to map the source of harms and pleasures that they go through, alongside the weight of their interests. Basically their life history.
  • Identify interventions to reduce the harms that they go through in a cost effective way.
  • If they are r strategists and intrinsically are prone to high juvenile mortality, identifying fertility management measures to decrease the harms that they go through. 
3
Vasco Grilo🔸
Thanks for the good points, Aditya! I wonder how one would increase the funding and researchers available for such research.

Interesting post, curious if your motivation with this post is to promote that animal advocates eat animals? Anyway, I have a couple of objections here.

  • I’m not convinced that vegan diets are inherently less healthy. The evidence cited is mostly observational and confounded, while large cohort studies and position statements from bodies like the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics show that well-planned vegan diets can support good health at all stages of life. Poorly planned vegan diets can cause deficiencies, but a better direction to move towards is how t
... (read more)
3
Vittoria
Thank you for writing this comment, this is exactly what I thought while reading the article. I'd like to add a couple of extra points: - B12 is not produced by animals, but by a certain type of bacteria in the soil. Our depleted soil doesn't produce it anymore, so B12 has to be artificially produced and given to animals - because they need it too - and, by eating those animals, we absorb their B12. It's just easier and causes way less suffering to directly eat my B12 as a supplement every day. - The best source of omega 3 is not fish, as many think. The same applies to calcium (the best source is not milk) and even to vitamins found only in plant-based food (like Vitamin C in oranges). There are so many misconceptions, primarily driven by marketing campaigns, that we are just used to connecting one type of nutrient to one type of food, because nobody has ever told us that there were better alternatives. - In general, people don't diversify: they eat the same vegetables over and over again, and that's the primary issue when it comes to vitamin and mineral absorption. They also don't know how to combine them (e.g. to better absorb iron from plant-based sources, we need to combine it with food rich in vitamin C (e.g. eating dark chocolate in your breakfast yogurt? Have a glass of warm water an lemon on the side. Lentil soup for dinner? Combine it with kale or broccoli) To conclude: no diet is healthy if you don't diversify. And between a well planned omnivore diet and a well planned plant-based diet, the second one has been proven to be healthier. 

Interesting question. Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies (CEERT) was recommended by Brian. This organisation focuses specifically on efficiency improvements and renewable energy, rather than habitat or biomass preservation. You can view more of his reasoning here . There are probably other effective charities out there that focuses on energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Upvoted! I liked the reasoning of your post, Highlighting the qualitative difference assuming non aggregationism , to show how they both need to be represented in their own seperate horrors. I think most animal activists use this analogy mainly to immediately communicate the badness of animal agriculture industry. Which is that since most of the audience is densensitized to animal torture, comparing it to holocaust, provokes the audience member to compare and justify how it is different from the holocaust. This might be net negative strategy but might occasionally cause a shift in the attitude. I am not sure of it's effectiveness, however I think your article makes a good case.

Not that I know off , but this was a study published by Animal Ethics about Wildlfires in Madrid in case this could be helpful - https://www.animal-ethics.org/animal-ethics-is-funding-a-study-of-the-effects-of-fires-on-animals-in-the-wild/

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1[anonymous]
Thanks! This will really come in handy.

Initial thoughts: Very much needed! Strong upvote. Also found the AA Africa study of Asia quite useful. Context sensitive country based research is the need of the hour. And once we have the problems/solutions, I also feel we currently fall short on the ability of operationalising the solutions within orga. Looking forward to more SER work in Animal advocacy especially in global South.

I find it hard to convince myself that acts that promote speciesist attitudes (harming animals and ignoring their interests) wilfully can cause the best consequences for animals in the long term. It is currently empirically hard to compare the suffering due to hobby fishing, large scale fishing, bottom trawling, where fishes are asphyxiated, pierced etc. with that of being eaten by predators/disease/other natural harms,. I think a better strategy is to raise concern about animal suffering (anti- speciesism) and the natural harms they suffer,  while al... (read more)

1[anonymous]
My intuition is to strongly agree with you! I'm mostly checking myself for blind spots.

Animal Ethics is looking to hire people from Asia and Africa.
"Are you concerned about the plight of domesticated and wild animals? Do you want to make a positive change for all sentient beings? So do we, and we are looking to make contact with people in Africa and Asia who are interested in working with us. We periodically have paid and volunteer positions. If you think you might be interested now or in the future, please get in touch. See more details at the bottom of this blog post or fill out our expression of interest form by August 15."

I would be interested in the following

  • Theory of change for animal liberation/ animal rights/ animal advocacy- Tobias Baumann/ Jamie Harris or someone from Animal Think Tank/ Open Phil - Maybe a talk followed by discussion - I think we still lack clarity on what kind of milestones should the movement optimise for the collective progress and structural changes needed, I think the development of the EAA movement is still quite dispersed and needs more discussion and coherence.
  • Talks exploring different considerations on Wild Animal Suffering both regarding out
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Has the result analysis of the above survey been shared somewhere?

3
Michael St Jules 🔸
We shared the anonymized data and the contact info people wanted to be shared with the EA wild animal orgs (Animal Ethics, Wild Animal Initiative, Rethink Priorities), and the anonymized data with others in a wild animal welfare Slack channel (I can add you to it). Since it was Google Form, there was a decent amount of basic analysis already done automatically. The people working on the survey didn't have the time to analyze the data or write anything up (I think due to some unforeseen circumstances among the others, and I personally was starting an internship and have found splitting my focus to be very difficult while working remotely), and we agreed to hand it off. I'm not aware of the orgs or anyone else having any plans to publish anything.

The authors cautiously conclude that “striving to eat a plant-based diet with lower intake of animal fats may be linked to better mental health” and express hope that, with further research, plant-based diets could one day be a considered as part of “front-line treatment for mood disorders.”-

https://faunalytics.org/veganism-help-reduce-stress-anxiety/

8
Michael St Jules 🔸
I think I've seen studies going the other way, with vegans having more mental health issues. I also saw a researcher suggest that once you control for prior experiences of trauma, the differences go away (I don't think the study is published yet).

Thank you for writing this thought provoking post. I relate with a lot of your thoughts. I faced a similar situation with cockroaches and ants that had infested my home, it was quite easy to just kill them. But pondering upon it I realised it would be very bad for them, I also considered the fact that maybe it's net positive to kill them now, because most future insects that'll be born would have a negative life. I tried vinegar, bay leaves, traps, they didn't work. Finally I bought a low power vaccum cleaner, sucked them out and relocated them to a park ... (read more)

I think it's also of noteworthy to include the trillions of sentient farmed animals that are and will be exploited and are being put through intense suffering for rest of the future as the demand for animal products continues to increase . Also the gigantic scale of suffering of the wild animals most of whom suffer and die in painful ways soon after coming into existence.