Who knows maybe you're right. I'm not yet convinced it would work or be without side effects, but if people don't like it, they will probably just ignore it, so probably there isn't too much risk in trying. For my sensibilities it sounds a bit dystopian honestly, and kind of entrenches fundamental inequality between people in a very explicit way, tied to money.

Having more money doesn't make someone a better person automatically. I think it's better to have multiple different types of status, rather than just one generalized score that can ultimately be measured through money.

As I said, there is popularity, credentials, reputation, number of followers, influence, titles, all sorts of status. And I think it makes sense to be this way, because different types of status are not commensurable. They are apples and oranges. 

If you have just one generalized number, then a drug lord can have high status due to money and rank higher than a scientist who gets a Nobel prize.

So here's where it's going: either you get a system where money can measure your value as human being, or if you avoid it, you get some sort of moral policing or social credit system, where you also take other things into account... which while dystopian, has some merits.

But it is dystopian for a reason, for a big reason: who gets to decide how much certain acts contribute to status? People have fundamentally different moral worldviews. Something that would count a lot in one system of values, might count very little in a different system (or even be considered negative).

IMO, a better way to reduce the consumption of luxury goods is not to validate that they are needed for status signaling and try to replace them with some digital score, but instead to raise the awareness of how wasteful they are and to convince people that they are stupid.

For example a French singer ZAZ has made a song with this message:

https://genius.com/Genius-english-translations-zaz-je-veux-english-translation-lyrics

Now of course, this is just a song. But some sort of larger anti-luxury campaign might bring some more concrete results. The campaign need not just to be moralizing (while this can be a part of it - Peter Singer did well with moralizing and influenced a lot of people), but in addition to that, it can be plain and simple education. Teaching people that you can buy high quality goods without going bankrupt. Teaching people about diminishing returns once you are above certain price range. (but this could also backfire if companies decide to make products that used to be "standard" inferior - in that case you would also need to boycott companies who do it)

But, in the end, I'm also wondering if eliminating spending on luxury would really be good for the world? I mean, it certainly would, if people donated such money to effective charities instead. But there's no guarantee they would do it. And then, you also need to consider effects on welfare, economy and environment.

After some discussion with AIs about this, my conclusion is that stopping spending money on luxury could have:

Positive effects on welfare  - more utils. (Money redirected to where it can produce more utility)

Probably positive effect on economy - more jobs, more growth, more productivity, but certain industries would suffer. Another thing worthy of considering is that certain luxury industries are on cutting edge of technology, which can spill into mainstream products eventually.

Maybe negative effects on environment and resources. $10,000 spent on a Rolex buys you 100-200 g of stuff, $10,000 spent on something else could buy you hundreds of kilos of stuff. 

I'm wondering if you are aware that such alternative symbols already exists in a way? It's just not numerical, it's not one number you can show off.

Many people achieve a lot of recognition, fame, power and influence without showing off wealth with things like jewelry, sport cars, yachts, or designer clothes.

For example, from what I'm aware, here in EA circles, almost no one cares about such wealth related signals. I think the people in circles like this would be famous and influential regardless of what kind of clothes they wear or how expensive their watch or car is. They are recognized for their ideas and for their contributions.

Also, stuff like titles, degrees, etc... this already exists. Academia has its own honors and hierarchy, so is the case for clergy, so is the case in politics, so is the case in sport, music, literature, and pretty much any other endeavor...

Now I see where the luxury might play a role: if you want to show that you're successful, but you're NOT actually famous or influential. You just made a lot of money and want this to be known. In this case luxury does play a role.

But, for a lot of people some desire for luxury is not to explicitly show off their wealth or success, but because they genuinely believe (which might be a mistaken belief) that more expensive stuff looks better on them or is higher quality, and they can afford it. Probably it's true up to a certain point. But very soon you hit diminishing returns. The problem is in finding sweet spot.

There is a saying (which I don't endorse, nor agree with, but maybe there is a grain of truth in it): "I'm not rich enough to buy cheap things". The logic is if you buy the cheapest things, they will likely be low quality, and will break so often, that you'll eventually spend more money buying such cheap things again and again, than if you bought an expensive thing once.

In general I disagree with this logic. I think if you buy standard, non-luxury items, you're getting a very decent product. You don't need to buy luxury to get quality. Maybe only if you bought cheapest, clearly inferior product, the logic could apply to some extent.

In general, I don't know what to think about this.

Your idea, if it worked, and if people accepted it, would save a lot of money that's wastefully spent on luxury. And that would be awesome.

But I have 3 fears:

1. That it would introduce another kind of race and psychological pressure, where people are chasing a high score.
2. That it could fail to eradicate luxury spending because some people, when they earn certain amount of money, simply want a yacht, a Ferrari, a Rolex, or whatever, regardless of status signaling.
3. It could send a message that "status matters" which could exacerbate the whole thing. I mean, we already know status matters to some extent, but existence of such system could give some sort of official endorsement to the idea that "status matters".

So I'm afraid that in the end we could end up with 2 parallel races: chasing the number, and still chasing standard luxury. What do you think why celebrities buy luxury stuff? They don't need to prove their success or fame or wealth to anyone. If you're Taylor Swift whole world knows you and how successful you are. And they still spend on luxury nevertheless.

Another problem with your approach is that right now someone with low status can be invisible. They can still probably afford relatively decent clothes and a normal car, and this says "a regular person". They can live normally and not care much about status.

But when you attach an explicit score to each person's name, a person with low status becomes "a certified loser". They become like untouchables in India. They can no longer hide their low status and be invisible, like just a "normal person". By giving everyone a score, you make everyone very status conscious and this can be psychologically devastating no matter how low or high your status is.

If it's low, you get depressed and feel worthless.

If it's moderate, you're frustrated it's not higher.

If it's high, you're frustrated it's not even higher.

If it's extremely high, you can become narcissistic and think you're better than everyone else.

The main error of this proposal, IMO is the assumption that all (or most) people are:

1. seeking high social status and caring a lot about it
2. using luxury (various forms of conspicuous consumption) to display their status

I think both assumptions are false.

While there certainly are people who are doing it, I'm not sure if they even comprise the majority of population.

I have a lot of friends who are fine with normal standard of living and are not very concerned with status or spending on luxury.

Also, many people ARE seeking status, but not all of them would spend $500 on a bottle of Dom Perignon or $100,000 on a luxury car. Status can be obtained in many ways and wealth is just one of them. You can have high status and influence in certain circles without ever flaunting your wealth.

So to sum up, I think you are exaggerating the importance and prevalence of luxury spending.

Your proposal could perhaps slightly reduce luxury spending, but it would come with a significant cost:

it would force upon ALL the people a system that is explicitly about status: some sort of status competition. Even upon those who otherwise didn't care about it, and who haven't been spending much on luxury in the first place. That would be bad.

Also, I think it might not even reduce luxury spending that much. Because luxury spending is not just about saying "I'm rich, I can afford it", but also about displaying your taste and refinement. Not all luxury purchases are the same. Ferrari sends one kind of message, Lamborghini sends another kind of message. Rolex sends one kind of message, Patek Philippe sends another kind of message. This nuance can't be replaced by your system. Also when it comes to fashion. It's not just about how much you paid for your clothes, but how tasteful and fashionable combination you made and how well they suit you.

I roughly have the same opinion on this matter as you. I like how well you articulated it.

I'm not sure if we're right, but I think the conclusion about net negative lives could be rushed, unsubstantiated and dangerous. 

And even if some lives are net negative, so what? IMO we should think more carefully whether "slightly net negative = not worth living".

Some people might have slightly net negative lives, but they never think about suicide or euthanasia.

From what I know about how we humans deal with it, euthanasia is usually used to prevent unbearable suffering with no hope of cure, not to save someone from slightly net negative life.

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

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

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?

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.

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

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

2. 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:

1. 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.

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.