Wild animal welfare is the welfare of non-human animals under natural conditions, and the study of interventions aimed at improving the welfare of these animals. Wild animals outnumber animals in factory farms by several orders of magnitude.[1] Despite this, the welfare of animals in the wild has received very limited attention. A comprehensive online bibliography in this area lists about fifty publications, most of which are published online or in relatively unknown journals.[2] Wild animal ...| forum.effectivealtruism.org
Nick Bostrom (born Niklas Boström on 10 March 1973) is a Swedish philosopher. He is a professor at the University of Oxford, the founder and former director of the Future of Humanity Institute, and the author of Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Further reading Khatchadourian, Raffi (2015) The doomsday invention: will artificial intelligence bring us utopia or destruction?, The New Yorker, November 16. External links Nick Bostrom. Official website. Radio Bostrom. Audio narrati...| forum.effectivealtruism.org
The neglectedness of a problem (also called its uncrowdedness) is the amount of resources currently allocated to solving it. Neglectedness is one of the three factors in the ITN framework. Further reading Christiano, Paul (2014) Neglectedness and impact, 80,000 Hours, January 14. Oesterheld, Caspar (2020) Complications in evaluating neglectedness, The Universe From an Intentional Stance, June 25. A blog post noting a number of issues that make the estimation of neglectedness more complicated ...| forum.effectivealtruism.org
Moral patienthood is the condition of deserving moral consideration. A moral patient is an entity that possesses moral patienthood. While it is normally agreed that typical humans are moral patients, there is debate about the patienthood of many other types of beings, including human embryos, non-human animals, future people, and digital sentients. Moral patienthood should not be confused with moral agency.[1] For example, we might think that a baby lacks moral agency - it lacks the ability ...| forum.effectivealtruism.org
Longtermism is the view that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time.[1][2] Longtermism may be seen as following from the conjunction of three core claims:[3] 1. Future people matter morally. 2. If Earth-originating intelligence is not prematurely extinguished, the vast majority of people that will ever exist will exist in the future. 3. People alive today can predictably influence whether these people exist and how well their lives go. Types of l...| forum.effectivealtruism.org
The long-term future focuses on possible ways in which the future of humanity may unfold over long timescales. Bostrom's typology of possible scenarios Nick Bostrom has identified four broad possibilities for the future of humanity.[1] First, humans may go prematurely extinct. Since the universe will eventually become inhospitable, extinction is inevitable in the very long run. However, it is also plausible that people will die out far before this deadline. Second, human civilization may plat...| forum.effectivealtruism.org
The logic of the larder is an objection to the argument that people concerned with farmed animal welfare should abstain from consuming products derived from animals raised in factory farms. The objection is that reducing demand for meat, eggs or milk causes fewer animals to come into existence, and thus reduces net animal welfare. A number of responses have been given to this objection. First, many of the animals raised in factory farms have net negative welfare. Causing fewer of these animal...| forum.effectivealtruism.org
Over 60 billion land-dwelling animals are killed each year. The overwhelming majority of these animals are raised in factory farms, where conditions can involve "intense confinement, inhibition of natural behaviors, untreated health issues, and numerous other causes of suffering".[1] It’s difficult to measure and quantify the welfare of farmed animals, but some have suggested that the lives of many farmed animals are net-negative - that is, their negative experiences outweigh their positiv...| forum.effectivealtruism.org