What do people think of the reasoning in this essay?

http://www.utilitarian-essays.com/dollar-worth.pdf

Well, Alan Dawrst is one of the regular posters here, so if you have criticisms he'll be able to respond.

From memory, I thought his reasoning was valid enough, but he uses Vegan Outreach's own claims without reservation, so it probably exaggerates their value. The obvious problem seemed to be that VO were claiming that given that with X leaflets they supposedly cause N people to go vegan, printing Y*X leaflets would cause Y*N people to go vegan. This seems recklessly optimistic to me, for all sorts of reasons.

Nonetheless, it did sound like a good candidate. In the short term, I think Toby has a more comprehensive argument for giving to Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI).

Toby is quite sanguine about climate change, though, and I'm not convinced by his reasoning on that - vegan outreach seems likely to do more to protect the planet given the severe environmental impact of meat-eating. In any case, I've emailed Toby, since he's done a lot of recent research on dollar value for GWWC - hopefully he'll stop by.

Arepo, do you know if Toby has given any consideration to how funding health and human development work (such as deworming) would seem to increase meat eating and factory farming? This argument (advanced in a thread elsewhere on this site I think) gives me a little pause, although it is obviously rejected by utilitarians like Singer who have presumably encountered it. Presumably he would say the definite short-term gain in human utility simply outweighs the uncertain long-term increase in animal suffering; although his model (from what I understand) also places a strong value on the human (as opposed to animal) preference to live as opposed to not-live, which I don't really find compelling; dead people have no preferences. This is still quite a vexed question for me (it just seems so counter-intuitive for the potential impact on presumed future animals to outweigh the present and extreme suffering of sick and dying people).

While I ponder this I have been inclined to think VO is the right charity for me at this stage... my only concern is whether tackling climate change will actually increase utility rather than decrease it (it probably will, but it's so hard to know) and whether reducing meat-eating will allow more wild animals to live and suffer (just possibly, but at any rate outweighed by the importance of spreading the veg*n meme). All this is probably a comment for another thread though...

I've lent some criticism to Alan's calculations:
http://felicifia.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=215&p=1474#p1462

Spindoctor: There's also the question of invitro-meat (eg, New Harvest http://www.new-harvest.org/) VS Vegan Outreach to consider.

I tend to think supporting NH would be a more effective use of money, but preferably one would want a rigorous investigation of the question.

RyanCarey wrote:I've lent some criticism to Alan's calculations:
http://felicifia.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=215&p=1474#p1462

I knew it was out there somewhere, but got lazy

Jesper Östman wrote:I tend to think supporting NH would be a more effective use of money, but preferably one would want a rigorous investigation of the question.

This sort of sentiment comes up quite frequently on here, and while it's intuitively appealing (especially to people already involved in research), I always want to ask who's watching the watchmen? It's really hard to be confident about the value of research that hasn't been done, especially in social sciences where it's really hard to be confident about the accuracy of research that has been done.

Arepo: That is why I've proposed research into the effectiveness of research and the methology of science (especially of the social sciences, because of this) as we discussed on facebook.

Is there any other alternative? The only one I can think of is going by unaided intuition, which would seem about as (un)effective as standard politics.

Arepo: That is why I've proposed research into the effectiveness of research and the methology of science (especially of the social sciences, because of this) as we discussed on facebook.

My immediate problem is the potential regress behind this kind of thinking. Aside from the immediate questions of who we could trust to do such research (from my PoV almost certainly not the macroeconomist charlatans who'd probably end up doing it) and how it's logically possible to know the value of the unknown quantities which the science under research might discern*, how do we really know the potential of the macroresearch? Macromacroresearch? Ad infinitum...

*(I'm oversimplifying slightly, but it seems to me that the less you know about these quantities - ie the more research has room to achieve - the less the macroresearch can tell you, and vice versa)

Is there any other alternative? The only one I can think of is going by unaided intuition, which would seem about as (un)effective as standard politics.

Our intuition isn't unaided though - we have access to all sorts of relevant data. The question is how much more aid we should give to our intuition, and then you get back into the regress above.

It seems to me like there's room for a more 'commonsense' approach than many risk theorists would approve of. Where we can already see a clear way of drawing parallels between options (as Toby's studies do), we can do so. Where we can't easily compare between categories (as with VO vs NH vs SCI vs macroresearch) we can use a few heuristics: the clarity of the intracategory data; the methodological proximity to the scientific method of the people who've developed said data; perhaps a direct discussion between people involved in each category where they make their case (preferably peer-reviewed by statisticians who'll guard against the kind of sleights that tend to creep their way into such debates).

Arepo,

I like Alan's paper. Though it is obviously highly conjectural, I approve of the attempt to quantify the benefits of different ways we could try to improve things. I'm sceptical of some of his numbers, but I don't think they can just be dismissed: we often have to act in the case of incomplete knowledge and need to have a 'best guess' of the expected benefits. That being said, I don't know exactly what to do with such a rough estimate when we also have more accurate estimates of approaches. For example: in the case of human health focused charity, we can produce one QALY for roughly $3 through deworming charities such as SCI or Deworm the World.

See for example http://www.givingwhatwecan.org/resources/neglected-tropical-diseases.php

spindoctor: I've addressed this http://felicifia.org/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=214&p=1483#p1470

spindoctor wrote: his model (from what I understand) also places a strong value on the human (as opposed to animal) preference to live as opposed to not-live, which I don't really find compelling; dead people have no preferences

I agree with you.

spindoctor wrote:While I ponder this I have been inclined to think VO is the right charity for me at this stage... my only concern is whether tackling climate change will actually increase utility rather than decrease it (it probably will, but it's so hard to know) and whether reducing meat-eating will allow more wild animals to live and suffer (just possibly, but at any rate outweighed by the importance of spreading the veg*n meme).

That’s exactly the concern I pondered in this piece. And indeed you’re right this was brought up in other forums.

As far as helping wild animals, it’s plausible that VO could be an optimal choice, although I fear that most of the veg*ns that the organization creates will side with the conventional “pristine nature should be preserved” meme. You might be better off either (a) saving and investing the money until a real wild-animal-suffering organization is created, or (b) donating to an existing anti-speciesist focused more on pure ideology. (The latter is the option pursued by a friend of mine who shares my strong concern for wild animals.)

Alan Dawrst wrote: You might be better off either (a) saving and investing the money until a real wild-animal-suffering organization is created, or (b) donating to an existing anti-speciesist focused more on pure ideology. (The latter is the option pursued by a friend of mine who shares my strong concern for wild animals.)

Indeed.

About (b), there are a few American ideology-centered anti-speciesist charities in USA, like Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary. But it is very influenced by Gary Francione, who thinks "as a general matter, we ought to leave wild animals alone". So I suppose it rejects ethical interventions in the wild.

I know another anti-speciesist charities in Spain and South-America, and some of their members care about wild-animal suffering (although a few of them are in the closet). If someone wants to donate to a Spanish or South-American charity, I can recommend a few with a personal message.

Daniel Dorado wrote: [...] But it is very influenced by Gary Francione, who thinks "as a general matter, we ought to leave wild animals alone". [...]

Gary Francione is bonkers. I've gotta say it, no matter the topic we're talking about, no matter if it serves to undermine his arguments or not, the fact is, whenever 'Gary Francione' is mentioned, I strongly feel I have to say Gary-Francione-Is-Bonkers.

I wish I could seriously debate with him one day and start by saying in front of his face "Let's start the debate. First of all Mr. Francione, I want you to know that you are bonkers. Bonkers bonkers bonkers." Man that's gonna feel awesome if it ever happens.

I should send him a letter saying it "Due to utilitarian reasons Mr. Francione, I must let you know that I feel you're bonkers". Nah but it wouldn't get to him, I'll wait to meet him in person.


P.S.: My domesticated dogs agree with me on the subject: "Wruff roof ruff wuff!" See Mr. Francione? They consider you bonkers as well. Such delightful domesticated creatures.

Jeff Kaufman wrote a fascinating commentary on my essay: "Estimating Charity Effectiveness: Vegan Outreach."

The main part [of Alan Dawrst's Vegan Outreach calculation] that seemed high was his estimate of how cheaply Vegan Outreach 'makes' vegetarians. [...]

cost of a vegetarian-year = 1/(b*v*s*t) = $16.5 to $0.09

I decided to try and get an alternate estimate, calculating through Vegan Outreach's revenue and the number of vegetarians.

There are around 7M vegetarians in the US and 10% say "animal rights" is their main reason (wikipedia). At the high end, I would put Vegan Outreach's work at being responsible for 1/4 of these people, and at the low end I'd say maybe around 1/500. [...]

cost of a vegetarian year = m/(n*a*r) = $4.29 to $536

I think the main reason my cost estimate comes out much higher is Alan's estimate for s, the fraction of people who stay vegetarian. I know more lapsed vegetarians than vegetarians, so I think 100% is definitely too high, but 30% may also be. I'm also not so sure about v. They seem amenable to measurement, but I don't think anyone's done that.

Thanks for the insightful analysis, Jeff! It's great to see that the figures at least come out in a similar ballpark with two largely independent methods of calculation.

Using Jeff's ranges, a dollar donated to Vegan Outreach prevents between 3 days and and 1.05 years of direct factory-farm suffering.

wish I could seriously debate with him one day and start by saying in front of his face "Let's start the debate. First of all Mr. Francione, I want you to know that you are bonkers. Bonkers bonkers bonkers." Man that's gonna feel awesome if it ever happens.

As fun as that would be, it would make it nigh impossible for him to debate with you. Either he can conclude that you are wrong, or he is bonkers. He'd probably go with the former.

It would seem that v, the fraction of people who become vegan because of vegan outreach should have a negative value as the lower bound because it is possible that people become less likely to become vegan because they are given brochures.

s, the fraction of people who stay vegetarian or vegan should surely be more like 15%-50% rather than 30-100%.
This is a minor change, of course.

And then the fraction of animal rights vegetarians who were once converted by Vegan Outreach being 1/4 or 1/500? I think if you did a straw poll of how many animal rights vegetarians had so much as heard of Vegan Outreach, the figure would still be <1%.

I'm fully sympathetic to vegan outreach and its goals, and it still might be highly cost-effective. These cost-effectiveness estimates just seem like they can both obviously be improved, even with minimal research.

RyanCarey wrote:It would seem that v, the fraction of people who become vegan because of vegan outreach should have a negative value as the lower bound because it is possible that people become less likely to become vegan because they are given brochures.

Sure -- depends how low you want to allow a lower bound to be. For example, you could define it as, say, the 10th percentile of your probability distribution. (The 0th percentile is negative infinity for any action whatsoever. )

Of course, rather than playing around with percentiles too much, we could just focus on what matters: the expected value.

RyanCarey wrote:And then the fraction of animal rights vegetarians who were once converted by Vegan Outreach being 1/4 or 1/500? I think if you did a straw poll of how many animal rights vegetarians had so much as heard of Vegan Outreach, the figure would still be <1%.

I recall a story that at an animal-rights conference, a speaker asked how many people in the audience were there because of Vegan Outreach's influence, and about 20% raised their hands. That said, (a) this estimate is likely high due to selection bias in repeating that story, (b) it's not obvious that all the audience members understood the question correctly, and (c) we don't know if the percent of animal-welfare-motivated vegetarians influenced by Vegan Outreach is as high as it is for animal activists.

As far as suspecting my estimate to be too high, I think the main culprit is

"v = the fraction of b who become vegetarian or vegan who wouldn't otherwise have done so = 0.43% to 2.5%,"

which seems a bit too big even in light of Vegan Outreach's testimonials quoted in my article.

Of course, this can bleed over into "s = the fraction of v who stay vegetarian or vegan" depending on how you define "a vegetarian or vegan." Someone who tries skipping meat for one day only could be classified into the negative category for v or for s.