The shrimp welfare project
Overall reactions
- Split between people who find the argument persuasive enough to donate and those who see it as absurd, satirical, or even dangerous.
- Some describe the piece as unsettling but thought‑provoking; others think it exemplifies what they dislike about Effective Altruism (EA) and “rationalist math.”
Moral tradeoffs: humans vs animals
- Many commenters insist they would always prioritize one human over any number of shrimp; some extend this to millions of animals vs one human.
- Others use edge cases (kittens, rabbits, pets, partners) to show how partiality and emotional attachment distort abstract “lives saved” reasoning.
- A minority explicitly argue that large amounts of animal suffering can, in principle, morally outweigh a single human’s suffering.
Can suffering be quantified and compared?
- Heavy debate over treating “suffering” as a scalar that can be added, compared, and expressed as percentages.
- Objections:
- Intensity vs duration vs number of individuals may not combine linearly.
- Functions could be non‑linear or bounded; there may be no number of headaches worse than torture.
- The “billion dust specks vs one tortured person” style thought experiments feel morally wrong even if mathematically tidy.
- Defenders argue that refusing to quantify just pushes people back to vague “vibes,” which is worse for decision‑making.
Do shrimp (and similar animals) suffer?
- Supporters point to work on nociception, behavioral avoidance of noxious stimuli, and welfare‑range estimates; emphasize uncertainty but argue even a small chance of intense shrimp pain justifies cheap harm reduction.
- Skeptics question:
- Whether “3% of human suffering” for shrimp is meaningful.
- Using lifespan or neuron counts as proxies.
- Whether arthropod nervous systems support anything like human‑style experience.
- A hard‑line minority deny that “suffering” is a coherent or measurable phenomenon at all, especially for non‑verbal animals.
Utilitarian / EA framing and backlash
- Some embrace shrimp welfare as a high‑leverage EA cause; others see it as grotesque “ghoulish math” that implicitly devalues human‑focused aid.
- Critics argue EA’s quantitative style is pseudo‑rigorous, built on stacked, weak estimates and “common sense” appeals.
- Several worry such arguments harm EA’s public image and widen the gap between elite rationalist ethics and ordinary moral intuitions.
Practical responses and alternatives
- Supportive commenters frame donations as marginal harm‑reduction given existing demand for shrimp, not an endorsement of eating them.
- Others argue the morally obvious answer is to stop eating shrimp (or most animals) rather than optimize killing procedures.
- Suggestions include:
- Lobbying for regulatory standards instead of just buying stunners.
- Funding alternative proteins and “low‑suffering” diets.
- Prioritizing larger animals with more calories per death if one insists on eating meat.
Meta: rationalism vs moral intuition
- One thread argues that many people reject this style of argument not because they are “irrational,” but because they don’t accept morality as a computable optimization problem.
- Tension highlighted between:
- Those who want to systematically extend empathy and utility calculations across species.
- Those who see such calculus as disrespecting deep, local, community‑based moral intuitions and leading to alienating conclusions (e.g., shrimp over humans).