The shrimp welfare project

Waiting for the funny reveal that this is a prank

Why do you think this is a prank?

Because it's funny enough and seems like an absolute S-tier performance artist critique of the effective altruism movement. Like who gives a shit about whether shrimp freeze to death or are electrocuted and then freeze to death.

But this blog post uses a little BS math (.3 seconds IS shorter than 20 minutes! By an order of magnitude! Take my money!)

and some hand wavey citations (Did you know shrimp MIGHT be conscious based on a very loose definition of consciousness? Now you too are very smart! You can talk about this with your sort-of friends (coworkers) from the job where you spend 80 hours a week now!)

to convince some people that this is indeed an important and worthy thing. Because people who can be talked into this don't really interact with the real world, for the most part. So they don't know that lots of actual people need actual help that doesn't involve them dying anyway and being eaten en-masse afterwards.

and it stimulates interesting conversations like this. Watch this comment section it's going to be great

I guess I've spent my whole life waiting for the funny reveal that this whole thing is a funny prank. I like when things are funny.

I guess it is not a prank, maybe just a perfect encapsulation of life in tech in the 2020's.

It's also just such a perfect half-measure. You're not asking people to not eat these little guys. They're not even confirmed to be fully conscious. This is a speculative fix for a theoretical problem. Plus like, there's some company making shrimp zappers. So by donating you're also kind of paying two people to kill the shrimp?

> They're not even confirmed to be fully conscious

Please read the cited Rethink Priorities research: https://rethinkpriorities.org/research-area/welfare-range-es...

Notably the FAQ and responses.

I think Dennis Prager is a hack, but this quote looms larger in my mind as I get older.

> The foolishness of that comment is so deep, I can only ascribe it to higher education. You have to have gone to college to say something that stupid.

The entire effort to quantify morality rests on the shakiest of foundations but makes confident claims about its own validity based on layers and layers of mathematical obfuscation and abstraction.

I also think that people shouldn't eat them, but donating is much more effective. In total, fewer shrimp die painfully, which is good (it a second doctor provides an anesthetic for a patient before death, that wouldn't be bad by making two people complicit in death).

I'm using the standard definition of consciousness--having subjective experience. Not sure what "BS math" I used.

I agree that lots of people in the real world need help. Helping them is good. But so is averting enormous amounts of pain and suffering. In expectation, even given a low credence in shrimp sentience, giving averts huge amounts of pain and suffering, which is quite good.