OverviewThe total moral value of the world includes humans as well as all other beings of moral significance. As such, a picture of the overall trajectory of net global welfare that accounts for both human and non-human populations is important context for thinking about the future on any timescale, and about the potential impacts of transformative technologies.There's compelling evidence that life has gotten better for humans recently, but the same can’t be said for other animals, especially given the rise of industrial animal agriculture. How do these trends cash out, and what's the overall trajectory?I’ve used human and farmed animal population data, estimates of welfare ranges across different species, and estimates of the average wellbeing of different species to get a rough sense of recent trends in total global welfare. Importantly, this initial analysis is limited to humans and some of the most abundant farmed animals—it does not consider effects [...] ---Outline:(00:04) Overview(01:49) Notes and Assumptions(03:36) Analysis(03:39) Background and Definitions(04:57) Populations(05:57) Welfare Capacities(07:10) Total Welfare(09:29) Tentative Reflections(11:33) Future Directions(12:38) Acknowledgments---
First published:
September 26th, 2023

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HDFxQwMwPp275J87r/net-global-welfare-may-be-negative-and-declining-1
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.