“Long-Run Human Impact On Wild Animal Suffering: Much More Than You Wanted To Know” by Bentham’s Bulldog

1 Controversy (Crosspost of my blog article). Humans affect staggering numbers of wild animals. There are likely quadrillions fewer insects presently walking the face of the earth because of our activities. Most people don’t think this matters—assigning essentially zero weight to bugs. But for reasons I’ve given before at length, and thus won’t repeat here, I think these people are dead wrong. Wild animal suffering is literally the worst thing in the world. Every other present issue is a rounding error in comparison. In light of that, it's important to know how we humans, in the aggregate, affect wild animals. If humans harm wild animals dramatically, that makes increasing the human population a risky proposition. In contrast, if we benefit wild animals, that makes a strong case for a larger population. I’ve argued before that most wild animals live quite bad lives. Most creatures that will ever walk [...] ---Outline:(00:13) 1 Controversy(08:44) 2 Do mass extinctions have long-term effects?(18:39) 3 Does the world grow more diverse and productive in the wake of an apocalypse?(22:48) 4 Other points(23:14) 4.1 Strangelove oceans(23:51) 4.2 Climate change(26:49) 4.3 Extinction debt(28:47) 4.4 Space colonization/terraforming/other expansion of nature(30:51) 5 Conclusion--- First published: May 27th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/NNBuENfXKGPLSaBiw/long-run-human-impact-on-wild-animal-suffering-much-more --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.