EA - EA and LW Forums Weekly Summary (31st Oct - 6th Nov 22') by Zoe Williams

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: EA & LW Forums Weekly Summary (31st Oct - 6th Nov 22'), published by Zoe Williams on November 8, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Supported by Rethink PrioritiesThis is part of a weekly series summarizing the top (40+ karma) posts on the EA and LW forums - you can see the full collection here. The first post includes some details on purpose and methodology.If you'd like to receive these summaries via email, you can subscribe here.Podcast version: prefer your summaries in podcast form? A big thanks to Coleman Snell for producing these! Subscribe on your favorite podcast app by searching for 'Effective Altruism Forum Podcast'.Top / Curated ReadingsDesigned for those without the time to read all the summaries. Everything here is also within the relevant sections later on so feel free to skip if you’re planning to read it all.The Challenges with Measuring the Impact of Lobbyingby Animal Ask, Ren SpringleaSummary of a report by Animal Ask assessing if academic literature contains quantitative estimates that could be useful in gauging the counterfactual impact of lobbying. This requires breaking policy success into a baseline rate and counterfactual increase from lobbying.They found the answer is no - lobbying literature contains many well-known weaknesses, a systematic review found a strange result (narrow range around 50% success, possibly because there are often lobbyists on both sides of an issue), and only one study attempted to identify counterfactual impact (and only for one policy).The authors instead suggest using expert judgment and superforecasters.What matters to shrimps? Factors affecting shrimp welfare in aquacultureby Lucas Lewit-Mendes, Aaron BoddyReport by Shrimp Welfare Project on the importance of various factors for the welfare of farmed shrimps. Welfare can be measured via biological markers (eg. chemicals associated with immune or stress responses), behavior (eg. avoidance, aggression), physical condition and survival rates.The strongest evidence for harm to shrimp welfare was with eyestalk ablation, disease, stunning / slaughter, and insufficient dissolved oxygen or high un-ionized ammonia in the water. The authors have very high confidence that small to medium improvements in these would reduce harm to shrimp.An Introduction to the Moral Weight Projectby Bob FischerIn 2020, Rethink Priorities published the Moral Weight Series—a collection of five reports addressing questions around interspecies cause prioritization. This research was expanded in May 2021 - Oct 2022, and this is the first in a sequence of posts that will overview that research.Author’s summary (lightly edited): “Our objective is to provide moral weights for 11 farmed species, under assumptions of utilitarianism, hedonism, valence symmetry, and unitarianism. The moral weight is the capacity for welfare - calculated as the welfare range (the difference between the best and worst welfare states the individual can realize at a time) × lifespan. Given welfare ranges, we can convert welfare improvements into DALY-equivalents averted, making cross-species cost-effectiveness analyses possible.”EA ForumPhilosophy and MethodologiesAn Introduction to the Moral Weight Projectby Bob FischerIn 2020, Rethink Priorities published the Moral Weight Series—a collection of five reports addressing questions around interspecies cause prioritization. This research was expanded in May 2021 - Oct 2022, and this is the first in a sequence of posts that will overview that research.Author’s summary (lightly edited): “Our objective is to provide moral weights for 11 farmed species, under assumptions of utilitarianism, hedonism, valence symmetry, and unitarianism. The moral weight is the capacity for welfare - calculated as the welfare range (the difference between the best and worst ...