The first half of this seems true (the estimates are quite arbitrary), but I don’t get why you’re confident about the second half. What makes your estimate of the “appropriately sized numbers” less arbitrary and more plausible?
Since ordinary people don’t think insect suffering matters, if they pick a number that is high enough that it implies the opposite, it presumptively is too high. This doesn’t prove it’s too high, but if they are bad at picking numbers and they picked a number inconsistent with their other beliefs, we should presume that the number isn’t correct, not that the other belief is incorrect.
I think this depends on the assumptions that a) ordinary people have a considered belief that insect suffering doesn’t matter, and b) this belief depends on the belief that insects don’t suffer (much).
If most people just haven’t given any serious thought to insect suffering, and the main reason they tend to act like it doesn’t matter is because that’s the social default, then their numerical estimates (which are quite arbitrary, but plausibly based on more thought than they’ve ever previously given to the question) might be at least as good a guide to the ground truth as their prior actions are.
And if someone doesn’t care about insect suffering, not because they’re confident that insects don’t experience non-trivial suffering but because they simply don’t care about insects (perhaps because they don’t instinctively feel empathy for insects, they find insects annoying, they know insects spread disease, etc.), then the apparent conflict between their indifference and their estimates is extremely weak evidence against the accuracy of their estimates.
The first half of this seems true (the estimates are quite arbitrary), but I don’t get why you’re confident about the second half. What makes your estimate of the “appropriately sized numbers” less arbitrary and more plausible?
Since ordinary people don’t think insect suffering matters, if they pick a number that is high enough that it implies the opposite, it presumptively is too high. This doesn’t prove it’s too high, but if they are bad at picking numbers and they picked a number inconsistent with their other beliefs, we should presume that the number isn’t correct, not that the other belief is incorrect.
I think this depends on the assumptions that a) ordinary people have a considered belief that insect suffering doesn’t matter, and b) this belief depends on the belief that insects don’t suffer (much).
If most people just haven’t given any serious thought to insect suffering, and the main reason they tend to act like it doesn’t matter is because that’s the social default, then their numerical estimates (which are quite arbitrary, but plausibly based on more thought than they’ve ever previously given to the question) might be at least as good a guide to the ground truth as their prior actions are.
And if someone doesn’t care about insect suffering, not because they’re confident that insects don’t experience non-trivial suffering but because they simply don’t care about insects (perhaps because they don’t instinctively feel empathy for insects, they find insects annoying, they know insects spread disease, etc.), then the apparent conflict between their indifference and their estimates is extremely weak evidence against the accuracy of their estimates.