Leverage Factor

We explore two different interventions and evaluate them using a number of different philosophical frameworks.

For the lives and lifespan counts considerations we guess individuals would be willing to largely stop eating meat in exchange for a cash payment of $2,000/year (current expenditure on meat and poultry are $660 for a household of 2.5 individuals or $270 per person per year); issues exist with how to enforce something like this, but which to get a rough feel for the issue we don't consider.

For the pain counts considerations we guess at the lobbying costs in order to improve farm animal welfare. As a sanity check we also consider advertising to reduce meat consumption. This has a smaller leverage factor, but it is still very large suggesting that reducing farm animal suffering is a worthy endeavor.

For the brains count considerations, a cheaper approach might be to fund research into the production of non-brainy meat. This is an approach we don't consider.

Project Cost Real world outcome Outcome estimates Economic value in Western terms
Lives count $640b/year stop the slaughter of farm animals Population 320m; save 9.1b animal lives; value lives equivalent of humans at $2m life in this scenario $18,000t/year (leverage factor 30,000)
Brainy lives count $640b/year stop the slaughter of farm animals Population 320m; save 46m human brain equivalent lives; value lives at $2m $92t/year (leverage factor 140)
Lifespan counts $640b/year stop the slaughter of farm animals Population 320m; save 2.6b human lifespan equivalent lives; value human remaining lifespans at $2m life in this scenario $5,200t/year (leverage factor 8,000)
Brainy lifespan counts $640b/year stop the slaughter of farm animals Population 320m; save 13m human brain equivalent lifespans; value human remaining lifespans at $2m $26t/year (leverage factor 40)
Pain counts lobbying $100-500m/year x 5 years stop pain and suffering of farm animals Guess lobbying costs would be substantial since the agricultural lobby is likely to be opposed; price it at the higher end of observed lobbying costs; 50% chance successful; save 1.1b animals in extreme pain; value extreme pain at $200/day in this scenario; capitalize over 20 years; 50% x 1.1b x $200 x 365 x 20 = $800t $800t (leverage factor 300,000 - 1,500,000)
Brainy pain counts lobbying $100-500m/year x 5 years stop pain and suffering of farm animals Guess lobbying costs would be substantial since the agricultural lobby is likely to be opposed; price it at the higher end of observed lobbying costs; 50% chance successful; save 12m human brain equivalents in extreme pain; value extreme pain at $200/day; capitalize over 20 years; 50% x 12m x $200 x 365 x 20 = $8.8t $8.8t (leverage factor 4,000 - 20,000)
Pain counts online advertising $0.47 1 year of farm animal suffering averted A different approach to the problem is given in The Most Good You Can Do (Singer, 2015, pg 143) which reports online advertising to reduce meat consumption costs $0.47 per year of animal suffering averted based on the work of Animal Charity Evaluators; value extreme pain at $200/day; assume average level of suffering is 50% of this amount (see earlier table); $200 x 50% x 365 = $37,000 $37,000 (leverage factor 80,000)

We believe stopping pain and suffering of farm animals is a much more achievable goal in the short term, than stopping the slaughter of farm animals, and it offers higher leverage factors under both the brains count and brains don't count considerations.

Leverage Factor

300,000 - 1,500,000 (if pain alone counts: weight pain by number of animals)

4,000 - 20,000 (if brainy pain counts: weight pain by brain size)