u/amynase

Edit: Please take this entire post with a huge grain of salt, and see it more as a thought experiment than as donation or lifestyle advice!

Hi, I’ve recently started looking into neuron deaths as a way of measuring overall harm caused and wanted to answer the question in the title for myself. I thought some here might also be interested. For transparency: These calculations and estimations were done with the help of AI (Google Gemini), and I did not independently verify them. The text is however entirely written by me.

Part 1: Why neuron deaths? For anyone not familiar, a neuron is a brain cell, and neurons are used by some within the EA space as a proxy for how capable of complex emotions and suffering an animal might be. This is highly controversial, but if you use this proxy it allows you to compare suffering between animals.

A few examples:
Nematodes (Roundworms): ~ 300 neurons
Micro-arthropods like Mites and Springtails: ~ 5 000 neurons
Earthworm ~15 000 neurons
Centipedes like Spiders: ~50000 neurons
Shrimp ~100 000 neurons
Ant ~250 000 neurons
Field Mouse ~ 10 000 000 neurons
Salmon ~13 000 000 neurons
Hamster ~ 80 000 000 neurons
Chicken ~220 000 000 neurons
Cat ~ 250 000 000 neurons
Dog ~ 500 000 000 neurons
Octopus ~ 500 000 000 neurons
Pig ~ 2 000 000 000 neurons
Cow ~3 000 000 000 neurons
Human ~ 86 000 000 000 neurons
Elephant ~ 257 000 000 000 neurons

Part 2: Neuron deaths per m² of agricultural land

AI estimates that 1m² of cropland contains roughly:

20 000 000 nematodes
125 000 Micro–arthropods like Mites and Springtails
275 Insects like Ants and Beetles
200 Centipedes like Spiders
300 Earthworms

There is no scientific consensus on which of these exactly are conscious and able to feel pain, but AI thinks the cutoff point might be between Micro-arthropods and Earthworms (meaning Micro-Arthropodes and animals with fewer neurons are likely not conscious/able to feel pain and earthworms and animals with more neurons likely are). Going forward, this calculation will only include soil animals with ~15000 neurons or more per individual.

Over a year, many generations of soil animals are killed, Gemini’s best estimate for total neuron deaths of likely conscious animals per m² is 80 000 000 neurons.

What about rodents? In addition to this, AI estimates 30 rodent deaths per hectare of farmland per year, or 0,003 rodent deaths per m². With a mouse having ~10 000 000 neurons, this brings the total to 80 030 000 neuron deaths of likely conscious animals per m².

Part 3: Total neuron deaths per diet per year:
AI estimates that:
- A conventional Vegan diet requires ~ 1000m² of cropland per year
- An organic vegan diet requires ~ 1200m² of cropland per year (Due to lower calorie output per m² of organic farming)
- A conventional non-Vegan diet requires ~ 3200m² of cropland per year (largely due to animal feed being grown)
- An organic non-Vegan diet requires ~4500m² of cropland per year.

AI also estimates that organic farming results in ~40% fewer neuron deaths per m² – or 48 018 000 neuron deaths per m².

This means total neuron deaths through the cropland alone of:

Organic Vegan: 57 621 600 000
Conventional Vegan: 80 030 000 000
Organic non-Vegan: 216 081 000 000
Conventional non-Vegan: 256 096 000 000

For non-Vegan diets we of course have to include the direct deaths of the animals eaten as well, Gemini’s best estimate is that this is roughly 10 000 000 000 additional neurons, bringing the totals to:

Organic Vegan: 57 643 200 000
Conventional Vegan: 80 030 000 000
Organic non-Vegan: 226 081 000 000
Conventional non-Vegan: 266 096 000 000

Meaning that by this statistic, the old „crop deaths though argument“ still falls flat, as a Vegan diet overall still causes way fewer neuron deaths, but also meaning that the animals directly killed for your diet are not the biggest contributor to overall neuron deaths.

Part 4: Comparing an organic Vegan diet to a conventional Vegan diet + donations:

AI estimates that eating a conventional Vegan diet is roughly 800$ cheaper per year than eating an organic Vegan diet.

Based on Animal Charity Evaluators estimates of how many animals’ living conditions are improved or how many Vegan meals certain organizations provide per $ donated, using AI again I tried to calculate neurons saved per $ donated:

For living conditions improved:
For this calculation I assume that alleviating suffering of one animal through interventions like cage-free campaigns or shrimp stunning before slaughter makes the animals’ lives roughly 10% better, equivalent to 10% fewer neuron deaths or 10% less suffering. This 10% is a completely made up number just so I can have this calculation, I have no justification for it:

Shrimp Welfare Project: Reduces suffering of 5 700 000 000 shrimp each having 100 000 neurons by 10% at a budget of 4 000 000 $, equivalent to 14 250 000 neurons ‚saved‘ per $.
The Humane League: Reduces suffering of 160 000 000 chickens each having 220 000 000 neurons by 10% at a budget of 21 000 000 $, equivalent to 167 620 000 neurons „saved“ per $
Animal Welfare Observatory: Reduces Suffering of 67 000 000 chickens each having 220 000 000 neurons by 10% at a budget of 2 100 000, equivalent to 701 900 000 neurons „saved“ per $

For Vegan Meals served:

Based on the calculations above, one Conventional Vegan meal (1/1095th part of yearly diet) creates 73 086 000 neuron deaths, while one Conventional non-Vegan meal creates 243 010 000 neuron deaths. Thus providing one Vegan meal to a person that would otherwise have eaten a non-Vegan meal ‚saves‘ 169 923 000 neuron deaths.

The Brazilian Vegetarian Society is estimated to replace 116 meals per dollar, resulting in 19 711 000 000 neurons „saved“ per dollar.

Comparison of conventional Vegan + donating vs. Organic Vegan diet:

For this part I multiply the 800 $ saved by buying conventional with the neurons saved per dollar estimates.

Organic Vegan diet: Causes 57 621 600 000 neuron deaths
Conventional + donating to Shrimp Welfare Project: Causes 80 030 000 000 neuron deaths, the donation prevents an equivalent of 11 400 000 000 neuron deaths of suffering, resulting in a total of 68 630 000 000 neuron deaths.
Conventional + donating to The Humane League: Causes 80 030 000 000 neuron deaths, the donation prevents an equivalent of 134 096 000 000 neuron deaths of suffering, resulting in a total of 54 066 000 000 neurons ‚saved‘

Conventional + donating to Animal Welfare Observatory: Causes 80 030 000 000 neuron deaths, the donation prevents an equivalent of 561 520 000 000 neuron deaths of suffering, resulting in a total of 481 490 000 000 neurons ‚saved‘

Conventional + donating to Brazilian Vegetarian Society: Causes 80 030 000 000 neuron deaths, the donation prevents an equivalent of 15 768 900 000 000 neuron deaths of suffering, resulting in a total of 15 689 000 000 000 neurons ‚saved‘

Part 5: Conclusion & Notes

If you were to take these – sometimes made up and mostly estimated by AI & highly controversial – numbers as a basis for deciding if you should eat Organic or not:

- Eating Organic Vegan is better than eating Conventional Vegan and donating to Shrimp Welfare Project

- It is better to eat Conventional Vegan and donate the difference to the Humane League, Animal Welfare Observatory or Brazilian Vegetarian Society than to eat Organic Vegan.

- This is overall definitely an argument for Veganism, but highlights that even as Vegans what type of produce we eat can have a huge impact on how much suffering we create.

- Based on these numbers you could argue our movement should focus a lot more on soil life suffering than we currently do

- Interestingly, looking at Animal Welfare organizations through a lens of neurons makes Shrimp Welfare Project, (which reduces the suffering of the highest number of individual animals per dollar donated) the least effective organization out of the 4 included, and makes providing Vegan meals or reducing the amount of animal products eaten the highest impact intervention. - SWP are still most likely more effective than the vast majority of other Animal Welfare Organizations, I only included 4 of the highest performing here, them being bad on this metric does not make them bad overall.

- Since humans have such a high amount of neurons, out of interest I also compared to one organization focusing on human suffering, the Against Malaria Foundation, as they are often seen as the most effective organization in human lives saved per dollar. They prevent one death per 6000$ donated, meaning 14 333 000 neurons saved per dollar, making them slightly more effective than Shrimp Welfare Project in neurons per $, but not effective enough to justify eating a conventional Vegan Diet and donating to them over.

- By this metric, donating to the Brazilian Vegetarian Society (highest impact Vegan meal organization I could find) is:
~ 1375 times more effective than donating to the Against Malaria Foundation (highest impact organization focusing on human suffering I could find),
~ 28 times as effective as donating to Animal Welfare Observatory (highest impact organization focusing on farmed animal suffering I could find.)
Also meaning donating to Animal Welfare Observatory is ~49 times as effective as donating to Against Malaria Foundation

- I personally do not think neurons are an ideal way to measure capacity to suffer, but they are the least bad and least subjective way I know of.

- If you did include Nematodes and their neuron deaths, due to their sheer numbers their suffering alone is the biggest source of suffering in the world by far, and our movement should almost exclusively focus on them.

- From a perspective of Wild Animal Suffering, an argument could also be made that fewer animals living in conventional farmland is a net positive in overall suffering experienced.

- I am also posting this on the Effective Altruism Forum.

- Take this with a huge grain of salt! I am certainly oversipmplifying and overlooking an impossibly large number of factors here to the point where I do not think or recommend you should use this as a basis for your donation decisions or for deciding if you do in fact buy organic Vegan or conventional Vegan food. The only statement I would dare to make with some certainty here is that even including soil and crop deaths, a Vegan diet is the lowest harm diet by far.

Edit: Minor formatting changes.