It is meaningful, if you choose to think about it. Most people choose to ignore it, because it brings up a lot of thoughts that are inconvenient or uncomfortabl

It is meaningful, if you choose to think about it. Most people choose to ignore it, because it brings up a lot of thoughts that are inconvenient or uncomfortable. Effective Altruism asks these questions. It's a pretty easy decision for me whether to support a pet charity (including the wildly inefficient service of personally rescuing a dog or cat) or a humanitarian charity. It's different if you have pets for your own enjoyment. I really would like straightforward answers. I'm surprised there isn't more things like this: https://causeprioritization.org/Cause_prioritization https://causeprioritization.org/Cause_prioritization It gets very complicated and turns into three dimensional chess. Well I guess I answered my own question of why it's a small niche. This has influenced my thinking a lot: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-fuzzies-and-utilons-separately https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-f... As a consequentialist I'm a bit noncommital. I would hate to spend 40 hours in a month helping an acquaintance to find a job when I could spend that same 40 hours saving a life by making more money and using it to buy mosquito nets for Against Malaria.