Bentham’s Bulldog argues insects’ combined suffering may exceed humanity’s

An essay by an effective altruist writing as Bentham’s Bulldog argues that insects’ suffering could outweigh humanity’s in aggregate.

It estimates that insects collectively spend roughly 270,000 seconds dying for every second of human life; assuming insect pain is only 1/10,000 as intense as human pain, the essay concludes their total suffering could still be vastly greater. Whether insects experience pain, and how intensely, remains central to the argument.