After some discussions with someone offline that were clarifying, I want to clarify my decrease in confidence in the statement, “Farmed vertebrate welfare should be an EA focus”.
I think my view is slightly more complicated than this implies. I think that given that OpenPhil and non-EA donors are basically able to fund what seem like the entirety of the good opportunities in this space, I don’t think these groups are that talent constrained, and it seems like the best bets (e.g. corporate campaigns) will continue to have decreasing cost-effectiveness, new animal-focused talent should probably be mostly going into earning-to-give for invertebrates/WAW, and that donations should mostly go to groups there or the EA AWF (which should in turn mostly fund invertebrates and WAW). I don’t think farmed vertebrate welfare should be the default way that EAs recommend to help animals
After some discussions with someone offline that were clarifying, I want to clarify my decrease in confidence in the statement, “Farmed vertebrate welfare should be an EA focus”.
I think my view is slightly more complicated than this implies. I think that given that OpenPhil and non-EA donors are basically able to fund what seem like the entirety of the good opportunities in this space, I don’t think these groups are that talent constrained, and it seems like the best bets (e.g. corporate campaigns) will continue to have decreasing cost-effectiveness, new animal-focused talent should probably be mostly going into earning-to-give for invertebrates/WAW, and that donations should mostly go to groups there or the EA AWF (which should in turn mostly fund invertebrates and WAW). I don’t think farmed vertebrate welfare should be the default way that EAs recommend to help animals