One hypothesis: animal advocacy is a frequent “second favorite” cause area. Many longtermists prefer animal work to global health, but when it comes to their own donations and career choices, they choose longtermism. This resembles voting dynamics where some candidates do well in ranked-choice but poorly in first-past-the-post.
Larks makes a good point—AI risk is also underfunded relative to survey preferences. The bigger anomaly is global health’s overallocation.
My very quick guess is that’s largely founder effects. I.E. GiveWell’s decade-long head start in building donor pipelines and mainstream legibility, while focusing on global health.
Interesting analysis!
One hypothesis: animal advocacy is a frequent “second favorite” cause area. Many longtermists prefer animal work to global health, but when it comes to their own donations and career choices, they choose longtermism. This resembles voting dynamics where some candidates do well in ranked-choice but poorly in first-past-the-post.
Larks makes a good point—AI risk is also underfunded relative to survey preferences. The bigger anomaly is global health’s overallocation.
My very quick guess is that’s largely founder effects. I.E. GiveWell’s decade-long head start in building donor pipelines and mainstream legibility, while focusing on global health.
Ohh I like this. I think this articulates the pheomenon well. Thanks.