I’m wondering if you have a sense about how much of this is attributed to OpenPhil (or even just Lewis) in particular? E.g. if some other random billionaire had asked Lewis to do grantmaking, and there were no EA conferences, groups, forums, etc., would the changes in the animal welfare movement still have been roughly the same?
Speaking of Lewis being extremely impressive, I also want to give a shout-out to Howie (GiveWell blog, 2015):
Lewis initially came to us via a referral from Howie Lempel, who co-led an animal law reading group with him when they were both in law school, and was then recommended by several other people we spoke to in the field.
Haha thanks Howie! I want to also give a shout-out to Amanda, who’s been a leader on this work at Open Phil since 2018. And to the hundreds of EAs, including Jakub, who have done the hard work to turn funding into results for animals :)
It’s a very hard question to answer without much doubt, as I didn’t witness how things unfolded in crucial places, like US. My intuition is that it would not be the same, and EA itself had significant contributions, but some of the recent and big wins would still be achieved. This is especially true for wins secured by The Humane League (and probably other major groups, like Compassion in the World Farming at EU level), seeing how laser focused they were. I think someone from more Western countries would be better to answer here though. But I also think that if EA continues then most of its wins for animals are in the future and then the context of its culture matters more.
Locally, in our org I think engagement with EA culture (also in the form of mentioned forums, groups, conferences) makes our activists and our campaigns better. Also cross-pollination from other cause areas seems helpful, but I’m not that confident here and would need to think more about it. Overall, I’d rather bet that splitting EA from effective animal advocacy would be overall negative to the animal advocacy movement, even if there was no OP.
But for sure, Open Philanthropy’s effect is a very strong one, they seem to have been delivering exceptional results. And the funding was most likely the biggest driver of success here, because of how severely underfunded the space was (and still is). It’s also a bit hard to divorce in my mind EA from funding as one of the main premises of EA for me is to reallocate resources, like funding, effectively.
In the end, I think in its core, this question asks whether Open Philanthropy and their animal welfare team would be so effective without EA (and it’s worth noting that they have a whole team right now working on the animal cause area, so it’s not only Lewis on the pedestal). I feel deeply unqualified to answer this—I’m too separated from context and history here. You are probably better to answer.
BTW I want to point out that a random billionaire example would not work. While I have very limited insight into the representative billionaire’s mind, my intuition is that the people in this category are rather opinionated and pushing their ideas (for example a pet cause area). I think in this regard, Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna are unique in their intellectual humility and deferring to experts they hire, at least this is my impression of them as people. It seems that without them not much would be possible.
I agree with everything above, especially how lucky we are that Dustin and Cari both give generously and defer to experts (neither is common amongst the few other billionaires I’ve talked with). Although I think our funding is the vast bulk of our impact, I don’t think we’d have been so effective without EA. I think the EA ideals and community have helped the whole animal movement maximize its impact … something I may write a post on sometime.
Thanks for writing this!
I’m wondering if you have a sense about how much of this is attributed to OpenPhil (or even just Lewis) in particular? E.g. if some other random billionaire had asked Lewis to do grantmaking, and there were no EA conferences, groups, forums, etc., would the changes in the animal welfare movement still have been roughly the same?
Speaking of Lewis being extremely impressive, I also want to give a shout-out to Howie (GiveWell blog, 2015):
Probably the best thing I got out of two years in law school. . .
Haha thanks Howie! I want to also give a shout-out to Amanda, who’s been a leader on this work at Open Phil since 2018. And to the hundreds of EAs, including Jakub, who have done the hard work to turn funding into results for animals :)
It’s a very hard question to answer without much doubt, as I didn’t witness how things unfolded in crucial places, like US. My intuition is that it would not be the same, and EA itself had significant contributions, but some of the recent and big wins would still be achieved. This is especially true for wins secured by The Humane League (and probably other major groups, like Compassion in the World Farming at EU level), seeing how laser focused they were. I think someone from more Western countries would be better to answer here though. But I also think that if EA continues then most of its wins for animals are in the future and then the context of its culture matters more.
Locally, in our org I think engagement with EA culture (also in the form of mentioned forums, groups, conferences) makes our activists and our campaigns better. Also cross-pollination from other cause areas seems helpful, but I’m not that confident here and would need to think more about it. Overall, I’d rather bet that splitting EA from effective animal advocacy would be overall negative to the animal advocacy movement, even if there was no OP.
But for sure, Open Philanthropy’s effect is a very strong one, they seem to have been delivering exceptional results. And the funding was most likely the biggest driver of success here, because of how severely underfunded the space was (and still is). It’s also a bit hard to divorce in my mind EA from funding as one of the main premises of EA for me is to reallocate resources, like funding, effectively.
In the end, I think in its core, this question asks whether Open Philanthropy and their animal welfare team would be so effective without EA (and it’s worth noting that they have a whole team right now working on the animal cause area, so it’s not only Lewis on the pedestal). I feel deeply unqualified to answer this—I’m too separated from context and history here. You are probably better to answer.
BTW I want to point out that a random billionaire example would not work. While I have very limited insight into the representative billionaire’s mind, my intuition is that the people in this category are rather opinionated and pushing their ideas (for example a pet cause area). I think in this regard, Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna are unique in their intellectual humility and deferring to experts they hire, at least this is my impression of them as people. It seems that without them not much would be possible.
I agree with everything above, especially how lucky we are that Dustin and Cari both give generously and defer to experts (neither is common amongst the few other billionaires I’ve talked with). Although I think our funding is the vast bulk of our impact, I don’t think we’d have been so effective without EA. I think the EA ideals and community have helped the whole animal movement maximize its impact … something I may write a post on sometime.